Camino del Norte: Easter Saturday
April 19, 2025
The trip from Huntsville to Madrid was smooth and uneventful. Once I reached Madrid, I took a blue bus from the airport to the Madrid bus station and then took an 8-hour bus to San Sebastián. Then in San Sebastián I had forty-five minutes to find the train station and jump on the last train of the day going to Irún.
Grateful to arrive in San Sebastian after 30 hours of travel
As soon as I got off the eight-hour bus from Madrid, I threw away the “burner backpack” my dad had sent with me to hold my personal items on the plane and shoved everything into my main backpack. The burner backpack was a freebee from somewhere, and it had accomplished its purpose. Although I couldn’t linger, 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 thousands of times I would say that phrase.
Evening in San Sebastián over the Santa Catalina Bridge
When I reached the train station, rows of kiosks and fare gates bewildered my eyes. It was my first time riding a train alone, and this was the part of the trip that I had been dreading. I walked up to the man at the counter.
“Excuse me, I would like to buy a ticket to Irún,” I said.
“There is a train leaving at nineteen hundred,” said the man. “Three euros.”
I used the five euro bill that Andrew had given me, bought the ticket, and followed a group of teenagers toward the fare gates. I watched how they put their tickets in the reader and tried to do the same, but for some reason the machine would not take mine. A kind lad noticed that I was struggling, left his friends, and ran back to show me exactly how to scan the ticket. I appreciated that more than I can say!
An evening stroll through Irún on my way to Hotel Aitana
When the train reached Irún, I still had a twenty-minute walk to the hotel. As I navigated the clean streets in the rapidly fading light, I realized that I was out on my own for the first time. The feeling was exhilarating, but my legs began to feel slow and heavy. I forced myself to keep 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, a couple of tall men at the barstools pointed at me and exclaimed,
“¡Una peregrina!”
I ignored them and found the clerk, who was very nice. He gave me a brass key and stamped my credencial (pilgrim passport) for the morrow. Using my phone flashlight, I made my way up a set of creaky, wooden stairs and found my room. It was so hot in there that I immediately began to sweat. The dial on the heater was broken, so I couldn’t adjust the temperature. Instead of going back downstairs, I decided to open a window to let the room cool off. To my dismay, two chicos were smoking and talking loudly at a table directly below my window. Unsure of what to do, I left the window ajar, closed the blinds, and prayed that the heater wouldn’t catch anything on fire.
My backpack, boots, and trekking poles—companions for the next forty days
After letting my parents know that I made it to the hotel, I took a hot shower, checked the mattress for bedbugs, and crawled under the sheets. Even though I was full of adrenaline, ambition, and anticipation, somehow I fell sound asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow.
