Basque Country

We left Getaria on a cup of coffee and a banana as we had decided to breakfast in Zumaia, the home town of Eider our host in Orio. Zumaia was just over an hour on our walk today. Leaving Getaria we hit a number of uphill climbs as we went over the headland. The weather was brighter with a blue sky, occasional sunny intervals and fluffy white clouds.
After Zumaia we had decided to leave the official Camino route to do the coastal walk which was a little longer and contained more challenging ascents and descents.
The views were magical and spectacular.
On one particular challenging ascent we came across the school party of over 100 teenagers coming down as we attempted to go up. We had some amusing interactions with the young people.
We continued along the route through forest tracks, up mountain tracks, down Roman razor roads, fenced in styles (interesting manoeuvres in rucksacks).
Eventually arriving at the top of Deba town. Simon announced there were many sets of stairs to descend much to Mary’s horror - then we spotted the magic lifts that kindly dropped you down into town.
We stopped at a bar for a couple of drinks to plan next steps. Our accommodation for the evening had a shared kitchen so we planned a supermarket trip for Simon’s potato supper.
After this we followed the sat nav to find the path to our accommodation. The path was steep but after 50 metres or so Trevor kept telling us to return to the route. This was the start of our nightmare scene.
We decided to try the tourist information office for help - ha ha!!
We asked them about the location of our accommodation and they said oh dear that is a different place. We asked for help to get a taxi there - all they did was give us a list of numbers that were no use, next suggestion was a bus - next one leaving in 1 minute, after that not one for 2 hours!! Then maybe you walk - but no help with where the magic path was. They were not helpful at all 🙄
We attempted the bus unsuccessfully, then negotiated the map they had given us to find the road. We headed for this and had to set the sat nav as though we were a car. The road was an insane gradient going up, just to finish us off with our shopping as well as our rucksacks. A taxi came by with a green light on Mary hailed it and said where we needed to go, the driver indicated he had heard of us at the tourist office we hopefully agreed, however he said he didn’t understand and drove off 😡
We continued our torturous journey, the Plodicus said we should have slept at the train station (which we had passed 3 times and need to go back to tomorrow)
As I walked behind I could see he was developing a slanted shoulder- due to carrying the shopping-
After another half hour of lung busting uphill a winged chariot arrived, stopped and a lady said ‘where are you going’ Mary said the name of our accommodation and she said ‘that is my home!’ ‘ would you like a lift?’
She saved the day Simon reckons she had gold wings and a halo 😇
She listened to what had happened and said she would show us the quick path way back.
We arrived to a very beautiful setting overlooking the town and the bay. It is a shame there is no signpost in the town to the magic path!!!
We attempted to come to terms with what had happened, cooked our potato supper and sat outside looking at the beautiful vista, calming down. According to Mary’s apple information we have climbed the equivalent of 255 flights of stairs today!! And that is why we are in heaven now 😂
So it’s time to get some rest as we train it to Bilbao tomorrow- after descending the magic path of course!!Read more