The Hard Times Never Last
Travel Days 77 – 79
March 15 – 17
Camino Day 11:
Granon to Belorado
Daily distance:
15.8 km
Total distance:
235.6 km
Because of Josu’s ability to
bring people together, Christian, Markus, and I started the Camino together in
the morning. We made slow progress
against the strong headwinds blowing from the west. I quickly found my walking sticks to be
useless against them. I spent most of
the day with all of my warming layers on, my chin tucked low, and my eyes
squinted behind my sunglasses in an attempt to block debris. Towns were separated by 3-5 kilometers in
this region and we stopped at each one for a break. The first was for coffee, the second was for
food, and the third was just to sit on a bench and be out of the wind for a
while.
The rains started thirty
minutes before we reached Belorado. A
quick break at a bar for a beer only paved the way to worse weather, and we
chose to stay in town for the night.
With only 16 kilometers under our belts, the first day I chose to walk
with others on the Camino proved to be the least productive. The not-surprised and perpetually-hungry
Steve mounted an offensive to assault the only restaurant in town at 4:30 PM in
order to obtain the Pilgrim’s Menu that consisted of a three-course meal and a
bottle of wine for the low price of ten Euros.
Unfortunately, this offensive was a complete failure, as the restaurant
does not serve dinner until 7:00 PM. A
sad glass of beer bridged the gap in time until the local “supermarket” opened
at 5:00 PM, after which our party bought the necessities to make pasta with
vegetable sauce (tomato sauce with sautéd vegetables), a dish I cooked under my
own suspicions but which was successfully eaten by the others with the polite
praise from friends made less than 24 hours ago. This kind of praise is always subject to
suspicious doubt. Concurrent with and
immediately following the dinner was the consumption of copious amounts of
wine, which created the perfect circumstance to discuss political beliefs and
the philosophy of social norms. To the
surprise of all parties, the latter discussion fueled the rage of a one-beer
monologue from a conversation participant and the accidental but well-warranted
dramatic spilling of an already-empty wine glass on nobody. The evening concluded with suspense-ending
laughter over the obtusely-apparent violent tendencies of said
wine-spiller. The author gleefully
retreated to the bunkroom and discovered a newfound love for
apostrophe-connected adjectives, thus concluding another fine evening on the
Camino de Santiago.
Camino Day 12:
Belorado to Atapuerca
Daily distance: 30
km
Total distance:
265.6 km
The day’s weather report
predicted partly sunny skies with no chance of rain. This was a lie. The next week, however, looked more grim, with
temperatures dropping another 10 degrees down to freezing and an almost
guaranteed chance of rain and snow each day.
Considering we have an increase in elevation over the next two days,
it’s going to be necessary to get moving.
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| Belorado is home to a row of hand- and foot-prints from famous actors, including this one from Martin Sheen. He passed through Belorado while filming "The Way." (Ignore the water, it was raining a lot) |
Christian and I had breakfast,
and Markus went ahead of us, eager to get on the road. I told him our paths would cross again, even
though I didn’t believe it. Christian
and I started together 30 minutes later.
The morning was silent between us.
Belorado disappeared behind us.
We continued through open spaces and sparse civilization. A vandalized bench with a broken backing was
covered in a graffiti. A line of brown
brittle plants had broken branches spread across the ground. A leafless tree was covered in yellow lichen. A string of puddles were reluctant to absorb
into the already-damp ground. An endless
row of newly-planted crops ran parallel to the Camino. Carbon-copy barn houses with red roofs and
white walls stood evenly spaced and aligned in the distance.
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| Mural artwork adorned the side of a building. |
In Villafranca, we stopped for
a small lunch before venturing onto the next remote 12 kilometers of mountains
and forests. We would have preferred a
large lunch, but the people in these regions have no tradition of midday meals. So we settled on sandwiches and climbed out
of civilization again. The slope leveled
and the woods thickened. It was
noticeably colder here, and small snowflakes fell to the ground, catching
reflections from the still-shining sun.
A gust of wind pushed a wave through the treetops. I took a deep breath of the distinct and
irreplaceable pine tree mountain air.
Mud squished beneath our boots; the recent rains had saturated the
ground. Next week’s weather will be less
kind.
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| Leaving the city and entering the wilderness again is always pleasant. |
We passed a homeless man who we
mistook for a pilgrim sitting on the side of the road. He told us he loved us, and we just smiled
and nodded and kept on walking. Halfway
to San Juan, we arrived at an “Oasis” which could only claim the water that has
turned into mud. The rest area abounded
with pilgrims’ artwork and some remnant pieces of clothing that were mocked up
on wood carvings.
After twelve kilometers of
peaceful trekking on the muddy mountain path, the forest opened up and we were
in San Juan de Ortega, a small mountain hamlet with a large cathedral holding
the sepulture of the town’s patron saint.
The doors to the cathedral were wide open; we entered to explore the
darkened interior. After ten minutes, we
were ready to leave, but the rains started again. We entered the albergue next door. They had a pilgrim’s menu, but it wouldn’t be
served for another two hours. Our plan
was to eat a late lunch in San Juan, but it wasn’t going to happen, and I
decided to move on. The rain outside was
now snow, and Christian decided to stay.
He was tired of the terrible weather we had on our “good weather
day.” We said our farewells, and I
braved the weather with my umbrella until it subsided. I knew the weather tomorrow was going to be
worse, and I wanted to get as close to Burgos before a larger storm hit the
Camino.
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| Knowing when to rest is as important as knowing when to go. |
One kilometer outside of San
Juan, I noticed a pain in my left foot, but only because I noticed I was
walking with a slight limp. My feet were
cold. I pressed onward. Only five more kilometers of this until I got
to Atapuerca where I could take these damned boots off my feet.
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| The Camino Frances is part of the European Union's International Trail System. |
The church bells rang five
times as a neared Agés. The Camino followed the major road through
town; it was just wide enough for one car, yet devoid of any. The only sound in town was the trickling of a
pilgrim’s fountain. In five minutes, the
town ended, and I could see the road leading to Atapuerca two kilometers
away. I smiled at my home for the
night.
Camino Day 13: Atapuerca
to Burgos
Daily distance:
20.4 km
Total distance:
286.0 km
The wood-burning stove that
warmed the albergue last night left a campfire smell in my gear. It was most pungent on my down feather
sleeping bag, a smell that would remind me of the remoteness here. I packed my things and ventured from the
warmth of the cabin to the elements of the mountains.
It snowed last night. Not much, but enough to decorate the tops of
cars and houses with white powder.
Whatever had fallen on the ground had already melted, and a wetness
permeated the village. Even the air was
wet and chilled my body when I breathed inward.
The cold bit my fingers through my glove inserts, and I donned my second
pair of gloves. It must have still been
below zero. The clouds responsible were
lying low on the hills surrounding the town, and just below their horizontal
white-out border, the trees and plants and everything that used to be green was
now white. My stomach grumbled, and I
searched around town for a place to eat, finding nothing. I had no food on me, so I ventured into the
cold and white wilderness on an empty stomach.
Ten minutes outside of
Atapuerca, I was walking amongst the clouds, surrounded by a forest with snow
crystals delicately deposited on every branch and leaf. A light snowfall drizzled downward and
sideways, occasionally catching me on the nose or in the eye. The trail grew tougher; the Way here was more
of a rocky path than a dirt one.
Elevation climbed, visibility dropped, and the snowfall thickened. Now was the perfect time to use my
umbrella.
I reached the peak of
mountain, but I didn’t know I was at the peak until later when the Camino
descended again. The fog here was so
thick that world seemed dream-like, blocking view of the outside. And standing at this gently-rounded peak was
a ten-meter-tall cross covered in snow, its ambiance and solitude here
dramatized by the weather.
On my descent, a yellow car
with lights mounted atop approached from the opposite direction, stopping to
talk to me. We exchanged pleasantries,
and they asked me if they needed anything.
It was a local search-and-rescue team driving along the Camino to make
sure pilgrims weren’t stranded in the cold on a mountain. I thought it very kind of them to offer,
politely declined, and thanked them for their concern.
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| Spain isn't always sunshine. We just have to take the bad with the good. |
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| Some arrows on the Camino are larger than others. |
