Yes, we are back in England. I am still a bit shell shocked, I suppose, and Alison is back at work dealing with auditors, the world and everything while I get to do house work, write stuff and play with grand children – life is tough, believe me!
We arrived in Santiago on the 19th and got our compostellas after a long argument with the women who give them out. We kept saying that we had walked from England and they refused to believe us/understand us/listen to us. I ended up showing them the map in the back of our pilgrim passports and showing how they correlated with the stamps in the book (we got a stamp every night at the place we stayed at). Eventually they gave in and accepted that we were telling enough of the truth to warrant giving us the certificates.
We stayed our first night in the city at the refugio run by the Francisans (a well kept secret) and I ended up encountering the last ghost of our walk and being bitten several times on both arms, neck and head by the dreaded bed bugs. Our second night was in a hostal booked for us by Dougald and Betty (God bless them).
We had several celebratory drinks/meals/etc with David and Christina, with Dougald and Betty and even met up with Anne and her friend Elizabeth, too. We encountered some of the rudest Spaniards of our whole walk in Santiago and some of the nicest people, too. We also went to the Pilgrim Mass which I hated and Alison thoroughly enjoyed and was moved by. It also featured the huge swinging incense burner that is controlled and swung by a team of men as it shoots back and forth across the width of the cathedral – total madness on a chain and encased in silver. Oh, and we gave St James a cuddle, too. At the back of the high altar in the cathedral there is a very grand and elaborate statue of St James and if you queue up at the right door you can follow the line through the back of the church, up into a high room behind the altar and stand on a little pedestal so that you can put you arms around the statue. We did this and whispered sweet nothings in his ear (yes it was quite a weird experience but no stranger than walking 1600 miles to get there, I suppose).
Finally, we left the city on a bus which left on the 21st in the morning. We travelled across Northern Spain in a slightly indirect but beautiful route and entered France just south of Bayonne. By mid day of the 22nd we arrived in Paris and headed on another bus towards the Channel Tunnel where we spent a very long time being held up by French Customs (one of our fellow passengers tried to go to England using her driving license and could not understand why it was not acceptable – after all, the UK is supposed to be part of the EU, isn’t it?) sadly, Britain is not very welcoming even to its own citizens! Our party was then delayed by UK Passport control who managed to find another couple of passengers who didn’t meet their exacting standards for entry. Finally, we boarded the Channel train, waited for a while and then had to get off and get on another one as that one had decided to break down! What joy!
Our arrival in London was untroubled and gentle and our welcome from Kirsty, Rosalind and the twins was great. We celebrated with Champagne and fish and chips – happy days!
Other delights of our return included the car battery being totally flat and having to wait a long time to charge it up (it started for the first time this morning (hurray) – yes, the book said it would take 24hrs to charge and that’s probably how long it took – with breaks when we went out, went to sleep, etc... Rosalind and the girls stayed over as Paul’s mother was having a birthday party on the Saturday and things go very complicated with relatives staying at their flat, etc. We went down with her and the girls to wish Yvonne a happy birthday.
Then yesterday was my turn at having a birthday (I generally have one a year, I think), and it was a great day (one that would have been even better if we had also enjoyed the company of Dominique, who is at Warwick Uni doing a course, and Ewan and Dylan who couldn’t make it so we will see them during the week if we can organise it...) I made some food for the day, which was part of the day’s fun. I made a very large Paella, an empanada and some bbqed chicken, too. We also enjoyed a lovely bottle of wine which was a present from our very good friend Mike (thank you Mike!). My presents included a DVD of Dancer in the Dark which is excellent and the DVD of the TV series from the eighties called Tutti Fruity which is also excellent!!! And, a lovely bottle of Caol Ila which is an excellent Malt Whisky, if you didn’t know what it was.
So now I am sitting here in New Malden thinking where do I start? I have so much to do/write it is mindboggling but all good stuff, really. I have also made a policy decision – I will write a book on the walk but it will be quite different from any of the others I have seen. Well, very different, actually because in order for me to enjoy writing it I will have to do it my way...... It will not take long to do but I will have to start looking for a suitable publisher – always the hardest thing to sort out.
Sorry it has taken a while to get this bit written but I have just been doing normal things, like making and eating food that I like, playing with granddaughters and chatting to family and friends, walking to places then coming back, cutting the grass and tidying the garden, sitting on a comfortable seat, staying up later than ten thirty without resorting to reading by head torch, sleeping beyond five in the morning, etc....
Life, don’t talk to me about life......
Monday 26 July 2010
Monday 19 July 2010
Wake me up before I go go
We’ve stopped but my feet are still walking 19 07 2010
This is a reality. We are in Santiago and I am sitting in the Franciscan Monastery with a Franciscan nun next to me talking to another pilgrim as I write. Alison, David and Christina are all on their beds resting. We arrived and were welcomed by Betty and Dougald who guided us around. We got our certificate (indulgence) and have had a lovely lunch (thank you D&B!!! The women giving out the certificates refused to believe that we had walked all the way from England. England is an island... you can’t walk from there, etc. I eventually convinced the woman who was looking after me and she got Alison’s woman to accept it reluctantly.
So, we have stopped the pilgrimage and are working out what needs to be done next.
We are shell shocked and are still in a refugio so we are gently entering back into the real world. It will take some time to really sort things out. All of the things that people take for granted that we have been doing without are now going to come back into our lives so we will have to work at this.
Walking with David and Christina has been a blessing. The walking has been hard and because of the heat and the terrain (and the heavy packs) Christina has found it very tough. It has been a lesson in humility for both of us as we have not been finding the walking that tough most of the time and she has had to dig really deep to do it – she is a strong, determined and generous hearted good friend whoi showed us all.
So we have had experiences like two days ago where we stayed in the temporary refugio set in a large warehouse type building. The town was celebrating their feast so the whole town partied u7ntil about 4 am. The dorms were sectioned off areas with bunks open to the warehouse except for a sort of net covering stretched across the top of the walls. This kept us slightly cooler but very noise in the place and all noises outside were magnified by the vast, empty space. So the bands and fireworks were clearly heard by all.
Then yesterday we walked a long day hoping to get to a place called Santa Irene. Suffering from heat exhaustion, it took every ounce of Christina’s strength to get to the rufugio (we arrived just after 4pm) only to find that a group of Poles had arrived just before us and there was only one bed left. The next place was over 4 km further on and the private refugio was closed for the day (Sunday). I was all for getting a taxi to the next place but we ended up with a young Spanish person offering to help us and he ‘phoned some local hostals/pensiones and found us a couple of double rooms only a k and a half away. So we had a good place to rest, we were able to walk there and we were another little bit further towards Santiago!
I am eager to get this loaded so we will search for a wifi place and upload what is here. I have lost track, know that I have missed bits out and have not checked the things I have written. I will sort it out later and perhaps add other bits and pieces before I call a halt to this particular blog. I have so much in the way of sketches, poems and the like I am not sure what to do with them and I have loads of things to write and experiment with that I am not sure where to start. From a creative point of view this journey has been incredible.
It has also been a wonderful time spent with Alison and we are both so grateful that we have been able to spend this time together. We need to think how we will be able to share some of this with others.... But Alison jumps straight back in to work on our return and she will be very busy so I will have to do some of that particular task.
So much to say and no time to get it written down so I will stop and save it all for later. The journey has its own momentum and I will still be travelling long after I leave this place. In fact Santiago is not very real to me at the moment. It looks a great city (I had not expected it to be so big – despite the fact that if I had thought about it it would have been obvious) so another place to come back to!
Needless to say, everyone has been in our prayers and thoughts and will continue to be so on this and other journeys.
Hola!
The big bang is no longer theory 17 07 2010
We are in Melide and it is Fiesta time! We walked across a wonderful rolling countryside to get here, climbing through the clouds and back down into green valleys with stone walled paths and dry-stone walled houses. We had breakfast in a modern little bar/restaurant where the people from the night before had not cleared up and the young guy doing breakfasts worked around the mess.
There were forests of oak and of pine and distant hills crosshatched with the greens of bracken highlighted with the bright yellows of broom and gorse. And most of the paths were deeply set into the hillsides and valleys with small streams cutting through the bottoms and others running down the sides of the way. Every house seemed to have these strange thin structures with either ventilation brick sides or wooden slats, a narrow door at one end of a long side and the whole thing with a proper sloping roof and set on a high platform at least six feet above the ground..... goodness knows what they are for. My suggestion was that they were for wind drying hams but no one in our little group knows.
Tomorrow we push on to St Irene and then to Santiago. Tomorrow is our second last day and the hundredth day on the road (excluding our time diverted away to Dominique’s graduation ceremony) so it is quite strange.
Santiago will be very expensive and we have not sorted out where we are going to stay yet! This s fine as we need to be able to let at least some thing happen at the will of the Holy Spirit, but it is hard for us and much harder for David and Christina – but they are taking it in their stride.
Tonight is yet another different experience for them as we stay in a temporary refugio – the proper one is being refurbished and this one is in a vast warehouse which has been sectioned off into dorms (but only about a tenth of the floor space so every sound echoes across this huge open volume in amazing ways – I sneezed earlier and it sounded like a gun being fired, which is truly an exaggeration of what my sneeze sounds like, honest!
We had a lovely meal in a small restaurant after a nice Polish Mass with a group of Poles who have done the Camino Primitive and are in the same part of the refugio as us. The two caminos join here and go on to Santiago. But now the lights are off and I must stop. I will send this off tomorrow (18th) and have to say that Iam thinking of my dad tonight as his birthday was one week and thirty years earlier than mine. Happy birthday day! Love Ian xcxcxc.
up the hills and down the dales we go 16 07 2010
I though I might be able to load a blog entry yesterday but failed. Perhaps today I will succeed, so...
We have spent the day walking up and down hills and much of our time has been in the rain. My camera decided to go on strike at the start of the day and I have sort of sorted it..... well it has lasted very well for a cheap camera. It was the cheapest in Tesco that looked like it might last the trip. It has been regularly soaked, dropped stuffed in pockets and used in every situation you could imagine and, apart from being too wide angled for most things and determined to flash at the slightest opportunity and occasionally refusing to take a picture without being coaxed, it has been great. In fact, for my style of digital visual sampling it has been pretty good. The very wide angle lens means I cannot do certain landscape photos (anything further than a short distance away disappears into a flat featureless horizon), but I can photograph buildings at close range and do other similar things. Sometimes it is not too good at reading the light (hence the flash photography) and it does slower exposures than I had wanted (causing blurring), but I just want to point and snap and the manual setting would be a nightmare for that.... I take well over a hundred pictures a day and often over 200).
Today was filled with all sorts of wonderful images that have not been captured on my camera. These include deep lush green valleys with small fields divided by dry stone walls and edged with fences made of wire and large single stones similar to ancient standing stones. Grey clouds lay in shelves across the tops of these valleys, shedding drizzle and occasional heavy rain onto the deep set paths with overhanging trees and high banks lined with bushes and flowers.The villages have been full of moss covered dry-stone buildings with rounded corners and dark slates with rounded edges, small round stone windows and slit windows with no glass in them (like the bathroom we used last night), Everywhere we encountered the dire aroma of cows shit which is particularly strong in this area and we walked down streets of uneven cobbles or large slabs of stone irregularly spattered with cow droppings. The cows are delightful creatures as they lumber along the roads or lanes from fields to milking parlours and back, but the smell is something that should be edited out of the experience.
We walked through Portomarin with its white houses perched above the bridge on the edge of a lovely long lake snaking through the deep valley. The bridge crosses the lake and leads the pilgrims to a grand staircase of 46 deep steps which takes you to the entrance to the town.we had a brief, light lunch there before heading on to our night stop in Ventas de Narin which is basically a few houses stock to the edge of a main road. A modern simple place and a good one to stop at as it will mean we can leapfrog the next main stopping point on the Camino and avoid (hopefully) most of the crowds.
Of course, the walk meant that we did over 31 Kms today and it seemed to be mainly up hill, so it was a punishing walk with full packs, etc. David and Christina are real stars dealing with this sort of walking – one day they are in Leicester, the next they are marching up mountains with us, handling extreme temperatures, rain and wind, the odd experience of different refugios each night and long steady climbs over steep, windy paths with extremely varied surfaces. Today we have walked on tarmac, cobbles, stone slabs, sandy paths and a wide variety of stony ones, along paths that were actually mountain streams and others that were basically medieval stone paths that have been broken up into a type of linear quarry that can only be describes as a path because it takes you from A to B. So, they deserve a huge thank you for being prepared to deal with such things and more just to spend time with us as we do our final plod towards Santiago. What is also amazing is that they seem to be enjoying the experience as much as we are. I would prefer to think that this proves that we really are not mad rather than proving that mad people like us also have mad friends....
So, now it is time for our supper and I think we will have a large, ice cold, dry sherry as an aperitif before we sit down to our pilgrim menu.
I have pleaded with D&C and Alison to refrain from counting down the days, hours miles and kilometres as we head to Santiago. It was a shock to discover just how little time is left and I don’t want to spend it looking beyond today (or at the very most the next day). But in Galicia they have placed a special stone every half a km along the path so it is difficult to avoid seeing that there are only 80 something kms left!!!! Ho hum....
A failed quick note from another internet free zone 16 07 2010
Since La Faba I have had basically no time to write. We have covered the route well and dealt with really hot sun and cold wet weather, we have been in a variety of Refugios, experienced the World Cup final on a terrace by a river and walked through beautiful mountains, fabulous valleys and exotic, medieval villages. There are villages with working farms and we have walked down through them dodging cow poo and the odd herd of cattle being driven along by men in traditional farmers’ clothes assisted by over eager dogs of various sorts.
We keep meeting lots of people along the way including a lovely French man called Michel and an American from North Carolina called George. We also encountered an artist from Toronto we met on our second night in Spain and enjoyed some time catching up with him during our visit to La Faba. He is into Latin American dance amongst other things and I have promised to send him the details of my (newly discovered) half cousin who runs a dance studio/school in Toronto.
Of course, we have also been seeing Sharon and Harvey from Canada, too. The last time we saw them was on the day when David lost his hat, then Christina lost hers - but we realised her was missing in time for David to trot back through the town and get it for her.
We said hello to Sharon and Harvey as we waited on a busy road out of that small town then watched two magnificent horses walking elegantly past us, also on the way to Santiago.
That was the day Alison fell over.
But I am doing this quick intro because the last several days have been a bit scrappy as far as wring has been concerned. I have written a few poems and am working on a couple of really exciting concepts. But this blog has been difficult to get going with such a different routine – four people walking is different from two and our daily rhythm has been changed so we are finding it difficult to get things done in the same way (or at all). My little note book is filling up aster than ever and my computer is feeling a bit neglected.
Today we walked through from Triacastella, past Sarria to a little place about 4 or 5 Kms beyond (sorry if I can’t add in the name before sending this), and we are perched on the side of a lovely wide valley looking back at the mountains. The municipal albergue was full so we walked past it and are staying in a very nice little Hostal/refugio which is more expensive but is very nice. Hopefully I will be able to link up with their internet connection but now we are about to go to the church for Mass and thren go to dinner.
La Faba tonight – OK! 12 07 2010
Strangely, I have had very little time to write since we arrived in Rabanal. Partly through spending time with our good friends Dougald and Betty and partly because of the arrival of our other good friends David and Christina.
So, we have spent a lot of time talking and all sorts of things and not much on the usual things we do during our time on the Camino and this includes writing my blog – sorry!
So, we spent a lovely couple of nights in Rabanal with Betty and Dougald in a seriously good Refugio with the biggest garden ever and with all sorts of good things besides. We enjoyed their company and that of many others too. We had some good food and a lovely mass on the Sunday (which was said by a lo9vely French priest, translated into English by a Canadian woman who originates from Brittany, then translated into Spanish by another woman ... and the readings were also done in German, read by a young man with a German Bible. We had the Mass in the garden.
That night, David and Christina arrived and we joined in a bit of a sing song led by some young Americans, Canadians and assorted other nationalities, sat around drinking Malt Whisky (thank you David) and chatted until Betty gently but firmly asked us to settle downh for the night (Refugios are places where everyone goes to bed early!!
We then walked a fair distance as the sun grew increasingly hot and strong. It was a tough start for D&C and, with a pretty heavy pack it became clear that it was going to take a considerable amount out of Christina which was a silly price for her to pay just to come walking with us. So, I suggested that it would be better if she had her pack sent on to the night stop rather than carrying it the whole way. We did that the next day and this proved really valuable. Especially since it was even hotter and longer and more punishing.... It is not the walking that can do the damage but the heat, the sun and the weight on our Backs and legs. Today we were going to climb even higher and longer so we did it again. This time we had to pick the bag up before the end of the walk and so she had to carry it up one of the steepest climbs on the Camino (to La Faba). Hopefully we will have it taken the whole way....
So, now we are in a seriously beautiful location on the top of a wooded ridge in the middle of the mountains. The refugio is really nice and the whole thing is proving to be a lovely experience.
We need the good environment because we had a hard time yesterday (well, Alison did) and today needed to end well.
Yesterday was one of those odd days. We took a long time getting out of the city we stayed in as the signposts were difficult to find and we were directed wrongly, etc. So, when we reached a place where we could sit down and have a drink we took the opportunity. It ended up being a sort of shop/restaurant/museum/bodega and they served us a glass of free wine each for being pilgrims. They also gave us each a large slice of Spanish sausage and potato pie which was very, very nice. We then decided to have a beer there so we ordered the drinks and those came with more large slices of pie ... which was all very nice and took care of our lunch for us.
However, on the way out of the last place (about 5kms short of our night stop) Alison tripped up, fell over and hit the side of her head badly on a wall. This was very scary and very messy as the blood just poured freely! Eventually we helped her sort it out and we walked up the hill in the hottest part of the day to find that the first refugio was full so we went to the second one a bit further along and managed to get ourselves places to sleep. Happily, she has no concussion though she does have a very sore head and it is painful to talk and eat. I confess it scared the life out of me....
So, today’s walk was tough for us all but harder still for Alison and she did what she is always doing – she handled it with grace and strength and led the way to the refugio. Tonight we rest!
Some thoughts ... 08 07 2010
I have heard a few people talking about the mystery of the Camino and how special it is, etc and then they get a bus passed the bits they think are ugly. The Camino, to them, seems to be this place filled with nature and beauty and ancient buildings: a place where real life should not intrude. We have also met those who spend all their time planning and aiming to see or experience everything. They meet others and swap information. They sit down with people who have done it before and write down the names of restaurants you can’t miss and types of wine that you need to try, etc.
Come to think of it, there is a lot of correlation between these two groups. There is a powerful acquisitiveness emanating from a few of them too – they must consume the maximum number of experiences from the Camino, etc. I can understand some of it, especially from those who have travelled half way across the world to be here and will never be able to return. I can see that those who have been preparing for this for so long will not want to miss anything if at all possible. All of this is quite natural and it is probably also related to the sort of books they have read about the Camino, the sorts of people they have talked with before coming and the sorts of travel/guide books they have obtained to help them through.
Sadly, there have been times when I could have screamed when the only place I have been able to sit down had a group of them with their books out, loudly swapping and proclaiming the unbridled delights of “that little restaurant that still retains its medieval character and serves utterly authentic octopus on cute little wooden platters”, etc. I don’t want to hear about it. I don’t want to be told even indirectly what is ahead of me in so much detail. As it is, this part of the Camino is too full of information for my liking and it is getting me down (sorry if this sounds a bit gripy).
Strangely, we have gone for a very long time not really knowing what to expect when we arrive at the place we hope to settle down in for the night. We have often taken the risk of not booking anywhere in France where everyone seems to book well ahead. We have had good detail on the route (too much at times) but nothing about what is at the other end. Now there are lots of places and we have to choose where we are going to go. Plus, there are the realities that face anyone who is coming to the end of their trip. We have a deadline that is coming ever closer and we are encountering more and more pilgrims as we go. So places fill up quickly and decisions about where we are going to stay and why are becoming critical.
Having said all of that, if we had been able to have the option we would have still done this bit totally on trust. If we had been in a position (financially) to risk things and if we had just a bit more time to do it in we would have continued to walk in trust. We would have just got up in the morning and walked until we thought it was time to stop and then looked around to see where we could stay for the night. The less you have in the way of guides and the more flexibility you have in terms of time and finances would allow you to do this in a more satisfying way. But there again, I suppose that we don’t really mind. We are doing things basically at our pace anyway and we have spent so long on the road that we can handle the oddities of this part of the walk. I am just a little fed up of the touristic, high-consumption focussed elements that invade my inner peace. So, sorry about the gripe, I am feeling better already!
By the way, the bits of the route through the dirty parts of towns, through the council estate equivalents and the factories and busy roads, are all part of the richness of the Camino. Don’t reject or ignore them. The fossilised remains of a medieval village will hide the hard work, the poverty and the tough lives they held and that were the backdrop of earlier pilgrim’s journeys. Don’t be fooled by the flower filled fields – they are working environments, not rural theme parks - and those rugged little hills covered in thorn bushes by the side of the road are waste heaps from a mining industry that has only recently died. And everyone who waves at us and wishes us a good Camino as we walk are passing good will to us and taking some away from us, too. We are passing good will through a living community and the places where that good will is most needed will sometimes be in the dirty and grimy places that are not so pretty to walk through.
Of course, for us, all of this just means that we need to return to Spain and spend some “real” time here. Walking the Camino may mean that we will have spent a month in this wonderful country but we travel every day, we say hello and good bye to so many people and don’t stay long enough to do more. Next on the list for us is that we will learn Spanish, then we will come back and live here for a while – this is a new addition to our world plan but one we welcome with happy hearts!
And sorry to all who need to approach the Camino differently – I am not being proscriptive or even critical, really. I am just finding it hard to deal with that sort of approach when so much is already chipping away at me.... and we only have a few more days to go before it all stops, so I am a bit fragile.
I have been doing some work linking a few of my poems to pictures I have taken on the way. They sort of look like poetry/picture posters. One of them is about a dream I had that I was about to stop doing this. The poem seems to work quite well with a long, straight road disappearing into a dour, cloud filled sky. Ho hum... I should get out more!
Leon, Leon, so much to answer for...
Leon is another beautiful Spanish city. Again, it is different not only in character but in size and feel. The cathedral is stunning with a number of superb works of art but the building is a Gothic masterpiece in its own right with the whole of the top half of the walls filled with beautiful windows. We were stunned by it and the city needs to be explored in full at a later date.
The trail to Leon has been hot and pretty much flat but there has a been a variety of different elements to the landscape and the mountains have been a frequent companion on the horizon. As with other regions in Northern Spain, water has been a special thing with very fast flowing rivers with some good bridges crossing them and with more irrigation systems taking fast, clear cold water across the landscape in special canals, channels and concrete conduits designed to funnel it across the fields, down pipes and up through to other fields. All of this exclusively using gravity and the occasional judicious widening and narrowing of channels and employing specially designed sumps. The systems also leak from time to time forming mini streams along paths and narrow, dark pools along the sides of the road.
The Albergues have all been quite different although many of those occupying them have been the same people that we have been walking with and meeting from time to time each day as we do our camino. Most are Spanish and French, next are the Italians with a small handful of Germans and Dutch and then a smattering of others including some Canadians and Americans, a couple of Australians and a tiny number of Brits.
I have come to the conclusion that the idea of a communal meal is mostly a better idea than it is a reality. The people running the show really have to be able to do it properly to ensure that it works well and most of those who do it fall short by some way. The Spaniards (men, that is) are more about show than anything and the American women who have done it just don’t seem comfortable with the whole thing. Usually the choices made about what to do are not good, the volume of food is not right and its distribution is flawed and, sadly, sometimes they don’t even provide wine! The most recent one failed on a number of fronts partly because of the absence of wine, partly because the salad dressing ran out after the first small helping and then the traditional garlic soup was a problem. Both the wine and the soup had some origins in not getting enough supplies for the number of people who arrived at the place. They had expected around 15 and 32 turned up. So instead of getting more wine they just didn’t offer any and they bulked up the soup with more bread but had very little garlic or sausage to flavour it with. The final coupe de gras was that the local version of the soup requires a number of eggs to be broken into it and stirred around just before serving. This was fine for me but for a number of others (including Alison) it made the main dish pretty much inedible (I had hers) as some of the yoke had set but none of the white and this is not to everyone’s taste.
So some people walked twenty odd kms in unshaded hot sun, had a couple of bowls of lettuce with a few bits of tomato and some fly-caressed bread washed down by tepid water and a small apple or orange, then got up the next morning and walked a further 5 kms before they could get breakfast. This is not a particularly good way to treat pilgrims but the place was donativo (you paid as much as you could afford/thought the place was worth) and I’m sure they got a good amount from each of us despite the limited grub. Oh, of course, we had all taken part in preparing parts of it but we had no way of knowing what the whole thing was going to be until it arrived – we chopped vegetables, etc. in shifts, set the tables and so on. I knew that it was not enough garlic for the soup but didn’t know that the soup was it – the only thing in town.
The Albergues have all been quite different en route to here. We stayed in a very nice one with small rooms housing no more than 5 beds (not bunks) in each and there was a very nice set of gardens, a good bar/restaurant with good simple food, and a nice roof terrace, too. The showers and other facilities were fine too. Then we were in an old adobe building which was attractive but the social space was very limited and the communal meal was not brill and, even for the Camino, the facilities were limited (2 showers and 1 loo for the men and the same for the women). Then we were in a larger place with large dorms and slightly more facilities but the kitchen dining room was small and full of flies – even the pleasant courtyard area in the centre of the building complex suffered from the flies but the town was nice and we had a good pilgrim menu meal next door (despite the portions being too small – quality vs quantity). Then the place in Leon was interesting. A large refugio which was part of the convent right in the heart of the city. Large but comfortable dorms, small kitchen dining area but with no cooking facilities and breakfast included (bread, spreads and coffee/tea/hot choc). We had a nice set of salads for tea as there are lots of good supermarkets, covered market, etc in Leon. Now we are in a slightly down at heel municipal Albergue in a small village which has a very busy road right through it and a bigger motorway running parallel to it (all the traffic going through here is avoiding the toll payment on the motorway). The old and creaky bunk beds are all in one big room and, as this was probably a school the dorm looks like the school hall. 3 showers and 3 loos per gender and about 20 of us here tonight. The kitchen dining room is small but OK. 26km plus to get here but that makes tomorrow a bit shorter which is good because I think we are going up hill for a change – wow!
This is a reality. We are in Santiago and I am sitting in the Franciscan Monastery with a Franciscan nun next to me talking to another pilgrim as I write. Alison, David and Christina are all on their beds resting. We arrived and were welcomed by Betty and Dougald who guided us around. We got our certificate (indulgence) and have had a lovely lunch (thank you D&B!!! The women giving out the certificates refused to believe that we had walked all the way from England. England is an island... you can’t walk from there, etc. I eventually convinced the woman who was looking after me and she got Alison’s woman to accept it reluctantly.
So, we have stopped the pilgrimage and are working out what needs to be done next.
We are shell shocked and are still in a refugio so we are gently entering back into the real world. It will take some time to really sort things out. All of the things that people take for granted that we have been doing without are now going to come back into our lives so we will have to work at this.
Walking with David and Christina has been a blessing. The walking has been hard and because of the heat and the terrain (and the heavy packs) Christina has found it very tough. It has been a lesson in humility for both of us as we have not been finding the walking that tough most of the time and she has had to dig really deep to do it – she is a strong, determined and generous hearted good friend whoi showed us all.
So we have had experiences like two days ago where we stayed in the temporary refugio set in a large warehouse type building. The town was celebrating their feast so the whole town partied u7ntil about 4 am. The dorms were sectioned off areas with bunks open to the warehouse except for a sort of net covering stretched across the top of the walls. This kept us slightly cooler but very noise in the place and all noises outside were magnified by the vast, empty space. So the bands and fireworks were clearly heard by all.
Then yesterday we walked a long day hoping to get to a place called Santa Irene. Suffering from heat exhaustion, it took every ounce of Christina’s strength to get to the rufugio (we arrived just after 4pm) only to find that a group of Poles had arrived just before us and there was only one bed left. The next place was over 4 km further on and the private refugio was closed for the day (Sunday). I was all for getting a taxi to the next place but we ended up with a young Spanish person offering to help us and he ‘phoned some local hostals/pensiones and found us a couple of double rooms only a k and a half away. So we had a good place to rest, we were able to walk there and we were another little bit further towards Santiago!
I am eager to get this loaded so we will search for a wifi place and upload what is here. I have lost track, know that I have missed bits out and have not checked the things I have written. I will sort it out later and perhaps add other bits and pieces before I call a halt to this particular blog. I have so much in the way of sketches, poems and the like I am not sure what to do with them and I have loads of things to write and experiment with that I am not sure where to start. From a creative point of view this journey has been incredible.
It has also been a wonderful time spent with Alison and we are both so grateful that we have been able to spend this time together. We need to think how we will be able to share some of this with others.... But Alison jumps straight back in to work on our return and she will be very busy so I will have to do some of that particular task.
So much to say and no time to get it written down so I will stop and save it all for later. The journey has its own momentum and I will still be travelling long after I leave this place. In fact Santiago is not very real to me at the moment. It looks a great city (I had not expected it to be so big – despite the fact that if I had thought about it it would have been obvious) so another place to come back to!
Needless to say, everyone has been in our prayers and thoughts and will continue to be so on this and other journeys.
Hola!
The big bang is no longer theory 17 07 2010
We are in Melide and it is Fiesta time! We walked across a wonderful rolling countryside to get here, climbing through the clouds and back down into green valleys with stone walled paths and dry-stone walled houses. We had breakfast in a modern little bar/restaurant where the people from the night before had not cleared up and the young guy doing breakfasts worked around the mess.
There were forests of oak and of pine and distant hills crosshatched with the greens of bracken highlighted with the bright yellows of broom and gorse. And most of the paths were deeply set into the hillsides and valleys with small streams cutting through the bottoms and others running down the sides of the way. Every house seemed to have these strange thin structures with either ventilation brick sides or wooden slats, a narrow door at one end of a long side and the whole thing with a proper sloping roof and set on a high platform at least six feet above the ground..... goodness knows what they are for. My suggestion was that they were for wind drying hams but no one in our little group knows.
Tomorrow we push on to St Irene and then to Santiago. Tomorrow is our second last day and the hundredth day on the road (excluding our time diverted away to Dominique’s graduation ceremony) so it is quite strange.
Santiago will be very expensive and we have not sorted out where we are going to stay yet! This s fine as we need to be able to let at least some thing happen at the will of the Holy Spirit, but it is hard for us and much harder for David and Christina – but they are taking it in their stride.
Tonight is yet another different experience for them as we stay in a temporary refugio – the proper one is being refurbished and this one is in a vast warehouse which has been sectioned off into dorms (but only about a tenth of the floor space so every sound echoes across this huge open volume in amazing ways – I sneezed earlier and it sounded like a gun being fired, which is truly an exaggeration of what my sneeze sounds like, honest!
We had a lovely meal in a small restaurant after a nice Polish Mass with a group of Poles who have done the Camino Primitive and are in the same part of the refugio as us. The two caminos join here and go on to Santiago. But now the lights are off and I must stop. I will send this off tomorrow (18th) and have to say that Iam thinking of my dad tonight as his birthday was one week and thirty years earlier than mine. Happy birthday day! Love Ian xcxcxc.
up the hills and down the dales we go 16 07 2010
I though I might be able to load a blog entry yesterday but failed. Perhaps today I will succeed, so...
We have spent the day walking up and down hills and much of our time has been in the rain. My camera decided to go on strike at the start of the day and I have sort of sorted it..... well it has lasted very well for a cheap camera. It was the cheapest in Tesco that looked like it might last the trip. It has been regularly soaked, dropped stuffed in pockets and used in every situation you could imagine and, apart from being too wide angled for most things and determined to flash at the slightest opportunity and occasionally refusing to take a picture without being coaxed, it has been great. In fact, for my style of digital visual sampling it has been pretty good. The very wide angle lens means I cannot do certain landscape photos (anything further than a short distance away disappears into a flat featureless horizon), but I can photograph buildings at close range and do other similar things. Sometimes it is not too good at reading the light (hence the flash photography) and it does slower exposures than I had wanted (causing blurring), but I just want to point and snap and the manual setting would be a nightmare for that.... I take well over a hundred pictures a day and often over 200).
Today was filled with all sorts of wonderful images that have not been captured on my camera. These include deep lush green valleys with small fields divided by dry stone walls and edged with fences made of wire and large single stones similar to ancient standing stones. Grey clouds lay in shelves across the tops of these valleys, shedding drizzle and occasional heavy rain onto the deep set paths with overhanging trees and high banks lined with bushes and flowers.The villages have been full of moss covered dry-stone buildings with rounded corners and dark slates with rounded edges, small round stone windows and slit windows with no glass in them (like the bathroom we used last night), Everywhere we encountered the dire aroma of cows shit which is particularly strong in this area and we walked down streets of uneven cobbles or large slabs of stone irregularly spattered with cow droppings. The cows are delightful creatures as they lumber along the roads or lanes from fields to milking parlours and back, but the smell is something that should be edited out of the experience.
We walked through Portomarin with its white houses perched above the bridge on the edge of a lovely long lake snaking through the deep valley. The bridge crosses the lake and leads the pilgrims to a grand staircase of 46 deep steps which takes you to the entrance to the town.we had a brief, light lunch there before heading on to our night stop in Ventas de Narin which is basically a few houses stock to the edge of a main road. A modern simple place and a good one to stop at as it will mean we can leapfrog the next main stopping point on the Camino and avoid (hopefully) most of the crowds.
Of course, the walk meant that we did over 31 Kms today and it seemed to be mainly up hill, so it was a punishing walk with full packs, etc. David and Christina are real stars dealing with this sort of walking – one day they are in Leicester, the next they are marching up mountains with us, handling extreme temperatures, rain and wind, the odd experience of different refugios each night and long steady climbs over steep, windy paths with extremely varied surfaces. Today we have walked on tarmac, cobbles, stone slabs, sandy paths and a wide variety of stony ones, along paths that were actually mountain streams and others that were basically medieval stone paths that have been broken up into a type of linear quarry that can only be describes as a path because it takes you from A to B. So, they deserve a huge thank you for being prepared to deal with such things and more just to spend time with us as we do our final plod towards Santiago. What is also amazing is that they seem to be enjoying the experience as much as we are. I would prefer to think that this proves that we really are not mad rather than proving that mad people like us also have mad friends....
So, now it is time for our supper and I think we will have a large, ice cold, dry sherry as an aperitif before we sit down to our pilgrim menu.
I have pleaded with D&C and Alison to refrain from counting down the days, hours miles and kilometres as we head to Santiago. It was a shock to discover just how little time is left and I don’t want to spend it looking beyond today (or at the very most the next day). But in Galicia they have placed a special stone every half a km along the path so it is difficult to avoid seeing that there are only 80 something kms left!!!! Ho hum....
A failed quick note from another internet free zone 16 07 2010
Since La Faba I have had basically no time to write. We have covered the route well and dealt with really hot sun and cold wet weather, we have been in a variety of Refugios, experienced the World Cup final on a terrace by a river and walked through beautiful mountains, fabulous valleys and exotic, medieval villages. There are villages with working farms and we have walked down through them dodging cow poo and the odd herd of cattle being driven along by men in traditional farmers’ clothes assisted by over eager dogs of various sorts.
We keep meeting lots of people along the way including a lovely French man called Michel and an American from North Carolina called George. We also encountered an artist from Toronto we met on our second night in Spain and enjoyed some time catching up with him during our visit to La Faba. He is into Latin American dance amongst other things and I have promised to send him the details of my (newly discovered) half cousin who runs a dance studio/school in Toronto.
Of course, we have also been seeing Sharon and Harvey from Canada, too. The last time we saw them was on the day when David lost his hat, then Christina lost hers - but we realised her was missing in time for David to trot back through the town and get it for her.
We said hello to Sharon and Harvey as we waited on a busy road out of that small town then watched two magnificent horses walking elegantly past us, also on the way to Santiago.
That was the day Alison fell over.
But I am doing this quick intro because the last several days have been a bit scrappy as far as wring has been concerned. I have written a few poems and am working on a couple of really exciting concepts. But this blog has been difficult to get going with such a different routine – four people walking is different from two and our daily rhythm has been changed so we are finding it difficult to get things done in the same way (or at all). My little note book is filling up aster than ever and my computer is feeling a bit neglected.
Today we walked through from Triacastella, past Sarria to a little place about 4 or 5 Kms beyond (sorry if I can’t add in the name before sending this), and we are perched on the side of a lovely wide valley looking back at the mountains. The municipal albergue was full so we walked past it and are staying in a very nice little Hostal/refugio which is more expensive but is very nice. Hopefully I will be able to link up with their internet connection but now we are about to go to the church for Mass and thren go to dinner.
La Faba tonight – OK! 12 07 2010
Strangely, I have had very little time to write since we arrived in Rabanal. Partly through spending time with our good friends Dougald and Betty and partly because of the arrival of our other good friends David and Christina.
So, we have spent a lot of time talking and all sorts of things and not much on the usual things we do during our time on the Camino and this includes writing my blog – sorry!
So, we spent a lovely couple of nights in Rabanal with Betty and Dougald in a seriously good Refugio with the biggest garden ever and with all sorts of good things besides. We enjoyed their company and that of many others too. We had some good food and a lovely mass on the Sunday (which was said by a lo9vely French priest, translated into English by a Canadian woman who originates from Brittany, then translated into Spanish by another woman ... and the readings were also done in German, read by a young man with a German Bible. We had the Mass in the garden.
That night, David and Christina arrived and we joined in a bit of a sing song led by some young Americans, Canadians and assorted other nationalities, sat around drinking Malt Whisky (thank you David) and chatted until Betty gently but firmly asked us to settle downh for the night (Refugios are places where everyone goes to bed early!!
We then walked a fair distance as the sun grew increasingly hot and strong. It was a tough start for D&C and, with a pretty heavy pack it became clear that it was going to take a considerable amount out of Christina which was a silly price for her to pay just to come walking with us. So, I suggested that it would be better if she had her pack sent on to the night stop rather than carrying it the whole way. We did that the next day and this proved really valuable. Especially since it was even hotter and longer and more punishing.... It is not the walking that can do the damage but the heat, the sun and the weight on our Backs and legs. Today we were going to climb even higher and longer so we did it again. This time we had to pick the bag up before the end of the walk and so she had to carry it up one of the steepest climbs on the Camino (to La Faba). Hopefully we will have it taken the whole way....
So, now we are in a seriously beautiful location on the top of a wooded ridge in the middle of the mountains. The refugio is really nice and the whole thing is proving to be a lovely experience.
We need the good environment because we had a hard time yesterday (well, Alison did) and today needed to end well.
Yesterday was one of those odd days. We took a long time getting out of the city we stayed in as the signposts were difficult to find and we were directed wrongly, etc. So, when we reached a place where we could sit down and have a drink we took the opportunity. It ended up being a sort of shop/restaurant/museum/bodega and they served us a glass of free wine each for being pilgrims. They also gave us each a large slice of Spanish sausage and potato pie which was very, very nice. We then decided to have a beer there so we ordered the drinks and those came with more large slices of pie ... which was all very nice and took care of our lunch for us.
However, on the way out of the last place (about 5kms short of our night stop) Alison tripped up, fell over and hit the side of her head badly on a wall. This was very scary and very messy as the blood just poured freely! Eventually we helped her sort it out and we walked up the hill in the hottest part of the day to find that the first refugio was full so we went to the second one a bit further along and managed to get ourselves places to sleep. Happily, she has no concussion though she does have a very sore head and it is painful to talk and eat. I confess it scared the life out of me....
So, today’s walk was tough for us all but harder still for Alison and she did what she is always doing – she handled it with grace and strength and led the way to the refugio. Tonight we rest!
Some thoughts ... 08 07 2010
I have heard a few people talking about the mystery of the Camino and how special it is, etc and then they get a bus passed the bits they think are ugly. The Camino, to them, seems to be this place filled with nature and beauty and ancient buildings: a place where real life should not intrude. We have also met those who spend all their time planning and aiming to see or experience everything. They meet others and swap information. They sit down with people who have done it before and write down the names of restaurants you can’t miss and types of wine that you need to try, etc.
Come to think of it, there is a lot of correlation between these two groups. There is a powerful acquisitiveness emanating from a few of them too – they must consume the maximum number of experiences from the Camino, etc. I can understand some of it, especially from those who have travelled half way across the world to be here and will never be able to return. I can see that those who have been preparing for this for so long will not want to miss anything if at all possible. All of this is quite natural and it is probably also related to the sort of books they have read about the Camino, the sorts of people they have talked with before coming and the sorts of travel/guide books they have obtained to help them through.
Sadly, there have been times when I could have screamed when the only place I have been able to sit down had a group of them with their books out, loudly swapping and proclaiming the unbridled delights of “that little restaurant that still retains its medieval character and serves utterly authentic octopus on cute little wooden platters”, etc. I don’t want to hear about it. I don’t want to be told even indirectly what is ahead of me in so much detail. As it is, this part of the Camino is too full of information for my liking and it is getting me down (sorry if this sounds a bit gripy).
Strangely, we have gone for a very long time not really knowing what to expect when we arrive at the place we hope to settle down in for the night. We have often taken the risk of not booking anywhere in France where everyone seems to book well ahead. We have had good detail on the route (too much at times) but nothing about what is at the other end. Now there are lots of places and we have to choose where we are going to go. Plus, there are the realities that face anyone who is coming to the end of their trip. We have a deadline that is coming ever closer and we are encountering more and more pilgrims as we go. So places fill up quickly and decisions about where we are going to stay and why are becoming critical.
Having said all of that, if we had been able to have the option we would have still done this bit totally on trust. If we had been in a position (financially) to risk things and if we had just a bit more time to do it in we would have continued to walk in trust. We would have just got up in the morning and walked until we thought it was time to stop and then looked around to see where we could stay for the night. The less you have in the way of guides and the more flexibility you have in terms of time and finances would allow you to do this in a more satisfying way. But there again, I suppose that we don’t really mind. We are doing things basically at our pace anyway and we have spent so long on the road that we can handle the oddities of this part of the walk. I am just a little fed up of the touristic, high-consumption focussed elements that invade my inner peace. So, sorry about the gripe, I am feeling better already!
By the way, the bits of the route through the dirty parts of towns, through the council estate equivalents and the factories and busy roads, are all part of the richness of the Camino. Don’t reject or ignore them. The fossilised remains of a medieval village will hide the hard work, the poverty and the tough lives they held and that were the backdrop of earlier pilgrim’s journeys. Don’t be fooled by the flower filled fields – they are working environments, not rural theme parks - and those rugged little hills covered in thorn bushes by the side of the road are waste heaps from a mining industry that has only recently died. And everyone who waves at us and wishes us a good Camino as we walk are passing good will to us and taking some away from us, too. We are passing good will through a living community and the places where that good will is most needed will sometimes be in the dirty and grimy places that are not so pretty to walk through.
Of course, for us, all of this just means that we need to return to Spain and spend some “real” time here. Walking the Camino may mean that we will have spent a month in this wonderful country but we travel every day, we say hello and good bye to so many people and don’t stay long enough to do more. Next on the list for us is that we will learn Spanish, then we will come back and live here for a while – this is a new addition to our world plan but one we welcome with happy hearts!
And sorry to all who need to approach the Camino differently – I am not being proscriptive or even critical, really. I am just finding it hard to deal with that sort of approach when so much is already chipping away at me.... and we only have a few more days to go before it all stops, so I am a bit fragile.
I have been doing some work linking a few of my poems to pictures I have taken on the way. They sort of look like poetry/picture posters. One of them is about a dream I had that I was about to stop doing this. The poem seems to work quite well with a long, straight road disappearing into a dour, cloud filled sky. Ho hum... I should get out more!
Leon, Leon, so much to answer for...
Leon is another beautiful Spanish city. Again, it is different not only in character but in size and feel. The cathedral is stunning with a number of superb works of art but the building is a Gothic masterpiece in its own right with the whole of the top half of the walls filled with beautiful windows. We were stunned by it and the city needs to be explored in full at a later date.
The trail to Leon has been hot and pretty much flat but there has a been a variety of different elements to the landscape and the mountains have been a frequent companion on the horizon. As with other regions in Northern Spain, water has been a special thing with very fast flowing rivers with some good bridges crossing them and with more irrigation systems taking fast, clear cold water across the landscape in special canals, channels and concrete conduits designed to funnel it across the fields, down pipes and up through to other fields. All of this exclusively using gravity and the occasional judicious widening and narrowing of channels and employing specially designed sumps. The systems also leak from time to time forming mini streams along paths and narrow, dark pools along the sides of the road.
The Albergues have all been quite different although many of those occupying them have been the same people that we have been walking with and meeting from time to time each day as we do our camino. Most are Spanish and French, next are the Italians with a small handful of Germans and Dutch and then a smattering of others including some Canadians and Americans, a couple of Australians and a tiny number of Brits.
I have come to the conclusion that the idea of a communal meal is mostly a better idea than it is a reality. The people running the show really have to be able to do it properly to ensure that it works well and most of those who do it fall short by some way. The Spaniards (men, that is) are more about show than anything and the American women who have done it just don’t seem comfortable with the whole thing. Usually the choices made about what to do are not good, the volume of food is not right and its distribution is flawed and, sadly, sometimes they don’t even provide wine! The most recent one failed on a number of fronts partly because of the absence of wine, partly because the salad dressing ran out after the first small helping and then the traditional garlic soup was a problem. Both the wine and the soup had some origins in not getting enough supplies for the number of people who arrived at the place. They had expected around 15 and 32 turned up. So instead of getting more wine they just didn’t offer any and they bulked up the soup with more bread but had very little garlic or sausage to flavour it with. The final coupe de gras was that the local version of the soup requires a number of eggs to be broken into it and stirred around just before serving. This was fine for me but for a number of others (including Alison) it made the main dish pretty much inedible (I had hers) as some of the yoke had set but none of the white and this is not to everyone’s taste.
So some people walked twenty odd kms in unshaded hot sun, had a couple of bowls of lettuce with a few bits of tomato and some fly-caressed bread washed down by tepid water and a small apple or orange, then got up the next morning and walked a further 5 kms before they could get breakfast. This is not a particularly good way to treat pilgrims but the place was donativo (you paid as much as you could afford/thought the place was worth) and I’m sure they got a good amount from each of us despite the limited grub. Oh, of course, we had all taken part in preparing parts of it but we had no way of knowing what the whole thing was going to be until it arrived – we chopped vegetables, etc. in shifts, set the tables and so on. I knew that it was not enough garlic for the soup but didn’t know that the soup was it – the only thing in town.
The Albergues have all been quite different en route to here. We stayed in a very nice one with small rooms housing no more than 5 beds (not bunks) in each and there was a very nice set of gardens, a good bar/restaurant with good simple food, and a nice roof terrace, too. The showers and other facilities were fine too. Then we were in an old adobe building which was attractive but the social space was very limited and the communal meal was not brill and, even for the Camino, the facilities were limited (2 showers and 1 loo for the men and the same for the women). Then we were in a larger place with large dorms and slightly more facilities but the kitchen dining room was small and full of flies – even the pleasant courtyard area in the centre of the building complex suffered from the flies but the town was nice and we had a good pilgrim menu meal next door (despite the portions being too small – quality vs quantity). Then the place in Leon was interesting. A large refugio which was part of the convent right in the heart of the city. Large but comfortable dorms, small kitchen dining area but with no cooking facilities and breakfast included (bread, spreads and coffee/tea/hot choc). We had a nice set of salads for tea as there are lots of good supermarkets, covered market, etc in Leon. Now we are in a slightly down at heel municipal Albergue in a small village which has a very busy road right through it and a bigger motorway running parallel to it (all the traffic going through here is avoiding the toll payment on the motorway). The old and creaky bunk beds are all in one big room and, as this was probably a school the dorm looks like the school hall. 3 showers and 3 loos per gender and about 20 of us here tonight. The kitchen dining room is small but OK. 26km plus to get here but that makes tomorrow a bit shorter which is good because I think we are going up hill for a change – wow!
Monday 5 July 2010
Is this the real Camino or the Camino Real? Some notes from a pair of wandering pilgrims.
Flies and more flies 05 07 2010
We are in Mansilla de las Mulas and, just like yesterday, there are flies everywhere ... grrrr. Mulas means mules and this was a major place for selling them in the middle ages through to quite recently. The mules have gone but they left their flies.
First time with the internet for many many days and the thing did not work until a short time ago. We have worked out that we will probably have to leave Santiago earlier than we had wanted because of available travel. We will go by bus all the way (a day and a half or so on the bus, folks).
I have not had a chance to write stuff for a little while – except for these bits - so I have put them together so that there is at least a flavour of what is happening so far. By the way Alison is fine, her sandals are working well and I only have one foot of pain to deal with now..... Wow!!!!
Perhaps Leon and beyond will be easier for the internet.
I am trying to convince people that the English for Buen Camino is either Toodle Pip! Or What Ho! Some success so will persist.
What Ho! (the nooo)
Say a little prayer for 04 07 2010
Today we were awake before five as the Italian guy next to us set his alarm to quarter to five and got up at five.
We didn’t have any breakfast as Alison did not want to eat so early so we set off after six and walked. It was a glorious morning with the sun about to rise and the birds in full song. A bright star hung from below the crescent moon and the hint of pink in the sky just managed to blot out the dazzling display of stars that had filled the night sky.
We ate our packs of biscuits for breakfast washed down with some water from the spring at last night’s Albergue and continued walking hoping one of the villages on the way would have a place open for breakfast. Of course, our guide (unlike most of the other guides) does not tell us where such places are.
Eventually at Sahaguin we found a place open and went in. The food was very limited so we each had a little cake and some coffee and left. At a shop across the road from a much better cafe around the corner (where most of the pilgrims were gathering as they had read about the place in their guides) we bought some tins of pate, some bread and tomatoes and peaches. After squirreling them away in our bags we headed off again and made the village before our allotted night stop at just after half past eleven so we stopped at the bar there and I made us some lunch with bread and pate while Alison chatted to an American friend who was worried that she would not be able to get to Mass today as it was Sunday. We pointed out the little Chapel across the road and she went off to find out where the nearest Mass was. She came back to say it was at midday so we rushed the food and beer and dashed off to the little church of St Rock.
It was very hot and stuffy in the church and by the latter part of the service Alison was turning very pale and could not stand up. Luckily, the service finished and I managed to get her out of the church before she completely stopped being able to function. She just sat with her head between her knees – first on the bench outside the church and then on the ground while I tried to find a way to help her recover.
I went off in search of the Albergue which was poorly signposted and was briefly described in the guide book but gave no clues as to its whereabouts (the street name is most helpful when you either have a street map or are in a place where they have the names of the street on the ends or at least somewhere on the street).
I found the place and ran back to Alison fearing that she might have passed out in my absence but she was unchanged, on the ground with her head between her knees.
Eventually we walked slowly to the Albergue with Alison saying she was probably OK now and me saying great, so let’s see if we can get to this Albergue and then we can decide whether to stay there of go on. I didn’t want to even contemplate seeing Alison walking to the next town. Thankfully, the place was as nice as it looked and when Alison sat in the cool of the reception area she had to admit that it would be for the best for us to stay her tonight.
Since then I have sorted out some things, had a shower, washed our things and have written this while Alison has been lying on the bed, unable to get up.
We will see how things are tomorrow......
Just one little note about the service: This was a Eucharistic service run by the parishioners who did it very well, were deeply devout, sang hymns and parts of the service and fed themselves spiritually despite the absence of a priest. Contrast this with the fact that we have been to several Masses in Spain held within the Cathedrals and they have all had several priests all concelebrating. I think the minimum I have seen is one main celebrant and five other priests taking part in the Mass. The same is often true in both the UK and France. In fact in France we were put up by a lovely priest just north of Chartres and he was looking after over 30 parishes on his own. We stayed an extra night in Chartres that weekend and went to Mass in the Cathedral and there were several priests involved in that Mass, too. This has been bugging me a lot over the last few months and while Alison was sitting outside the chapel feeling rough she commented on the contrast, saying it did pose some pretty serious questions. Ho hum!
Party time 03 07 2010
We are sitting in a shaded spot in the garden watching the mother cat (of at least five kittens) wandering around impatiently waiting for food. She is hungry and a little harassed and worn out by the high level of feeding she is doing.
We can hear something going on in the bar/lounge where the TV is so we are assuming it is football and are keeping out of it. Alison is checking tomorrow’s route and I am writing this and we are both thinking of Kirsty, her birthday and her BBQ. We know that both her sisters intend to be there to help and that it should be a really great day but we are too far away to know or do anything about it. So we are thinking and praying and hoping all will work out and be really good.....
We hope that no messages on Facebook mean good news rather than bad!
Lots of love and happy birthday Kirsty!
Carrion people 02 07 2010
Michael is a young German from Potsdam who was in the refugio last night. He is now in his early thirties and works in a kindergarten to make money and spends much of the rest of his time as a spiritual advisor. He spends his time helping people to reconnect with God. He wants people to begin to feel things in their heart again and when he tells me this he thumps his chest with his clenched fist to emphasise the importance of this. He is not tall but is broadly built with light hair, tattooed arms and he goes around smiling a lot and emitting a huge amount of positive energy.
He told me that he was in prison when he was a teenager and emphasises that he was not guilty but despite this they had put him in prison. While there he was told by an older man that he needed to read the Bible and connect with God. It was not something he was willing to do but, despite this reluctance he decided to make a pact with God. He said that if God would get him out he would do his best to work on God’s side. Shortly after the promise his life changed. They reviewed his case and chucked him out of prison so Michael started off on a journey to find out what God wanted him to do.
After a time as a Christian he left Germany and landed up in London where he spent more than three years with the Hare Krishna group, or the Hindus as he calls them. He spent a lot of that time in the big house they have which was donated by George Harrison. So he speaks English very well and has a simple openness and fierce intensity that makes him quite a character to meet and get to know.
We all have God the Father and the Mother Earth as our parents, he said, and this makes us all one big family of brothers and sisters. We are not step brothers and sisters and nor are we distant cousins. The sooner we realise this, the closer to realising global peace we will be.
We hope to meet up with him again as we walk to Santiago.
Earlier, we had made a quick meal in the albergue (onions, garlic, lardons, tomatoes, pimento and pasta) and had a glass of wine from our bottle. We then washed up and reserved the rest of the wine for the end of the evening. Then off we went to Mass which was to be followed by a classical guitar concert especially for pilgrims.
The Mass was OK and was accompanied by the guitarist playing some simple classical music.
The Concert was performed by a young Uruguayan man who was very good despite a number of little problems with rhythm and fluffed passages – much of what he played was without reading music...... All told it was a refreshing interlude and we all welcomed it enormously. After the first three pieces the rain came down and began to pound noisily on the church roof but even that did not cause much of a problem and soon died away again.
The priest was obviously very happy with all of this. The church was clearly still very active and there were newly produced hymn books with a wide range of new as well as a few old hymns in. Clearly, the priest and the congregation sang at Masses and the priest’s note at the beginning of the book did emphasise the importance of music and song as ways of adding much to worship. So, when he finished the Mass he did all the things necessary to clear the altar, etc and then rushed eagerly to take a front seat place that had been reserved for him.
There was a pilgrim Blessing at the end of the concert and we were all given multilingual booklets for the service. Alison read the Gospel in English and we spoke the rest in Spanish. At the very end we all sang a Compostella song which was written (and recorded) by the priest. He had a bit of a cough all the way through the evening and when he went around shaking our hands after the blessing I said to him that we would pray for him during the walk and he gave me a couple of big hugs. I had not really appreciated just how large the priest was until then. Well over six feet in height and built to match. I think he was showing his gratitude and not trying to grush the life out of me, so I am praying for him.
On reflection, we think the reason why we queued up was mainly because the refugio didn’t open until a couple of hours after most people had arrived in town so the crush was on. We walked to Terradillion today (a bit further away but still got there before half twelve) and arrived in a very nice albergue which has beds rather than bunk beds and has very nice gardens, terraces, etc. We had no difficulty getting in and sorted. Of course, we ignored the other Albergue just outside the village – that one was more modern and you could see it from the path. You could also see the swimming pool in its grounds. We wanted to be in the village not half a km out of it on the wrong side. We also thought that most of the young people would be attracted by the pool (along with the family with three kids) so we left it as a lure to all who were easily seduced!
Must say, people seem to be getting up earlier and earlier.... most are up and dressed between half five and six which means alarms go off before five. This is all hugely unnecessary as most people are still sitting around when we eventually get ready to leave. So they wake us up, rush around and disturb us constantly then, when we get up, get dressed and packed and go to find our boots we discover these people still sitting around chatting, having breakfast, etc. They then rush off, try to overtake us, then stop for a long early morning snack/coffee at the first place they find open. Their desire to stop and eat/drink does not diminish as the day goes on, either. This is why we get to the final place in the first cohort of walkers. We don’t stop much and we don’t stay long!
Weather is hot and sunny, but it comes with a cool wind and some pretty powerful afternoon or evening rainstorms. My Feet still hurt but I am living in hope that things will get better! Ho hum.
Ready steady GO
Our first day on the Camino for almost a week and we have found the experience interesting. For a start, we have not spent so long away from the Camino or from walking since we started this thing back in April (well March if you include Student Cross). Also, we have dumped various things in the UK and brought other thongs back. So, the weight is not that much different – just a few kilos lighter for me and a bit more space in the bag for Alison. But what we brought back has made another difference. I left my boots and brought my walking shoes which seems to be making a difference, ‘though I will have to wait a few days to see if this is a true difference as I had a false start with my boots where the change was perhaps as good as a rest but the end result was continuingly sore feet.....
Alison brought back a new pair of sandals fro walking in and she tried them out today. Her legs are a bit more tired than usual and her feet are a bit more painful. Yes, this is by no means a valid test as too many variables have been changed but the over all prognosis, regardless of complexities, is that the sandals work and will get better rather than worse.
This is the first time since Roncevalles that we have queued up to get into a refugio. A couple of times you sit around and wait your turn to be booked in but here, despite the fact that there are around 60 beds available, we were queuing to get a place and it felt like we had to in order to ensure we had a bed for the night. After a shower and something to eat we are relaxing, writing, etc and people are being turned away at the door because the place is full.
We will have to wait to see if this is a new trend or if it is a function of where you go. Today is Carrion and there are other albergues but this is the cheapest and is the municipal one so it is the one to get full first, I suppose.
We got up in Fromista at six and were out of the door by just after seven. We walked for just over 20 kms and got here just before eleven, ‘though we did stop for coffee and a croissant at one point and to sort clothes, etc at another. The going, as they say, was good all the way with a slight rise for the last few Kms. Tonight we will sort out our meal then go to the Mass followed by a special guitar recital in the same church. Then we will return to the albergue and finish off our wine before settling for the night.
The marks on the sheets indicate that some sort of blood sucking insects have been on the prowl on these beds recently but we are going to assume that all is well until we actually know it to be otherwise – you can’t live your life being dictated to by your fears. I know this statement is rich coming from me when I am a severe dental phobic, but I can talk about all else in this light...... So I am sitting on the top bunk writing this and hoping that the evidence is positive, even if I have been bitten on the elbow by something (I think that something flying did that biting).
We are still working the practicalities out of starting a series of camino routes across Britain (possibly linked at some point to the Santiago routes but primarily going to key UK pilgrim sites – Iona, Lindisfarne and Walsingham to name but three. I think the first will be to Iona and that Scotland is ideal for starting such a thing for a whole long list of reasons, so I am thinking about organising and marketing as well as route planning, etc. Watch this space! And expect to find a route and guide book out shortly!
Castro and co 24 06 2010
I will have to write elsewhere about Castro Jeriz and tell the whole story, I have written a couple of poems linked to the place and to the people and will probably write some more. The annual Fiesta was beginning as we arrived and we have been encountering bits of it during our stay but we are not of the little town and it is not for us and we are in this sort of limbo world as a result. It manages to bring home to you the unreality of the Camino and demonstrates that our reality is something else.
The shops were shut but all the bars were open and full. We went to the bar nearest the Alberque while we waited for it to open and the place had this enormous black log about forty feet long or more stretching from just by the front door and into the wall at the other end of the bar. On closer inspection it seemed to be the lever for a gigantic press for either olives or grapes. We went there twice and I never got around to asking more about it.... The place also had a very good (large) local painting of people working on digging and lighting a fire in a long trench as others prepared a whole pig for roasting. People were doing all sorts of other things, the weather was pretty cold and the hills had that winter crispness of focus that comes from a dry, cold day. The whole scene looked so familiar tome that I felt that I must surely have been there and I kept looking at the faces of people thinking that somehow they looked like people I knew.
This is the place where the hospitalier makes the paella in a dish on an open fire in the garden and where we get wakened up in the morning by Gregorian chant music and him dressed up as a monk with a lantern on a staff, etc.
I didn’t get enough paella or wine so beware where you sit in one of these things and you will not be left hungry and thirsty at the end of the meal. Ho hum.
We love you because 23 06 2010
It’s official. Even the wonderful Spanish language cannot raise country and western music above trite, musically challenged drivel. Sitting in the bar in Hornillos del Camino drinking beer from a frozen glass with the radio on and the music playing I am trying to tap at the keys while Alison writes in her note book. The room is small with a high ceiling, stairs to the next floor by the front door and the telephone booth under the stairs in constant use by pilgrims and locals. Beyond the bar and the ‘phone booth is a small restaurant where we hope to have a pilgrim menu meal.
It looks like they do both lentils and beans with sausages as starters. They are also served in Burgos and are particularly nice.
A note on food in this area - The pilgrim menu is a simple set meal with wine and bread which is served early as most Spaniards don’t eat until late and pilgrim hostels close around ten pm. If you are lucky there will be a choice and we have been lucky in a reasonable number of places and only been ripped off in a couple. In Burgos we had two very nice meals – one very simple and the other a bit more sophisticated but both enjoyable.
I thought of my dad when we had the peas and ham as a starter in Burgos on our first night there. My dad loved a supper dish of hot peas and vinegar which was your tinned peas and not the frozen sort, though he might have liked that too. If he had been served it with bits of ham in there too, he would have loved it even more. I added some wine vinegar to mine in homage to dad.
The other thing of note which needs to be mentioned (over and above all of the other lovely things including the fantastic hams and other meats) is the black pudding of the area. They have a wide range of different types and they all seem to be brilliant although we will have to come back with time and money to confirm this conjecture. The ones we have had are all really great....
After here is Castro Jeriz and then Fromista before we return to the UK fro a brief interlude to attend Dominique’s (our middle daughter’s) graduation at Durham.
It is such a wei8rd thing to do we don’t know how to approach it so we are just going to go with the flow and see what happens. One of our many blessings (but a HUGE blessing, it must be said) is that our good friend Mike Lagrue will be collecting us from the airport and ferrying us around during our trip to the UK. If that does not sound much let me assure you that it is an enormously kind and wonderfiul thing to do and we are so much in his debt! We arrive at Stanstead and he picks us up, ferries us to New Malden, we sort ourselves out then in the evening he picks us up and we go and collect Dominique who has just started her Teach First training in Central London and we drive up to Durham. Sleep in Dom’s house when we eventually get there. Do the business in Durham and after the graduation meal in the evening Mike collects us and drives us all back to London. Then the next day he takes Alison and I back to Stanstead. I am researching how you get people the Papal Knighthood – he deserves it more than any one else I can think of and he would appreciate the humour of getting it, too. I will think of better ways to thank him....
So, now we are going in to have something to eat.... I’m hungry!!!
We are in Mansilla de las Mulas and, just like yesterday, there are flies everywhere ... grrrr. Mulas means mules and this was a major place for selling them in the middle ages through to quite recently. The mules have gone but they left their flies.
First time with the internet for many many days and the thing did not work until a short time ago. We have worked out that we will probably have to leave Santiago earlier than we had wanted because of available travel. We will go by bus all the way (a day and a half or so on the bus, folks).
I have not had a chance to write stuff for a little while – except for these bits - so I have put them together so that there is at least a flavour of what is happening so far. By the way Alison is fine, her sandals are working well and I only have one foot of pain to deal with now..... Wow!!!!
Perhaps Leon and beyond will be easier for the internet.
I am trying to convince people that the English for Buen Camino is either Toodle Pip! Or What Ho! Some success so will persist.
What Ho! (the nooo)
Say a little prayer for 04 07 2010
Today we were awake before five as the Italian guy next to us set his alarm to quarter to five and got up at five.
We didn’t have any breakfast as Alison did not want to eat so early so we set off after six and walked. It was a glorious morning with the sun about to rise and the birds in full song. A bright star hung from below the crescent moon and the hint of pink in the sky just managed to blot out the dazzling display of stars that had filled the night sky.
We ate our packs of biscuits for breakfast washed down with some water from the spring at last night’s Albergue and continued walking hoping one of the villages on the way would have a place open for breakfast. Of course, our guide (unlike most of the other guides) does not tell us where such places are.
Eventually at Sahaguin we found a place open and went in. The food was very limited so we each had a little cake and some coffee and left. At a shop across the road from a much better cafe around the corner (where most of the pilgrims were gathering as they had read about the place in their guides) we bought some tins of pate, some bread and tomatoes and peaches. After squirreling them away in our bags we headed off again and made the village before our allotted night stop at just after half past eleven so we stopped at the bar there and I made us some lunch with bread and pate while Alison chatted to an American friend who was worried that she would not be able to get to Mass today as it was Sunday. We pointed out the little Chapel across the road and she went off to find out where the nearest Mass was. She came back to say it was at midday so we rushed the food and beer and dashed off to the little church of St Rock.
It was very hot and stuffy in the church and by the latter part of the service Alison was turning very pale and could not stand up. Luckily, the service finished and I managed to get her out of the church before she completely stopped being able to function. She just sat with her head between her knees – first on the bench outside the church and then on the ground while I tried to find a way to help her recover.
I went off in search of the Albergue which was poorly signposted and was briefly described in the guide book but gave no clues as to its whereabouts (the street name is most helpful when you either have a street map or are in a place where they have the names of the street on the ends or at least somewhere on the street).
I found the place and ran back to Alison fearing that she might have passed out in my absence but she was unchanged, on the ground with her head between her knees.
Eventually we walked slowly to the Albergue with Alison saying she was probably OK now and me saying great, so let’s see if we can get to this Albergue and then we can decide whether to stay there of go on. I didn’t want to even contemplate seeing Alison walking to the next town. Thankfully, the place was as nice as it looked and when Alison sat in the cool of the reception area she had to admit that it would be for the best for us to stay her tonight.
Since then I have sorted out some things, had a shower, washed our things and have written this while Alison has been lying on the bed, unable to get up.
We will see how things are tomorrow......
Just one little note about the service: This was a Eucharistic service run by the parishioners who did it very well, were deeply devout, sang hymns and parts of the service and fed themselves spiritually despite the absence of a priest. Contrast this with the fact that we have been to several Masses in Spain held within the Cathedrals and they have all had several priests all concelebrating. I think the minimum I have seen is one main celebrant and five other priests taking part in the Mass. The same is often true in both the UK and France. In fact in France we were put up by a lovely priest just north of Chartres and he was looking after over 30 parishes on his own. We stayed an extra night in Chartres that weekend and went to Mass in the Cathedral and there were several priests involved in that Mass, too. This has been bugging me a lot over the last few months and while Alison was sitting outside the chapel feeling rough she commented on the contrast, saying it did pose some pretty serious questions. Ho hum!
Party time 03 07 2010
We are sitting in a shaded spot in the garden watching the mother cat (of at least five kittens) wandering around impatiently waiting for food. She is hungry and a little harassed and worn out by the high level of feeding she is doing.
We can hear something going on in the bar/lounge where the TV is so we are assuming it is football and are keeping out of it. Alison is checking tomorrow’s route and I am writing this and we are both thinking of Kirsty, her birthday and her BBQ. We know that both her sisters intend to be there to help and that it should be a really great day but we are too far away to know or do anything about it. So we are thinking and praying and hoping all will work out and be really good.....
We hope that no messages on Facebook mean good news rather than bad!
Lots of love and happy birthday Kirsty!
Carrion people 02 07 2010
Michael is a young German from Potsdam who was in the refugio last night. He is now in his early thirties and works in a kindergarten to make money and spends much of the rest of his time as a spiritual advisor. He spends his time helping people to reconnect with God. He wants people to begin to feel things in their heart again and when he tells me this he thumps his chest with his clenched fist to emphasise the importance of this. He is not tall but is broadly built with light hair, tattooed arms and he goes around smiling a lot and emitting a huge amount of positive energy.
He told me that he was in prison when he was a teenager and emphasises that he was not guilty but despite this they had put him in prison. While there he was told by an older man that he needed to read the Bible and connect with God. It was not something he was willing to do but, despite this reluctance he decided to make a pact with God. He said that if God would get him out he would do his best to work on God’s side. Shortly after the promise his life changed. They reviewed his case and chucked him out of prison so Michael started off on a journey to find out what God wanted him to do.
After a time as a Christian he left Germany and landed up in London where he spent more than three years with the Hare Krishna group, or the Hindus as he calls them. He spent a lot of that time in the big house they have which was donated by George Harrison. So he speaks English very well and has a simple openness and fierce intensity that makes him quite a character to meet and get to know.
We all have God the Father and the Mother Earth as our parents, he said, and this makes us all one big family of brothers and sisters. We are not step brothers and sisters and nor are we distant cousins. The sooner we realise this, the closer to realising global peace we will be.
We hope to meet up with him again as we walk to Santiago.
Earlier, we had made a quick meal in the albergue (onions, garlic, lardons, tomatoes, pimento and pasta) and had a glass of wine from our bottle. We then washed up and reserved the rest of the wine for the end of the evening. Then off we went to Mass which was to be followed by a classical guitar concert especially for pilgrims.
The Mass was OK and was accompanied by the guitarist playing some simple classical music.
The Concert was performed by a young Uruguayan man who was very good despite a number of little problems with rhythm and fluffed passages – much of what he played was without reading music...... All told it was a refreshing interlude and we all welcomed it enormously. After the first three pieces the rain came down and began to pound noisily on the church roof but even that did not cause much of a problem and soon died away again.
The priest was obviously very happy with all of this. The church was clearly still very active and there were newly produced hymn books with a wide range of new as well as a few old hymns in. Clearly, the priest and the congregation sang at Masses and the priest’s note at the beginning of the book did emphasise the importance of music and song as ways of adding much to worship. So, when he finished the Mass he did all the things necessary to clear the altar, etc and then rushed eagerly to take a front seat place that had been reserved for him.
There was a pilgrim Blessing at the end of the concert and we were all given multilingual booklets for the service. Alison read the Gospel in English and we spoke the rest in Spanish. At the very end we all sang a Compostella song which was written (and recorded) by the priest. He had a bit of a cough all the way through the evening and when he went around shaking our hands after the blessing I said to him that we would pray for him during the walk and he gave me a couple of big hugs. I had not really appreciated just how large the priest was until then. Well over six feet in height and built to match. I think he was showing his gratitude and not trying to grush the life out of me, so I am praying for him.
On reflection, we think the reason why we queued up was mainly because the refugio didn’t open until a couple of hours after most people had arrived in town so the crush was on. We walked to Terradillion today (a bit further away but still got there before half twelve) and arrived in a very nice albergue which has beds rather than bunk beds and has very nice gardens, terraces, etc. We had no difficulty getting in and sorted. Of course, we ignored the other Albergue just outside the village – that one was more modern and you could see it from the path. You could also see the swimming pool in its grounds. We wanted to be in the village not half a km out of it on the wrong side. We also thought that most of the young people would be attracted by the pool (along with the family with three kids) so we left it as a lure to all who were easily seduced!
Must say, people seem to be getting up earlier and earlier.... most are up and dressed between half five and six which means alarms go off before five. This is all hugely unnecessary as most people are still sitting around when we eventually get ready to leave. So they wake us up, rush around and disturb us constantly then, when we get up, get dressed and packed and go to find our boots we discover these people still sitting around chatting, having breakfast, etc. They then rush off, try to overtake us, then stop for a long early morning snack/coffee at the first place they find open. Their desire to stop and eat/drink does not diminish as the day goes on, either. This is why we get to the final place in the first cohort of walkers. We don’t stop much and we don’t stay long!
Weather is hot and sunny, but it comes with a cool wind and some pretty powerful afternoon or evening rainstorms. My Feet still hurt but I am living in hope that things will get better! Ho hum.
Ready steady GO
Our first day on the Camino for almost a week and we have found the experience interesting. For a start, we have not spent so long away from the Camino or from walking since we started this thing back in April (well March if you include Student Cross). Also, we have dumped various things in the UK and brought other thongs back. So, the weight is not that much different – just a few kilos lighter for me and a bit more space in the bag for Alison. But what we brought back has made another difference. I left my boots and brought my walking shoes which seems to be making a difference, ‘though I will have to wait a few days to see if this is a true difference as I had a false start with my boots where the change was perhaps as good as a rest but the end result was continuingly sore feet.....
Alison brought back a new pair of sandals fro walking in and she tried them out today. Her legs are a bit more tired than usual and her feet are a bit more painful. Yes, this is by no means a valid test as too many variables have been changed but the over all prognosis, regardless of complexities, is that the sandals work and will get better rather than worse.
This is the first time since Roncevalles that we have queued up to get into a refugio. A couple of times you sit around and wait your turn to be booked in but here, despite the fact that there are around 60 beds available, we were queuing to get a place and it felt like we had to in order to ensure we had a bed for the night. After a shower and something to eat we are relaxing, writing, etc and people are being turned away at the door because the place is full.
We will have to wait to see if this is a new trend or if it is a function of where you go. Today is Carrion and there are other albergues but this is the cheapest and is the municipal one so it is the one to get full first, I suppose.
We got up in Fromista at six and were out of the door by just after seven. We walked for just over 20 kms and got here just before eleven, ‘though we did stop for coffee and a croissant at one point and to sort clothes, etc at another. The going, as they say, was good all the way with a slight rise for the last few Kms. Tonight we will sort out our meal then go to the Mass followed by a special guitar recital in the same church. Then we will return to the albergue and finish off our wine before settling for the night.
The marks on the sheets indicate that some sort of blood sucking insects have been on the prowl on these beds recently but we are going to assume that all is well until we actually know it to be otherwise – you can’t live your life being dictated to by your fears. I know this statement is rich coming from me when I am a severe dental phobic, but I can talk about all else in this light...... So I am sitting on the top bunk writing this and hoping that the evidence is positive, even if I have been bitten on the elbow by something (I think that something flying did that biting).
We are still working the practicalities out of starting a series of camino routes across Britain (possibly linked at some point to the Santiago routes but primarily going to key UK pilgrim sites – Iona, Lindisfarne and Walsingham to name but three. I think the first will be to Iona and that Scotland is ideal for starting such a thing for a whole long list of reasons, so I am thinking about organising and marketing as well as route planning, etc. Watch this space! And expect to find a route and guide book out shortly!
Castro and co 24 06 2010
I will have to write elsewhere about Castro Jeriz and tell the whole story, I have written a couple of poems linked to the place and to the people and will probably write some more. The annual Fiesta was beginning as we arrived and we have been encountering bits of it during our stay but we are not of the little town and it is not for us and we are in this sort of limbo world as a result. It manages to bring home to you the unreality of the Camino and demonstrates that our reality is something else.
The shops were shut but all the bars were open and full. We went to the bar nearest the Alberque while we waited for it to open and the place had this enormous black log about forty feet long or more stretching from just by the front door and into the wall at the other end of the bar. On closer inspection it seemed to be the lever for a gigantic press for either olives or grapes. We went there twice and I never got around to asking more about it.... The place also had a very good (large) local painting of people working on digging and lighting a fire in a long trench as others prepared a whole pig for roasting. People were doing all sorts of other things, the weather was pretty cold and the hills had that winter crispness of focus that comes from a dry, cold day. The whole scene looked so familiar tome that I felt that I must surely have been there and I kept looking at the faces of people thinking that somehow they looked like people I knew.
This is the place where the hospitalier makes the paella in a dish on an open fire in the garden and where we get wakened up in the morning by Gregorian chant music and him dressed up as a monk with a lantern on a staff, etc.
I didn’t get enough paella or wine so beware where you sit in one of these things and you will not be left hungry and thirsty at the end of the meal. Ho hum.
We love you because 23 06 2010
It’s official. Even the wonderful Spanish language cannot raise country and western music above trite, musically challenged drivel. Sitting in the bar in Hornillos del Camino drinking beer from a frozen glass with the radio on and the music playing I am trying to tap at the keys while Alison writes in her note book. The room is small with a high ceiling, stairs to the next floor by the front door and the telephone booth under the stairs in constant use by pilgrims and locals. Beyond the bar and the ‘phone booth is a small restaurant where we hope to have a pilgrim menu meal.
It looks like they do both lentils and beans with sausages as starters. They are also served in Burgos and are particularly nice.
A note on food in this area - The pilgrim menu is a simple set meal with wine and bread which is served early as most Spaniards don’t eat until late and pilgrim hostels close around ten pm. If you are lucky there will be a choice and we have been lucky in a reasonable number of places and only been ripped off in a couple. In Burgos we had two very nice meals – one very simple and the other a bit more sophisticated but both enjoyable.
I thought of my dad when we had the peas and ham as a starter in Burgos on our first night there. My dad loved a supper dish of hot peas and vinegar which was your tinned peas and not the frozen sort, though he might have liked that too. If he had been served it with bits of ham in there too, he would have loved it even more. I added some wine vinegar to mine in homage to dad.
The other thing of note which needs to be mentioned (over and above all of the other lovely things including the fantastic hams and other meats) is the black pudding of the area. They have a wide range of different types and they all seem to be brilliant although we will have to come back with time and money to confirm this conjecture. The ones we have had are all really great....
After here is Castro Jeriz and then Fromista before we return to the UK fro a brief interlude to attend Dominique’s (our middle daughter’s) graduation at Durham.
It is such a wei8rd thing to do we don’t know how to approach it so we are just going to go with the flow and see what happens. One of our many blessings (but a HUGE blessing, it must be said) is that our good friend Mike Lagrue will be collecting us from the airport and ferrying us around during our trip to the UK. If that does not sound much let me assure you that it is an enormously kind and wonderfiul thing to do and we are so much in his debt! We arrive at Stanstead and he picks us up, ferries us to New Malden, we sort ourselves out then in the evening he picks us up and we go and collect Dominique who has just started her Teach First training in Central London and we drive up to Durham. Sleep in Dom’s house when we eventually get there. Do the business in Durham and after the graduation meal in the evening Mike collects us and drives us all back to London. Then the next day he takes Alison and I back to Stanstead. I am researching how you get people the Papal Knighthood – he deserves it more than any one else I can think of and he would appreciate the humour of getting it, too. I will think of better ways to thank him....
So, now we are going in to have something to eat.... I’m hungry!!!
Tuesday 22 June 2010
On the high plains of Spain in the sun and the wind thinking of you all, you all
Gothic confections 22 06 2010
Burgos is an attractive city. It was cold on the way in but today has been sunny and generally warm (when you are out of the wind that is).
We arrived and bumped into a woman (hi Deidre) we have not seen the crossing from St Jean to Roncevalles – she is a lovely Irish Canadian (born and brought up in Ireland, moved to Canada). She pointed us to the new municipal refugio which is just behind the cathedral, is beautifully presented and brand new. Extremely good in many ways but, like so many other places it does lack some things.
For example our dorm had ten rows of bunks (4 individual beds to a row) and each bunk was a good width with comfortable mattresses. The bunks were separated by a column of lockers so Alison and I were top and bottom and the people next door were separated by the lockers. Each row has a wall separating it from the next so when you get into bed you are open on one side and have a wall with a light and socket on your other side (and a wall head and foot. If you sit up on the top bunk you see the lines of bunks and can wave to your neighbours in the rows beyond). I hope that is all clear....
So, a margin of privacy in a hostel is unusual and welcome. What was not so good was the row of four showers and two loos for all of us to share. Oh, and climbing the narrow ladder to the top bunk was torture!
Two other things. There was not a kitchen. On the ground floor there were some tables and benches fixed to the floor and although they looked good they were not particularly nice to sit at and it felt like one of those places you go to eat your packed lunch at a museum. In the same space were 4 pay as you go internet units, a couple of microwaves and two washing machines and tumble driers. All a bit limited for the few hundred pilgrims who can stay there at any one time.
The second thing was that when we arrived we handed over our pilgrim passports, paid our money and were led off by one of the workers there. He stopped us at the place where you take your boots off and we then stacked them in the large racks provided before we were marched off up stairs to be allocated our beds. It did feel a bit like going to a prison. I was half expecting him to tell us to strip and shower!
Having said all of this it was a very good place. The point is not that these short comings were really significant or that we were in any way being mistreated or short changed. The place was really nice, the facilities were better than many places we have been so far and it was four Euros fifty each for the night. The point is partly that it is amazing what can be achieved with even the minimum of services and partly that the process is different from most other things in our lives. We got the things we needed and we all found space for each other. We did not complain or try to get some extra service for ourselves. We bumped into lots of people we have not seen for a while and exchanged news, we had a good night’s sleep and didn’t even complain when people set their alarms for half five when the doors don’t open until half six (and we wanted a lie in to at least seven, which didn’t happen).
It also makes you more aware of the things you miss and don’t miss. It shows you what it might be like if you have to live like this for longer than just a pilgrimage and it lets you see why people will get ratty from time to time and fed up of being so limited in terms of personal choice and personal space. If you can have that revealed in such a wonderful new resource as the Burgos Municipal Albergue then it is something worth taking note of.
So we had a rest day today and are staying in a small one star hotel in the centre of town for our second night. This meant we could put our backs down somewhere safe and not have to get our sleeping bags out to claim our beds, etc. We have walked all over the place (and not covered half of what we would like to see. We also went to the big supermarket we checked out on our way into town and bought some essentials....
One of the high lights has been the cathedral. I first wanted to see this place when I was a student in 1973 and bought a Geographical Magazine with the church on the cover. It has been much cleaned up and so on since then but the whole thing is quite astounding in so many ways. We paid E2.50 (the pilgrim rate) to get in and as we walked around the cathedral part the section of the church still functioning as a sacred worship space the monks/priests were singing plain chant there and it was being piped throughout the place, so start your visit as soon as the place opens, folks.
It took us the best part of three hours to go around and we popped out as if it had taken 5 minutes. Stunning art, stunning spaces, fantastic stone and wood work, fascinating historical displays. Must go back and do it properly some time.
We went to the front to photograph it and realised that we had not gone into the church part – we always visit the church and give thanks but had failed to do it the day before. So we went in and did that and prayed for all sorts of things and people close to our hearts. The second chapel we went to had the amazing crucifix with Christ in the cross wearing an extraordinary sort of skirt. On the way out a priest came rushing up to me and asked me to stop. He opened the door of the confessional and I though that he had sussed me out (quite astutely) as being a sinner in need of such help. But no, he just wanted us to have little prayer card/leaflets on the Crucifix which included a pilgrim prayer – he had sussed us out as pilgrims!
We then went looking for a present of some pilgrim tat for our friend, Mike, and found a shop across the square that looked the business. We were just on the verge of selecting a suitable thing when Alison’s phone started to ring and guess what.... Yes, it was Mike himself! So we had a nice chat in the sunshine by the cathedral steps.
Anyway, here we are, in a bar in Burgos, drinking beer and coffee (me and Alison in that order) and taking advantage of the wifi to put this little package together so I better stop. Our task will be to find a cafe without the world cup blaring in it. Yes, Burgos does seem to have the bug more than most places. And yes we need to find one that has fewer smokers as the public spaces seem to be full of them. Ho hum, I still prefer the strange beehive type sound from a telly playing the world cup than I do having smokers all around me. One way or another, I am certain we will have a lovely evening.
I hope you have the same too!!!
Show me the way.... 20/06/2010
Just a jumble of different things for the moment.
We were in a private refugio last night and it was cold!! It was designed for hot, hot weather and everyone seemed a bit confused (they have a swimming pool on the garden but people didn’t even want to go out and say hello to the bunny rabbit on the lawn or hang their clothes out.
We shared a dorm with about a dozen Spanish people in a walking group. We passed them on the way that day and we were not sure if they were just a weekend walking group or pilgrims. So, now we know that some Spaniards (mainly, but not exclusively men) are extremely loud and do not stop being loud even when they are asleep (ditto as previous comment). They were lovely and full of high spirits but when they got up this morning it was a bit like bedlam (a mixture of whispering and shouting, tiptoeing around and slamming doors, roars of laughter and loud shhhing, etc.) while trying to get up early without disturbing the rest of the people in the room....
The meal was good but there was not enough of it (fish soup, roast chicken and potatoes with salad and crème caramel) and I managed to break a tooth on the salad.... I am still trying to work out how I will recover from that and so my nerves are a bit shot now. (for those who don’t know, I have a pathological terror of dentists and dentistry)
Today’s walk was another new landscape with wonderful oak forests and wide open sweeping hillsides, and although we did do a bit of climbing up hills it was nothing like the profile shown on the guide. But that is not a surprise. If you want a good, useful and practical guide to the Camino do not (I repeat DO NOT) buy the Brierley guide.
[at this point I have deleted the comments on the Brierley guide as they were not kind] the text continues...
......, but, after being so annoyed by the French guide we must confess we miss it so. At least it was informative.
The best one we have seen so far (Guide that is) is the one published by Dodo. They have sketch maps that actually give you useful information which is pretty accurate, their information about places and accommodation is reliable and up to date and it does not try to be a sort of middle aged, middle class English Yoda (although I do prefer Yoda’s approach to English).
So, there you are, I was trying not to gripe about anything and have found myself rubbishing our guide book (well, thank your lucky stars that I restrained myself, folks!) – just buy the Miam Miam Dodo guide and stop worrying.
Anyway, you could almost walk this without a guide because it is basically so well signposted, there are so many information guide boards on the route and every refugio has tons of leaflets and info about the next places. All of the people who run the refugios also know the route very well and can give you loads more info. Oh, and if you are a teeny wee bit worried after all of that just go into the kitchen or the local bar or the dining room and sit down with some pilgrims who look OK and start chatting to them and agree to walk with them for a day or two. It is just so simple when every little place has at least one refugio and where everyone wants to help you. We walked just slightly off the route (about ten feet actually) n the direction of a supermarket the other day and a car hooted at us. The driver then wound down the window and told us we should be on the other side of the road for the Camino and even wanted us to walk across in front of him so we would be sure of going the right way. Yesterday a woman walked us through a small town because there were some road works and she was worried we might get lost.... Only rubbish English guides get you lost on this Camino, folks!
So, now we are in another private refugio – it is a private “Network” place. We have found that they are actually extremely well run, clean and good value for money. They are also smaller with smaller rooms and many have things like individual lockers (which are really important if you are walking on your own as it means you do not have to take all of your belongings with you into the showers).
We are one day away from Burgos and everyone is telling us to get a bus so we can avoid having to walk through the industrial/commercial part of the city and we are wondering why they want us to do this. What is this obsession with hating cities and related things. We like urban walking as well as rural walks and find factories interesting as well as wanting to get to a really good, big supermarket. We would hate to get the bus and watch a fantastic large supermarket zip by us as we headed for the centre of town. Please take note, it is cheaper to shop in a hyper market than it is to shop in a small “supermarket” in the centre of a large city. If you don’t believe me try it at home! So we will walk, walk, walk tomorrow and if we see a bus after the super market we might get it then.
Tonight we will have paella, then tortilla and pudding as part of the night’s deal and tomorrow we hope for slightly better weather. It was lots of large clouds sweeping across a bright blue sky with large dark clouds of mist and rain in several directions as we walked. The wind was cold and gusty and the temperature was pretty low. No complaints, especially as it did not rain and I suspected that it might. Also, it is better to walk in cooler rather than hotter conditions, especially when you are walking up hill.
Still managing to avoid most of the World Cup and wondering where we might go to escape the Olympics when they invade our home town in a couple of years time. The Spanish seem to be extremely laid back about the whole football thing (only interested in their own matches, it seems). Ho hum....
Walking on the same old path again 19 06 2010
Today was another day of textures and colours. We walk around sweeping curves in hills and new vistas open out with corn fields gashed red with poppies and walk along between different types of grain fields giving us the soft yellows of ripe rye and the deep blue greens of barley each edged with wild flowers in reds, yellows and blues. Textures, colours and sweeping valleys of curves and sudden changes of angle punctuated our day. And, as with yesterday, the sky helps to give some scale to the landscape showing us just how large this country is. Massive white clouds drift along the sides of the valleys in slow squadrons patrolling the upper reaches and casting chequered shadows that travel along the fields and over the edges of the valleys. Even the motorway and the parts of the roads still being built look small here.
Starting in Santo Domingo we did this journey arriving in Belorado (which sounds like the name used for a cheap brand of cigarettes or naff frozen foods) in time to book into the albergue, do tomorrow’s shopping (tomorrow is Sunday) and have lunch in a local bar – beer and Tapas. Now, after a shower and washing clothes, etc. we are catching up on writing and things.
In addition to the scenery, we have been meeting up with and spending time listening to people we have not seen for a little while and we have encountered other people – some who are distinctly odd. We met Richard, the Scot who is walking wearing a kilt in a little village on top of a hill (the hill was Rioja Alta and the village was Ciruena). On the side of the hill was a posh golf course and beside that was a distinctly grim series of blocks of flats and houses. It was a major tourist development without any shops and with a large “club” area with two swimming pools, children’s play area and a high fence around it. Most of the flats were unoccupied and many were for sale. As we walked through the development we passed along further undeveloped streets with empty plots and weeds breaking up the surface of the roads and taking over the pavements. We felt that people who had bought into that grim development were now firmly located in what we used to say to our children was the “serves you right department”. It looked like it had grown and floundered on the basis of a high level of greed and low level of sense....
Anyway, in the little village of Ciruena we found a bar and headed there for a well deserved drink. At a table outside was Richard talking to a Spanish pilgrim. We went inside to sit while drinking our beer then joined them outside to make our sandwich and chat. We had not seen him since the day we entered Pamplona. He told us several stories about the people he had met and things he has seen and we shared some of ours. As we chatted another person we had not seen since leaving St Jean appeared. Anne, who had set off from St Jean on her bike the day we left for the high pass walked up to us with walking shoes on her feet and a rucksack on her back. We walked into Santo Dominica together and listened to her story then spent the rest of the afternoon and evening with her (she stayed in the same refugio as us too).
Before giving a short outline of her tale I must share the following incident with you.
On the way towards Rioja Alta (but before we had even started to climb the not very steep hill) we were walking along one of the relatively well kept but still coarsely surfaced paths that make up many sections of the Spanish Camino. It was warm but overcast with a light breeze and we kept looking back for signs of cyclists as they tend to come in small groups and approach you quite quickly and silently giving you no warning that they are there. Usually they just give a short shout of “Hola” or “Buen Camino” just before they are on your back and you have to jump out of their way or have them skidding into your back – which is a very unpleasant experience.
I looked back and saw both a cyclist and a car behind it some way back. I warned Alison and kept monitoring them by glancing back. They went past a small group of walkers, then a couple and still the bike was just a head of the car and I thought both what a shame it must be for the cyclist being harassed by a car like that and also thought the cyclist must be either an idiot who cannot work out how to stop or a pain in the butt for blocking the car in that way.
Alison and I stood off the path to let them past (she was going to take her fleece off so it seemed like a good time to stop anyway) and we watched in awe as a quite good looking woman in possibly her forties cycled past us. She was wearing very expensive clothes and riding a very posh bike. She was cycling slowly and seemed very pleased to have us watching her as she went by. The car behind her was driven by a fit, very well dressed man of similar or slightly older age driving brand new top of the range Mercedes with cream leather interior, etc. He was accompanying her as she wobbled stylishly along the path.
A few hundred metres on the path began to climb at a gentle angle as it reached the latter stages of the valley we were walking along. She stopped the bike and to car stopped behind her. The man go out and they stood together for a few minutes before she climbed back on the bike and he ran behind her for a good hundred feet or so pushing her until she was going slowly but steadily up the hill.
Despite their distinct lack of speed and the open aspect of the camino at this point they were long gone when we reached the top of that valley some five minutes after them (the path out of the valley continued up the side of the next and on along the side of the golf course and we could see up it for more than a kilometre when we reached to top). Perhaps she had done her designated exercise for the day or had become sufficiently bored with it to want to stop. Whatever the reason, they had taken up the bike and left a la merc before the real hill climbing began.
Look out in the papers and magazines to see if any famous woman claims that she has recently cycled the camino – it might have been her.
Contrast this with Anne’s story.
Anne walked the Camino 9 years ago and decided, as she had a bike, to spend some time cycling the Camino revisiting places she had enjoyed and checking out new places. With seven weeks to do this in she though it seemed feasible to cycle to Santiago and return to St Jean in time to go back on the transport she had booked.
She was thoroughly looking forward to the experience and was only worried a bit about the problem of being able to watch the World Cup while doing the Camino (Refugios all seemed to close too early for the games).
She soon found that cycling was not as good as she had hoped.
Firstly, the guide she was using was pretty out of date. Add to this the fact that the country road she was hoping to use was on the way to being replaced by a major motorway and you begin to see her peoblems.
She would start from a place and soon discover that the route she was hoping to take soon developed into a large roundabout with all the exits going onto major high ways. When the old road existed it was so busy it soon became too dangerous to use on a bike. She asked various people for advice (including the police) and they all said the same thing. Either cycle on the camino itself or risk the busy road (but only if it was still the old road – she could not cycle on the motorway, even she wanted to...).
Cycling on the Camino was not really an option for Anne. There are very many stretches of it that are incredibly steep, muddy, uneven, filled with boulders and very twisty (not to mention heavily encroached on by all sorts of trees and bushes. Ths is all great stuff for a strong, experienced All Terrain Biker with the right sort of equipment. For Anne it was not an option – Anne is very petite, she has a standard woman’s road bike and only basic experience with no idea of to cycle such routes.
She then discovered that many of the standard refugios are not particularly welcoming to cyclists. Many refuse cyclists and others say cyclist can come in if there are spaces left after 7pm in the evening (Refuios in Spain are not allowed, by Law, to refuse any pilgrim help after 7 pm in the evening)
She found this deeply upsetting and another aspect of the journey that was destructive to both her morale and her enjoyment of the pilgrimage.
By the time she had done two or three days she was beginning to wish she had never started and within another day she was ready to completely break down.
She managed to find a good refugion in Logrono that welcomed bikers and the woman who ran the place was extremely supportive and helpful. She talked it through with Anne and let her stay an extra day. Anne walked around the town distraught trying to work out what to do. She had seven weeks to do the Camino and get back to St Jean for her transport home but she just could not face another day on the road. She moved from place to place finding herself crying and in despair. She went to a church hoping to find some clue and found the reading for the day was one about the woman who washed Jesus’ feet with her tears. This made her cry even more as she wondered what the story might mean for her.
She went to the pilgrims’ information bureau at the start of the bridge over the river leading into Logrono. The pounding water below seemed to be washing away her hope rather than feeding her strength and, when she asked for help in the bureau the really nice man behind the counter only confirmed her worst fears. He really wanted to help (the bureau is a great place, by the way – clean, well designed, brand new and peopled by really good staff) but the simple solution was that she needed to seek the help of hospitaliers in each refugio she stopped at. They would be able to guide her along the route safely, pointing out the best local options for her on the way. The solution only seemed to make her prospects worse.
Eventually, she found herself at the door of an outdoor pursuits shop and she walked through the entrance and into the walkers’ department. There she bought a rucksack and a pair of walking boots.
When she returned to the refugio the lady there threw her arms around Anne and congratulated her on her decision. The bike and any un-needed equipment could stay at the refugio until Anne returned for it in a few weeks time. She sent Anne to the bus station to find out options for getting her nd the bike back to St Jean and everything just fell into place.
So, now Anne is walking to Santiago and is so much happier she just cannot believe how happy she is. She had made a mistake and had been given the chance to correct it before it destroyed her and now she was enjoying everything except, perhaps, the awful performance of the England team. But she knew there was nothing she could do about that.
I keep thinking of the contrast between the woman on the bike with the Mercedes following her and Anne who is no longer on her bike. I keep getting new thoughts of what it all means and I keep thinking that it is all part of that rich, heady concoction that is the Camino.
Burgos is an attractive city. It was cold on the way in but today has been sunny and generally warm (when you are out of the wind that is).
We arrived and bumped into a woman (hi Deidre) we have not seen the crossing from St Jean to Roncevalles – she is a lovely Irish Canadian (born and brought up in Ireland, moved to Canada). She pointed us to the new municipal refugio which is just behind the cathedral, is beautifully presented and brand new. Extremely good in many ways but, like so many other places it does lack some things.
For example our dorm had ten rows of bunks (4 individual beds to a row) and each bunk was a good width with comfortable mattresses. The bunks were separated by a column of lockers so Alison and I were top and bottom and the people next door were separated by the lockers. Each row has a wall separating it from the next so when you get into bed you are open on one side and have a wall with a light and socket on your other side (and a wall head and foot. If you sit up on the top bunk you see the lines of bunks and can wave to your neighbours in the rows beyond). I hope that is all clear....
So, a margin of privacy in a hostel is unusual and welcome. What was not so good was the row of four showers and two loos for all of us to share. Oh, and climbing the narrow ladder to the top bunk was torture!
Two other things. There was not a kitchen. On the ground floor there were some tables and benches fixed to the floor and although they looked good they were not particularly nice to sit at and it felt like one of those places you go to eat your packed lunch at a museum. In the same space were 4 pay as you go internet units, a couple of microwaves and two washing machines and tumble driers. All a bit limited for the few hundred pilgrims who can stay there at any one time.
The second thing was that when we arrived we handed over our pilgrim passports, paid our money and were led off by one of the workers there. He stopped us at the place where you take your boots off and we then stacked them in the large racks provided before we were marched off up stairs to be allocated our beds. It did feel a bit like going to a prison. I was half expecting him to tell us to strip and shower!
Having said all of this it was a very good place. The point is not that these short comings were really significant or that we were in any way being mistreated or short changed. The place was really nice, the facilities were better than many places we have been so far and it was four Euros fifty each for the night. The point is partly that it is amazing what can be achieved with even the minimum of services and partly that the process is different from most other things in our lives. We got the things we needed and we all found space for each other. We did not complain or try to get some extra service for ourselves. We bumped into lots of people we have not seen for a while and exchanged news, we had a good night’s sleep and didn’t even complain when people set their alarms for half five when the doors don’t open until half six (and we wanted a lie in to at least seven, which didn’t happen).
It also makes you more aware of the things you miss and don’t miss. It shows you what it might be like if you have to live like this for longer than just a pilgrimage and it lets you see why people will get ratty from time to time and fed up of being so limited in terms of personal choice and personal space. If you can have that revealed in such a wonderful new resource as the Burgos Municipal Albergue then it is something worth taking note of.
So we had a rest day today and are staying in a small one star hotel in the centre of town for our second night. This meant we could put our backs down somewhere safe and not have to get our sleeping bags out to claim our beds, etc. We have walked all over the place (and not covered half of what we would like to see. We also went to the big supermarket we checked out on our way into town and bought some essentials....
One of the high lights has been the cathedral. I first wanted to see this place when I was a student in 1973 and bought a Geographical Magazine with the church on the cover. It has been much cleaned up and so on since then but the whole thing is quite astounding in so many ways. We paid E2.50 (the pilgrim rate) to get in and as we walked around the cathedral part the section of the church still functioning as a sacred worship space the monks/priests were singing plain chant there and it was being piped throughout the place, so start your visit as soon as the place opens, folks.
It took us the best part of three hours to go around and we popped out as if it had taken 5 minutes. Stunning art, stunning spaces, fantastic stone and wood work, fascinating historical displays. Must go back and do it properly some time.
We went to the front to photograph it and realised that we had not gone into the church part – we always visit the church and give thanks but had failed to do it the day before. So we went in and did that and prayed for all sorts of things and people close to our hearts. The second chapel we went to had the amazing crucifix with Christ in the cross wearing an extraordinary sort of skirt. On the way out a priest came rushing up to me and asked me to stop. He opened the door of the confessional and I though that he had sussed me out (quite astutely) as being a sinner in need of such help. But no, he just wanted us to have little prayer card/leaflets on the Crucifix which included a pilgrim prayer – he had sussed us out as pilgrims!
We then went looking for a present of some pilgrim tat for our friend, Mike, and found a shop across the square that looked the business. We were just on the verge of selecting a suitable thing when Alison’s phone started to ring and guess what.... Yes, it was Mike himself! So we had a nice chat in the sunshine by the cathedral steps.
Anyway, here we are, in a bar in Burgos, drinking beer and coffee (me and Alison in that order) and taking advantage of the wifi to put this little package together so I better stop. Our task will be to find a cafe without the world cup blaring in it. Yes, Burgos does seem to have the bug more than most places. And yes we need to find one that has fewer smokers as the public spaces seem to be full of them. Ho hum, I still prefer the strange beehive type sound from a telly playing the world cup than I do having smokers all around me. One way or another, I am certain we will have a lovely evening.
I hope you have the same too!!!
Show me the way.... 20/06/2010
Just a jumble of different things for the moment.
We were in a private refugio last night and it was cold!! It was designed for hot, hot weather and everyone seemed a bit confused (they have a swimming pool on the garden but people didn’t even want to go out and say hello to the bunny rabbit on the lawn or hang their clothes out.
We shared a dorm with about a dozen Spanish people in a walking group. We passed them on the way that day and we were not sure if they were just a weekend walking group or pilgrims. So, now we know that some Spaniards (mainly, but not exclusively men) are extremely loud and do not stop being loud even when they are asleep (ditto as previous comment). They were lovely and full of high spirits but when they got up this morning it was a bit like bedlam (a mixture of whispering and shouting, tiptoeing around and slamming doors, roars of laughter and loud shhhing, etc.) while trying to get up early without disturbing the rest of the people in the room....
The meal was good but there was not enough of it (fish soup, roast chicken and potatoes with salad and crème caramel) and I managed to break a tooth on the salad.... I am still trying to work out how I will recover from that and so my nerves are a bit shot now. (for those who don’t know, I have a pathological terror of dentists and dentistry)
Today’s walk was another new landscape with wonderful oak forests and wide open sweeping hillsides, and although we did do a bit of climbing up hills it was nothing like the profile shown on the guide. But that is not a surprise. If you want a good, useful and practical guide to the Camino do not (I repeat DO NOT) buy the Brierley guide.
[at this point I have deleted the comments on the Brierley guide as they were not kind] the text continues...
......, but, after being so annoyed by the French guide we must confess we miss it so. At least it was informative.
The best one we have seen so far (Guide that is) is the one published by Dodo. They have sketch maps that actually give you useful information which is pretty accurate, their information about places and accommodation is reliable and up to date and it does not try to be a sort of middle aged, middle class English Yoda (although I do prefer Yoda’s approach to English).
So, there you are, I was trying not to gripe about anything and have found myself rubbishing our guide book (well, thank your lucky stars that I restrained myself, folks!) – just buy the Miam Miam Dodo guide and stop worrying.
Anyway, you could almost walk this without a guide because it is basically so well signposted, there are so many information guide boards on the route and every refugio has tons of leaflets and info about the next places. All of the people who run the refugios also know the route very well and can give you loads more info. Oh, and if you are a teeny wee bit worried after all of that just go into the kitchen or the local bar or the dining room and sit down with some pilgrims who look OK and start chatting to them and agree to walk with them for a day or two. It is just so simple when every little place has at least one refugio and where everyone wants to help you. We walked just slightly off the route (about ten feet actually) n the direction of a supermarket the other day and a car hooted at us. The driver then wound down the window and told us we should be on the other side of the road for the Camino and even wanted us to walk across in front of him so we would be sure of going the right way. Yesterday a woman walked us through a small town because there were some road works and she was worried we might get lost.... Only rubbish English guides get you lost on this Camino, folks!
So, now we are in another private refugio – it is a private “Network” place. We have found that they are actually extremely well run, clean and good value for money. They are also smaller with smaller rooms and many have things like individual lockers (which are really important if you are walking on your own as it means you do not have to take all of your belongings with you into the showers).
We are one day away from Burgos and everyone is telling us to get a bus so we can avoid having to walk through the industrial/commercial part of the city and we are wondering why they want us to do this. What is this obsession with hating cities and related things. We like urban walking as well as rural walks and find factories interesting as well as wanting to get to a really good, big supermarket. We would hate to get the bus and watch a fantastic large supermarket zip by us as we headed for the centre of town. Please take note, it is cheaper to shop in a hyper market than it is to shop in a small “supermarket” in the centre of a large city. If you don’t believe me try it at home! So we will walk, walk, walk tomorrow and if we see a bus after the super market we might get it then.
Tonight we will have paella, then tortilla and pudding as part of the night’s deal and tomorrow we hope for slightly better weather. It was lots of large clouds sweeping across a bright blue sky with large dark clouds of mist and rain in several directions as we walked. The wind was cold and gusty and the temperature was pretty low. No complaints, especially as it did not rain and I suspected that it might. Also, it is better to walk in cooler rather than hotter conditions, especially when you are walking up hill.
Still managing to avoid most of the World Cup and wondering where we might go to escape the Olympics when they invade our home town in a couple of years time. The Spanish seem to be extremely laid back about the whole football thing (only interested in their own matches, it seems). Ho hum....
Walking on the same old path again 19 06 2010
Today was another day of textures and colours. We walk around sweeping curves in hills and new vistas open out with corn fields gashed red with poppies and walk along between different types of grain fields giving us the soft yellows of ripe rye and the deep blue greens of barley each edged with wild flowers in reds, yellows and blues. Textures, colours and sweeping valleys of curves and sudden changes of angle punctuated our day. And, as with yesterday, the sky helps to give some scale to the landscape showing us just how large this country is. Massive white clouds drift along the sides of the valleys in slow squadrons patrolling the upper reaches and casting chequered shadows that travel along the fields and over the edges of the valleys. Even the motorway and the parts of the roads still being built look small here.
Starting in Santo Domingo we did this journey arriving in Belorado (which sounds like the name used for a cheap brand of cigarettes or naff frozen foods) in time to book into the albergue, do tomorrow’s shopping (tomorrow is Sunday) and have lunch in a local bar – beer and Tapas. Now, after a shower and washing clothes, etc. we are catching up on writing and things.
In addition to the scenery, we have been meeting up with and spending time listening to people we have not seen for a little while and we have encountered other people – some who are distinctly odd. We met Richard, the Scot who is walking wearing a kilt in a little village on top of a hill (the hill was Rioja Alta and the village was Ciruena). On the side of the hill was a posh golf course and beside that was a distinctly grim series of blocks of flats and houses. It was a major tourist development without any shops and with a large “club” area with two swimming pools, children’s play area and a high fence around it. Most of the flats were unoccupied and many were for sale. As we walked through the development we passed along further undeveloped streets with empty plots and weeds breaking up the surface of the roads and taking over the pavements. We felt that people who had bought into that grim development were now firmly located in what we used to say to our children was the “serves you right department”. It looked like it had grown and floundered on the basis of a high level of greed and low level of sense....
Anyway, in the little village of Ciruena we found a bar and headed there for a well deserved drink. At a table outside was Richard talking to a Spanish pilgrim. We went inside to sit while drinking our beer then joined them outside to make our sandwich and chat. We had not seen him since the day we entered Pamplona. He told us several stories about the people he had met and things he has seen and we shared some of ours. As we chatted another person we had not seen since leaving St Jean appeared. Anne, who had set off from St Jean on her bike the day we left for the high pass walked up to us with walking shoes on her feet and a rucksack on her back. We walked into Santo Dominica together and listened to her story then spent the rest of the afternoon and evening with her (she stayed in the same refugio as us too).
Before giving a short outline of her tale I must share the following incident with you.
On the way towards Rioja Alta (but before we had even started to climb the not very steep hill) we were walking along one of the relatively well kept but still coarsely surfaced paths that make up many sections of the Spanish Camino. It was warm but overcast with a light breeze and we kept looking back for signs of cyclists as they tend to come in small groups and approach you quite quickly and silently giving you no warning that they are there. Usually they just give a short shout of “Hola” or “Buen Camino” just before they are on your back and you have to jump out of their way or have them skidding into your back – which is a very unpleasant experience.
I looked back and saw both a cyclist and a car behind it some way back. I warned Alison and kept monitoring them by glancing back. They went past a small group of walkers, then a couple and still the bike was just a head of the car and I thought both what a shame it must be for the cyclist being harassed by a car like that and also thought the cyclist must be either an idiot who cannot work out how to stop or a pain in the butt for blocking the car in that way.
Alison and I stood off the path to let them past (she was going to take her fleece off so it seemed like a good time to stop anyway) and we watched in awe as a quite good looking woman in possibly her forties cycled past us. She was wearing very expensive clothes and riding a very posh bike. She was cycling slowly and seemed very pleased to have us watching her as she went by. The car behind her was driven by a fit, very well dressed man of similar or slightly older age driving brand new top of the range Mercedes with cream leather interior, etc. He was accompanying her as she wobbled stylishly along the path.
A few hundred metres on the path began to climb at a gentle angle as it reached the latter stages of the valley we were walking along. She stopped the bike and to car stopped behind her. The man go out and they stood together for a few minutes before she climbed back on the bike and he ran behind her for a good hundred feet or so pushing her until she was going slowly but steadily up the hill.
Despite their distinct lack of speed and the open aspect of the camino at this point they were long gone when we reached the top of that valley some five minutes after them (the path out of the valley continued up the side of the next and on along the side of the golf course and we could see up it for more than a kilometre when we reached to top). Perhaps she had done her designated exercise for the day or had become sufficiently bored with it to want to stop. Whatever the reason, they had taken up the bike and left a la merc before the real hill climbing began.
Look out in the papers and magazines to see if any famous woman claims that she has recently cycled the camino – it might have been her.
Contrast this with Anne’s story.
Anne walked the Camino 9 years ago and decided, as she had a bike, to spend some time cycling the Camino revisiting places she had enjoyed and checking out new places. With seven weeks to do this in she though it seemed feasible to cycle to Santiago and return to St Jean in time to go back on the transport she had booked.
She was thoroughly looking forward to the experience and was only worried a bit about the problem of being able to watch the World Cup while doing the Camino (Refugios all seemed to close too early for the games).
She soon found that cycling was not as good as she had hoped.
Firstly, the guide she was using was pretty out of date. Add to this the fact that the country road she was hoping to use was on the way to being replaced by a major motorway and you begin to see her peoblems.
She would start from a place and soon discover that the route she was hoping to take soon developed into a large roundabout with all the exits going onto major high ways. When the old road existed it was so busy it soon became too dangerous to use on a bike. She asked various people for advice (including the police) and they all said the same thing. Either cycle on the camino itself or risk the busy road (but only if it was still the old road – she could not cycle on the motorway, even she wanted to...).
Cycling on the Camino was not really an option for Anne. There are very many stretches of it that are incredibly steep, muddy, uneven, filled with boulders and very twisty (not to mention heavily encroached on by all sorts of trees and bushes. Ths is all great stuff for a strong, experienced All Terrain Biker with the right sort of equipment. For Anne it was not an option – Anne is very petite, she has a standard woman’s road bike and only basic experience with no idea of to cycle such routes.
She then discovered that many of the standard refugios are not particularly welcoming to cyclists. Many refuse cyclists and others say cyclist can come in if there are spaces left after 7pm in the evening (Refuios in Spain are not allowed, by Law, to refuse any pilgrim help after 7 pm in the evening)
She found this deeply upsetting and another aspect of the journey that was destructive to both her morale and her enjoyment of the pilgrimage.
By the time she had done two or three days she was beginning to wish she had never started and within another day she was ready to completely break down.
She managed to find a good refugion in Logrono that welcomed bikers and the woman who ran the place was extremely supportive and helpful. She talked it through with Anne and let her stay an extra day. Anne walked around the town distraught trying to work out what to do. She had seven weeks to do the Camino and get back to St Jean for her transport home but she just could not face another day on the road. She moved from place to place finding herself crying and in despair. She went to a church hoping to find some clue and found the reading for the day was one about the woman who washed Jesus’ feet with her tears. This made her cry even more as she wondered what the story might mean for her.
She went to the pilgrims’ information bureau at the start of the bridge over the river leading into Logrono. The pounding water below seemed to be washing away her hope rather than feeding her strength and, when she asked for help in the bureau the really nice man behind the counter only confirmed her worst fears. He really wanted to help (the bureau is a great place, by the way – clean, well designed, brand new and peopled by really good staff) but the simple solution was that she needed to seek the help of hospitaliers in each refugio she stopped at. They would be able to guide her along the route safely, pointing out the best local options for her on the way. The solution only seemed to make her prospects worse.
Eventually, she found herself at the door of an outdoor pursuits shop and she walked through the entrance and into the walkers’ department. There she bought a rucksack and a pair of walking boots.
When she returned to the refugio the lady there threw her arms around Anne and congratulated her on her decision. The bike and any un-needed equipment could stay at the refugio until Anne returned for it in a few weeks time. She sent Anne to the bus station to find out options for getting her nd the bike back to St Jean and everything just fell into place.
So, now Anne is walking to Santiago and is so much happier she just cannot believe how happy she is. She had made a mistake and had been given the chance to correct it before it destroyed her and now she was enjoying everything except, perhaps, the awful performance of the England team. But she knew there was nothing she could do about that.
I keep thinking of the contrast between the woman on the bike with the Mercedes following her and Anne who is no longer on her bike. I keep getting new thoughts of what it all means and I keep thinking that it is all part of that rich, heady concoction that is the Camino.
Thursday 17 June 2010
I just have a few minutes before lights go out so here is something for the blog....... Argh!!!
Here I am sitting in Spain
I have a few things for this blog but I will add them on to the end of this.
Today we got up and Alison was beginning to have a migraine so we took things a bit easy. We were slow in getting ourselves ready and it was closer to 8 than 7 when we left the refuge. We walked from Viana to Logrono and stopped for a coffee before heading through to a Pharmacy to buy ibuprofen (the smallest they had was 600mg tablets!) and then found a supermarket on the outskirts of town just by the camino. There we bought some essentials and lunch (some ham, a large tomato and bread).
We stopped at Navarette for lunch and then a beer at a bar and arrived in Ventosa quite late for us at about 4pm. The albergue (I should start calling them that, now) is a lovely Spanish house that has been beautifully restored with a nice garden and good washing facilities, excellent kitchen etc. Phew, it feels like unbridled luxury after the last couple of days ... and it has wifi so I will be posting this.
The past couple of days have seen us in pretty wonderful but odd places.
2 nights ago we were in Villamayor de Monjardin which is a wonderful little village half way up a small mountain with a beautiful little Romanesque church where we shared prayers with the woman who ran the parish Albergue there and where we spent time wondering over a fantastic crucifix from the 12th Century which is truly a masterpiece. Carved in wood then covered in silver it is exquisite and took our breath away.
Montjardin was the simplest of places and we all slept in one large room on a platform with a variety of different types of mattresses for us to choose from. But it had a shower, the place was cold but clean and the welcome was genuine.
In Viana the Albergue was also next to the church but this was a much grander church with a massive baroque altar piece that dominated to huge church. The Albergue had two rooms with mattresses on the floor and we shared in the preparation of the evening meal then went to Mass next door while the Hostalieres cooked the food which we then shared on our return. Mass was lovely with a priest who took obvious pleasure in having pilgrims as guests and he blessed us individually at the end of the service. He also spoke to each of us and had obviously worked at being able to converse with pilgrims from a number of different countries. He also took the time to share the sign of peace with everyone in the church....
After a lovely meal we went to bed very tired.
The thing about yesterday was that it was the coldest and wettest day we have had in Spain and the paths were also the worst we have experienced here. Usually the paths are pretty good and a number of them have been paved or surfaced in some way but yesterday the claggy mud clung to our boots and formed slippery tracks down steep narrow paths and through puddle ridden lanes between sodden nut and fruit trees. The Albergue had radiators but the Hospitalieres did not know how to put the heating on and seemed convinced that it was probably best not to try and find out how to make it work. So we arrived wet and left wet the next day (today) which was the only drawback to the place, really.
In both places, as with every place we have gone through and stayed at so far, the people have been wonderful, full of their own great stories about their travels and keen to find out about yours. I am gathering a long and varied set of stories and am nurturing them as I walk along. We have been meeting some of the same people in each place we stay at and encountering others as we go from village to village so now we have a little travelling community that we are part of. A sort of tiny moving village or a caravan of pilgrims sharing nights and swapping lives in different places each night.
No doubt the rooms with mattresses are the closest we will get to both the experience of homeless people and also the nearest thing we will find to the sort of experience medieval pilgrims will have had. The inns of the time often just had a series of straw mattresses or just straw on the floor to sleep on. Some people might have found places with smaller rooms and others will have slept on the benches in the tavern near where the fire was kept alight all night. As we walk we discover different levels of comfort, individual experiences of communal and private hospitality and meals either shared at a long table or in a small bar or restaurant where other pilgrims are also eating the pilgrim menu. On the road, although we may only pass some and be passed by others, there is a gentle camaraderie that can be expressed in conversation or in a simple “Buen camino!”. Many people (as was the case in France, too) wish us this or give us some other greeting which is telling us that they recognise us as pilgrims and wish us a good journey. It lightens the load and adds power to your step, it really does.
So, today we were a little under the weather and, although we covered around the 30km again it took a while and we were not sure if we were going to do it at first. My feet seemed to be determined not to settle into the boots today and Alison was feeling pretty rough. The camera had been put in the little bag we use for ‘phones, passports, etc when we have stopped for the night and I had packed the thing away in the bottom of my sack without realising it was there. So, because we had other things to deal with I left it where it was.
As a result we missed taking pictures of Viana. I had not taken any on the wy in because it was too wet and the camera was having tantrums (shorting out and telling me the batteries were dead, etc) so we have none of the aubergue which is on the top couple of floors of a tsall building next to the crumbling facade of the church. I missed photographing the two storks nesting on a high wall above the roofs of the town and the beautiful plaza with its colonnaded sides and the various modern and ancient statues within the centre of the town. I also missed the way out through the medieval streets with their overhanging balconies and eccentrically edged walls. The banks of vineyards and huddles of olive and nut trees we passed as we climbed out and over the side of the valley heading towards the higher mountain valleys filled with clouds and rain. The entrance to the next town, Logrono began with a walk by the raging river whose weir had disappeared under the torrent of brown water tumbling from under its tall stone bridge. The islands below the weir were also swamped with the powerful torrent and, as we crossed over the bridge we watched logs being swept through its arches and dragged under the brown water by large whirlpools. The sound of the river tumbling down through the valley was impressive.
Logrono is somewhere we will revisit. Its medieval streets and fine buildings are also filled with lovely shops, bars and restaurants and the place had a great atmosphere. As we left the town we walked along a series of little parks out around a large lake and then over the terraced hillside filled with vineyards and small orchards up past fields of poppies that would have made an impressionist painter salivate and up to enjoy our lunch in a little hilltop village before stopping to have a beer with a young German girl we have walked the last few days with (Hello Vera!) and a couple of young Norwegian guys walking with a young German who were sitting enjoying a beer and Vera’s company. They are all in the albergue here tonight adding their energy to the place.
And now, after having a lovely meal in a little restaurant in the village Alison has gone to bed and I am just finishing off this little note before sending it out and going to bed as well (Lights out at 10pm folks!!!).
I am still processing this whole thing, still meeting people and enjoying the journey with Alison. So much to write about, so much to do, so much still to look forward to - can there be a better description of happiness?
Now for a quick set of notes and a little rant – sorry for any repetition, it is just I will not have time to edit this before I have to send it out.
Snoring and the art of letting go – plus a rant 14/06/2010
Monday and it is Puente la Reina at the municipal refuge. Last 2 nights (Saturday and Sunday) were spent in a little hotel in Pamplona and before that we were in a little private refuge where the people in our room should have entered themselves as the Camino Snoring team in the next Olympics. In fact, I think that I spent part of the night convinced that I had worked out a way of harnessing the enormous power contained within these snores to help solve the world’s energy crisis. One of these days, instead of an alien race using us as power cells (as in the Matrix) we will just put little contraptions on snorers’ heads at night and the energy they release will keep our light’s burning and our industries working.
Ideas like this are why we are walking to Santiago....
One of the things we end up discovering is that we are able to accept the least and not expect anything more. This may seem like a good thing if you are not doing it yourself. From our point of view it means that the effects of any hardships we face are reduced considerably as we do not expect anything more and accept what we are allowed for that day.
Ah, true humility, I hear you say. Ah, you are finding harmony and acceptance, you are living life more simply – if only we could all do that!
Well, think of the story of the snoring I have just given in a relatively light fashion. Now consider this.
We stayed 2 nights in Pamplona in a small hotel (a lovely room on the fourth (top) floor with 3 other rooms on the same level). The first night there was loud music in the large plaza a short distance away which stopped about 10pm and we didn’t mind. It felt like we were in a city! Then, our last night was marked by a musical interlude. A short time after settling down for the night (we were getting up at 6 and leaving by 7 at the latest) someone started to play short interludes of music. God knows what they were doing but it was short, loud phrases of music. Much of it was the same phrase repeated. Sometimes it progressed but mostly it just repeated and repeated with small variations of length. It was like someone or a small group, endlessly rehearsing the same intro.
It kept me awake for a while but I managed to settle down and I kept succeeding in ignoring it for a while then it would become more intrusive until it woke me up again. Alison closed the windows hoping it was from outside but it was from within the hotel (probably on the same floor as us).
Eventually, I asked Alison what the time was (thinking it was around midnight by then). It was 3am!!! I got up and went to the door, opened it and shouted “SSHHOOOSHH!”. It paused then continued. I went to the loo then flushed it and headed for the door again, intent on wandering down the corridor in the nude, banging on the door and telling them to stop. But the noise ended as I opened the door so I went back to bed.
The point is not that I have become more tolerant. We were paying good money to enjoy a restful time in a nice place and this was not acceptable. I should have stopped it shortly after it started. NOT at 3 am. I have learned to accept the minimum standard and to expect it even when I am paying for something better.
Translate this into real terms.
A homeless person is quickly stripped of the normal set of expectations, values and so on and becomes someone whose standards have been lowered to an unacceptable level but they are not aware of it and when people give them rubbish two things happen; the homeless person accepts it gratefully and uncritically and the person offering it interprets this as an acceptable level to serve/treat the homeless person. So suddenly you don’t need to treat these people the same way as you would other people, you don’t need to apply the same standards, they don’t want decent things, they don’t like or understand them, they can’t appreciate them, etc. It’s trap that is very dangerous for both sides.
Of course, this also applies in our society to people of different classes – our society is designed so the people at the top think that they somehow deserve/have earned their place and that the people at the bottom are happy there, don’t know/want any better, wouldn’t know what to do with something better, etc., So you can design an economy and a social system that takes advantage of this view and it allows you to maintain status at one level at the price of denying it to other levels of society and you have a situation where the people at the top feel justified and vindicated by the “proof” of their situations and other peoples’ as if it was all natural and based on some sort of measure of merit.
Just think... from being kept up at night by snoring people, to being kept up by some weird music to a criticism of the socio economic (class) situation in the UK. What a surprise. I actually have a lot more on this elsewhere.... but I won’t bore you any more......
One final point which relates to this. I heard that the new minister in charge of destroying our higher education system has said that students are a burden on the tax payer........
A BURDEN ON THE TAX PAYER????
Our education system is an investment that society makes in the future of the country and we should be investing very heavily indeed if we want to be even a half decent, half successful country in the future. To not invest would be a massively stupid mistake. Investing in this way is the wisest way to spend our taxes, Idiot!
Of course, what he is planning is a two or three tier higher education system where the rich and a small hand full of lucky people enjoy decent higher education and the rest will do 2 year (mainly “vocational”) degrees without holidays in a cut down university (Tesco Uni Plc) near their home. This was Thatcher’s dream in the early 80’s along with charging fees (what ever happened to that idea?)!
Anyway, what is a burden on the tax payer is not just spending our taxes paying moronic politicians like him. There are PUBLIC SCHOOLS, for example ETON that enjoy charitable status. We, the tax payers, subsidise PUBLIC SCHOOLS!!! They are a burden on the tax payer. If we want to cut back on spending on education shouldn’t they be first on the list?
And of course, many private health organisations also enjoy charity status. If you want to cut back on health spending let’s stop using tax payers money to subsidise private health care.
I could go on but perhaps you can all add something to the list and perhaps someone can start a FACEBOOK page on this.
My standards are too low now for anyone to listen to what I have to say anymore.
Sorry about the rant.......
I have a few things for this blog but I will add them on to the end of this.
Today we got up and Alison was beginning to have a migraine so we took things a bit easy. We were slow in getting ourselves ready and it was closer to 8 than 7 when we left the refuge. We walked from Viana to Logrono and stopped for a coffee before heading through to a Pharmacy to buy ibuprofen (the smallest they had was 600mg tablets!) and then found a supermarket on the outskirts of town just by the camino. There we bought some essentials and lunch (some ham, a large tomato and bread).
We stopped at Navarette for lunch and then a beer at a bar and arrived in Ventosa quite late for us at about 4pm. The albergue (I should start calling them that, now) is a lovely Spanish house that has been beautifully restored with a nice garden and good washing facilities, excellent kitchen etc. Phew, it feels like unbridled luxury after the last couple of days ... and it has wifi so I will be posting this.
The past couple of days have seen us in pretty wonderful but odd places.
2 nights ago we were in Villamayor de Monjardin which is a wonderful little village half way up a small mountain with a beautiful little Romanesque church where we shared prayers with the woman who ran the parish Albergue there and where we spent time wondering over a fantastic crucifix from the 12th Century which is truly a masterpiece. Carved in wood then covered in silver it is exquisite and took our breath away.
Montjardin was the simplest of places and we all slept in one large room on a platform with a variety of different types of mattresses for us to choose from. But it had a shower, the place was cold but clean and the welcome was genuine.
In Viana the Albergue was also next to the church but this was a much grander church with a massive baroque altar piece that dominated to huge church. The Albergue had two rooms with mattresses on the floor and we shared in the preparation of the evening meal then went to Mass next door while the Hostalieres cooked the food which we then shared on our return. Mass was lovely with a priest who took obvious pleasure in having pilgrims as guests and he blessed us individually at the end of the service. He also spoke to each of us and had obviously worked at being able to converse with pilgrims from a number of different countries. He also took the time to share the sign of peace with everyone in the church....
After a lovely meal we went to bed very tired.
The thing about yesterday was that it was the coldest and wettest day we have had in Spain and the paths were also the worst we have experienced here. Usually the paths are pretty good and a number of them have been paved or surfaced in some way but yesterday the claggy mud clung to our boots and formed slippery tracks down steep narrow paths and through puddle ridden lanes between sodden nut and fruit trees. The Albergue had radiators but the Hospitalieres did not know how to put the heating on and seemed convinced that it was probably best not to try and find out how to make it work. So we arrived wet and left wet the next day (today) which was the only drawback to the place, really.
In both places, as with every place we have gone through and stayed at so far, the people have been wonderful, full of their own great stories about their travels and keen to find out about yours. I am gathering a long and varied set of stories and am nurturing them as I walk along. We have been meeting some of the same people in each place we stay at and encountering others as we go from village to village so now we have a little travelling community that we are part of. A sort of tiny moving village or a caravan of pilgrims sharing nights and swapping lives in different places each night.
No doubt the rooms with mattresses are the closest we will get to both the experience of homeless people and also the nearest thing we will find to the sort of experience medieval pilgrims will have had. The inns of the time often just had a series of straw mattresses or just straw on the floor to sleep on. Some people might have found places with smaller rooms and others will have slept on the benches in the tavern near where the fire was kept alight all night. As we walk we discover different levels of comfort, individual experiences of communal and private hospitality and meals either shared at a long table or in a small bar or restaurant where other pilgrims are also eating the pilgrim menu. On the road, although we may only pass some and be passed by others, there is a gentle camaraderie that can be expressed in conversation or in a simple “Buen camino!”. Many people (as was the case in France, too) wish us this or give us some other greeting which is telling us that they recognise us as pilgrims and wish us a good journey. It lightens the load and adds power to your step, it really does.
So, today we were a little under the weather and, although we covered around the 30km again it took a while and we were not sure if we were going to do it at first. My feet seemed to be determined not to settle into the boots today and Alison was feeling pretty rough. The camera had been put in the little bag we use for ‘phones, passports, etc when we have stopped for the night and I had packed the thing away in the bottom of my sack without realising it was there. So, because we had other things to deal with I left it where it was.
As a result we missed taking pictures of Viana. I had not taken any on the wy in because it was too wet and the camera was having tantrums (shorting out and telling me the batteries were dead, etc) so we have none of the aubergue which is on the top couple of floors of a tsall building next to the crumbling facade of the church. I missed photographing the two storks nesting on a high wall above the roofs of the town and the beautiful plaza with its colonnaded sides and the various modern and ancient statues within the centre of the town. I also missed the way out through the medieval streets with their overhanging balconies and eccentrically edged walls. The banks of vineyards and huddles of olive and nut trees we passed as we climbed out and over the side of the valley heading towards the higher mountain valleys filled with clouds and rain. The entrance to the next town, Logrono began with a walk by the raging river whose weir had disappeared under the torrent of brown water tumbling from under its tall stone bridge. The islands below the weir were also swamped with the powerful torrent and, as we crossed over the bridge we watched logs being swept through its arches and dragged under the brown water by large whirlpools. The sound of the river tumbling down through the valley was impressive.
Logrono is somewhere we will revisit. Its medieval streets and fine buildings are also filled with lovely shops, bars and restaurants and the place had a great atmosphere. As we left the town we walked along a series of little parks out around a large lake and then over the terraced hillside filled with vineyards and small orchards up past fields of poppies that would have made an impressionist painter salivate and up to enjoy our lunch in a little hilltop village before stopping to have a beer with a young German girl we have walked the last few days with (Hello Vera!) and a couple of young Norwegian guys walking with a young German who were sitting enjoying a beer and Vera’s company. They are all in the albergue here tonight adding their energy to the place.
And now, after having a lovely meal in a little restaurant in the village Alison has gone to bed and I am just finishing off this little note before sending it out and going to bed as well (Lights out at 10pm folks!!!).
I am still processing this whole thing, still meeting people and enjoying the journey with Alison. So much to write about, so much to do, so much still to look forward to - can there be a better description of happiness?
Now for a quick set of notes and a little rant – sorry for any repetition, it is just I will not have time to edit this before I have to send it out.
Snoring and the art of letting go – plus a rant 14/06/2010
Monday and it is Puente la Reina at the municipal refuge. Last 2 nights (Saturday and Sunday) were spent in a little hotel in Pamplona and before that we were in a little private refuge where the people in our room should have entered themselves as the Camino Snoring team in the next Olympics. In fact, I think that I spent part of the night convinced that I had worked out a way of harnessing the enormous power contained within these snores to help solve the world’s energy crisis. One of these days, instead of an alien race using us as power cells (as in the Matrix) we will just put little contraptions on snorers’ heads at night and the energy they release will keep our light’s burning and our industries working.
Ideas like this are why we are walking to Santiago....
One of the things we end up discovering is that we are able to accept the least and not expect anything more. This may seem like a good thing if you are not doing it yourself. From our point of view it means that the effects of any hardships we face are reduced considerably as we do not expect anything more and accept what we are allowed for that day.
Ah, true humility, I hear you say. Ah, you are finding harmony and acceptance, you are living life more simply – if only we could all do that!
Well, think of the story of the snoring I have just given in a relatively light fashion. Now consider this.
We stayed 2 nights in Pamplona in a small hotel (a lovely room on the fourth (top) floor with 3 other rooms on the same level). The first night there was loud music in the large plaza a short distance away which stopped about 10pm and we didn’t mind. It felt like we were in a city! Then, our last night was marked by a musical interlude. A short time after settling down for the night (we were getting up at 6 and leaving by 7 at the latest) someone started to play short interludes of music. God knows what they were doing but it was short, loud phrases of music. Much of it was the same phrase repeated. Sometimes it progressed but mostly it just repeated and repeated with small variations of length. It was like someone or a small group, endlessly rehearsing the same intro.
It kept me awake for a while but I managed to settle down and I kept succeeding in ignoring it for a while then it would become more intrusive until it woke me up again. Alison closed the windows hoping it was from outside but it was from within the hotel (probably on the same floor as us).
Eventually, I asked Alison what the time was (thinking it was around midnight by then). It was 3am!!! I got up and went to the door, opened it and shouted “SSHHOOOSHH!”. It paused then continued. I went to the loo then flushed it and headed for the door again, intent on wandering down the corridor in the nude, banging on the door and telling them to stop. But the noise ended as I opened the door so I went back to bed.
The point is not that I have become more tolerant. We were paying good money to enjoy a restful time in a nice place and this was not acceptable. I should have stopped it shortly after it started. NOT at 3 am. I have learned to accept the minimum standard and to expect it even when I am paying for something better.
Translate this into real terms.
A homeless person is quickly stripped of the normal set of expectations, values and so on and becomes someone whose standards have been lowered to an unacceptable level but they are not aware of it and when people give them rubbish two things happen; the homeless person accepts it gratefully and uncritically and the person offering it interprets this as an acceptable level to serve/treat the homeless person. So suddenly you don’t need to treat these people the same way as you would other people, you don’t need to apply the same standards, they don’t want decent things, they don’t like or understand them, they can’t appreciate them, etc. It’s trap that is very dangerous for both sides.
Of course, this also applies in our society to people of different classes – our society is designed so the people at the top think that they somehow deserve/have earned their place and that the people at the bottom are happy there, don’t know/want any better, wouldn’t know what to do with something better, etc., So you can design an economy and a social system that takes advantage of this view and it allows you to maintain status at one level at the price of denying it to other levels of society and you have a situation where the people at the top feel justified and vindicated by the “proof” of their situations and other peoples’ as if it was all natural and based on some sort of measure of merit.
Just think... from being kept up at night by snoring people, to being kept up by some weird music to a criticism of the socio economic (class) situation in the UK. What a surprise. I actually have a lot more on this elsewhere.... but I won’t bore you any more......
One final point which relates to this. I heard that the new minister in charge of destroying our higher education system has said that students are a burden on the tax payer........
A BURDEN ON THE TAX PAYER????
Our education system is an investment that society makes in the future of the country and we should be investing very heavily indeed if we want to be even a half decent, half successful country in the future. To not invest would be a massively stupid mistake. Investing in this way is the wisest way to spend our taxes, Idiot!
Of course, what he is planning is a two or three tier higher education system where the rich and a small hand full of lucky people enjoy decent higher education and the rest will do 2 year (mainly “vocational”) degrees without holidays in a cut down university (Tesco Uni Plc) near their home. This was Thatcher’s dream in the early 80’s along with charging fees (what ever happened to that idea?)!
Anyway, what is a burden on the tax payer is not just spending our taxes paying moronic politicians like him. There are PUBLIC SCHOOLS, for example ETON that enjoy charitable status. We, the tax payers, subsidise PUBLIC SCHOOLS!!! They are a burden on the tax payer. If we want to cut back on spending on education shouldn’t they be first on the list?
And of course, many private health organisations also enjoy charity status. If you want to cut back on health spending let’s stop using tax payers money to subsidise private health care.
I could go on but perhaps you can all add something to the list and perhaps someone can start a FACEBOOK page on this.
My standards are too low now for anyone to listen to what I have to say anymore.
Sorry about the rant.......
Friday 11 June 2010
News from over the mountains
We are now pilgrims who are walking with, past and towards other pilgrims and it is amazing. We know so many by sight and have had all sorts of conversations with so many, too. Interestingly, we are still just two people walking the Camino and we are walking it at our pace and in our own way. It just means we are not alone on the road for much of the time, which is strange, and we are staying in large refuges with large numbers of people.
Last night, after walking over from France (see notes below), we stayed in a place called Roncesvalles. The refuge holds at least 120 people in a very large building (all in one room) with three rows of bunk beds the full length of the building, the beds grouped in fours so Alison and I were on two bottom bunks sleeping next to each other, which was nice. There were three loos, two sinks and two showers for the men and the same for the women so things could be a bit busy at times. Across the road was the monastery that owns and runs the refuge (with the help of volunteer hospitaliers). On either side of the monastery are two hotel/bars with pilgrim menus and the monastery has a pilgrim mass at 8pm.
So, you arrive and wait until 4pm for the monastery people to register you, accept your money and stamp your credenciales. While you are waiting you have a drink in the hotel/bar and buy a couple of pilgrim meals for later on in the evening. – the 7pm sitting if you are going to mass and the 8.30 if not. Then, after registering with the monastery, you go over, are given your bed and you can settle down.
At 7pm you go and have your pilgrim meal (which is a bit of a rip off), go to Mass and go back to bed. Lights out at 10pm and lights on again at 6am.
Tonight we are in a small private refuge in a place called Zubibi which was a decent 20 odd kms from our last stop. We got here just after 12 midday and have settled in well. The internet actually works and we are going to eat here having bought some bits and pieces in a little shop.
The pilgrim menu is more elaborate in the hotel here but it is 11 Euros (compared with 9 last night) and the refuge is 10 Euros, which is a couple more than the municipal one. But this is smaller with only 8 people to a room and INTERNET)so we will eat here and relax. We are also here because the next stop would make tomorrow’s walk to Pamplona really short and we wanted to space things out a bit better.
A few of notes on walking over the mountain and about being in Spain.
• Leaving from St Jean was wonderful. We liked the place and liked the experience.
• On the way out we were graced with a beautiful rainbow which basically heralded us into the mountains.
• The walk up was not as hard as we had expected but that was because it had been talked up a lot by so many and we, although we may not look it, are now very seasoned walkers who just put our heads down and do the business.
• What was hard was the wind. We encountered serious, no VERY serious, wind as we walked towards Spain. People were being blown over and injured. Alison was actually blown off her feet at one point and we spent the hardest bits either standing waiting for the wind to die down so we could continue, or walking with our arms linked so we could keep each other on the path – and some of those paths are proper mountain paths with very steep, long drops on one side.
• At one point the wind changed direction for us and literally blew us up and over one of the parts of the path – we enjoyed this wonderful gift and couldn’t stop laughing for some time.
• Just when we really needed something to eat and a place to rest we saw a tiny mountain hut (stone built) and we walked around it to find some shelter. The wind seemed to get worse at each turn as we went around the building. Then someone tapped on the window and opened the door when we returned to the front. It was a tiny emergency mountain refuge so we sat in it eating our food and listening to the wind hammering at the walls and door.... fantastic. We are sharing the room here with the German woman who opened the door for us and a French man who welcomed us in, too.
• We are not tuned to Spanish yet and with such a multitude of different nationalities to walk with (in our room are a German woman, a French man, an Australian couple and an Italian couple) we are finding it an interesting challenge. We have a French/Spanish phrase book and are trying to say things in Spanish whenever we enter a bar or shop or what have you. We say, “Hola” to everyone we meet, which is also great!
• Spanish cars have an “E” instead of the French “F” and this is also weird (I keep looking and thinking why have they added another line to the F or wondering where the FR and NCH bits are. But we will get used to that. All the notices are in Spanish and that helps.
• Spain is clearly a different place as soon as you start to walk through the villages. The houses are different, the streets are different and so are the people. It is dramatic to experience such a change just by passing an imaginary line on the ground. Actually, it was a cattle grid that constituted the border and we did not need passports or have to deal with customs, etc. In fact it didn’t even say “Welcome to Spain!” when we passed the line. Instead, there was a great big stone which told us we were now in the Navarre Region which is a very important, proud and historic region – welcome!
• Our rest day in Pamplona (the capital of the Navarre Region) will help us tune in a bit more, but we are loving the country and its people and hope to fall in love with the language as well!
End of notes, now for our tea, so I will post this and we will eat. One thing... it is pretty cold at the moment (Alison is suffering...) but I’m sure it will warm up soon.
....... Going to bed now after an amazing discussion with an artist from Toronto who is reworking the Wagner Ring cycle or rather deconstructing it and allowing it to reconstruct itself in a complex but elegant way..... sweet dreams.
Last night, after walking over from France (see notes below), we stayed in a place called Roncesvalles. The refuge holds at least 120 people in a very large building (all in one room) with three rows of bunk beds the full length of the building, the beds grouped in fours so Alison and I were on two bottom bunks sleeping next to each other, which was nice. There were three loos, two sinks and two showers for the men and the same for the women so things could be a bit busy at times. Across the road was the monastery that owns and runs the refuge (with the help of volunteer hospitaliers). On either side of the monastery are two hotel/bars with pilgrim menus and the monastery has a pilgrim mass at 8pm.
So, you arrive and wait until 4pm for the monastery people to register you, accept your money and stamp your credenciales. While you are waiting you have a drink in the hotel/bar and buy a couple of pilgrim meals for later on in the evening. – the 7pm sitting if you are going to mass and the 8.30 if not. Then, after registering with the monastery, you go over, are given your bed and you can settle down.
At 7pm you go and have your pilgrim meal (which is a bit of a rip off), go to Mass and go back to bed. Lights out at 10pm and lights on again at 6am.
Tonight we are in a small private refuge in a place called Zubibi which was a decent 20 odd kms from our last stop. We got here just after 12 midday and have settled in well. The internet actually works and we are going to eat here having bought some bits and pieces in a little shop.
The pilgrim menu is more elaborate in the hotel here but it is 11 Euros (compared with 9 last night) and the refuge is 10 Euros, which is a couple more than the municipal one. But this is smaller with only 8 people to a room and INTERNET)so we will eat here and relax. We are also here because the next stop would make tomorrow’s walk to Pamplona really short and we wanted to space things out a bit better.
A few of notes on walking over the mountain and about being in Spain.
• Leaving from St Jean was wonderful. We liked the place and liked the experience.
• On the way out we were graced with a beautiful rainbow which basically heralded us into the mountains.
• The walk up was not as hard as we had expected but that was because it had been talked up a lot by so many and we, although we may not look it, are now very seasoned walkers who just put our heads down and do the business.
• What was hard was the wind. We encountered serious, no VERY serious, wind as we walked towards Spain. People were being blown over and injured. Alison was actually blown off her feet at one point and we spent the hardest bits either standing waiting for the wind to die down so we could continue, or walking with our arms linked so we could keep each other on the path – and some of those paths are proper mountain paths with very steep, long drops on one side.
• At one point the wind changed direction for us and literally blew us up and over one of the parts of the path – we enjoyed this wonderful gift and couldn’t stop laughing for some time.
• Just when we really needed something to eat and a place to rest we saw a tiny mountain hut (stone built) and we walked around it to find some shelter. The wind seemed to get worse at each turn as we went around the building. Then someone tapped on the window and opened the door when we returned to the front. It was a tiny emergency mountain refuge so we sat in it eating our food and listening to the wind hammering at the walls and door.... fantastic. We are sharing the room here with the German woman who opened the door for us and a French man who welcomed us in, too.
• We are not tuned to Spanish yet and with such a multitude of different nationalities to walk with (in our room are a German woman, a French man, an Australian couple and an Italian couple) we are finding it an interesting challenge. We have a French/Spanish phrase book and are trying to say things in Spanish whenever we enter a bar or shop or what have you. We say, “Hola” to everyone we meet, which is also great!
• Spanish cars have an “E” instead of the French “F” and this is also weird (I keep looking and thinking why have they added another line to the F or wondering where the FR and NCH bits are. But we will get used to that. All the notices are in Spanish and that helps.
• Spain is clearly a different place as soon as you start to walk through the villages. The houses are different, the streets are different and so are the people. It is dramatic to experience such a change just by passing an imaginary line on the ground. Actually, it was a cattle grid that constituted the border and we did not need passports or have to deal with customs, etc. In fact it didn’t even say “Welcome to Spain!” when we passed the line. Instead, there was a great big stone which told us we were now in the Navarre Region which is a very important, proud and historic region – welcome!
• Our rest day in Pamplona (the capital of the Navarre Region) will help us tune in a bit more, but we are loving the country and its people and hope to fall in love with the language as well!
End of notes, now for our tea, so I will post this and we will eat. One thing... it is pretty cold at the moment (Alison is suffering...) but I’m sure it will warm up soon.
....... Going to bed now after an amazing discussion with an artist from Toronto who is reworking the Wagner Ring cycle or rather deconstructing it and allowing it to reconstruct itself in a complex but elegant way..... sweet dreams.
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