Don’t go chasing rainbows!

Larrasoaña to Cizur Menor

A fairly early breakfast was had in a well laid out dining area and there were only a small number of peregrinos to share it with. This is the benefit of having spent the night in a quite small but very nice hostel. I would well recommend it for prospective peregrinos. Today’s walk was just under 13 miles in length to Cizur Menor. I had already stayed for one evening in Pamplona so I had decided to move on through it and stay elsewhere. I hoped that I would find accomodation in one of the albergues in Cizur Menor, which would be the first one on this Camino that I had not pre-booked. The Brierley guidebook is probably the most used one by peregrinos. He breaks the Camino into ‘stages’ and each stage becomes a chapter in the guide One tendency is that people walk the Camino by following each page of the guide ending their day’s walk at the end of every stage of this guide so there is a noticeable over-concentration of peregrinos at the locations that Brierley has as the end-point of each stage. So I had tried to avoid this by staying in locations NOT at these end-points.

My philosophy for the mornings at this stage of the Camino was (a) to have a breakfast at all costs whether at the overnight accommodation or failing that at the nearest café to be encountered ‘en route’ and (b) not to set off before it was light enough to see where you were going. At this time of year in Spain this would be at about 07:45. I did have a very good headtorch with me but I couldn’t see the point of using it unnecessarily.

This morning I didn’t set off until about 09:30. There were two things that I had on my mind that morning – (a) to encounter the German group to thank them for having accepted me into their group yesterday evening, speaking to me in perfect English for all of that time. They didn’t have to do what they did. After all, saying ‘Thankyou’ as and when necessary had been one of the pledges I had made to the Camino, so I couldn’t let that slip at such an early stage of this adventure. They were a travelling group of musicians and were giving performances at various locations along the way. This year they were going as far as Burgos, (b) I fully expected to be reunited with Pei Pei and maybe the other members of the group that had to taxi out of Zubiri the evening before. After all she did have my mobile number and so I imagined that at some stage she would call me up. But I also had it in my mind that she would be not too far ahead and if I walked quite quickly I may catch her up. So that is the underlying mentality with which I set out on this day’s walk.

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But for anyone staying at the Asteia… a word of warning. The proprietress told all of us that she has to leave the property to take her child to school and so she wouldn’t get back until about 10:00. I didn’t see any problem. I’d taken my mochila downstairs and stepped outside to retrieve my shoes from the outside storage cabinet. The door closed behind me. Then I realised it had a security combination lock on it and so I couldn’t get back in! as I don’t remember having been informed what the code was. Very luckily a young German couple came out not long afterwards which allowed me to quickly retrieve the mochila from inside and which saved me the embarrassment of having wait for the proprietress to return at 10:00. But beware of accommodations that have security combination locks!!!

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It was a beautiful morning. Very sunny. I crossed over the bridge and rejoined the Camino. Fairly quickly afterwards was my first encounter with Vicky and her father Roger two Brits, who were from the county of Yorkshire where I was born, many years ago. She said she was there to ‘look after’ him! So I walked with them for quite some distance as the Camino meanders around between the river and the main road and at times passes over open countryside.

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Just before midday came the first success of the day. I came across the German group performing at La Parada de Zuriain. So I grabbed a coffee and a piece of cake, waited until they were between numbers and went across to them to say the ‘Thankyou’ that I should have expressed to them the night before. But yeah, having discharged this duty, I felt happy.

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All I needed now was a call from Pei Pei or to catch her up whilst walking along. So that afternoon I admit to walking quite quickly with this one objective in mind. I so much wanted to see the beige coloured jacket with the dark shoulder pads that I knew she had been wearing. For a while it seemed as though I was going to be successful. About an hour after leaving Zuriain I caught up with the Taiwanese peregrino that had been in the group with us at Zubiri and he said Pei Pei was somewhere ahead. I knew that Pei Pei had been walking quite quickly so I was aware that under these circumstances it would be hard work for me to close the gap between ourselves, if that gap was substantially wide. Nonetheless encouraged by the fact that it looked as if I was catching up with some familiar faces I headed off down the Camino at quite a pace, forever longing just to catch a glimpse of that beige jacket with the dark shoulders not too far ahead. Just before entering Pamplona I encountered Vicky and Roger once again so we walked into this famous city together.

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Personally speaking I felt quite uneasy entering the bustling city after a couple of days immersed in the Spanish countryside. Maybe I’m too self conscious. Surely the citizens of this fine place must be well accustomed to seeing droves of peregrinos passing through their city at all times of the year. The Camino actually bypasses the true city centre by heading off into the northern part of the city before curling around back towards the Castillo and around past the outer defensive walls and up to the Portal de Francia. After this the Camino passes through old Pamplona, an area of intriguing narrow streets and many many shops and cafés. Vicky and Roger were staying in Pamplona. My quest for Pei Pei received further encouragement whilst walking through the old city as I encountered two more of the group I’d been with in Zubiri, who in turn confirmed that Pei Pei ‘had gone ahead’. This was also where I tested for the first time the withdrawal of cash from an ATM. One problem nowadays is the incidence of fraud which can make banks challenge or even deny cash withdrawal from an ATM in another country. I had given my two banks sufficient notice of being in Spain, but you never know if things are going to go smoothly until you try. Fortunately there were no problems. Phew!

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So I set off once again in the hope of finding Pei Pei somewhere ahead. It was quite a warm afternoon partially sunny, partially cloudy. Navigation in busy cities can be quite difficult but the Camino is well marked, but you do have to concentrate all the time on looking ahead for the scallop shell symbol and the characteristic blue and yellow colouration. Not far from the ATM I passed by my Brit colleague Dan once again. He was seated at a table with several others. By all standards of decency I really ought to have stopped off with them at least for one drink but I had become so fixated on catching up with Pei Pei that after a courteous ‘Hi Dan’ I continued onward as if my life had depended on it. The route out of Pamplona goes slightly downhill under the city’s peripheral ring road,and past the University, then it goes over the river, then it follows another road up a long but steady incline passing over the autopista and so into Cizur Menor. I went directly to the albergue Roncal full of expectation that (a) it wasn’t COMPLETO, (b) that Pei Pei was also there. It must have been around 16:00. It was sunny and warm. There were beds available!!! and perhaps Pei Pei? It was an interesting place with various buildings separated by large gardened spaces. The accomodation block was split into three units. I took the mandatory shower but almost embarrassed myself thoroughly as I had at first been about to enter the Ladies’ shower facility!!! as pointed out to me by an American lady coming out of the place (may have been Canadian I s’pose as I’m not knowledgeable enough to tell the difference in the accents). So peregrinos beware:- if the main door to the shower facility is open as you enter into it, firstly check out if there is some sort of indication of gender attached to it, before you proceed beyond it. After the shower there was a quick wash of the day’s t shirt. Then I could take advantage of the relaxing surroundings and chat with those prepared to listen. It was still quite warm in the late afternoon sun. This is where I met Pauline, now living in Canada, but she had for several years lived and worked in England. I discovered that she had also been a Hospitalero and so I asked her lots of questions about it. Even before setting foot on this Camino I had seriously considered returning to it in the role of Hospitalero, as a means of giving back a little of what I expected the Camino would be giving to me. It had given me much already – it had restored my sense of taste and smell – in the guise of Alicia it had blessed me personally on that very first morning before I had even set foot upon this adventure, a blessing as sincere and as righteous as any man of the cloth could have given – and it had provided fellow peregrinos who actually listened to what I was saying, instead of merely pretending to – and it was still only Day 3. At 19:00 a group of us went over to the asador Tremendo for the evening meal and ate and talked, as you do after a day walking the Camino. Upon return to the albergue it was apparent that I was shacked up with about 8 senior American citizens…even more senior than myself, all well-behaved, but it was just fascinating listening to them. Whatever had happened during the day they seemed to be really enjoying things. One final comment – there had been no sighting nor any phone call from Pei Pei all this day. Quite sad really.

Thoughts for today

1. I was pleased with my own physical well-being. No problems at all so far which was just as well as it was only Day 3.
2. No Pei Pei. At the start of the day I had been quite optimistic that I would get back in touch with her one way or another. This optimism had very much governed the entire pace of the walking day and I hadn’t taken the time to absorb fully what was going on around me. Now at the end of the day I realised that I had made a mistake. I had always assumed that she was ahead of me but was this necessarily true?Upon quiet reflection it occurred to me that she could have been eating in a café somewhere en route or she could have already checked into an albergue. If true this meant that she was now BEHIND me and for at least part of today’s walk I may as well have been chasing rainbows. The futility of it was now beginning to sink in. I ought to have realised this obvious truth from the very beginning. The Camino taught me a lesson today…the first of several that were to follow.
3. In the discussion with Pauline that I described in the text above she had asked me why I was walking the Camino. As part of the response I told her I was doing it partly in memory of people that had meant a lot to me but were no longer alive, that I was taking them along with me in my heart and in my soul…in particular in my father’s case how very much I’d regretted not having told him how much he’d meant to me whilst he was still alive, I’d never said ‘Thankyou’ nor had I told him how much I loved him…it would have taken at least 10 seconds to have done so … and yet I never managed to do it….and because of that I would now bear the heavy cross of regret upon my shoulders for the rest of my life.

The whole thing still touches me very deeply, as it did on this day. But what struck me was Pauline’s reaction – giving me an instinctive and reassuring hug then saying to me ‘I’m sure he’d be very proud of you doing what you’re doing now’. Such a profoundly instinctive human response such as this one makes a long lasting impression. It was the second such time that this had occurred – the first being Alicia’s sincerely warm and deeply felt blessing just before I set foot on the Camino. Was all this a part of the ‘magic’ of the Camino?