Day 17 - Santander to Santillana del Mar

Date: Monday July 1

Start: Santander, Cantabria

End: Santillana del Mar, Cantabria

Daily Mileage: 21.2mi (34.1km)

Total Mileage: ~201mi (~323.5km)

So, spoiler alert (potentially) – in a result that surprised no one, Spain won last night’s Euro 2024 fútbol (soccer) match against Georgia. They scored four goals for themselves, and even one for Georgia – probably just looking to give themselves a bit of competition. Unsurprisingly, we didn’t see many recaps of that particular clip on the news this morning. We’re hoping they make it to the championship, as that could be a fun time to be in Spain.

But, on with our hike. 

Today was not a lot to write home about, scenically - at least for the first half of the day. There was lot of road walking – some stretches less glamorous than others – but overall, still better than most of the road walking on the CDT :) It was one of our longest days yet (by mileage) at a little over 21 miles, but they seemed to go by pretty quickly. What the beginning of the day would lack in scenery would be made up for in the form of conversations with other pilgrims. Entertainment comes in all forms. More on that soon... 

Heading out of Santander this morning, the skies were a bit overcast and the air cool. Pretty nice for walking. The first several miles led us out of town along busy roads through commercial and industrial areas – car dealerships, mechanics, warehouses. After having to walk around several of them, we determined that roundabouts are far more convenient for drivers than walkers, as the pedestrian walks are always quite far up the road from the roundabout, so there is a lot of extra weaving back and forth just to stay along a straight road. No one needs this extra mileage!

After a few miles, we were suddenly dumped onto a bit of trail – a very short bit – that walked us through some tall grass alongside train tracks and under a highway bridge, finally depositing us back onto some quieter roads along the outskirts of town. 

This is where we caught up to three other pilgrims that we’d been steadily gaining on over the past mile or two. There was a mother-daughter duo from Ireland and a tall man in a floppy hat with peace signs from Byron Bay, Australia. We ended up hiking along with them throughout the rest of the morning, chatting as we walked. 

The elder of the Irish women was quite feisty and talkative. She enjoyed answering every question in the conversation, whether or not it was directed her way. Her daughter was a bit more easy going, though in terms of walking speed, seemed to be on a mission. Her pace always seemed to me to be the kind of cadence one might keep if they were running late for a train. Slightly stressed. Late for a very important date, as the White Rabbit may have put it.

A long wall along the road contained a mural of the full Camino del Santiago Route. This is only the middle section, though I particularly liked the illustration for Santiago de Compostela, below.

Eventually the mother-daughter duo charged ahead as we continued chatting with the man from Australia, whose name we never did get. He had quite the eclectic bunch of stories to tell, which made the miles fly by. At one point he mentioned that he was fairly restricted in his ability to find food along the Camino because he has Lyme disease, including the resultant Alpha-gal syndrome, which is an allergy to red meat and other products made from mammals. Shockingly, he is not the first person we have met with this condition. (The first we met in Reykjavik on a food tour, of all places.) It also sounded like he had issues with gluten, which adds up to a whole lot of food restrictions that would be very difficult to deal with in Spain, which very much loves their mammal meat and pan (bread).

It had taken a very long time (years) before he finally got the appropriate diagnosis, which was made more difficult to figure out because he’d spent most of his life traveling in developing nations, including much of sub-Saharan Africa, and done a lot of work with wildlife. So there were any number of possibilities of parasites or other potential candidates that could have been the root cause of his symptoms, illness, etc. So just figuring out that he had Lyme disease and how to manage it was a huge win. 

From here the story grew more interesante, shall we say...  Since getting Lyme disease, he said he feels some sort of odd (my word, not his) symbiosis (his word, not mine) with ticks. Like he just knows where they are; he can sense them. If he sees a field, he knows where to find the ticks. He has used this ‘skill’ (?) to collect ticks for scientific institutions that want them for research. He gets paid ‘per tick’ and is apparently so good at collecting them, and paid so well for it, that he only has to work 2-3 months a year and then he can pretty much do whatever he wants the rest of the year. How’s that for a gig? But you need to have the symbiosis to be good enough to find and sit in a field of ticks all day... 

Walking into Boo. No mention of ticks in this field.

And – while Lyme disease has also brought on bouts of fatigue and other issues - he says he is the most energetic during the season when he is collecting the ticks. He tries to avoid getting bitten, but he’s probably still getting 5-6 bites a day. “It’s like the tick bites are what is best managing my Lyme disease,” he said. He also said that obviously it’s strange that the tick collection season is when he’s at his most energetic. “There’s probably something psychological going on there,” he added. Yeah, there is definitely something psychological going on. We kept our thoughts to ourselves.

He noted that one of the things that has helped tremendously in managing symptoms has been using medical marijuana a couple times a week, which makes sense. You hear about this helping manage any number of ailments. This led into a story about how he got caught with a small amount of marijuana in Zambia and was thrown into jail there for three weeks. (TLDR: he eventually paid a $10,000 bribe to get out). More time and miles of the hike flew by.

(Not) soon enough, our routes diverged. (There were a number of route options for today’s stretch). This was probably good as he was starting to lose us a bit after the whole ‘symbiosis with the ticks’ thing. But who knows, maybe we’ll see him on some ‘Tick Man’ documentary some day. Hopefully things turn out better for him than the Grizzly Man guy (give that film a watch if you haven’t seen it). 

By the time we left him, we were just over nine miles into our hike for the day. They had passed by quickly with all the storytelling, which was well enough because the scenery had not been that interesting along this stretch anyway – mostly the outskirts of towns, medium-busy roads, a few fields. I don’t remember really because I was so engrossed in the whole tick thing. 

When he zigged left, Shawn and I zagged right, heading up to the small train station in Boo de Piélagos. The original Camino route included walking the railway tracks over the Rio Pas, which runs between the towns of Boo and Mogro. This used to be encouraged by the locals, though now there is quite a hefty fine if caught doing this. There are two alternatives. You can walk a 3-4 mile detour to avoid having to walk across the railway bridge. OR, you can simply take the train across the river. 

Terrible photo of a view of the river from the train.

We took the train. 

This was the most logical option. The walking detour was put in place solely as an alternative if you must walk every step, but adds several miles to an already very long day. There is nothing special about the extra miles. The detour does not take you through any fantastic not-to-miss scenery. 

For the most part, we want to walk all the way to Santiago, but we are not fanatical purists. We will take the short ferries along the route and can certainly stomach taking a train across a river. Some people skip entire sections along the route, making great use of buses and trains for far longer distances, to which I say: to each their own. I couldn’t really care less what other people are doing.

And so, after about 20 minutes, the next train arrived, and we made the short trip across the Rio Pas. Reaching the other side, we walked down the street and stopped into a small pub for a bit of refreshment. It was right around noon. We weren’t ready for a full meal yet, but had small ham sandwiches and cool fizzy water (beer for Shawn) to fuel us through the next hour or so until we got lunch. 

Setting off, we headed for the ‘old camino’ route. I’m not sure why the route has been diverted, but there is a newer route that goes a bit further northward. Again, there has been nothing reported to make this new route any more worthwhile than the old route, so we stuck to the old route along CA-322. This mostly took us along farmland and some small towns. A lawn filled with gnomes and other statues. A ditch full of weeds with snails. All sorts of little pleasures, but nothing too fantastic. 

Around 1pm, we descended into the towns of Mar, Polanco, and Requejada, which ran together one after another. Somewhere along this stretch we rejoined the marked Camino route. We also stopped for lunch in Requejada, where we popped into a restaurant offering a menu del dia (menu of the day) for €11. Quite the bargain.

Heading into Mar, Polanco, and Requejada.

As is sometimes the case with the menu del dia, there was no written menu. Just four options for starters and four options for mains, all of which the man at the bar rambled off in the fastest possible Spanish. Our food vocabulary is quite good at this point, but we still didn’t recognize half of what he said. So, we did what we usually do in this situation: we picked the only options that we recognized the words for. And so, we had a fine lunch of pasta salad, bread, grilled chicken, and fries. This was polished off with a small dessert of what was basically a Jell-o pudding cup for me and a packaged ice cream drumstick (kind of) for Shawn. 

And then we were back on the road. The day had been growing quite balmy and I was happy to find a water fountain not too far down the road, as I was out and there were still 5-6 miles to go.

I mean, from some angles the chemical plant looked kind of picturesque. 

The initial stretch out of Requejada left a lot to be desired, routing along a busy highway, with scenic charms like a large chemical plant to occupy our views. Eventually, the route pulled away from the highway, taking us along more palatable country roads. 

River behind the chemical plant. Cannot recommend swimming.

Turning off the highway, we passed a group of four women that we’d seen along the trail earlier. They wore long dark red skirts, white shirts, and carried huge backpacks. Their traditional matching outfits reminded me of what could be a female equivalent of the German journeyman apprentice tradition. I don’t think they were German or journeymen/women. They were definitely pilgrims, but maybe on a more religious mission than most? Unsure. Each time we passed them, they were singing. I never wanted to interrupt, so I didn’t find out any more about them. Maybe we’ll see them again along the route. 

Women in matching skirts/outfits we saw along the trail. 

The last three to four miles were along a winding country road that crossed through beautiful rolling green farmland and hillsides, with views of mountains in the distance. Though the route undulated through the hills, it was easy walking and boasted the best views of the day. 

Making friends with the locals.

Not too far outside of town, I started to see a couple of other hikers in my peripheral when I’d stop to take photos, but didn’t actually look back to see who they were. Soon enough, I knew... Fast charging. On a mission. It was our two friends from Ireland from this morning. “Oh, hello! You’re still hiking!” I was surprised to see them. They were on their last day of hiking from Santander and were just trying to see “how far they would make it” before they took the train back to Santander for the night. They had originally said they would probably take it back from Requejada. But here they were, almost to Santillana del Mar. 

The mother of the duo seemed really intent on sharing some information with us. “Did you take the train across the river in Boo?” Yes, we said. She was giddy with delight as she shared that they had not taken the train. They had crossed the pedestrian bridge that they were not supposed to cross. “There were several other pilgrims there, two women from Spain, ... “ she listed a couple others. You rebels, you! “We saw a local walking their dog,” she continued. “She says that she walks over the bridge every day. It’s fine.” Walking uphill briskly, Ireland Mom was using her last bit of air up to tell this story. It seemed like they had been working very hard to catch us just to tell us all about this. Okay, good share.

After having shared their story, they slowed down and fell behind. We didn’t see them again. 

Soon, our paved road turned to cobbles as we walked the last stretch into Santillana del Mar. While I knew that Santillana del Mar was supposed to be a very beautiful medieval town – this was about the extent of my knowledge. I didn’t realize just how medieval the town was. Or just how beautiful.

Heading into Santillana del Mar

Other than the many groups of tourists and the souvenir shops, walking into town was a bit like stepping back in time. It was actually a medieval town. Every street was cobbled. Every building stone. Many of the churches, palaces, mansions, the town hall, and other buildings dated from the between the 14th-17th centuries. It is one of the best preserved medieval towns in all of Europe.  And it was absolutely stunning. 

Colegiata de Santa Juliana

Having just walked a very long way to arrive here, our initial look through the town was cursory – I snapped some pictures as we headed toward our hotel for the next two nights. After checking in, showering, and relaxing for a while, we eventually ventured back out later in the evening.

Colegiata de Santa Juliana (taken later in the evening).

At this hour, nearing 8pm, there were still plenty of people out and about, but many of the tourist groups had left for the day. The soft glow of the evening sun fell over the yellowed stone buildings and cobbles now rested in more shadow as the sun sank a bit. I took more notice of the arched iron-fenced gateways and the mats of small flowers and plants spilling over the stone walls. 

Evening glow from our hotel window.

We strolled along the principal street through the town, though will have to explore more tomorrow. Though we’re fresh off two rest days, we’re taking a zero here tomorrow simply to see a couple of the sites in town and enjoy this beautiful city. More tomorrow...