Bilbao and the Fellowship of the Thing

The Camino is a much richer experience if you can share it with others. Funny, it creeps up on you- you spend several days walking the same route, sharing the same albergue, eating the same meal - and then almost imperceptibly we start sharing ideas with each other. Not everyone of course but even the quiet and reticent can get drawn in eventually. There’s a fellowship developing and it’s a good thing because it helps everyone who is open to it.

Last night’s communal dinner merged into morning rustling and shared breakfast for some, and solo and duo randomly scheduled departures.

You can be alone but there are people you know ahead (the early riser pilgrimators) and people coming after.

Marrows anyone?

At last a bit of political activism - it comes with the territory 

Then a bar appears with Camino friends already there having morning coffee or whatever- you sit and talk, they leave, others arrive 

Everyone knew everyone when we stopped after two hours or so. Then the day lengthened - long stretches of pavement, the green was replaced by the mundane and industrial.

And then the route went up and up until Bilbao appeared in the valley below 

Then the urban landscape intensified 

Ok so where am I exactly? And where is that hostel some Camino friends have already booked? 🤔

Large cities like Bilbao can be daunting - this morning’s send offs gave everyone some options- so I searched my ‘mapy.cz’ that Tomas had recommended.

Here I was- and there is the albergue!  How cool is that! When I checked in, some were already chilled - as I resurfaced after shower and laundry stuff, others were shuffling in. It’s not flash accommodation but it’s a setting for fellowship

To this point it  involves - two Swiss guys around my age and two Danish women who all  speak multiple languages (which is a wonderful advantage when searching for accommodation), an older French lady who is a shuffling legend, a young French woman who is walking with her aunt, a young couple from Manchester (the guy just submitted PhD in Chemistry for examination),  a  South Korean mining engineer who has worked for Rio and BHP and has been going from one Camino to another all year. 

Some are heading home from Bilbao tomorrow . So we had a little pre dinner gathering - the fellowship of the thing.