http://www.navigamus.net We are journeying... Sun, 20 May 2012 11:00:26 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.2 http://www.navigamus.net/2012/05/day-44-castildelgado-to-espinosa-del-camino http://www.navigamus.net/2012/05/day-44-castildelgado-to-espinosa-del-camino#comments Sun, 20 May 2012 11:00:26 +0000 Kyle http://www.navigamus.net/?p=2672 We were staying at the Hostal El Chocolatero in Castildelgado, which despite the promising name was more of a big stop for truck drivers. Nevertheless, Manu and his Czech friend Lenka were there, as, it turned out, was another Czech named Peter. Peter, apparently a very successful businessman in the Czech Republic, was doing the Camino as “mental detox.” We all ate dinner together, and Peter paid for it all (and three bottles of wine). Needless to say, it was a lot of fun.

The funniest moment came when we ordered dessert. Manu chose fruta del tiempo (“seasonal fruit”), which, when it arrived, consisted of a green apple on a plate with a knife and fork. He traded it for ice cream.

Below: This morning, we stopped for half an hour in Villamayor del Río, a tiny village. It had a nice square with some swings and picnic tables, and it seemed like all the local animals were out, too.

Below: The locals all came out of their houses to watch us on the swings. Unusual behaviour though it might be, I imagine pilgrims go swinging every morning as they pass through town.

Below: The animals certainly knew what was up. As soon as we arrived, the begging began, and as we packed up our bags to leave, they started going through the trash for scraps.

Below: Another kitty in another trash can later in the day.

Below: Ori and Lenka.

Below: The weather was beginning to tend toward the “hot” side of things.

Below: Our albergue in Espinosa. It was one of the more eccentric places we stayed.

Below: The 60-year-old innkeeper, Pepe, had some interesting tendencies, like collecting all kinds of stuff. We were made to sit in his “collection room” before dinner.

Below: Some of his collections incorporated a certain “Templar” flair.

Below: His interest in weaponry may have also related to his former career; in the stairwell, there were assorted framed documents to do with his once having been a paratrooper.

Below: At dinner, which was very traditional and included paella. Note the plaid shirt on the German pilgrim at left. Dinner discussion topics included the population of Espinosa (“25, and that’s enough!”), the wine (“the wine is from La Rioja, and the tap water is from Burgos”), and other pilgrim trails around the world (including the Kumano Kodo trail in Japan).

Below: Outside Pepe’s albergue.

]]> http://www.navigamus.net/2012/05/day-44-castildelgado-to-espinosa-del-camino/feed 0 http://www.navigamus.net/2012/05/day-43-azofra-to-castildelgado http://www.navigamus.net/2012/05/day-43-azofra-to-castildelgado#comments Sat, 19 May 2012 11:00:25 +0000 Kyle http://www.navigamus.net/?p=2671
Below: Along the way, in the countryside outside of Azofra.

Below: Entering Cirueña. This is what it usually looks like when the pilgrim path through the countryside enters an urban area. You can see this on Street View, too.

Below: Cirueña was a horrible place. There was no better example of Spain’s economic depression than this ghost town, which was full of brand-new houses with no occupants. Almost every house and building had a “for sale” sign on it, and they were all empty.

Below: Cirueña. Even the public park in the middle of town was deserted. The swimming pool was empty and the drinking fountain wasn’t hooked up. And of course, there were no kids playing or even any people at all.

Below: Leaving Cirueña. This ridiculous scene repeated itself several times in Spain: fields of overgrown crops with paved streets and sidewalks running through them. But where are the houses?

Below: Phew! Back in the countryside after leaving Cirueña as quickly as possible (not that there were any businesses or amenities for pilgrims there, anyway). On the way out of town, we passed what must have once been the original settlement, consisting now of just half-demolished stone barns, decaying houses, and overgrown gardens. This was much more pleasant:

Below: A pilgrim displays on her backpack one of the rainbow-coloured dish scrubbers that our Korean roommates gave us back in Larrasoaña.

Below: Grañón and some pilgrims chest-deep in crops. We also passed through Santo Domingo de la Calzada today, famous as the town that keeps a rooster and a hen in its cathedral. But we didn’t go in, because they were charging admission. To hell with that, literally!

Below: Looking back east.

Below: Spot the pilgrims in this photo.

Below: We were starting to experience the landscape referred to as the meseta, endless flat fields with no distinguishing features.

]]> http://www.navigamus.net/2012/05/day-43-azofra-to-castildelgado/feed 0 http://www.navigamus.net/2012/05/day-42-navarrete-to-azofra http://www.navigamus.net/2012/05/day-42-navarrete-to-azofra#comments Fri, 18 May 2012 11:00:23 +0000 Kyle http://www.navigamus.net/?p=2670
For only the second or so time in Spain, we decided to play the pilgrim game today, not reserving ourselves a place to sleep in advance. As it turned out, doing the Camino “properly” turns fellow pilgrims into enemies and makes every (needed) break stressful as you watch other walkers pass and you imagine them stealing your bed. We had no time for coffee, sightseeing, or a relaxing lunch. That’s not what the Camino should be.

Below: Nájera, with its unusual sandstone cliffs now occupied by a large stork colony. The storks, which make nests on virtually every church in this part of Spain, constantly click their beaks together, a disconcerting sound that makes me think of bones rattling.

Below: Fortunately, we made it to Azofra in time to get some beds at the albergue. This is our private “pod” with its very narrow little beds. Could be worse!

Below: And this is the courtyard. Everything a pilgrim might want, including a pool in which to cool one’s feet.

]]> http://www.navigamus.net/2012/05/day-42-navarrete-to-azofra/feed 0 http://www.navigamus.net/2012/05/day-41-viana-to-navarrete http://www.navigamus.net/2012/05/day-41-viana-to-navarrete#comments Thu, 17 May 2012 11:00:22 +0000 Kyle http://www.navigamus.net/?p=2669 We had a great evening in Viana. To save money, we decided to cook a communal dinner in our rented apartment. We went to the grocery store and bought a huge amount of food (at least 10 kg, including 24 eggs) to cook for dinner and breakfast the next day. The leftovers ended up feeding us for another couple of meals, and the total cost per person was 5€. Incredible!

It was also very pleasant to sit at a bar in the town square in Viana last evening and see the entire town out and about – girls playing ring-around-the-rosie, parents and babies, old men and women, and a local politician chatting to supporters.

Below: The breakfast we cooked this morning in Viana. It might not look all that appetizing, but after weeks of old bread and orange slices, this was a welcome change for us Canadians (Alfonso’s giving the thumbs-up here).

Below: Following the yellow arrows of the Camino in Spain.

Below: The Puente de Piedra over the Ebro in Logroño.

Below: Taking a break with Manu in the Plaza del Mercado in Logroño (cathedral behind).

Below: Just another great day in Spain! I’d expected an economically recessed country like Spain to look a bit run down, but Logroño was in great shape.

Below: Most cities and towns provided water fountains for use by pilgrims, locals, and dogs.

Below: A painted scallop shell motif on a highway underpass near Logroño. This symbol represents both the scallop shell of Saint James (one of his saintly symbols, permitting identification by illiterate medieval peasants) as well as the convergence at a single point of pilgrim roads across Europe.

Below: We were now in La Rioja, a region famous for its wine production.

Below: One of the Osborne bulls, once an advertisement for brandy but now an unofficial national symbol.

Below: Coming into Navarrete.

]]> http://www.navigamus.net/2012/05/day-41-viana-to-navarrete/feed 0 http://www.navigamus.net/2012/05/day-40-villamayor-de-monjardin-to-viana http://www.navigamus.net/2012/05/day-40-villamayor-de-monjardin-to-viana#comments Wed, 16 May 2012 11:00:21 +0000 Kyle http://www.navigamus.net/?p=2668 very early this morning. (And to make it worse, those beds were super-comfortable because we were staying at the casa rural!)

Last night at dinner in the town bar, we got talking about the ruined castle on the prominent hill above town. What happened next is a bit hazy, but as I understand it Manu asked at the bar if they happened to have a key to the castle. This being Spain, they did, and Manu being Manu, he managed to borrow it from them for the night, promising to return it the next morning at breakfast.

So we got up while it was still dark and made our way up the very steep hill to the castle in complete darkness. With no map and no real road, it was pretty rough going, but we eventually found our way to the castle gates, by which time the sky had begun to lighten slightly. Lo and behold, the key worked, and in we went.

Below: Preparing to get underway.

Below: Climbing the steps to the castle.

Below: In we go!

Below: A medieval historian who couldn’t be happier.

Below: Watching the sunrise over the hills and Spanish countryside.

Below: Alfonso investigates the 360°-rotating bell.

Below: At sunrise, Alfonso gave the bell a mighty spin. It shattered the silence of the early morning. People in town later reported hearing the castle bell ringing. Did they think it was a ghost?

Speaking of bells: if you want to know what a Spanish church bell sounds like, try beating a metal pot with a wooden spoon as hard as you can.

Below: A view of Villamayor from the castle. We were a long way up.

Below: This was probably the most memorable event from our entire Camino.

Below: Somehow we managed to climb over this to get up to the castle. We had trouble getting back down, not having actually seen the route we took in complete darkness.

Below: After breakfast, we hit the road for a long day (30 kilometers). Here’s Alfonso with the castle behind.

Below: Along the way.

Below: Wind turbines line the distant hilltops. There were so many of these things in Spain.

Below: Two happy pilgrims.

Below: A stray dog that tried to follow us. It looked so sad…

Below: Approaching Sansol.

Below: These pictures were taken by Jesús Ezkerra, a Spanish (Basque?) photographer who had stationed himself outside Sansol today to take photos of pilgrims (and who has posted more than 300,000 photos to Flickr – wow!). He handed each passing pilgrim a piece of paper with a link to his Flickr page, and I’ve taken the liberty of posting two of them here. I hope he doesn’t mind…

Below: Interesting multi-crop countryside (that’s an olive grove in the middle).

Below: We eventually made it to Viana and enjoyed relaxing in the apartment we’d rented with Alfonso, Manu, and Dany. This is Manu’s pilgrim passport, which I’m showing to illustrate the difference in stamping technique between the French…

…and the Spanish!

]]> http://www.navigamus.net/2012/05/day-40-villamayor-de-monjardin-to-viana/feed 1 http://www.navigamus.net/2012/05/day-39-cirauqui-to-villamayor-de-monjardin http://www.navigamus.net/2012/05/day-39-cirauqui-to-villamayor-de-monjardin#comments Tue, 15 May 2012 11:00:20 +0000 Kyle http://www.navigamus.net/?p=2667 Below: Another Spanish morning filled with interesting colours and textures. It was a cool, windy, crisp and clear day. Ori said she felt like going out to buy school supplies.

Below: Can you guess what this is (at 42.6808°N, 1.9349°W)?

Answer: It’s a canal!

Below: What nice landscape.

Below: Entering Villatuerta.

Below: The Ermita de San Miguel Arcángel, west of Villatuerta, surrounded by an olive grove.

Below: At the mythical wine fountain southwest of Ayegui. The Bodegas Irache winery sponsors this nifty stopping place for pilgrims. Doing so continues the medieval tradition of hospitality that the nearby monastery of Santa María la Real de Irache (now closed) would have once shown pilgrims.

Below: There are two taps: wine/vino (left) and water/agua (right). You’re not supposed to fill up water bottles and take the wine away with you; they have a poem (in Spanish) that explains the rules. We obeyed and filled our bottles (the only containers we carried) for consumption on the spot. As you might expect, we ended up staying there for quite a while.

Below: Unfortunately, those hours of wine-fueled relaxation resulted in this scene when we arrived in Villamayor. When you pass the first of a town’s only two albergues and find that it’s closed because of a winter roof collapse, you do not want to see a sign on the second albergue that says “Completo” (“No Vacancy”)!

Below: Luckily, Alfonso was there to work another one of his miracles. Here he is, running off at maximum speed, to reserve an entire casa rural, a private home that is rented to visitors. As a result, we didn’t have to sleep outside (as some did) or walk another 10 kilometers to the next town (as others did). I did, however, begin to grow concerned that the Camino was “full”; getting up at dawn, rushing every day, and outwitting other pilgrims in order to get a bed were not in my plans for our Spanish Camino.

]]> http://www.navigamus.net/2012/05/day-39-cirauqui-to-villamayor-de-monjardin/feed 0 http://www.navigamus.net/2012/05/day-38-zariquiegui-to-cirauqui http://www.navigamus.net/2012/05/day-38-zariquiegui-to-cirauqui#comments Mon, 14 May 2012 11:00:19 +0000 Kyle http://www.navigamus.net/?p=2666 We had a big communal dinner tonight in the stone-walled cellar of the albergue. Dinner and accommodation cost €20 per person, about 30% cheaper than the average in France.

I noted in my journal how awful the bells of the church in Cirauqui sounded. Spanish bells don’t swing back and forth like French or English bells – they are counter-weighted and whirl around the full 360° at high speed, making a terrible racket in the process.

I spoke my first Spanish today, to inquire about dinner. I felt very proud of myself.

Below: Wind turbines along the Alto del Perdón, a memorable hill outside Pamplona.

Below: Gosh, was it ever windy. You could see why they put the wind turbines there. They made an unsettling “swish swish” kind of white noise that you could hear even as they disappeared into the low stormclouds.

Below: The pilgrim sculpture atop the Alto del Perdón. I’d seen lots of pictures of it in the sun with Pamplona visible behind, but very high winds and rain meant that we just hurried on by. You can see the water drops on my camera lens.

Below: Rain gear deployed. We only had to do this once or twice in France, but Spain’s weather was more unpredictable. I wore my coat front-to-back to cover my camera bag, which I carried on my front.

Below: Descending from the Alto del Perdón into some lovely farmland.

Below: See what I mean about the landscape? The colours and foliage were just so different from anything I’d ever seen before. And the sun and clouds made for some very interesting textures.

Below: Looking back to the Alto del Perdón. You can see the storm from which we’d descended, while the sun shines in the foreground.

Below: In Puente la Reina. We’d sing the name of this town to the tune of “Guantanamera,” which I thought was original and clever until I later read in Travels with My Donkey that the author, Tim Moore, did the same thing on his asinine pilgrimage to Santiago.

Below: Cirauqui, piled on top of itself. As I wrote in my journal, “a lovely little stone hill-top village situated next to what looks like a giant grass-covered mountain of trash” (not pictured).

]]> http://www.navigamus.net/2012/05/day-38-zariquiegui-to-cirauqui/feed 0 http://www.navigamus.net/2012/05/day-37-larrasoana-to-zariquiegui http://www.navigamus.net/2012/05/day-37-larrasoana-to-zariquiegui#comments Sun, 13 May 2012 11:00:17 +0000 Kyle http://www.navigamus.net/?p=2665 seven different balls of yarn and some knitting needles from her bag and, in five minutes flat, knit us a fuzzy, rainbow-coloured dish scrubber (below) as a gift. After all I read about removing extraneous weight from one’s backpack, I couldn’t believe this excess. But, when they also presented Ori with a cellphone charm (in the shape of a woman with two small red peppers attached – “to give you lots of children”), I realized that they were using kindness and generosity to compensate for their lack of linguistic ability in what must have been to them a very foreign country. It certainly warmed our hearts. And as we walked through Spain, we’d occasionally see another pilgrim with a rainbow dish scrubber hanging from their bag, the same as Ori’s. These two Korean women made their mark on the Camino!

Below: Breakfast at the Casa Elita in Larrasoaña. Alas, no better than in France.

Below: Meeting Alfonso, the Canadian, turned out to be one of the luckiest strokes of our Camino. He’s an ICU doctor from Montreal, and he carried the most complete first-aid kit we’d ever seen. With one glance at the folk remedies we’d tried on Ori’s feet, he removed them and got to work on a proper blister treatment. Alfonso’s middle name is Jesús, and we later joked that this was the first miraculous act of healing on his Camino. As word spread of his abilities, other pilgrims began seeking him out, but Ori was his first patient.

Below: The Magdalena Bridge over the Rio Arga at the entrance to Pamplona. The city was beautiful in the sun, and I’d love to revisit it another time.

Below: In Pamplona, by far the largest city we’d walked through to date (pop. 200,000). On our way out of town, kids at an elementary school came over to the fence and wished us well as we passed.

Below: It was tempting to imagine a hapless pilgrim running away from a herd of bulls during Sanfermines. Lucky for us, these were the only bulls we encountered during our brief time in the city.

Below: On the other side of Pamplona, the city gave way to suburbs and eventually countryside. Have you ever walked from the outskirts of a city to its downtown and back out the other side? It’s really quite interesting!

Below: Ori, happy with her new bandages. The path itself alternated between good (shady forests and gentle gradients) and bad (the sides of highways and paved surfaces).

Below: A pleasant evening in Zariquiegui.

Below: View back east over Zariquiegui and Pamplona, with the Pyrenean foothills in the distance.

]]> http://www.navigamus.net/2012/05/day-37-larrasoana-to-zariquiegui/feed 0 http://www.navigamus.net/2012/05/day-36-roncesvalles-to-larrasoana http://www.navigamus.net/2012/05/day-36-roncesvalles-to-larrasoana#comments Sat, 12 May 2012 11:00:16 +0000 Kyle http://www.navigamus.net/?p=2664
The end result was that I had my camera out a lot more often in Spain, and my blog posts henceforth will reflect that. I hope you don’t mind.

First, a re-cap of the Pyrenees. They were challenging, yes, but probably not “the hardest thing I’ve ever done.” We were very lucky with the weather; we later heard reports of 100 km/h winds the day before we crossed, and snow the day after. Had we crossed on either of those days, we would have had to take the route via Valcarlos, which is lower and more protected from the elements. I’d been hoping for some snow on the ground, but it was a pleasant 20°C the whole time.

When you imagine crossing the Pyrenees, you tend to picture surmounting some kind of tremendous obstacle (at least I did). Unfortunately, this illusion is ruined somewhat by the road that runs pretty much the whole way to Spain; you’d be trudging along when a car full of locals would pull up and they’d get out to walk the dog or have a picnic. That’s progress, I guess. It was, however, a good illustration of the way ancient pilgrim roads have become some of today’s major European thoroughfares, to the point that highways have replaced many original pilgrim paths in Spain and the Camino itself has been rerouted to avoid them.

As you might expect, the hardest part of the whole day was the descent into Roncesvalles, which turned my thigh muscles to jelly. We all dozed off over our beers before dinner last night, helped along by the soothing Spanish guitar music playing over the bar’s radio.

The albergue (a Spanish gîte) in Roncesvalles is enormous, able to sleep 400 pilgrims (plus more in temporary accommodations during the summer). We arrived just days after some major renovations were finished. Most of those 400 beds were occupied last night, filled with pilgrims from all over the world. Fortunately for us, English became the de facto language of communication between pilgrims, though conversational Spanish proved useful many times in our dealings with locals.

Below: The Collegiate Church of Roncesvalles.

Below: Only 790 kilometers to go! Yesterday at kilometer 20 of our Pyrenee-crossing, we reached the official half-way point of our Camino. Anywhere else in the world, it would be ridiculous to find a road sign giving the distance to a minor regional capital eight hours’ drive away. But when the only visitors to a community are there with the common goal of walking for four weeks to reach that capital, it makes sense to give them a little “encouragement” on their way out of town.

Below: What would Saint James think of his symbol, the scallop shell, being sold in vending machines next to tortillas de patatas at Roncesvalles abbey?

Below: The tight accommodations at Roncesvalles. Each “cell” slept four pilgrims. We were next to a friendly Slovenian couple who we kept seeing during the next four weeks. The lights turned off automatically at night and on again at 6am. We were all awakened by some idiot packing their bag and leaving at 3:30am.

Below: The pilgrim infrastructure in Spain was much more developed, e.g., this clever concrete bridge over a stream near Roncesvalles.

Below: A vulture circles overhead – looking for a tasty fallen pilgrim to snack on!

Below: Good advice.

It was a testing first day on the Spanish Camino. We arrived in Larrasoaña to find the municipal albergue full. It was only thanks to Manu and his very good Spanish that we secured a room in a pensión at the other end of town. We shared it with two women from South Korea, linguistically unprepared but very friendly.

Below: At dinner in Larrasoaña: Iman, Manu, and Dany.

Below: Alfonso (a new Canadian friend) and Iman.

Below: At dinner at the Casa Elita in Larrasoaña

Below: After dinner, the proprietrix of Casa Elita let me play her piano. I played a few jazz tunes and it seemed to make her very happy. She’d been pretty grumpy, but the next morning (when we returned for breakfast) her demeanor was markedly happier.

]]> http://www.navigamus.net/2012/05/day-36-roncesvalles-to-larrasoana/feed 0 http://www.navigamus.net/2012/05/day-35-saint-jean-pied-de-port-to-roncesvalles http://www.navigamus.net/2012/05/day-35-saint-jean-pied-de-port-to-roncesvalles#comments Fri, 11 May 2012 11:00:19 +0000 Kyle http://www.navigamus.net/?p=2565
Below: Leaving the gîte (the last of our Camino) in St-Jean.

Below: Strolling out of town – note the cloud cover.

Below: Still cloudy and lots of pilgrims on the road, easily a few hundred today.

Below: We were ascending and the fog was burning off at the same time.

Below: Manu takes a break.

Below: Gaining some altitude.

Below: A lovely morning for mountain-climbing.

Below: Kyle with the clouds well below us.

Below: Pilgrims resting.

Below: Pyrenees.

Below: Pilgrims and ruins behind.

Below: A Pyrenean horse, complete with bell.

Below: A disorienting perspective.

Below: Ori plugs along.

Below: The clouds obscured our view of lower-lying areas.

Below: Pyrenees.

Below: Eventually, there were no more trees (and no more shade, and no more places to pee).

Below: But we still had to keep climbing (around 1,300 vertical meters in all today, plus a descent of 400 meters, over a horizontal distance of 26 kilometers).

Below: Manu takes aim.

Below: Nearing the top.

Below: Don’t be fooled by the forced perspective.

Below: Finally, the Spanish border. It was marked only by this fence.

Below: Crossing over (on a passage canadien!). There wasn’t even a sign.

Below: The trees return as we descend.

Below: The Spanish side.

Below: Finally! The abbey at Roncesvalles.

Below: The abbey that has welcomed weary pilgrims for centuries.

I got my first blister today. Ori cured it instantly with all of her expertise.]]> http://www.navigamus.net/2012/05/day-35-saint-jean-pied-de-port-to-roncesvalles/feed 0