The 44 year wait comes to an end

St Jean to Roncesvalles

It was approximately 05:45 when I awoke. It was still quite dark. I had arranged to have breakfast at 07:30, intending to set off at about 08:00. Outside I could hear what I thought was rain. It seemed to be quite heavy and it didn’t show any sign of easing off as I lay in bed listening to it. What a shame, I thought, when the previous day had been very nice and sunny right until sunset. ‘But Mother Nature will do what Mother Nature wants to’ is what the eternal philosopher within me kept saying. So I finally got ready for breakfast, exchanged pleasantries with Alicia, the proprietress, and imagine the HUGE relief when she told me that the noise I could hear was due to the wind in the trees and not rain! So checking the garden as it began to get light confirmed this was indeed very true. Definitely time for the biggest Yayyy!!!!! of the journey so far. In hilly areas like St Jean waking up to dry weather is what you pray, pray, pray for, any sunshine is merely a nice bonus. Breakfast was consumed, Alicia had prepared quite a substantial ham/cheese/tomato/baguette creation for lunch along with a couple of pastries, an apple and a drink….for which I was extremely grateful…..but all that extra weight!! aargh!! In the 44 years that have elapsed since I last embarked upon such a long distance walk my constant mantra has been ‘Keep the weight DOWN!!!’…to the absolute absolute absolute minimum necessary, if you want a problem-free experience….and obtain as good a ‘mochila’ as you can afford, to put everything in.

So it came to the much anticipated time of departure. 08:00 give or take the odd minute. I had expected this to be no more than a simple bidding of farewells between myself and Alicia. But No! That’s what happens on an ordinary walk, THIS is the Camino! Instead Alicia accompanied me out to the centre of the main road, the Rue de la Citadelle took both my hands, looked me in the eye and proceeded to deliver in Spanish what I definitely recognised as a blessing of some sort, one that very much is in keeping with La Bendición (The Blessing), the name of the accommodation. I can’t remember all the words exactly due in part to the fact that my mind was trying to absorb what was going on….but it went something like this….

I thanked her for this and, though still somewhat shell shocked, at least I was able to offer my own wish that God too would bless her and her family and bring all of them and la casita ‘La Bendición’ much good fortune in the future. It’s difficult to recall when I have ever had such a sincere encounter as this, each of us linked via touch, each of us linked via looking into our eyes and so beyond into the soul of the other, and via words coming from the heart…..and of course linked by the language!. So that was how it all began! To say I was on an emotional high at that point is to put it mildly. At the same time that my mind was trying to absorb the impact of this blessing it was also having to process the fact that with the first step upon the Camino I was being mentally linked 44 years back in time to the Pennine Way long distance path. Who says time travel isn’t possible? I had so much to thank that previous encounter for. If it had not been for that experience I could have soon found out the very hard way how punishing it is to carry too much weight over the hills. As it was I felt beautifully prepared for what I was about to undertake. So it was down the hill and through the Porte d’Espagne, the time was 08:13, crossed over the little river and then St Jean was behind me.

A number of pilgrims were also leaving their albergues as I was walking down the hill and as the image above shows there was a group of cyclists setting off. Once in the open countryside I could see the route ahead and separate groups of pilgrims strung out across it. Because this first day was supposed to be one of the most strenuous I walked along at a very comfortable pace. The weather at first was cloudy but dry. Not too high a temperature so it was quite good for walking. The gradient was a quite gentle uphill for the first two miles and then it began to climb quite noiticeably. So time for the unleashing of the ‘secret weapon’…..the Uphill Zig Zag!!!

No one can deny the ingenuity of Swiss engineers. Ever been to Switzerland? Ever driven over any of their Alpine passes? Noticed anything about the way the roads are constructed? Lots of hairpin bends, aren’t there? In fact most roads over high altitude mountain passes will be constructed like this. None of them go straight over the top, absolutely none.

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This zigzag technique is something I picked up in Britain many years ago. Some of the hills (particularly the western and southern slopes) in the Lake District and in Scotland are grassy but brutally steep. Ben Nevis’ (the highest mountain in the UK) southern flank rises almost 4000 feet from sea level in one unbroken and brutally steep slope until the final 500 feet of the boulder field is attained. On such open slopes the zigzag technique comes into its own. The steeper the slope the more acute the angle of the zigzag. As the slope eases and levels out the angle of the zigzag increases. Ultimately when you arrive on level ground you walk straight ahead as you would do on any flat ground. So yeah this technique means you will actually walk further than if you go directly up the hill, about 40% further on a quite steep slope, but….the strain on the calf muscles, and knee and ankle joints is also around 40% less and the reduced angle of slope also means less strain on the cardiovascular system. I also do the same on very steep downhill sections where the intense pressure on the joints is also reduced. One limitation on its applicability is the nature of the terrain:- open grassy slopes are absolutely ideal, but if the track is restricted in width and other persons are in the way then there is limited scope for the zigzag. But here on Day 1 it worked a treat going up. The Camino is on a road until quite high up. The road itself takes a ‘slightly’ zigzagged course as it ascends but it is wide enough to do your own zigzag as you go up it, if you know what I mean! I don’t know what unsuspecting pilgrims behind me must have thought! I noticed that I did begin to overtake many groups of red-faced pilgrims on these uphill sections. So I arrived at the first place worthy of note:-Refuge Orisson. As a reward the skies had been gradually clearing and it was lovely and blue and sunny but quite windy, for the lunch stop.

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Orisson is the sort of place most of us have heard about before we actually arrive there. The refuge/albergue was buzzing with peregrinos, quite understandably. All manner of languages were being spoken. For the first time today I really began to start to sense this truly international/global dimension of the pilgrimage.

At an altitude (3097 ft above sea level) the view was beginning to open up and to take advantage of this there was a large viewing platform ideal for relaxing and taking refreshments. St Jean was still visible but now about 5 miles away in the distance. Jenny and Adam were already there as I arrived. For Jenny it was to be my final encounter with her, a fellow Gemini, our short 24 hour acquaint was already ending. She was staying at Orisson. Adam was, I believe, acting as a guide to a group of American men with Santiago as the objective. So everyone seemed to having an early lunch. In pride of place for me was Alicia’s baguette. I thought about what the simple gesture of making such a baguette sandwich implies…an act of hospitality from someone to whom I was a complete stranger less than 24 hours before. Now too Alicia was becoming just another memory. It would have been really nice to have spent all afternoon in this idyllic little spot literally drinking in everything that was going on….but afraid not. Time to go onward. This was to be one of many stops in the first few days of the Camino that I realised I was spending far too long just ‘sitting around’. Also the wind was gaining in strength… notice in the picture below the ash tray placed on the paper bag containing the baguette to stop it being blown into some sort of geostationary earth orbit.

For almost an hour after leaving Orisson I was walking virtually alone, the number of peregrinos ahead of me seemingly much less in number than on the stage before Orisson. But the sun was now shining quite brightly. The Camino follows the road that ascends steadily but not so steep that the zigzag was necessary… just a heads-down and disciplined pace sort of technique.

Homage to two fallen friends

In reality I was more than pleased to have walked this particular stretch of the Camino alone as this section was to have a special and very very poignant place in my heart. Something I had thought about many years ago…10 years ago to be precise. I used to do a lot of walking and subsequently mountaineering with three other colleagues (Rick, John and Warren) from the place where I started out my career. (John was the one who had correctly guessed our birth signs …(see Gemini section in this link). I intend in the future to create a separate post describing some of the walks we did including those in Switzerland where I will give more details about what I describe here in this section. My final walking ‘holiday’ with them was in 1989. The other three continued for another 19 years. I had kept in touch just enough to know approximately what they had been doing all of this time. We did have a ‘Grand Reunion’ in 2008. In June 2009 they went to the central Pyrenees where the bigger mountains are located. Rick and John never came back. I did attend at the time both of the funerals back in the UK. I had never been to the Pyrenees until now, doing this Camino in 2019. Which is why during this particular part of the Camino and all the way to the top my gaze most of the time was to my left i.e. southeastwards into the central and much higher part of the Pyrenean mountain chain in the hope that it could somehow serve in some way as a homage not only to the memory of these two excellent friends but also to Warren who survived but had the unspeakably awful trauma of witnessing the lives of his two companions, with whom he’d spent so much time, wiped out in a matter of seconds. The weather was very good, though very windy, the visibility was quite good too. To my right i.e. northwestwards the Bay of Biscay was easily discernible at about 35 miles distant. From the altitude of 4,600 ft above sea level the theoretical maximum distance to the horizon is between 90 and 100 miles. The region of the Pyrenees where my colleagues had the accident was close to Andorra which is just over 200 miles away to the south east and so the mountains there would have been out of view. However I could certainly see bigger peaks in the distance to the south east and the least I could do was to send out my silent prayers to them along with the silent apologies for it having taken so long for me to have come out here to do this. I hope I’m forgiven on my day of judgment. This was not to be the last time that I would engage in the ‘silent prayer’ whilst walking the Camino.

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The Camino is still following the road all of this time and the climb was steady though not, in my opinion, particularly steep. Rather it was one of those walks where you feel as though you must be getting near the top until you turned the next bend ahead to find the road still rising! The views were very good on both sides as I approached the 4000 ft above sea level contour. But the wind!, the wind!!, the wind!!! The sun was shining magnificently but the wind was proving to be an unanticipated problem. I had to remember how to convert my super duper Camino buff into a sort of beanie thing for the rest of the day. I eventually came to the point where a large cross marks the point where the Camino finally departs from the road and heads off to the right hand side of the hill that was immediately in front. I noticed that there were more peregrinos here. Also there were many sheep grazing and some wild horses.

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It was in this next section that I met up with Cindy (from Chicago) and Pei Pei (from Singapore). It’s interesting how these encounters occur. What is it that makes us pass by many fellow travellers with nothing more than a mandatory ‘Buen Camino’ but then out of the blue we decide to walk along with certain others. Cindy had started her walk in Lourdes and this was to be her last day. Pei Pei seemed to be doing some sort of world tour…which had included a trip westwards on the Trans-Siberian railway. At the top of this first overland section there was a refreshment stop and a sort of ‘toilet’ area where a large pile of rocks and rubble provided some form of privacy screen for those of a nervous disposition. The following images are provided courtesy of Cindy.

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Then we were off again and fairly soon came to one of the day’s highlights…. the frontier, between France and Spain:-

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I’m not exactly sure what denotes the frontier. Popular rumour says it is marked by the gate shown above. Cindy and Pei Pei certainly thought it was good fun to spend a fair amount of time leaping backwards and forwards through it, just for the record books. The stone in the image above right provides a more tangible indicator that a boundary is about to be crossed. Navarre being a province of Spain seems to suggest that this is where the frontier should be. Oh well! ¡No importa! Beyond this the Camino passes through trees and goes uphill again but at a gentle gradient until it finally emerges at the Col de Lepoeder where there is a solar-powered thingamyjig (if anyone knows the name for it please do let me know) and the view southwestward now opens out onto Spain and of course there is the first view of the day’s destination:-Roncesvalles. There were a good number of peregrinos here all admiring the view, but wow the wind!!! It was truly gale force now yet nice and sunny. So all downhill from here. We chose the right hand, less steep variation for the descent track, as recommended by Brierly’s guide book.

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Though the height lost during the descent is only about 1300 feet, that last 3 miles did seem further than 3 miles. This was something I noticed very much later on, converting the Spanish kilometres back into miles, but those kilometres did seem quite long ones. So we finally arrived at the destination… Roncesvalles monastery, here in all its stern and stark and quite solid solemnitude. I’d expected the atmosphere within to be a bit impersonal and first impressions did not diminish that feeling. There were lots of people milling about outside the Reception Office. It was obvious that the place was fully subscribed and those without reservations were having a hard time of it. It seemed to be being ‘managed’ by a couple of Brits and not particularly over-friendly ones at that. Maybe a place of that size does need a bit of a ‘firm hand’ to keep things from getting too far out of control. I knew that Cindy had no reservation there for this evening but she went into the Office to try her best……and five minutes later she came back out…..with a bed for the night!!!!!So there you go. Maybe Roncesvalles ain’t such a bad place after all. I sorted all my paperwork out and obtained my meal tickets, got my stamp and bed no. 109!!!! Yayyy! A top bunk though. Damn! The first of many!! However I do remember being pleasantly surprised by the relative modernity and cleanliness of the facilities. It was just a pity that at least 109 others had doubtlessly used the showers well before I turned up, so you had to be careful how you handled your dry change of clothes whist showering. Así es la vida.

Once showered and all freshened up and nicely aromatic, Cindy and I went for the evening meal. I was never sure what happened to Pei Pei at this stage.

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At first there was the half amusing but not unexpected confusion (due to hundreds of fresh-faced peregrinos spending their first night in Spain) in locating which of the outside restaurants the evening meal was being held. But we got there and we ate and talked and ate a bit more and talked a bit more etc. etc. The Gemini within me was in its element. Once everyone had departed the eating area we too decided to leave to head back to the monastery, without much of a care in the world….until we got to the main door…..which was well and truly CERRADA!!!…..but there was another entrance into the monastery from the inner courtyard so we dashed round there to find it also well and truly…..CERRADA!!! Time was 22:10. So commenced a most commendable attempt by Cindy to make those on the inside aware of our plight on the outside using a combination of throwing (small) stones at the windows of the dormitories whilst repeatedly hollering ‘Hello, Can somebody please let us in’….or something to that effect. But no response at all for the first 10 minutes. Then someone appeared in a doorway on the opposite side of the courtyard and she asked him if it was possible to gain access to the dormitories from that side but no it wasn’t or so he said. Then Cindy unleashed another midnight chorus of ‘Hello, can somebody please let us in’ and Eureka!!! just after 22:30 the main courtyard doorway creaked open thanks to a couple of young ladies who had taken pity on us so in we finally were! I did notice a paper sign informing that the hour of closure was 22:00, on the way up the stairs that led to the dormitories. But it was number 3 in a list of five items arranged vertically on one of the stone pillars at the bottom of these stairs, so it was not particularly prominent. Oh Well, you live and you learn. At the top of this flight of stairs there was a sort of mezzanine level with a couple of tables and places to sit, opposite to the Hospitaleros Office. Already seated there were a group of four others:-two German guys, another German girl and a Spanish guy who appeared to be associated with them. At a rough guess I’d say they could have been in their early to mid 30s. So I sat with them for quite some time. I mean it was only 22:45. Sleep time for me is usually 02:00 to 03:00. Shocking isn’t it! I know sleep is good for you. I sleep about 4 maybe 4.5 hours whereas the recommended amount for a ‘healthy’ person is about 8 hours per night. So by now I should be a veritable physical wreck with dementia already evident. Hmm! I digress….So I sat with this fine group of people passing the time, noticing the considerable noise going on behind the door of the Hospitaleros Office where it sounded as though there was some kind of party going on. Weird this, because on two occasions our group was accosted by a fairly elderly (i.e. almost as old as me) gentleman of eastern appearance who hurled quite a vocal barrage at us in a language that none of us appeared to have the remotest chance of understanding. Luckily for the human race in such a ‘delicate’ situation we can always fall back upon our instinctive skills at comprehending body language so it was thereby fairly obvious that he was blaming us for the ‘noise’. He was SERIOUSLY annoyed the second time around. If there had been a samurai sword or a sub-machine gun available to him neither I nor the rest of the group would have been here today. Period! (as they say in the States!!!).☺All good things must come to an end so we finally dispersed and went our separate ways just after midnight. I went off to locate bed no 109 wishing that I’d have had the foresight to have taken some kind of torch with me, when I’d gone for the meal earlier, to have made this task in the almost total darkness a little easier. Anyway I found the bed and clambered up to the top. I’m not sure what creaked the most….my knees or the steps on the little ladder. I then crawled into my sleeping bag liner, stretched out to stare at the ceiling for a good hour and thought about things, such as…. will there ever be a cure (a vaccine maybe?) for snoring? And so Day 1 cameth to an End.

Thoughts for today

1. I was so so pleased to have completed Day 1 without any problems, admittedly a little tired, but otherwise absolutely fine. I felt so much better now at 66 years of age than I did when I was 22, at the end of the first day on the Pennine Way. If today’s walk of 16 miles was supposed to be one of most strenuous on the Camino then it was looking good from hereon in. A complete and utter vindication of 44 years of quiet waiting and quiet preparation for this very day.
2. Already the ‘human dimension’ was kicking in, by which I mean that aspect of the Camino where talking to fellow travellers adds much more to the enjoyment of the walking experience. This Camino provides a unique opportunity for encounters with peregrinos from every country in the World. Today’s thanks went to (1) Alicia for the never-to-be-forgotten send off this morning, a blessing that certainly ensured my first day went ok…can it last for the rest of this journey? (2) Pei Pei and Cindy who will go down in the history books as my first real companions that I got to talk to on the Camino. Many Many Thanks to both of them for that.