When I got up at 6:30 and both Achilles were tight and both knees stiff, I just hopped straight back in to bed to think through my options. Limiting walking seemed prudent so I was all set to find another albergue, given that you are only meant to stay one night in municipals. By the time I had hobbled down three flights of stairs I was certain this was the right decision. At the bottom, two guys were bundling their packs into a cupboard, so I got nosey. Yes, they were staying a second night because of injury…and they had been told they could leave their gear there while they vacated the building from 8-12. They suggested I do the same. So I did.
I didn’t venture far – just to the end of the red brick building across the street where there are some benches. But 4 degrees in the shade was too nippy for sitting too long.
Thanks to Organic Maps, I discovered there was a supermarket just 500m away, so off I trotted. By the time I arrived at it, my legs were all loosened up and I contemplated walking on…but it wasn’t too long until the antibiotics (somewhat predictably) made me start to feel nauseous, so I banished all thoughts of walking today.
Knowing I didn’t really feel good for wandering around (and maybe even a smidge grumpy that I should be in such a city and not be seeing anything), I snapped some pics on the supermarket walk.
The umbrella girl looked much better in 2014 with four kids balanced around the edge.
I plonked myself down on a bench in the sun to wait for opening time. The hospitalero came by and asked why I wasn’t walking. Turns out he’s the only one who can give permission to stay and use the cupboard so I offered profuse apologies. He kindly assured me I could stay. Later he would return and check on me, and by then I had a little speech prepared, asking if I would be able to stay next Monday and Tuesday or if I should find something else. He reckons I can stay. And I have checked the bus timetable, so I have the information I need to make an informed decision. Googling the diagnosis and treatment convinced me it’s worth fixing if I can.
Once most of the queue had checked in I joined the tail end and was welcomed back warmly.
There clearly wasn’t going to be much else to write about so after getting my washing hung up…
See it there on the balcony?
…I more-or-less scrambled (in a glass in a microwave) the remaining eggs I’ve been nervously carrying in my pack for a week.
After taking the next antibiotic instalment with this food, I decided a Panadol would make a good dessert. I had been reluctant to take any until now, because I use the pain in my Achilles to tell me how far to push or not – I don’t want to mask the pain and do more damage. But I knew I wasn’t walking anywhere else today, and so popping a pill was an attractive option (although I do know I can only have about half a dozen of them before they make me feel worse rather than better – lightweight stomach this one)
By 3:30 I was wrapped up in my sleeping bag, taking a nap and when I woke an hour later, there was no pain in my mouth! Ah, the bliss. A quick swig of cool water from my bottle changed that quickly and halted any thoughts of just putting up with it until I get home. It’s going to need to improve significantly if I am to avoid the prescribed endodontic treatment.
In the meantime I have taken the opportunity to set up a new blog. I have almost used up my media storage on the first one and there is no way it will last until the end. So after trying various solutions and being averse to paying a monthly subscription ad infinitum for more space, I’ve settled on the easiest (albeit unsatisfactory) option: start a completely new blog. Tomorrow begins the “second stage” of the camino, and so at least it is an appropriate point for the switch.
Any further updates will come to you from the imaginatively titled
At the end of the hamlet where I stayed last night was this sign. For half a moment I considered turning right and taking the not-very-busy road. Later in the day I would wish I had!
When I set out I was expecting a short day – just 12km. And I knew I was ending up in another little place so I started wondering what there might be to blog about. Little did I know!
Warning: this is a very long post!
I knew the first village was Agés.
And I decided I’d tell you what I was thinking about as I walked. The other day I had a conversation about this place with an English speaker, who objected to the fact that the “g” is pronounced somewhat like the last sound in “loch”, and the little squiggle on the “e” means you need to stress it. The English speaker insisted, “I speak English so I’ll say “ages” and I won’t bl**dy say it any other way.” I had thought travel helps people grow – and it can – but I’ve realised you have to be open to it. I also realised that while I accept different people do things differently and it is often a good thing, I do think some ways ARE better than others. And that’s probably an unpopular opinion these days.
As I walked through Agés, I switched thinking for appreciating what I was seeing
After Agés there came a little narrow path with long wet grass on either side…running right next to a very quiet road. Half a dozen pilgrims ahead of me were on the path (as you would expect given that it was signposted), but I walked on the road. Reflecting that many of my choices in life have been non-standard, I wondered whether I am contrary for the sake of it! You might have your own opinion, but I decided I wasn’t…however I will go against the flow when there is good reason to. This morning had two good reasons: to keep my shoes dry and to give my feet a rest from uneven ground. When I looked back, I noticed other pilgrims following my lead! I nipped back onto the path in order to get to cross this cute little single span stone bridge rather than the utilitarian vehicle one.
My thoughts turned to practical matters as I approached ATAPUERCA
I’d have liked to detour to this site, but decided to look after the foot and just walk straight on. In the village I smiled in remembrance at these steps
I had sat on them in 2014 with a Small Child, who had lost the plot that morning – not because we were walking, but because I had put toothpaste on his/her toothbrush when they wanted to do it themselves. They had kicked every stone on the road from Agés, grizzling and grumping along, until we decided that Dad would walk on with the rest of the children while I would sit here with Small Child until he/she was ready to walk without fussing. We sat there a long time. Two minutes less, and we would have got into the accommodation we were aiming for!
I have found that much of the trail I do not remember from walking it ten years ago (unlike when we repeated the San Salvador and Primitivo…then I was constantly aware of what was coming up next…although sometimes it took ten kilometres to turn up), but today I knew there was a climb up a stony hill next to a military zone, at the top of which we would be rewarded with seeing Burgos off in the distance. That’s pretty much exactly what happened.
After looking out at Burgos, I looked down at my phone, checking my emails. I was hoping to find a reply from a dentist saying she would change my appointment to tomorrow. I have had a toothache for a few days and had asked if there was any chance of seeing her sometime from Wednesday on. She sent me an appointment for Tuesday 6pm. I had replied that I would not yet be in Burgos and could I have a later day? But there was no reply, and for the first time I wondered if I should try to make Burgos today. It didn’t look far! As if in answer to my question, with every downhill step, my mouth throbbed more and more, and my Achilles were not noticeable at all.
I decided to do it.
At the village where I had been planning on stopping the night, I stopped for breakfast instead.
I had done 12km, and now had another 14 to go…and I didn’t know if I would get a bed. If I had known I was going to do a long day, I would have left earlier. There’s been a bit of angst on the trail about accommodations, with some people missing out and having to taxi to the next place….so that was at the back of my mind….especially as in 2014 we were the first in the queue to be turned away from the municipal because it was full. So I decided NO PHOTOS, JUST WALK. And I walked. I may have stopped thinking. I engaged my brain to make sure I got on the “River Route” into the city instead of the industrial one we took last time. In retrospect, if I’d taken the other I could have hopped on a bus for six or seven kilometres. Instead I pushed on past the airport, watching a couple of little planes doing a series of touch-and-goes as I paced the perimeter fence. Then through another little village, where I was starting to feel a bit tired so I sat down for a minute. I was actually enjoying that stage at that point – that route does not have the big new fancy signs that are everywhere else, just yellow painted arrows and so it felt a bit more like the old caminos. You actually had to look out for them. Then they took me by the river, which for a long time you couldn’t see and I thought they should call it the Highway Route, because you COULD see that. But once you passed under the highway, the river came close and the route lived up to its name. Thinking there must just be an hour to go I made the fatal mistake of opening the map app and typing in my destination. Still 7.2km. At the rate I was going, that was going to take more than two hours. And I was aware the albergue was already open. I imagined the queue diminishing as people checked in, and wondered whether a COMPLETO sign was attached to the door. I made a conscious decision to not think any more about that, and knew I could sort something out if I needed to. The path beside the river that had been winding through a big recreation area (basically fields with long grass and trees), turned into a paved path, still beside the river and well populated with a wide range of people out walking and riding, and one dog chasing a duck. It was perfectly straight and looked like it went on forever. Felt like it too. I decided I must be walking to its source. It started to feel very hard to keep going. I did little “intervals” for a wee stretch: walk past three benches and then sit on the fourth for a minute. But it felt like I’d never get there if I kept doing that and it got to the point that I thought if I sat down one more time I wouldn’t get up again. And each time I stopped, I was so ungainly when I restarted. So I Just Kept Walking. One foot, then the other. Step. Step. Step. Step. Until I stopped and leaned on my poles. And then kept walking. And sat on a stone ledge. And then kept walking. Towards the end of that stretch a man asked me if I was doing the camino. He then wanted to tell me a shortcut to the cathedral and warned me not to follow the arrows, because they take you here, there and everywhere around the city before finally getting to the cathedral. He was a bit perplexed when I said I wasn’t going to the cathedral, so I quickly added I would go tomorrow, but today I needed to get to the albergue. He was impressed with my map on my phone and assured me that was the quickest route so I stopped following arrows. When I was given directions to walk 300 meters I counted out 600 steps. One two three four five six….And then did it again for the next 300. One, two, three, four, five, six….I have no idea what I walked past. I just had to keep going. It has been a long time since I have walked so far in one day, and I was trying not to think of whether I was “overusing” my poor tendons.
Finally, I was in the city, and because I was using the map app I had my phone out and snapped two photos
I could feel the history, the magnificence, the hum, but I needed to let it all wait for tomorrow. At the top of a set of stairs I could see the A sign next to a wooden door. (A for Albergue) I was almost there. I was about to find out. I walked in and asked, “Is there one bed?” and was pleased to hear there were still plenty. I had made it. There was even time for a shower and washing before going to the dentist appointment, which fortuitously turned out to be under a kilometre from the albergue.
I left early, thinking I’d pop in to the cathedral on the way (Tuesday afternoon is free entry so it seemed silly to pass up an opportunity like that), but there was a long queue and after standing in it for five minutes I realised I couldn’t stand any longer, so I went in search of the clinic. Sat down on a bench nearby because I was still two hours early and watched a stork
After a long day’s walking I always used to get cold, and today was no exception, so I went to the clinic and asked if I would wait there until my appointment at 6. They saw me straight away. Impressive!
Form, X-ray, examination, diagnosis, treatment plan, refusal to charge and the junior girl was sent out to take me to a pharmacy. Evidently I need endodontic treatment and when she started talking about pulling up nerves I hoped something was getting lost in translation. I need to take antibiotics for at least four or five days before she will do treatment…but she did say the antibiotics might settle the inflammation in which case I could just keep walking and see what happens if I want. I definitely prefer that to catching a bus back to Burgos next week and then needing to stay here for a couple of days to recuperate. But that’s a decision to be made later. For now I just need to go to bed and get over today!
First I should just record that I did go in to the cathedral on the way back to the Albergue, but I wandered in a daze.
Come with me, half an hour before sunrise, straight up the hill for 6km. Uphill, but not overly demanding.
Can you hear the cuckoo?
Apparently pilgrims often used to get lost here (before there was a road that now ensures you couldn’t get lost if you tried), and it is easy to imagine how it could happen
Oak trees and perfect Christmas trees
A few puddles too
A memorial to the many men taken from their families and found dead the next morning…day after day…it is important to remember
More puddles and more forest
A sudden splash of colour
Arrows to follow
And the forest goes on….
….until suddenly you come out of it into fields again….and only 500m later the monastery appears
We arrive before 10. I had been thinking we would walk on, because I was hoping to get to Burgos a day earlier than I’d planned so that I can go to the dentist (yes, I have had a toothache for a few days, so I think I should get it checked)…..but that silly foot of mine was burning, so I decided to stop.
Eventually the sun would come out and others would start arriving…
…and then a few more…
Did you enjoy being Numero Uno with me in the queue and getting into the shower before others had splashed all over the floor?
Speaking of splashing, after splashing out on dinner last night I decided we should conserve a few euros today, so this might not have been the best day to come with me…….breakfast was ok – muesli and yoghurt, then a slice of tortilla de patatas from the bar after the washing was done….I’m still carrying a StupidBagOfPasta and two tins of peppers and a head of garlic that I want to cook….but again, there’s no kitchen, and we missed the cutoff for asking for dinner, and besides, we’re not spending money today remember, so we’ll have some more muesli mixed with the orange I’ve been carrying for a couple of days. You might be glad you didn’t come with me. If you were one of my kids you would probably be embarrassed that I went into a bar and asked to buy a cup of cold milk!! Must say it made the muesli taste better…and I got a teaspoon to use as well.
Planning to walk just over 5km today to accommodation that was already booked, I had thought I would drop my backpack and take a detour up a ravine to see the amazing cliffs and reservoir. I expected the detour would be the blogpost for the day, but as I walked I realised I could feel a burning at the back of my right heel. I knew I had exceeded the planned distance for the week and reluctantly decided to give the detour a miss. Except that I fell in beside an Australian-with-a-London-accent gentleman, who told me he was planning on this amazing walk this afternoon and I found myself saying I was also doing it. Before too long another Aussie had agreed to join us.
There was just one small problem. The guy was concerned that he would not get a bed for the night in this town as the municipal Albergue was closed. The lady was also unsure of her reservation and so I offered to go up to the private albergue and scope the place out. Mrs Aussie wanted me to come back down to the bar where we were sitting to tell them the outcome, but my foot was having none of that. Mrs Untechnical here showed her how to find her QR code on WhatsApp and I scanned it and saved her as a contact, flicked her off a message so she would have my details and left her thinking I’m Ever So Clever. I did confess to only learning how to do this on the camino! I set off up the hill, promising to message them when I had news.
I followed the sign and realised that on previous caminos I would have presumed I was in the wrong place and walked out if I had ended up here
This time I was able to ask. Yes, this was the check-in area for the albergue. Yes, Jan, the Aussie, was on the reservation list and yes, I could reserve a bed for Patrick. What’s more, they were opening in twenty minutes. This is a hotel (three stars, no less) that is owned by a guy who walked the camino and wanted to “give back” and so opened an albergue on the premises. The more cynical ones sitting around the table in the afternoon would suggest that he could have installed a kitchen if he really wanted to serve pilgrims, instead of making them pay for an expensive meal in his restaurant! They had a point. He did provide a microwave and if I had known the little shop down the street was open (surprising given it is Sunday) I would have been satisfied with instant noodles.
Patrick and Jan arrived and as always happens, we chatted. They had stayed at Tosantos last night, at a lovely little donativo albergue where we had stayed last time. It was amusing hearing them talk of it….they had to help prepare the dinner, they all had to walk up the hill to the chapel in a cave where they couldn’t even see anything after dinner, they had to go to a service thingy in a little woo-woo room upstairs where they were asked to write a letter to themselves but there was no way they were doing that sh*t, they had to read out a letter someone had written the night before as a prayer, but they couldn’t even hear what anyone was saying and they had no idea why some of them were crying! Surely no one could be that moved. The one Patrick had to read out was all about trying to find the balance between having a social camino and walking solo. He had a simple solution – work out what you really want! Then they had to go back to the kitchen and do the dishes. By crikey! One of them was frustrated with the First Nation situation back at home, both were frustrated with walkers who pay to send their bags ahead in a van – they might as well stay home and walk in their own countries. I suggested there are many ways to do a camino and Patrick agreed, “Sure are, the right way and the wrong way.” I told him I might have just found the angle for my blogpost today. He may have thought I was joking.
Anyway, they headed off for the walk and I prudently opted out of another three hours on my feet. I was not meant to exceed 77km this week and I have done 95, so it is perhaps no wonder my Achilles is letting me know.
Eventually Jan would return alone and drop into a chair, exhausted. She had a few choice words to say about the narrow steep stony track, the ravine and Patrick! It made an amusing soundtrack.
As for my little walk:
I left the Albergue, thinking how even though it was a very nondescript place with little character to speak of from the outside (my initial impression yesterday), it now held wonderful memories and along with Asun, the hospitalera, had made its way into my heart.
I did not believe the weather forecast that suggested rain, but as I walked on, I started to wonder if I may have made a mistake.
The sun was out behind me, but dark clouds were gathering ahead.
The first hamlet appeared after just a couple of kilometres, and was of interest to me primarily because I thought I found a bread oven:
An elderly gentleman was trimming plants in a nearby garden plot and so I wandered over and asked him. Yes, it was the village bread oven some time ago.
Then back to the fields, racing the clouds, this time with a raincoat over my pack just in case.
Grandpa at home, who is reading ahead in a guidebook, had warned me I would be descending into a ravine and climbing out the other side. It turned out to be a bit underwhelming. The descent was less steep than our driveway, and only three or four times as long! That’s it in the picture up there ^^ Then there was just a completely flat walk along a track beside the road all the way to the village.
The rain won.
And soon after that I was bumping into Patrick and the rest is history.
By the way, he returned from the ravine adventure a good hour or so after Jan. His report was a little different. He got to the very top of the hill and looked down on the reservoir, and by all accounts, his photos were spectacular. He admitted they had got lost, although he did manage to eventually find the track they were supposed to be on – only it was closed due to dangerous rockfall. Having tried to tell me before they left that I will only be here once and should be making the most of the opportunity and no one can tell me how far I should be walking each week, he reluctantly admitted it was probably just as well I had not joined them….although I could have made it as far as the fountain, which would have been worth seeing. You do what you can manage to do.
I had a lovely afternoon stitching…Grandpa had mentioned this morning on a phone call that I had only shown one teaser of a photo, so I thought I had better show another. If I had already stitched one of the geese after which the game is named I would have taken it to the sign in the village that has a goose on it (the village also being named after geese)….but so many people kept stopping me to chat and have a nosey and take their own pictures that I didn’t even get close to starting one.
Soon enough it was time for dinner with Patrick and Jan – and I invited a lady sitting on her own too. She turned out to be most interesting – a Francophile Canadian artist, who is 80 years old and, yes, walking the Camino!
My usual rhythm has been to get up, have breakfast, pack, brush teeth, check in with home (it is usually just-after-work time) and then walk. When I arrive, I am invariably sitting or standing in a queue for an albergue and I try to do a few of my Achilles exercises if I think of it and write the bulk of the blogpost while I wait, then go in for registering, claiming a bed, showering, washing clothes and getting them hung up. Because I carry supermarket food with me (in spite of a son telling me I should just eat out coz dad is at home earning money so I might as well spend it!!), I can rustle up some lunch – by now it is usually about 3pm. I try to get my journal done, although at this point there is usually a lot of chatter with other pilgrims. Then I usually have a look round whatever village/town I might be in and pick up any food I might need (generally some yoghurt for breakfast). By this time (7ish) it is time to either make some dinner (usually salad with bread or salad inside bread for a change) or turn up for the communal dinner. To help myself remember to collect my washing from an outside line, I make a habit of doing it straight after dinner, at which point I pack up my things as much as I can to be able to leave the room quietly in the morning. Sometimes there is a mass at 8pm and I try to get along to it (for the three people who have discovered this blog from the Camino Forum and who therefore do not really know me, I’ll answer the question that often gets asked when I ask if anyone else is going to go to the mass – are you Catholic? No, I’m not, but I am a Christian, and while there are some points of difference, there are also many points of commonality. Besides, going to mass is often the only way to get to see inside these historical monuments.
No mass today – only two a month
By the time you get back to the albergue, some people are invariably already asleep, so if there is a common area, I’ll hang out there, sending good morning greetings to Rob before he goes to work, and usually chatting with whoever I have met that day. I had thought I would get lots of writing done and cross stitch too, but in reality, there has been little time for either. That I also put in my pack a ball of wool and knitting needles just in case now strikes me as absurd! Reading the guidebook to find out if there is anything to look out for tomorrow usually happens when I’m tucked up in my sleeping bag.
But today was different. It started out as per above, but I was trying to walk as few steps as possible as I have used up my Achilles-walking-allowance for the week, which meant I had arrived at my destination by 9:30am. After mending my glove which was coming apart, it still seemed too early to write a blogpost when nothing had happened apart from this:
…
The very kind hospitalera/bar hostess invited me to come inside out of the cold and so I got to listen to a rerun of MacGyver on tv while I was waiting for the albergue, which was upstairs, to open. I ended up spending most of the day in this spot out of the gale blowing outside.
I nipped out just once, because I heard the bread van honking, and thought I’d get some bread to have with the butter and jam I am still carrying! I had forgotten I had leftover dinner from last night, and so now I’ll be carrying the bread as well tomorrow!!
About 2pm the bar started to fill up. It got busy…and LOUD as everyone in the room carried on one big conversation with at least three of them all speaking at the same time.
Once they hit a critical mass of over a dozen people in the room they split into two groups, so now there were six people talking simultaneously!! There was enough commotion at this point for me to block it all out and concentrate on writing….only occasional random phrases interrupted my thoughts. And I cross stitched. And my Achilles thanked me. At 3:30 most of the crowd left, leaving just half a dozen in a circle, having three different conversations, and then all of a sudden they were gone too and silence reigned. The lovely hospitalera/bar host looked across at me, sighed, and said, “Paz”. In the midst of serving the masses and taking part in each conversation, she had also welcomed and registered half a dozen pilgrims. No wonder she was grateful for a moment of peace. We then proceeded to have a ten minute conversation about how Spaniards and Italians don’t know how to talk, they have to yell….whether that is in a bar or on the bus, and it is not all bad, it is a lot of fun too, they love life…oh yes, life in Spain is social and community is important….how good it is for the old folks to get out and come to the bar even if they can’t hear anything, and that’s why they live so long in Spain, and how good it is for the children to see the adults talking and arguing together, and that everyone gets to speak and listen…and how multigenerational families are still a thing in the villages, although that is all changing now in the big cities and it’s a pity. Also, Spaniards drink more than people in other countries because they come to the bar every afternoon to meet together and have a drink and that’s the way it is. When I say we had a conversation, what I mean is I listened to her tell me all this and I threw in the odd “claro” or “exactamente” and told her I have eight kids, four boys and four girls, and that Grandpa lives close and comes for dinner every day. She was delighted to tell me she is one of seven daughters. And then she had work to do.
Meanwhile I kept stitching and joined an elderly gentleman watching the last ten kilometres of the seventh stage of La Vuelta Femenina, which was being raced in Spain and broadcast live.
4:30 and more groups of mostly men started dropping in for a(nother) drink and chat. The hostess kept serving them with a smile, whilst simultaneously cooking a three course dinner for the pilgrim contingent. She never stopped. (And when our dinner was over more village folk were piling back into the bar, so even when the dishes were done her day would not be over)
Her grandmother’s recipe
And what a dinner it was. Four South Koreans (two friends and a married couple), a French married couple, one Italian, one Dutch and me. No common language for everyone so lots of translating. And the most laughter I have experienced in a very very very long time. We laughed until we hurt. The hospitalera came in and commented that there has never been a pilgrim dinner like it!
I know you shouldn’t stereotype anyone, but my experience has been that all the Koreans I have met have been polite and fun and enthusiastic and positive. These four were no exception. We laughed and laughed together. In fact, if I hadn’t already written so much about nothing before dinner, I could probably have just made a great story of the dinner.
I am starting to wonder if it is a cultural courtesy thing that they always say, “You have such good pronunciation” when I try out my four words! And now I have two more to add to my repertoire.
The other thing about the Koreans is that they look so young. At the table we were trying to work out who was the oldest – we all thought the Frenchman, who is 54 like me. But no, the three Korean ladies were in their sixties and the man was seventy. His secret: hike and swim and stretch every day, eat protein and be relaxed. His mother is 100 and still walks an hour a day, so maybe he is on to something.
I didn’t intend to get to Belorado today – I was going to stop in either of the two previous villages, but neither of them could entice me to stay. I did wander around the first village/hamlet…
Castildelgado
…and took the same photo I remember taking last time.
I stopped to draw the church and walk right around it in Viloria.
Viloria del Rioja
I stopped in Villamayor del Rio
And I walked on to Belorado, arriving just in time to join the line for the parroquial albergue where we stayed last time and learnt to play BLOB, and climbed up the hill to play hide and seek, and waited the next day for the pharmacy to open so Rob could get something for an eye infection. The only thing I repeated this time was climbing the hill to look down on the town and wonder if the storks are the same ones that were in the nest ten years ago – they tend to live for over two decades and they return to the same nest year after year, so it is plausible.
This time the church was open so I took a look
I also wandered down to the Plaza Mayor and was wowed by the trees surrounding a rotunda – it would be a great shady place to sit in summer and listen to a band play
And because I was not wanting salad or sandwiches again for dinner, at 5 o’clock when the supermarket opened after siesta, I visited, bought food and for the first time since leaving NZ I actually cooked a meal. Yay for the butcher on the way back to the albergue who allowed me to buy one sausage!
Turned out it will be lunch tomorrow too
And what about the actual walk? It was pretty much next to a main highway on the right all the way and fields to the left….and the wind made yesterday’s seem like a breeze. New measures were called for
Note wind flattening sun hat against the side of my face, whipping hair out from under the buff and violently flapping the back flap. This only lasted for a short stretch of road, then there was a ninety degree corner and it was head wind all the way. According to cyclists, if they stopped pedalling even on the downhills they were blown backwards. Not sure if that’s the making of an urban legend, but it doesn’t seem unfathomable.
There were a lot of people on the path today, but I walked alone and was just thinking about how it was the first day I had not walked with anyone, when I had to wait to cross that truck-filled road and a Canadian lady caught me up. We walked the last kilometre into town together and she exclaimed that despite living on the prairie, she had never walked in a wind like today’s. And she won’t be walking tomorrow, because it’s her birthday. I have frequently been thinking about being in the moment and not looking ahead…and I realised that I was expecting the last ten minutes of the walk to be the same as the rest…it can be really hard to be in the right here and now.
Now about that wind, and the cold. Some family members have said it sounds miserable, but it’s not. Today was INVIGORATING. It felt like an achievement to push against it all day and get where you were trying to go. It felt like an achievement to work out how many layers were needed to stay warm too! Physical challenges overcome, and you feel the stronger for it.
Noteable Mention: The reference to my Favourite Son Who Lives In Australia yesterday just may have been the catalyst for a 92-line message from My Favourite Youngest Son. It was a fine piece – chatty, thoughtful, humorous, informative, including good news of positive life changes, and a question to stimulate further conversation and show he was taking an interest in the other party. So here’s the score for my uber-competitive bunch of kids… (appeals by invested parties will be considered and results adjusted accordingly)
Favourite Eldest Daughter: 1 point for having T for dinner 1 point for asking for the blog address 1 point for asking when I get back
Favourite Eldest Son: 1 point for knowing where the blog address was pinned 1 point for pinning it 1 point for keeping the cookie jar full
Favourite Son in Australia: 1 point for calling yesterday 1 point for telling me he was sad I was travelling alone 2 points for starting Messenger conversations 1 point for reminding me of an important date I may have forgotten
Favourite Second Daughter (NOT second favourite daughter lol) 1 point for calling the day before yesterday 1 point for organising a family dinner this weekend 1 point for delivering ANZAC cookies to Dad
Favourite Son Who Lives At Home Again: 1 point for sitting on the couch with his foot strapped up and talking on this morning’s call 1 point for starting a Messenger conversation
Favourite Youngest Son: 1 point for sending a message 1 point for it being so long 1 point for continuing the conversation 1 point for stopping the conversation and at least pretending to go to bed seeing as it was after midnight
Favourite Flying Daughter: 1 point for keeping us all in the loop about her work plans 1 point for stalking me on Flight Radar when I left
Favourite Youngest Daughter: 1 point for answering a message I sent 1 point for working hard – you’ve been at work every time there has been a call from home
It was supposedly 6 degrees when I set off this morning…and for me that means wearing my hiking shirt and fleece vest with merino gloves and a buff keep me at a perfect walking temperature, even with the bare legs that come from wearing a short hiking skirt.
But not today.
I stopped in Grañon for a hot chocolate to warm up….
…sketched the church and was surprised by the number of pilgrims who walked straight on past without even poking their noses in, especially given that it is unusual to find an open church and this one was clearly open. I was glad to take a wee adventure inside, including climbing up the uneven stairs at the back to the choir stalls for a great view
I knew I did not have far to go after Grañon and figured I would warm up once I got walking. Not today. I ended up switching out my vest for a jacket, but probably should have kept both on.
I kept reminding myself that I don’t mind wind and cold, it is just WET I prefer not to have to deal with. The wind was interesting to me. The kind of wind I am accustomed to comes in bursts…walking into this one was just like pressing against a door that is jammed shut, and it was a constant blowing pressure. Constant and cold.
I don’t think I saw one pilgrim (and I saw many today) without something pulled across their face. I don’t know about them, but my eyes and nose were streaming, and even now a few hours later I am sniffing nonstop (as are the six other men I am sharing a dorm with – I am thinking it might be a great night for earplugs!)
I am staying in a basic little place that has a courtyard that would be lovely on a warm sunny day
It has a shower that is a strong contender for Smallest Shower Yet Award
Try to ignore the mold!
A South Korean man came into the room and declared: “Not good here.” But we are getting a bed and a three course dinner for the same cost as a bed alone in many other places, so it is worth it to me!
I took a quick walk around the village. It didn’t take long. My impression is that this place does not know if it is upmarket or dilapidated. Maybe you can decide. I suspect it was quite swish two hundred years ago.
The church here is quite famous – that is to say, it has a famous baptismal font. Unfortunately it is only open two days a month, however there is a monument you can look at instead. Not quite the same.
I think the highlight of the day would be either the chat with My Favourite Son Who Lives In Australia…OR…the storks.
Just at the edge of town, next to the river ^^ were three poles topped with stork nests.
Just a little farther on were two tall brick columns similarly adorned
Right as I was looking at it, Mama and Papa Stork stood up, and then one of them swooped upwards and flew off across the wheat fields. I wondered how long it would take to return and was rewarded for waiting. Within ten minutes it came back carrying something that looked to be as big as a rat or mole in its beak. It circled around the tower a couple of times before coming in to land. I wish I could show you the video – what a majestic bird!
There is one other bird I should probably have mentioned while I was at Santo Domingo – the chicken. There is a legend about a young lad being hanged but not dying and a month later when the sheriff was told he made some comment about the kid being as alive as the roast chicken he had just been served for dinner…at which point the chook sprouted wings, stood up and clucked its way around the table. There are various versions of the tale, but most agree on that much. And more or less since then they have kept some chickens in a very fine coop in the church. Not bad going for seven hundred years! I got to see the current chooks, fine looking white specimens, when I went to mass in the evening. This was not just any mass. There was a choir (women and children), some of the girls who had been handing out bread during the day had stayed dressed up in their regional dress and read some of the prayers, at the end of the service everyone congregated around Santo Domingo’s statue, enthusiastically singing, and then the enormous wooden doors were opened and everyone streamed out through them, instead of the smaller side doors that are usually used.
The choral pieces were divine, the adoration at the tomb, uncomfortable for me. All in all, a special experience to witness. And this morning when the Bag PickUp Man came to collect backpacks for those pilgrims who don’t like to (or can’t) carry them, the Albergue cleaner nipped out the back and found him one of the unleavened breads, which he appeared most grateful to receive.
Other random photos from today
PS I am wearing thermal long johns and pants, a merino shirt, tunic, top, fleece jacket, fleece vest, buff, scarf and merino gloves…and it is still cold! Everyone else climbed into their sleeping bags for the afternoon, but I can’t lie there doing nothing!
I don’t know what language she was speaking, but it’s what she said as she came up behind me and saw the view I was filming. We were unable to communicate any more than that, but wow wow wow said it all.
I can’t show you the video, sorry, because videos gobble up all my available storage.
Later I would walk with a Korean couple for a while, and after exhausting my Korean vocabulary that they turned into a song (Hello*thank you*goodbye) and repeated over and over as we stepped along in unison, poles and feet hitting the stones at precisely the same time, the man would spread his arms wide and exclaim, “Wow wow wow”.
At one point I would chat with one of my children at home and her response to seeing where I was walking was: that looks fake. It really was that good!
Arriving in town, May Day festivities were in full force, the girls handing out unleavened bread to inhabitants of the town, and by mid afternoon I would find myself watching an exquisite saxophone and trumpet duo playing on a crowded street.
The Albergue is completely surrounded by amazing churches and a cathedral. Such a contrast to the morning’s walk, but equally magnificent.
What a rich day!
I must have been subconsciously creating this blog post as I waited for Jill (I’ll tell you about her in a minute) to join me for a look around, because I said to the pilgrim sitting next to me, “Wasn’t it an especially beautiful walk today?” She thought every day had been beautiful, but today was just cold and windy. What she said was true – every day HAS been beautiful, today WAS cold (again) and the wind was unrelenting and coming straight at us with such force you had to strain against it….but at the end of the day, I will remember the awesome expansive beauty the most (For you to truly appreciate the pictures and see the mountains off in the distance, you’ll need to read this on as big a screen as you have access to!)
Now, about Jill. She’s an angel.
Here she is helping me eat some of my food. The rest of it, we packed into a bag and she carried it to Santa Domingo for me. She’s an angel, not a super-hero (although she has run marathons and done triathlons)…unfortunately she has a tendon injury which is preventing her from walking, so she took the bus…and my bag of food. We managed to eat a lot of it for dinner!
And do you remember Krzysztof, the Polish cyclist? Yesterday he told me that after a rest day he is (and I quote) “a volcano of energy”. Actually, he was such an upbeat individual, I rather suspect that even when he is down he is still a volcano of energy! Anyway, yesterday was essentially a rest day for me and today I may not have been a volcano, but I set out at the fastest pace yet and very quickly fell into a comfortable rhythm. When I have done very long walks, I have sometimes experienced the body just propelling forward without any apparent effort on my part. I had not expected to revisit that feeling on this walk, because I will not be walking very long distances, and I am stopping so often to take photos it’s a wonder I get anywhere! But today I came close to that feeling less than a kilometre after starting. I was almost a volcano….and I was certainly bubbling with wonder.
That is the longest 5km I have ever walked. It should not have been difficult – the weather was a perfect walking temperature, the path was easy underfoot, after an initial climb it was largely downhill or flat, and I had had a very leisurely start to the day, not getting up off my mattress until close to 8am and chatting with Krzysztof from Poland, who is on a five month cycling adventure for an hour before finally setting off. But I struggled and took a seat on almost every park bench on the way out of town and most of the aqueducts thereafter. I had to force myself to take photos – getting the camera out took too much effort.
Its not like there was nothing interesting. I had heard the distinctive clapping sound of storks before I saw them, one settling onto a nest high on the red cliff and two soaring right above me, so close you could hear their whooshing and see their wing feathers.
Once over the hill there were snowcapped mountains seemingly moving as I inched my way along, slower than the many centipedes scurrying along the road.
I knew I was not quite myself when I observed myself thinking “I don’t even care about those poppies.” Admittedly, my pack was heavy. I had bought so much food yesterday. What was I thinking getting butter and a glass jar of jam to go with a loaf of rye bread that I will have to carry for days? Why did I need to replace the muesli so quickly? Why did I insist on getting a block of semicurado cheese? And couldn’t I have waited to buy more salami later? My pack was also heavy because I had a whole lot of WET washing. I hadnt planned it that way, but then I hadnt planned to roll over at 11pm, after the four guys playing a cross between tennis and squash in the fronton had gone home and left us to go to sleep….
….yes, I had rolled over and thought, “I am going to throw up.”I immediately thought I couldnt possibly – it had been days since I was with the Gastro-Lady. But as quickly as I thought that, I realised I was indeed going to and now came the struggle to extricate myself quietly from my sleeping bag so as not to disturb the others. Somehow I managed to get the silk sleeping bag liner caught in one of my slides and in the pitch dark did not notice I was dragging it behind me. What I did notice was the fact that I was not yet at the door to get out of the hall, I was just in line with the Italian couple and I really did not want to throw up over them – it would be TMI to tell you what happened next, but I will just let you know the Italianos continued to sleep blissfully unaware of the drama playing out in the changing rooms…..and I ended up needing to mop the floor and wall, and wash most of what I was wearing and aforementioned sleeping bag liner. After an hour in bed I had already got up to put on my thermals and socks and jacket, so now that most of them were hanging up in the changing rooms I knew I was going to feel the 4 degrees that was forecast. Sure enough my feet were still blocks of ice in the morning. After the violent expulsion and CleanUpMission, I sat on a bench in the changing room feeling pretty sorry for myself, wondering if it was all over. I am glad to report it was, but I didnt know that at that point. Having no other symptoms, no fever, no chills, no aches, no diarrhoea, no repeat vomiting after the first ten minutes, I can only assume it was something I ate. Was it the chorizo that I carried for a day without refrigeration? Was it the water I filled my bottle with from a fountain? Was it too much milk? Was it the hummus? Should I have washed the tomatoes instead of just wiping them? Hard to tell. But I emptied my bottle and went back to the supermarket to buy some bottled water in the morning. When I was decanting the water into my bottle a one-toothed Grandma came up to me and asked if I was alone. She urged me not to walk alone, telling me I didnt understand and should wait on the bridge for another girl to walk with. I assured her there were plenty of pilgrims…that is to say, that is what I told her, but I don’t think she was assured!
And there were plenty of pilgrims today. The last one was the Polish guy, who will never know how helpful it was that he jumped off his bike and walked along with me for the last kilometre into town.
And off he went…
I had been looking forward to visiting the monastery in the caves in Nájera, but Ím glad I made the call to just walk past…
…and end up here, where I would sit all afternoon sipping water and eating dry tostas after an hour´s nap on arrival in a two-bed room.
solowalk 2024 