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Published: March 29th 2011
The View from my dorm bed
The Cathedral lit up at sundownRalph here. It's a hard life travelling as a stuffed dog. Spend most my time in a huge rucksack with smelly socks and get tossed around in buses and trains and i don't even get to sample all the delicious food! 😞 And of course, whenever Vanessa sleeps, she nearly squeezes the stuffing out of me! And the snoring and drooling i have to endure is unbearable, but for free room/board and travel, i can't complain too much! Ah well..
Well, for those of you paying attention, we went from Girona baaaack to Barcelona, raced the slowly approaching darkness and scary people to the OTHER side of town to the safety of a bus station. However, the security man on duty spent the entire night chatting up the girl working at a sweets shop inside the bus terminal so any danger someone would need rescued from would have been put off until after he'd gotten her number. Met a German girl who'd recently gotten mugged in Barcelona's metro- which is why i have been moved from Nessa's little comfy bag to her smelly horrible huge rucksack (seriously..)
Arrived at a bus stop in San Sebastián at 6am! Got
to watch the sun rise over the river, Rio Urumea, and when it was light enough, walked to the hostel inside a residential building, so as Vanessa sat in hallway ringing the bell to get let in (at 8am) .. rang the bell .. rang the bell .. waited .. rang the bell. Finally, a very angry guest answered the door in her underware and skimpy top, hair everywhere, look of sleepiness on her face- all Vanessa could do was stare blankly and say 'uh... sorry to wake you' .. the girl let us in and take a nap on the couch until the hostess showed up.
Plenty of wandering around San Sebastián, a coastal town with loads of Tapa bars (tapas are small servings of random food samples you take what you want and enjoy the culinary splendors! She'd tried some various fishes, potato omelet, and cow's cheek!). Saw the Aquarium, which included a museum and various live fishes. Took a hike up
Monte Urguall Parque, a big hill at the north of San Sebastián peninsula, with lots of statues/memorials from the war, an English cemetery, a "castle" with a huge statue of Jesus on top. Behind the
San Sebastián views
From the north coast, beyond town castle, Vanessa desperately had to pee after the hill walk, and after stealthily checking the coast was clear, did her business. But as she was leaving, she looks down and notices a huge pile of fresh, runny poo around where she had peed and thought "Now when did
THAT happen?" thinking it was her and she hadn't noticed! But it had been left there from before and she'd nearly stepped in it since she hadn't looked down before peeing! Sheesh...
After a night of wandering and eating delicious tapas with some other hostel-goers (all of them fully clothed by now), we'd all then joined each other the following morning for a hike into mountains and wooded areas, to find some interesting bunker ruins and pillboxes, probably also from the war era. But these days is used as a 'couples private area' and shelter for bums After walking over 6 km on a marked trail with several detours, the destination being a small coastal town where everyone enjoyed a €9 Menu del Dia: Lentil soup, chicken in mushroom sauce,
Rock cubes
At San Sebastian chips, coffee-flavoured flan, wine, and bubbly water! Then a 10 minute bus ride back to hostel (after 3 hours of walking!) Drinking €1, 1.5L of Sangria on the beach until it was time for more tapas and sampling the finest beers in town. Ended the night hanging out with locals at a bar, chatting in Spanish until time to go to hostel. Of course, all the excitement meant a day of recovery for Vanessa who took a few naps the next day..
Next stop was Bilbao to catch transit to Santiago de Compostela. The plan was to check out Bilbao for the day but ended up being only a few hours due to bad planning (or, rather, lack of planning). On the train from San Sebastián to Bilbao, (which was nearly 2 hours longer than expected!) there was a French guy on the train struggling with communication to others. Vanessa later approached and tried talking to him, but discovered he only spoke French, so with neither knowing each other's languages, it was an interesting conversation. His name was Jeremy and he was heading back to France... After chatting with him for a few minutes, Ness was staring
True statement.
"Es fácil militarizar civiles; Es difícil civilizar militares" out the window or whatever she does on train rides, when she looks over to see him hovered over the seat in front of him, snorting *something* up his nose with a €20 note! Then he took a nap and she had to wake him up for his stop. Wow.
In Bilbao, Vanessa headed straight to bus station, bought her overnight bus to Santiago de Compostela, then wandered Bilbao (ginormous rucksack and all, as she hadn't noticed the lockers at the station) until sunset, waiting for her 10pm bus. Only got to see a few parks/plazas, the outside of the unusual architecture of
Guggenheim Museum, and people watching, before heading back to station. And guess who she runs in to: Jeremy! He was obviously messed up, but they went for a coffee (inside the station still! There were people around. Calm down, mom!) She spent the whole time laughing at him trying to work out the cigarette machine. Finally, his bus left, and a few hours later ours left. A few hours in, she'd
finally dozed off, when two girls boarded, taking seats directly in front of us. They reclined back with such ferocity and speed that they smacked
her knees, pinning her long legs, causing her to yelp out in pain, wake up and find their heads nearly in her lap! Then they didn't even bother to move so she could dislodge her legs from under them. Sooo, of course, Vanessa spent the whole ride kicking the girls' seats every opportunity she could "pretend" to be readjusting herself.
Watched the sun come up from behind the mountains, arriving at ~7am in Pontevende to take an hour bus trip to Santiago de Compostela. The hostel was located in the old town which was incredibly beautiful architecture, but the hostel was so difficult to find, so we wandered around and around in a small area knowing the hostel was close! Eventually finding it, exhausted, and settled in, it was time to explore the historic town. Giving a self-tour of the Cathedral, people-watching in the plaza, eating at a small restaurant of asparagus omelet and mixed veg, admiring the plazas/buildings/fountains. The streets all lined with small tourist shops for pilgrimages coming in from their Camino de Santiago walk. (Santiago de Compostela is the ending point for this very long walk extending from France to the Cathedral in S de C.
This famous walk has been trekked over 1.000 years and extends nearly 800km!) So most of the tourist shops sell the same Camino 'walk' t-shirts and apparel, walking sticks and shells.
The following day was an unsuccessful day-trip; partly because it was Saturday and mostly because a *certain human* is horrible at planning! The first destination-of-choice didn't happen as the only bus for the day had left. So the other option was taking an hour long bus to A Coruña where Vanessa missed the bus by minutes, so had to wait an hour for the next bus to Betanzos. Then hadn't realised we'd arrived at Betanzos until driving out of the city limits! So she had to walk ~20 minutes back into town which was a nice trek. Many of the businesses were closed up (being Saturday) and only a few locals were strolling around. So, with no map, no information of any kind, the only option was give up on the plan of a secluded woodland hike for the day and instead taking in the sights of the town and the 3 churches. As it was already getting late, it was time to call it good and
head back, essentially wasting €20 on bus transport and an entire day doing nothing, really. To make up for it, there was an entertaining young boy at the bus station trying to ride his bike and nearly ran Vanessa over!
It was an early night in our bunk that night,
someone does not like to wake up early but has to in order to catch a train to Portugal that leaves at 7am. So onward we go, to the next adventure!
-Ralph
^Út Í Óvissuna^
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