30 July - Day 5 - Güemes to Santander 15km

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Kim wakes at 3:45am but manages to fall back asleep until 6:30am. Hooray! Fantastic sunrise.   
Breakfast at 7:30am of coffee, bread and jam and cookies.  Enough to line the stomach - just. Strangers become acquaintances or potential friends over breakfast.
We are nearly the last ones to leave the albergue and it’s nice see the line of pelegrino’s walking up the country road ahead. 
Daz walks with Will the other Aussie for a while and Kim walks alone. She likes her own pace, taking in the countryside. The cows are huge and a beautiful golden brown colour. She sees two together, one eating while another is licking it from nose to forehead. Above them a dozen swallows dart around enjoying the morning sunshine. 
There are a few kilometres along a busy road, but we soon turn onto another country road. Before long it turns into track and we walk with corn fields to the left and the ocean to our right. Tranquil. The water is a deep blue and then turquoise closer to the shore, looks crystal clear. 
We have now clocked up 100km on the Camino - our first milestone. Kim did a happy dance and we high fived. So far our bodies are holding up. 
We run out of path and it’s time for another long  beach walk this time in Somo. We watch several surf schools teaching in tiny waves but the euphoric sounds from the students tell us they don’t care. The water is so refreshing on our feet but we don’t stop for a swim as we have a ferry to catch. We arrive just as the ferry pulls in, buy our tickets and hop aboard. 
After a 5km crossing and we arrive in Santander which is the second biggest city we have been to, population 172,000. People everywhere. It’s a big change from the albergues in the countryside.  Tonight we have a private room in a pension, check in, do our laundry. 
We head of for lunch seeking a menu of the day (entree, main, dessert, wine and bread) but walk past a couple eating pulpo (boiled octopus in olive oil and paprika) and we look no further. 
After lunch we roam the old town and attempt to get our pilgrim passport stamped (you are meant to get 2 stamps everyday) but the pilgrim office in the cathedral is closed. This has happened nearly everyday day so we are managing only one stamp a day. 
Feet sore we head back to our pension and pass a street with a travellator. Why this street, it was not particularly steep..  no idea but of course we had to ride it. It was weird.
Stop in for a cheeky wine on the way. Daz has notices local drinking Cinzano on the rocks and decides to give it a go. Verdict...not bad, will have again.

Today's walk on Garmin 
No we were not sprinting across water, the last 5km of the 20km were on the ferry 😀

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