Cheap Travels

Laredo to Güemes

Distance Covered: 18 miles / 29 km

This long day starts with a walk across the city of Laredo and a ferry ride over to Santoña, and features several miles of gravel trails and paved sections of road.

Though the miles are long, the coastal scenery and country roads were both quiet and calming. The extra distance was well worth it to get to the albergue in Güemes, which was one of my favorite stays on the Camino del Norte route.

If this is the first post you’re reading and want to start from the beginning, check out my Camino del Norte page, which features all of my Camino posts in chronological order. If you want to learn more about the Camino de Santiago itself, check out my post breaking down the basics of the Camino de Santiago.

Setting out from Laredo

Leaving the church early in the morning to hoof it across the city, it seemed like the only people out so early were other pilgrims. With our large packs, it’s generally pretty hard to miss us. Reaching the end of the pier, I made my way onto the beach and followed the footsteps in the sand to where they seemed to suddenly disappear.

After waiting for ten or fifteen minutes and chatting with some pilgrims and locals on the beach, the little ferry came into view off in the distance. We all piled onto the deck and paid the few euros it cost to ride, and enjoyed the windy ride across the Bahía de Santoña. If you have your pilgrim passport handy, they’ll even stamp it for you to show that you took the boat trip. By the end of my pilgrimage, I had completely filled my stamp book (and part of a second one), which makes for a great souvenir.

Ferry from Laredo to Santoña

The ferry pictured below runs every day in summer between Laredo and Santoña, from roughly 9:00 AM to 7:00 PM. The ferry ride cost about €2 one way, or €3,50 round trip, and takes between five and ten minutes one way. Make sure to have some cash handy because when I rode it they did not accept card for payments.

Just follow the footsteps in the sand and they’ll lead you to where the ferry stops to pick people up. They slide a wooden plank down to the beach that you can easily walk up, visible in the pictures down below.

Breakfast in Santoña

After disembarking in Santoña, I stopped for a quick coffee and tortilla sandwich. At this point I had really leaned into the tortilla and coffee combo, since they aren’t common in the US, and they’re so incredibly cheap and ubiquitous in Spain. It took me a while to accept potatoes as ingredients in a sandwich, but it’s admittedly pretty good hiking food.

In Santoña I bumped into the Brazilian couple that I had eaten dinner with one night during my first week of hiking. We chatted a bit, and I would end up seeing them later that night at the albergue.

I was starting to get into the flow of things and getting to know the crowd of people who took off around the same time that I did. By the end of the Camino, I would recognize dozens of other pilgrims each day, and have chance encounters every few days with people who seemed like old friends. It’s all just part of what makes this a fun experience and a perk of hiking the Camino as a solo traveler.

Once I had finished breakfast in Santoña, I started out into the countryside. Around this time was when the cumulative hunger was really starting to build up “hiker hunger” as many thru-hikers refer to it. Walking long distances for several days on end, I was finding it hard to eat enough food to maintain my weight.

Most of the hike was slow and steady, along country roads, and I fell into a groove after an hour or so and did not take many photos. Between the light rain and long miles along paved sections, I really didn’t take my camera out much the whole day.

I arrived in Güemes some time around five thirty, shortly after stopping in a small bar for a quick bite to eat. The bartender told me that most pilgrims head off route to go to an albergue donativo slightly outside of town, and I decided to go check it out.

La Cabaña Del Abuelo Peuto

To be honest, I had done very little research on places to stay on this stretch of the hike and had no idea what was in store for me here.

After checking in with some volunteers out front, I was shown to the room where I would be sleeping. The dormitories had built-in bunks stacked four high in some places, with a huge capacity for pilgrims. I wound up with a bed on the third bunk, which wasn’t an issue, aside from the fact that I felt bad climbing past other pilgrims lying in their beds.

This albergue was donation-based, and they asked us to wait until the next day to make our donations. After taking a warm shower, I chatted with a few pilgrims from different parts of Europe and split the price of laundry with a few others who only had a couple of things to wash.

The yard behind the dormitories, with clotheslines where pilgrims can hang their laundry to dry.

Pictured on the left is a carving of a Cantabrian Labarum (lábaro cántabro), a reinterpretation of an ancient military standard that is associated with Cantabria. On the right is a close-up of the sign that sits in front of the compound, featuring a mosaic of Saint James pictured with a staff and gourd.

Communal dinner at the albergue

When I checked in, I was informed that I needed to be in the communal hall by seven and that dinner would be served at eight.

The information session was essentially a history of the land that we were on, the story of the albergue owner, and his motivation for helping pilgrims. The owner was spritely for an 85-year-old and told some of his family history and stories about his work. He was a retired priest who had moved to Barcelona for work and then returned to his old family farm to open the albergue once he retired. He told us that he had spent years traveling the world in an old Land Rover when he was younger and wanted to repay the generosity that he had received in earlier years. The presentation included several posters with photos of the compound’s renovations, his family, and his travels.

He explained all of the history in Spanish and had a volunteer who was tasked with translating his stories into English. I felt terrible for the poor girl, as he spoke for long stretches and then grew impatient as the young girl tried to remember the gist of his five-minute speeches. Overall, it was an interesting history lesson, and had a bit of a summer camp vibe as we all gathered around for story time.

After the presentation the other pilgrims and I all ate in a huge communal dining room with long tables with roughly 10 people at each. I sat next to a German man traveling with his dog, who was sleeping in a tent out in the yard. We ate salad, bread, and pasta, and there was some red table wine for those who wanted it. Overall it was a nice meal, and I got to chat with several pilgrims from all around Spain, Europe, and a few from South America and the US.

Once I had eaten and relaxed a bit, folded my laundry, and prepped my things for the next day, I climbed into my bunk and dozed off within a few minutes of laying down.

Route details

For a detailed route description, take a look at the map on Gronze.com. On that website there is a route map and a comprehensive list of the places to stay along this section with rough price guides. The red and green bars signify the distance from the Camino route, each with a rough distance estimate.

The private albergues and hotels allow for booking ahead of time, while the donation-based albergues (marked with a D for donativo) are all first come, first served. The amenities are basic, but it’s by far the most affordable way to walk a Camino.

If you’re interested in reading the detailed route description, you’ll have to translate the page from Spanish to English, which you can do using the three vertical dots in the upper right.

Final thoughts

After a long day of hiking, stumbling across this albergue was a pleasant surprise. Between the presentation, the group meal, and the generally great atmosphere, this was the perfect way to end a very long day of walking.

From talking to other pilgrims, this albergue is one of the main highlights on this section, and I’m glad I stopped here. Had I not stopped for food and talked to the bar owner, I probably would have continued on to the next albergue that is on the official route.

Let me know down in the comments if you have been to this albergue, or if you’re planning to stop there on a Camino del Norte hike in the future. As always, ¡Buen Camino!

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