The albergue lights came on automatically at 7am and it was still pitch black when I had packed up so I wandered over to the one open bar for a coffee. A Spanish couple that I shared bunk space with in Grados waved me over to join them even though they didn’t speak English and my Spanish is hardly conversational!

I hit the road 8am but I still couldn’t see much as the mist had rolled in once again. Fortunately the way is dead easy and a nice steady ascent in the trees so I probably wasn’t missing much of the view.

After 5 kms of climbing the path topped out into blue sky and I noticed zillions of spider webs on both sides of the trail glinting in the light. Kinda freaky – why so many and why there?

It was a perfect morning and I enjoyed these few k’s up here on this island above the fog. I’d let the cluster of pilgrims around me go on ahead so I could have the peace and brilliance of it all to myself.

The camino descended alongside a road for a bit then plunged back into forest. All was still quiet except for the occasional plunk of a chestnut falling and the distant tweets of birds. I took my time on the endless descent as the path was strewn with damp leaves on slippery rocks. I bet there’ll be many with bruised toes tomorrow!

Fortunately what goes down….goes up, and very nicely, thank you. An easy rolling ascent on beautiful hard mud, a treat to walk on.

Coming down from the forest my Spanish couple called me over to where they were chatting with a local dairy farmer. He had loaded them up with apples and sprigs of mint and flowers. I settled for a stamp in my credential.

Several kilometers of road walking were a bit depressing in the grey overcast weather. Finally at 14 kms was the first “town” with services. Basically it’s two albergues competing for the pilgrim dollar with large signs and advertising their respective bars and shops and beds. I did stop at the very first bar ’cause that’s just what one does but made sure to buy food at the second’s store. Spread the wealth, that’s my new motto! Importantly, it’s the last opportunity to shop for ~30 kms (if I take the Hospitales route) so I had to supplement my snack and lunch supplies to last me through tomorrow.

Continuing on the day just continued to be grey and overcast. I arrived at my albergue at 12:45p to find it shut tight. I didn’t really want to wait another hour or more on a cool, gloomy day in the middle of nowhere for it to open. The idea was that it’d make a good launching point for the challenging Hospitales route tomorrow but rain is forecast and already now I can see thick fog on the mountains. Bah! Low Route it is, so I’ll carry on to Pola de Allende. I’ve had fantastic scenery on both the Baztan and Salvador routes so I’m okay with this decision.

The last 10 kms had some lovely flat bits, some character-building steep slopes, some pointless ups&downs with huge elevation changes just to avoid a bit of road walking, and a long 3 kms descent into Pola. Of course the sun decided to break through at 2:45p and it was brilliant weather all the rest of the way in.

I got to my hotel at 4pm after a leisurely wander through town not thinking that the restaurant would close in the afternoon. In 15 minutes I’d showered, did my hand laundry and was back downstairs to eat as the kitchen closed at 4:30! A special four course pilgrim meal, with wine and water and bread. Thank goodness this hotel has an elevator!