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🇪🇸 Routes in Spain
🇪🇸 Camino del NORTE (from Irún)
Coastal alternative Between Castro Urdiales and Laredo
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[QUOTE="Teresita16, post: 775468, member: 56995"] I have just returned, yesterday, from walking from Irún to Santander and wanted to share my experience of the "hairy scary" path up Monte Candina on the Paso de Presa. I had previously read this thread about the dangerous route marked with black circles and arrows and was actually determined NOT to do that route. I usually take the easy option when walking as I'm not a fast or strong walker. My friend finished walking in Bilbao so I continued on alone, planning to try for Santiago until I had a particulary unsettling experience walking out of Castro Urdiales which made me decide to end my Camino early. I set off about 7am and it was raining for the first hour when I met a local Spanish man out walking with just an umbrella. I speak Spanish so we started having a nice chat and he told me his name was Francisco, he was 76 years old and had sailed ships around the world when he was younger. He told me he walks the different routes in the area most days to keep fit. When we reached the next village he said he had planned to stop but that if I didn't mind he would like to continue walking to the next village with me and that he would catch the bus back. Well, he continued on walking with me until Islares. At this point I was actually craving some alone time and tried to make the excuse of wanting a coffee to get rid of him. He suggested coming with me to the camping site where they had a cafe. He offered to buy me a coffee and then told me about a shortcut when the tide was out where you could wade through the water and cut off kilometres from the walk into Laredo. I was unsure especially as I was a lone female with a man that I didn't know. He then mentioned a costal path that was beautiful and that he had taken 2 German women that way last year. I joked with him about the "hairy scary" path that I had read about on this forum and said that I did not under any circumstances want to walk it. He said he didn't know about any dangerous path and that the route he knew was easy. Then I noticed a Spanish family (with two children 18-25 years old) from Malaga that I had met previously sitting in the cafe. I introduced them to Francisco and told them about his suggestions for the shortcut and costal path. I said I was very very unsure about it, but asked them what they thought. They spoke to the man and eventually agreed that they would go with him and so I thought if they judged that it was ok, then I would too. So, we followed Francisco through the water and he took us up some steps on the other side of the beach. we used our water flasks to clean the sand off our feet as he said their were fountains on the walk. We all had full backpacks and poles but now not much water. Francisco went off ahead with the father of the family up a road and we just followed. Eventually a path went off to the right and we started climbing up the side of a mountain on a path that was very thin with nothing really to hold on to. It was a bit scary but do-able. Francisco was like a goat and shot off ahead and we were all trailing behind. The sun came out and it was now boiling hot but there wasn't any space to stop to rest and we had little water left. There were no water foutains as Francisco had promised. What eventually seemed to be the summit of the mountain quickly turned into a rocky dangerous mountaineering expereince that none of us were prepared for, except Francisco. The father of the family pleaded with Francisco to rest for a while and also to wait for the rest of us to catch up, but Francisco said, "No, it's only another 10 minutes, it's nothing". The Spanish father got annoyed and started saying that it might not be anything to him but to us it was exhausting. Francisco then shot off and refused to wait and disappeared! Francisco was carrying nothing but an umbrella, we had heavy packs. He basically left us all clinging to the side of a mountain not knowing where the hell we were or how to get down. There were black arrows and circles marking some of the stones but it was not clear, and there were some going up and some going down. At one point there was a hole between 2 rocks and a chain bolted to the side that you had to literally hang onto to get over. If I had been on my own I would have sat down and cried and called the police. It was only the fact that there was a group of us and we all worked together to get out of the situation that we made it through. At this point it started raining heavily and the trail was muddy around the rocks. We eventually climbed down toward what looked like an old house in a forest and managed to meet a trail runner who told us that we would eventually meet the path back to Laredo at some point. We were all exhausted, shocked and in disbelief that Francisco had got us into that situation and then disappeared and left us to our fate. Luckily none of us were hurt but we were very shook up and disappointed to have met such a person on the Camino. The crazy thing is I had told Francisco that when I arrived in Laredo my plan was to take the bus to Santoña as I had booked a hostel bed. When I arrived at Laredo bus station Francisco appeared again out of nowhere and said he had had to run off to catch his bus and that his bus hadn't turned up so he had had to walk into Laredo. He said he had been waiting for 2 hours. I was angry with him and told him that he had left us stranded and exhausted in a dangerous situation. He said he had had no idea that we where tired and just laughed and hopped on a bus and disappeared again. He was like the black spirit dog in the Paulo Coelho book about the Camino, apart from Francisco was a spirit man. It was a really unsettling experience. I actually met a Hungarian girl afterwards who said she had once ended up there and it was a terrifying experience too. And also on my final night in Santander in the hostel 3 French girls told me that they had just met a French man who was visibly shaking after getting into trouble on that mountain. He had been using mountaineering maps and ended up on that path. So, my advice to anyone is DO NOT take that black marked path, it is for serious climbers only or people in really good strong shape with experience. On a positive note I did get lots of great pics and the views were incredible, I was taking pics at first until I realised how dangerous the situation was. [/QUOTE]
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