Author: Rachael

Lots of little highlights today

* learning my first words in Korean

* looking back at the church

* panoramic views to mountains front and back from Alto de San Antón

* walking with a retired American lady until……

* …my phone rang….phone call from the crazy monkeys having Family Night dinner at home

* buying silicone earplugs

* getting a WhatsApp message from the Belgian lady who had to taxi ahead last night saying she has booked me a bed for tomorrow where she stayed last night so I can take my time tomorrow

* supermarket visit (rye bread, butter, a bottle of milk…. and a bunch of other things that will make my pack heavy tomorrow!)

* sitting in the sun doing cross stitch waiting for the temporary municipal albergue to open in the sports hall

* Using Google translate to communicate with two old Italians who have walked more than 30km today and two Koreans (who are probably old, but they all look as if they are in their twenties!… later she would tell me she was 64) who were worried about whether their bags will be delivered here or not. The lady babbled into her phone and it told me she was thankful for me being with her and making it better. Not quite sure how it helped, because everything I tried didn’t work!!! I guess just being there is sometimes enough.

* a thick mattress for 3 euros

…and a cute conversation with the hospitalera’s little son after I played ball with him…. “¿No tienes una casa Señora?” I assured him I have a house in my country, but not in Spain.

* a riverside wander

One adrenaline-pumping lowlight:

I had taken the Italian man to the side door of the sports hall so he could see the stack of mattresses inside and relax about staying here. As we were returning to the seat out the front a car roared up beside us and four people tumbled out, one of them bleeding from the head, with his arm wrapped in a towel that had turned red, and wearing trousers which had one leg completely covered in blood. We were right next to the emergency entrance for the medical clinic and so Mr Italy and I stepped aside to let the injured man enter. But he didn’t. As suddenly as he had arrived, car after car screeched to a halt and people poured out until there were well over twenty people milling around, many looking worried, some crying, and most of the men shouting….I am guessing there had been a fight and for fifteen minutes or so it seemed like it was not yet over. Mr Italy and I decided it was worth sneaking through the mob in order to put a bit of distance between us and them. We – and Mrs Italy and Mr &Mrs Korea had previously made ourselves comfortable on a couple of public seats, taking off our walking shoes and getting bits and bobs out of our packs, but we all quickly packed up in case we needed to move. Some of the crowd migrated to where we were and we all looked at each other questioningly. My kids will probably tell me I should have scarpered, but I asked one particularly worried-looking lady if everything was ok. No, no, no. She answered her phone and disappeared and soon there were just a handful of men left standing around. I really felt for the children who were literally dragged through this experience – and whatever had preceded it.

There are more types of pilgrims that I didnt introduce you to yesterday.

Firstly is the sort who gets sick and doesn’t take a private room, but shares their gastro bug with everyone in a communal dorm. I have to really make an effort to be kind to them, even as I try to maintain as much distance as possible between us.

There is another sort that some nights I wish would take a private room too. The Snorers.
(For maximum effect, turn up your volume to as high as it will go before hitting PLAY……and make sure you play the recordings for at least a few hours)

Snoring videos x2! The pig and the chorus

There is a more amiable kind of pilgrim…although initially I thought it was one of those crowds of pilgrims who get dropped off by bus to just walk short sections when I heard a mob descending on me this morning.

Invariably they tend to be Spanish, they walk fast and they chatter constantly. But this lot were not the bussing sort. I know, because I got into conversation with three of the ladies. This group of about twenty is a group of friends from Barcelona, who walk three stages together every year, booking hotel rooms months in advance. They started in Saint Jean-Pied-de-Port and will take about twelve years to get to Santiago de Compostela! Today was the first day of this year´s adventure and they were most excited to be walking again. They left Navarrete and probably saw the same things I did:

I am not sure if they tried the gate to the cemetery at the edge of town and went in – more likely they just admired the enclosure and walked on. The facade was moved in the 1800s from the ruins of the pilgrim hospital at the edge of town that I posted yesterday.

They will have seen the grape vines for sure. This is La Rioja and there is no missing them.

And they saw Ventosa, where I have stopped. Some of them walked up to the church, others just had a snack in the bar and then waved goodbye as they continued on their way

There is another pilgrim I would like to introduce you to. She will be 75 in July and is celebrating LIFE by walking a camino. She started yesterday and sat opposite me at dinner the night before. Three years ago she had a brain aneurysm and had surgery that apparently only 9% of people come through. She had to learn everything from scratch, and did not expect to walk again, but here she is, determined to make it to Santiago.

There is another sort of pilgrim too, almost the opposite to her. It’s the American lady, who never walks anywhere at home, and decided walking a camino sounded like a lot of fun. She is delighted that she has done 100 miles and only taken a bus twice, and today was trying to catch another bus to Burgos instead of walking there – she’s going to spend a week being a tourist and staying in a hotel. She has had enough camino!

There were two pilgrims I had to say goodbye to today, which was a little disappointing. Due to injury we were all walking short stages and had enjoyed spending evenings together, and expected to continue at least until one of them recovered and went ahead. But today I was the only one to get a bed in this town and they had to taxi on a couple of towns to available accommodation. No more German conversations, at least not with them (it was our only common language, although the Belgian lady speaks Flemish, Dutch, German, English, French and some Spanish!)

Dinner

Getting to the walk added a few first world concerns I would not have encountered if I’d stayed home. I wouldn’t have fallen asleep on the floor in Singapore and then woken to discover the departure gate had been changed, requiring a top speed race from one end of the terminal to the other (and it’s much bigger than Auckland!) I arrived just in time to walk straight through security, onto the plane and they shut the door behind me.

If I’d stayed home I wouldn’t have had the excitement of pretty significant turbulence that even required the staff to buckle up for a while. Being on a flight with people letting out involuntary gasps (and the dramatic ones squealing), with drinks spilling and the landing bouncing along the runway is up there with roller coaster rides as far as I’m concerned. Firmly on my Do Not Do This Ever Again list.

If I’d stayed home I wouldn’t have been standing in front of a sign which pointed one way to my departure gate in Istanbul and the opposite way to a short connection time security screening. Having only an hour felt tight to me, but I didn’t know if that officially constituted “short”. I took the risk and found myself with what seemed like half the folks from our totally full plane, some with only 10 minutes to make their flight, others trying to push themselves to the front of the queue, everyone emanating concern.

If I’d stayed home I wouldn’t have been one of the first at the baggage carousel…and I wouldn’t have been the last one left standing there when it stopped either. I might have made it to Madrid, but the box I packed with my hiking poles, pocket knife, nail clippers and a big bag of homemade muesli didn’t make it past Istanbul. Fingers crossed we’ll be reunited.

If I’d stayed home I wouldn’t have got to go to the Free Art Gallery today. Hmmm. Due to taking Quite Some Time to locate my box and file a report I didn’t get to go to the art gallery even though I was so close.

If I’d stayed home I wouldn’t have received a message from my empathetic son saying how he’d been feeling sad all day for me going away on my own. Any ideas on how to explain that this is a treat?

If I’d stayed home I wouldn’t have got to marvel at the mountains of northern Greece still topped with snow or the deep blue of the sea surrounding southern Italy or the patchwork of Spanish fields in every shade of green you can imagine interspersed with some bright yellow ones and newly-ploughed brown ones stretching out to the horizon which was marked by more hills still holding on to the recent snow.

If I’d stayed home I wouldn’t have got to ask the man at the information desk if I needed to buy a ticket (I had a vague recollection that you could travel for free on the train from the airport if you had a ticket for another journey, but I didn’t want to try it out and discover I was wrong!) It felt satisfying to have him answer in Spanish rather than think, “She may have asked in Spanish, but we’ll get this done much quicker if I just answer her in English”. Ditto for the security guard who came to my assistance when I must have been looking as lost as I actually was, trying to find where the train left from.

If I’d stayed home I wouldn’t have been typing this on a train speeding through the constantly changing countryside complete with castle and windmills at 2:30 in the morning NZ time two days after I’d left. Given how long it’s been, I’m feeling surprisingly chipper if you overlook the constant yawning and urge to close my eyes right now. I will certainly be ready to curl up on my bunk in five or six hours, grateful to have made it to Pamplona.

PS I fell asleep on the train and when I woke it was raining. For half a second I considered taking a taxi to the albergue, but I donned my raincoat and as I walked up the hill to the albergue church bells rang out heralding (in my head) the beginning of my walk.

There are many types of pilgrims.
I met one the other day, who I know is not walking today. She refuses to walk in the rain – only sunny days for her.

There are pilgrims who walk with a little day pack and send their main bag to their evening´s accommodation – you should see what they pull out of those big bags…pajamas, hair dryers, as many cosmetics as the pharmacy stocks!

There are some pilgrims whose packs look pretty uncomfortable on their backs

There is a French guy who sleeps out most nights and is carrying a sleeping mat, an enormous pot and a heavy-duty oven rack to grill food over a fire.

There is someone – and it may not be pilgrims – who has been stealing the tiles off the mojons that show the way

There are some pilgrims who don’t use these signs, or the ones on the ground anyway…it seems a little bit of a pity…some of the fun is looking for the markers and noticing what is around them. This morning I followed two guys, who stood right beside a big mark like this on the ground…

…and promptly set off in the opposite direction. In some ways it didńt matter because a few meters later the phones that their noses were stuck in must have told them they were going the wrong way and they turned around! I am not against using maps on your phone and in fact have done so quite a bit on this camino to find the nearest grocery store and limit my walking, but it seems each walk through each city will seem the same if you are just following a line on your phone and not looking around.

Not that there was much to see from under a hood this morning

Mind you, when the sun comes out everything seems better

There are pilgrims who stress about booking a bed. There are pilgrims who brag about how far they have walked today and where they will be going tomorrow. There are pilgrims who seem to think that the way they are doing the camino is the only right way and they tell you when you should take a bus because it will be boring and which places you should skip. There are other pilgrims who walk Every Single Step.

Today I discovered a new type of hospitalero too. In my experience, those who volunteer in the albergues are the most friendly souls around, doing all they can to enhance the experience of the pilgrims in their care. And then there is the one we have today. He did not greet us. He just told us to come inside, put our shoes on the shelf and listen carefully. He then proceeded to tell us what we can and cannot do. Now don’t get me wrong, there was nothing unreasonable in what he was saying – mop the shower after you use it, wash, dry and put away your dishes, stop cooking by 9:30, be out by 8 in the morning, don’t hang your clothes in the kitchen, use a bowl when you wash your clothes etc etc. And I made two mistakes immediately…asked if two bottom bunks could be given to the couple who must be in their eighties (NO! One up, one down)…and I did not have an official credential…just my homemade one. In the end he accepted it, but did not give me an official stamp!

Now having said all that it sounds like he is a grumpy old fart…but in the afternoon I made it my goal to make HIM feel seen, and I discovered he had a very interesting life story (which I have not got permission to share) and he became quite tender as he shared what God has done in his life…and he encouraged those of us who were chatting with him to walk alone and ask God what He wants to say to us on our camino.

Twenty minutes until lights out and I suspect it will be strictly enforced so I will just throw up some pictures of an amazing dinner and the church here that I knew I had to see (I actually went to mass this evening…maybe that is something to write about one day – i have gone three times in the last three days)

Dinner

Church

Incidentally when I was in the church I heard a tremendous crash and wondered what was happening. Turned out to be a thunderstorm!

Mr Rules just came in to the kitchen and I thought I would put him at ease by saying “we will be gone in fifteen minutes” (therés a French guy chatting on the phone
with his wife in here too) “No no no, you can stay as long as you like. You will be quiet. Please turn the light off when you finish.” Then he came over to me with arms outstretched and asked, “May I?”
As he gave me a hug, he thanked me for the conversation this afternoon and blessed me on my way. I hope he was blessed too.

Now Mr French man has gone to bed, so I will turn out the light and creep up to the dorm too.

Daily videos:

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5:15am I ping awake with the first buzz of someone’s alarm. They do not wake, and I do not go back to sleep. 5:30 and the alarm goes again. By the third or fourth buzz, the owner fumbles for her phone. 5:45 she starts rattling plastic bags and who.knows.what.else and I decide to get up.

By the time I get outside I have stopped grumbling inside about how she shouldn’t have set an alarm if she wasnt going to get up and that when everyone else was still asleep she should have taken all her gear into a common space to rattle around with!

By the time I reach the city limits the sun is rising

There is a lot of crossing over and under roads

Although most of the walk was near roads, it was still ruralish

Logroño appeared over the hill and I noticed the tall buildings dwarf the cathedral which surely once would have been the tallest part of the skyline.

Speaking of the cathedral….soaring heights….

And the church the albergue is affiliated with, complete with the Santiago cross stained glass window, hosts pilgrim prayers each evening.

One and a half hours before the albergue opens half of the 30 beds are already taken…we have all heard this is a great one, and because reservations are not allowed, you have to queue. In true pilgrim spirit we offer to watch the bags of those who turn up starving and want to go and find food before everything closes at 2 when we can check in. Where else in the world would you entrust a full backpack to total strangers?

On this Camino, in order to limit my walking I am trying to not walk around too much at the end of the day, but in Logroño I wanted to see the Plaza where there is a giant version of the board game I am cross stitching. I didn’t even have to look for it… I stumbled across it….right next to the albergue!

And when I nipped up the road to the supermarket (given that dinner will not be served until 8pm, which admittedly is early for Spain)….

And one bizarre video

Video car wash

Today is ANZAC Day in New Zealand and Australia, a day which was originally intended to commemorate those from the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps who served in Gallipoli, but now remembers more widely all those who have served to keep peace. The symbol associated with the day is the poppy….you know I needed no encouragement to take poppy pictures. I started the day with an Australian mother and son who thought an ANZAC picture would be appropriate

Then I decided to take pictures whenever I saw poppies.

Most of the way today was through fields; there was just one village, and that was under a kilometer from the start.

Next stop, 12km later was Viana

Right next to the albergue are the ruins of San Pedro

Video starting in alley

Even the view from my room is impressive:

And the view from behind the albergue even better.

Vídeo panorama from lookout

Showers were put off until later today – as soon as we had made our beds, three of us (two kiwis, both homeschooling mums of many children who have just finished that work, and a Belgian) went out for lunch and picked up an American gentleman they had walked with previously. It was relaxing to be speaking English.

We tried to invite the man in the background to join us but he was reluctant.

I generally have a rule that I should not blog about things that haven’t happened yet, but this time I will break it! We walked around town after lunch, which included looking in awe at the church – and are planning to go back tonight for the Pilgrims’ Mass so we can see inside.

While I go for my shower, I’ll leave you with some artwork from around the albergue to appreciate.

And another

Last one

A short day called for some imaginative blogging, so I decided to turn Strava on and every time Mrs Strava announced I had gone another kilometre I took a photo or two of wherever I was. I thought it seemed fair to show not only the beautiful vistas from the top of each hill, but the less than pretty too.

At 650m I saw this reasonably ugly view and snapped a pic even though it was not yet 1km:

Later an Australian couple would catch me up and fall in step to chat. We were still together when Mrs Strava made the next announcement so I explained what I was doing. They admitted they had wondered what on earth I was doing photographing the power station! Now it made sense.

1km:

2km:

3km:

4km:

Just because…

5km:

6km:

And just around the bend

6.8km:

And I have arrived in Sansol

There are some touches of beauty…

I have the whole day stretching ahead of me. I had hoped the bar would be a place I could sit and write and blog out of the cold (7 degrees), and it is….kind of….

I sit in this spot mostly protected from the wind, being warmed by the sun, getting occasional whiffs from the Estrella empties, drinking a cola cao, and eventually eating my lunch purchased in the teeny tiny tienda

A young guy rides up on a motorbike….

…balancing a great portion of tree trunk between his legs. A friend helps him carry it to the shelter where I am sitting and he starts chopping.

Vídeo woodchopping

After an hour or so I am quite curious and ask him what he’s up to. He’s making a cube with a hole to store his ax in. He happily lets me photograph his ax, which to me seems an interesting tool to be trying to make a straight-sided object with.

Another hour later I buy him a Kas Naranja and he is both surprised and grateful.

A final hour of chipping away and he packs up for now. He comes over to say goodbye and explains he lives in the village. I ask when he will finish. Not today!

Finally I take a gamble on the Albergue being open. It is so different to last night!

The hospitalero was kind and attentive, urging me to shower and do washing immediately. He would take money later – and even then will take only half what last night’s lady took! I was the only person who signed up for the communal dinner, so understandably he didn’t cook for one. He suggested I patronise the local bar “because it is sad to eat alone”. Given that he was at the bar having a coffee when I arrived, I felt compelled to NOT take a table by myself and so had a fascinating couple of hours with Sup from South Korea, who at 23 has just finished his 21 months of compulsory military service in the Air Force. He was probably as surprised as my family will be to hear I know what to say at a Korean drinking game!! Geonbae! Saying kom-be is close enough for a Korean to know what you are on about.

And with that, I should hit PUBLISH and climb into my sleeping bag.

This was just the sign I didnt want to see when I walked up to the Municipal (read: cheap) Albergue a couple of hours after it had opened. I keenly remembered staying here in 2014. We had breezed into the church, which to be honest seemed Awfully Gold, and sat in the plaza under umbrellas having a special restaurant meal instead of our usual cook.for.ourselves routine, because it was our youngest´s eighth birthday.
Today could not have been more different. It was cold. Oh so cold. It rained almost all day. The church was closed. The umbrellas were down. The tables and chairs packed away. And the albergue, a very nice one by all means, was full.
So I had to pay twice as much to the hostess in her dressing gown for a bed so close to the next one that our backpacks barely fit in between them. The hostel is grubby and messy with bits and bobs scattered everywhere. And cold. Oh so cold.
Three middle.aged Italian guys sat babbling their bellissima language at the dining table as I journaled and then they dragged me into the conversation with some halting English. “You like here?” I hesitated half a second and they babbled some more, something I imagine like “See, we knew it was an awful place, didnt I tell you just that? It is not just us, she agrees!” We all agreed, though, that it was good to have a bed, even if it was overpriced, and for all of us it was the first bed that was not really so pleasant.

The hosts from last night´s accommodation had invited me to a praise and prayer meeting they were having with their team this morning and I had decided to go. This meant a quick car ride to a neighbouring village (which handily enough was right on the camino path of another variant, so I would be able to walk straight from there after the meeting)
Part of me was tempted NOT to join them because I knew I didnt have a booking, but I figured that 70 beds in the Municipal Albergue would be plenty. Perhaps more importantly, I knew rain was forecast for the afternoon and I would not start walking until noon. But I joined the meeting.

So there are no photos from the beginning of today´s walk where the path was just wider than a (literal) foot and totally overgrown by grass. Said feet were sodden in seconds.

But I took a few photos whenever the rain stopped.

A quick video when it was only drizzling

Video flowers on verge

And the closed church

Not every day can be a blue.sky.day!

The Day:

The Art

The wine fountain

The arches

The hill

The Path

The Bounce feature on the phone

Video yellow flowers

The albergue

The Videos

Vídeo river

Vídeo Monjardín

3.8km is the guidebook distance between Villatuerta and Estella.
I knew I wanted to look around this town and so I made it my endpoint for the day. I’m staying at the same Albergue as ten years ago and somewhat surprisingly the very same hospitalero is on duty! He volunteers in a number of albergues along the camino for a few weeks each year and happens to be doing a stint here again. I certainly don’t always remember who has served at a place, but someone with a tracheostomy tube is memorable!

I haven’t recorded much about the people I’ve met, but today is unique in that there are three Poles…my language brain got a bit muddled trying to separate Spanish, Polish and German. Took me three tries to find the word for “yes” – not exactly a difficult one!! However, after a few sentences, it’s surprising what can still be found in the filing system even after more than thirty years.

But I guess you want to see some pictures. The morning light was so nice it took us a long time to make any progress, because we were stopping for photos so often and to try to find the birds that were chirping cheerily. Us? An American lady, an Australian lady and a honeymooning couple from the USA and Puerto Rico. All first time walkers, who were in awe every step of the way!

Estella is a town where whichever way you look you will be seeing an enormously old church. The first one is right on the edge of town and had us oohing and aahing. Unfortunately, as is often the case, it was closed, but the outside alone told a story.

Not expecting shops to be open we had all purchased provisions yesterday, yet the smell of a bakery drew us through the streets. We each went our separate ways, and I believe I hit the jackpot. One with just pastries and one that specialised in bread.

Walking round – off the camino path, but still with my backpack on – so many folks helpfully pointed out where I needed to go to get back on the path.

Knowing I could not do a huge distance today, I decided the prudent thing would be to check where my accommodation was even though it would not open for three hours. Rather handily it was right opposite yet another church. This one was sopen. An elderly gentlemen was sitting in what seemed to be the prime spot under the organ pipes so I asked him if there was going to be a mass. Yes, in half an hour. I wandered around for a while and then found the second best spot by a heating vent on the floor and settled down to wait, curious whether the week in the monastery would have made the service more accessible to me. Yes and no. It turns out the nuns spoke and chanted very slowly. I could recite the Lord’s Prayer with them without any trouble at all by the end of the week, but boy did they race through it this morning! I knew what was being said, but could not keep up. I did, however, know which allelujahs to sing and some of the responses…and I know that every time you hear “forever and ever”. (which sounds so much better in Spanish – it rolls off the tongue – por siglos de los siglos), you get to say Amén!

While I was wandering I happened to be standing right under the bell tower when the bells started ringing. When they were still going after three minutes I popped outside to get a second video of the day!

Inside:

Video inside church

Outside:

Video bells