Day 38 – 3. Deba-Markina KM 68

The night was pretty cold and I didn’t sleep too much. It’s funny that I slept extremely well in (almost) all the 20 different beds during the last month but now – supposedly more tired than ever – I can’t sleep.

Everyone started to leave around 7 in the morning so we stood up too. As Johanna’s packing skills still need some perfecting, we finally left around 8:15 after everyone else. We climbed the first 300 m and had breakfast next to a little chapel on the top.

Today’s stage was a little longer than yesterday’s but much clearer too which is why we coped with it much better. After the first big mountain, we climbed down again and then up the next 500 m. From there on, the path went up and down for another 10 km and then steeply downhill for the last 5. A total of 24 km, 1070 m down, 1100 m up.

During the first hours, we passed or at least met many of the people who had left before us. It seems like we are in good shape and getting on very well and pretty fast. I am definitely much more trained and painless that ever before on similar tracks and than two years ago when I last did part of the Camino and found it extremely hard.

We had lunch 10 km from our destination, consisting of tuna, avocado and crackers and then made our way down to Markina where we reached the albergue at 5:30.
Today, we sleep in a monastery building with cool hallways and patios, nice showers and a laundry centrifuge. It is basic but beautiful and authentic, clearly the best place yet.

We are also enjoying the group of fellow pilgrims that is forming now after these first three days. We generally meet the same people various times a day without walking with them and spend time together in the evenings or breaks. There is a special connection between us weird people who wear bathing slippers with hiking socks and leggins to the supermarkets and restaurants and who cry out in pain every time we get off a chair.

After showering, stretching, washing, shopping and organizing it was 8 again and we went to have dinner when everyone else had finished already. The pilgrims menu was delicious and the owner of the restaurant even recognized me from last time I ate there in 2017.

Johanna, who does pole dance back home, apparently hadn’t been sufficiently challenged during the day so she gave a little show on a street light in town on our way back to the albergue:

It didn’t work out too well though as the pole was too bold:

After being the last ones to stand up, to have breakfast, to have lunch, to shower, to wash, to shop and to have dinner, we were also the last ones to get in and go to bed but we made it before the albergue would finally close its doors for the night. At 21:50, the hostelero came into the dorm, said good night to everybody and switched off the light. Tomorrow we won’t have as much margin because we will be getting kicked out by 8.

P.S.: uploaded some new pictures in yesterday’s post.