TITO BUSTILLO

A Tour of the Cave

Only sixteen people at  time can enter the cave, and only a few tours a day are possible, to protect the ancient paintings from damage from changing moisture patterns.  I felt very lucky to be one of the few to see them.

 As we walked single file through the winding passages of the cave, we saw amazing rock formations; stalactites and stalagmites, and some which looked like jellyfish.  It was damp underfoot, and the multiple iron bar gates and metal doors took away somewhat from the ambience, as did the pot lights by our feet.  We finally arrived at our destination, and hunkered down along a cordon, and our guide turned on his puny LED flashlight.  In the dim light, my first impression was a smear of red covering a huge expanse of cave wall.  Gradually,  I could pick out wonderful images of horses, the figures overlapping, giving an impression of movement.  Some stood out more, especially the one with black and purple highlights, depicted with striped legs, (an ancient characteristic which is retained in some modern species, Highland Ponies for one, and my favourite horse in the world, Chester, for another)--but of course, these were prey animals,  for eating, not for riding. There was also a very elegant reindeer, with swooping antlers. It was pretty wonderful to be in the presence of humanity that old, even though we could only see one gallery--access was too difficult for the general public for the other galleries, where there were human figures, whales, and one gallery full of thousands of incised carvings of horses.

The interpretive centre was one of the best I´ve seen for anything.  Here, I learned the tragic story of the cave's name.  Back in the sixties, a group of young climbers was exploring the area, and came upon an opening at the top of the cliff.  They lowered themselves down several hundred feet into a large cavern.  At this point, one of the climbers' light went out.  When he re-lit it, he saw a large painting of a horse's head, in black.  One would have thought it was made yesterday, both for its clarity and modern style.   This young man was Tito (Celestino) Bustillo.  By a fluke, he discovered something which reflects the timelessness of the human experience.  His discovery connects us  through thousands of years of time, but within  only a few days of so doing, he himself moved beyond time.  Three weeks after the initial discovery, and months before it became public, Tito died in a climbing accident, the spark of his short life, the same in essence as the spark of those ancient lives, gone out.  Although it is unusual to name one of these wonders after a person, the cave with its amazing wealth of human heritage remains  Tito Bustillo.

LA VIDA TURISTICA

Things I did in Ribadesella while waiting for my turn at the caves:

--slept with the window open to listen to the sea--I was as bad as Silke these days.  In Ribadesella, I made the acquaintance of the sea, from my window and from the beach, and  I fell in love.  I spent hours watching a little fishing boat plying its way, with a logic I couldn't fathom, back and forth across the bay, lights winking in the sunset, every now and then dipping behind a wave, but popping up again every time.  I could never quite figure out whether the tide was coming in or out, either.  Capricious and unpredictable, but fun to be with; a perfect springtime fling!

--found the local locutorio where I could write home.

--walked back and forth across the modern bridge which linked the old town and the new town where I was staying.

--gave directions to a town I'd never visited to the driver of a broken-down Ducati. He was supposed to meet his girlfriend there, and he was worried that he'd be late.  Hope he made it!

--finished up my cough medicine.

--photographed these derelict fishing boats.  If my survey of the internet is anything to go by, its de rigeur for any peregrino crossing the bridge (see above) at low tide.

 --visited the market

--ate a three course dinner every night; broad beans in tomato sauce, pork chops, arroz con leche at every opportunity;  I tasted "ze chees zat smells like fite" in a sauce over a breaded cutlet and the third part of the triumvirate of Asturia Cuisine, sidra, quite nice, and not a sour as the Basque version.  There was always way too much food for anyone who hadn't been walking all day.

--laundry

--walked the beach in bare feet, looking for the perfect shell.  I didn't find it but it didn't matter.


Things I did not do in Ribadesella

--visit the church.  It took me the best part of two days even to find it, tucked away in a plaza at the far end of town

--visit the ermita up on the hill.  I could see it from my room, but I was still hill-shy

LLANES TO RIBADESELLA

 ¨Hasta Luego¨ as they say in Asturias. Like Aloha,  it seems to be good for hello and goodbye. It was good to say Hasta Luego to Llanes and good  to be back in the land of the living.  Even so, my approach was tentative, as I set off  from Llanes.  My first goal was Poo (the place, silly); if I made it there, I'd go on to Celorio (nothing to do with the vegetable); and so on.  My lungs were a bit creaky, but I had to get going.  It turned out to be a surprisingly lovely experience.   Finally, I was into the kind of Camino I remembered so fondly from last time. Little laneways with herds of cows on either side, their bells clinking gently as they chewed. Wildflowers everywhere, and by wildflowers I mean roses!



When I had first started to research this trip, I was really taken by the pictures of Our Lady of Sorrows, the church at Barro, surrounded by the sea on three sides when the tide is high.  I told myself that I would go there and commune with Our Lady on the subject of motherhood and the other vicissitudes of being a woman.  As the planning went along, it became a bit of an obsession with me.  I was thankful on this day to be able to walk again and achieve this goal.

 When I arrived, the church was, of course, locked,  but I sat on the wall and admired the view out over the very picturesque cemetery.  I was glad I had come, not just to fulfill my "vow", but to have seen this beautiful place.  And I thought, not for the first time on this trip, of the long line of supportive mothers from which I come, and I was thankful for that too.

 And then it was back into the hills and more beautiful country, including wonderful views of the sea from above the abandoned monastery of San Antolin de Bedon.  The beautiful medieval buildings were disfigured with graffiti, which put me off going to explore the ruins, but now I wish I had.

 At about 15km my body told me I wasn´t quite well enough to do any more for the day, so I looked for some form of transportation out of the small village I found myself in. The next train was in five hours, according to the signboard at the station in Vilahormes.  In a dark and dirty bar where an animated genre painting was in progress; (grubby, almost certainly unemployed, middle-aged men playing cards), the proprietress informed me that the next bus was in about three hours.  I drank a coke there, but wanted to look somewhere else (anywhere else, actually) for food.  I wandered up to the far end of the village where the little autoservicio grocery store was just closing for the afternoon and bought the only two things I could see that were portable, possibly palatable, and which did not require cooking; oranges and chocolate covered doughnuts.  These latter were a surprise.  The waxy faux chocolate coating hid unsweetened bread, like Wonder.  It made for a strange disconnect between expectation and experience.  I sat on the glass-strewn steps of a failed hostel, and zipped off my trouser legs.  I'd worked up quite a sweat, not all of it due to exercise, and I needed to cool down.  I was surprised at the furriness of my shins, and there and then, I whipped out a moist towelette and a razor, and shaved them.  I must have been delirious.   That is possibly the most outre act of public rudeness of which I've been guilty, but since it was siesta time, and nobody was about, it wasn't THAT bad.  Apart from the fact that a bus whizzed by while I was searching my pack.  AAAARRGHH!

I knew enough about Spanish buses by now to know that it probably was not my bus in the first place, and might not have stopped at this particular parada (if it was actually a parada) in any case.  I also knew that it couldn't be the only bus for the day.  I could wait.  But maybe not just here.   I asked confirmation of everyone I met of the location of the bus stop. No one had thought to mark it ¨Bus Stop¨ or anything useful like that. People kept telling me things like ¨Just a little bit down there...or the house with the trees (really?) ...across from the train station¨ Finally, I took the bold step of knocking on a door. The young lady who answered it, said. "It´s right here!"  She meant directly in front of her house!  Finally, some precision!  Then she got me a lawn chair and told me how to flag down the driver. A long discussion amongst the family ensued about a) whether or not there was a bus that day b) whether the lady in the bar knew what she was talking about and c) whether in fact, one was due any minute even though nothing about it was mentioned on the horario. If you picked c) as the right option you were right. I ended up on the schoolbus a few minutes later, and was happy to be there. It didn´t look like I was missing anything fantastic in the 15 minutes it took to do the 15km left to Ribadesella either.

Ribadesella had been one of the more interesting places I'd researched.  There was an annual horse race on the beach in Easter Week, which I had missed, and I thought I would also have to miss seeing the chief attraction, the Paleolithic cave paintings hidden in the cliffs within the town.  They're closed on Mondays and Tuesdays, and if I hadn't been sick, and held up in Llanes, I'd have had no chance of seeing them. but now it was Tuesday and they'd be open the following day.  You can never tell WHICH cloud is going to have the silver lining!  I booked in for two nights in the local youth hostel, an Indiano mansion right on the beach, with chestnut floors and fancy wrought iron banisters,  and settled in for some rest and recuperation in the sun.

The road to the caves was not completely smooth, however.   The ¨lovely¨girl in the Turismo, assured me that there was no way on God´s Green Earth that Ï would be seeing those caves because they were totally booked up until the end of April. I pointed out to her that I had seen and heard all sorts of differing information about the structure of reservations. She swore that it could only be done by telephone. I said, that didn´t seem fair, and that I didn´t have a telephone. She shrugged her shoulders in an effyou kind of way, and said she supposed I could check at the Centre to see if there were any cancellations. Of course when I got there, there were spaces. Not tons, but some. I was able to make a reservation not only for myself but for Philip, who was also desparate to see the caves, but who, unlike me, had believed the girl at the Turismo.

I told him that I was his madrina de hadas (fairy godmother) for the day. You should have seen his face light up when I gave him the ticket.

A SETBACK: THREE DAYS IN LLANES

The next morning,  I was well and truly sick.  My cough was worse, and was producing gobs of green goo.  I couldn't stay in that expensive little cell.  I needed somewhere warm and dry.  Luckily I had a reservation at the private hostel,  "L'Estacion", which was located in the former railway station.  That wouldn't be opening for a few hours though, so I would explore the old part of Llanes as far as possible.  I walked from La Portilla, which was a suburb, into the main town.

I was shocked to discover that despite the fact that it was Easter Morning, most of the shops and cafes were open.  I couldn't believe my luck.  I went to a farmacia and got some cough syrup which started to work immediately, and had the bonus side effect of making me exceptionally sleepy.   I found a cafe for some coffee and zumo (fresh squeezed orange juice--Heaven), and a croissant.  I tried very hard not to cough on the lovely family at the next table, but it was certainly evident to everyone that I was a plague vector.  Even though the shops were crammed with beautiful Easter pastries, I couldn't have gagged one down if I tried.  I was strictly interested in real food, and hot.  Especially since it was still raining.  

Lunch in a bar served my purposes very well.  I had fabada asturiana, one of the three dishes prescribed for me in Guemes.  Nice enough.  I had crepes with asparagus for the second plate, and for dessert some flan; all flan is not created equal.  I decided to eschew the whipped cream, just in case.

Then, it being Easter, I decided to go to church.  Because of the rain, the procession, featuring statues of the Holy Mother,  St. Veronica, complete with handkerchief, and a reliquary, had to be held inside.  I didn't stay long; part of the service involved the jubilant ringing of handbells by all of the children in the congregation .  The joyful potential represented by all of these people at the beginning of their life's journey made me quite emotional.  I had to get out before I cried or coughed or fell over.

"L'Estacion" had lost my reservation, but when I mentioned that it had been done by email, it was easily found.  The old railway station was also the new railway station, I discovered.  The old one had the potential to be wonderful, with interesting tile floors, fireplaces, and friezes, but it was very down at heel, and depressing on that account.  The albergue was not full, and I asked to have a room by myself so as not to disturb or infect people with my coughing.  Kindly, and cleverly, my host agreed.

I checked my emails, and crawled upstairs to bed.  I was feeling lightheaded and not quite connected to my body.  It was all I could do to wring out a few clothes in the sink., before collapsing again with another slug of medicine.  In my journal for that day I reflected that "the only good thing about feeling this bad is that you are too tired and without any kind of spark to feel hard done by.  Its all you can do to exist"

On the next day, I puttered around.  I found a post office and mailed some cards, wrote some emails, browsed around the shops looking for food.  I couldn't even look at cheese, for some reason, and the local bread was dry.  I was too tired to even walk out to the end of the pier and look at the sculptured breakwater which was one of the town's claims to fame.  But you can look at them here if you like.

It didn't help that the weather was uncompromisingly gloomy.  On my way back to my bed of pain, I spotted the two vagrants from Castro Urdiales.  I shook a figurative fist at them for infecting me with this horrible pestiferous virus, and headed back to bed.

By the third day, I was starting to feel more human.  I sat up in the dining hall, still wrapped up in everything I owned, but more like my old self.  And its true that if you sit in one place the world will come to you.  Silke appeared and shared her mint tea with me. Philip also made an appearance.   Gisbert, whom I hadn't seen since Bilbao, arrived with a very tall long haired wild looking man from Badajoz.  I soon fell into my old role of interpreter, since Juan (I've forgotten his real name) had very little English.  It was rather strange for me to be telling a perfect stranger what a "buen hombre" he was.  There was to be a gathering in the local sidreria  that evening with some other gentlemen with whom they'd been walking.  Gisbert winked at me and told me that they would be solving the problems of the world.

They certainly took their time doing it.  About three in the morning I was wakened from a deep sleep by the sound of my doorknob turning (I hadn't locked my door for three days, since I wasn't sure I might not need medical help--that's how sick I felt).   I heard a befuddled voice,  unmistakeably Gisbert's, say  emphatically, "No, zat is ze vrong one" Then the sound of the door shutting.  Then the sound of someone fumbling his way to another room.  I figured that the solving of the world's problems must have been done in English, and he just hadn't switched back to German in his mind.  I found myself smiling in the dark..

ON THE BRINK

As I got back on the road, I was aware that I was, in a word, pooped.  It had been a long,hot  and sunny day, but at this time, I was usually resting my feet and doing laundry.  Instead, I  had nearly half a normal day's walk yet to go.  The sun had gone in and the wind was up.  I could see a front of angry cloud  coming in from the mountains to the south, and the temperature had cooled considerably. 

 

Still, the route, high above the highway, was very pretty.  I could see Llanes up ahead, which was comforting.  What I didn't take into account was that this view came with a price.  The trail followed the contours of a large hill, on the top of which was a golf course.  The trail wound around the hill, with some hills within the general climb,  adding all kinds of distance, while the road below went straight and flat.   If I'd had a piece of cardboard, I'd have been tempted to slide down those grassy slopes to the road.  How fickle and contrary I was!

At the head of one punishing, nearly vertical downhill I paused to give myself a talking to.  I was ready to stop.  My legs were so tired, and I was pretty near tears.  A couple who passed by looked at me with some curiosity.  My emotions were, evidently, showing on my face. There was nothing to do but to keep on.
It felt like a miracle, when at the base of the hill, there was a handwritten sign which said "ALBERGUE 200 m".  I felt a burst of energy.

When I arrived at what turned out to be a hotel, I was worried.  What if, as in Comillas, it was completo?
As it turned out, I was the first and only guest in the albergue part of the hotel.  I could see why.  It was tiny, and expensive,  and basic, and a bit damp, a sort of shed of poor quality materials tacked onto the main building.  Still, it was clean, and I could lie down.  What more could a pilgrim want?  There was a sidreria on the premises but I knew I'd be asleep long before it was ever open.
I had a bath in one of those crazy sitting-up half baths favoured in Spanish hotels.  The hot water felt wonderful on my legs, but when it came time to get up, I could barely move.  Suddenly, I was chilled.  I put on all my layers, and socks, and grabbed an extra blanket from one of the other bunks.  I crashed.

When I regained consciousness.....it was to the sound of pounding rain.  The front had arrived.  I sank back into the blackness.

BEGINNINGS AND ENDINGS

I headed down to the bus station first thing in the morning. I was eager to leave Cantabria, and hoped that Asturias would give me a better perspective. I wandered down the steep hill after breakfast to the empty bus station on the waterfront. Pretty soon, I was joined by, of all people, the hearty, well-equipped, outdoorsy Frenchmen. They, like me, were taking the bus to Unquera. Wonders never cease.

Ramiro appeared too, but only to check the bus schedule. His Camino was over. "I have seen enough", he declaimed. No goodbyes were said; something about his manner made me think he might change his mind. But I didn't see him again and now that open ending makes me a little sad. I often wonder, especially in light of the turmoil in North Africa and the Middle East, if he will ever get the chance to go on his big adventure.

In Unquera, I stopped for a corbata, a pastry for which the area is famous.



I ate it at this very counter in the Restaurante Royale, "la casa de las corbatas"!


Rodrigo, a man from the albergue the night before, came in to the cafe as I was sitting there. He'd already walked the 10km along the "carreterra muy peligrosa". He actually deserved his corbata.

In the local farmacia, I found a knee brace to match the one I had bought in Gernika. I felt set up to start the long stage to Llanes. That new perspective was starting to take hold!



I crossed the bridge into Asturias and started to climb. The hill out of town went steadily up the edge of the river valley for a couple of kilometres. It was called, (as they often seem to be), la Peña; the penalty. Well named!



If the climb was the penalty, the view from the top was the reward, All about were green wooded hills and pastures, and in the distance the Picos de Europa; to the southwest I could see the beautiful Indiano mansion of la Quinta Guadalupe, painted blue. With its signature palm trees, it looked for all the world like a tropical mirage. Here was housed an archive devoted to the records of these New World adventurers and entrepreneurs.

In Colombres, Rodrigo caught up with me as I was taking pictures of some leftover Roman stuff which had been cemented into a little alcove.




Why are you photographing THAT?, he wanted to know. I explained that we didn't get to see a lot of Roman stuff in Canada. He disputed that it was Roman, and technically speaking, he could have been right, but it sure felt Roman to me. I wasn't feeling disputacious though, so I stopped talking.



The next nine kilometres were along the side of the A8, the very road I'd avoided by taking the bus to Unquera. If I'd known that Id be walking along that road at all, I probably would have taken the bus as far as Pendueles, and just walked the last 17km. But I didn't, and so I shared the road with the cars, and Rodrigo, whom I met again as he was coming out of a restaurant near La Franca. That man was a walking and talking machine. He set a blistering pace, and if I lagged behind, he would wait courteously, but insistently, for me. He was highly educated and spoke very good English. Unfortunately, he was so serious and without humour (he never once smiled in the fifteen kilometres we walked together), that it was a rather grim experience. He kept us cracking along though, I'll give him that.



Once we got to Pendueles, the Camino left the road, and followed the coast along a gravel sendero. It was more than a footpath and less than a road, and it took us through wonderful rough pastures next to the sea, where I saw my second breed of cow,the Asturian Mountain Cattle.







Finally, when we came to the first houses in Andrin, around 4pm, I simply had to stop to refuel. Rodrigo had had his meal at 1.30 and felt that I should not eat as late as 4 pm, but I desperately needed something more than a corbata to go on with. After all, there were still 9km left to go at that point. I insisted on my Menu del Dia. In that case, Rodrigo said he would have a coffee and wait for me. I insisted that I didn't want to hold him back, and he should go on. Grudgingly, he did, striding off at the same grueling pace as he'd been walking all day. In my journal that night, I wrote, only half-joking, that he was probably halfway to Ribadesella by now.

Now that the pressure was off, I enjoyed my dinner of espaghettis, stew, and ice cream with lots of coke and coffee, and picked up my pack, a little unwillingly, for the final stretch to Llanes.

GOOD FRIDAY

I could have stayed in Comillas for another day just going from one Modernist architectural gem to the next, but what I really wanted to see was Gaudi’s Caprichio, where I was looking forward to a cup of overpriced (but worth it for the ambience) coffee. Alas, it was no longer a restaurant, so I had to content myself with looking at the tower on my way out of town the next morning. On the other hand, I did get to see Domenech’s fountain, and the exteriors of the Sobrellano palace and the Pontifical University as I passed by. My favourite things were an entire house covered in exquisite tiles, which I can’t show you, because those pictures turned out fuzzy, and an archway treated the same way, which turned out a bit better.



Today’s route was only a short 12 km trip to San Vicente de la Barquera, where I wanted to stay because there was lots to see. I was particularly enamoured of its famous medieval bridge spanning the estuary. In keeping with the tradition of every other section being on pavement, this day featured lots of roads, and there were a couple of times where I felt distinctly unsafe.



But it was more than made up for by the views; snow covered mountains to the left, and the sea to the right. There was one farm in El Tejo which was for sale that had both, and overlooked a venerable golf course, started in the 1840's. I was tempted until I remembered that I don’t play golf and don’t really want to. Ramiro and I crossed paths, and I walked for a while with a chain-smoking, pony tailed local who was on his way to San Vicente, and who talked a blue streak! But eventually my slow pace was too much for him and off he went. The conditioning of these people, even the smokers, is incredible. Just going for a constitutional involves major cardiac exercise.

The views of the Oyambre marshes as I approached San Vicente were very pretty, but for a Canadian who experiences such things in plenty every day of the week, it was no big deal. Much more impressive to me were the sandstone bridge with its solid stone stanchions, the Romanesque church dominating the top of the hill, and the Castillo guarding the harbour. Like so many of the seaside towns, the streets were exceptionally steep, and traversed the sides of the hills in a switchback manner. All I knew was I needed to be up at the Church, because that’s where the albergue was.



Because it had been such a short stage, the albergue wasn’t yet open, so I headed for the café next door. I went in to find Ramiro already ensconced. We had some refreshment, and when the kitchen opened we had lunch. Today it was Ramiro’s turn to pay.

The albergue was located in the basement of a school of navigation, and was marked by a large sculpture of a full masted sailing ship on the wall. The entry was less than prepossessing, being through a former garage, now a laundry. Soon we were using the washing machine and vainly hanging our things to dry on the indoor clotheslines. Our hosts were an older couple, Luis and Sofia, who were the epitome of hospitality. There was a communal meal in the evening, and everyone was expected to help. I did dishes and swept the floor. Sofia was an incredible cook. It being Good Friday, fish dominated the menu. We had a delicious fish soup for the first course, and merluza con patatas(hake with potatoes) for the second course. I’ve forgotten if there was dessert, but if there was it was probably fruit. There weren’t that many of us there, Ramiro, me, a quiet man from San Sebastian, named Rodrigo, two jolly Frenchmen, large, hale and hearty, a German female cyclist, and another German, a young boy named Philip, who had chosen the Camino del Norte, almost at random, as his gift to himself for finishing school.

Philip was a remarkable young man, bright, polite, wide-eyed and open to every new experience. Counter to the rules, he’d been at the albergue for three days, just soaking up the ambience in San Vicente, and having Luis and Sofia fall in love with him. They truly did not want to let him go!
Since he had near perfect English (and Spanish) I was able to talk about lots of things with him. I told him about the Camino Primitivo, about which he didn’t know and showed him where I was still thinking about going, despite my bad knees. He liked the look of that route, so different from the bustle of the seaside roads.




In the afternoon, I explored the exterior of the church,and admired the view from its commanding position. Something twigged. There were no windows in the lower stories of the austere building, and there was a wall round it. That thing was a fortress first and foremost. It also had a number of imposing doorways. There was the Door of Power, the Door of the People, and a couple of others besides. It had wonderful carvings including ones of the nobles who contributed to its original building fun. These were my favourites, so naively carved, and looking so pleased with themselves.



Philip and Ramiro and I decided to go to the Good Friday service at the ancient church. It was very well attended, though people seemed to have no scruple about arriving late. The age old story of Christ’s passion was told through readings, which, since I already had the gist of it, were fairly easy to comprehend. The service began with an ancient life sized wooden Crucifix sculpture swathed in a red hanging. When the sacrifice was revealed, it was moving, no matter what your belief.



When they got to the part about “into your hands, I commend my spirit”, it resonated deeply with me in my current situation. Let Go and Let God seemed like particularly good advice. I would have to stop thinking ahead and worrying about whether I’d be able to do the Camino Primitivo or not. I would just have to take what came.

We watched the procession around the church after the service, first a beautiful sculpture of a sorrowing Virgin, delicately carved, her subtle body language telling more than her expression of her pain. She was followed by the dead Christ, lying on a litter. He was much more robustly made, more a carving of the people than a piece of art, brightly painted, his wounds great stripes of red on his sides. This was not a moment for tourism, and the few photos I took were surreptitious, and drew frowns from the processors.

That night after dinner, Luis gave a talk similar to the one Ernesto had given in Guemes. He suggested that although the road was dangerous, it halved the distance to the next town, Unquera, allowing you to make it to Llanes in one go. The official route was 44 km. He also mentioned that you could start at Unquera if you took the bus. That was the route for me, I thought, especially since I’d started to exhibit the same barking cough that the vagrants and Silke had earlier in the week. The two Frenchmen were particularly troubled by my cough, and urged me to take care of myself. One of them gave me a mask, telling me it would ease my breathing by creating a more humid environment. In fact, I’m sure that he was doing it from naked self -interest, so that I didn’t make him sick too. I didn’t mind wearing it at all. Who wanted to be sick?

SOCCER NIGHT IN SANTILLANA

I wasn't prepared for Santillana del Mar. Yes, I knew it was a tourist spot; yes, I knew it was a well-preserved medieval village; but I didn't realize how transported one would be into the past.It was quite obvious that we were in the 21st century: holidaymakers, with designer handbags and sunglasses thronged the streets, every now and then you had to squeeze up against the sturdy stone in an alley to let a little car go by,the shop fronts were cluttered with tat made in China, but somehow you still felt as if it might be 1511, rather than 2011. I was particularly impressed with the lavadero, the communal laundry set into the middle of one of the main streets. I could imagine that the women might return first thing in the morning to get started on the day's chores.



Everything was stone. Streets merged almost seamlessly into the stone walls of the houses. About six hundred years of building were in evidence from the Romanesque up to the seventeenth century. And it wasn't just the facades. Where doors were open, you could see stone floors, blackened stairways and doors.



Because it was fairly late in the day, I worried that there might not be room for me in the albergue. I could never afforded any of the posh hotels; especially in Easter Week. But I was in luck. The albergue was a bit Tardis-like. Very small and compact on the outside, but jammed full of bunks. The crowd was younger than usual, with quite a few cyclists. I recognized almost no-one. Eventually, I came across Silke in a sidreria, where she seemed quite surprised to see me. I wondered if I came off weak so that she might imagine that I was always thinking of quitting? For my part, I wondered how she had got so far ahead of me.



Eventually, I saw Ramiro as well. What I didn't see was the amazing church at the end of the village, and I don't know why. I was more interested in the culture of food than culture in general that day. Restaurants were as expensive as hotels, so it was a bread and cheese and pastry night I also didn't see the Altamira caves, only 2km away, but I wasn't really interested either, since you can't look at the originals, only exact reproductions. I've never really understood the allure of reproductions of anything, except as an example of human virtuosity. When I look at anything from the past, what I want is to be in touch with history, to reach across time and take the hand of its maker, or user; to affirm our commonality. That's why Santillana del Mar was so special. To be sure, some of the buildings had been restored, and some of them looked so good, I wasn't quite sure that they weren't building new ones in the old style. (and there would be nothing wrong with that, as long as they weren't passing them off as the real thing!)

I felt quite alone. The other peregrinos were all in groups and not very outward looking. Ramiro was intent on finding a chair in a bar with a television. Barcelona and Real Madrid were facing off in the semi-final of the Champions League, and that is cause for major excitement in Spain EVERY TIME it happens. There's even a name for it: El Clásico.

It was incredible. I could hear the crowds in all the bars in Santillana break into a roar every time one team or another did anything at all. For some reason I also have an impression of fireworks, but that my have been my mind transposing all that emotion into something else as I drifted into sleep.

COBRECES AND COMILLAS

This Camino was starting to make me feel like a ping pong ball. One minute I was cursing the route, and the next I was having a near-magical time. On this day, I had planned to walk only to Cobreces to stay at the abbey there, because now my left knee was now giving me trouble, and I had switched the brace to that knee.
Richard caught up with me as I was refilling my water bottles in a park on the outskirts of town. He had been walking since early in the morning, driven out of his fleabag albergue somewhere between Requejada and Santillana by an attack of bedbugs, to which he is allergic. Boy Howdy! He wasn't kidding either. He showed me his swollen hand and arm, puffed up like a marshmallow and red. His plan was to get to Cobreces and get clean. Everything he owned would have to be washed in hot hot water, and dried in a dryer if possible.






While Richard was in agony, I was having a lovely walk though through an enchanted valley. Oranges and lemons, and flowers of all kinds flourished in a microclimate more Mediterranean than Atlantic. Some kids had the Spanish version of a lemonade stand going so I spent some time chatting with them, and watched a horse chasing some piglets around the farmyard.



This was the day I saw my first tudanca; Cantabrian native cattle. The males are grey with white muzzles and eyerings, turning black as they get older, and the cows are chestnut. I thought they were very pretty and like nothing I'd ever seen before, but it wasn't until I returned to Canada and did some research that I realized how rare and special they were.



I got to Cobreces by lunch time to discover that the albergue wouldn't open until three, and that the albergue was at some distance from the holiday town, which was down a steep hill near the sea. Richard arrived, and we sat for a while in the shade of the abbey. Sandrina and her husband waved at us as they passed by, refreshed by their stay in one of Santillana's best hotels.



I had some lunch and hung around the restaurant patio with Silke for a while, drinking Coke and writing in my journal. I learned that she too was taking lots of buses. Her feet were killing her. Cobreces looked pretty dull, and I really needed some compeed for the blisters that had formed from me holding my left foot awkwardly, so I took the bus to Comillas, which has been the summer playground of the rich and famous since the end of the nineteenth century. All the famous Spanish architects of the day, including my main man, Gaudi, had left their mark on the place. Comillas had the first electric lights and the first television service in Spain.

At the bus stop, I met the young couple from Bilbao, who had now come to terms with the fact that their Camino had turned into a bus trip, and looked like they were really enjoying themselves. Once I got my bearings, I went first to the albergue located in an old jail where Ramiro and the Barcelonan family were sunning themselves on the lawn. There were hugs all round. But all was not well. I was too late, they told me with sincere concern on their faces; for the albergue was completo.



So, I discovered, was everything else. Everywhere I inquired I was turned away. I almost had a room at the rather nice Hostal Esmeralda, but the couple whose room I was going to have if they didn´t show up by 7.30 screeched up to the hotel at 7.25 in a heavily laden station wagon, trailing clouds of frazzlement, with two small children in tow. Oh well; I figured they needed it more than I did. I went back to trudging the busy streets. Eventually, I found an out of the way pension, where I feared there might be bedbugs, but at 8.30 at night during Semana Santa, peregrinas can't be choosers.I took the room, and took the precaution of tying my backpack up in a garbage bag on a chair.



As the sun was going down, I hiked out to the cemetery which had a great view of the sea and then I turned in for the night. However, in Comillas, it seemed, the party never stopped. I had several groups of young lady (sic) revellers decide that my window was the best place to stand and declaim loudly of the merits and deficiencies of their various and several swains, at 3 am, 5 am, and 7 am. Still, between these bouts of drama I slept very well. A double bed in a room by myself. LUXURY. And, for the record, no bedbugs either.