First real day of walking

Hello, everyone.

In the last post, we arrived at the albergue in Irun.

Once there, laundry was done, and hung on a line on the balcony. User tip: if it's already 5 pm, your clothes may not get dry before bedtime. Also, they do have a second balcony there, if the first one is full of clothes. (Drying laundry on the balcony is normal in northern Spain, nobody thinks anything of seeing it.)

We wandered out after a bite to eat. We should have found a grocery and gotten water bottles and maybe some nuts, but we were tired and didn't think.

The next morning, we set out. The trail leads up a very "nature-y" way to a chapel of Our Lady of Guadalupe, then goes left and into the hills. Not that the previous walk leaving the city was flat! But it gets hillier. We were fortunate enough to have dry conditions for this.

These are a sample of the "road" surfaces we walked. There were some actual asphalt surfaces as well, with no shoulder, but those didn't get photographed. These are as wide as actual car-type roads because occasionally people drive on them. And some parts had been improved with a load or three of coarse sand. (Thank you, somebody!) As y'all can see, one's eyes need to be kept peeled. (That's "be alert!") Also, no matter if it does seem that one can go at a good pace, those rocks aren't quite as far apart sometimes as they look. More so on the places with ancient paving stones. I got toenail blisters on this day, either on this part or in the afternoon. I have now learned that just because it seems like the toes are sliding around in the boot a little, that doesn't mean you should tighten laces. In my case, had I loosened the laces and slowed down things would have been better.

This in various permutations was the morning. We did descend down tiny paved lanes and steps into Pasajes/San Juan (also called Donibane I think) about noon. There is a little tiny shop on the first plaza you come to with a full chiller of water bottles. After almost chugging the water, we got onto the little water taxi-ferry and rode across the harbor to the other side.

Once across, we wandered until we found a bar and ate bocadillos with cafe leche for lunch.