Santutxu

Wonderful stay at the albergue in Pozueta last night. Amazing communal dinner served so I was able to meet a few others I’ve been running into briefly on the trail. Guy from Iowa, Slovakia, and a guy and gal from the same city in Canada (Quebec City) who didn’t know each other until last night. There were about 10-12 in our room and it was quiet all night. Slept like a baby. We set out together this morning and walked a couple hours before arriving at the first village for food/coffee. It is really hot here. I think it got to 95 degrees, supposed to be a little hotter tomorrow but luckily we are only doing 20Km. Unbearable. I, of course researched historic weather for the whole route and found lows this time of year are 60’s and highs of mid 70’s. I feel silly for having a jacket and leggings and a long sleeve shirt in my pack!! To think i was worried about being cold on this route. We will get a mix of weather for sure but, it’ll be 80’s-90’s for the next week. We had a 300 meter climb today that about did me in and then straight down into the city. It still felt like an easy one compared to the other day where we just climbed and climbed with no towns all day. I think that day was nearly 600 meters. We were about 3/4 up the mountain and we see Iowa sitting on a bench that was in the middle of nowhere. He said he got dizzy from the hike and heat and had never had that happen to him before. He said he drank plenty of water, but, it didn’t matter, we were sweating it out faster than we could put it in. After talking to him we looked across the trail and noticed a vending machine full of several drink choices. I couldn’t believe my eyes, I thought it was a mirage! I had water, but it was warm, so this was such a nice surprise. I got an electrolyte drink, my 3rd of the day. I couldn’t get enough. It wasn’t a really beautiful hike today, we walked through towns, on pavement, exposed to the heat with little shade, so that kind of sucked.
Bilbao is a really big city, and really beautiful. I wish i had more time here. We went to the Guggenheim, which was cool, but that is all we could fit in before it was time to feed our bodies that burned about 1900 calories today! We are definitely operating on a calorie deficiency!! There’s no way I’m taking in that many calories a day. My watch says we walked 18.77 miles and 40,585 steps. I believe it. Nathalie’s registers more, but I think hers is messed up. It always says a lot more. All I know is that it was long and hot!
Luckily I booked a place in the old city which wasn’t located on the other end of town. Tonight we are at a hostal, but since I was booking several accommodations months ago, I was able to get a private room tonight and the other two are in bunk rooms. I really needed this. I don’t mind too much the bunk rooms, but a quiet private room is nice and I hope to do this every 5 days or so. Proper rest is super important to pull off this mileage day in and day out for a month.
It’s 10:30 here and I need to get some sleep, good night.Read more