Then we walked along the beach and up into the mountains where we followed the coastline for the rest of the day, until the pueblo of "Onton" where we started walking on the highway "nacional" that was more like an actual highway with guardrails and no sidewalks rather than a medieval walking path, but we made it work and actually had a blast risking our lives dodging traffic!
After that experience we passed through the other small towns and finally made it to Castro-Urdiales (with so much pain in our feet, we were limping pretty badly), a small port town that had a special albergue (a hostel only for pilgrims, or peregrinos en epsanol) that we had just to ourselves- literally, there wasn't even a guide staying with us or anything, we had the keys to the building (a very small 3 room ranch) so we came and went as we pleased.
This really just meant leaving once for dinner and then coming back at 8pm to crash into bed and lock ourselves in for the night, we were pooped. In total we walked 27km on Friday from Portugalete to Castro, which is about 17 miles give or take.
The next day we knew would be rough because we were supposed to make it to Laredo, the next biggest town between Santander (the capital of Cantabria) and Bilbao (the capital of Vizcaya), but it was a whopping 36km away! Yikes! Luckily, we had plenty of time the night before to rest our feet and take cold showers (against our will actually, I guess the water heater was about the size of 2 gallons of milk, TINY) because the warm water is also not very good for your skin when walking as it makes you more susceptible to blisters (fun fact about hiking!). We left at 8am because we knew how long we had to walk and how rainy and warm it was supposed to get (all the way to 68 degrees!) but luckily it was cloudy and breezy the whole day except when the beautiful sun would come out!
We started in a few small towns but then switched over to my favorite part of the trip, walking along the cliffs of the Altantic Ocean/Cantabrian Sea, like literally through pastures and only about 150ft. from falling into the ocean. So cool! We followed that back onto nacional after about 11km, this time with a big enough shoulder and almost no cars that we felt pretty safe, it was just pretty painful to walk on concrete again for so long! From there we turned away from the highways and into the valleys, fields, and mountains between Islares (another pueblo) and Laredo, which was now only about 22km away- easy peasy, right? WRONG. It was beautiful, don't get me wrong, but O.M.G. it was so painful to constantly be walking up and down hills (more than mountains, we actually climbed almost 245m) on uneven concrete and then dirt paths, and eventually we turned out of civilization altogether and walked through a eucalyptus forest and then beautiful but deserted valley (think full of animals and pastures but lacking a single human being) for the next 12km or so.
This was definitely the hardest part of the trip because we literally couldn't stop anywhere for help/rest/a lift because there was no one around for MILES, but it was also my second favorite part because we were only a few km away from the nearest town and yet it felt like we were discovering a whole new part of Spain, completely alone on a small dirt path that was barely big enough for a small car (or passing tractor, it happened once). In that valley we had a little picnic lunch on a close field, and it was pretty surreal- eating a PB&J (the easiest thing to make/pack) and watching some Spanish livestock under the sunny Spanish sky, with absolutely no noise except for the occasional ringing of bells around the necks of nearby goats. We could have time traveled and I wouldn't have been surprised.
We FINALLY left that valley and ended up in Liendo, a valley town that separated us from the the second mountain range we had to climb, this one much shorter but equally as far- about 11km until Laredo! At this point we were all in serious pain, Linden's toenails were about to fall off, Sarah's hips were so displaced I'm surprised she could still move her legs, and I thought (still thinking it, actually) I had a stress fracture in my right foot that was screaming in pain in every step. Luckily, once we saw that we were in the home stretch and would make it to Laredo in about 2 hours (it was almost 3 at this point), we cranked into high gear and pushed through the last bit of the trip to finally crest a small hill in an even smaller pubelo (some of these "pueblos" were really just 3 houses and a street with a real name/sign) and see the ocean, the beach, and civilization!
I say civilization here because although we had been traveling through little towns all weekend, the only signs of life we saw were the hundreds of dogs the Spaniards have- where was everybody?? Each town was like a ghost town, it was so creepy. Anyways, we walked down into Laredo and into one of the main plazas where the yellow arrows of the Camino magically led us right to our albergue (a convent this time) and even more magically, to our bus station about 1000ft away! There we stayed in Laredo after a victory meal of bocadillas and fruit until Sunday morning when we hopped on the next bus back to Bilbao and made it back home in a VERY DEPRESSING 50 MINUTES. Two days of traveling and almost 66km and we made it home before 10am. GRRRR.
But this whole trip did point out some very cool realizations for me: for starters and the most obvious to me, I couldn't believe we were able to walk on nearly the same path as millions, maybe billions of peregrinos from as far back as 1300! Oh history you are so cool you never cease to amaze me! Another cool thing about the whole weekend was that we only had a guidebook from 2004 and a pamphlet stating some albergues across northern Spain, yet we managed to walk so far with only small yellow spray painted arrows to guide us. I know the original route was a religious pilgrimage to see the body of St. James in Santiago itself (on the western coast), but I never thought I would need my own dose of faith in order to believe that there would be another arrow guiding the way to the next town and not off the cliffs into the sea or lost in the woods. There are groups (like the amigos de Santiago) who make it their mission to promote and maintain the Camino but it still amazes me that it is still so well maintained even after 700 years, even the lesser used northern route (what we did). This is done by the people of Spain who (and this brings up my final realization) not only remember and know the Camino routes and directions, but make it their mission to welcome the pilgrims they see and give them any advice they have about their journey. This happened to us the entire weekend, no matter who we stopped to ask for a quick dose of Spanish directions, they always led us in the right direction and then offered a simple piece of advice to make the Camino a bit easier. This is one of those times where I fall in love with Spain and even more so the PEOPLE of Spain once again, because we were obviously gringo/greenhorn Americans who had no clue which way was up for most of the journey, but they still loved talking to us and helping the peregrinos of the Camino stay strong and on track. Now I only wish I could have done the whole thing or at least the last 100km to Santiago, but we've already made a pack to complete before we die. So watch out Spain- these americanas will be back for more Camino!
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