Norte – Day 13 – Guemes – Santander
After last nights rain, we awoke to clear skies. Perhaps our best weather day on this trip. Clear blue skies, warm but not hot, with a light breeze. Excellent Camino walking weather.
Our route today was a shorter one at 14.6 KM. As it turned out, it was some of the most scenic 14 KM we have walked this trip. It compares very well to our first day out of Hondaribia. Todays route took us through pastorial rolling hills to the coastline. We spent the better part of the day walking the pastorial green feilds that turn abruptly into coastal cliffs. Breathtaking to say the least.
I beleive it was some of these scenic views that we saw pictures of that drew us to choose this route. I had pictured in my mind that the views we had today would be what to expect for most of this route. The reality was much different than we anticipted; but still enjoyable. Much like normal life, we often only remember the best and worst of times. We always want the best experiences to last forever. Yet without “normal” times in our lifes, we would not know what “better” is. You see, the “better” times serve as milestones or markers of our lifes. And today we experienced one of those milestones; a long walk along a scenic coastline in a foreign land.
As we concluded this beach (playa in spanish) route in Somo we boarded a small passenger ferry that took us across the Bay of Santander, depositing us in the city center. From there we enjoyed a pleasant 2 KM walk along the promonade to our hotel. As we approached our hotel we heard a loud celebration in progress… another milestone for someone else was in progress… a wedding. We arrived around 3:30 and the wedding was in full progress. Its near 8 PM as I type this, and the party is still going…being a Saturday night we expect it to get well into the night…
Tommorrow is our last day of walking planned. We had planned on walking 33 KM. Given the route, and the difficulty thus far, we may revisit those plans. With two free days ahead after tommorrow, rest days in this beautiful city are quite tempting.
Buen Camino
