Day 9 – into the hills of Cantabria

Castro Urdiales to Laredo, 31Km

I try to avoid planning 31Km stages if I can help it but strangely, the albergue in Hazas is closed at weekends so the only option was to walk to Laredo. The Camino del Norte is full of alternative routes and shortcuts, one of which was a section of road which cuts out 6Km from today’s historic route over the hills. That was my plan.

This morning I wandered into a deserted Castro Urdiales at 7am for a cafe con leche and croissant and soon met one of the Dutch pilgrims from yesterday, Sanne. And then another Dutch woman called Ineke joined us. They are both walking their first Camino.

The three of us set off together and I suggested we might consider taking the shortcut. Oh no! That was impossible. We must take the official route and make for the hills. The views will be wonderful!

So that’s what we did. We walked at a good pace and didn’t stop until the first bar in Hazas after 25Km. They were correct. The views were good, the conversation was interesting and the kilometres flew by. It’s amazing how much you can learn about a person during a day’s walk.

We ate our main and only meal of the day at 3pm in the Hazas bar. Getting a meal in Spain is a frustrating challenge. You may walk all day in the hills without passing a cafe and when you look for dinner at 6pm, every restaurant is closed. Naturally the bars are crowded with drinkers but the most they’ll eat is a small bowl of olives. They must wait until 9pm before the restaurants open. We pilgrims are tucked up in bed by then. There is no solution unless, like last night, I was lucky enough to find a Burger King on the seafront, full of preteens, none of whom were eating.

Today, at least, we ate and this evening we joined the Spaniards in the Laredo town square where more pilgrims joined us; a French woman called Sylvie, some Germans and Jim from London. We are not all in the same albergue but I’m in my preferred upper bunk in a room of just four beds with yet another Dutch woman, an Australian man and somebody called Vladimir. Goodnight.