Ixnia to Markina, 18 miles
Ok, today was a big one. We knew it was going to be long and Rick and I wore out at the end. But – it was spectacular. Matthew had found a way through GPS to cut off a few miles from the expected 17 that we were going to do. We all started together, then Carol and Susan continued down to see the town Deba and to walk the coastal path for 1.5 hours. They then caught 2 buses sequentially to get up to Markina, our destination.
The rest of us turned left into mystery land, trusting Matthew’s enthusiasm and exploring mind. And it was incredible. We were the only ones there (huh, good thing?) and it was definitely on a map so we kept going. We left behind all traffic noise (and people) and walked through the hills. I took a short video trying to see if I could capture the bird song that accompanied us as we walked through a forest. This was right at the beginning, before we’d really gotten into the more remote hills.
We walked up and down and down and back up and up and down. Yep, a lot. In the end we walked 18 miles and did 3500 vertical. At one point, someone walking by, told us that we were on the wrong road, it ends and then – he drew his hand across his throat to say – really the end. But then I explained that we were on camino and taking a short cut because of time. Then, he nodded and said, good to go – kind of, tricky trying to communicate between Spanish and Basque. But he wished us luck (I think) and off we went.
I was so happy for a long long time. Every day, just filled with happiness for so many moments. We stopped at a fountain to refill our water, eat a quick snack and kept going. Then we started going up. For a long long time. Matthew and Bob outpaced us and we never saw them again. Happily, Rick and I are pretty well matched and we certainly weren’t going to lose each other. We took another 5 minute break when I absolutely had to sit down, then kept going. Both of us pulled out our earbuds, me for a book, him for music and then a book. And, oh thank goodness, we had those resources. Basically we were on the MacsAdventures mapped trail for a small fraction of the time for the entire day, just briefly seeing Camino signs and then we were off again. The rest of the time we were using All Trails and just hoping we would get to the town of Markina.
Some scenes on the way:
We thought we’d be going down and then up the other side on the trail faintly seen. We were right.
European Columbine
There’s a ton of water here, so lush and you can hear the water, but it’s been managed for so long that it generally feeds through pipes to the farms and towns, so we see very few creeks.
We walked near this town, but didn’t see any cafes so we didn’t deviate from the path. Sigh. This is one of the elevators set up to get people up the hill.
Conferring
And, finally, Markina? Please, please let it be Markina. Now, how do we get there?
I’m afraid that by the time we got to the town, we were both used up. We literally went in circles trying to figure out where our hotel was and then decided we had to eat. We found a little place, totally local, not a word of English and managed to order and then just sat. And, actually the food was just fine, better than we’d expected. The vinegar they used on the salad was great! We recovered, stopped cursing and finally figured out where the hotel was. 15 minutes away.
Turns out it’s a hostel, blend of hotel rooms and bunks for walkers. The Casa Rural Intxauspe is a pretty busy scene, really nice family running it and we settled into our room. I quickly did a load of laundry and hung it on the line and got a shower – bliss.
Bob and Matthew had walked straight to Matthew and Carol’s hotel, turns out it’s 30 min away from ours and had an amazing lunch with Carol and Susan. Made Matthew happy! There’s no way we were going to add any extra time to our walk, plus we were 45 min behind Bob and Matthew.
Rick and I did see one startling monument on our way into town, we didn’t even try to see the churches. This monument is the hexagonal Ermita de San Miguel de Arretxinaga, founded in the 11th century around three Megalithic stones. The archangel saint Michael is the statue you can see, probably about my size. The saint wields the spear against the demon at his feet in the form of a dragon or another fantastic animal. I was so tired, I didn’t even try to go in to explore, just looked in, goggled at the stones and left.
Despite having lunch, it wasn’t the grand lunch that we’ve usually had, so we’re going to go down to dinner as well. That’s new, then hoping we sleep a LONG time.
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