I get lost for the first time.

Ventosa to Cirueña

Another early, fresh and dark start. Curiously enough this brought me into contact yet again with young Nico (the one from Venice) with whom just hours before I had been discussing the finer points of rock music. But despite our recent acquaint it counted for nothing that morning as he set off from the albergue in a strange direction whereas I headed up the hill in the direction of the café where we had had lunch the day before. Lo and behold Nico reappeared from the track that I’d previously seen him go down and so he then joined me. It reminded me of that scene in the film ‘The Way’ where on the first day ‘Tom’ sets off from his accommodation in the wrong direction….as a group of peregrinos pass him going the other way. I always found that the most disorientating part of the route finding would occur at the very start of the day – on departure from the albergue – when you can’t recollect from what direction you approached it the day before. You quickly learn to slavishly follow the other peregrinos that are departing, based on the premise that most of the people get it right most of the time! and also that not having slept particularly well, if at all, capacity for independent thought is severely reduced at this time of day. Nico was very lucky because once out of the illuminated part of this little pueblito and within a minute of setting foot onto the truly dark part of the route, the batteries on his headtorch failed completely. So I became the “eyes in the dark” for both of us until dawn. And so this newly formed Anglo-Italian pairing’s first achievement was the cresting of the pass at the Alto de San Antón. The lights of Nájera, the next reasonably sized town ahead, casted an orange glow in the sky in front of us, guiding our general direction westward…counterbalancing the glow directly behind us, the one heralding the appearance yet again of that nuclear reactor in the sky that we call The Sun. Onward and downward we headed, not much to see in the dark. When it was sufficiently light to appreciate the surroundings we found ourselves in the none too pretty environs east of the town. But sometimes amidst the gloom a gem shines the more brightly such as the one that was awaiting around this particular corner…..

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I will attempt a ‘liberal’ translation of the above. Please bear with me…..

Dust, mud, sun, and rain, thousands of pilgrims and the passage of more than a thousand years….such is the Camino de Santiago. Pilgrim, Who or What summons you forth? What hidden force brings you here? It’s not the Field of Stars, nor is it the great cathedrals. It’s not Navarrese bravery and spirit, neither is it the wines of Rioja, nor is it the seafood of Galicia, nor the countryside of Castile. Pilgrim, Who or What summons you forth? What unseen power draws you here? It’s not the peoples of the Camino nor the rural customs. It’s not history nor culture, nor the rooster at La Calzada, nor the Palace of Gaudí, nor the castle at Ponferrada. I see all this as I pass by and it’s a joy to see it all, but I feel much more deeply the voice that calls me. I don’t know how to explain the power that impels me and summons me forth, only He who is above knows that.

All of this sadly seemed to be of little interest to my younger companion, as there is an Italian rendition of this prose written upon an adjoining pair of walls, but he seemed keen to move on. Young people today! So we arrived in Najera, crossed the bridge, and stopped in the first café we encountered.

I think I must have become invisible when I entered that place as I appeared to be utterly, totally and very effectively ignored. Definitely the last time that I ever will enter it, should I pass by in some as yet unwritten future. Nico was luckier so we sat outside and chatted whilst he consumed what passed for breakfast. As keen and lively as ever he moved off and so ended the short chapter in my life that I had been granted the pleasure of sharing a few brief hours of our lives, a pleasure now destined to become a mere memory …. along with so so many others. Nájera didn’t greatly appeal to me but maybe I was still reacting to having been thoroughly ignored by the first inhabitants of the place. It is quite a large community by Camino standards, very functional and very busy. I passed through the busy and noisy centre of town but I found it very surprising that none of the cafés adjoining the nice plaza through which the Camino passes were open! At this stage I encountered the little Irish young lady who I had seen a number of times in the recent days …all without ever knowing her name……as though that really matters. Her objective for the day though was a monastery, which is located several miles from the main Camino track. Que lástima. She was an extremely chatty little thing and was blessed with that song-like and poetic lilt that the Gaelic language has bequeathed to the modern day accent of those born and bred in the Republic of Ireland. But piety and devotion to duty were pulling her in a different direction to the one that fate and destiny had in store for me. I may have done a great injustice to Nájera in my narrative. I’m sure others have or will have much better memories of it than mine. What can’t be denied is the impressive natural setting in which it is located…to the north the town runs up against a very strikingly coloured red-brown escarpment. So alone (but never lonely!) I made my way through and then out of the town. The Camino goes uphill and passes through a gap in the red-brown rocks just beyond the town and then heads out into the vineyards. The only habitation of any note before Cirueña was Azofra. After a brief refreshment stop I proceeded. The track at first leads towards the A12 autopista, a noisy reminder of the modern world, crosses a canal and then swings around towards Cirueña. But it was around here that I must have gone astray, (if I knew exactly where I got lost then I wouldn’t have got lost would I?). I really did think that I was on the right track all the time until I realised that I hadn’t seen any yellow arrows for almost ten minutes. Time to check against the Buen Camino app….which clearly showed the blue dot where I was which unfortunately was not on the route of the Camino which is highlighted in yellow on that app. AAAARGH!!! I supposed it had to happen, the law of probability being what it is! However the Buen Camino app did show me that the ‘track’ I was currently following would lead to a small tarmacked road which I could then follow northwards and rejoin the Camino. And so it was. Upon reflection it seems that I had been inadvertently following a wide dirt track between the rows of vines. These dirt tracks are actually ‘highways’ for vehicles whose job is to service the extensive areas of vine plantations, and are consequently well-beaten down and well-used, so much so that I had assumed erroneously that one of them was the route of the Camino. Oh Well. A blow to the pride. A learning experience. The little road that the track did come to goes over a small hill before it descends towards the main Camino track. But a hill is a hill. At this stage of the afternoon it was very warm, verging on truly hot, so I was annoyed with myself for having caused this unnecessary expenditure of precious energy. Once back upon the Camino I resolved to concentrate on the yellow markers! But there were other peregrinos strung out along it at that time, some ahead of me usefully acting as waymarkers and some behind. As the track nears Cirueña there is a long hill to surmount, but it was ideal for zig-zagging as it’s quite wide and there were very few peregrinos around me. Just beyond the top of this hill and on the left hand side is the golf course mentioned in Brierley ‘s guide. An oasis of well-watered and well-tended greenery in the midst of an otherwise sun-baked dessicated landscape. It was around this point of the day’s journey that I suffered the first problem of the Camino……the calf muscles in my left leg were beginning to cramp up. It had been a particularly hot day thus far and getting lost hadn’t helped. So it was time for a handful of peanuts and raisins washed down with what remained in my water bottle to which I added a little ground salt, courtesy of the salt mill that I’d purchased back in Estella…..and this combination did seem quite effective. Luckily my intended destination for that evening was Albergue Victoria only around half a mile further along the track. Beyond the golf course it is quite flat and on the right is the buildings/apartments development also mentioned in Brierley….and as he says…pretty well totally deserted. Tracking down the exact whereabouts of the albergue was a bit more problematical than I’d imagined and Cirueña’s not a particularly big place. By a process of elimination I ventured down the one very small road that remained to be explored to find the albergue located about half a mile along it and located on the right hand side.

Someone was taking advantage of the excellent combination of hot sunshine and breeze to dry bed linen and towels etc draped over frames by the front entrance. There was a reasonably sized plot of land alongside the house and the part nearest to it seemed to be used for the growing of vegetables that I felt sure would be components of any of the albergue’s communal meals.

It was just after 1:35pm. Time to grab a bed, shower, wash clothes, crash out and chill, literally. So to the fun part of the day…those all-so-important first impressions, the interface with the dueño where you have to ask if there are beds available…and if so there follows the usual niceties of passport and credencial stamping and any other chit chat that ensues. Having a reasonable grasp of conversational Spanish makes things sooooo much easier…Gracias al Dios. The albergue must once have been an ordinary domestic residence as the main room downstairs looked quite well ‘lived in’. The lady who seemed to be in charge showed me the dormitory and other facilities upstairs followed by a quick visit outside to where the clothes washing area was. I must say that the facilities upstairs were very good, everything looking as though it had all undergone some recent renovation.

The curious thing though was that there were a couple of French ladies already there….which was fine by me…..I was just wondering what they made of it, having to put up with me, a male and a Brit!! in the same dormitory! or maybe I’m just plain old-fashioned and too self-conscious. Later two other young-ish ladies appeared in the room. Lucky old me I suppose. The Camino provides, so they say. I took a nice relaxing shower and then did the washing of some of the clothes. At first finding somewhere to leave them to dry was tricky as the drying contraptions ( I dunno what they call these things…human ingenuity must have conjured up some sort of word for them I suppose) were 95% utilised with existing washing. However the owner must have seen me messing about and bless her she reappeared with another of these drying contraptions, whatever you call ’em. Brilliant. So there followed a truly relaxing afternoon, a quite silent afternoon for me, not being able to engage in any meaningful conversation with the French ladies. The WiFi signal was very good. There was plenty of time to update the people back in the UK and my Brit colleague Dan via WhatsApp, time to look ahead to tomorrow’s plans, plenty of time to think and meditate on the meaning of life. The communal meal was excellent in its delicious simplicity. But for my part it was one taken in silence as the language barrier is still an effective block to communication. As predicted earlier much of the produce being grown outside must have featured in the soup and in the main course that accompanied the pork fillets. Not forgetting the wine which I presume was of equally local origin, having had vineyards accompany me for much of today’s journey. All very nice. The meal provides a good opportunity to add some salt (but not too much)to the intake. The cramp in that calf muscle was now a distant memory. Would it ever return?

After the meal it was back to the dorm to pass the final hour and a bit, before lights out at 10pm. Far too early as I’ve previously mentioned. All I hoped for was that I wouldn’t be a nuisance to the other ladies in there….so I was careful to let them all use the bathroom first, which just left the thorny issue of snoring to consider. I’m sure the last thing that any of those fine creatures in the dorm would want is to be woken up by some Brit hombre in the corner of the room snoring away like a you-know-what. Díos mio Hombre ¡Callate! So as I’d done in the previous nine nights I prayed long and hard that I would be spared this particular curse. Good Fun these social niceties aren’t they! As my ears are able to testify during all of the other Camino nights, many others either didn’t pray all that hard….or maybe their Gods just weren’t listening!

Thought for the Day

Getting lost and getting cramp all in the same day wasn’t a good omen. I’d heard so many tales of peregrinos beginning to develop problems with feet, knees, legs etc as the cumulative total of miles and the repetitive strain of putting one foot in front of the other began to take its toll. Was this beginning to happen to me? Hitherto I’d been perfectly fine. Here’s what I texted back to my cousins in the UK…’Now I have entered the ‘best be very careful’ phase of the walk. The afternoon sun at the moment is a real killer. 15 miles today and the ‘boy done good’ BUT left calf was starting to cramp up at the end. Also feels like a bit of rubbing between a couple of toes on the right foot. First usage of the salt replenishment mill’. So definitely time to take things steadily and carefully. Hence my decision to make Grañon and its much talked about combined albergue/iglesia, tomorrow’s destination, a distance of around 8 miles.