a little grouchy today

combine a poor night's sleep with a difficult walk today and there was a little tension in team morrison today.
opinions varied on the trail today about the walk. the older folks found the going very difficult. we were mostly walking a steep downward slope that was slippery shale, muddy with, at times, rivulets running right down the centre of the track. very difficult walking.
an older french lady who we have been crossing paths with for the last week said the downhill was tough on her hips and knees (both of which need replacing next year). another older lady fell in front of juan today so there was a bit of roadside care rendered there today. another older lady we spoke to considered that walk dangerous and she also fell today
i was very unhappy as the constant uneven surface was really aggravating my ankle which was almost better
we were talking about our day after we arrived atthe albergue and i wonderd if today could be yet considerd the perfect day because at least we got the weather right and we weren't peeling off layers or hastily covering up as on other days. no. the grouchiness spoiled our time in what was really spectacular scenery. we walked over the montes de leon. there was snow on the peaks, small villages nestled along narrow tracks winding through the valleys, the blossoms are starting to show and the sun was shining all day.
we asked a young italian walker what would make the perfect day for him and what did he think of the day. he said very thoughtfully that he thought today was perfect because, despite the difficulty of the walk, he was in beautiful surroundings. he also left a stone and a photo of his girlfriend at a cross along the way . he has been thinking about his future with her so he spent the day drifting along in romantic thoughts of the wonderful life he is looking forward to with her and he had a perfect day.
he did add, however, that had she been there the day would not have been so perfect because she is very lazy and would have been complaining all day. he said that in italy there is a saying that every man has his cross to bear and that cross is his wife so that does lend a rather practical application to romantic love.
goodnight

a perfect day

we've been talking about a perfect day. just over a week ago we were at dinner with some fellow walkers. someone (who had done the camino before) commented that you don't get the perfect day until the last day.
by that he meant the pack is just right, the weather is perfect, the company good, the terrain manageable and you are well adjusted to the demands of the walk.
juan responded that he had only written in his diary the night before that he was yet to 'have the perfect day'.
the following day sickness hit and our subsequent days were far from perfect
i hadn't really thought about the perfect day. i've had some pretty good days. the days i like the best are when the walking is broken fairly regularly by small villages to walk through. even the days where we walk for long stretches along the highway i feel pretty good to have made it at the end of the day so that constitutes a good day for me.
we've had a bit of rain the last few days and juan now thinks that a perfect day might be when we judge the weather perfectly and don't have to stop to either put on our wet weather gear or peel it off because we have prepared for the worst and the worst hasn't happened. walking in wet weather gear when it isn't raining leaves you feeling like you are working hard while wrapped up in plastic.
today, by juan's criteria we didn't have a perfect day but we did have a pretty good day. we started early and had cheeros and chocolate for breakfast. cheeros are like doughnuts but in long strips and more crunchy than doughnuts. they are sometimes served tossed in sugar but you can also eat them with a kind of hot chocolate that is a bit like chocolate custard. they're delicious and a very good start to the day.
i should say at this point that we have both lost quite a bit of weight. juan has had to bore another hole in his belt just to keep his trousers up. hugging him now takes me back to memories of the man i married. he really is very thin so a breakfast of doughnuts and chocolate custard is a good thing.
today's walk was daunting as we were walking up a gradual gradient all day but the last hour and a half was very steep . we are in foncebaddon tonight which is 1439 m above sea level. given that the highest point we came to when we crossed the pyrennes was 1430 m above sea level we went a long way down to have to come back up again. that aside we had a good day. the villages we went through were perfectly quaint (i think we are now in a more prosperous part of spain than we have been walking through in the last week). everything you might imagine about rural spain we saw today. donkeys, goats, beautiful stone walls, springs, quirky bars and great hospitality. the weather was however, a bit unpredictable so we did have to do the changeing gear thing a few times.
all that said we managed to make the walk close to the time suggested in the guide book which is a big advance for us. on one of our first long walks the guide book suggested the walk would take 7 hours and we took 11 1/2 hours.
i was a bit nervous about foncebaddon because it was described in our guide book as having a population of 5, derelict and abandonned but there has obviously been a bit of development since our book was written and we're staying in a pretty good place
maybe not a perfect day but still a pretty good day

finding refuge in jesus

followers of this blog will know that i am reading pilgrim's progress as i make my way through spain. i am reading very slowly because i fall asleep so quickly at night (usually by 9.30) that i don't get more than a few pages read at a time.
one of the things that isn't really very clear is how christian and his friend, hopeful, make some of their decisions. it is clear they should never leave the path.
however, what is not clear is when to take a rest and when to hurry through. their time spent in the delectable mountains is specifically for their refreshment. their time there, however, is short and they are meant to get back on the path in their journey to the celestial city.
another time they are crossing the enchanted ground that beckons them rest but christian somehow perceives that this is a place of danger and they must be especially alert that sleep not overtake them so that they can move through this area without harm
i have been thinking about this a bit in relation to our experiences with places to rest. some nights we only just survive the accomodation. other places are a complete surprise. the guide book sometimes doesn't help much and we guided moreby hunch than information
for example tonight we are in villar de mazarif. our albergue is called the refugio de jesus. what better name for a place to stay. the guide book provided a fairly bland description and we were only curious to see it because of its name. we were prepared to walk away from the refuge of jesus and go to a more commercial place if it looked too uncomfortable (we are staying in a very small village so our expectations were low)
what a place! it has just been renovated ready for this season's walkers but not used much yet so we are getting the benefit of new fittings etc. the great thing about the place is that in the past people have drawn all over the walls and there are beautiful drawings, funny pictures, interesting sayings in all languages all over the walls. these have been left so the place has retained its past but been transormed into a really funky comfortable place .
hardly any of the people we walked with today turned to the refuge of jesus to stay so we are in this place almost alone. we are really pleased to be here and think we made a good choice.
in fact, as sometimes happens on the camino, we had a choice in which way to walk today. sometimes there are alterntive routes along more 'scenic' ways. i am
reluctant to walk them because they are usually

1. muddy
2. poorly marked
3. hilly
4. longer

i keep in mind christian's insructions for his walk to stay on the path as i try to take the high moral ground in our discussion about which way to go. today, however, we made the better choice in taking the alternative. the main route followed the N120 all the way, whereas we had soft quiet rural tracks to follow.

i should just say that juan almost always wants to take the alternative, hence our decision to go over the pyrenees rather than around them. it appeals to him because it is always described as more scenic but i think he thinks there is more virtue in difficulty.

it's part of the camino way to accept what comes your way in these matters. sometimes you make a good call and other times your day is more difficult than it needed to be. that approach might be all right for the camino but i'm not sure that it is good enough in real life.

after all it has to be better to find refuge in jesus than anywhere else, doesn't it?

"this is what the LORD says 'stand at the crossroad and look; ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it and you will find rest for your souls' Jer 6:16

i may have been a little harsh

my previous comments comprimised my determination to say only positive things on this blog. as thumper the rabbit said in bambi "if you haven't got anything nice to say then don't say anything at all". the truth is that there are plenty of country towns in australia that offer as little to their townsfolk as ledigos. that being said, these towns are someone's home. in addition ledigos offered us not only hospitality but care when i was sick so it was a good place to be when i needed it.
the other thing i should say is that it was unfair of me to single out bar xanadu in calzada del coto as a place to get lung cancer. in truth, you could get lung cancer from any bar in spain. the nanny state has yet to have an impact here. the best you can hope for in any bar is a non-smoking area in a smoke clouded room.

another "rest" day

our double room in ledigos turned into a 2 night stay becasue the same bug that invaded juan took up residence in my gut the following night. the details of that night are now hazy but a bottle of flat lemonade saw me right for that day.
after my recovery we walked from ledigos to calzado del coto which we made an easy day by taxying my bag with some things from juan's pack to the albergue in calzado del coto
a few words about both towns
we are now in what has been consistently referrred to in our guide book as flat, uninteresting terrain. words like unispiring, unspectacular are used a lot. one of our routes was described thus "carrion de los condes to calzadilla de la cueza goes for 12 km along the original route, the old roman road of via aquitana- dead straight with absolutely no shade. the slight hills afterwards look really exciting." or "you may feel totally alone and at a certain point you may even begin to doubt if you willl ever reach another village". or this mystifying remark "do not be put off by the endless wide open spaces which are some of the most powerful experiences along the way".
the book also tells us that the lack of stones in this area has meant that most of the homes in the area are made of mud. we can expect to see less and less stone work in the houses. juan has taken to photographing a lot of mud walls.
lodigos' mud walls were its prominent feature. my suggestion for the town of lodigos is that they hold a mud wall making competition annually. there could be a mud wall queen. mud cake competitions could be run. it could really turn the fortunes of that town around
as for calzada del coto why any guide book would have that place as a destination, walking as we did through sahagun which offered no less than 3 modern albergues and a host of benedictine history with bercianos del real camino on the other side which at least had 2 restaurants and a choice of albergues.
no, we stayed in calzada del coto which must qualify as one of spain's most frontier towns. our accomodation was in a cement hut. bitterly cold. when the guide book described it as having no comforts they were at least truthful.
we paid our donation at the bar xanadu. i am trying to remember the meaning for xanadu. i think it is something like fantasy. if your fantasy is of dying from lung cancer as a result of passive smoking then bar xanadu in calzada del coto is the place for you. they did have a good fire there so it was preferable to whiling away our time there than in the cement hut across the road. words fail to describe the forsakeness of this town.
by contrast we are in reliegos tonight and our albergue is everything you could want. clean, organised, working internet, good hot showers, restful beds and friendly. all for the princely sum of 5 euros
the camino continues to surprise

going soft on the camino

whilst my most recent post provided suggestions about how to succeed at the camino there is another way. until sunday we had walked everyday. 16 days in a row. however, after a very enjoyable dinner on saturday night juan's gut was invaded by some alien force and he spent a fair bit of not-so-quality time in the cabaliros from about 4 in the morning.
never one to give in, he remained insistent that he still had what it took to make the walk that day. all he needed was another half an hour in bed. yes, he felt much better now after that last vomit. all he needed was a bit more rest and maybe one more visit to the cabilleros.
after this went on for a couple of hours i found another hostel in town where we had just 2 beds in the room and our own bathroom and we stayed put for the rest of the day. apart from the fact that it was sickness and desperation that led us to this place what joy it was to be in our own room and only have to listen to our own snoring. we could leave our clothes and bags sprawled all over the room. we had fresh towels with a handtowel and a bath mat. we weren't balancing on one leg to dress ourselves whilst trying not to turn the water on if we leaned too closely to the tap. oh joy
all juan wanted was tea to drink. i went to the bar accross the street from the hotel and in the end i had a very nice understanding with the lady there. i conveyed the fact that i wanted a cup of tea and a coffee. that confused her because she couldn't see anyone else with me until i explained that my meridore was enfirmo. she understood what a sick husband was.
however, then i couldn't explain takeaway. she proceeded to make me the tea and coffee in the crockery then gave me a little tray so after that every time juan needed something to drink i went down the street with my tray and asked for more tea. i even extended to asking for a pot of agua caliente(hot water) to go with it. a triumph of survival skill.
today's walk has been the start to a new approach to the camino

1. we actually walked a shorter distance than the book suggested today
2. we took a double room again tonight
3. we have written down the telephone number of someone who will taxi packs from one destination to another

juan continues to reject my suggestions of taking a bus but it is only a matter of time

how to walk 30 kilometres in one day

1. it's a mental thing no matter what you do, no matter how you prepare for the day some part of your body is going to hurt at some point. as the days progress you may get used to the backpack but then the feet fall apart. after that the legs seems to cramp up every time you stop. you need to stop to rest your feet but then you have to endure the pain in the legs when you start to walk again. even your hat can hurt your head. if you don't get your hat on right it can rub the top of your ear lobes and then they get sore. ditto with the sunglasses. you just have to get your head into the task of making your body keep going
2. cut corners as we were entering navaro (a particularly grueling day) i decided to take on the camino. i drew on some inner strength i didn't know i possessed and decided i would win. my plan was to walk on the inside curve of every corner i went around thereby cutting who knows how many metres off the walk. it does give me something to do as i look ahead a few curves and plan my way through. this obsession may be a form of camino madness and i have to admit the camino has had its way with me more than i with it as that day revealed my first blister. i still think i am on to something though
3. inspiring phrases a 66 year old austrian strode past us the other day and called out "no pain no glory". we spent a little bit of time discussing that comment. mainly along the lines that whilst that may well be true the experience of pain does not guarantee glory. signposts along the way like "476 kilometres to santiago" also have an impact
4. start early walking in the morning is better than walking in the afternoon. we are walking west so if we leave early we get the bulk of our walking done with the sun behind us and that helps. we also have the advantage that we started the walk when europe changed to daylight saving so we are getting an extra hour of morning conditions even when we do leave a little later than planned
5. plan your breaks this can be tricky. the books tell you to take food and water. what they don´t make clear is that all the serviocos (toilets) are in the businesses along the way. it is best to buy food along the way so that you can use the services but this often necessitates buying drinks so you are therefore commited to the purchase of more drinks at the next place in order to use the services. in terms of timing breaks we have started to walk without eating breakfast if the first village is fairly close . we then walk 10 ks , have a break, another 10 ks have another break and then the final leg of the walk is only 5 ks. this is all dependant on the villages being conveniently arranged at about those distances
6. watch the horizon because of the weight of the pack you can tend to walk looking down all the time. it does help, however, to keep your eye on the far horizon. you can occupy yourself by aiming for the next row of trees. when a village is coming into view you first see the church tower (usually) then you might see more detail of the church. you then start to see smaller buildings in front of the church and then the village

i hope this is helpful

yes, there were chickens in the church

and a gilt wall with many statues on the northern side at the front in the church at santo domingo de la caldzada.
we attended this church for easter sunday mass in the evening. it was a sung mass and we were observers for the entirity as we could understand neither the language or the ritual
however, the priest who preached communicated as much by gesture and expression to say ¨all this doesn't matter.¨as he gestured to the gilded wall and then moved his hand to his heart and seemed to say ¨it's what's in here that counts¨
we felt entirely at home

feliz pascua

juan tells me that that is happy easter in spanish. he has been greeting all comers with this announcement and gets a response ranging from perplexity to joy along the way depending on his pronouciation of the famous spanish 'th'
easter in spain is an interesting time. on good friday we were in los gronos. i was very tired after dinner and juan convinced me to walk into town to see the cathedral but i put very firm limits on how far i was prepared towalk and how long i was going to spend there. we came upon the town's santo viernes (good friday) parade and had to tear ourselves away in the end.
the parade consisted of waves of drummers dressed in white gowns and tall pointy hoods that only had holes for the eyes. each group of drummers was escorting a differnt statue of the stations of the cross. each statue had its own group of drummers with their distinctive coloured pointyhoods. they were walking very slowly to this loud repetitive drum beat and paused at different points. there were some men carrying crosses and in one section women wearing the black mantillas. some other people who watched for longer said the parade lasted about 3 hours in all. it had an almost menacing feel although the local people didn't seem take on an overly serious attitude. one of our fellow walkers had the same feeling as us that it was all a bit sinister and scary
easter saturday we were in najera. again absolutely exhausted after a 30 k walk to find a seriously overcrowded hostel with no hot water left for showers (i was encouraged to take a cold shower by the hotelier as the cold water is 'very good for the skin').
juan's feet are slowly falling apart so we also had to do some serious consulation at the farmacia for some new foot care products (silicone inserts for the boots which seem to have helped today). given all that we were not really on the look out for any events but a chance look in the local church found us in the middle of a prayer time. one lady was calling the prayers and a small group of elderly people were echoing or responding to her words. we left as we thought that was the service only to find the crowds building and a group of men, along with the priest, trying to get some kind of fire in a bowl going that they were presumabely going to carry into the church. not sure what that was all about.
it was 9 o'clock and we had to get back as the hostels mostly close the doors at 10 o'clock.
we are in santo domingo de la calzada tonight and will go to the mass in the church but who knows what will happen. this town has their own take on the resurrection story. the town was established inthe 1100s by st domingo de la calzoda. he built an inn and a place to care for pilgrims and spent his life clearing paths and building bridges to improve the pilgrim walk. in the 1400s a german family was pilgrimming to santiago and the inn keeper's daughter in this town took a fancy to their son. he spurned her advances. she then planted a silver cup in his possesssion and accused him of robbery. he was tried for this and hanged. after the hanging his parents found that he was not trully dead. he had been kept alive by st domingo. they went to the local judge to tell him this. the judge replied that their son was as dead as the two chickens on his plate. with that the two chickens started crowing. to this day the cathedral has housed 2 chickens in a specially built part of the cathedral. at the hostel where we are staying there is a small chicken shed of white chickens. i presume on rotation duty in the cathedral.
i am in another world here

sayings along the way

i have been wanting to devote an entire blog to john's words of wisdom along the way

1. as we were crossing the pyrennes, being buffeted by icy gales and enduring sleet whilst tottering along narrow paths with sheer valleys below us `this really feels like we are crossing the pyrennes´
2. arriving in larrasoana late, in the rain and being told there was no accomodation 'i couldn´t really understand him, he was speaking broken spanish'
3. later that night when we were able to get some accomodation after a baffling telephone conversation and eating some food that john had been able to persuade a full restaurant to give him 'you go to bed. i'm staying up to learn spanish'. from then on i have referred to him as juan in order to help him with his spanish
4. leaving puenta la reina after our previous day in the mud. our washing hadn't dried and i had to wear my purple striped long johns with shorts over the top.'you look cute in that'
5. we are following a guide book which has the gradients laid out for the day's walk. invariabley as we set out on thelast bit which looks to be a conitinous downhill walk we find ourselves walkng uphill for sometime. i can't stand it and say 'i thought this was supposed to be downhill'. 'it's an average' is juan's reply.

finally the always reliable 'i think we'll see the town aound the next bend'

goodnight

maundy thursday in los arcos

i had a few different titles in mind for this blog. the first was going to be there is a fountain filled with wine. our first stop this morning was the monasterio de santa maria la real de marche. this is an old convent that is now empty but is famous for having a fountain (we would call it a tap) where passers by can pour themselves a drink of wine. if they like the wine they can then buy some wine or equally refresh themselves with the water coming from the adjacent fountain. there is a webcam on the site and you can see people drinking wine there as they go by. we did ring joel and adam hoping they might get on the internet to see us but we couldn't co-ordinate it
my second title for this blog was then going to be a long and winding road. we had our first long stretch of level walking today from ermita don monjardin to los arcos. the sign said 5.7 k but when you see the road stretched out in front of you and you think it is easy walking and not an especially long way somehow the road seems longer.
we arrived in los arcos and asked about a service tonight and went out to explore the town. the town church, the iglesia de santa maria is in the town square. it looks to be a fairly plain building. the guide book described it as romanesque/gothic/baroque and we expected some of those decortative features.
what we saw defies description. it was huge. with every kind of religious statue placed in every place possible. massive screens and backgrounds covered in gold. it smelt old. there was a huge pipe organ. the choir stalls at the back had a square display stand for the chants where the choir sat around the stand to read the music. in the cloisters there were huge movable statues of representations of the different parts of the easter story-disciples falling asleep, palm sunday, the walk to the cross. inside there was a glass case of a statue of christ that is placed on the cross on good friday and then taken down in the afternoon and paraded through the town.
we spent so long there it was then time for the service re-enacting the washing of the disciples feet so of course we stayed for that. suffice to say this is a church yet to fell the impact of hillsong.
it was quite an experience. a bit much for this little protestant. i thought as a christian i could feel one with all traditions who worship jesus but i did feel alien there amongst all that. the lack of understanding through language was one thing but it has left me feeling disturbed

mud,sweat and ...

no tears
yesterday we came across the famed mud of the camino.
as we set out from pamplona it was raining. it rained for most of the day. the mud started after we left cizor menor and continued to uterga. it was an almost continual climb over very muddy trails. we don´t mean to be the slowest in the pack but it seemed hundreds of people were skipping and running past us whilst we were travailing in the mud. the trail is surprisingly busy and i think there was a school group on it yesterday.
being so behind the group slowed us down because we were walking through their churned up mud so it was quite an experience. we had to keep stopping to clean our boots as they were getting so heavy with the mud.
however we did have a glorious day. the slopes we were climbing offered great panoramas once we arrived at the top. there are a lot of wind farms in spain and we were standing under them looking out across the plain. for the last two days we have had wind farms in continuous sight.
last night we had a late dinner with a group of young men who had ridden their bikes over the mud. they were very lighthearted about what must have been gruelling day. they were drinking and smoking and obviously planned to be up a lot later than us and then be ready to do it all over again today. we were in a restaruant that had big kegs of cider in the middle with a grill in the floor all aorund it . they showed john how to hold the glass out from the spout and catch it in the glass. what was missed went down the grill. not quite the same as the apple cider we are used to.
we are in estella tonight and preparing for bed early. the tiredness really hits you in the evening. john is writing his diary and i will read a little more of pilgrim's progress and then this little pilgrim will go to bed