PILGRIM’S
PROGRESS
A Thousand Mile Walk
Le Puy en Velay, France
to
Santiago de Compostela, Spain
March 29 – June 3, 2007
Daniel Elliott
For
Donna S. who got me traveling
For
David P. who let me stay
For
all my families.
Author’s Notes
Though this book is meant for readers in the United States, I use kilometers
throughout, rather than miles—except when I want to impress with an especially
long distance. Reflecting the guidebooks and European usage, my notes have all
the distances as such, and a conversion would have resulted in lots of bothersome
fractions. Also, most Americans are somewhat familiar with such measurements,
and I harbor the belief that this country will ultimately realize its error and revert to
the more logical and practical metric system. I also fully expect those
Commonwealth nations to start driving on the proper side of the road some day.
Now, when I am reading, nothing irritates me more than to come across an
untranslated passage from, say, Stendhal or Pliny. Nevertheless, I did not try to rid
my tale of foreign words. On the contrary, I use them (and ever so many italics)
freely. In some cases, there were no precise English equivalents. More importantly,
I wanted to impart the feeling of being in a foreign country and being at a linguistic
loss much of the time. So, for example, the chapter headings in French or Spanish
are not there to show off my erudition and sophistication but to add a bit of the
flavor of the trip.
Another book on the Camino de Santiago? There are so many already. Then
again, seemingly dozens of lurid tales of alcohol and drug dependence come out
every year. I think a travelogue with some history thrown in is more enticing. And,
of course, I think I have something new to say.
This is the age of the internet. When I started this project, I intended only to
make a simple record for myself and a few friends. I googled a lot of the facts
herein without recording sources. So I have to plead guilty of indiscriminate
borrowing where parts of this sound too Wikipedia-ish.
Also, since this is a bit of self-publishing, be a little tolerant of the misplaced
comma or the awkward construction. I had a lot of help putting this together—
most importantly from Jim O’Shea who thanklessly (actually, all he got was
thanks) did the lion’s share of cleaning up the manuscriptbut all the errors are
my own.
Table of Contents
1. Le Commencement du Grand Tour
New York City to Le Puy en Velay……………………………………………………1
2. Le Tour Rural Delux
Le Puy to Espalion…………………………………………………………………...27
3. Le Tour Gourmand
Espalion to Conques…………………………………………………………………51
4. Le Tour du Desaccord.
Conques to Cahors…………………………………………………………………...64
5. Le Tour pour Deux
Cahors to Moissac……………………………………………………………………79
6. Le Tour Gothique en Solitaire
Moissac to Condom……………………………………………………………….....93
7. Le Tour Express
Condom to Arzacq……………………………………………………….…………106
8. Le Tour Tranquille
Arzacq to St. Jean Pied de Port………………………………………….…………..122
9. Viage a Las Montañas y a Niebla
St.Jean Pied de Port to Pamplona …………………………………………………..144
10. Viage a La Luz del Sol y a Los Viñedos
Pamplona to Logroño……………………………………………………………….161
11. Viage a Las Tormentas y a Los Monumentos
Logroño to Burgos………………………………………………………………….173
12. Viage a La Meseta Gloriosa
Burgos to Fromista/Leon…………………………………………………………...199
13. Viage a Los Llanos de La Senda
Fromista to Leon…………………………………………………………………...219
14. Viage a Los Caminitos Rurales y El Paso de Las Montañas
Leon to Ponferada………………………………………………………………….236
15. Viage Arriba, Arriba y Lejos
Ponferada to Melide………………………………………………………………...254
16. Viage a La Abundante Galicia
Melide to Santiago de Compostela…………………………………………………280
Bibliography, Further Reading……………………………………………………………..292
~1~
Chapter One
La Commencement du Grand Tour
The Start of the Grand Tour
New York City to Le Puy en Velay
Why (and how to) become a pilgrim? The reasons are different, as we shall see, for each
person. Growing up in a small, predominantly Catholic town in southern Indiana certainly tilted
me towards pilgrimtude as an adult. I was a pious little boy and reveled in the more showy
aspects of the liturgy—the pomp and circumstance, if you will. And I loved, and still do, the
lurid tales of martyrdom from the Early Christian era. Back in the hometown two of my favorite
rites were the processions around our local cemetery on Corpus Christi in the spring and All
Saints’ Day in the fall when we intoned the Litany of the Saints—maybe those can be considered
my first mini-pilgrimages.
In sixth grade I was fascinated by the Children’s Crusade. Our world history text featured
an illustration of a long-haired knight on a mighty steed surrounded by a bunch of ragamuffin
children—that was enough to stir the mind of an impressionable boy. Our nun teacher truthfully
pointed out that few, if any, of those children made it to their heroic destination but, rather, most
perished ignominiously in Europe. But she impressed upon us the notion that a crusade was a
valiant enterprise nonetheless. From then on, my imagination was held at least partial hostage by
things medieval, if not overtly religious. The Dark Ages certainly didn’t seem completely bleak.
Since I would also have learned about medieval pilgrimages around that time, I think I
may have conflated the two. Walking for months on end while relying on the kindness of
strangers may not have held the same allure as following an intrepid knight into battle, but at
least the seed was planted that there was a wider world out there.
Later at university, that little seed was watered and nurtured by a liberal arts education
~2~
and blossomed into an enduring love for architectural history with particular interest in
Romanesque and Gothic styles. I learned about itinerant stonemasons, the borrowing and
flourishing of building styles in Europe, and even the political and religious background to
church construction in those years, the time also of the great pilgrim migrations. And I have
maintained a long, though faithless, relationship with the Roman Catholic Church that mainly
entails visiting and looking at lots of churches in my travels. So a long, long walk doing just that
is not such far-fetched endeavor.
There are many ways to do a pilgrimage which is essentially just a trip for religious
purposes. These journeys are not necessarily done on foot, but walking seems to be an integral
part of the process (if only from a huge parking lot to a shrine and, of course, the gift shop).
Rome, the Holy Land, and any of the many places that Mary has made appearances are popular
destinations for Christians. (Other religions are just as prodigiously attached to pilgrimages.) But
ever since the 10th century, untold thousands of people have made Santiago de Compostela in
northwestern Spain their target. The route is generally known as The Way of St. James (El
Camino de Santiago in Spanish, Chemin de St. Jacques de Compostelle for the French, and the
German Jakobsweg).
The theological underpinnings of this whole endeavor rests on a few biblical references
and the many legends concerning St. James the Greater, one of the original 12 apostles. (We
won’t get into the other compelling geographical, economic, and political reasons for its
popularity.) According to the New Testament but mainly on apocrypha, Jesus instructed the
original apostles to spread the gospel throughout the known world, and even assigned them
different locales. So after the crucifixion, James headed off to the Iberian Peninsula. Though he
had an ultimately rather unfruitful mission, converting only a few while performing a handful of
~3~
miracles, he did establish a foothold for the new religion.
He returned to the Holy Land where he was promptly beheaded and so became the first
martyred apostle (a big plus in the relics market that developed later). His friends and colleagues
ferried his body off, I kid you not, to an unmanned stone ship without sails. That ship made its
way to the shores of Galicia in northwest Spain where James’ somehow-alerted disciples
received his body and buried it nearby. (I am leaving out a great number of other equally
miraculous events.) Thus, he became the only apostle to be interred in Western Europe outside
Rome.
His grave remained undisturbed and, it seems, unknown for about 750 years as the
dreaded Moors took over the land. Then one day, a pious hermit heard music and saw either stars
above a field or lights emanating from a cave (accounts differ). He dug around and found some
bones which were later authenticated as St. James’ and reburied. The site now known as
Santiago de Compostela (campo = field and stela = star, though there are other possible
derivations) became a venerated location.
But James was not yet finished with his work. He was said to have appeared on a white
charger leading the soon-to-be-victorious Christians in a decisive battle against those Moors
around 852. So St. James or Santiago got the sobriquet of The Moor Slayer or Matamoros. After
the infidels were finally repelled, if not expelled, the faithful started to come in greater numbers.
In painting and sculpture, James morphed from warrior to the kindlier and gentler pilgrim with
staff, dried gourd water jug, woolen cloak, and scallop shell on his tri-cornered hat and/or breast.
Poor James still could not rest in peace. There was still a lot of jockeying for power in
Spain—not unlike the current situation in Afghanistan with strife and warlords and all—until
Ferdinand and Isabella united and Christianized most of the country. But even after that, Spain
~4~
continued to be embroiled in many wars at home and abroad. Even Napoleon and his men had a
nasty stay.
James’ very valuable bones were spirited away for safe keeping numerous times, always
returning to their roost—until the day someone messed up and forget where they were stashed.
Still, that did not deter the pilgrims who kept coming. Sometime around 1878, a man excavated
some bones (I assume near the cathedral) and went temporarily blind. Pope Leo XIII issued a
bull verifying that those bones were St. James’. Now they rest in a silver box in the crypt under
the main altar. And anyone can go visit the crypt and the bones—excuse enough, isn’t it, to
trudge a hefty distance to Santiago?
Now, in planning my trip I figured I would see a lot of churches and villages on the way.
In addition, I wanted to eat a lot of good hearty food, learn a bit more Spanish, buy a lot of tacky
postcards for my collection, meet some interesting people, and have some fun and adventure.
In far off times, people did the camino for many reasons. Most importantly, doing the trip
lopped off a significant amount of time a pilgrim would have to spend in Purgatory. They also
did it hoping for a miracle or a wish to be granted. Criminals did it instead of spending time in
jail. Sometimes the residents of a village suffering a drought or plague would all chip in and send
off a representative to Santiago to petition for relief. A rogues’ gallery was always present and
took advantage of those for whom the spirit, instead of the purse, was paramount. Rich and poor,
the fit and the infirm, the good and bad walked the walk, if not talked the talk. I couldn’t help but
conclude that some of them, in those pre-package-vacation and pre-Nike times, were also
thinking, “Wow, this sounds like more fun than staying at home. Let’s just do it.”
Nowadays, a lot of people become pilgrims for more, to me anyway, amorphous reasons
having to do with human consciousness and self-fulfillment. My local book-sellers have shelves
~5~
and shelves of spiritual and inspirational books, a number of which advocate a physically-taxing
endeavor as a way to reach inner peace. Even Shirley MacLaine walked pretty much the same
trip I was planning and wrote about it too.
Whatever the motivation, the ongoing mantra along the way is that everyone has to do his
or her own camino/chemin/pilgrimage. Whether you were starting in far off Muscovy or nearer
to Santiago. Whether young or old, fat or thin. Whether doing it on a shoestring budget or going
first class. Whether on foot, by bike, or on a horse. Whether searching for answers to life’s
persistent questions or just the next party. No matter: fellow pilgrims are to respect and help each
other. It is a little bit kindergarten, a little bit summer camp, and a lot of “The Wizard of Oz.”
So which route? There are many ways to go—just be able to prove that you walked more
than 62 mi or 100 km (double that amount if you are on a bike) and end up in Santiago. One can
even do the journey in stages over a number of years. All are recognized as “official”
pilgrimages for which you receive the compostela (small “c” and italicized to differentiate it
from the place name) or certification of completion in Santiago. There are routes from Portugal,
Seville, Madrid, and eastern Spain. Major routes go through France from as far away as Russia.
In many European countries local historians and pilgrimage buffs have revived former or
established new paths in their own countries that hook up with some of the major European ones.
All funnel into the ultimate destination.
Much ado is made about the “authentic” route, and all that is poppycock (or worse).
Since people have been travelling on it for over 1,000 years through wars, plagues and the
vicissitudes of fashion and politics; the course was constantly changing. Modern pilgrims equate
“authentic” with rural landscapes, charming little villages and dirt paths. That was hardly always
the case: some of those villages were once busy medieval powerhouses, and those dirt paths used
~6~
to be, or are near, Roman roads. It is really a case of the end justifying the means; just get to
Santiago.
Nowadays, the most popular route (yes, the “authentic” one) is the Camino Francés,
which—contrary to its name—is primarily a route across the breadth of northern Spain. It starts
at Hirburia in French Basque country where three major French routes meet (though most people
begin 30 km farther on in St. Jean Pied de Port on the border of Spain). It goes quickly over a
mountain pass through the Pyrenees, on through the cities of Pamplona, Burgos, and Leon, but
mainly through the countryside and innumerable tiny villages. Well-marked and well-traveled, it
also has an established system of albergues or hostels, exclusively for the use of pilgrims. These
are inexpensive, convenient and usually clean. If some are a bit primitive, all but a few have hot
showers. Also enough are open year-round, though lacking in vigorous heating, to enable one to
do the camino even in the winter.
In fact, the route has gotten so popular in recent years that non-summer travel is
becoming a preferred option to avoid the doldrums and crowds of summer. The number of
pilgrims who arrived in Santiago has been increasing to about 70,000 a year. In Holy Years when
the July 25th Feast Day of St. James falls on a Sunday, the number swells even more—in 2004,
it was almost 180,000. (The next Holy Year will be 2010.) Now the majority of these finish in
July and August—the yearly distribution pretty much follows a classic Bell curve. And many
start somewhere in Galicia and walk considerably less than the distance I wanted to do.
I chose to begin in St. Jean Pied de Port. I liked the idea—if not the reality—of walking
500 miles (officially 496.1). Traversing the Pyrenees also had a nice ring to it—I was sure I
could inject that somehow in conversation at many a future cocktail party in lieu of witty
repartee, “Oh, yes, I crossed the Pyrenees on foot. A bit like Hannibal...” (I had forgotten that it
~7~
was his traverse of the Alps that was so significant.) I certainly wanted to go to Pamplona, which
I was sure had loads of tacky postcards of bull gorings and the like that would be welcome
additions to my collection. And I was easily able to get in a long-planned visit to nearby Bilbao
prior to starting the camino.
So on February 17, 2006, I started the foot part of my journey. About a month later I was
awash in the early-spring rains of Galicia in northwestern Spain and finishing. I had an incredible and satisfying journey, even though I endured disabling shin splints, aching joints, snow
storms and drifts, days-long biting wind, bitter cold, and spirit-draining mud (the Navarran muck
is in a class by itself) along the way. But I think it was the vast amount of rain in the final days
that took the most out of me.
Yes, I saw a lot of wonderful places and many churches and really reveled in the pleasant
monotony of daily trudging the requisite distance. But though thrilled with having done the walk
and having experienced so much, I was tired. I got into Santiago pretty much convinced that I
had all that camino/pilgrimage stuff out of my system.
Was it the so-called magic of the whole endeavor that did not let me go? Or was it that I
waltzed into a rather dreadful job situation that made even those Galician monsoons seem
enviable? Or, more probably, was it just an on-going mid-life crisis? At any rate, by the beginning of 2007, I was bound and determined to return and walk onwards and upwards; I was going
to pretty much double the distance of the previous trip by covering a rather substantial portion of
France also.
So I left New York at the end of March 2007 for my second pilgrimage in as many years.
I did want to repeat last year’s route and experiences but figured that it would be folly to do it
again in the winter. In the back of my mind, I knew I would encounter quite a bit of spring rain
~8~
and concomitant mud but was expecting the overall warmer weather to ameliorate that hardship.
And not only would I be in Spain unable to speak the language, I would be floundering with
French for an equal amount of time. I thought that those problems would be more than balanced,
surely, by spring flowers, more fellow pilgrims, many a bright sunny day, and the absolute
fecundity of nature. There would be time enough, I mused, to regain the physical and mental
stability I wanted. If you finish this tale, you might be able to judge whether or not I was
successful.
Since I had a pretty good idea of what I would encounter, my pre-trip preparations and
jitters were fairly minimal. I was using most of my gear from the previous journey, though I
bought some dowdy trousers with zip-off lower legs and some walking sandals in anticipation of
lots and lots of sunny weather. I eyed a new-fangled Osprey Atmos 50 pack that had an arched
back to cut down on annoying back sweat. It was hardly the $200 price tag that dissuaded me but
its availability in only cindercone red—which, while it sounds nice, was more an unacceptable
fire engine hue. The slate blue that was soon to be delivered was barely a shade better. So I was
reusing my trusty-but-ugly scarlet backpack with the less-than-fresh smelling shoulder straps.
This whole gear thing is a big deal for walkers, of course, and puts us in a tizzy. It is one
thing to try on, say, an empty pack recommended by some lithe young thing one-third your age
who likes to hang off mountaintops (the usual type of salesperson in an outfitting store); it is
another carry it filled day after day after day. Those boots that seem so comfortable on short
weekend jaunts actually harbor little blister-making micro-bumps when used repeatedly. So
choose them wisely, and break them in well.
Those things you can’t live without? You would be surprised what very little you need—
and how little the 10 kilo or 20 pound recommended amount really allows one to take. My one
~9~
word of advice to anyone planning a camino (whispered as the businessman in “The Graduate”
does to Dustin Hoffman) is “plastic.” Well actually, polypropylene or some variant of breathable
man-made fabric that is lightweight, comfortable, and quick drying. Those poor medieval
pilgrims may have had their faith, but they didn’t have polyester and Gore-Tex.
An equally contentious topic is whether or not to take those seemingly necessary items of
modern day life such as cellphones, MP3 players, and the like. Really, one person will be
adamant about his or her (and everyone else, of course) doing without; another can justify their
little bulk and convenience. But regarding that cellphone, just be sure your friends and family
back home are aware of the time differences so they don’t wake everyone else in a crowded
albergue in the middle of the night. Remember, many of us will be snoring or dreaming away by
nine at night.
Getting there? Well, Europeans can just go out their door and start off, and many do just
that. I had excuses enough to fly. British Airways (BA) provided, by far, the best round trip fare,
though I had to go through London on my way to Paris and on the return trip from Madrid. Not a
problem.
I had already purchased my guidebook for the French portion, Alison Raju’s “The Way
of St. James: Le Puy to the Pyrenees,” not noticing that it was a 2006 reissue of a 2003 edition
and not new as I thought. So a lot of my housing information was out of date. (Gossip on the
chemin, French for camino or way, had it that she had recently been through the countryside
getting information for a new edition.) “Miam Miam Dodo” (which literally means “Eat Eat
Sleep”) is a pamphlet in French that is updated yearly that has schematic maps and listings for
places to eat and sleep along the way. It is readily available in many of the towns and tourist
offices and is very helpful especially for those who speak French. But that was just another thing
~ 10 ~
to carry and possibly just too much information to process. I was sorry that I could not locate a
cultural guide to the route in France.
In Spain the year before, I carried, relied on, and relished “The Pilgrimage Road to
Santiago” by David Gitlitz and Linda Davidson. It is aptly subtitled “The Complete Cultural
Handbook Including Art, Architecture, Geology, History, Folklore, Saints’ Lives, Flora and
Fauna.” Broken up into sections that roughly corresponded to the daily hikes, it was written with
knowledge, flair, and—most importantly—humor. I really did read relevant parts of it most
every day. It was a thick book but not all that heavy. The pleasure and insights it gave me while
on the trail more than made up for its bulk and weight in my backpack. I unfortunately opted out
of toting it along for the second trip
For the Spain the day-to-day guide, I brought my battered, but still very usable, copy of
John Brierley’s “A Pilgrim’s Guide to the Camino de Santiago: a Practical and Mystical Manual
for the Modern Day Pilgrim.” In it he emphasizes the need to “dive into the mysteries of our
individual soul awakenings, without which all journeying is purposeless.” Well, yes, but I liked
the book not for such posturing but because it was pocket-sized, had good maps for the daily
walks along with elevations, included little photos of the buildings you were trying to locate at
the end of the day, was recently updated, and tough enough for constant handling. He, like Raju,
does point out many of the more important sites along the way, though in much less detail than
Gitlitz and Davidson.
I had a problem with Brierley’s sermonettes in each chapter or leg of the journey. These
were labeled The Practical Path and The Mystical Path. The former, while giving helpful
information, tended to be repetitious screeds against any kind of modern intrusion on the camino.
But we modern-day pilgrims insist on having hot water. And we graciously welcome washers
~ 11 ~
and driers, central heat, microwaves, and internet access. Most of us carried an arsenal of synthetic fabrics as well as highly-engineered footwear and backpacks that made the going much
easier. I don’t think you should afford yourself the benefits of modern conveniences while
constantly decrying the infrastructure required to support them.
He railed against any section not along county roads or paths. But his warnings of the
hazards of taking off cross-country, sometimes up to 20 to 30 km in the heat of the day without
access to water or much shelter, were too muted. As my fellow travelers and I found out, a
crippling stress-induced injury could come on very suddenly. Still, those country trails are, by
far, more pleasant.
Even more puzzling were those mystical path sections. They would be paeans to the
simple life, nature, or the mystical life of the soul. Being a jaded New Yorker (who grew up in
rural America and was happy to escape) for whom irony was still not dead, I found those little
homilies to be rather tendentious, sophomoric, or pointless. But they were well-meaning and
easy enough to ignore. And even the most jaded pilgrim—after an especially good day’s walk
under blue skies out in the Spanish countryside and after a half bottle of a good cheap rioja, a
fried chop, and some fries—could not help but think that life really should be a whole lot simpler
and that the people of the world really could get along if everyone did this same journey. That
would put a lot of people on the trail together, though.
So well armed, I first had to get to Paris. The plan was to get a train straightaway from
the airport to St. Etienne. There I could get a local train to Le Puy en Velay (though there are
other Le Puys in France, I will now drop the appellation in this account) the same day, and start
walking the next. Damn the jet lag; full speed ahead.
My full pack of about 18 lb or 10 k was still small enough to qualify as carry-on luggage.
~ 12 ~
But the BA website was rather cryptic about what would happen to toiletries, et al., on the
London-Paris leg. I did not want to chase around France in order to replace such things if they
were confiscated. I would be too busy eating frog legs and other delicacies. So I checked my
pack at Kennedy all the way to Paris.
As luck would have it, I made it without any problem or notable incident, arriving around
7:00AM in Paris. But, alas, my pack did not. I spent most of my first eight hours in Gay Paree in
a dismal corner of the baggage claim area waiting word of my belongings. The pack was
definitely on the plane to Heathrow. The people there were denying that it ever made it to
London. The people at the lost luggage desk were very helpful at first. Then their frustration
equaled or even exceeded mine.
I only mention this whole tacky episode because it demonstrates just how a pilgrim
differs from a run-of-the-mill traveler. The baggage claim folk could not quite comprehend what
I was doing, you see. “You don’t have a cellphone?” they queried me time and again as if they
could not imagine that ever occurring in the 21st century. “Well, we will just deliver your
luggage to your hotel after it is located.” “Not staying at a hotel? No problem, we will deliver it
within three days to wherever you are staying.” “You don’t have the address where you are
staying in Le Puy?”
No, I would patiently reply to all these questions and try to explain my situation. I was
supposed to be going off on a hike of over 1,000 mi the next day. I would be staying in a series
of makeshift shelters in the French and Spanish countryside. While comfortable enough, they
were a considerable step down from a hotel. I didn’t have addresses or phone numbers. I was not
even sure which town or village I would be in after the morrow, the day after that, or for the next
60 days for that matter.
~ 13 ~
They would look at me with these rather blank looks as if they could not quite believe
adults past the age of 22 or so behaved this way. Or maybe they were contemplating whether or
not to notify the French version of the Department of Homeland Security. I would be staying in a
wonderful type of housing called a gîte d’étap, though usually referred to as just gîte (albergue
in Spanish or hostel in English, you will remember). These can be run by the local municipality
or church, or be privately owned. Loosely regulated by the government, the facilities vary
immensely. Generally they are some variant of shared bedroom, bathroom and kitchen facilities.
In France, demi-pension (dinner and breakfast in addition to the bed) at a nominal cost was
available in many. Some of the managers or hospitaliers will offer a continental breakfast as part
of the price. I found them almost all very clean and well-maintained. And some, especially when
compared to facilities in Spain, were practically palatial.
I had the address of the gîte in Le Puy, of course. But I did not know if it was open, if
they would have a spot for me, or if I could stay there more than one night. And if I was going to
have to replace all my belongings, I wanted to be in Paris, not a backwater town.
In fact, that was the silver lining in this whole sordid affair: the thought of a shopping
spree in Paris on British Airways’ tab. Though the lost luggage policy was noticeably vague
about what I would be reimbursed for, how much, or even when, I dreamt of walking into a
cavernous camping goods store in the heart of Paris. There I would have a raft of salespeople
rolling out the full panoply of gear for my perusal. Without a worry, I would be outfitted and
walk out in style as the well coordinated, fashionably up-to-date pilgrim that I secretly aspired to
be.
Several planes arrived from London. No pack, no word, nothing found, and no answers,
Monsieur Elliott. And no, no, no, I still did not have a cellphone or forwarding address. By this
~ 14 ~
time I had befriended all the security people, and could dash in and out the Do Not Enter back
door to the baggage area. I had located a hotel for overnight and transport to it. I confirmed trains
south at the station at the airport.
By 3:00PM it seemed evident that I would be without so much as a toothbrush or clean
underwear for the interim—that was even beyond pilgrim-primitiveness. Since I had missed the
last train out to my destination anyway, I hightailed it over to the Hotel Ibis, a starkly impersonal
chain hotel near the airport. The fact that I was carrying my current read, Charles Dickens’
“Bleak House,” seemed to portend a rather dismal start for this chemin business.
The hotel did not disappoint: I was batting a thousand in the charmless department. The
décor was strictly utilitarian. What could be chained down was. There could not have been an
iota of natural fiber or material in the place. The television had no English-language channels,
and the French programming was so trite it baffled me how the French ever got a reputation for
erudition or raciness. Now someone who was going to be spending the next two months of nights
in accommodations even less chic might be expected to be less critical. But, damn it, I was in
Paris, and I wasn’t quite a pelerine (pilgrim) yet.
The internet PC was an exorbitant 6€ per hour (two to six times the going rate). And
since some demented soul had designed the French keyboard to be practically unusable for an
English typist, I was doomed to spend triple the amount of time I normally would tapping out an
S.O.S. missive to my adoring public.
I so wanted to have a grand meal as a way of inaugurating the walking part of my
journey. Even though I was not sanguine about my dining prospects, I did not entertain leaving
the confines of my temporary prison to eat in one of the more upscale towering hotels all around
me. Did I think that if I tried for some haute cuisine the maître d’ would be able to discern that
~ 15 ~
my underwear was considerably less than fresh and refuse me service? More likely was that I
was just jet lagged and resentful, and actually wanted to have an overcooked piece of gristle, a
tepid salad, a lackluster excuse for a dessert and a vinegary wine. Then I would end up as antiFrench as the then-current Bush administration. Never mind that it was our ally, the Brits, who
had put me in my present situation.
Walking into the vast dining room, I was sure this nightmare-ette would continue. The
place just gleamed too much. No tablecloths. The diners were a motley crew of solitary,
dispirited men, of whom a few looked like they too had not changed their rumpled clothes all
that recently. The menu was one of those large-scale laminated affairs that never seem to have
any real food on offer. I scanned it for the frog legs I had been dreaming of in the weeks prior to
leaving. But as my French was so abysmal; it would have to have been tagged l’eggs du frogge
from me to recognize.
The waiter was charming, efficient, and spoke enough English to put us both at ease. I
recognized canard as something I could tolerate. If it didn’t taste like duck, I could cleverly say
they meant it in its English usage of “hoax” when I prepared my devastating expose of such an
un-Gallic venue.
Well, the wine was not so bad. And when the duck came, I found it rather tasty, if not
downright succulent. And the potatoes were so good that I thoroughly understood why we still
call them French, not freedom, fries. I was a good boy and cleaned my plate. The wine, “Bleak
House,” and jet lag conspired to put me out soon after my departure from the dining room.
As I usually do at the beginning of any of my journeys, I slept fitfully and could not
blame the hotel. Still, I was in decidedly better spirits when I tackled the dining room again the
next morning what with freshly hand-laundered underwear and socks. The room was full of
~ 16 ~
spirited Spanish high school seniors on a trip—so that was who would purposefully stay in a
joint like this! There was an extensive buffet, but it still somehow only translated breakfast into
just the basic continental affair of coffee, roll, croissant, butter, jam, and slice of rock-hard
melon.
Girded on carbohydrates and not weighted down, obviously, by much baggage, I was
primed to again do battle with British Airways. I only used one obscenity the day before but was
ready with an arsenal of curse words and antics that could not be misinterpreted. I would demand
my bag immediately or that shopping spree. In other words, I would be decidedly unpilgrim-like.
Getting to that dismal corner I knew so well, I noticed just a single person, new to me, at
the desk. She looked like a formidable foe, but I was going to brook no nonsense. Her English
was excellent, but she listened to my short synopsis of my lost bag tale with a disdainful mien
just short of outright rudeness, and frostily asked for my claim papers.
She typed and typed and typed things in the computer and kept hitting the enter button
over and over. Instead of preparing myself for the ensuing battle, I must say I was gleefully
counting my proverbial chickens: “No, Monsieur Salesperson, those orange socks are not the
exact shade as the piping on the trousers and the accents on the backpack. Surely, you can do
better than that!”
So when she finally looked up from the console and informed me that my lost pack
arrived about 15 minutes after I left the airport the day before, I was more than slightly
chagrined—I could at least have spent the night in Paris proper. But, yes, it was there and none
the worse for wear. Even my jacket strapped on the outside was still in place and unsoiled. It
seems that the baggage identification tag came off somehow over the Atlantic—hence how
Kennedy had records that it was sent, but Heathrow had none that it arrived. Anyone who has
~ 17 ~
tried to remove one of those intentionally must wonder how in heaven’s name that could have
happened accidentally. Gremlins?
I quickly regained my equilibrium and pilgrim spirit, swung on the backpack, and took
off. The day was sunny and cool. I trotted off to the train station at the airport and got a ticket
agent who spoke excellent English. He saved me three hours by directing me to the Gare du
Lyon in Paris via the Metro for an earlier train to St. Etienne and a better connection to Le Puy.
And not just a train. I was going in style on a high-speed TGV south. Have I said how much I
just love the French?
I got into town without a hitch, though it had started to rain by the time I arrived. The
whole of Paris seemed to be escaping town along with me. Since there weren’t any places to sit, I
kept strolling, pack and all. Taking the stairs down to the bathroom, I was astounded to come
upon a dozen racks of assorted postcards. Even though the selection was not an outright treasury,
I was able to put a dent in France’s balance of payment deficit (or more likely, bolster their
surplus) with the U.S. probably a little more than was wise. I mean, I had to carry them all on my
back until I had a packet big enough to post back home.
The train ride was grand. The sun was out again. The countryside as we practically flew
through it was green and gorgeous. I was purposefully deluding myself that this flat luscious land
would be what I would be hiking through when I knew that the contrary would be the case. The
other passengers were well-dressed and interesting to watch. The café car offered many succulent delights, tastefully packaged. Ah, France!
At St. Etienne, I only had to cross the platform and board the local to Le Puy that was
leaving in ten minutes. Having read on some website about a bistro near the station that served
my vaunted l’eggs du frogge, I craned my neck but didn’t see any place worth a stopover. I did
~ 18 ~
spot one couple, a dour older man and a decidedly scowling woman, with backpacks getting off
the TGV and heading for this one. Most of the rest were college students heading home.
We were on our way. Suddenly, it seemed, the flat farmland gave way to formidable hills
that soon were steep enough to be termed mountains. Oh yes, the Massif Central. In fact, puy
means tall conical hill in French. I could not say I was not forewarned.
We were soon at our destination. I met that couple with backpacks straight-off at the
posted map board of the city. He spoke excellent, slightly accented English. Either she didn’t or
was just unfriendly or shy. I did not introduce myself, even though it was obvious that we were
all pilgrims. I headed off alone to the cathedral and the gîte near it.
I must say I was still heady with delight. The sun was shining. The air was crisp, clean,
and invigorating. I could see Le Puy’s reputation as a beautiful town was well-deserved.
Everything was so quaint and lovely. I practically trotted up the hill on the winding,
cobblestoned streets to the cathedral. The postcard racks were aplenty, and they offered more
than the standard fare of dowdy, badly photographed buildings. I soon had a stack of happy
peasants at work, at home, and in the field; historic venues; shots of the bobbin lace and green
lentils the region is noted for; and those recipe cards that feature a famous dish in the most
unappetizing manner. Add another pound or two to the pack.
At the cathedral after a peek inside, I noted the posted time for the daily Mass and pilgrim
benediction and easily made my way to the nearby gîte. Though I was still a bit giddy from the
excite-ment of starting a new adventure, there were dark clouds on my horizons. I was worried
that I was decidedly out of shape having spent the two months off work doing little more than
sitting at the computer at home and eating more than I should have. Also resounding in the
further recesses of my giddy mind was the guidebook admonition “Don’t expect anybody—
~ 19 ~
anybody at all—to speak English!” (Raju, 24 and her italics)
Oh well, I wasn’t in a hurry; I had done a similar journey before in worse conditions and
in worse physical shape. I had three months to walk to Santiago, and, since I had been there
already, I felt that even that goal was flexible. My Spanish was hardly better than my French, and
I had survived my time in wintery rural Spain the year before.
Perched high on the main hill behind the cathedral, the gîte was located in a formidable
but welcoming stone building and had sweeping views of the whole of the city and the
surrounding valley. I barged into what looked like the entrance and came upon a group preparing
dinner. It was obvious they considered me an intruder and didn’t want to have anything to do
with me. Since they looked a little too settled to be pilgrim, I now think they were permanent
residents who did odd jobs around the place and cathedral and were what we euphemistically call
“challenged.”
Their raucous directions, accompanied by many fluttering arm movements, were maybe
not even intelligible to a native speaker. So I just stood there looking dumb until they summoned
the hospitalier who was right up some stairs that were readily accessible from this room but
meant to be entered from the door next to the one I had used. Gee, they must get a lot of this.
She took me to her office, rattling on in French all the while. No, pace Raju, she did not
speak a word of English. I was used to this, I remembered, having been introduced to the
chemin/camino last year in the same manner by a booming-voiced French matriarch who—like
this slightly younger version—thought repetition and increased volume would lead to
comprehension. Nevertheless, I soon had my room key and a lot of instructions, none of which I
hoped were essential because I was not sure that I fathomed any of them.
My first official contact on this whole pilgrimage business didn’t have a stamp for my
~ 20 ~
credential or passport and said, I think, that I could get it at the cathedral after the pilgrim
benediction the next day. (A pilgrim carries such a passport with identifying information and
boxes for the stamps that he or she must get at each stopover. When presented in Santiago at the
end, the credential is proof that he or she has done the requisite journey and earned the compostela. It also becomes a handy and valued little souvenir of the journey.)
A digression of sorts here. I am an American and cannot and do not try to deny it. I also
am not, or try desperately not to be, one of the “ugly” sort—one who expects all peoples of the
world to speak my native tongue regardless of where I happen to be. I actually love languages at
one point had some rudimentary knowledge of French and German. I am, or was, fluent in
Russian and Turkish, but neither of those are a whole lot of help when traveling outside the
former USSR or Turkey. Furthermore, some sort of hard wiring in my brain went awry after I
turned 40—I simply cannot absorb new vocabulary easily. That happens not only with English
but especially with foreign tongues. Fat chance it was that I was going to achieve any fluency on
this trip. As it was, the French I desultorily tried to master came to the forefront as soon as I
crossed the border into Spain, whereas the Spanish I painstakingly battered into my brain the
year before flitted away.
I was wondering why I was given a room key, as I assumed that the accommodation
would be a shared dormitory and bathroom like in Spain. Well, I had a lovely, though Spartan (a
relative term as I would come to appreciate), room all to myself. There was a little sink, a large
cupboard, and a spiffy single bed. Nice! Though about three or four times the cost of what I was
used to in Spain, at 16€ it was hardly expensive. The shared bathroom was right across the hall.
I was on the second floor, meaning the third. As there were lots of doors on this and the other
floors, I was expecting a lot of pilgrims joining me on the trail, though not many seemed to be in
~ 21 ~
evidence at that time.
I went straight back to the cathedral, a lovely Romanesque affair with many accretions.
The vaunted Black Virgin was, as seems to be the usual case, a tiny little statue far up on the
altar and too far away for close inspection. Now an object of much veneration, it was actually a
replacement for a statue of Isis a returning Crusader gave the church. That pagan idol was much
more productive in the miracle department and sorely missed by the people, though they
eventually took to the present representation. (Robb, 133)
Le Puy is theologically important because of an appearance of the Blessed Virgin Mary
(BVM) to a local woman about 1,600 or 1,700 years ago. The woman was cured of a fatal illness
by climbing, as she was instructed, the hill where I was presently ensconced, and sitting on a
rock. She then had a second vision in which Mary exhorted her to get the local bishop to build a
church at that spot.
We don’t know how compliant the bishop was in all this at the beginning. But he too
eventually scaled the hill and found himself in deep snow. This was unusual for the middle of
July and, I was hoping, for late March. Not only that, but a deer was helpfully walking around
and tracing out the floor plan of the church in the snow. So that was why there was a church on
this site and why it was so important to warrant being the commencement of a major pilgrimage
route, the Via Podensis (though others from Europe filtered into Le Puy).
There seemed to be a lot of material on the web about dark-hued BVM statues. (Le Puy
does not have this market cornered, it seems.) I was satisfied enough with the first explanation I
was able to wade through. It seems that contrary to what was originally thought, namely that the
Black Virgin had her origins in Africa, she was now considered to be just standard representation
of local women who were dark brown from their work in the fields. Huh?
~ 22 ~
Bear with me, we have a bit more Mary lore to get through. This was France, remember.
They seem to be just as Mary-crazy as other Catholic countries. Prior to this trip, I had considered France to be a fairly secular, areligious nation. But probably three-fourths of the
population was baptized Roman Catholic. I think most of the atheistic or agnostic populace must
live in the bigger cities or up north because I would be encountering crosses, BVM statues, and
impeccably kept chapels at a quick clip all the way to the border.
In fact, there was an immense statue of Mary towering over the city from a high
prominence behind the cathedral. This one was red—though the hue was what I would call
cindercone and a perfect color for a backpack. Her history was all tied up with pillagers, banditti,
Knights of the Hooded Cloak, and Huguenots. The much smaller original was burned in 1793;
and the present one was cast from 213 pieces of artillery that the French had captured at
Sebastopol and that Napoleon III gave to the diocese. You gotta admit that was a pretty good
story, though it lacked visions and architecturally-inclined deer.
In the diocese of Le Puy alone, there are 63 separate Mary statues that get an annual
procession. (Robb, 125) Boy, that should keep one’s dance card filled. I will spare you (and,
more importantly, me) more exegesis on their meaning for the moment. A postcard I acquired
had little thumbnail pictures of five of them in the vicinity, and they all pretty much looked like
the little statuette in the cathedral.
I passed on a trip up that cliff for closer inspection as I was much more eager to climb
another steep volcanic promontory to visit the Chapel of St. Michael (formerly a Roman temple
to Mercury). This stunning building sits atop its own vertigo-inducing, 269 ft needle of basalt in
the middle of the city. I made my way over to the site but had missed the opening times by a
good two hours. Though I saved myself quite an ascent on the 268 steps, I failed to see the
~ 23 ~
panoramic view and the chapel’s frescoes.
I then wandered in vain through the old part of town looking for an internet cafe. I did
find a grocery for bread, water, sardines, dried fruit, and other provisions for the next day’s hike.
I was really attempting to practice my French too. There was little alternative.
Since dinner time was eight or after, I had an hour to choose from the wide variety of
restaurants in town. When I found a fairly reasonably priced place that had a menu régional, I
was set. I was the first patron in, of course—we pilgrims do like to eat early. This was be the first
of many times when the staff had to hurriedly stuff the remains of their dinner into their mouths
before they rushed to seat and serve me.
First course was jambon crue or their version of thinly sliced smoked ham. It was
delicious, as were the rolls, olives, and wine. Then I had a big pot of local pork sausage and
green lentils, a Le Puy specialty. I could have licked the bowl clean and probably did wipe every
drop out with the help of my second basket of bread. (I was of the clean-plate school long before
I became a pilgrim.) This was followed by an assortment of three local cheeses, reason enough to
visit this wonderful country. The healthy portions required a second glass of wine. I finished
with some strangely flavored homemade ice cream.
The only diversion of note in the restaurant was a couple in their seventies with their two
grandsons about four- and six-years-old, sitting at a nearby table. The younger of the boys was
exhibiting some distinctly un-French table manners to the horror of his grandmother. When
mildly proffered admonitions failed to curb his enthusiasm to play with his brother instead of
approaching the food and eating in the proper reverential manner (one of the delights—besides
the food—of eating out in France is this attitude of the patrons), she delivered a withering
warning that shut him up, calmed him down, and had him politely finishing his dinner. If ever a
~ 24 ~
mega-lottery winner, I vowed to track her down and hire her as a full-time companion should I
encounter a kid—or worse, an adult—petulantly playing with his meal in my presence. I don’t
think it is necessary to understand a word of French to get her message.
I headed back through the dimly-lit lovely medieval streets in a pleasant alcoholic semifog. Back at the gîte, there didn’t seem to be a whole lot of activity. Could it be that all the
pilgrims had hit the hay already? I was, by now, anxious to meet the assembled crowd in the
morning and hoping to find a pleasant hiking companion.
I may have been up well before the Mass at seven, but no other creature was stirring. I
went over to the cathedral at 6:50 to find the door open and a few lights on. Only one other man
was present. As the hour struck, he got up and turned on another light near the altar and
disappeared somewhere in the back, an action that put me in a mild panic. While I hadn’t
expected a huge crowd, I needed at least one other person whose actions I could ape so that it
looked like I understood and was following the liturgy. I thought I would have to be on my
knees, head down, pretending to be lost in prayer through the whole service.
When no one, including a priest, showed up by 7:10, I scurried out and went back to the
still slumbering gîte. Tarrying in the communal room, I found a jar of Nescafé and had a couple
of cups, feeling distinctly traitorous, what with coffee being such a national obsession and all.
Some butter and jam from the communal fridge on half of the baguette purchased the day before
comprised the inauspicious breakfast that was to launch me on a thousand-mile hike. A welldressed older couple entered the communal room as I was ready to leave. But they didn’t speak
any English and didn’t brighten up at my repetition of pelerin. At least they didn’t correct my
pronunciation.
Oh well, I thought, I can do this on my own. I grabbed my pack and started off again. As
~ 25 ~
I was rounding the stairs of the last floor a handsome man in his mid-30s with a backpack came
out of one of the rooms. In answer to my bonjour and parle vous, he replied in the affirmative
and continued in an almost flawless English with a devastatingly sexy accent. Hm, things were
looking up! Unfortunately, though, he had done my proposed journey the previous year and was
now heading out in the opposite direction. I was sorely tempted to say, “Hey, I did that
chemin/camino thing too last year. Mind if I join you?”
But I went out into the morning air that seemed distinctly cooler than it had an hour
earlier when I was still flush with initiating the whole trip. I then remembered that I didn’t have
the stamp in my pilgrim passport to prove that I had started in Le Puy and so decided to swing by
the cathedral again and maybe at least get that.
The doors were still unlocked but the sacristy was shuttered. The only activity in the nave
was a woman lighting a candle near the main altar. I didn’t pay her much attention until she
walked off to the side aisle and picked up a substantial backpack, whereupon I approached her as
I did the gentleman at the gîte with a bonjour and a parle vous. Like him, her accent was
decidedly French and clearly understandable. And, yes, she was a pilgrim going all the way to
Santiago.
This was Anne Marie. When you read any first-person accounts of pilgrimages nowadays, you will be sure to get some riff on “the magic of the chemin/camino.” These are usually in
the vein of “I just didn’t know what to do. But so-and-so appeared out of nowhere or such-andsuch happened unexpectedly, and everything worked out fabulously.” I had barely started and
was in a bind and, lo and behold, I had found not only an English (and equally as important
French) speaker but a wonderful hiking companion. Miracles are made of less.
She too was looking for a stamp for her credential. She had arrived late the night before
~ 26 ~
and—thinking there would be no room in the gîte—stayed in a hotel down in town. Expecting,
like I, the benediction at seven, she couldn’t understand why no one was about. (It turned out that
the posted times were for May through September only. At other times in the year, they do not
have an early Mass and do the pilgrim blessing at nine. Gee, just like small-town life everywhere; why bother to change the sign when the locals knew the score.) Her French guidebook
indicated that there was a convent nearby that boarded overflow pilgrims in the summer. She
thought that we might be able to get our stamps there. So off we went on our journey together.
~ 27 ~
Chapter Two
Le Tour Rural Delux
The Deluxe Rural Tour
Le Puy to Espalion
The way out of the cathedral and on to the chemin was through a massive awe-inspiring
doorway which opened out to vistas of Le Puy and the surrounding mountainous countryside—
truly a wonderful start of a journey. We stopped and queried passers-by who were getting their
bread and newspapers out on the street. These kind folk were a bit vague about the location of
the convent but seemed to want to talk a lot. Then we spotted a young woman in a nun’s habit
and sandals coming our way up the hill. I was not about to invoke the old magic thing quite so
quickly again but was relieved none the less.
The sister had a double armful of long baguettes and was rushing back to the convent.
She must have had some wicked Mother Superior hell bent on punctuality because she was not at
all pleased to have us as another chore. We could barely keep up with her on her trot up the hill
and down a side street, though admittedly our packs were heavier than all of her breads. She
quickly stamped our documents and actually shooed us out.
And again we were on our way. For the next month, we would be walking a well-established French national hiking trail, the GR65 (Sentiers de Grandes Radonnees). It was just a
simple matter of following the red-and-white horizontal bars, or balises, that mark the way all
the way to the Spanish border and beyond. (From there on it would be yellow arrows and scallop
shells to point the way.) The trail roughly followed the ancient Via Podensis section of the
Chemin de Saint Jacques de Compostelle. As I mentioned earlier, right before St. Jean Pied de
Port other major routes from France would merge with ours and become—incongruously
~ 28 ~
because it is almost totally in Spain—the Camino Francés all the way to Santiago. The total
distance was probably around 1,535 km or 954 mi if one added the distances given in my two
trail guides. But the first pilgrimage monument atop a large hill outside Le Puy was a big cross
with a plaque listing the total as 1,698 km or 1,055 mi. I, of course, prefer and now use that
figure.
We easily got out of town, passing an open-air farm market whose wares were not yet out
on the tables and so did not tempt us away from our journeying. We were soon in the
breathtaking (literally and figuratively) mountainous countryside. For the first two hours we had
clear skies. The gentle winter sunlight, combined with the effort needed for a steady ascent, soon
warmed us up considerably. We also kept up a steady patter and were soon like old friends.
Anne Marie was a 64-year-old retired business woman from Paris. For the past seven
years she had lived in Neuilly, a fashionable part of town whose former mayor, Nicholas
Sarkozy, is now the French President. Prior to that, she had a horse farm in hunt country outside
Paris. Of course, I was letting my imagination run wild again, envisioning my Parisian “home
away from home” with mon ami, Anne Marie.
I was sure that my new friend would be quite the gourmand and expected that she would
ferret out delightful little culinary treats along the way if she had not already memorized the
Michelin guide to the territory. I was also picturing my steadily decreasing bank balance as I was
partaking of and contributing equally to these delicacies. Maybe weight loss and self-abnegation
were not to be the go words on this chemin. But did I mind? When in Rome…or wherever.
Alas, Anne Marie was a practical woman and an ultra-marathoner who liked to keep
active. She didn’t seem to talk like a foodie; big spreads of comfort food for assembled masses
who had traipsed all over the countryside in athletic pursuits seemed to be her dietary milieu. She
~ 29 ~
mentioned a recent mountainous climb through Corsica that involved hanging off cliffs and
wading through torrents with the very same backpack. And she told me about her ascent of Mont
Blanc where she passed out on the summit and had to be helicoptered off. That trip left her with
some severe frostbite and skin loss. Clearly this was not your everyday French housewife.
Anne Marie was, like me, not a novice pilgrim. She had started in Paris two weeks before
and walked to Tours. From there she took various trains to Le Puy. Either that was her original
plan, or the Paris-St. Jean route was too flat and too pilgrim-sparse. She had some grand and wild
stories about her journey so far. The best featured her as the only guest of a surly retired general
in a veritable castle. When she was leaving the next morning, she interrupted the rotund general
and his wife in their underwear doing sweaty laps around their vast dining room. She also got to
be a guest at an international conference on spirituality near Chartres. I was again impressed and
hoping this chemin would offer similar delights.
The not-so-occasional patch of snow indicated that winter was not yet a dim memory. We
even had a short spurt of snow flurries that day and over the next few. But the grass was
greening, trees were budding, and early budding flowers and plants were popping through the
ground. There were picturesque villages every five km or so. Most had an attractive little
Romanesque church open for perusal or prayer. The few houses of these villages were perched
on the edges of volcanic cliffs, giving the inhabitant and us broad vistas of the splendid scenery.
These homes tended to be large two-story stone affairs with hipped roofs complete with curlycue wisps of smoke from the chimneys —exactly how a seven-year-old would draw a house. All
were well maintained with still fairly dormant gardens.
These scattered small villages with well-kept homes seemed to be standard for this area
of France. A week or two later, when spring was in full bloom, the flowers and shrubs were
~ 30 ~
blossoming, and the sun was beaming down, I could not help but think that it was all a set for a
Merchant-Ivory film. It was all so incredibly picturesque and beautiful. But, boy, was it hilly. It
seemed that whoever came up with the route in France and in Spain took pains to include every
possible steep incline. So it was up, down, up, down, all day for many a day.
We did 22 km that day and reached Saint-Privat d’Allier, an exemplarily charming and
delightful village, by climbing up what we gladly knew was the last hill of the day. The skyline
was dominated by a marvelous old church whose steeple pierced the late winter sky. We visited
it later and gabbed with the village ladies preparing for pre-Easter services the next day.
We easily found the gîte and were welcomed by our hostess, Christine, a stylish French
(almost, but not completely redundant) woman with a baby daughter. She soon settled us in the
upstairs rooms. I had a two-bunk, four-bedded room to myself that night. Anne Marie would
share hers with three women we soon dubbed “The Three Graces.” These ladies were a
delightful trio consisting of an 84-year-old woman, her daughter and the daughter’s friend.
Momma, very stylish in her knickers, knee socks, and scarves, was an intrepid hiker who carried
her own significant backpack and always looked fresh at the end of the day.
A note here about backpack contents: on any hike, one can run into gear junkies who
want to get into long disquisitions about why they purchased their obviously-more-superior items
and the inadequacy of yours. That really didn’t often happen on either of my pilgrimages, but the
total weight carried was a source of constant comment. Anything over 10 k (22 lb) was actually
considered a moral failing by many. I carried eight or nine but ran into others with more ample
and fully stuffed packs who would smirk and baldly lie and say they were only carrying six or
seven. Later they would pull out cosmetic bags, extra shoes, or assorted bibelots that surely put
the total at twice their stated amount.
~ 31 ~
Pilgrims would also get very huffy about what others carried. I was mystified why
anyone would pack pajamas or a hair dryer. One guy the year before got upset whenever I pulled
out my Gitlitz and Davidson. “Why are you carrying that?” he would always exclaim. “It is way
too heavy.” Now, he carried at least three-days worth of food stuffs, so afraid was he of being
without a meal and even though it was rare we could not do daily shopping. (As he was a good
30 lb overweight, he really could have missed a few repasts anyway.) Now, I calmly said, I used
the book daily and—though thick—it really was not that heavy. And anyway, I was the one
burdened by the weight, not him.
Meanwhile back at Saint-Privat, only one of the appealing village shops was open. Here
we purchased the items necessary to cook our first meal—pasta topped with a bottled Bolognese
sauce (which turned out to be a real chemin/camino staple), bread, cheese and wine. That meal
was so very satisfying—a long day’s walk in the mountains does wonders for the appetite—that I
was not grieving for the high-class dining plans I had envisioned earlier in the day.
Our other gîte companions were a man in his early forties from Rouen who was hiking
with his 13-year-old daughter. They were going to walk as much of the chemin as they could in a
week by means of a GPS system as well as one of the many guidebooks. They shared a big can
of cassoulet—a famous French bean stew I had been wanting to try, though maybe without the
Vienna sausages in this batch. The Three Graces also cooked for themselves—a simple
reconstituted packaged soup (another staple of the trip) and warmed-up meat pies. Then we all
toddled off to bed.
So this was Day One of the very similar and contiguous 59 or so future days: getting up,
eating, finding the way, walking, eating, walking, washing the day’s soiled clothing and the
tired-out body, getting supplies for and preparing dinner, and sleeping. That is the essence of the
~ 32 ~
pilgrimage. The rest—meeting some nice or eccentric people, sampling a regional delight,
learning some history, visiting some little Romanesque chapel, or reveling in the magnificent
mountainous landscape—was icing on the cake.
The central heat I had that night dried my hand washing but made my sleeping bag a bit
too warm on the legs. But I slept well enough and was up before the others, even Michael,
Christine’s handsome husband, who was soon making strong coffee and putting out the bread,
butter and jam. He was a rugged but sensitive specimen of French villager—thick black wavy
hair, a three-day growth of black beard, slim, and effortlessly elegant in an oversized thick crewnecked sweater. Even allowing for my inordinate love of breakfast the world over (though
already wishing for a bit more than this bread-and-jam routine), I was really enjoying this chemin
business.
The air was nippy at the start of our second day, and the sky was overcast by thick wintry
clouds. While the way was pretty much uphill most of the day, a particularly treacherous downhill on a rocky path in the woods was thrown in for good measure. That steep decline was
followed by a really sheer uphill whose ascent was thankfully punctuated by a convenient but
drab little chapel that we perused more diligently than its architectural merit required in an effort
to rest our weary joints. As we passed more villages and more Romanesque chapels, I knew that
I was soon going to be running out of superlatives to describe all this. We also went by
innumerable roadside crosses and BVMs—each field and home was required to have one and/or
the other, it seemed. Our quick and chilly lunch in a pine forest was an alfresco affair of cheese,
bread, and dried fruit. We walked through a light drizzle for most of the afternoon.
Along the way we met two Swedish women who were distinctly unhappy with the
weather. They were expecting sun and fields of wildflowers where they would have long, lovely,
~ 33 ~
languid lunches. As one said, “If I wanted this, I could have stayed home.” I, who was favorably
comparing this early spring landscape to a more bleak Spanish winter one from the year before,
gently demurred. I mentioned the delightful chapels as an example of the glory of this trip but
just got scowls. They were not to be appeased. (One soon left for home. The other crossed my
path numerous times from here to Conques and then suddenly disappeared.)
Though some were built earlier, these little church buildings mainly date from the 10th to
12th centuries. Romanesque architecture is of considerable variation, of course, but is generally
described as massive, sturdy, and simple. The hallmarks are thick stone walls, round arches,
heavy barrel vaults, small windows, and simple defined forms and decoration. Some people seem
to think that they are consequently more “authentic” (that word again!) and “spiritual” (we won’t
even begin to try to parse that term) than later ecclesiastical structures. This is bosh of course—
builders have always responded to current fashions and available construction techniques. With
the crusades, pilgrimages, and changes in commerce at the time of the transition from
Romanesque to Gothic, there were considerable movements of people and concomitant sharing
and spread of skills and ideas which led to later developments in style and construction.
But I must say when stepping into these buildings gently ensconced in these little villages
or out on the hills, I had a tendency to lose my architectural-history perspective and be
inordinately moved. With their narrow side aisles lurking behind the massive columns, a barrel
vault covering the nave, and a round apse gently augmenting the altar space, these structures’
lack flashiness was more than offset by their symmetry and immediacy.
The entrances
occasionally had towers but usually were crowned only with a bell tower pinnacle. Decoration—
probably more from worry about theft than anything—tended to be minimal and so delightfully
mirrored the architecture. I also found it amazing that almost all the churches were open for
~ 34 ~
view—the year before I had rarely found one in Spain open except for services.
Almost to our destination, I picked up the pace and outdistanced Anne Marie for a while.
I was well into one of those hike reveries where the feet were moving forward but the mind was
continents away. I was probably working out an elaborate revenge scheme on my former boss in
which he suffered horribly but I, somehow, remained innocent of any real felony. So I missed a
turn and was headed off to who-knows-where when I was luckily aroused by Anne Marie’s
shouts.
We bedded down in a private gîte in Sauges, a small provincial town where all the
inhabitants were crowded into its bars as most everything else was closed for Sunday. (Bars, by
the way, in the small towns of France and Spain are where you get coffee. They also usually
serve some sort of food and are community gathering places for all folk.) As the owner of this
recently opened property was getting it ready for a government inspection the next day, the place
was immaculate. Anne Marie and I shared a four-bed room (no bunks) with its own bathroom. It
even included a towel warmer/heater. Such luxury.
We walked through the town to the church which had a nice Romanesque apse, an early
Gothic nave, but very modern windows. The crucifix was already covered with purple drapes for
Holy Week. There was a curious Chapel of the Penitents across the courtyard where some sort of
instructional meeting was taking place. We peeked inside and saw its very ornate baroque interior before being shooed out. A representative came past the gîte that evening and invited us to
a Passion procession they were having that Friday. I was rather sorry to have missed it.
We had met Josie, a tall thin Quebecois, on the trail that day and again at the gîte. She,
like Anne Marie and I, was planning to go all the way to Santiago. I mistakenly took her as a
lightweight, but she turned out to be a truly intrepid hiker, soon outdistancing us—but she had to
~ 35 ~
outpace a particularly nasty hiking companion. Remember that that was an option as my tale
continues.
The couple from the train, Juergen and Annie, ended up the gîte with us that night. They
had stories of horrid cold rooms at their chambre d’hote (a kind of cross between a hotel and bed
and breakfast) in Saint-Privat and so were quite pleased with the plethora of comforts here at a
much cheaper cost. Their reports of lackluster food at the restaurants they were patronizing made
our self-prepared dinners seem more appealing. Without recourse to new purchases, Anne Marie
and I delved into our stores and cooked up a packet of vegetable soup. We boiled the half
package of pasta remaining from the day before and topped it with chopped sardines in olive oil.
Though it may not have been haute cuisine, our dinner was delicious. A long day of exercise has
a way of heightening the appetite and sharpening the taste buds.
I dithered long and thought hard about bringing my MP3 player along on my 2006 trip
before deciding it was not necessary. I had the same internal debate this time. I knew I would
appreciate it, especially après hike, but the possibility of theft and trouble with recharging
batteries were hassles I wanted to be without. There was also the problem of possibly zoning out
while listening to rock classics and missing a turn—I had done that sans music just that day.
Those arguments were still valid, and again I left my player at home. But what to do for those
“The Sound of Music” moments when one just had to break out in song? Or for the quiet times
in the gîte dining room? How to finesse those?
Last year I encountered a French biker who travelled with a sheaf of song lyrics that he
would pull out at a particularly pleasant rest stop so that he could indulge. Having warmed to that
possibility, I hurriedly copied the words to about 40 of my favorite songs off the internet two
days before I left. I was itching not only to sing but to get my fellow pilgrims to participate—a
~ 36 ~
kind of karaoke chemin/camino.
Since Anne Marie and I seemed like such bosom buddies already, I delicately brought up
the subject of shared song. Although she got excited, my enthusiasm trumped my judgment. I
chose “It’s Raining Men” as our initial duet—probably not the ideal selection for such an
independent, vivacious woman. She even rather blithely pushed the lyrics away. Perhaps “I am
Woman” by Helen Reddy would have been a wiser choice.
Wanting to wait for shops to open (though all remained closed as per custom in this part
of France on Mondays), Anne Marie and I were last out of the gîte the next morning. After two
days of steep ups and downs, the first part of this leg was fairly flat with only rolling hills in the
afternoon. The walking surface was a combination of deserted minor asphalt roads, gravel paths,
and packed-dirt-and-stone farm lanes. We passed through or by an old castle tower, more pine
forests, bubbly brooks, and snowy pastures, as well as a few more tidy villages and chapels. We
did only about 20 km because Anne Marie got word along the way that the gîte in Sauvage was
worthy of a stop.
And it was incredible—a working farm that we could enjoy in the late afternoon winter
light. As we walked the last kilometer, we had a perfect view of the fields, pond, and livestock
pens. The gîte itself was located in the base of a huge U-shaped stone farmhouse. (The uprights
of the U were barns.) There was some talk that it rested on the foundation of a Templar fort.
We were ushered into Madame Alion’s living room in order to check in. Even with all
the comforts of home and a not insignificant collection of knick knacks, the eye-catcher had to
be the colossal hearth and the welcoming log fire set within. Madame Alion said that prior to
central heating it was literally the center of life at the farm. Several people could sit on the ledge
inside it for warmth, passing many an hour in conversation and handwork. She gracefully
~ 37 ~
demonstrated for us, and her diminutive form was swallowed up in the maw of the cut and welldressed stone. All she lacked were some knitting needles to complete the scene.
Around the farm a very randy stallion, frustrated at being in a separate corral, was pacing
about and snorting. A bevy of pouting poultry was always underfoot and were less bothered by
the mud than we. Madame said that her family used to keep cattle and more livestock, but now
they mainly limited themselves to crop farming now. But we didn’t mind—we had a plethora of
different animals at the fringes of our hike through the remainder of France.
Far from shops and restaurants and down to almost nothing to eat in our packs as we
hadn’t passed any open shops along the way, we were at first fearing that we could not make use
of the prodigious kitchen or fill our bellies. But Madame offered to sell us anything from her
extensive larder—well-prepared was she for any contingency. We passed up the many canned
goods and purchased some eggs, butter, oranges, apples, salt, and wine for a song (not literally—
but I bet Madame would have sung “It’s Raining Men” with me). Madame tossed in three
colossal potatoes gratis.
I was given the task of making an omelet, a job I considered part of the French DNA and
risky for an American to attempt. I thought maybe Anne Marie was putting me to the test—if I
prepared a proper one I would be worthy of her continued company. I despaired of not living up
to the task, being exiled, and losing all the help she had been giving me—she not only provided a
translation service; she made sure we were well-fed and made our gîte reservations on the cell
phone she, thankfully, had no qualms about carrying. Plus, I really liked her company.
Juergen and Annie also ended up here with us. They too purchased some things from
Madame and had dinner with us, the Three Graces, and the others. My omelet was perfect—I
think Anne Marie may not have been the most accomplished of cooks and so gave me the chore.
~ 38 ~
Our huge potatoes were the top topic of conversation before and after we boiled, sliced, and
sautéed them in butter and garlic. They were actually quite good—yellow and creamy. Terrific
trail food.
Juergen and Annie became part of our group the next day. Annie turned out to be shy, not
at all unfriendly. Probably in her mid 40s, she lived in Strasbourg but had grown up the youngest
of three daughters on a farm in Alsace. At the first chance she had, she ran away from home and
into a disastrous marriage which produced her 18-year-old daughter and an abusive ex-husband.
Since the daughter was growing up and asserting independence, Annie was having a mid-life
crisis, hence the chemin. She had never hiked before or gone off on her own like this. She soon
came into her own.
A slow walker, she spent an inordinate amount of time placing stones on the multiple
crosses and taking pictures of most everything moving or stationery we encountered—usually
from the most unartistic angle or in poor light. She started out a bit overweight and was thrilled
when her pants started getting too big for her. She had to prop them up with a bit of rope as she
had everything but a belt in her huge backpack filled with every conceivable item for camping.
Though she mailed off two kilos that day, she probably bought an equal amount of food in order
to please Juergen who was so demanding in the culinary department.
A word here about these crosses. They seemed to be everywhere and of all make and
material—though my favorite was the topiary one I spotted a few days later. Word on the chemin
was that the farmers placed them by every field for protection and to ensure a bountiful harvest.
Actually, it seems, many started life as road signs or markers during the road-building boom in
the reign of Louis XIV and then gradually gained a more strictly religious significance. (Robb,
223) Their profusion was probably just a matter of “keeping up with the Joneses” or, more
~ 39 ~
appropriately “the Martins,” as much as out of piety.
Juergen was a retired Dutch businessman who spoke excellent English, French, and
German. He had three children, two of whom had walked the Spanish part of the camino. He was
going to walk as far as he could in the month he had before he accompanied his wife on a trip to
the states to see the Egyptian collections of several museums. While her new hobby was
hieroglyphics, she had an avid passion for Romanesque art and architecture which Juergen
shared.
Our oldest companion spent a lot of his time and energy living the good life. He was
already happily resigned to staying in the gîtes since his hotels in Le Puy and Saint-. Privat were
decidedly less comfortable and convivial. But he did want to upgrade our eating program. He did
a lot of gourmet cooking in Holland and admitted that his wife supported his doing the chemin so
that she could get a break from all his rich food production and wine imbibing and maybe lose
some weight. The usually poorly supplied kitchens we would encounter did not daunt him in the
least.
Right outside the farm was yet another chapel dedicated to St. Roch—the fourth one we
had passed since Le Puy. St. Roch was a particularly popular saint in the Middle Ages and on the
chemin. A lot of chapels and churches once dedicated to other saints were renamed for him
during the plague years. He was a wealthy Frenchman who became a hermit then pilgrim. He
was usually pictured with a lesion on his leg—hence, the association with bubonic buboes—and
the dog that tended him while he was afflicted. Otherwise with his staff and gourd and scallop
shell he looked just like our St. James, and the two are often confused.
It is really hard to overestimate the effect of the plague or Black Death on Europe from
the late 1300s up to the 1700s—whole towns were wiped out, successive generations were
~ 40 ~
affected, and estimates are that up to two-thirds of the total population perished. Though there
were certainly other factors, it was a prime motivator in the persecution of Jews, foreigners,
beggars and lepers. And—since heavenly intercession was considered one of the few ways to
combat the disease—it increased travel on the chemin/camino.
On our morning break after a steep uphill, we were resting on the side of the road when
an ancient man came inching down the middle of the road on two canes and stopped for some
conversation. At 94 he was still a Frenchman through and through. Quite taken with Anne Marie
and even flirting with her (and vice versa), he asked her how old she was. He then remarked,
“You have a pretty good ass for a woman of 64.” Moments like that made the trip so special.
Our first group meal was a pleasant (yes, I know I am overusing this and other adjectives
but they are just so apt) lunch in a forest that day. Each of us brought out little delicacies from
our packs to share. While delightful, coming up with something new, different, and exciting was
going to be a chore.
We spent the night in Aumont-Aubrac, an agreeable little town with internet access and
many tacky-postcard opportunities, the foremost featuring the region’s justly famous cattle.
Located under the sloped-roofed attic of a mid-range hotel, the gîte had 16 beds, 14 of which
were occupied that night, in a single long room. Luckily everyone was pretty flexible because the
two bathrooms and the tiny kitchen had a lot of traffic.
The four of us shopped together and did a group cook over the heads and around the
seated bodies of the other diners in the tiny kitchen-dining area. We made a green lentil casserole
with a formidable long link of local pork sausage—simply marvelous whether one had walked
30 km or not. Anne Marie as chief cook had one of her last valiant attempts at keeping our
cooking fairly basic before Juergen assumed the mantle of culinary tsar.
~ 41 ~
The next day was incredible as we walked across the high Aubrac plateau. The episodic
snow flurries all through the day were separated by short—but glorious—two-minute breaks of
blazing sun that were enough to keep up our spirits. We walked through huge emerald carpets of
fields outlined by stone fences. In places we had to wade through some really sodden patches. I
got a wet right boot by a limp jump over a particularly boggy bit but survived.
A selection from my guidebook for our 11 km morning hiking portion will give an idea
of the terrain and the area’s history but not, unfortunately, the splendor of the landscape. L and
R are left and right, KSO is keep straight, and the D numbers are small asphalt roads. Italics and
bold highlighting are from the book.
Turn R at top along road for 300 m and then fork L to track (just after town name
board). After 150 m turn L and then R to go under motorway via (spe-cially placed)
‘pilgrim tunnel,’ (referred to locally as the ‘Saintjacqueduc’…). Turn R on other side
and then L to continue on a level track leading to woods. Continue along it,
descending gradually to the Route de la Chaze (3.5 km, stone cross, 1016 m). Turn
R along it for 1 km (tip of church spire visible) to La Chaze-du-Peyre.
Continue through village on road, passing church and veering R uphill, forking L
between drink trough and iron cross onto minor road signed ‘Las-bros’. After 1 km, at
junction with D987 (the old Roman road from Lyon to Toulouse—the Voie
d’Agrippa—that would have been used by pilgrims in centuries gone by) reach the
tiny Chapelle de Bastide (not always open), begun in 1522 but
reworked
several times and sometimes referred to as ‘La Chapellete’. (Shortly afterwards there
is a wooden bus shelter, useful for a rest in bad weather, with another in the hamlet
of Lasbros ahead.) Continue on D987 into the hamlet of Lasbros.
At end of hamlet fork L down minor tarred road by hamlet’s entrance/exit name
boards. Continue downhill, KSO (R) at fork and continue uphill, road becomes a
track. KSO then turn L along minor road which also becomes a track. KSO, gently
uphill all the time (and watching out carefully for hunters with shotguns in the open
season…). Pass first turning (L) to Prinsuejols and KSO, veering R at very end of
road junction known as Les Quatre Chemins. (Raju, pp 56-7)
Even without the wet boot, I would have wanted to stop here for a coffee. While the
others were dithering, I barged right into Chez Regine so purposefully that the others followed
suit. And a good thing too. Regine herself was holding court even though her right arm was in a
sling. With much range in vocal register and ample-though-one-armed histrionic gestures while
~ 42 ~
simultaneously preparing our multiple coffees, she told the assembled crowd the story of her
tragic life. Of course, with my grasp of French, she might just as well have been relating blowby-blow the accident that left her handicapped, the medical follow-up, or even some boring
neighborhood gossip. But I was enthralled.
Her heart-rending air may have led me to augment and expand on what I heard from my
hiking companions and from people I subsequently encountered on the chemin (everyone seemed
to have stopped here for a coffee and listened to her tale). I also gleaned details from the many
pictures on the wall showing a ravishing and much younger Regine holding similar court in what
could have been a Pigalle or Montmatre venue. So now I don’t know if it was literally true, as I
now firmly believe, that she had been a glamorous nightclub singer in Paris and hobnobbed with
the like of Piaf and her crew. But if it wasn’t, it should be.
At Nasbinals later in the day we had a full panoply of open shops and a more-thanadequate kitchen in which to unleash Juergen. It was here that Le Tour Gourmand really began.
We started off with cornichons and slices of fricandeau, a marvelous braised and larded cut of
lamb served unheated. That was followed by a lamb roast and succulent haricot verts.
Since Juergen was in charge of the shopping, we had more than enough wine. By this
time I had convinced myself that the less wine I drank the better I slept and did not have more
than two small glasses of wine a night for the remainder of my hike over the next two months
(though I indulged more freely on those few rest days). Anne Marie, a very mild tippler, had a lot
of influence over my decision. She was less influential with Juergen who got quite drunk that
night. In fairness, all that lamb did cry out for a good red wine.
We shared our digs with The Three Graces again and with another group of walkers we
had dubbed The Intellectuals. The latter were three men and one woman who were walking
~ 43 ~
together and who had been with us the night before. Their accepted leader was a chubby, rather
obnoxious man who had done several of the pilgrimage routes in France and traveled on to
Santiago at least once. He was a step down from the camino fascisti, types I had encountered the
year before. These were intrepid hikers who had strongly held and adamantly expressed views on
how one should do the chemin/camino that they themselves had done at least three times before.
Nasty people, all in all, especially since they thought they were bathed in the special light of
grace.
Even though they did tend to storm in and take over the gîte, The Intellectuals were
mildly amusing. Since they always preceded us, we didn’t mind their whirlwind so much. After
dinner, they would all get out their various guidebooks and continue working out the details of
their full hike all the way to Santiago. They would incessantly parry about the distance between
Point A and B and the wisdom of doing that distance and what sights they would take in. The
fact that these segments were about six weeks off and that they had no idea how they would be
feeling or what the weather would be, etc., etc., did not deter their enthusiastic discussions. This
debate would continue until it was time to hit the hay and only end by the leader slamming down
his book, standing up, flaring his nostrils, raising a fist, and authoritatively stating (in French),
“We WILL walk from Astorga to Rabanal that day!”
The next day was a fairly easy hike of only 17 km. So were able to get up late, do some
shopping in Nasbinals, and take a good look at the interior of their 11th century Romanesque
church. Near the church was a monument with a pair of crutches sculpted on the base to
commemorate a local “bonesetter and manipulator of joints,” Pierre Brioude, who treated as
many as 10,000 people a year at the end of the 1800s. (Raju, 60) The official Lozere (the
department we entered after leaving Haute Loire near Sauvage) website, however, says Monsieur
~ 44 ~
Brioude was a farmer who treated injured animals and who then turned his talents on males [sic]
with dislocations and fractures.
I imagine he is the same healer another source identifies only as the Nasbinals road
mender “who performed miraculous cures in his spare time” on maybe 8,000 people a year who
arrived via a nearby railway. (Robb, 136) If not, then this sleepy little burg must once have
rivaled Lourdes in its curative powers.
The area was also the home of the Bete du Gevaudan, or Beast of the Gevaudan, a late
18th century marauder responsible for the deaths of up to 50 people. Authorities still debate
whether the guilty party was a wolf or a lynx. Anne Marie, promoting the tourist-generating
legend now touted, said it was more like Sasquatch or Yeti, if not the devil himself. Be that as it
may, it does indicate that this area was not always the placid paradise it is now but an outpost of
civilization with very real dangers. Furthermore, the inhabitants, besides just showing excessive
religious zeal in their love of crosses and BVMs, were just as suspicious and superstitious as
people everywhere.
Out on the road we walked up and down more hills in a light fog before we got to the
high altitude village of Aubrac where the skies providently cleared. Along the way we were
serenaded by a persistent cuckoo. (While delighted at first by his distinctive call, I soon found his
twitter unwelcome as it plagued us for the next few days whenever there was an uphill or when
the air was especially muggy. Since those times were coming on an hourly basis, I wanted to
strangle the damnable bird.)
We took a break at an enclosed tourist overlook and were bowled over by magnificent
views of this hilly and popular region of France as we sipped our coffees and munched on tasty
cakes. We were sharing these wonderful panoramas with my favorite locals, the Aubrac cattle,
~ 45 ~
who were recently released to their mountain pastures. These fawn-colored, noble beasts were
bred to be robust, hearty, and fairly independent. Prior to tractors, the castrated males were used
as draft oxen. Before the introduction of the more productive Holsteins, the females provided the
milk for the area’s laguiole cheese. Now primarily raised for beef, they are a dignified breed.
Regretting not seeing them all beribboned during the upcoming spring festivals when they are
led through the village streets and blessed at the church, I made do with purchasing a stack of
postcards of them in their glory. No, I just got to watch them as they watched us walk by. It
seemed they found us rather lackluster and wearisome.
This placid rural countryside seemed so bucolic and timeless. But though still given over
to livestock and farming, it was a far cry from its agricultural heyday in centuries past. We had
actually been walking for a couple of days on and off the Grande Draille, the historic drove road,
used to get stock up to mountain pastures in the temperate months and down to lower ones in the
winter. Thousands of beasts would make up a herd and stop all commerce in their slow-moving
wake. You would think that these marauding hordes slowly chomping at the available vegetation
would be unwelcome temporary visitors. But their waste products were a valuable and welcome
commodity benefitting the local farmers. There are 109 place names along these various drove
roads that contain the French word fumade, the area where manure is spread. (Robb, 181)
The air really had a spring feel to it. Though we were only a day or two past snow
flurries, it really seemed like we had left winter far behind. The birds—along with those damn
cuckoos—were fluttering about and singing. Many flowers were poking through the fertile earth,
and blossoming vines were coming into their own. Up above, the glorious but moderate sun
rarely left us for the next few weeks. We had lunch of fresh ham, sausage, and olives in a sunny
glade. Then it was down, down, down to Saint-Chély d’Aubrac, yet another immensely charming
~ 46 ~
French village.
Along the way we picked up the final member of our ad hoc group. This pleasant older
compact man named Pierre only spoke French, was recently retired, and was used to hiking in
the Alps from where he hailed. A sort of French leprechaun in his conical felt hat, he was a good
foil for all of us. He was someone for Anne Marie to talk too. (She and Annie did not have a lot
in common; and she and Juergen were only on shouting terms by this time.) Pierre was solicitous
of Annie’s turbulent history and her hiking troubles—she had serious blisters but still sported a
big smile all the day. And he was not a threat to either Juergen or me.
His appearance did release Juergen from having to care for Annie with whom he had
been spending almost all of his time since the TGV from Paris. This left him free to spend a lot
of time with me. Though I tended to walk fast in the morning and liked some quality time alone,
he was equal to my pace even after he started getting numerous small blisters.
He would blight the serene atmosphere with a steady stream of chatter about his family
(the all-too-flawless son, the dutiful daughters, and loving intelligent wife) and about how he had
segued into his perfect retirement life (that Anne Marie pegged as chronic alcoholism). He also
was wont to rant about the inferiority of other nationalities. He despised the French, while
admiring French products and lifestyle. “They eat anything that moves. I have not seen viper on
the menu. But I am sure that they eat it somewhere.”
When he spouted off about their penchant for eating escargot, I asked him if he didn’t
like snails. He proffered that, of course, he loved that delicious dish but “who in heaven’s name
would ever stoop so low as to try to cook them in the first place?” Well, I guess he did have a
point, but I say, “Vive la France.”
After I spotted Annie’s formidable cache of pills and asked Juergen if her health was at
~ 47 ~
all precarious, he remarked, “Don’t you know that every Frenchman lives above a pharmacy?
They all pop pills like no one’s business.” Spaniards and Italians were only a small step above
the Gauls by his reckoning. But he absolutely loathed Germans (“the Huns”). Americans in their
naivete were beyond his contempt. “Any country that elects its leaders by television deserves
what they get.” He would also spout an occasional anti-Semitic joke. All of this was pretty bad
but got even worse when later he tended to repeat himself. And his antipathy of Anne Marie,
extensive and reciprocated, was a social wet blanket.
Now why did I put up with this, you might ask? Well, it was obviously tolerable in the
long run as I have always been amused by others’ foibles. But truthfully, he spoke French and
English, and I needed that. And those meals of his were splendid. I have prostituted myself for
less.
So back to Saint-Chély and the chemin, the gîte was another delight. We got a 5-bedded
room for the group and discovered that the kitchen was well-equipped for dinner preparation.
Some went off for a few beers and shopping; I posted an inch-and-a-half thick packet of
postcards back to the states. Then, of course, I went to a village shop and promptly bought
another dozen or so.
We met a young French Canadian woman named Melissa at the gîte who was having
extreme knee pain and swelling. She had been holed up there for two days already but was
determined to recover and continue. Interestingly enough, I met her in St. Jean Pied de Port
about three weeks later and in Santiago at the end. (One of the delights of such a long walk was
that people kept popping in and out of your sphere.) She will have a semi-prominent role later in
this tale.
The meal was a real success. I did a sliced tomato, chopped onion and flaked tuna first
~ 48 ~
course that got raves from the others but did not live up to Juergen’s standards. He served the
remaining fresh ham from lunch and some slices of dried sausage, made a wonderful fresh
tomato and onion pasta dish (no bottled Bolognese sauce for him), and provided a plentiful
bounty of wine. We topped it all off with an almond cherry cake and herb tea.
Duly impressed were the other pilgrims, including The Three Graces who supped on soup
yet again and The Three Germans—a nice, quiet married couple and their female friend, all of
whom were probably well into their 60s. We kept running into the German trio all the way to
Moissac. Whether speaking German, French, or English, the single woman’s horrid, piercing
voice did tend to grate—like a semi-deaf, annoyed school-teacher’s—until you got used to it. But
all three turned out to be very charming and knowledgeable. They could spot or ferret out—and,
rather amazingly, identify in those three languages and add the Latin genus and species—all the
many flowers and orchids we encountered.
Bruno, a retired Frenchman, and his wife were also staying over. We had been passing
them early in the mornings for the past few days and could not figure out how they ended up in
the same town later in the day. The wife was remarkable in that she was always in full makeup
and sandals—even through the muddy icy fields. Though she went back home soon after, Bruno
kept on with his walking sticks and overtook me in Moissac.
He became hiking buddies with Celine, a reputedly deranged late middle-aged French
woman we first met in Aumont-Aubrac at which time she was walking with Josie and the one
remaining upset Swedish women. That group split up after a bitter argument over something
really minor—what type of meat to put in the pot that night or some such. (Chemin relationships
could form and break in most peculiar ways.) She was always prying into other people’s business
and consequently knew and dished out all the gossip. Her French explanations always took a
~ 49 ~
long time and included much gesticulation, vocal range, and facial muscle torque. Anne Marie,
Annie, and Juergen were rolling their eyes as she related her current tales of woe. Then they
warned me to stay away from her.
Annie went to sleep early. So when I went up and cleared off my things from my bed in
the dark, I inadvertently pushed my binoculars between bed frame and mattress and so lost them
there. Oh well, less to carry. Though there were really a lot of birds to see, one can’t do both the
chemin and diligent bird watching. It was one or the other. And I was here to walk.
The next day was even more glorious. We did about 30 km to Espalion. It was again all
up and down. I was really falling in love with my friends, the Aubrac cows, now in most every
field, though they were not so enamored of me. I actually caused a small stampede when I tried
to chat with them in English—really one of the few times in France where my English raised
more than an eyebrow. Little towns sported chain-saw tree-trunk sculptures in rural or religious
themes in front of low-slung municipal buildings or on the village outskirts. We passed through
Saint-Côme d’Olt, chosen “One of the Most Beautiful French Villages” in a publication from the
1960s or 70s and still renowned for its beauty and preserved character. I heartily concurred.
The guidebook recommended a detour to the Vierge Notre-Dame de Vermus, a large
statue of Mary that looked over the Lot River valley from the heights. So it was up and up and up
some more. At one point we had to traipse through an abandoned rock quarry that was now a
make-shift dump. The view once we got there was marvelous, though I would have preferred to
see it without the statue’s backside in the way. Going down, we passed a grand and gracious
Romanesque chapel dedicated to St. Hillaire who was beheaded by the Saracens at that very
spot. (The Saracens, a generic term for Muslims, invaded and ruled southern France for most of
the eighth century before Charlemagne chased them out.) The church was delightfully quiet and
~ 50 ~
calm as was the town we reached in the early afternoon.
Located in the still largely intact historic center, our gîte was in a renovated old stone
mansion. Not far off was an elegant stone pilgrim bridge whose triple arches made late-afternoon
perfect-circle shadows on the placid Lot waters. After much debate, Anne Marie won out this
time over Juergen’s insistence on dining out, and we did a simple shopping run and dined on
soup, Annie’s garlic croutons, cheese, yogurt, fruit, and wine.
The town sported at least three churches within a five minute stroll from our abode. They
were probably 19th century but blended in well with both the older and the more contemporary
buildings. I did pretty well with pilgrim postcard purchases and internet access in the town but
had to pay over almost $30 for a pair of hiking socks. One of two pairs I had bought in New
York had already worn through after only three or four uses. The other didn’t last much longer.
A third pair of different make, which had seen considerable duty on my first walk, survived this
second pilgrimage and are ready for my next.
~ 51 ~
Chapter Three
Le Tour Gourmand
The Gourmet Tour
Espalion to Conques
We got out early the next morning. Right outside town past a verdant, dew-wet field
where roe deer were grazing was another Romanesque gem, the church of St. Pierre de
Bessuejouls. The fact that it was open at 8 AM was even more fantastic. The solemn nave was
undisturbed as was the little chapel of Saint-Michel with its sculpted marble altar on the second
floor of the tower.
We were now well into the Department of the Aveyron, noted for its Roquefort cheese
and handmade Laguiole knives. Further south, and unfortunately off our route, was the Millau
Viaduct, the highest bridge in the world. Its magnificent graceful central cable stays are a visual
and architectural delight. I had to make do, again, with just the postcard.
Not far from here in 1999 a group of farmers and sheep ranchers gained international
fame (or infamy, depending on your political views) by storming and dismantling a
MacDonald’s restaurant. Though it was actually a protest against a 100% tariff on Roquefort
cheese by the United States, it was seen by some as a valiant French defense of decent cuisine
and time-honored tradition. The anti-globalization forces hailed these farmers as heroes of their
cause and as evidence that not all their members were upper middle class college students. And
the farmers just wanted to keep making and selling cheese like they always had.
Another claim to fame for the area is Victor, the Wild Boy of Aveyron, a feral child
found there in 1797 at the height of the Enlightenment, a time when there was much debate over
how humans actually differed from animals. It was then thought that the use of language was the
deciding factor, and so this boy was an early test of that hypothesis. About 12 when discovered,
~ 52 ~
Victor’s spoken French at its best was even worse than mine—he only learned the words for
milk and My God. He did show some empathy at least on one instance—but the jury is out as to
whether that is a strictly human emotion. His enjoyment of frolicking nude in the snow (like
post-sauna Finns) may demonstrate that our reactions to cold temperatures may be cultural
accretions—if so, goodbye Miami, hello North Dakota. He is probably best known now as the
subject of the Francois Truffaut movie, “The Wild Child.”
In our child-centered world nowadays, it is hard to fathom that kids were not always the
valued treasures we consider them to be. We shudder to hear of abandoned or mistreated children
and babies. But family values, as we think of them, were secondary to survival in times past. To
cite only one ex ample from our own history, the orphan trains that ferried loads of poor children
from the slums of big cities in America to the supposedly healthy farm life out west continued
from the mid-1800s until 1929. In many instances their lives of urban squalor were traded for
that of rural misery and drudgery. In this area of France, the landed gentry had a great time of it
through the ages, ensconced as they were in their fabulous chateaux. But extreme poverty was
ever present and the norm for most of the inhabitants.
The lack of contraception produced a lot of offspring, many of them illegitimate, and all
with hungry mouths. Foundling hospitals took in the babies left to die. In a reverse twist of the
orphan trains, here enterprising carters would go from village to village to gather soon-to-be or
already abandoned infants and carry them on donkeys all the way to Paris. Those sickly or
unweaned died and were tossed to the sidelines “like rotten apples” as more were obtained along
the way until the saddle bags bulged. The infants were sold for a pittance in the capital. (Robb,
88) The life they led there, if they survived, was hardly better than they would have had in the
hinterlands.
~ 53 ~
Those extreme times now seem like another world far away from the paradise we were
touring through. Here the way was again up and down and breathtakingly beautiful. The houses
and farms we passed were tidy and productive. The inhabitants, far from the cretins of legend,
were prosperous-looking burghers. Late-model gleaming cars dotted the driveways. The little
children that we saw were the little princes and princesses we have come to expect.
We got into Estaing for a mid-morning coffee. That town was dominated by a
magnificent towered chateau, now a convent, hovering over the Lot River. About eight of us
pilgrims were having a coffee, doffing a layer of clothes, and donning sunscreen under the
brilliant sun, when suddenly everyone’s attention was diverted from the postcard-perfect scenery
(yes, I bought the postcard) to the arrival in a van of yet another pilgrim.
About 5’6” tall and all strapping muscle, he was wearing a camouflage t-shirt and
matching micro-short shorts. His ample pack was also of camouflage canvas. Ample? It was
almost as big as he. The shorts, massive backpack, combat boots and all those muscles had all us
pilgrims gawking—some more than others. I was at first sure he was some Chelsea clone from
New York City plopped down in our midst. But when he had a long talk in guttural French with
Pierre while lighting up a couple of cigarettes in the process, I figured he was more local.
It turned out that he was a recently retired, super-macho French paratrooper hell bent on
doing on the chemin what he had done in the service, namely, long forced marches with full load
at fast pace. He had several infected blisters, though how he got the one on his right shin was
anyone’s guess. He was trying to get to Conques that day where his family would meet him and
where he could see a doctor. I ran into him later that day in Golinhac, halfway to his goal. From
there the Swedish woman (the same one I met the second or third day of my journey) who
somehow acquired a car (neither I nor anyone else could figure that out) was going to retrieve
~ 54 ~
him and ferry him the rest of the way. After he gabbled on and on about oodles of pus coming
out of various lesions, I—dutiful medical practitioner that I am—examined his foot and leg that
didn’t look terribly inflamed. I was tempted to tell him that he, like me, was just getting too old
to be carting such a pack all over creation.
He turned out to be a vivid topic of conversation over the next week or so. We were all
wondering what he had in that huge tote. And everyone tittered about him practically running
down the trails on those short muscular legs. Jealousy, methinks.
We got into Espeyrac to a fairly comfortable gîte though not quite up to our usual
standards. It was occupied by a bunch of bicyclists who had the routine down pat and had pretty
much taken over the common room, the clothes lines, and all the clothes pins. We kept running
into them over the next few days—a rather unusual turn of events, as cyclists were supposed to
be doing many more kilometers than even the fastest walkers. One’s mother-in-law drove the
sag wagon and delivering treats and goodies liberally along the way.
We kept encountering one of the riders especially often, always at the top of a hill.
Juergen and I surmised he would wait for the mother-in-law to show up and deliver a pick-meup. He would then coast down the hill, wait for her again to take him up the next hill where he
would have a good long rest (and a treat) before tackling the next downhill. He was always rather
proudly parading around in his Lycra shorts that emphasized his ample belly as well as his overly
prominent genitalia. The bikers in Spain were much more attractive.
Anyway, back at the gîte, a full-scale battle evolved around dinner plans. I had agreed
earlier with Anne Marie that it would be nice to cook for ourselves. I had also concurred with
Juergen that going out to a restaurant would be a welcome change of pace. I really didn’t much
care which we did. So when they were pushing for their respective schemes, I was fingered as a
~ 55 ~
co-conspirator in both. Annie was up for either option. With two of us sitting on the fence and
Pierre firmly in his countrywoman’s camp, Anne Marie won the battle. We walked through the
shuttered village before finding a green grocer just ready to close. He had all the makings for our
dinner of a huge avocado tomato salad with fruit, cheese, and chocolate. Juergen was seething
and undoubtedly muttering, “Where’s the beef?”
Celine, the crazy French woman I mentioned earlier, was also puttering about. As she had
not made a reservation and the place was full, she was relegated to a spare mattress on the floor
of the large common room. But she wasn’t the reason we had to curtail our post prandials and hit
the sack earlier than usual. The next day was Easter Sunday, and we wanted to get out before
dawn so we could get to Conques for High Mass at 11 AM.
We got up at 5:30 and were on the trail by 6:30. While it was dark at first, we had a full
moon to light the way and additional help from Annie and Anne Marie’s torches. (I know, I
know, we call them flashlights in the U.S., but I love the image.) We got to our destination with
two hours to spare but did not forget to smell the proverbial roses along the way.
It was up, up, up, then down, down, down. Even considering I liked the early morning
hours for walking, the way into Conques was splendid indeed. The entire land was bursting with
the many shades of green more associated with the land of Eire. As we came into town, the view
of the seemingly-medieval town with the towering abbey was brilliantly framed by trees in full
spring regalia. Most of the modern day pilgrimage chroniclers describe trips primarily in Spain
and in the summer when it is blisteringly hot and the landscape dry. I cannot imagine (other than
that most people get holidays in the summer) why more don’t travel a season earlier to take
advantage of the more temperate weather and the glory and abundance of nature. This Easter
Sunday was certainly full of representations of rebirth and resurrection.
~ 56 ~
Conques nestles in the wooded hills like a veritable European Shangri-La beyond time
and care. The cathedral is a revelation, a perfectly preserved Romanesque masterpiece, with an
especially noteworthy sculpture of the Last Judgment on the tympanum. The majestic and
avenging Christ is in the center with the saved on his right and the damned to the left. The devil
on the bottom sports a long penis and seems to be having a ball flogging, hanging, burning and
torturing his souls with all means short of waterboarding.
Before we stored our things at the abbey where we would be staying the night, we had tea
that the nice volunteer ladies served in the courtyard. Having rested and soaked up a bit of the
medieval flavor, we then went our separate ways. Juergen had a few beers while he looked at the
façade. I, of course, went looking for cards. Annie shopped and shopped, buying all manner of
religious knick knacks and a huge hunk of sausage. I can’t speak for the other two.
The Mass was a no-holds-barred, all-get-out high church service, ever so appropriate for
Easter. We sang along with the whole congregation, though the choir leader easily drowned us
out—but then he was miked.
After the service, we milled around trying to figure out what to do. Juergen was insisting
on a “lovely” little restaurant lunch on an outside terrace since the weather was so nice. I, in
fact, had pretty much again agreed to that plan on our hike in order to keep him quiet (and even
knowing the outcome was going to be another fight). But Anne Marie would have no part of it.
When I mentioned that I had to go across the valley to the Chapel of St. Foy to light a candle as
promised to a friend back in the states, she suddenly “remembered” that she had pledged to do
the same for a good friend of hers whose son had been in a recent motorcycle accident.
So, yet again, I ditched Juergen and threw myself at Anne Marie. If looks could kill, she
and I would be dead meat and he in a French prison—though a French jury may have found it
~ 57 ~
justifiable homicide. I don’t think I really wanted lunch with anyone by that point. Lord, we were
such a dysfunctional family.
So Juergen went his way to souse up a good bit more. The rest of us, on our way off to
light candles, took a detour to see yet another Chapel of St. Roch (this was maybe #29 and with
many more to come) on an outcropping in the lower part of town. We had that lovely outdoor
lunch sitting in the grass overlooking the valley and only put a tiny dent in Annie’s mammoth
sausage.
Anne Marie and I then continued on to the chapel of St. Foy. The trek was about a halfmile down and a half-mile up—straight down and straight up—and exhausting even without
backpacks. When we finally got to the tiny chapel, we found no candles on hand. Since we
would pass it again walking the next day, I vowed to procure some at the cathedral and light
them on the morrow. Gee, all this work for a non-believer.
Well, Foy was a much beloved saint who was either beheaded or toasted on a brazier in
303 A.D. Her earthly remains were originally in far off Agen, where she was the object of much
veneration and where her relics were a substantial source of income for that monastery.
Somewhere along the line, though, she got transferred to Conques making it the more important
center of pilgrimage and patronage. Now, how that relocation occurred is a quite fascinating
story. It seems that a spy monk from Conques insinuated himself into the religious community at
Agen and over time gained the trust of the other monks. Then he simply spirited Foy’s body
away when he had the chance and brought her to her present place of rest within the cathedral.
There are yearly processions from Conques to the chapel where the nearby spring water
supposedly heals all manner of eye complaints. Whether or not the curative waters worked
before her body showed up or whether she was curing ocular diseases back in Agen, I haven’t
~ 58 ~
been able to determine. But I did give her the chance to work on me. My left eye had a blocked
tear duct that was mildly annoying. I figured that unclogging it would be the tiniest of miracles.
Surely my long traipse over there, a repeat visit the next day with candles, and a hefty contribution to the till (and a big tip for the candles, too, back at the cathedral) counted for something.
I wasn’t sure if I had to drink some of the water or anoint the faulty duct or what. So I just had a
mental conversation with the saint that was a shade more propitiatory than an “I dare you.” Did I
get cured? Nope! But the view of Conques from the chapel was worth the trip, even if I continued to tear excessively.
This whole business with relics is all tied up with Catholicism and the Protestant schisms
as well as the pilgrimages and the Crusades. A relic is simply a piece of a saintly person’s body
or something he or she touched. But there are value classifications—anything concerned with
Christ rates way up there. A piece of the True Cross or the Shroud of Turin, say, would fetch
high bids at a Christie’s relic auction. Something like St. Ann’s toothbrush undoubtedly much
less. Items connected with martyrs were especially valued. In the Middle Ages, the possession of
important ones (either theologically or because of purported associated miracles) was big
business—hence the body-napping of St. Foy. They attracted (and still attract) many visitors and
boosted the local economy. Parts of the Bethlehem manger still occupy a revered spot in Santa
Maria Maggiore in Rome for instance. And Wikipedia tells me that as many as 18 places claim
to have Christ’s foreskin—Le Puy and Santiago (the beginning and the end of my journey, as it
happens) are part of that number. The recovery of relics—if not the whole Holy Land—from
infidel hands was a prime reason for the Crusades. Many of those salvaged remains went to the
cities and towns along the route to Santiago. And the whole raison d’etre for journeying all the
way to the shores of Galicia, you will remember, was the chance to get near and pay respects to
~ 59 ~
one of the biggies of the racket, the remains of St. James.
Back in Conques, our group reassembled at the abbey dorm and had another knockdown-and-drag-out argument between Juergen and Anne Marie over the window—a source of
discord almost on par with the eating business. He wanted to keep it open; she wanted it closed.
The dispute went along the lines of: “I can’t sleep in a sarcophagus,” and “I can’t sleep in a
refrigerator.” It was done in high-pitched English for my benefit so that I could cast the deciding
vote. Annie and Pierre were staying out of this one.
I actually didn’t really care as I could make myself comfortable with one or the other.
What was intolerable was what was increasingly happening—my going to bed with the window
open and me all toasty in my sleeping bag. During the night someone would close the window,
and I would wake up in a sweat thinking I had TB or HIV. I would crawl out of the bag, get
comfortable again, and eventually fall asleep. Then a short time later after someone (Juergen, I
assume) reopened it, I would wake up again, teeth a chattering.
We compromised this night by putting Juergen next to the barely ajar colossal window
and Anne Marie at the other end of the cavernous room. The high ceiling and stone walls ensured
that the room never got terribly warm. And on this mild early-spring night, the barely open
window didn’t cool down the room too much. So everyone was happy for once. Who needs
Solomon?
New Personality on the chemin! People were asking me the last few days if I knew Lisa
the American. I actually met her the day before on one of the stiff climbs as she was pausing for
a breather. She was a very young, very overweight female from California. She had never been
out of the country before, spoke barely more French than I, didn’t have a guidebook, and was
walking alone in tennis shoes. She pretty much just started in Le Puy as a lark. “Oh, I just read
~ 60 ~
about it on the internet and it sounded like fun.” She wasn’t religious, knew little history, and
didn’t carry a camera. She had blisters so bad she could barely walk. She didn’t know that the
French part was a lot more expensive than the Spanish and so was already getting short of
money. But she was all smiles and having a blast.
As she got near Conques late that afternoon, a short but intense thunderstorm hit the area.
She was at the top of a hill and exposed during the severe lightning and thunder. That, of course,
disrupted her equanimity that was further blasted when she got into town and couldn’t find a
working cash machine or internet access. When she reached the abbey and finally got to drop her
backpack, she broke down in tears.
Everyone couldn’t have been nicer to her. I think she was embarrassed by all the
attention, the cups of tea, and the offers of help and encouragement she got. (It turned out all
those volunteer ladies spoke impeccable English.) I contributed to her cultural awareness—
sorely compromised by a lack of a Catholic education or intimate knowledge of medieval
iconography—by giving her a little pamphlet outlining the monuments along the way and their
spiritual importance. Now she too would know just who St. Foy, St. Roch, and even St. Jean/
John really were. I don’t know if she made it all the way to Santiago but would like to think what
remained of her trip was pleasantly augmented by that bit of information.
We all had dinner that night in the abbey refectory with priests, volunteers, many Easter
visitors, and a handful of pilgrims. After receiving little laminated cards with the words and
music to the “Ultreia,” the song we had bellowed out at the morning Mass, we sang it several
times that night and all the way through France whenever especially energetic pilgrims were
around (distressingly often since everyone on this route travelled via Conques and got those little
cards). This was the closest I got to doing karaoke on the camino/chemin.
~ 61 ~
ULTREIA
Refrain: Ultreia, ultreia, et suseia
Deus adjuvanos
Tous les matins nous prenons le chemin,
Tous les matins nous allons plus loin,
Jour après jour la rout nous apelle,
C’est la voix de Compostelle.
Refrain
Chemin de terre et chemin de foi,
Voie millenaire de l’Europe
La voie lactée de Charlemagne
C’est le chemin de tous les jacquets.
Refrain
Et tout lá-bas au bout du continent,
Messire Jacques nour attend,
Depuis toujours son sourire fixe
Le soleil qui meurt au Finisterre.
I won’t attempt to translate it. Trust me, your understanding of the words is as good as
mine. I heard it sung only once in Spain and could never get a chorus together for the few who
did want to learn it. The choirmaster drilled us until we had a semblance of a tune and before we
could dig into the simple but wonderful salad and cheese manicotti dinner.
Everyone in our group, I think, was ecstatic not to have to dine with each other. Juergen
got to show off his erudition to some new faces and drink a lot of wine, Anne Marie sat next to a
handsome military man (who had six absolutely adorable children and a very elegant wife), and
Pierre was with a bunch of French speakers. Annie, bless her, was always happy. She had lost so
much weight her pants were falling off, her daughter back home was behaving, she loved the
church services, and she had bought a lot of religious paraphernalia.
My ecstasy was many-faceted—a surfeit of Romanesque architecture and sculpture,
~ 62 ~
sleeping in an honest-to-goodness monastery, the community of these fine people, the glorious
weather, and ever so much more. A dark cloud, though, did appear on my horizon: the
choirmaster—to my chagrin—passed me, went to Lisa at the next table, and asked her to do a
reading in English at the pilgrim benediction/blessing later that night. She did not commit or
refuse.
Later most of the dinner crew went to that service in the cathedral whose elegant interior
was lit to show it at its best. We pilgrims were all brought up to the altar under the transept
crossing and dome. Lisa was asked again if she would do the reading and gently declined. Then
it was offered to Juergen who likewise demurred and suggested me. I dutifully swallowed my
injured pride at not being asked first (what with my age, my Catholic education if not quite
textbook Catholic-led life, and my status as a sort of pilgrim emeritus) and accepted in order to
ensure that justice was done to the ceremony in that remarkable setting.
The whole benediction and blessing of the pilgrims was fabulous and couldn’t have been
much better if I was a fervent believer. In all modesty, I do have to admit that my reading of
Revelations 22: 4-5 was masterful—with booming voice, the appropriate pauses, and flawless
delivery. (Others preceding me did the same lines in lackluster French and German.) When I
finished, the whole church went silent. Thinking I had left them speechless with my performance, I was even more full of myself, if that was possible. But when the hush dragged on for
another five minutes, I figured out it was one of those quiet, reflective moments of prayer, let the
puff out of my chest, and wiped the self-satisfied smirk off my face.
After the benediction, the choirmaster gave a concert on the piano and had us sing along.
Boy, my inner diva had been unleashed by my short time in the spotlight, and I was belting out
the songs like there was no tomorrow. That they were in French and that I am tone deaf and
~ 63 ~
perennially off-key were not obstacles in the least. Move over, Momma Rose, it’s my turn. My
cacophony just might have been why the choirmaster moved from playing tunes on the nearby
piano to an instrumental-only recital on the organ in the far-off back balcony. But all in all it was
a splendid Easter.
We had other new people sleeping with us that night besides Sue. There was a nice
couple with their three adolescent sons. But my attention was taken more by the equestrian. This
aristocratic, haughty man doing the chemin on four legs was all muscle and protruding jaw and
had some of the best looking gams I have ever had the pleasure of viewing. We saw him again
the next day brushing down his horse in front of the monastery and then a few more times on the
trail galloping by. He was relegated to staying at gîtes or chambre d’hotes that took his mount
and also provided at a minimal cost some hearty fare for him and his steed. As these tended to be
out in the country, I jealously imagined he was doing the chemin in the style I originally dreamed
of (ferreting out those little treats and culinary delights along the way) while I was just trudging
on and on and refereeing the nightly what-to-do-for-dinner fights.
~ 64 ~
Chapter Four
Le Tour du Desaccord
The Tour of Conflict
Conques to Cahors
After discovering the next morning that she had left her cell phone charger in Espeyrac,
Anne Marie called the gîte there and got the eldest of The Three Graces who graciously agreed
to bring it to Conques. After she hung up, my hiking buddy and reservation maker realized she
probably should have asked for a faster walker to do the good deed. So she had to wait until early
afternoon to leave Conques. The rest of us got out early, going straight to the Chapel of St. Foy
which was providently open. I did my and Anne Marie’s duty with the candles. Across the
valley, the early morning fog still partially enveloped Conques as we bid adieu to her from the
lovely little chapel and trod on.
Again, it was up and down, up and down, through more magnificent countryside as we
took the longer, more scenic route into Livinhac. And again, we had incredible spring weather.
We passed yet another chapel (not counting the little one in Conques) and another church
dedicated to St. Roch. There were more hikers and/or pilgrims on the way now. As all of France
supposedly shuts down for Easter week, this was to be expected.
Our route took us into the Department of the Lot and to the edges of Decazeville, a
pleasant looking city from that distance. Its present tranquility belied its industrial past as the
location of the largest opencast coalmine in Europe. Two miles away and was the village of
Aubin, site of the Burning Mountain of Fontaygnes where
…at night, a person peering down in to one of the little craters that pocked
the mountain would see the glow of a great fire. Coal deposits burned continuously, filling the cellars of the nearest hamlets with smoke. The air stank of
sulfur, and the houses, people and pigs were soiled with soot.
~ 65 ~
The miners of Decazeville worked in a maze of collapsing tunnels and
burning coal seams. After day-long shifts, they emerged into a landscape of blast
furnaces and rolling mills where birdsong and the wind were drowned out by the
screech of trucks on iron rails and the incessant pounding of steam hammers….By
the middle of the nineteenth century, there were pawnshops and garish cafes
selling beetroot brandy and absinthe to bleary, black-eyed miners and women who
were better dressed and worse behaved than their peasant mothers. (Robb, 265-6)
The first operating company collapsed in 1865, leaving thousands unemployed. Fourteen
strikers were shot by French troops in 1869, and the mine closed permanently in 1965. Now the
giant crater more resembled one of the extinct volcanoes near Le Puy than an industrial nightmare of the past. Blissfully unaware at the time of its tumultuous history, I passed the town more
impressed with the surrounding verdant greenery.
Livinhac, our home for the night, was a charming, sleepy little town with some stately
homes and an old convent. The Conques choirmaster showed up and had a beer with us before
going to hear the confessions of the nuns—boy, I bet that was fun. Our gîte was a newly
renovated but rather ramshackle affair with a big backyard and a huge dining room.
The town had a dreary square, noteworthy only for a marvelous and poignant WWI
monument that featured a life-sized bronze soldier bearing a partially unfurled French flag on a
staff. There were memorials, be they plaques or statues, to the Great War dead in most every
village and church along the way. They would always record names and ages of the deceased.
The fact that many of the listed frequently had the same surname was not necessarily indicative
of brothers perishing together but sobering none the less. What was strange was that I did not see
any comparable shrines for the WWII dead, except for a few to Resistance fighters who had
always “valiantly” lost their lives.
It is hard to imagine now (like the former extreme poverty of this agricultural region and
the scourge of its industrialized past) what the effects these wars would have been on the
~ 66 ~
populace. In all of France, over seven million men were mobilized in a short time in WWI. Well
over a million died in the trenches of northern France. With over three times as many wounded,
the number of casualties was over 50%. The men from this region would have been uneducated
farm boys making their first trip away from home. The cold, lack of food, and barbed wire may
have been familiar, but what would they have made of tanks, machine guns, poison gas, and
marauding airplanes? Regaining Alsace-Lorraine must have been scant solace. And then a
generation later in another conflagration, the French troops were quickly defeated, many were
taken prisoner, and their country occupied by their enemies. But, heck, talk about deprivation;
we were stuck in a small village on a Monday with all the shops closed!
With Anne Marie still on her way from Conques with her cell phone and charger, Juergen
took the chance to cower me and Annie into finally eating out (though we did not really have a
lot of other options). As we were leaving, I asked about Pierre. Juergen said that our Alpine
leprechaun didn’t like restaurants, wanted to save some money, and was staying behind. But
poor Pierre was never asked and waited forlornly for us until the Germans took pity and invited
him to share their dinner.
Anne Marie arrived right as night was falling and found Pierre, by her account, still
morosely lingering in the dining room, moaning, and wondering what he had done wrong to
make us abandon him. Methinks she was exaggerating a bit, but it was still a rather nasty turn of
events. I—whose lack of French excused me—was held blameless but not so Annie. Even
though Juergen came in for the brunt of her fury, he could hardly have been in hotter water
anyway.
Still I must admit our dinner was actually very nice. Most all of the pilgrims from the gîte
ended up in a family-run restaurant down by the river. Other than the most hideous wallpaper I
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think I had ever seen (huge metallic purple and pink flowers that created an almost flocked
effect), it was a pleasant respite. The maître d’, the only waiter, was spry and efficient. His
incredibly obese mother (the exception that proved the rule that all French women were thin)
helped out a bit, dishing out the desserts that were within her reach from her little space off the
bar (and where she must furiously nibble on the wares). The three of us were joined by a woman
from Clermont Ferrand and a swarthy French male about 40 years old. It was a cause of much
amusement that they were named Annie and Daniel also. We all had salads and marvelous roast
duck. Momma did not stint and served us prodigious portions of the desserts— amounts even she
would have been satisfied with. We toddled back home in an alcoholic and sugar haze, enough, I
thought, to wear down the defenses of our Annie and their Daniel and get some sparks flying.
Alas, the defenses we needed were for Anne Marie’s justifiable fury.
She laid down the law that night and the next day—we were to walk together more
instead of stringing out and not to fight. Still smarting at our treatment to Pierre, I was more than
willing to obey. As Pierre took to hanging around Anne Marie for the remainder of our time
together, I relieved him of the need to keep an eye on Annie, always lagging behind. So I kept up
the derrière that day watching Annie take innumerable pictures of flowers, crosses, cows, trees,
and hills from the worst possible angles. I also tried to keep watch for her sudden stops whereby
I, if not careful, could get impaled on the sticks she used more like Marlene Dietrich did her cane
in “Morocco” than as a Nordic walker. She was luminously happy even though, or because, this
was her last day. She was going to take a train home on the morrow. Her high spirits were not
just due to the fabulous weather and scenery; she was probably relieved to get away from the
Juergen-Anne Marie wars, to get some rest for her badly blistered feet, and to finally get all of
her things really clean or thrown away.
~ 68 ~
Well, everyone was in a mellow mood. Whether it had to do with Juergen ignoring Anne
Marie’s dictum and plowing ahead, I don’t know. Late in the morning, after Pierre spotted a sign
that advertised fresh goat cheese for sale at a nearby farm, we all decided that that would be an
excellent lunch. The ladies staked out a picnic area right off the trail as Pierre and I took off
down the hill to purchase the cheese.
Bizarre scenario! Our welcoming committee was penned up in three large runs and
baying like banshees from hell. The biggest and loudest was a superb bloodhound all stretched
out on the fence as if to push it down or desperately mount it. He was surrounded by all make
and manner of other pure-bred dogs, about 30 in all. Though looking well fed, they were rather
dirty and unkempt. After we passed, many of them quieted down a bit. But the bloodhound kept
up his full throttle howling as we explored the seemingly abandoned premises.
The whole scene had a horror movie feel to it, and I had the sinking feeling we were the
innocent victims who snoop around before getting killed in a really macabre way—probably by
an ax murderer lurking in a corner. We went through the cheese-making facilities and around the
outside of the home, calling out our bonjours but hearing no reply—just the boom-box
bloodhound. A full and very delicious-looking swimming pool was behind the empty house, but
neither I nor Pierre was in a Goldilocks mood. The place was well tended and immaculate
(which relieved the distress the dingy dog quarters had caused). As we peered through the open
windows of the house, I just knew we would spot the first of many bloodied bodies. Then we’d
turn to face our killer.
My nerves may have been just a little bit on edge—what with the deserted property, the
bloodhound still wailing at full volume, and cheap horror film scenarios reeling through my
brain. So when a little truck came up over the hill and barreled down to the farm, I knew our
~ 69 ~
number was up. Out popped a grungy couple of ample proportions. But they were all smiles, not
at all larcenous, and—luckily—without high-powered rifles or machetes. Had we not already
inspected the spotless premises though, I for one may not have wanted to buy any cheese from
them. By the way, they had another half-dozen dogs crammed into the back of that truck. Those
six and the newly-aroused penned dogs exponentially raised the pitch and volume of the canine
concert yet again. But we soon had two dozen little fresh chevre discs and were on our way.
We had to walk past the runs, again setting off the few dogs who weren’t already singing
backup to the bloodhound. The only ones who stayed quiet were an unlikely pair, a little male
cockapoo who was mightily screwing a dog eight times his size lazily lying in the dirt and
looking supremely bored with the whole enterprise. It was a scene worthy of a modern day
Hieronymus Bosch.
Juergen, probably alerted by that bloodhound, by this time had doubled back to join our
picnic. We had a delightful lunch that went a long way towards mending the hurt feelings of the
night before.
Ah, cheese! Surely one of the best reasons, of many, to go to France. Even my friends
who claim to be offended by the body odor of the natives in this glorious land (an odor that I
cannot detect) swoon in blissful delight at the overwhelmingly ripe smell in a fromagerie. The
essential cheese course after dinner—quelle horreur if served as an appetizer—is a time for
reverence and relaxation and one of the valued moments of the day. The variety here is
legendary. Even Charles de Gaulle noted that in his famous remark, “How can one be expected
to govern a country that has 246 different kinds of cheese?” (And more varieties have come on
the market since.) What he took to be an example of provincial overkill and lack of national
unity is now a source of countrywide pride and boasting, “a cheese for every day of the year.”
~ 70 ~
And I say, “Vive, la France.”
We got into Figeac just as the skies started clouding over. The town itself had a
delightfully restored medieval quarter, an imposing cathedral and square right off the river Cele,
and a replica of the Rosetta Stone. The gîte was on the wrong side of the tracks but near the rail
station which made it convenient for Annie. They only had one bed available which Pierre took.
In the adjacent rather tawdry hotel I shared a modest room with Juergen, and the women took
another. Yes, we kept the window open that night.
There was no argument about dinner either as Annie requested that we all go out to a
restaurant to celebrate her completion of that portion of the chemin. I had my first pastis, an
anise-flavored apéritif that was a hallowed, manly tradition hereabouts. We all had steaks and a
mixed salad, served with a really delightful potato pancake and a carrot and broccoli mousse.
Annie surprised us all with gifts of little BVM-on-one-side/pilgrim-scallop-on-the-verso medals
she had purchased in Conques. It was Pierre this time that got a bit drunk.
Pastis, by the way, is more or less a reprocessed version of the banned absinthe without
the wormwood that supposedly killed, gave hallucinations to, or drove many people crazy in the
early years of the 20th century. It is rather strong with 40-45% alcohol content. When diluted,
the wonderful translucent yellow liquid turns the color of a soft, milky custard. I found the drink
pleasant enough but was not ready to incorporate it into my daily après hike routine.
After some overpriced breakfast and a very teary good bye to Annie the next morning, we
kept on. Right out of town was an enormous concrete cross up on the hill which commemorated
the deportation of 145 residents on May 12, 1944. Juergen made a crass comment that was at
once successfully anti-French, anti-German, and anti-Semitic. Lord, I was in need of another
hiking companion.
~ 71 ~
We passed through another really lovely town, La Cassagnole (birthplace of Louis the
Pious, son of Charlemagne and second Holy Roman emperor) and up and down hills that
afforded wonderful views again of the lower Lot Valley and got to our planned destination after
a light afternoon drizzle.
The small town of Carjac was delightfully nestled in a bowl of chalk cliffs and right on
the banks of the Lot. Rising above is the Saut de la Mounine or "Leap of the Monkey," a high
promontory connected to a local legend. As the story has it, some local noble was upset about the
company his daughter was keeping, and decided to have her thrown off this cliff as he watched
from afar. A local cleric dressed a monkey in the young woman’s gown and had the servants toss
the monkey off instead. Immediately on seeing this, the nobleman was horrified and griefstricken at what he had done. When the cleric confessed his ploy, the nobleman was greatly
relieved and forgave his daughter (who’s forgiving whom?), and everyone lived happily ever
after.
Anne Marie had made reservations for the four of us at a private gîte near the edge of
town—probably not far from where the monkey landed. We were met by the hospitalier and her
grandchildren and their cousins. The former single family house was really quite comfortable
with non-pilgrimy conveniences including wash machine, dryer, dish-washer, and almost every
imaginable kitchen gadget and appliance. It also had a dining room and several small bedrooms.
Juergen took a room by himself so that he could keep his window open. And there was uncharacteristic unanimity in deciding the who, what, and where of dinner.
We went into town and did our shopping, church visiting, and (for at least one person)
purchasing of some really fab postcards of southwest French country life. The small medieval
section—with a lovely church smack in the center—was the hub, circled by a small ring road
~ 72 ~
that gave ingress and egress to all parts of the old city. Opposite the church was a bread factory
that was already going full-force.
Later we unleashed Juergen in the kitchen and soon had a bounteous repast of veal
cutlets, cèpe (a type of mushroom) fritters, salad with tomato and avocado, and wine. We also
had aligot, a traditional Auvergne dish made from melted cheese, potato and garlic that I had
wanted to try since I first got the recipe postcard some many days past. It comes in a big brick
and has only to be gently heated to make a thick white paste. It was delicious, as was everything
else, but not something you would want every night.
Having been told by Anne Marie that fresh bread was available at 7AM, I got up early the
next morning and went into town to get some to start the day. By this time, I was fancying
myself as being a native—except he or she would have known which shop was open—as I
trotted into town. Though all three of the patisseries on the short ring road were shut tight, the
smell of baking bread was in the air and so enticing. I went around the ring again trying to find
the source of that tantalizing aroma that would strengthen and weaken as I circled. When I tried
to go up the narrow lanes of the old city, I would lose the scent and fall back and continue to go
round. I finally decided to go to the church in the center and work my way out, letting my nose
lead me. Lo and behold, the bread factory next door was still open and the source, of course, of
the delicious smells. (That I didn’t consider this in the first place is not so unusual—I had the
idea of a patisserie in my brain and, more probably, visions of slabs of apple tortes to go along
with the bread.)
The interior looked like Vulcan’s forge in the aftermath of a hurricane. There was flour
strewn all around the racks of rising loafs. The three flour-dusted workers were frantically busy
shaping loaves, hauling out the hot finished product and shoving in the yeasty-smelling ones that
~ 73 ~
had risen. The view of the oven with opened door was of Hades. Outside a lone woman was
furiously loading long baguettes into a tiny delivery truck but graciously took time out from her
tasks to wrap up two for me and wait as I fumbled for the change.
A word or two about the bread on this trip: I could never figure out in France or Spain
why a certain loaf tasted so wonderful in one town when a similar one in the next became
tasteless white goop in the mouth. Sometimes the browner breads were incredibly tasty and
substantial only to be unsavory at the next stop. When I purchased a particularly good looking
loaf from a store, I would memorize the name over the bin. If it was delicious—as frequently
was the case—I would search for the same kind down the road only to find out that the next
baker called it by another name. Still the breads in France were more than edible, if not terrific,
more so than in Spain. And having a fresh or fairly fresh bit in the backpack every day made the
journey a little bit easier.
Back on the chemin, our next segment was on the causse or high dry plateau. Here the
terrain was more barren with only shrubby plants; smaller, rocky fields; and fewer cows,
villages, and farmhouses. We would be traveling on it for a few days all the way to Moissac. We
got to Varaire and into the lovely, though crowded, gîte that was attached to a hotel which also
held quite a few pilgrims. The village sported a nice little church, a village square, and an
extensive and restored lavoire (outdoor hand laundry facility) on which a pair of central casting
swans paddled around.
Pierre was cooking that night as a reward to the Germans for treating him so well the
night we abandoned him. His specialty was a creamy potato gratin which he served with some
incredible local pork sausage. I spotted a wonderful looking cauliflower which I steamed and
served with the vinaigrette Juergen whipped up from the store of olive oil and Dijon mustard he
~ 74 ~
always carried. The dinner was another success that harkened back to Le Tour Gourmand.
The kitchen/dining room was packed with 16 pilgrims all huddled in, cooking and eating.
Two French coeds added much to the festive air by dissing some of the more outlandish
characters on the chemin. The paratrooper came in for the most derision. They went on about his
bandy legs under the big backpack which they surmised must have contained a parachute. They
were merciless regarding two Frenchmen who tried to impress them with talk of the 40 km hikes
they would be putting in. The girls who were doing 20 to 25 km a day easily outpaced them. One
had already returned home in disgrace; the second—the other Daniel from our night out sans
Pierre—was far behind and in agony from multiple blisters.
Ah, this is what the pilgrimage is all about: companionship, camaraderie, and good
spirits. It is also all about cramped quarters, wet laundry hanging everywhere, and relatively
mean-spirited gossip.
The next morning was overcast and humid as we took off in spritely moods—but
unfortunately in the wrong direction, not realizing our mistake until we were over three miles
from our start. The last few days we had come upon numerous variants of the GR65 and had in
fact taken a variant to Varaire. And in some places the GR65 coincided with other GR routes
which were also, unhelpfully, marked with the same white and red bars. Though the instructions
in the guidebooks seemed to match what we were seeing, “turn R along walled lane” and “turn L
at road” and “veer L 100m later” are just vague enough to work almost anywhere in that part of
the country. The only silver lining was that I saw the chateau I intend to buy when my ship
finally comes in. I can raise cows to my heart’s content and maybe even add another type of
cheese to France’s burgeoning list.
In all fairness, Juergen did sound the alarm early, though weakly, but Anne Marie and I
~ 75 ~
were sure we were on the right track. We finally got near a village that should have been on our
right but curiously was on our left. How was it possible that the same typographical error was
made in an English and two different French guidebooks? When we saw that the village had
another name, we got that sinking feeling and knew that we were the ones who blundered. It took
us a while to find out where we were on Pierre’s huge topographical map. We couldn’t have
made a bigger mistake—we had gone in reverse on the wrong GR. Then tempers flared, and
shouts started flying.
There was no recourse but to double back a bit to a road that would get us to yet another
variant then to the GR65. Of course the humidity seemed worse as well as our aches and pains.
We were planning to do almost 32 km or 20 miles anyway that day, but now we were looking at
over 42 km or 25 miles. But with no recourse, we plodded along.
The midportion after Le Peche was rather nice until it started raining, really hard at times.
By then Anne Marie and Pierre had gone ahead as I stayed guiltily with Juergen. On top of it all,
he was hampered by some new blisters and not the happiest of campers. (“I knew it; I knew we
were going the wrong way. I should have insisted. Never listen to a woman!”) To get out of the
rain, the only place we could grab some hurried lunch was under the eaves of a smelly, abandoned barn, and so added insult to injury.
The last few kilometers on the dry, ugly causse seemed interminable. The sky was a
grayish humid soup when it wasn’t blasting us with rain. Our last kilometer was straight
downhill which made our leg muscles and knees scream—though no louder than my aching
shoulders.
We hobbled into town with little idea where we were going to stay. Anne Marie that
morning had just mentioned “the hostel” and some cryptic directions to which I paid scant atten-
~ 76 ~
tion (thinking that I would, as usual, be accompanying her into town) that now made no sense.
Juergen’s and my guidebooks were useless. But we found a young French man who wanted to
practice his English and who took us to the youth hostel, a rather dismal smelly hive of activity.
The place was a three-story former convent with creaky wooden staircases, high ceilings, and
long hallways. It looked like a firetrap and reminded me of my primary school back in Indiana
and probably held as many lost souls.
To add to the cheerlessness, there was all this confusion about checking in, getting tokens
to do laundry, information on dinner (even Juergen was so tired he could barely muster the
energy to even talk about going out), and finding out the whereabouts of Anne Marie and Pierre.
It was so much a contrast to the pleasures of the night before.
We ran into Anne Marie right outside the hostel office as she was going down to eat.
Juergen, though his heart really wasn’t in it, started to make a big deal about how we should
avail ourselves of the biggest city we had been in yet and go out to dinner. He blubbered on that
we wouldn’t even get a decent wine here. But he came down with us anyway to the industrialsized, institutional cafeteria that seemed would bear out all his predictions.
At the entrance, the chef was incongruously holding court in a spotless ankle-length
apron and high white toque. He and Juergen really hit it off. Our culinary master brought out the
two different 3€ bottles (distressingly cheap) on offer for the patrons. The two of them—in a
parody of a client and sommelier at a four-star restaurant—examined and discussed the
minimalist cafeteria-style menu (overfried gristle and vats of boiled vegetables) and the qualities
of the two vintages for quite some time. Anne Marie and I were in stitches. But it was more than
enough to persuade Juergen to join us.
The dinner atmosphere was strained after all the bad blood of the morning, but we acted
~ 77 ~
like adults and pretended that this was just as joyous as Annie’s last night. The food was
exceedingly lame as was Juergen’s vaunted wine choice. The dining room resembled a fast food
restaurant on a busy interstate, complete with battered and dreary people streaming in and out,
trays with half-consumed pallid food strewn all over the place, and a constant din. But
exhaustion from the day’s long trek in the rain and humidity had a way of adding a glow to the
mere fact of just sitting down and relaxing.
Anne Marie was leaving us the next day. She had a long involved plan whereby she took
a train and/or bus to Condom on the morrow and then walked all the way to St. Jean Pied du
Port. From there she would take busses or trains back here to Cahors and rendezvous with a
friend of hers from Paris who wanted to do a less strenuous and more scenic part of the chemin.
Since that woman only had two weeks of vacation and could not get free for two more weeks, it
necessitated all these arrangements. Anne Marie and her friend would walk from Cahors to
Condom and part. Anne Marie would again travel to where she had left off and continue walking
to Santiago. She and I were hoping to meet again in St. Jean. Juergen remarked in his inestimable
way, “She’s like all the French women. They can’t do anything simply. They constantly have to
complicate things.”
The rest of the evening was spent crawling around the convent trying to get some laundry
done and preparing for bed. Our end of the hallway was populated by all manner of older, bigbellied weekend warriors who were going in and out of rooms and to and from the bathroom in
their underwear—let me assure you, not all Frenchmen are Vogue models. Juergen and I shared
a large room with two other guys who had been in Varaire with us. There was no problem
keeping the window open and that certainly helped to ameliorate the evil smell that permeated
the building.
~ 78 ~
As we had become a team by default by this time, Juergen and I had decided to spend a
rest day in Cahors and had even paid for an additional night’s lodging in that noxious firetrap. I
was constantly looking for more agreeable companions and was comparing unfavorably this
group with my camino mates of the year before. But nothing panned out on that score.
We said our goodbyes to Anne Marie and Pierre the next morning at breakfast. Then we
headed out to the nearby cathedral and a street market where we were witness to a cornucopia of
produce, meats, breads, pastries, and cheeses. Table after table held all the tempting spring
bounty for us as well as the well-dressed locals milling around and gossiping. The cathedral was
a double-domed Romanesque monstrosity, though it had a very lively north portal sporting some
nice sculpture. The town was full of wisteria and other flowering vines. As lovely as it was, we
soon realized that chemin wanderlust still had us in its grip and that this burg did not have
enough delights to keep us off the trail a full day—the morning was enough. So we decided to
take off again, though I was shuddering at the prospect of dining tète á tète with Juergen that
night and in the future.
The local tourist office was helpful in locating a place and reservation for the night in
Lascabanes 20 km away. (Anne Marie heretofore had been doing all that work for us.) And we
were off again.
~ 79 ~
Chapter Five
Le Tour pour Deux
Two on Tour
Cahors to Moissac
The chemin continued out of town over the famous Pont Valentre, a fabulous stone
bridge spanning the Lot and boasting three defensive towers. Legend had it that the architect
despaired of ever finishing this elaborate structure. So by an incredibly wise choice, he enlisted
the help of the devil. The negotiated price was that he simply had to give over his soul to the
demon when the bridge was finished. Agreeing to obey all the orders of his intended victim,
Satan did his job well and brought the bridge almost to completion. Then the wily architect
instructed his charge to use a sieve to deliver the last bit of the water needed to mix the mortar
for the final stone.
The devil tried and tried but just couldn’t convey the water and hence finish the bridge as
contracted. He knew that he had been tricked and took his revenge with a spell: the final stone
kept falling out and could never be fixed in place. Still that seems like a better deal than losing
your soul—I don’t think the errant stone ever clobbered anyone on the head. Even that problem
seems to have been solved during an 1879 renovation when they added a carving of the devil
straining and clutching at the cornerstone of the central tower trying desperately to dislodge it—
it stays in place to this day as does, I guess, the final stone up on the tower.
We left Cahors well-fed and relaxed a bit before noon. Bypassing the very steep and
supposedly dangerous climb to the Croix de Magne (as per the guide book but—more effectively
by a blow-by-blow account from Celine later that night), we had a languid 20 km walk to the
village of Lascabanes over terrain now a bit flatter. Larger fields dominated the countryside
which was now alive with acres and acres of golden canola up and down the hills and into the
~ 80 ~
distance beyond the causse—a nice change from the brushy scrub on the way into the city.
Because of our delayed start we got to our destination late, around 5:15. The village was
another delight—our gîte was even better. The former presbytery attached to the village church
had been rather lovingly renovated and was quite comfortable even with one outside wall
covered with swarming bees. Juergen and I got the last bunks in a room with two middle-aged
women.
I foolishly let him take his shower first, though I would have been much quicker. So he
got to church in time to get his feet washed by the Norbertine priest as I washed mine in a more
conventional way. I did arrive in time to catch most of the service though. Two brothers, about
six and nine, from the village were decidedly not interested in the proceedings and squirmed
more than a bit—unlike the two young French women from the Varaire gîte who got down on
their knees on the hard floor for the consecration and again later for the pilgrim benediction.
Juergen was appalled by their piety. He thought they should be “enjoying life” and not be
in thrall to their religion. I tried to demure, explaining that it was pretty much their decision and
they seemed to be pretty happy with the whole thing. Their actions certainly did not preclude a
full life, even a healthy quotient of sex. But he was not to be pacified. In fact, for days later he
kept bringing up their activity as a paradigm of what was wrong with youth today. Another
might have said their mocking of some of our pilgrim colleagues a few nights earlier had been a
more grievous infraction.
Since we opted for the demi-pension, we had a wonderful meal ready for us after Mass.
The former stable, a barrel-vaulted stone room on the ground floor, had been converted into a
spacious dining room for our pleasure. We had lentil soup, some wonderful stewed turkey,
couscous, local chevre, and apple crumble. Though the wine was extra, Juergen, of course, kept
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our end of the table well supplied. See, he wasn’t all bad.
The gîte was Snore Central that night. One of the women in our room started shaking the
walls early the next morning. And Celine later mentioned that the noise in her room was
“catastrophic” (must be said in French with much Gallic indignation and passion). Juergen had to
get a dig in about my occasional snoring “though it didn’t bother” him. I didn’t see the point of
mentioning that he was also a culprit most nights since it too “did not bother” me. But I did
entertain thoughts of throttling him in his sleep for other reasons.
Though the weather was intermittently overcast we had an enjoyable walk of 30 km the
next day, leaving the Lot and entering Tarn & Garonne Department. We stopped mid-morning
for a coffee break and for the Sunday market in Montcuq, an upscale, attractive town dominated
by a big tower and church. An equestrian festival just added to its appeal. The market was
chockablock full of even more wonderful delicacies than the one in Cahors. I got some boar
sausage from a dashing young butcher in a French beret but really wanted to snag one of the
proud live roosters also on display and sale.
I got postcards, of course. One featured the posterior view of a naked woman in front of
the Montcuq townscape with the words “Le bonheur est dans Montcuq “(“Have a good time in
Montcuq”) at the top. I couldn’t understand later why my fellow pilgrims were either slightly
appalled or inordinately amused when I showed them the card. As I was finally enlightened, it
seems a hurried pronunciation of the town’s name could be heard as “my ass.” You just gotta
love the French.
Then it was on to another of the certified “most beautiful villages.” Lauzerte, like many
of the towns we went through that were not directly on a river, was located atop a very steep
hill—this made sense in the Middle Ages when wars were raging and defenses were paramount,
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but increased the effort we pilgrims had to expend. Trudging up another incline in the midday
humidity was not exactly pleasant, but a short visit in the lovely medieval square and church
made it worthwhile. Though all the shops were closed for the Sabbath, we were able to get a
much needed beer at least.
More canola fields, farms, livestock and a little gem of a Romanesque church, St. Sernin
du Bosc, were on the way to our chambre d’hote, a large farmhouse in L’Aube-Nouvelle. Our
hosts were a Belgian couple who bought the place in the late 50s. Now their son, daughter-in-law
and three-year-old grandson were poised to take over. They welcomed us with much fuss,
bother, and a cold drink on the veranda. For once, it was a pleasure not to have to get out the
sleeping bag or worry about towels drying. Our fairly plain room was spacious and plenty
comfortable. Juergen, to his delight, had a seven-foot window to keep open. A flourishing garden
and patio shadowed by large trees were in front of the house. There a noisy macaw was my only
companion in the shimmer of the late afternoon light.
We had a memorable dinner of a fatty pate, leek soup, veal with carrots and potatoes,
braised endive, cheese, fruit salad, wine, coffee and lemon gelato. All in all it was a pretty good
bargain at 45€ for the stay.
We started out after breakfast—where I was inordinately delighted by starched napkins—
for a short 16 km hike to Moissac. The air again was a humid, soupy mess; and the route was
causse for regret. An ominous pain in my right shin started up suddenly and got worse as the
morning progressed. The last mile into the city was a steep downhill which left me with a furious
limp from another shin splint.
We had a beer at a café where I was able to get some ice for the leg right away. Then we
took a look at the cathedral, justly famous for its cloister but also boasting a wonderful main
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portal. Gazing at the suffering pictured in the Last Judgment of the tympanum did little to
ameliorate the pain in my leg, though it did put it in perspective. And I especially liked the
sinuous column figures abutting the door.
Then we tottered up the hill—torture to my ailing shin—to a former Carmelite convent.
It was run by volunteers who were very nice but a little too assiduous about their duties—I mean,
we were seasoned hikers by now, no matter that I hobbled in. They did tend to point out the
obvious and offered help and bestowed blessings at every encounter. We were put in a niceenough small room. But after my hiking mate sat on the bed and toppled the mattress to the floor,
we transferred to a very large six-bedded room in the back, northeast corner. The stone walls
were still cold enough to obviate the need for Juergen to more than just crack the window that
night. And they also kept the place as quiet as, well, a Carmelite convent.
We went back to the cathedral to see the museum and cloisters—downhills and flats were
no problem for my leg. The former was a quick run-through, but the cloisters were an incredible
trip back in time. (Amazingly enough, they were almost torn down in the 1950s to make way for
the rail line.) The capital sculpture program—consisting of animal, floral, geometric and Biblical
narrative motifs—on 76 alternating single and double columns was a Romanesque marvel. They
even had a Daniel capital, helpfully labeled by the medieval masons.
I think I had dropped enough hints that I would not be continuing on the next day but
would have to nurse my shin in Moissac until better. Juergen picked up on them and went whole
hog on dinner that night as a salutatory gesture. He was not the least bit daunted by the
ramshackle kitchen or the plethora of other cooking pilgrims and hovering permanent residents.
We started out with slices of my wild boar sausage and some fresh radishes and an Alsace
gewürztraminer. This was followed by potatoes first boiled then sautéed with onion and olive oil,
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pan-seared steaks, and those wonderful broad thin French green beans that cook up in a few
minutes. (And which I was lucky enough to have a few more times while in season.) And of
course, he did not forget the cheese course and an appropriate red wine. Everyone assembled, not
just me, was impressed. But I was also a bit relieved that this would be the end of our time
together.
Laid up with the ailing shin, I stayed in Moissac four nights. Since the same thing had
happened to me the year before on the other shin (after about the same amount of time walking)
and necessitated a week of rest, I wanted to be sure to nip the inflammation in the bud this time.
The people at the gîte could not have been nicer. I started having breakfast and dinner with the
other pilgrims in order to keep off my feet as much as possible as well as to have some human
interaction. The staff was also very good about providing me with ice—a good thing as my
pronunciation of the simple word glace only brought looks of incomprehension from the bar staff
in town until my profligate tipping somehow improved my French intonation remarkably.
Though it was hardly as stunning as the one down the hill, we had our own little cloister up at the
former convent where I could get some sun and read John Cheever’s “Falconer,” the only
English language book in the place. (“Bleak House,” though great reading, was just way too
thick for my pack and was left behind way, way back.). I moved to a two-bedded room that,
while pleasant, was just a little too much like a nun’s cell. The shin would hurt like hell in the
morning but got progressively better during the day. Since I had to leave the room in the morning
so the staff could clean, I roamed around a bit.
The town was only a little more active than it was on the previous day, Monday, when
shops were closed. There were a lot of men of North African descent hanging around the main
square. There were also a lot of women wearing headscarves and/or long robes in that
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neighborhood and out towards the train station. Though Moissac didn’t seem all that poor or
depressed, there didn’t seem to be a lot of agricultural or industrial presence in town. Probably a
lot of the commerce and population had moved out on the outskirts, leaving the center relatively
neglected.
I scouted around for a hairdresser as I was becoming particularly wild-looking. There was
no shortage of salons, and my faith in a French stylist working miracles on my mop was growing
in direct proportion to my length of stay in the country. I finally chose and entered a salon where
a young man was hard at work on a client. Before I could open my mouth, he shooed me out
with much Gallic vituperation. I wondered if I scared him with the unkempt hair and unruly
beard that I had not trimmed for three months or if he worked by appointment only. But it took
me another week before I got up the nerve to try another.
I trotted out to the rail station to check the train schedule to Toulouse, a nearby large city
which had, I heard, a wonderful cathedral worth a visit. I met two Norwegian women right out of
university who were starting their chemin/camino that morning and were already lost. I got out
my guidebook and was successful in pointing them in the general direction but was left to
wondering when I would be back on the trail.
What a start they had. They got to town at 11 PM the night before with a reservation at
the gîte and the code for the door lock which would not release. They had to wait outside for
three hours until a full-time resident finally arrived and showed them how to jimmy the door. But
they still were undaunted and raring to go.
Other than the internet where I could catch up on the French presidential election and the
Iraq conflict, there was not much else to do. I did find a pee-er postcard, one of my special
collecting categories, and mailed off another stack to the states. The town boasted a pissoir on
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the street behind the courthouse. And the covered farmers market had a urinoir—the first and
only one I ever saw (labeled as such), but I didn’t visit or, drat, take a picture.
Even without a television and an injection of French soap operas, my stay in Moissac still
proved to be more exciting than my prolonged recovery period the year before in Sahagun and
Leon. Since I was having dinner with pilgrims, I had like-minded people to talk to. One was a
pleasant 64-year-old Dutch Catholic man who was ever so excited to be starting his journey here.
The year before he had done many practice hikes (once doing 500 km over two weeks) and then
started out from his home with the intention of walking the whole way. After getting intense hip
pain straight off, he had to curtail his adventure. He saw numerous specialists who recommended
hip replacement surgery before he consulted a physiatrist who prescribed a simple gait adjustment which relieved the pain completely. But he was still planning to take it easy and do just
20 km a day until he was certain he was in shape. He was worried because he only had six weeks
in total to reach Santiago.
Another interesting guy was a French Canadian, Jean Claude, who was about my age,
extremely fit, and doing 50 km days. He was walking with a German who looked like he was
having a lot of trouble keeping up but determined not to fade. Jean Claude had done the Camino
Frances in 1984 when one “stayed in houses with local people.” Now he was doing Le Puy to
Puenta la Reina then walking “backwards” on the Via Tolosana, the southern French pilgrimage
route, to Arles. The youngest of nine children, he was raised, like I, very Catholic.
After he took a quick call at dinner, I asked him if it was expensive to use his cell phone
in Europe. He explained that he had bought a cheap one in France for emergencies but could get
and receive calls “almost for nothing.” He claimed that he got a deal that cost him only 20€ and
suggested I do the same for reservations, etc.
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As planned, the next day I took the train to Toulouse and actually went into an Orange
phone shop. Since I don’t understand any of the plans when explained in English, I figured it
wouldn’t make much difference if the pitch was in French. I found one shop where the woman
actually spoke a bit of English (i.e., she understood the word cheap). Of course, the 20€ phone
ended up costing me 80. And the card I had to buy to activate the phone was good for only 15
days of calls, just enough to get me to St. Jean, if I started the next day. Even though I was so
excited, I just knew deep down this was a bad idea—gadgets and I just simply do not get along.
As P.T. Barnum’s competitor David Hannum said, “There’s a sucker born every minute.”
So here I was in the big city which was a nice change of pace and a whole lot more
exciting than hobbling around my dusty burg. On the trip over the train tracks pretty much
paralleled part of the Canal Latéral à la Garonne which runs from Toulouse to the Atlantic
Ocean. It connects in Toulouse with the Canal du Midi, an earlier engineering feat that opened in
1681 after 15 years of work and which runs to the Mediterranean Sea. The canals were real
boons to the region’s development and economy. But unfortunately, like the Erie Canal and
others, the combined two legs were eventually supplanted by rail and truck commerce. Still they
were a beautiful accent to the lush farmland and are now a real tourist draw.
Toulouse missed out on the Industrial Revolution and so also on the attendant environmental degradation and societal ills like displaced industries and an unemployable workforce
that plague many large cities in the United States and Europe. It was quite the backwater until it
became the thriving center of the French biotech and aerospace industries. The population has
doubled since the 1960s. So its present and newly augmented wealth and sophistication belie its
bucolic location in the European sunbelt.
The train station was a turn of the century (the former one, not Y2K) marvel. I headed
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out, found a billboard map to peruse for directions, and promptly got lost trying to find St.
Sernin, thinking it was the cathedral. It was actually very strange being in a really big city—my
first since New York City, as my Paris stay hardly counts—again and seeing stoplights and
navigating more than two lanes of traffic. And it was dog turds, not the cow pies of the trail, I
had to keep an eye out for.
Spotting a Turkish restaurant, I figured I could get some understandable directions there.
I went in, approached a head-scarved woman washing the floor, and asked her in Turkish if she,
in fact, spoke Turkish. She looked at me rather warily—surely this middle-aged man in shorts,
dusty hiking shoes, orange top and hat, and with a scruffy beard and hair could not be a French
immigration officer—and finally warily replied in the affirmative. So I asked her where the
cathedral was. “Cathedral?” she replied in a horrified voice. I said, “Yes, the big church.” She
looked even more spooked and yelled for help.
A punkish-looking woman came down and started asking me, very unhelpfully in French,
what I wanted. She didn’t speak Turkish or English or know anything about a cathedral either.
But when I mentioned St. Sernin, she kinda shrugged her shoulders, gave me a look that said
“Why the fuck didn’t you say that in the first place?” and rapidly rattled off directions, in French
of course—just what I was trying to avoid. But she took me to the door and pointed in the
general direction. I understood enough to know it was a right and a left or a left and a right.
Looking back, I do realize it might not have been the wisest thing to ask a good Muslim
woman about churches and cathedrals—that was probably tantamount to asking a nun for
directions to a brothel.
I finally found St. Sernin and found it well worth the trip. The church was huge,
supposedly the largest Romanesque church in Europe. Its simplicity and purity did touch the
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medieval architectural historian in me. But the tons of baroque additions inside did more to
impress the small town (former) Catholic Midwest boy. It was unusually constructed from brick
and had an atypical ambulatory with radiating chapels behind the altar, a feature usually
associated with Gothic. The crypt had some fabulous bejeweled reliquaries—some the gift of
Charlemagne. St. Sernin (Saturnin), by the way, was the first bishop of Toulouse and was
martyred by pagan priests in 250AD. His was a grisly end; his feet were tied to a bull that
dragged him through the streets until the rope broke.
I then went to Orange and bought the cell phone. So what else to do? I only had a couple
of hours before the last train back. I saw a few more monuments and another extensive open air
food market and every manner of store from alternative to high-end. I somehow missed the
actual cathedral itself, a rather interesting building I later learned is a curious mishmash of two
disparate but conjoined Gothic structures, a kind of ecclesiastical Siamese twins.
Since it was a large university town, there were many well-dressed young folk flocking
and frolicking on the sunny sidewalks, plazas and parks. All this activity was quite a contrast to
the monotony of two weeks walking on rural mountain paths. When I went back to the convent
that night and was asked about my trip, I mentioned that Toulouse was much too lively for me.
Since they knew that I was late of New York City, this comment elicited well-deserved derision.
Well, when in Toulouse, do what the Toulousians do. I went shopping. I found tourist
information and was sent to two camping goods stores not far away. The first didn’t have much
to entice me, but the second surely did.
I got a two-liter water delivery system, essentially a big bladder with a long tube and
nozzle from which one can easily sip while walking—no fumbling for the water bottle any more.
Thinking to mail my too-warm sleeping bag back home, I bought a silk sleeping bag liner which
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I expected to be all I needed for the increasingly moderate weather. (This turned out to be a little
optimistic. While all the hostels in France had blankets, almost none did in Spain.) But it was the
clothing aisles that caught my eye and imagination. I think I was still harboring that desire to be
an outdoor fashion plate on the chemin/camino. And this store had a full array of Quechua—the
brand of choice for fashion-minded European pilgrims—outdoor sartorial items. But since the
phone purchase and those other items hemorrhaged my budget, I held my spree to two pairs of
orange and grey Quechua socks, a necessary and timely purchase.
Then it was back “home” for take-out pizza (a culinary item that the French have not
mastered as far as I could tell) and bed. I was geared up and confident that I could continue
walking on the morrow.
Since I was going to limit myself to several days of short 20 km hikes, I had time to tarry
in town the next morning and go to the post office when it opened at 8:30 to dispatch home the
sleeping bag and a few other items. After giving my trusty anorak away to Ghislaine, one of the
gîte volunteers and a male despite the feminine name, I was light and ready. The sun was
shining. The air was glistening. And I turned 57 that day. Walking again without the emotional
baggage of my former group was the best present I could have gotten. A minor hitch in my plans
was that my brand new cell phone was already dead, so I could not make a reservation for that
night’s lodgings. (It turned out that I had somehow accidentally locked it.) Would I be sleeping
in a field?
I was first at the post office door but soon another three or four clients lined up. One lady
insinuated herself in front of me, but I was not going to let anyone else push me aside. As they
opened the door I did a quick shoulder slide and made a backpack obstacle course and kept the
uncouth at bay. I was pleased that I got the same clerk, a middle-aged female French clerk that I
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had two days before. Surely, I thought she would remember how pleasant I had been and treat
me lightly. I was even tempted to compliment her on her new hair color—in that short time
between our meetings, her hair had gone from a subdued russet to an unholy red (and I had faith
in French hairdressers?)—but my French was simply not up to it. I mumbled a few of the
sentences from my phrase book about mailing a package that were more or less appropriate to
the transaction. I have no idea if she understood me but things were proceeding fairly smoothly.
She got a regulation fold-up box which I quickly assembled and into which I started
stuffing my unrolled sleeping bag. Because the box was much larger than the sack I usually used
to store it, I could not fathom why the bag would not go in easily. I would press in the last bit of
fluffy down and try to hold it in while I flipped the lid and slipped tabs in slots. I would get two
or three of the four tabs in before a significant portion of the bag would vomit out again and
again as the line behind me got longer. Sweat was beading on my brow as the clerk clucked
away that it wasn’t going to work. She rushed in back and brought out another box that would
have been more suitable for my whole backpack and quite a bit of me besides. This only made
me more determined to use the smaller vessel. I knew I should have at least tried to compliment
her hairstyle.
The rabble was starting to get restless and making impatient comments—one man even
shouted, I am sure, a nasty imprecation. My clerk was rolling her eyes and shrugging her
shoulders at the crowd as if to say, “Hey, I am just a lowly postal worker, tar and feather him.” I
was about to give up and stuff the bag in a trash can and throw all my Toulouse postcards to the
wind when I finally got the lid almost all the way down and all four tabs—well at least three and
three quarters of them—in place. The box did resemble the torso of a disfigured camel, but I
figured it just might pass muster. Now I thought, “What’s the French word for tape?”
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Disdainfully, my clerk looked at the lopsided box with the bent lid as if she was loath to
even touch it. I was sure it offended her highly honed, French sense of symmetry and balance
and feared she would reject it. Since we were long past the hairstyle compliment stage, I toyed
with the idea of getting out my passport, pointing out that it was my birthday and beg her to
please, please, please show some mercy. She then looked me in the eye, George-Bush style, to
really take my stock. What a pathetic sight she must have beheld: a panicked, still pasty-white
and flabby middle-aged man with sweaty brow, ratty beard and unkempt hair under a
preposterous orange cap. Whether she took pity on or, more probably, just wanted to get rid of
me, I would never know. But she got a roll of tape without my trying to ask or pantomime, took
the now-not-toxic box, and lackadaisically mummified the package. That sucker might never be
opened again.
I thought it was just a matter of pay and run. But, no, she handed me a customer service
questionnaire in French that I had to fill out in triplicate before she could finish the processing.
My initial reaction—followed soon after by another wave of panic—was intense and utter
disbelief. Did I really ever need that sleeping bag and those postcards again? Why didn’t I just
get on the road in the warm spring air with birds singing, frogs croaking and flowers blooming?
But the form was multiple choice. I could make out or guess just enough to get, I hope, the gist
and actually truthfully answer the eight questions. I decided not to press my luck and add in the
comment section, “The clerk was very professional, but her hair really would look better in
auburn or light brown. And those bronze highlights just don’t work.” After quickly paying, I was
then free, god almighty, free at last. [Apologies to the great Martin Luther King.]
~ 93 ~
Chapter Six
Le Tour Gothique en Solitaire
The Gothic Tour Alone
Moissac to Condom
So I was back in the sunshine and walking along the canal for the remainder of the
morning. The leg was behaving. I had the footpath pretty much to myself. It was flat, straight and
absolutely glorious. I was able to retrieve my sheaf of songs and celebrate my birthday and my
return to the chemin with a rousing musical medley. Finally!
My voice that day was, in all modesty, remarkably strong and even occasionally on key.
It seemed only right to start with an assortment of tunes from “Priscilla, Queen of the Desert,” a
film of another pilgrimage of sorts. After four or five of those, I moved on to some Johnny
Cash—the towers of a nuclear power plant on the horizon standing in for the walls of Folsom
Prison. Long live the Karaoke Camino! Alas, I would never again get that magical combination
of perfect weather, straight road, flat surface, and transient ability to sing in tune for more than a
few minutes for the rest of the trip. But, pace Clint Eastwood, it made my day.
I started getting some twinges of pain in the shin and so had a coffee and ice (for the
ailing leg, not the beverage) break and a quick look at the church in Pommeric. The village was
full of well-tended homes with blooming flower and vegetable gardens going right down to the
canal where a few barges had been converted to residences. From there it was a just a short five
km to Auvillar. Unfortunately I had to leave the shade of the straight and narrow canal path,
traverse the edges of dusty fields, and then trudge up a steep hill to the town.
Now was this the most picturesque village I had been in? It was getting absurd. Every
time I thought that I had seen the ideal French village, I would soon come across another equally
or more fantastic. This sported a marvelous open, circular colonnaded medieval market hall right
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off the middle of a big square. The whole neighborhood consisted of stately old stone buildings.
Down the narrow streets one got views of the church, more old stone and masonry walls, and
spiffy edifices. There was even a scenic overlook with views of the lush Garonne River valley.
The tourist office clerk happily assigned me, sans reservation, a bed in the municipal gîte.
I was not expecting luxe accommodations but was a little downcast when she escorted a few of
us pilgrims out of the square, down the hill a bit, and into a rather shoddy alley with high stone
walls on either side. “Ha!” I thought, “All that glitters is not gold. This town ain’t so nifty.” Then
she opened up the gate and led us into a veritable paradise. First was the open-air courtyard of
the U-shaped residence. Off to the left and under a cathedral ceiling was a large kitchen/dining
room with a little sitting room in the loft. The bedrooms and bathrooms were to the right.
Everything was brand new, of high quality, very homey, and so clean I would have gladly eaten
off the floors. We even had a free washer and dryer. Beyond the kitchen was a spacious backyard
with a flourishing lawn offering another view of the river valley and the steaming conical towers
of the nuclear power plant not far off in the village of Golfech.
I shared a small room with two pleasant middle-aged French men who did not speak
English. They got me a reservation at a gîte for the following night, even though I finally got my
cell phone working again after punching and holding down an almost infinite number of
combinations of buttons.
I wandered around a bit in the village and found an internet outlet located in the messy
office of a very pleasant 46-year-old, half-French, half-American man. Since Christophe and I, it
turns out, were both born and raised in Indiana—though he had intermittent long stays in France.
He was from Bloomington, where I had studied medieval architecture and my foreign languages,
so we had a lot to talk about. He also provided me an English keyboard for my blog updates
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which really helped speed things up.
I did my food shopping and went back to prepare and consume a big repast of bowtie
pasta, sautéed vegetables and bottled Bolognese sauce. Though hardly expensive, my small
celebratory bottle of Bordeaux raised the eyebrows of and evoked comments from one of my
roommates. Maybe one was only supposed to have it with a bloody side of beef. Nevertheless, I
did have a lovely, if solitary, birthday dinner.
Christophe had invited me to a local art show opening in the village center that night. I
wasn’t sure what to expect—it certainly wasn’t such a large and sophisticated crowd. The works
of the eight locals were a typical assortment of style and media. One man used tree branches and
votive candles to make a ten-foot circle on the floor as a proscenium of sorts to his large-scale
photographs on the wall behind. I stepped into the center and was immediately reprimanded by
the artist. And a good thing too, because shortly after that the lights were dimmed and the ringshaped space was taken over by a belly dancer in a flashy skimpy costume who executed a
stunningly erotic dance. What her performance had to do with the town-and-country photos on
the wall, though, I cannot say.
Upstairs were some interesting collages by a guy named Philippe Bono. A few minutes
later I spotted a book entitled “Bono” downstairs on a table. Hoping to learn a bit more about the
artist, I picked it up as a pleasant man stepped up to my side. After the usual bon nuit and a parle
vous, I asked him if and got an affirmative nod that the book was about his work. I was ready to
compliment him on the collages but then noticed that the book was full of photos of ceramic
pieces similar to those that had taken over this corner of the room like a particularly virulent
cancer. So it was he who was the creator of all those hideous monstrosities that had me giggling
to myself. Drop book and run out screaming? Not quite, but I slipped out shortly after and got to
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bed early at 8:30. Such is the life of a pilgrim.
The next day was an easy 22 km to Castet-Arrouy. Along the way I passed a chateau that
was formerly a hospital run by the Order of Saint Anthony. They ran such institutions all over
Europe and had particular success in treating ergotism, also known as St. Anthony’s Fire (though
erysipelas, a strep skin infection, has also been identified as that malady), because of the burning
sensation it causes in the limbs.
Ergotamine, an alkaloid produced by a fungus on infected rye and other cereals, has been
identified as the causative agent for the disease that had periodic severe outbreaks throughout
history and was deemed punishment from God. Ergotamine, an LSD precursor, can cause
hallucinations, psychoses, and seizures. Some think the women accused of being witches in
Salem, Massachusetts, could also have been afflicted by the disease. Its vasoconstrictive
properties lead to swelling, loss of sensation and eventual death of tissue in fingers and toes. Bad
news for pilgrims that would be.
St. Anthony himself, born into a wealthy Egyptian family in the third century AD, was an
interesting character. After the death of his parents, he placed his only sibling in a proto-convent,
gave away his and her inheritances, and became a famous ascetic and anchorite. The devil tried
to get the best of him in numerous bouts, but Anthony survived.
Desperately wishing
martyrdom, he would periodically decamp from his desert hovel and openly proselytize in
Alexandria—a strict No No—until caught and sentenced to death.
But while in jail, he
continued his preaching and was so convincing that his captors would forthwith convert. They, in
their glee at being saved, would refuse to carry out the execution he so wholeheartedly desired
but would set him free again. These frustrating trips into town and his rematches with Satan took
up most of the rest of his life before he died peacefully at 105. His followers, as instructed,
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buried him in an unmarked secret grave somewhere in the hinterlands so we don’t have any of
his relics here or anywhere else—and him just maybe being the saint I needed for my still-aching
lower leg.
Castet-Arrouy was a sleepy little village when compared to Auvillar. But, again, the place
just screamed charm, charm, charm. We stayed in another municipal gîte that was in a renovated
part of the village hall. The French know how to do up these places—from a dusty sow’s ear
portion of a drafty civic building they had patched together a silk purse of a habitation. The
downstairs was an ample combination entry, dining room, and kitchen. Upstairs the four
bedrooms and two baths were brand-spanking new and immensely comfortable. Out back was a
lovely walled, shaded, and grassy backyard.
From a huge freezer in the dining room (a discordant decorating note, I do admit), I had
ice galore for my shin. My leg was not giving me severe trouble pain-wise, but my right ankle
was still significantly swollen. Elevating it after showering in the afternoons was always
interrupted by the desire to explore the local area and run errands. As my leg pain was more
chronic and nagging than acute and disabling, I was blithely unconcerned.
This town had a pleasant Gothic church with some restored late 19th century paintings of
angels and saints in somewhat garish colors which I rather liked. The only other public spot was
La Plancha Brasserie, run by an émigré French Canadian who invited us to his sangria village
fete that evening. Since the few village shops were closed, we made reservations for dinner there
as well. The owner had done four caminos, spoke excellent English, and seemed to be impressed
that I was the first American of the season.
The fete proved to be a riot. Though the first to arrive were us trail-famished pilgrims, the
oldest villagers started dribbling in soon after. They were followed by representatives of three
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successive generations. I think the mean age was about 68—since there were several babies in
attendance the average age was a bit less. An ancient woman with her two late middle-aged,
challenged daughters; a pleasant man who kept quiet and looked like he had just undergone
radiation therapy for brain metastases; and a humpy mechanic/farmer and his, I bet, second wife
(she didn’t look old enough to have given birth to his son who came over later for the car keys)
were some of the guests. We were served sangria, orangeade, chips, pretzels, nuts, toasted ham
and cheese sandwiches, and little cocktail sausages. We pilgrim vultures, I am afraid, devoured
most of the goodies.
In attendance were two English families, both of whom had recently bought and
renovated homes here. One woman had started a chambre d’hote in hers. Her French accent was
appalling—which was actually the first thing she said to me in French. (I was always amazed
when anyone mistook my nationality.) She was visibly relieved when I replied in our shared
tongue that mine was probably worse. This part of France was experiencing an influx of Brits as
second-home owners. They bolstered the local economy and had a vested interest in resisting any
development that would change the rural atmosphere of the villages.
Prior to our dinner, we followed the farmer/mechanic over to the village hall where he
gave us a tour of the one room we had not seen. He had to check that the preparations for the
presidential election the next day were proceeding smoothly. As that was just one little booth
with cloth curtains and paper ballots, his inspection didn’t take long. From a bunch of old class
pictures from the local school hanging on the walls, he pointed out his many siblings and cousins
and himself. That most of them had moved away (and that he had but one child himself) brought
home the fact that traditional village life was fast disappearing. This would be even more evident
further on the chemin where huge agribusiness enterprises dominated the landscape and where
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fewer tidy villages like his survived.
Back at the brasserie I thoroughly enjoyed the multicultural dinner of Spanish pork and
German apple cake. The talk was all about the French election, and rousing discussions peppered
the air. The owner’s wife, who was also the waitress, was the most voluble. Luckily all had been
served by this time, otherwise we may have starved as she went on and on about Sarkozy. I was
pretty sure from her body language and intonation that her comments were not positive.
Everyone—at this stop and elsewhere—wanted to know my opinion of their election. My
standard diplomatic reply was that since I came from a country where George Bush got as many
votes as he did, I was hardly at liberty to judge another country’s voting process. That always got
a big laugh and a lot of nodding heads.
Another big and recurring political topic of conversation was the Hillary Clinton vs.
Barak Obama contest back in the States. Many, if not all of the Europeans I met, were big
Clinton supporters but more than a little bit curious about Obama. I usually straddled the fence
and stated that I preferred that Mrs. Clinton stay in the Senate where she was an excellent and
effective politician. This would generate crestfallen looks. Then when I opined that Mr. Obama
might very well be a man of vision and that he had a really well-rounded—if short on
experience—resume, my temporary friends would bob their heads thoughtfully.
My two French roommates were finishing their chemin holiday 10 km away in Lectoure
the next day and then returning home. Going all the way to Condom—34 km via a shortcut—
would have me miss the Gothic church of La Romieu. It was built in the 14th century by
Clement V, one of the Avignon Popes, when pilgrim traffic was possibly at its highest. Since my
ankle was still significantly swollen, though, I opted to walk to Marsolan and proceed to the
church on the way into Condom the following day—two more 20 km walks. I finally got to use
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my cell phone to make a reservation—in French, no less. The less said about that, the better.
So it was just another wonderful sunny day. The way was on rolling hills through lush
farmland at a time when it seemed that everything was alive and moving. It was too early in the
season, though, to see the vast fields of sunflowers this area is famous for. Lectoure was abustle
with lots of prosperous looking visitors. I popped into the Gothic Cathedral of Saints Gervais &
Protais (the martyred twin sons of martyred parents, by the way) for a quick look-see but failed
to find a bar for a much needed coffee or an open shop for postcards.
A lot of the elements of Gothic architecture such as the pointed arch, rib vaults, and
flying buttresses were already in use individually in late Romanesque buildings. But the
systematic use and refinement of them resulted in the new style that emphasized light and
verticality. Flying buttresses allowed for higher and larger clerestory windows, flooding the
interiors of churches with light—and multicolored at that if made of stained glass. The move
away from heavy load-bearing walls to a procession of columns accentuated this sense of
lightness. The pointed arch added both structural height (they allowed for higher vaults) and the
visual perception of increased height. Various decorative tricks made the columns and piers
appear less substantial. Moldings and shafts drew the eye upward to the soaring ceiling where the
crossing ribs would take the eye over and down—someone trying to figure out which moldings
and shafts went where would resemble a dashboard bobble-head doll on a particularly bumpy
ride. The ambulatory with radiating chapels also brought more light and space into the east end.
It also gave medieval—and contemporary—pilgrims room to maneuver, a logical path to follow
through the church, and exposure to yet more relics and favored hometown saints.
Arriving in Marsolan around noon, I sat in the pleasant and cool scenic overlook near the
church yard and had a desultory lunch from leftover bits of food in my pack. Across the square at
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their very active polling place, the voters coming in were much like the villagers at the fete:
multi-generational and of varied class. There were also quite a few local hikers and bikers
around. The amazing spring day had everyone out and in soaring spirits.
I moseyed over to my especially inviting private gîte after lunch. Occupying a large
farmhouse with a swimming pool, they let a few rooms above the communal dining room in an
adjoining building. The gîte proper occupied two little rustic cabins at the back of the property
overlooking a big valley where a number of sheep and cows dotted the verdant fields. Nestbuilding birds were flitting here and there and everywhere. The sunny clear sky was an enveloping blue security blanket. It was so very appealing that it brought to a riff on MasterCard commercials:
Demi pension at the rural gîte 24€.
Silk sleeping sack 24€.
Vaseline for those tired, dry feet 2€.
Witnessing a French country sunset priceless.
But there was a black lining to my silver cloud. Some rowdy, fun-loving Belgian women
had already taken over one cabin, so I got put in the smaller bedroom in the other. I was getting
nervous since I was going to be the only man out in the middle of nowhere with a bunch of
middle-aged European women who—though they had butch haircuts—were decidedly not
lesbians. I was already imagining scenes from “Return to Brokeback: Nightmare on Chemin
Mountain.”
When the second group of ladies showed up, my nervousness notched up another couple
of degrees. I was paired with this—in others’ eyes, maybe—very attractive, vivacious French
woman who seemed to me to be just a bit shy of a cat in heat. She had been coming on strong to
one the guys I had been rooming with the past two nights (though I could hardly blamed her for
that) and had already gone out of her way to establish that I was not married. So, my taking the
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bottom bunk was a major strategic blunder: if I had been on top, I could have kicked her off
while defending my honor. A more debonair man would have taken the top in any case.
We all spent our afternoon puttering around with the basic pilgrim tasks of laundry,
napping, and foot care. A few hearty souls even went into the very cold pool. We had a drink up
at the house—I had my first Panache, a beer and lemon soda concoction. While nice and
refreshing the first time, a repeat trial the next day left me thinking the fluid was more like
something ladled out of a well-used toilet bowl. Surprisingly I found a novel in English, Rebecca
Well’s “Ya Yas In Bloom” on one of the shelves of the gîte. Even though I was with another
French-speaking sisterhood and desperate for a good read, I couldn’t get into the story after a
few chapters and left it behind for others.
What with the mild weather, we had our dinner outside in the lingering evening light.
Since three Swiss couples staying in the annex and the man of the house joined us, I wasn’t the
only male at the table. As we were enjoying our stewed chicken with onions and peppers, salad,
pasta and applesauce, we got the news that Ms. Royale and Mr. Sarkozy were going to be in a
run-off election in a few weeks. No one seemed to be too upset by the news. And I had to repeat
my bon mots about Obama and Clinton yet again.
I slept the sleep of the innocent and was not attacked by either a single or a horde of
horny French women. The next morning we had our basic continental breakfast on the terrace
again. As nice as the meal-ette was, I was itching to just once start a day just with bacon and
eggs and a stack of pancakes. And where did French toast come from anyway, if not from
France?
Walking again with continuing absolutely gorgeous weather, I had the trail mainly to
myself. It was primarily on practically deserted asphalt roads bounded by wildflowers and
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luxuriant fields. My still swollen ankle had responded to the strict regimen of ice and elevation I
had done the day before. The only discordant note was the coo-coo-cooing of those damned
pigeons.
This area was justly famous for its pigeonnieres or pigeon houses, some of them quite
elaborate. Multi-storied and built to last, all were large and must have held scores of birds. And
every house and farmyard had at least one. The birds individually were not loud, but their sheer
aggregate numbers created quite a din. As the air was otherwise without other aural intrusions,
that low-grade hum proved relentless and piercing. Their racket was so constant I started to feel
like Tippi Hedren before the attack. How the locals put up with it, I don’t know.
I passed a wonderful stone building that used to be a former commandery for the Knights
of St. John and was now a private home. Now, what is that 10th Commandment? Something
about coveting thy neighbor’s good, isn’t it? Well, this was not the first estate in which I would
have been happy to take up residence. I may have been focused more on that abode and not on
the path, because I missed a turn soon after and so unknowingly ended up on the shortcut I had
hoped to avoid. I just kept following the red and white bars that marked the chemin and didn’t
realize my mistake until I was on the outskirts of Condom. Doubling back would have meant
another 10km or more. Since the sun had gotten quite warm by midday, I was glad to be getting
here so early and after only 14kms.
So I missed the church at La Romieu. So great is the architectural legacy of France that
this building barely registers more than a nod. While the name of the town derives from a
Gascon word for pilgrims to Rome, it was a major stop on the road to Santiago. The town’s
defense walls were eight-to-ten meters high and had three gates. An important counselor to the
French Pope Clement V was from the area and was instrumental in the building of the cathedral.
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To be frank, even though I passed it by, I was getting close to architectural overload and needed
a little break.
Have I mentioned that I collect postcards? Condom was supposed to be tacky postcard
paradise. Talk about major disappointment. Though a lively, large regional town with lots of
upscale shops and cafes and a prosperous-looking local populace, it did not have the racks and
racks of the préservatif images I had been lusting for.
Katherine, a German woman I had met in Moissac, was just coming out of a shop as I
entered a more picturesque part of the city. She recommended the pleasant private gîte out on the
river where she would be staying a second night. As the Belgian ladies had also mentioned it, I
figured I might be the only rooster in the henhouse again that night. I walked around the historic
center of the city—and their not-so-insignificant Gothic cathedral—and finally found a tobacco
shop on a side street that had about a dozen exceedingly tacky, lower-case-C condom cards. So
my visit was far from a total loss.
The gîte was about a kilometer out of town and could not have been nicer. It was in a
renovated armagnac factory, a massive, three-storey limestone building with huge, highceilinged rooms. The extensive, well-tended yard went right down to the river bank. The ground
floor had two immense dormitory-style bedrooms with about 20 bunk beds each. There was a
small but efficiently arranged kitchen, full of all those well-designed and inexpensive Ikea-like
gadgets and utensils I am always tempted to buy. The dining room occupied almost half of the
immense ground floor and had long picnic-style wooden tables and benches. There was a little
shrine to St. Roch next to a covered indoor well. Most everything was made from natural materials with well-coordinated, muted accent colors. There was a big wine press in the back and a
caged and empty wine repository to the side.
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It was owned and renovated by the two Erics, Frenchmen who did not know each other
prior to buying the place jointly when it had been a shambles. They had to put on a new roof and
cart out tons of garbage. They and the neighbors didn’t even know how beautiful the exterior
was until they had cut down all the enveloping vines to reveal the sparkling stone. They had
plans to renovate the second floor and offer more facilities.
Eric #1 was with his wife and baby doing yard work when I arrived. Eric #2 came later
and gave us an extensive, expressive tour helpfully translated by Katherine. I was rather partial
to the first Eric and got to see him the next morning all dressed up for the office when he
delivered fresh croissants to us for breakfast. Life could be tough on the chemin sometimes, eh?
Besides Katherine and me, only two sisters, blonde and thin, from the north of France
stayed the night—the Belgian babes never arrived. We all ate food we had prepared and shared
out on the stone patio with the frogs croaking in the nearby river and the stars twinkling above.
We talked and giggled throughout the evening. It was superb.
A night in a renovated winery 18€.
Early in the season fresh tomatoes 2€.
Additions to already robust condom postcard collection €.
Total relaxation with agreeable fellow pilgrims—priceless.
Eric #2 left a large bottle of armagnac, a justly famous product of this region, out on one
of the tables. We each only sipped a tiny bit before retiring—though we might have taken more
had we known of its benefits. This potent distilled drink is given a lot of the credit for the fact
that the Landes and Gers Departments have one of the lowest rates of cardiovascular disease in
the world. It is also purported to hold off obesity. And one of my postcard purchases heralded
armagnac’s role in maintaining the area’s vigorous masculinity. In fact, the regions of Bas
Armagnac, Tenareze, and Haut Armagnac together resemble a giant grape leaf, one big enough
to cover the ample genitalia of the men of the region.
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Chapter Seven
Le Tour Express
The Express Tour
Condom to Arzacq
The next morning was the inaugural for the next phase of my journey, best described as
Chemin Express. All the elements for fantastic power hiking (great weather, soft rural terrain,
burgeoning spirits, health and even cell phone service) were in place. No more of these 20 km
hikes—I was upping my average to 30-40 with early rising and brisk morning walking. Though
it was to be short-lived, it was fabulous.
As far as my leg was concerned, I still had that worrisome right shin tightness and some
significant ankle swelling. A short, shooting pain like a jolt of electricity was very episodic and
hardly crippling. I found out on my way out of Condom that healthy, though some might say
unhealthy, doses of ibuprofen relieved even those. A regime of 600-800 mg straight off in the
morning with 200 more a few times during the day was very effective. I halfway jokingly
referred to it as the intercession of St. Motrin.
Not only Chemin Express, this was my time with Alex. I first spotted him in town the day
before, sunburned, Quechua-attired, and darting into shops with a gangly older Frenchman. Very
noticeable was his homemade walking stick, a stout piece of thick sapling with a crucifix-making
crosspiece affixed with rubber bands. Alex was a 28-year-old Alsatian lad who spoke, in addition
to French and German, a bit of English. He was very nice and devout—he would beeline to the
BVM altar for a few moments of prayer whenever we visited churches. A non-artistic painter and
construction worker, he was very good looking in a rather rough way.
He was walking with Patrick, a Frenchman around my age, and the gangly man I
mentioned. The latter was a curious specimen. He was traveling with his wife who trailed him in
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a mobile home to which he would retire every night, though he insisted on hiking with a full
backpack of some ten kilos. He was as avid a smoker as he was a walker and also liked to tell
dirty jokes. I did wish he spoke English or I French, because he had all the good gossip too.
The route to Eauze was very pleasant, rural walking. I can’t emphasize how wonderful
the way was, and I have run out of adjectives. It was a delicious medley of fields on undulating
hills, wildflowers, livestock dotting the countryside, and waving farmhands. The walking surfaces were a pleasant mix of asphalt roads with just an occasional tractor, wooded paths, and
gravel tracks between fields, all under blue skies and a gently warming sun. I pretty well had it
all to myself as I was doing that pretty vigorous pace. If I came upon another group of walkers, I
easily passed them with a few bonjours and bon chemins. When I put some distance between me
and the other hikers, I tried to revive the Karaoke Camino by retrieving my sheaf of songs, and
belting out a few numbers. But with the uneven surface and the need to keep an eye peeled for a
trail marker (as well as the desire to actually look at all the bounty of spring), I limited myself to
just one or two songs.
The rural scenery like on previous occasions masked a history not always so bucolic.
This area had seen numerous armies either invading or passing through from Roman times to the
very near present. A fortified town, emblematic of that warring past, was a bit too far off the path
to visit easily. The foundations of many pilgrim hospitals and leprosaria were under those fields,
as were the pitiful remains of innumerable hovels that the local populace once inhabited.
A church, the oldest in the area, had a small side door on the side that was the entrance to
a segregated portion of the nave exclusively for the use of a persecuted minority, the Cagots.
They also had to use a separate holy water font and segregated portion of the communion rail.
Much like lepers, they were considered to be pestilential and were forbidden to interact with any
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but their own kind. They couldn’t walk barefoot on community roads. So that they could be
spotted and avoided easily, the Cagots had to wear distinctive outfits with the foot of a goose or
duck attached (whether a real one or just a fabric emblem like the yellow star or pink triangle we
know so well, I haven’t been able to determine). Mainly employed as wood cutters, butchers, and
carpenters, they had a long history of being shunned and maltreated. They were around for
centuries, and then they simply disappeared—from accounts, though obviously not from the face
of the earth. Their quick integration into the general populace led many to think that they were
not at all a distinctive group (surprise, surprise!) but unjust victims of discrimination that
somehow eventually lost its significance. So. Maybe there is hope for us yet.
The final five kilometer portion of that day’s walk was along an abandoned rail bed. The
straight, shaded and soft-packed earthen path was quite easy on the feet. One former station I
passed had been converted into a home. The old homme and femme bathroom outbuilding that
still stood would have made a perfect pool house.
As I was walking I saw a long strand of spider webbing about waist high—it kept going
and going and going, occasionally getting caught up in some of the side vegetation. I was
flummoxed until I caught up with the culprits. It wasn’t the work of some genetic abnormality, a
gigantic black widow born of a radiation leak at the nuclear power plant back in Golfech. Rather,
two guys in a tiny car were stringing out the thin fiber along the way. The passenger would get
out every 200 ft or so and lift the string over some low-hanging branches and make a note on a
pad. Every once in a while the driver would get out and spray a tree or pole with a bright limegreen hieroglyph. I still haven’t figured out the reason for their task. Later someone said they
were measuring a marathon course. Another was sure that they were setting up for a new power
grid. Just another chemin mystery.
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Right before entering the town I encountered two walkers coming my way. As they
sported little scallop shells on their chests, they could have been pilgrims but turned out to be
very pleasant men with Down’s syndrome who were out on a constitutional and who engaged me
in the only prolonged French conversation I was able to maintain. We parried questions and
answers to each other; they seemed to understand me, and didn’t try to correct my accent.
(Actually, few in France tried to get my French up to snuff—I think they knew it was a hopeless
cause.)
Eauze was a pleasant mid-sized town with another substantial Gothic church. I dashed
into the tourist office off the main square to get my bed assignment in the gîte and was helped by
a pleasant woman who laughingly said in perfect English, “Oh, so that was you who made the
reservation yesterday.” I was hugely embarrassed because she had asked me a bunch of
questions in French that I could not answer. I was not even sure that she knew what I was driving
at on the phone. But I guess that my piddling effort earned me a bit of respect as she would not
hear of an apology. I should have pressed my luck and asked to be put in Alex’s room.
As it was, I had a satisfactory place in full room of eight beds. Though the frequently
flushed communal toilet was right behind the wall and next to my ear, I slept well. Accompanied
by amiable chat in the stuffy kitchen, I had a basic dinner of reconstituted package soup, fresh
bread, and fruit.
Because of the vagaries of gîte availability, I only had an easy 20km to Nogaro the next
day. Again, to go on like a broken record, it was on pleasant country paths and roads without
much diversion, though I passed a stadium where cattle races and bull fights are still held. I
couldn’t find the turn-off for a tiny church with a long name, Saint-Jean Baptiste de la
Commanderie de Sainte-Christie de l’Armagnac, and so got to my destination in late morning.
~ 110 ~
Nogaro seemed to be the motocross and racing capitol of the region, if not of all of
France. I was greeted by the whine of fast moving cycles rounding an oval as I came into the
city. Their drone got louder as I got closer to the gîte—not surprising since the raceway was right
across the street. I didn’t think this was going to work out at all, but the next stop was over 20
km away. And anyway Alex and Patrick arrived soon after and didn’t seem to be troubled by the
noise—so why should I? When asked about it, the hospitalier just shrugged her shoulders.
Amazingly enough, the racket stopped about an hour later and did not resume. Other pilgrims I
met later were not so lucky.
The gîte was a strange affair. Three huge octagons (though hexagons may have made
more sense) connected by a covered breezeway formed the basic structure. One octagon was our
bedroom and had a timbered, conical ceiling that reminded me of cabins or lodges. Windows ran
along three of the eight sections of walls; our beds came off the perimeter like truncated spokes.
The next was half private rooms and half communal bathrooms. The final octagon comprised
the offices, kitchen, and dining room. It was all very airy, functional and clean, if a bit like a Boy
Scout camp.
I had the whole afternoon to putter around. I had soon examined all the card options in
town and added racing cars to my already burgeoning pile. The town boasted a nice little
Romanesque church with some faded frescoes in one of the apses. A visit to a French version of
Costco provided a bit of a diversion, though I left without buying 10 kilos of potatoes, 20 rolls of
toilet paper, or a case of canned tomatoes. My fourth reservation in a row on my trusty cell
phone was a ditto of my other experiences—babbling in broken French and being asked
questions which I could not understand, followed by my not knowing if I had in fact succeeded
in making said reservation after all.
~ 111 ~
I visited the tourist office and was shown pictures of the Romanesque chapel with the
long name which had recently been renovated. I gladly settled for those rather than taxiing back
for a visit as originally planned. At another shop I bought a deck of cards for those especially
solitary moments. After such a whirlwind of activity I was headed back home when I spotted a
hair salon. Now was time for the Nike Just-Do-It thing.
I went in and did not get thrown out this time—a good sign. When my turn soon came,
my hairdresser said that yes, she parle-d a little bit of English. Actually her grasp of my language
was only a shade better than mine of hers. But, thank the linguistic gods, long and longue had
identical meanings and, I think, similar pronunciations.
Who knows where I got my almost mystical belief that a French hairdresser could
somehow transform me. But I was convinced this would be my chance to metamorphose into a
Dolce & Gabbana eurotrash model butterfly from the St. Jerome in the Desert caterpillar that I
now resembled.
Once I was seated and draped, she and I played dueling stylebooks for a while. I would
point out the smoldering combination Olympic skier/heroin addict in mine as a possibility. She
would shake her head and point to the Montgomery Ward catalogue model circa 1980 in her
book. I would shake my head and point to yet another waif-cum-bodybuilder with a prominent
jaw and get her same reaction. We repeated this pas de deux until, in a fit of pique, I pointed to a
California surfer type with long luscious blonde waves and pectorals to die for. She humpfed,
liberated the gallery of obverse Paris Hiltons from my hands, swung my chair around, and
proceeded to give me the best haircut I have ever received.
I was despairing as the snip snip snip kept continuing and the pile of clipped hair with a
staggering amount of grey was mounting on my tunic—longue couldn’t mean bald, could it? But
~ 112 ~
I resolved to take it in stride—after all, she was wielding some pretty sharp instruments, and I
was, as always, linguistically challenged. So I was more than pleasantly surprised by the results.
But even she, Mistress of the New Look that she was, was flummoxed by my beard. She did not
know the English for billy goat. Nor was my French or pantomime enough to explain the concept
of a hemi-goatee. So I gently pried the electric razor out of her hand, asked “Okay?” and sheared
off all but the hair under my bottom lip and chin. She did not even charge me for the beard trim
because I did it myself.
I was thrilled with my new coif and rather disappointed that it did not generate more
comments back at the gîte. By this time Katherine, the nice German woman from Moissac and
Condom, showed up. She, Alex, Patrick and I were soon preparing our respective dinners and
having a grand time.
I made huge pot of spaghetti alla carbonara and some fresh green beans but could not
get any of the others to even try it. Alex and Patrick cooked enough of that staple of the trek,
pasta with Bolognese sauce, that they could have fed an advancing army. Katherine prepared a
gargantuan salad and proffered a variety of fruit. We all had wine and were rattling away in
English, French, and German (two-and-a-half, three, and two speakers each respectively—Alex’s
English was not as good as his German).
While Alex and Katherine didn’t hit it off at first, they stayed up chatting by the swing
sets past midnight. But good pilgrims all, we were all up early and none the worse for wear the
next morning. Alex actually cooked bacon and eggs for breakfast—again portions so vast you
would have thought he was expecting an approaching horde to join us for victuals. My
microwaved leftovers from the night before were also fairly similar in size and ingredients.
I took off early and was walking solitary most of the way. I took the chance to belt out a
~ 113 ~
few Bruce Springsteen hits, “Thunder Road” and “Born to Run,” but couldn’t quite get the right
melody and key. I had a bit more luck with some Harry Chapin standards and did a fairly
credible rendition of “Taxi” which I am sure wowed my songbird competition. But I soon gave
up my open air concert and decided to just revel in the landscape.
The humid air burned away by 10 AM, and the day remained warm and sunny. I was
passing many a farm and field and watching the farmers out on their tractors. It was the epitome
of tranquility, the time when Zen and pilgrimage kinda meld together making this novice monk/
pilgrim at one with the universe and all that. As I was walking along the road with a high bank
on my left, I heard what I thought was a large combine out of sight above me and heading in my
direction. I was idly wondering what a combine was doing out in spring time—wasn’t harvesting
done in the fall? Then I realized that it was very loud, picking up speed, and coming right at me.
Fully expecting a large threshing machine tumbling down the bank on top of me in a conflagration of twisted steel and flames, I again had that sinking feeling that it was too late to run—
and anyway how fast could one flee with a 20lb backpack?
To my surprise, a low-flying military helicopter breached the hill. Though well above my
head, it seemed like I could reach out and touch the damn thing. The fact that no machine guns
were pointing my way offered some slight relief. Two trains of thought were cannonballing
through my head simultaneously:
Was my singing that bad? Never, ever Springsteen again, I promise.
What had George Bush done now?
Gratefully I watched the chopper pass me by. Then the damn huey did a U-ey and came
right back at me. This time I was seriously afraid and sure that this was some fundamental case
of mistaken identity. Had I watched too many action movies? Was I now to step into Tom
Cruise’s shoes and do the action scenes for “Mission Impossible IV” armed only with a sheaf of
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printed songs and a digital camera? I could muster half of a day-old baguette from my pack as
another feeble missile. A nearby ancient tree with a few paltry branches proffered woefully
inadequate cover, but I could not even make it there before the rapidly approaching low-flying
aircraft would overtake me. There was scant solace in the fact that a pilgrim dying enroute goes
straight to heaven. Even if it was a well-kept secret that fallen-Catholic pilgrims, too, get 40
virgins in paradise, I really wanted to stay around for some more French wine and cheese. I
would even gladly limit myself to Gershwin or Porter tunes in the future.
Well, I did not contrive a catapult from convenient materials or outrun an attack
helicopter through the fields of Gascony as I simultaneously danced around the hail of shrapnel.
No, the chopper passed me again and did not return. Luckily the only merde I had to clean up
was off my lips, not in my pants. I recovered my equilibrium and resumed my walking. I later
talked to others who were in the area or who had seen or heard the helicopter. Word was that
a.
b.
c.
d.
It was only a training mission.
They were looking for an escaped convict.
They were looking for a known terrorist.
I imagined the whole incident.
Oh, yes, this business of dying on the pilgrimage. It still happened nowadays—I passed
quite a few monuments to those fallen along the way. I was a bit relieved to see that most were
for folk older than me—though there were a couple to young pilgrim bicyclists lambasted by
lorries at intersections. In the olden days the toll must have been higher—remember, they had to
go both ways and people simply didn’t live that long anyway. A number undertook the journey
because their family or village was afflicted by some malady that they too were probably
carrying. Treatment was ineffective or, in some cases, worse than the disease. So maybe death on
the chemin/camino was not considered so dire.
In Roman Catholic theology, temporal punishment is racked up like a debt on the soul for
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all transgressions. Confession and absolution of sins do not resolve this liability completely—
kind of like compound interest on already usurious credit card rates. This balance due can be
expiated here on earth by means of good works and prayer or by suffering in Purgatory before
entering Heaven. And better the former than the latter, eh? The Church had an elaborate system
of indulgences that helped offenders take care of this temporal punishment burden and so lessen
the time and suffering in Purgatory—and it wasn’t so bad for their coffers either.
My trusty cultural guide mentions a 13th century catalogue of just such recompense for
things done on this pilgrimage. Just making the trip, for instance, takes care of a third of the total.
I mentioned above that a pilgrim’s death enroute wipes the whole slate clean. Participating in a
procession in Santiago gets one an additional 40-day pass. If that procession is led by a mitered
bishop, it jumps to 200. But if it happens on July 24 [sic] the reward is 600 days. (Gitlitz and
Davidson, 346) It goes on and on like that—it seems anything done in a Holy Year goes at four
or more times the going rate.
Before clipping grocery coupons or stocking up on eBay collectibles, it was really quite
the thing to keep a running tally of one’s indulgences, compare your total to others’, and even to
buy and sell them. The rich could really up the ante by donating, say, a magnificent chapel to a
church or by underwriting a debt incurred by the clergy. It did get a little out of hand, I must
admit, and I can hardly blame Martin Luther and some of the pioneering Protestants. But they
threw the baby of the rich rituals of Roman Catholicism out with the bathwater of those practices
not derived directly from the Bible—the wonderful stories of the apocrypha that make for rich
medieval iconography; the cult of the BVM whereby a pitch-seeping pine tree knob that is said
to resemble a weeping Virgin of Guadalupe gets wondrous attention; and, my favorite, all those
St. Sebastian statues. But then Protestants don’t have to accept the tenets of papal infallibility or
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priestly celibacy.
But back to the chemin. Not long after my close encounter with the French Air Force, I
was passing a ramshackle farm and came across about 40 chickens on the loose. The poor things
were beside themselves with obvious worry. Now, chicken whisperer extraordinaire that I am, I
knew these little birds were well versed, as I had been by way of innumerable fairy tales and
fables, about the danger of wolves and hawks and wanted the security of their coop.
I found the rend in the fence and easily shooed them towards it. But the ninnies would not
go back into the barnyard. They just stood around, clucked and clucked ever so stupidly, then
took off in every direction but through the fence as I tried again and again to huddle them back to
safety.
Not content to leave them to all the wolves and hawks, I passed on to the nearby
farmhouse, thinking I could alert the inhabitants and get some help. Luckily Madame and
Monsieur were in the farmyard with their son, a veritable Jean-Paul Belmondo look-alike
complete with a cigarette hanging from his lips. The two men were smacking a plow or
something with big wrenches and raising such a ruckus that they did not hear my shouted pardon
mois right away. Finally, I got their attention but then realized that I was at a loss for the
appropriate words to sound the alarm.
I had open (ouvert) and closed (ferme) down pat. But “les poulets est ouvert” was both
ungrammatical and probably incomprehensible as well. Anyway, I wanted to say that the
chickens were not closed (up). But I didn’t know how to make a negative or a plural. So I did
what I always had to do when my honeyed lips were not up to the trials of communicating and
resorted to pantomime. I exaggeratingly pointed in the direction of the errant chickens and yelled
“les poulets” “les poulets” over and over as I flapped my arms like wings.
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Well, you would think that I was the French version of David Letterman or some such.
Those uncouth rubes doubled over laughing. Jean-Paul eventually recovered some equanimity
and muttered—without ever losing the cigarette or even a bit of ash—some disdainful and
dismissive French doggerel. It was the second time that day I had a chance to be the hero of a
film: I was raring to go over and punch him in his pug nose that looked like it had already taken
more than a few furious blows. But I walked on, resolving not to try to help such yokels in the
future.
I must say I did have a chuckle or two (and an overwhelming sense of embarrassment)
when I got to my destination, Aire-sur-l’Adour, that afternoon. I was scouting the postcard racks
and found one featuring a justly famous product of the area—their free range chickens. On the
card, six proud chickens were foraging in a forest. Above them in a dream-like circular inset, two
more proud pullets in uniform hats were marching in lock step over the words “Les poulets de la
liberte…” (I thought the birds were envisioning themselves as little de Gaulle soldiers but found
out later that gendarmes were frequently referred to as Les Poulets.) Fine and dandy, I thought,
but why bother with fencing in the first place?
I followed my guidebook and got to the Centre de Loisirs at the edge of town near the
river and levees in early afternoon, none the worse for all my stirring adventures. The gîte was
some sort of combination camp and school—a bit spartan but adequate. A few French ladies
were there, but my recent chemin mates ended up in the drafty municipal gîte in the town center.
I walked into town and did postcards, food shopping, internet (free at a town audio visual
center), and church viewing in short order but forgot about the pilgrim benediction at 6 PM. A
sudden and long-lasting downpour soon had me in a bar nursing a beer. Though the rain
lightened up enough for me to start back to the gîte, I was totally soaked by the time I arrived. I
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ate my crumbs all alone in the dismal damp kitchen under hideous fluorescent lighting—a bit
like an Edward Hopper character—and went to sleep before my roommates were back.
That was the first night of rain. We continued to have very strong thunderstorms and
vigorous downpours every night for the next five or six days. But the sun came out gloriously
during our walking and puttering hours.
The next day’s journey to Arzacq-Arraziguet was a repeat of our last few days: humid
and overcast early on with some clearing by mid-morning. I ran into and hiked most of the way
with Alex and crew. To my surprise, Alex pulled out a bottle of wine from his pack for lunch on
the side of the road. The old guy mentioned something about how it was good for the blood.
There were no complaints from my corner.
I was feeling strong and invincible until right after that lunch interlude when that tell-tale
pain in my right shin raised its ugly head again and did not abate. By that time we were in a
section that was all steep ups and downs and where the humidity under the trees on some
stretches was so bad I wanted to puke. Soon I was limping painfully into Pimbo, still six-and-ahalf kilometers from our destination. Thinking it wasn’t wise or even possible to continue
walking, I was able to catch a ride with a man who was driving a sort of sag wagon for a group
of day-tripper pilgrims.
Arzacq-Arraziguet was not Moissac, where I was laid up before, but was pleasant
enough. The gîte was a very large, well-run enterprise with several four- to eight- bed dorms on
three floors and some higher-priced, hotel-style rooms in the back facing an attractive yard and
the distant Pyrenees. It had a little kitchen area with table and chairs (where I ended up playing
about 1,300 games of solitaire) and a large dining room. Opting for the demi-pension to cut down
on the walking around town buying groceries and slaving over a hot stove, I started an
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unrelenting rest, massage, ice, and elevation regiment with positive results by evening. I also
prayed at the altar of St. Motrin.
At dinner that night I met an Australian couple who were doing their first chemin but had
done the Spanish camino at least three times. They were very pro-pilgrim and talkative and
averaged an amazing 50 km a day. Strangely enough they didn’t look like they ever did much
walking as they were so spiffy, well-groomed, and suburban. I got to know them better when I
met them about five days later in St. Jean after they had walked to Roncesvalles “for old time’s
sake” and back to St. Jean. From there they were hiking back on the Vezelay route to see the
Black Virgin in Rocamadour, a splendid village on the cliffs of a mountain. There it is customary
to crawl up the chapel steps on your knees. Its main relic was the body of St. Zacchaeus, known
as St. Amadour in France. He was the husband of St. Veronica (i.e., “True Image”), famous for
wiping Jesus’ brow on the road to Calvary. After Zacchaeus’ body was hacked to pieces by the
Huguenots, Rocamadour lost a lot of its pilgrim trade, but—because of its spectacular setting—it
is still visited by busloads of tourists and the occasional pilgrim on foot.
Though my leg was much better the next day, I decided to be safe and continue to rest. It
took about 20 minutes to explore the town which had little more than a town green, a charming
church and overpriced internet service. I toyed with—but quickly nixed—the idea of getting a
bus or hitching a ride back to Pimbo and walking the bit of distance I missed. If I didn’t do it
with backpack, that action seemed rather pointless. Since the wrong turn out of Varaire added at
least the same distance, I figured I was not really in arrears.
I would have been more interested in visiting some other nearby sites. Besides the cache
of chicken postcards from the other day, I found ones depicting two chapels in the area, Notre
Dame des Cyclistes and Notre Dame du Rugby. The first is almost a mandatory stopover for all
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the Tour de France participants, many of whom have deposited mementos now proudly displayed within (including Lance Armstrong’s still sweat-stained yellow jersey from his second
victory in 2000).
The other church is a fitting monument to the passion this region (known as l’Ovalie or
Land of the Oval Ball) has for the game of rugby. Like the cyclists chapel, it has rows and rows
of professional and amateur jerseys (from as far away as Argentina, Tahiti, and Cameroon)
mounted on the walls and poignant memorials to fallen players. My favorite item, though, had to
be the stained glass window that shows the Virgin with the baby Jesus in her arms holding aloft
the game ball and a scrim of players at her feet.
But, alas, they were too far away—I could just as easily have traveled to Lourdes. So I
bought a Sudoku book and a London Times to wend away the time. I also played, as I said, a lot
of card games. The concierge of the gîte kept checking up on me. A strange character a little
lacking in the IQ department, he wore running shorts a little too tight in the crotch department.
He had his routine down pat and could extend the time for all of his tasks by much huffing and
puffing. For instance, he would sweep half the kitchen, pick up half that dust, sweep the other
half of the room, pick up half that dust, sweep the two little piles together, pick up that pile,
sweep the kitchen again, and then pick up the resulting pile which—since he had just swept the
place two hours before and the sedentary and card-playing me was the only one besides himself
who entered—was rather pitiful. All that time he was keeping up a steady patter of French. Our
conversation was necessarily a little one-sided. Ah, the exciting life on the chemin.
On my second night there I met the three pilgrims with whom I would share not only a
bedroom that night but stay with for the remainder of my time in France. One was Marilyn, a 60something Canadian from Toronto who spoke fluent French. She had been doing sections of the
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Via Podensis in two-week intervals over the last few years after doing the Spanish camino the
same way. This trip she had been walking with Gerard and Christine, a delightful couple from
the south of France who were likewise doing two-week walks as their vacations, having started
in Le Puy a few years earlier. Since they were doing 20 km days, I thought it might behoove me
to walk with them and not stress my leg. (Marilyn had to return home before we got to St. Jean
but returned the next year to finish and then started walking the coastal path. She got to Santiago
again in 2009. Gerard and Christine are still working their way to Santiago.)
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Chapter Eight
Le Tour Tranquille
The Serenity Tour
Arzacq to St. Jean Pied de Port
The next day my leg felt fine, but my pack sure seemed heavy. We had an up and down
trek of slightly less than 20 km. My friends were very much into poring over the map and taking
available shortcuts. I was against doing any walking on asphalt because I preferred the more
forgiving walking surfaces of field or forests paths still not terribly muddy from those nightly
downpours. But I came to appreciate their reconnoitering when the way got soggy.
Pomps, our final stop for the day, was the smallest village I had stayed in so far. In lieu of
shops, the owner of the one café offered a few grocery items for sale. But, alas, even that seemed
to be closed on Sundays. But it still has some handsome stone manor houses and a tiny church.
As we sat at the only café’s outdoor tables for a quick, late lunch from our packs, a fairly
typical chemin moment transpired. The owner’s son strolled over from their house with his frisky
puppy. In between bouts of yelling at his pooch, he filled us in on the local gossip. Then the
proprietor himself strolled over to relieve his son and to continue the chat and the doggy
reprimands. Then his wife, thankfully, came over. She, the power-that-be in this burg,
immediately called over her grandkids to scoop up the delinquent canine so that she could
concentrate on us. Of course, she had to shoot the breeze for a time before she—chatting away
all the time—finally opened up the shop, made us a much needed coffee, assigned us beds in the
gîte, stamped our passports, and added up our purchases.
My guidebook called the gîte “spartan,” a term I have used to describe previous
accommodations. But this really took the cake. Even the Band of 300 might have found the
housing to be substandard. The beds were located in a prefab rectangular building behind the
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local gymnasium. The bathrooms, kitchen/dining and a few private rooms were in the gym
structure proper, right next to the basketball courts. Everything was very basic—mismatched
sheets on the beds, the smell of fresh paint in the gym, some rickety benches and desultory
clotheslines, strung across the perimeter of the loose-stone parking lot. But it was clean. We had
good company, the pushy French couples being exceptions. What else does one need?
The whole snoring issue had raised its vicious head again. The night before I had told my
new companions to give me a shove if I transgressed in my sleep. Christine woke me up
sometime during the night with the soft whisper of, “Dan, Dan, you are making noise.” I then
tossed and turned the rest of the night, fearful of making more racket and getting no rest. This
night I took a bed away from them in case it happened again. That, unfortunately, left the place
near my chums available for a truly championship nocturnal blaster. Not only that, he was also a
head-lamp abuser; he repeatedly flashed his light in Marilyn’s face while he unpacked then
repacked all of his belongings in the middle of the night. This was all the more inexplicable and
upsetting because he did not leave until we did, around 7:30.
We shared quarters with our first pilgrim youngsters—three kids in their early 20s—in
Pomps. They created quite a stir both for their unconventionality and for their age. One was a
handsome Dutch man, dressed from head-to-toe in black (including a nylon do-rag, de rigueur
wear for your basic inner city thug) who smoked hand-rolled cigarettes in a tendrilled brass
holder. A jovial blonde chubby French Canadian woman was the second member of the
triumvirate. Last was an exceedingly thin Belgian man with a full scraggly beard, long hair, and
a green corduroy fedora. (This was Jean Francoise—like a few other characters he will suddenly
reappear and then disappear from this tale.) Since I was already shorn, I dubbed him the new St.
Jerome in the Desert because of his gaunt appearance and wild looks. Those kids had to sleep in
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the gym proper along with another dapper (though fedora-less), thirty-something Frenchman
whose four-kilo load took the prize for the lightest backpack on the trail.
The next day was more of the same, an easy up and down 16 km. We stopped at a
Romanesque chapel with an impressive Gothic tomb of a Knight of St. John near Arthez-deBearn, a prosperous town strung out along a ridge. Unfortunately cloud cover denied us the
purported superb views of the fast-approaching mountains—but the gift shops had a plentiful
Pyrenean postcard supply.
The land was certainly hillier since we entered French Bosque country. There were still
lots of farms and those ever-so-charming villages. The gardens were now in full swing and often
with stout geriatrics hoeing and weeding who would take the time to wish us well. The roads
were lined with more and more wildflowers. My big thrills for the day were some orange
poppies and a field of blue lupins.
We had a bit of trouble finding the private gîte near Maslacq that was highly recommended by a friend of Christine’s, until we finally spotted a tiny, hand-drawn sign indicating it
was only 400 meters away. As we were then right next to the A5, a busy super highway, with
multiple train tracks not far away, I was despairing of any kind of pleasant habitation. But as we
turned up a small road and walked it a short bit through a stand of ancient trees, it seemed we
were miles out in the wilderness.
This gîte, a commodious, comfortable farmhouse, was diametrically different than our
late digs. The owner, Nicholas, and one of his seven children (though only two were still at
home) greeted us and helped us settle in. He was a gentleman farmer, it seemed, and the
youngest of 13 children whose mother lived nearby in a chateau on the river. He was handsome,
cultured, charming, and English-speaking.
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The two pushy French couples from Pomps and an elderly Austrian couple also stopped
there with us and in most of the remaining gîtes in France. Our rooms were formed from what
had been a large garage, though it had an attached carriage house feel to it. In the back were a
long, narrow kitchen/dining room and bathroom for our use.
Soon after our arrival, a sudden downpour forced us inside just as I was angling to putter
around with the squire of the land. Isabelle, the lady of the manor and a fabric designer, visited
us over tea. My most treasured pilgrim stamp in my passport is a drawing of Nicolas’ banjo and
a scallop shell she drew as we chatted.
Instead of eating, as was the norm, in our narrow cold dining room that night, we were
invited into their inner sanctum for the evening meal, part of the very reasonable demi-pension
price. Isabelle’s classic and subdued design talent abounded in the dining room and reverberated
all through the house. The roaring fire in the hearth warmed our spirits and bones. I got to sit
(because I elbowed all the others out the way) at Nicholas’s right throughout the meal. This
meant that I got first dibs on the homemade pâté and local sausage that were so delicious I would
request them as part of my last meal. These delights were accompanied by pleasant chatter about
local events and history, his family, and former guests. The main dish was a delicious stewed
chicken, probably relatives of my free-range ninnies. I was rapidly whittling down the
formidable stack of homemade bread in order to get all the juices. Then two incredible local
cheeses and a homemade cake rounded out the meal. All this food was washed down with liberal
amounts of local wine, veritable nectar for the gods. We certainly got more than our money’s
worth.
Getting out his banjo, Nicolas gave us an impromptu concert. “Theme from Deliverance”
and “Cripple Creek” were followed a by few other tunes. After making us some herb tea, his
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daughter (“my biggest fan” as per the pere), a teenage beauty, sat in front of the hearth during the
concert and evinced an adulation second only to mine. It was simply a magical time—a highlight
of the chemin.
As it stormed throughout the evening and night, I couldn’t imagine that there could have
been any more precipitation left in the sky. But we left (some more willingly than others) the
next morning (after more slices of that wonderful bread, butter, Isabelle’s homemade jam and
plunger-type coffee) under threatening skies. There was a big bike race out of nearby Maslacq.
Though I would have preferred hanging out with the Lycra-shorted racers, we stopped and
chatted with the rotund and cigarette-smoking officials. I felt sorrier for the riders than for us
when it shortly after started to drizzle—at least we had ponchos.
It pretty much rained all day, rather heavily most of the time. And the way, of course, got
hillier. The paths by this time were very soupy, and the rocky and muddy ups and downs were
treacherous. Now, as mentioned before, I was happy Marilyn could guide us on asphalt shortcuts.
We had a much needed mid-morning coffee break in La Sauvelade, another upscale village of
tidy houses and lawns. Their vast and calming church was all that remained of an extensive
Benedictine monastery. Later, we sneakily ducked under a barn overhang for our lunch which we
laid out on bales of hay.
We got into Navarrenx totally sodden but still in good spirits. The rain continued to pour
down so hard we couldn’t visit the town’s shops and monuments. We couldn’t even scope out
the gîte’s backyard which bordered a former mill race. The proprietor (I can’t bring myself to
call her a hospitalier) kept the premises immaculate, if not borderline overly cute. She was
imperious and efficient—more buzzard than mother hen. For instance, fearing I would disturb
her tightly organized kitchen, she refused to let me even heat water for tea but did it herself with
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much huffing and puffing. When some other guests came down to the common room wrapped in
brightly colored comforters from the beds—a trifle overkill, I must admit—she was noisily
perplexed and annoyed to no end.
Two French sisters and their two female friends (forthwith all to be called The French
Sisters) boisterously blew and then pretty much ruled the roost—am I overusing the poultry
metaphors? Our warden was barely equal to their blatant sense of entitlement. These women
donned scarves après shower and held court in the common room. With much cooing and
pouting, they made a big deal about having their laundry washed and dried by our host, getting
beers, and recovering from their ordeal that day in the rain. They had planned on doing the
chemin in a style that was not to have included inclement weather. One even complained about
getting tired of the confit de canard she had so often on their week or so on the trail. They were
part of the “small backpack crowd,” a slightly derogatory term we “real pilgrims” applied to
hikers who used an on-going delivery service to ferry their ample baggage from one gîte to the
next while they ambled through the countryside basically unencumbered.
My group incurred the fury of the owner when we refused to pay the 5€ for her breakfast
(2€ over the going rate) and said we would make do with just the bed and dinner. As it was we
didn’t get the advertised discount that pilgrims were supposed to get—which would have paid
for the breakfast, by the way. Still our room was very comfortable and clean. And Madam la
Shrew did volunteer to drive Marilyn, whose holidays were soon ending, to the bus stop at six
the next morning.
Dinner was a wild boar stew that was very tasty though her pate, cheese and wine did not
hold a candle to Nicholas’. Nor, as I said, was the atmosphere as welcoming. But the company of
The French Sisters and another jaunty French couple made for a pleasant evening. And we
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remained dry.
Marilyn snuck out very quietly in the morning for her ride and bus, disturbing no one. I
wish she could have given lessons on packing and leaving to all the early risers I would
encounter in Spain! Christine, Gerard and I left a short time after. Navarrenx was really quite big
and historic. The medieval walls that we skirted to get out of town were one of the highlights.
We finally got the much heralded views of the mountains—towering, snow-covered peaks in the
distance—throughout the day. Signs in Basque were now starting to predominate. Everything
was rain-soaked and emerald green.
We had an easy walk to Aroue over all the rolling hills under skies that were only
overcast. The very basic gîte was in a former elementary school. While it lacked the creature
comforts of the previous one, it more than made up for it in character and conviviality. There
were four beds each in what used to be three tiny classrooms. Though the bathrooms were a bit
drafty and drab, the kitchen/dining area was tidy and complete. The school’s small assembly
room was now a sort of mud room/garage. With an unusually long break in the gray skies, I
actually got in some suntan time in the grassy backyard.
The hospitalier came and opened up a locked cabinet stocked with canned goods, pilgrim
supplies, and—to my amazement and delight—postcards. She also took requests for bread and
croissants which were delivered to us fresh before dawn the next day—a feature I wish would
have been standard at all the other gîtes. In the middle of tallying up our orders, another
supplicant showed up. Since she didn’t have a bed for him, she dropped her green-grochering,
called other places for a spot, and then drove him up the hill before returning to us and our needs.
Good little pilgrims that we were, we thought this was a grand gesture. Or was it that we were
just afraid to challenge her Basque bluster?
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In the lovely evening light, we took a walk up to a chateau that had since been converted
into municipal offices. The village was well tended and scrubbed. The houses were fairly small,
not the big gabled farmhouses with big overhanging eaves and bal-conies that the region is noted
for. The parish church had some nice Romanesque bas reliefs inside. We just missed a game of
pelota (pilota in Basque) at the local court. That is, we heard the thuds and the cursing, made a
quick duck into the church then rushed over to the, by now, empty court. Drat, foiled again.
Pelota is supposedly a Basque national pastime and treasure. I asked a number of locals
both in France and Spain if they played and they all replied, “Of course,” as they pushed out their
chests. But unable to remember the last time they had, they would then hang their heads in
shame or quickly change the subject. The courts were everywhere in this area and into Basque
area of Spain, but most looked rather dusty and unused.
The pelota court traditionally has a frontal wall and a longer lateral wall to the left though
it can be played with just one wall—the sides of many a Basque church were supposedly used in
such a manner. It can be played barehanded, with a light glove, or with various sized bats—each
has its own name, an alphabet soup of Basque letters. In saski-pilota (literally basket-ball and
known in the United States as Jai-Alai) a special glove extends into a long pointed curved basket
where the ball is caught and from which it is propelled at speeds up over 300 km/hr or 180
miles/hour. The Basques promote it as the fastest game on earth.
We went back to the gîte and prepared a quick-but-boring spaghetti Bolognese—alas no
local cheeses and wines, stewed free-range chickens or wild boar delights. I was relegated to the
room with the three remaining of the two pushy French couples (one of the wives had to go back
home) so that the Austrian couple could sleep in the same room. I slept well and did not snore,
but my buddies were kept awake yet again with various nocturnal blasting noises from Manfred.
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We anxiously scanned the skies in the morning and worried about impending rain.
Christine took over Marilyn’s role of finding shortcuts and had us walking along a very busy
highway for five km to Eglise d’Olhaiby, an exquisite little Romanesque chapel out in the middle
of nowhere. Nowhere, though, was an incredibly wonderful Sound-of-Music-like amalgam of a
thousand shades of green, grazing livestock, occasional views of snow covered pinnacles on the
horizon, and the colored dots of large Basque farm-houses in the distance.
Gerard roused the couple who lived next to and who possibly now own the little chapel.
The wife opened it and gave us a running commentary of its history and of that of much of the
region. It held a lovely Baroque altarpiece and a painting of a local, recently-canonized (mid1800s) saint, though my translating fellow hikers didn’t catch his name or significance. Since
Gerard all of a sudden developed intense interest in animal husbandry, we spent a lot of time
with the farm couple standing and shooting the breeze next to their house. So we—well, the
French speakers anyway—learned about all their trials and tribulations with Blonde d’Aquitaine
cattle, the most endearing creatures I had seen since I had to part with my Aubrac bovine buddies
a while back. That cute little calf we had all been ooing and ahhing was not even two weeks old
and was already destined for sale to an Argentine buyer. The couple even had a nice selection of
postcards, though we forwent their proffered snacks and drinks, likewise for sale.
There had been a big discussion in the dining room the night before about whether or not
to take the escargot route. Since all of this was in French I did not quite catch its significance or
the fact that we were supposed to be walking it on this day. It was a series of hill-avoiding
shortcuts all the way to the border for the slow pokes or those not so committed to walking in the
steps of pilgrims-gone-by. It was distinguished from the GR65 by a cutout of a grinning, stylized
snail.
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Feeling spry and getting ahead of Gerard and Christine, I—as I had for over a month
already—followed the usual red-and-white bar balises to Larribar and Hiriburia where major
pilgrimage routes from Paris and Vezeley and Le Puy meet. This spot actually marks the start of
the Camino Frances, the route I would continue on all the way to Santiago. What must have been
a hub of much hustle and bustle in days gone by was just another sleepy village. It did not even
sport an open bar that I could find—though I did invade the primary school thinking it was an
oasis where I could obtain a coffee. About the only activity was a maintenance man desultorily
mowing grass in the central plaza. This was life as usual on the chemin, slow-paced, rural, and
manifestly unexciting. But I knew that I was missing a lot of the action since I could not speak
the lingo. Like Gerard, I, too, thirsted to know the finer points of Blonde d’Aquitaine cattle
raising.
I waited almost an hour for my buddies to catch up and then just plowed ahead. Though I
felt guilty, it was a smart move, as they were on that alternate route and missed the arduous
climb in the pent-up humidity up to the Chapelle de Soyarza. (They also missed the little
monument at the actual intersection of the three major French routes.) Despite the overcast sky I
was afforded an incredible view of the whole emerald valley and an occasional glimpse of snowcovered peaks in the distance. At times like that you think you have to pinch yourself to see if
you are dreaming.
Then it was a bumbling downhill to Harambeltz, the former site of a Benedictine priory
whose 11th century chapel was all that remained. Since a local farming family now owned the
church and limited access to it, I was a bit disappointed to learn that I would have to wait an hour
to request a tour. With a chuckle though, I decided to take a picture since this was the dowdiest
looking chapel I had seen in all of France, set as it was smack dab in the middle of a working
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farmyard. As I was returning my camera to its case, I was roused from my mini-reverie by the
angry mooing of a rapidly approaching bull with awfully big horns—and here I was in a bright
red jacket and bearing a bright red backpack. I quickly jumped over to the rock rubble on the
side of the road, almost spraining my ankle in the process. The bull stopped short and warily
watched me. That was when I saw my bull was utterly deficient in the penis and testicle
department but had some outstanding udders. Even if the sex had been male, I don’t think I
would have been in that much trouble. Still those horns...
Recovering slowly from my unexpected matador moment, I passed the church and heard
voices emanating from the chapel. Expecting some farm workers on a break, not heavenly
creatures ready to cart me off, I wondered if I should alert them to the raging bull. But surely,
this now placid free-range bovine would be doing very little damage on the loose. And
pantomiming horns and running feet undoubtedly would have had the same effect as my scared
chicken routine a week earlier—something I was not relishing to repeat. No, I thought, let’s just
hang out with the guys; you know, practice my Basque.
Walking around the chapel and through the gate and finding the door open, I went in and,
to my surprise, found Christine and Gerard and two Frenchmen getting an early tour by a
prosperous-looking farmer. The interior, now, was about as dreary as the exterior, but it didn’t
take much to imagine that the trompe l’oeil marble walls, the ornate woodwork and the 18th
century altarpiece would be stunners with a bit of cleaning and restoration. Our guide proudly
mentioned that one of their paintings was in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
It was only about three more miles of walking, up and down of course, to Ostabat, yet
another striking Basque village and our home away from home that night. We had a rather
windy, chilly al fresco lunch outside on the pelota court before taking a gander at their fairly
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modern and modest church. There was not much more to see. As we were grudgingly rallying
our energy for the last kilometer push to our final destination, we were greeted by an
acquaintance from the dreaded Navarranx gîte who soon ushered us in the door of a local café.
This energetic charming lady had some serious knee problems and was taxiing it from
location to location as her husband walked the chemin. We had welcoming and saving coffees as
we recounted with much spirited indignation the antics of our hostess from that other evening.
This by now had become one of Gerard’s favorite conversation topics, and he was wont to give a
blow-by-blow account, full of bluster and indignation, to anyone willing to listen. His continued
outrage and recitation was also matched by our hiking-challenged friend. The fat, sleepy-eyed
bartender joined our conversation too and was eager to discharge his amassed store of bile on
various topics—though since it was in heavily-accented French it could have well been a
disquisition on quantum mechanics as far as I was concerned. Christine did mention later that
when she revealed that we would stay at the “farm” that night, he was dismissive and humpfed
that “the only thing they grew there were pilgrims.”
The gîte or farm (Ferme Gaineko Etxea or Gîte d’Etape Izarrak) was marvelously
situated midway up a large hill that afforded us views of the village, the valley, and—when the
clouds occasionally cleared—the towering mountains. It was also quite large, with maybe 50-70
beds in two buildings. While our bedroom was fairly modern, commodious and comfortable, we
got the vista of the parking lot, not the valley, from our windows—a moot point as a storm soon
socked us in. This hostess spoke quite a bit of English and was very welcoming, if a bit
distracted.
I tried to sit on the balcony and take in the superb panoramas as I updated my journal but
was soon driven in by the wind and rain. Soon other pilgrims dribbled in and raised the social
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temperature of the place. The French Sisters, with whom we had often broken bread, blew in
again just as rowdily as the other night and almost as strongly as the wind outside. They soon
delivered their accumulated laundry to our hostess with hang dog looks that seemed to say that
their lives would be worthless without mounds of fresh dainties. That tiresome task out the way,
they took to opening up beers and sodas and amiably ladying it over us all. Again, they were
histrionically appalled by the weather, uttering many a merde. I just adored them.
Hiking without a rest day from his home town in Belgium, the 65-year-old Joseph shared
a table with us later at dinner. Also arrayed along the benches were The French Sisters, two new
French couples, and the Austrians Manfred and Erica. Another group of five French couples took
the back table. One of the bleached blonde women, a real floozy, was dressed in an un-pilgrimy
off-the-shoulder-fishnet blouse; the others were only slightly more modestly attired. Let us call
them the Fishnet Babes. Rounding out the assembly in the front corner were six Frenchmen who
pretended to be real butch outdoorsmen—I quickly dubbed them the Hearty Boys. They and
most of the gathered crowd were part of the small backpack contingent.
We were all geared up for dinner—not for the food so much as for the singing the place
was famous for. Our host was soon decanting bottles of a sweet local Basque white wine that had
double the usual alcohol content—quite effective at increasing the quantity, if not the quality, of
the singing. When we were all seated and mellow, he started into his shtick, not so much the
karaoke I had expected but more his star turn. His voice was quite booming and fit the alphabet
soup of the Basque lyrics he in vain tried to teach us in a kind of Mitch Miller sing-a-long
fashion.
But that did not stop the assembly, especially the macho macho Hearty Boys and the
fishnet bodice babes in opposite corners. They were only daunted by the fact that there were no
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chandeliers to swing from. Our Basque Maurice Chevalier kept bringing in more wine
throughout our participative concert and meal, though he might have been better used helping his
over-taxed wife.
Maybe she was always this absentminded, but she served the back table two bowls of
pasta, some late-delivered sausage, but no sauce. We got bowls and bowls of sauce, a mound of
bread, several big plates of sausage, but no pasta. The Hearty Boys had to make do with pasta,
sausage, sauce, but no bread. They didn’t seem to mind as all their concentration was focused on
the plentiful supply of wine and the continued bursts of song. One of The French Sisters and I
were nibbling like mad on the delicious sausages and sopping up the sauce with those big slabs
of substantial bread. By focusing on eating, I neglected my wine and thereby maintained a
modicum of dignity, so I was able to resist the lure of singing—at her urgent beseeching—“God
Bless America” with the peroxided, knocker-revealing Frenchwoman from the other table.
I eventually caught up with others’ amount of alcohol intake. (The Hearty Boys total
consumption had raised the average pretty steeply while keeping the median stable.) I was then
ready for my solo rendition of “Somewhere over the Rainbow”—a perfect song, I thought, for
the weather, Pyrenees and the pilgrimage. But, alas, by then the steam was only coming from the
post-dessert herb tea and not from the assembled revelers who soon all but crawled off to bed.
A frightful storm had come up during our festivities. At times the downpour and the
thunder even drowned out our hardly harmonious banshee voices. The heavy rain continued to
accompany our slumbers that night, much as our crooning did our dinner. This would be neither
here nor there—I could sleep through anything. But it inundated all the remaining footpaths to
St. Jean Pied de Port. Though it was only 21 more kilometers, most of which was on asphalt
anyway, our final walking day in France was going to be particularly ghastly.
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I can’t speak for the others, but my group sported nary a hangover the next morning and
was out bright (scratch that) and early. Our first two miles were on paths between sodden fields.
Initially, the drainage was pretty good as we were going downhill. But soon we were running
into prodigious puddles requiring stone stepping and heel-to-toe walking on the balance beams
of handily felled saplings. At one point we either had to go back all the way to Ostabat to get to
the road or commit a bit of delinquency. No moral qualms were had from this quarter as we
pulled down the top row of barbed wire off the fence so that we could climb over and traipse
through a private field. Though that action in itself was enough to drench our shoes and trousers,
it was less saturation than we would have incurred from a virtual swim in the temporary lakes on
the paths.
I should not complain. I had been on the chemin for just over a month and had wonderful
weather most of the time. Was it such a big deal that my last day of walking in France was rife
with sullen skies, wet clothes, horrid humidity and disgruntled pilgrims? Much like every
gushing stream of water off the hills and mountains, the highway, a major Spain-to-Europe
artery, was a steady torrent of traffic once we finally reached it. Its wide shoulders offered little
protection from blasts of monstrous waves made by the passing semi-trucks from the skim of
water on the macadam. As a light rain played peek-a-boo with us for the remainder of the walk,
there was not much else to do but, as ever, slog on. It wasn’t all bad; I found an open café for
another coffee and discovered an interesting WWI memorial (a fallen soldier lying on a ledge
above the door of the church) in Larcevau.
I rather liked the Croix de Galzetaburia, which marked the point where a few lesser
pilgrimage routes joined the Camino Frances. It had Christ on the front directing highway traffic
and the Virgin on the back watching pilgrims going to the bathroom in the bushes. Latin and
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Basque inscriptions were on the base.
I got a bit of a high step back in my gait by the time I had walked all but the last little bit.
It helped that the rain had let up for a short while. A field of miniature goats being fed by village
children provided a diversion. I went into my last church in France at St Jean le Vieux, just down
the road from the other St. Jean. This unassuming edifice was an interesting example of local
Basque architecture—a shallow and broad nave with galleries on all sides and a steeply pitched
roof. Still, you can imagine my relief at finally reaching my destination. I approached and went
through the Port Saint-Jacques and was now stepping on the same spots I had the year before. In
a way, I had come full circle. But you, gentle reader, are only half way.
I stayed in St. Jean that day and the next, as the weather simply was not suitable for
crossing the mountain pass. As impatient as I was to push on, the forecast for the next day was so
dreadful that Christine and Gerard made me promise not to resume. The town was full of equally
eager pilgrims. It was a little like having to remain in Stockton, CA during the Gold Rush.
The sleepy burg I remembered was transformed into a Christian Mecca even this early in
the season. Seasoned camino (see how we slip into Spanish now that we are almost in Iberia?)
alumni were aghast at the throngs already on hand—more like those of high summer than spring.
The Germans were coming in droves. They had always been well represented but had increased
in numbers this year since an overweight gay comedian, Hape Kerkeling, had published a
runaway best-selling account of his recent pilgrimage, “Ich Bin Dann Mal Weg” (“I’m Off for a
Bit, Then”).
In Spain, I would also run into Norwegians, Swedes, Finns, Estonians, Lithuanians,
Poles, Brits, Irish, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Swiss, Luxembourgian, Belgians, Dutch,
Danish, Croats, Hungarians, Czechs, Slovaks, Austrians, not to be confused with a great number
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of Australians (including some of the most wonderful Tasmanians on the planet), Kiwis,
Japanese, Koreans, South Africans, Scots, Greeks, Italians, and even a Maltese. I don’t think I
met a Liechtensteinian and I searched fruitlessly high and wide for an Andorran, what with that
country being so close by. There wasn’t a hint, though, of Bulgarians, Rumanians, or any
inhabitant of the many other former republics of the USSR. But I did encounter one Muslim, a
chipper Turk living in Holland.
I haven’t mentioned our brethren from the New World: Canadians of the French and
English speaking varieties, Americans, Mexicans, Nicaraguans, Panamanians, Venezuelans,
Brazilians, even more Brazilians, a few more after that, Argentines, Uruguayans and surely a
Chilean or Peruvian in the mix. It was hard to keep track. And remember, I just met a sliver of
the whole gang going towards Santiago.
Meanwhile back at the ranch run by spirited, spiritual and efficient Dutch volunteers, I
washed and/or wrung out my wet clothes, rummaged through their ample store of discarded
paperbacks and started reading a really dreadful slasher mystery, “The Viking Funerals.” What
could be better than a bit of literary escapism for one who had escaped, by far, his regular life
back in Manhattan? Christine and Gerard came in all exhausted but happy to have finished and,
maybe, only a little sad to be going back home.
Postcard shopping, post office, internet, and avoiding the afternoon rain as we climbed up
to the Citadel and crossed the Roman (i.e., medieval) bridge were the afternoon activities. I met
Jean Francoise, the skinny wild Belgian from Pomps with his ever-present green corduroy
fedora. He was to meet his granny who was coming to bid him a happy birthday. His blackattired Dutch friend ignored the weather report and left that day enroute to Santiago. The French
Canadian woman who traveled with them was at the train station and heading back to France. I
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met The French Sisters on the street—they now were so disgusted with the weather that they
were for the first time beyond words. They just pursed their lips, contemptuously glanced up at
the dark skies, and shook their heads. They were going 12 km to Orrisson the next day,
essentially breaking the steep climb to Roncesvalles in half and finish their journey in Pamplona
a few days after that.
The storm came in the next day and really did not relent for many an hour. My new
roommates were Melissa, a young and perky French Canadian woman whom I had met way back
in the Aubrac where she was laid up with a bad knee, and a pleasant older Dutch man with whom
she had been traveling and who was heading back to Holland on the morrow. I spent a lot of time
with an American woman and her handsome British husband—they had done a lot of world
travel, were at loose ends, and hoping to do the camino before settling down and having children.
Two sweet but rough British bikers entertained us with harrowing and amusing tales of biking
through France.
On their way back from Roncesvalles as planned, the Australian couple I met back in
Arzacq was also staying here. As I mentioned earlier, they were off the next day on another
French route to see Rocamadour’s Black Virgin. We compared notes and, like wise old sages,
passed on camino tips to the anxious neophytes. There was a Nicaraguan-born American now
living in Los Angeles who was doing his pilgrimage with a three-wheeled baby jogger. Carrying
everything but the kitchen sink, he was a rather high-maintenance guppy committed to
finishing—I had my doubts, but one never knows.
The use of backpack alternatives was not unheard of. An 82-year-old Dutch woman was
a current top topic of conversation. She started walking all the way from her home in Holland
and was already wearing out baby stroller #2 (she picked them up in second-hand stores) in
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which she pushed her belongings. A few days later, I saw a couple with a donkey and cart. The
recalcitrant beast was balking at crossing a narrow bridge—heaven knows how they were to ford
the hundred or so more similar streams on the way. I also spotted a few modified passenger-less
rickshaw devices, either one- or two-wheeled. An aged Belgian couple I met the year before had
gone all the way from their home to Santiago (and repeated the trip again this year), pushing a
heavy three-wheeled cart that looked a lot like, and was of the same vintage as, the one I used to
push and sell ice-cream bars from some 45 years ago. Remember the mantra: everyone had to do
his or her own camino.
Because of his Dutch affiliation, Sedat, the Turk I mentioned, arrived at the gîte with
three of his countrymen in a car. He had been living in Holland for a number of years and also
spoke pretty good English, the semi-official language of the camino. He would not hear of
holding back that day because of the weather but took off in the storm. I got the chance, at least,
to demonstrate that I was not unilingual.
After he called Dutch hospitaliers a few hours later to say he was lost and freezing up on
the mountain, we were all very worried. I tried unsuccessfully to find out more information the
next day when I got to Roncesvalles. Since bad news travels fast, I was fairly certain that he had
survived. In fact, I ran into him again in Los Arcos, Sahagun, Religios, and Santiago. He had a
harrowing first day, but trying to avoid pork in Spain he said was a much more difficult process.
As far as bad news, the town was buzzing with the story of an English banker, “a healthy
and experienced hiker,” who perished from hypothermia in the mountains “just last week.” Many
around town were extremely worried and wondered how “the authorities” could risk the
pilgrims’ safety by allowing them to do the mountain route. (An equal number were worried the
self-same authorities were going to actually close off the mountain route.)
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As with many rumors, there was some truth to the story. The man, actually a Scottish
banker who was fairly fit but not an especially experienced hiker, did get lost in the fog and died
from hypothermia. But it was over four weeks earlier. Even in a region that was infamous for
changeable and severe weather conditions, the meter of snow that had fallen on the summit at
that time was uncharacteristically harsh. He left St. Jean the morning of April 3 and was last seen
by two Italian hikers also off course and wandering around at 8 PM. They unfortunately lost
contact with him in the fog and dark. Camping out on the mountain that night, they only got into
Roncesvalles the next morning to sound the alarm. The poor man was found alive at 3:30 PM but
died enroute to hospital.
Yes, the first day of walking out of St. Jean is decidedly brutal but usually not deadly. It
is probably good that most pilgrims are unaware of what they are getting into—what a trip
straight up a mountain then a month or so of daily walking really entails. Otherwise they might
not even consider doing the journey at all. Most of the pilgrims in the gîte, and many of the
people I would meet later, had amorphous reasons for doing the walk. It was usually a riff on “I
heard about it a long time ago and was intrigued. Now seemed like a good time.” Few admitted
to be being at all religious, knew much about the history or legends concerning the pilgrimage, or
seemed to want to delve into it very deeply. Ah, ignorance can be bliss.
Though I had already walked the Spanish part, I did have a list of six things I wanted to
accomplish that I could not or did not do the year before.
DAN’S MUST DO LIST
1. Walk the Route de Napoleon to Roncesvalles. Last year the mountain pass was
covered with snow and closed. We were shunted along the alternate highway route. Though this
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was difficult enough (only a 400 meter difference out of a total of 1,450) and probably the
original pilgrim way, I wanted the “baptism of fire” and the glorious mountain views of the
other.
2. Cross over three lesser mountains right after Villafranca Montes de Oca and before
Burgos. I had to trudge along the highway because another storm left huge snow drifts in the
backcountry.
3. Revisit Sahagun where I was laid up with a bum shin. I had to see how the four
brothers’ haircuts had progressed in the intervening 14 months.
4. Have a meal in Molinaseca after coming down off the highest point of the camino,
Cruz de Ferro. We got shut out of several restaurants by Spanish Father’s Day celebrators last
year.
5. See the botafumerio, the largest incense burner in Christendom, in action in the
cathedral in Santiago. Rumor had it that it was only swung (by six priests) on Sundays and Holy
Days, or when someone forked over a hefty donation. I arrived there on a Monday the year
before and so missed it.
6. And lastly, to see the iron collar that resided in the cathedral museum. It was worn by a
lovesick and spurned 15th century knight who doffed it only after he had broken 300 lances in
jousts with other knights at Hospital del Orbigo, site of the longest bridge along the way. I was
so worn out and disgusted with the Galician rain the year before that I departed for Portugal
before going to see it.
So I was a pilgrim with a mission(s).
By the end of my day off hiking, I was already anxious to get moving again. I was very
uneasy about the crowds and what their presence would entail. I had arrived in the St. Jean the
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year before an apprehensive neophyte but was now a seasoned walker. Last year the town was
practically empty—this year packed. Things were going to be different—different than last year,
different from France.
Dinner was at the gîte with all my new friends. I got to bed early and was raring to go the
next morning.
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Chapter Nine
Viage a Las Montañas y a Niebla
The Mountains and Mist Tour
St. Jean Pied de Port to Pamplona
I got out early, or so I thought, leaving the albergue (since I was almost in Spain, I must
switch terms. And a pilgrim is not a pelerin anymore but a peregrino.) around seven. Though
one of the first ones up in the morning, I finished my quick packing early but wanted to wait for
the fog to lift a bit and was looking forward to purchasing and savoring my last croissant on
French soil. By the time I crossed the threshold, there were scads of people already out on the rue
d’Espangne coming, it seemed, from every dwelling in the city. Most looked way too fresh and
chipper for the arduous climb.
The weather was not at all cooperative. I just could not abide but was getting very inured
to the unbearable humidity by this time. Right off, there was a light mist, almost a drizzle, that
soon let up. So at least I was able to dispense with the way-too-warm and confining poncho on
my entry into Spain.
This first leg out of St. Jean is really horrific, a steady 22 km uphill from the get-go,
hence the term “baptism by fire.” And that is followed by a punishing lesser but steeper
downhill. Though the topographical maps show it a fairly consistent 45 degree angle the whole
way up, the incline seemed to me to be about 60 degrees for four miles, then 40 degrees for
another four with the final bit only 20-30. Maybe I just got used to going up and up and up. The
first 14 km was on unrelenting asphalt (but without any significant amount of traffic).
Once we got out of St. Jean, the views were spectacular though distant vistas were
obscured. The road was bound by green pastures and mountains all around. As I climbed I could
see a steady stream of pilgrims ahead of and behind me. As I was merrily overtaking many of
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them, even some of those who had spent the night in the two albergues along the way, I could
tell that many of them were suffering. A Texan about my age but with a bigger gut was stopped
by the roadside, shirtless in the mountain air, pink and puffing, and diaphoretic—clearly
myocardial infarction material.
I knew this pilgrim business was not supposed to be easy. Even keeping in mind the
whole penance, indulgence and temporal punishment thing, I think whoever devised this route as
the initial leg of an 800 km/500 mi trek was a real sadist. (Actually the over-the mountain route
was less brigand-infested than the slightly lower alternate path I had to take the previous year.)
There was a bit to be said for getting an arduous part out of the way as soon as one could, but the
way was justifiably notorious for being difficult and dangerous. It is also known for being—as I
mentioned before—staggeringly beautiful when clear.
As we gained onto the mountain top the air got a lot colder and much foggier, with
visibility down to less than 50 feet. So much for the fabulous views—at least I had seen the
Pyrenean peaks while traveling through France. Once we got off the asphalt, the way got muddy
and meandering—pilgrims had taken to the many sheep and goat paths on the summit and were
going every which way, though in the same general direction. Loaded down with backpacks, we
were a bit like worker ants swarming back to the hill. How no one wandered far from the trail or
off one of the cliffs in all that fog I cannot imagine.
Somewhere along the way we crossed from France into Spain. I walked quite a bit with
Stefan, a 40-ish German man doing his first camino, and Jean Francois. I also chatted, jumped
puddles and macho power walked with a very pleasant Lithuanian who had a masters from
Cornell.
Before the cutoff to Ibaneta, the route flattened and went through the woods on a spongy,
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waterlogged surface of about a meter of packed and rotting leaves. I continued through the
woods and had a precarious five km downhill—just what my screaming muscles needed to reach
another level of lactic acid buildup. Let’s not even address joint stress overload.
I got to Roncesvalles a little after 1 PM, completing the first item on my Must Do List.
From here on, I would pretty much be doing the same route as last year. On my last visit, it was
mid-winter and pretty much deserted—only six pilgrims and a few day trippers in automobiles.
This day, the church was full of locals celebrating their children’s First Communion as well as
many other visitors to this historic spot. A goodly number of tourist busses were idling, and the
parking lot was full of cars. Revelers filled the bars and gave up precious little room to the steady
influx of parched, exhausted and hungry pilgrims.
Still, this was a rather desolate outpost that belied a legendary past all tied up with
Charlemagne, his nephew Roland (Roldan), and the Saracens or Moors, and immortalized in the
French Epic, “The Song of Roland.” For hereabouts in 778 AD, an epic battle was fought
between Christian and Muslim forces that resulted in the death of thousands on each side.
Especially poignant was the demise of Roland, who was in charge of that rear guard attacked by
the Moors after most of the other of Charlemagne’s soldiers had passed. Roland’s father-in-law
hated the favored knight and had conspired in the ambush.
At the start of the battle, the valiant and still-uninjured Roland tried to summon the
emperor and his troops back by blowing on his ivory trumpet, Olifant. His vigorous tooting
caused a cerebral hemorrhage—the non-battle wound that actually killed him later. After hearing
the horn blast, Charlemagne was all for hastening to his aid, but the perfidious in-law added
another bit of treachery by informing the Emperor that Roland was known to toot at precisely the
same time every day to call his men for the daily hunt. So alone amongst all these peaks (and all
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those who met their mortal end), Roland breathed his last. But not before he broke his beloved
sword, Durandarte, on a rock so that it would not fall into the hands of the Saracens. Why this
was necessary since he had killed all the enemy soldiers is a bit unclear to me.
Ah, such a lovely story. Too bad it is not borne out by the historical record. Roland was
in the rear guard of the Christian forces and slowed down by all the loot Charlemagne got from
the Moorish governor in payment for leaving Spain. But he was attacked, more probably, by
local Basques, even then wanting their own homeland and ready to fight for it. Roland is thought
to have been just a favored knight of Charlemagne, not a nephew. The emperor actually traveled
on; he did not return to battle gloriously and slay yet even more infidel soldiers as related in the
epic. It’s a shame facts have to intrude on a really great tale—I will try to stay with the facts in
my story. Fat chance of that happening though, the legends are so much more satisfying.
Though not on my list, I did want to visit the monastery’s museum, said to hold Roland’s
mace, the Olifant, as well as Charlemagne’s chessboard. But alas, like last year, it was shut.
Experts think the chessboard, having only 32 square compartments, was actually a reliquary that
held little bits of saints’ flotsam and jetsam. It is pleasing to imagine a game with it, though.
“Hey, that move is illegal. You can’t go from St. Lucy’s thighbone to St. Andrew’s cloak. The
bishop can only be moved to either St. Agatha’s nipple or St. Bernard’s eyelid.”
The two-hour wait until the albergue opened passed quickly enough. Coming off the
mountain, people were exhilarated at completing that difficult first portion of the journey. And
the weather, while very chilly, was clear and crisp. I spotted quite a few pilgrims I had walked
with in France (including the blustery Hearty Boys) and a hardy handful who would traipse
across Spain with me and become bit players in this tale. By the end of the day, not only were the
large hostel in the monastery and the adjacent smaller hotel full, all beds in the albergue were
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occupied.
Ah, yes, the albergue—such a change from the accommodations I was used to. No more
intimate little gîtes with a handful of travelers—now it would be large dormitories with people
filling all the beds and with backpacks and drying laundry all over the place. The Roncesvalles
one was constructed like the nave of a largish Romanesque church, one huge room with 65
bunks (130 beds) in three rows. The interior was lit by humongous wheel-like chandeliers
hanging from chains from the ceiling—a nice touch, I thought. The men were relegated to the far
wall; the women along the near. The center section was for married couples. Older were
supposed to get the lower bunks; younger above. We only had two showers each for men and
women. One of the first in line for entry, I scurried down to the basement very quickly and was
the first in the shower—one of my most stunning achievements of the whole trip. The line soon
snaked along the lengthy corridor.
The place was managed by volunteers, Dutch again, who ran a tight, efficient ship. All
spoke English, amongst many other tongues, and could anticipate most of the problems neophyte
pilgrims would be encountering—mainly shock-related, I imagined, at having to share tight
quarters with so many others. A relatively inexpensive washing and drying service run by the
staff solved the laundry problem for many. As per a well-established routine, I had already done
mine in the shower with a bit of shampoo and foot action—far from adequate means in the
outside world, but soon to be standard operating procedure for most pilgrims in the ensuing
weeks. Though rather useless in the cool, moist mountain air, flimsy drying racks made of
dowels and rods were soon festooned with the limp apparel of those who, like me, chose the
hand-washing method. (These racks would be so ubiquitous that they could be considered a
symbol of the trail, much like the yellow arrows that were now marking the way.) For once, I
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was rather glad that I did not get outfitted in Europe and have the same brand items as many
others—I might have had garments purloined in error.
Our huge, single bedroom was a beehive of activity. While usually a sound sleeper, I was
concerned about the press of so many bodies and had intimations that the night would be a scene
from Dante’s “Inferno.” I had to reconsider that metaphor when I realized that I was surrounded
by a group of young Italian men. Lounging on their beds in their underwear after their showers,
most got out bags of body lotions and ointments. Soon I was more in mind of “Paradiso” as
they repeatedly anointed and massaged their shapely hairy gams with gobs of goo, all the while
keeping up a steady mellifluous Mediterranean patter. Each was also doing repeated minute
examinations of their feet in between the leg ministrations. I was entranced and thanked the gods
of the camino for this diversion.
Stefan and I went to the Mass and pilgrim benediction in the packed church. This led me
to yet more comparisons of my trip last year with this one. Then the service was an intimate
affair with just four pilgrims, four villagers and three beautifully-attired priests. And at that
Roncesvalles church service, I was still fearful that I might revert to my childhood religiosity just
by dint of long-term exposure to all things Catholic. This go round, I was just one among
hundreds and had long since stopped analyzing why I was doing a supposedly religious journey
while professing and maintaining a non-believing posture. Now I was more than a little disdainful of what seemed to be just a quest for a quirky “authentic” experience by many of the
assembled crowd.
One pilgrim, a tall man with a bit of a belly standing in the side aisle, did stand out from
the assembled crowd. Dressed in camouflage pants, khaki shirt, and substantial boots, he straight
off grabbed a missal, and throughout the Mass uttered all the right responses, genuflected at the
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proper times (I had to be cued by the actions of the others), sang the hymns with gusto, and
reverently participated in communion. He had a fairly disheveled air about him, what with his
strange outfit and his thinning hair, wispy goatee, and insignificant moustache, so blonde they
were practically transparent. I learned much later he was a PhD candidate in Modern German
History who started his trek all the way back in Germany. He must have done over 1,000 miles
already.
This was Sebastian, a devout Catholic who was doing his pilgrimage while determining
whether or not to enter the priesthood. He was quite an admirer of the German Pope Benedict,
probably one of my most loathed personages. Like most Germans, his English was quite
excellent, and we had many discussions of the Ratzinger effect on the church. As I could not and
would not argue as well as he, I was more just a sounding board for his beliefs, perceptions and
aspirations—as were many another pilgrim. Well, at least one journeyer was having a non-ironic
experience in the church that night.
Dinner at the bar/restaurant—much like the laundry chore, shower line, and Eucharist
distribution— was another get-’em-in, get-’em-out affair. Those of us who had purchased dinner
tokens earlier for a nominal cost of 7€ were herded into the cavernous hotel dining room.
Though I had eaten here before, it was not déjà vu all over again. Then we were a snug handful
of tired pilgrims served by a lusty laconic Argentinean waitress, much admired by my fellow
travelers. This night it was a packed 40-foot length of table, scurrying waiters and waitresses,
and—very uncharacteristically for Spain—only one bottle of wine for every four people. I had a
piece of grilled trout that was actually a nice change from the usual choice of a thin cut of an
overcooked, pan-fried beef, lamb or pork chop. I would like to think it was a local catch. This
area of Navarra is famous for its fishing. Ernest Hemingway cast his rod in the streams and
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cavorted in the local bars just down the road from here and set one of his novels in these hills.
One of my fellow diners, a Swiss urologist, bought another bottle of wine with much ado
and polished it off with only a little help from me and others. We met on two more occasions.
The next time we laughingly commiserated that our not infrequent trips to the bathroom at night
indicated a need to see one of his colleagues post-camino for a prostate check. Then I saw him
many weeks later and got a lecture about using walking sticks.
Ah, yes, the Nordic walkers. I don’t know how popular they were elsewhere, but the use
of walking sticks (essentially ski poles) was the rage on hiking trails in this part of Europe. Their
adherents had an almost religious belief that they promoted upper body strength, insured proper
posture and consequently decreased body aches and pains. Their inherent stabilizing effect
lessened fatigue and joint stress even if walking on flat surfaces. Some did use them constantly
and so produced a steady and annoying little tic tic tic from the striking tips. More, though, used
them only on the hills. When not in use on the grades, some people tended to carry them
awkwardly under their arms, where they functioned as skewers on approaching or passing
pilgrims if the stick-wielding person stopped short or twisted unexpectedly. And people were
always leaving them behind in bars and albergues to their panic and horror.
I must say I did wonder how people were able to identify their sticks. Most were black
and made by the same two or three manufacturers—the plethora of identical Quechua socks and
shirts on the laundry lines was bad enough. Maybe I was just blissfully unaware of a constant
sharing of socks, tops and sticks that was essential to establishing a confraternity of pilgrimhood
on the camino.
Back at the mass slumber party after dinner, we had an hour before the lights were
extinguished. I was happy for the bit of alcoholic buzz which highlighted the bizarre scene of
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130 people in two tiers of beds getting ready for dreamland. That involved lots of climbing up
and down, rustling backpack contents, traversing the long aisles between the beds, and last
minute trips to the bathrooms downstairs. I found it interesting that many people wore pajamas
or nightgowns—not, you would think, an essential item for the camp-like nature of the camino.
For the most part, people were very solicitous of their neighbors and very long in temper. Maybe
they were still exhilarated from the day’s steep climb and the thin mountain air.
My neighbor’s bed was butt up against mine. This little Caravaggio model and several
other of the males in my corner were still exhibiting, to my delight, their sensuous limbs. Doing
my last bit of preparation for bed, I had to wipe out this masculine seraglio scene from view by
taking off my glasses and putting them in my shoe for safe keeping through the night. Since I
had sent my sleeping bag back to the states and blankets were not available in most of the
albergues, I also had to do some quick adapting. I slept, as planned, in my silk sleeping bag liner
which—while very warm for its weight—was inadequate for this altitude. Luckily, my poncho
was just long enough to reach my neck if I put my feet in the hood. It was actually quite an
effective and light-weight cover.
I slept well, as was my wont, but only for about four hours, before I woke up for the rest
of the night. I was therefore a witness to an Italian woman’s middle-of-the-night cell phone call
and ensuing loud conversation. Some people’s pluck was amazing. Sleeping inches away from
me, my Mediterranean neighbor was a tosser and turner. He gave me an elbow at one point and a
knee at another. He would alternately unzip his sleeping bag and reveal various amounts of skin
(drat, why did I put those glasses out of reach?) and then zip up a bit later. But the tempest of his
movements was nothing compared to the man underneath me—a veritable Elvis in the sack—all
shake, rattle, and roll. His actions down below turned my berth above into a stormy sea. Such
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was my first night in Spain.
I was more than ready to get up early and start out—but so was a significant portion of
the whole joint. Quite a few left well before dawn. Since this was mainland Europe where a
decent breakfast of ham and eggs was unthinkable, I settled for a café con leche and tostadas in a
welcoming cafe about three miles down the road. Tostadas are slabs of toasted bread you slather
with ample amounts of butter and jam. They and the coffee became the backbone of my trip, one
of the most welcome of my rituals, and the perfect start of most every day. The rest of the walk
was a very easy up and down to Zubiri where I stopped for another coffee.
Along the way I walked a few kilometers with a retired German naval officer who lived
in nearby Biarritz on the Cote Basque. He had spent a lot of time in Newport News, VA, and
Washington, DC, and so spoke excellent colloquial English. He was very chatty, and we soon
got onto a favorite topic: why the camino; why now? An avid marathon runner and practitioner
of other physically challenging pursuits, he had also read the Hape Kerkeling book— the account
of an well-known, overweight, and gay German comedian’s camino—and, much to my delight,
was eager to talk about it. My officer and gentleman thought the book to be very perceptive and
intelligent, and he could not praise it enough. The author, he said, scrutinized the Catholicism
that was a big part of his upbringing and what it meant to him nowadays. This examination
impressed my good German; others may have been stirred more by the weight the man was able
to lose while trekking those 500 miles or just because of his celebrity. The book had been on the
hardcover bestseller list for many months now in Germany and had inspired—for different
reasons—many of the pilgrims currently walking. (I have since read the English translation and
was distinctly unimpressed.)
Though delightfully small and in a tastefully renovated older building, the albergue in Zubiri
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was not to open for another three hours. So I headed on, as planned, to Larasoaña, passing right
by the gargantuan magnesite plant that surreally dominates the otherwise rural landscape. As the
wind whips effluvial plumes off the slag heaps, this is a particularly nasty industrial intrusion and
is not repeated on the remainder of the journey except near the few large cities.
History repeated itself at my destination—not a restaurant or shop was open in the town.
The mayor, also the hospitalier, opened our temporary abode about an hour later to an overflow
crowd. His wife ran a racket out of the office, selling some canned items, dry goods and eggs at a
markup. The place—which I remembered as being rather nice and up-to-date—now seemed
grubby and run-down. The kitchen was off the backyard patio and sparsely equipped, though one
group was able to prepare a vast amount of pasta and sauce from the tiny pans.
After dining on some canned beans and hard-boiled eggs, I spent most of the evening
with an English couple in the crowded sitting room. They did a lot of walking tours back home
where, I guess, a variety of accommodation was available. He had been hoping to do the camino
for years and was relishing what his wife termed roughing it. That is, beyond the satisfying
physical labor of the walking, he loved the close quarters and sharing facilities with like-minded
individuals. His wife, though, droned on and on about the appalling conditions. Furthermore, she
was not expecting things to get any better for the rest of the journey. I wonder how far they made
it. I do hope he was able to continue; I didn’t see how she could.
I mentioned that I had stayed here the year. Five of us winter pilgrims had arrived, like
today, to find three shuttered restaurants and no open shops. New to the camino as we were, we
had little in our packs to tide us over. Octavio, our Spanish speaker, found out that there was a
restaurant just one kilometer away that we gladly decided to grace with our presence. Setting off
at a jaunty pace—without backpacks—and soon at our goal, we found a little notice on the door
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advertising the fact that the owner had chosen that week to take a vacation.
Well, as often happens, the gods of the camino were smiling on us. A late-model Mercedes slowly passed, went down the road a piece, turned around and came back to the restaurant
parking lot. A pleasant-looking man rolled down his window and burbled out what we already
knew—that the restaurant was closed and the owner was on vacation. When asked if he knew of
any other open venues, the man proudly stated that he owned the local bakery and provided
bread to everyone in the area and so, of course, he knew—the only game in town was three miles
further down the road in Zubiri.
We couldn’t resist his offer to drive us there and piled into the luxurious lap of the car.
And we were more delighted when he rambled on that the restaurant owner lived in Larasoaña
and would be glad to drive us back to the albergue before it closed for the night. We tooled down
the road, thankfully passing the dreaded magnesite plant, and pulled up in front of the regional
recreation center. Not wanting to bite the hand that was, almost literally, feeding us, we refrained
from screaming, “You call this a restaurant!”
Our chauffeur and Octavio met the chef outside. They had a rather long conversation,
complete with ample hand gestures from all parties. We in the car were imagining various
scenarios, all of which resulted in our not getting any grub. It turned out that the chef was
actually apologizing for his limited menu (three different first courses, five different entrees, and
three deserts), that he couldn’t serve for another hour, and that we would have to take a taxi
back. No problemo!
The bar/restaurant was the anteroom of the large gym and pool complex which was full
of youths playing handball (no pelota here, either) and toddlers running around every which way.
Their parents were lounging in the bar and smoking a lot. After a few rounds of drinks, we were
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reveling with the locals. The food turned out to be palatable enough and very cheap. Someone
had called the hospitalier of the albergue (not the mayor or his wife that time) who actually
came down to the restaurant to greet us. Later, the summoned taxi driver had to laboriously greet
everyone in the place before he could take us back in a luxurious minivan. And we were busy
bestowing gracias aplenty to all and sundry before we could make our exit. And all I got this
year were eggs, beans, and way too many pilgrim bodies.
The weather the next morning was very humid and partly sunny. The trail was through
some incredibly beautiful Navarran countryside. I caught up to and walked with a varied group
of guys. There was a tall, crazed Brit who was using a meager inheritance to do some traveling.
He was a fervent rock music fan and quite the alcohol imbiber. Michele, a punk rock drummer
from Napoli, was a short rotund man with the most incredible thick brown hair hanging ten
inches down his shoulders. He had morphed into Miguel here on Spanish soil. Then there was
Roberto, an emergency room nurse from Firenze who had difficulty at first but then became
quite an intrepid walker. Diego, a taciturn Argentinean, was the last member of a group I would
be with for the next two days. They were all struggling on this third day. Now nearing the
halfway mark of my total journey, I felt strong and soon outpaced them.
I was happy to see Pamplona in the sun. After a brief but productive time in the internet
café, I popped into the cathedral and its adjoining museum. But the lure of the road did not keep
me there too long—I had to beat that tremendous tide of pilgrims lapping at my heels. My
program that day simply did not include meandering through ancient cloisters and ogling
innumerable stone and wood medieval Virgins—though that was ostensibly the whole reason I
was on this trip. Anyway, I had a good look at them last year and had purchased a dozen or so
BVM postcards that were back in Manhattan just waiting leisurely inspection. I did not pass up,
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though, a gander at the magnificent and anatomically correct crucified Christ, a figure medical
students supposedly studied in lieu of cadavers.
I ran into an acquaintance from the Roncesvalles albergue, a handsome Italian man living
in Paris. Simone was with an equally striking, already-bearded German man named Marcus.
They had passed Larasoaña and gone another 15 km the day before and were planning to do
another 40 km that day. This would have them going over Alto del Perdon, an elevated and
remote portion of Navarra that would afford magnificent views in the late afternoon light. Sure
that the vista would be spectacular, I toyed with the idea of joining them. But since I ended up
with a stress injury the last two times I did distance power walking in France and Spain, I
decided to play it safe.
I spent some quick quality time in the city. I did a speedy run through of some postcard
shops on the main drag and ended up with a mere two fresh bull-goring cards. I wasted most of
my time trying to get a new pilgrim credential as I was running out of space on mine. That
involved lots of false starts, incorrect turns, wrong buildings, and smiling at incomprehensible
Spanish directions. A South American bricklayer finally escorted me from a nunnery to the
proper municipal office. There I was given another unfathomable lecture and told, I think, that I
had enough spaces left on mine to get me to Burgos or Leon, to just hold my horses, and to get
the document there.
Pamplona was packed and lovely in the sun. As crowded as it was, I could only imagine
the city with the hordes that descend from July 7-14 for the Festival of St. Fermin and the
running of the bulls. Add oodles of alcohol to exaggerated machismo, and you get quite a
happening. But I’ll take the camino and the churches.
Fermin, interestingly enough, was baptized by St. Sernin, a gentleman we encountered
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back on the chemin in Toulouse as the bishop who was martyred by being dragged through the
streets by an angry bull. Though a local guy, Fermin was beheaded while preaching in Amiens in
northern France and rests there. You would think the Amieners would give Fermin’s relics back
to Spain. After all, they already have John the Baptist’s head.
There is a lot of bull lore, very dear to my heart, that we could wade through. (I still have
no desire, though, to get chased by one through the narrow streets of this Navarran city.) But I do
not want to tarry here, as I tarried not that day in Pamplona. After trodding the very same lanes
as the St. Fermin revelers but in the opposite direction, I passed through the ancient city walls,
traversed a few middle class neighborhoods, and stopped in the lush university grounds. There
by a babbling brook, I spread out under the sun and had a quiet picnic lunch.
It was only another five km to Cuzir Menor, my home for the night. The albergue was a
rambling basic affair around a big courtyard. On one side was a tripartite, slightly angled
dormitory of several big airy rooms that could each hold 16 people in bunk beds. Opposite was
the older section, the original albergue, a ramshackle hut with low ceilings, dark rooms, a
spartan kitchen, and tiny bathrooms.
Not many people got there before me, but those who did were already in a flurry of
laundry chores. Only on the road for three days, they still retained their pre-pilgrim sense of
fastidiousness. The constant humidity, mountain fog and rain, and close living quarters had
produced great quantities of unwashed items. Out back under some fruit trees, we shared a halfdozen plastic basins and two sinks to do our duties. Almost every item from each pack was
alternately soaked and rinsed that afternoon. The currently sun-filled courtyard was the final
element needed to ameliorate the dirty duds situation.
I must say the others were much more assiduously soaping and scrubbing all their
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dainties. I more or less gave mine a gentle little dunking with a lick of shampoo and a few
cursory rubs and grasps before a quick rinse. My favorite part of this chore was trying to squeeze
out every possible drop of moisture before the clothes went on the line—one of the numerous
benefits of space-age fabrics was that they didn’t hold wrinkles long. The hospitalier had about a
dozen of those rickety folding drying racks that we opened in the courtyard. They were soon
festooned with everything from socks to hats and everything in between. Later-arriving pilgrims
had to use a bit more ingenuity and hang their offerings on windowsills, bits of strung ropes, and
the lower branches of trees. Did I miss my laundry ten steps away from my stoop in New York
where I could drop off a bag of soiled items in the morning and pick it up that evening all fresh
and folded? Well, the real miracle of the camino was that “normal” living was put on a kind of
hold—and one made do.
I had enough time for a real treat, a stint of sunbathing. I could not get any of the other
boys to doff their trousers and shirts though a few pulled chairs to the perimeter of the patio. A
new addition there on the edge was Manuel, a 20-something, newly immigrating Venezuelan
who was planning to settle in Barcelona after the camino. The poor man started walking back in
Roncesvalles with a tremendous load in his backpack. He had just that day had the chance to post
his disco and corporate wardrobe to his Spanish relatives and so decrease significantly the load
on his back that got directly transmitted to his by-now aching feet.
Then it was out to the streets to find dinner provisions. The town was a fast-growing
satellite of the bigger Pamplona with row after row of town houses going up quickly. It seemed
more a Potemkin village what with all the buildings but few inhabitants or other amenities. With
the slim pickings up on our city on the hill, the megamall down in the valley was looking a lot
more attractive. Nearby were two inviting restaurants that didn’t open until 8:30 PM. Though
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standard for Spain, it was a little late for us pilgrims. The single, vaunted food shop was a pitiful
affair with desultory canned goods, packaged bread, and a pathetic fruit selection. I was able to
rustle up a few palatable things for the road the next day and went back to find some companions
for dinner at one of the restaurants.
My Spanish speaking friends fared better and found a place with a reasonably priced
pilgrim menu served at 7 PM. I invited a German man and his friends to come with us. Richard
had spent a high school year in Canada and spoke great English. He was a well-kept 47-year-old,
mid-level insurance manager from a small town in southern Germany. He had a son of 20 and
daughter of 16. With only three weeks of vacation, he was hoping to make it to Leon and return
the following year to finish. Though he was a practicing Catholic, his motivation for the walk
was not particularly religious. His big dream was to do a summer-long canoe trip in the Yukon.
Though the restaurant was attached to that dismal food store in an uninspired strip of
dowdy commercial establishments, typically suburban, my meal was surprisingly good. I had
spiced chicken wings, a hearty and large salada mixta (lettuce, tuna, hard-boiled egg, tomato and
pepper slices—another camino staple), and pears in wine sauce. Again, let it be noted, that
exercise hones the appetite.
Upon returning to the albergue, I met my lower bunkmate Ken, a 30-something man
from Washington, DC, who was making a round-the-world trip. After Santiago and a whirlwind
tour of some places in Europe, he was taking the Trans Siberian Railroad east from Moscow. He
was admittedly religious and had already made a pilgrimage to Medjugorje, a famous BVM
shrine in the former Yugoslavia. These were the kinda guys you ran into on the way. I didn’t see
Richard or Ken again on the camino.
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Chapter Ten
Viage a La Luz del Sol y a Los Viñedos
The Sunlight and Vineyard Tour
Pamplona to Logroño
The other boys were up and out early the next morning before dawn. I waited until there
was at least some light before leaving alone. By midmorning I caught up with them right before
the summit of Alto del Perdon—the promontory I mentioned earlier with fabulous views of
Navarran mountains and plains. Everything was green and alive. At the top of the pass is a
famous wrought-iron and cut-steel sculpture of a group of pilgrims heading west, straining from
the effort and with their heads bowed in the wind. Following the tradition, we took our pictures
in front of and in the same dogged, laboring position as the metal strugglers. Hovering not far
above us on the crest of the range was a long line of wind generators, their long propellers
silently churning in the soft mid-morning light.
Then it was downhill with a short detour to the 12th century Romanesque Church of
Santa Maria de Eunate, a curious octagonal chapel modeled on the Church of the Holy Sepulcher
in Jerusalem. Out in the middle of nowhere, it had some sort of link to the Knights Templar and
may have been a funerary chapel. Surrounded by a delicate colonnade, it was certainly an
exquisite jewel amongst the placid fields of poppies and grain.
We arrived at the same time as a group of bussed-in second graders who serenaded us
from the sanctuary. Manuel, Miguel/Michele, and Roberto were one up on me here. They had
heard it was traditional to walk barefoot counterclockwise around the building three times and
proceeded to do so. They weren’t sure why, mumbling something about “receiving the power.”
Feeling energized enough, thank you, I refrained but was tickled by their resolve.
After Eunate I used this power surge to pick up my pace and take off to Puenta la Reina
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alone again. I popped into the albergue there for a cup of tea and a bite of lunch. I commiserated
with a French Canadian man who was temporarily out of commission with some serious knee
pain. I reassured him with the story of Melissa, my French Canadian friend I had last seen that
morning in Cuzir Menor. She had had an identical malady almost 700 km back in France, recovered, and was merrily on the road to St. James’ bones. Since she would probably be staying in
Puenta la Reina that night, I knew she could offer up words of advice in his native tongue and
shore up his resolve. Not one to minimize the intercession of St. Motrin, I parted with a stash of
pills before heading off.
It wasn’t glee, exactly, that I felt when I came across physically distressed pilgrims much
younger than I. But it was hard to avoid a bit of self-satisfaction at their seeming inability to
grasp their plight. Considering themselves impervious to harm, youth can be merciless when
dealing with the woes of those older. So when waylaid, they tend to suffer inordinately psychologically. This was a leap on my part, of course. Probably having limited vacation time, this
young man could just as well be despairing of making it to Santiago in time and not from staring
into the abyss of self-disintegration and doom brought on by a bum knee.
Puenta la Reina (The Queen’s Bridge) is a marvelous little town. Dominated by the
graceful, six-arched bridge that gave it its name, it also had three significant churches and a
convent. Iglesia Santiago in the center of town boasted a sculpted Romanesque door and
Baroque tower. As much to escape the freezing albergue as to see the interior, I attended a
funeral mass there last year. With the dramatic Flamboyant Gothic ceiling above, the stunning
Baroque main retablo (decorated altar) in front, and the caressing warmth from the heater right
next to me, it was hard to mask my contented state of bliss during the services. Since it was for
an 85-year-old who died peacefully in her sleep, many of the others in attendance did not look so
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solemn either.
Bridges, by the way, were a vital addition to the route. Prior to their construction, pilgrims either had to find a suitable place to ford—always a tricky and dangerous option as the
currents constantly changed the river’s course and depth—or use ferries whose operators were
notoriously corrupt and/or incompetent. A 12th century chronicler had this to say of some French
ones:
(M)ay their boatmen be utterly damned! For, although the rivers are quite
narrow, nevertheless, they are in the habit of getting one mum-mus from every
person, poor as well as rich, whom they ferry across, and for a beast four, which
they undeservedly extort. And furthermore, their boat is small, made of a single
tree trunk, scarcely big enough to accommodate horses; also, when you get in, be
careful not to fall into the water by accident…get into the boat with only a few
passengers because if the boat is overladen with too many people, it will soon be
in peril. Many times also, after receiving the money, the ferrymen take on such a
throng of pilgrims that the boat tips over, and the pilgrims are killed in the water.
Thereupon the ferrymen rejoice wickedly after seizing the spoils from the dead.
(Shaver-Crandell and Gerson, 69)
It was a further, pleasant five miles to Ciraqui through verdant fields and vineyards. This
town was strategically atop a high hill and so was visible from afar—it also meant that any
meandering around town involved climbing and descending. This quite delightful little burg
boasted several old churches, medieval walls with arched doorways, and many other historic
buildings. I got a bed in an appealing private albergue facing, across the main square, the most
interesting church in the city, San Roman. My temporary home had a shaded, airy balcony,
perfect for lounging and viewing the decorative delights adorning the façade and bell towers. I
shared a large dorm room down below with a medley of foreigners, mainly a bunch of late
middle-aged women whom I kept seeing in various stages of undress that night and the next
morning.
Jean Francois, my St. Jerome in the Desert friend from Pomps and St. Jean, also spent the
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night with us. His backpack had been stolen in Pamplona right off the steps of the albergue.
Determined to continue, he rustled up another pack and enough clothes from items abandoned by
overly burdened pilgrims. The bulky new clothes hung off his slight frame in a perfectly
fashionable style. Still in possession of his money, papers and his precious fedora, he was taking
it all in stride. A sculpture student back in Belgium, he was interested in architectural restoration
as a career. Over the next couple of days we visited several churches and investigated their
Romanesque and Gothic sculpture programs—a nice turn of events.
We had a really pleasant dinner with most of our roommates in the restaurant in a
converted cellar next door and run by our hospitalier’s Italian husband. Since most of our dinner
companions were less trail-hungry than we, Jean Francois and I sopped up most all the spaghetti
sauce with the wonderful bread. We also got the lion’s share of the salad, meatballs, cheese, and
the seemingly never-empty carafes of wine.
I had bought ear plugs (as well as a new supply of ibuprofen) in town. Thinking that
those nice ladies would not snore, I stored the stoppers deep in my backpack, fully prepared for a
good night’s sleep. Alas, though, I woke up after just a couple of hours of deep sleep. All that
wine could have been a contributor to my disturbed slumber, but I put the blame solely on the
racket from that lovely nearby church with the magnificent bell towers. Its emanating peals
offered me unwelcome company through the night. The quarter hour was marked with one ring,
the half with two, three-quarters with three, then the hour with four before making a long,
pregnant pause. Then it would clang the appropriate hour with another burst of chimes.
I think that Dick Cheney and crew would not have much trouble breaking me in an
interrogation in such a way—they would not even have to skirt the Geneva Conventions. I would
crack in an instant, “No, not the church bells again. I did it. I make Khalid Shaikh Mohammed
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look like an amateur. Just stop those bells and let me get some sleep.”
Notwithstanding the interrupted rest, I was ready the next morning for the next phase of
the journey, a reprise of my truncated Tour Express. My day would consist of brisk walking for
the best part of the morning, a morning break, more walking, then—if I wasn’t at my
destination—either a bar/café lunch or a munch from my pack stores before concluding the
remainder of my planned itinerary. I left at the first hint of dawn after downing a cup of decent
vending machine café con leche. Jean Francois kept up with me that morning and we had a rather
pleasant countryside hike into Lorca. We ogled the church there and the sculpture program on
the west door. I plowed ahead alone as my Belgian buddy wanted some quality time with his
breakfast and the 12th century edifice. It was perfect hiking weather, and I was antsy.
In Estella I had that mid-morning snack while resting in front of and taking in the Gothic
façade of one of my favorite churches on the camino, Iglesia del Santo Sepulchro. Even
knowing pride goeth before the fall, I was reveling in my diminishing belly (I eschewed the everpresent package of nuts and an almond chocolate bar I was never without when walking the year
before), my strength, and the glorious weather. I popped up to the rather dour Iglesia Santa Maria
and Convento Santo Domino before I ran into Jean Francois again. We went up in fits and starts
to San Miguel which was unfortunately closed. We were just able to glimpse the lovely
Romanesque north portal through gates. Though San Pedro was also closed until evening, I
climbed up the magnificent, long stone stairway alone to see the Mozarabic doorway. Then the
two of us went all over town trying to find a replacement for Jean Francois’s stolen knife.
I remembered Estella being a bit of a backwater, though it boasts nine ancient churches,
two palaces, and a convent or two. That day it was a bustling regional super-power, bulging with
spiffy locals and tourists in its many riverside cafés and smart stores. But good pilgrims that we
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were, we headed off to Irache, another five km away through some dreary dusty suburbs.
Irache laid claim to not only a first-class Cistercian monastery but a winery that proffered
free wine to pilgrims via a spigot on its exterior wall. Both of us got a bit of a rioja buzz going
and filled our water bottles as well—though mine was leavened with equal amounts of water.
We were, of course, not alone: laid up with an injury and planning on spending the night
hereabouts, a 6’ 6”, 20-year-old, fashion-model handsome Polish man now living in Germany
was camping out by the gratis wine spout, already merrily a couple of sheets to the wind. Though
already a mini-celebrity (he just had about 30 photographs taken with each member of a busload
of short-statured Japanese tourists visiting the monastery), he wanted his brother back in
Germany to see him on the winery webcam. Charming in that Euro-diverse way of being
comfortable with many languages and travel, he seemed only mildly upset that his 50 km days
from St. Jean with overly ample backpack left him now crippled with a bum hip and megablisters. Maybe the steady trickle of alcohol helped his attitude, but I had to jettison my theory of
injury-induced depression and anguish amongst the very young.
Not wanting to continue, Jean Francois decided to backtrack in order to meet and woo
Melissa, who would probably be bedding down in Estella that night. As pleasant as his company
was, I was glad to continue alone. I had another 22 kilometers to my planned destination of Los
Arcos—a hike that would usually take over four hours.
It was already nearly 1 PM, I had a wine high, and the sun was a burning orb in the sky.
But what a glorious hike it was. I was doing a good six kilometers-an-hour pace, up and down
the gentle rolling hills through vineyards and little villages with few souls around. Along the way
I played leapfrog (pun not intended) with a French couple—letting them pass me when I took a
self-enforced rest stop and then overtaking them later. I also went off course for a half-hour and
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chatted with a hippy-ish Spanish man doing his sixth camino in sandals and carrying two
modest-sized cloth shoulder bags. He was sleeping in the fields and only taking an occasional
shower. His idea of the right way to do the camino was strictly no frills and included rolling his
own cigarettes.
I got into a pilgrim-jammed Los Arcos late in the afternoon and passed two full albergues
before a young woman and I got the last two beds in the third, run by some more Dutch
volunteers. An elementary school during the regular scholastic year, it was very bare bones,
though I certainly was not complaining. When the French couple arrived about 15 minutes after
me and was shut out, the wife broke down and started crying. After locating space for them at
another temporary venue, our hospitalier actually took the French woman by the hand and led
her and her husband up the road. (A number of albergues are run by former pilgrims who come
back to Spain and work for a couple of weeks each year. A more pleasant, efficient, and
charitable crew cannot be imagined—and most of them are fluent in three or four languages.)
I was incredibly delighted to meet two old friends here. The first was the Turkish fellow
who took off from St. Jean the day before me. He was having a blast on the trail, snapping pictures left and right, and reveling in the experience. He was hiking with a multinational group, a
real cross section of the pilgrim multitude.
The other was my dear friend, Anne Marie, the French woman I started this adventure
with almost six weeks prior. She was the retired business woman/ultra marathoner from Paris I
met in the Le Puy cathedral in France on my first day. We walked together for two weeks to
Cahors. Leaving me in the clutches of the Dutch banker and chef extraordinaire, she went on to
Condom by train and walked to Pamplona. Then she traveled back to Cahors to meet a friend of
hers from Paris. They walked together to Condom. The friend returned to Paris, and Anne Marie
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made her way back to Pamplona and resumed walking. Her non-walking traveling time added up
to what I lost with the shin injuries. Ah, yes, the magic of the camino had us together again.
She straight off handed me a cold beer. Though from the fridge and not by sleight of
hand, it, too, seemed magical nonetheless. She was rooming with a French family who had a
mildly challenged son of 15. Adrian was a rather hyperactive young man who spoke a curious
brand of English that mainly consisted of the names of Quentin Tarantino films and music lyrics
that I was about 40 years behind in appreciating. He was also as camera-addicted as my Turkish
friend, taking picture after picture along the way. We all had a quick salad that Anne Marie
whipped up and then headed to the cathedral for Mass and yet another pilgrim benediction.
The cathedral was a magnificent baroque pile, restrained somewhat on the exterior, but
almost out of control inside. The gold covering all six or seven altars would equal the GNP of
many a country, I should think. Adding to the splendor, a crowd of locals and pilgrims almost
filled the spacious nave. The priest, though, was rather snide with his curt comments about the
short attention span and the admittedly skimpy dress of some of us. I thought he must have been
cut from Ratzinger cloth.
After that infusion of the sacred, I had a dose of the profane while sitting in the warm
twilight of the courtyard of the albergue and listening to the assembled kibbutz and parry about
in barely-suppressed, heterosexual adolescent banter. I also watched them attending to their
weary, blister-prone feet in mute wonder. I don’t know what it was about mine or my luck—I
have horribly dry skin on my feet and disgusting toenails. But I had done that 800 km/500 miles
last year and more than that already this year without a single blister. Knock wood.
It was a quick and pleasant 30 km to Logroño the next day. I passed through the wellmaintained medieval center of Viana where Cesare Borgia, the illegitimate son of Pope
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Alexander VI and drinking buddy of both Leonardo da Vinci and Machiavelli, was banished and
which he died protecting. For many days we had been passing through vineyard after vineyard
but entered the famous Spanish wine region of La Rioja proper only that day.
Right outside of Logroño was the table for a noted camino personality, Felisa. Though
the original Felisa died years ago, her niece of the same name took over the duties of stamping
pilgrim passports, distributing water, her own dried figs, information and little treats in exchange
for a donation. I was keeping my eyes peeled, though, for her neighbor’s two little Yorkshire
terriers, one of whom nipped my ankle last year. I wanted to be ready to kick 'em if ambushed
yet again (just like a true bully who picks on the little ones since while terrified of the stronger).
So I blithely brushed by the table attended by a surly obese fellow, not by the new Felisa whom I
met last year. He was offended by my disdain and muttered something in Spanish about
“tradition.” I almost retorted that I didn’t see the dried figs. I didn’t see the pooches either.
Dogs on the camino had been a big problem for me and my fellow travelers the year
before, especially in Navarra and most of Castile and Leon. At almost every farmhouse and in
many of the villages, vicious looking beasts barked savagely. They regularly lunged at us,
putting a lot of strain on what looked to be fairly inadequate leashes. The guidebooks
recommend carrying a pilgrim staff to keep them at bay, not for modified Nordic walking. I
considered it just short of divine intervention that I got off with just that nip at the heels from a
little poofy thing. But so far this season and continuing on, our presence rarely registered more
than a bored glance from the majority of predominately placid pooches. Occasionally an addled
ancient canine, probably dementedly reliving his testosterone-filled youth, would cough up a
whimperish woof as we passed but would rarely even raise even his ample belly off the ground.
In France I was the object of a lot more barking but only by well-penned pups. The few
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out on the loose in town or country would sometimes gaily, but quietly, trot alongside us for
many kilometers before heading back home. Have I mentioned the magic of the camino?
Looming up over the Ebro River, Logroño, the capital of La Rioja, is in close proximity
to Aragon, Navarra, and Castile and Leon. Its location was the source of its wealth, and its
wealth made it an object of plunder. Its long and bloody history is belied by the upscale,
cosmopolitan air of the contemporary town. Last year there were six of us in the modern,
comfortable albergue—this year every one of the 98 spaces was occupied. By the time I arrived,
a line had formed outside on the street, and all were anxiously waiting for it to open. When it did,
we streamed inside the inviting shaded courtyard in a very orderly procession. We took places on
benches and chairs already set out around the bubbling fountain as the three male German
volunteer hospitaliers slowly processed us. After the first person in line got called into the
vestibule, everyone would shift down another seat, backpack and all—a kind of musical chairs or
inchworm. Seeing as many as 50 pilgrims gathered round gave one an idea of just who was
doing this camino thing. It certainly was a varied group, though skewed towards the geriatric at
this juncture.
Compared to the night before (and the night after), this albergue was a palace in many
ways—three big, airy floors with vast, well-maintained public rooms. Because of boiler trouble,
though, the showers were ice-cold and elicited quite a few hollers on all fronts (and rears). The
big dorms were sectioned off into curious little four-bed cubi-cles—almost like the cubby holes
of a large corporate department, but with bunk beds replacing desks. I thought, maybe, that it
was someone’s brilliant but ineffective solution to the snoring problem.
I met a pleasant Tasmanian named Richard during our wait. After getting squared away
upstairs, we repaired to the square for a few beers at a sidewalk café with ringside seats at the
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Renaissance cathedral and the ten big stork nests on its towers. The birds were enjoying the
spring weather as much as we. They put on a spirited aerial acrobatics display that mimicked the
pilgrim musical chairs earlier.
The north corner of the cathedral façade used to bear a bronze inscription glorifying
Franco and the uprising against “communism” on June 17, 18, 19, 1936. The outline of the letters, a palimpsest of the past, is still faintly readable. Though Catalonia and the Basque country
were staunchly anti-Franco, much of the rest of conservative northern Spain was firmly in the
Nationalist camp, and many of her inhabitants continue to fervently worship the departed dictator. After the end of the bloody Spanish Civil War, Franco wielded an iron grip over the
country, before dying in 1975 after four decades in power. Now most all monuments to him and
his cohorts have quietly been erased—but his memory and his legacy, like the inscription on the
stone of the church, linger on in many ways.
Richard was a burly, ginger-haired bloke in his late thirties who made pleasant conversation and seemed actually to be interested in my camino exploits and impressions, as well as
my Catholic boyhood. He was a little more mum on aspects of his life. He did admit to having a
proper Catholic upbringing, attending “uni” and having gainful employment, though he was
noticeably vague on his actual occupation. I was ready to elevate him to the exalted position of
my walking companion.
A night in a spiffy municipal albergue 4€,
Two beers at a trendy sidewalk café in Spain 8€
Front row seats at the Cirque de Stork-ay and intelligent conversation with an
interesting adult priceless.
Well, Richard had already made dinner plans and so could not join Anne Marie and me.
As he got up late the next day, we didn’t accompany each other that or any other day. Such are
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the vagaries of camino life.
Later, Anne Marie and I went around town buying groceries and seeing the sights. Due
to an early evening wedding, we were denied entrance to the cathedral which has a Michelangelo
painting among other delights. At a vegetable shop, Anne Marie touched some fruit—a strictly
forbidden thing to do in Spain, unlike France where it is almost required—and was rudely
shouted at by the greengrocer. When he picked out the crapiest bits of produce for us, we refused
them and were chased out. The next shop had impeccable fruit but prices twice as high. Finally,
we found a supermercado and loaded up before going back to see the painting and the cathedral
interior. The baroque main retablo was stunning, if a bit overbearing. Though protected under a
thick plate of glass, the Michelangelo crucifixion was a tiny marvel.
Before dinner our camino mate Ez (Else), a Dutch woman married to a Frenchman and
living near Lourdes, took Anne Marie and me out for wine and quite a few tapas. As if that was
not enough, we ate again back at the albergue. Anne Marie made one of her big salads, and I
tossed pasta and sautéed vegetables in a garlic yogurt sauce. A bizarre, young Italian woman
with amateur tattoos all over her arms and legs then took over the vast kitchen and made a selfprofessed bona fide Italian meal. She cooked enough for an army though she barely touched the,
admittedly, authentic-looking product and had no other partakers. Sitting at a back table and
elevating her bandaged ankle, a woman I took to be her mother screeched out instructions and
offered encouragement. Occasionally looking over at me and pointing proudly at the cook who
was prancing about and banging pots and lids, madre would give just a crooked smile, as if to
say, “Just look at her. That’s my girl.” I hope she wasn’t taking credit for those rank excuses for
body art. Or for that hacked-off masculine hairdo.
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Chapter Eleven
Viage a Las Tormentas y a Los Monumentos
The Stormy Weather and Monuments Tour
Logroño to Burgos
The pilgrims were getting restless. Maybe it was worry about the weather—though I am
more heat sensitive than the next guy and it wasn’t bothering me. The next morning a quarter of
my dorm got up at 4 AM, an hour-and-a-half before sunup. Unlike the bulk of those early risers,
the guy across from me in our cubicle had packed the night before and just needed to slip out.
Unfortunately, in doing so he dropped an empty metal water bottle, producing a resonating big
bang. After it rumbled loudly under the beds, he added insult to injury by noisily retrieving his
headlamp from deep within his backpack. His light was a lighthouse beacon as he aimed it
around the room, as if trying to warn all incoming traffic in a busy, foggy port. What was he
thinking? Didn’t he know the laws of gravity? The bottle fell down and on the floor. We were in
the back corner of a big room. What reason on earth could there be to repeatedly illuminate the
ceiling and the other end of the room?
While not attempting to burn our retinas, other early birds in the nether reaches of the
room spent an inordinate amount of time rustling plastic bag after plastic bag as they zipped and
unzipped endless pack pockets. Then there were the whispered conversations in the gloom that
would start low but soon ratchet up to piercing hisses.
The prominently posted and stoutly ignored instructions (and repeated to everyone at the
induction the day before, by the way) were not to leave the albergue before six. But by an hour
prior to that time, a gaggle had gathered out front and directly underneath our open windows.
Relieved at being “away” from their sleeping comrades, they commenced bellowed conversations in a babel of languages. Anyone’s slumber not already disturbed had to have been
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dashed by this ultimate clamor.
Realizing further rest was not to be forthcoming, I got up to survey the action. Out in the
hallway, all manner of backpack contents were strewn about. A passel of pilgrims in various
states of dress—not a pretty sight—were ministering to their confederates with foot powders,
unguents, dressings and tape. The bathroom lines were truly prodigious—maybe the hot water
had finally come on. Since I had made a pit stop earlier in the night, I was able to proceed
directly to the kitchen for some quality time with my leftover yogurty pasta. A couple of cups of
instant cappuccino (I carried an emergency reserve of several packets) were enough to let me
regain some equanimity and tide me over until I could get a real café con leche on the road.
Soon caught up in the bustle, I too left while it was still dark. It was eerily fasci-nating to
march through the deserted dimly-lit streets, get to the nearby countryside still cloaked in
clinging shadow, and watch the morning blossom. I was soon passing many of those rabblerousers who seemed, now, to be quite content to while away a significant part of the early
morning having snacks and counting ducks along the banks of the big reservoir right outside
town.
While walking, I had to decide whether to end my day’s saunter in Najera, a distance of
31 km, or go beyond another six to Azofra with the intention of making a detour to the Cistercian
abbey in Canas and the monasteries of Yuso and Suso in San Millan the next day. San Millan is
the purported birthplace of the Spanish language, and Canas had some of the best funerary
sculptures on the Iberian Peninsula. They were high on my To Do, but not quite on the Must Do
List, but the trip was really a stretch without a car. Entry to each was by guided tour only, and
seeing all three might require two days off the camino proper. None of the other walkers were
much interested in accompanying me. (I had not yet met Oriana, a marvelous French Canadian
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woman who was one of the few pilgrims who shared my high regard for the wealth of cultural
artifacts at our toe tips.) At any rate, I shelved the detour plan and decided to amble only as far as
Najera.
This premier wine-producing region of Spain was appropriately smothered in well-tended
vineyards in all directions. The rolling hills of the countryside were a hive of gentle, constant
agricultural activity; small groups of workers were trimming errant growth and applying either
pesticide or fertilizer. The sun was shining and the sky blue—perfect conditions for walking, if
not viniculture. We went through two small historic towns but the relentless pace of the camino
(beat those suckers to the next albergue!) dictated that one could only root out or give a cursory
glance to any but the most impressive monuments. And après hike, most of us were too
exhausted or lacking in adequate Spanish to ferret out any local treasures that were not
immediately available and open. Luckily, those were plentiful and grand.
I was the first to arrive to stay at the albergue in Najera. But there were soon many
others. It was soon a repeat of the day before—lots of restless and dusty pilgrims milling
around—but without the organization. Hoping to avoid a senseless stampede when it opened, I
took charge and had everyone line up their backpacks in the order of arrival. Most then went
over to the shaded riverbank for a nap. When the hospitaliers showed up a half-hour early, the
few still standing around rushed the door. So instead of an orderly queue without packs, a
loaded-down rabble was huddled at the entrance clamoring to be first. Little did I care, I tried.
Having recognized one of the approaching officials from last year, I had made a beeline over to
greet him and so was first in line, as I should have been. I should also have dashed into the
shower right away, too, as the hot water supply was soon depleted. Later, I had my second very,
as they say, refreshing shower in as many days.
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The albergue was a long, low building without a backyard. The dismal bit of cement
paving in front was useful only for arraying those ubiquitous spindly drying racks in the
afternoon sun. The sleeping space was a single big room with two rows of bunks perpendicular
to the walls and two rows in the middle parallel to the walls—reminiscent of a prison or
barracks. My guidebook said it had only 70 beds, but the total seemed twice that. With small
windows high on the walls as the only ventilation, it must be hell in high summer. To complete
the institutional character of the place, the two tiny male and female bathrooms were crammed
with metal sinks and shower stalls. In contrast, the four big picnic-style tables and benches in the
ample and pleasant sitting area had a more relaxed feel. The compact but fully-equipped kitchen
saw a lot action—unlike the palatial KP hall of the night before that was hardly touched.
The city was bisected by a delightful river with many bridges. On our side some ancient
buildings abutted steep red bluffs. I walked around and was able to visit Monasterio Santa Maria
de la Real, now a museum, and built here because the son of Sancho the Great followed his
hunting falcon into a cave in these bluffs and came upon a statue of the Virgin Mary. It had a
magnificent basilica and funerary effigies of some Navarran kings and queens. I breezed past the
cloister—they were getting old hat by now. A walk through the city and a visit to the supermercado on the other side of the river took another hour, and I had done this burg. Luckily there
were a lot of diversions back at Cell Block C (for camino).
Two Italian bikers got the last two bunks right near the door. I had to pass by them every
time I had to go in and out—which turned out to be pretty often as I somehow kept forgetting
things. Gazing at them, napping and shirtless in the close environment of the crowded albergue,
and at subsequent members of their rarified fraternity, I was swayed toward accepting the idea of
Intelligent Design. For how could such perfect physical specimens as these with those flattering
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and revealing Lycra outfits just randomly occur? It was certainly beyond evolution and in the
realm of the miraculous.
Additionally, another man was setting hearts aflutter. Stephane, later nicknamed
Crocodile Dundee for his ubiquitous leather cowboy hat, was a Frenchman in his early thirties
with a luxurious mane of brown hair that went down to the middle of his back. Having started on
the Aragonese route a bit to the east of ours, he reported boring paths along highways and train
tracks until he got on the Camino Frances at Puenta la Reina. His English was quite charming
and good, and I happily shared a few beers with him that night and a few more in Burgos a few
days later. Though I had the chance to walk with him occasionally, he usually had an adoring
harem accompanying him, and I was certainly odd man out.
You might think that this pilgrimage business was just like high school, or even life in
general—a lot of energy going into little achievement, cliques, constant one-upmanship,
scheming for position and status, and elevation of beauty over intelligence. Well, you would be
correct. I had some standing, since I was an alumnus and had a lot of tips and lore to impart.
Furthermore, my being a fast walker and having started in the middle of France somehow
impressed a lot of people. But none of that got me more than peripheral admission to the ingroups I wanted to penetrate. Such is life—both on and off the camino.
The next part of the trek was memorable for me. Last year my Brazilian friend Jorge and
I had been given incompetent directions for a “shortcut” that had us going along the shallow
shoulder of a semi-truck infested highway in a cold pelting rain for five km. The precipitation
then morphed into snow with an eventual accumulation of about eight or nine inches with deep
drifts in places. So this year I started out with sanguine expectations of a much merrier little hike
of up to 42 km. The weather started out partly cloudy and a little windy then got progressively
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more overcast. Then the wind picked up wickedly. This bit of trail was cutting me no slack.
The plan was to get to Santo Domingo prior to the start of the Sunday Mass at 10 AM so
that I could see the cathedral interior. So I had to ratchet up my usual five km/hr pace considerably, doing 22 km in three hours in spite of the stiff head wind. When I blew into town
(almost literally since the wind created some hefty side and back drafts in the narrow streets of
the town) at 9:45, I was able to greet parishioners leaving the church. Even though I rushed to a
service that was not to be, I achieved my goal of having that gorgeous gothic structure to
myself—just me and the chickens and one other pilgrim.
The chickens, you say? Yes, there is an honest-to-goodness little hen house in the rear to
commemorate another popular legend of the camino. Some time ago, a family of three were on
their way to Santiago and bedded down in the town. The hospitalier’s daughter took a shine to
the son who would have nothing to do with her—he was either just a good pilgrim boy or maybe,
as I’d like to think, not all that attracted to winsome wenches. Anyway, miffed as she was at
being spurned, she secreted a gold dish in his belongings. Soon after the family left the next
morning, she alerted authorities that it had been stolen and implicated the young man.
Chase was made, and he was caught with the dish and promptly hanged—the Bush
Department of Justice would be proud of the alacrity of those officials. What were the parents to
do except to complete the pilgrimage? In those days the camino was not a one-way trip—you
had to trudge back again. On their return, they visited their son’s body which, according to
custom, would hang until it rotted away. There they were, crying away under the gallows, when
their son casually told them to save their tears, that he was still alive and would be found
innocent.
They rushed to report the rather unusual turn of events to the town magistrate who had
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just sat down to some roast fowl. Brooking no nonsense on this account, the official said that the
son was as dead as the carcass in front of him. Lo and behold, the bird then stood up, crowed,
clucked, or—more likely—ran around like crazy like my free range fowl did back in France.
Whatever the avian action, it was effective. The unjustly accused boy was cut down and reunited
with his parents, and that is why there are chickens in the church. (Many other countries, by the
way, have a similar folktale.)
Gosh, these stories are so wonderful, but don’t they leave a lot of questions unanswered?
How was chicken prepared in the old days? Did the cook cut off the head and claws? Did the
magistrate lose his taste for roast bird and dine on vegetables from then on? Did the boy suffer
from tracheal stenosis later in life? Was he glad he at least did not have to go all the way to
Santiago, or did he still make the journey? What if the parents had taken a different route back
from Santiago? What happened to the duplicitous girl? But the biggie surely has to be: if one was
going to perform a miracle, why not just have the gold dish reappear back where it was supposed
to be, instead of causing all the rigmarole and hurt feelings in the first place? Surely, this tale
proves that the agent of divine intervention has to be male (or maybe a committee); a woman
would not be so foolish.
Anyway, last year I arrived in town right in the middle of a church service—hence my
worry about the same happening again. Then I walked around the back of the church—a strictly
prohibido activity by the way—and knelt down pack and all, as if respectfully praying, when,
actually, I was trying to figure out how to pull off a coop coup de gráce. But I could see no way
that pulling out a camera and snapping a quick one could be construed as anything remotely in
line with the liturgy. “In the name of the father…click…and of the son…click…” was just not
going to work. Since it was still blizzard conditions outside and we had seven kilometers more to
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walk through snow and drifts, I cut my losses and left. I figured there had to be a postcard of the
prized object for sale or one on the net I could download. Alas, neither ´twas to be.
So what did I do this time around? I had the place pretty much to myself and with all the
time in the world—well, two hours until the next Mass. Get the damned pic? No, somehow I
decided that I didn’t like the angle of the shot. I also thought that the coop interior was just too
tawdry. (I grew up raising chickens. Did I honestly expect a little pleasure dome?) I also didn’t
try to catch a feather from the cage, an action that was a prognosticator of a successful camino.
Or try to feed one of the future fryers—if one of them pecks from your hand, it was a guarantee
of getting to Santiago. So I walked out of the church, sans photo. Even more incredibly, I made
little effort to scope out the town again for postcards, an activity I rarely eschew especially when
alone. Without as much as a cursory glance for a card shop or a tabac (a store that sells tobacco
and other sundries and which is usually good for a few cards), I walked on. I didn’t even stop for
a cup of coffee. It was still early, and I had already accumulated a long list of failures for the day.
With that steady disheartening wind coming straight at me, I pioneered on to Granon, sat
a spell behind the church, and ate a piece of fruit. Last year this courtyard was a snow-white
wonderland, a scene I witnessed from above in the cozy albergue. I fondly and clearly
remembered the gothic tracery of the windows framing the winter scenes below, as a few of us
half-frozen pilgrims were arrayed in front of the roaring blaze in the fireplace above. Only
trouble was, either my memory was faulty, or someone had in the past year torn out the fancy big
windows and replaced them with smaller, plain casements—and leaving not a trace of their work
on the weathered 14th century stone. That was as improbable as a roasted bird coming back to
life. You might just want to take that as a warning; anything you read here could be the product
of a tad bit of faulty recollection. Ah, memory.
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Certainly tired after all that morning’s power walking, I had a cup of coffee as bitter as
the day’s wind in a vast-but-deserted, second-story bar not far from the church. Usually such a
welcome ritual, this break featured a fat middle-aged bartender, a screechy television in the
corner, a young man with a several-day-old beard struggling to bring some boxes up the stairs on
a dolly, his unceremonious and loud dumping of them in the middle of the room, the bartender
slouching over and desultorily yelling at him, the Spanish newspaper unfathomable to me—not
even the weather report, the rickety tables and chairs, the dusty soccer/football memorabilia on
the walls, a wind-blown film of dirt covering me as well, and the lingering musty odor of my
by-now sweat-infused backpack shoulder straps. What was I doing? Why was I here? What to
do?
Well, there was one good thing about the camino—the answer to most every question
was always there. Pace Nike, “Just Do It.” Yes, walk on. Anyway, I wanted to get closer to
Belorado to set the stage for a full-frontal assault on a section of the way I was not able to do the
year before (Must Do Number Two). Because of the snow, I wimped out and did not travel on
the up/down, up/down, up/down of the Three Altos (not an international singing group but three
peaks over six miles). And then the day after tackling them, I would just waltz into Burgos for a
dose of big-city civilization and the actual hotel bed I promised myself (the albergue is simply
too far out of town).
Well, out I went from the dusty bar. Much of the route to Belorado and beyond to
Villafranca Montes de Oca was an uninspiring footpath along the N120. By this time I did not
really give a good mierda. I had my head down to the wind and really had to struggle. I kept
reassuring myself without much success that it wasn’t a cold wind and that I really had some
remarkably good weather for the better part of this journey. I was about as miserable as I had
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been at any time on both these pilgrimages. Only four kilometers later and half the distance to
Viloria de la Rioja, my planned destination for the night, I took another break at a well-placed
tourist office at the crossroads of the path and the N120. And lucky it was I did, otherwise I
would have not learned that my planned goal was closed for repair. I would have been out in the
howling wind another two or three hours soldiering on. So I happily laid up for the night in a
place about 100 meters down the road in Redecilla del Camino.
This albergue was located behind a tiny, busy and smoky village bar (a nice antidote to
the one in Granon). Access was through a little courtyard that unfortunately functioned as a bit of
a wind tunnel in the continuing blustery weather. Though a municipal one, it was run with care
and concern by two industrious, boisterous and welcoming local women.
Roberto, the ER nurse from Firenze, was also fed up with braving the elements and
joined me in one of the upstairs rooms. Soon all 16 beds were filled with equal parts walkers and
bicyclists. There was an incessantly chatty Canadian female biker who soon got her hooks into
the attractive English-speaking French cyclist whose attentions I was hoping to garner for the
evening. I was left with a 32-year-old German man with slight strabismus and an incompletely
lasered tattoo scar on his right upper arm. This was Karl.
Ah, vulnerable and endearing Karl was saddled with an overweening eagerness to find
love and ultimate satisfaction in life. Unfortunately, his being a bit of an anxiety-ridden mess
negated all that fervor. Hardly the only one to fall under his curious spell, I was just one in a long
line of people, before and after this, who wanted to “help” him. Happily, I kept running into him
at different points along the remainder of the camino.
I had dinner with him and a German grandmother in her late sixties. Their English may
not have been up to the standards of many of their countrymen I encountered but was more than
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adequate for the occasion. We had a wonderful time doing camino-and-life chat over another
tasty meal of stewed chicken and local bread. Granny asked for and got us more wine, a move
that probably helped the atmosphere, though Karl was a teetotaler. The two of them were both
inspired to do this trip after reading that German bestseller. Inspired? Possessed was more like
it.
After finishing the book, granny picked up her telephone and told her two kids that they
had better find another baby sitter real quick. She turned to her husband and informed him that
he could either learn to cook or eat out for a month or more. Ditto with the housework. She then
went to a sporting goods store and instructed the staff to outfit her with all the goods, damn the
cost. She had never done any hiking before, had never really been on vacation alone, and was
obviously used to digs a little better than the coed dorm/shared bathroom set-up we had along the
way. And she was happier than a cerdo in mierda.
Karl heard this tale and then related his own, much like a gambler saying, “I’ll meet your
20,000 deutschmarks and raise you another 20,000.” He pretty much put down the book, quit his
job as a maker of dental bridgework, sold his car, broke the lease on his apartment, put in storage
all of his belongings other than the shirt on his back and the whatever in his backpack, went to
St. Jean and started walking. Happy as a lark was he—well, most of the time, anyway. More of
that later.
Roberto at the other table was searching for something also. Call it fulfillment or
direction, it probably sounded a lot more wonderful in Italian. But at least he was on a timetable
and returning to his life and work straight away—whether he made it to Santiago or not—after
his four weeks of vacation were over.
Lord, what was this confraternity? Something between latter day saints (non-capitalized)
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or pathetic losers? And me? I kept stating that I just wanted to see a lot of old churches and
buildings and village life. I was 57, out of a job, running through my retirement savings (even if
it was at a slower pace than my walking), getting my second persistently ironic overdose of
Catholic iconography and iconology in 14 months, and—though I missed it—not all that anxious
to return to my everyday life in New York. Ah, the magic of the camino.
The next morning, walking ever on, I could not help continuing to compare the
conditions now with those of the year before. Then I was knee deep in snow and trudging
through featureless fields only by dint of some tractor tire ruts that seemed to have materialized
miraculously. Now it was glorious springtime. So why was I so frigging cold? It was overcast
and still only slightly less windy than the day before. I was not a happy camper by the time I
completed the 10 km to Belorado. It was just after nine; my hands were like ice. I passed bar
after bar in town, and each was shuttered. When I finally found one open, I practically begged
for a café con leche, grabbed the hot cup like it was a lifeline, and gulped down the steamy liquid
in nothing straight. I had to sit on my hands for about 20 minutes before I could negotiate the
knife and fork and eat a magnificent Danish the size of a large dinner plate. That and another
shot of caffeine did wonders to raise my spirits. But it would have little effect on the weather.
Still, I wasn’t going to stay in this burg even if they had a well-stocked English bookstore
and a four-star hotel free for pilgrims with multi-channel television and an amply-supplied gratis
minibar. I gave myself the Dan-Don’t-Be-A-Wimp speech, walked outside, bought a hunk of
smelly local cheese at a market stand that had gone up in the square while I was deicing. I
located a supermercado that had a loaf of that tasty, substantial Spanish brown bread that was
veritable manna from the gods. (Not for the first time I wondered why any place carried that
insipid pan that was as white and tasteless as cotton balls and what I was usually reduced to
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buying.) And even the wind was winding down by now.
By the time I was downing another café con leche 12 km later in Villafranca at a truck
stop, the sun had come out. I had shed a layer of clothing, and my fingers were no worse for
wear. I was well over halfway through my planned day’s journey, but the remaining 13.5 km to
San Juan de Ortega (St. John of the Nettle, by the way) would afford no coffee stops or way
stations of any kind. It would be up and down over three mountain-ettes. The weather report for
the afternoon was bleak; the next day’s was no better. If I stayed here, I would have almost 40
km to Burgos the next day—I would get there too late to do a significant tapas run. Yep, when in
doubt, forge ahead.
Was I whining earlier? Whatever for? It was glorious again. And I was getting the chance
to accomplish the second of the six items on my Must Do List. I was long past dreading
uphills—though they were challenging, going up was actually easier on the knees and shins. The
steep incline right out of the truck stop was through deep forests on a very forgiving earthen
track. The hardwood trees looked either burnt or diseased, but some coniferous bushes had burst
out in green abundance. A profusion of purple gorsey wildflowers was lining the way and
covering the open areas as I took on the Three Altos—first Mojapan, then Pedraja, then the
highest, the abuela of them all, Carnero. Playing leapfrog with a German couple on bicycles, I
would march right past them on the uphills as they grudgingly pushed their vehicles; they would
gaily fly by me on the downhills. Whoever got ahead got to shout out a loud “hola, buenos dias”
and then a laughing “buen camino.”
I overtook a few more small parcels of pilgrims, something that always did wonders for
my mood and self-confidence. It also gave me another chance to play one of my favorite games,
Country of Origin. The trick was to guess where the pilgrim(s) came from before hearing their
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voices. Some clues were dead giveaways: elegant woman with neck scarf and a little bit out of
place? French. Jack Wolfson gear? Gotta be German. The Quechua trademark was a bit more
problematic—that could signal French, Italian, or Spanish. So you had to look for little signs.
The footwear was barely a help, though an Italian would not be outfitted in trainers (my future
hiking buddy Mario was the exception that proved the rule) or have an iota of mud on the uppers.
If it was a Spanish group, one of them would always be unable to walk in a straight line and was
usually a bit overweight. The Italians strode forcefully and had nice haircuts. The French tended
to be older and huddled close together. Just like the caricature, older British men were skinny
and pasty white. The Brazilian flag was visible from quite a distance and helped me correctly
identify quite a few of their many pilgrims. When it was worn as a scarf (very often) it was the
only exception to the French rule.
I was sure that I, too, was the object of others’ guesses. “Look at that flaming orange cap
on that fellow. Must be an American.” “Well, that’s too easy. What about that chin hair? Do you
think he could be from that place that was in that movie? You know, the one where that Hans
Solo fellow had to go hiding. The religious community where all the men had funny beards and
hats, didn’t have belts or cars or electricity, and let their wives bare their breasts to strangers.”
Maybe that was why everyone was so surprised to find out I was from Manhattan and not from
the Amish hinterlands.
Speaking of Americans, I had developed a bit of an allergy to them and was usually eager
to avoid them. After a gander at the lovely church in San Juan de Ortega, I popped into the bar,
ready to switch from one mainstay to another, i.e., coffee to beer. Where did all these tour busses
and people come from? Not able to belly up to the bar in that crowd, I had to wait rather
impatiently. Even though famished now from the hiking and the mountain air, I stalled my
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progress to the bar when I spotted some attractive men not far away. I could hear the accented
English of one of them, obviously Italian (though I couldn’t inspect his shoes). To my horror,
one of the other fellows erupted with an answer in Americanese. In a nutshell, his accent and
intonation summed up a whole non-European world straight out of “Oklahoma” with a tinge of
David Lynch. Openness with hints of Wal-Mart and McDonald’s, the innocence that can morph
into Abu Garib in an instant, freshness that only a one-language culture can impart, the puppy
dog look that lingers past adolescence, and expensive dentition. I instantly fled.
A good thing, too. The albergue here was in the church complex. What it made up for in
atmosphere, it lacked in pilgrim amenities. I don’t think it had been much updated since the
Middle Ages. The bathrooms only had cold water. There were no kitchen facilities. The walls
had more holes than Alberto Gonzales’s congressional testimony. From reports I got later, my
fellow pilgrims almost froze that night. Don’t be taken in by lines like this from my guidebook:
“…far from the distractions and speed of the modern world we find a slower pace and time,
perhaps, to contemplate the inner journey.” (Brierley, 130)
I raced the rapidly accumulating rain clouds to Ages and found a bed, a hot shower, a
place to hang my hand laundry, and that long-awaited beer before the skies fauceted out a deluge
that only highlighted the cozy comforts of my private albergue. Getting an assignment in one of
the three small dorms, I was chagrined that I wasn’t placed with the young folk. But then I didn’t
have to stay with the farting geriatrics who dribbled in later. The public area had a delightful
little eating nook and open access to a 21st century kitchen. My fashion-model beautiful
Brazilian (no flag) hospitalier sat me down and made me a cup of tea as she busily prepared all
the fixings for our dinner that night, a big paella. I was soon joined by two delightful female
German teachers just a few years out of university. Guests from neighboring inns were among
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the diners at the evening’s feast, the perfect ending to a wonderful day that started out so
horribly.
Paella and wine after an arduous day’s hiking 8€.
Earplugs that muffled the noise of a woman who could have won an
international snoring contest 1€.
Being the only American in an international contingent of English speakers
priceless.
Ah, the next morning it was only a hop, skip, and a run of 18 km into Burgos. Under the
gentle morning light and without a cloud in the sky (and more importantly, none of that godawful wind of the previous two days), I practically danced by the green fields of Atapuerca
where the remains of a prehistoric Iberian community were being excavated. I was making good
time and mounting Alto Cruceiro, a peak named for yet another big cross that hovers over a vast
verdant plain. The modern intrusions of Burgos were not yet on the horizon. I had plenty of
chances to play Country of Origin as the area’s numerous small albergues were discharging their
nightly occupants. It was pilgrim overkill—a horde of lemmings streaming up over the hill. We
would not be dashed on rocks on the other side or drown in an inland sea, but our spirits would
soon be dampened on the hard pavement alongside either the N120 or the N1 on the final nine
kilometers into the first big city on the camino.
I was cresting the hill when I spotted an old pilgrim bearing a big staff in one hand and a
rosary in the other. He was ungainly hobbling along in sandals. I may have had a thought or two
of pity as I passed him, but, more probably, it was with a whiff of contempt. So I was brought up
suddenly, when a shout of “Dan, Dan” erupted right after I made a wide berth around him.
Well, the old man turned out to be a friend from Roncesvalles, none other than Simone,
the Italian living in Paris who I had last seen in the cathedral in Pamplona. Then he was heady
with the whole camino experience and was knocking off 40 and 50 km on a daily basis. After
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telling him that I thought he would be nearing Leon by now, he chuckled and said that he heard
that comment a lot lately, as many people he had passed early in the journey were now overtaking him. He sheepishly admitted that those ultra treks on virgin feet had taken their toll—he
had lost the top layer of skin on one of his toes and had more mega-blisters that he cared to
count. His feet and joints may have been in pretty bad shape, but his spirits were still high. I
decided against asking about the rosary which he had, by then, put away. Ignorance was bliss.
I did ask him about the German fellow who was with him in Pamplona. Marcus and an
American couple they were walking with let him get an early start. “They are really nice, like
you,” he added. I did a quick bit of mental calculus and found my desire to see that 6’ 2”
specimen of Teutonic manhood again easily trumped the dread of meeting any Yankees.
Soon Marcus, Christopher, and Felina were with us. He was right—they were a delightful
couple. But they were nothing like me, notwithstanding that they too were upstanding
Midwesterners. They both hailed from Nebraska and worked for a Christian anti-poverty
organization that helped the “poorest of the poor.” They were in their early thirties and had
already been married a few years. Their church group permitted them a sabbatical year which
allowed them to do the camino, a long held desire connected in a very tangible way to their faith.
Felina was hurting as much as Simone—the other two seemed to be in pretty good shape.
Downing at least 1,600mg of ibuprofen a day and getting little relief, she was praying to herself
that morning in order to avoid resorting to some codeine. My constant stream of comments and
questions could not have facilitated her peace of mind or her praying; nor could it have allayed
the pain. The group would cut down their distance to, say, 12 km one day, then feel so good and
go for 40 the next. I tried to emphasize a little moderation and a rest day in Burgos (and the
codeine by all means). They all stopped for a mid-morning coffee in the first village we came to
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and I proceeded on.
The map in my guidebook listed at least three opcions to get into Burgos. Most of the
walkers took the first that passed along the edge of a sand quarry, full of incoming and outgoing
dump trucks. I soldiered on and soon had no idea where I was other than I was not completely
lost. I may have left the lion’s share of pilgrims behind but still had yellow arrows to follow. As
planned, I was on a different route into Burgos than the one I had taken the year before and
which, I thought, could only be an improvement. Ha! It was even more densely industrial and
tacky. I had a long, seemingly endless slog into town but finally rolled into the center of town
late morning. Right outside the old city walls, I took a quick gander inside Iglesia de San Lames,
named after Burgos’ patron saint. I certainly was not expecting his marvelous alabaster effigy
tomb in the center. Then it was a straight shot up to Hotel Londres to check in—the first time in
over six weeks I did not have to share a bedroom and bathroom. The little things in life we take
for granted.
Located on the edge of the high dry plateau of the Meseta in Spain, Burgos has been a
commercial center since Roman times. Its sources of wealth were primarily sheep husbandry and
the pilgrimage trade. Being so strategic and important, it was a favorite abode of royalty, many
of whom are buried in nearby churches and monasteries. It was also a frequent battle site
throughout the centuries. Franco built textile factories in the Civil War and had his northern base
here.
Even though I spent the better part of five days during two visits and saw many
wonderful things, I am sure I only scratched the surface of its many splendors. Perhaps I could
have seen more if I had not been so fervent about exploring its many tapas bars. Besides the
stupendous Gothic cathedral dedicated to the Virgin, there are medieval walls with six extant
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gates into the old city, easily a dozen important churches, a fort on top of the hill, three
monasteries, Casa del Cordon—the palace where Ferdinand and Isabella received Columbus
after his second voyage, a marvelous Beaux Arts opera house, and an upscale residential and
commercial fabric.
After ditching my backpack at the hotel, I made a quick trip to the cathedral. While still
retaining the basic Gothic wedding cake structure, the ample icing is Renaissance, Baroque and
Rococo. It all begins with magnificent entry doors, adorned with tons of sculpture, on the north
and south—its west end was disfigured in an uninspired 18th century renovation. The east end is
a Walt Disney-on-acid wonder. I first visited the structure at dawn on Ash Wednesday the year
before. Only the Santa Tecla chapel, off the northwest corner of the nave, was open and then
only for early worshipers. This magnificent Baroque and Rococo jewel box still sparkled in the
dim morning light. Under a crushingly ornate ceiling, the over-the-top retablo was immense and
lively. It had to be big to depict the whole hectic life of St. Tecla (actually a number of martyrs
are featured on it).
She was a marvelous saint who chose a life of celibacy—a kind of early advocate of
abstinence, I guess. Since she was of noble birth and a quite a matrimonial catch, her choice of
spinsterhood raised the hackles of the pagan authorities. After being stripped naked quite a few
times and paraded before the populace, she survived two near-martyrdoms (burning at the stake
and eaten by wild animals). Then she spent 72 years as a hermit in a cave. I was thrilled to read
of her life in my cultural guidebook but was upset to learn that she was a victim yet again when
she was found to be apocryphal in 1969. (Gitlitz and Davidson, 406)
The Capilla de las Reliquias had ornate urns, boxes, and monstrance-like holders for
dribs and drabs of saints and martyrs—a veritable Who’s Who of Medieval Sanctity. But the
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stunner (and that was saying a lot, as the whole cathedral was a splendid pile) was Capilla del
Condestable. This octagonal gem has an incredible openwork Mudejar-Gothic dome hovering
above. In the center were stunning marble portrait tombs of the Condestables. In addition, it had
dazzling retablos, other striking sculptures and incredible paintings.
Shoehorned into the west end of the nave, the 16th century choir unfortunately breaks up
the sweep of the central vessel of the church. But that hefty chunk of dark walnut was a nice
counterpoint to all the magnificent marble and gold leaf. Though it was roped off, I did get a
peek at the urinating angels and a few other irreverent images that decorate some of the stall
seats. At the transept crossing under a breathtaking lantern tower and dome, El Cid and his wife
now rest. Organs, tombs, a Renaissance retablo of heroic proportions, and a pile of splendid
liturgical loot in the adjacent museum all add up to sensory overload. And I just listed only a
fraction of the delights.
Pilgrims had inundated the city and were reveling in the genial afternoon sun. Many were
scurrying around for a cheap place to stay, as the main municipal albergue was over a kilometer
out of town. Anne Marie, by virtue of her age, got into the centrally located Divinia Pastora
residence which only housed the old or infirm. Little did they know what a trouper she was.
I ran into Simone and friends again and lunched with them. I tried to steer them to some
of the restaurants I knew from my prior visit, but they chose a nondescript touristy place in one
of the main squares. Holding little hope for any decent food, I was pleasantly surprised to find
my black paella to be tastier than the one I had practically just finished in Ages. And it was fun
to chat more with the others.
Marcus was a cardiologist in Germany, married to an anesthesiologist. They had a son
and daughter, six and four. He and I traded ICU shop talk for awhile. Glad to be off his aching
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feet, Simone doffed his shoes in order to perform the time-honored pilgrim ritual of examining
his feet in exquisite detail. This, strangely enough, was not considered at all rude, even right at
the lunch table. On the contrary, the condition of the feet was a constant source of conversational
fodder. Visual display and manual inspection were part-and-parcel of the process. If there were a
“CSI: Camino,” it would be all podiatric investigation and our favorite show.
We switched our attention from Simone’s battered feet to Christopher when he started a
disquisition on his tattoos, past and future. He had a fairly new one on his left bicep that featured
three thin circumferential bands (representing marriage, faith, and community) surmounted by a
nautical compass (symbolizing the guidance so essential in his life and that he got from the base
of the three rings). He also had small crosses in both axillae. He was now strongly contemplating
getting stylized scallop shells and Crosses of St. John somewhere on both biceps when he
returned home. Then it was siesta time.
I had seen the Cistercian Monasterio de las Huelgas, the local museum, all those gates,
Iglesia de San Nicolas de Bari, as well as five more churches last year. Javier, an internet buddy
of mine who promised to show me even more sites, picked me up later in the day and drove to
two more monasteries. Boy, I was racking them up at a furious pace. The first was the famous
Cartuja de Miraflores. Since its doors were slammed shut right as we arrived, I missed more fab
burial effigies, these being for Queen Isabella’s parents and her brother Alfonso. The grounds
around Cartuja were blessedly pilgrim-less and a nice change of pace.
Frustrated there, we went off to the Monasterio San Pedro de Cardena. No royal tombs,
though some sources say El Cid’s horse, Babieca (translation: Stupid!), was buried here. El Cid
was originally put to rest here before he was disinterred and transferred to his present resting
place at the cathedral. Strangely enough, though, I remember his coffin being in the Arco de San
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Esteban, one of the original entrances to the town, suspended on a stone wall high above the fray
(though a postcard in my collection puts it on a cathedral wall). Not far away his stupendous
sculpted body on horseback and with a magnificent flowing cape stands at the entrance of an old
bridge over the Rio Arlanzon. (My Burgos sources deny that the statue is also called “The Bat”
because of that marvelous mantle.) The bridge also sports less imposing statues of the minor
characters from the great medieval epic, “Poema de Mio Cid.”
Now who was this El Cid guy? I had the idea he was a fictional character on par with
Don Quixote, or maybe a long-ago king of a minor territory conveniently shrouded in mystery, a
bit like King Arthur. After seeing his veritable apotheosis in Burgos, I deduced that he must have
been an honest to goodness king along the lines of Charlemagne. After a dive into googledom, I
found out—before my eyes glazed over from all the references to 11 and 12th century nobility,
ignobility, intrigue and wars—he was more a medieval General Grant or Patton. At one point he
even fought for the Moors. Look it up yourself if you need a blow by blow account.
Google or, more specifically, Wikipedia, to my dismay, said that his horse was not buried
at San Pedro as his owner requested. After El Cid’s demise, Babieca was never mounted again,
died of old age at 40 and then, I guess, turned into glue. But, if you want to believe some
apochyphal accounts and Hollywood movies—and who doesn’t?—that is not the complete story.
The horse sorta/kinda was mounted just once more; El Cid’s widow tied his dead body on the
steed and slapped the stallion on into battle. The sight of the valiant hero—known to be badly
wounded—at the forefront of the charge inspired his troops, demoralized his enemies and was
responsible for his last, though posthumous, victory. And people say history was boring.
I was anxious for Javier to show me the demimonde of Burgos gay nightlife since I was
taking the next day off the camino and could really party. But, alas, he was on duty to spend the
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evening with his aging father, an alternating task he shared with his two siblings. And by his
account, conservative, bourgeois Burgos was hardly a homosexual haven; there were no gay bars
or other outlets during the week. The woods around Cartuja (for those with cars) and some
parkland in town abutting the Arlanzon were pretty much the limit of meeting spots. Both those
were active only well after dark and more than a little dangerous. We did have a pleasant parting
drink at a nice café where the bartender was certainly gay. That was not the only reason I left
him a big tip (tipping in Spain amounts to a few pennies of change); I felt a little guilty that I had
wolfed down a large bowl of mixed nuts.
Later out of idle curiosity, I did check out the cruising area that was not far from my
hotel. Not wanting to be another crime statistic, I was careful to leave with only a few euros and
my driver’s license. (If stabbed in the dark, I could still be an organ donor.) The park was
sufficiently well lit that it was more a refuge for local dog walkers than for sybarites. One elderly
chubby fellow, going in and out of the bushes, had that over-eager, come-hither look on his face.
Another muscular young man, loitering under a lamppost while I did my up and down ramble,
showed no interest in me or others. There was a voluble couple on a bench loudly dissing a
Spanish pop star, an Iberian Britney Spears I imagine, whose countenance I was seeing daily as I
checked the weather report in the newspapers. So much for action. At least now gay men worldwide have the internet to meet like-minded individuals. No longer was one just limited to furtive
after-dark cruising in a park or overcoming ear splitting disco music and alcohol excess at
weekend club venues.
No, I did not have an adventure with a Spanish rent boy or some other tawdry one-night
stand to spice up this tale of petulant pilgrims and forays to yet another church or monastery. But
I did have a bit of tongue action there in the park. Ah, do the ears prick up? ´Twas only my own
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which desultorily discovered a large piece of peanut lodged between two of my back teeth. There
a valiant but doomed lingual battle of extrication was fought on my stroll back home. Sometimes
it feels like a nut as they say, but my exuberant chomping earlier in the evening had not left a
remnant but had cracked and dislodged a filling—that was what I was tonguing so briskly. And
finally I was just gently lapping an empty crater in my tooth.
I wasn’t much minding the gap until I ran into a Tasmanian acquaintance early the next
morning who insisted I see a dentist. She, too, had terrible tooth trouble a ways back in the
hinterland and had to take a 100€ taxi to Logroño where she got she got first class service at a
dental clinic. They whisked her in an exam room emergently for x-rays, ultrasound, real
anesthesia, drilling, and four fillings. Furthermore, they refused to take a penny for the overhaul.
“That’s how they treat pilgrims here,” she said, “All the medical care is free.”
It did get me thinking that it might be better to get the tooth attended to here in one of the
few bustling metropolises (though sans gay bars) I would be spending time in for the next few
weeks. Far better than ending up in pain in some Galician outpost and reduced, like my friend, to
an expensive cab ride and no guarantee of modern equipment and treatment. And anyway, I did
not have much else on my dance card.
After tourist information gave me the address of two nearby facilities, I hightailed it to
Vital Dent, a spit-shine clean clinic on the other side of the river. Though they did rustle up a
technician who spoke a bit of English, I was not whisked in ahead of the others or given free
service. But the 48€ charge was hardly extortionate for a cleaning and new filling.
Well, the morning was shot, and it was now lunchtime. On the main tapas street I found a
restaurant frequented by locals with plentiful portions of basic dishes. I had tried to sup some
water back at Vital Dent but found my novocained jaw and lips not up to the task without
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considerable dribbling. So when ordering libation for my meal, I opted for wine instead of agua.
(How is that for an excuse for midday bibulousness?) By tilting my head to the left when
swallowing, I was able to get most of it down my gullet. Solid food was no problem, though
chewing was a bit bizarre. With patience and fortitude I cleaned my plate and downed the hefty
carafe of wine. My afternoon was all set again—siesta time. When in Rome…
It was in Burgos last year that I got my first real exposure to tapas on Spanish soil.
Another internet chum took me to many a restaurant and bar where I got to dabble in those
delectable delights. Derived from the Spanish verb tapar (to cover), the origins of this culinary
delights are unknown. Some think they were originally slices of bread laid over a glass of sherry
to keep off the flies attracted to the sweet beverage. Patrons nibbled on and immensely enjoyed
the added treat, and soon came to demand it. Over time enterprising barkeepers added a bit of
topping—leftovers that would have been thrown out, I imagine—and tapas as we now know
them were born.
Others claimed that purveyors passed bad wine off as fresh by covering it with a small
plate of smelly cheese, thereby masking the lesser odor of the rancid alcohol. Still others had it
that since bar space in Spain was always at a premium, customers had to rest their little dinner
plates on their drinks as they ate, thereby creating the fashion. Then there is the story of a wily
waiter in a windy seaside bar placing a thin slice of cured ham on a glass of sherry for a visiting
king in order to keep out the beach sand. The king knocked down the ham and the sherry and
asked for another, just like the other, and so started a trend.
Whatever the origin, they have evolved into a vast array of little appetizers that can be
sampled when one is just a little bit hungry, when the dining room is closed, or as a short stop on
the long bridge between the noon meal and dinner. Though I have found many of the same ones
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all over Spain, there are many regional favorites to be savored. My older Spanish friends profess
to be appalled that tapas tastings have become an alternative to a sit-down dinner and blame this
development on the tourist trade. My younger ones don’t fret and just partake. As they are
featured at bars and this being Spain, alcohol imbibing goes hand-in-hand with the treats.
In Burgos, each bar seemed to have a tapas theme—seafood here, spiced olive and
vegetable there, and meat-based ones at another, all with correspondingly appropriate wines. By
far, my favorite was the cojunudo (either “satisfying male lover” or “big balls”) at Pancho’s, the
celebrity watering hole. From bottom up, this is a piece of toast, a small slice of grilled chorizo
(spiced sausage), a lightly fried pheasant egg, and a sliver of hot pepper. Burgos is also noted for
their morcilla or blood sausage, another delight not to be missed. It is a firm rich sausage that I
endeavored to try as often as possible.
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Chapter Twelve
Viage a La Meseta Gloriosa
The Tour on the Glorious Meseta
Burgos to Fromista/Leon
With few misgivings, I left the blessed quiet of my hotel room the next morning and was
soon on the Meseta, the high dry plain in central northern Spain. I and many of the other pilgrims
were dreading this part, expecting to find a relentlessly barren, boring landscape, if not sand
dunes and camels. What we (those of us who did not opt for bus or train to Leon) encountered,
though, was some of the most breathtaking scenery along the camino. It certainly had helped that
plentiful rainfall comes in the early spring and that we were not into the infamous torrid months
of summer when this section is parched and oven-like.
The fields were vast, verdant, and green—emerald grassy seas where the gentle breeze
created rolling waves all the way to the horizon. They were dotted at points with stands of a
bright yellow bush. The overarching skies were a glorious blue with just occasional wisps of
cotton-candy cirrus clouds. The pleasant gravel paths we trod were lined with numerous wildflowers, though the stands of vibrant, valiant poppies stood out. The still snow-capped mountains were far in the distance. Not a hint of humidity marred the air, and the temperature stayed
far from scorching.
I spent most of the morning gloriously alone on the trail, passing the few pilgrims who
got out before me. For the last two hours of the 32 km way, I walked and chatted with Rene, a
French Canadian who was doing his second camino in three years. He kept up a nice, even pace
for which I geared down and got comfortable with, and we got into Hontanas a little before two
in the afternoon.
That meant that we had passed by San Bol, a small “alternative” albergue I was unaware
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of but which was later a major topic of conversation on the camino. Because it generated much
conflicting comment by many pilgrims, I am not precisely sure what I had missed. It certainly
lacked a lot of worldly accoutrements like conventional beds, hot water, or showers—one sluiced
freezing cold water from a storage pool for bathing and laundry and slept in a sleeping bag on the
floor. The hospitaliers were described both as drugged out hippies and as very spiritual beings
who never touched alcohol or drugs. Some had it that it was a veritable den of orgiastic
licentiousness. Others, I think more honestly, said it was just a low-key campground of likeminded pilgrims, looking to have a peaceful recess from the Gore-Tex world most of us
inhabited. A woman I walked with later related the tale of a female she knew who stopped there
and was so taken with one of her hosts, a long haired Frenchman, that she decided to forego her
fiancé back home (at least for a while) and move in. All told, it did not seem to be a complete
den of iniquity. The rewards were more spiritual than physical.
I have covered in detail, I think, pride, avarice, envy, wrath, gluttony, and sloth—six out
of the seven deadly sins. But I have skirted and flirted with the whole lust thing. Having hundreds of healthy specimens of both sexes in close quarters, in various states of dress and undress,
away from many of the strictures of regular society for a long stretch, and with ample down time
is surely a recipe for wantonness. Countering with the argument that this journey was to be done
on a higher, non-physical plane would hardly pass muster. I had to confess (not in the literal
Catholic sense) to lust on a daily basis and am sure most, if not all, of my fellow travelers would
do likewise. But the way of the pilgrim seemed to be remarkably chaste.
The albergues were informally policed by self-appointed duenas (though they were
usually old men) who separated any couples doing more than sitting together at the edge of the
beds. These morality sheriffs only claimed—not unreasonably, it must be said—that the weight
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of more than one body would strain the rickety cots. Their eagle-eyed presence surely served as a
damper to any further fondling. Also since the doors close at 10 PM at most places, there isn’t a
lot of time for an extracurricular romp outside. A couple wanting to do more needed to have an
exhibitionist streak, as it was almost impossible to be free of other pilgrims. If more than a fond
friendship did develop, it had to wait for expression in one of the frequent inns or hotels where
lovebirds could get away from the purview of the masses. I did hear—and second hand at that—
of only one in flagrante delicto incident. Returning very late one night to their adjoining berths
in a private albergue in Santiago after everyone else was fast asleep, a heterosexual couple soon
repaired to just one. My sources said the amorous twosome proceeded to go at it…and at it…and
at it for quite some time and with much moaning and groaning. Finally, a neighbor who spoke
their native language yelled out, “Could you just hurry up and finish. We are all trying to get
some sleep.”
I am sure that masturbation was not unknown—some people sure took long showers—
but that could be done quietly and, hopefully, unobtrusively. And there were always roving eyes
that would not so surreptitiously linger on bodies in various states of dress. (“Yes, your honor,
guilty as charged. But I didn’t gawk!”) An American woman I later met had a nasty encounter
with a Spanish man who called her over to his truck where he ever so graciously shared the view
of his erect member. She was less than amused but too flustered to give it a good smack or grab
his keys before he could get away. From some internet accounts of their journeys, I found out
that other women had similar experiences.
I think things get dicier in high summer when the number of bodies at the albergues
swells. Since a lot of these are hormone-(un)controlled college students, gloriously happy to be
away from parental eyes and reduced to sleeping on the floors or outside, things might reach a
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different pitch. I have read of pilgrims departing early in the morning and finding nearby bushes
festooned with used condoms. But I can’t offer firsthand knowledge of that.
Our 12th century chronicler certainly reports more action:
… when the Navarrese are warming themselves, a man will show a woman and
woman a man their private parts. The Navarrese even practice unchaste fornication with
animals. For the Navarrese is said to hang a padlock behind his mule and his mare, so
that none may come near her but himself. He even offers libidinous kisses to the vulva of
a woman and mule. That is why the Navarrese are to be rebuked by all experienced
people. (Shaver-Crandel and Gerson, 73)
So there was rampant sex on the pilgrimage—in Navarra anyway, and I was just 800
years too late.
Back on the camino, Hontanas was in a depression in the vast plain and not visible from a
distance. One just dropped right down into this tiny dusty town of just one bar and no shops. The
substantial 14th century church in a lovely square belied the town’s small size and was a relic of
a more glorious past. The one- and two-story dusty buildings, its location on the plain, and its
remoteness gave it a Wild West feel. All we needed were some banditos swooping down on us to
complete the scene.
The municipal albergue, a real delight, was an imaginatively renovated old building
where I was eager to stay. A hand-built wooden central stair leads to the open and lofty dorm
rooms with alcoves of multiple bunk beds under the eaves. The bathrooms were big and airy.
The kitchen was also vast, rustic but clean, with lots of open-shelf cabinets, wooden counters,
and a big wooden table with benches.
But the designers were a little too cute. The bathroom sinks were great to look at but too
small and unwieldy (no ledges for toiletries, for instance). The ladders to the upper bunks were a
series of circles cut into stout pieces of plywood and, though attractive, required the skills of a
gymnast to climb up. Going down took a true contortionist. The wooden lockers were a good
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idea but too small for most packs. The kitchen benches were perfect for a photo spread but
uncomfortable to sit on for any length of time. The community room with fireplace was well
proportioned and welcoming, but from its dusty look it seemed that it had never caught on as a
gathering place. Quibble, quibble, all it took was pleasant group inhabiting it for the night to
make it a tranquil way station for the night.
With no backyard, we all strung our hand washing on folding racks and lines on the
street. Like generations of Spanish abuelas, we spent the bulk of the afternoon sitting out front
and watching who was coming into or exiting out of the town and waiting for something to
happen. I just needed my knitting to complete the picture.
We didn’t have to wait long. Soon a group of about 75 boisterous 11- and 12-year-olds
on a two-day mini-camino invaded the town—the banditos had arrived. They were herded into
the town square and given some lunch. They all had their own backpacks, some quite substantial
and probably borrowed. As this was their first day of walking, almost all were still full of
enthusiasm and vigor. A few, though, looked distinctly unenthusiastic and already out of steam.
(They were all much worse for wear when I spotted them in a schoolyard in Castrojerez the next
day.) They were at that pre-awkward age before their hormones (see above) started raging, and
surliness replaced wide-eyed innocence.
Several of them soon escaped the fold and were doing the two-minute tour of the town.
Anxious to practice his English, one young fellow asked me where I was from. When I replied,
“New York City,” his eye doubled in size, and he practically moaned, “Oh, my god, ever since I
was five. No, ever since I was three, I wanted to go there.” My, more than half his young life he
had been dreaming of the bright lights of Broadway and Times Square. And this more mature
pilgrim bunch, mostly urban Europeans, was here on the camino savoring rural simplicity.
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Besides Anne Marie and Rene, another pilgrim came into my sphere. This was Kristoff,
yet another German. A social work student in university, he was very hip and sporting a stylized
Jesus Christ tattoo on his arm. He loved Christian rap groups and seemed to attend a lot of
Christian conferences. Highlighting his trim body was a black Donuts t-shirt. (Donuts—the “o”
was a skull—is an American music group he could not believe I had never heard of.) He was
getting very excited about the swimming pool at the Boadilla albergue, his stop the next day.
The Germans, you see, were armed with the best, most current (some of us even
wondered if they somehow got daily updates) and most comprehensive guidebook. Its rating
system was superior to the one in mine which extolled ersatz authenticity over creature comfort
and efficiency. And theirs had easy to understand icons for such amenities like swimming pools
that had me green with envy. Since there were so many Germans on the camino, they also had a
well-established word-of-mouth information sharing system. For a good time, stick with the
Germans.
I wanted a Belgian from Brussels that day, though, to share Hontanas’ answer to the
Mannekin Pis, a ghastly—well, I don’t know what to call it. A statue, fountain, or lawn ornament
didn’t really quite capture the bizarre nature of the greater-than-life sized, badly-detailed
concrete figure of an unclothed man, penis in hand and ready to pee. A green garden hose trailed
off his backside and through the yard and provided a steady stream when opened. This thing
stood facing the road at the side of an equally bizarre and overwrought crenelated castle of a
house—lordy, well beyond a McMansion in an American suburb.
Our tour of the town was soon over, and it was back to the albergue and puttering about
until dinner time. That was the camino’s dirty secret. Dirty Secret? No, we just took care of the
whole sex thing a short while ago, remember? But it is time for some truth telling, if you haven’t
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quite gotten the gist of the daily grind. A lot of the camino was just downright boring. The day
has 24 hours. Sleep at most was eight hours, walking usually between six and eight more. There
were two hours devoted to minute examinations and anointing of feet, as well as showering and
other bodily functions. You could use up two more shopping and eating. That left your average
pilgrim about four to six hours stuck in a tiny backwater with not a whole heck of a lot to do.
One could, and did, nap. There was almost always a bar stop for the occasional beer or
bottle of wine, much appreciated. The behind-the-scenes taunting and deriding of fellow pilgrims
consumed an inordinate amount of time, but such shenanigans left one feeling less than holy or
properly spirited. Another big topic, along the same lines, was which nationality had ticked you
off the most recently. Everyone was so tired, anyway, that conversation tended to be limited to
what the end point of the next day’s walk would be, the amount and extent of foot and joint
problems and other assorted pilgrim esoterica.
Even when walking, one was beset by ennui of a particular order. Ideally, the beauty and
depth of the mind’s musings should mirror the majesty of the landscape. But one could only be
enthused about the scenery for so long—even when it was as fabulous as it had been of late. The
view just didn't change much when you go at a five-kilometer-an-hour clip. Hoping to tackle the
bigger problems of life, one quickly realized that greater minds had grappled with the issues of
world peace and elimination of poverty without a whole lot to show. Then one’s thoughts would
go off on a tangent in order to probe important questions such as whether or not two-tone dress
shoes were really ever appropriate for a business meeting. Or why Wendy Hiller was not
universally recognized as the best film actress of all time.
Worse would be those times when on a solitary segment, one’s mind wandered to an
immature, uncharitable, or just plain stupid episode in one’s past. It would occur as a kind of
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loop in the brain that would play and replay over and over. One could look out on the wonderful
landscape and vainly try to clear the mind. Or hopelessly try to change the mind’s channels to
find an episode when one acted nobly, valiantly, or brilliantly. Was that why so many pilgrims
kept up steady trivial patter?
There was song, of course—an escape I was always eager for. These wide-open spaces
just screamed out for some caroling. Without a convenient pocket to stash my song lyrics within
easy reach, I had long since stopped trying to use them to unleash my inner diva. Anyway, I
could not afford to make a wrong turn or trip over a big stone while screeching like one of the
ever-present storks. Besides, being rarely off by myself anymore in this pilgrim-loaded part of
the course, I could not really belt out a number.
When I found out my little German buddy was also interested in singing en route, I
decided to revise my practice of solitary and song-less sauntering. Kristoff was musing about
marching to the tune of some of ditties he learned while doing his army service. Eager to add
those numbers to my repetoire, I would then divert him from international Christian punk rock to
the glories of 60s folk rock and 70s disco. But we got separated all too soon.
For dinner that night, he and Rene added a can of meatballs, some sliced sausage, and
pasta to my packets of dried soup for a very hearty, though strange, one-dish dinner we all
shared. A bottle of wine from the only bar in town helped us gulp down that peculiar concoction.
It was early to bed that night and early to exit in the morning at 6:30.
Rene and I walked most of the next day together. The way and weather were again
stunning—the green fields, poppies, etc., etc. The sun did get a bit warmer but was hardly
blazing. After passing the remains of another former St. Anthony’s Fire hospital, we tarried just
long enough for my usual morning pick-me-up in Castrojerez, a small but trendy tourist town
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with numerous churches down below and the ruins of a castle higher up on a crag. Further on
past the town was Alto Mostelares, the last hill of any consequence we had to climb until we got
beyond Astorga—almost a week of walking away. Rene and I whisked our way up that rise
without a hitch in our pace. I could not help comparing the ease of this walk with last year’s
when we had to do the climb in a stiff wind and with spirit-dampening mud. (Though it could not
hold a candle to the tenacious muck of Navarra, the mud in Castile and Leon more than made up
for it in quantity.) Having planned to go an additional seven kilometers to Fromista, I succumbed
to the lure of the swimming hole and so joined the crowd in Boadilla.
Ach, we were two weeks too early for pool parties—the cover was still on. Since this
little village, like the others, had few delights to keep me fully occupied (see above on boredom),
I might have walked on. But a humpy, shirtless rider on a magnificent snow-white steed passed
us on our way into town. I figured if the town was good enough for him, it certainly was for me.
Of course, since he didn’t hang out in the church or the albergue, it was fate that we would not
meet again—though I spent an inordinate amount of time watching the storks in the horse
pasture across from my home for the night, hoping to catch at least another glimpse.
We had been seeing a lot of storks along the way. Though increasing numbers overwinter
in Spain, most travel back from Africa in the middle of March. Storks mate for life and return to
the same nest each year. We spotted them as solitary wanderers in the fields searching for little
varmints—probably why the farmers liked them too—and nesting on the church towers in
villages and towns. Tall, gangly and long-billed, the black-and-white stately birds were favorites
on the camino because of their reputation for steadfastness and faithfulness.
The year before I was a witness to stork mating rites—so I guess I did encounter some
sex on the way. Anyway a stork porno show is quite a scene, what with the long legs and bills
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and all. It involves puffing up of chest, ruffling of the feathers, and flapping of wings as the male
mounts the female. The actual act itself is rather brief, lasting only ten seconds at most. What I
liked best, though, had to be the accompanying audio— amplified by the journey up his long
neck, his tender little love coos were transformed into piercing, screeching cries. Such a caterwaul is not my idea of fortuitous fore- or inter-play, but, then again, I am not a stork. It is a little
harder to anthropomorphize birds than mammals, but I don’t want to begin to imagine the male
looking at his mate in post-coital bliss, blinking those beady, stabbing eyes and clucking, “Baby,
that was the best cloacal kiss I ever had. Got a cigarette?”
Actually, it was stork central here in Boadilla. The field was alive with the stalking birds
looking for tasty rodent tidbits for their ravenous offspring. The pavement all around the nearby
church tower was crusted deep with their doo. The tower itself lacked a much needed air traffic
controller for the mammas and poppas who were keeping up steady food deliveries to the
youngsters in the many nests. Swoop swoop, aerial acrobatics a plenty, and a scene almost as
exciting as avian fornication.
I wanted only to hear the approach of that magnificent white charger and see if that
modern-day shirtless knight wanted to practice his English. I wasn’t the only one listening and
waiting for horses—in the courtyard the albergue owner’s dog was lounging around like the
loafing peregrinos. But when he heard a neigh from the lesser steeds across the way in the
pasture, he would race out— if necessary upsetting a late arriving pilgrim coming through the
gate—and over to the field where he would bark like mad for a short spell before trotting back
and resuming his siesta. I and many of my camino amigos, starved for any diversion, found this
repetitive show immensely entertaining. The owner’s nephew couldn’t enlighten me on the
dog’s motivation—yet another camino mystery.
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There was only a single dusty shop in the town (and no bar other than the one at our
residence). An ancient couple who lived on the premises ran it in a slapdash manner without any
posted hours. If fact, they seemed to unlock the door merely by whim. It was possible to get
service (with a smile even) if you could bang on the door loud enough for one of the soundchallenged proprietors to hear and slowly respond. Since people were on different schedules, one
of our crew was usually sauntering up the street and peeking in. If one of the octogenarians was
spotted in the shop, the pilgrim would wave down the street to another who would spread the
word that it was time to stock up. A small stream of hikers would then amble up to peruse the
wares.
The couple also had a random pricing system. Someone paid dearly for a few slices of
ham which another got for a song. As the old man finagled with the slicing machine while
simultaneously bellowing out instructions to his wife, I was fearing that someone was going to
get a bit of bloody finger along with his sandwich meat. The canned goods had labels long-since
faded. I bet they could even have rustled up some fantastic eight-track flamenco tapes from
under the counter. The bread seemed to be the same vintage as our vendors, so I elected to have
dinner at the albergue restaurant.
I learned that day from an e-mail message that a friend in Leon was free for the weekend,
i.e., the next two days, and that he had planned a tour of some architectural marvels a bit off the
beaten path. Since it was a good four or five days of walking away, I decided that I would just
catch a train or bus from Fromista the next morning and go to Leon for the weekend.
So it was with a strangely light heart that I traveled on the next morning. Almost six
weeks of hiking and I was getting a break (not just a rest day like I had in Burgos or my semiinfirm stay in Moissac). But I would be leaving a rather nice group of pilgrims, including Jane, a
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Danish woman who walked with me that morning. Life on the road was like that—just another
variation of “Me and Bobby Mc Gee,” a song I just knew Kristoff would love and cherish when
we sang it in a duet.
With a long layover in Fromista until the 11 AM train, I spent the time in the usual
manner, downing café con leches and exchanging camino chat with various and sundry walkers
not yet on the trail. I also opened up my shin splint clinic in the back of the bar for two pilgrims
in pain.
The first was a very pleasant Dutch man named Root who had been reduced to doing just
a few kilometers a day. He had been getting conflicting advice on what to do for his malady. I
added more medical jargon and personal experience to his accumulated store and suggested he
do the rest/elevation/ice/motrin/motrin/motrin routine until essentially pain free—even if it took
several days. I should have taken him to Leon with me for the weekend.
Then who should limp in but my Tasmanian buddy Richard, who I hadn’t seen awake
since Logroño. He was in similar shape as Root and got the same doggerel diagnosis. Another
one I should have taken to Leon, eh? Actually, I was figuring that my weekend jaunt and return
trip here would put me back on the camino on Monday at which time one or the other would
have recovered. The best laid plans of mice and men.
I finally saw the interior of the marvelous late 11th century Romanesque gem, San
Martin, now a museum. (The severely curtailed mid-winter opening hours precluded a viewing
on my previous visit.) It is a three-aisled structure with two towers and a round apse. The
sculpture program for the capitals and corbels, inside and out, was especially impressive.
Though a delight, it would have been livelier as a functioning church.
Then it was on to the train station. Who should be there but Manfred and Erica, the
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Austrian couple whom I first met back in French Basque country. This was a day for renewing
old acquaintance. They had had enough of the Meseta and were hopscotching on to Leon. I
would see them one more time (but they not me) at Finisterre, the end of the line. Another
German man, Florian, who ran out of vacation time, accompanied us to Palencia for a transfer to
Leon. From there he would head home, hopefully to come back next year and finish.
For the second leg there were two trains—an earlier express and a local about an hour
later. Since our tickets were supposedly not good for the express, I spent ten additional euros and
drove the ticket master crazy getting a seat on the earlier train. Without the computer code for
the refund on the second portion of my hand-written ticket, both available agents had to work to
figure out my fare and issue a new ticket while I held up both lines. All for naught, I boarded the
train with Erica, Manfred, and Florian—the conductor looked at their tickets and ushered them
on anyway.
My friend Miguel met me at the station and drove me to my hotel. Wow, my first car trip
since New York City; one could get used to such service. We then took in, in short order, the
cathedral, the Roman walls, and Leon’s recently-opened contemporary art museum which won
the Mies van der Rohe award for outstanding modernist architecture in the EU just that year. It
was a huge and stunning building but the collection was pretty much non-existent—just your
basic, vague video installations and some oversized multi-media claptrap. (I think every major
city in Spain had a recently constructed modern art museum. Maybe there just wasn’t that much
art to go around.) And I was complaining about all those Madonnas earlier?
Leon was one of the few large cities on the camino and is one of my favorites in Spain.
Because of some unscheduled disruptions, I got to spend more time here than most pilgrims. An
injury last year had me on a hiking hiatus for the better part of a week. At that time I trained it
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here from Sahagun, spent five days recovering from my shin splint, returned by train to where I
had stopped walking, then hoofed back for an overnight stay. What with another two visits this
time—again once by train and once by foot, I really got to know the city and its monuments
better and have become quite a cheerleader for its charms. Wanting to convey my enthusiasm for
these in this account, I hope I don’t confuse you in describing the highlights of my exploits here
over four separate visits.
Leon was founded back in the year 70 AD by the Romans. The Visigoths and the Moors
later held sway over the ever-growing city. The Leonese royalty that ruled after the reconquest in
846 included such luminaries as Sancho the Fat and the hunchback Orduno the Evil. There was a
large and influential Jewish population who got short-shrift at the end of the 13th century when
they were forbidden to own land. A few years later they were required to wear yellow badges.
(Hm, that sounds familiar.) Madonna—the pop star, not our ever-present BVM—and others
would surely know that Moses ben Sem Tov de Leon compiled Kabbalah’s preeminent text, the
“Zohar” here.
Santa María de León Cathedral is the most prominent monument. Started at the beginning
of the 13th century, it was built as a slightly smaller version of the classic Late Gothic cathedral
of Rheims. The local gentry and church elders enlisted the mighty powers of the monarchy and
papacy to get the thing constructed in an astoundingly short period of 100 years. (That took a lot
of indulgences. Was it mere coincidence that the Jews lost their property right at this time?)
Subsequent additions were minor, and what we now behold is a stunningly pure structure. It sits
on the crest of a bit of a hill that declines steeply off on its east end and so gets a steady
unobstructed source of daylight. On the west is a large broad plaza always crisscrossed by locals
and tourists. Here I spent a lot of quality time quietly contemplating the towers and portals of the
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main façade the year before from a bench with a bag of ice on my sore shin. Between periods of
cold compresses, leg elevation and trips to the nearby Café Europa for libation and more ice, I
would wander through the church and peer at the jewel-like stained glass windows in the
changing light. Occasionally a practicing organist would break the hush. Since the Spanish word
for ice, hielo, is pronounced like the color, I refer to this time as my Mellow Yellow Period.
The museum located in the attached cloister is also worth a visit. It holds more medieval
virgins than you would think possible. And I rather liked the life-sized grisly statue of death
which made an interesting counterpoint to a rather robust, beatific St. Sebastian. But the painting
of St. Erasmus (Elmo) getting his intestines winched from his abdomen out-trumped even those.
You would think disembowelment was bad enough, but it was only the icing on his
martyrdom cake. Prior to that—and I abridge the lengthy Wikipedia account—he was “beaten
with leaden mauls until his veins broke and burst,” then “thrown into a pit of snakes and worms,
and boiling oil and sulfur were poured on him but ‘he lay therein as he had lain in cold water,
thanking and loving God.’” Then he was “put in a pan seething with rosin, pitch, brimstone lead,
and oil.” Did he crack? No, old Erasmus was like the post 9/11 Bush—more a “Bring ‘em on!”
kind of guy. So they tried “a searing hot cloak and metal coat” then moved on to a “barrel full of
protruding spikes.” Then he had his teeth “plucked out with iron pincers,” was bound to a pillar
and had his skin carded. Then he was roasted upon a gridiron as they pounded “sharp nails of
iron in his fingers.” Then naked on the ground, his neck, arms, and legs were tethered to horses
and pulled “so that all his veins and sinews…burst.” But he got away, was recaptured, refused to
recant and had another few bouts of whipping and boiling pitch, as well as being made into a
human torch. He also survived a long stay in prison without food, escaped and was recaptured.
And only then did some sly sadist come up with the successful method immortalized so vividly
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in the Leon museum picture.
As satisfying a tale as that is, it probably just ain’t true. Most authorities now believe that
the gut winching thing was just a misreading of the saint’s usual iconography. St. Erasmus, or
St. Elmo, also survived several lightning strikes out on the water (hence, St. Elmo’s Fire) and so
is the patron saint of sailors. Because of his marine connection, he was commonly pictured with
a windlass. Not familiar with the nautical use of this instrument, landlubbers mistakenly inferred
that our saint was the recipient of the world’s first total colectomy and often pictured him as I
viewed him in Leon.
Off martyrs, onto morsels. Prior to dinner, Miguel and I went bar hopping and tapas
sampling. In Leon, like Burgos, there is a large cluster of bars in the old part of the city. Each
bar, though, had its own dainty little free-of-charge specialty which was served with your drink.
At different establishments, we had garlic soup, potatoes with cheese sauce, various meats, and
grilled vegetables along with glass after glass of wine. I can’t imagine how we were able to walk
much less do justice to our lamb roast at the dinner that followed.
I will always associate Leon with food—not only because of the tapas but because it was
the first place on the camino where I had a meal in an upscale restaurant. The year before, I took
a long hobble out to San Marcos, a former monastery complex that housed the Order of Santiago,
a military fraternity modeled on the Knights Templar and Hospitallers of St. John. The original
building was a ruin by the middle of the 15th century, but the Order was still extremely powerful
and a threat to the monarchy. Ferdinand I of Ferdinand and Isabella fame took control of the
group and decided to make San Marcos a showplace, a “mother of all motherhouses.” (Gitlitz,
261) In that he and his descendents succeeded. The façade was at least as long as a football field
and a dazzling Renaissance Plateresque masterpiece. The former monastery still retains some of
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its power and glory nowadays, since it has been converted into a luxury parador (governmentrun hotels in Spain that are housed in architecturally significant buildings).
It was all spiffed up for and full of modern day knights of industry and upper middle
class minor royalty. And me. I must say that I was worried about going to a five-star restaurant in
pilgrim drag. I needn’t have—though my clothes were not the cleanest, I was startled to find that
they were not the most casual. Ah, the Americanization of Europe is almost complete.
On the menu was a noted regional delicacy, pig’s feet, a dish that had already taken my
small-C catholic food tolerance to its limit. But I had a bland octopus appetizer to set the stage.
Then I feasted on a wonderful local dish, Las Migal del Pastor, a sautéed mound of crumbled
day-old bread, salt, paprika, olive oil, ham and sausage in the middle of a huge platter. This little
mountain was topped by a fried egg, while around it were little heaps of seven accompaniments:
crisp fried bacon, roasted red pepper, roast pork pieces, apple slices, a sweet and spicy black
paste, fried mushrooms, and Iberian ham. It was really quite nice.
I couldn’t identify the paste, though. When the Spanish-speaking waiter told me proudly
that this was their famous morcilla (blood sausage you will remember), I equally proudly used
my pitiful store of Spanish and said, “Y Burgos” or “And Burgos too.” He was horrified (not by
my accent or grammar, by the way) and launched into a long diatribe, for which my Spanish was
unequal, about the difference and obvious superiority of theirs. For my edification, he called over
the maître d' to translate and enlighten me. It turned out that their secret ingredient was onion,
not the rice of Burgos. As delicious as it was, I had to agree than I preferred their version but was
looking forward to sample many more types every chance I could.
The next morning on this trip, I rose early and popped into San Isidro for a service in a
small chapel off the nave, where I was easily the youngest celebrant. San Isidro is, unfortunately,
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in the figurative shadow of the cathedral and not much visited. Named for St. Isidore of Seville,
the author of the first encyclopedia, the basilica is a ponderous, yet welcoming, barrel-vaulted
Romanesque structure. A large plaza gives way to two immense Renaissance sculpted portals.
Out of sheer boredom, I had also attended an evening service there the year before. That turned
out to be a fabulous high Mass complete with three priests arrayed in scarlet vestments as they
carried on in front of the exuberant Gothic retablo and under the vast barrel vaulting. The
singing of the six red-robed acolytes did a lot to enliven the austerity of the interior. What a way
to view a church.
Below the church is a museum and another Pantheon de los Reyes, the final resting place
for 11 kings, 14 queens, and numerous princes and princesses and whatnot. With my visits here,
to the one in Najera and to the granddaddy of them all in El Escorial near Madrid as well as to
those of Ferdinand and Isabella and issue in Granada (on other trips to Spain), I have probably
seen more Spanish royal tombs than all but a handful of people in the world. I wish just looking
at their bronze or marble countenances lying so peacefully on their caskets would translate
directly into understanding the history of the Iberian Peninsula. But I find the nitty gritty surrounding the four kingdoms of Navarra, Aragon, Castile and Leon along with those later
Hapsburgs and Bourbons to be just too confusing to keep straight. And their family histories are
nothing compared to the numerous wars, both civil and international, that was a constant
throughout Spanish history.
No, just give me pretty pictures, stately buildings and the occasional wacky tale. And
here in the San Isidro basement over those royal sepulchers are some amazing 12th century
frescoes covering most of the barrel vaults of the 12 bays. This was the history I could cotton
to—ancient tombs, fabulous carved capitals and a still fresh-looking painting cycle on the themes
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of childhood, the Passion and life of Christ literally at my fingertips. It was a mini-course in
medieval genealogy, astronomy, agriculture, and commerce.
After my second Mass in as many years at the church, Miguel picked me up for an arteryclogging breakfast of churros con chocolate, long logs of fried dough one dips in thick rich
chocolate. Then we drove off to San Miguel de la Escalada, a well preserved Mozarabic
monastery church about 30 km from town which we had all to ourselves. The south porch had
wonderful horseshoe arches and sculpted marble capitals. Inside, the horseshoe arches and
sculpture program continued and were complimented by two marvelous carved altar tops. On the
way back, we passed villagers carrying baskets of freshly gathered eggs and buckets of milk
back from their barns.
Back in Leon, Miguel had sacrosanct Sunday dinner duty with his family. So I trotted off
to the cathedral again where the sparkling stained-glass interior provided a grand and calming
oasis. Of course, I was seeing a lot of pilgrims but recognized none of my regulars until I ran into
Roberto, the Italian nurse whom I parted ways with in Burgos. He was in great spirits and really
relishing the walking after his rocky start. He and an Italian woman living in Spain and also a
pilgrim joined me for another tapas run. Unfortunately, a quick tour of the bar district revealed
that Sunday night was not one for imbibing wine and savoring tasty morsels. I guess the bar
personnel had family obligations like Miguel, because not a single establishment was open.
If I had any desire about skipping a portion of the camino and continuing from Leon, I
was able to squelch it. I didn’t want to be like Erica and Manfred or risk the antipathy of other
serious pilgrims. I had another six weeks in Spain and could not plead lack of time. Furthermore,
the Meseta was stunning. So, off it was back to Fromista the next morning. I actually picked a
good time for a weekend off—I missed two days of pretty heavy rains on the trail. I was able to
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keep fairly dry in Leon with all my bar- and church-hopping.
During another long layover in Palencia, I went up to their cavernous cathedral for a visit.
Under a flamboyant Gothic ceiling, there was at least one stunning retablo. I chalked up another
Mass—attending these was more an anthropological investigation of the local populace than
personal religious fervor. Remaining the unquestioning, ironic witness to faith during these
celebrations, I got to see the interiors, better lit for the services, of some significant structures.
Another little chapel near the train station was also worthy of a visit.
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Chapter Thirteen
Viage a Los Llanos de la Senda
The Senda Flats Tour
Leon/Fromista to Leon
Though it was early afternoon already, I got to my destination Fromista with enough time
to walk the 20 km to Carrion de los Condes. Here is the beginning of the senda—long, stretches
of straight, unvarying gravel walks in Castile and Leon that parallel national highways. This
particular section has a dreadful reputation for being boring and charmless, but it didn’t bother
me unduly on two pass-throughs. (I can imagine they are more horrid in the summer heat and
when hordes of motorized “pilgrims” clog the nearby roads). Brierley, the author of my guide
rails against them at length. He indicates that the letters stand for Soulless Errors of National
Development Agencies. I somehow don’t think this was a direct translation from Spanish.
There were some alternate routes off in the countryside, more-or-less tractor paths
through the vast fields. After the first village, I headed off on one of these and was again out—to
give Brierley his due—in glorious nature, merrily trotting next to a bubbling brook of an
irrigation channel. At the next village, I somehow missed the waymark to the next off-senda
variant and was soon walking along the main road. (Word later was that the other route had been
washed out by spring flooding and was not passable.)
I was tempted to bypass Villasirga and miss their main draw, the magnificent Santa
Maria la Blanca basilica which I had already seen. Fondly remembering a pleasant interlude in
the bar across from the structure, I headed into town for a break. But I skipped a chance for a
beer, and visited the church anyway. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out the building
program and worried not the least about bed availability at my next stop. The church looked like
two structures mashed rather ungainly into one. Again, like the delightful church back in
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Fromista, it was a designated national treasure and now more museum than functioning church—
and another reminder that the sights on the camino harkened back to a more glorious past.
On my way into town, a wailing ambulance passed me going the other way. A South
American female pilgrim was found dead in her bed in the albergue that morning. These things
do happen.
I ran into two German men, Tobias and Sebastian, whom I had met earlier on the camino.
Tobias was a tall and handsome high school science teacher, newly out of college. He had been
walking with a humpy blonde number and that man’s grandfather. I had spotted and chatted with
them in Roncesvalles, Larasoaña, and Cuzir Menor, where I got the feeling that Blondie hated
pretty much everything about the camino: the walking, the crowded albergues, and the chores
necessary for food preparation and laundry. After a bad blister got infected, he ended up in the
hospital on I.V. antibiotics and was now happily back in Germany. His grandfather, even more
happily with the millstone of his petulant grandson off his neck, was now way ahead and
reveling in every aspect of the walk. Tobias, a man of few words, also seemed to be taking
pleasure in the whole process too even though he had his share of blisters and serious hip pain.
Having started his pilgrimage all the way back in Germany, Sebastian had been on the
road twice as long as me. He was a very pious Catholic whom I had first spotted heartily
participating at the pilgrim benediction in Roncesvalles. Among other things, he was cataloging
the names of every church and cathedral (he was aghast when one confused the two) he passed
along the way by photo and notebook entry. He even showed me his schematic diagram
annotating the whole capital sculpture program at the Moissac cloisters. I wanted to scream that
that was what the internet was for nowadays. But then I figured that he, like all of us, needed
some busy work on this long haul.
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We walked together to Carrion and found the joint jam-packed. This late in the day, I
really did not expect to get a coveted place in the Monasterio de Santa Clara, a 13th century
convent where St. Francis of Assisi supposedly stayed on his pilgrimage. Two other albergues
were also full. A Spanish pilgrim from Mallorca rescued us by guiding us over to a functioning
convent of more recent vintage that had big drafty dormitories. These were the only beds in town
and were soon filled. The bathrooms and showers were pretty basic—not much for laundry
facilities either. Since the valve on my drinking system had sprung a leak and dampened all my
pack contents, I had to wash almost everything in my possession. Because of my late arrival, the
cloud cover and a prediction of rain, I didn’t have much hope of drying anything by morning.
Just another one of those times I seriously questioned why I was so far away from hearth and
home.
The town, located on high bluffs above the river, was at one time quite rich and
influential, hence the numerous churches, monasteries, and convents. Iglesia de Santiago, now a
museum, had a monumental frieze on its façade. The contents inside were primarily
ecclesiastical. Another epic façade was on the monastery of San Zoilo, across the river, which I
saw at dawn the next morning.
Saint Zoilo was a martyr from Cordoba. The son of the monastery’s rich founders
brought the saint’s relics here after he received them as his preferred payment for helping the
Moors. These especially potent relics cured a blind pilgrim in days gone by. He prayed near them
all night and had his vision back by morning. Don’t you wonder how that transpired? Did his
sight come back suddenly? Or was it a gradual affair based on the depth and length of his prayer?
And, if so, was he hoping that the night would last just a little bit longer so that he would be even
more eagle-eyed by sun up? Hm, one wonders.
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I passed Iglesia de Santa Maria with barely a glance. And so I missed the sculpted bulls
and women that commemorate a Christian victory over the Moors. The Moors, you see, required
the locals to provide 100 virgins (female, I assume—though a surfeit of inexperienced and
unmarried men must have built up after a while) a year as tribute. The townspeople had no
recourse but prayer, but that proved to be quite effective. A herd of wild bulls miraculously
appeared one day, attacked, and defeated the Moors. Hence, they were immortalized in the
church decorative program. The power of prayer!
Since I did not have my Gitlitz/Davidson camino cultural guide with me this trip, I was
blissfully unaware of the significance of all these monuments. I sometimes did regret that I was
doing this in the current secular age. It must have been marvelous for a true believer to encounter
these buildings, relics, miracles and legends along the way. (And many modern day pilgrims do
walk for purer, religious reasons.) Of course, those pilgrims of olden days would probably eye
our access to indoor plumbing, hot showers, and supermercados with more than a bit of envy.
I intended to do 40 km the next day. After a glorious morning hike, I stopped about
halfway in Caldadilla de la Cueza for coffee and tostadas and ran into Root, my ailing Dutch
friend from Fromista. After all my advice, he rested but a day then valiantly soldiered on, ending
up here in agony. But he found a certified physical therapist who was treating him with rest,
elevation and soaking his leg in the ice cold water of the albergue’s otherwise still-closed
swimming pool (more or less my regime, by the way). He told me Tasmanian Richard had
recovered with just a day of rest and was back walking.
Last year, this tiny backwater was where I met Sylvio, a true eccentric among the many
characters I encountered on both pilgrimages. A successful 37-year-old Brazilian criminal
lawyer, he was half-Spanish by his father and half-German by his mother and carried Spanish
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and Brazilian passports. I guess I should say that he had carried them. While he was on his way
to Spain, his Brazilian one—along with almost all of his possessions and 800€—was stolen in
Marseilles. By his account, he had to go to Italy because of French intransigence to his plight. In
Genoa he got help (money, papers?) from the Spanish consulate enabling him to get to Barcelona. Now still penniless and possessionless, he stayed homeless on the street for a day or two.
His Spanish uncle was not in the country. Issued in Brazil, his American Express Gold Card
could not be replaced in less than five days, and he was unwilling to stay anywhere that long to
wait to receive it. Some sympathetic people gave him a sleeping bag, some clothing and enough
money to enable him to get to Leon on foot. There his business partner would be able to wire
him cash. (I found out later that that did not happen either.) Those were choices I may have not
made. But then everyone had, you will remember, to do his own camino.
Now, Sylvio was an immense guy, easily 300 lbs on a 5’8” frame—and that was after
losing more than a few by walking quite a ways already on the route from Jaca. His fiancée back
in Brazil was the reason for doing the pilgrimage. When the biopsy of her uterine mass came
back cancerous, he was understandably upset, left the hospital, and picked up a rock intending to
throw it at something. But he stopped right then and vowed that he would take that rock to
Santiago if she survived the cancer. Since radiation therapy cured her and it was a quiet time for
his practice, he came to Spain to keep his promise. I learned later that his woes did not end—he
got word that his mother had a stroke while he was still more than a week away from completing
the pilgrimage. He boarded a bus to Santiago to catch a plane back to Brazil. On arriving in
Santiago, though, he found out she had made an almost “miraculous” recovery—the only bit of
luck the guy got on the camino—that he was not able to complete—came at the end.
Right out of Caldadilla de la Cueza last year, I had an interesting encounter. Then the
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senda in the crisp air was stunning. The bare fields had a sheen of frost extending to the horizon
under a warming sun and cloudless sky. While reveling in all this glorious nature, I spotted a far
off pilgrim with a walking staff coming toward me before suddenly veering off to my right.
When I got to that spot, I saw a big yellow arrow pointing that way. Thinking it was one of the
alternate, more scenic routes mentioned in the book, I followed him into the fields.
About 100 yards on near a big haystack, the “pilgrim” surprised me by jumping out,
coming at me while shouting, “Camino no, camino no!” at the top of his lungs, and brandishing
not a walking staff but a scythe. And his nose was pretty much eaten away by a cancerous lesion.
Now, raised as any American kid on a steady diet of horror films, I had imagined many a
gruesome end to my life. But sliced to pieces in a Spanish field simply was not one of them. I
was too startled to run—and where would I go? Across the fields with a 20 lb backpack pursued
by a homicidal maniac who—other than his lack of a nose—seemed to be in pretty fair shape?
Well, I could take solace in the fact that pilgrims, in the Middle Ages at least, who died on the
pilgrimage had total remission of all their sins and went straight to heaven.
A great tale, right? Well, I obviously survived. The year before, just as I was preparing to
leave for Spain, the whole imbroglio with James Frey’s augmented memoir, “A Million Little
Pieces,” was playing out. So I have to be certain I don’t elaborate for dramatic purposes and
parse this tale for truthfulness. Maybe he didn’t exactly “jump out” at me but was by the
haystack and saw me going by. But it seemed like he jumped, and he did get my attention by the
above shouting. As far the nose goes, at least one-third of it was eaten away—I was a little too
concerned about the scythe to make a complete clinical exam.
Gee, the scythe sounds good, but he was actually wielding a hoe, albeit—I am certain—a
very sharp one. (A post-camino check of my notes invalidated my very clear memory of the
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scythe.) After a few seconds of absolute terror passed, I could see that he was not doing so in a
particularly threatening manner but was pointing in the direction I had just come. He actually
insisted on leading me back to the path. When I showed him the arrow pointing toward his
haystack, he started jumping and screaming, “Camino no, camino no!” again. So I quickly
headed away on the senda.
Sporting six ancient churches and monasteries in various states of repair, a monumental
entry arch into the city, and a fabulous medieval bridge, Sahagun still was just another dusty
little town that had seen greater glory ages ago. I was laid up there last year with a crippling shin
splint. Getting no better after two days, I took a train to Leon for a recuperative six-day stay.
After returning to Sahagun, I started walking again all the way to Santiago with a treasured
hiking partner, Joseph.
It was not architectural wonders I was eager to see on my return to the town—been there,
done that. I wanted to complete the third item on my Must Do List. I wanted to check out the
four brothers. While laid up, I stayed at their family-run bar/restaurant/hotel where three of them
worked and so became fixated on their hairdos. I was eager to see how they had evolved in the
intervening 14 months. Last year, the oldest, Number One, had quarter-sized blonde dots dyed in
his short light brown hair. It made him look like a large walking fuzzy golf ball. Unfortunately,
he wasn’t there this go-round.
Number Two, the only brother not working full-time in the joint, would have his
breakfast and dinner there. He had leonine locks of wavy brown hair, luxuriously hanging ten
inches down his shoulders. The times I saw him nary a hair was out of place. I must say I
developed quite a crush on him but didn’t expect to see him this short trip. So when I entered the
town, I was quite surprised and pleased when he was the first person I passed. He was sitting on
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the outskirts in a truck talking on his cell phone. Since his truck and uniform boasted insignias
of the town, I assumed he was no longer a factory sheet metal worker. Well, his hair was still
long. But it was such a mess, a bit like one of the many stork nests we passed on the way.
Down at the bar, Number Three proved to be another disappointment. He used to be my
favorite, a conscientious worker always well-kempt. He still had his conservative, flattering short
hair—on which he had trowelled enough gel to tame even his next older brother’s mane—but
now sported one of those pencil-thin, carefully trimmed beards, so loved by young Latin men the
world over, along his jaw line. It simply was not suitable on him. He had also added about 20 lbs
to his formerly trim muscular frame—I suspected he had gotten married in the interim.
I had decided last year that Number Four was destined for a bad end. He had unsavory
friends, appalling taste in clothing, and just too much insouciance while tending bar. His dark
brown hair last year had been shoulder length, straight and rather greasy-looking. Plus the last
half inch of the tips was bleached a bizarre bronze. This year he had progressed to a fabulous
punkish do—a kind of interrupted Mohawk. The hair was still shoulder length, sans the
highlights on the ends. He must have changed hair conditioners, because it had body now
without the oily look. But the lower and forward quarters of his temples—from his mid-forehead
to three inches above the middle of each ear— were shaved, with the rest falling freely. Boy, the
coiffeurs in Sahagun have a lock on inspiration and imagination. Had I not been so satisfied with
my French cut, I may have been tempted to do what all good scientists do and experiment.
For a pleasant change, Number Four was now the epitome of charm. His clothing still
required some updates; he was still mired in the “Saturday Night Fever” era. But then again, had
I possessed his fulsome chest and narrow waist, I too might have had a flair for tight, shiny rayon
tops, low slung trousers, and oversized neck jewelry.
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Alas, I was too late that afternoon for their tasty tapas—the locals had depleted their
store. And it was way too early for the dinner that their madre made; they did not vary their nine
o’clock start for the last meal of the day. As it was, I really did not want to risk another visit to
their restaurant. It was there the previous year that I, confident that I could eat any pork dish on
earth, innocently ordered their cerdo special and had my first and hopefully last encounter with
stewed trotters. I don’t really know how I—being of the clean plate school—was able to gobble
down that mass of bone, gristle, and congealed proteinaceous goop. Undoubtedly, most of the
contents of a bottle of wine helped to wash the stuff down my throat and cut the aftertaste.
Sahagun was where I started my Spanish lessons the year before in earnest, courtesy of
Spanish soap operas. My favorite one was undoubtedly “La Tormenta.” A cross between
“Bonanza” and “Dallas,” it took place on a big ranchero, where everyone rode around on
powerful, amply-maned horses—equine equivalents of Brother Number Two circa 2006 or
Brother Number Four circa 2007. One of the females, invariably dressed in a long, leather skirt
and a tight bustier, was always out riding the trails alone and getting ravished by, I guess,
desperados. If those nasty guys were not around, she would let the horse rare up a few times,
dismount, wade into a stream and splash herself with a lot of water in order to, let us say,
accentuate the positive. Then she would gallop back to poppa and tearfully reveal that she had
been compromised. The other ladies would be standing by smoldering—and waiting their chance
at a thoracic close-up.
The husbands spent their time, like George W. Bush at his ranch, out shirtless with their
machetes clearing brush. They seemed to be as gym-crazy and clueless as to what was going on
around them as our president. I kept seeing another man in the show’s intro. Also shirtless and
emerging from some jungle-ish vegetation, he had enough animal magnetism for a soap opera of
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his own. He was my choice for Sexiest Man Ever. Alas, I didn’t get to see him do a star turn on
the show—one of my biggest regrets of the camino, if not of life. Maybe they keep him under
wraps until sweeps week.
I never caught the name of my next favorite soap, so I dubbed it “Anorexic and Ab
Central.” It could have been a continuation of “La Tormenta” when the cast just left their horses
and machetes behind and went home to the city. Most of those scenes were shot in bedrooms and
in various states of undress. This allowed ample viewing of gym-hardened bodies and plastic
surgery mini- and maxi-miracles.
The show revolved around four couples. A, C, E, and G, we will call them, were men. B,
D, F, and H were women. A was married to B but in love with and having an affair with D. C
was married to D but in love with and having an affair with F, and so on. There would be breakups, make-ups, divorces and remarriages. The only gay character, the wedding coordinator, wore
a purple scarf and was very busy arranging impending nuptials and hearing the confession of the
bride-to-be’s dalliances. (Now that Spain has legalized same-sex marriage, I do wonder if he is
doing gay ones now.) The one ceremony I witnessed was so sumptuous it would have made
Martha Stewart positively green with envy. But the bride ruined everything by realizing at the
altar that she had made a mistake. She ran out into the convenient surf and treated us to a yet
another makeshift wet t-shirt contest.
The third soap was “Amar en Tiempo Revueltos” and took place in the 1920s or 30s.
Wearing period costumes, the characters kept their clothes on most of the time. But that only
made it all the spicier when they did doff them. I think I might have been on the camino a little
too long, eh? And my Spanish, I have to admit, didn’t improve a lot.
Yes, you can never go home again. Why I remembered the albergue in Sahagun so very
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fondly I can’t imagine. Housed as it was upstairs in a former church imaginatively renovated into
a municipal activities center, my temporary abode had a ceiling that retained some of its former
vaulting in phantom form. It was dusty and drafty with appalling bathrooms, though the beds
were comfortable enough. There was not much of a kitchen, and that too was a grimy mess
(remember, my standards are hardly high). Most of the other pilgrims had decamped into a new
private, Brazilian-run albergue on the outskirts of town. I walked up there to see my Turkish
friend who I passed en route that morning. That place, the diametrical opposite of my hovel, was
just a little too slick for my taste. Methinks, I was getting a bit too picky.
Back at the albergue, I had a long leisurely dinner and talk with a father/son German
biking team. Poppa was a burly, almost-American looking and acting man, who was having a
wonderful time spending quality time with his son, a handsome, healthy, laconic teenager.
Poppa, good German that he was, passed on his extra beers to me.
Two other couples spent the night and became continuing camino mates of mine. The
first was a Finnish pair, not a couple I was told later. Auntie, though I am not sure of the spelling,
was a 6’8” hulking giant who was as gentle as he was large. His mate, Mia, was a delightful,
irreverent lass with bad backpack abrasions on her hip. The next morning watching tall Auntie in
his underwear applying dressings to Mia’s back, I could not be faulted for assuming they were a
romantic unit.
Hailing from Quebec, Julian and Christine were one of the most agreeable pairs on the
trek. They made a huge salad for their dinner and offered most of it to us. After falling in love
with their English accents, I happily kept leapfrogging (again, no pun) them for the remainder of
the camino. They separated near the end, when Julian got a bad case of gastroenteritis and urged
her to walk on. I saw him on his last day in Spain; I saw her on my last day in Santiago, when
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she gave me a scallop shell she brought back from Finisterre.
A group of three Brazilians stayed over also. The couple was very charming and
thoughtful, but their countryman, the odd man out, was a nasty, inconsiderate little creep. There
and again in Religious and Leon, I was witness to his noisily early-morning rising, sweeping
torch flashing motions in the dark, penchant for leaving lights on, running water longer than
necessary, and barking out questions and comments loudly as others were sleeping. He also
ogled women unmercifully. Oh well, most pilgrims were maybe boring but not revolting.
The next day was a trial with really humid and cloudy weather. I got out early and made
good time along the senda. I don’t know why I didn’t take the alternate route along the ancient
Roman road which would have been the same distance (about 40 km) and had me in Mansilla as
planned. I guess the threat of incipient storms (and the lack of bars or other housing options
along the way) kept me from taking off into farm country.
About an hour out of Sahagun and deep in the countryside, I saw someone coming my
way. I assumed he was a pilgrim returning from Santiago until he drew closer. He didn’t have a
backpack, a scallop shell, or other identifying paraphernalia (or a scythe or hoe for that matter).
So I figured that he was a laborer heading into work somewhere along the way. To my surprise,
he abruptly stopped as we were passing each other, stuck out his hand and delivered a long spiel
in Spanish of which I understood just enough to figure out what he wanted. The words “a little
something for breakfast” and his body language convinced me that I had encountered my first
panhandler—pretty much out in the middle of nowhere—on the camino. Alas, there was no
compassion on my part. In fact, I almost started to laugh and wanted to tell him that, hailing
from New York City—the Panhandler Capital of the World, I was immune to any hard luck
story, even one in Spanish, and while on a purported Christian journey. I am not proud of my
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intransigence, but it had been so ingrained. I shook my head, muttered sorry (in English, on top
of it), and resumed my journey—just like I would in Manhattan.
I kept up my morning routine of going it alone at a brisk pace and then taking a long
coffee and tostada break along the way. My pit stop was in a bar in El Burgo Ranero where I met
my old buddy Karl, the neurotic German. He was with another group of his countrymen, Ralf
(nicknamed the Sultan because he was always surrounded by a group of women), Sigrid and
Kirsten. I got to know them fairly well.
Ralf revealed that he was carrying 19 kilos in his pack, twice the recommended limit—I
don’t think he was much for doing hand laundry. Karl was ridiculing him for carrying many
packets of toilet seat liners. Karl couldn’t understand why Ralf just didn’t do what he did—
straddle the seat and squat down without sitting. Hm, this was a revelation—I naively thought
men really didn’t worry about such things.
I spent most of the next two days with Karl. I mentioned earlier that I, like many others,
tried to take him under my wings and straighten him out—though straight may not have been
what I was thinking deep down. We had long talks about Plato, Atlantis, getting centered,
combating the self, achieving energy and synergy, and yoga. Though I was the English speaker,
he did most of the talking in that language. (In all fairness, I don’t have a lot to contribute on any
of those topics.) Another strange chapter of the camino.
The skies opened up later, and we limped into Religious, more than a shade short of
Mansilla, and stopped for the day as pounding rain continued without letup. This was another
sleepy little village with one bar and one small shop. The albergue was packed full with
overflow sleeping on the ground floor. Karl was smilingly appalled by the “mushrooms” (i.e.,
mold) in the showers. I was equally entertained by the foot care sign in the hallway that
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requested in five languages, “Pilgrims, Do Not Cure Your Feet in the Bedrooms, Please.” My
lord, we did it at restaurants—I hardly thought a mere sign would deter us from doing it on a
bed.
Most of the current cast of characters was here. A newcomer was James, a jovial
Australian man, with whom I traded novels—I got a trashy romance novel about Elizabeth I’s
dalliances with Robert Dudley and he got Ann Patchett’s “Taft.” He had quit his job back home
and was headed to France after the camino to look for work. There was also a Hungarian
twosome who toiled the rest of the way to Santiago with me in that leapfrog way. They would
leave an hour before me every day, but I would overtake them later.
I also got to do some doctoring. That evening as I was having my reconstituted dried
soup in the kitchen, I saw a pert, middle-aged French woman near me swaying and heard the
concern in her friend's voice. I quickly got up and caught her in my arms just as she fainted. I
laid her down and started the ABC's (“What's A again? Oh yes, airway...”). Though her left arm
was in a tonic contracture for about ten seconds, she woke up right away and was not at all
dazed. So I ruled out seizure. With calm but firm questioning, I confirmed that she wasn't
diabetic, did not have any coronary complaints, and had been eating normally. So I figured it was
just a vasovagal fainting bout due to all the heat in that corner of the kitchen and cumulative
wear and tear of the camino.
But one of the Germans shouted out, "Is she taking magnesium?" (The Germans all seem
to have a mystical, passionate love for that electrolyte, by the way.) He followed up with a quick,
"Does anyone have any magnesium?" I kid you not—three people whipped out vials of the
yellow powder and were mixing it up straight away. Since I guess I was in charge and running
the code here, they looked at me with that "should we or shouldn't we?" look. I really made them
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happy when I let them dose her.
The wind and rain continued most of the evening and night, flooding the downstairs room
and the pack of pilgrims consigned to mats on the floor. Though my upstairs bed sagged in the
middle, I somehow found my sweet spot and had about seven wonderful hours of sleep.
As the weather report for the morrow was woefully pessimistic, Sigrid, Ralf and a
number of others had arranged for a taxi pickup the next morning to get them to Mansilla where
they would catch a bus to Leon. Remembering that they had two additional days of heavy rain
while I was downing tapas and wine on my weekend jaunt in Leon, I tried not to be judgmental.
Slowing my usual pace as Karl upped his, the two of us had a relatively uneventful walk together
into Leon in what turned out to be fairly good walking weather. He opted to take a private room
in the albergue (the close quarters were really taking a toll on his sleep) and we parted until
meeting again in Santiago after I returned from Finisterre.
I joined the riffraff in the packed men-only dorm. Erroneously thinking it would be more
upscale, Sigrid and Ralf posed as married and got placed in the couples room (still with bunk
beds). It was actually noisier (bickering, middle-aged couples abounded) and more congested
than ours and the female one. Segregated bedrooms or dorms were hardly the norm on the
camino. Maybe Leon had always been an exception. Gitlitz and Davidson refer to a medieval
pilgrim who noted that “the dormitory of women pilgrims was separate, because ‘it is a dishonest
thing to have women and men in a single dormitory,’ and the ‘quality of people who come to the
hospice are not of high caliber.’” A little more interesting was “the beds were separated by
curtains, and rules limited to two the number of pilgrims per bed.” (Gitlitz and Davidson, 247)
Though staffed by volunteers, this albergue was run by the Benedictine nuns. That it was
also attached to their convent probably accounted for its many rules and the bathroom and
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sleeping arrangements. But the nuns provided a clean, efficient, serene oasis in the middle of the
busy city of Leon. Luckily, it was not far from the more profane district containing so many of
the tapas bars.
Last year, I met a Spanish man there who had an interesting reason for doing his pilgrimage. Augustine was recently amicably divorced with two grown daughters of 20 and 21. He
was doing the camino because he and his current girlfriend of 38 wanted to have a child and had
so far been unable to conceive one. I found this rather fascinating: undertaking a religious
mission under the auspices of a church that forbids divorce and remarriage in order to conceive a
child necessarily out of wedlock. As is said, everyone has to do his own camino
I spent the afternoon with some other pilgrims (the Germans Edith and Uli and their
Austrian buddy Kris) dashing in and out of three outdoor gear stores as the rains poured down
intermittently. I found an orange shirt with a collar for those dressier times that didn’t seem to
happen very often. (But it came in handy, as you will see, in Santiago.)
Miguel, my one Leon friend you were introduced to earlier, made some time to do the
tapas routine with me again. Most memorable was a monumental platter of casing-less morcilla
that we downed with, appropriately, blood red wine. That negated a need for dinner. As I had
some quality time at the cathedral in the afternoon taking in those marvelous windows yet again,
I skipped vespers, Mass, and the much later pilgrim benediction with the sisters.
The year before, the few of us staying there had done all three. We followed the stern nun
who I took to be the Mother Superior up the street, through the church and into a small chapel
probably dating from the 1950s, as the 20-or-so mostly aged sisters dribbled in from another
direction. There was a minor fuss because we didn’t know which week of Lent it was and which
psalms we were to sing. Mother Superior seemed barely able to suppress a groan and did not
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mitigate her curt body language at our liturgical backwardness, though she incongruously had a
beatific smile on her face all the while. The priest who celebrated the service was of the same
vintage as the majority of the nuns and, like them, seemed diminished by osteoporosis and
arthritis. Struggling with the music and the Spanish of the hymns, we added our weak voices to
those of the gathered sorority. It was really quite moving to witness the blissful glow of the
congregants in what was still not a rote exercise, though they had probably been doing this day in
and day out for decades. If only faith could be acquired through osmosis, I too may have felt the
force being with me.
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Chapter Fourteen
Viage a Los Caminitos Rurales y El Paso de Las Moñtanas
The Rural Paths and Mountain Pass Tour
Leon to Ponferada
The albergue had strict rising and exiting regulations (and the nuns made sure they were
enforced). Kitchen entry and lights-on were restricted until six. The front gate would not be
opened before half past. But old habits die hard; a number of pilgrims were up predawn.
Probably out of frustration or sheer meanness, the longer the early risers were required to wait,
the louder their pack rustlings and bathroom visiting became. Likewise, the arcs of light from
their flashlights were directly proportional to the length of lingering—the room was looking a bit
like an 80s disco before the overhead lights were finally lit and the hordes released.
The weather forecast was again dismal for the day. On the seemingly interminable route
out of Leon, the steamy humidity combined with industrial effluvium made a nasty toxic soup.
But as soon as I got into the countryside, the clouds parted, the haze lifted, the air cleared, and
walking was a delight. Additionally, there were two routes over the next two-to-three days to
Astorga, senda or pleasant rural paths. I was thrilled to see that most chose the former—
including that nasty Brazilian man—while I gloriously traipsed the latter.
Knocking off the 23 km in short order, I got into Mazarife around noon. I toyed with
continuing on to the next albergue, another 15 km I could do easily. But that would leave me
with too short a trek to Astorga the next day. So I decamped at the first of five albergues in this
microscopic burg. Here the pilgrim-alumnus owner of the private hostel, St. Anthony of Padua,
felt the need to bring a hometown delicacy, Valencian paella, to the camino. He outfitted the
extensive kitchen with huge gas burners and those vast low brimmed skillets for use in feeding
platoons of ravenous pilgrims in the spacious dining room.
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I had stayed here last year with Joseph. Then the hospitalier was a shifty-eyed, longhaired, 1960s throwback from Prague. The important ingredients—rabbit carcasses and jumbo
shrimp—for the paella were in the freezer. But the layers of grease on all the surfaces and the
lackluster offer from the airhead to prepare the dish led me to forgo that option. Instead, I rolled
up my sleeves, scoured the range and counters, and washed the prodigious pile of dirty dishes,
homey tasks I actually enjoyed. Then I made our own delicious supper. So this year when I took
a gander at the now-spotless kitchen and dining room, I felt it was time to savor their specialty.
But I am getting ahead of the story. I think I was first into town, certainly the first at this
refuge. The Spanish-speaking female cleaning the floors was a little panicky at my early arrival
but welcoming none-the-less. When she found out I was an American, she brightened up and
chattered on that another staff member spoke English and actually once lived in the U.S.A. When
she questioned me as to where exactly I hailed from and heard that it was New York City, she
became ecstatic. She rushed to the downstairs door and started screaming, “Antonio,
Antonio…peregrino, peregrino…Nueva York, Nueva York…” and urging him to come quickly. I
felt uncharacteristically like a celebrity.
A short time later there was a clump, clump, clump on the stairs. I was not expecting St.
Anthony of Padua, mind you, but still this Antonio was quite a surprise. Though well-preserved,
he was well into his seventies, had little drop earrings in both lobes that swayed gently as he
walked mincingly over to me. His left hand cradled his right elbow, while the fingers of his right
hand framed his chin and cheek in a manner of frank appraisal. He looked me up and down
rather witheringly, as if not quite believing this grimy hobo could be a Manhattanite. Was he
expecting William Powell dressed for a night on the town? Another few awkward moments
passed before he throatingly and precisely queried in English, “May I help you?” The movie
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metaphors, I know, are multiple at this point, but I think William Holden meeting Gloria
Swanson in “Sunset Boulevard” is most apt.
He did thaw quite a bit rather quickly, eager to trade details of Gotham life since he had
left over 20 years ago. A waiter in a mob-frequented Upper East Side restaurant, he broadly
hinted that the murder of Paul Castellano of the Gambino crime family happened practically at
his feet. Things got hot for him because of the crime, and he scurried back to Spain. That would
be an interesting variant to the usual Witness Protection Program stories. Being stuck out in the
middle of nowhere in Northern Spain dishing out paella would be effective cover. I couldn’t
imagine even the long fingers of the Mafia reaching here.
He soon disappeared back downstairs—I was hoping that he was defrosting piles of
shrimp and some of that rabbit for our dinner that night. I showered quickly and decided to get in
some suntan time, as the front porch had comfy cushioned chaise lounges. Right after I donned
my chaste grey shorts, Antonio appeared in a tremendously skimpy swimsuit just a thread or two
larger than a thong and proceeded to the most visible position out front, splaying himself in full
view of—and surely scaring off—any approaching pilgrims.
As if that was not bad enough, he rose from the chaise after a bit and walked
languorously around the yard, literally, smelling the roses. I think he had taken my number by
this time and was coming on to me, though I was silently screaming, “Cover up or disappear. No
one else will stay here if they see a dowdy old queen like you parading round the yard practically
naked.” Ah, the camino.
A few groups did pass by without a glance. In all fairness, El Refugio de Jesus had a
better rep and would have been a preferred destination, even if Antonio was ensconced well out
of view. A few others finally dribbled in, including the Teutonic friends I had shopped with and
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gotten wet with the day before.
Cherries were in season and very delicious. I think I put back a half-kilo, a kind of
appetizer for the awaited treat that night. The weather stayed clear, and we were witnesses to a
stunning sunset.
The owner had posted a newspaper article advertising that both a meat and a vegetarian
paella were on offer. So I was really savoring the impending feast. None of my albergue mates
came for the treat downstairs that night preferring, like I did the year before, to do their own
cooking. But enough pilgrims came from the other dives to make a quorum sufficient for a
decent repast. Antonio traded the drop earrings for a dressier set of paste diamond studs, put on
his best pedal pushers and apron, and did the honors. The little sneak, though, just served us a
single—and meatless, at that—paella that was okay but hardly legendary. I was not too offended
until he and his friends sat down opposite us and dined on a heaping platter of our shrimp. I was
tempted to do an Oliver Twist and get the share I had paid for rather dearly. At least I was
luckier than Anne Marie who stopped here at my behest. I found out later that she had to eat
alone and got tiny little burnt bits (also sans animal protein) with a lot of lip from Antonio. But,
she said, they parted on good terms.
The next morning, the way was flat for about ten km with gentle hills thereafter. It was
all on forgiving packed-dirt paths through lovely farm country. I got out early and alone and
arrived in Hospital de Orbigo in time to have a late breakfast. Coming into town with a perfect
view of the extensive 19-arched bridge, I was more than chagrined to find it bursting with
pilgrims. But it turned out that the majority were bused-in tourists taking in the site associated
with my favorite camino tale—that of Suero de Quinones, a 15th century Leonese knight.
Poor Suero fell in love with a lovely maiden who spurned his ardor and offer of marriage.
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Since he still felt bound to her, he donned an iron collar as a symbol of his unrequited love and
challenged all the knights of Europe to jousting matches near that monumental bridge. In midJuly of the Holy Year (when the Feast of St. James, July 25, fell on a Sunday and pilgrim traffic
is at its height) of 1434, the knights came—Suero conquered. He had set himself the goal of
breaking 300 lances, the last of which he splintered in August. So a victorious Suero doffed the
iron collar and traveled on to Santiago as a pilgrim. (Seeing that collar in Santiago was the last
item on my Must Do List.)
Suero was quite the crowd pleaser. At one point, he dressed in a woman’s blouse (over
very light armor) and fought one heavily steel-clad competitor. His team also mowed down nine
knights of Gutierrez de Quijada. The latter had to wait 24 years to extract his revenge. They met
coincidentally and resumed battle stances. Alas, Suero was the one to fall this time, and mortally
at that.
The town has since erected a new parade ground where they recreate those glorious
times. I was sorry that I could not hang around to view the jousts and see the medieval costumes
and revelry. Unfortunately, they didn’t produce any postcards of the past or present events either.
I had my usual morning power brunchette in a restaurant/bar empty except for two
women, American and British, who were exchanging foot-woe problems. The British Claire’s
camino had been slowed or shut down numerous times already because of incapacitating blisters.
She had tried a day or two of rest, an assortment of foot pads, thick socks, thin socks, cotton
socks, polypropylene socks, combinations of socks, unguents, ointments, powders, heel-walking,
toe-walking, just to name a few. I don’t know if she tried walking sticks. She had jettisoned
everything in her pack not absolutely essential. She was, I felt, on the edge of cracking but still
hoping to get to Santiago. (She did, picking up along the way the young Spanish man who led us
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to the albergue in Carrion and who confessed his love for her.)
Amanda, the other woman who soon left, didn’t make much of an impression on me, so
Yankee-allergic I had become. I met her again right outside town at the fork of two trails. She
had to choose between more senda or the cross-country path to Astorga. I assured her the latter
was the way to go and invited her to accompany me. We then had the most engaging walk
together on those pleasant paths under that spectacular sky.
Amanda was not just another pretty face; she was on a mission. She had heard about the
pilgrimage some time before and made a mental note about it. Recently, I think, she had come to
a crossroads—unlike the one where got together—and wanted to take stock of her life. She
retrieved that mental note and another one she had made about Greg Mortenson and his Central
Asia Institute, an organization that provided and promoted local education and literacy programs
for girls in Afghanistan and the rest of Central Asia. She put the two together—the camino as a
fund raiser for the Institute—hit up her family and friends for donations, set up a website
(www.pilgrimageforpeace.com), and pretty much took off on a really, really long walkathon.
(She was very well aware of the irony of doing a Christian pilgrimage to raise money for
educating Muslims.) And she was a lot of fun.
We tramped into a crowded Astorga but were able to find beds easily in the Albergue San
Javier near the cathedral. It was a lovingly restored, vibrant historic building that had a large
courtyard and extensive facilities on three floors. The present hospitalier was a trim veteran
pilgrim from Scotland who spoke with a thick brogue.
Though a contemporary of Antonio, he was quite a change not only from my hospitalier
of the day before but also from the one I met here the year before. That one was a young German
man who spoke almost no Spanish but, of course, excellent English. He ended up in that
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particular location without money and without other prospects. Having quit his retailing job
three months earlier, he started out on the camino and made it almost all the way to Santiago
without incident. At one of last stops, he neglected to put his wallet in the bottom of his sleeping
bag, slept unusually soundly, and had all of his 600€ savings stolen.
He walked back to Astorga because it had been such a welcoming place. His predecessor
here had been planning to leave and arranged that he take over. But along the way back, he relied
on the kindness of strangers for money and food. He said he was learning Spanish and going to
stay in this country because the people were so wonderful and because of the “spirit of the
camino.”
I wondered if, party boy that he seemed to be, he got stone-cold drunk that night and was
easily robbed by another pilgrim. That was common in medieval times as well as today. Human
nature, “the spirit of the camino” if you will, encompassed the highs and the lows. Our little host
hardly had to take, as he said, 50€ and food off the table of a middle-class Spanish family.
Unlike the pilgrims of old, he could easily have called home and had his very comfortable
parents wire him some cash forthwith. When he said that people just came up to him in the street
and offered him food and money, it could only have been because of his begging. Their acts
were pure Christian charity; his behavior rather rude and mendacious. I don’t really fault him for
it. I just wonder if those acts of compassion flowed both ways. Gee, look who’s pointing fingers.
Amanda and I cleaned up and popped over to the Hotel Gaudi for lunch as recommended
by our Scottish host. We had more than a moment of cognitive dissonance as their cavernous
dining room was aglitter with lots of gilt, the tables covered with linen and china, and the wait
staff eager to seat us. Spotting the English-speaking young man who helped us find the albergue
dining alone, I strode over and brazenly invited ourselves to sit with him. That was a masterful
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move, as we may not otherwise have tried—at his recommendation—the regional delicacy,
cocido, a slowly simmered stew of various hog parts, sausages, vegetables, broth, and chickpeas,
served in separate courses. Big glasses of wine loosened our tongues and heightened our spirits.
Amanda and I were both very smitten with Guillerme, a suave Brazilian government lawyer, and
soon tried to take him under our wing. Alas, though he appreciated our attention, he was having
fun playing the field. Amanda was able to put up with his leisurely morning habits and surface
charm a few days longer than I; but then she, too, jettisoned his company. But it was fun while it
lasted.
Somehow, after that midday wine-filled repast, we were still able to do extensive sightseeing and food shopping. The fine Gaudi Bishop’s Palace, a neo-Gothic pile from the turn of the
former century was the biggest treat. It had been converted into a pilgrim museum and now
contained a lot of camino kitsch as well as historical documents, Roman artifacts, and many
more medieval-to-modern BVM statues. But the vast white granite vaulted spaces, the many
little chapels and prayer niches, the winding stone staircase, and the views across the valley were
the real pleasures.
The cathedral itself, though grand, was rather anticlimactic. Like last year I was pretty
much churched-out—I was fast coming to the wake-me-up-when-we-get-to-the-Taj-Mahal stage
by this time. The façade is a fabulous high Baroque medley of architectural and decorative detail.
The towering height of the nave with its sprouty flamboyant Gothic vaulting was also pretty
astounding. And the main retablo retained its grandeur within those soaring spaces. Still, risking
being accused of the-pot-calling-the-kettle-black, I thought it did not seem to be all that sacred
and holy. Well, I had walked about 32 km that day, had a half bottle of wine, and was probably
just tired.
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That night Amanda cooked, and we ate together at the albergue, sans Guillerme. We
both got to bed early and woke up at a decent hour. The Finnish couple was arranging a birthday
breakfast for Tamara, yet another Tasmanian they were traveling with. Aron, a vivacious
buoyant German businessman who did yoga and meditation every morning, completed their
foursome. Tamara looked positively regal after she donned her gifts of plastic and rhinestone
tiara and scepter and graciously wore them for the remainder of the day. The four of them really
tied it on that night in a more boisterous celebration from which I was thankfully absent.
Guillerme, lacking the ability to kick start his morning, missed most of the breakfast
festivities. Since he insisted that he did want to walk with us though, Amanda and I waited while
he finished his laborious toilette. So we were about the last out on the long uphill route of about
25 km. Our unlikely trio and a shifting gaggle of fellow walkers were a jaunty group at least
through mid-morning. Then the temperature started dropping and the wind picked up. The
overcast sky, occasional bursts of rain, and the wind dampened our spirits somewhat. But a
spectacular intensely-colored and long-lasting rainbow over-arching the huge valley we were
leaving did bestow a bit of wonder to the day.
We rolled into an already boisterous and crowded Rabanal two hours before our preferred
albergue (run by the Confraternity of St. James) would open. So we had more than enough time
to lunch again on cocido, shop for dinner and snacks, and get more details on what was the hot
gossip on the camino that day, namely the pilgrim wedding in the Benedictine chapel that night.
Our source for the affair, a local shopkeeper, had a well-worn photocopy of a newspaper article
detailing the cancer and chemotherapy bouts the man had endured. It also highlighted his determination to arrive in Santiago (his third or fourth time) with his wife (they were actually already
married in a civil ceremony in Germany) against the advice of his doctors.
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Now Guillerme’s selective translation of the article and his quixotic Latin temperament
may have inflated the pathos of the event (for instance, the camino restriction—ignored at that
time—was a few years earlier). Through facts supplied by other Germans and what I gleaned
from the newlyweds themselves when I chatted with them later in Santiago made the tale a little
less romantic, it was still worthy of pilgrim legend.
My Brazilian buddy was brought to tears by the story and was suddenly possessed by a
matrimonial spirit more akin to the mother-of-the-bride. So carrying a bag full of rice to throw at
the couple post-ceremony, we were first at the little church that evening. A good thing that was,
as the tiny nave was half dug up for the ongoing renovation and seating room was extremely
limited. It also led me to be selected to do the reading in English—the language of the Australian
bride.
My first liturgical spotlight performance was on Easter Sunday in Conques; this day,
appropriately enough, happened to be Pentecost Sunday. With a standing room only crowd, three
priests (one visiting from a French monastery who later did the French reading) gave a stirring
song-filled service. The groom was not a gaunt or sickly specimen but quite vigorous. He and his
bride were dressed in matching powder blue parkas and wore hiking boots.
When the time came for our readings, a Spanish woman gave a timid rendering of Ephesians 4, 3-6. She was followed by the French priest who was equally diffident. The German
representative was a bit better. So it was left to me to deliver a stirring interpretation of the
verses for the congregation. In fact, I—in a reprise of Conques—was so taken with my
performance that I expected numerous accolades after the service. But, alas, everyone wanted to
congratulate the couple, not me. I drowned my disappointment with a mega-postcard spree at the
little Benedictine gift shop across the way which had a good selection of images of bloody
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crucifixes, village scenes, and pilgrim tack like worn shoes and trail markers.
It wasn’t just the wedding keeping us busy that day. I barhopped earlier with Amanda,
going from the first to the second and final bar/restaurant. Back at the albergue, we had hot tea
with the British couple who were volunteer hospitaliers for two weeks and lounged with other
more, let us say, mature pilgrims in front of the wood burning fireplace in the common room.
And we prepared and ate our evening meal prior to the wedding. In the kitchen I met Filip, a
young Croatian man who had gone to university in Italy, and Marco, a fit young Italian. They
had met in Roncesvalles and had been walking together since then, losing along the way a
ravishing Italian woman Filip had fallen for. She professed severe feet problems but may have
been more taken by another Italian man who also held back. With limited vacation time, Filip
and Marco were tearing through the trail at a quick pace.
The following morning, the next leg was up to the highest point of the whole camino,
Cruz de Fero, named for the metal cross that rises from a hill of stones and where the pilgrim
tradition of dropping a rock brought from home takes place. Last year I was ignorant of the
practice and so was unprepared. This year I simply forgot—I should have saved my tooth filling
and tossed it on the pile, instead of in the garbage in Burgos.
The way up to the crest was not too strenuous, though it was at a continuous 45 degree
angle. The sun was out and warming. In fact, I took a photo of my elongated shadow then
(everybody has one in their camino albums). Soon after that the sun retreated, and it became
quite cold—and here I was without my jacket. Günter, yet another German hiker, and I stopped
for a pick-me-up coffee in Foncebadon before continuing on in the fog and then the rather strong
snow flurries that now enveloped the mountaintop. (You see, all those warnings about
changeable weather in the mountains are correct.) There was no time to savor the tumbling slate
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hovels (some being rescued and renovated as weekend abodes for Astorga’s moneyed crowd) or
any of the Roman gold mines in the area. As inclement as the weather was, the hike was still
fabulous. The mountain was covered in a yellow, white and violet blanket of gorse, bushes, and
ground cover, all outlined with deep green foliage.
After the quick requisite photo at the cross, I continued on alone and numb from the cold
to Manjarin, the site of another alternative albergue on the mountain top. A New Age Templar
knight reigns over this ramshackle hut cum gift shop, hostel, and home for his motley crew of
hangers-on. Primitive does not quite capture the primordial plaintiveness of the place. A halved
steel barrel held a scrubwood fire that provided the only source of heat in the cold mountain air.
The swirling winds whipped the acrid smoke around the public area which was littered with
rickety tables and shelves holding dusty amulets and tacky, grimy, sun-bleached souvenirs. The
troll-like knight would periodically ring his deafening fog bell and bellow out what might have
been a call to war. A hippie-throwback, long-tressed, long-dressed woman with deep furrows
lining her face was brewing herb tea over a flimsy gas ring. While I was frozen and appalled,
many other pilgrims were entranced by the pluck of our bizarre hosts.
I passed by the place last year under a lovely blue and sunny sky (though that was
preceded by some snow flurries, too, at the cross), waving in return to the inhabitants. I
remember wishing that I had stayed there as it looked quirkily inviting. After hearing about the
alternative albergue at San Bol, it was in the back of my mind to stay there this year. But the lure
of the pilgrim wedding back (and Amanda and Guillerme’s company) in Rabanal negated that
plan.
I later ran into another pilgrim, Xo the German marathoner, who stayed there. He was
voluble about the dismal nature of the facilities. With the generator out of service, there was no
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electricity. The only lighting was from some feeble hurricane lamps. Without pumps, the only
source of water was a spring about 50 meters uphill from the beds. And then adding insult to
injury, the strict host had instituted a quasi-Templar prohibition of any mind-altering substance.
Good German that he was, Xo was indignant, almost apoplectic, about one of the few libations
for sale, “Alcohol-free beer? alcohol-free beer? Have you ever heard of anything so stupid?” He
must have downed a lot of it though because, as he went on about the intense cold of the night,
he told his tale of having to leave the minimal warmth and protection of his sleeping bag to pee.
This required an inky-dark trot to the distant latrines. When he got there he claimed he was so
near total frostbite that his penis had completely withdrawn into his abdomen, “I couldn’t find it.
Really, I couldn’t find it. I just aimed and hoped for the best.”
My icy fingers and toes, which could not retreat into my peritoneal or any other cavity,
soon had me back on the trail. I had to either escape the mountain air or generate some body heat
by brisk walking. One and/or the other worked, and I was soon reveling in the magnificent
scenery unfolding under the by-now clearing sky as I came down from the summit. That
marvelous spread of heathery vegetation in every direction gave way to vistas of a vast and
verdant green valley dotted with villages and more mountains along the far off horizon. It was a
12 km steep descent on winding narrow paths that had us acting more as a trip of goats than a
horde of staid pilgrims. It may have been brutal on the bones and joints, but it was an exuberant
jaunt down to the almost Brigadoonish village of Acebo for a quick roll and coffee and then
onwards.
Along the way down, I again ran into Sebastian, the German scholar who had walked all
the way from Germany—alas, without his long-limbed hiking buddy Tobias. We had another
long conversation about his admiration for the current German Pope Benedict, among other
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things. He was quite a defender and in good spirits because he had finally decided that he really
had a religious vocation and would soon enter a seminary to become a priest post-camino.
As carefully planned, I got into Molianesca around noon so that I could check off the
fourth item on my Must Do List—to have a long, languid lunch in this prosperous suburb of
Ponferada. The year before, Joseph, Augustine and I arrived here famished and planning to
splurge on a proper Sunday brunch. It turned out to be the feast day of St. Joseph which happens
to be Father’s Day in Spain. All the many restaurants had special menus (some so expensive
even I blanched) and were packed to the gills.
Augustin tried to invoke the sacred tradition of the camino whereby a pilgrim in need
could not be turned away. Our oft-quoted 12th century chronicler aptly wrote “…let it be known
that the pilgrims of Saint James, whether poor or rich, by right are to be received and cared for
with diligence.” (Shaver-Crandal, 95) Alas, much has changed since then. At the first place we
couldn’t even get in the door, what with the crowds ahead in the vestibule waiting for a table. At
the second, the maitres d’hotel just stared at us with hands on hips for a moment. Then she made
a broad sweep with one of those hands over the hordes of seated patrons, the harried waiters
scurrying about, and the remaining clientele sitting patiently on the sidelines or waiting at the bar
for an open place. She ended her little demonstration by belligerently and sourly stating said she
didn’t even have food for the ones already there and for us to just pretty much buzz off.
The next place we tried that tack was an upscale, minimally less crowded venue.
Chandeliers hung over tables covered with thick linens, heavy crystal, and ornate tableware. The
fragrance of expensive perfume vied with that of freshly grilled steak. With everyone in their
Sunday best, I acutely felt our lack of sartorial splendor and our trail aroma. The mere mention
of peregrino sent the waiter into a screaming fit. While my Spanish was not up to the subtleties
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of his invective, I was pretty sure from his body language that it ran along the lines of, “Take
your f*&%#@*%$ pilgrim *&%*@$ and stick it up your f*&%$# pilgrim *&%$*^.”
So this year as I got closer and closer to the town, I could practically smell and taste the
rare grilled steak and was more than ready to heft a heavy crystal goblet of the bloodiest red wine
available to my parched lips. After a brief rest stop at the picturesque bridge near the church, I
entered the town with my salivary glands working overtime in anticipation. Alas, ‘twas not to be;
Monday had all the culinary workers on a, I’m sure, well-earned rest day—not a dining prospect
to be had, not even a bar to wet the whistle. I was crestfallen and, like last year, reduced to the
bland crumbs in my pack.
Luckily this time I knew the way. The year before Joseph and I—adding the insult of
getting lost to the injury of starvation—were not so lucky. As seems to happen sometimes when
the going gets rough, the yellow arrows play peek-a-boo and hide-and-seek. The only ones we
saw were for the longer, scenic route which we took. That was up and over another hill covered
with blooming fruit trees and, under other circumstances, extremely lovely. We encountered two
older ladies out on a constitutional who insisted we ignore the next yellow arrow and hang a
right, essentially bisecting the longer and shorter routes. They continued the way I thought we
should go. Bewilderingly, Joseph and I pored over the guidebook for a while until I decided to
ignore the advice of the local ladies. But when the redoubtable senoras turned and saw us in tow,
they started brandishing their umbrellas and pointing to the route they proposed. Chastened for a
fourth time in less than an hour, we hurried down the designated lane.
Of course we soon came to a T in the road with no idea which way to turn. The town was
now harkening in the distance, off to our left. So we went that way, only to soon encounter
another duet of formidable female ramblers who tsked-tsked us for being so obviously lost. They
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turned us around and walked us back to the T where they showed us a rather obvious yellow
arrow (from that angle) pointing to the right.
We gained some ground on them until another unmarked intersection about 50 meters
onward brought us up cold and thoroughly confused. We waited for and threw ourselves at the
mercy of these matriarchs of the march and decided to follow them into town. These octogenarian Sacagaweas didn’t break stride when the skies opened up shortly after like a full faucet.
They merely popped open their umbrellas and continued their walking and constant banter. I
waited only a few moments before donning my handy poncho strapped to my waist, hoping
against hope that the downpour would be short-lived. My hulking appearance swathed in all that
burgundy nylon may have raised their eyebrows a bit, but the ladies were more concerned about
Joseph who soon was soaked to the bone. Realizing that the albergue was not nigh, he broke
down and retrieved his heavy mac from his pack.
Casting almost contemptuous glances at the twain of us, our guides started clucking in
Spanish something to the effect of “What is it with these pilgrims? First we find them roaming
all over God’s creation like lost lambs. How they got this far when they can’t even see the
darned yellow arrows or speak a word of Spanish is beyond me. Then it starts raining and they
don’t have the sense to even keep dry. Luckily we came along.”
While familiarity can sometimes breed contempt, in this case our forced proximity led to
babelesque conviviality as we waded together through puddles and along the city streets. We
spouting forth in broken Spanish and guessed at the meaning of their questions and comments. I
don’t know how far we took them out of their way, but they stayed with us until the gates of the
albergue were nigh. Now fast friends, we bid them many adioses and muchas graciases
This year I got into this still-welcoming abode right behind Filip, Marco, and Emanuele
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(another young Italian I met in Leon). The hospitaliers assigned us to a very private two bunkbed room on the second floor—that amounted to luxury on the camino. Emanuele offered to
cook one of his specialties, spaghetti carbonara, for us that night—so the disappointment at the
culinary desert of Molianesca was soon far behind me.
Monday also meant that the fabulous Templar Castle and a much vaunted temporary
exhibition of camino artistic treasures within were, like the restaurants back a ways, regrettably
closed. The Templars were a curious band of knights that fought battles and protected pilgrims in
the Holy Land. They also provided martial support for various campaigns in Europe. Though
they took vows of chastity, poverty and obedience, the Order owned vast and valuable lands and
had immense political power. Their secretive ways opened them up to charges that they “denied
Christ and the Virgin, that they profaned the cross, that they adored demons, that they were all
sodomites, and that they had sworn to enrich the Order through dishonesty.” (Gitlitz, 288) They
soon were as hated as the Jews and—like them—were tortured, had their lands confiscated, and
their Order dissolved. But nowadays people consider them in a more romantic vein, like the
fabulous knights of, say, “Lord of the Rings” movie fame.
Our communal dinner hardly put a dent in my pocketbook and was delightful. We were
joined by Emilio, a young Spaniard from Pamplona. Since he was a vegetarian, he did not share
our repast but made some paltry soup. We discussed our plans for the remaining 220 km.
Emanuele was going to hold back a bit as his feet were still pretty badly blistered. I announced
that I wanted to get to Santiago before Sunday morning, five full days of walking hence, in order
to see the botafumerio, the largest incense burner in the world which was swung on ropes in the
transept crossing by six priests (the next and penultimate item on my Must Do List). That meant
I had to average 44 km or 27 miles a day, a doable but arduous task in the Galician hills
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(including our steepest hike of the whole camino up O’Cerebrio). With limited time for walking,
Filip and Marco were eager to ramp up their usual 30-40 km distance and join me at the Sunday
service for a hefty dose of incense.
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Chapter Fifteen
Viage Arriba, Arriba y Lejos
The Up, Up and Away Tour
Ponferada to Melide
The next day was the first test of my resolve. The first ten kilometers out of Ponferada
were a dreary, confusing trek through uninspiring suburbs. An overcast sky and the sticky air did
not help matters either. Though keeping up a rather brisk pace, I was wondering why I was not
overtaking many pilgrims. The Spanish-speaking ones and their buddies, it seemed, had gotten
advance word of a five kilometer shortcut via the shoulder of the very busy N6 highway—talk
about uninspiring. They may have had a straight shot all the way to Camponaraya but missed the
statue of the whirling dervish pilgrims along the traditional route.
The rest of the way was more pleasant with a few scenic detours through some farms and
wine fields. As I quickly passed through it, I remembered fondly this village of Villafranca (there
are several in Spain with different appellations) from my stay last year when we had time to
explore a bit. One of the town’s hills is dominated by the marvelous late 15th century Palace of
the Marquises (right next to the ramshackle but lively Albergue Ave Felix). Across the valley on
the other hills, the towers of many a church sprouted up, a veritable architectural history lesson at
one’s doorstep. But I tarried not, just snarfed down a quick ham sandwich and continued onward
and upward.
There were three separate routes for the next 23 km through the Valcarce River valley.
The Camino Dragonete was the longest and most arduous. It was also without trail markings—
nix that one. The Ruta Pradela, the one I was opting for, went off-road for about 13 km and
included a stiffer climb through some wonderful pine and chestnut forests before joining the
third alternative. Having missed the turnoff to it for a second time in as many years, I was again
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on the easiest and most direct way, the Ruta Carretera. My disappointment was mitigated by the
fact that this way, at least, had stores, bars and many options for overnight stay should I required
it before doing my requisite 44 km. While those benefits (especially, of course, the bars) were
much appreciated, I cannot say the same for the hard concrete path that was little more than a
shoulder of the highway. But since it also skirted the bubbling mountain brook and since most
of the traffic was diverted to a paralleling superhighway arching high above us, it was more than
tolerable. What I most liked about it, though, was that a significant portion was actually painted
a jaunty lemony color (though now bleached by the sun to that of diseased egg yolks)—the
closest I will come to being on the fabled yellow brick road.
Actually, this whole pilgrimage business resembled “The Wizard of Oz” more than a
little. Being a long-standing Friend of Dorothy, I may have been a little more sensitive to the
similarities. Here we were, far from home, following yellow arrows, if not the golden boulevard
of our dreams. Arrival at a magnificent building would be the end of the journey. Maybe it was
not wishes to be granted by the Wizard, but we were all searching, in our own way, for
something we had all along—we just needed the road to bring it out. And we were encountering
wonderful and awful things along the way. But, alas, we were not doing too much singing or
skipping along the way.
For about an hour or so, I had the road pretty much to myself, sans Toto, witches,
scarecrows, lions, metal men or pilgrims of any kind. Then I noticed a solitary male hiker a ways
ahead. I picked up my pace and tried to reel him in. He didn’t glace back but did seem to
increase his speed. I responded in kind and, though the ratcheting up in speed was punishing, got
within striking distance of him after about another 30 minutes. As I was closing the remaining
gap, I realized it was Filip and had to run the last bit to catch him. When I did, he seemed at the
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end of his rope and was visibly upset.
He and Marco had heeded the advice of a Spanish acquaintance to take the shortcut along
the highway earlier that day. They hated the long, relentless, traffic-congested route. More
importantly, they felt that they had denigrated and blasphemed the vaunted “spirit of the camino”
in doing so. Marco was so desirous of getting far away from motor pathways that he took the
wooded way, intending to meet up with Filip at the Brazilian albergue in Vega de Valcarce.
We soon got to that meeting place, festooned with that green-field flag featuring the night
sky of the Southern Hemisphere. That modern day icon, remarkably, was almost as prevalent on
the camino as the BVMs in the churches and museums. It was on backpacks, hats, soccer jerseys,
t shirts, billboards, albergues, restaurants, bars, the afore-mentioned scarves and even bathroomstall graffiti. While listening to the not-so-gentle strains of piped-in samba and bossa nova, Filip
and I bristled at the excessive tariff for a bed and dinner. Filip, though, was probably more
regretful than I to be out of reach of the hospitalier’s ample bosom. He gave Marco a quick cell
phone call to determine he was not far behind. We waited out front and as a trio moved on
another kilometer to the municipal albergue.
Marco had regained his usual sparkling enthusiasm after his hiatus in the woods and
babbled volubly like the adjoining mountain stream about the delights of the path lately taken.
This alternated with sputtering imprecations about the way taken earlier in the day—there is
nothing like the lilting vowels and consonants of Italian to convey the highs and lows of human
endeavor. With a lightness in our steps, we got into the village which occupied a timeless
location in the Galician mountains. The swooping, valley-spanning superhighway bridges that
took most of the vehicles up the mountains were modern-day intrusions, of course. But the
towering concrete sequoia-like supporting columns that rose from the verdant greenery directly
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behind our temporary shelter kept the road and, more importantly, the noise of the traffic well
above us.
The albergue was a shabby affair that was way too heady with the smell of fresh paint.
But the hospitalier could not have been friendlier. She sat us down and brewed some herb tea,
chatting all the while like—well, I can’t use that brook simile again, can I? To our further relief,
Emilio, the vegetarian Pamplonian, was soon commandeering our dinner plans. I couldn’t figure
out the hot water valve and so had to endure a truly frigid shower that lent new meaning to the
term refreshing—I got perilously close to resembling Xo on his midnight trek to the bathroom at
Manjarin.
Right as we were ready to trundle down the hill to the supermercado (this little village
boasted two, though by American standards they were little more than glorified 7-Elevens), a
stately Roman arrived with his equally dignified wife and—with minimal consultation with
Emilio—assumed dinner planning and KP duties for our group. I think he intended to cook for
the whole albergue but trimmed his plans a bit when he saw the humble layout of the miniscule
kitchen/dining room located in the breezeway between the two upstairs dormitories. His dinner
for 60 peregrinos way back in Granon had already entered camino mythology because of its
breadth and delectability.
By the time this decorous patrician was ready to roll up his sleeves, that little galley was
crammed with all manner of hungry wayfarers who had down pat the dodge-and-cut kitchen
choreography necessary for throwing together a meal in such a crowd. Pots and plates flew off
the shelves and soon sprouted morsels for the famished. Others would hover over either chefs or
diners and grab the pan or plate when that phase of the meal concluded, uttering a not-quite curt,
“Here, let me take that and clean it for you.” Quite polite in a stern way, everyone refrained
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from screaming when, for example, one woman filled the only large pot up to the brim with
water for her little bit of pasta. She had broken three cardinal rules of the communal kitchen:
adding unwarranted cooking time, co-opting the use of the pot, and wasting precious bottled gas.
Our dainty little dance over the stove and utensils was nothing compared to the
impending riot caused by the lack of seating for more than eight people in the breezeway itself.
Patrons who finished eating were understandably reluctant to give up their seats and thereby their
stunning views of the sunset-clothed mountains and the distant hulking ruined aerie of a crusader
castle. How places for the famished late diners were managed without a cat fight, I cannot say.
The magic—which would be true this time—of the camino? But somehow when our Caesar was
ready to serve his spaghetti margherita, our little group had requisitioned enough plates, cutlery,
and seats to tackle our meal appropriately and comfortably. Again, I was pleasantly lulled by the
lilting conversational undercurrent of Italian phonemes, as well as by liberal dousing of the
Spanish rioja.
Our regal chef, clearly upset that the supper did not live up to his exacting standards,
dismissed the continuous compliments with almost disdainful shrugs of his broad shoulders. I
could not tell you whether it was what I took to be the gourmet quality of the food, the day’s 44
km trek, and/or the bracing mountain air that had me yearning to lick my plate clean. As I twirled
and downed forkfuls of that delicious dish, I ransacked the linguistic lobes of my brain for every
real or imagined Latin cognate of good they harbored and uttered one or two between each pasta
load, “Bene, bien, bueno, buonissimo, benissimo, belissimo…”
We then joined our multinational breezeway expats who were down on the porch or
strewn across the small patch of lawn. One of the Estonian women was holding court over this
diverse group. A free spirit with flowers in her hair, she not only marched to the beat of a
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different drummer but did the camino on her own inner clock. She and her female compatriot
tended to sleep late and were awakened by the albergue cleaning staff when the sun was directly
overhead. It was no wonder they had just arrived in the dwindling twilight. Having doffed shoes
and quite a bit of clothing, this Baltic beauty resembled a version midway between Goya’s
Clothed and Nude Majas, as she lounged provocatively on the little bit of green. A hubbub of
witty double entendres in my native tongue soon peppered the air. I was impressed as not one—
other than yours truly—of the assembled had English as a first language.
The usually squeamish Germans and Austrians kept stroking the step-above-feral kittens
tumbling round the yard. I guess they didn’t examine them as closely as Emilio had earlier after
his petting hand bore bloody stigmata. He found the mites and ticks—some already burst from
the bounty, hence the blood—that were feasting on the poor kittens’ hides much like me with the
night’s spaghetti. My fellow pilgrims kept their vigil well after I went to bed.
I was up and out early the next morning. The air was a yoke of humidity, and rain was
certainly in the offing. I had to share the road with a group of three late middle-aged, presumably
semi-deaf Spanish men whose shrill and booming voices incessantly punctured the early
morning calm. I played leap frog with them for the greater part of the day; they happily stayed on
the highway which was the shorter and less arduous route as I took all the delightful up-anddown, meandering forest and mountain paths. So even though I was much faster and eager to
outpace them, we would meet at the next cross-roads where I again would be assaulted by their
interminable verbiage. I actually could understand a lot of their caterwauling; while women
gossiped about relationships, men tended to dither about sports or—as in this case—the deals
they got on past business transactions.
As I soon had to break out my poncho, I also had to contend with the heat gene-rated by
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the steepest climb of the camino being trapped under all that nylon. I was soon enveloped in a
very unpleasant sauna-like mini-biosphere as I went up and up and up. The mist gave way to
drizzle which then turned into steady rain. That soon morphed into a downpour. I don’t know
which was worse: going through the open mountain fields or through the heavily wooded tracks.
In the former, the wind would whip the precipitation and the plastic of the poncho into my face
or onto my legs impeding walking; in the latter rivulets of water would course down through the
foliage and create little waterfalls that had the uncanny ability to drop right into my neckband
and drench my clothing. I was coming into Galicia—I should have expected this.
It was over ten kilometers straight up over a grade of up to 60 degrees toward the end.
Suffocating under my rain protection, I finally took it off and draped it over my backpack—I
couldn’t get much wetter anyway, but maybe I could keep leakage into my belongings at a
minimum. The accumulated pent-up heat quickly roiled off me, and soon I was approaching
hypothermia. Filip and Marco added insult to injury when they passed me as if they were out on
a pleasant sunny jaunt in the park. I was ready to call it quits after I failed to find an open bar in
Laguna de Castilla, the last village on the way up, but had no real alternative but to soldier on. I
got a second wind when Xo, the German marathoner, advanced on and passed me. Using him as
part pacer, part windbreak, I was able to get through the two kilometers of slippery, commingled
mud and cow manure to O’Cerebrio, that quaint village with an air of an upscale tourist trap—
what used to be stone hovels were now charming thatch-roofed gift shops complete with piped in
Celtic music.
And what was there? A bloody Pilgrim Convention, I swear. Here I come into the only
available bar like a drowned rat, eager and in the worst need for my usual morning pick me up of
coffee and toast. There I find all manner of well-dressed, cheery patrons having the nearest thing
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to a real American breakfast I had encountered in almost two months of walking. I mean, at this
joint one could get the Holy Grail of a morning meal: fried eggs, sausage, bacon and home fries.
I could smell the aromas in the air and was almost desperate enough to scrape the congealed yolk
and cold potatoes off abandoned plates with my fingernails. If I could have put a tachometer on
my salivary glands, the needle would have been buried to the right. It took some maneuvering to
even get to the bar, my end of which remained untended. And from the looks of some of the
patrons—more impatient than content—as well as those of the harried wait staff and the
desperate barking of the probable manager, it was readily apparent that the food stores were running short, if not already depleted. I waited as patiently as possible, actually enjoying the warmth
of the compressed bodies. The bartender, all the waiters, and all my hopes of a gargantuan repast
vaporized shortly after.
I spotted some German acquaintances seated at a little table off to the side and joined
them. We talked about the appalling weather and the hike up. When I told them I had a bit of
trouble fording some of the bigger puddles along the way and had almost lost my footing several
times, they asked me if I was using my (walking) sticks. Since I, of course, had to reply in the
negative, I got a series of tut-tuts and an indignant lecture on the vastly superior advantages of
Nordic walking over normal locomotion. And all I wanted was a frigging egg (and some bacon,
potatoes, toast, jam, and about a gallon of coffee).
The metaphor I used above for my anticipated meal was entirely apt for this locale. Dan
Brown and his Da Vinci Code characters and aficionados have been looking all over creation for
the Holy Grail. They surely did not know that legend had the cup or chalice that Christ used at
the Last Supper resting in O’Cerebrio. This was “proven” by a 14th century miracle: a faithless
priest in the village church was irritated by the piety of a parishioner who braved a terrible
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snowstorm to attend Mass. As the priest performed the consecration, the bread and wine actually
turned into real flesh and blood. The event was certified by Pope Innocent VIII, and the remnants
of the miracle (did someone partake of the rest?) were placed in a reliquary donated by Queen
Isabella herself. Furthermore, the statue of the BVM in the church reportedly tilted her head in
the direction of the bloody chalice—further “evidence” of its authenticity. (I am obfuscating
here a bit. But my sources are a bit unclear as to whether the chalice in question is The Holy
Grail of Last Supper fame or just a miraculously transformed object, another holy grail if you
will.)
After what seemed an interminable wait for a waitperson and miffed at the stick lecture, I
finally grabbed a dry shirt and stripped right there in the bar, then shouldered my pack and beat a
hasty retreat. Since that restaurant seemed to be the only victual game in town, I plowed on like a
wounded animal. The rain was still coming down in a steady, strong drizzle, and many a pilgrim
were grimly struggling to get out of town and down the mountain. I ran into Simone and his
American friends (last seen in Burgos) who were reciting the rosary out loud as they trudged
on—I was desperate but not that badly.
The first three kilometers were along the highway shoulder, and whom do I meet straight
off? None other than the diarrhea-mouthed loud Spaniards from my ascent that morning. I was
then able to ignore the gnawing in my belly, because all my facilities were concentrated on
disregarding the piercing bellowing from the loudest of that triumvirate, “And not only free
parking, that hotel in Valencia had central heating.” Inaudible mumble. “And you should have
seen the lunch buffet. Amazing.” Mumble, mumble. “It reminded me of that vacation villa I
rented in Jerez. That came with a Jacuzzi and free maid service.” Mumble, mumble, and so on in
that piercing Spanish patter. I think I was on the verge of some serious camino road rage. Even
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though I walked faster than they, their voices carried far afield.
Right before I flipped and committed pilgrimicide, I spied a much needed narrow rocky
path and soon was again tripping like a goat down the trail. Alas, it was up and down and not that
far from the main road. So it was not long before those far-from-dulcet tones reached my ears
again. I pressed on like a madman until I reached Fonfria almost ten kilometers from the summit
and mercifully free of the Spaniards’ clamor. I debated whether or not to have my long
postponed morning break or to continue to put some distance between me and my aural
tormentors. I reasoned they would probably take advantage of the truck stop a ways back to not
only wet their whistles but to purloin a little treat and gain some conversational fodder for the
future, “Lord, it was amazing. You wouldn’t think it was possible on the camino. But I was
coming down from O’Cerebrio in the rain and stopped in a bar. I got a full meal, two coffees and
a cognac for only 9€. And the bosom on that waitress….”
After my coffee and toast and with the rain abatement and the clearing sky, my spirits
were considerably lightened. The rest of the way down was pleasant enough and occasionally
ravishingly beautiful. I chatted with an amiable German obstetrician, passed many struggling
pilgrims, and partook of vast vistas of the emerald countryside of what was now Galicia.
Triacastela soon beckoned. I was tempted to call it a day and bed down there after only 33 km,
botafumerio be damned. But after a beer and ham sandwich in a blue-collar bar mercifully free
of walking-stick obsessed pilgrims and value-hunting semi-deaf Spaniards, I resumed my trek, as
planned, for another 12 km to Samos.
The first few kilometers were on the shoulder of a fairly quiet highway that snaked
through a minor river valley with numerous little cascades, rocky bluffs, and forests off to the
side. The sun was out full force. In a word: delightful. After the almost-story-book-like village of
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San Cristobo, the way was some of the most picturesque walking on the whole trip. There were
stone bridges, tree-covered lanes, languid cows in the meadows, and wildflowers galore. It didn’t
hurt that I came across yet another handsome young Italian man, alas with his girlfriend, to chat
with a bit. I also encountered some agreeable high school students from Barcelona on a minicamino. Coming out of the forest and fields, one approaches Samos from the heights. All of a
sudden, the stupendous monastery complex in the middle of this little town in the valley below
materializes like Shangri-La. The massive ancient stone building is surrounded by bits of
parkland, well-tended fields, longhorn cattle, and bursting mountain brooks.
Along the way, I felt an unaccustomed twinge in my heel. I was already joint-sore from
all the exertions, of course, but this was different. When I got into the albergue and took my
shoes off, I found out that after almost 2,300 km or 1,400 miles of walking on two caminos, I
had gotten my first blister, under a callus no less. To say I was flummoxed was to put it mildly. I
had always held myself to be rather above the common fray of pilgrim foot problems. (I feebly
defended my shin splits as being a more exalted sort of stress injury.) Hey, I was a sort of super
caminonite, what was this?
It was important at times like this to maintain some equilibrium and sense of priorities. I
mean, I didn’t have leprosy. It wasn’t a heart attack. I was in a lovely outpost of northern Spain,
bedding down in an honest-to-goodness monastery. Albeit, my quarters were humbler that what
a common novice would have to put up with, what with a raft of teenagers, lack of hot water
again, leaky faucets, and bowed mattresses. But it was nonetheless glorious.
Well, it was until Chatty Cathy, the German mailman I had encountered quite some time
before, appeared on the scene. His verbal output was luckily less stressful to the ears than that of
my shades on the road that morning (whom I was blaming for my blister by the way—frantically
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evading them on the goat paths in the rain was surely the cause), but he more than made up for it
with his consistency. I actually was fascinated by his volubility—he was the Energizer Bunny of
meaningless patter. And he—a mailman for heaven’s sake, not, say, a university professor—was
doing this in English, not his primary language. I know lots of native-speaking Americans whose
conversational proficiency was substantially poorer. Any topic, any time, and he was ready to
comment, amend, defend, reproach, or deny.
He was annoyingly at my elbow during the long tour of the church and cloisters. The
monastery, beloved by many a Spanish monarch and others of royal blood, once had 200 towns,
105 churches and 300 (sic) monasteries under its control. (Gitlitz and Davidson, 313) Its erudite
monks were responsible for much teaching and learning throughout Spanish history. It was also a
favorite of Franco, who enabled a restoration after an extensive fire in 1951—though I bet he
was not as concerned that he couldn’t replace the library that was also destroyed. The church
façade was a marvelously restrained Renaissance masterwork. The interior was a double-domed
dazzling Baroque delight. The attached cloister complex, the largest in Spain, held two enormous
fountains topped by statues of its most prominent academics. A series of fascinatingly appalling
modern murals depicting the life of St. Benedict, among others, covered most of the four interior
upstairs walls of one of the cloisters.
I was able to ditch Chatty Cathy for a nice—and I practically prayed—quiet dinner alone.
But a steady stream of Spanish-challenged vegetarians tramped in after me—they weren’t a
group, but each was strategically placed with other pilgrims at tables in an arc around me. So I
got to hear the English-challenged waitress vainly try to explain what on the menu was going to
be palatable to them. You would think that the first animal-protein avoider who had already gone
through the ordeal would have piped up to those arriving later and in the same boat and offered
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the advice that it was going to be the pasta with tomato sauce and a green salad or nothing at all.
That would have saved everyone—especially me—a lot of distress. But no, I had to listen three
times over to the same explanation in the waitress’s fractured English that the vegetable soup,
contrary to its name, was not meatless and that the list in their hands was the limit of their
offerings. Well, it seemed that this was my day for auditory assaults.
I was not going to miss the late evening vespers, of course—what better antidote to all
the ear-pounding of the day than a short retreat to the cloistered life—even Chatty Cathy had to
remain as quiet as a Trappist during the service. The year before I also attended and found it to
be both a profound and a disquieting experience. The monastery used to house hundreds of
monks; now there were only 11—at least that was how many showed for the service. Most were
pretty decrepit, but two were nearer to 30. One of those never raised his bowed head from the
hymnal and looked as if he was singing a dirge for a recently-deceased mother, not a psalm in
praise of his Lord. The other fixed his eyes on me in a hungry way that I didn’t think was sexual
but more like he had sized me up and figured that I would be the easiest to bop on the head. He
could then drag me to his pallet, slip his habit over my unconscious body, and abscond with my
backpack and plane ticket away from this land of milk and honey and on to bright lights and big
cities.
This year, a handful of village men, at least two under a half-century, were also in
attendance. The dour-looking young cleric from last year was a little less solemn. I think he had
gotten a promotion of sorts, because he was not the last to troop in and did get to intone one of
the longer prayers. He was still overly earnest but with a tad more verve than last time—I could
have given him some lessons. The cagey one who gave me the eye was not around; maybe he
finally jumped ship—I wonder if he did clobber some pilgrim on the head and depart to more
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festive climes.
There were several new oblates who looked more Eastern European than Spanish. One
could not locate the passage for the evening’s psalms in his missal, leading one of the monks to
grab the younger man’s book, furiously page through it, point out the proper verses and thrust it
back. That was not the only un-Christian bit of petulance I witnessed: earlier another senior
monk upbraided—if their low-toned tete-a-tetes could be designated so harshly—a lesser for
some infraction and sent him out of the chapel. Soundly chastised, the brother practically flipped
the bird at his accuser as he departed. It was somehow reassuring to be reminded that human
frailty existed on all levels, even within the sacred, withdrawn world of the monastery.
I slept well—that was my third night in a row without earplugs. In the morning I dawdled
over a hot cup of java and the requisite toast as I waited for Chatty Cathy to get a good lead. The
first eight kilometers were along a small river valley on a soft dirt country path that was again
spectacular.
Then it was on to Sarria, where the lion’s share of pilgrims commence walking, since it is
110 km from Santiago—just over the necessary limit to attain the compostela, the official
certificate. (It also makes a very lovely week’s work of gentle walking—perfect for those who
may not be able to spend months on end doing a longer trek.) I expected crowds by this point,
but there seemed to be only a slight bump-up in traffic. There were more small groups of walkers
with little fanny packs (their luggage going ahead by van); most looked like they had just stepped
out of their outfitting stores. Not admitting to jealousy, I held my head up contemptuously as I
passed them in my mud-caked boots, my oft-washed rags, my backpack with the smelly, sweatstained straps, and my trusty sun-bleached orange Nike hat. They did not have had to eat my
dust—I wonder if there is ever dust in this precipitation-plenty corner of the world—but got a
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look at my camino-hardened calves as I overtook them.
The most amusing, surely, were the Americans—Amanda had cured me of my allergy to
my fellow countrymen. One could tell they were far-from-experienced walkers. But they were
certainly eager. They would greet their trail companions with loud, enthusiastic “OH-LAH,”
“BA-WAY-NOSS-DEE-ASS,” and “BONE-KHA-MEE NO,” distinctly emphasizing each
syllable and smiling in that unguarded, wholehearted way that, while embarrassing me to no end
as I knew I did it too, also incongruously made me—this time—proud to be a fellow
countryman. (Though it also meant I was constantly asked to explain George Bush II and the
invasion of Iraq.)
Chatty Cathy was holding back in Sarria and walked with me a bit before, mercifully,
taking a coffee break. I soldiered on despite the rain that started and continued for the next two
hours. I had decided to just go to Portomarin that day, a total of 38 km. It was either that or 48 to
Gonzar. With that new blister and the rain, I thought it might be wise to cut back. This was a
provident decision, as the Gonzar albergue turned out to be in the country (with nary a bar or
market) and next to one of those pig-raising factories where the swine were out of sight but the
smell was right in one’s face. The stench from those was truly remarkably pungent—I think it
could strip paint off the walls.
The year before, I did this bit of camino in a really driving squall. So I tried to be
philosophic as the gentle rain continued. But donning the poncho meant I was again enveloped in
my own little torpid terrarium. Furthermore, I couldn’t avoid a little wince every time I put down
my right heel. And it was up and down, up and down. I broke for lunch in Morgade, right after
the marker that announced that there was only 100 km to go. The bar, a delightful outpost in any
weather, was especially welcome at this point. Fortified with a piping mug of coffee, a huge
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salade mixta, and a passel of Galician bread, I was soon ready to face the hilly trail and any of its
travails again.
My recess was well timed; the skies had cleared. The remainder of the hike was sunny
and mild. The scenery, if possible, was even more astonishing than in the past few days, it was
all stone (with a verdigris of lichen) farm houses and fences, flocks of placid foraging sheep,
herds of grazing cattle, mountains far in the distance, and pleasant roads lined with all manner of
wildflowers. I got back enough spryness in my step to ameliorate the tenderness in my nether
extremity.
Right before the last hill down to the Portomarin reservoir, I looked back and saw a
pilgrim way behind me. I checked a bit later and saw that he was gaining on me. Fool that I am, I
picked up my pace—hey, I was in the land of machismo and was not going to be overtaken. I
passed a British youth who had stopped for a rest, a dazzling mid-after-noon view of the vast
lake down below and the town on the other side, and a chance to play his recorder. (He also had
juggling sticks attached to his pack.) Ordinarily, I would have been tickled pink to chat a bit with
such a character and meander into town in his company. But I had my honor at stake and pressed
on despite my screaming joints and obdurate right heel.
With head down and jaw clenched, I was determined to win this hot pursuit and almost
ready to break into a run, when I heard a not-so-distant, “Dan! Dan!” Mercifully pulled up short,
I turned to see that the advancing pilgrim was none other than Filip, with Marco right behind. He
was beside himself with laughter since he knew exactly what I was trying to do (though he
refrained from commenting on it). They had held back in Triacastela the night before and saved
seven kilometers by taking the non-Samos route to Sarria that day. Happily together and at a
more moderate pace, we strode on into what was the newest town I had been in since leaving the
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states. Before a hydroelectric dam flooded the old city around 1960, the major monuments—
foremost among them the 12-13th century Iglesia de San Juan—were taken apart and
reassembled in the new city on the hill above the newly-created reservoir.
The municipal albergue was right behind that bulky Romanesque church. Its public areas
were expansive, clean and airy. Though attached to a huge dining room and replete with
prodigious appliances, the kitchen—like all the albergue kitchens in Galicia—was devoid of
cutlery, plates, and pots and pans. (Actually there was a single serrated kitchen knife and a
Teflon-flaking two-liter pan that got a lot of use—the shenanigans required to get possession of
them was similar to a particularly vicious game of buzkashi.) The bathroom/shower area was
positively regal, if royalty would ever deign to use such communal facilities. So, why were the
dormitories so cramped and oppressive? My lord, they were veritable sardine tins with tiny
pinholes for windows. I should not complain—I was still able to go earplugless again that night.
Filip and I wasted the remainder of the afternoon waiting around for an empty clothes
dryer. (The joint lacked even a clothes line or a rickety drying rack.) But that gave me a chance
to do some serious pilgrim watching and chatting. I ended spending most of the evening with
three attractive German women right out of their teens. They were quite interested—or quite
possibly just humoring me—in hearing about a get-rich-not-so-quick plan I had cooked up
during the afternoon’s walk.
The scheme would allow me to do many more a camino, notwithstanding the current
anguish with the blister and the Galician rain, for research purposes. I was going to write a series
of “Murder on the Camino” mystery books. The first would have that title; the others would be
set in France, Andalucia and Portugal (Murder on Via Podensis, Murder on the Ruta de la Plata,
etc., etc.). The main character would be, like yours truly, a fashionable, erudite, rugged
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Manhattanite now in early retirement and currently on another pilgrimage. An unsettling series
of unusual “accidents” resulted in the death of young pilgrim women on their way to Santiago.
Our hero would be the first to figure out that the deaths revolved on some historical fact or
legend along the way.
The first victim would be felled in Roncesvalles by a brutal head wound in the shower
(details to be worked out). Later when the bodies started stacking up, our amateur detective
would deduce somehow that the shower head was a stand-in for Roland’s mace. Another would
“accidentally” hang in Santo Domino and, unlike our unjustly-maligned-as-a-thief pilgrim, not
survive. In Hospital del Orbigo, another would be run through the abdomen with a pointed stick
that would not be all that dissimilar to a lance wound from Suero de Quinones. I was arranging
about ten murders in all and was planning to unmask the murderer in Santiago at Sunday High
Mass. I thought that having him rushing off in an escape attempt and barreling straight into the
swinging botafumerio, thereby sparing the state a trial, would be an eminently suitable ending.
I deliberated about making the victims handsome young men and the killer a deranged
closet case—a change more in line with my experiences. But since I was doing this for money, I
was afraid it might lack the market potential (and film rights royalties) that murders of nubile
young females seem to generate.
Since I was pitching this idea to an audience of three in that demographic, I asked them
how they felt about it. They were, I guess, used to seeing their sisters slashed to pieces on the big
screen, if not on the written page, and did not discourage me. But they thought it would be more
appropriate from practical and moral standpoints to just knock off the snorers. As this was a sore
topic for me, as you know, I tried to dissuade them. I think they were conceiving a variation on
Agatha Christie’s “Ten Little Indians” or “Murder on the Orient Express” with the still-snoring
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victims getting smothered in their sleep. All the other pilgrims would consider it justifiable
homicide and lie to cover the identity of the murderers. As attractive a scenario as that was, I
wanted my tale to be more on the lines of Umberto Eco’s “In the Name of the Rose” or Dan
Brown’s “The Da Vinci Code.” That is, I wanted it to have the literary panache of the former but
the worldwide sales of the latter. Well, they couldn’t deter me but did make me promise to knock
off at least one snorer.
In a grisly aside, I came to regret spouting off about murder the next morning. No, I
didn’t do a practice run of homicide on the loud Spanish men—not the same as those on the
O’Cerebrio leg, but their veritable clones—who disturbed the whole place at 5 AM and later
destroyed my breakfast-bar moment of tranquility. (But I contemplated it for more than a
moment.)
No, I got out on the trail early before the rush. I think I was far ahead of the pack when I
came on a disturbing scene. Someone had artfully and in an anatomically correct manner
arranged some foul-smelling entrails right on the camino path. I hardly took note of the resected
remains—liver, kidneys, heart, and long rope of intestine. Since I had just passed the fetid pork
plant I mentioned earlier, I dismissed this display of innards as a demented protest some
unbalanced animal rights activist had set up in the middle of the night. Barely giving the exhibit
a glance for fear of losing what little sustenance I was able to down before those peacedisturbing men descended on the bar, I quickly passed by.
Well, it was not the type of thing one can just casually put out of mind. I started thinking
about it, actually amazed that I had come across it. Then the musing and questioning started—
why was I so sure it was not human? I was mentally kicking myself for not examining the
remains a bit more carefully. I mistakenly remembered from the mists of high school biology
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that a pig’s heart had three chambers—something I may have been able to quickly differentiate
from a human’s four. The more I thought about it, the surer I was that the vestiges were a
murdered human, most probably of course, a nubile young woman.
So what to do? It was just after dawn. I didn’t have a cell phone and didn’t know if 911
was a universal panic number anyway. The highway was not very far off the path. Could I flag
down a car? I had imagined that I looked pretty spiffy that morning as I donned my freshlylaundered, long-sleeved orange top, my orange socks, and my orange hat. And I was ever so
pleased with the exuberant three-inch hair growth covering my chin that would be the pride of
Billy Goat Gruff. But I didn’t know what a passing motorist would make of a panicked pilgrim
so attired, waving his hands, and shouting (and probably mispronouncing) “Muerte! Muerte!” in
the early morning light.
So I did what any not-quite-so-self-respecting pilgrim would do. I kept walking and just
put the whole slaughter sequence out of my head. Well, almost anyway. But the mind is a tricky
thing. I had held court the night before in the dining room not only for the German girls but the
whole albergue, some 140 people, over half of whom had to have understood enough English to
know the subject was murder—and pilgrim murder at that. I no longer had to work out in my
mind the literary details of an intricate mystery novel but took to defending myself in front of a
hard-boiled Spanish detective (the only bright spot in the scenario) whom I was sure I would
soon have to confront:
Detective: Now, Senor Elliott. What were you talking about last night
in the albergue?
Senor Elliott: Uh, murder.
Detective: Oh, interesting, murder. Any kind of murder?
Senor Elliott (sweating heavily): Uh, the murders of nubile young
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women pilgrims.
Detective: Very interesting, very interesting. Did you know that a
very same nubile young pilgrim woman was murdered on the camino just last
night?
Senor Elliott (relieved): But I was in the albergue sleeping. Surely there are
witnesses. Just ask the three German girls.
Detective: But we did—well, two of them anyway. They were very upset. They
all said, “What that crazy old coot?” I wonder what a coot is by the
way.
“He was snoring so bad, he kept us awake. Poor Sigrid was so very dis turbed
she went down to take a shower. And now she is dead. We saw that old billy goat
wake up and rush out with the kitchen knife in his hand.”
Well, needless to say, none of that transpired. By this time, I was used to camino
mysteries aplenty. I regained some equilibrium, hard-hearted soul that I am. Santiago was nigh,
and I keep plodding on to Palas de Rey on a fairly boring gravel path, skirting and crisscrossing
the highway. The path was a bit more scenic for the remainder of the 15 km or so to Melide
which I reached mid-afternoon.
At the edge of town I was pleased to see that the little church with the iconographically
unusual crucifix was open. A parish priest was again in attendance and was happy to give a
disquisition on it but—unfortunately, like last year—only in Spanish. I gleaned just enough to
know that that the representation of Christ on the cross with His freed right hand reaching down
and His left foot released from its spike was just one of five known in the world. Not so big on
statistics, I just wanted to know the significance—something even an internet search the year
before had not illuminated. I understood just enough of his words and pantomime to know it had
to do something with reaching down to the multitudes of sinners on earth. At least this year I was
able to snap a picture before going on to the albergue in town.
Now my standards had been taxed before, but this municipal dump rated about as far
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down the scale of suitable habitation as I could bear. Though the bathrooms were on the ground
floor, it was a two-story climb to our beds. The showers were a slippery bonanza of mildew and
only had freezing water. But at least my buddies and I got a shower—the water was soon shut off
for several hours so plumbers could fix the horrid clogged toilet—yet another olfactory assault in
a day quite full of them already.
I showed the boys my digital image of the crucifix with the ulterior motive of getting
Spanish-speaking Diego to go with me and get the full account which he could then translate.
While he and Filip were distinctly unimpressed, Marco, to my astonishment, was electrified and
wanted to retrace his steps back a kilometer to the church so he could “demand an explanation.”
Even knowing that Marco’s Spanish might not be up to the task, I was eager to spend
some quality time with him. Unfortunately, his English was rather limited, too. He spoke in
curiously short but complete and grammatically correct English sentences that he would fire out
of his mouth when you weren’t expecting it. Marco admitted that “Dan, my English is scholastic.
It is not conversational.” He was a serious no-nonsense, young man. When I mentioned the
appalling conditions at the albergue, he looked me sternly in the eye and rather witheringly
commented, “We are on the camino. We are not on vacation.” That settled that.
I got to quiz him on his athletic endeavors, sure as I was that he was far from a couch
potato. It turned out that they included pretty much every conceivable sport. He had recently
taken up running with enthusiasm and was doing well. But his girlfriend was a world class
middle-distance runner and soon to be in the World Championships that summer. Wow!
So we got to the church only to find it locked up tighter than a drum. The parishioners
sickling the tall grass in the church yard/cemetery confirmed that the padre was long gone and
that the church was not to be opened anytime soon. And they were totally oblivious about the
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meaning of the cross. Marco, though, was having none of that and relentlessly questioned some
other folk on the street about the cross and the possibilities of getting the key. Now populace
here, like locals everywhere else, were not going to out-and-out say retrieving a key was totally
out of the question. A toothless hag and a slightly younger old blade were, admittedly, not very
sanguine about our prospects but didn’t totally dismiss them.
Our queries soon brought out a well-pickled drunk from the local bar who was absolutely
sure that a neighborhood poll worker or some such had the key to the church and was just sitting
at home waiting for a few foreign pilgrims to show up so she could gladly hand it over. He even
gave an exhaustive description of her house down to the lace curtains on the window along with
detailed information on how to get there—a derecha or two and an izquierda thrown in.
Unfortunately, those directions took us to a dead end with a bunch of derelict buildings, not a
pleasant and welcoming village cottage with homey window treatments. Since a partial-Spanish,
partial-English speaking Italian was my source for the directions—helped by my guessing at
words that weren’t in his vocabulary, I do admit that the wino’s instructions may have not been
quite so precise in reality and that we could have missed an important clue or two.
Getting directions from a local was always fraught with complication. They have, you
see, a different outlook on their world and tended to give just way to much information. Say you
asked where the albergue was. Very simply the answer would be, “Go up the street, make the
first right, then right again after 100 meters, then two lefts. The albergue is on the left.” Simple
enough, right? Or was it left?
But, the answer you would get in Spanish would be the following with words you
understood in bold face: “The albergue? The albergue? Let me see, there used to be one near
the greengrocer up the street. But they closed that and opened one by the church. My uncle
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helped raise the money for it and did most of the building. It is yellow just like his house before
he painted it bright red. Just go up the street to the tobacco shop. Pablo Gomez runs it, but he
is in the hospital now with pneumonia. You would turn left to get to the hospital, but you want
to go right for about 100 meters. You can probably see the church behind the bus station to
the left. But go right and around the block past the pharmacy and then turn left. The albergue
is on your left.”
So you got directions, but you would be wandering all over looking for a greengrocer
either open or closed and a hospital and turning left when you should turn right. And if you
found the bus station, you would go left before you needed to. And go in a complete circle. You
would be wondering what was yellow, what was red, who Pablo was and who gets the money,
etc. And so it goes.
At any rate, Marco and I retraced our steps only to find our inebriated guide had, by then,
mercifully beat a hasty retreat. And no one else was around except those Millet-like reapers in
the yard who we were not going to interrogate again. Even my intense Milanian knew enough to
admit defeat. We started back on the yellow-arrowed road to town, thankful at least we didn’t
have to ask the drunk or anyone else for those directions. But who should now be briskly
approaching the church? None other than a stately, magnificent, black-mitered, cassock-wearing,
honest-to-goodness priest.
Marco pounced on him like a hungry dog on a tasty morsel of steak and asked him, in his
halting Spanish, if he was going to open the church. This imperious man took a disdainful look at
the much shorter Marco (I will forgo mixing in the nipping dog metaphor) and icily asked him in
precise Spanish what his country of origin was. Marco ever so meekly intoned Italia. Whereupon
the priest, a lot less haughtily now, remarked in fluent Italian that they had best continue the
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conversation in Marco’s native tongue since he had been a sort of Spanish envoy to the Vatican
for three years and spoke the language fluently. But he did not explain why he, such obvious
papal court material, was now relegated to such a remote outpost. I imagined, but could not
confirm, that his infraction was serious (maybe coughing in front of the-then-Cardinal Ratzinger)
and so was banished from the Holy See.
But back to this whole crucifix business; the good padre flat out admitted that the cross
was truly noteworthy but that, since he was a recent émigré to the area and hopefully temporary
at that, he knew nothing of substance about the significance. Drat, foiled again. But at least I got
another look at the wonderful statue.
We headed back to our temporary bivouac to pick up the other men and to drown our
disappointment in some local wine and to take care of our appetites whetted by our 42 km day’s
hike with Melide’s most famous product—steamed octopus. We soon repaired to Pulperia
Ezequiel and watched the cook—alas, not the Margaret Thatcher look-alike from last year—use
massive tongs to pull raw critters from deep vats and plunge them into equally large pots of
boiling water where the deep sea creatures were quickly but amply cooked. Then he would
retrieve the by-now rosy red steaming aquatic arthropods and daintily snip them into bite sized
pieces onto wood platters. There they would get doused with olive oil and red pepper flakes
before being served to the mesmerized guests who were already dousing themselves with an
acceptable table wine. Between mouthfuls of those tasty crustacean tidbits and big bites of
delicious Galician bread, we discussed our plans for the morrow. We all wanted to get to
Santiago for high Mass on Sunday morning. But it was already Friday night and we were 52 km
away from our goal.
The other three men were not going to be fool-hardy enough to do such a more-than-a-
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marathon the next day but would bed down in Arca do Pino, get up exceedingly early on Sunday
morning, and do the final 20 km in time to catch the litany of pilgrim accomplishments, the
botafumerio, and our final pilgrim benediction and blessing. Well, I—even early riser that I
am—was exceedingly leery of that plan. I damn well did not walk almost 1,000 miles only to be
shut out of the chance to see the largest incense burner in Christendom in action. I was also not
going to spend a night right outside of Santiago at that gulag of an albergue in Monte Gozo, the
only other such housing option nearer to our goal I was aware of—it was Santiago or bust for
me.
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Chapter Sixteen
Viage a La Abundante Galicia
The Tour through Galician Abundance
Melide to Santiago de Compostela
So, my last day of walking! A more glorious day could not have been ordered—Adam
and Eve hardly had it any better before munching on that apple. Banished was any hint of
Galician precipitation. The sun was maybe a tad bit warm in the afternoon but expressing such
an opinion would be downright ingratitude. The way was beautiful but not easy by any means,
especially the first 12 km to Arzua. It was up, down, and over some four river valleys—had
tracks been laid, it would have made a pretty scary roller coaster ride.
During our coffee break on top of the last of those four hills, Filip and Marco were
ribbing me about my prospects of reaching Santiago anytime before midnight. I must say I, too,
was far from optimistic about the goal. But when the going gets rough, the rough just have
another café con leche and, hey, toss in another portion of tostadas, por favor. Later in the day, I
would—like the inscription above the beer mug on that ubiquitous tourist t-shirt—just point to
the tap and say, “Pour Favor.”
There were just too many pilgrims on the trail by this time. Never mind, I used them for
pacing—I would set my sights on the next one or group, overtake and pass, then look out for my
next target In that way I was ticking off the kilometers and feeling pretty good. I then spied a
pilgrim in trouble ahead. This man was clearly suffering from some significant hip ailment as he
swung his left leg out and jutted his torso and left shoulder forward and to the right. I could just
bet his shoulders and back were hurting too. He would quickly lurch on a few paces and then
slow up for a few more, all the while repeating that painful-looking, ungainly gait. It didn’t take
much to catch up with him. I might have been blithe about a possible dead body on the camino,
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but I was truly worried about this live one. As I came abreast of him and proffered the obligatory
“hola,” I could tell from the sweat on his brow he was in some considerable distress. When I
asked if he habla-ed Ingles, he replied in the affirmative.
This was Martin, an amiable though obstinate German youth who had been walking from
Leon with a badly fitting backpack. Needing to be back in Germany for exams in a few days, he
was on a tight schedule and so had been furiously pushing himself onward despite bilateral hip,
shin, ankle and now, as I suspected, shoulder and back pain. His sore and blistered feet were the
least of his problems. He was determined to complete not only the rest of the way to Santiago
(from Ribadiso) that day but the 110 km to Finisterre in short order after. I would not have
counted on him to do another 110 meters.
My heart melted at his pluck, and I rather relished the chance to do something a bit goodsamaritanish for once—I too had to rack up some indulgences and was fast running out of time.
It certainly did not hurt that Martin was well-traveled, relatively mature for his age, and a good
conversationalist—he was just opinionated enough to be entertaining but not obnoxious. I
moderated his pace (and consequently mine also) which allowed him to correct his gait
somewhat. And I had him hold his shoulders back which helped his posture. Most importantly, I
had a substantial store of the ibuprofen he had not been taking for over 24 hrs. No wonder he was
hurting. He soon was well-dosed. It was a short distance through a pleasant and cool eucalyptus
forest on a forgiving soft-earth path to a bar where I insisted on a stop so that the antiinflammatory could take effect.
So he was in much better shape when we hit the trail again. We continued on and chatted
quite a bit. He was questioning all of the tenets of religion and was not doing the camino for
anything other than an adventure. He had spent a high school year in Iowa improving his English
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and another semester in Buenos Aires learning Spanish. I was impressed as most high school
students I knew could not navigate much more than a trip to the mall alone.
We continued on the way which remained fairly flat and rural until we passed the
Santiago airport. We had lunch right after in the same restaurant Joseph and I had dined at last
year. Viva la tradicion! We must have lost some of our resilience after our meal—wine may not
have been an appropriate drink selection—because our vigor had pretty much vanished by then.
Perhaps we should have partook of a more ancient tradition of the camino and just stopped in
Lavacolla. For here was a little stream where pilgrims used to do ritual washing (the lava
derivation seems pretty obvious; colla actually refers to genitals or the scrotum) before entering
the city and the shrine of St. James. (Gitlitz and Davidson, 341)
The rest of the trail would be uphill to Monte Gozo, then a quick downhill, and then flat
into the cathedral—about ten kilometers total. Unfortunately, the countryside was now ancient
history, and pleasant hiking paths were a thing of the past. Now it was urban almost-squalor and
foot-and-joint punishing concrete or asphalt.
The slog up to Monte Gozo seemed interminable. We walked and walked and walked
through seemingly never-ending ugly suburbs under the relentless sun—this must truly be hell in
July or August. We would trudge along a long straight street, turn a corner, and face yet another
long straight hill. Martin reverted to walking with that earlier lopsided, left-leg swinging, lunging
gait. His pleasant personality started getting a sharp edge, and he petulantly refused another dose
of ibuprofen. I had already done over 40-plus kilometers and was not exactly sparkling either.
Martin sensibly decided to stop at that dreadful hilltop vacation village that was Monte
Gozo. I could have made it into the city but knew the march all the way to the Seminario Menor
albergue would be a horror. (Of course, Santiago is chock-a-block full of hotels in all price
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ranges, but I was committed to staying in albergues while on the camino proper.) Plus, I didn’t
want to miss an excellent photo op in front of the cathedral if I got there after dark.
So we both stopped at the camino’s last and ugliest shelter—a series of concrete block
bunkers in a sea of similar buildings in a vacation “resort” on the hill above Santiago. Stalin
would have been proud to have erected such a monstrosity. But the showers were hot; the beds
comfortable enough. The complex was crowded—most of the crowd was either very young or
very old. Unengagedly, I had a few beers with a party crowd but did not join them for dinner. I
left a supply of my anti-inflammatories for Martin and went to bed early.
I wasn’t the first one up in the morning but was, I think, the first out. I had the last bit of
the camino to myself and rolled into old section of town around seven. Having come this way
before, I would like to say that I was really blasé about the whole enterprise and that I found this
whole arrival thing a bit of a letdown. But actually knowing where I was going and what I was to
see made me more excited. After a traipse through some dreary neighborhoods, the pilgrim
crosses a busy multi-lane ring road and suddenly is in old Santiago. The remaining bit of the way
to the cathedral is not quite a straight shot in but a wide arc to follow. The buildings, some with
long arcaded fronts, are only three stories high but seem to lean inward on you as you walk the
narrow streets. The well-dressed stone of the streets and buildings is a warm brown limestone
that has unevenly darkened from the elements. The dampness of the Galician weather allows
abundant lichen formation on the stone in a variety of muted shades of olive, brown, gray and
dull silver. These clinging crust-like patches and the occasional fern or ivy soften the lines of and
create even more shadow and texture on the buildings’ walls and decorations. The whole fabric
has touch of mystery and romanticism. Though the cathedral is nigh, it cannot be seen until you
are almost right on top of its back corner. Then your eyes are drawn up by the sudden appearance
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of that massive building’s sprouting domes and towers. Then you are on a short downhill, and it
is hard not to rush down through the tunnel and into the huge plaza where suddenly your
pilgrimage is finished.
In the vast cathedral square, there was only one other denizen, possibly another pilgrim,
but more likely a homeless man. Otherwise, I only had to share it with the late-leaving club kids
passing through. That was it—I had done it. Take picture; then what?
I knew that I would have another hour or two until Filip and crew got there. So I nursed a
coffee and roll in a bar off the square and went back to watch the pilgrims dribble in. That was
actually kinda fun, even though amazingly repetitious; a pilgrim, singly or in a group, would
triumphantly enter—as I did—the square off the north side of the cathedral, get a huge smile on
his or her face, and hug the first available person. The camera would usually, but not always,
come out before the cell phone. And most every-one stayed curiously bound to the environs
around the church.
I did go over to the pilgrim office and got my second compostela in as many years. I
registered my name for the pilgrim church service so my nationality and starting point would be
announced in the church prior to the final pilgrim benediction. Somewhere along the line I
found out that the botafumerio was out-of-service. Its ropes had dangerously frayed, and new
ones had to be shipped in from Italy—so much for yet another item on my Must Do List and the
manic push the last few days. Filip and Marco arrived, stood in line for their compostelas and
found out that, though the large Seminario Menor albergue was shut, there was another back on
the trail another kilometer. So we scurried back there for beds, dropped our packs, and rushed
back for the service.
We got into a packed cathedral and could barely push our way through to stand near the
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transept crossing just as the priest was announcing that there was one American pilgrim who had
started in Le Puy and finished that day.
Last year the atmosphere was totally different. Then the few—maybe about 20 or 25 in
all—pilgrims and an equal number of tourists who had trickled in had the place all to ourselves.
That Mass was a solemn affair but unfortunately also, not being on a Sunday or Holy Day,
without the smoke belcher. Most of the crew settled down and even reclaimed their Catholic
roots for the interim and took communion. At the parting where everyone was to shake hands
with their neighbors, it got pretty emotional. There were hugs aplenty. Even one of the Italian
women who showed me little Christian regard (and I even less to her) grasped my hand warmly.
But the actions of the elder of the two Spanish ladies who walked the whole way together
reduced us all to tears. We knew she was gamely persevering despite a severely stressed body
and bleeding feet. By this time everyone also knew that the reason for her camino was to honor
the memory of her teenage son who recently died in a car accident. She went from pew to pew
greeting all of us and hugging a few. It was quite moving.
But this year, since I could hardly see anything or any of the other pilgrims I knew, I
quickly exited the service and went over to an internet café. After that brief respite, I returned to
find the square and all the nearby outdoor cafes crowded with my weary, jubilant fellow pilgrims
darting here and there and boisterously greeting both acquaintances and strangers as they showed
up.
Diego, Filip, Marco, their Spanish friend Santiago and I went out for a celebratory lunch.
Though the service was bad and we were seated in a basement dining room away from the
pleasant sun, the food was almost as good as our moods. Santiago sprung for a bottle of
sparkling wine and led a series of toasts. The rest of the day was uneventful other than the
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Kurdish kebab place I found that night where I could speak some Turkish and where,
interestingly enough, roast pork was on the menu. I got back to the albergue and to bed.
Early the next morning, Diego and I were off by bus for a two-night stay in Finisterre.
Filip and Emilio were going also but just for a day trip. Marco was up and eager to do the
journey by foot over three days. This was my second chance to do the Camino Finisterre—I had
no time constraints, was in good health (I popped the blister in Melide which reduced the heel
irritation quite a bit), the weather was fantastic, and Marco would have welcomed and been a
welcome hiking companion.
But to me the journey, the walking part anyway, ended the day before at the cathedral. It
wasn’t, as you can tell by now, religious conviction that drove me to do these excursions. I am
not that goal-oriented or so inflexible that I could not modify plans. I am usually very eager to
get caught up in others’ enthusiasms and happily participate. But that just did not include the
hike to Finisterre. I would take the bus, look at the lighthouse and the sunset, snap a few more
pictures, and maybe, as tradition had it, burn an item of my belongings there.
So I made my little trip. We got a great little room overlooking a small beach and the
harbor. Another cove over was a fabulous swimming beach with water deliciously refreshing. I
did not pocket anything from my pack for the trip to the lighthouse and so did not have anything
to burn while waiting for the sun to set over the Atlantic. Martin got there, too—he walked only
about 20 km from Santiago before his woes forced him to take a bus for the remainder. To my
great surprise, I met Jane, Rene, Kristof, and—most importantly—Anne Marie at this outpost,
the end of the earth. They had done the walk from Santiago. Anne Marie and I had come full
circle. (She subsequently walked all the way back to Paris, by the way.)
The little trip to Finisterre was a nice bit of decompression; then it was back to Santiago
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by bus. In a panic, I took the first, rather expensive hostel bed I could find as they fill up quickly.
But I did revel in the crisp sheets, soft towels, double bed, and private bath after months of
almost unrelenting shared bathroom and bedrooms.
I spent another four nights in Santiago. Pretty much all my time was spent in the
cathedral square looking for other acquaintances as they arrived startled, happy and triumphant.
Then it was rounds of drinks and food, sharing pictures and stories throughout the day, and
promises of keeping in touch and eternal friendship.
I did go back inside the cathedral a couple of times to try to revive those more poignant,
reflective emotions. I never tired of gazing at the Baroque profusion of the main façade and
climbing the double staircase to enter the edifice. Likewise, I was always a bit stunned to come
onto the 12th century vessel of the building proper. The Tree of Jesse sculpture right inside the
door was, unfortunately, fenced off. So I couldn’t put my fingers in the holes in the base worn by
countless thousands of pilgrims as they prayed and paid respect. And it was impossible to
approach Master Mateo, the genius behind the Tree and the Portico of Glory, who included
himself in the sculpture program. He forever kneels, facing the main altar (and not laughing like
I was wont to do at the immense flying golden angels of the baldachin). It is customary to butt
heads with him as a gesture of respect and, some say, in order to transfer some of his artistic
genius into your own noggin. But he, too, was behind the temporary barricades.
I did trot up the stairs behind the altar and pay my respects to St. James’ effigy that
hovers over the whole shebang. Him you can embrace, but I limited myself—like the year
before—to a nod of my head and a mental, “Keep up the good work,” before giving up my place
to the next in line. I crawled down into the crypt and viewed the silver box that contained the
bones that were responsible for this whole camino business in the first place. I could and
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certainly did appreciate all the sacred tradition that gave rise to this splendor. I even wished I had
that added attar of faith that would make the experience truly resonate.
The botafumerio was not going to be flying for a few more weeks. So I only had one last
yearning to satisfy, the last item on my Must Do List. I wanted to see the iron collar of Suero de
Quinones. He is probably my favorite camino personality, and I am sorry he died about 700
years before I could meet him. Not even he, though—like the knight pictured in my elementary
school history book—could take me off on a Children’s or any other crusade.
Suero was the love-sick Spanish knight, you might remember, who fell in love with a
comely lass but was spurned by her in his offer of marriage. He donned an iron collar as a
symbol that he was still a slave of love and challenged all the knights of Europe to jousts at
Hospital del Orbigo, a lovely spot with a long, long bridge that is a little over halfway from St.
Jean to Santiago. He vowed to break 300 lances or die trying.
Knights from all across Europe answered his challenge and came to Spain. After he broke
his 300th, he doffed his iron collar and walked to Santiago as a pilgrim. He left the collar there,
and it was supposedly now in the museum collection. I do not know how his love interests fared,
but he continued to battle on, participating in the interminable Spanish civil wars. He was out in
the countryside one day some 20 years after his bridge triumphs and met one of the knights he
had defeated at the bridge. They had a repeat of their joust, and it was Suero who fell—this time
to his death.
So I set out for the museum to look at the collar and pay my respects. Surely, I thought, it
would be a manly, studded affair—like something Mel Gibson would have worn in “Mad Max.”
I looked all through the compact museum but saw nothing to fit the bill. Stymied, I went up to
the guard for some direction. Luckily, I was wearing the one shirt I had with a collar whose tips I
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held as I asked "¿Que es en Espanol?" Of course, I had to repeat the question the requisite four
or five times (while daintily holding up the little wings of fabric) before he understood me,
giving me many perplexed looks—as well he should—all the while.
Like a quiz show contestant convinced he was given a trick question, he finally and very
carefully said "cuello." So thereupon I asked, "¿Donde est el cuello de ferro de Suero de
Quinones?" As this was by far the longest question I had ever asked in Spanish, I was really
quite proud of myself. Of course, the guard did not have the slightest idea what I was driving at.
Needing to repeat my query, I unfortunately had already forgotten the word for collar. So I kept
saying "de ferro, de ferro; Suero, Suero" over and over again like a brain-damaged echolaliac as
I clutched my neck this time (not the collar) with both hands. Finally the light clicked on in his
head, and he figured out what I was so insistent on seeing.
It turned out I was right across the hall from the hallowed object. I garnered just enough
from his detailed instructions (alas, of course, in Spanish) to learn that Suero’s slave-of-love
necklace was in the reliquary room. (This is always my second favorite outpost in a religious
museum—I usually gravitate immediately to the gory martyrdom scenes.) The guard thankfully
took me in and pointed to the middle of the wooden retablo—otherwise I would certainly not
have spotted the item on the neck of the absolutely stunning Caput Argentum, a gold and jeweled
bust reliquary that purportedly holds the head of St. James Alpheus (not our own St. James, even
though he was the one beheaded).
So did this studly knight have the studded Mad Max dog collar that I was expecting?
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!
He had a dainty little choker that would have looked divine on Audrey Hepburn’s neck in
the ballroom sequence in “My Fair Lady.” It looked a lot like gold, not iron, and had a huge
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precious stone in the center. No wonder, I thought, Suero had to fight so much. Wearing that
piece of stunning jewelry, he probably had to prove his manhood over and over again. I just bet
he was the butt of many a joke on the battlefield. So it was no wonder that the knight he defeated
and later met was burning so with revenge—you can imagine the ribbing he got from his mates.
It was probably a constant rain of "So, you couldn’t even knock down the guy with the lady’s
necklace, huh?”
I wanted to be like Marco with the dangling-extremity crucifix in Melide and “demand”
some answers. But, like that cross and the entrails on the path, yet another of the many mysteries
of the camino would have to remain unsolved. I might have been shown someone else’s collar.
Or the original collar might have been gilded and be-stoned. Or maybe this whole iron collar
thing was a crock. But I liked to think of this manly man riding out on his valiant steed,
humming songs from an era-appropriate version of “Breakfast at Tiffany’s,” fingering his little
choker, and wondering which boots would look best with it at the castle later that night. I
wondered if he missed it later.
I wanted that to be the end of my tale. But back at home, I made a closer reading of
Suero’s saga in Gitlitz and Davidson in hopes of mining more lurid details for an already
fabulous yarn. Nope, no mystery here—I was mistaken all along. The iron collar was left with
the judges back at the bridge. He did, though, travel to Santiago as a pilgrim and “when he
reached the cathedral, he deposited [that] jewel-encrusted bracelet as a token of his release from
the prison of love.” (Gitlitz and Davidson, page 270)
Still, what a trip. My 1000 mile odyssey may be far from an Homeric epic but I did have
my share of adventures and meet some memorable characters. I hope you have read this with
some pleasure and amusement. As my Suero interlude so aptly demonstrates, this is not the last
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word in historical exegesis on any aspect of the journey, but I trust it provides a modicum of
practical information about the whats and the whys of the whole experience.
Another pilgrimage in the future? The year before after my first one, I was absolutely
sure I had it out of my system. But I was back in the proverbial saddle after 14 months and raring
to go. Now, I cannot wait to do another. I don’t think the world needs a series of camino murder
mysteries. And there many other places to walk for days on end. So I may never get a meal in
Molinaseca or see the botafumerio in action. Time will tell.
~ 292 ~
BIBILIOGRAPHY
Bonville, William J., A Traveler’s Highway to Heaven, Exploring the History and Culture of
Northern Spain on El Camino de Santiago, SynergEbooks, FL, 2007.
Brierley, John, A Pilgrim’s Guide to the Camino de Santiago, Findhorn Press Ltd, Scotland,
2006
Gitlitz, David M., and Davidson, Linda Kay, The Pilgrimage Road to Santiago: The Complete
Cultural Guide, St. Martin’s Griffin, New York, NY, 2000.
Hooper, John, The New Spaniards, Second Edition, Penguin, London, England, 2006.
Melczer, William, The Pilgrim’s Guide to Santiago de Compostela, Ithaca Press, NY, 1993.
Nadeau, Jean-Benoit, and Barlow, Julie, Sixty Million Frenchmen Can’t Be Wrong,
Sourcebooks, Inc., 2003.
Raju, Alison, The Way of St. James: Le Puy to the Pyrenees, Cicerone, UK, 2003.
Robb, Graham, The Discovery of France, Norton, New York, NY, 2007
Shaver-Crandell, Annie, and Gerson, Paula, The Pilgrim’s Guide to Santiago de Compostela,
Harvey Miller, London, England, 1995.
FURTHER READING
Alcorn, Susan, Camino Chronicle, Walking to Santiago, Shepherd Canyon Books, CA, 2006.
This is a tale of a camino trip in summer from an older, feminine point of view.
Aviva, Elyn, Following the Milky Way, A Pilgrimage on the Camino de Santiago, Pilgrims’
Process Inc., CO, 2001. A tale from 1982 when the camino was really an adventure.
Aviva, Elyn, Dead End on the Camino, A Noah Webster Mystery, Pilgrims’ Process Inc, CO,
2001.
Coehlo, Paulo, The Pilgrimage, Harper Collins, NY, 2008.
Frey, Nancy Louise, Pilgrim Stories, On and Off the Road to Santiago, University of California
Press, CA, 1998.
Kerkeling, Hape, I’m Off Then, Losing and Finding Myself on the Camino de Santiago, Free
Press, New York, NY 2009. This is an English translation of the book that launched thousands
of German pilgrims.
~ 293 ~
MacLaine, Shirley, The Camino, A Journey of the Spirit, Pocket Books, NY, 2000.
Moore, Tim, Travels with My Donkey, One Man and His Ass on a Pilgrimage to Santiago, St.
Martin’s Griffin, New York, NY 2004. Truly one of the funniest books I have ever read. If you
can read only one camino book, this is it. It is entertaining, well-written, full of well-presented
historical facts and utterly lacking in self-satisfaction and self-reverence.
Rudolph, Conrad, Pilgrimage to the End of the World, The Road to Santiago de Compostela,
University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL, 2004.
Saunders, Tracy, Pilgrimage to Heresy, Don’t Believe Everything They Tell You, A Novel of the
Camino, iUniverse, Lincoln, NE, 2007.
Ward, Robert, All the Good Pilgrims, Tales of the Camino de Santiago, Thomas Allen
Publishers, Toronto, 2007.
Ward, Robert, Virgin Trails, A Secular Pilgrimage, Key Porter Books, Toronto, 2002. More
Mary stuff.
Wilder, Marcus Henderson, Naïve and Abroad: Spain, Limping 600 Miles through History,
iUniverse, Lincoln, NE, 2008. One of the few books about the Via del la Plata, the pilgrimage
route from Seville to Santiago.
~ 294 ~
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The critics rave--what they
said
book:
would have
if they read and commented
about this
John Bunyan, author of The Pilgrim’s Progress: “Such a
worthy successor to my work. Finally!”
Joseph Alois Ratzinger, aka Pope Benedict XVI: “You better
watch it. You can walk, but you cannot hide.”
Anita Brookner, noted English novelist and art historian:
“Such absolute drivel I cannot imagine.”
Karl Rove, former Chief-of-Staff, Bush Administration:
“Listen, man, there is a new leader now. If you are such a
walker, why can’t you move on?”
Brad Pitt: “I want the film rights. I can see myself playing
that pilgrim if I ever get so pathetic and old.”
Oprah: “Tremendous but hardly uplifting. Not a snowball’s
chance in hell of making my list. Sorry.”
Editor, The New York Times Book Review: “Thank you for
your kind submission. Unfortunately we cannot review all
the books we receive.”
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