Second day's walking, May 18

Hello, everyone.

May 18 was chilly just like May 17 had been. In fact, the weather during the entire time we walked along the coast can be summarized as cool, with intermittent rain, and not that much sunshine. Local people said it was abnormally cool this spring.

We left Getaria around 6:30 or 7 in the morning and were grateful to have done our "get out of town" climb the night before.

At breakfast time we arrived in Zumaia--well breakfast time if you like to eat around 9:30 that is--and had a bite with cafe con leche at a bar. Then we wandered around town finding the scenic route out of town.

This scenic route is a part of the GR9 hikers' route. It is closer to the water for much of its way and the hiker who takes it gets to see some scenery that isn't visible at all from the other route.  On the other hand, we discovered, it is more strenuous.  We took this part of the GR9 and when it split off again later in the day we stayed with the main Camino trail. Others, who had skipped this part, took the GR9 later and said it was quite demanding for them. As this part turned out to be for us!

 Looking back from the start of the GR9 segment, we saw some of the famous flysh rock layers. We also noticed that the church is on a cliff that is being undercut by the waves. Presumably it will be quite a while before the top falls down.

The trail here follows the cliff top on some goat trails. It was very up-and-down, but very pretty. By the time it connected back up to the main Camino trail, we were, as it used to be said, "tuckered out."

Farther along, we noticed that the local farmers have helpers to attend to a little bit of trail maintenance. Billy, here, appears to have been assigned to weed removal. We said soothing things and walked past him, and he was a very amiable old goat so our close up visit went smoothly.

We got to the outskirts of Deba and discovered that they have paved over some of the steep rocks approaching the town. They have added a red non-slip stripe on one side to help people negotiate the descent in wet weather. At the end of the red stripe, we saw a billboard celebrating their carefully conserved piece of Roman road and a steep asphalt road going into town a different way. We followed that way and found the famous elevator! Actually, there are two elevators, installed by the town for the people to get from their homes on a very steep slope down to the main part of the town. We enjoyed the elevator ride very much!