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29 kilometers, 6 hours, passing through San Sebastián.
To finish up last night, I did laundry and lay around while writing notes about the day. Then off to dinner, meager as it was. I met up with Amil and Juan, on the seaside street, and we looked for a restaurant. We ended up eating pinchos (small snacks) and drinking in the few bars that were open. In total, it was no problem, and only €10.
A missing pair of sunglasses got the morning off to a later-than-expected start. As it turned out, still quite dark outside and a gray day, it wasn’t too late. After a panic-filled half an hour of searching and re-searching my pack and under and around my bunk, a woman found the sunglasses among her things. Thinking they were hers the night before in the poor lighting, she had put them in her sunglasses case. Thank goodness she found them. I wear prescription glasses and sunglasses.
Similar to the previous day, the route climbed to a ridge above fern and pine coated cliffs and a now gray-blue sea and scattered with commercial and private fishing boats. High clouds persisted all day. The grayness above parted infrequently, but no rain.
San Sebastián came into view. The city, edged by two arches of amber-colored beach, points of land jutting out into the Cantabrian Sea and one small island looked like a postcard. The path, lined by dense green foliage, descended along narrow blacktop lanes, winding this way and that. Seaside condos sat in contrast to church steeples and spires of the Buen Pastor cathedral in the city center.
As planned, I spent some time in San Sebastián taking in the sights and checking out the vibe. It’s a beautiful city, but I suspect that the phrase “hit by the bus” may have originated here. There were many buses. City buses small, large, and double long, tourist buses, and city tour buses. They all flashed by in a rush. There are not many cars in San Sebastián, probably because of the buses. The parking lots were not full at 10:00 on a Tuesday morning.
Before I began this trek, a friend suggested a compelling story for my next novel. A story that takes place on the Camino del Norte. Leading up to this trip I imagined different scenes in the developing storyline. One such passage, the inciting incident, takes place in a large cathedral in the city called Catedral del Buen Pastor. Along with my goal of walking the Norte, I planned to gather information and inspiration for the novel. The story involves a fifteen-year-old girl walking this path. The event that occurs in the cathedral leaves her to complete the Norte alone, facing internal battles and external challenges. I wanted to see the cathedral and to sit for a while, taking it all in, absorbing what I could for the story.
A disclaimer: I have a thing about old churches and cathedrals, as well as Mosques and temples and synagogues, too, and, well, many things that humankind has imagined and created. In Spain, there are many churches and cathedrals. I am always impressed by the vision, architecture, engineering, the funding and even the politics behind the building of these magnificent structures. Not to mention history. Some churches I visited in Europe are a thousand years old. That blows my mind! In California, where I have lived my entire life, there are no structures much more than a couple of hundred years old.
I heard later about some sculptures near the trail where it passes through San Sebastián. I had missed them. A pilgrim I later met showed me pictures of them on his smartphone. They are called “The Wind Comb” or “The Comb of Wind.” Or in Spanish “Piene Del Viento.” Ask any of the locals and they can direct you to them.
Below, is the plot to the novel mentioned above:
CAMINO CHILD
By Brien Crothers
Fifteen-year-old Summer Darling is trekking across the North of Spain with her Grandma Pat when her grandmother passes away in a cathedral in San Sebastián. Grandma Pat leaves Summer to deal with her body and the authorities, to evaluate her new circumstances, consider her grandmother’s wishes to finish their trek to Santiago de Compostela, and to plan her next moves. Walking five-hundred miles, during thirty-two days, spending nights in public hostels, Summer makes her way along the ancient Camino de Santiago, a path marked by yellow arrows and populated by other trekkers from around the world. She goes it alone, fears the police will track her down and send her home and learns how to trust the right people and to avoid the advances of an unbalanced young man. A sheltered girl from a rural town in California, she grows into a young woman ready to travel the world.