We had decided a few days ago that we were not interested in walking through the big cities and the walk across Bilbao which is a major city would have taken 2 days to get to the other side. So when we arrived in Lezama, we waited at the bus stop for the next bus into the city. Here our adventure began in earnest.
We already knew that the Spannish people are warm and friendly, but along comes a very old man with a cane,also waiting for the bus. I will call him Camino Angel #1 (CA1) He chats away to us and we try to understand and ask some questions, but soon give up as he just talks so fast. He does not stop talking for the 20 minutes that it takes the bus to come. So we all get on together and ride the 13kms into the city, while he points out areas of interest to us along the way. It is quite a place, Bilbao. We came right into the centre of the city, past the magnificent Gugenheim Museum which is a splendid work of art in itself, situated on the river and visible for quite a distance all around it. At the city centre, we asked the bus driver for the directions for the bus to our next destination which was Portugaleta. A few people have a conversation and then our CA#1 steps in to tell everyone that he will take us to the Metro which is what we have to get to Portugaleta.
So we walk along for 5 minutes and meet a woman who turns out to be CA#1´s wife. Now we are a gang of 5 going to the metro. CA#1´s wife take us all the way into the metro station, shows us which train track to go on and set us up to purchase tickets, when another younger guy steps in to do this for us. So in no time we are in the metro station in the right place at the right time, in a way we never could have done on our own. Such kind people.
The metro took about 30 minutes or more to get to our stop. We had foolishly thought that we would emerge into a nice little village by the sea, but not so. We came up into another teeming city, which is actually an extension of Bilboa. So now we are trying to find our way to the Camino and the yellow arrows as we think there is an alberque here. We walk back and forth, asking people and getting a mix of directions and finally decide to take another bus to the next town, just to get out of the city again.
Well, no sooner do we have this all decided, (remember we are 3 strong personalities and have 3 different books we are using for directions), when along comes Camino Angel #2 (CA#2) BUT disguised as a very very loud, very short and wide man with a large head and a very loud voice. He has in two, a Danish woman and her son who are more lost than us and is yelling to us ámigas, amigas, peregrinos, pergrinos´and a LOT more Spannish than this. He is insisting that we follow him and being quite agressive about it and we are not so happy to be in this situation. Eventually, we all cross back to the other side of the street and with the Danish two, decide we are going to the next town on the bus, as it is the easiest way to get rid of this little man. CA#2 is not at all happy about this and is loudly talking to us and the other people on the street about something we do not understand. Eventually we realize that he is telling us the alberque in Muskiz is closed and we must go to Probena, which we agree. We feel we must get on any bus now just to get away from this little man.
The bus comes along and we all jump on and so does he!! Now we are alarmed at him. He talks to us all the way to the end of this bus line in Muskiz AND he talks to the driver and everyone else on the bus about us and we have no idea what he is saying. We get off the bus at a beach town and he is now herding us quite aggressively across the parking lot and towards the beach. We are in dissarray, not knowing what to do, but because the Danes are following, we decide we have nothing to lose to see where he takes us now.
So we all trot after him, down the sea wall and then onto the sand, through the sunbathers who are all partially dressed and lying in the sun - did I mention my observation that there seems to be no concern about skin cancer in this country as they all love to lie in the sun. Well, 5 pilgrims with heavy packs and a small man talking very loudly to us and everyone else was quite a spectacle. After 2 kms we arrive in Probena and he takes us right into a beautiful alberque, hands us over to the hospitalero and much to our chagrin, we discover that he is a member of the Alberque Assocation and does this all the time - leads the lost pilgrims to the alberque in Probena.He would take nothing from us for his effort and left shortly after he had made sure we were all settled into this wonderful little place.
We talked about this for a long time afterwards and felt that it was quite a learning in life to see how many people keep showing up to help us and even this little man, with his very different way of providing guidance, was a genuinely kind and helpful person who went way out of his way to make sure we got where we needed to be.
Many lessons to be learned along this way about the core value of goodness and kindness that can show up when it is needed and not look like what you would expect it to.
Maggee
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