Mud and More Mud

We walked out of Gernika this morning in a light drizzle— a shame, because it’s a beautiful city and quite meaningful to the Basques. During WW2, General Franco called on the Nazi Luftwaffe to bomb the town, which was a stronghold of Basque Republicans. More than 1600 civilians died, a scene memorialized by Picasso in his painting “Guernica.”

The light drizzle stayed with us all morning, sometimes turning into a pretty good rain. We climbed 300 meters outside of town, and the way turned into muddy, clay-ey logging roads that seemed to go on forever. More ups and downs, another 300 m climb and then the nastiest, slickest muddy descent I’ve seen on Camino. I fell once and couldn’t get up! (See lovely photo below). After 9 miles with no coffee or food, we arrived in a little Basque town where a local lady told John, “In this town we only speak Basque.” He told her, “Well, in this town I only speak English!”

Late lunch of fish soup, beef stew and local wine. And only 6 miles to Bilbao tomorrow! Everyone says the Norte gets easier after Bilbao. We hope Everyone is right.Read more