Sleeping hadn’t been as easy as expected and we started later than anyone else this morning after breakfast in the hostel. I also stopped by the post office to send half a kilo of food to a city aproximately 14 days from now. I had done this part of the Camino only two months ago which is why I knew the way pretty well already. It didn’t affect it’s beauty nor it’s toughness though.
We had lunch at the Elorriaga Picknick Site after the first 15 km and met lots of other camino-walkers, many of which we had passed during the morning without noticing. It is fascinating how many people there are doing the same way as you but that you never meet during the day.
As I had done this Camino stage as well as the GR (long distance hiking trail) stage before, we decided to take the longer and harder but much more bautiful GR and also convinced most of the other of doing the same thing. They left the lunch break earlier and we were behind again when we started the deadly last 9,5 km to Deba. I have walked this path at least 3 times before and nevertheless it is always surprisingly hard again. 9,5 km feeling like 20 and going or steeply up or steeply down but never flat, with beautiful views, sun and wind.
We finally arrived at the pilgrims albergue at 5 and pretty destroyed after the final killing downhill passage. I had been struggeling with my throat being inflamed since yesterday and the last 5 km were hard. Despite being a little sick, I am very positively surprised by my physical condition and strength. Never have I walked with as little pain as this time.
We couldn’t check into the albergue but had to go back to the tourist information where we paid the 5€ and got our door key. I also found some cookies in the third supermarket I checked and we had some time to stretch and shower before finding dinner at around 7:30.
The restaurant right opposite of our home offered a pilgrims menu and we were good to go to bed at 9:30.
At 22:30 the albergue closed its doors for the night and lights were switched off for everyone.
5 Comments
Daumiboy
So do you sleep in hostels made only for pilgrims? Hape Kerkeling wrote bad about them and changed to normal hostels, but maybe he is a bit i dont know a passend word for this so this sentence will end in nonsense, hahahaha
journey_annaschimpf
OMG Daum’sches commenting… 😀
We sleep in “albergues”, the official places for pilgrims. You can only sleep here if you have a pilgrims passport and they’re public, basic places with very low fees or even voluntary fees. For me, this is an important part of Camino experience. It wouldn’t make any sense if we slept in hotels.
Daumiboy
What do you mean you can only sleep here? Hape went in, got his stamp and then changed to another hostel if the quality was too poor. Of course they were not amused 😀 But not all the time and he found out he was not the only pilgrim who did that^^
journey_annaschimpf
You can perfectly do that, better for us. I just said that in there only pilgrims can sleep, no other people.
Daumiboy
Oh, now i get it makes sense^^