Camino Day 7: Villamayor, Torres del Rio, and rain

Impending rain, from a rooftop albergue room in Villamayor

For the first few days, the heat and sunshine was intense. 

Now, in northern Spain, the weather is changing.  I thought I would have been glad for clouds and cold weather, until it dropped to about 50 degrees (or maybe lower - it felt lower) with rain squalls and gusty wind.  The farmers' vineyards and olive groves are surely happy for the rain - we're in wine-and-olive country now, and the soil already looks parched.  Some of the farmers here already have their first cutting of hay baled in the fields, even though it's only April:

Those are black-plastic-wrapped rows of bales, a first-cutting harvest that's a full two months earlier here than at home.   That stormy sky turned menacing,  along a 12 km stretch of road between Villamayor and Los Arcos with no services and not so much as a single hut, though there were some lovely wetlands and rolling hills.

Speaking of wine country and wine, apparently this region of Spain is quite famous for its red wine, and one particular vineyard - the Irache Monastery - is famous for giving away wine to pilgrims for free.  Yesterday passed the much-talked-about FREE WINE FOUNTAIN, which had been discussed on the trail for several kilometers in anticipation leading up to this point.  (Several, several kilometers.  While many of us are listening to music while walking, that doesn't change the fact that it's just... a lot of walking.  At the start I thought camino-walkers were just friendly, for striking up conversations with everyone they passed.  Now I think it's sheer boredom.  I've begun to feel the same desperation, when kilometers pass without a soul in sight and then you hear the clatter of walking sticks and think delightedly, "Ah!  Someone's passing me!  How exciting!" And if it's another solo walker, you meet each other's eyes and say with a sort of frantic need for distraction, "BUEN CAMINO!  Where are you from?!" Today I met a very friendly Italian man who spoke barely any English but did speak German, because he's working in Stuttgart, and he recommended another long-distance walk - the 300 km 'Strasse Romantico' that leads to Neuschwanstein Palace.)  Anyway, shortly after the 100 kilmeter mark - a marker which at first I found heartening, until I then realized it meant there was 700 km to go - came the Irache Wine Fountain.  It's a very elegant setup on the monastery's wall outside, with two metal spigots.  One dispenses water; the other, wine.

  A sign begs for restraint, saying the fountain is stocked with only 100 liters a day so please indulge modestly, that other pilgrims may enjoy their taste.  But no one monitors how much you take.  I put a few generous swallows in my water bottle, to save for later:
 

(I later enjoyed it in a freezing-cold attic room with two Lithuanians and a Frenchman and another guy, after the Lithuanians gave me antiseptic and taught me how to string thread through a blister)  (It was... not bad wine).

Toward the end of that day's walk, I came upon the most magical spot yet.  It was after a rain squall, and the trail was deserted.  I'd heard about the 'Fuente de los Moros' ruins, an old water source rumored to be from the Moors but possibly much older, but I wasn't paying much attention.  I was mostly just sodden and cold and my feet hurt from the blisters and I was worried I wouldn't get a bed in the upcoming town of Villamayor, because there were only 2 small albergues and NOBODY would want to continue through that desolate 12 km stretch in weather like this, so everybody would be stopping.  Then I turned the corner, and directly beside the trail - which must be an ancient trail indeed, if a Moor water source was built alongside it - was this:
 

Quite solid-looking despite its weathered stones, which are growing moss on closer inspection.  And from inside in the shadows - behind those arches - came a gentle, mysterious trickling.  The inside had steps leading down - old, worn stone steps - and they descended straight into a pool of water, with an old sort of cistern submerged in the center, and goldfish living in the pool.  Goldfish.  Just living in this ancient moorish water source, all year round, while it seeps softly from a hole in the back wall, day and night. 
 

Such a simple building - three solid walls, with steps from left to right, flush with the walls on both sides, and that cistern centered in the water, and arches looking out across the hillside above. 

So symmetrical and focused.  One of the most beautiful spaces I've ever been in, even after all our fancy modern architecture lessons and field trips to modern spaces.  Stone.  Trickling water.  Goldfish.  Worn steps.  Descent underground.  And this feeling of eternity, the echo amplifying that trickling that never stops. 

Anyway, after seeing this I got one of the last beds available in Villamayor, just before a rain squall.  I climbed to the attic loft.  I unrolled my sleeping bag on a bed, beside two Lithuanians.  Then I limped to the grocery store, and then limped to the small village church, and I sat in the empty dark alone with gray light trickling through slit windows... and wept.  It had been years since I cried.  This was a helpless sort of crying, and when the church-tender came in to trim the candles I think I scared him.  But I couldn't stop.  Helplessness, how I hate it.  I hate being in pain, and I hate not being in control, and I hate relying on others, and I hate being poor.  I think I got the very last bed in Villamayor; all the walkers arriving after me had to continue on, or buy a taxi.  I could not have continued on, not 12 km to the next town.  And I don't have money for a taxi, not if I want to last 7 weeks here with what little I have saved.  So I cried alone in a dark church, and bowed my head and felt embarrassed for crying, and sent up a prayer of gratitude and apology to a god that might be listening. 

I'm sorry for thinking this would be easy.

Walking.  Just walking.  I'd arrived thinking a pilgrimage would be nothing.  A cheap way to see the country, not a trial at all.  Blisters aren't even a serious injury, and already the fear of being unable to continue - the vividness of having only your own body for transport, and the terror of being left stranded should your own body fail - had me humbled and ashamed.  I'd seen so many others limping, in so much more pain than me.

Anyway.  I thanked the hostel owner for the lovely pink-sheeted bed in the attic, and then thanked the Lithuanian lady who helped me disinfect and thread string through my blisters with a needle:
 

Mostly, I just thanked a lot of people.  And the next day, walked about 20 km onward (on threaded blisters- it helped) to Torres del Rio.  Beautiful little hill town!  With plenty of picturesque old stone benches tucked into alleys, perfect for enjoying a 5-euro supper of canned garbanzo beans, canned sardines, bread and cheese.  

The albergue in Torres del Rio was over a bar, and when I went down to the bar to borrow a pair of scissors (to cut a new pair of insoles down to size, because I got a pharmacist's recommendation on disinfectant, moisture-wicking insoles, and blister bandages) I got the most excellent advice.  A random man was sitting there at the bar eating quiche, when I asked the bartender for tijeras, and held up my new insoles which needed cutting.  I mentioned something about my feet hurting, and blisters, and this middle-aged guy stopped eating his quiche and took one at my insoles and said very wisely, "Mira, mira".  Then- with great fanfare - he reached into his coat pocket. 

He said (in spanish) that I had to keep my feet dry, and he knew just the trick, he'd been doing this for years.  He flipped my insole over, unfolded something across the bottom, and asked if I knew what it was. 

A women's maxi pad.  Already unfolded in its wrapping, ready to be stuck to the bottom of HIS insole the following morning.  I said "si, si, por supuesto, una cosa para mujeres", and, with a secretive look around the bar to make sure no one else had seen him pulling maxi pads from his coat, he tucked it away again as several more customers came in through the door.  "Exacto," he said.  He told me to buy some of these, the thickest kind I could find, and if I could, buy the kind with wings, to wrap around the insole from below, to keep it in place.  (I will now never forget that the word 'alas' means wings in spanish, because I heard it from this man at the bar making flapping gestures with his arms as he tried to explain to me what kind of maxi pads I should buy.)  Stick the maxi pad under the insole, pad facing down, sticky side stuck to the insole, and it adds some padding to keep the ball of your foot from slipping while also absorbing moisture.  Change the maxi pad every 1-2 days, and voila.

Excellent advice from a long-walk-loving Spaniard in a bar.  The following morning at sunrise, I bought maxi pads from a small shop beside the trail, which sells them individually for just such occasions as this.

Buen Camino, 

-mlj

Camino Day 5: Uterga, after Pamplona, and blister treatment at the mercy of strangers

The village of Uterga, 16 km past Pamplona

At the moment its 22:30 pm and I'm on a couch in a small hostel in Uterga, Spain, not remotely tired because I dozed for quite a few hours earlier this evening.  I thought I wasn't a napper.  Then I lucked out and got a top bunk right by an open window, with a breeze flowing through in the heat of the day... and with a view of other sweaty pilgrims passing through on the Camino directly outside (still walking, which should have made me feel lazy), I kicked off my shoes and fell asleep.  

Pamplona was crazy last night.  Apparently they'd just won some sort of soccer game.  All night long the streets were packed with revelers and tubas blasting and marching bands leading cheering hordes of people up and down the narrow streets.  After reaching the Pamplona municipal albergue, I re-bandaged my blisters and put on my flats and limped out- gingerly - to find an ATM, and a shop with better woolen socks.  I had no choice.  I needed money, and I needed socks.  But being in the midst of a city-wide party, I felt nervous for the first time since arriving in Spain alone, because I realized - suddenly and painfully - that if necessary, I did not think I could run.  So rarely in my life have I felt like a cripple.  Once with a sprained ankle; once with stitches in my foot.  Both times it was humbling.  Now?  These are only stinging blisters, just a flesh wound, just an inconvenience.  But it's made me realize, all over again, how lucky it is to be able-bodied and able to walk without pain. 

Just to be able to walk.  So many pilgrims here are elderly, with arthritis, and chronic pain.  In truth I should be grateful. 

The municipal albergue in Pamplona was rather incredible, design-wise.  It made me think of so many architecture lessons in adaptive reuse and historic preservation; I limped around staring and drooling, admiring their retrofit.  The 'Jesus y Maria' municipal albergue is inside an old church building, near the Pamplona cathedral.  There are vaulted ceilings and echoing halls.  But the designers added colored partitions and bunks, and made it all into a two-level sleeping space, with glass catwalks on the second level so you could see people's feet passing on the floor above while you were sleeping:

Jesus y Maria municipal albergue, Pamplona

So cool!  That photo was around 2 pm, before they ran out of beds at 5 pm.  It sleeps 114.  And boy did it echo, with all those hard surfaces.  It was like an orchestra of snores.  Even I used earplugs.

The view from beside my bunk, number 49: 

8 euros for the night!
On the way out of Pamplona this morning, there were patriotic banners for the Basque country on the doors:

Partially in English?  I don't know why.  A mere publicity stunt?  But the Basque language itself is incredible, with crazy spelling, and just as crazy pronunciation (what little I've heard).  The compactness of all these cultural regions is shocking.  Coming from America - Montana in particular, where you can drive hundreds of miles without passing a town, or even a cow - it's surreal how close together such diverse languages can be.  After only 5 days of walking we've already passed from the French-language Pyrenees all the way through Basque.  Basque is 'Euskerra,' in their own language. 

I think today I walked through the exact photo on the cover of the guidebook - a dusty track leading through yellow and green fields:
 

Up to a hill crested with windmills, rows and rows of them stretching like white sentinels in both directions.  Yesterday I learned from a Spanish girl that windmill is 'molina de viento', and she referenced the Don Quixote windmill scene.  I learned that Catalan is its own separate language, which she speaks... and then after her I walked with a Ukrainian woman for the last stretch to Pamplona, and spent 4 km trying to learn phrases in Ukrainian.  Her boyfriend is walking the Northern Camino route while she walks this one, and they're meeting at the cathedral in Santigo (so romantic).  She spoke very little english or spanish and had not met a single other Ukrainian or Russian as she walked alone.  (So brave). 

Hearing her story was an excellent distraction from blisters.  Today I walked a while with a German girl who suggested threading a thread through the blister - like, with a needle - so when you walk the thread helps all the fluid drain out.  I told her that sounded like serious surgery, though I do have a sewing kit; we'll see how desperate I become.  Anyway, then we reached this ridge of windmills, and pilgrim sculptures to commemorate the climb:

 

Complete with plenty of real-life pilgrims lounging and taking in the view.  The path itself was mild and meandering and not too steep; mostly, it's just hot. 

There were literal heat waves coming up off the fields approaching Uterga.  The whole town looked like a mirage.

Now, while walking away from Pamplona - while eating fruit, and stopping at wayside cemeteries, and listening to music, and enjoying the view - I had been thinking in the back of my mind, 'if Grandma was here, she'd tell me to soak my feet in Epsom salts.'  Something to make the skin harden and turn those blisters into calluses fast.  Then, lo and behold, when I stopped at this small Uterga albergue and told the owner I had blisters, he said he had 'la solucion!' and told me to go wait in the garden.  He brought out a tub of steaming water with salt, and a carefully folded towel, and looked quite pleased when I told him my grandma would have recommended this too. 

It's amazing how hard kindness hits you, when you finally admit you need help, and it comes from a stranger.  I almost sobbed.

Perhaps it's just being vulnerable.  I'm not used to feeling vulnerable, but these blisters so soon, with the long road ahead, have done it.  I feel ripped open and raw and at the mercy of others, and lying here tonight - having encountered only kindness - I'm left with overwhelming gratitude for this small hostel owner who gave me steaming saltwater and asked for nothing, and kept me safe all afternoon in the shade of his garden. 

Buen camino, and may you always find the help you need when you need it most.

-mlj

Camino Day 2: the Pyrenees, Roncesvalles, and no blisters yet!

The Pyrenees were extraordinary.  Nothing like Montana mountains, and not very high elevation (I think just a few thousand feet?) but nonetheless it felt alpine, climbing out of St. Jean, up and up and up winding roads.  This was me before starting (so nervous, as if I might twist my ankle on the way out of town and ruin it all before walking even one of the 800 km) with trusty guidebook and travel mug of instant coffee in hand, the coffee just mixed up in the hostel sink:

It was so surreal, being able to step out the door with nothing and just... go! 
After about 10 km of the 25, there was this little cafe/wayside rest, before the French town of Orisson - a single-lane road for miles in both directions, and just a cafe perched in the foothills:

The cost of the hostel tonight in Roncesvalles was just 8 euros (Yes!) and money spent on food was 0, thanks once again to this fantastic gallon bag of oatmeal-raisin-peanut butter trail rations, and to the boiled eggs I cooked and carried.  Today the Gorp waseaten in alpine meadows:

It felt so strange and selfish to be sitting there eating alone.  Like, can we really do this?  Are we really allowed to do this?  To land in another country, and pay nothing - no entry fee, no registration - and just start to walk, and spend all day taking in the vistas of their fields and meadows?  What I cannot pay the people of Spain back in money I will pay them back in awe.  I feel lightweight and deliriously free and overwhelmed by the unexpected sense of having nothing to do but wander and observe, to see it all and really see, and when we first started out this morning, like an idiot, I was just grinning.  The few Spanish farmers I passed smiled back with knowing nods.  I think they must see this expression often, shining out of pilgrims' eyes.

That photo does not do it justice, but the slope was STEEP!  There was snow on some mountains in the distance - and all the grass we walked through was grazed quite short, by sheep and cows and lots of mountain horses.

Finally, waiting on the other side of the mountains, after a very steep 4-mile downhill through lovely forests ankle-deep in leaves, lay the town of Roncesvalles, with a whole cathedral complex containing a massive 182-bed albergue and nightly 8 pm masses for pilgrims.  I attended the mass and it was all in Spanish and I understood... maybe half?  At least I captured the bones of a very good message (all-inclusive, regardless of faith) about praying for peace and an end to violence, and about being a light and a source of peace ourselves as we traveled.  The priests described each pilgrim as a light.  Whatever path we walk, whether here or in our normal lives, every action and interaction we have casts ripples, for good or bad. 

So choose to make them good ones. 

The perfect message for the world today.  Lastly, I guess it's normal to have all pilgrims take off their shoes immediately upon entering, and store them on shelves, in side rooms, to contain the overwhelming stench.  Witness these impressive racks of hiking boots, all identically dusty after traipsing through 25 km of mountain lanes and paths and oak forests:
 

(That's just one corner.  The entire room was filled with boots.  Many simple worn brown leather like mine, nondescript and beaten-in by lifestyles involving lots of walking, and virtually identical; I stashed mine in a lower corner, to be sure I'd find them in the morning.)


Also, no blisters yet!

Buen camino,

mlj
 

Camino de Santiago Day 1: France!

St. Jean-Pied-de-Port, France, start of the Camino Frances through Spain

Today, I left Stuttgart in a mild snowstorm (after visiting my brother, who's studying abroad in Germany.) I landed in Bilbao, Spain, to sunlight glinting off the ocean and palm trees.  It's my first time traveling alone. 

I was terrified. 

First, public transportation: I love to walk, so the Camino will likely be a good fit, but public transportation terrifies me (it's out of my control!  What if I get on the wrong bus!  What if I misread the schedule!  Ah!) and to reach the classic starting point of the Camino Frances all the way up at the French border, in St. Jean, France, there is... really no easy way.  I found other blog posts.  I fretted.  I suspected I'd need to find three separate buses, none of which could be pre-ordered online, and did not see how this wouldn't end in disaster.   And then - as is usually the case - everything worked out... fine.  The Bilbao airport has buses straight to San Sebastian, and from there another bus to Pamplona (or, alternately, to Bayonne, France, but I didn't realize this in time) and from there, a hellish, winding, nearly vomit-ridden ride across the Pyrenees to St. Jean, France. 

I had a two-hour layover waiting for that last bus through the Pyrenees.  And, as if to teach me to relax and that all my worrying had been for naught, the Pamplona station was the prettiest bus station I'd ever seen: all underground, with escalators rising up to emerge from this glassy cube beside the most amazing public park:

Old fortified ruins, in the middle of Pamplona.  There were teenagers climbing the walls.  Mothers pushing strollers.  Numerous dogs, and strolling couples, and a general Spanish enjoyment which shattered my German punctuality.  After the plane flight, I was actually quite tired.  I mixed instant coffee under a cold bathroom sink (the bathrooms in a tunnel of this old fortress were also beautiful) and learned that yes, in dire situations and with enough shaking-up, instant coffee can indeed be dissolved in cold water. 

The drive through the Pyrenees was one of the worst 1 1/2 hours of my life.  I came within inches of vomiting, but managed to hold it in by both plugging my nose and deep breathing.  So many switchbacks!  Up one mountain vale and down another, and now starting tomorrow we get to walk it and climb all those switchbacks on foot, but thank goodness because at least it won't be in a bus!  I'm getting carsick again just thinking about it, so on to:
 

The town of St Jean!  Really, really beautiful.  I'd heard the south of France was beautiful, but man, if it all looks like this!  Full of rolling hills and terraces and switchbacking roads.  For some reason I'd imagined myself arriving alone, this early in April, but our bus unloaded after other buses, and I joined a long line of pilgrims with backpacks:
 

That's a trail of fellow backpackers, as we all wandered in bewildered circles trying to find where we registered and got our seashells.  When one hostel filled, they ushered me up the road to the next hostel, run by an extremely assertive frenchwoman who has ten adopted cats, two dogs, and does not allow shoes inside, declaring that anyone who wears shoes inside will be thrown out back with the chickens (she can say this in at least four languages).  (I later learned this was a rule in every hostel, to reduce the stench of hundreds of hiking boots: she got us well trained.)  On this first night I met: 3 friendly Americans,  1 Portuguese, 2 Italians, 3 Spanish men, 1 Spanish girl, 1 Czech woman, 1 German girl, and several Koreans. 

Amount spent on buses: 17 euros + 7 + 20 (GROAN!  20 euros for that hellish switchbacking near-puke-fest!  These people KNOW there's no other way for us to get to the start and we'll pay anything for the last leg of the journey!  Though, maybe it was just more expensive to pay for all the brake pads they run through on that bus line.  Our brakes definitely smelled like burning rubber.)

Amount spent on hostel: 10 euros (yes!)

Amount spent on food: 0, thanks to my brother's incredible bag of super-gorp, mixed with peanut butter, raisins, and granola before I left Germany:
 

The sheep were really wearing bells.  Also, that is a gallon size bag filled with high-calorie gorp; we'll see how many kilometers of walking it fuels. 

And lastly:
 

The official camino entry sign through the archway: the seashell we'll be following all across Spain to Santiago de Compostela, 800 km down the trail, and a figure of slightly hunchbacked-looking old pilgrim.   (My backpack feels light now.  But I have a feeling I'll be wanting to abandon belongings... to type on I bought an older version of this Logitech keyboard, which weighs ounces and connects via bluetooth to my old iPhone 4s phone; no laptop or ipad to carry.  Nothing heavy, and nothing valuable to steal.  This first trial - typing late at night on my phone - is perfect.  An Italian guy is snoring above me, I just heard a cowbell pass in the street outside, and this keyboard is almost silent, typing in the dark with 8 other people sleeping around me.)

Tomorrow: on foot to Roncesvailles!

Buen camino,

-mlj