September 17, 2022. Last evening marked our full-fledged entrance into the hostel or albergue culture of the camino. We stayed at Izarbide hostel which meant we Ishare a meal with people we had only met that day, people from many countries and languages. Our table featured German, English, Spanish, French and Dutch, and sometimes all at the same time! But good food combined with hungry people very much opens the socialization factor, and soon all were letting go of their embarrassment about the condition of one language or another. l discovered that German phrases I knew decades ago started to pop out.
The night was not quite as smooth. 33 people sleeping in dorm-like setting does not contribute to a good night’s sleep. Squeaky springs, snoring, lights, pings and plastic mattresses made it a night to tolerate, and perhaps get 2-3 hours of sleep in little snippets. But when 6:30 came around everyone began to get up and pack up and there was not point in sleeping anymore. Alice was already up when I stepped into a common area and we soon had our espresso and bagged lunch ready to go.
It was still very dark when we stepped out into the crisp air. Alice’s head lamp was very dim and mine was hidden in the pack. Somehow we stayed on the trail until light began to creep in from over the sea, and we were climbing, climbing, up to 500m elevation.
As we walked we continued to leapfrog with friends we had made the night before. Everyone keeps their own pace and rests as needed, so we tend to cross paths several times per day.
As we climbed higher reaching 350 and then 500 m elevation, changed forest types from oak to pine and the birds filled the air with song. I identified the European robin, the great tit, and the carrion crow. New varieties of oak appeared also as we ventured higher, some with very narrow leaves and low habit.
Crossing the mountain ridge, were soon on a downward trend and started to see evidence of towns after about 19 k of no services.
After what seemed like endless steep downhill that jammed our toes into the from of the shoes, we were finally approaching our destiantion, Markina Ximein, another clean, orderly Basque town. It was surprising to see how uniform the housing was with similar large apartment blocks. After a light lunch of pintxos and cider, we found our hostel that had a private room for us and collapsed. We had left the sea behind us and left the Basque province of Gipuzkoa
Oh ouch, I hate scrunched toes on downhills, even with a light pack. You covered a lot of territory today!