Santoña to Guemes (Santander)

We started off the day at the delicious bakery in town, with the intention of walking for half a day and then starting our journey home by bus. We said our goodbyes to our fellow pilgrims, and set off with Scott to walk along the beach and the round the top of the rocky hill at the end, which emerged to be a stupendous task, involving much scrambling, but well worth it. (Not to be recommended in wet weather, though!) At the next beach we met up with some French Canadians, one of whom had been born in Switzerland, and found Sophia sitting alone on the beach. Then on to Noja, where we had a coffee and snack, and from whence we had planned to return home. However, on asking for a stamp and inquiring about bus timetables in the local tourist office, we discovered that we could get a bus from a village near the much talked about hostel of "Grandpa Pueto" that everyone else was going to, so we agreed to go on. The route was pleasantly cross country,at first, and we met up with a family of south Africans, who we later lost, along with Scott, when we stopped for an afternoon snack at an Elvis themed café in an industrial area in the middle of nowhere. From there it was a long slog up and downhill on country roads to the cabins of "Grandpa Puerto", where we met up with quite a few of the pilgrims we had met before, and even more new ones. The place is amazing (I have attached a link to more information), and much to be recommended, and housed the 44 pilgrims without difficulty. The next day, after breakfast discussions with some new acquaintances, one of the helpers drove us to the bus stop where we discovered that the bus timetable had changed, and so we travelled back by way of Santander, Latedo (where we checked out the convent we might have stayed in), Irun, where we had sandwiches in a bakers, walked across the bridge to Hendaye, took the number three bus to Bayonne, stayed overnight at the pilgrim hostel in Bayonne, and took the TGV home!

A very satisfactory end to an enjoyable three weeks on the Camino!