Pretty Hot (85), Pretty Long (22 mi.) Pretty View (craggy coastline, green hills, mountains): Castro Urdiales to Santoña

I spent the afternoon in the really charming fishing town of Castro Urdiales. While sitting in a tiny park, an elderly woman dressed in a suit and with a beauty parlor worthy hair do, walked by and commented to me about the weather, etc. She told me that her doctor told her that she was supposed to go out and walk every day. She hiked up her skirt just a hair to show me her knees to explain that they were not in great shape and showed me the elastic knee braces. She continued on her walk and later joined me on the bench and commented on one and all that walked by, ("Ah, today´s youth", etc.). Another older woman sat across from us --fortunately she was listening to music and couldn't hear the comments of my new friend. She said, with disdain, "Look at her legs", "look at that jewelry she has on". She asked if I smoked and pulled out a pack of Pall Malls. I told her no and she claimed that she did not either and put the cigarettes away. Towards the end of our 30 or 40 minutes together on the bench, she asked me to guess how old she was. I told her I couldn´t guess but imagined she was well into her 80s. She is 96. The clincher was, that I cannot utter one syllable in Spanish without people asking where I am from, due to my atrocious accent. She, never once, asked. It was rather refreshing. I'm sure it is due to the fact that she was hard of hearing.
The following day I walked alone on a very long, hot day to the town of Laredo and took the small boat across the inlet over to Santoña. Brian, surely you know of Santoña as the birthplace of Juan de la Cosa.
I've fallen in with a group of others...some of whom I have mentioned but mainly consisting of: Isabel (Spanish--she looks somewhat like a younger, more feminine version of Dame Edna); Irene (Italian/Belgian/Luxembourgian) who is very nice and an excellent interpreter with her wealth of languages; Renato (very nice, quiet Italian man); Giuseppe (very funny older Italian man from Sardinia; Juan Carlos (Spanish policeman); Jose (Spanish fireman) and a couple of others. They are nice, and fun, but it is not such a close connection as I had last time with Ina, Sang Kyoung, Christian, Carlos and Catherine...that maybe can´t be matched.