Camino del Norte: Easter Saturday
April 19, 2025
The flights from Huntsville to Madrid were smooth and uneventful. Once I reached Madrid, I took a blue bus from the airport to the bus station and then took another 8-hour bus trip to San Sebastián. It was a long two days, but I had so much excitement and adrenaline that I barely noticed it.
When I reached San Sebastián, I had forty-five minutes to locate the train station and buy a ticket to Irún, where I would start the Camino tomorrow. Fortunately my Vodafone plan worked, and I used Google Maps to navigate the beautiful resort city of San Sebastián.
Grateful to arrive in San Sebastian after 30 hours of travel
Although I was on the move, I found a few moments to enjoy the sunset over the Santa Catalina Bridge. I saw my first fellow pilgrim and wished her a buen Camino—the first of hundreds of times I would say that phrase.
Evening in San Sebastian
When I reached the train station, rows of kiosks and faregates bewildered my eyes. This was a part of the trip that both confused and overwhelmed me, so I walked up to a man at the counter.
“Excuse me. I would like to go to Irún,” I said.
“There is a train leaving at 19:00,” he said. “Three euros.”
I used the five euro bill that Andrew had given me from his trip to Spain last summer, received my ticket, and confidently strode toward a faregate with the other people. When a kind teenager saw that I was struggling with my ticket, he turned around, left his friends, and made sure I got through the gate. I can’t tell you how much I appreciated that!
A night stroll through the town of Irún on my way to Hotel Aitana
When the train reached Irún, there was still a twenty-minute walk to the hotel I had booked a month ago. I knew this, and fortunately it was not yet fully dark. My legs began to feel slow and heavy, but I did not stop walking until I reached the hotel.
The hotel was also a bar, and it was a Saturday night. As I made my way to the front desk, I had to squeeze my way between barstools and tall men.
“¡Una peregrina!” laughed some of them, loudly.
I didn’t like it, but my hiking boots made me feel more confident. The clerk at the desk was very nice. He gave me a key and stamped my credencial (pilgrim passport) since tomorrow was Easter and he would not be there. Using my phone flashlight, I made my way upstairs and found my room. It was dreadfully hot in there, and knob on the heater dial was broken so that I could not turn it down. So, I opened a window to let the room cool off, but there were two chicos outside smoking and joking below my window.
Unsure of what to do, I left the window slightly open, made sure the blinds were closed, prayed that the heater wouldn’t catch the floor on fire, and somehow went right to sleep.
