Friday, May 11, 2012
Day Four
One of the favorite books of my young family was Anno´s Journey. It is wordless, drawn by a Japanese artist who was fascinated by medieval European culture. All the illustrations are from a bird’s eye view. It begins with a man arriving on the coast of England, shows him obtaining a horse, and the rest of the book marks his progress through fields, villages, and towns. That is very much what it feels like for me, making my way across northern Spain as the country goes about its business.
As I went to breakfast, I ran into the urologist, who was checking out. He excitedly told me he had met another Texan the day before, a man with a bad leg and a wife who could not walk fast. They were having a slow Camino.
I pushed off with a number of other guys, but very quickly found myself alone. The color of the earth changed from red to dark reddish brown, a color birders call rufous.
In the bushes beside the trail, the birds were singing loudly and gloriously. I stopped by one bush and stared into it; the bird was so close I’m sure I could have touched it if only I could have seen it, which I could not. Perhaps that’s why they do not fly away; somehow they know they are invisible to people.
The landscape changed noticeably, with somewhat smaller mountains and more gently rolling hills, still covered in wheat fields and still stunning. The climate is drier, and more vineyards are appearing. They are all very open; few fences. Recalling how Susan enjoyed her evening glass of wine, I buried a lock at the base of an old vine. Perhaps some day her DNA will appear in a bottle of the dark red wine of Navarra.
Soon out of Puente there is a long, steep hill. About a third of the way up I saw a figure resting. I asked her how far it was to the next source of potable water. She offered me some of hers, but of course I refused.
Her name was Dorothy, a wee Scottish lass whose job had been declared redundant and she was laid off. She decided to use the unexpected freedom walking the Camino but was obviously have a hard time of it.
She said she had been excited about climbing the Alto de Perdon because she had always wanted to know was wind turbines sounded like up close, and there you are almost next to them. She said they thrum, then laughed and said she hadn’t use the word thrum since she was a child. Thrum is a pretty good approximation of the sound.
As she drew close to the summit she felt a blast of wind in her face and started communicating with her sister’s boyfriend who had been killed in motorcycle accident 4 or 5 years earlier. The dialogue continued as she wept; just kept going back and forth. She had never had such an experience and wondered if she were becoming psychic. She immediately called her sister in Scotland to tell her.
She asked why I was walking the Camino. I told her about Susan. She expressed condolences and said, “What separates you is paper thin.”
About this time Mike, a chunky Canadian walked up. He had met Dorothy earlier, but they got separated when he had to spend an extra day in Pamplona getting his travel partner Barb’s boots stretched. That seemed like a good idea, one I should have thought of earlier. He said he hadn’t slept at all the previous night because of all the snoring in his albergue.
He said at least he was glad he was inside when the thunderstorm struck. I was caught in it, and grateful I was. Things balance out on the trail. The climbs are hard and you sweat profusely, but the higher you climb the stronger the wind blows to cool you, and the more magnificent the views. When I finished slogging up the Hill of Forgiveness, my rain pants were covered with mud above my knees, and my boots were great clumps of mud. After the storm, all was clean. I walked into the Hotel Jakue with pristine boots.
I stopped to rest at the next little town, a charming medieval village with narrow streets, flowers by the doors and filling the window boxes. A young Asian man walked into the square sweating heavily, obviously lost. He came up to me saying, "Albergue, albergue." He was wearing a woman’s necklace, a cross made of amethyst stones, four down, three across. He showed me the handwritten note that read Puente la Reina, everything else in Korean.
It was my sad duty to make him understand that he had overshot Puente la Reina by nearly 5 kilometers. He walked with me for a mile or so, then stopped for water and waved me on.
The Basque graffiti seems predominantly political. I couldn’t read the Euskera, but when you see ‘Freedom for the Basque country’ written in English and large letters on the sidewalk, you get the idea. If you don’t, then you see painted under a bridge, in English and in letters at least a foot high, ‘You are not in Spain.’
At one point the trail ran down to a river and the way up was via steep steps at least 20 inches high, challenging even without a pack. I heaved myself up the first one and started toppling backward, pulled by my pack. Just barely caught myself; it might have been a different, perhaps much shorter, Camino had I fallen.
The scenery continued to be spectacular. If I were a psychiatrist, I would prescribe two weeks in an Adirondack chair overlooking these valleys. That would drain the tension and stress from just about anybody.
Decided to stay near the central plaza in Estella so I might have an easier time finding a cobbler to stretch my boots.
As I walked into this busy, bustling town, whom should I see coming toward me but the Korean couple carrying grocery bags. We shared a warm greeting.
Susan and I spent a night in Estella in 2001. Things started looking familiar. I passed San Pedro church, where we had heard a stirring sermon by a young priest. There are several large bells in the tower, and when they ring, they don’t just swing back and forth, they do a full 360 degrees, something I’ve never seen anywhere but movies.
Reached the bustling central plaza and inquired about a hotel. I was directed to the Hotel Cristina, right on the plaza. I went to the door and rang the bell and waited. Rang and rang, waited and waited, and finally gave up.
As I pondered my next move amid the throng, who should show up but the urologist and the professora. I asked where they were staying, and they said on the outskirts of town. At that point I had had my pack on my back for nearly 8 hours and I couldn’t think of walking any more. Also, there was the matter of the boots.
The professora suggested the Hotel Cristina. I related my experience, and she said that couldn’t be; she had recently booked a room there for later in the year. She whipped out her cell phone and called and sure enough they had a room. They walked me to the entrance; I had been using the wrong door.
It was an old-fashioned hotel. My second floor room had a floor to ceiling window that opened on to a small balcony overlooking the busy street. I asked about a cobbler. There was one, a block away.
It was after 8 p.m. but he was still open and said he would have my boots stretched by 9:30 the next morning for which he would charge less than 3 euros.
I found a camera store. but it only had Fuji cameras with rechargeable batteries. I passed, vowing to get one in Logroño.
The hotel had no computer; everything is WiFi now. I asked around and one man finally told me that I would never find a computer for public use in Estella.
After dinner I returned to the hotel and tried to take a bath, but the tub was so short I could only fit if my knees were completely bent, so I opted for the shower.
To save on clean clothes, I am sleeping in the buff, fearing only a fire drill.
The next morning my boots were ready at 9:30; I could tell the toe box was wider. Then packed up and left. The foot pain only slightly diminished.
| NEXT: Day Five