We rose early the next morning to make our way back towards Bilbao, first stop La Hermina. It was a sleepy village in the shady depths of the canyon, built on the edge of the river cutting its way along the base. It was only 7:30 and no one was around. Carrying our packs, we made our slow way up a road on the western side of the canyon, hoping to reach the sun – a decision Sabine later regretted because she didn’t have the opportunity to capture the image of the sun creeping down the canyon walls. I was more than happy, loving the chill morning air and the view of the first rays bouncing down to light up the village. Echoing through the canyon came the sound of sheep bells, or goats as we soon found out. We stopped at a lookout point, near an old run down shack and watched as an old man putted up the hill on a motor scooter. He stopped when he reached us and came over to talk, but his accent was heavy and he obviously preferred Basque. We managed to catch a few words that were either ‘I don’t understand a thing they’re saying,’ or, ‘they don’t understand a thing I’m saying.’ Either way, he was right. The only other word we caught in the 5-minute exchange was ‘goats.’
“He’s a shepherd!,” Sabine realised. “He’s looking for his goats!” She offered him some of the Madeira cake we were eating for breakfast, and said something else he didn’t understand. Looking at the sheer rock walls around us, I wondered what he was going to do when he found them. Eventually he got back on his scooter and puttered up the road again, and if he found them, we didn’t see.
Next stop was San Vicente de Barquere, where we would stay the night. The hostals were all out of town, but we had the best accommodation of our trip at a large house in the hills. A short walk further down the road would have brought us to a place probably just as nice and with views of the river, but Sabine wasn’t having any of it. My knees had responded well to the gentle walks and were growing stronger, but Sabine had developed a sore foot and didn’t like the idea of walking so far into town. The town itself was a disappointment, and wasn’t worth the full day we were there. It had the gorgeous castle I mentioned earlier, and a church higher up the hill – which made me wonder if it reflected the political power at the time they were built – but for most of the day the beautiful sea we’d seen surrounding the town was actually mud flats. The highlight of San Vicente for me was seeing the postman, dressed very smartly in a navy blue suit with a yellow vest. He was wheeling along something similar to carry-on luggage, also in yellow, and a quick look around showed that all the post boxes were yellow as well.
The next day was our last full day and we headed back to Bilbao, stopping in Santander on the way. We missed the lunch hour again – restaurants in this area didn’t serve food outside certain hours, but the hours weren’t marked and we never managed to be hungry at the right time – so we sat in the marketplace and finished off the salami we’d been eating the last few days, along with some bread bought fresh that morning. We’d spend our last night in Bilbao, and neither of us had any illusions that it would be pleasant, so we enjoyed these hours looking out at the ocean and watching the locals interacting in the marketplace.
Bilbao was a surprise. After a quick stop at the tourist info centre, we decided to stay in the old city where rates were cheapest. That end of town was entirely different to the grey mess we’d seen so far. Tucked into a bend of the river separating it from the new city, the place was vibrant in colour and life. We walked past streets of restaurants and bars before checking into an old building with rooms overlooking the street. We had a kind of closed in balcony, but with large windows to look out at the life below. Naturally, we weren’t content to watch it from our room, so we went for a walk. We soon discovered a market building, which was just closing for the day, but it was still obvious that it was divided healthily into sections. The basement (with windows at ground level) had only seafood, the ground floor had meat, and half the top floor was fruit and vegetables. The other half of the top floor was a large open seating area surrounded by stalls selling alcohol, much of which was being drunk in the hall. To reach the hall, you had to walk through an exhibition space, currently showing paintings of the city from previous centuries. By the time we’d finished looking at the gallery and enjoying the revelry, the sun was low in the sky. In the last hour of daylight, we walked up the hill to the residential area and found winding streets of town houses with balconies spilling brightly coloured flowers into the street. This was the Spain from photographs.
Back near our hostal, we found the town square, a large courtyard in a building taking up a whole block. We sat and watched the families out enjoying the evening – parents catching up with friends, and children playing with skipping ropes or riding plastic motorbikes. All the bikes were the same – we counted nine – which set us to debating whether they were rented