Next installment as per the one person fan club!

 

 

Day 6     Only  710 kms to go!

 

Even after all that sweat and effort once I had time to think I realized we had still over 700 kms to go.  It occurred to me that Id better not look forward to the end yet but rather just concentrate on getting  through each day in good enough shape to keep going indefinitely. Weve all had jobs like that were you just dont see an end but the only thing to do is start hefting and eventually you run out of whatever pile you have to shift. Luckily, I had that perspective and it did stand me in good stead.  The other advantage we had over many of the other people we met was that our time here was pretty open-ended. We really just had to get back to Canada by the end of October. Most of the Americans we met seemed to have maybe 2 weeks to get as much done as they could and a lot of the Europeans would do this trek in stages over a period of years. For them it isnt too pricey to get here so that works.  For me I had already decided that I was going to do this only once, thoroughly.

 

With that in mind I reluctantly left our plush room after a good breakfast (At that price it had better be!), unleashed the walking sticks and started down the streets of Pamplona. In most of the cities and larger towns they dont have the painted yellow arrows but rather they have brass Camino scallop shells embedded in the middle of the sidewalks to mark the trail.  We only saw a few of these chiselled out along the whole length of the Camino by souvenir seekers or other types of ratbags so there seemed to be a level of respect for the trail.  Something about burning in hell I think.

 

As we paced through the lovely parks and sidewalks on the way to the university grounds along the trail we met innumerable local Spaniards out for morning walks, almost all with their dogs.  They do love their dogs in Spain while cats seem to live a much more precarious life, which made my cat-loving wife kind of sad.

 

Up though the university grounds over a bridge and finally out in to the country we went pausing only once for an emergency rest stop. It is amazing how little privacy one (my wife heh heh) needs when one really needs to go.  Once we were squared away, we could see the big slope of the ridge starting to loom in the distance.  A pleasant sight but a daunting one but the weather was good and we kept meeting people we knew as they passed us.

 

As the morning wore on it got pretty warm and once again I made the empty promise to myself that we would start out earlier to avoid the worst of the heat.  Easy to say, harder to do. It got to the point where as the hills slowly got steeper and I started working a lot harder I would chug from one piece of shade to another and then wait for the old girl to catch up.  It was getting a bit annoying for her because by the time she came panting up to me I was ready to go again.  There are two main techniques for getting up the hills. For me it was a case of givin-er until I had to stop to get my breath while she more or less just kept on plodding slowly but steadily. Probably smarter.

 

A welcome village with a busy bar loomed up over the next rise so I demounted the pack and had the first beer of the day with an American couple we had met at Orison.  We caught up for a while but they were moving a bit quicker than us so off they went.

 

Once we were refreshed with freshly squeezed naranha (orange juice)-her, and freshly pumped beer-me, we followed, although personally I could have sat here all day watching the sweating peregrinos (pilgrims) march by.

 

However, I was getting the twitchy look from you -know-who so I loaded my stupidly large pack and trudged up the hill.   My wife was positive the beer would just make me sluggish but I found that if you just sweat it out right away it really doesnt have much of an effect at all except to refresh you mightily.

 

I also had the camel back in my pack and every once in a while, as we kept climbing I would suck on that lovely lukewarm plastic-tasting liquid . Oh well, at least every time I drank from it the pack got a bit lighter.

 

I did have to wonder how sanitary the camelback thing was though, as almost every time I took the pack off, I would forget to tuck the sipping tube away and it would end up dragging on the ground that a thousand other pilgrims had done stuff on.  (I dont really want to think about what that might have been)

 

We could see the giant wind turbines on the ridge of the Alto de Perdon but today they werent moving at all which was too bad as I could have used a bit of wind to cool me off.  I had taken to soaking a stack of paper towels that I would steal from wherever we stopped with and stick them under my stylish leather sombrero to keep my head cool.  I would resoak them at every public fountain (there were hundreds along the Camino, most of which were potable and beautifully cold.  What a hospitable country to do that.)  I had to stop using the paper towels after a few days as my head was usually covered with bits of wet napkin by mid afternoon with caused a few stares when I doffed my hat at a bar.  I ended up using my buff for the same purpose. The buff is a trendy kind of looped bandana my wife insisted I buy to wear as a head rag or something.  I was not enough of a hippie to ever do that,  but it did work pretty well wetted and stuffed under my hat to serve the cooling purpose.

 

About a km down from the ridge was one last very old fountain and again I waited for her to catch up. There was also a fairly talkative (flirty?) middle aged lady who seemed to want to race me to the top but I really wasnt up for that as we still had half the day to go once we got there.

 

I finally staggered up to the top amongst the other panting pilgrims and sat in the shady side of a monument until Terry came up.  The same woman had made it before us and I got her to take a picture of the two us along the famous steel statues on that ridge.  In the movie The Way that is set on the Camino this one of the most identifiable and unmistakable settings they used. Ill try to include a link of a 360 view.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5pthh6mf3g

 

There also was a lady who was walking with her dog who she had fitted with a small pack.  I must say he didnt look nearly as happy as she was about the whole event.

 

So, made it!  Now we go downhill again and for a well trodden path it was pretty sketchy there for a while. There was at least a couple of kms of steep gravelly slopes with an amazing amount of loose, very round and well polished stones.  I would not have wanted to walk this stretch if it was at all wet.  Even dry we had to be very cautious as neither of us wanted (at that point at least) to end up with the walk-ending sprained ankle.

 

Finally made to a flatter trail which was good as I was feeling the knee again a bit.  Went through one more small village but didnt stop as we had to get to our albergue by 1500 hours or we might lose the room we had booked.

 

Made it to our Muruzabel albergue with about half an hour to spare and who was sitting out side sipping a beer but the colonel!

 

It was good to see her and Debbie again so once we got settled in, gave the proprietor our laundry (he was offering that service for three Euro- heck of a deal) had an awesome shower, I joined them and we got caught up.  They were still clashing like a pair of mismatched gears.

 

Supper was communal with pork medallions (delicious) some great wine and a strange concept for  dessert that consisted of nothing more than small containers of plain yogurt.  Oh well, its all good protein.  We stayed for quite a while talking to a nice retired couple from South Africa and comparing notes on the walk, our countries etc.

 

Off to bed in our severely plain bathroomless room but at least it was private.  We were in an annex and  the bathroom was quite a walk across the alley in and through the main building so the quiet village was treated to the sight of a nearly naked chubby old canuck watering the lawn behind the annex every couple of hours during the night until all the wine had been processed.  I hope there were no security cameras although it would be the kind of footage any decent person would delete or would possibly cause the viewer to dig their eyes out with a spoon.

 

The thought for the day:  I did observe to my wife that maybe were compatible enough to last this trip as we actually ended up at the same place, at the same time and in the same mood. Good stuff!

Great stuff Ken! You have a gift in the way you tell a tale, keep it coming. It's a tale most of us will never experience, told as most of us would have experienced it if we chose to.

Another great chapter there Ken. So vivid I can almost hear you puffing up those hills. Keep em coming.

 

Thanks for the vote of confidence guys.  I'll try to drag more memories out of my skull. Everyday was a new adventure for sure.

I still can't believe you did this Ken...

Thanks for the interesting article. I really enjoyed  the tread. 

Mark 

A little more haggard and a bit thinner and not as well dressed and you'll have the idea! I'm about halfway through the next installment so should be posted soon.

I'm not sure I could sleep all that well in a strange (small, hard) bed, along with being over-tired, aching, and after having a few beers.

 

Another great instalment.  When I'm reading your adventures, it's just like I'm traveling along with you (which is advantageous as it means I won't have to attempt a similar trip... heh heh).  What an experience!  The photos are stunning - I'm in awe of that 1000 year old stone bridge.  We as a society need to go back to building things out of stone instead of the prefab crap that we use today, which only lasts 30 or 40 years anyhow.  Bring back the stone masons!

Really enjoy your writings! 

New installment! I tried to upload some pics but so far no luck.  I will try again later.

 

 

Day 8   Estella! Estella!

 

 

 

So up we lurched, well after the dorm had cleared out at their usual 6 am start.  After we mounted up I explained to the cute chambermaid about the source of the brown stain on the bed just to be sure there wouldn't be any assumptions drawn by her about incontinent Canadians. (Just trying to leave a good smell for the rest of the canucks you might say.) Then we hit the road out the back door like all the other pilgrims, looking hard for an open bar/café for some breakfast.  Ours wasn't open that early. This was to be our shortest day so far so I wasn't about to waste my time taping up my feet against blistering.  The wisdom of that decision will be apparent later.

 

It was about a hour later we arrived at a sidewalk café that had the usual freshly squeezed orange juice (naranha) great coffee, and tortilla.   Even for me this was a bit early for a beer so I just sat happily sipping coffee in the Spanish sun while my wife roamed the village snapping pictures and looking for an open church to get yet another stamp (cello) to prove we had been there.  She was accommodating to me in that she usually took both our credenciales (pilgrim passports) and got mine done at the same time. Open churches were actually kind of rare while open bars where quite plentiful.  I'll let that speak for itself.

 

From we I read of the history of the Camino, the tradition of the passport and stamps derives from the time when the pilgrimage was imposed as a light criminal sentence on miscreants of the middle ages.

 

I'm not sure what crime would set you up for this light sentence as they were likely to execute people for stealing a loaf of bread in those days.  Probably peeing in somebodys beer or something frivolous like that.

 

To prove they had actually done the walk as they were sentenced to, it was required that they produce a stamped document with wax seals collected along the route to a judge in Santiago de Compostela. Of course, given human "creativity" there quickly arose a brisk trade in counterfeit passports, but for us we were going to do it the hard way.

 

Other than the café, the village we had stopped at, like most we encountered, seemed almost empty.  A few cats on a few windowsills and the occasional person out for a walk were all that we met.  All village houses had sturdy doors and shutters closed tight on the ground level against what I don't know really.  I guess it's a throwback to the attitude of the times when you really did need to make your house your defensible castle. The bigger towns such as Estella were the opposite though, with very busy street scenes.  From what I understand Spain is going through the same emptying out of the country as we are in Canada with most young people going to the bigger centres and leaving the villages to the old.  In fact most of the small villages we walked through likely would have died completely if it wasn?t for the Camino and its business.  We did see one or two that were essentially abandoned.  There were lots of For Sale signs along the path which did make us think about a relocation to this area's peace and quiet but I suspect we would have found the deep downside of that soon enough. Best to visit, I think.

 

It was an unremarkable walk through pleasant country and we did eventually cross a major road with a tunnel. It appeared to be a dead end as we entered, so I remarked to my wife that this whole camino thing seemed to be ending a lot sooner and with a lot less grandeur than I thought it would.  However, it turned out to be just a really sharp right-angle turn.  Bummer; still have 650 kms to go.

 

We walked into Estella at about 1300 hours. This was the first time we had gotten to our destination town that early and it was just as well as the sun was getting quite hot.  Luckily the ubiquitous roadside fountain was available for me to soak my steaming skull.  Much refreshed we continued the long hike into town through some circuitous streets until we crossed another ancient bridge into the town proper.

 

As I said, it was a bustling and very touristy place with blasé  locals interspersed amongst the wide eyed hippies, pilgrims and tourists enjoying this classy medieval town.  We walked the old narrow cobblestone streets along the rivers again marveling at the age of everything.  It must have been a fairly prosperous town in its day as I noticed that even the overflow gutters that ran centrally down the streets were actually made of marble. So cool.

 

We had a tough time finding a hotel with the high population of tourists in this town so we had to settle for one that that was pretty high end (read expensive) that was apparently a reconstructed old mill along a river.  It was also about a km or two off the Camino itself so at one point we had to leave the trail and head up some even more obscure streets that quite soon stopped being touristy and started to be a little seedy.

 

That kept us walking briskly though, and after passing a couple of non touristy bars (i.e slightly grubby) and a very modest bull ring we spotted what turned out to be our hotel.  It was kind of an ultramodern thing with the ground level mostly of glass and angled concrete pillars grafted unto what looked like an old water powered flour mill.

 

Even finding the front doors amongst all that glass was kind of a challenge but eventually we checked in with the bored looking and quite solitary occupant of this place.  Still, it had an elevator so that redeemed it quite a lot as we were booked up on the 4th floor.

 

Wow! Beautiful ultramodern room with big openable windows facing the river (no screens anywhere in Spain that we ever saw.) and a great looking shower. 

 

After checking out the soft bed for a while, we got our act together, cleaned up and changed into our last clean clothes.  We didn't know of any laundry in the area and the hotel didn't offer any service like that so I volunteered to handwash the whole disgusting pile of stuff.   My wife was very impressed but I seem to remember being mildly in the doghouse for some remarks I may have made that day about her so it was probably my attempt to get some brownie points, so to speak.  I must say I earned them.

 

She went out to look for some postcards for the folks back home and I said I would just hang around the hotel and check out the patio that led to the river. That errand took a lot longer than I thought so by the time she got back I was perusing the guidebook to see what we faced tomorrow and nursing a tall cool drink.

 

Overall, it was a very nice place but with a weird atmosphere.  The only staff member we saw split her time at the desk and at the bar and seemed to be the chambermaid as well and there were some really spooky sculptures made out of old animal bones and driftwood hanging in the trees next to the river. You would not have wanted to be anywhere near those at night.   On the other hand, the room was cheery enough and after we managed to find some tapas at one of the local bars for our rather skimpy supper, we slept like a couple of rocks with the windows open next to the rushing sounds of the river and the flapping sounds of our drying laundry.

 

 

 

Next:  The wifes view of things!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Channeling your inner Brando!

Ken, did you happen to see any "old" vehicles in you travels?

Looks like you about to have "show down" with walking sticks drawn ... either that or it's an firing squad range!: