MONDAY NIGHT 10 OCTOBER

MONDAY NIGHT 10 OCTOBER, ELIZONDO

Well here we sit at our casa rurale, early evening about 9:30 you can hear traffic away in the distance mingled with sheep and cow bells on the surrounding hills ….. bottom-line is we are back home again in our beloved Elizondo ,Navarra ,Spain – the valley of the Baztan.

Sunday saw us leaving Santander at the usual 1030 AM in bright sunshine however, an hour later as we entered Bilbao the sky’s had opened up and it was raining buckets. For the better part of a half hour we drove with windshield wipers on HIGH to sweep the buckets of water away before we found the exit to Gernika and up towards the north coast. Our goal for today, apart from getting to Elizondo was to view the monastery at Cabo  Machichaco on the Bay of Biscay. It was amazing in more ways than one!! The monastery has been built on a rocky island out in the sea. There is a stone causeway and hundreds of steps up to the buildings (that look somewhat like the top of the great wall of China steps). However getting down to the start of the steps takes a great deal of perseverance! We followed the signs,   and still ended up at the wrong place! We stopped at some  great bar restaurants with thick stone walls and tables and chairs carved out of whole tree trunks and all sorts of fishing nets and floats, on the top of cliffs, these are hardy Basque fishermen! We walked down 20% grades, commiserated with other explorers and finally got some good pictures! I kept on asking “Vale la pena?”… Is it worth the pain? Yes said some people but I m not climbing up all these steps!! During the search for the right road we ended up on a cliff next to a lighthouse! I swear the signs said Matxitxako( basque for Machichaco )!Anyway by the time we had accomplished our mission it was quite late and we were starving and had to stop for lunch in Guernica. For the uninitiated, this is the town that the Germans bombed to oblivion in the 30s, with the permission of Franco, as practice for the Luftwaffe. Picasso’s painting is most famous.

We broke a Beskow golden rule and took the paid / toll road to make time and found ourselves at the Elizondo turnoff/French border in less than an hour for 8.66 euros. Well worth it. We had been texting with Dave and Joyce as they had been in San Sebastian and had arrived first at Larraldea (our home for the week ), then they had to go to Bilbao airport to pick up Carol ,Joyce’s sister. Paul saw them and flashed his lights to say hello and then we continued to Elizondo. The town looks much the same but some momentary desire to modernize had them knock down the old bandstand in the plaza and replace it with new structures that look like bus stops. It is horrible. Apparently they had a referendum and the people voted, then they ignored them and built this monstrosity! Same as life everwhere I suppose. Dave. Joyce and Carol arrived late, we had a bit of a re-union with a glass of wine and headed off to bed.

The next morning the valley was flooded with fog, but we were reassured that it was going to be fine. About 10/10.30 the skies cleared and out came the sun! We had a gorgeous day. Monday the entire gang drove up to Gorramendi to the top radar site area. I cannot begin to describe how incredibly beautiful this place is. From the top on the old containment area where they had the Tropo communication dishes you can see right into France, and the beginning of the Pyrenees, from the old radar sight you can see the sea and the towns of Biarritz and St Jean de Luz . It was so clear and bright. There are a lot of horses and sheep roaming the mountain and Cheryl found a new girlfriend who stuck her head inside the car looking for carrots! She had some very trendy dreadlocks (the horse not Cheryl). What is this animal magnetism? A few other girls decided they would come to see what all the excitement was about. A couple looked like they were ready to foal! The road was somewhat traveled with several French out enjoying the scenery from the top of the world. The old base has been obliterated and returned to nature and lots of people come up here to hike and enjoy the wonderful environment. There are even some shooting blinds for when the birds return to north Africa, they sit there and shoot them!

We also notice that there is still new road construction and they might be in the process of building an Elizondo by-pass around town!!!!

We have found it difficult to drive down into the village and then find a parking spot. So on Monday we took two exercise trips into town and back up the hill again to the house. We will have strong legs by the end of the week or a severe case of “mountain leg”.

The house is an old caserio which had been modernized. It really is quite funny in the morning it is bit like camp for seniors! We laugh a lot!The family lives next door and our portion has 3 bedrooms with bathrooms, a sitting room and kitchen, a garage big enough for both cars. Juan Miguel and Maite arrive later this week and we will have a big dinner and celebrate our many years of friendship.

Mondays many places are closed and so we decided to stay at home and Paul cooked Lentils with Chorizo, carrots , white wine, etc., chicken breasts and mixed salad. Unfortunately we had to do the dishes as well but the house has a modern dishwasher!! Ahhhhh this is vacation! Cheryl bought dessert for everyone, the Churros van was set up by the plaza so we had cream filled churros 3 with cream and 3 with chocolate filling, um, um.

Tuesday plans are for the USA travelers to venture towards the start of the El Camino in France and Roncesvalles to Pamplona and back to Elizondo. The UK folks are headed to the old coast town of Hondarribia/Fuenterrabia.

It turns out that our casa does NOT have WiFi  so we must go to the Library or a bar in town with WiFi to connect with our blog so we must convert to a post every other day until we are back in the hotels again. Paul