TOM & YVONNE’S CAMINO DE SANTIAGO DE COMPOSTELA, SEPTEMBER 3 TO OCTOBER 15, 2004

We fly first to Minneapolis, change planes for the overnight to London’s Gatwick Airport. We arrive at Gatwick around 9 am the following day, and thence on to Bilbao, Spain by Easy Jet in the early afternoon, arriving at the airport outside Bilbao late afternoon.

After changing some money into Euros, we catch a bus to the city. The bus trip takes us through some spectacular mountain canyons and suddenly as if out of the clouds, Bilbao appears, and smallish city that is very old and very beautiful (I have a feeling we will wear this word out before finishing this diary). We find lodgings at the Pension Bilbao, a third floor walk-up on a street of seedy, run-down buildings, and check in about six PM, dog tired after many hours of no sleep on three very full airplanes. We wander about the town—eating our first bocadilla and taking in the exterior view of Gehry’s Guggenheim Museum among other things—until dark and then hit the welcoming bed at the Pension. Our plan is to go on tomorrow to Pamplona, rest a day there, and then embark on the Camino. We promise ourselves we will visit the inside of the Guggenheim on our return trip to Bilbao enroute home.

Friday September 3—Bilbao to Pamplona

We buy some bread and cheese and spend the morning wandering about Bilbao and catch the bus to Pamplona in the early afternoon. The bus ride is a very pleasant two-hour trip through the mountains. We find the tourist office to get directions to the Archbishop’s Palace where we get our Pilgrim’s “Credencials” and are duly recorded in the Camino computer, which will be checked when we ask for our “Compostelana” at the end of the trip.

Next door is the “Catedral de Santa Maria,” which dates from the 13th century, although most of its Gothic characteristics were completed from the 14th to 16th centuries. The Cathedral has a very nice museum, which contains many beautiful silver and gold chalices, altarpieces, and ancient statues. As in most European Cathedrals, important people are buried here, in this case Carlos III and his wife Elena. Carlos, known as “El Noble,” ruled Navarra from1387 to 1425, incidentally about the time that Chaucer wrote the Canterbury Tales. Behind the Cathedral, there are some excellent remains of the city’s original Roman Walls.

Pamplona itself was begun in the year 75 when the Roman General Pompaelo chose the site. Roman rulers were followed by Visigoths and then by Muslims who ruled from 718 to 789. The city was the center of nearly constant warfare through the centuries as Francos and Basques fought each other and the Muslims, even as the city’s Barrios—populated by Francos, Basques, Jews, and a mixed group of Francos and Navarrans—constructed defensive walls and fought each other. Pamplona and Navarra were actually ruled by the French for more than a hundred years in the 13th and 14th centuries. The city resisted incorporation into modern Spain when Ferdinand and Isabella got together in 1492, holding out until “Fernando el Catolico” battered down the walls and forcibly annexed the city and Kingdom of Navarra into the Spanish Kingdom in 1512.

The modern city of Pamplona is a lively place with great food and nightlife, much of which centers on the” Plaza de Castillo.” We spent a thoroughly enjoyable evening sampling these delights. We absolutely couldn’t find the city’s Albergue and ended up taking a room at the Pension Lambertini on the “Rue de Mercadores” just a few steps off the Plaza. The room was at the top of four, very dark flights of stairs. Pensions are usually family homes with several rooms let out as cheap hotel rooms. The Lambertini family must be extremely religious, as we had never seen a place so overloaded with religious paintings, statues, crucifixes, icons and various other holy geegaws.

The room and bed were nice, although we spent much of the night without sleeping. This being a Friday night, there was much boisterous partying and singing until nearly dawn. The voices were mostly male, with an occasional female lilt, which came in great waves of sound that subsided only to come again, over and over for hours. We actually enjoyed it even though we were badly in need of some sleep before beginning our trek the next day.

Saturday September 4—Pamplona to Uterga—Day 1 walking—17 kilometers.

Up before dawn (thereby setting a pattern we followed throughout), a quick breakfast of “cafe con leche” and rolls, and we set out on the walk through the city, past the university, and on up the steep climb to the “Alto de Perdon.” The climb up the mountain with its ridge lined with enormous wind turbines is difficult, and the descent to Uterga is murderous. Our guidebook describes this steep descent covered with large loose stones as “rough and not easy for cyclists.” We can attest to the fact that it is also not easy for geezers on the downhill side of their seventh decade on their first day of serious walking the Camino. We were amazed to reach the bottom with no more than a little muscle soreness.

As the trail flattened out on the approach to Uterga, was got our first introduction to delicious blackberries that grew along almost the entire Camino, asparagus, vineyards, olive trees, and an overabundance of snails—all of which we saw much more of in the coming days. On the way up the hill, we saw for the first time, a very skinny man, covered in coarse, home-made looking tattoos—including the face of Jesus on his belly. He is dressed only in boots and a speedo and is accompanied by very cute blond travelling companion who looks to be about 16 years old.

As we entered Uterga and headed to the town fountain for a much-needed cold drink of water, was see that “skinny man” and friend have snagged the only two beds we knew to exist in the town. While cooling ourselves off at the town fountain, there was talk of a new albergue down the street. What a welcome site: a brand new Albergue with available beds, hot showers, cold beer, good clothes washing facilities (meaning wash boards in tubs with cold water and a few clothes lines), and reasonable food at reasonable prices.

As morning approached, we were treated to a phenomenon that was repeated many times over during the trip: the “torch brigade.” Starting about five AM, men in flip-flops, flashlights in hand, begin padding back and forth to the bathroom doing their morning toilette. There is repeated coming and going amidst much coughing, snorting, and other noises. At first there is great care to close the bathroom door to keep the noise down and the lights from flooding the dormitory, but that soon changes as more and more men join the brigade. This is then accompanied by the packing and repacking of rucksacks and each item seems to need to be wrapped, unwrapped, and rewrapped in crinkly plastic. For some reason, almost no women seem to need to go through this fussy ritual, and women pilgrims seem more quiet, discreet, and efficient. After an hour or 90 minutes of this folderol, the brigade heads out the door into the morning gloom an hour before you can see beyond your nose without a light.

Sunday, September 5—Day 2—Uterga to Puente la Reina—7 kilometers.

Having done a fairly strenuous walk on our first day out, we opted for a short day and decided to go only as far as Puente la Reina, named for the medieval bridge in the town built on the orders by a 12th century queen specifically for Pilgrims to cross the Arga River. We are now in some rolling hills and the vegetation has changed along with the terrain, as we see taller trees and fields of grapes and chiles. Puente la Reina has a huge chile market on fall Sundays.

We arrived at the town in time for mass at the beautiful Romanesque “Iglesia de Crucifijo,” founded by the Knights Templar in the 12th century. The mass was very nice and the singing was especially beautiful, perhaps because it is part of a monastery and seminary of the Padres Reparadores, who also run the Albergue next to the church. After mass, we checked into the Albergue and set about the investigate the town and have a fine lunch of bread, wine, cheese, and salchicha. Sunday afternoon in Spanish towns and cities is very festive as people flood the streets for an early dinner and to parade about the town visiting various bars, restaurants, and bodegas. After lunch, we spend the afternoon resting and visiting with other pilgrims in the Albergue’s lovely garden. Many pilgrims are spending the lazy Sunday in the sun nursing various foot problems—a common sight throughout the trip.

As we settle into our bunks for the night, much to our chagrin, the menacing looking “skinny man” is in the same room with us, along with 20 or so other pilgrims, mostly German, French, and Spanish. All is well until the middle of the night when it begins thunder and rain. “Skinny man,” who has been friendly to us, suddenly erupts in anger, storms about the room slamming windows, cursing, and creating a great commotion. After he has saved us all the few drops of rain that might have made it inside the Albergue, he finally settles down. No one objects to the awful commotion he has created as he does appear a bit deranged. We now assign “skinny man” a new moniker: “crazy man.”

Monday, September 6—Day 3—Puente la Reina to Villatuerta—18 kilometers.

We set off in the morning with no particular destination in mind. After the night’s rain, the path is extremely muddy and hard going, especially as much of the trail is in a new location because of road construction. In some places, the path is almost vertical and consists of steps carved into the muddy clay hillside. There are lots of pilgrims on the road. The path takes us through wheatfields and vineyards over hilly terrain. At one point the trail becomes a creek bed because of the runoff from higher ground. After 4.5 kilometers we come to the little village of Maneru where we have our second “cafe con leche” of the day along with some fresh figs at a very inviting little cafe/hostal.

Three kilometers farther we come to the small hilltop village of Ciraqui. Between Ciraqui and the next village, Lorca, the Camino crosses a broken down Roman bridge and follows an ancient Roman road, some of which was restored in the Middle Ages and some more recently. Almost the entire pilgrimage follows the ancient Roman “Via Traiana,” although the path between Ciraqui and Lorca is said to contain the finest remains of the original road.

After arriving in Villatuerta, we had a devil of a time finding the Albergue that was supposed to be there. We must have gone up and down the steep hill that leads to the center of town at least five times. Finally found it—“Casa Romero”—on a side street. The Albergue was very new with the bunk beds unbelievably crowded together. Fortunately, there were only three other people who stayed there this night. I can’t imagine how much of a mess it would have been if every bunk had been taken. We had our usual bread and cheese for supper. As was often the case throughout the trip, the local church was locked so we couldn’t see its highly touted Renaissance Retablo.

Tuesday, September 7—Day 4—Villatuerta to Villamayor de Monjardin—13 kilometers.

While having our morning coffee and croissant, it started raining. As we set out, we made three important discoveries: one, that Yvonne’s coat was not waterproof; two, that we had made a mistake in not putting our rain pants on; and three, that our back packs were not waterproof. By the time we got to Estella, a mere 4 kilometers down the road, I was soaked from the waist down and Yvonne was soaked throughout. As we entered Estella and found some shelter from the rain under an overpass, Yvonne changed into some dry clothes and we both donned our ponchos, taking care to cover our packs as well as ourselves.

We looked around Estella a little and stopped for our daily second coffee before going on to Irache and Villamayor. Estella, like all towns in Navarra, also has a Basque name—Lizarra. The town has always been closely associated with the Pilgrimage and was caught up in most the wars that involved its neighbor Pamplona as well as its own neighborhood wars. Estella is replete with architectural wonders, including numerous medieval churches, palaces, convents, monasteries, and civic buildings. Some 18 sites worthy of attention are listed in guidebooks—a lot for a town than now has only 13,000 inhabitants.

We continued on toward Irache, famous for its 12th century Cistercian Monastery and Bodega, which has a public fountain that offers both water and wine. Unfortunately for us, the wine barrel was empty by the time we got there, although we weren’t too disappointed feeling it was unwise anyway to drink wine in the middle of the day when we still had half a day’s journey to go before stopping. It rained almost this entire day, and we saw only one other pilgrim the whole day. Leaving Irache, we soon came to a fork in the road with arrows pointing both directions for the Camino. After much stewing, we decided to take the route that said to be 2 kilometers shorter. As we started out, a man came running out of his yard warning us that we were taking the more difficult route and would likely find it exceedingly muddy, arduous, and slow going. I guess our age was showing and he worried about us. (We learned later from pilgrims who did take the route that he was exactly right!)

As you approach Villamayor de Montjardin, the mountain named Monjardin comes into view, with vegetable gardens far up the side of the hill—thus earning the place its name (mountain garden). Nearing the town, you come the “Fuente de Moros” a restored fountain/cistern that is thought to date from the Muslim era in Spain, and there we met two Dutch ladies who were volunteers at the Albergue in Villamayor run by a Dutch church group. The ladies recruited us to stay at their Albergue rather than the new city owned shelter, which also looked extremely welcoming.

The Albergue, in a very old stone building, was quite nice. The fee included dinner and breakfast—and a bit of proselytizing by the volunteers. The food was simple but delicious. Yvonne had a particularly rewarding conversation with an Israeli native who had married a Dutch Christian who was doing volunteer work at her Kibbutz. Interestingly, all the Dutch looked “Dutch,” while she clearly looked Middle Eastern. We shared a room with two Slovenian girls who were doing the Camino at a very fast pace, and a German girl, “Katya.” We had many subsequent meetings with Katya who became one of our closest friends on the Camino.

At the top of Montjardin above Villamayor, there are the ruins of the Castle of “San Esteban de Deyo,” built initially by the Romans, and subsequently destroyed and rebuilt by various armies. It was the last major stronghold of the Banu Qasi Muslims in the region until it was taken by King Sancho Garces in 914. French lore has it that Charlemagne himself captured the castle from Navarra. The castle is currently undergoing restoration.

Wednesday, September 8—Day 5—Villamayor de Monjardin to Torres del Rio—22 Kilometers.

After a breakfast of salami, bread, cheese, jam, and great coffee, we hit the trail at daybreak with plans to go at least as far as Los Arcos, some 14.5 kilometers. We got to Los Arcos early enough so that we decided to go on to Torres del Rio. The weather has continued to favor us, despite the day of rain, and it was another cool overcast day with a pleasant breeze. The walk today took us mainly through vineyards and farm fields.

We arrived in Torres, which is in a narrow valley, by mid afternoon, tired and looking for a cool shower and a cold beer. We checked in at the first Albergue we came to, Casa Maria, owned and operated by a very hefty Italian woman and here equally hefty daughter. We were assigned two bottom bunks pushed side by side. Yvonne noted in her annotations to the guidebook; “This trip is a thrill a minute. It’s almost like sleeping together. However, the toilet is just a hole in the floor—absolutely ridiculous.” These unbelievably nutty toilets used to be common throughout Europe. Thank God, we encountered few of them. The Italian lady also owns the main eatery in town and another newer Albergue, which we found out later, has real toilets instead of “straddlers!” The place was very clean, however, with plenty of space.

The main feature of Torres del Rio is the octagonal Romanesque “Iglesia de Santo Sepulchro.” It is believed to have been built sometime in the 12th century, but little is known about its purposes or origins. There is some speculation that it was owned by the Knights Templar. It has some Mudejar features, and is admired for its fine proportion. It really is quite beautiful and surprisingly small inside after looking at the impressive exterior.

Thursday, September 9—Day 6—Torres del Rio to Logrono—20.5 Kilometers.

This day a good bit of the walk was through farm fields and vineyards, which appear to be very nearly ready to harvest. They are loaded with very ripe looking grapes, but so far we haven’t seen any picking. The Camino on this stretch goes through the small town of Viana, which is the final resting place of Cesare Borgia, the infamous Italian warlord and son of Cardinal Rodrigo Borgia who later became Pope Alexander VI. Cesare Borgia, now the universal symbol of treachery, murder and other assorted evils, was captured by in 1506 after decades of fighting the Spanish who then controlled much of the Italian peninsula. Borgia escaped and got involved in the struggle over the successor to Isabel of Aragon between the Austrians, the French and the Castilian Ferdinand, and was killed fighting rather heroically near Viana in 1507. His tomb in front of the “Iglesia de Santa Maria” in Viana.

Shortly after leaving Viana, the Camino leaves Navarra and enters the autonomous region of Rioja, perhaps the most famous wine growing region of Spain. On leaving the land of the Basques, we will miss the ever-present ETA signs calling for liberation from Spain. The last five kilometers to Logrono was particularly difficult as the day turned hot and the Camino mostly paved. The paved path—painted yellow—keeps pilgrims out of the mud, but it is really tough on the feet. We moved pretty slow during this section and crossed the bridge over the Rio Ebra into Logrono in the late afternoon, tired and footsore. Fortunately, no blisters or breakdowns, so the discomfort was temporary.

The Albergue is very inviting, with a nice foot-soaking fountain at the entrance, hot showers, and free internet. The place was almost like a resort. As it happened, we got the last two beds in the Albergue, which is run by the Rioja friends of the Camino. For the second night in a row, we had side-by-side bottom bunks providing at least a modicum of “connubial comfort.” I tried sending several emails, but was fairly certain they didn’t really get anywhere. After showering, washing clothes, and settling into our bunks, we did an early evening tour of the city of 250,000. The city has a very nice central square. Visited the beautiful “Catedral de Santa Maria la Rendonda:” Lots of gold.

Logrono, the capital of Rioja, sits on the frontiers of Aragon, Navarra, and Castilla y Leon, and has had more than its share of warfare through the centuries. And as with most of the strategic towns in this part of Spain, it suffered period anti-Semitic riots. Logrono hosted one of the regional tribunals of the Spanish Inquisition, which lasted from 1478 to 1839. In Logrono, the Inquisition first went after Jewish converts to Catholicism who were thought to still practice their original religion on the sly, but most of its efforts were directed against protestants, moriscos, various heretics, and abusive clergy. They even managed to find some unfortunate “witches” who were burned alive in 1610.

After a nice tour of the city, which included some fine wine and tapas, we hit the sack fairly early, eager for another day afoot on the road.

Friday, September 10—Day 7—Logrono to Ventosa—20 Kilometers.

Leaving Logrono meant more walking on pavement, but at least it was through nicely landscaped parks and a large man-made lake. We saw several older women with cloth bags into which they were placing something they were picking up off the ground. We finally got close enough to one of them to ask what they were doing. Snails. They were collecting them to sell to fancy restaurants in the city. The first town after Logrono is Navarrete, a not very interesting little place with no public fountain to refill our water bottles. The church in Navarrete is supposed to have one of the finest Baroque Retablos in the entire country, but as often happened (actually more often than not) the church was not open when we went through.

Between Navarrete and Ventosa—which is actually a couple kilometers off the main trail—there was terrible flooding and the trail itself was simply a big ditch in places. The Camino signs were not of much use as we kind of guessed our way along the roads that were still intact. At one point a bridge was washed out and we had to go through a huge ditch that was quite challenging to cross. Mud and running water everywhere. The town of Ventosa had also suffered considerable flood damage along the river that ran through the town. Large sections of vineyards were simply flattened and covered with mud and rocks.

The Albergue in Ventosa was one of our favorites, with a lovely combination lounge and dining room. The hospitalero was very friendly, played great classical music constantly, and sold excellent Rioja wine for 2 Euros a bottle. We took our wine, bread, and cheese to the top of the hill and had a fine little picnic dinner on a bench next to the town’s Romanesque church of San Cernin. As a town, however, Ventosa has almost nothing to offer, although it has the usual fine old stone houses that one finds all though this part of northern Spain.

Saturday, September 11—Day 8—Ventosa to Azofra—15 Kilometers.

The hospitalero woke the house with wonderful loud classical music, served us a great breakfast and got us all back on the road by 7:30 AM. It is generally a rule in these Albergues that they are locked at 10 or 11 at night and the lodgers must all vacate the premises by eight AM. It is getting warmer all the time now as the overcast if gone, and we enjoy especially the early morning part of the walk. This day, it takes us to Madera, and 10 kilometers. We had our ritual second “café con leche” and took in yet another beautiful church—this one with particularly amazing sculptures. This church was not so heavily burdened with excessive gold, and had a crucifix that was extraordinarily expressive of suffering yet maintaining an exceptionally handsome face.

Another 5 kilometers and we arrived in Azofra, a very small town with a very large Albergue—brand new and not yet entirely finished. As there was a festival going on, and the Albergue was inviting, we decided to stay. There is lots of noise in the town—firecrackers, whooping and hollering, and much drinking everywhere. Small brass bands are marching all over accompanied by wild teenagers throwing water at everyone and dumping each other in the town fountain. Even the little kids get caught up in the action, sneaking up behind unwary adults and dousing them with buckets of water. The party carried on through the night.

The entire Albergue is divided into two-person rooms, so this is the most privacy we’ve had so far. The downside is that the showers had icy cold water only. Wandering about the town, I had a very nice, though disjointed conversation with the lovely lady from Brittany—in my broken French and her broken Spanish. The bars were all very busy all night, so they clearly would not be open the next morning for breakfast. Found an open store and bought some food and instant chocolate for the next morning.

Sunday, September 12—Day 9—Azofra to Santo Domingo de Calzada—15 Kilometers.

Many people use the kitchens that are often available in the Albergues to cook full breakfasts and dinners. After a breakfast of good biscuits and bad cocoa, we started off for Santo Domingo.
Started off at 7:30, with a lot of uphill and finally a steep miserable downhill into Santo Domingo. The Santo Domingo area is a major vegetable growing area, with fields of beans and other veggies everywhere around the city. The city is named for a Dominican monk of the 12th century who devoted his life to caring for Pilgrims. He also performed a lot of road and causeway construction around the city, thus its name: Santo Domingo of the Causeway.

On the Camino, you fall in love with yellow arrows that are painted on rocks, on the pavement, on buildings, or anything available. It is always comforting to know that you are not lost. You also learn to hate pavement because it is so hard on the feet. Today, the number of people on the Camino seemed to explode. For several days we have trooped along with more or less the same group of people. By stopping at Azofra, we probably fell behind the group we were traveling with, and have now been joined by a large group of folks we’ve never seen before. We covered the 15 kilometers to Santo Domingo by 11:30 and had planned to go another 6.5 to Granon, but after a much-needed first coffee of the day, we decided to stay here.

We are in the “Albergue Casa del Santo.” It is so full that we are in a huge room with 60 or so other people with the worst beds we’ve ever seen. When you get in the bed, the sides of the mattress point strait up. Since it’s Sunday, we can’t find any “tiendas” open to buy food for tomorrow. The restaurants are open, and end up getting some very bad pizza, obviously not a Spanish specialty. As we lay around the Albergue, we see lots of people limp in with terrible blisters, tendonitis, etc. I appears that something like half the people on the Camino suffer some sort of fairly serious injury. We both seem to be OK so far, with only a few aches and pains that are very manageable. We are pretty religious about our water consumption. We see our German friend Katya again. She is very sick and plans to stay at the Albergue for at least another day before setting out on the trail again.

We go to evening Mass at the town’s 12th century Cathedral (though not finished until the 14th century), which is said to be one of the earliest Gothic churches built in Spain. The Mass was quite beautiful and we participated fully, including kissing athe relic of Santo Domingo that is displayed after mass. The Cathedral is known for its having a live cock and hen in a gilded caged, beneath which is the crypt of Santo Domingo. Legend has it that a young German Pilgrim traveling with his parents somehow earned the wrath of a local maid who set him up to accused of stealing a silver goblet from the church. He was judged guilty and hanged. The bereaved parents went on their way, but on their return found he was still on the gibbet but alive, telling them he’d been kept alive by Santiago himself. They reported this to the town mayor, who told them their son was as dead as the two chickens the mayor was about to devour, at which point the roasted rooster and hen came alive. The miracle is attributed to St. James, thus the keeping of the fowl in the Cathedral

Monday, September 13—Day 10—Santo Domingo de Calzada to Villamayor del Rio—19 Kilometers.

We both seem to be holding up well drinking lots of water all day and getting our share of beer and wine in the evening. We are very slow walkers and are definitely the tail-enders in any group that starts our together. This means we spend a lot of time alone on the trail as we fall behind the group that starts out in the morning and generally stay ahead of the group coming up from behind. This morning we had biscuits but didn’t get any coffee until we’d hiked to Granon, some 6.4 kilometers down the road. Snacked on peanuts, stale bread and had fresh bread for lunch. The villages in this part of the route are very small though pretty close together. Occasionally they don’t even have “tiendas.”


There are no farmsteads visible in this part of Spain, and the farmers seem to live in the villages. You often see tractors parked in garages in town or just driving about the town. There is almost always a bar or two where you can get coffee, beer, wine, spirits and tapas, the latter generally only in bigger towns. In the villages, you can usually get bocadillos, which vary greatly in quality. Bocadillos are always very dry, as the Spanish don’t seem to believe in mayo or mustard. Often a bocadillo is the only prepared food you can get outside the standard Spanish dinner hours—noon to 3 or so, and 8or to 10 or so. (The “or so” caveat is necessary in this country where time never seems to be “of the essence.”) The beer is so-so and expensive while the wine is usually good as well as cheap. You can get a bottle from 98 cents to 2 Euros—and on up if your tastes are more refined than are ours.

There is usually a tienda or supermarket (which in Spain means that the groceries are available for the customer himself to pick out. In the tienda, things are often behind the counter and the shopkeeper fills your requests. There is usually a panaderia (bakery). These places are usually open in the morning until two or three, and closed until seven or so when they reopen until 9 or 10. The stores always have a pretty good selection of cheese, some of which is “mas fuerte,” or too strong for my tastes. If you don’t like goat cheese (as I don’t) you have to read the label carefully to avoid it. A couple Euros will buy enough bread and cheese and fresh tomatoes for several meals—maybe even a piece of chorizo or salami.

As we pass through the little town of “Redecilla del Camino,” we visit a small church of the “Virgen de la Calle.” The village is tiny, but the church is quite nice with a particularly beautiful pipe organ. We see many of these beautiful pipe organs in churches on the Camino, but never get to hear them. Just before getting to the even tinier village of “Villamayor del Rio,” we spot a new family run Albergue that looks a little like an old fashioned American motel. The place is quite pleasant and we are checked in by the pre-teen daughter of the owners. Had decent bocadillos and wine for supper and then wandered into the village to see if there was anything worth seeing. Here we learned about “clubs” in Spain.

The only business establishment of any kind in this particular “Villamayor” is the Club Sirocco. We decide to go in to have a beer, but as we cross the parking lot, a man coming out of the club asks us in broken English “do you know that this is a cloob?” I see by the sign that he’s right, but he blocks our way and insists we probably shouldn’t go in. “It’s a cloob, a cloob for chicas,” he finally says. It dawns on me he means the place is a brothel. We decide to go in anyway, just to see what its like. It’s a dimly lit place, with pale red lights revealing scantily clad ladies of the night clustered in one corner and a single lady flirting with a potential customer at the juke box. The only other person in the place is the bored looking bartender. This is the first of many “clubs” we see along the way—all of which are on truck routes. We decide to go back to the Albergue, but not before taking a quick turn around the village where we see one group of “old timers” shelling beans and another group roasting peppers. That night we share the room with a young Italian couple who are doing the Camino by bike.

Tuesday, September 14—Day 11—Villamayor del Rio to Villafranca Montes de Oca—15 Kilometers.

The day started out very cold but became warm and sunny within a couple hours. After a few hours of sunshine, it clouded up again and began to rain as the cold returned. We walked through Granon, which appeared to be a nice little town. We are going to have to pick up the pace I believe if we are to make it to Santiago in time to catch our flight home. Today it was not possible, however, because we had a choice of 15 kilometers to Villafranca or 27 to the next place, which is just too much—we think. We are on a generally uphill path through rolling farmland. A kilometer or two before Villafranca, the path drops down a hill and follows a very busy highway into the town, whose buildings in some places have no sidewalk between them and the road making for a treacherous walk.

It is by now fairly late in the day, the sun is blocked by heavy clouds, and we are nearly out of money owing partly to my poor planning and partly to erroneous information in my guidebook that “even the tiniest villages have hole in the wall ATMs.” We check into the town’s only Albergue, an olf school building that has been converted to a dormitory. The guidebook warns that you should not stay here “unless you’re stuck.” The place has brand new showers and toilet facilities, however, so we think it doesn’t deserve the bad review, and anyway, we’re stuck. It fills up very quickly and we’re glad to have a warm bed on a cold rainy night.

After paying the night’s rent, we find a store where we have enough money for a can of lentils, a loaf of bread, and E1.50 bottle of wine. Other events of the day include meeting a nice young girl from New Zealand, watching French people cook rather elaborate meals in a very primitive kitchen that is actually outside—in the rain—and a happy birthday call to Patty from Yvonne.

Wednesday 15 September—Day 12—Villafranca Montes de Oca to Atpuerca—19 Kilometers.

This Albergue gets going very early, so we are on the road in the dark, just following other people hoping they know where they’re going. It’s raining. We’ve learned that when you go down into a town, the first thing you will do in the morning is go up again. Today, the up is very steep through a scrub oak forest with heavy fern ground cover. It’s quite beautiful but so foggy you can’t see too far ahead. As we reach the top of the hill, the fog clears and we enter an area that alternates between a deep oak forest and planted pine forests. The oak forest is the first we’ve seen that has been left totally to nature. Previous, all woods have either been planted or carefully groomed, or both.

As usual, the bulk of the people we bunked with last night sail past us within an hour or so—except for two overweight couples who are clearly struggling. We first saw them at “Santo Domingo de Calzada” when they stumbled into the Albergue late in the day—tired and footsore. We take turns passing each other as we walk through the rainy forest. We have only a few coins left, so we eat whatever stale bread we’ve been carrying and go without our morning coffee. My dependence on caffeine was very evident as I develop a fierce headache by the middle of the day. It is drizzly and quite cold as we continue for some time through the woods.

At a crossroads we come to a small monument to some local people who were executed by fascist partisans during the Spanish Civil War. Although both sides committed atrocities all over Spain during this brutal war, this is the only monument to the victims that we came across during the entire trip. Pilgrims had placed many stones at the base of the monument, which is something we saw regularly. Pilgrims love to pile stones, and virtually every place along the entire trail that will support stones has as many stones it will support.

Emerging from the forest, we dropped down into the tiny village (only 8 residents) of San Juan de Ortega, which has a large Romanesque church dedicated to San Nicolas and the tomb of San Juan de Orgeta himself. San Juan was a friend and disciple of Santo Domingo de Calzada. San Juan is an important Saint in Spanish iconography, as patron Saint of hospice keepers, children, and barren women. Isabel, the childless queen of Castilla, is said to conceived only after visiting his tomb and asking for intercession; she named the child Juan. When the boy died as a child, she again prayed at the tomb and subsequently had a daughter she named Juana. We visited the church, which is quite beautiful and is one of the restored treasures of northern Spain.

Leaving San Juan, the trail is not well marked, and after conferring with a German Pilgrim who is also puzzling over which way to go, we decide on the trail that leads into yet another forest. The forest is not large, and we soon emerge onto a high open plateau with a wonderful vista of the surrounding countryside. Here we are again confused as to where to go, when Peter, a Pilgrim from Strasbourg, joins us. His French guide is clearer about the path, and he assures us we are on the right path. Peter Baum is one of those extremely friendly and helpful people, and he spends quite a bit of time with us as we descend toward Atapuerca. He walks much faster than we do, so we lose him as he hurries to join his German friend and travelling companion, Willy Boysen, a Lutheran Pastor.

We arrive in Atapuerca cold, tired, and hungry. Again there is no ATM, but there is a bar that accepts credit cards, so we get to eat, although the only fare available is bocadillos, which are dry and not very good. The Albergue, “la Hutte,” is a restored old stone building and is quite comfortable. Yvonne is so tired she is in bed by 6:30 and I soon follow.

Thursday September 16—Day 13—Atapuerca to Burgos—21 Kilometers.

The Albergue has a machine that dispenses coffee for E.50 per cup, which along with some biscuits gets us off to a good start. We climb the Atapuerca Massif, which takes us to the Castilian Meseta. a huge high plain that is mostly grain farms. Our first day on the Meseta is a bit rainy and cold and first, but it soon dries out and warms up. After a short walk, we meet Willy and Peter again, and Peter begins to importune us to join he and Willy on a side trip to Silos, to visit the Dominican Monastery of “Santo Domingo de Silos.” Peter also strongly suggests we avoid the long slog through the industrial area on the approach to Burgos. We agree to meet in Villafria just outside Burgos where we can catch the city bus. Meanwhile, I’m desperately hoping that there is an ATM near the bus stop so I can pay for the bus ride. When we get there, of course, there is no ATM. Peter sees our dilemma and promptly gives us a fiver. When the bus arrives, we discover the fare is only 70 cents, which I have, so I am able to return Peter’s five, which he takes reluctantly.

We get off the city bus in the middle of town, near the heroic equestrian statue of Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar, known more famously as El Cid, whose tomb is in the Cathedral. After finding an ATM and getting something to eat, we walked to the famous Gothic Cathedral of Burgos, which was begun in the 13th century and not completed until the 18th. The Cathedral is overwhelming, with additions from every age since it was begun, including Gothic, Plateresque, Renaissance, Baroque, and Rococo. It is in many way decoration gone mad, and seems more a museum than a house of worship. One really needs a lot more time than we had to really appreciate all there is to see here. For a short visit, it remains simply too much to take in. In fact, the more we see of these churches with so much gold and Baroque and Rococo decoration, the more we appreciate the simple unadorned Romanesque churches. Nonetheless, there is so much wonderful art and sculpture that anyone visiting Spain should see the Burgos Cathedral. We had never seen anything like it.

We wandered a bit more about the city, ending up at the bus station to make the 75 Kilometer trip to Silos, along with Peter and Willy, a Swedish girl, and two French women. We arrived in Silos about 7 PM, and since there is no Albergue in the town, we checked into the “Hostal de Santiago de Silos” across the street from the Monastery. All of us went immediately to the Monastery for Vespers. The 24 monks who still live in the Monastery do the Gregorian Chant six times a day. The singing at Vespers was beautiful.

The combination of the Chant and the austere Romanesque chapel was absolutely stunning. The only adornment in the Chapel was a single Crucifix behind the altar. The Monastery is considered one of the best examples of Romanesque architecture in all of Spain. Monastic life in Silos began as early as the 7th century. Santo Domingo arrived at Silos in 1041, and the construction of the Cloister begun under his leadership of the Monastery. There was a brief craze for Gregorian Chant in the late 70s and early 80s, which began with some recordings made of the Monks at Santo Domingo de Silos.

We seven pilgrims then repaired to the Hostal for what was the first real sit down dinner for Yvonne and me. It was quite expensive compared to what we had been eating so far on the Camino, but very cheap by European standards, according to our continental friends. The menu included blood sausage, a specialty of the Burgos area. We very much enjoyed our first night in a real double bed—alone with no one in nearby bunks.

Friday September 17—Day14—Santo Domingo de Silos.

After a breakfast of coffee and biscuits, we go to Mass in the chapel of the Santo Domingo Monastery. A beautiful Mass done in Gregorian Chant: a hypnotic, spellbinding experience. There simply couldn’t be a greater contrast than that between this Chapel and Burgos Cathedral we visited yesterday. We spent the rest of the day touring the Monastery’s Cloister, wandering the Village of Silos and visiting with our friends Peter and Willy. The Monastery is a popular destination for Spanish tourists, and the number of people rambling about the town increased dramatically during the day we were there. There are a number of nice hostals, hotels and restaurants, and day hikes out of the town. The Cloister has astonishingly beautiful carved stone, much of it so delicate one wonders how it has stayed in such beautiful condition for so many centuries.

Because of the bus schedule, we spent a second night in Silos, and watched two Spanish televised sports broadcasts—a bicycle race and the bullfight. We’d never seen a bullfight before and were somewhat taken aback by the brutality—an unfairness to the bull—of it all. We were also surprised that at least half of the people in the crowd appeared to be female. Very interesting.

Saturday September 18—Day 15—Silos/Burgos to Hornillos del Camino—18 Kilometers.

The bus ride back to Burgos turned out to be the “milk run,” going through numerous small villages en route to the big city. We again took the city bus to the edge of the city, disembarking near the municipal Albergue, and headed on back down the trail again. At first it was a very gentle walk along a river and past a prison that once held Generalissimo Franco’s political prisoners. Under an overpass, we saw the graffiti calling for Castilla to be liberated from “prison of Spain.” It seems there are groups in almost every political sub-unit in northern Spain that would like to be free from whatever jurisdiction it either shares power with or is under. The one we always hear about is the Basque desire for independence, but one sees revolutionary graffiti all along the Camino: Free Leon from Castilla, Galicia from Spain, Castilla from Spain.

There is also an interesting graffiti battle between fascists and anti-fascists. Small black swastikas are painted on numerous Camino markers, walls, etc. Many of them are overprinted with yellow paint, the color of most of the Camino arrows, or signs denouncing fascism. We don’t know if there is a serious Nazi movement in Spain, or if this is just the doings of pranksters. Whoever it is, they have gone to a lot of trouble to paint these things along nearly the entire trail.

After leaving the river, the path climbs a long limestone hill back up to the Meseta. It was very hot and we saw few other pilgrims. Peter and Willy had surged ahead of us long before he headed up the hill. It was along the way up this hill that we first met the two young college students from Magdeburg in former East Germany. As we approached Hornillos, the trail dropped precipitously down. We knew we were pretty late in the day (after 4 PM) to be assured a bed. We arrived at the Albergue just behind the German boys, and found they were willing to let us take the last two beds available. We were dead tired and very grateful for the offer.

Willy and Peter had arrived at the Albergue much ahead of us and had also endeavored to save beds for us. While walking along the seemingly endless Castilian plain, we saw a towel in the ditch that I recognized as the one Willy often wore around his neck. Peter had assured him we would find it and return it to him. Things like this are viewed by pilgrims as the “magic of the Camino.” The beds were both “uppers” and not even on the same floor of the Albergue. This is when and how we met the Swiss Pilgrims Ule and Petra. Ule offered to trade his bunk so we could be together.

As it happened then, we would be side by side above “crazy man” and his lady, who then traded their lowers for our uppers. How wonderful it is to be geezers on the Camino. We spent the evening finding victuals, having some cold ones, and visiting with Peter and Willy and, briefly, with a couple from New Hampshire who were staying exclusively in hotels. The Missus of this latter pair had an awful cold so we kept our distance, a decision aided by the fact she was rather talkative. The Mister was a bit sour; he complained the Albergues were too loud for him to sleep; nor did he hide his disdain for the Spanish whom he thought they were loud, argumentative, and rude. The Spanish do seem to speak in fairly loud voices and sometimes it appears they are arguing when that is not the case. But Yvonne and I were never treated rudely in any way whatsoever during our entire trip, and in fact, if you say hello to a Spaniard, I assure you that you will get a polite response. Spaniards we spoke to always went out of their way to help.

We have become quite close to Peter and Willy. It turns out that Yvonne and Willy share having had serious bouts of depression and are addicted to some of the same philosophical authors, such as Anthony De Mello and Richard Rohr. Willy made an appointment to have a “talk” with Yvonne.

During the night “crazy man” went berserk again. He apparently is extremely sensitive to noise during the night, and as the snoring reaches a fever pitch in the dorm—what we like to call the “symphony of the Albergue”—he starts snorting, coughing, and cursing. After a few minutes of this and not being able to wake all the snorers, he jumped out of his bunk, rolled up his mattress and stormed off to the kitchen where he spent the rest of the night. He has decided we are his good friends and always greets us with hugs and solicitous offers to help. His girlfriend meanwhile has suffered some rather nasty looking wounds on her feet, so we give her some duoderm. She has been wearing tennis shoes and cotton socks, so we also give her a pair of polyester liners that we believe have helped prevent us from getting blisters.

Sunday, September 19—Day 16—Hornillos del Camino to Castorjeriz—21 Kilometers.

The Albergue provided hot milk and cocoa powder for breakfast, so with no coffee in sight, we had cocoa and biscuits before setting off. Another hill to climb to get back up on the Meseta again, on a day that was cold and windy. After 11 kilometers, we went down a steep hill into Hontanas, a lovely little village squeezed into a narrow canyon where we had a nice lunch of coffee, bread, cheese and apples. Soon after leaving Hontanas, we dropped down into a nice green valley and were joined again by the two young men from Magdeburg. They had gone on from Hornillos to stay at an Albergue in “Arroyo de San Bol,” which is off the trail and has no electricity or running water.

The boys walked with us nearly all the way to Castrojeriz, another 10 kilometers. They are college students in Magdeburg who have only recently completed their national service as social workers, Konrad in Romania and Axel in Hungary. They were great company and helped to make the kilometers fly by. They were inspired to do the Pilgrimage by having read Paulo Coehlo’s novel about the Camino. They had limited time off from school for the pilgrimage, so we really appreciated their slowing their pace to keep company with us. They both loved the countries they had done their service in, especially the simpler lives. As Konrad put it, the people in Germany have every modern convenience you could want, but no one is happy. Inspiring young men.

Five kilometers before reaching Castrojeriz, you come to the ruins of the Convento de San Anton, a medieval hospital and refuge that specialized in treating pilgrims with St Antony’s Fire, a disease similar to leprosy the was common in the Middle Ages. It was an active refuge for pilgrims from the middle of the 12the century until the 1790s. The ruins still has an arch that flies over the trail, with a niche that was once used to set food out for pilgrims who arrived too late in the night to get into the refuge. The niche is now used by pilgrims to leave prayers on scraps of paper. We left prayers for Mary Anne Duffy and Virginia Dunn.

Shortly after leaving San Anton, a high hill with the ruins of a huge castle perched on top comes into view. Halfway up the hill is the town of Castrojeriz. We checked into the new municipal Albergue at the top of the village and, after our daily clothes washing chores, set about investigating the town. The castle was built in the 13th century, but the sight was in use as a fort long before—apparently in pre-Roman times. The Romans used it to guard that route to their gold mines in the area, and local legend has it that the town below the castle was founded either by Julius Caesar or Pompey. The current ruins are what's left after centuries of fighting for control of the area between Visigoths, Muslims, and Christians. Castrojeriz also had a substantial Jewish community and, rare in Spain, the punishment for killing of a Jew was the same as that for killing a Christian.

The village now has many abandoned buildings but many of them have what appears to be new for-sale signs on them. It appeared to us that it might be making something of a comeback as years of being little more than a stopover for pilgrims. There is quite a bit of reconstruction and restoration going on. Since we were there on a Sunday, quite a few Spanish tourists were wandering about, and at least one wedding party was whooping it up at one of the nicer bars. We decided to treat ourselves to a late dinner, which turned out to be quite excellent. Bars and restaurants along the Camino offer Pilgrim’s Menus, three course meals that sell for six to ten Euros. The menu includes a choice of a bottle of wine or a bottle of water. The “ensalada mixto” was great as were the beef, calamares cooked in their own ink, flan, and several bottles of wine, which we enjoyed with Peter and Willy. All for E8 each. A perfect end to a very nice day.

Monday, September 20—Day 17—Castrojeriz to Boadilla del Camino—19 Kilometers.

This Albergue provided milk and instant coffee in the morning, but not enough stove burners for so many people. The “crazy man” –we still don’t know his name—using an empty toilet roll, a beer can and a piece of string, put together a clever contraption to heat milk for us, so we had a pretty good “cafe con leche” before starting out. Leaving Castrojeriz, we crossed a broad agricultural valley on a raised stone causeway with numerous arches and headed up and over the steep “Alto de Mostelares” to get back on Meseta. On the way up the hill we were joined again by Ule and Petra, and another young Swiss couple on their honeymoon. They had started their trek in Switzerland and had been on the road for more than three months already. The bride carried a small backpack while the groom pulled a one-wheeled cart piled high with supplies and camping gear. She was terribly thin and he looked none to well either, although they were moving much faster than we were.

Once over the Alto, we descended a sharp, difficult path to a very large valley filled with vegetable farms and irrigation systems. Spanish irrigation canals are open concrete contraptions that are quite impressive. Though you occasionally see a pivot or wheel line—at least in the north where we were—most systems appear to use flood techniques. Just before reaching the village of “Itero de la Vega,” we came across a small, frail-looking old man who was greeting everyone and giving all the ladies a kiss on the cheek. Giving Yvonne a kiss, it was all very humorous until he just wouldn’t let go, planting kiss after kiss in rapid-fire smacks. She couldn’t pry him loose as he moved from cheek to cheek. I guess he finally wore out or perhaps he could tell she’d had enough. We moved along, with Yvonne swearing she’d henceforth be more wary of harmless looking old Spaniards.

After going through Itero, we climbed another shorter hill and dropped down into the “valley of the gnats,” which swarmed about us for the rest of the day. The combination of the heat and irrigation apparently produced a bumper crop of the pesky critters. The Albergue we were heading for in Boadilla del Camino has such a good reputation that we weren’t sure we’d find a bed there. We passed up an Albergue on the edge of town that had a for-sale sign on it (probably not a good omen for staying there), and found there was still room at the "Albergue de Peregrinos" in town.

What a welcoming site for pilgrims on a hot sticky day. A swimming pool, shaded sleeping quarters, hot showers, a fine beer garden, and wonderful antique decorations scattered about this family run Albergue. Francisco, the young man who was in charge, said he’d grown up on this place, and that the sleeping quarter were the stables when he was a child. The beautifully manicured grounds and swimming pool had been the barnyard. The town itself had virtually nothing to offer except a 15th century church, which—as we have come to expect is such places—was not open.

Here we met Rodney and Marie, another Swiss couple. Rodney was born and raised in England, but had lived his entire adult life in Switzerland. Like most Europeans we met on the Camino, they were fluent in English. We enjoyed this couple as much as anyone we met on the Camino, and more than most. Rodney is a great storyteller, and Marie is wonderful. They have been doing the Camino section by section, two weeks at a time, for several years during their vacations. Ule and Petra, and Peter and Willy were also here, and spending the afternoon at this Albergue was like a day at a spa with old friends.

Tuesday, September 21—Day 18—Boadilla del Camino to Villacazar de Sirga—19 kilometers.

Back on the hot dry Meseta, although it is always nice and cool in the early morning as we get started. This is a very fertile area with many crops of alfalfa, wheat, corn and sugar beets. Just after leaving Boadilla, we came to Fromista and visited the Church of San Martin built in 1066, which is viewed as one of the most perfect Romanico (Romanesque) churches in Spain. The exterior has more that 300 carved figures. Inside, there are fine carved wooden statues of Santiago and San Martin. The carved crucifix is also very beautiful and especially serene. The church is officially a museum as it has been deconsecrated. The outside looks more like a fortified castle than a church.

We again run into “crazy man” and his girl and finally get their names. He is Francisco but goes by “Pachi;” She is Ana from Uruguay. They are traveling totally without money and are begging for food and lodging. She hopes that doing the Camino will help her get a job with the Church. It is hard to tell his motivation, although he claims he did the Camino last year in the winter and says he wants to do it now to experience poverty. Whenever we see him, he has a bag full of food, often including sausage, cheese, and wine. He has invited us to share his haul today of potatoes, other vegetables, and field corn. When we get to Villasirga, (the shorter name of the village), we will throw in our bread, cheese, and tomatoes, and it will be interesting to see what he cooks.

We arrived at Villasirga shortly after 2 PM. After this time of day, it is madness to walk the Meseta in hot weather. The Albergue is run by volunteers from the Amigos de Santiago in Cuenca. The volunteer on duty today warns us before we register that this is a Christian Albergue, and that we are expected to participate in a communal prayer service later in the 13th century Gothic Church of Santa Maria la Blanca next door. The church is huge, and has several polychromed tombs and a wonderful statue of Santiago. It is believed to have been built by the Knights Templar. Of the 20 pilgrims the Albergue holds, only right show up for what turns out to be a very nice little service held around the church’s Romanesque stone baptismal font. Each of the pilgrims read in their own language a section of the New Testament story of meeting Christ on the road to Emmaus. The service ends with the Lord’s Prayer recited in Spanish, English, German, and French.

After the service we go the Albergue’s kitchen where Willy takes charge of preparing a communal meal, because Pachi has found some “friends” in the village with whom he engaged in a rowdy drinking party in the park across the street. Pachi is something of mimic and comedian, which he apparently parlays into free drinks. Ana seems increasingly unhappy.

We are joined in the dinner by Damien, a young Frenchman from Bordeaux and his German girlfriend Karina. Damien is positively apoplectic about George Bush, but he only seems to us to be articulating standard European disgust with the US government more passionately than most. Even old men in tiny villages stop me to protest the grotesque war in Iraq. Peter simply puts Bin Laden and Bush in the same league, while even mild mannered Pastor Willy expresses sorrow and disgust at American bashing of European leaders like his own Prime Minister Schroeder, of whom he is proud for standing up to the US on Iraq.

Peter and Willy will be taking the bus to Leon tomorrow so they will be able to get to Santiago before they have to leave for home. Willy has his planned chat with Yvonne; even before the talk, he has told me that meeting her has been “an important event in his life.” Yvonne is embarrassed that I record this, but it happened.

Wednesday September 22—Day 19—Villasirga to Calzadilla de la Cueza—23 Kilometers.

This day starts with a nice breakfast of coffee, hot milk, and biscuits provided by the Albergue, and then we say our good byes to Willy & Peter. Willy gives us a nice personal blessing as we head out on our way. The walk turns out to be most grueling of the Camino so far: 23 Kilometers over the hot rocky Meseta.

On the way, we pass through Carrion de los Condes, a town that figures prominently in the history of the Camino and of northern Spain. Once the richest town in this part of Spain, it figured in the struggle between two brothers who ruled Castilla and Leon. The brother who ruled Leon murdered his sibling who ruled Castilla, much to the annoyance of El Cid. Later, prominent nobles of Carrion who married El Cid’s daughters took their money and beat them, leading the Cid to dispatch them to their just rewards. During the period of Muslim rule, legend says the town was required to provide the Muslim overlords with 100 virgins a year. When the towns Christians prayed to the Virgin for release them from this onerous duty, she sent a herd of bulls to drive the Moors out. This “event” is commemorated by a plaque in the “Iglesia de Santa Maria del Camino in Los Condes.”

After Carrion de los Condes one guidebook accurately describes the path as “a dull shadeless treadmill” all the way to Calzadilla de la Cuenza. Halfway to Calzadilla, we come across a group of four Brits, one of whom is deathly ill—he thinks from eating bad fish the day before. My opinion is that he has the stomach flu, which seems to be going around. One of the Brits hefts his unwell friend’s rucksack along with his own and sets off again, promising to rent a taxi to come and get his partners if they don’t show up soon behind him at the next Albergue. He’s a strapping young fellow and he gets to Calzadilla long before us, and shortly after we arrive, he leaves in a taxi for his friends.

We arrive at the Albergue some time after 3 PM, and very inviting it is. A swimming pool—with very cold water and plenty of room left for straggling pilgrims. We find the Swiss honeymooners are both very ill and have been staying in the Albergue for two days already trying to recuperate. We hear later that they are so worn out from so much time on the road that they have given up. We spend the rest of the day drinking beer with Damien and Karina, and Rodney and Marie. This is the last time we see Damien and Katya.

Thursday 23 September—Day 20—Calzadilla de la Cueza to Sahagun—20 Kilometers.

This promised to another long hard day and the promise was kept. Hot, no breeze, no shade. The terrain was a bit more interesting than yesterday. We are in an area where most of the buildings are either brick of adobe as there is little building stone available. Most of the churches are distinctively Mudejar in design and usually brick. The Mudejar style was perfected by Moorish craftsmen who stayed in Spain after the "Reconquista." These “Moriscos,” nominal Christians who converted in 1560s, rebelled when the Church pressured them to be more devout. After a decade of strife, they were forced out of Andalucia and settled on the Castilian plains where insurgent activity was thought to be more difficult. They were all expelled from Spain in 1609 after having left quite a mark.

As we enter the little village of Moratinos, there are a half dozen large mounds of earth with doors. They look as though they’re right out of some children’s illustrated fairy tale. I’m convinced that they are root cellars until another pilgrim calls my attention to the fact that some of them have television antennas perched on top. They look quite well maintained, with freshly painted doors, unlike some we see later. Many are caved in and clearly abandoned, some have visquine over them, but others are immaculately well kept.

It was very hot when we finally got to Sahagun and we were happy the Albergue, a large municipal facility located upstairs in Trinity Church. We rounded up some bread, olives, cheese, chorizo and wine for supper (you can see, our diet is expanding as we progress along the Camino), all of which except for the olives, was of inferior quality. Getting good bread in Spain—especially in smaller towns, is a challenge. Virtually all other Europeans complain about it. It’s a rare day you can find any kind of dark bread and the baguettes just don’t match the French product. We weren’t crazy about much of the Spanish bread, but it was still superior to the American-style balloon bread that is beginning to make an appearance in Spain. At first, I would ask for Rustico, sometimes with good results. I finally learned to ask for chiabata, with uniform success.

The Albergue gradually filled up completely. Typically, the bicyclists arrive late in the day to fill the refuges, at least partly because walkers have priority in the apportionment of beds. Many Albergues won’t accept bikers until after 4 PM or later. There has been a bad bug on the loose for the past couple days, and he seems to be winning in Sahagun; you could hear the sounds of food coming back up all night long. Somehow we managed to fend it off.

Friday, September 24—Day 21—Sahagun to El Burgo Ranero—18 Kilometers.

Anxious to escape the bug that was on the loose in Sahagun, we got up early and hit the road in the dark. It was a very nice walk, with the entire way lined by drip irrigated Plane trees. Each tree is beheaded about 15 feet high, forcing it to grow horizontally and thereby provide more shade. Although some of them were not big enough to do much good, someone has gone to a lot of work to make life nicer for pilgrims. In many of the villages in this area, the plazas are encircled by Plane Trees that are heavily trimmed, with branches of each tree grafted to the nearest tree on each side, forming a wonderfully shaded circle. In some places, the annual trimming was underway. All the new shoots are removed so that all leaves in the coming year will be on new growth. The end result is quite nice, creating large, gnarled knobs on the trees.

Although we are still on the hot, dreaded Meseta, the trees with their delicious shade, the more frequent villages, and the enormous mountain range that runs parallel to the Camino some distance to the north that we have been following for several days conspire to make it more interesting. The path is not as stony either, which helps preserve the feet. As we came to a tree shaded rest area, there was a small group of Spanish “Caminantes” eating lunch and drinking wine from skins. They invited us to join them and got a kick our of our ability to get the tasty stream to actually hit our mouths.

We arrived at the Albergue in El Burgo shortly after noon to find Pachi deeply into preparing a vegetable stew that is traditional in his home province of Valencia. The rest of the meal included rice, salad, grapes, flan, coffee, and wine. It was quite delicious. Pachi and Ana had rounded up several other pilgrims to share the meal with us, including a very nice German lady we’ve been seeing regularly since Santo Domingo de Calzada, and beautiful young French girl with whom Pachi is aggressively flirting. After the dinner, we wandered about the village and ended up with our four Swiss frinds at the bar across the street for drinks and conversation.

El Burgo is was at the center of the sheep industry that dominated the Castilian plain during the Middle Ages, and several “canadas,” trails used by sheepherders to move their flocks north to summer pasture in the mountains and back to the Meseta in winter went through the town. Many of these are still used, although more by trucks than afoot in modern times. We do still see many herds of sheep always attended be one or more herders and several dogs. In fact, it is rare to see herds of any animals unattended by herders. So far, we haven’t seen anything that would qualify as a proper fence, thus the necessity of herders. It has to be an awfully boring job, or as an old farmer I know once told me: “You ain’t seen lonely till you’ve herded cows.”

I also continue to try my Spanish, which remains very rudimentary despite many weeks of study before we left home. If I am able to have a one-on-one conversation with someone, I am able to get by quite well, but in a group or a tienda or bar, it all collapses. The routine goes something like this: I carefully frame a question in the best Spanish I am able to muster, sometimes even consulting my pocket dictionary, being careful to come up with questions to which a short reply is all that is needed. However, after asking, the answer comes in a rapid-fire torrent of words and I am lost after the first three syllables. Given enough time, I can translate it, but it requires so many repetitions by the ever-polite Spanish people, that I just give up and revert to the old reliable sign language.

The day ended on a bit of a downer when we got back to the Albergue. Yvonne was in the bathroom, when Ana appeared outside the window asked to be helped back into the building through the window. She then burst into tears and cried on Yvonne’s shoulder for what seemed like forever. I walked in on this and immediate knew I was unlikely to be of any help so I skedaddled. Pachi has decided he wants to go on alone, abandoning this poor girl from Uruguay who has no money, no job, and no family in Spain. She is painfully shy and frightened for her future. Rodney and Marie wandered into the situation, and being much braver than me, joined Yvonne in helping to calm Ana down. The three of them seem to convince Ana she could do a lot better than the clearly unstable Pachi, and that she is strong enough to go on, etc., etc. Earlier, Pachi had offered me some drugs—he said, “to help you sleep.” While all this is transpiring, Pachi is doing his “shtick” for group of Spanish bikers who are laughing uproariously and supplying him with drink. I suspect he is mixing drugs and alcohol which accounts for the middle-of-the-night outbursts.

Saturday, September 25—Day 23—El Burgo Ranero to Mansilla de Mulas—19 Kilometers.

In the morning Ana decided she would walk alone instead of walking with us as she had planned the night before. There are suddenly dozens of French pilgrims on the road. My guess is that they are folks who are doing parts of the Camino over a period of years. Having received my share of insults in Paris, I am a little wary of striking up conversations with French people, but I did try. Generally, my experience with French persons on the Camino was that they were very kind and friendly one on one, but no so in a group. One conclusion I have come to is that it may be a mistake to travel the Camino in a group. If you are alone or are a couple you are much more likely to get into conversations with a variety of folks instead of just your own group. One man, apparently assuming I was French—I knew he was French and had greeted him with a “bonjour”—chastised me for having German rather than French hiking sticks. I also couldn’t help noticing that a friendly “hola” or “buenos dias” invariably elicited a “bonjour” in response. But enough political incorrectness.

We arrived at Mansilla about half past one, settled in and completed our usual chores, and set about to investigate this attractive town. The Albergue is welcoming and pleasant, with a small number of bunks in several rooms. Ran into Ana who had teamed up with another single lady and seemed to be getting along fine. The highlight of this town for us was the huge sections of walls, apparently built first by the Romans, subsequently destroyed and rebuilt by medieval craftsmen. The Walls is built mainly of small river rock. Three quarters of the wall remains intact. Ana joined us for a bacon and egg dinner we cooked in the Albergue.

Sunday, September 26—Day 23—Mansilla de las Mulas to Leon—18.5 Kilometers.

It was a pleasant, easy walk today to the Benedictine “Convento de Santa Maria de las Carbajalas” in Leon. It is an active monastery that cares for ailing and elderly religious. This is the first Albergue we have come to where there is an attempt at separating the sexes. Women and married couples are put in one dorm while men are put in another. Bathrooms are between the two dorms and used by both. There was a tiny kitchen that was not heavily used, not surprising given the culinary delights available in this wonderful city. This is also one of the rare places you can stay for a second day, although to do so you have to stay in a inferior quarters with mattresses on the floor, unless you wish to rent one of the few rooms that are available inside the Convent itself. The “Madres Benedictines” invited the pilgrims to a prayer service and blessing in their chapel. Hot coffee, milk, jam, bread and biscuits are served for breakfast.

Ana is also staying at the Convent, but alas, so is Pachi. One of the other pilgrims who has been there for two days, tells us she had seen Pachi the day before in the central plaza with some wild looking girl—both obviously high on something, and the nuns were so concerned with Pachi’s behavior they had his background checked by Guardia Civil. When we got there, the nuns had just rejected his request to stay another night, although they eventually succumbed to Ana’s entreaties that he be allowed to stay.

We reconnect with Katya whom we haven’t seen is quite a while, and have a couple snack-type meals with her. She was set back by a severe cold; otherwise she’d have been far ahead of us as she does closer to 30 kilometers a day. There is a huge tapas bar section in Leon, a city of a half million people, which we took advantage of. As usual, our eating schedule just doesn’t mesh well with the Spanish system, so tapas are an important meal source for us. A lot of tourists are in Leon, and we found the best bet for cheap drinks—invariably accompanied by a “pincho de tapas”— is in neighborhood bars. One nice bar in particular became a “hangout” for us, we made several meals there of tapas consisting of such goodies a cheese & bread, ham, quail, empanadas, and shrimp. The first time we visited the place, I recognized a lady who had given us directions to the Albergue when we first entered the city. We had a great conversation with her and her husband who spoke pretty good English—somewhat unusual in northern Spain for middle-aged man who was a retired worker. He was also about the only Spaniard I met who didn’t want to harangue me about George Bush. He just didn’t’ care a whit about US politics.

We also met Pyotr, a Ukrainian who has walked all the way from Kiev, and whom I have seen on the Camino for the past few days. He is scrimping by on very little cash at the moment, as his debit card has stopped working and he is waiting till Monday to get to a bank to get more money. He has no English, but speaks good Spanish, having worked for a year in Santiago and says he is known at home a “Pedro de Espa~na.” He is very proud of being Ukrainian and carries with him large stack of photo postcards of Kiev. He makes me swear I will email and call him when we get home. From the pictures, Kiev is a stunningly beautiful city.

Leon is a wanderer’s dream, with so much to see, and we decided to stay at least another day. The Gothic Cathedral, which is known for its beautiful stained glass windows, was everything it is advertised to be. We were there on a warm day, and although it was a rest day for us, we did nearly as much walking as we would have had we been back on the trail. The other major tourist site in Leon is the Basilica of San Isidoro which was a compulsory stop for medieval pilgrims, and its "museo" and the Romanesque "Panteon de los Reyes" where one finds the tombs o 23 kings 12 princes and 9 counts. This is another of the places desecrated by Napoleon’s troops.

Like virtually all cities and towns in this part of Spain, there was once a substantial Jewish population, and like the rest of them, the Jews came to a bitter end as political scapegoats. Leon is, however, one of the most beautiful and wondrous cities we’ve ever visited and one shudders at the prospect of trying to describe such a place in a few words. After a day and a half we must move on to complete our appointed task of reaching Santiago. We spent our second night in a small apartment in the Convent, a walk up three flights of a circular stairway just outside the doorway to the Convent’s pure white Romanesque chapel.

Monday, September 27—Day 24—Leon to Villadangos del Paramo—24 Kilometers.

After another fine breakfast at the Convent, we head out through Leon and up a long slow slog through a seemingly endless industrial section of the city. As we near the river just before leaving the old city, we pass the “Parador de San Marcos,” now a luxury hotel but originally a 12th century monastery for the Knights of Santiago. Next door is a two-story building that was originally a hospital for pilgrims. It now houses government offices. This is the last nice thing one sees for a while as you climb out of Leon. We were on pavement for the first half of the day and on stony path for the second half.

The Camino splits at La Virgen del Camino. The way-marks were very confusing and, of course, we took the wrong path. Our path is actually the real “Camino Frances,” which is parallel to the highway through desert-like terrain for the next 21.5 kilometers. We later learned that there is a much nicer path north of the highway, and a really nice path a few kilometers to the south. The Albergue we come to is a typical municipal refuge, where the hospitalero is a part time worker who apparently cleans the place in the morning and comes back in the evening to collect the lodging fee and give stamp credencials. This place has the iciest shower we have come across, but it is clean and reasonably comfortable despite the three-tiered bunks. The town of Villadangos has little to offer but we did find a shop open for food.

You meet a lot of curious people on the Camino, and Hazel is one of them. A young (early 20s I would guess) college student from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico who tells us she is studying cultural anthropology and has made a sudden trip Spain to see what she can learn from doing the Camino. She is very smart, has a baby son at home, is not married, is quite overweight, charming and inquisitive, and carries an enormous pack that must weigh 80 lbs. We rarely see Hazel walking but she always turns up in the same villages—usually the same Albergues—that we are staying in. I conclude, and she occasionally admits, that she is fond of taking taxis and buses. She is nonetheless a delightful person to spend time with, and we very much enjoy her company.

Wednesday, September 29—Day 27—Villadangos del Paramo to San Justo de la Vega—26 Kilometers.

This was our longest of walk so far. We stopped in Obrigo, which is a charming small town in the middle of an agricultural valley with a nice farmers market and good shops and stores. Coming into the town you cross a medieval bridge with a Roman style surface. The bridge has 20 Gothic arches. We had caught up with Ule and Petra again and spent an hour or so with them enjoying lunch and the ambience of the lovely town. We bought some food to cook for dinner and headed for Santaibanez de Valdeiglesia, which our guidebook says has a very helpful hospitalero.

The road crosses the valley and heads up into some rolling hills that have a smattering of farm fields and vineyards. The vineyards in this part of Spain are quite unlike those in the major wine growing areas, where the vines are strung up on supports. Here they are short, thick, stubby trunks that look quite unimpressive but which are often loaded with grapes. As we walked by one field, a family was harvesting the grapes. They called us over and gave us bunches of grapes to eat as we went along. Ule asked how much wine this little patch produced: 300 bottles was the answer, enough for our family for the coming year.

The Albergue in Santaibanez was something less than we had hoped for, but after 17 kilometers we were prepared to stay. All along the Camino one sees the following signs: “Tourists look at what they receive and complain; Pilgrims look at what they are given and are thankful.” A lot of truth in this, but this place just overdid it, with little handmade signs everywhere announcing how thankful everyone should be and how wrong it is to expect anything more. Kind of do-goodish gone mad. Moreover, the bathrooms and shower facilities were outside, and to cap it off, the only bar in town had gone out of business. That was the last straw for us. Although it was already after three on a blistering hot afternoon, we decided to go the next 9 kilometers over a decent size hill to the next town, San Justo de la Vega.

There were quite a few people in the Albergue who weren’t up to going any farther today, and since there was no source of food or drink in the village, we left the stuff we had planned to cook for dinner. A couple of retired German brothers who had been working on completing the Camino for 10 year were particularly grateful since they had expected there to be a tienda in Santaibanez and were looking toward going to bed without their supper.

As we reached the crest of the hill that looked down on San Justo and Astorga, it was a welcoming sight. We more of less stumbled into San Justo, with its only hostal, Hostal Juli, and decided that this was as far as we could go today. Hostal Juli is a rather strange place, run by a mother and daughter, neither of whom seemed to know what they were doing. Although we were their only customers, they were greatly offended that we didn’t want to order their version of a pilgrims menu, and informed us that we could not bring food into our room. We obliged by eating at the bar up the street. After a pleasant tapas meal, we watched a little Spanish TV and hit the sack. Believe it or not, Spanish TV is even worse that the junk we get in the US.

Thursday, 30 September—Day 27—San Justo de la Vega to Santa Catalina de Somoza—13 Kilometers.

This was a very easy day that took us only 13 kilometers and allowed us a lengthy visit to one of the most pleasant towns on the Camino and ended at an absolutely excellent Albergue in Santa Catalina. After an hour of walking, we arrived in Astorga, which has numerous Roman ruins and a huge section of Roman wall. The city is the capital of the Maragatos, a people whose origins are something of a mystery. Speculation ranges from Phoenicians to Berbers. For centuries they were Spain’s muleteers, hauling produce all over the country. Maragatos are known for their friendliness and honesty. The city has an enviable record of treating its Jewish population well. There were two Jewish neighborhoods in Astorga and Jews were active in all aspects of the civic life until, of course, the expulsions of 1492.

Three of the country’s main attractions are very close to one another—the Cathedral, the Archbishop’s Palace, and the Roman Wall. The Cathedral was begun in the 1470s and took 300 years to finish, which is clearly evident from the many different color stone blocks used to build it. The Archbishop’s palace, built by the famous Spanish Art Nouveau architect, is a storybook castle built in the last years of the 19th and early years of the 20th centuries. No prelate ever lived in the palace, and it stood vacant for many years. It was used by the Falange as a regional headquarters during the Spanish Civil War, and is now a museum of Camino artifacts. The Roman walls suffered the typical devastation that befell such walls all over Spain, but enough of Astorga's walls have been rebuilt or preserved to give a clear impression of their former grandeur.

We had a hard time leaving Astorga because of its charm and its people, and didn’t hit the road again until after 1 PM, not a good time to start a long walk in the heat. We are now leaving the Meseta and heading into the Mountains of Leon, and it will be sharply uphill for a couple days. Our goal is Santa Catalina. The path leaving Astorga goes through a pleasant valley but soon begins to climbs into some terrain that is not very interesting, as it gradually gets steeper. We were happy to arrive in Santa Catalina and find the truly upscale municipal Albergue, with a nice bar/restaurant, plenty of hot water, and a lovely interior courtyard. There were only six pilgrims staying here, at least partly because there is another nice Albergue down the street that is also quite nice.

The mid-day dinner hour here was extended to 4 PM, so we sat down for the our most decadent day yet on the Camino, consuming some beer and tapas, great chicken and trout Pilgrims menus, and two bottles of excellent “vino tinto.” It’s a wonder we were able to stumble about the town for a bit after dinner and into our bunks for the night. We really liked this small village of finely crafted stone houses that appear to have been constructed without mortar.

Friday, October 1—Day 28—Santa Catalina de Samoa to Manjarin—21 Kilometers
Up early in the morning only to find we are locked in, so we decided to stay for a coffee and biscuit breakfast. This “locking in” is not all the uncommon in Spanish Albergues. As we leave the town, we find ourselves walking along with an old man who lives in the village. He complains about the gradual death of the place—there are numerous vacant houses—and bemoans the fact that outsiders are buying them up and restoring them. He points to houses we pass, mumbling “Madrid” or “Leon,” and again “Madrid.” We don’t have the heart to point out that these outsiders are probably saving his little town from total extinction.

The scenery gets very beautiful, particularly as you look down into green valleys as we rise farther up the mountain. We had a nice lunch in Rabanal del Camino, and walked on up into an area that is covered with heather. Near the summit we came to the 2,000 year old mountain top village of Foncebadon, which looks like it has been hit by a major earthquake, as all but a couple of the building are mere rubble. Until recently, it was down to two inhabitants; now is has a very nice Albergue that attracts a lot of pilgrims tired from walking up this steep path, others not willing to walk another nine or ten kilometers to the Albergue in El Acebo, and perhaps even more who are unwilling to stay and the Albergue in Manjarin which has no amenities.

Many pilgrims trade stories about the Manjarin Albergue, with it total lack of electricity and water and its storied hospitalero, Tomas, who has dedicated his life to helping pilgrims in the fashion of the medieval saints. Before we get there, however, we get to participate in one of the great rituals of the Camino. At the summit just a bit beyond Foncebadon lies the Cruz de Ferro, an enormous cairn topped by an iron cross, which pilgrims have been adding to for centuries. Several legends explain why Pilgrims toss stones onto this enormous pile. One has it that a Pilgrim should pick up the heaviest stone at the bottom of the hill that he or she can carry, pack it up to the cairn, and throw it on the pile along with his sins. The heavier the stone, the more sins are shed. The other story, more pagan in origin, is that if you bring a stone from home, turn your back to the cairn and toss it over your shoulder, whatever you wish for will be granted. A third is that the cairn is there to guide pilgrim. We chose the middle theory, but not having known that should have brought a stone from home, we picked some along the way and duly performed the ritual. We don’t want to reveal our wishes so as not to jeopardize their coming true. The presence of many very large rocks on the cairn suggests many choose the honor the first of the three legends.

We arrived in Manjarin shortly and we had to overcome some doubts before deciding not to move on. There are several unusual signs at the entrance, including one that announces the Albergue is run by the Restored Order of the Knights Templar. We were welcomed by two young Spanish volunteers who give six months of their time to help Tomas, and after having been greeted with hot coffee, welcoming smiles, and friendly conversation, we checked in. Quite a few pilgrims, including several who had told us earlier they planned to stay, moved on after a closer look at the digs.

The facility is something to behold. Manjarin is essentially another broken down, abandoned village. Tomas’s quarters look like something out of a South American favella with bits of tin, tarp, and plastic creating something of a shelter, inside which there is also a rudimentary kitchen and eating quarters. The best building in the place is the dormitory, a converted barn with mattresses laid about on a raised platform. A tiny staircase leads to a loft with more mattresses. It is said to have room for 20 pilgrims. We selected the largest mattress and slept together. The bathroom, up a hill and around a corner from the sleeping quarters, consists of a flimsy shack with a one-foot square hole in the floor. On the way to the facility there is a drawing of a man relieving himself overlain with the standard “not allowed” circle and slash. There is junk everywhere amid the broken down buildings and an assortment of animals, including a mule that relieves himself (we saw it happen twice) right at the door of the dormitory and a goose that threatens everyone but attacks only women and added Yvonne to its list of victims. It was a very cold and somewhat sleepless night as the dogs the geese would periodically raise an awful ruckus over God knows what.

We shared this experience with Len, a Canadian who owns a string of coffee shops in Vancouver, Walter, a young Brazilian who owns a landscaping business, and a young very interesting Spanish man. We had a lot of good laughs as we lolled about in the afternoon sun. Tomas’s crew fixed us an excellent dinner and a fine breakfast in the morning. We only got glimpses of Tomas as he flitted about in the background.

Saturday, October 2—Day 29—Manjarin to Ponferrada—23.5 kilometers.

Leaving Manjarin, the path descends for ways and then heads back up to another summit, which at 1,517 meters, is the highest point on the Camino. The vistas here are spectacular in several directions. From here you descend to the tiny village of El Acebo with slate roofed houses that all have second story verandas that overhand the street. We enjoyed a good café con leche and tostada. On the edge of town there is a bronze memorial to a German cyclist who was killed here. It is all precipitously downhill now, and portions of the path can only be described as treacherous, with loose cobbles and stones laying of slate bedrock. We’re grateful that at least it’s not raining. Reaching a small valley that breaks up the steady descent, we find a lovely area of huge old chestnut trees. A little farther on we come to an area that has recently suffered a bad forest fire.

We are able to see the vast Bierzo valley from our vantage as we descend, including Ponferrada, or goal for the day. Every now and then on the Camino, your goal comes into view, looking tantalizingly close, but still a long way off. Ponferrada is such a place. The last seven kilometers is relatively flat, but paved, and the entry into Ponferrada has the first modern suburbs we have seen in Spain. With slate so plentiful in this region, slate roofs have replace the baked tile we’ve become used to seeing since we started walking. The volunteers at the new municipal Albergue in Ponferrada welcomed us with a glass of cold apricot nectar. What a treat. We were escorted to our bunk, and for some reason they failed to fill the other two beds in the room, giving us some nice quiet and privacy. Walter and Len were here also, and we had fun reminiscing about Manjarin.

We liked Ponferrada a lot. The city is divided in two—an old section of tradition stone buildings and a new are of apartment blocks that would look at home in any large American city. It’s a fairly bustling place with the look of being a workingman’s town. It has a very nice central plaza and a well-preserved Knights Templar Castle. The Knights Templar—so named because their first headquarters was near the Temple Mount in Jerusalem—had a checkered history, fighting Saracens in Palestine, Moors in Spain; the order became so wealthy that it eventually became banker for much of Europe. Although the Knights had adopted the Rule of St. Benedict, they came to be viewed as irreligious and as anathema as the Jews in Europe. The Templars ultimately became so powerful that kings and popes feared them, and the order was dissolved by the Papacy early in the 14th century.

Sunday, October 3—Day 30—Ponferrada to Villafranca del Bierzo—22.5 Kilometers.

Up and going at daybreak on a way marked path that took us on a tortured route through the city and finally out along the Rio Sil. Once out of town, the mountains of Galicia come into view some distance away. We are in Bierzo Province, another of Spain’s major wine growing regions. We go through several interesting town, including Cacabelos where a British rifleman killed one of Napoleon’s Generals with a long shot through the head, so disrupting the French forces that the British were able to complete their retreat to their ships anchored at A Coruna.

This was a day we thought we’d never get to our destination. Extremely hot with a lot of short but steep hills. We finally arrived at a rather unique Albergue run by the family of Jesus Jato from Brazil. We also rejoined some old friends here: Walter, Len, and Hazel. The Albergue served a very nice dinner and promised a hearty breakfast the next morning. Senor Jato is known as something of a healer, and happily works his wonders on Pilgrims, many of who need his services for feet, ankle and leg problems. He also performs an unusual ceremony for selected groups of Pilgrims. We were so selected.

The ceremony begins at dark when Senor Jato brings out a bowl of alcohol into which he pours several cups of sugar and sets alight to produce a beautiful blue flame. He dips a ladle into the mixture and repeatedly pours the flaming liquid into the center of the bowl, all the time reciting various incantations, calling on the heavens to bring blessings down on all pilgrims. He calls on the sun and moon to do the same and for God to bless us all. This goes on for some 15 or 20 minutes as he asks for blessings on our friends, on our enemies, and even on those pilgrims who cheat by taking buses and taxis.

Senor Jato then asks the pilgrims to form a circle around him; he invites us to dip our fingers into the flaming bowl and extinguish the flame on our finger with our mouths. This is followed by Senor Jato filling small cups with the concoction, and with the flame now out, each pilgrim passes the cups around the circle until everyone has one. We are asked first to gaze at the potion, to smell it, to listen to it, to taste it, and finally to touch cups and drink. It tasted a lot like weak Brazilian Pinga (cane liquor) to me. The ceremony, I later learned, is believed to be one used by the ancient Celtic Galicians whenever they moved to a new land, to ensure they would be safe and prosperous in their new home.

Monday, October 4—Day 31—Villafranca del Bierzo to Ruitlan—20 Kilometers.
We do have a fine breakfast after having been wakened by Gregorian Chant on the loud boombox. Immediately after hitting the trail, we pass a large well-preserved castle. Virtually the entire day was spent walking on pavement, which doesn’t help the pains we are suffering from the miserable descent into the Bierzo Valley two days ago. As we neared our destination, Ruitlan, up the narrow valley that leads to the Cebreiro pass over the mountains into Galicia, an amazing event unfolded in front of us.

A Spanish man had stopped suddenly a hundred yards ahead, looking excitedly at something on the side of the road. Soon he was focusing his camera on the object and talking to a French couple; we assumed he was asking them to take his picture. When we caught up to them, we could see that his attention was on an enormous burned out tree by the side of the road, so big that the man could stand inside its blackened core. He stepped into the tree trunk and suddenly threw his hat the ground, tore off his shirt, and struck a dramatic pose as his picture was snapped. He then stormed back onto the road proclaiming in broken English that the tree was his old self, which he was shedding—that he was born again. It was like seeing Paul struck down off his horse on the way to Damascus. As we walked on our way, he remained at the spot, circling around on the road and all but jumping up and down. We never saw him again.

Within the hour, we arrived at Ruitelan, where the hospitalero Carlos was about the most welcoming host we’d met on the entire Camino. Carlos offers Shiatsu massage for muscle-sore pilgrims. As he showed us our bunks, he said, “Welcome home.” Sounds corny doesn’t it; but somehow it was just right and much appreciated. Once again Hazel was there—seemingly out of the blue. In a bar across the street we met a lovely couple with whom we had a several-beer conversation. Just bit younger that us, the lady was English by birth and upbringing. She had married a handsome Spanish man and lived her entire adult life in Madrid. She gave us the full explanation of the origins of the pre-Christian Celtic alcohol/fire ceremony Performed by Jesus Jato at Villafranca.

Tuesday, October 5—Day 32—Ruitelan to O Cebreiro—12 Kilometers.

The hike up the steep grade to O Cebreiro is considered one of the toughest single walks on the entire Camino. Some pilgrims take advantage of the cheap taxi service that seems to be advertised everywhere in this area to get to O Cebreiro. Carlos got us off to a good start with a truly fine breakfast, and we were soon trucking up the hill in the pouring rain. We chose to walk the highway instead of the trail to avoid the mud even though this added some kilometers to the journey. The higher up the mountain we got, the more fog we encountered, so we were extra careful to watch for cars.

As we approached the summit, we came to the village of Laguna de Castilla, the last village in Leon, which has an Albergue and a shop that sells trinkets that look like they have come from somewhere in South or East Asia, seeming awfully out of place. Here we left the paved road and are back on rocky path for the rest of the way to O Cebreiro. Lest they be any doubt that we are now in Galicia and that its people’s origins a Celtic, we entered O Cebreiro to the strains of bagpipes and fiddles playing music that sounded a lot like traditional Irish music. O Cebreiro also has several well-preserved “pallozas,” classic Galician thatch-roofed huts of Celtic origin. O Cebreiro has been an important stopping point for pilgrims since the 10th century. Alas, it is now as much a tourist town and anything else. We very much wanted to go on down the mountain a ways to keep close to our 20 kilometer pace, but as the rain got heavier and the fog closed in even more, we decided to stay here. We had a good dinner of fried eggs and chorizo and a jellied fruit with honey, a regional specialty, for desert. We had dawdled so long by now, however, that we got the worst of what the Albergue had to offer.

As predicted by our guide, the Albergue, though relatively new, was crowded, noisy, and worst of all, unbelievably stinky. The government run Albergues in Galicia are all very similar, run by part-time government employees, and “donativo”—i.e., there is no fixed price of admission. Our bunks were right next to the bathrooms, apparently the source of much of the bad odor. We assumed the odor came from some potent chemical that was used as a cleaning agent. We got little sleep as pilgrims kept leaving the door open. I believe I got up at least 20 times to turn the lights off and close the door. The next morning, we chatted with a 20 something German with the improbable English name of Norman whose bunk was near ours. Norman told us he had read somewhere the building was badly built, and that is has some fungus locked into it that creates the awful smell.

Our Swiss friends Ule and Petra who were in a less smelly room in the Albergue also had a sleepless night mainly because of the noise. Ule was especially annoyed by the “torch brigade” and the “alarm brigade.” Many pilgrims have cell phones with alarm functions. The alarms usually start to go off about 5 AM and sometimes ring 20 or more times before the owner awakens and turns it off. This is often just a snooze function, and alarm starts ringing again after several minutes. This time it may not take as long to get turned off, but it may go on ringing for a surprisingly long time. Ule claimed he heard one alarm go off five successive times before the owner finally gave up and got up. He said he tried to discover to whom it belonged, but by the time he got out of bed and got the sound, it would stop and he didn’t want to kick the wrong person. After comparing notes we all decided it was just the “Albergue from Hell!”

Wednesday, October 6—Day 33—O Cebreiro to Triacastela—21 Kilometers.

All too happy to leave the “Albergue from Hell” we got up very early, had breakfast at the nearest bar and headed down the mountain with Norman who seemed eager to walk and talk with Americans. Norman is a devout Catholic who wants to return to Spain after he finishes the Camino and spend a year or so at on the many monasteries still active here. Descending from the summit in heavy fog and intermittent rain, we were tantalized by a brief gradual downhill path, only to go back up a couple times before seriously heading down, and it was not until the fog lifted that we began to see just how beautiful Galicia really is. We stop for coffee at a bar on the trail where of all people, we see Pachi and Ana with a confused and apparently ill elderly English pilgrim in tow. It turns out that this is another of Pachi’s good deeds; he is arranging a taxi so the pilgrim can get to the nearest place he can get some medical treatment.

Norman is visibly distressed at seeing Pachi and regales us with stories about his behavior—begging for food one day, spending money like a drunken sailor the next, strutting around in a menacing manner—that he and other pilgrims witnessed. I chalk some of this up to Norman’s generally jaundiced view of the Spanish. He is more than a little appalled at the laid back manner and their apparent lack of organization. He views the absence of schedules posted at bus stops as just one example. As Norman put it, “you wait never knowing when if a bus will ever appear or where it might take you.” We saw the difference when traveling later in Germany, where every stop has highly detailed signs that always turned out to be correct. As Norman strides on ahead of us, we ponder the wonders of cultural differences and stereotypes.

At places, the path goes right through the barnyards of family farms, something we see quite frequently in Galicia. In fact, it is in Galicia that we see for the first time, what are unmistakably family farms. At one point, we met a friendly couple of Spanish pilgrims descending this difficult path on mountain bikes. After chatting for a while, the wife, who was oddly in full makeup looking as though she just stepped out of a beauty shop, asked to have her picture taken with us. It’s intriguing to know that somewhere in Spain two unnamed American geezers appear in Spanish family’s photo album. Hmmm, wonder what the rest of the family thinks of these strange people whom they don’t know and whom they will never meet!

The last nine kilometers down to Triacastela were beautiful but brutal on the feet and legs. The view of the beautiful valleys below helps to make the discomfort bearable. After the “Albergue from Hell,” we have decided to treat ourselves to a hotel. We arrive in the town and stop at the first bar for a cold beer, and ask the bartender for her recommendation of where to stay. She said, why here, of course. We hadn’t realized the place had a nice new hostal out its back door. After checking out the room, we signed in, had good hot showers, and set about to explore the area. Digging out our guidebook, we see the following sentence: "…avoid the first fonda on the left as you walk along main street. It has no name outside but is Restaurante Fernandez.” We have already stayed at one place with a negative recommendation, so we decide to stay put, and anyway, we never did discover any problem with the place.

Triacastela is an attractive little town with, but we didn’t see any sign of the three castles that appear in the town’s name. Later in the evening, we are wandering down the street, Hazel bangs on a winder from inside a restaurant and entreat us to join her for supper. This time she confesses she has taken a taxi from O Cebreiro. She is delightful, if overly friendly, company, so we end up having an exceptional pilgrim menu with her and a middle aged lady from Portland. Paella, pollo, pescado, vino tinto, helado and tarta almendras—we relish the indulgence, but then all our sins will be wiped away when we finally get to Santiago and receive our Compostela

Thursday, October 7—Day 34—Triacastela to Samos—11 Kilometers.

It has finally dawned on us that we are substantially ahead of schedule and so we decide to take the long route to Sarria with a side trip to the Monastery in Samos. Moreover, we had so enjoyed the Gregorian chant and artwork of the Santo Domingo Monastery at Silos, that we couldn’t wait to see and hear Samos, one of the largest monasteries in Spain. The path to Samos is a pleasant amble along a river that flows through a heavily wooded valley. At a village about half way there, we once again encountered Hazel having a coke on the steps of a bar. It was starting to become somewhat eerie to see her pop up out of nowhere after having left her behind as we started the day. She accompanied us to the Monastery, which appears suddenly and quite magically in a beautiful valley below as we enter a clearing in the woods.

We circled the Monastery, which has two adjoining cloisters, and checked out the Albergue that is actually inside massive structure. The Albergue is one big, noisy, gloomy room; it also had an unfriendly warden, so we decided to stay another night in a hostal. This also had the advantage of getting us away a bit from the ever-reset Hazel, whose hovering was becoming just a bit oppressive.

We toured the Monastery, but found it disappointing, especially after compared to Silos. The cloister was very plain and the second story had some truly mediocre murals. The negative feelings we were getting were reinforced by an oversized, gilded tribute chiseled into the wall, singing the praises of “Francisco Franco…Defender Of The Faith…Victor Over Communism…Hero of the Nation…” etc., etc., commemorating a visit to Samos by the dictator and his son sometime in the 1940s.

We found a room at Hostal Victoria across the street. Rounded up some bread, cheese, salami, olives, and vino tinto, and had a lovely dinner in our room.

Friday, October 8—Day 35—Samos to Sarria—16 Kilometers.

Leaving Samos early, we ascended a fairly steep hill in a drizzly rain and heavy fog. Broke out of the fog at the top to some wonderful views of hilly Galician farm country. So far, Galicia looks very much like Ireland: rolling hills, stone fences, strikingly bright green vistas, small farmsteads with stone houses and barns. In bars, you often seem classic Celtic symbols that reinforce the feeling of the Emerald Isle. We are now seeing more cattle than at any other point along the Camino, but always in small groups—from five to 30—rarely more. Also a lot of sheep, but in smaller groups than we saw on the Meseta.

Also unlike the rest of Spain that we have walked through, there are real fences, yet there are almost always herders with the animals when one assumes the fences would be enough. We see a woman tending a small clutch of cows near the road, so we cross over a strike up a conversation. She tells us she puts in two hours a day on this duty, but we are enjoying our conversation with her that we forget to ask why farmers tend their cows even though they have good fences.

We arrive in Sarria fairly early and find an Albergue. There are many Albergues in Sarria, and quite by coincidence we end up in the same one as Ule and Petra and are even assigned to share the same four-person room. We always enjoy visiting with them, although this is the last time we see them, as they are running out of time and need to speed on ahead. For the first time and only time on the entire trip we take advantage of the Albergue’s automatic washer and dryer to clean all of our clothes save the few we need to remain decent during the process. We enjoy the rest of the afternoon wandering about the city and doing some souvenir shopping to avoid having to do so in Santiago where prices are said to be significantly inflated.

Sarria is bursting with pilgrims because it is the final town you can begin your Camino from and get in the 100 kilometers that are required to get your Compostela. After a dinner of pulpo (octopus) and vino tinto, we resolve to slow our pace to better enjoy these last 112 kilometers to Santiago. The weatherman predicts a violent rainstorm for tomorrow.

Saturday, October 9—Day 36—Sarria to Ferreiros—13.5 Kilometers.

Lots of wind all night, but we wake to a clear starry sky in the early morning. By the time we have our café and tostadas, however, it is raining, and the muddy path is clogged with pilgrims. By chance, we are starting the final 100 plus Kilometers on the weekend of Spain’s National Day, which is 12th, this coming Tuesday. The resulting four-day weekend has lured hundreds of Caministas to the trail, many of whom are clearly ill prepared what turns out to be a fairly arduous final stage of the Camino. An hour into the day, the heavens break loose with violent winds and horizontal rain. There are pilgrims in sandals, shorts, and occasionally without any raingear. The path is not crowded for long, however, as these newcomers are fresh and in a hurry to get to Santiago before their mini-vacation ends.

The path now traverses a seemingly never-ending series of narrow valleys; it is quite typical to reach the bottom of one steep valley only to start right back up the other side without any flat ground in between. The terrain consists sparkling green fields interspersed with small forests of large oaks and chestnuts. The villages of Galicia often consist of no more that three or four stone houses that are striking for their extraordinary craftsmanship. It is a stonemason’s paradise.

All along the Camino in Galicia, there are concrete pedestals every half-kilometer announcing the distance remaining to reach Santiago. A few meters before the 100 Kilometer marker, we see two more busloads dropping off new pilgrims onto the trail. There are also guided tours that carry luggage for pilgrims and arranging for their nightly accommodations. Most Albergues don’t admit these folks, so they stay in hotels. There are also some people who do the Camino entirely by private car or bus. This is a holy year, so by special Papal dispensation, anyone who gets to Santiago by any means qualifies to receive a plenary indulgence. In a county that is historically besotted with Catholicism, it is a powerful lure. For those of us who have slogged our way across this beautiful country, there is a temptation to feel superior or to look down on these pilgrims. These are thoughts that doing the Camino requires that you put aside; we met some lovely people doing the Camino in unconventional ways.

We are the first pilgrims to arrive at the Albergue, and here we meet Laurence, another Vancouverite with whom we eat dinner of eggs and cabbage soup in the bar next door. Laurence is a very enjoyable 30ish young man who plans to find a job, learn the language, and stay in Spain for a while after completing the Camino. We slept so well we didn’t hear anything. After telling Laurance how quiet we thought this Albergue was, he was astonished, telling us the place was in an uproar most of the night. Sleep wonderful sleep.

Sunday, October 10—Day 37—Ferreiros to Hospital de la Cruz—20 Kilometers.

It apparently also rained all night but there was just a light drizzle when we got up. Within an hour, the wind had blown the clouds away and we walked in the sun all day for the first time in Galicia, although it did start raining again in the evening. The Camino takes us through the interesting town of Portomarin, a new town that was built after the old town was flooded in 1956 by a dam that was built downstream. Several of the town’s monuments were moved to high ground, including the fortified Church of St Nicolas, which looks more like a castle. It was taken apart stone by stone and re-erected above the river. The church is enormous and quite beautiful. We picked up some groceries and TP, which is always in short supply in Galicia’s government Albergues.

In the early afternoon on the way up the hill after leaving Portomarin, we met two men we had met on the way up the mountain to O Cebreiro. One of the men, who is fluent in English, had walked all the way from Granada and was planning to go on to Rome after getting to Santiago. His partner, another Spanish man who speaks not a word of English, is traveling with his dog—a rare sight on the Camino. The were both visibly upset over a recent confrontation with a wild, skinny man, apparently high on drugs, traveling with a young blond girl—who else but Pachi. In the middle of the night they had found Pachi, who had already broken into the Albergue’s donation box, going through their belongings. Confronting him, he pulled out a big knife and threatened to cut their throats. Fully intimidated, they grabbed their stuff and walked all night to put some distance between themselves and Pachi.

They were moving pretty fast when we saw them, in hopes of never seeing him again. Apparently all he got away with was the Granadan’s debit card and some cigarettes. They had denounced Pachi to the Guardia Civil and were hoping he was in jail. The man from Granada asked me for 60 cents to buy a loaf of bread, which he thought would last him till he could get to a bank to sort out his credit problem. We gave him some money, which he tried to return a couple times later. He finally agreed he would give it to another poor man.

We decided that if we had a choice, we would avoid “donativo” Albergues frequented by Pachi. His apparent drug-induced outbursts had obviously become more violent, and as we had encouraged his girlfriend to go her own way, we thought it best to avoid him even though he had always treated us great kindness. We planned to stay at Gonzar and found that Laurance was already settled in when we arrived. The main part of the Albergue was already filled up, and the tiny side dorm was so narrow that it felt like being in an overcrowded train car. We decided to go on. Laurence agreed and the three of us headed on to Hospital de la Cruz.

The Albergue in Hospital was a carbon copy of Gonzar, though less crowded. We were tired and decided to stay. Laurance went on. There was no for or drink available (a very attractive restaurant across the road was closed for the season), and the pilgrims in the Albergue were sharing what they had. We had peanuts and stale bread. There was a kitchen but not a single dish or cooking implement. Earlier on the Camino, the kitchens were fully stocked with dishes, pots and pans, and even some food and spices. Our guidebook reports there is a lady in town that makes bocadillos and even cooks meals for pilgrims, but the decidedly unfriendly hospitalero assured us this was not true and that there was no food available anywhere near. Late in the evening, the Albergue filled to overflow with bikers seeking shelter from the rain, and the floor was wall-to-wall pilgrims.

Monday, October 11—Day 38—Hospital de la Cruz to San Xulian—17 Kilometers.

The “torch brigade” was very active this morning so we got an early start in the dark in the rain. Just 1 kilometer down the road, there was a very nice bar and hostal—not listed in our guide—where we got a good breakfast of café and tostada. As we approach the next town of Ligonde, we see Pachi and Ana from a distance leaving the Albergue there. They are speeding off down the trail and we do not hurry to catch them. It is the last time we see them together; we did catch a brief glimpse of Pachi in the town of Palas do Rei as we passed through on our way to San Xulian. We hope Pachi gets some help with his problems and that Ana escapes this mess and finds a life.

It rains off and on all day and when we get to San Xulian we find it has a brand new, luxury Albergue that costs 20 bucks each but it included dinner and breakfast. We got the last bunks there. The meals were amazing. The hospitalero cooked slices of over a fire in the fireplace. We are getting close to the end of our journey, and you can almost taste Santiago.

Tuesday, October 12—Day 39—San Xulian to Melide—12.5 Kilometers.

We are trying to slow down now and get to Melide quite early. We walk most of the day today with the Canadian Laurance. It rains a bit off and on but our gear keeps us dry. Our friend Laurance also has good rain gear, but when it stops raining and he takes of his rain suit, we see he is as wet from sweating as if he’d done without the gear. The Gore-tex stuff we have is amazing; we’re as dry as a bone. Melide is famous for it pulpo, so we go the Pulperia Ezequial, which the octopus in wine. There was a long line to get into the place, but once in, you pick out the size a wooden plate you want, they fill it with sliced pulpo, drench it with olive oil and Spanish paprika. You are then served salad, bread, boiled potatoes, and wine in clay bowls drawn right from the barrel, and eat at communal tables. Most pulpo eaters drink Ribeiro white with it. We preferred the tinto.

We’ve been walking off and on for the last few days with an English couple that is traveling with two Canadian friends, one from Calgary and one from Ottawa. The joined us at the pulpier and after chatting some more, the English couple invited us to come stay a few days at their home in Wales—a 300-year-old cottage they have restored. He is a retired architect, and she a retired teacher. With a plan already to go to Denmark after Santiago, we doubt we’ll make it to Cardiff.

We toured Melide a bit—quite a nice place—and spent a little time in the Iglesia de Sancti Espirtus, which is about the grimmest church we’ve ever seen. Nearly all the art and sculpture in the church is designed to show suffering and agony. There is on Virgin with a huge dagger through her chest, another with her mouth agape in a look of horror as tears run down her face, and one saint is depicted death-like in a glass casket. The entire church is dimly lit with little side chapels that are lit only by votive candles. All in all a spooky place you wouldn’t want to take children to.

We stayed in the Fonda Xaneiro 1above a bar. It was very comfortable, with a bath down the hall. We had dinner at Xaneiro 2 across town with the Canadians and Brits we ate lunch with, and had the one any only really terrible Pilgrims Menus we had in Spain. Yvonne let slip my occupation prior to ranching, and that pretty much ruined the day for us because that’s all they wanted to talk about after then. Live and learn.

Wednesday, October 13—Day 40—Melide to Arzua—14 Kilometers.

Started the day with two hours of rain but very little the rest of the day. The mountains are long past us, but with all the ups and downs traversing narrow valleys, it’s plenty arduous. The valleys are and villages quite beautiful, making for a very enjoyable day. We stayed in the Hostal Casa Frade and had a very nice late dinner of fish and soup, with wine and bread, of course. We did some shopping at an odd little store across the street run by two very old and very small little ladies who were very friendly and talkative. This was one of those time I wished I’d studied my Spanish harder. Their shop was absolutely crammed with thousands of religious statuettes, pictures, and even food and liquor. The ladies insisted on giving Yvonne a nice little pin of the Santiago Cross. It rained again in the evening, keeping us from doing much wandering about. In fact, that’s the main problem with the rain. It’s no problem when you’re walking, but it does keep you holed up at the end of the day when you would rather be out exploring.

Thursday, October 14—Day 41—Arzua to Santa Irene—16 Kilometers.

Rain again today. It has now rained every day we have been in Galicia. Fortunately, no wind. We arrived at the Albergue in a downpour. This is another very attractive Albergue—more like an English country home, complete with overstuffed chairs around a roaring fire, and nice dining room and dormitory complete with clean sheets and blankets. It is owned and operated by a quiet lady who keeps it in tiptop condition. She prepared the most elaborate meal we had in any Albergue.

There was a group of about a dozen teen-age boys staying at the Albergue who giggled all afternoon and much of the night. A young German man named Rainer Passlach with two middle aged ladies in town that he was guiding to Santiago were also staying at the Santa Irene Albergue and we had a nice visit with them. We had met this group at a bar when we stopped for our daily second dose of caffeine two days ago. This is Rainer’s second Camino, and he is trying to make a living as a guide. It strikes us as odd that you would need a guide for this well marked and heavily used path, but perhaps people who might not otherwise do the Camino will be encouraged to enjoy its wonders. Several days ago we met a large group of older Norwegians who were doing their Camino as a group with a guide.

It is pouring rain and there is no place to go anyway, so we spend the evening in the Albergue and get a good night’s sleep.

Friday, October 15—Day 42—Santa Irene to Santiago de Compostela—23.5 Kilometers.

We start the day thinking we will go as far as Monte de Gozo, four kilometers from Santiago, which has a sprawling Albergue of many buildings with 800 free beds for pilgrims. It’s raining, of course, for much of the day, although it has stopped by the time we get to Monte de Gozo (Mount Joy) so-called because it is the first place that pilgrims in the Middle Ages could see the spires of the Santiago Cathedral in the distance. Trees now block the view, and you can no longer see the Cathedral. When we got to Monte de Gozo, it was so massize—and empty as the high season has passed—that we decided to go on down the hill to Santiago.

We arrived in the city of Santiago de Compostela at 3:17 PM on October 15. After entering the city, you walk up a fairly long hill through the city, and suddenly as you turn the corner down a narrow street, it appears. It’s really quite a stunning experience as it pops up in front of you. When we arrived, it was not thronged as it is all summer, although it’s always a bustling place.

There are several important rituals that pilgrims perform, and we were careful to do them all. The rituals seem your reward for the long trek. First we found a nice room in a hostal just a half block from the Cathedral, cleaned up, and went to stand in line at the “Oficina de Acogida de Peregrinos” to receive our Compostelanos, the official document that certified that you have completed the pilgrimage for religious or spiritual reasons and are entitled to a plenary indulgence. Here two young girls examined the stamps in our Pilgrim Credenciales to see if we actually walked the Camino and checked their computer to see a record where we started and were recorded as beginning our walk. It’s a happy moment with a feeling of real achievement when you are given your Compostelana. We were in line for probably an hour. I can’t imagine how long the line might be when the real crush of pilgrims takes place in mid summer.

It is evening by now, and the line for the next ritual is mercifully short. This is a Holy Year, so a special side door of the Cathedral called the “Puerta del Perdon,” which is open for pilgrims. We enter and climb the stairway behind the high altar and embrace the Baroque, jewel encrusted, golden statue of Santiago. A mass is in progress when we perform this ritual. We then descend to the crypt under the altar to view the silver casket that holds the bones of St. James and two of his disciples, Athanasius and Theodore. The place is alive with genuine religious fervor as a lot of very happy people go through these rituals.

We spend the rest of the evening strolling through the wonderful old city of Santiago, have a meal of tapas and go to bed. It’s Friday night and the bars in the neighborhood are really hopping, and there is non-stop noise until three AM. The next morning we almost immediately run into Katya, who has been our best friend on the Camino. All our other friends walk so much faster, or have decided to go to Finistere—the farthest place west in continental Europe. That Katya is the only one we see. We are grateful for this blessing. Katya too is going on to Finistere, something we thought about, but decided against, we’d had enough of Galician rain by this time and would make a planned trip to Copenhagen instead.

There is a special Pilgrim’s Mass at mid-day in the Cathedral, but being Saturday, the city if full of tourists that you have to sit for hours if you want a seat. It rains off an on all day, which nonetheless doesn’t dampen many spirits. Santiago is full of happy people, we among them. There must be a thousand souvenir shops in Santiago, and we make the obligatory rounds of them to get some keepsakes. We also still have one more ritual to perform at the Cathedral, which we do after supper when the crowds have diminished. As we enter the Cathedral from the Plaza Obradoiro through the Puerta de la Gloria there is a serene image of Santiago and the Virgin. Giving thanks for our safe journey, we place our right hands deep in the handprint worn deep into the central marble pillar by the untold numbers of Pilgrims have done so before. We lower our heads onto the stone in front of the pillar, grooved from contact with pilgrims’ heads. Many pilgrims go on around the pillar to bow three times onto the small bust of the architect Maestro Mateo who created this beautiful “Puerta,” seeking to acquire just a piece of Mateo’s genius.

Our final Camino act is to purchase two scallop shells—for centuries the symbol of the Apostle James. In the Middle Ages, pilgrims received their shells upon completion of the Camino, which they wore to warn would-be robbers and tricksters that they had completed the Pilgrimage and should be allowed safe passage home. Nowadays, nearly every pilgrim acquires a shell at the start and wears it on his pack, hat, or coat. We decided that we had not earned Compostelas until we had finished the Camino. Leaving Santiago, we have vowed to walk another section of the Camino. It is said the Camino really begins after you leave Santiago. We have no idea if this will be true for us, and for now at least, donning our shells, we complete our Pilgrimage.