Filling in pieces of the Camino Puzzle

[futurefjp]

After a mental day getting to Bordeaux I just couldn't face the monotony of Forêt des Landes so I bought a ticket to the start of the Camino Frances to see if I can get into the Camino "buzz". I've spoken to a few folks and offered them advice: I even took an Australian gentleman to the Gîte d'Étape by the bridge and suggested that a couple of American girls just walk for themselves... and here I am horizontal below an Hungarian opposite a South Korean next to a German... it's actually good. It's where a disunited world can mix?

 

[Tincatinker]

You skipped Forêt des Landes in mushroom season? https://domainelesoreades.com/tourisme-landes/quels-champignons-trouve-t-on-dans-les-landes/ Oh well, Buen Camino

 

[FourSeasons]

I would love to be below a Hungarian right now and in all the mix. Buen Camino.

 

[futurefjp]

You skipped Forêt des Landes in mushroom season? https://domainelesoreades.com/tourisme-landes/quels-champignons-trouve-t-on-dans-les-landes/ Oh well, Buen Camino

Definitely as I can't trust those kinds of mushrooms

 

[futurefjp]

You skipped Forêt des Landes in mushroom season? https://domainelesoreades.com/tourisme-landes/quels-champignons-trouve-t-on-dans-les-landes/ Oh well, Buen Camino

I need more pilgrims this time: 4 Québécois isn't enough

 

[futurefjp]

 

[Tony Bobcat]

Buen Camino futurefjp

 

[Keith H]

Looks like you’ll be out in front by a few days

 

[futurefjp]

Looks like you’ll be out in front by a few days

So sorry. But I wasn't interested in walking for several days through Landes...

 

[futurefjp]

Kicking off this morning in fine Camino style. Goxana

 

[Keith H]

So sorry. But I wasn't interested in walking for several days through Landes...

No worries at all! More of an observation. Warm the way up for me will ya?

 

[futurefjp]

Day Two

Another early awake for me. But there is nowhere to go ... and I don't know where next. I didn't yesterday after arriving either!

It feels like a little piece of a jigsaw puzzle, so long looked for, has finally been rediscovered as the section of the Camino Frances between Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port and Roncesvalles is now in my memory as being accomplished. Previously I was forced, during winter, to use the other route when I was coming back from Pamplona to Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port to complete that section of the Camino.

I could leave all these newbies, or I could carry on to be around them as some of their conceits vanish and are replaced with another... it is a rites of passage for anyone the first time.

In the night some persons definitely threw up. Either their supper, the beer, the wine or all. I hope it wasn't Song, the lad from Seoul I spent the an excellent supper with in Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port and who seems to look up to me ... it's quite nice to be the village elder and not the village idiot!

Post mortem cause of death: life.

Tommy from the centre of the Emerald Isle said he's so confused by the languages on the Camino he's now hearing Germans with Irish accents! Hilarious! What do the Koreans make of it all ...

An animal with a burden; cause of death? Eric!
A snake, very still. Bored, nearly dead? Eric!

Lunch then onward. Too short for me today. Perhaps Pamplona, but really I want to see if the small castle/monastery I walked passed, which was being rebuilt, is open for pilgrims ... It wasn't and it seems they're still rebuilding it.

...

After 35 kilometres the old war wound was playing up, so thankfully the last hill brought me to a parish albergue(donativo) and a 13th century iglesia San Esteban in Zabaldika. Exhausted, but showered, washed smalls and chilling out ...

 

[futurefjp]

on the way to Pamplona and in earnest Puente La Reina

A blog about walking and thinking, seeing and understanding, feeling and being.

futurefjp.blogspot.com

The joy of ripe rosehips.
Where today? Heaven not hell
Manufacturing in the valley
Sore mill no excuse
As an arrow, young, points ahead
I ask if I don't move will it cease?
Or walk-on not knowing
And non-stop
Pushed and pulled; apart
Argued, not agreed
Divided inside and outside
When there is only within.

***

Day three begins in earnest, after a proper scrambled egg, ham, cheese, yogurt, croissant, OJ and coffee(€6) with one bottle Vichy Catalan(€2): bliss! Leaving Pamplona which I don't recall from 2013 at all. But what day is it? It's now. But could also be considered Friday in Pamplona - which should be avoided as though the plague is sweeping the land and the four horsemen have full saddlebags.
Nearing Puente La Reina and I recall nothing of passing here in 2013 and I probably wasn't here although my body, and a very heavy sack, was. Where my mind was is anyone's guess.

A wee lassie from England said I wouldn't drink from that as I scooped to try a trickle ... what had it to do with her...

A wee laddie from Paix Vasco sells limonada going up the hill into Obanos and I am travelling back to 1987, PASCAL and writing the code to the lemonade stall on those very old computers in Information Technology at Craigie Senior High(pulled down). Everything hurts so that juice was a sweet solution on this parched path.

...

Finally I recall. I bought a pendant coming into Puente La Reina and a lad took a knackered bicycle up to the turbines, as you go up but to come back down, and I obviously recall the Albergue, which was €6 and is now €9.

...

But that was an extremely stupidly long day, hot and exhausting day ...

I've spotted at least two peregrinos who haven't walked the complete way! I may be wrong but perhaps there was a shortcut from the hilltop to Puente La Reina... a taxi, the modern equivalent of hoping on a cart, heading this way. It's difficult for some I guess, and only they will know (and I as they look away guiltily)! It is something I would do if I wasn't walking for charity mind!

As the canaries whistle and trill above Bar Aloa I am enjoying a well deserved vino blanco. Day three is done!

Donations gratefully received!

 

[futurefjp]

Leaving Puente La Reina



People are stiring and I feel mentally fatigued. I couldn't locate my teeth just now... but then I recall I left them where I always do! Then I cracked a joke, but in usual way I cleared the room! Toulouse? No to win! (perdre? non pour gagner!)

As I am a day ahead of the pilgrims I set off with, from Saint Jean, I was forced to insinuate myself amongst the throng outside a bar, which I did, but I felt bad for leaving those I left with behind. They will mostly be leaving Pamplona this morning?

Enjoyed a pilgrim supper with Irish, New Zealanders, Deesider and Dutch. €23 for a vast amount of food - Bar Aloa.

Puente is famous for its rojo pimento of which I ate a mountain of, on top of a bunch of garnaxa grapes... and I am strangely weepy. I apologised for snapping at the young lady who was concerned I may drink bad water ... I was being judgemental yester
day!

 

[futurefjp]

Once I thought 'it's always up over and then down into another river/stream/watering hole for bed' and that's all it is really, or like the New Zealander said the longest pub crawl on Earth.

Today was short, and I was weary until I discovered Riesling, Semillon and Garnatxa Blanco. Now I ate prawns and mushrooms on a stick.

Why did I do three days over two? I am stupid. It all feels surreal.

Food, food then bed!?

 

[futurefjp]

Out at 6 and nearly at Los Arcos. It's a pretty simple path, after the sun rose after 8. Before then I had a moon shadow to guide me along the white way. Just now came upon Russian Olive berries which are sugary and almost like a bonbon in sweetness. Quite a surprise and welcome relief from the straight street.



I think I am confusing the stage between Estella and Torres del Rio and tomorrow Estella del Rio to Logroño. The most boring day is over. Tomorrow was a nice meander into Logroño where I caught the tail end of those stoned Yankee kids which made the Camino experience suddenly sour for me. But I left behind the cluster of kids and haven't seen their equivalent in this group who left SJPDP the day after me.

It's in Torres del Rio where I had that fantastic supper with the Danish priest, living on a Norwegian island, and the father/daughter from Brittany. She drew portraits of the priest and I and then we laughed long into the night about my mispronunciation of French: brebis! So this was the hardest day and now, ten years later, it wasn't!

 

[futurefjp]

Recreating is almost over. From tomorrow it's no longer following my feet from June 2013. From tomorrow it's Logroño to Burgos. Five days, if I don't return to Grañon for a second experience of that fantastic albergue above the iglesia (returning and recreating what never was nor could ever be).

Last night, in the restaurant (which must've grown in size) I felt ill at ease with the group who seemed to be bragging about other walks. Bragging rights definitely come with being a twenty something and it makes for very bland dinner conversation. A German peregrino very tedious. I left as soon as I'd finished off the tart. The meal was fine.

Coffee and croissant waiting for the day to show it's face. I am less inclined to walk in the predawn, but probably will.

I appear to be walking with an Italian outfit since Puente la Reina and I am discovering their names slowly. They tend to spend their time together with another one from Brasil.

This morning I listen to Swallows in the Heatwave as I did last time gently meandering, up and down, twisting and turning, through the pine wood. This was a high before the low of Logroño! But this is 2023 - another time and space.

 

[futurefjp]

It's been a few days since an update. It's been warm and tiring, especially Tuesday to Nájera...
The day is ending and the Cane Corso is laying by his master's feet. He's five and tired. But knowing Lola he's probably had a grand experience with all those other smells, noises and sights?

I saw him yesterday and then this lunchtime.

So I had a plate of Bolognese, but I had to ask for a spoon and some cheese(parmesan wasn't possible). My stomach is full so it's time to retire. I didn't shower today as I sat on the edge of the square beside the albergue watching the pilgrims stumble into town one at a time and couldn't be arsed to be clean

The guy (Andalusian) with the 6 dogs, who I saw earlier, also passed along the street and I said hello to those fine guys - we're friends I feel as he said I have good energy and the Carne Corso thinks I am fine too.

 

[futurefjp]

It's true: I've been walking 10 years, almost constantly, with Lola and long distances between them. Yesterday I felt that's enough of this blasted nothingness, but a good night's sleep has resurrected me and I continue on to Burgos.

Day ten and life stories poured out as John, the Kiwi, gave me his and his wife's (who is literally a Dame and four times Open squash champion: Susan Devoy). Then I poured out all my pain of the previous 20+ years, since JWBS demise, which brought me to the brick wall which is Camino ... And then it brought forth a sob or two.

End of day ten, at the second calling, San Juan was a terrible nothing and the albergue was a parroquial which charges (because it hadn't been a part of the church for ten years and is privado) so I couldn't pay! The awesome chica from Austin Texas said I'll pay for you: which was lovely, but I couldn't stay after I saw a pizza disappear from the first bar for 100 metres before being delivered to the one attached to the albergue... And it wasn't a fresh pizza just a frozen ... I packed up and walked the next 3.5kms.

In Arés we're the Dame, John, two Canadians, the twenty somethings(4) and the one between all the ages: Me!!! We played cards before supper.

It's raining. Time for bed?

 

[futurefjp]

Humid room and a minor hangover. Thanks John! Once we get going it's a laugh a second!!! Coming down into Burgos, at last, shortly! It's took me ten years to get to here myself and back then I couldn't cope with all the young folks playing-up, perhaps now I am less judgemental, a little less arrogant and more understanding of youthfulness ... Well I hope so?

Checked into the Albergue Municipal which is modern and comfortable at €10 so I've left it for a menu del día at an establishment adjacent to the cathedral - Bonfin desde 1962.

Came back exhausted, showered and slept... Then preambulated back towards the Albergue Municipal on the corner below it I've had a couple of vino de Jerez and am enjoying a plate of Padron pimiento with a Gordello: back for another snooze, el Cantina Calle de Fernan Gonzalez.



It's a city: a large town really with a population akin to Bradford, but it has very large area. There is nothing after here but Meseta Central, which dominates everything, until Galicia.

No more Camino for me! Perhaps Assisi? That's next year?

 

[David Tallan]

There is nothing after here but Meseta Central, which dominates everything, until Galicia.

I wouldn't go quite that far. Some say until Leon. Others until Astorga. But not all the way to Galicia. There are some really great places between Astorga and Galicia. And not forgetting that for some the Meseta is their favorite part of the Camino.

 

[futurefjp]

I wouldn't go quite that far. Some say until Leon. Others until Astorga. But not all the way to Galicia. There are some really great places between Astorga and Galicia. And not forgetting that for some the Meseta is their favorite part of the Camino.

I know. But my original plan was to reach Burgos. So I've accomplished it. Having walked across La Mancha a few years back I feel I've done the flat stretch. Astorga is where the Camino del Madrid joins the Frances I think and I got to Valladolid in December so I will carry on from there another time.

 

[futurefjp]

The anticlimax of the day after. However I really never saw the Way I search for on this Camino. Too oriented towards reaching the destination, in the heat of the afternoon, and it was up to me not to be the same, but I think I failed. Saying goodbye to those I've walked a long way with. Some took selfies. And some gave hugs.

After a bad stomach ache during the night and a constant coughing from someone in the dormitory I feel pretty shady - and the light in the shower cubicle also regularly coming on helped not at all!

It's probably not true that I never felt at ease. I did at the beginning in the greenery of the Pyrenees and below. Then I got into the pattern of the other folks on the way to Santiago.


I am so fond of the ways through France, where I rarely meet another soul. But I just had to revisit the Camino Frances.

Now I am indecisive about whether I stay here in Burgos, and be a tourist, or go to Santander to do the same! It's probably advisable to have a quiet day today here and check back in to the albergue €10...

I had to throw up in the baños as something from yesterday wasn't getting out of my belly. It's gone now.

Got to the Bus Station then realised I couldn't cope with a sleep deprived drive to Santander. Luckily I passed the hotel I saw had space for this evening on Booking.com and they had one room available now! Superb. Bath soak then sleep! Hotel Norte y Londres €50.

Oh the luxury of a bath and double bed and not another soul fidgeting all night long. The Camino Frances is not dissimilar to Backpacking or inter-railing around Europe, in late teens or early twenties, it did not turn on the switches as the bath just did!

Give me an unbroken night's sleep and I will consider whether I head onwards or catch the bus to Santander...

 

[David Tallan]

I know. But my original plan was to reach Burgos. So I've accomplished it. Having walked across La Mancha a few years back I feel I've done the flat stretch. Astorga is where the Camino del Madrid joins the Frances I think and I got to Valladolid in December so I will carry on from there another time.

The Camino de Madrid joins the Frances in Sahagún (in the midst of the meseta). It is fresh in my memory because I walked that Camino earlier this year. I think it us the Via de la Plata that joins the Frances in Astorga, if you don't divert to the Sanabrés.

 

[futurefjp]

The Camino de Madrid joins the Frances in Sahagún (in the midst of the meseta). It is fresh in my memory because I walked that Camino earlier this year. I think it us the Via de la Plata that joins the Frances in Astorga, if you don't divert to the Sanabrés.

OK.

 

[futurefjp]

If I fly back to England today the same 99 problems will still be there to cause me to come off the waggon once more. If it's not Gaza, Ukraine or some other war it'll be Halloween! But if I continue walking I will only have to contend with pain, exhaustion and my mind, but the camaraderie, freedom and peace...

Yesterday I was really poorly. I went out for lunch(veggie noodles) and returned directly to continue my relationship with the bidet: what was it which poisoned and poleaxed me? Other than physical exhaustion... I collected a pack of natural yogurt too to help my bowels recover. Otherwise I slept almost since 10am, after the bath, with the toilet visits.

After breakfast I get it together, but I am still loose. And clammy. Oh well. I've a packet of Kleenex at the ready for along the road! So I carry on! It's another day, week, future?

 

[futurefjp]

From a good to a bad pilgrim: a private room in a private albergue. It's a single, but I still have the room without all the moving, grumbling, sighing, screaming, talking or walking in the night. I also went for supper and breakfast: demi-pension, but lunch was from a can: beans and sausage with bread and the water I made the effort to pour from Fuente de Prao Torre using the hand pump. Finally I bought some soap! I'd managed without for the whole time as I 'found' stuff along the way. The stomach ache is subsiding too. Shower and siesta ...

The fountain/spring water at Fuente de Prao Torre was wonderful! The sweetest yet from the various fountains on offer ... Although the one up in the Pyrenees is so long ago it might have also been as excellent...

In a cupboard I swapped Plato: The Laws for 4321 by Paul Aster as I wasn't sure ancient Greek philosophy is my bag on this tiring journey.

The 'other' Camino individual appears in me, as I know none of the folks wandering the thirteenth stage proper, only three or four were back there in Roncesvalles, so can be quiet and studious.

The pilgrims ate a handsome paella with copious salad, wine and water. And I left them as my spoon clattered into the bowl which I'd just cleansed of home made yogurt with lemon and honey and love added. I was silent and preoccupied with returning to seek slumber.

I awoke twice in the night, early morning, as I thought it was raining but it was someone running water somewhere in the albergue. The walls aren't thick. But I slept almost as soon as I left the dining table.

Most of my dreams were of people trying to cause me pain for absolutely no reason. Just for my existence. I had to keep on running... In the last dream I actually floated to the roof tops to escape pursuit. Is it fear which brings me dreams like these? But what am I afraid of?

Breakfast and the usual predawn routine I will not partake of. I want to leave with the sun showing its light before me.

Again I booked a flight back for Friday as it was only €15 from Santander to Manchester... It gets much more expensive the final weekend of October ... Am I ever returning to England?

 

[futurefjp]

I returned on Friday, with a weary head and an upset stomach, but intend to fly back to Santander on the 4th, head to Frómista on the 5th by train at 7am and continue on. Managed 15days(the final 3 very poorly, but soldiering on).

 

[Walkerooni]

"it's quite nice to be the village elder and not the village idiot!"

I don't think the former precludes the latter. Just sayin'