Leon - back in civilasation!!

I´m back!! Did you you miss me? ;) I sure as hell did miss writing this blog, so a big THANK-YOU to all you followers, and especially to you lovely people who leave comments! I really appreciate it! Always looking forward to checking out if someone made a comment :)
It´s been a week or so before I disappeared into the mountains - and what a very different adventure that was....
First of all, apparently there has been some confusion about the Camino I was attempting to do, so let me enlighten you:
Loads and loads of old paths all through Europe lead to Santiago. So they´re all called CAMINO SANTIAGO. In order to differentiate between them, they´ve been given additional names. The most famous ones in Spain are the
1.) CAMINO FRANCES
Which is the most famous one of all. It starts at St. Jean Pied den Port, leads straight to the west and, of course, finishes in Santiago. It´s about 805km long and had its heyday during the 12th century.

2.) CAMINO DEL NORTE
Starts at the coast in St.Sebastian, goes along the coast to Oviedo and is nowadays followed by the
3.) CAMINO PRIMITIVO
which goes from Oviedo southwestwards to Lugos and then on to Santiago.

And then there´s also the
4.)CAMINO DE EL SALVADOR (4 valleys)
It´s 120km long, starts in Leon and heads straight northwards to Oviedo across a serious mountain range (4 mountains and 4 valleys - hence the name), from where on pilgrims normally continue on the Camino Primitivo.

Clear so far?? Now, I started on the CAMINO FRANCES all the way up until Fromista. It´s 118km from Fromista to Leon, all in the Meseta, which is too hot for me, and too boring ;) So I figured: why not replace the 118km Fromista-Leon with the 120km Oviedo-Leon? And that´s what I did: I took a train from Fromista up north to Oviedo and started the CAMINO DE EL SALVADOR southwards, which means in the reverse direction.

Arriving in Oviedo I discovered that the saying I´d written about earlier about the "Master" and the "Servant" actually applies to Oviedo! "When you´re going to Santiago and not to Oviedo, you´re visiting the servant, and not the master"! (Ehm...., that rhymns in spanish...) So, I was definitely on the right track! In Oviedo is a medieval wooden statue of Christ, holding the earth (round,mind!) in his hand and blessing it with the other. This statue is called "El Salvador" and ancient pilgrims coming from Leon would´ve first visited the statue and then the Camera Sancta with all the reliques, before commencing on the Camino Primitivo to Santiago. This route was most popular in the 10th century.
Enough history and information? Okay! How was it??? WELL............, it was great!! How can I write about a whole week in such a short time before the rest of the other pilgrims are planning to assassinate me for hogging the computer too long..... Firts of all, it´s lonely. And by ´lonely´I mean LO-NE-LY as in totally alone. There isn´t another pilgrim in site. Anywhere. As far as you can see and beyond! It´s total Lord of the Rings stuff. Without the bad guys. Now, I met a few ( as in 2 lonely pilgrims plus a small group) along the way, but that was only because I was travelling in the "wrong" direction.The ones walking, climbing, scouting towards Oviedo wouldn´t have met a soul along the way (apart from me, well, obviously). The scenery is breathtaking. Snowcapped mountains, first reminding me of the austrian alpes, later of the italian dolomites, total dramatic stuff. Albergues are rare and few, distances are very long, and 1km across some mountain path, or across some ridge, through some swamp or through dense forest is just not as quickly walked as on a nice gravel path, so all takes much longer. The first day I was slowly ascending into the mountains, through light forests and meadows. Reaching the highest point I had to walk for kilometres and kilometres downhill a small serpentine road. And that killed my left leg. I think I might´ve mentioned once or twice (or a million times!) that asphalt or concrete is a total killer, and here it´d done it, killed my leg right-out. The stress on my front tendon (along the front of the shins) proved too much started to get inflamed. At the same time, though wearing long trousers, the skin just above the end of my boots got in contact with either grasses or insects or both and reacted allergic with swelling. I didn´t take much heed
of either reaction, just thought it´d been another tough day with another pumping leg at night, so no biggy. Didn´tfeel too bad the next morning but when I started walking I realised that something was definitely not in order. The whole day I had to walk on concrete, through the whole valley and up to a big town (Pola de Lena) which is the gateway to the higher regions. The pain was getting worse and worse.Most of all it was Saturday afternoon, so all the pharmacies were closed, same goes for sunday. What was happening, without me knowing over the next week, was that the skin with the allergic reaction got worse and joined forces with the inflammation of the tendon below. Whatever I did or had with me couldn´t really help it properly, so slowly things got worse and I basically limped across the 4 mountains until Leon, where I started serious treatment with some badly needed rest. But all of this didn´t really hinder my excitement and enjoyment about crossing those mountains. The albergues were an adventure in themselves. No-one there, no closing hours, no kicking-out hours, you just get the key and can even stay for days ifyou want to. Two of them didn´t even charge anything, didn´t even want a donation! One was an old apartment, half falling apart with two small rooms, beds leaning against the wall, a kitchen with a rusty old oven, which obviously was way beyomd working, a shower which leaked like hell and the water needed to be switched on in a hole under a lid in the road! Others were almost luxurious. I had to walk so slow that I also camped in the countryside cause I wasn´t able to reach my destination, and my cooking equipment came in handy not just there but also in the albergues. A good bit after Pola de la Lena I eventually left the bloody concrete road (not though before having to walk beside a motorway,just 3(!) metres away) and entered the stuff of adventures. First I walked along mountain ridges through dense forests, steadily climbing. Sometimes I had to walk straight uphill for kilometres and thought of the Pyrenees crossing as of children´s stuff. Beautiful wild flowers and wild streams lining my way; later on in the week I had to negotiate my way through huge goarse bushes and swampy underground before eventually reaching the dramatic heights of white cliffs and massive stone formations. Every day there was a point where I lost my way, as the reverse direction is quite complicated, I mean, even the right direction doesn´t seem that easy at all! My book also sometimes didn´t have crossings in it which I encountered, or was just too old in parts. Twice I walked (or limped..) for many, uch....., MANY kilometres in either the wrong direction or on a roundabout way to get where I wanted; THAT was really annoying. On the Camino Frances you just look out for the next yellow arrow, which is there without fail. Here I got directions like: "yea, well, and when the path ends there you don´t follow the little stream but just climb up straight the (EXTREMELY) steep ridge in front ofyou until you reach the mountain pass or top where the big stones are and then you´ll see new signs", .....which weren´t there. The mountain villages are dying a slow death. Young people moving into the cities, so there are no shops, bars or anything, just a few old people tending their gardens, even washing their clothes in washing wells. A van drives through those places in the morning, delivering bread and milk to the houses - not a chance a pilgrim can buy anything anywhere. They also have...DOGS. Very protective dogs. Guard dogs. Dogs, who whisper to each other, or bark it way ahead, "There a hapless pilgrim on the road, the scare the living daylights out of this one!!" I walked with my pepper spray at the ready. Some are absolutely vicious and I was always furious at the owner for showing up so late! Once, in the middle of nowhere, between white cliffs and rocky fields, a big dog showed up, then another, and another, until I found myself surrounded by 5 (!) big dogs. Pepper spray and stick aimed at them I told them what"nice boys" they were ;)) , Which didn´t interest them at all. "Nice boy" or sweet talk doesn´t really impress the spanish dog, thought you might want to know that. Then, out of nowhere, a shepherd appeared. God knows where his sheep were, I didn´t see one, anywhere. In the end it was good that I met the guy as I was at a loss as to where to go next and he helped me find my way again, but, oh, that was one..... interesting... moment.
But- LEON - what a change that was! I got myself the lovliest little room in the absolute middle of the city, with TWO REAL TOWELS!!!! Brought all my clothes to the cleaners for proper washing, raped the pharmacies for antibiotic creams and cortison - and it worked! After very intense treatment and looking after my leg, and two absolutely GORGEOUS days in Leon, which is a total beauty (!!honest, go & see!!), I´m on my way again. I´m not 100% yet but I´ll be soon, no doubt. It´s fun to be in the big stream of pilgrims again, soI´m not really as I´m always walking behind ;) Apparently the province of Galicia "es un chaos!" and Santiago "es un chaos!" I heard the barman say. Well,that´s just another challenge then :)
Hope this wasn´t too long and I manged to bring you up to date. Next time I find a place with USB I´ll put a few pictures from the mountains in. Cheerio!

Fromista - a very shifty barman, and the end of the first part of my adventure

Fromista! Here´s where this bit of my 3-part adventure is going to end. Fromista has train connections and from here I´ll be taking a train to Oviedo in the north of Spain. There is an old Camino from the Camino de Santiago FRANCES (which I´m on at the moment), which goes from Leon up to Oviedo. People in the middle ages would travel that way in order to see the important reliques that are kept in Oviedo, which was until 914 the capital of the kingdom of Asturia (yes! You´re learning stuff here!). From there they would travel along which is now called the "Camino Primitivo" to Lurgos, join the Camino Frances again and on until Santiago. Now, I´m doing this part of the Camino (and quite unknown) in REVERSE. I wanted to do some the "alternative routes" and initially meant to walk through the Picos de Europa, a mountain range between the Camino Frances and the Camino del Norte, which runs along the coast (to Oviedo, Lurgos, Santiago). I had hoped to walk to the cloister of Santo Toribio de Liebana, which holds the largest relique of THEE cross and which became so important in the Middle Ages that Santo Toribio could also call a "Holy Year", just like Rome, Jerusalem and Santiago - and nowhere else. There was even a saying at that time with respect to pilgrims who would "only" do the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela:" Why do you go to the servant if you can go to the Master?" Well, I thought it would be so great to do the pilgrimage to the "Master" and the "servant" but in Burgos, when I eventually got my head around looking up mileage and making a little plan so as to arrive on time in Santiago, I discovered that the path through the Picos de Europa from Santo Toribio to Oviedo isn´t just long but also difficult and maybe a bit dangerous. It seems to be totally amazing but I think it shouldn´t be attempted alone. So, sadly, I had to say good-bye to this idea. I´ll hope though that maybe at some other time I can come back and do this unknown pilgrim´s path with someone (another wink at Gary, hehehe...). So I decided to do the Leon - Oviedo Camino in reverse, which my little book of "alternative routes" highly recommends. It´ll be very lonely and a welcome break to all the madness here. And this is where my tent will come into play for the very first time! The distances between the albergues are so far (30km and more) that I won´t be able to cover them in one day. Since it´s also a serious mountain range I´ll have to cross I´ll be camping about three times according to my schedule. So exciting!! Internet will be far and few in between, so don´t worry if you won´t hear from me in a while - I´ll be crazy typing as soon as I´ll get a chance.

Now back to the Meseta: after my first, successful walk to Hontanas I walked another 21km the next day, hoping I could reach a place called St. Nicholas. Thankfully there was some cloud there and a cool wind blowing, so I found it pretty easy to walk. And it IS true: the pain in the muscles isn´t half as bad any more now that I´m in the 3rd week, hooray! I had to cross this table mountain, but otherwise it was all flat. The place, St. Nicholas is a very special albergue: run by the Maltese Order, they practise their help towards the pilgrims as they would´ve done 1000 years ago. the albergue is in a tiny church with only about 12 places to sleep. There´s a little altar on one side, the beds on the other and a large wooden table in the middle. NO eletricity exists - in the evening they light candles and if you want to charge your phone or you´re camera, you´re definitely in the wrong place! Everyone cooks together and then, before the meal, the maltese monks(???, honestly don´t know) practise an old ritual which was normal in the Middle Ages: they wash each pilgrim one foot. Now, how special is that??! But of course I´m not the only one thinking that way, and when I arrived it was already ´completo´. They let me have a glimpse inside and then I had to mosey on to .....ehm..... Ibera de la Vega (or similar....) - not a name one needs to remember anyway as it was a total low-point. So I won´t linger on it, just tell you that a met a really nice girl from Limerick there, Katie´s her name. Katie with the red hair. We joined forces against the sadness of that place and marched together the next day to Fromista. Along an architectural wonder of the 18th century, a canal which watered this hot and dry region, and still does.

Fromista is...., what to say about Fromista? It isn´t big. It´s spread out. It´s as hot and dusty as the Meseta (well, obviously). It has the most perfect example of romanesque church building in Europe! (see very first picture) I´m taking so many pictures of the in- and outside of churches that I´ll be able to publish a book about churches soon......... But they´re all SO fascinating! This one (St. Martin) has also incredibly beautiful carvings at the top of the columns, otherwise is the church quite bare inside, but bright because of the light sandstone. There´s also a church called St. Pedro in Fromista, from the 15th century. Which looks..... weird, to put it mildly. A mixture of styles, half falling down, half strangely repaired, not fitting together, but you just can´t take your eyes from it. Inside it´s definitely 15th century and quite beautiful, with a little museum to boast. And did I ever mention the storchs?!!! Northern Spain is a paradise for birds, and on every churchtower are at least TWO nest of storchs!! So lovely! And I hear cookoos all the time while walking!

Now quickly back to Fromista: it also has a good few bars, and one of them got the better of me last night. Not wanting to have a full meal I opted for 3 tapas and a glass of wine - 16 Euros!!!! (to compare: in Burgos I ate tapas all night long, plus loads of wine and internet:15 Euros. I was so dumbfounded that I didn´t even complain. But from know on I will - "¡No soy loca!" Until whenever!! XX

Hontanas - ...thankfully got my head back.....

I´m actually in Hontanas, 21km into the Meseta. For all of you who are wondering what that is, it´s a stretch of highlands, a million miles removed from the scottish highlands. It´s all flat, straight, wheatfields, no shadow, no trees, sun blazing down, quite an experience. And one I was really afraid of! As I can´t sweat (yea, well, that´s just the way I´m born, and normally it´s a pretty good thing), I tend to just get hotter and hotter, until I eventually faint. So the idea to walk through a kinda hot desert type of lanscape is a bit unnerving. And yesterday, ooooh......, yesterday........, don´t talk to me! I have to go back a bit: Burgos is BEAUTIFUL!! An amazing city, the little Paris of Spain is what sprung to my mind. And so, after the night in the 5-star-albergue, I got myself a nice little room for two nights in the centre to be able to appreciate the place. And to do some medical work on my feet...; I suddenly realised I couldn´t really see my ankles any more - aaah, so that was the reason for my throbbing feet at night: I have an inflammation of the achilles tendance! I feel I´m quickly becoming a wandering pharmacy for feet problems ;) So most of friday was spent first washing clothes, then shopping. I was out of most of my every day items: shampoo, soap, creme etc. I also needed a card reader (since most PCs don´t have one, or it doesn´t function) which proved quite difficult - and expensive in the end. I bought another USB stick for good measure as well. So in the end I had wandered all over the place but not really seen anything. Still, it was fun, Burgos is well worth a visit, and I will have to come back for a proper weeks holiday! (Wink, wink at Gary!) The next day I looked at a couple of things, most of all the cathedral, which I can´t even begin to describe here. But(!), I bought a book, so you´re all welcome to have a look at it. The cathedral is unreal! It took me 2 hours to walk through it, an amazing place. More of a museum of lots and lots of chapels, one more precious then the next, and art than a church. Very. Impressive. The evening found me in an internet cafe, where I struggled with my new card reader. Next to me sat a guy from the Netherlands, his name being Ron (Jacobus his second name, it´s true!), who´d just lost most of his photos on the computer. Our struggles got us talking and after he´d recovered his pics with the help of the very nice bloke who ran the internet cafe/ bar/ theatre, Ron tried to help me get my card reader going. He´d also bought one today, which worked perfectly. In the end he offered to sell his to me, but then he discovered that his photo card was different to mine - and worked perfectly on my reader! So, we switched the readers! What a coincidence! In the meantime a magic show had started which wasn´t just good but also hilariously funny. We drank wine and ate tapas, and drank more wine, and more wine, wine, wine, wi........ I was in bits the next morning! Couldn´t even have breakfast! My tummy rejected everything, my head was throbbing (despite some paracetamol I took). At 12 I eventually took off. The backpack hadn´t felt that heavy, ever! My head couldn´t get in touch with my feet, who were constantly signalling, but couldn´t get through that muddy cloud which seemed to surround me. I dragged myself out of Burgos, into the intense heat and onto a dusty gravel path. Constantly yawning, taking more paracetamol (no effect), cursing myself and taking loads of little breaks, after each of which my backpack felt even heavier. My head was truly gone, lost somewhere, left in Burgos perhaps.... My feet were lost without my head and the rest of my body was revolting. The heat was incredible! And neither shadow nor wind anywhere. I had planned on doing about 21km that day, after 11.1km I reached Tardajos. At this point I was sure I needed a wheelchair for the rest of my life and had to finish my Camino. So I checked into the albergue there and slept like a dead person vom 3pm until after 6pm without waking up once. Then I dragged myself to the one little shop in this tiny village, where in the main square a big stage was being erected for a nightly music performance and all round celebration of Pentecost (Pfingsten), bought some lunch, ignored all the festivity and fell asleep again despite the loud singing and hollering which travelled through the window (pink earplugs! Did I mention them before?!). And so, this morning, surprise(!), I was a new woman! My head has made it out from Burgos and has joined forces again with the rest of my body. I was a normal "peregrina" again, and set off in the direction Hontanas, which lies in the Meseta. Lucky for me a little wind walked with me, the morning wasn´t too hot yet, I found a lovely breakfast in the next village and headed, quite with a spring in my steps, into the dreaded Meseta. And then I had another encounter with a guardian angel: a while into the meseta - and you have to imagine a path in the heat, that stretches on and on and on without any mercy, shadow or water, a guy wasabout to overtake me. We started talking, his name was Paco, from Mexico. And now a bit of information which I´m sure none of you know: "Paco" is the short form for Francisco! As St. Francisco is known as "PAdre COmmunitas". Yes, you´ll learn somthing here :)) Paco will fly to Dublin after he finishes the Camino and live there for a year. Soon we were yapping and yapping. He was really easy to talk to and we yapped and laughed away while the road flew away under our feet. And the, suddenly, there below the level of the Camino, appeared Hontanas, quite unexpectatly. I was there, I braved the first bit of the Meseta, and it wasn´t that hard! Course, everyone else was complaining how tough that last bit was, and I didn´t even know what they meant with "the last bit"! Paco will leave early tomorrow morning, and I will most certainly be again the very last, so I´m loosing him like I lost a couple of other nice people before. But we´ll hook up in Dublin, what´s email for? But thanks to him, I´m now not afraid of the way to come. Hontanas is a really lovely looking, little village. Dusty, houses built with big blocks of sandstone, small streets, it feels like I´m in some Western set in Mexico, it´s so different to everything I know. I can´t believe the many contrasting landscapes I´ve walked through so far! As always, there´s people queuing up behind me, so I´ll better hand the PC over. Til the next time! X

Burgos - lost in (the) mace/ maize/ space..., take your pick

Unreal! What a day! I don´t know who I should be more frustrated with: those fabulous people marking the way in the most artistic freestyle manner or myself for carring a guidebook from 2007...?! But let´s start at the beginning: the night in San Juan de Otega was lovely, until at 6.10am an almighty noise broke loose, people yapping loudly, lights being switched on - what the frack?!! Can I just mention here again that those PINK earplugs from that one pharmacy in Parnell Street are just THE BUSINESS!! They don´t just stay in the ear (that´s a feat in itself!), they really shut out most of the awful noises one might hear when one sleeps with up to 119 people in one room. So, again, as most mornings, I turned around with an angry groan, pushed the earplugs deeper in my ears and did my very best in ignoring those rude racers around me. By the way, we had to be out at 8am, so what´s the bloody rush? When I woke up again around 7am - I was alone in the dorm. Everybody had vanished. Then the gregorian music started, nice :) That´s how they wake you here, I thought, at 7am with gregorian songs. Pity it was totally wasted on 95% of all the people who´d stayed that night. In the bathroom I met two slow coaches, one of whom I´d met before. She was ready to leave and lectured me again that I should get up earlier, leave early, blablabla..... I smiled and said that I would sit now outside for an hour, writing my diary and looking again at the equinox carving in the church until the little bar opened at 9am and I could have a lovely breakfast. With that the two women disappeared, shaking their heads. Guess I´m a lost cause now. And that´s what I did, so there. When I eventually took off the air was fesh (it´s pretty high up there), but the sun was bright blue and it promised to be another gorgeous day. On the way I met a couple of schoolclasses with small children, guess it was what we in Germany call "Wandertag", best translated as "Walking- or Hiking day". I wear a pretty big hat with a broad rim ( think I mentioned this marvellous hat before, brilliant in rain and now it´s proving just as brilliant as a protection from the sun, good buy in the sale basement of the "Great Outdoors" for 15 Euro!) and that very long walking stick. Therefore I look quite a bit as one might imagine a pilgrim to look like, as they are depicted in the carving of the churches, or the cartoons.... Well, the children started shouting "Buen Camino!" and then we had question and answer sessions with them and their teachers. When they heard I lived in Dublin they did their best to wish me "Good Bye" and I marched on quite uplifted by this little encounter and the knowledge that I wouldn´t have met them if I´d left before 7am, ha! I arrived in Atapuerca, and for those who are not familiar with that name (as, for example, me), this is the cradle of european humanity! Here in those soft hills were, just by accident, the remains of a new human species discovered, older than 800,000 years, which makes them older than the Homo Heidelbergensis (who is the pre-neanderthal man) and "only 300,000 years old. Thus this new species was called Homo Antecessor and the area is now a World UNESCO site since 2000 where intensive research is taking place. Yes, you´ll learn something here! I was really looking forward to visiting the caves where the first finds were made, but didn´t count on the spanish relaxed attitude to... tourism in this instant. There is only one tour per day to the caves, at 11am - and it was noon now. Yeeeees, if I´d started earlier......! So I just looked at the exhibition at the visitor centre and walked away 100% more informed than before. Those antecessors were cannibals at times!! Grim, grim...... The countryside presented itself very stoney, white big stones on steep hills with just a few crippled trees here and there, sheep with bells, a cold wind and a blazing sun. And then it happened: two arrows. Should I´ve not mentioned it before, we all follow yellow arrows (and a few shells, yellow mostly). Yellow arrows on trees, on roads, on stones, on house walls, poles, wherever you can imagine. And here, in the middle of nowhere, two of them. In different directions. I decided on the right one. My guide book didn´t mention two different choices, so I suspected foul play, just like the jokers in Ireland who have great fun turning sign posts into the wrong directions. Next crossroad: two arrows again. One painted over white. On the other side another one painted over, but scribbled on again. I made my choice and walked. This scenario repeated itself a couple of times until I stood at a Y-junction wit no indication where to go anymore. Again, I made my choice, quite pissed off it had to be said, and from tha point I wandered up and down hills, from path to path to path. Nothing but rolling hills and green corn fields waving in the wind - and me, the idiot. The lost idiot. Would you think there was ONE farmer to be seen anywhere? Or another pilgrim? Course not. At some stage I just looked at the sun and decided by where it stood that Burgos had to be THAT direction and walked up another hills on tractor tracks. I´d read in a book that there are people asking the universe loudly for things - and get them. So, since there was nothing to loose here, my feet etc. was hurting badly and I was way, way past the time when I should´ve reached the hostel, I shouted very loudly and very angry at the universe that I wanted NOW, bloody ASAP a fracking yellow arrow, or something bloody else which would tell me definitely where I was!! At the end of my screaming at the skies I walked over the top of that hill - and there was a village. I couldn´t believe it, it had worked, and there was a yellow arrow. Of course, that village was kilometres past the albergue I had aimed for, and between here and Burgos were about 14km! Suddenly two spanish guys appeared out of nowhere, one looked like ´Jesus´from the Big Lebowsky, the other could´ve been a barman in an italo-western. They told me I could possibly get a hotel in Villafria and I started trotting behind those two, with a good distance between them. When the stupid place came eventually after almost an hour into view, I jumped for joy: it had a camping place! But since the signs for it where nowhere to be seen, I asked a couple of people. The answers came quick and without mercy: "Camping non funciona." Yea, great. As I listlessly meandered past some trucker hotels the two guys from before jumped out of a bar and asked me to join them in taking the bus into Burgos. They´d been walking more than 30km that day, were utterly wasted and also just wanted to arrive somewhere. The 8km ahead of us are all along industrial areas along a main road of heavy traffic and a total backbreaker. Since it was 6pm already and 8km take me almost 3hours, and everything hurt, I decided to join them. AND I didn´t regret it. I hadn´t planned on ever taking a bus, but I´d already walked way more than I wanted today, and when the bus zipped through soulless, dusty, gritty outskirts I thanked my lucky stars - and the two guys, who incidentally also paid for my busfare :) They weren´t going to stay a the main albergue but walked with me to it because they wanted to make sure I arrived there safe. Wasn´t that lovely! My two beardy angels! The albergue is just beside the cathedral, the beds are pure luxury ( so is everything else, the shower, the toilet etc.) and secluded little private things, and I got a bed in a big dorm with only 6 other people. And the dorm was called: SANTIAGO - for today I had arrived! :)

two more cold pics ;)

Finally, the highest point! Oh, a church! Yes, dry, and maybe warm, and......closed.












In Roncesvalles: 120 freezing pilgrims in one room, quite an experience!

San Juan de Ortega - an equinox wonder

Another day, another 22.8km ahead of me. Being the last to leave, again, I searched the small town for a pharmacy. I found a cloister built into the "El Dorado" rock - pretty cool - , a ´Schlecker´(!!!- Schlecker is a german chemist chain), and a pharmacy which was about to open ... in an hour´s time. Knowing that Villafranca (12.2km away) was the next place with a pharmacy I decided to chance it. 12.2km, poppycock! I do that in my sleep! On my way out I bumped into a couple with a 19 month old kid, who´d spent the night in the same place and slowly do the Camino with a pretty hard core stroller. It´s the 3rd time they´re doing it, and they´re too telling me it´s way, WAY fuller than the other years. Ah well, it´s my first time, and when it gets too hectic I just imagine how full it must´ve been during its high time in the middle ages. I meet less people on the road anyway since I don´t run with the masses. A little bit on was a supermarket and since they had shared they baby´s muesli with me this morning I decided to buy them a new pack, and a bit of stuff for the way for myself. Then I tried to catch up with them, as I imagined they´d overtaken me while I was shopping, but when they were nowhere in sight it became pretty clear that they were still behind me. So at a petrol station I made the attendant swear a solemn oath that she´d hand over the bag of muesli to the niño as soon as they would come into sight. The walk was not to bad, the sun was shining, the Camino not as flat and also far from the road. Mainly fields everywhere and no shadow, but despite the last day´s hardship the going was surprisingly good and I hummed songs or got lost in thoughts. Arriving in Villafranca 4 hours later though was abit of a disappointment. The pharmacy was a little room with nothing but a few shelves and a very unfriendly woman - and nothing for poor, sore feet. Along the Camino? Is this woman against making money? I had expected a bigger place of a town, and since I had already past the one bar I gritted my teeth and decided to just start the long stretch of 12.6km with no interruption, village or well. But then on the way out of this bland place (the church was closed too, of course) I came across a (couple of stars) castle hotel - with an albergue and bar sign. Well, why not chance my luck, so I strolled dusty and not at all royally looking into the big entrance hall and met a woman who quickly served me a bocadillo (a big sandwich for all you non-spanish speakers) with a yummi tortilla inside and a lemonade, happy days! While I ate some other pilgrims found the place, amongst them the couple with the baby, who´d actually gotten the muesli from the petrol station´s attendant! There you go, things just happen on the Camino. After over an hour and with refreshed feet I headed on, uphill this time and into a big forest full of low growing trees, called the "Goose Forest". My taget for the day, St. Juan de Oretga, lies 1.000m high up and I had to climb 1.160m first, sigh, ...good thing I have my Ventolin. Since it was a forest it wasn´t too hot, a nice wind blew too, but then the path widened into a wide, straight stretch, made to prevent forest fires from spreading. From then on it was tough. Still uphill, hot and you couldn´t see the end of the road. I don´t know, I guess it´s a psychological thing: when the road winds you never know what´s around the corner and every sight is new. With long straight stretches you just now that the end is nowhere in sight, and that´s not good , well, for my psyche anyway. Have I mentioned before that things just sneak up on you on the way? Whoops, suddenly there´s a guy with a big dog in a veterinary´s collar behind you, whoa, there´s a flock of cyclist almost running you over, oops, there´s the lone ranger creeping up on you. So I got into the habit of every so often turning around and checking the path behind me, and in the distance I saw someone. Some time later that someone was much closer, it was a guy with an insane speed on him. A little bit later again he was about to overtake me. Since most people greet everyone else on the way with either an ¡Hola! or ¡Buen Camino! or ¡Ultreja! if they´re not total pricks (who do exist, believe you me..), I hollered my ¡Hola! and we got talking, in english. It was pretty obvious the guy was german, so we changed over into german. Then I felt suddenly very at home, language wise. That guys accent was so very familiar. Before he could dash off I said:"hey, hope you don´t mind, are you by any chance from Hessen (Hessia, a german county, the one I grew up in actually)?" Yep, that he was. "Where from?" "From the Westerwald." WHAT??! That´s more or less where I´m from! Here in the middle of nowhere, with no soul anywhere to be sen, on an neverending stretch of road, I bump into someone from the Westerwald (the western forests, very LotR, hehehe..), from near Montabaur to be precise (I´m sure all of my family will appreciate this bit of information). I told him I was from Herborn and the forest echoed with our laughter. If we´d tried to meet here we wouldn´t have succeeded! What a chance meeting. We walked a good bit together, but eventually I had to slow down again and he needed to find his fast pace agin - he´d already walked over 30km that day! Pity, now I was again alone onthat wide, straight, endless stretch through the forest, and my legs and feet started to complain again. But eventually in the end I made to St. Juan. Now this place is famous for its old priest, who does a very quick mass and then invites all the pilgrims to his garlic soup. Apparently he died recently, so I wasn´t quite sure what to expect, but as soon as I´d arrived in the old monastery building, about 6.10pm, I was told to hurry up, as the communal garlic soup was about to be served in 20 minutes! Delicious it was! I had still bread in my backpack which I tried to share with my fellow pilgrims and with it scraped the last out of my (2nd) bowl. The place was pure magic! Gregorian music was played in the old courtyard, where we all hung up our washing, and the resto f the ancient place. I ventured off to the church to see St. Juan de Ortega´s grave and mausoleum - and "The miracle of the light". Now, St. Juan spent his life to care for pilgrims and opened a cloister in the 12th century. He is buried here, and here is where you´ll find an architectonic masterpiece of the middle ages: twice every year, at the Equinox on the 21st of march and the 22nd of September at 5pm the sun creeps in through a small window and lights up a scene at the top of a column (I believe you call it a Capitel?), where there is a beautiful row of carvings: first the light shines on the annunciation, then it creeps over to Mary holding her hands on her belly, then to the Nativity scene. The whole thing takes about 10min and is a masterpiece of medieval architecture. Yeeees, I can hear you yell, the people in Newgrange have done it way before the 12th century, and of course you´re right. Newgrange is an incredible Wonder of the world. But this here is unique in the world of medieval architecture, so it deserves a special, little place in history. It was only discovered in1974, mind you! Had been forgotten since then. Despite my always sore feet and stoney calfs I´m so glad I´ve made it to here. This is one special place. I feel like going to bed a bit earlier tonight, still a bit wrecked from yesterday´s torture, and my feet are thumping. Falling assleep with gregorian songs, nice.......... :)

Belorado - the El Dorado of pain....

As beautiful as Santo Domingo de la Calzada was, after that embarrasing incident I was actually a bit relieved to walk out of its walls. It was already noon, a bit late for a walk that would last for about 24km, but my feet felt good and I felt like walking, walking, walking! The landscape is very different now. The woods are long, long gone, the scenery is all a bit same-ish: fields, sofly climbing up and down, mountains in the far distance. It was hot, so it didn´t take too long before I did something I hadn´t done before: I took off my fleece jacket, and my shirt! And walked in my spaghetti west, not before putting a lot of sunlotion onto myself. One sunburn is enough. I also shortened my pants a bit. And thus, I tan in stages, which looks really ridiculous. My lower arms are black (well, almost), my shoulders and upper arms are white. I expect my lower legs to tan a bit from where the socks end all the way up to just below the knee, very sexy. I walked past an amazing albergue situated in the tower of another gorgeous church - and I climbed the tower. No tower is safe from me, if there´s a tower, I´ll climb it! By the way, I can´t reall count how many beautyful churches I´ve seen by now. Some boastful, some touching, some serene, some fragile in their decay, but all quite awe inspiring. You can really see how the stream of pilgrims in the middle ages brought riches to all the places along the camino. A whole infrastructure developed around the Camino and its pilgrims and that in turn made the churches along the way wealthy. ou can go into the smallest churches along the way, you´re bound to find beautiful artistry inside. And loads of gold or gold colour. I had a plan as to how far to walk that day. My wish was to make it to Belorado, where the church albergue is situated in an old theatre and they have a special pilgrims blessing in the evening. I walked and walked. At the beginning I had such a drive, but the hotter the day, and the straighter the path, the harder it all became. The villages I passed through seemed totally deserted. Where are all the people living here? I felt like the lonely stranger passing through the hostile western town, shutters closed, the showdown waiting on the far side. But there was nothing waiting for me, not even an open bar, or a machine with drinks. And sure enough, at some stage my heels started to say ¨hello¨again, bastards. In Viloria, the birthplace of Santo Domingo, who´s birthhouse was of course closed, I made a long stop, changing socks, putting plasters on, cooling my feet in a well, and sharing my food with a rather forward little siamese cat. I also made good use of the children´s swing there, until realised I was about to loosen the anchorage of that swing - hm, guess I´m a bit heavier than your average child... When I started off again, I had another 8.6km ahead of me. Straight, along a busy road. I can´t tell you the pain that started to develop. I was exhausted from the heat, the arches of my feet just didn´t want to support the weight of the backpack any more and my heels were acting up. My muscles slowly turned to stone, and I dragged myself forward and forward. At some stage some italian bikers stopped for me and gave me their water. I pulled and pushed myself forward with my stick, and eventually, very late in the day, I think it was 7.40pm, I stumbled into Belorado, which is fittingly built into and in front of a steep cliff of a rock. I actually got the last bed in the albergue I wanted so much to reach, and I made the pilgrims blessing. In order to kneel in the church I needed both my arms to support me getting down or up, and in the albergue I was barely able to walk down or up the stairs. But I got another beautiful surprise: I was SO hungry, and there was food left over by some other pilgrims who offered it to me. Those were not just some random pilgrims, but a CHEF from Australia, so I wolved down the most exquisite risotto withan absolutely gorgeous salad! And, guess, who was the last to go to bed, and instead had a lovely chat with Thomas, the hospitalero from Switzerland? Qui, that would be little moi... ;))