Omigosh... at your convenience of course, when the muse strikes.
I was just saying I enjoy your writing and am looking forward to the next instalment - whenever it comes!
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 andthe 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!
Now I'm getting this pop-up on Canadian Poncho. https://santiagoways.com/en?gclid=EAIaIQobChMImauczt6t5wIVkEJyCh3I7gfiEAEYASAAEgK40vD_BwE
Personal question; Did the trek bring you and your "closer"?
__________________
Prince Edward Island
'64 Parisienne CS "barn find" - last on the road in '86 ... Owner Protection Plan booklet, original paint, original near-mint aqua interior, original aqua GM floor mats, original 283, factory posi, and original rust.
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.
Wait till you see what I actually looked like by the end. Then you'll believe.
LOL, you mean you didn't look the the Muppet guy any more??? I still can't forget the day you posted your picture and his picture and pointed out the resemblance!
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.
Due to heavy pubic demand here's the next installment. I will try to load some pictures if this $1.98 computer will allow it.
Day 7From Muruzabel to Lorca-stoned man!
This was maybe the first day of what might be called a routine on the Camino for us. Up till now we had been getting used to the challenge, trying to figure out accommodations based on the huge surge of pilgrims walking at this particular time and trying to get through the biggest hills on the whole stretch (or at least so we were told they were)Today was supposed to be a more typical daythat involved a series of quiet villages and small hills.
After a fairly poor night of sleep as usual (you know tiny bed, tiny pillows and tiny bladder) the task before us was basically to get up and walk to our next booked albergue which was about 19 kms away.A fairly easy day by our rapidly evolving standards. The first part of the day was mildly downhill but the last half was a series of ups and downs which caused my wife to really ramp up her profanity level over my constant expressions of, Hey it flattens out just up ahead!Once we hit the next little village it started to rain so we had to bring out the ponchos. I also managed to order a naranja, an americano , a cola cao and a grande cerveza all at the same time so I proudly considered myself speaking quite fluidly in Spanish (heh heh).
As we left the village we had the opportunity to actually pass through a pilgrim statue that was in the form of a cutout of a pilgrim.See the picture.My wife fit through handily but I seem to recall that I shined up the sides a bit as I squeezed through. So much for losing any weight yet.Today was the first day that I really started to take in the country instead of just concentrating on the task at hand and it was worth certainly worth paying attention to.
Sooner or later the sun came out and we just had to watch for the deepest puddles on the trail. It was a mixed surface trial that for a while routed us through what seemed to be back gardens of peoples homes. Talk about seeing the country intimately. Our first big landmark of the day was the bridge at Puento la Reina which means bridge of the queen. It was caused to be built by the queen of the province in about 1020 to help out the pilgrims. This means it is in the neighbourhood of 1000 years old.It still looks and works as well as it ever did which really make you wonder about the crap we erect in this country.Of course, they used stone for construction and had the occasional roman bridge or aquaduct to use as a model so it isnt a surprise that it has lasted that long from an engineering point of view.What is surprising is that it has lasted this long from a conflict point of view considering most of this land has been soaked in blood for one reason or another be it local feuds (some of which still fester) civil war, or because of empires at war.
I will vouch for stone as the most available building material as it seemed to be still scattered through every farmers field. In fact every time I passed some display of historical farming implements I noted that the old plows all had top and bottom moldboards that could actually rotate, presumably so they would have one that was sharp enough to last the day. (Could also be to change the orientation of the furrow-Im no farmer so Im guessing on this.)We also could hear the rather musical clinking sound of farmers hitting an endless supply of rocks while doing the fall tillage as we walked though the country side.
So I guess it was necessity being the mother of invention because stone was absolutely everywhere making up houses, churches, bridges, fences and streets. An amazing amount of handwork and craftsmanship must have gone in to the building of any of these, but at least when youre are done you are done for about a thousand years.I think part of the reason that you get a sense of peace in this country is just walking through such settledness.The buildings for the most part have an air of permanence and even the ones that are in the process of falling down take a couple of centuries to do that. The stone fences are usually covered with moss and look like they arent barriers so much as they are part of the landscape.
Another thing we noticed is that there didnt seem to be any standalone farmsteads to speak of.It appears that the arable (if loudly clanking) land in Spain is scarce enough so that the farmers all live in the villages according to the usual European model. Made sense to me as the villages were usually no more than 10 km apart so it is not a long drive even on a tractor to any piece of land. It also makes sense from an infrastructure point of view. We did walk past some very nice village homes that had tractors and implements parked there so farming seemed to a pretty good way to make a decent living. However, we read that the farming was all fairly small scale until we were to reach the stretch of the trail called the Mesata, which I was quite looking forward to as it was supposed to be quite likeSaskatchewan.Couldnt happen soon enough for me.
We also noticed that we were starting to see and walk along quite a few vineyards with lovely bunches of ripe grapes just waiting for the picking.We noticed quite a few pilgrims would grab a handful as they walked through but we really didnt want to do that, as tempting as it seemed. From the pilgrims point of view a handful doesnt deplete the crop but from the owners point of view, 500 handfuls a day will make a difference, so we wanted to show a level of respect for the owners by leaving their stuff alone. Besides drinking it was actually better.
The vineyards were quite pretty but the other main crop we kept seeing was actually kind of disturbing in a way.Sunflower crops were widespread but at this time of the year they were all dead (likely herbicided) so we saw acres of dead black sunflowers with their dried heads bowed, waiting for harvest.
I guess thats farming these days but it wasnt that pretty.
Today we ran in to our first donativo. (Picture.) They are donation- based booths that usually offer drinks and fruit for the pilgrims. They seem to be two kinds, those that are run by local people and those that are run by itinerant hippies that, though endangered in Canada, seem to be all over the camino. Donativos are quite ubiquitous and probably make as much money from middle class guilt as the bars do from middle class thirst.They usually set up at rural, opportune spot along the trail(like at the top of a big hill) to catch weakened passersby that need to stop for a minute.Worked like a charm.
This one wasrun by a young Spanish guy who had set up his booth along the remains of an old roman road There are remnants of these on various spots along the Camino and even the occasional bridge survives from that era, Again, amazing engineering considering it was all hand done, and at its most basic level, just consists of rocks piled artfully. Stone age in a way.
That last hill in Lorca where we had a private room with a shared bath in an albergue was a killer and we huffed our way in, done for the day.We jammed ourselves into the bar where an overworked young lady who seemed to serve drinks, food and check in the rooms at the same time managed to keep the customers satisfied.
It was always interesting to people watch so while we were waiting, we observed a group of people who had come in ahead of us and also had a head start on the beer. They were already very loud and there was a big fellow pontificating about his view of the world. The bar/café part may have been an old bodega (wine storage house) as it was built of brick and had a very low round ceiling plus it was lower than street level. A very old American lady pushed her way to the end of the bar and asked loudly if she could get a bottom bunk in the albergue as she was 86 and really didnt want that climb after walking all day.Amazing!She was the oldest person we actually met on the trail and she was walking by herself. I sure hope she made it. Gives us all hope, that sort of thing. Apparently, they didnt have a spare lower bunk as they had all been claimed, so she went across the street to the competition and we didnt see her again.
We finally got processed and had to climb way too many crooked stairs up through what looked to be a former rooming house, through a dormitory room and finally into a small room with a small double bed, a chair and a window.
Still it looked great to me and with a groan I took off my massive sweat covered pack and threw my dashing leather hat on the bed.Bad move as it left a big brown leather stain sweat stain on the sheet!
After enduring my wifes gentle admonishment about being a sweaty bone head I had to report it to the front desk lady to just stay upfront with everyone but also partly as i didnt want anybody to think it might be the other kind of brown stain youd find on a bed sheet.She said it was no big deal and it would wash out in the next wash.No extra charge. Nice.
After we navigated the delicate etiquette of sharing a bathroom and single shower with the all the people in the dorm room we changed to our other clothes. (I had packed exactly two pairs of pants.) and went down to join the crowd for the communal pilgrim supper we had also paid for. Sitting at the back of the tank shaped room was Debbie and the Colonel. They looked kind of glum, maybe a bit lonely and didnt seem to have anything to say to each other. We looked at each other and headed over to join them which seemed to cheer them up al lot.In fact, I seem to remember that the Colonel bought me the first beer. Debbie was talking about her daughters impending delivery and showing us pictures of her family.The colonel (Sharon was her name actually) had had a couple and was quite wanting to talk. For her today was the profound experience of being in a small village church and being blessed and hugged by a nun.She was quite emotional about the experience which had moved her greatly and it made me think there was a lot more to her than the cliché I had assigned to her. (Hmm, insights; Ill have to avoid that kind of stuff in future.)The South Africans came down and also sat with us so we exchanged notes again and then a young girl from Australia took the last space.
After quite a delay we started to be served the standard three course pilgrim meal (roast chicken and I ordered the local speciality, cooked asparagus, which was as youd expect both going down and being excreted later on.Make note to avoid that again too).
The only sour note in the night were the acoustics in the café where we were sitting.The shape and structure of the roof amplified all the conversations to a babble until it was just a dull roar as dinner and wine took hold of the crowd.The big group with the even louder guy now didnt help either and I actually had to leave a couple of times to let my ears stop ringing. It was like being inside of a barrel, which a sense we were.
During the meal we discussed our plans as best we could. Debbie and the Colonel said they were going as far as a place called Cruce n the guidebook which was a good 30 km day.Debbie was kind of signalling that it wasnt her idea so there seemed to still be a disconnect on that team.Neither us or the South Africans were really up to keeping pace with them and once we looked at the guidebook it was strange to note that the Cruce simply was a crossroad on the trail so we never could figure out what they were actually planning to do or if they actually knew. Sadly, as it turned out too, this was the last time we ran across them on the trail so we must have really mixed up our paces.Our 4 person collective plan (South Africans as well) ended up being to hike the easy 8 kms to the end of the Brierly guidebook stage (most common guidebook used on the Camino) which was a fairly large city called Estella and take a hotel room so we could really sleep, shower and most importantly, do some laundry.With as few changes as we were carrying (weight ya know) we had to take every opportunity to do laundry as you never knew when youd get another chance.
So that was that and we were off to our hard little bed. Slept like a log until my cell phone rang loudly at 4 in the morning causing me to scramble dazedly for it so it wouldnt wake the dorm people who were just on the other side of a very thin door. Turned out it was just some stupid robo call, not some home emergency so after that if I was within earshot of other people I would shut my phone down for the night just make sure this didnt happen again. The home emergency could wait.
Terry tells me that I snored so loud that she planned to have us wait in our room in the morning until all the dorm people were gone so they wouldnt have had the chance to curse us roundly.I call it a damn good sleep.
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.
__________________
Prince Edward Island
'64 Parisienne CS "barn find" - last on the road in '86 ... Owner Protection Plan booklet, original paint, original near-mint aqua interior, original aqua GM floor mats, original 283, factory posi, and original rust.
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!
New installment! I tried to upload some pics but so far no luck. I will try again later.
Day 8Estella! 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.
'64 Parisienne CS "barn find" - last on the road in '86 ... Owner Protection Plan booklet, original paint, original near-mint aqua interior, original aqua GM floor mats, original 283, factory posi, and original rust.
https://santiagoways.com/en?gclid=EAIaIQobChMImauczt6t5wIVkEJyCh3I7gfiEAEYASAAEgK40vD_BwE
