...for the love of waves

Cuanto hora... no, cuanto tiempo – I wonder which it is. Ed’s puzzling over how to ask about the length of the bus ride from Bermeo to Bakio. He’s feeling the weight of having to come up with the perfect words and the perfect pronunciation for people who appear to only hear his misteps. Me, I think it’s quite possible to navigate a country completely without language, especially if you know how to use your hands. But I appreciate his efforts. Words help.

And of course, once again, it’s an imperfect conversation. The bus driver tells him  -- 20 minutes.

Emboldened, Ed perseveres. Como se dice – tiempo o hora? (He wants the driver to tell him, for future reference, the proper way to ask about the length of time it takes to get somewhere.)

Eh?

Cuanto tiempo, o hora – come se dice?

20 minutes -- this from the bus driver again.

No, no, como..

I kick him to let it go. That perfect dance of shared words is just not going to happen. Not now, not with this driver.

We’re riding a bus after leaving our bags at the delightful Hotel Mundaka. Here, meet our most wonderful hosts, looking at the computer after Ed (behind my back) lead them to Ocean.

The idea of swimming across the estuary in Mundaka remains that – an idea. One look at the waters – the very gentle waves, the now returning tide and we decide to put it off for another day, another visit.

We stroll through Mundaka, catching a last look at the port, the fish dumped fresh this morning here...

...the fish still swimming between boats and dock...

And now we’re riding that lovely little blue train for the four minute trip to Bermeo, where we in turn wait a handful of minutes for the (20 minute!) bus to Bakio.

We wait at the park that abuts the bus stop. I don’t know if this is obvious to people who live here, but there is an interesting pattern that is replicated time and again: the grandmother is taking care of the grandchild. The grandmother has friends. The grandmother appeases grandchild with sweets so that she can talk to friend (or, because grandmothers do that sort of thing). If the grandmother ignores such candy requests, the grandchild takes advantage of her distracted conversation with friend and reaches into her bag in search of something interesting. Like sweets. Here, from a five minute observation:

Okay, now we’re on the bus, climbing the cliffs and hills that separate Bermeo from the very quiet little town of Bakio.

Bakio has a beach. And it is a lovely, wide beach of golden sand, with a pounding surf, so that even in these days of still ocean waters, there are waves.

Enough for some small surfing...

...and some joyous wave jumping by this Ocean author...

...and equally joyous plunging and body surfing by Ed. [Ed plays in ocean waters like no other. He lunges, dives, rolls, crashes and because he is big, it looks as if he is challenging the waves to whip him with their froth and sand, except (thankfully) he always emerges unscathed, as if he won, as if the ocean was something that he, the mere mortal, could handle and if not, so be it. Life is that way.]

It’s partly cloudy, the water is cool but not cold, the temps hover in the upper seventies. Life is good. (Also for all the grandmothers out there, with their bonnet babies. And for those who just love the roll of the sea.)

We had contemplated walking back to Bermeo (there is a trail), but it’s late and we could get lost, and I want us now to start the roll back, slowly, toward home.

And so it’s another (20 minute!) bus ride and another small blue train ride and we pick up our bags, wave goodbye to the sweet sweet homelike hotel...

(Oh! The stage is dismantled! Quiet reigns on the village square.)

And now we’re at the train station waiting for the little blue train again (and I try to take a photo of Ed, whose hair has grown wild, well suited for this month, now coming to an end)...





...then riding it for the hour or so to Bilbao.

The walk from our little blue train station to the hotel in Bilbao is long and the city is spilling out crowds as it certainly must do on cool and lovely summer evenings.

A petite ice cream cone helps.

We continue. Across the river, past fountains, away from the crowds.


 








And now we are at the very modern, beautiful and artsy Hotel Miro  (so different from the friendly Mundaka, even as both are splendid for what they attempt to do)...

... and we are in Bilbao and at the Miro really for one reason – it is to spend time at the place that is just across the street from us. There, I can see most of it from our window:

But that’s the next day’s story. Most likely written en route to Madison.

and so, all good things...

How did you know the word for jellyfish? Ed asks.

I don’t know how I know. Maybe it’s the same in Polish or French.

We had encountered a man swimming near the shore of the estuary and we asked him if it’s possible to swim from here to the other (beautifully sandy) shore.

No! Medusas! La corriente!

So maybe there are jellyfish because of the current or maybe there are dangerous currents and jellyfish, in any case, I lose interest in attempting the great swim across the wide body of water.

Besides, it’s still rather cool. They say yet again that it will rain all day Sunday, but so far, the only great rains we’ve experienced during our entire trip were back on our first day in Sorede. Ed looks up and points to blue breaks between clouds. It wont rain, he says confidently. (He has some kind of a rapport with the weather gods, because most often he is correct in his predictions, even though this time, I think he is mistaken. Weather.com is absolutely certain. Rain. All day.)

At breakfast we hear the familiar flute. What now? Marco tells us – just a little Basque music again.

I ask, rather incredulously – the celebration continues?

Rather timidly he answers – yes, but not too much.

I go out on the square and see a dozen or so costumed people chasing mostly young ones and hitting them with a foam stick.

No kidding. The kids seem unfazed. I suppose you get used to puppets chasing you with sticks if that’s what happens year in and year out on the village square.

And the band plays on...

So I have to ask and I really want Marco to look me in the eye for this one. After three nights of music, the kind that they can surely hear in Bormeo and maybe even Bilbao, let alone in the rooms of our little hotel just off the square, are they done celebrating, or will there be more?

Just one more night. But it’s gentler. You’ll see. And it will end earlier. Really. Though after, there will be fireworks.

If you are the type that loves an immersion in local custom, I surely have timed this visit exceptionally well for that. If you are the type that loves quiet, well, there always the hill walks.

And we do one again. 

setting out

Not really into the hills, but along the undulating countryside at this side of the estuary.  Torturing ourselves (or mostly Ed) with vistas onto the body of water that we cannot cross.

Now, I know these posts have been on the long side. Like a Ginsu knife commercial, I tell Ed. You think it’s a one minute read and hours (it seems) later you kick yourself for having wasted time looking at photos of Mundaka, of all places. (Ed has been playing Ginsu commercials on youtube – the analogy seems apt.) But the time of terribly long posts is rapidly spinning to a close. Indeed, after this upload, I’m going to have to concentrate not on Ocean, but on getting us back to Bilbao, Barcelona, Paris, Detroit and finally Madison – all in the space of two days. We’re back at the farmhouse late Wednesday – and so posting will have to be of the kind that’s on the run. With possible gaps and intermissions.

I’ll be with few words today, too. The Sunday walk was beautiful – the clouds kicked Weather.com in the butt, retreating inland with a laugh. The hike took many, many hours (we went as far as the third train stop to the north of us -- San Kristobal), but we did have two pauses – one to stare at boats bobbing by the shore...

.... and the second – at a table with a view toward the mountains and hills. At that second pause we had what is so typical here, that I can’t believe we hadn’t had it thus far – a tortilla with patatas – a sort of omelet with potatoes. You see it at every pintxos bar.

So, a photo hike, with few words:

Q: how many sheep in this picture?

A: Three!

for the goats among you

another goat

old Basque farmhouse

...has this in the entryway

view during snack break

the wave movement near Mundaka is breathtakingly beautiful (tiny dot in bottom right corner is a man wading in the shallow parts)

evening on Mundaka beach

In the many hours of our walk, Ed and I drive each other to tears in our attempts to get the iPhone translator to recognize his pronunciations.

Go ahead, say it! It never works! I say it, it works. He says it. It does not.

Quit with the ‘ey’ sound, I tell him. It’s ‘eh’!  We explode with laughter as he tries again and again, hating it that I get it each time, while he fails. (Any European will have an easier time with pronunciations; I claim no great skill over and beyond what my birth place has handed to me.)

ready to throw the iPhone into the fields

In the evening, we have trouble with dinner. We have a 10 o’clock reservation at the Casino (good value!) but when we come there, it’s clear that on the Sunday after San Pedro’s, they want to go home early. So we leave without eating.

And there’s a reason why suddenly no one cares about food, about music on the square (the playing did end early...very early). It’s the night of the final game of the Euro 2012 (soccer championships). Spain against Italy. On every screen at every bar in town.

Finally, at the small place we ate the second night (Fonda), we find an agreeable atmosphere. We eat, Spain wins. There. Could we have a better ending?

the great red tomatoes of Spain

And so the feast of San Pedro finally comes to an end, we leave tomorrow and Mundaka returns to the more prosaic routines, except I don’t know what those are because the four days we were here were anything but prosaic or commonplace.

Ah, but the fireworks: aren’t there fireworks? Indeed. Two men are out on the pier and they are fiddling with something on the ground. Getting ready for the fireworks that will close down the (four day!) celebrations of San Pedro. There are a couple of loud bangs, then silence. The people around the harbor, fresh off the victory in soccer, clamor for more. Here’s more: one of the men lights something on the ground and then runs off. We have less than a minute of magic in the sky and then it’s over.

Bang, bang, bang!  ... done.

On Monday we may get up for a swim across the estuary. You can only attempt this at low tide and low tide comes early in the morning. Or not. Maybe we’ll cavort along the Atlantic before retreating to Bilbao. Most certainly we’ll be in Bilbao for the night. Unless the medusa gets us!

...and continues.

Today we wake up to the quiet of a morning after.

We’re lazy about coming down to breakfast, lazy about the day’s plans, weighing options, glancing at the skies, uncertain if there’ll be rain or if the cool air really warrants an effort to get to a good Atlantic beach.

And then I hear the sound of that Basque music again.

Isn’t San Pedro Day over? It’s June 30^th. Surely another saint has the honors. No longer one hovering protectively over Mundaka.

Well no. Not over. There is still a big celebration today – of Basque cooking. Many people will be making the traditional ‘sukalki’ (chunks of meat and potato) outside, all over the village. There will be judging of who cooked the best one. You can go see the cooks now – with large pots, simmering sukalki. The rules are that they have to cook outdoors, visible to all.

On the day of the great sukalki cook-off, people dress in traditional Basque clothing – on the coast, this will be navy and blue. With plaid kerchiefs. Most everyone wears some form of this. Young, old, male, female.

In fact, if I pass someone without a plaid kerchief, I think – outsider or rebel.

[By now, we are recognized as the outsiders – the tall one and the one with the camera. I get, now and then, curious questions about that thing around my neck.]

Most of the cooking is done in small groups and I am surprised that men dominate this event. Shaving bits of potato, trimming meats, even scrubbing the pots – all of it helped with bottles of red wine or beer. We walk from one group to the next, from one table to another... up one side street, back to the square. The smell of food is everywhere.

One exceptionally friendly cook encourages me to try one of the side dishes (because some prepare those as well – for the enjoyment of the cooks and their friends) – a sausage placed in a crusty bit of bread. With a swig of red wine. I’m thinking the drinking and eating this weekend is intense (even though I don’t see the miserable consequences of excess – maybe the heavy eating soaks things up a bit and, too, it’s not that any one person drinks copious amounts at one sitting, it’s just that the whole ingestion of everything takes place all day long).

We look into the pots of one cook, then another (and as they do the final preparations, they meticulously wipe down the pots, the handles too, because in cooking competitions, appearances matter)...






... and soon it is 1 pm and the judging begins. The cooks bring their large pots to the square...

...and several official tasters go from one pot to the next, taking notes, exchanging comments – there are at least fifty pots out there so this is no easy task (and the band plays on...).




 

Some in the audience seem very invested in the outcome, but even for those who do not have a pot up there, finding out who won is a big deal.

When the winners are announced, Ed and I don’t really understand who got what prize for what reason (it’s all in Basque). In the end, I'm too impatient with our lack of knowledge and I ask some youngish guy who surely still remembers his school textbook English if we are now hearing about  winners or losers (the applause for each is mild, tempered) and he answers with a lot of contradictory yeses and so we just retreat into our ignorance and continue watching.

But it is obvious who the top Sukalki dogs are. They get Basque caps and aprons as a prize (maybe more than that, we can’t tell...).






There isn’t a roar of appreciation for these guys either (it could be that they came from outside the village, or -- maybe everyone was intensely backing their friend or relative). They come up, they get their prize, they pick up their pot and carry it to their car. I am one of the few who wants to see the winning results and to photograph them for the record. Here they are, the top Sukalki cooks in Mundaka for the year 2012.

The end of intense waiting. Time to exhale and get an ice cream cone. Our hotel also serves as the local ice cream place so it's always tempting, coming or going, to pick up a cone. There are so called 'adult' flavors as well.  Mojito! Try the mojito! -- we're told. We did. Yesterday. Today it's mango and deep chocolate.

So now it’s over, right? The world returns to normal?

The day is rapidly coming to that part where you can no longer do anything grand. Forget about exploring the Atlantic coast. The rains come down but for only five minutes, so I can’t blame the weather. We’re stuck in Mundaka because it’s hard to leave when all these celebrations unfold before us.

Normal. Surely it’s time to wave good bye to your friends and retreat home to clean up the chaos of getting ingredients ready, to wash all those pretty dresses from yesterday and crisp blue and white frocks from today, yes?

In our room a hare's breath from the main square, all is quiet. The curtain moves slightly with the breeze.

As we get closer to evening I tell Ed that my Internet search has revealed that there is a place in the next town (Bermeo) that makes brick oven pizza. We’re ready for that kind of a supper and we’re even willing to walk for it (the next town is a mere half hour trek so we’re not taking on a huge hike here).

Bermeo is on the coast, but it’s hardly a tourist destination. It’s much larger than Mundaka (Bermeo's population is at nearly 20,000) and most regard it as the most important fishing town in the entire Basque region.

There are some good views of it on the approach. First, of the Basque farmsteads and homes along the road (if it's Basque, then it must have peppers in it, on it, or around it).

And of the coast, curving back toward the estuary and Mundaka...







...Then of Bermeo itself.

But I can’t say that it’s exactly a pretty town once you’re there. And it’s large enough that I can’t really find its core, its heart. And for that reason, it feels to me a tad sad. You’re not likely to see people dancing on the streets here. Well, not too many anyway. Spontaneously, a small group of older types – meaning my age – suddenly does break into song and dance. I see that in Mundaka as well. Someone starts singing and suddenly two or three raise the hands and do the Basque steps. Here's a photo from Mundaka of just such a sudden quick dance:

In Bormeo, it happened only once.

So now we are asking about the pizza place and eventually Ed is understood and, too, he understands the answer. (The Basque people have a terribly hard time with a foreigner’s rendition of Castillian. They never, ever call it Spanish and look puzzled if you ask for a ‘Spanish’ translation.)

The pizza place is take-out only. Who knew.

Inside, there are three adults and two toddlers, cramped behind a small counter. Ed tells me – I’d really like it if, for dinner, we bought a pizza and ate it outside. On a bench or on the (scraps of) grass.

Dinner on a town bench in a sad port town seems a tad pathetic. But Ed’s been so good at going along, even as the deck hasn’t exactly dealt him a quiet hand lately (Ed likes quiet) and so we do exactly that: we buy beverages in a little shop that sells liters of boxed Spanish wine for one Euro and plenty of Rumanian wines for more (why?) and we order the pizza at the take-out place and the missus behind the counter cannot understand our request at all even though we say the words pizza and champinones which, BTW are also clearly spelled out on the posted list of pizzas – all this, I think, underscores how difficult it is to be understood here.

The men behind the counter (the ones shoving the pizzas into the oven) are much more friendly and affable and one of them finally jumps into the getting-nowhere-with-the-missus conversation. He speaks very broken English, but he understands. Grande pizza with champinones -- ah, a large pizza with mushrooms! Ed asks him – where did you learn English and he says – video games. He loves them and they don’t make the good ones in any other language.  

He's the one who encourages me now -- Come behind the counter! (ohh, it's crowded back there, but now that we've reached an understanding, the missus also is smiling and encouraging me to step there, with the camera, so that I can see their brick oven).

We take the pizza to a bench and the people watching is actually quite good and I am grateful for this chance to just eat in the way we so often do at home – on our laps, informally, watching, listening.

We could walk back to Mundaka, sure, but it’s not an especially interesting road and besides this is the end of the line for the little blue train, meaning if you get on it in the reverse, your first stop will be Mundaka and we do just that.

In Mundaka, we soon encounter a group of young, spirited musicians. We pause for a while to listen.


 


An older woman, a Mundaka resident, sits down on a bench next to Ed and asks him the usual. Where are you from, etc etc... She explains that she herself does not speak Basque because her generation lived under Franco who made sure that the Basque, Catalan and all such independent peoples had little opportunity to speak their own languages. She tells Ed the children of her nieces and nephews all study in other countries – Austria and England. She reflects for a moment, then informs him (as if the whole world hasn’t been talking about it), in quite decent English -- the Spanish economy has tanked. (Her choice of words.)

The youthful group of musicians is delightful and really quite international in their musical choices...


 


...playing such things When the Saints Go Marching in and it is, we think, a nice conclusion to a three day revelry here.

Except it’s not a conclusion.

We see that the stage is being set yet again for a night of music on the square! Loud loud loud Basque rock (Marco, our hotel husband says the next morning – they were really bad, though my 13-year old son liked it!), with our little window just off the square picking up every last pounding bit of drum and base. I write this at 2 am and it’s still going strong. The party that never, ever ends.