Pilgrimage to Santiago, Here We Go Again

May-June 1998

In 1997, when we told our friends that that we were going On a Pilgrimage, that we intended to walk almost a thousand miles through France and Spain, they looked at us with alarm and asked why. In 1998, when we said that we were going back to Spain, to walk only half the route– only four or five hundred miles, an old acquaintance squinted at us over his glasses and opined to himself and to the air that we had always been peculiar, hadn’t we! On that note we headed off to start our second walk on the Pilgrim Way to Santiago.

Our starting point was St Jean Pied de Port, on the French side of the Pyrenees. It was cold and empty, but we were only there for the evening, only there long enough to catch some sleep before heading out by the Route Napoleon, the walkers’ route over the mountains to Spain.

Sunday morning, we were up at seven; in fact we had been up all night. Our room overlooked the road, and the road was on a bend. Not only did the locals roar by all night, they all felt obliged to tell the world that they were coming, by vigorous use of their horn.

The morning was sunny and warm, as we started through the Porta d’Espagna, off up the first rise, prepared to enjoy the exercise and the view.

The first time the crossing was rigorous but not difficult, the second time, we practically died. The first time we had already walked 500 miles by the time we got to this climb; this year we had only two plane rides, a train ride and two nights without sleep to set us up for the big adventure.

The road out of St Jean ran mercilessly and endlessly up. One group of pilgrims after another passed us. All of them had had more sleep and got up later than we had. However, the day was beautiful, the view as breathtaking as ever. An open gate, a dirt road took us past a field of giant spider webs, still covered with dew, and brought us to a pasture, where the clouds were in the valley below us and a herd of cows regarded us with all the enthusiasm and interest of a peasant farmer, inured to a constant stream of furriners.

Careless of the cow pats all around us, we fell face-down on the ground. As we tried to breathe and to think, a jolly bunch of hairy-legged walkers appeared over the lip of the hill. These guys were one of the reasons that we couldn’t sleep last night. Judging from the noise they had made, they must have been awake as well, but here they came ambling up the hill as if the road were flat, and still making an indecent ruckus. They stopped; they were from Germany; they were on holiday; they hiked all the time. Why were we lying face down amidst the pats? Why had we started so early? We should have slept in, as they had and then we would not be so tired. They passed by and left us, still resting amongst the plops.

On we went, up another rise. Anthony’s legs were like rubber; he could barely walk. I only hurt if I tried to breathe; I couldn’t drink from the water bottle without choking, but it was beautiful. The sky was clear and blue, blue, blue. There were more hills in front of us, and endless valleys around us. It is exhilarating to look down and see clouds below you, floating along, bumping into hills, forming and reforming. The silence up here is absolute. It fills your ears, and your mind.

Take ten steps and stop. Take twenty steps and stop. Take ten more and sit down. This time when I decided to move on, Anthony was asleep in the ditch- out cold, still wearing his pack and hugging a large rock. No matter, I didn’t want to go yet. Everyone in St Jean has already passed us, so we weren’t in anyone’s way. It was nice to lie in the grass and stare at nothing except endless blue sky. He awoke to catch me doing just that and to announce that we should get a leg on or we would never get there. Ten more steps, a rest, twenty more, take another rest. When we finally rounded the corner at Biakorre, all the hairy-legged wonders were atop a supplementary peak, staring into the valley and taking pictures. We skulked by them on the road. No way were we going to climb anything we didn’t have to. We had climbed up there last year, and this time we might not ever make it down.

Before us was a big climb, right to the top of the steep hill in front of us. A bicyclist who had passed us, was pushing her bike along its crest. Horses ran wild around her. When we reached the top we fell to the ground again, stared at the fierce blue sky, talked of sleeping out before Roncesvalles, then rose to stagger up the ante penultimate ascent. Another rest, another flop face down on the hard ground. Just as we managed to gather ourselves together, the first of the hairy legged-ones arrived from Biakorre.

“How did you get here? Did you take a short cut?” they demanded.

“By private helicopter,” I said.

Being this over-extended always makes my tongue sharp. Did any of them see a short cut, up here, because believe me if there had been one we would have taken it.

They swarmed by and we began the final ascent on this side of the Spanish border, up the side of Leizarateca, to where a giant rock stands like the monolith from 2001, beckoning us on. We were reduced to walking five steps and sitting down, but were now determined to make it to Roncesvalles.

Suddenly there it was, the fence, the treetops, the Spanish border. The path was soft and flat as we almost ran to the border crossing – a cow grate in the middle of the road. There was a still a big hole in it. Nothing had changed, except that the crosses left by passing pilgrims, in honour of a custom started by Charlemagne, had moved and were now firmly planted on French soil. We sat down again.

Three French tourists sauntered up the path from the Spanish side. They were having a little day hike.

“It is nice n’est pas? A perfect day for a stroll on a mountain? Don’t drink the water,” they said, “There are sheep tracks.”

More than tracks, now that we looked, so we settled for the water from our bottles, now flat and warm from the heat of our exertion.

We plunged on into the woods, to find the hairy-legs. They were resting under a tree. While we talked, two brothers whom we had met yesterday arrived, pushing their bikes. They had been so impressed by what we said about the Route Napoleon, that they had walked and ridden up the hill. They had slept in, mind you– didn’t start until 1 pm, but they were young and thin, and planning to make it to Pamplona by night.

The trail up Lepoeder, the last ascent before Roncesvalles was made last year in cloud. The clouds which had seemed so pretty from the top were waiting in the valley to let us get a better look. We had walked endlessly in cold, damp silence, unaware of anything around us. Today there was sun, but we realized that we hadn’t missed much, because the hills on our right were scruffy and brown and the woods on our left were scruffy and green. Near the top was a man from California with an altitude gizmo. We were at 1230m. Be that as it may, we were still going up, until at last we saw the roofs of Roncesvalles below us.

We plunged down the other side, through a forest of beech trees with their strange twisted trunks. A thick cushion of leaves caused us to skitter and slide, all the way downhill, all the way into Roncesvalles. Walking time this year- ten hours- just like last year. Go figure!

The church in Roncesvalles is very beautiful. A French Gothic gem; grey stone walls with blue stained glass windows, the altar only a table, as it should be, and the Virgin of Roncesvalles, seated under a chupah, as if sheltering from the desert sun. All very, very plain, all very, very lovely.

Determined to get a night’s sleep at last, we checked into the tiny hotel. We dumped out our packs and looked at the contents with dismay. Why did we have all this junk? Hadn’t we learned anything last year? Why did it all look so much lighter and seem so much more essential spread out on your living room floor? Two plastic bags of essentials were bundled up and left in the refugio; two plastic bags so heavy, we could barely lug them up the stairs.

The first time Roncesvalles was all shrouded in mist and Gothic majesty. In the sun, it was very pretty. In Burgetta, the next town, the same lady was out of bread (still, again?) and had to send us away.

The climb up Puerto de Erro in the 32C heat was much easier than yesterday’s effort. Our stops were still numerous but at least were dignified. Anthony’s rubber legs were gone but I still needed to pause, to breathe in the warm air, heavily perfumed by the laurel bushes, which lined the path. Even the camino down to Zubiri, was easier. It was an old streambed, full of boulders higher than my waist. We had to sit on each one in turn before jumping/falling off. At the bottom we hiked 5 km along a tarmac road, to Larasoana, arriving just in time to bag the last two beds.

We got a heroes welcome. Senor Santiago Zubiri, who is responsible for and runs this refuge, was intrigued with our Company of Pilgrims credentials which he had never seen before. He ordered up a post card from Toronto. The pilgrims who passed us yesterday were amazed, to a man, that we were here. They had dismissed us as a couple of harmless wimps from the new world, but now we were comrades – our stock had gone up.

The next stop was Pamplona—Ernest Hemingway—Running Bulls. The path clings to the side of the hill, more shade and laurel bushes. In the trees we found a town - only one house and a garage, its driveway sign-posted as the calle Mayor.

In Pamplona the refuge was full, so we took a room on the second floor of what was purportedly a hotel. We wandered the city: the parks, the cathedral, the museum, and the bull ring. At ten we returned to our room. In the bathroom there was no shower curtain and the bung was too small for the drain, so bathing was out. We retired to bed to discover that the window wouldn’t stay closed. It popped open every ten minutes, letting in the noise from the street - a loud noise from the street. At midnight, the neighbours came home. Simultaneously we discovered that the wall, between our rooms was really a painted window AND that they had a radio AND that they weren’t tired yet. I packed. Anthony went to find another room, unfortunately also on the street, but darker, quieter, cleaner and less expensive. At 12:30 we moved. Pamplona stayed up, yelling and singing. At 3:00 there was a parade or maybe a riot in a cross street. At 4:30 the streets were washed and platoons of garbage cans were bounced against the grey stonewalls, accompanied, of course, by lusty conversation. At 5:30 we were leaving in the dark, using a flashlight to find the yellow arrows on the ground, the sides of buildings and on tree trunks in Citadel Park

At 6:30, nothing was open in Cizur Menor, so we kept going up the long climb, out of the Pamplona basin to the top of Sierra del Perdon. We walked through green grass, purple and white heather, and acid yellow broom, surrounded on all sides by terra cotta hills. It was going to be hot again, but right then, it was perfect - indescribably lovely. Just before the top of el Perdon, we heard someone behind us. Without a word, we ran up the last slope, determined to be there first.

A couple in their sixties, from Colmar, were on our heels. They stopped to chat, then flew down the other side while we sat in mist which had come from nowhere. It blew around the metal sculptures of pilgrims going to Santiago, and hid the windmills of the wind farm on the ridge. Suddenly we were very cold.

We crawled down the other side. The path was strewn with stones and boulders, none of them as big as two days ago, but none too small to turn an ankle or a knee. The little ones slid under our feet, the big ones grabbed our toes. This side of the hill was entirely different. There were holly bushes seven feet high, almond and olive trees, and vines. By the time we reached Obanos at the bottom of the hill, it was 35C.

By 12:30 we were in Puenta la Reina. The first to arrive, the Padres gave us the keys and asked us to turn on the water heater in the refuge. We bagged the two best beds, had long, hot showers, and because no one else was there yet, sneaked a basin of hot water for our socks. When the next arrivals came our laundry was drying in the sun, and we were ready for lunch.

Puente la Reina is pretty. Nestled in farmlands, it has a Templar church with a renowned y-shaped crucifix and another church with a famous painted Santiago Peregrino and wooden, Visigothic tombs, set into its floor.

Back from lunch we found the hairy- legs arrived and settled in. They asked us where we had been.

“We got here at 12:30,” we said. “We left at 5:30 to avoid the rush.”

“At 12:30!” they said and nodded their approval. External validation! At last!

Going to Estella, was sunny and warm. In Ciraqui, we sat outside a tiny general store, drinking pop in the sun. The village is full of climbing roses with stems as big as my arm, and potted plants on every doorstep. The road out of Ciraqui is a Roman road, very badly maintained, but still obviously the vrai chose. It is the first camino section of the road, which once joined Bordeaux to Astorga, It is in the better shape than any of the other bits which we would cone across. The hair stood up on the back of my neck as we trod down it, accompanied by the ghosts of Romans and pilgrims and people who had come here before. At the Roman bridge, the 4 hairy-legs from St Jean were having a photographic frenzy, swarming armpit high in nettles, trying to find the best angle. We joined them.

“It is exciting, yah?”

It is, and after this we had four new friends. Camino names - Willie and the Poor Boys- because their leader Willie likes to sing American rock and roll songs. He doesn’t speak English, so the words were sometimes interesting, but he and Anthony walked together intermittently for the rest of the journey, singing, while Anthony tried to teach him the right lyrics.

The road continued over a mere medieval bridge and finally arrived at the Rio Salado and another bridge. It was here, Aimery Picaud claims, that Navarese locals used to hang out, encouraging pilgrims to let their horses drink the poisonous water, then skinning the animals which dropped dead on the spot.

Just before Estella, the path hugged cliff of golden limestone, covered in wild geraniums and red poppies, the cocliquot, the Flanders poppy, small and red and growing from every niche in the wall. To our left the ground dropped off, to an orchard of olives and almonds, silver grey in the sun. It is one of the prettiest parts of the whole route to Santiago.

Estella was once an important pilgrim stop. It is still a pretty town with a new arcaded central square, two old bridges over the river Ega and three churches of definite note. Santo Sepulcro is there, waiting for you as you cross the river. No longer used as a church it still has a magnificent and very well preserved front, with wonderful, more than life size carvings of the twelve apostles and putti holding up the arch over the door.

At the top of the stairs by the old town square is St Pedro de la Rua with its half-a-cloister of unusual and very wonderful columns. The rest of the cloister was destroyed, many years ago along with the castle, which dominated the site.

In the new square during the passeo, we became the target of a gaggle of small boys, who were burning with curiosity about such obvious strangers. The boldest approached us, while the rest whispered sibilant questions in Spanish. One quiet boy, who obviously spoke the best English, but was shy, or not the leader, corrected for all of them.

“Where are you from?” they asked. “Canada! Es muy legos. It is a long way away!”

The prize question of the evening however, comes from the quiet one.

“Don’t you have scissors in Canada?”

It was asked with total seriousness and respect, so we tried not to laugh.

“Do all Canadian men have long hair and wear an earring?”

We told him that they don’t and they withdrew to the centre of the square to be small boys, and to discuss us and whatever else caught their attention. Two pretty girls were obviously more interesting. What did impress us was that when a much smaller child, obviously not a relative, escaped her mother and started to run through the square, she was returned, very gently but firmly by our small boys.

Next stop was Los Arcos, home to a church so over-decorated as to defy belief, a cloister of great loveliness, and a storekeeper who remembered us and told us that our Spanish had improved. Getting here was, however, wonderful- through fields of every shade of green with far-distant terracotta-purple hills making a background for all the loveliness around us.

From Logrono we took a side trip, a cab ride to Clavijo, perched on the very top of a very high mountain to the south. This is where Santiago is rumoured to have made his first warrior appearance, riding a white horse out of the sky and leading the despairing Spanish forces to victory over the Moors. How anyone could have made it up this high to build such a mighty fortress, let alone had the courage to attack it, is a marvel.

In the morning we wandered into Navarette, after getting lost in a vineyard. We found the second set of hairy-legs – the neat clean, precise ones, sitting in a café, next to the newly remodelled, original pilgrim hospital. It was first communion and dozens of excited little girls were arriving at the church in long white dresses. The little boys, less thrilled, were all done up in naval uniforms. One of them had enough gold braid for the admiral of the fleet.

In Najera we went to Santa Maria Real, the pantheon of the kings of Navarre. It has a renowned cloister and a magnificent choir, carved from dark wood, every surface is decorated with saints and fabulous beasts.

Next came Santo Domingo de la Calzada where we got rid of more stuff. After cruising all of the grocery stores, we found a box and into it went an extra towel, some tee-shirts including two we bought in Logrono . For some reason, Anthony decided, he didn’t need the legs of his zip-off hiking pants. After all, it had been hovering between 32 and 35C since we started. He packed them too. We sent them home. The next morning it was 32F.

The Montes de Oca, on the way to St Juan de Ortega, were still barren and severe, but since last year the fire damage had been covered over by silver green foliage and yellow wild flowers. In San Juan, the pilgrims were huddled around a table by the cafe, wrapped up to the ears in all the clothing they possessed. We decided to go inside.

“Que allegria!” said a voice from across the café.

It was talking to us; it was Senor Jesus whom we had met last year. He crossed the room to embrace us; we were overwhelmed that he remembered us. The landlord also claimed us. Last year Anthony praised her tortilla; this year she hugged us and gave us each a scallop shell.

In Burgos, we stopped the night to visit friends, who took us to Covarubbias, a well- preserved medieval town. We made a pact to do the camino again, with them, in 2002.

To date this had been an opposite camino – hot and sunny where before there was rain, cold where it was hot, but as we left Burgos, it raining - again. We had a new friend. Thomas, a young computer engineer from Germany, had asked to join us because his previous mate had detoured to Santo Domingo de Silos. Determined, we set out for Hontanas. By Hornillos it was really pouring but the three of us decided to keep going.

The path to Hontanas is through badlands. An Alberta cowboy would feel right at home. After walking for hours we came at last to Fuente Sanbol. My heart sank; it was less than half way; water was coursing down my back (I stupidly put my hat under the hood of my poncho; why I don’t know; to keep it dry?) and my gaiters were soaked and covered with mud. As for our expensive water proof socks, the manufacturer must have thought he was making a swimming pool, because they kept water in water, but they certainly didn’t keep it out.

I fixed my hat; we trudged on, through red mud and cold rain until Hontanas rose from a hole in the ground. The refuge, the original old pilgrim hostal, has been beautifully renovated to preserve its medieval charm. In the sitting room is a huge fireplace and plexi-glass sections in the floor allow you to see older foundations below.

Here we met a young Danish woman, travelling with a pony and her two year old. The hostal had accommodation for all of them. The lady told us that originally she had bought a donkey, but the donkey didn’t want to go to Santiago. After three days of trying to drag it there, she sold it at a loss and bought the pony at great expense. After spending today, wading through mud in a long skirt and Birkenstocks, she wanted to sell the pony and go home. We never saw her again.

It was still cold and windy crossing the endless plains to Fromista where there was rumoured to be a new refuge. Dreams of hot water danced in our heads, but when we arrived it was the same old refuge - no showers, no kitchen and the restaurant where we ate last year was closed. It seems that the mayor owns the new hotel in town and he doesn’t want any competition for his enterprise.

The storekeeper remembered us and greeted us like old friends. One of the camino’s ironies is that Fromista has the very best stores along the whole route and nowhere to cook your treasures. It also has the church of San Pedro- Romanesque limestone with 315 carved corbels running around the outside, And a statue of Pedro Gonzales Talmo, aka St Elmo, native son, patron of sailors, made famous by the phenomenon called St Elmo’s Fire.

In Carrion de los Condes, we had the Convent of the Poor Clares to ourselves. I don’t know why! It’s a great place to stay; especially if you like embroidered linen sheets, a modern kitchen and lots of hot water. Thomas and I walked out to San Zoilo, formerly a pilgrim hospital, now a very posh hotel, with separate, back entrance to its cloisters, which are free to pilgrims. Then we joined all the families for Sunday lunch. The bustle and the hum of many generations eating together is an opportunity for us vagabonds to dine en famille, however obliquely.

The next day it really poured all the way to Calzadilla de la Cueza. We were soaked to the skin for most of the nineteen kilometres. The Camino Real Bar and Hostal was not happy to see us; they were closed; they were renovating. They gave us two rooms and grudgingly let us stay, only because they remembered us from the year before. All day other pilgrims kept arriving and being turned away.

The next day we walk 39 kilometres to El Burgo Ranero. We didn’t want to stay in Sahagun. Last year we were attacked by a dog and then by the warden at the refugio, so we wanted no part of this sad sack town. We were attacked by the same dog, a hairy mop, with piranha teeth, and a miserable disposition. I came this close to spraying it with pepper spray. I was wishing out loud for an aluminum baseball bat or a stun gun to use on the little sucker, while Anthony poked him off with his stick. We stayed just long enough to look at San Tirso’s Mudejar ceiling.

In El Burgo Ranero we met the only miserable pilgrims we have ever encountered. We’d met some weird ones, including a bicyclist so strung out, he probably pedalled all 800 kilometres in two days, but the Wife of Bath was just plain mean.

There were lots of beds in the wattle and daub bijou residence with the thatched roof - lots of them, but the W of B had decided that a room for eight would just suit her and her husband. We shoved in politely and re-arranged her wash respectfully.

Six people were making a communal supper in the kitchen when I went to explore. The W of B threw herself between the food and me.

“This is only for the pilgrims who came early,” she said.

“You mean the ones who came by bus!” said I.

It was just a joke– a spinal synapse as it were, with no malice intended. But they were fighting words, because in fact, they had done just that. The day before, the bus from Carrion to Sahagun had been full of pilgrims and backpacks because of the rain. I wasn‘t criticizing, just being my usual mouthy self, but the dart went home. We went to the local bar and let the shepherd’s wife fed us lamb chops and soup, while they ate macaroni and tuna. When we returned and squeezed in around the fireplace we were greeted with glacial silence. But every dog has his day.

We arrived in Mansillas to find the same warden from last year, painting yellow arrows on the sidewalk. Laura and Anthony fell on each other’s necks and wept. She evicted some van-assisted bikers whose driver had bagged the best room, and she gave it to us. She let me use both washing machines, because we were the first ones there. Best of all, a friend of Senor Jesus, Senor Adelaido was already there, expecting us, making our lunch. When the Bus Pilgrims arrived, hot and sweaty, we were all in the kitchen eating fish soup, stew and salad, glorious melons, and some nice cheese, all washed down with a good rose. We smiled, we said hello. They filed upstairs to the dormitory for thirty in total silence. The W of B never spoke to us again.

We stayed a day and half in Leon, went to outdoor theatre in the Plaza Mayor, saw the ceiling paintings in the Pantheon twice (Once for free. I sneaked in with a tour group, just at closing time.) After Leon, we were lured by yellow arrows into a mud bowl. We were now four. The man from California, the one with the altimetre had joined us in Fromista. He and Anthony climbed a barbed-wire fence and dodged trucks to cross a highway. Thomas and I found a tunnel, leading from the mud bowl and waded ankle deep through more mud in a tunnel under the highway. Together again, walked down a crummy weed infested path, which hugged the same highway. Yellow arrows invited us to make frequent quixotic crossings, which provided no advantage and put our lives in danger.

The reward - a remarkable Santiago Matamoros riding out of the retablo into the congregation, a Latin mass, and a motley choir of older ladies, who sat together and sang the responses in old, untrained, cracked voices. For them, coming to the church at the end of the day is just a part of life. All day they work, then they come here, to give thanks and to find the spiritual peace to get on with tomorrow. Froilan (altimetre man) and Wilhelm (of the poor boys but not to be confused with Willie) and I were the only pilgrims there. We were moved; we returned to our supper in silence.

In Hospital de Orbigo, it was Don Suero de Quinones Day. In the evening there would be jousting, because old Suero was a Knight who once kept this bridge against all comers. For now there was a market– pie stands, candy stands and a marionette theatre. We bought pastries and candy; we posed for a busload of tourists. Letting tourists take pictures of real pilgrims with and without them draped around your backpack is one of the rituals of the road. Some pilgrims hate it. I think that being part of someone else’s memories is not such a bad thing.

The marionettes were for sale. I have a marionette habit. These were irresistible - old women, old peasant men, clowns in motley and broujas (witches) with brooms, - all made from papier mache with cloth sculpture bodies. Lagging behind the others I agonized over a brouja, an old peasant in a beret and a clown and finally chose the broujha. Froilan and Thomas were speechless; Anthony was resigned. He had already dealt with a pair of hand made shoes from Belorado and a plate from Santo Domingo, which were even now, flying home from Leon. After my witch was admired, Thomas surrendered the shopping bag for his pastries (we all sat on a fence to help him eat them), and we continued to Astorga.

Right here the camino gets beautiful again. It comes out of the slump it has been in since Burgos, and gives you back real trees and woods, purple and yellow flowers, and rusty rolling hills, all the way to Astorga.

At El Ganso we stopped at the Cowboy Bar, really a converted garage, for some lunch and a rest. After it, they were improving the pilgrim highway, which meant ditches and hills of red mud and dirt, but it was too beautiful to let any of that be a bother.

At Rabanal we had our second big surprise. Originally we had intended to keep going to El Acebo. Now it was after two, and El Acebo was 18 km away, the temperature was back up in the high 30's, and the road had become very steep. While I went to have a tiff with a very snotty woman at the English confraternity refuge, (on behalf of some other pilgrims), Anthony was in the bar, swilling a second coke, when he heard someone else say,

“Amigo, amigo, Canada!»

Standing there were a man and his son whom we had met last year. There were hugs all round, he was hauled off to their house, which is also the second refuge in Rabanal, to meet the Mother and the Sister and to see the refuge. When I came back with blood in my eye, he came to say that Jose and Serafino wanted us to stay with them.

We did. Anthony went out haying with Jose and his father. They took a wheelbarrow, a scythe and a two wooden rakes and I sat in the sun, doing needlework. Esparanza invited the three of us to Sunday supper and all of the ladies in Rabanal in to meet me and admire my handiwork. Then as the sun went down we started another feast. Caldo gallega, a soup of greens and pork, tortilla (a delicious potato and onion omelette), fish cooked in some yellow sauce, rabbit cooked in wine, and salad. After supper we had cherries soaked in Uruhu?, a local fire water, used as a digestive.

Esperanza is Maragato; her children encouraged her to sing some Maragato songs and a pilgrim song, accompanying herself on an enormous tambourine, which she made do things I have never heard a tambourine do before. It was a magic afternoon.

The next day we climbed el Acebo, left our stones on the pilgrim pile there and went down the other side in sunshine, through wild, glorious countryside. We had a short stop in Molina Seca with Alfredo, the hospitalero, and went on to Ponferrada, where the Templar’s castle was still closed. Never mind, maybe next time.

We wandered through orchards to Cacabelos, where the proprietor of A Tope plied us with wine and bread and serrano ham and were continuing to Villfranca, when we had our only mishap. Having piously turned down the offer of a ride from two very friendly English tourists, I found that I had pulled a ligament or a tendon or something in my knee. About an hour outside of Cacabelos I couldn’t walk. It didn’t just hurt it didn’t work.

We were rescued by a farmer and his wife. She gave us ice for my knee and he gave me a ride to Villafranca and left me at Jato’s. I didn’t want to go to Jato’s – its fun but in a tent and the dust bothers my asthma. Senora Jato rushed out and hustled me in and I was stuck. I still couldn’t walk very well and I certainly couldn’t carry two packs.

Anthony meanwhile had continued to walk in the blazing heat. When he found a bar he went in for a coke and found two Spanish men whom he had met before and who cried out

“Amigo, amigo, come and have some wine.”

Now Anthony doesn’t drink and he had already had some beer, so as not to insult the Farmer’s wife, but he was thirsty and it was over 100F outside. He poured two glassed of wine into a flower pot and asked the host for some Natural Lemonade, which he saw on the shelf. Lemonade with lots of ice arrived in a big glass. He guzzled it down, and asked for another. Halfway through the second glass, he realized the Lemonade was mostly alcohol. Some other pilgrims arrived, allowing him to escape the bar, but by now he was pickled, still thirsty and it was still hot. He finally caught up with Thomas, who got him safely to the municipal refuge and the two of them came to rescue me, before I succumbed to my asthma in the dust.

The next day started out well. It was hot. We gave our bags to Sr Jato and started by the high mountain route to O Cebreiro. It is lovely up above the Valcarce Valley, but forget Pradela; there is no bar and the locals are surly.

We arrived in Cebreiro in pouring rain. It was close to freezing again, but the bars were full of pilgrims watching the world cup. When Brazil won, the hollering started. We had a wonderful meal at Hostal San Giraldo and woke in the morning to what looked like a Manitoba blizzard. There was cloud blowing around outside; it looked like snow. Without stopping for breakfast we started out in the damp and cold, heading for Samos.

The walk along the Ouribio Valley is one of the best bets of the camino and contrary to what we had been told, it is very well marked. The only hard part was finding the road out of Samos where the refuge run by the monks was disappointing. The mattresses must have been there when Aimery Picaud came through; we had to flee to a hotel, because I couldn’t breathe.

Next day we walked past Sarria and went on to Feirreros. It wasn’t a bad idea; we just weren’t well prepared. Make sure you have food if you do this. There are only sandwiches at Ferrieros. Willie and the Poor Boys had four bottles of wine (and Wilhelm doesn’t drink), and returned to the refuge having their usual enthusiastic discussion about how far they would go the next day. Willie wanted to go on the road, Wilhelm wanted to follow the traditional route, Rudy wanted to walk 50 km and Guido was disgusted with all of them and said so. An elderly French couple who got up every day at 5 am, presumably to take a bus, because they never seemed to walk, tried to calm the Boys, but it would take more than a couple of polite Ahems to get through to this lot.

As soon as you pass Barbadelo, you are in the enchanted forest. Old Holm Oaks with moss and mistletoe hanging from their branches hold hands above cart tracks, corredoiro, which are now worn deep into the earth with centuries of use. Dry stone dykes are covered with ferns and foxgloves and light shimmers through the trees. The path is often an old creek bed, watered by springs. They gush up at regular intervals, and force you to hop from stone to stone, while the faeries make fun of you from the shadows.

We didn’t stop in Portomarin, this year, but continued on to Ligonde/Eirexe. At Ligonde, there is a roadside cross, worth walking all this way, just to see. It has a primitive pieta on one side. Very arresting, very moving.

Eiriexe is small - only the refuge, a house and a barn. We met a family from St Clet in Brittany. They were travelling by covered wagon, pulled by Hercules, a nice brown horse. The adults had walked all the way. The wagon was to transport their clothes and equipment and two sweet little girls-one four, the other two. After Santiago, they were going to take the coast road back to the French border and then walk home again.

We all ate together at the house. The French couple were ignoring Willie and the Poor Boys, and Willie and the Boys were ignoring them. Anthony and Thomas and I were being the United Nations. Guido was pretending that he didn’t speak French (he is Swiss from Laussane), making things more difficult. Usually I speak to him in French and he translates into German, but he was mad at the French woman, because she got up early and woke everyone else and also because he could understand everything she was saying about him and the Boys. Thomas was very busy. To ease tension, I told the story of the Genie of Roche Perce, the only story I knew well enough to tell in French. The French people, especially the ones from St Clet, hung on my every word; it was very gratifying. Anthony translated into English for Thomas, who translated into German for the rest. Meanwhile the family whose house we were in was cooking dinner, accompanied by much banging and thumping and the occasional domestic dispute.

There were only two days left; first to Santa Irene, and then to Santiago. On the last day we walked very slowly. A dog joined us at Arca and walked beside Anthony all the way to the outskirts of the city. It was a Tuesday afternoon. We were four days sooner than last time, but our journey had seemed more relaxed. Thomas had made his deadline and could see Finisterre before he left for home on Friday. On Friday we started for Finisterre; that is another story.

IF YOU ENJOYED THIS WEB PAGE AND WANT TO READ ABOUT OUR FIRST TRIP
FROM VEZELAY TO SANTIAGO DE COMPOSTELA

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