The Orange Bastard - Camino del Norte, Day 2

I’ve given my backpack a name - “The Orange Bastard.” It’s a name given with love and hate entwined in it. I DO love my backpack.. It’s really a perfect fit, and functions well. I just loathe its weight as it digs into my shoulders and hips relentlessly after eight hours on the steep trail.

Such is the nature of day two. The trail is steep, and my soft body isn’t trail hardened yet. It will be. Just give me three more days, and I probably won’t notice it anymore. But today? Im NOTICING It. I’m REALLY noticing it.

The day started out grand. Coffee and a sea side walk to Getaria. It’s nice having the ocean waves to listen to as dawn approaches and my body slowly warms up with my efforts. I’m in tune with the day break.

This Cro-nut is stuffed with applesauce. It’s what’s for breakfast.

The trail headed high and green after that, and the scenic beauty of the landscape before and after Zumaia can’t be beat. The Basque country really is easy on the eyes and soul.

It’s dead easy to sell backpacking with a neon green landscape like this. Insert backpacker with a sweeping view, and push the shutter on your camera. Voila!

Which path? We took the right one.

We met several horses, sheep and goats. We also met one sleepy cat and the happiest dirtiest farm puppy you’ve ever seen.

The pasture here is thick with lush green grass. These are happy animals content to spend their days cropping and chomping. It looked so good, I thought to myself, “Why not?” And contemplated taking a few handfuls for the road.

The last three hours of trail were brutal on my body. When I get tired, I pull the camera out less often. These images were just too beautiful not to catch.

Its difficult to show the steepness and length of the decent into Deba. My pictures don’t do it justice. But by the end my knees were smoking and smell like burned rubber.

If you find yourself at the bottom of these slab steps and finally on a road, do yourself a favor and hang a left. There’s an elevator that will take you down to city street level, and an ice cold cerveca to cool your knees.

Another fine day in Basque country!