PASAIA SAN JUAN

The albergue I was looking for was newly opened and the buzz on the internet was that it was a good place to stay. I arrived before it opened, and spent a relaxing hour in the shade of an old wall, eating nuts and exposing my feet to the cool air. I unpacked my bag and got out my shoes. I’d had enough of boots for the time being. When the hospitalero arrived, he ceremoniously poured me a glass of water, for which I was mightily grateful. He showed me around and I got clean. Soon after the bearded peregrino arrived. He introduced himself as Gisbert, from Hanover. The afternoon passed pleasantly.

I sat in the kitchen talking with Gisbert about his first camino; and looking at blossoming trees in the garden. Each time I went to check on my laundry flapping, but, mysteriously, not drying in the strong afternoon breeze, I encountered a young teenage couple necking unabashedly behind the albergue, seemingly continuously for several hours.

After I’d had some rest, I braved the stairs down from the church to the town below. I was feeling strange about travelling down through what would have been people’s yards had they been on solid ground;a little like being a kid taking the short cut through other people’s backyards; trespassing. But in fact, these were public stairs which happened to get dressed up with plants and sculptures. Evidently, people require an outdoor outlet for their creativity. All the restaurants in town were pretty pricey, so I opted for groceries. This was probably a bad idea, since the place is a bedroom community for San Sebastian. The places which sold food were poorly stocked. Eventually, I found some cheese and stale bread. I passed the house where Victor Hugo famously stayed. It was a big deal to the local tourist economy, but I discovered that he was only there for a week or so, and didn’t achieve any great literary conquest while he was there. I also passed a shrine commemorating a real conquest, of the Basques over Charlemagne, but didn’t realize it until later.



I remember the resolute closedness of the restaurants, the sound of shoe heels on the empty stone streets, echoing louder under the arcades. The open stares of local teenagers when I sat down on a bench overlooking the harbour. The pro-Basque, anti-Spanish posters plastered on the decrepit building facades, and the ETA flags flying gaily from the jettied balconies of the ancient houses.




As ever, I was struck by the fact that its almost impossible to take a photograph of a building in its entirety, so closely and higgledy-piggledy has development been throughout the ages. Because I couldn’t have (or didn’t choose to afford) any decent food, I was feeling bereft. But when I returned to the albergue, our host had just finished cooking up a tortilla of egg and tomato for himself and his invigorating friend, Saturnino. Saturnino was a force of nature; trim, energetic, his tanned face creased with laugh lines, his mouth crested by a luxuriant yet well-kempt moustache .He seemed to have an endless supply of information; his generosity was boundless, and his enthusiasm was infectious

We, for Gisbert was there too, sat at the table with them. Gisbert had purchased a bottle of wine which he shared with me, and we ate our bread and cheese while Saturnino told inexhaustible tales in Spanish about how the albergue came to have a mosaic of Che Guevara on the wall of the diningroom and of the superiority of Basque sidra, which he more or less forced us to taste. After supper, he took us to admire the church, told us of his recent wedding (second, I’m sure–he was a handsome devil), with a dissertation also on Basque wedding customs. He also took us up into the belfry to see his pride and joy, a medieval clock which he kept wound and greased and in perfect working order.

By the time we left the church, the sun had gone down and the lights were twinkling across the water. There was a gorgeous full moon rising in the blue-black sky. As Saturnino was locking the door, two exhausted looking peregrinas came round the corner. They had gotten lost on Day One! They’d ended up on the seashore, quite a long way down and a long way back up from the trail. The four of us spent what was left of the evening lying on our little cots, sharing our aches and pains in the pilgrim way, making light of it and laughing with one another each time someone let out an involuntary groan.