YOU CAN'T GET THERE FROM HERE

The next morning was grey. I felt a bit grey too, as I left my compatriots. They went to find some breakfast, while I went to find a bus to Gernika, the next town of any size. I negotiated that with little trouble, though the amount of nervous energy that surges through me while I strive to ascertain for absolute certain that I’m on the RIGHT bus is quite ridiculous. On a holiday like this, it wouldn’t even matter if I were going on the RIGHT bus, because everything is an adventure! It turned out to be a journey of mythical proportions, and very nearly proved the old adage that “you can’t get there from here”. In fact I could, but I had to ride into the outskirts of Bilbao, wait for an hour and a half, and then backtrack to Gernika, which despite its size, was not on any direct bus routes. This in a country which is very well served by its buses!

The journey went in stages. The first stage ended in the fishing town of Ondarroa, a mere 8k from Deba. The bus followed the path of the cyclist's Camino through Mutriku. The walkers would be taking a very steep and somewhat remote track through the mountains to Markina. From Ondarroa, I took a different bus which passed through Markina on its way to Bilbao. In less than an hour, I had covered the territory that the other peregrinos would spend a whole day slogging through. I didn’t envy them the mud that the rain was surely creating, but I did envy them the gorgeous countryside that we passed through, and I cursed my swollen knees.

The bus trip itself was an interesting cultural immersion. Basque people seem to sing aloud on buses just to pass the time. I was enchanted to hear a grandmother soothing a cranky baby with lullabies in Euskara. For a language so full of k’s and t's and x's, it has a lovely sing-song cadence. On the second bus, I met a very fine elderly lady named Garmendia, which means “fire on the mountain”. What a name to conjure with! She was headed into Bilbao for the day, very smartly if conservatively dressed in a tweed suit. We communicated in English and Spanish, tried French, but gave it up; my fault, not hers. Garmendia was equally comfortable in them all, and then some. For years she had lived in New York where she taught French. Like most Basque people I met she had been to Canada. The Basques, like the Galicians and Newfoundlanders, had itchy feet, it seemed. They’d been everywhere, man! The next day I met a guy who'd been to the Sault and had lived in Smooth Rock Falls!

I felt very lucky to be sitting with this tiny cosmopolitan, learning the local lore as we passed various villages. I got a pang of remorse when she pointed out the way to the very beautiful monastery of Cenarruza, which I’d had my heart set on seeing. I’ve since seen the video diaries of other pilgrims showing just the kind of hiking I like, rough and rural. The pang returns.

When we got to the transfer point at the big hospital in Bilbao, Garmendia (I just like saying that name!) entrusted me to a young woman who ensured that I was standing at the right stop. I stood there for forty five minutes, having just missed a connection, but it felt good to sit in what I knew was the right place. Bus number three took me halfway back the way we’d come, and then took a left up the road to Gernika.