Northern Spain

From the plains we climb upward. At Burgos we walk in the shadow of the Gothic cathedral and deliberately choose the Basque variant of the Camino — quiet, empty, and soon rewarded with an unexpected bird concert at sunrise under a canopy of poplars.

The landscape changes quickly. The cappuccino-coloured hills of Castile give way to the dramatic rock gorge of Pancorbo, where road, railway and river squeeze through towering rock walls. We find two young fox cubs tumbling over each other, and a mother deer that "scolds" us with a barking alarm sound we've never heard before.

At Miranda de Ebro we cross the Ebro — Spain's longest river — and then: the Basque Country. The language switches from familiar Spanish to the untraceable Euskara, the houses become stone with wooden balconies, and "Etxera" banners hang everywhere. At Vitoria-Gasteiz we walk through the medieval capital, and discover a 6,500-year-old dolmen at the edge of a village.

But the countdown has begun: the mountains grow higher, the valley narrower, and on the horizon the first contours appear of where we're heading — the Pyrenees. Nearly two thousand kilometres on the counter. It feels like we've walked across all of Spain. And we have.