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Day 12
Thursday 9th April For those very observent of you, yes we are not sure what happened to Stage 7... We went from one guide to another and apparantly they don´t have the same stages, hence the lack of a Stage 7... Also, the only photo I've added is of Stage 9 as Stage 8 is completely flat, and hence an altitude map is not really needed.
So on the morning of Day 12, Lauren was not feeling too well so she and Ben decided to catch the train from Bilbao to Portugalete, and then walk the 12km to our destination for the night, La Arena. Catching the metro from Bilbao to Portugalete is quite a common little trick for pilgrims, with many guides actually recommending it, as this section of the walk is either over crazy hills for about 25km, or alongside the river on roads through a highly industrial area for 12km, and hence rather an unactractive walk. Dav and I however decided to soldier on and walk the whole way... This is great in theory, a decision we thought we´d look back on with pride, but it
was a bad bad decision, and I would highly recommend anyone else crazy enough to be undertaking this adventure to take the metro!
Anyway so we left the hostel in Billbao at about 10am, walking past the Bilbao Altheltico football ground as their players were turning up for training (not that I know any of them but apparantly this was a big deal..), to the bridge where we left Ben and Lauren and starting our solo walk. It was quite a boring stretch of road as even though we were along the river, it was lined with buildings and docks and steel, although the time seemed to fly.
We arrived in Portugalete, a gorgeous little seaside city, at about 1pm where we had to catch what looked like a suspended train-carriage to the other side of the river. There we joined the official Camino trail at the cathedral and continued the walk out of town. The scenery grew a lot prettier as we walked on but we were still pounding the pavement so to speak, with bitumen our constant companion.
A few kilometres out of town we were surrounded by
paddocks and stopped on a little side road to enjoy some lunch, while watching 2 farmers trying to herd an obviously very pregnant cow out of a nearby paddock - so obvious in fact that that two little hooves had already started to make their entry into the world! And she was the most beautiful looking cow I had every seen - she had the most beautiful big brown (kind!) eyes! Anyway, she was being a little uncooperative so we ended up helping the farmers herd her along, which was definately a highlight of the day! I´m not sure that if we were touring Spain in any other way we would have encountered such a scene!
After all the excitement, we continued on our way. The actual road from Portugalete to La Arena was fantastic - a walking and cycle track that ran the whole 12km through beautiful scencery. It would be great to have such a path back home, but it was not so fantatisc, nor the scenery so beautiful, when the feet were subjected to the bitumen the whole way. The last 5km coming into La Arena were pure agony and Davin was doing so
well talking to me and distracting me, as without him I really think the waterworks may have sprung a leak... The bottom lip was definately dropping! It was really disappointing as I felt that I had really turned a corner a few days earlier, with my body really adjusting to the walking... Damn 25km of bitumen was my downfall...
We finally made it to La Arena where we met Ben and Lauren at a bar - a really great hippy place run by a heap of local surfers. There we had some dinner and put our feet up at long last!
With the night advancing, we once again hit the road in search of accomodation for the night. Ben and Lauren found an albergue but it was shut until the end of April. However, on closer inspection, they found the door was open, and inside were a few dozen bikers having a reunion... Random! And, in another stroke of good luck, one couple there owned a pension (pronounced pen-sion) and they were happy to give us a lift there...! This really was great news as it was starting to rain making camping really unatractive,
and Lauren was still not really very well at all, so we climbed in and they drove us the 4km to the most lovely little pension. There we had a shower and collapsed into bed, very very grateful to our new Spanish biker friends!
* An albergue is a small hostel-like accomodation provided to pilgrims. Normally the comprise of a single room where about 16 bunk beds are set up in a dorm like situation. There is normally a few showers and toilets, and sometimes a few cooking facilities like a microwave and sink. They are either run by local councils, or privately by a church group or a museum. They are normally dirt cheap, with pricing ranging from 3€ to 10€ so far in this trip, and this is obvisouly a great price for a warm shower and a warm bed. And, thrown in for free, you also get all the perks of sleeping in a room with a dozen other people... although we´ve only encountered one bad snorer so far so can´t complaing too much ... touch wood ...
A pension is like a bed and breakfast without the breakfast, so basically a double room with a bathroom attached. Pure luxury comapred to our other accomodation so far!
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