Markina-Xemein

"I would've shouted if I knew you were British!" she gasped as she walked through the gate that I was holding open, her husband close behind. "I wouldn't have heard you anyway" I replied.

I'd noticed her as I turned to close the gate. She was running, or making an effort to run, up the steep hill while waving three quarters of a stick of bread. I realised immediately the bread was mine and I guess I should've walked down to meet her but I'd just climbed that hill and I wasn't going to repeat the feat for seventy cents worth of bread.

I had passed the two of them moments earlier. I said something in Spanish and they smiled at me blankly so I guessed, wrongly, they were German. Then I must have caught the bread, which was attached to the outside of my pack, on a branch and the bread broke off but the lady very kindly returned it to me. It was then I discovered they were British, from Manchester. We had a chat and went our separate ways. That was the first face to face chat in English I had had for over a month and it was great!

I'm staying in a hostel run by Carmelite nuns tonight. The town where it is sited, Xemein, was the scene of a battle in 1936 during the Civil War. Reading the various notice boards really brings home the bravery of the people of this small town against the Spanish and German fascists.

Photos - today's wonderful path through the hills, a chapel for sailors with a suspended boat, outside the chapel with a great dog, Deba is so steep it has escalators, the Roman road into DebaRead more