The Big Walk

The Way Ahead - Day 35

There was a sign in the hostel reading ‘Silence until 7am’; a late start but we’re not planning to go far today so we thought it would be ok. So we were surprised when the hostel owner switched on all the dormitory lights at six and played soothing medieval music on his stereo – at deafening volume. This happened to coincide with the opening time of his restaurant, serving breakfast next door. We decide to give this a miss!

More olive groves and arid scrubland leads to Los Arcos, another fine town and a twin to Viana. Reluctantly we leave here on a dusty track which runs straight for many miles. After several, we realise we’ve not seen any pilgrim marker arrows since starting the track. We can’t bear to head back, so instead cut across down the rows of vines and leap the ditch to get to the main road, along which we continue, dodging swerving juggernauts, before eventually finding the camino again. Villamayor de Monjardin turns out to be another picturesque and atmospheric village, with a beautiful hostel in a wide, low stone mansion looking like an old English coaching inn. Inside are three storeys of low ceilings, grand fireplaces and crooked beams. We head out to climb to the castle which dominates the village atop a conical hill swathed in woodland. The bushes scratch us to bits as we scramble up. Access through the castle walls is possible only at one point where a stone staircase twists round above a sheer drop; it must have been almost impregnable. Inside is a tiny hermitage with a visitors’ book; the vast view of our onward route inspires us to sign it – ‘en route, de Cabo Finisterre a Istanbul’.

Back at the hostel, the Dutch volunteers are cooking up a sausage stew and serving us on a huge oak table with ten other pilgrims, mostly French and German. We’ve been going for a month now and are only a week or so from the French border where most pilgrims’ begin their journey, so at last we have some credibility with our peers. Or so we think – the French girl next to me has been walking for seven weeks already. For once there’s some English spoken, good enough for us to enjoy a joke and a bit of a laugh – something we’ve sorely missed. We’ve had a great day today; Navarra with its ancient villages and rocky hills is giving the best walking we’ve had so far.

Into Navarra - Day 34

After crossing a great bridge, a long, slow climb takes us into Navarra, the heart of the Basque country. The effort is rewarded by Viana, a hilltop town will panoramic views behind. It’s an enchanting place of old mansions and cobbled streets – the masons here use many different coloured stones to make elaborate patterns and mosaics in the ground.

The route continues over low but steep hills with many scrubby trees and something we haven’t seen so far – the silvery grey of olive groves. For once the camino isn’t visible for miles ahead, instead being hidden by the hills and countless twists and turns, making the walking much more interesting. By mid afternoon we reach the village of Torres del Rio, almost entirely made up of huge, ancient stone mansions, with carved heraldic symbols adorning the walls. There’s a fascinating octagonal Romanesque chapel here, small inside but very tall and elegant with a Moorish star design at the point of the vaulting inside. It’s unique, and no-one really knows its purpose; one theory is that it’s a mausoleum for pilgrims who died on their journey. After dropping our bags in at the hostel, we make a short walk up to the next village, Samsol, a twin to Torres but sited on the hilltop above and the benefit of a great view back down. Perhaps it’s just the contrast with the commercial hubbub of Logrono, but it feels so peaceful here, and far from the modern world.

Lazy in Logrono - Day 33

This is a wealthy, modern city filled with trendy cafes and shops, a business centre rather than a tourist one. This provides us with the perfect excuse to do very little but relax, rest in the park and munch empaňadas – slices of delicious pies with all types of fillings. In the supermarket, they sell some of that super-tough bread we struggled to eat in Galicia – pan Gallego they call it here, and charge a premium. We’re so lazy we can’t even raise the effort to go out for dinner in the evening, instead buying two carrier bags full of delicious nibbles, a fine bottle of Reserva Rioja, and smuggling them past the reception guy up to our room.

New boots - Day 32

Helen is still dehydrated from yesterday’s heat and is suffering with headaches today; once you’re dehydrated it takes at least a day of constant drinking to get your system back to normal. Luckily it’s cloudy so at least she shouldn’t get any worse.

The lovely Rioja countryside seems almost as green as Galicia, and by lunchtime a climb past a gigantic black wooden cut-out of a bull, advertising whiskey, reveals the wide expanse of the city of Logroňo, with pretty parkland around a reservoir in the foreground. Once into the city we pass through seemingly endless suburbs of manicured lawns and huge blocks of smart modern flats built on a grid pattern. After asking several times which direction is the centre, we eventually find it, stopping to pick up our post and the new boots I’d had sent to the post office, find a quiet room and at last get some sleep.

Fiesta de San Pedro - Day 31

It’s only a few miles into Santa Domingo de la Calzada, founded by its namesake, another saint who dedicated his life to helping pilgrims on their way (after he was refused entry to San Milan monastery due to his illiteracy). The cathedral is, however, more famous for its chickens, chirping away incongruously in a gilded cage high on the wall inside. These relate to a miracle which occurred here in the early Middle Ages. A family of German pilgrims was staying in the town when their son was propositioned by the innkeeper’s daughter. Being a devout pilgrim, he spurned her advances. Pride dented, she hid some of the church’s silver in his pack and reported him to the authorities as a thief. After being found guilty, the young man was executed according to the custom of the time; which meant being hung and then left on a gibbet to rot. His parents (seemingly taking this heartbreak in their stride) continued their pilgrimage to Compostela, and again stayed in Santa Domingo on their return journey. They approached the gibbet to find their son was still alive (personally, I think they should have checked the month before). They ran to tell the Mayor this incredible news. The mayor was eating roast chicken for supper at the time; being keen on his food his was angry at the disturbance and exclaimed ‘Your son is about as alive as this chicken!’, whereupon the birds on his plate reassembled themselves, complete with feathers, and flew away, chirping. It’s the very same birds that have been kept in the cathedral ever since – apparently.

We’ve now entered the Rioja region, famed worldwide for its wines. The rolling vineyards are backed by distant mountains to the north, some wooded and some rocky, whilst cypress trees and hilltop, pan-tiled villages make it appear like I’d imagine Tuscany. We shall see. It would be pleasant going, but it’s over 40^oC, and I’m relieved when we begin descending between red sandstone rocks into Najera, nestled beneath a cliff.

We try to head straight for the hostel, but there’s a rising crescendo of noise as we enter the streets, and we’re stopped by a jam of several thousand people having an enormous water fight and push-me pull-me contest, most of them with t-shirts ripped in the struggle. The fiesta of San Pedro (St. Peter) is in full swing, and it’s crazy; this is a small town so I can hardly imagine what San Fermin will be like when we reach Pamplona. We are pointed to the backstreets for another route to that hostel. There’s a hundred beds to each room so combined with the chaos outside I’m not expecting much sleep tonight. Still, they issued us with free ‘pilgrim swim’ tickets for the town’s outdoor pool, so we do get the chance to cool off and relax.

Later, we dine al fresco at a street side bar and take in the some of the party atmosphere with a bottle of the local Rioja. Service is relaxed for a change, as a marching five piece brass band careers around the streets before piling into our bar to cadge free-drinks, pursued by scores of revellers. They all lie down, jump up, run forward and stop in time to the music as they progress round the streets. Round the corner a huge stage has been set up for more music, but we have to head back as the hostel locks its doors at ten. Instead, the noise of music, dancing and fireworks combines with a hundred snoring pilgrims as we lie awake through the small hours.