Last night was a youth hostel experience, very different from the dedicated albergues! Instead of lights out and doors closed at 10pm people were coming in and starting cooking and chatting at 11pm. Then around 3am two lots of people rang the bell and banged on the windows shouting they had lost their keys and wanted to come in.
This morning I found breakfast from the help yourself shelves - coffee, cereal, apple jam supplemented with bread and milk I bought the night before.
Heading to the end of San Sebastián beach I met Helga and Cynthia looking for the yellow signs marking the Camino route. They were from Holland on their first day of a two week Camino. Good friends, they have been walking together since school days.
I walked with them all day on a hilly route through woodland, fields and scrub. We were carrying lunch as no cafe en route. They translated their Dutch guide book which described a local endangered species which sounded like a “boom kicker” frog. We must have been tired as we all found this hilarious.
Later we had a quick drink together at a cafe in Orio, said goodbye as they continued to the next town and I headed back up the hill to the delightful Albergue San Martin for a hot shower and a bit of clothes washing given the dry day.
The host insisted on showing me the local map of the route ahead all the way to Bilbao. It looks like a gentle 15km to Zumaia tomorrow. She also kindly phoned them to secure a bed for me - particularly helpful as the phone number and email address in my Camino guide didn’t work!