El Camino de Santiago de Compostela
Los peregrinos - The pilgrims
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The scallop symbol of el Camino
Mid September, four of us Donne, Mary Ann, Anne and myself
took the long trip to Paris, jumped on the TGV (French train system ) and
eventually ended in St Jean Pied de
Port, for the start of the Camino Frances
A journey of some 800 kms over the Pyrenees and across the north
of Spain, following a well trodden and
waymarked path some eight centuries old. We had planned and trained for this
for some months and was blessed by sunny weather for the start of our journey.
The scenery through this mountainous area, is reminiscent of NZ high
country pasture with rock outcrops and meadows with stands of beech forests. To
ease us in slowly I had planned a relatively easy first 10 days averaging 15
kms per day with just 8kms for the first
day as it was all uphill. On our first
day, despite the strenuous 8 km climb, we arrived well before lunch, stayed at a mountain lodge at
Orisson, still in French territory. There
were probably forty odd pilgrims that night and we briefly introduced ourselves
after a community meal, so a great spirit of camaraderie was formed and many of
those we met that night we would meet again along the way.
The second day was an equally strenuous climb up to the pass
and an equally steep and long descent into Roncesvalles on the Spanish side of
the border. Roncesvalles has a new albergue ( hostel ). The
dormitories are capable of sleeping over a hundred pilgrims .
The pilgrim meal in an a nearby hotel for 9 euros was great
as we were starving after a full day walk . Two little trout per person
for the main course was a treat. It was also the season for walnuts and the
grounds of the albergue had a mature walnut tree next to the laundry line with
any amount of walnuts for the picking off the ground.
The next few days were uneventful but pleasant as we found
our rhythm and settled down to life as a pilgrim getting up at daybreak and
tucking into a quick breakfast before hitting the road. Afternoons were spent
in doing personal laundry and resting our weary limbs. For the more energetic a
short exploration of the village or town we happened to be in was a pleasant
way to fill in the hours before sunset.
We attended evening masses whenever they were available and
while we did not understand a word of the readings we were familiar enough with
the format to soon figure out what was being said.
Look, hands free umbrella
Day four was quite an eventful day as Donne fell heavily and
‘ twisted’ her ankle, She managed to
hobble a kilometre to the nearest road while Anne and I went ahead to the
nearest village to organise a taxi to pick her up. We were then some 19 kms from Pamplona, the
town made famous by Hemingway and also for the annual running of the bulls.
Took Donne to Pamplona,
found a
decent hotel with a lift and within walking distance of the old city,
found her a pair of crutches so she
could at least move short distances by herself.
As it happened virtually across the road from the hotel was a shop
specialising in orthopaedic equipment and we bought a pair of crutches for 40
euros which is still serving her now,
some two months later. (Hopefully she will wean herself off them soon).
As an engineer I dislike coincidences and if you were to look for a common shop say a supermarket or a newstand in
a strange town it probably will take you 15 minutes to find one a couple of
blocks away on average. A shop that sells say acupuncture needles or marine
chandlery is considerably rarer and if you did not know where to go it is
pointless walking round in circles. Where would you place a shop that
specialised in wheelchairs , patella supports, knee straps, crutches etc.
Certainly on the same street, across the road was too good to be true. Think of your own city, do you know where to
go to get a pair of crutches and how far away is it. I experienced this uncanny
luck not once but on a number of occasions.
Met a hostel owner later, somewhere along the way, who told
me that if your friend fell and broke her leg, she was not meant to complete
the Camino this time. If you are meant to complete it , the means will be
provided.
Our daily routine
changed as we then needed to arrange transport each day for Donne to our
anticipated destination, and we needed to ring ahead to make sure that there
was suitable accommodation for her, ( no three storey high rooms with no
lifts). We did this for the better part of a week thinking that the ankle would
eventually get better and she would be able to gradually partake of the walk.
However after 5 days when there was no
improvement we decided that it was best to visit a hospital and we did this in
Logroño.
The good news is the public health care system in Logrono is
excellent while there was a wait it was not for too many hours and they managed
to find a South American doctor that spoke English.
The bad news was the X rays showed the leg was broken in two
places, both the Tibia and the Fibula were broken and an operation was required
to pin them back. The surgeon gave her two choices, operate in Spain right away
or put her in a temporary cast and put her on a plane back to NZ. After some
thought she decided to take the latter as language and home support would be better
in NZ . So the next day and a half was spent contacting the Travel Insurance
company, transmitting and receiving forms documentation, air travel arrangement
etc and finally putting her onto a 5 hour taxi ride to Barcelona and then a
very long flight back to NZ. Amazingly
there was no charge for all the work done in the hospital in Logrono.
Anne walking backwards down hill, Leo walking forwards.
Some what subdued, we continued our journey wondering what
was in store ahead for us three. We soon reached La Rioja the land of red wine and we walked
for several days through vineyards laden with round sweet black grapes all
waiting to be harvested, during those days it was easy to quench your hunger or
thirst as sweet juicy grapes were just a stone’s throw away.
These gave way to olive orchards and while these were laden
with olives we knew they were not suitable for eating off the trees. However some kind souls had planted almond trees along the
Way and there were any amount of almonds for the taking if you could be
bothered to sit down and crack them with a stone.
n these early days the climate was still warm and hot by
early afternoon. Still we plodded on and it wasn’t long before we were in the
Mesetas, long treeless days across stony fields, now brown after the wheat was
harvested.
One of the many delights on the Camino was sharing a common
journey with strangers with a common purpose from literally all walks of life.
We met pilgrims from far flung Iceland, China, Peru and they considered us just as exotic from far off NZ. Approximately half the pilgrims were Spanish
and there were a surprising number of Koreans on the Way. The Camino is gaining
popularity once again after it faded in the 15th century and latest
figures will probably show that almost a quarter of a million pilgrims took
part in the journey this year. However this pales against the half million in
the 12th Century.
A surprising number of pilgrims were doing it for the second
time and some were multiple times pilgrims. Perhaps there is some truth in the
french word ‘coquine’ which means cheeky but is derived from the french word
coquille which means Seashell. All pilgrims wear a Scallop shell to denote that
they are pilgrims and this entitles them to special discounts and even free
food and lodging in some places.
We were now well into October and the farmers were
frantically harvesting their various crops, olive harvesting machines, grape
harvesters, maize combine harvesters and hay baling machines could be seen
charging around. Then the skies opened one afternoon and torrential rain and
wind swept across the plains of Spain. Our packs stayed dry under our ponchos and we had all our
clothes in waterproof pouches as well inside so it was not too bad although
from the knees down everything was drenched.
Most pilgrims wear some form of
walking or hiking shoes with socks and these became squelching footwear under
these conditions. The Teva Sandals which I wore for the entire Camino were in
their element. No socks to get wet and built for wading through streams they
were just as non skid in the wet.
Most of the villages we passed through or stayed
in, would have a resident population of less than a thousand. These farming
villages were built at a time when labour was needed to work the farms and
hence the size of the villages and their respective churches. With
industrialization, the young have drifted away in search of work and only the
old are left behind. We hardly saw any children or babies. Eventually only those directly involved with
farming and or serving pilgrims would remain.
A much needed lunch and toilet break. No public toilets in the whole way.
As we got nearer to Santiago de Compostela our end point, we
were also approaching the end of Autumn and there was a decided chill in the
air. The number of pilgrims were less
and a number of dormitories were shutting for the season.
Leon is the largest city on the Camino, a bustling town of
perhaps 200,000 residents and we decided not to run the risk of walking along
side the busy roads into and out of the city, so like many other pilgrims we
jumped onto a bus for the last 20 kms into town and did likewise when we left.
West of Leon is a range of mountains known as Montes de Leon
and with such an innocuous name we paid little attention to it. The climb up
was gentle enough but with autumn comes inclement weather and we had a couple
of wet blustery days that made walking less pleasant.
The descent was another story altogether, steep and narrow down a
watercourse which was running due to the earlier rains it was treacherous and
slow going. The scenery was spectacular though, with mature
oaks and chestnut trees and with the autumn rains, mushrooms were sprouting
everywhere. There were also meadows of
wild crocus flowers providing a violet polka dot on a green carpet.
As a
foreigner we shied away from trying the wild mushrooms as we had no idea which
ones were edible but we saw many locals collecting and we were fortunate one
morning to be sitting down with a local pilgrim that had collected a bagful of
mushrooms and had them fried up for morning tea
in an omelette. They were indeed
scrumptious. We saw signs of wild boar rooting around, no doubt for
other edible roots or perhaps even truffle.
The descent took us eventually to the town of Ponferrada
where we met up with Lawrence (Anne’s brother) His teaching schedule allowed
him to join us for the last 200km and we were happy to see him , Anne
especially so as he brought an additional 200 Dilmah teabags for her.
The oat and wheat fields of the meseta were now behind us
and with the rolling hills farmers were mainly grazing cattle for milk to make
into local cheeses. These cattle are shifted daily from their pasture back to
their milking shed along the
Camino. In this area the paths are often
cobbled and usually sandwiched between two ancient stonewalls. So when faced with an advancing herd of
drooling cattle there is little one can do but stand still and allow them to
squeeze past. Pilgrims from a rural background are used to large beasts but
some of the Korean girls from Seoul were freaking out at the close encounter.
Just one last mountain range stood between us and Galicia
and our destination , Santiago de Compostela.
The pasture gave way to oak and chestnut forests, and as our timing was
perfect, it was chestnut harvest time, so the forests were literally raining
chestnuts. We had no means to roast them so Anne took to eating them raw and
said they were delicious, personally I prefer them roasted.
We had read that it often rains in this area as the Atlantic
weather systems roll in and dump on the Galician mountains but we had a week of
spectacular summer weather in late Autumn, so
unusual was it that it featured in the evening news for several days.
By now our legs and back had gotten use to the daily grind
and often you would walk without noticing that you were carrying a backpack. In
this area as it is more hilly, enterprising locals offer horses, to assist with the journey. They add quite a
bit of colour to the Way and also by way
of their droppings. We saw donkeys as well, but these were used only to carry
the backpacks not the pilgrims.
We met an Irish nun belonging to the Poor Clares the
complementary order to the Franciscans and she was walking in a full brown
heavy habit. So many of the clergy now travel in mufti that you would not be
able to tell them apart from the laity. As her pace was as slow as ours we saw
her on several occasions and eventually in Santiago as well. Where there were
convents she would stay with the convents but in many towns there were not and
she would stay in Albergues or Xuntas as they are called in this region. We
dined one evening in the same café/restaurant that she did and later she told
us that when she went to pay someone else had paid her bill. What a lovely gesture.
The spirit of the Camino is indeed alive and I could relate
half a dozen other stories on the same vein.
Hooray, the last 100 kms. A sign we looked forward with great longing. The end is near.
Galicia is colder and wetter than the rest of Spain, it is
also closer to the sea. So hearty soups and seafood are a feature of this area.
Caldo Galicia is a thick soup of cabbage and potatoes boiled until both have
become nearly mush. It doesn’t sound like much but is surprisingly tasty and
certainly warms you up after a long hard cold day. Another specialty in this
area is Pulpo a Feira, boiled Octopus, sliced and sprinkled generously with
olive oil and paprika. The trick is somehow they are able to get the Octopus
tender.
Spanish is a surprisingly orderly language and unlike
English the rules once followed have few exceptions. It is much easier to
listen to and decipher than French and so if a new word is spoken to you, even
if you do not understand it you could spell it reasonably comfortably and
therefore look it up. As we were going
to be in Spain for a couple of months my Plan A was to get Donne to do Spanish
as a subject as part of her course at Auckland University. Since she
unfortunately fell and left us
Plan B was to buy a Spanish Dictionary which I did at a second hand book fair
for 6 euros and swot up in the evenings. Surprisingly most of the villagers,
despite catering to thousands of pilgrims speak little English so a little
Spanish is essential to ask for accommodation, directions and to order drinks
and meals. Bus tickets are better as most counter staff speak some English.
Necessity is a wonderful teacher and while I still need to work on my
conjugations with my verb endings I now have enough vocabulary to be understood
and to comprehend all things pertaining to tourism and travel. It's handy when Anne
asks you to translate the menu and the item happens to be morcilla (blood
pudding) or callo (tripe) two rather popular items on the Spanish menu.
The last 100 kms into Santiago is also the most crowded .
Throngs of pilgrims just walk the last 100kms. Many fly into Santiago and bus
out to Sarria, and walk back into Santiago. Why 100kms? The Confratenity of St
James awards a certificate to pilgrims that have walked the last 100kms or
cycled the last 200kms.
From 5 kms away, on Mont de Gozo one can catch a glimpse of
the great Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela and soon one is walking alongside
highways into the great city. At noon each day there is a pilgrim mass where
they read out the countries that the pilgrims have come from and their
respective starting points.
Once a week on Friday and on Feast days and Holy Days they
re-enact the tradition of fumigating the Cathedral with incense. Six men hoist
a giant incense burner (botafumeiro) and this is swung in a huge pendulum over
the heads of the pilgrims from nave to nave. The tradition stems from a bygone
era when pilgrims did not wash or had little opportunity to do so and the stench
in the cathedral was unbearable. The
stone columns of the Nave are stained black from centuries of smoke from this
activity.
We stayed for four nights in the Hospitaleria St Martins,
directly opposite the Cathedral across a square. Once it was a major seminary now a hotel for pilgrims and
tourists. It was also All Saints Day and
the Cathedral was packed for every mass. A day after we arrived the heavens
open and it rained for several days with snow to low levels. Our hearts went
out to the pilgrims caught in the mountains we had just left.
Our walking pilgrimage now over we hired a car to explore
the area and to visit Cape Finisterre where legend has it that the body of St
James was brought ashore, many purists pilgrim walk the last 88kms to Cape Finisterre
and indeed we saw a number on the road as we drove along.
One final ritual of the 21st century. Mary Ann
and Anne went to weigh themselves in a local pharmacy. I wasn’t party to the
‘before’ weight and likewise the ‘after’
weight.
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