Camino de Santiago de Compostela

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16 August 2022 - Lizarra

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Lizarra is the Basque name for the city where I'm writing this. All the signs so far have been in both languages, and Basque is not in the Indo-European family or even related to any known languages. Egun On is how local people greet you on the Camino. The city I awoke outside of in my tent this morning was Muruzábal, which is an old Phoenician name. Before the Roman Republic's three wars against them, this part of the Mediterrean was theirs. The last part the name, "bal", refers to one of their main gods. The Phoenicians were called Canaanites by the Jews, and you may have heard the name as Baal in the old testement. Alexander the Great defeated them at Tyre by building a stone causway to the island city. I know alot about the Phoenicians, but the Basques are still something of a mystery that I'm enjoying uncovering.

It's hot in the mid-afternoon and I've already hiked ~25 km today after ~20 km yesterday afternoon. The Camino experience is everything you'd hope it would be. Nice people. Plenty of amenities in the towns at any hour of the day. And lots of crazy people determined to hike across Spain. This is my first time on the Spanish mainland, and I have to say that it reminds me a lot of California. One meets all sorts of people on the trail. So far I've met people from Deutschland, Italia, France, España, Ireland, America, Brazil, and South Korea. Yeah, seeing a restuarant in Lorca advertising Gazpaucho in Korean was a little weird. But as I sat there eating a Korean pilgrim came in and was happy to converse with the also Korean owner in their native tongue. Every city has water fountains to refill my bottles and most of the churchs are locked. From the graffiti I get the impression that this is nearshore colony of Spain and the locals, like those on the other side of the country in Catalunya, would like to be independent. In every town there are Albergues, which are restaurant/hostel/laudromat combos that have the stamps. Just ink, but, like the national parks in the US, collecting them is an integral part of the experience. Many people have special books for this activity, but I'm just using my journal. It's hard to believe that this is only my second on the road as I've seen so much already.