day 5. To Burgete.

Muchas gracias a los de Casa Pablo por ayudarnos. After thanking the two "guardians" of Casa Pablo for good food and a good time, we got an early start this morning + walked immediately into a steep 350 mtr vertical climb. Heavy mist, rain, + 30 knot wind. Almost lost our way again up on the tops due tn lack of visibility, lack of signage, and an error in our guide book. We stumbled around in the rain up in the high meadow, finally hearing a couple of Spanish hikers yelling at us from a small shelter. They were heading in the opposite direction to us and were also lost, but we were able to give them directions to get down to Casa Pablo, and they were able to direct us in the direction from where they had come from! So we found our way down to the next valley and into the village of Burguete (Auritz in the Basque language). We had walked only 10 kms but the weather was too bad to continue and we were soaked so the rest of the days play was called off. We knew that tomorrow we would be starting on a 3 day section of the GR11 without passing any villages so we would need to purchase food. Also we were wet and needed to dry out. After stopping at a store to buy food, we strolled into the town to investigate accommodation. At this point we had figured out that here in Burguete, and for part of tomorrow's walk, the GR11 runs parallel with the Camino de Santiago. What we didn't realize is how much of a mass tourist business the Camino de Santiago was. Finding cheap accommodation in Burguete was impossible. The cheap places were full so we finally found a "Casa Rural" which is sort of like an English Bed and Breakfast place but without the breakfast. The elderly widow whose house it was, ran it like a Nazi concentration camp, with no noise allowed, no wastage of hot water, even going into our rooms when we weren't there and rearranging our stuff. However it was a pretty village and as the rain had stopped we had a good look around and found a bar with food for dinner.