Camino de Santiago

Camino de Santiago

“When you get Spain do the Camino de Santiago, go to St. Jean Pied-de-Port and ask for a pilgrim’s credencial at the tourist office,” said eldely man, as we sat in the Sligo youth hostel. His face was as deeply furrowed as a ploughed field and his twinkly eyes were framed by shaggy hair and beard. Chance is my polestar when I travel, rather than the guard rails of guide- books. This elderly Frenchman was my Gandalf.

Two weeks later, I joined the scattered line of pilgrims as I pushed the bike up over the pass into Spain. In complete contrast to the solitary world of bike touring, the hostel in the Roncesvalles monastery was overflowing with the wonderful untidiness of humanity. The mood was upbeat with anticipation of the 800km trek across medieval Spain that lay ahead.

Within a week, I had totally lost track of time and place as I followed the faded yellow arrows painted on walls or the brass scallop shells embedded in the sidewalk. The kindness of the hospitaleros who ran the alberques along with easy-going chat of my fellow perigrinos made it feel like travel might have been before borders and identity cards. The narrow cobble streets and ancient farmland made it feel like I was peddling through history. In the evening we would gather around the dinner table; dreadlocks, lawyers and the footloose all shared food and stories, Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales came off the page (Chaucer accompanied the Black Prince here in 1368 to victory at the battle of Najaro) . The bunk beds butted up against each and your neighbour could be a Latin beauty or snore and flounder like a sea-elephant. The evening scene was like a field medic outpost as agony was unbooted.

“Why are you doing the Camino?” was an oft-asked question in moments of reflection. It is a daily struggle for me to take life seriously. I could have replied that I yearned for my mind, body and spirit to mesh together like the clay-clogged gears on my bike. Instead, I would tell the story about a fight I had with one of the Little People when I was a kid resulting in being cursed for life (specific to horses). I was on the road to St. James to lift the spell, this was necessary because curses don’t come bubble-wrapped and over time, like breast implants, there is leakage and this was now affecting other aspects of my life*,for a full account see A Gift and A Curse  posted elsewhere on this blog.

In Santa Domino I met up with a fellow cyclist, Marie-Pier from Quebec, we biked together for the next week. My bike touring had been solo up to now, initially, because I had no idea of my ability, then because I like the independence of just going and then meeting up with like-minded people on the road.  Sometimes we chatted and other times we just peddled for hours side by side without needing to talk, just soaking up the magic of it all. The word, companion, comes from the Latin, com pani, meaning - with bread; we made a point of feasting on fresh baguette and cheese in front of the three cathedrals in Leon, Burgos and Santiago.

Twice I attended the pilgrim’s Sunday service at the Santiago cathedral. It was an extraordinary fusion of the sacred and the sublime mixing with spiritual adventurers still carrying backpacks and walking sticks. The clothes tell the story - pilgrims travel light carrying only the clothes they wear and these are now tatterdemalion, in contrast to the embroided vestments of the priests.

Cape Finistera was the next stop and the pounding surf was surprisingly warm. This was the edge of the 10^th century world for the early pilgrims, for me, it was a turnaround. Rain and cold made it a chilly ride along the coastal Camino east towards Sandander. I had two weeks before the ferry home; I wanted to walk the Camino, however, many of the albergues were closed for the season. A chance remark by a hospitalero put me on the bus to the village of Orgiva in the far south of Spain. Warm sunshine and the prospect of living in a tipi in an eco-community would be a pleasant change from the gravitas of medieval monasteries. I though staying in a hippy commune would be a breeze – not so. Fortunately, I learnt resilience at an early age, in fact, my brother reminded me of an incident from our schooldays when we were swapping stories at the start of this trip.

“You don’t want your meat?” said the assistant matron, her voice cut the chatter like a knife. I stared at the bowl with its gobs of fatty gristle and then back to her.

“Perhaps you would like dessert then, we have fruit salad today”, her was tone was as cold as her stare.

 Oh, fruit salad, I thought, this is a rare treat from the usual soggy bread pudding.

“Yes please, Miss Grey,” I replied.

My horrified younger brother looks on as she ladled the sliced peaches and cherries into the bowl of gristle and congealing grease. Hughes, author of Tom Brown’s Schooldays, had sat on these same benches over a century earlier. Little had changed, it was however, perfect schooling for hole-in–the-wall travel.

I was welcomed at Beneficio, as the community is called, with friendly detachment. About 200 people live here in an assortment of tents, yurts and makeshift shelters. The big tipi is the focal point and thirty or more gather here every evening for dinner. In mid-afternoon a conch is blown to summon volunteers to collect firewood from high up the canyon or to help prepare dinner. Dishes are cleaned with ash and this is also sprinkled on bedrolls to deter bugs. The conch booms out again in early evening to summon the hungry. It is a real achievement to feed this many people with dahl or rice and chappaties each day on about five euros collected in the magic hat that is passed around after the meal. We ate by the light of the huge fire burning in the center of the tipi. The heat disappears out the huge opening in the top and I crawl into my sleeping bag, fully clothed, to stay warm. Bongo and tabla drums beat all night and most of the day.

 Back in the early Seventies fireside chat sparkled with ideas and craziness like cinders shooting into the night sky. In northern Spain I passed through a medieval world, now i was living in one and it wasn’t very comfortable. During the day, I’d saunter into the village through the orange groves. The expatriates at the sidewalk cafe were also living on the margin and had an equally tenuous grip on reality. The drumming beats on, but there is no song. The download generation may not realize how accurately music told the story of the Sixties. CSNY turned the dramas into poetry, Jagger and Richards captured the kickass adventure of it all and out of the smoke rose the Dark Side of the Moon giving form to the duality of existence. The Camino and the commune defined that duality.

Scotland to Spain by Bike - Pictures from the Camino de Santiago

St.Jean Pied de Port

The pass into Spain

The same pass



Stopped for another breather



Where a bike should never be



Ancient bridge



Dinner with fellow perigrinos



Hemmingway and myself at the bar



Medieval bridge



Tapas time



On the trail



This man had walked from Poland

St.Jean Pied de Port

The pass into Spain

A bus ride back to the Sixties

or perhaps to a post-apocalypic world. In the early Seventies I backpacked the equivalent distance of twice around the equator, much of it along the fringes of hippydom. I was keen to find out the changes in forty years. A bus ride to the eco-village of Beneficio, near Orgiva in the far south delivered enlightenment of a kind. About two hundred live here in an assortment of yurts, tipis and homemade shelters. Visitors are welcome to stay at the communual tipi and join thirty or more for the evening meal of dahl and chappaties or rice and veggies. A five-foot wide fire dominated the tipi and there were magical moments when stars shown through the open top or the shadow of dreadlocks danced against the wall like an Indian´s feather headdress to the sound of violin, clarinet and a dozen drums. However, the music and free-wheeling conversations of the earlier days had been replaced by a woeful ignorance on how to live successfully and sustainably in a near-cashless society. Dialogue is challenging when you ask someone where they are from and the reply is as likely to be an unknown planet as it is a country. I pointed out easy ways to make life more pleasent - using car windshields to sprout beans, black plastic pipe for solar hot showers and intensive raised beds for gardening.
In the village I met English ex-pat builders living a similar hardscrabble existance. There dilemma was how to plough with a pair of mules and help refugees from the city who were weary of fighting police and just wanted to grow food to survive. One of the mule´s was too old the other too viscious. I gave them my business card informing them I was both an equestrian consultant and a compost expert.  Well-stewed tea gives life to the jaded and tranquilizers calms the crazy; as for ploughing, a better alternative are goats followed by pigs. Then, the cost of dead stock removal came up, I gave them the www.wormdigest.org website and told them that a composted mule will make a raised bed that will keep them in veggies all year. After five days I left, wondering why some people choose to live a post-apocalypic life when the buses run and markets flow with fresh fruit.

Walking Blues

My first walking experience was similar to my first biking trip - I got it all wrong. I´ve been in the company of walkers for the past month and am full of admiration of how they cross countries, if not continents, effortlessly. There are three tricks to walking: the first week you should only average 25km a day, you only carry 10% of your body weight and there is no need to carry three day´s supply of food when you pass through a village every three hours. I did over 40km the first (and only day) which left me knackered. My error was compounded in that many of the cheap pilgrim alburgues are closed for winter, the weather is bad and their is nobody else on the trail to commisserate with. I missed the advantage of the bike and the ability to cook and camp anywhere. The bike still works, although we both know 3,500km has taken its toll. I´m only a day´s ride from Sandander, the departure point for the ferry to the UK. Tomorrow I leave the bike here and take a bus to Madrid, the following ten days are a mystry.

Go south until butter melts, then turn west

Those are the instructions given to mariners sailing to the New World - I only wish my navigation was so simple. Somedays I have brilliant sucess and other days dismal failure. Yesturday I experienced both. I ask for direction at a gas station on the edge of a city, the Spanish are generous with time and kindness in helping wayward strangers, however, it is like memorising the hand signals of an orchester conductor or perhaps, a priest giving a blessing. More then an hour later I bike past the same gas station after a stint on the motorway.
Then in the evening I need to find a village not marked on the map, then find the house of a woman named Angel to get the key to the hostel. I expected to be there by 4pm, but I had a series of punctures. I´m ruthless in reducing the weight on the bike, I hyrate at a bar instead of refilling my water bottle and can,t find the pin-hole puncture in the growing darkness without water. The yellow arrows painted on the road or walls cannot be seen in the darkness, despite all this I´m safe and warm in the hostel by 7pm.
Tomorrow I leave the bike at auberge at San Vincente, near Sandander, and set off to walk the Camino along the coast for two weeks.

Are you lucky?

Those are the instructions given to mariners sailing to the New World - I only wish my navigation was so simple. Somedays I have brilliant sucess and other days dismal failure. Yesturday I experienced both. I ask for direction at a gas station on the edge of a city, the Spanish are generous with time and kindness in helping wayward strangers, however, it is like memorising the hand signals of an orhester conductor or perhaps, a priest giving a blessing. More then an hour later I bike past the same gas station after a stint on the motorway.
Then in the evening I need to find a village not marked on the map, then find the house of a woman named Angel to get the key to the hostel. I expected to be there by 4pm, but I had a series of punctures. I´m ruthless in reducing the weight on the bike, I hyrate at a bar instead of refilling my water bottle and can,t find the pin-hole puncture in the growing darkness without water. The yellow arrows painted on the road or walls cannot be seen in the darkness, despite all this I´m safe and warm in the hostel by 7pm.
Tomorrow I leave the bike at auberge at San Vincente, near Sandander, and set off to walk the Camino along the coast for two weeks.