Santiago by Seventy 1-5

Santiago by Seventy

"I think you're mad," and that's only Trevor the handyman, as he stands in the doorway of my library-cum-office to wish me well. He can't come in any further because of the books, and my books aren't my only friend I'm going to leave behind.

"Do you have everything?" says Penny venturing a random question without any preliminaries, the sort of question out of the blue which can only be posed between couples.  In this case I know what she means: do I have everything for the walk?

The pack sits on the chair: it’s already got a personality; the personality of a couch potato, dull, glowering and heavy. In my youth we used to plan on thirty pounds and thirty miles. More recently my meetings with soldiery have taught that the packs they carry weigh seventy pounds and more, mostly batteries for their electronic equipment. I’m trying to keep mine as light as possible. One guidebook says to keep the pack to 10% of body weight. That can’t be right: there are big blokes like me, well big-ish, and many more tiny scraps of people.   In my case 10% would be 22 lbs. or 10 kilos while a chit of a girl - 8 stone - would only be carrying a pack of only 11 lbs.  And in my limited experience, quite a few girls’ handbags weigh almost that much.   So, obviously the guidebook was written by a man, a man who follows his advice with five pages of things to take on the Camino including a pair of binoculars to study the higher church ornaments:  I think he means the church ornaments nearer the roof.   He also cautions the pilgrim against consumerism, immediately before endorsing several commercial products.

However with careful selection and re-selection I’ve got the pack down to about 25 lbs. No individual item seems to weigh very much, but together they do add up.  No binoculars ever got near the pack.   Out has gone the sleeping mat – a pity as this was one of the few things bought specially for the walk, very expensive and very clever with a one-way valve which makes it self-inflating, though now I shall never know how well it works.   Out too has gone the Leatherman - too heavy.   But a look at the weather forecast persuades me to keep the leggings - it's raining in the Pyrenees.   And out goes the shaving gear.   

Surprisingly the medical kit seems to feature large, filled with everything which friends tell me I shall need.   The single bulkiest item is what the guidebook coyly calls salva-slips: apart from their obvious purpose these will serve as reminder of one of the reasons why I’m doing this: to celebrate surviving cancer.   The good doctors have over treated me and left me with colitis for which the only remedy is more eye-wateringly invasive surgery which I think I’ll put off for as long as possible, and hey! I’m here to tell the tale.     

So, I am planning on thirty pounds and five hundred miles. Santiago by seventy, that’s my aim.

Literary Reconnaissance

The Footprint Guide to Northern Spain by Andy Symington which is oddly imbalanced and the maps poor, and though it makes reference to the Camino, some important places are missed entirely from the text.

For history I have read TD Kendrick’s (1960) Saint James in Spain, tortuously set out but sets out how lists the story of St James grew in northern Spain and spread across the country with the expulsion of the Moors.   Clavijo, the alleged site of a battle between Christians and Moors when the apparition of St James riding on a white charge changed to course of battle, and indeed the tide of Moorish conquest, is on my list of places of visit, though, having read Kendrick, it seems less important.

I suppose I should count Bengtsson’s Röde Orm (aka The Longships) in my readings, because doesn’t his hero visit Santiago during the course of his service as a Moorish warrior?

Oh, yes, and a book on Wellington’s campaigns in northern Spain and the Battle of the Pyrenees two hundred years ago.

Then there were three personal accounts, To the Field of Stars – a Pilgrim’s Journey to Santiago de Compostela by Kevin A Codd, an American catholic priest working in Belgium, spiced with his own religious observations which left me feeling they had been written for his bishop as some kind of promotion exam, and Robert Mullen’s Call of the Camino – Myths, Legends and Pilgrim Stories on the Way to Santiago de Compostela spiced with home-spun tales culled from history and from philosophy.    The best of these three however is Tom Moore’s Spanish Steps, his account of walking across Spain to Santiago with a donkey, which is more light-hearted and amusing than the others.

There was also a film, Martin Sheen’s The Way directed by Emilio Estevez, about a man who loses his son and carries his ashes on pilgrimage, and a television series, 

Brian Sewell’s Naked Pilgrim.   Sewell repeats a journey which he made 40 years before, this time by car, boat and horse and almost despite himself is moved by mass in the cathedral of St James and mourns for his loss of faith.   He ends by burning his clothes on the beach and bathing naked in the Atlantic.   I may not do this part of the pilgrimage, but no one explains whether there is – or not – some pre-Christian origin to this walk which ends symbolically at the end of the earth, and a ceremony for fire and water.

All told, however, considerably less literary reconnaissance than I is used to when approaching a new subject.

The two guidebooks I have brought with me are A Pilgrim’s Guides to the Camino de Santiago by John Brierly (a little sanctimonious in places) and the Confraternity of ST James’s own, economic, practical guide No 1.

As for reading material then I have decided to bring with me The Glass Room by Simon Mawer, whose dark them about the clash of civilisations in the mid-20th century somehow seems to mirror the clash of civilisations which brought St James to his prominence all those centuries ago.  I hope to finish it tonight and maybe leave it at Liz’s

For the journey I have Isabel Allendes’ La Suma de los Días:  I have always liked her writing and it may help improve my Spanish.

Reading, Berks

In a sense the journey has already because on Thursday last (5 April) I was in Reading for the Falklands Commanders’ dinner at Pangbourne to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the start of the 1982 Falklands War.    There were many old faces from those days, much medalry and bright uniforms, and each group standing at the end of dinner when their regimental marches were played - and recognised. 

I sat between Sir Robert Armstrong, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s Cabinet Secretary in 1982, and JW, captain of one of our ships.   Armstrong was gracious and informative in recalling his memories of those events, including Admiral Leach’s gate-crashing of a meeting of officials and ministers in the House of Commons and swinging the meeting in favour of sending a Task Force.   JW managed to be dull and pompous.    Opposite was Mike Layard, whose face fell when he realised he was sitting next to an Air Marshal (Peter Squire), but they talked amiably after I introduced the information that Squire had been a Harrier pilot ‘down south.’   Next to Squire was Group Captain Jeremy Price who was CRAF on Ascension Island for a few weeks during the war:  quizzed, he had no memory of Don Coffey bringing him BDA after Operation Black Buck, but, tellingly, no time for Don Coffey either – who I thought was vital to our operations on the island.    Nor did he (Price) get promoted.   On the other side of Armstrong was a Squadron Leader who talked non-stop to senior crab on his left and so gave me more than a fair share of Armstrong’s attention.

Others I spoke to were John Shirley of the Guardian (reporter for The Times in 1982), Geoff Till, Robin Brodhurst, Al West, Jonathon Band, Jeremy Black, Ralfe Wyke-Sneyd, Chris Wreford-Brown, Chris Parry, Robin Gainsford and a very amusing soldier whose family have bought the former Admiralty House at Rosyth.

The Royal Marines band were at their very, very best, though I was disappointed not to hear one tune:    I remember in 1982 he then band, in khaki uniform on the clay cricket field at St George’s, playing a Lloyd-Webber song from the musical Evita “Don’t cry for me, Argentina” as a slow match – then, 30 years ago, I wasn’t the only man with a lump in his throat.

But back to Reading, where we all stayed in a central hotel.   Here in the 12th century the Empress Matilda gave the hand of St James to Reading Abbey:  it was brought from Italy in the 11^th century to Hamburg by Adalbert, Archbishop of Bremen where it became part of the imperial regalia.  This hand is now in a glass case at St Peter's Church, Marlow, Bucks:  it was found in an iron chest at the abbey in 1786. After its re-rediscovery it was displayed in a museum, and in a private chapel until the grave of St James was found in Spain – with a hand missing whereupon Pope Leo XII declared the bones to be genuine, and in 1896 the hand was given to St Peter's Church.  

Anyway, the abbey contained many relics, and pilgrims from Britain started from Reading for the ports of Bristol, Weymouth and Southampton, choosing a short sea route and a crossing of France, or a longer sea route and a lesser distance from the ports of northern Spain to walk to Santiago.  

Helpfully the modern Confraternity of St James, based in Southwark, now provides a walking route from Reading via Winchester to Portsmouth and the ferry for France.

My own journey from Reading is by train to Liphook, car via Milland to Gatwick and Easyjet to Bordeaux, and train to Orthez and car to Liz’s.   

Geoff has rung and we have the longest conversation for long time, about his studies at Oxford, but I think his main aim is to quiz me about my readiness for the walk:  I assure that I have done some long training walks, my aim worries are whether my old knees will bear the strain, and about fellow-travellers wanting to get too close.

Isabel rings while driving north from Devon via Oxford (!) where they have had supper in Geoff’s favourite Chinese restaurant.  We have a lovely chat and she wishes me well, then Tams in rings back to speak too with her good wishes, and I hear a chorus of sleepy kids in the background. 

Wednesday 11^th April

Today’s itinerary is Easyjet EZY5013 from Gatwick at 1115 to Bordeaux, and then the train from Bordeaux St Jean at 1635 via Dax to Orthez arriving at 1829.    I am sorry to miss Eleanor at Gatwick who is arriving by an early morning flight form the Philippines, but she is going direct to work and cannot stop for breakfast, while my flight leaves at lunchtime and I have a long queue to check-in.    Instead, have lovely telephone conversation with Ells who sounds happy, and delighted with her holiday, and promise to go up to town when I’m back and help her finish moving in to her new flat.

Penny gets me to the airport in plenty of time, more than 1 ½ hours before take-off but Easyjet’s check-in is hopeless:  this is an economy airline and the first thing they have economised on is staff.   There are more people bossing the queue and panickily calling ‘last call’ for this place and that than there are check-in staff at the counters, and I barely make my flight.  

            At the airport I spot a few people who might be also be walkers.

The travel in France is very easy – the bus for the station is waiting outside the station, and the trains are smart and run to the minute.  A smiling Liz, full of enthusiasm and chatter, greets me at Orthez, with only a gentle reminder that Puyoo would have been a better station to meet at.

Still Wednesday.  Many the place names are familiar to me because they lay on the border between what was Vichy France and Occupied France in the Second World War, and this is the route along which Mary Lindell (in my next book) organised her escape line for stragglers for the British army at Dunkirk and downed airmen.   That is another reason for wanting to cross the Pyrenees by the high route tomorrow so that I can share something of their experience as they escaped internment or imprisonment.

Liz and Ian are on good form and am treated to two generous whiskies – this first I have had since before Shrove Tuesday – while we discuss plans for the end of the month.   Penny and Liz will join me at the parador at Santo Domingo de la Calzada; it’s up to me to make the booking and Liz to find the means of getting there, probably by train.

Their chateau – neogothic and artdeco - is at Osserain in the French Pays Basque, guarding a crossing of the Saison, and occupied by Highland regiment after the Battle of the Pyrenees and by the Gestapo during the last world war.    Orthez and Sauveterre de Bearn are fortified medieval towns, fought over by the French and the Norman kings of England.

            However, let’s see what the weather is like tomorrow and decide if I shall take the high road, the old Roman road now called the Route du Haripse and the Route Napoleon, or the low road, which Charlemagne used through Valcarlos when he was fighting the Moors.

Thursday 12^th April

Wake to the tolling of a church bell and cry of an owl, followed by the dawn chorus.    First light is about 7 and, having read about pilgrims who rise at 4 to get to the next place and – rather un-Christianlike - bag the best beds (can they all be Germans?) resolve not to start walking any time before first light which is about 7.

            And the weather seems fair: I can see the Pyrenees, though my attempt to tell a Frenchman in his language that if you can’t see the hills then it’s raining, and when you can see them, it’s going to rain, fall flat.

Liz kindly drives me to St Jean Pied de Port where we visit the pilgrim office and I’m assured that there is ‘auncune risque’ in taking the high road.    We meet Pierre Bouresmau at the Boutique du Pelerin, 32 rue de la Citadelle, and I collect my poncho – packed in an impressively small pouch and weighing almost nothing and Liz selects a bastón which she thinks will be good when walking her dogs.   We take coffee sitting in the sunshine, buy a sandwich and water and say farewell in the carpark.   On the stroke of noon I pass out through the Port d’Espagne.

No sooner have I set out than it begins to drizzle and the drizzle turns to a steady downpour, so out comes the rucksack cover (I had thought of leaving that behind) and the poncho, and before long the leggings.   It might keep my pack dry but inside this clobber I am soon soaked, whether by leaking rain or sweat or I suspect, both.

 The five miles to Refuge Orisson are every bit as steep as I remember from my reconnaissance here last September.   If anything, with a full pack and the rain and mist sweeping around me, it seems steeper.   1:6 for much of the way, with short stretches of flat.   It amazing to think that 200 years ago 30,000 French troops with two regiments of cavalry marched up here to try to outflank Wellington’s advance into France.

I catch up with Catlin, a retired American surgeon.   This is so unexpected – I never expected to overtake anyone at my pace – that I walk the rest of the way with him.   He is 74 years old, so between us we have nearly a century and half.   We stop at Hunto for coffee and share some chocolate and a banana while we also readjust our rainwear and the rain turns to stair-rods.   No sooner do we step out from our shelter than the rain stops – the law of natural cussedness!

But we are making good speed:  it is 14.15 by my new wrist watch and we are over half way to Orisson.   The rest of the way is in glowering cloud which occasionally opens like curtains to show the dramatic peaks around us, with snow on the high hills, and the valleys below.  Several hundred yards through the greyness are uphill, there’s a short flat stretch and we pause and shake hands to celebrate that we’ve done it.  It’s just gone 16.00 and the Refuge Orisson lowers through the mist!

Inside we meet Catlin’s grandson, James, and share a beer.    I discover they are keeping in touch by radio handsets.   

Accommodation is a six berth dormitories, where one bunk is already occupied by a woman from Florida who has bagged all the blankets and complains that there’s no heating.   True, but ungracious.    In the dining room, the languages are mainly English (including Irish and American), Dutch, German, and Italian.   Most seem to be allowing themselves, six, seven and eight weeks to get to Santiago.   There’s one young, Spanish lothario trying to chat up three girls, Japanese, an Irish and American.

Dinner is communal: soup, beans and pork slices, and postre.   There is lots of good wine and laughter and mine host makes us all introduce ourselves.   Jesús the Lothario is first then me and round the table,  what a mixed bunch – most going all the way to Santiago, some like me dropping in for a couple of weeks, and several Spaniards only doing a few days. 

But very tired, and when the bar closes at nine, I go straight to bed.    I am however up about four for a chat with an Irishman who like me can’t sleep because of (a) the snoring and (b) he’s used to only six hours sleep.   Returning to the dormitory – is this the first time I’ve slept in a dorm or a mess deck since I was a midshipman? – all is silent and I get a couple of hours decent rest.

Friday 13th April

Axel the German is first up starting in the dark to pack his rucksack and I commence a new Olympic competition which is roiling and stuffing a sleeping bag in the dark.  Breakfast of stale bread and café con leche is 0700 to 0730.   Axel is away like a racing snake wishing us ‘God Bless’ and the rest straggle after him at 0800.

Catlin and I are now firm friends and he is my excuse for taking thing easy.    The view over France are fantastic, but soon it begins to snow.

What follows if the most amazing, exhausting, exhilarating experience of my life, crossing the Pyrenees in the snow.   Two or three inches fall and about six of us stick together as a little flock, Catlin, me, Jesús, Mariko, Tara and Rosheen.   Jesús is hopelessly ill-equipped in a pair of suede boots, and a stick he has seized from the roadside and keeps slipping over until one to girls lends him her stick.    However much I may have thought of a bastion as an affectation, it proves it’s worth today, even so I suffer one bad fall when walking on the edge of road and a chunk of turf gives way, but the stick saves me.

But it is a huge privilege to cross the mountains, 17 kilometres (10 miles) rising and rising to 1,500 meters is about the most adverse conditions imaginable, sometimes only able to see the next marker and the footprints of those before us and then entering the forests where the tree branches are covered in snow.   A new hazard arises when we take a brief break and the wind blows frozen snow and ice on our heads.   Eventually we find a refuge and crowd in to share our food and drink.

On the way Catlin and I talk medicine, and reflect that’s between us we have more years and probably fifty more to spare!   Jesús entertains with singing Spanish poems (to the girls), and I fall occasionally into conversation with Tara, who wants to be a writer, and Rosheen who has got a job to go back to in a microbiology lab.   It is difficult to keep any conversation going with Mariko, whose English if very limited, but clearly she if very brave girl to undertake such a journey so many miles from home.

Most of the walk is uphill.   I thought we had cracked this yesterday but most of the way today is uphill through the snow, and the descent into Roncesvalles is as the it says on the signpost ‘muy pendientes’, and the effect on shins and knees is agonising.

We arrive at Roncesvalles at 1500, manned by some ineffectual Dutch volunteers, is well equipped and welcoming.  Two of my Falstaffian Spanish friends from last night, Miguel and Henrique who are escaping their wives, have already arrived and eaten well in the village, and Axel has been here for hours.

The pilgrims’ hostel is however new and well-equipped.  

Friday evening.   Penny (30+ Irish) and her 13-year old son, Zac, arrive about five – much to the relief of us all, they having made the crossing without the benefit of as group to help them through the snow.   They also are poorly equipped:  Zac has no more than trainers and apparently wore plastic bags over them in the deepest snow.   Another Dutch couple got lost when the footprints before them were hidden in the snow and missed the turning.   All told everyone is exhilarated by having accomplished this stage of the journey, which is 16 miles from St Jean to Roncesvalles – mostly uphill and only the last stretch is precipitously downwards.

The pilgrim’s supper is soup and grilled trout and yoghourt, hardly substantive enough to reward us for our labours.   However I do find Carlo, an Italian who massages my calves and thighs and causes a miraculous recovery in my ability to walk!  Almost Biblical.

Attend evening mass in the abbey church is lead officiated by two old priests.   I am concentrating so hard on trying to make sense of their Spanish that I am thrown when they start to read a welcoming message in English.

Jesús gives tutelage in drinking patxaran.   

Saturday 14^th April

The whole place is awake at 0600 and most are away by 0700.   We – Catlin and I – set off about a quarter of an hour later in the dark and the rain.

We stop at Burguete (of Hemingway fame) for breakfast and when I ask ‘Que hay bueno de comer?’ we get panada which seems to be a double ham and egg pie – with two different kinds of egg and of ham, delicious.

The rest of the morning in spent in more snow, and bitterly cold until we over take a Korean threesome.   One of the girls has twisted her knee and while Catlin bandages her leg while I administer Ibuprofen.   There is little more we can do except advise her to follow on to the next town and take a taxi, and for our good deed the snow stops.   They catch up with us in a bar in Gerendiain where we were are re-hydrating ourselves, and help to organise the taxi.

If yesterday was the most on of the more exciting of my life, today is just hard, gruelling slog, 17 miles up and down on wet greasy surfaces, and Zubiri seems to get further away.    We are following a valley through green hills and gentle rises and steep declines.  Catlin confides that he wouldn’t mind dying on the Camino, and promptly we come across a memorial to a Japanese pilgrim who did just that:  I ask Catlin to defer his wishes for the next two weeks until I am back in England.   Eventually we arrive very wearily about 16.30.

Am thinking of taking a taxi into Pamplona, so that I will at least get to see something of the city.

The meal tonight is salad, soup, llenos (rice cakes with tomato sauce) and cod – which Mariko eats elegantly with chopsticks which she unwraps from some personal container.   More substantial than yesterday but tomorrow I may have to look for some meat to eat.

Sunday 15^th April

Yesterday’s weakness resolves itself:  there is a transport service not mentioned in any guidebook called Jacobtrans which for a small fee will pick up your bag and deliver to the hostel or hotel of your choice, so I help several other of the wounded, strained, over-tired and over-aged to consign our bags to this and hope for the best.

 Catlin is called to look at several of the wounded.   He treats then and I act an interpreter and dish out the Ibuprofen.   He is an unusual doctor because he doesn’t believe in intervention, and his advice generally is if the twist or strain isn’t swollen, then to walk through the pain, or, in one case, to by a proper pair of walking boots with some ankle support.

Maria the cook who rather ungraciously dished out breakfast suddenly is wreathed in smiles when I thank her politely in my best Spanish and as I am leaving I am called to arbitrate in a dispute between a woman who wants stay – against the rules - an extra night with her husband who, she says, needs rest.   Catlin has already pronounced that hubby should pick up his bed and walk.   However after I have told Maria how kind she is, she makes a generous offer to the couple to move into a private room, but only after she has cleaned for the morning and she offers juice or coffee.

Odd, how we revert to our national stereotypes.   The Spaniards are friendly and want to indulge in long conversations so soon as you utter a word in their language, while the French, I notice, are proud and aloof and rather seem to treat the Spanish rather rudely.

We set off into more rain and sleet, first walking in a group and then just the Doc and I.   We do leave behind two Australians, a widow and her daughter in law who have making a noise for the last few days:  last night the older one talked loudly about it being the first for ten years that she has slept next to a man. about their relationship – mother in law and daughter in law seems an odd combo.   However, I would have liked to have inquired about their relationship – mother in law and daughter in law seems an odd combo.  One of them is a nurse and has annoyed Catlin by trying to try one of ‘his’ patients.    I think it rather odd that James, the grandson, should rush off ahead.    Anyway we keep company walking very slowly.   I realise that he can’t see too well either and that I am his cicerone is more senses than one.  

We catch with Heinrich, a German, who had lost his way and we had to call back from a wrong turning he had taken.   He wants talk and philosophise but to do so he has seize my arm, stop and turn to face me.    After half an hour of this I feel a disappointment to him, but I make an excuse to catch up with Catlin.  I do discover that he is 71, and with Miguela, the Italian-Canadian who we see form time to time who is 77, I am the youngest of the old guard on this route.   

And I soon think that I have made a bad decision because at this pace we won’t get to Pamplona before late afternoon.   Just when I begin to chill and to despair we enter the village of Irotz where two enterprising brothers are selling local wine rioja casera and pizza and tortilla from their garage.   Revived we set off but now Doc is concerned for me and keeps offering me advice about keeping warm, until the sun comes out – the first for days!

We do indeed reach Pamplona in late afternoon and having delivered the Doc to the Albergue de Jesús y María, I feel my job is done.   He looks completely exhausted and intends to rest up for day or so, and I’m going to walk on to Cizur Menor, where I think, my bag is.

Pamplona is a fine city with 19^th century ramparts and fine churches and palace facades and narrow streets.   On the steps of the cathedral I meet Miguel and Henrique, who have been here for hours having followed some separate which follows the river Arga rather than the Pilgrim Way.   And, again, they have lunched well, and I am greeted as ‘Don Pedro.’

On, on to Cizur Menor and somewhat unkindly, my clothes having dried in the afternoon sun, cold, cold rain sets in again and on the last uphill stretch I am soaked again.   When I take out my guided book, I also discover that the pocket on my not so cheap North Face jacket leaks.

The zip of this jacket is also pretty poor.   On the positive side the equipment for which I am grateful is:

·         The riding gloves which I bought the day before leaving – the only injury I have so far is a sore on my right inner thumb and the gloves keep my hands warm and save the sore from developing.

·         The stick – and others I talk to swear by their two sticks.

·         Also the Altus poncho which I ordered in St Jean.

·         My leather boots and the Bridgedale socks.

·         My Regatta pants which dry so quickly in the wind.

·         My floppy hat, which one day might keep the sun off my ears, but fits under my jacket or poncho hood and give me a little extra space and movement without having clammy plastic round my neck

·         The leggings

 Frankly after walking all day with only stuffed pockets and my staff, I wouldn’t care if I never see my pack again, but when I arrive, there at reception it sits like a long-lost, black-sheep of a brother.   The nice lady at reception helps me choose tomorrow’s hostel and I know what’s going to happen to this particular couch potato. 

Supper in the Parrillada (sic) is pasta, filete of my old boot, and flan and the waitress subtlety leaves the bottle of temporanillo on the table.  Modestly I take less than half before ordering a café solo and a Soberano to finish off the evening.   There is a poetic soccer match on the screen between to Spanish teams which is a joy to watch, then on comes Man U v A Villa and after a disgraceful  and dishonest  ‘dive’ some the schoolgirl striker, Gascoigne, scores a penalty – what a shameful contrast.

The problem now is that having arrived dog-tired and eaten early, if I go to bed early and then when I wake after six of seven hours’ sleep, it’s difficult not to get going again: I shall try to resist this tomorrow, especially as I shall not be waiting for my philosopher-friend-doctor Catlin.