Sunday: "Lezama to Pobeña"

Well, I decided to cheat yesterday. I did not sleep at ALL the night before due to the fear of bed bugs. In the middle of the night, I had decided I would go to Bilbao, check into a full on hotel, find a laundromat and wash all my clothes, backpack, etc. to try to get rid of the bugs but...I had a change of plan. I took an 8 a.m. train the few kilometers into Bilbao with Irene, Giuseppe, and Renato (another Italian). We got to Bilbao, had breakfast, walked around the old, historic area and along the river to the Guggenheim museum. Bilbao is the biggest city in the Basque country and it is quite industrial. When they opened the Frank Gehry designed, Guggenheim museum, it really helped Bilbao turn itself around. It has become a tourist destination and it is quite a nice city. From the museum, I called my friend, Nigel, (from last year´s walk). I took the metro out to the village/suburb where he lives with his wife, Teri, and youngest daughter (teenager). He met me at the station and we went to the house where I took a shower (it was hot out)and then went for a walk around the village. The village was having a festival and we saw the bacalao (salted cod fish) cooking contest. Then we had lunch at the house. It was quite a nice break. The original plan was that Nigel would drive me to Portaluguete (on the outskirts of Bilbao) and I would walk about 15 km. to Pobeña. But, it was hot, and getting late, so he just drove me to Pobeña. I made him drop me off down the block before I went to the albergue. I felt so guilty about not having walked that day that I told the girl working there. She didn´t care. When the others arrived and I confessed that I had not walked, they confessed that after the museum, they took the metro and walked just about 2 miles. So, I felt better. I also felt better that there were spare beds so I didn´t take the place of a walker. One reason to skip these 20 or so miles around Bilbao is that it is very industrial with lots of highways, petrochemical plants, etc. When I arrived in Pobeña I went down and had a walk along the beach and then met a few new people (since we skipped a few days, we met others that we had not seen before). There were also some people who were just starting out from bilbao. We did see the blind people that we had last seen on day one. One of them was in teh bunk next to me. He snored very loudly and very long last night. I was exhausted from having had no sleep the night before so I was still able to sleep but his snoring was all anyone was talking about this morning.