Thursday 19^th April – Los Arcos to Viana

            I was worried about the puny alarm on the watch I bought at Gatwick, but it wakes me at six, or rather as I have usually been lying wake for some time, it tells me when that bewitched hour has arrived.    I’m still not entirely used to bed before ten, when it’s lights out in the albergue, but there’s much advantage to being first into the bathroom and first to breakfast before the hearties arrive – in either place!   Usually I’m awake in the dark for a while before the alarm sounds off, but so far there has been insufficient light to charge up the dial on my new watch.

            Have solved the Olympic challenge of rolling and stuffing my sleeping bag.   Instead of trying to stuff it in the dark into a its bag, when it forms a hard and immalleable brick which then has to be manoeuvred into the bottom compartment of my rucksack, I stuff it straight into the bottom compartment and cinch this up tight.   Simple, really.

            Cleaning my boots and applying saddle soap again cause some amusement, but I tell Janet that next to her, my boots are my best friend on this holiday.   A few minutes later someone else comments and I tell her much the same thing, much to Janet’s consternation.

            After waiting in the early morning light outside, I set off slowly towards the next milestone.    While stopping to look back over Los Arcos and admire the view, I have a brief chat with one of the many Koreans who are on the Camino:  apparently there has been a television programme about it and this is what has encouraged so many to take the path.

After a few minutes Alastair catches up and we fall into step.    He is an ex-soldier AND a published poet and that is subject for the next few miles, while I try to encourage him to write more.   He is modest about his experience, while I see him as the new highland poet.   He is very aware of the context in which he is writing and the market, and clearly very sensitive and well informed. 

            Our company today is Alastair, Stephen and Robert, and Irish quantity surveyor.   Alastair and Stephen are both scarred by their experiences in the army, and Robert is taking a year out at 40 to decide on his career.   Stephen has a wonderfully dry sense of humour which can set us all going is stitches of laughter, and I as the only ‘rupert’ in the group have to take a great deal of stick from the two soldiers.          

At Sansol we hope for refreshment, but like many of these smaller places, it is closed.   What do they do in all these Spanish villages – they can’t all be commuter or holiday homes, yet there seems to be nobody around.

Torres del Río is better, where a shop-cum-albergue-cum-café is run by a couple South American boys.    Sock-change, and café con leche, and bocadillas make a welcome break.    The church is a miniature Templars’ church, and like all those I have seen it is bare of altar or ornament.   The acoustics however are wonderful.

On through fields of peas, beans, and asparagus, turning into vines and more vines, we are entering the rioja country.   Somewhere on route we recognise a fellow pilgrim on the other side of the valley, and after shouting and waving persuade him he has taken a wrong turning.

Our destination is Viana, where there is another parish church built on a cathedral scale and gloriously filled with amazing golden retablos.    How did they do this work several hundred years before the invention of elective light?  Its distinguishing feature is the tomb of Cesare Borgia, son of the Pope, who died leading the Navarrese and Pontifical troops against the Moors.   The priests are the oldest yet who I have seen – are there no new ordinands in Spain?

The municipal albergue is a hell hole, with crowded, three-tier bunks and one loo only for each sex.   My company christen is ‘the subamrine.’

As well as Penny, I ring Mum and Isabel, and then dine with my troops.

The distance covered today is 20.1 kms.

Friday 20^th April – Viana to Navarrete

I had again contemplated taking a bus through Logroño, but we walk – rather boringly along made-up paths which are hard underfoot, and somehow there is no spirit in the group this morning.     It is relieved by a wayside shack where a wonderful old granny, Felisa, and her family are dispensing coffee and biscuits to passing walkers

There are many halts as we walk through Logroño, to sports shop, at a pavement café, and various junctions and road crossings.   We visit briefly the massive cathedral but miss out on all the other tourist attractions in this city, agreeing that already we are unused to towns. After a cold start when I wore fours layers of clothing, the sun is out at last and I am in shirtsleeves and wearing sun cream.   

Wee are dogged though the town by ‘Giggling Dave’ and his companion ‘Alabama’, another talkative American.   She has serious blisters on her heels with red, raw spots – ouch!

After miles of paved roads at last we reach the Pátano de la Grajera where there is a restaurant for lunch of tapas and Coke, and the manager gives us coffees on the house.    The Coke is something new for me, but very refreshing:   I have also taken to drinking at every fountain we pass, and this carries me up to the summit of Alto de la Grajera at 540m

About 3 p.m. we arrive at Navarrete, mildly cursing that that we have to climb up to this hilltop village.   Still no blisters, even though Alasdair, the expert, has two!

21.5 kms today, still no blisters, and somewhere on the way today we passed the 100 miles mark or one-fifth the way to Santiago.

While we are talking in the comedor, which serves as the communal room, a Frenchwoman cooks a wonderfully smelling supper, which her husband appears for, like the prototypal MCP, when all is ready for him.    There has been large party of Irishmen travelling with us of whom Eamon, a silent giant of man, is the last and he is going to join us for supper.   Toni, an Australian nurse, who says she has given her home to her children and left to explore the world has been vaguely travelling in our time ‘slot’ and she’s going to join us too, and I am despatched to find somewhere suitable.   After days of eating the pilgrim menu, which can be summed up as salad or lentils, and pork loin (thin!) with chips, and postre (the Spaniards aren’t good at postre), I am sent to find somewhere proper to eat.

At the restaurant Albero the owner, Vicente, is smoking and watching television in a deserted bar and his opening gambit is ‘Es vd pelegrino?’   and he is positively discouraging when I tell him that yes, I am pilgrim.  Over a glass of wine I discover that there is a menu, startling at more the double the normal pilgrim price, and that the restaurant doesn’t open until 8.    This involves negotiating with the hospitalero who grudgingly concedes we can stay out till 22.30 but not later.   But there is definitely meat on the carta del día.   

The Spaniards in the bar are watching a bullfight, their tables laden just as if they were at the arena, with wine and bread and sausage.    This is the first time I have watched a fight in colour on television and I’m impressed by the camerawork. Robert, married to a Spanish girl, explains the finer points of the fight, many of which I had forgotten, and then it’s steaks all round except for Stephen who has a giant portion of ox on a hot grill plate (Euro 44), which he has to cook himself.       

As we leave to beat our curfew back at the albergue, the Spanish and their families are just starting to fill up the restaurant, so that part of Spanish life hasn’t change.

It’s been an interesting journey, and I’ve met many fascinating people, as well as experiencing the changes in Spain since I first came here over 50 years ago.

Compared to the enforced prudery of Franco’s time when married couples could barely hold hands in public, mixed dormitories in the pilgrim hostels must be one of the more symbolic changes.     There are for example 18 beds in tonight’s accommodation in Navarrete, and like in previous places there are different ways of dealing with nudity and modesty.    Some perform incredible contortions inside their sleeping bags, sucking in clothes like strange food, vomiting out old ones, and emerging like chrysalises in their new garb.   Others wait for the dormitory to be clear, however temporarily, to change clothes or find a quiet corner.   I usually take a bundle to the bathroom and change there after showering.   If, inevitably, you do surprise someone, then it is possible simply to ignore anything you may have seen.  

Going to bed is another matter, and with doors locked and lights out by ten p.m. in most albergues, getting into your sleeping bag is simply a matter of dropping whatever clothes in a pile where you can find them in the dark in the morning and snuggling down.

There must be sex somewhere in the dark, but with so many people to act as chaperons, opportunity is limited and immodestly is self-regulating.   Besides, come ten p.m. most people are exhausted after a day’s walking and only too ready to drop off to sleep.

Snoring is a problem:  and some walkers are known and feared for their ability to create sound waves during the night.    Robert is a known snorer and, while we were in Logroño this morning, I went with him this morning to the pharmacy to find a cure, and after tasking advice from the lady pharmacist, he thinks he may have one.   The night is relatively quiet, however a pack of barking dogs somewhere on the hillside above the albergue keeps me awake, and about 3 o’clock I am surprised to realise from the cautious movement in the dormitory that Toni the nurse has got up to turn Robert over and stop his snoring.