Bilbao > Castro > Liendo > Noja > Guermes > Bezana > Caborredondo > Comillas

I am currently sitting in a bus station, drinking a coffee (café con leche) and eating a tea cake. I have just said “see you later” to my boyfriend, while he walks and I catch the bus to Unquera.

I have officially done 300kms and now have 500kms to go. It’s not quite halfway yet, but I’m getting there.

Castro is a beautiful town by the sea, which have the best buildings I’ve ever seen.

I stayed in this funny little pilgrim hostel, and it turned out to be the busiest I’ve stayed in, due to a bicycle race and many other hostels being closed or full. A German man in his early 30’s tried to tell my boyfriend and I that he had walked 50kms that day, slightly impressed I asked where he had started from. He told us Bilbao – the same place I had started. He was obviously full of shit and I’m glad I haven’t run into him again.

From Castro I was to catch a bus to Itzara which was 15kms away and I knew I had to catch it at 10:30am. What a leisurely morning, I thought happily. I got a coffee and then walked back up to the hostel as the bus terminal was there. Once it got to 10am I hadn’t seen any of the buses that I needed to take and I started to get anxious and worried. I tried to ask some of the locals but no one spoke English. Luckily there was wifi, so I called the amazing man who worked at the hostel (Yayah) and asked him to call me a taxi – I could’ve hugged him! He was so lovely and helpful and I got to where I needed to go.

My most favourite thing on this Camino is staying at the community hostels (Guermes, Bezana & Caborredondo), where you sit around in a big table and eat together. The hostel in Bezana was wonderful, we ate tortillas (Spanish Omlette), a salad of tuna, lettuce, tomato, fresh mozzarella and corn plus wine and shots of schnapps.

Unfortunately both myself and my boyfriend we’re attacked by nasty bedbugs in Bezana, which meant that apart from being covered in itchy oozy welts, we also had to wash all of our things, which is no easy feat in Spain as laundromats are hard to come by!

We had a rest day in Comillas and had to catch a bus to Torrelavega and put everything, especially our sleeping bags, into the hottest wash possible. It was fucked. The pharmacist helped us with a cortisone cream that has improved the bites a lot. Because of these bites, we will try to stay away from the pilgrim hostels as much as possible. The upside of this is hotel breakfasts!

About a week ago, my period finally ended after 14 days – I wasn’t supposed to have it, but my body obviously decided otherwise. Between my period and then having these stupid bug bites, my Camino hasn’t gotten any easier.

I’m still majorly uncomfortable and would much rather be in bed, wrapped up in a doona, watching a movie. I’m desperately trying to rid my head if the voices that keep telling me to ‘stop’ or ‘give up’. I think my main issue is having the confidence in myself to do this, because so many other people believe that I can.

I will be getting to Santiago de Compostela. Even if I have to get there by other means.

Hasta luego,

– Miss Adventure