christianjule
New Member
- Time of past OR future Camino
- First camino planned for April 2024
A wonderful article about an amazing person. If the link doesn't work I've pasted the article below without pictures.
ttps://www.noticiasdenavarra.com/navarra/2024/02/20/marisol-goicoa-25-anos-mimando-7837866.html?fbclid=IwAR0BwPmXgDrzIaAEYz-CG7ei-iyZ3t5s_ZwhZqJtVHqsNNvsg753P1x6re8
Marisol Goicoa, 25 years pampering more than a million pilgrims in Roncesvalles
The 44-year-old resident of Burguete is in charge of the town's hostel, helping walkers from 174 countries in any way she can and even helping with mountain rescues
Mikel Sola
PAMPLONA | 20·02·24 | 16:56 | Updated at 9:22 a.m.
Marisol Goicoa poses with her "domains", the hostel in Roncesvalles. JAVIER BERGASA
"They laid me with the first stone of Roncesvalles. Here I've laughed, I've cried, I've fallen, I've gotten up... This place is everything," confesses Marisol Goicoa, a 44-year-old resident of Burguete, who celebrates a quarter of a century at the helm of the pilgrims' hostel in Roncesvalles. "On September 15, 1999, I went in to cover a one-month leave, it was extended and I have already spent more than half of my life sitting in this chair," she jokes.
Marisol's main function is to manage "my domains", the 183 beds in the hostel. "We have 72 beds on the first floor, another 72 on the second floor and 39 on the third," he recites from memory.
In winter, it takes her "five minutes" to organize the Tetrix, but from March to October Marisol works tirelessly because the line of people "never disappears. We are a village of 17 inhabitants with a capacity for 400 people and everything is full. The hostel, the inn and the hotel. I've seen pilgrims sleeping in the gardens," he says.
Before Roncesvalles overflows, Marisol launches Operation Find a Bed. The woman from Pamplona – an earpiece always hangs from her left ear – calls all the accommodations in the area, writes down in a notebook the free beds that each one has and charters taxis – the telephone numbers are written down on a sheet of paper pasted in her office – that take the pilgrims eight by eight. "They go with everything organized. ' You go to the campsite, you go to the farmhouse, you go to the hotel.' We don't leave them stranded and let them make a living. No," he insists.
What's more, when all the taxi drivers are busy and Operation Find a Bed is in jeopardy, Marisol takes her car, mounts the people and takes them to Burguete or Espinal. "It's not my responsibility, but I like to help. It's a vein that comes out. I have it inside me. I can't control it or avoid it," says Marisol, who attended to 797 pilgrims in one day. "It's my record. My buddies jokingly tell me that I look so good as stupid. Yes, I'm silly all day, but I get people to sleep in a bed," she says.
After her marathon days, Marisol enters the church of the Collegiate Church, sits on the bench and speaks to the Virgin of Orreaga.
"I thank her, explain the problems I have as if she were my psychologist and light a couple of candles for her," she says.
And at dawn, before facing the hordes of pilgrims again, he loves to visit his "little one", Sancho VII the Strong, who rests in the chapel of San Agustín.
"I say good morning, ask him how he's doing, and tell him my stuff. People pray, do yoga or practice Buddhism and I chat with the Virgin and my Sancho because they give me peace of mind. It's my rituals," she explains.
1 million pilgrims
During these 25 years, Marisol has served more than one million pilgrims from 174 different countries. "When I saw the number, I was really scared. I didn't think there were that many," he says.
Marisol, without batting an eyelid, highlights three names: Anemik – the first Dutch hospitalera who, at 76 years of age, still comes to Roncesvalles two or three times a year to help pilgrims – Lourdes – this summer she lost all her documentation on a bus, Marisol recovered it and a week later Lourdes returned to give her a hug – and Jessica. "I was a girl who had been left without a flat and without a job overnight and was doing the Camino to turn her life around. Years later, I had met an Italian, they had set up a farm school and they paid me a surprise visit on two donkeys from Rome. Quite a show," he recalls.
Nor does she forget the thousands of pilgrims who have chatted with her in the gardens of the Collegiate Church while smoking "the cigarette" or who came to chat in her office, which over the years has become "Miss Pepis's office because we all carry our personal backpacks on our backs. People tell me about their lives, their problems, the reasons why they do the Camino de Santiago... It's one of the moments of this work," says Marisol, who does not hesitate to share her personal phone with the pilgrims she sees most lost and overwhelmed. "I tell them to call me if they need help during the Camino. If I were in an unfamiliar place, I'd want someone to do the same for me," he reflects.
Rescues
Marisol, who always goes above and beyond the obligations of her job, has helped in dozens of rescues of pilgrims who have been lost and even died, on the route of Napoleon.
"I was scarred by the death of a Frenchman. It was winter and snowing heavily. Suddenly, two boys came down to the hostel and told me that they had lost sight of a pilgrim when they reached the Lepoeder pass," he says.
Marisol called her father, a firefighter in Burguete, to mobilize a rescue team and provided them with the location where she believed the pilgrim was. However, the firefighters, following orders from their superiors, searched a different area.
"'Aita, I know this stage like the back of my hand. I know where pilgrims can get lost. That person is where I tell you. I swear to you,'" Marisol pleaded, unsuccessfully.
Two days later, when the snowstorm subsided, the lifeless body of the French citizen was found in the exact place he had indicated. "It was very frustrating," Marisol confesses.
In the wake of this death, the Burguete firefighters improved the signage and painted arrows phosphor yellow that can be seen even in fog. Marisol, of course, did her bit.
ttps://www.noticiasdenavarra.com/navarra/2024/02/20/marisol-goicoa-25-anos-mimando-7837866.html?fbclid=IwAR0BwPmXgDrzIaAEYz-CG7ei-iyZ3t5s_ZwhZqJtVHqsNNvsg753P1x6re8
Marisol Goicoa, 25 years pampering more than a million pilgrims in Roncesvalles
The 44-year-old resident of Burguete is in charge of the town's hostel, helping walkers from 174 countries in any way she can and even helping with mountain rescues
Mikel Sola
PAMPLONA | 20·02·24 | 16:56 | Updated at 9:22 a.m.
Marisol Goicoa poses with her "domains", the hostel in Roncesvalles. JAVIER BERGASA
"They laid me with the first stone of Roncesvalles. Here I've laughed, I've cried, I've fallen, I've gotten up... This place is everything," confesses Marisol Goicoa, a 44-year-old resident of Burguete, who celebrates a quarter of a century at the helm of the pilgrims' hostel in Roncesvalles. "On September 15, 1999, I went in to cover a one-month leave, it was extended and I have already spent more than half of my life sitting in this chair," she jokes.
Marisol's main function is to manage "my domains", the 183 beds in the hostel. "We have 72 beds on the first floor, another 72 on the second floor and 39 on the third," he recites from memory.
In winter, it takes her "five minutes" to organize the Tetrix, but from March to October Marisol works tirelessly because the line of people "never disappears. We are a village of 17 inhabitants with a capacity for 400 people and everything is full. The hostel, the inn and the hotel. I've seen pilgrims sleeping in the gardens," he says.
Before Roncesvalles overflows, Marisol launches Operation Find a Bed. The woman from Pamplona – an earpiece always hangs from her left ear – calls all the accommodations in the area, writes down in a notebook the free beds that each one has and charters taxis – the telephone numbers are written down on a sheet of paper pasted in her office – that take the pilgrims eight by eight. "They go with everything organized. ' You go to the campsite, you go to the farmhouse, you go to the hotel.' We don't leave them stranded and let them make a living. No," he insists.
What's more, when all the taxi drivers are busy and Operation Find a Bed is in jeopardy, Marisol takes her car, mounts the people and takes them to Burguete or Espinal. "It's not my responsibility, but I like to help. It's a vein that comes out. I have it inside me. I can't control it or avoid it," says Marisol, who attended to 797 pilgrims in one day. "It's my record. My buddies jokingly tell me that I look so good as stupid. Yes, I'm silly all day, but I get people to sleep in a bed," she says.
After her marathon days, Marisol enters the church of the Collegiate Church, sits on the bench and speaks to the Virgin of Orreaga.
"I thank her, explain the problems I have as if she were my psychologist and light a couple of candles for her," she says.
And at dawn, before facing the hordes of pilgrims again, he loves to visit his "little one", Sancho VII the Strong, who rests in the chapel of San Agustín.
"I say good morning, ask him how he's doing, and tell him my stuff. People pray, do yoga or practice Buddhism and I chat with the Virgin and my Sancho because they give me peace of mind. It's my rituals," she explains.
1 million pilgrims
During these 25 years, Marisol has served more than one million pilgrims from 174 different countries. "When I saw the number, I was really scared. I didn't think there were that many," he says.
Marisol, without batting an eyelid, highlights three names: Anemik – the first Dutch hospitalera who, at 76 years of age, still comes to Roncesvalles two or three times a year to help pilgrims – Lourdes – this summer she lost all her documentation on a bus, Marisol recovered it and a week later Lourdes returned to give her a hug – and Jessica. "I was a girl who had been left without a flat and without a job overnight and was doing the Camino to turn her life around. Years later, I had met an Italian, they had set up a farm school and they paid me a surprise visit on two donkeys from Rome. Quite a show," he recalls.
Nor does she forget the thousands of pilgrims who have chatted with her in the gardens of the Collegiate Church while smoking "the cigarette" or who came to chat in her office, which over the years has become "Miss Pepis's office because we all carry our personal backpacks on our backs. People tell me about their lives, their problems, the reasons why they do the Camino de Santiago... It's one of the moments of this work," says Marisol, who does not hesitate to share her personal phone with the pilgrims she sees most lost and overwhelmed. "I tell them to call me if they need help during the Camino. If I were in an unfamiliar place, I'd want someone to do the same for me," he reflects.
Rescues
Marisol, who always goes above and beyond the obligations of her job, has helped in dozens of rescues of pilgrims who have been lost and even died, on the route of Napoleon.
"I was scarred by the death of a Frenchman. It was winter and snowing heavily. Suddenly, two boys came down to the hostel and told me that they had lost sight of a pilgrim when they reached the Lepoeder pass," he says.
Marisol called her father, a firefighter in Burguete, to mobilize a rescue team and provided them with the location where she believed the pilgrim was. However, the firefighters, following orders from their superiors, searched a different area.
"'Aita, I know this stage like the back of my hand. I know where pilgrims can get lost. That person is where I tell you. I swear to you,'" Marisol pleaded, unsuccessfully.
Two days later, when the snowstorm subsided, the lifeless body of the French citizen was found in the exact place he had indicated. "It was very frustrating," Marisol confesses.
In the wake of this death, the Burguete firefighters improved the signage and painted arrows phosphor yellow that can be seen even in fog. Marisol, of course, did her bit.
