just some things

So first off, Amorebieta - the town I work in during the evenings - has a pretty side. Did y'all know it had a pretty side? Because I didn't. You get there on the bus/train and it is mildly industrial and it has that weird spiny potato and sometimes it smells like a paper mill. But check it:



SURPRISE. Pretty.

Second, why does everyone have to pronounce all their S's in northern, um, Iberia? Spanish as a second language people: try to say "Las respuestas" with all the S's. It takes like 15 minutes, right?! I want my acento andalu back, now.

Third, guess what, people? I led worship in church today. Have you ever been a worship leader, Kit? No. Was it kind of haphazard? Yes. Was it kind of awesome? Yes.

How NOT to hike San Juan de Gaztelugatxe

safely arrived, after the Mountain Descent Fiasco


It all fell together perfectly. Or so I thought.

Last Saturday promised gorgeous weather, and I had a backpack full of gear for my upcoming Camino de Santiago hike I needed to begin training with. Everyone had been telling me how gorgeous the hermitage of San Juan de Gaztelugatxe on the Biscayan coast was practically since the moment I arrived in Bilbao, so a couple of friends and I decided we'd make the hike from nearby Bakio (no buses go straight to San Juan) to the church/ex-monastery. I wore my fully-packed Camino backpack and everything just to test it out.

We were doing fine until we found the path.


beginning the hike down the mountain, thanks to my friend Thomas for the photo

It was clearly a footpath branching off to the left of the regular paved trail that led toward the road (and, eventually, the monastery). Bryan whipped out his iPhone and confirmed it: this was a shortcut.

Then the path got less well-defined. We were about to give up and turn around until Thomas found a post-marker. Obviously this was a trail, we reasoned - why else would there be a post-marker there?

Then the trail thinned some more and the mountain became steeper. THEN the trail disappeared altogether and "steeper" took on a whole new meaning. But we cleared the woods (by this point we were basically sliding down almost-cliffs on our butts), and we could see the hermitage. It was beautiful. And it was possibly accessible - we couldn't tell from our angle.

We'd only gone a little further when one of my legs did something hilarious. It said, No. Thank you for the offer, but I will not go any further.

Actually, it said, Insane Muscle Squeeze! Just you TRY and make me go down any further, lady!

Apparently, a steep 30-minute descent with 20 pounds your legs are not used to supporting does not go over so well in the leg muscles. Who knew? I was less than interested in the very real possibility of being airlifted out by rescue helicopter, so we retraced our steps (and you never think to thank God for making your legs use different muscles to go up a hill than to go down one until moments like these, do you?) and took the regular path to the hermitage. Which was even more gorgeous up close.



And where we discovered that, had we kept going just a little bit further, there was indeed an access point to the hermitage. Whoops.

Some tips if you care to hike San Juan de Gaztelugatxe (Liz, who also went on Saturday, minus the jolly side-trip, has more):

1. Post markers don't always mean there's a trail. Sometimes they're there for the heck of it.

2. 20 pounds is a lot on your legs. Keep it in mind if you're going bushwacking on the side of a mountain, because mine are still sore and it's Tuesday.

3. Spain does have an equivalent of poison ivy or something, and I have no idea what it looks like. All I know is it throws a great big itch party all over your legs, and then your face somehow gets invited to the fiesta and then that itches too.

Just some things to keep in mind.

bermeo and mundaka

Boat in town, Mundaka


Here is what I imagine happened over the past 5 days:

The angel usually in charge of handling Basque weather went on vacation. His inexperienced substitute didn't read the "Basque Country: Only Rain" instructions, and we wound up with a 5-day sunshine spree that ended only just last night. Some friends and I took advantage of the glorious weather and headed to Bermeo and Mundaka, two coastal towns in my province of Vizcaya.

First up, Bermeo. I liked Bermeo a lot, maybe just because I took more photos there.



The feel is a little... ok, the adjective isn't really coming to me, but I'll just say it's one of those places where Che Guevara revolutionary graffitti ("The same objective. The same struggle.") is not totally out of place and leave it at that.




We climbed around the area by the dock, and the views were lovely.



On to Mundaka, where I did not take as many photos because - get this - the sun was actually too bright.

Known mainly as a surf town (historically, the major surf tour had a stop here because they had the longest left-breaking wave in the world. Subsequent sand-dredging messed up their waves, although we did notice that they broke from left to right), Mundaka has a nice feel that I found almost more Mediterranean than coastal Basque.



It's raining again today, but the spectacular weather reminded me of something: winter doesn't last forever. The days are getting longer already. December, the rainiest month, is over. Spring really is coming. That seems like such a "duh" thing to say, but in the middle of weeks of the cold and damp, it can get easy to forget. The winter will end.