Portugalete to Castro Ardigales, crossing from the Basque country to Cantabria

Portugalete to Castro Ardigales, crossing from the Basque country to Cantabria  

Breakfast in the four star hotel in Portugalete started at 7am and it was still dark. At 7.30am, it was just light enough to see so I checked out and started walking up the hill behind the hotel, way marked as El Camino. It was steep but there were several moving walkways to assist pedestrians up the slope. I had already checked the route out of the town the day before because from past experience, it is very hard to see yellow arrows in the dark or when the only light is from streetlights.

After the first kilometre or so, there is a dedicated shared cycle track and walkway running away from the town centre, over several major roads and up into the hills. It was a long while before the path left the urban sprawl and was back in the countryside. The surface was tarmac or concrete and it was hard on the feet. 

The route shares a valley with a busy and noisy motorway so whilst the buildings may have thinned, there was still a lot of traffic noise. There are many alternative route suggested by the guidebooks, some marked, others unmarked. I came to one such junction, but having read and memorised the route, both were waymarked and I instinctively took the left option. 

There were two couples just ahead of me standing in the middle of the path, looking around. One of the women asked me which was the correct way in Spanish. I answered that the left turning was a alternative which was three kilometres longer than the main route that turned right. 

She turned to her campanions and started to say in French, 'I think he said...' and I recognised French and repeated what I had said earlier in French. When all four heard it in French, the decision was unamimous and they all wanted to take the shorter official route. She asked me whether I was a local but, no, I was English I replied and then she mentioned with an unbelieveing note in her voise that I spoke both Spanish and French. I felt that my credentials and reliability was being questioned, especally coming from a French person who have the reputation that they only speak French (and they believe that we only speak English).

I pulled out my map book and explained again about the shorter yellow highlighted route and the longer alternative route shown in black on my map and that they both met just short of Zierbena on the coast. I had proved my credentials and we started to chat. I said that I had a long way to go and that we should start walking. 

They had known each other since school and had started walking a route from Paris where they all lived, firstly just as a morning ramble with a purpose, then an all day event, a long weekend followed and finally now, they would walk a week or two a year towards Santiago, picking up where they left off last time. It would take another three to five years to finish but they liked the journey and the comradeship. 

Just around the next corner, there was a fig tree. There was some ripe fruit that had fallen to the ground and were either squashed or nibbled by wildlife. I love fresh figs. This tree seemed to be early to blossom as all the other fig trees only had green fruit. I told them of my love for figs as I tried to pull down some of the upper boughs to get at the ripe fruit that other pilgrims hadn't yet picked clean.

One of the men in the group stood head and shoulders above me and had long arms. He reached up and effortlessly pulled down an upper bough that had been out of reach of other height challenged pilgrims. We picked several fruits and I suggested that we ought to leave some for others.

I didn't want to walk with them for the rest of the day and I was looking for a way out. There was an opportunity just around the corner.

I knew what this was but it was a mystery to my fellow pilgrims. It is a local, public laundrette. There are two pools lined with stone, fed by a local spring or stream. Locals can wash their clothes in the lower basin and rinse their clothes in the upper basin. Whilst they gawped at the structure, I bid them farewell, thanking them for the figs and they thanked me for showing them the way. 

A new version of the waymarker.

The river flowing out to the bay at Pobena.

Some industrial ruins of an ore loading dock. 

Some major reinforcements required to stop the cliff sliding into the sea.

Looking back up the coast.

There were plenty of information boards along this section of the route, detailing the mining history, the fauna and flora, the geology and the sea life found locally

The route follows a former railway line to the ore loading dock and so it was flat and an easy walk. 

An old locomotive on display in Mioño

And another tunnel, a former railway but not connected to the one that the camino had followed earlier.