[unedited]

We get an early start, and after 9.4 km, we stop for second breakfast in Logrono, capital of la Rioja. Everyone there seems pretty interested in helping us find the path, and we get unsolicited directions and “Buen Camino!”s from old men with canes and city workers in bright vests who are hosing down the streets.

In Logrono, in the plaza with the Cathedral, a homeless-looking guy approaches us and asks us something I can’t understand. I think I hear Andalusia in there somewhere, but I don’t want to engage him or ask for clarification. I point vaguely in the direction of the Camino and say “No. Somos peregrinos. Andamos.”

No. We are pilgrims. We walk.

He nods vaguely, in mutual misunderstanding, and wanders off. Later we’re struck by the ridiculousness of my response and try to imagine what he could have asked us.

We’re impressed by the bird’s nest on top of the Logrono cathedral, and point it out to Brian and Mary over breakfast. We have been seeing a lot of large birds’ nests on old buildings, and have wondered what they were. Brian seems uninterested. It’s just storks, he says.

There’s a really nice park on the way out of Logrono. Parque de la grajera. Dorcinda takes photos of swans, ducks and fish fighting for bread crumbs thrown by a small child on a bridge over the pond.

To pass the time, I start telling dumb city-name riddles.

“What city is when a major Harry Potter character is asked to name his favorite singer named Joan?” Ron says Baez = Roncesvalles.

“What city holds the key to understanding Bishop’s One Art (the poem I’ve been memorizing for a few days)?” Toulouse.

“What city is when a guy organizes a fancy birthday party for himself, with parades and costumes and everything, but forgets to invite the guests?” Pomp Alone-a.

“What city is the number of keys needed to open an unlocked door?” Ciro-qui.

“What city is where a lion, a tiger, an elephant, and an antelope can get together for a few drinks before heading home?” Zubiri.

There’s a stretch of road outside Logrono where a chain link fence separates our earthen path from the road below. Abandoned buildings are scattered, occasionally, on our right. Pilgrims have put twigs in the form of crosses through the wires, but I find the scene to be depressing. It looks shitty, like the debris it came from, basically horizontal litter. I see the worst clamshell interpretation ever – it’s a black plastic garbage bag, in strips, woven into the fence. (Later, there’s another in the road made of bathroom tile, and it looks more like a skeleton hand than the rays of light or the lines of the shell).

There are several Camino legends on this stretch of road. Roland versus the Giant. The Battle of Clavijo, which ended the tribute of 100 maidens to the moors.

On the way to Navarrete, we eat grapes from the vineyards lining the road, tempranillo grapes from the Rioja wine-growing region. We decide that it’s probably fine, since the farmers here are probably used to losing a few grapes a day to hungry pilgrims, the same way that other farmers expect to lose some crops to other sorts of pests. The pilgrim tax, I call it.

In Navarette, we decide to stay at Hostal El Cantaro, which we’ve been seeing signs for along the path. When we get to town, we pass several hostels without seeing it, so we ask an old spanish lady for directions. Right after we do, we pass yet another hostel, and a British man, smiling a smug salesman’s smile, asks us if he can help us as we pass his table. No, we’re fine, we say. “Oh, think you can find El Cantaro on your own, eh?” Yes, we said, the lady just told us. He tells us, as we already know, that its basically straight ahead and to the right. A little further, there’s a very clear sign for El Cantaro. I speculate that he owned the hostel we just passed and was hoping to convince us to stay there by drawing us into conversation and seeming helpful. I am annoyed by him, although I know Pious John would want me to be more receptive to unasked for help.

At El Cantaro, we ask for the best place to eat and are directed to a sports bar, I think. Its just called Bar Deportivo, and its just below the cathedral.  We stop into the church for a few minutes, and I spy a map where pilgrims can pin their home towns. There’s one map for Europe and one for the whole rest of the world. I look at New York and find that another woman from Kingston has recently made her Camino and stopped at this very spot! At Bar Deportivo, The food is delicious, and we’re joined by Brian and Mary, who again arrive a few minutes later.  We find out that Brian is lagging behind a bit and Mary pushes him forward. They are both retired environmental scientists or something and met through work. I think they live near Michigan, north of the lake.

[unedited]

At breakfast, the salt-n-pepper haired German, who’s walking backwards on the Camino, says that Steve, the loudest complainer about the Italian’s snoring, was himself quite a dramatic snorer. The German was further enraged by that group’s rustling around in the morning before their early start, and says he sat up in bed to glare silently at them. One of them looked back, shining their headlamp straight into his face. He’s pissed, and not just in a normal “isn’t that annoying” kind of way. There’s murder in his eyes.

Dorcinda tells the story of her argument with Masha, and the German man, suddenly pious again – transformed, I’d say, but the Holy Spirit –  says that Dorcinda should have told her to keep on walking the Camino until her attitude changes. Dorcinda asks the German if that’s what he told the British guy, and he admits that he said no such thing, and just seethed in silence. (Steve later disputes this, blaming Jeff for looking at the guy with his headlamp on and a sinus problem for the alleged snores).

We pass a woman on the side of the road with a stand selling soda and knickknacks. I get a stamp and Doricnda thinks about buying a notebook, annoying the woman by taking the book out of the plastic cover to see if it is lined or not. The woman asks what she’s doing, and I tell her she’s checking for lines. There are no lines, she said, annoyed. Later we see a reference to a similar woman in the Brierly book and I wonder if its the same one. Brierly loved her.

We pass Los Arcos, and get a photo at an ancient Moorish fountain with two arches.

The day takes us through Torres del Rio, where we stop for smoothies. This is the town where the legendary El Ramon, from the Hitt book and the lame movie, supposedly lives. We read on camino forums that someone stayed at his house as recently as 2013, but rumors from 2014 and 2016 say he’s died or ceased to run a casa rural. We hear that Steve, Brenda, Maddy and Jeff are staying at an albergue with a pool, and that sure sounds nice in this heat.

This heat does odd things for your sense of spirituality. On the bleakest stretch of road, the sudden arrival of a small gust of wind or a few trees to offer momentary shade can seem like a gift from the universe. On the other hand, our patience for signs from fellow pilgrims grows very short. We pass each other with mere grunts or sullen stares instead off the cheerful “Buen Camino” and occasional conversation we find on better days. Yesterday we passed an area where prior pilgrims had placed papers with prayers, well wishes, and other messages under small piles of rocks. “What’s this?” I asked Dorcinda, who was walking ahead. “Probably some prayer shit,” she answered. A few paces later, I confirmed, “Yeah, some prayer shit. Let’s keep moving.”

In Viana, we’re beat, so we stop at the first hostel we see. It’s been a 19-mile day, our longest so far. Brian and Mary, an elderly Canadian couple that we met earlier on the road, are there as well, arriving just after us. After getting situated, we go into town to find a bar and write. I sit at a bar, and Dorcinda decides instead to check out an ecumenical tea house for pilgrims. I make good progress, she gets recommendations on a few places to stay on the road ahead and learns of the Friday night pincho notes at bars around town. Basically its a drink and a tapa, for cheap, 1.5 to 2 euro.

We try pincho potes for a while, but are too hungry to make that work without getting extravagantly drunk. After two drinks, one at the hotel, and one at the restaurant recommended to us, we return to the hotel for the pilgrim’s dinner, which is the only real food option this early (it starts at 8). At the hotel, we see Brian and Mary at another table, and settle in. There’s a lonely looking old man who smiles at us as we enter, and Dorcinda, sensing that he wants companionship, invites him to join us. He gratefully accepts.

His name is Terry, and he’s a bit of an eccentric, a retired museum curator with a literary bent, on Camino alone. His wife is at home, decorating, after walking with him for a week. We talk about poetry, and I recite Elizabeth Bishop’s One Art. He tells us about a rap version of Canterbury Tales, and we talk about Hamilton, which we failed to get tickets for, so popular that nobody can see it (like that Yogi Berra joke, no one goes there any more, its too crowded). He has books on tablet, including Roland. He talks about lies he’s told, and a riddle about walking to St. Ives? Dorcinda actually did that walk, from Penzance to St. Ives.  I can’t think of any lies I want to confess, so instead I tell the worst thing I’ve ever done – throwing Pattie across the room on a dare, when drunk. I could’ve hurt her seriously, and for what?

Terry also talks about how his fat brother has motivated him to stay in shape, though he’d never say it to his brother and he’s somewhat ashamed to admit it to us. He speaks with sympathy, rather than judgment, about his brother’s health problems and mobility, saying “my baby brother” can’t even walk up the stairs. He himself planned to only walk 5km the next day, to Logrono. I think he’s the slowest pilgrim we’ve met, Dorcinda says.

The food is extravagant, compared to what we’re used to. We get melon con jamon as an appetizer, and it is massive. Dorcinda can’t finish hers, so I swipe a roll, a few pieces of jamon, and a napkin to wrap it in, making a sandwich for tomorrow. She also snags the kiwi, given for dessert, for later. We’re not above hoarding food and stealing napkins; we’re pilgrims.

At the end of the dinner, Terry says he’s grateful. He was just joking to his wife about how he didn’t want to be like a cartoon character, Billy No Mates, and now we’ve gotten him off to a good start on his solo camino.

In the middle of the night, I wake up and can’t sleep. I’m itching and hot. I refrigerate my water bottle, so it will be cool when we start out tomorrow. Maybe its the regular routine, or maybe its the physical exhaustion that comes with walking more than 15 miles a day, but this is my first bout with insomnia, a regular occurrence back home, since I started the Camino. I go out to the terrace, and look up at the stars.

[unedited]

Today, we are aiming for an ecumenical hostel in Villamayor de Monjardin, figuring we’ll join the Scottish woman before she leaves the camino and goes back home.

On the road, we stop at a Church of St. James in Estella, which has a lot of steps. We are fools. We will eventually stop visiting every grand old church we come across, but we’re still Camino newbies, and still guided in part by the traditional tourist impulse. The cloisters are nice though. We see Anthony, Eleen and Chris talking at the bottom of the stairs, and they greet us, saying “The Americans have arrived!” Ad the church, we get a stamp from a nice old lady who tries to speak English. She says “good journey” and Dorcinda has no idea what she’s saying.

Fuente de vino. Fuente divina, de vino, divino. A group of pilgrims at our last hostel had excitedly told Dorcinda about a fountain that give out free wine at a little town called Irache, and they’re shocked that we had never heard of it. Sure enough, it’s there in our guidebook, but Pious John makes only a grudging reference that we skimmed right over in our focus on the routes and planned stopping points.

We meet a Pennslyvanian woman named Alice at Irache, and she asks us to take a photo of her sipping wine from her cockleshell. We love the idea and ask her to take the same photo of us. There is nothing new under the sun. The wine is chilled, and better than expected from a free spigot in the wall. There’s a webcam which takes pictures of pilgrims drinking. I consider buying a bottle of water at the vending machine here and dumping it out to make room for wine, but its hot and I don’t imagine the wine will help with the journey ahead.

We walk for a while with Alice and she’s very fast. We sympathize with her, she’s a 27 year old stockbroker who wanted to change her life, but her job convinced her to take a leave of absence instead of quitting for the Camino, and then her mom insisted on tagging along rather than letting her go it alone. At a fork in the road, Alice takes the scenic route ahead and we take the main route.

A little further on, we pass her mom, and she’s a real grim puritan character. She doesn’t want to chat with us, but Dorcinda at least informs her that Alice went a different way. The mom says she’s a fool, and that they’ve left bags  in Monjardin, while backpedaling to Irache because they missed the wine fountain on their way in. The mom is Polish, which maybe explains her negativity, or maybe its just the heat, and frustration at backpedaling. We pray for a St. James intervention, and Dorcinda offers to take the bags ahead from Monjardin if Alice is delayed getting back from the scenic route, which bypasses the town. Fortunately, Alice has already raced ahead and come back to Monjardin by the time we arrive, and they are able to get their bags and go on without too much searching for each other or time lost.

When we arrive at Monjardin, we meet a few travelers from Ciraoqui, Jeff the Canadian preacher, Steve the English guy, Maddy from Australia, and Brenda from the Netherlands. They seem like a pretty tight pack, and they’re all soaking their feet when we arrive. Jeff and Steve complain loudly about Salvatore’s snores, and we find out that they were the ones who went upstairs to sleep on the terrace. They were the ones who alerted Dorcinda to the existence of the wine fountain.

We are greeted by younger american missionary types, from Minnesota and texas, as we get in. The American volunteers are churchy, but seem nice enough. Things start to go downhill when we move inside for a shower and a break. There’s bad singing coming from a room nearby, and outside I can hear one of the German travelers badgering one of the volunteers about her refusal to drink wine. He tells her it can be a spiritual experience, it can bring you closer to God, and your fellow humans. She says she just doesn’t like it, and has to repeat herself two or three times. I later overhear him talking about anger and how God has helped him channel that anger into something more positive. He seems like a real swell guy.

I hate this place.  I’ve already been turned off by the ostentatious piety  of Tom the Englishman and Masha the Russian, and by the excrutiatingly tedious prayer at the convent, and by Eileen’s off-the-wall-sounding conversion experience on the Camino. But here we are at Bible camp.

I nap, and put in earplugs to avoid the lame-o guitar singalong stuff that is happening in the room next door. Dorcinda and I briefly share our condescions towards the music. The guitar guy (A Dutchman who runs? The hostel), has a terrible voice and strums lazily at the guitar, one off-rhythm downstroke hovering around every beat. It is a type of music, where  the point is something other than the music (praise? Communion?) and to me, what’s the point. It’s intentionally graceless, it’s anti-music. Dorcinda says its “self-indulgent, theologically vapid, and annoying-sounding.” It waters down religion into something meant to be accessible, inoffensive, to people used to pop guitar music. And it waters down guitar music into something bland, inoffensive to people used to religion.

Things don’t get any better at dinner, where I find myself trapped between two conversations about God and church-going. I alternate between abject boredom and the perverse desire to get a word in edgewise, but only rarely can interject when the topic strays to something like the Camino or walking or travel or work. Jeff Rock, the gay Canadian priest is talking with a hostel volunteer, Carissa from Texas, and Dorcinda meanwhile draws the attention of the Scotch woman from the convent, who again talks about her religious transformation and her belief in the word of the gospel over any church tradition. We get it, lady. She seems relieved and encouraged to have a receptive audience, though, which must be a rarity for her in regular life. The priest seems like a potentially fun character, but also sort of smug, and I still have a grudge from when we arrived and he asked us if we were Southern. He has a tattoo of a clock on one arm, and the golden ratio image on the other. He tries to bond with Carissa over the idea that they’re both religious, but cool.

“You’re a traditional Texas girl, but you’re sassy,” he tells her. “You’re a little sassy.”

They give us the Gospel of John as a gift to carry with us, and I know right away that mine will go no further than this hostel. People start flipping through it, which starts a whole new round of religious talk. I manage to weakly interject that one of the referenced sections, Jeses and the Samaritan woman, was the subject of our really boring prayer at the convent, but fail to stay engaged. Jeff makes a point about how marriage used to be so pragmatic – a man brings home the money, a woman cooks and cleans, and love is there but not the primary point – and how we are still evolving into how to find and define marriage in a more equal and idealistic society. I sense a topic that my secular self could dig into, but am immediately cut off by Eileen, who says that the most important thing in any marriage is each person’s relationship with God, and goes on to tell a boring story about her Christian friend who married a non-Christian and struggled with anger issues until he converted. So many of these holy roller types talk so often about letting go of anger, letting go of hate and prejudice, and I wonder wha the big deal is, and to what extent their lives revolve around considerations of anger hate and prejudice and negativity. Stop talking so much about letting it go and just let it go already!

[unedited]

We get a nice early start from Cizur Menor and we’re out the door by 7am. Masha has not forgiven us for failing to turn out the light sharply at 10pm, as she had demanded.

On the road, Masha passes us, but makes a wrong turn and ends up behind. Perhaps she is embarrassed and doesn’t want to see us again, but she strikes up a walking conversation with another pilgrim, not from out hostel, just behind us. Her voice is loud, and to escape it, we bust our butts to move a bit further ahead.

Not long into the morning, we reach the Alto de Perdon, the “mount of forgiveness” which hosts an impressive pilgrim monument composed of two-dimensional metal statues making a silhouette of a pilgrim procession. The view earned a place in the movie The Way, which is a common point of reference among English-speaking pilgrims, even though the less sentimental pilgrims (and there are a few of us!) tend to take a dim view of it. Appearing forty-eight minutes into the film’s run time, it marks about the 40 percent completion mark for Martin Sheen’s cinematic journey. But at km 81.5, we’re just over 10 percent of the way to Santiago (not to mention Finisterre, which is our ultimate goal).

Later in the morning, we see Anthony again, and he tells us he plans to go all the way to Estella by the end of the day. We wish him well. We also meet a Serbian, who has lived in California and has a son there, but says he moved back to Serbia after retiring because California is no place for an old man.

We stop at a town called Obanos, and eat lunch, purchased from a grocery store, in the shade of the church. We get peaches, a Twix bar (uneaten until the next morning), and sandwiches of cheese and really good jamon (31 euro a kilo, though we only get 4 slices).  The Serbian joins us, and offers us olives, so we have a feast, all for 8-something euro. We walk through Puente La Reina, a Brierly stopping point, without spending much time there, just admiring the old bridge as we pass.

We make good time and stop, as planned, at 2pm, after 14.9 miles. In a sleepy town, which is described only as a as an old Templar town in our guidebook, called Maneru. I make for a hostel bar and we drink orange juice and water. I want to stay, and Dorcinda initially agrees, but then decides that the town is too boring and tries to convince me we should go for our stretch goal and walk another 1.6 miles to Ciraoqui, which is described as more charming in our guidebook, though it too only warrants a sentence. She fails to convince me. Its about the journey, not the destination, I say, and the journey, in this heat sounds horrific. My legs still hurt, despite help from the pole today. The afternoon sun is brutal.

The Serbian walks by, and I rush out after him to tell him we plan to stay here, rather than Ciraoqui, which is what we told him in Obanos. He doesn’t seem to care much, and says he plans to walk on the Ciraoqui, in the heat, and probably the next town after that. He is a fool, I think.

Dorcinda is still sulking when I return. After an hour of sitting around, I get impatient with her and surrender, walking to Ciraoqui to avoid a whole afternoon spent moping and brooding.

As I walked in the hot afternoon sun from Maneru to Ciraoqui, I considered the pros and cons of murdering Dorcinda. I recalled the legend of St. Felicia, and St Guillen, a brother and sister who traveled the Camino, which we have just learned about in Obanos.

According to the story, they were children of the powerful Duke of Aquitaine. Felicia went first, and, after her pilgrimage, renounced her wealth and position to live as a maidservant. Guillen tries to talk her out of it, reminder her she’s engaged to be married, and has her family’s honor to consider. But she refuses to return, and Guilllen, in a fit of rage, murders her. Then, overcome by guilt, he makes the pilgrimage himself, then renounces his title and dedicates his life, in a hermitage, to helping poor and the pilgrims. Obanos has a relic of Guillen’s skull, in a silver case, and had commemorated the legend with spectacular theatrical productions beginning in 1965. The costumes have become relics of a kind as well, and are preserved and occasionally displayed, from what we heard in town. I figure I’m already on the way to St. James, so if I murder her here, I think I have a pretty good shot at redemption, and working in a pilgrim hostel doesn’t sound like a bad way to spend the rest of my life. I put the odds of murder at about 50-50.

I move as fast as I can to get out of the brutal sun, for once leaving Dorcinda far behind. She catches up to say thank you, but I can barely grunt out a your welcome in response. I leave her behind again.  My balls are chafing and it is a pain unlike any I’ve ever felt before. Sweat pours into my eyes.

We arrive at Ciroqui around 4, and it’s a reunion of sorts. Sydney, whose name is actually Anthony, is there, considering whether or not to stay. He thinks its too expensive, 11 euro a night and 11 euro dinner, so he moves on and tried out his tent, which he’s been toting and hasn’t used. The proprietor, a kind woman, suggests a nice spot by a river up ahead, sheltered in his bridge. He decamps.

We shower, and I almost cry from the pain and relief that comes as water washes my chafed balls. Wash our clothing in a basin and hang it out to dry. We buy two beers and an orange soda, and write in a covered alley that seems to be the waiting room of a doctor’s office, sunflower seeds littering the floor. It’s not exactly quiet – women from town walk by and say hello, and a car drives around blaring advertisements for a circus – but its fairly secluded and I make good progress.

Dorcinda finds out about a fountain in the day’s walk ahead that offers free wine, and we enthusiastically add it to our itinerary.

At dinner, we are seated by two Italian cyclists who have arrived late. The hostess is apologetic, which we don’t understand at first, but they are cartoonishly loud characters. Marco, high strung and grey haired with glasses, and Salvatore, a sunburned bear of a man. Marco asks, then takes out picture, but we foolishly decline to reciprocate, and have no visual momentos of them. Their accents are ridiculous, Marco’s piping voice would seem offensive if we had cast a non-italian to play him. They are larger than life and they joke constantly. The hostess asks if they are friends from Italy, or perhaps brothers, given their easy rapport. But no, they met yesterday on the road from St. Jean Pied de Port.

Dorcinda asks if they plan to go the whole way together, which strikes me as a partifcularly weighty question, given the pace at which we’ve picked up and dropped companions. They hesitate and Marco answers yes, all the way, they have a pact.  Marco says we don’t look like brother and sister, and I try to make a joke, saying wait until her beard grows in, you’ll see it then. Marco laugsh and translates to Salvatore, who doesn’t speak English. Success!  Marco says we must try pulpo gallego in Galicia, and we say we never grew up eating octopus, the first time was when I was 16 and our fisherman uncle caught one for dinner one day in Puerto Rico when we visted. It’s not that common in NY I say. Marco, seizes on that and says “ What?? You mean they are not crawling all around the streets, flopping around?” he laughs uproariously. Marco complains dramatically about the routes that Salvatore chooses – he is quiet, but apparently quiet ambitious on his bicycle. Marco waters down his wine, which he says is too strong. Salvatore makes sure Dorcinda eats first when food arrives, and when she clears her plate, threatens to tall the hostess that she hasn’t eaten anything at al. Again, when an extra dessert is brought out, he insists that she eat it, and she has to decline several times. Eventually Marco goes for it. After dinner,  we talk about the heat of the day, and I ask the Italian word for lobster, pointing out Salvatore’s dramatic sunburn. Marco laughs and translates to Salvatore, who smiles.

My appreciation for the Italians dims a bit when, after dinner, they stop to argue right in the doorway of the hostel, forcing me and two Spanish women, walking behind them, to wait as they discuss at some length whether the bell in the church across the square will continue to ring all night long. Salvatore says it will, and Marco doesn’t believe it. The Spanish women and I exchange glances unsure of how to proceed. The Italians gesture so wildly that there’s no chance of sneaking past without getting backhanded, and they are so loud that getting their attention to interrupt them seems like a fools errand. They are totally unaware of the traffic jam they’ve caused. Eventually, running out of ways to say “yes” and “no” they move inside and we follow.

I sleep horribly. First someone (I later find out it is Salvatore) snores so loudly that my earplugs seem ridiculously inadequate. Second, the bells do, in fact, ring all night, on the hour, quarter hour, half hour, and three-quarter hour. The church is just across the way, so the bell comes into our room, clear as, well, a  bell.

Later, we find out that other travelers regarded Salvatore as a kind of monster. The gay Canadian priest jokingly warns the ecumenical hostel where we stay the following night about him and tells them not to let him stay there. He says the Italian was rude, for not responded to his hello/hola, and for shuffling loudly in his bag after other had bedded down and for not turning the light out when he was done. An Englishman, Steve, said that the snoring was so loud that it shook not only the Italian’s bunk, but the one adjacent as well, which is quite a feat, since we had already been impressed by the sturdiness of the frames (after the creaky beds in the convent, we checked). Apparently, several people from our room, fleeing Salvatore’s snores, decided instead to sleep in the open air of the terrace above, despite subjecting themselves to even more direct noise from the church bells. Salvatore is their bugbear, their Russian. I get the sense that the next time they tell the story, the walls of the whole place will shake in rhythm with his breathing. Which seems like only a slight exaggeration.

The next morning when we leave, Marco reminds me, “Don’t forget the octopus!” I think to myself, Don’t forget the lobster. 

There’s no breakfast there, and the self-service coffee machine is broken, so we leave uncaffeinated around 630 to 7. At the net town we meet the Scots woman from the convent, Eileen, and her new friend, an Australian pilot named Chris who had begun walking at 3am. And also Anthony again, who is pleased at his camping experience, calling it the best nights sleep he’s had. It seems to be a theme – an older american couple from California tell us the same thing – they stayed in the boring town we abandoned, the very place where we had orange juice, and had a wonderful nights sleep – there were just four people in a room meant for a dozen. I bite my tongue.

[unedited]

We leave the nunnery relatively early, soon after breakfast. The younger French woman seems surprised when we say goodbye, and I feel a little bad, like we’re betraying them or something. I would like to see them again, and hope they fare better in communicating with Spaniards along the route.

This is another hard day. It is hot, very hot, and for a stretch I cool myself by putting my not quite dry shirt across my neck or over my head to keep the sun off. I had decided against bringing a hat with me, because in general, I believe that hats are silly things, but that was definitely a mistake. My feet still ache.

We spend a fair bit of time in Pamplona, drinking coffee at Cafe Iruna, which Hemingway references in one of his books, and where he’s supposed to have spent rather a lot of time. The Spanish couple from outside Larrasoana is there, and they point to the interior of the place – “Hemingway is inside.” We follow their directions and find a large statue of the writer leaning against the bar, in an otherwise closed part of the restaurant. We pose for photos.

We buy a sim card with data and some phone minutes for Dorcinda’s phone, and go back a few times to get it to work. On our second trip, we have to wait in line behind a pair of young Spaniards who are buying selfie sticks – it takes a bit longer than it should because the store only has black and pink selfie sticks on display, and the man wants a different color. He gets the last blue one in the shop, hidden somewhere in backroom inventory, and the woman decides on black.

We also find a pilgrim store, where I buy a hat and small book on legends of the Camino. The weight of words, added to my pack. I also, at Dorcinda’s urging, spend 25 euro on a walking pole, and it turns out to be a great help, given the state of my right leg. I also bought a small bottle of all purpose soap, which I lose almost immediately. I consider buying a new pilgrim shell, since mine looks terrible in its plastic bag (Mom donated them from NY, but we couldn’t drill holes in them, so we just stuck some string through a plastic bag to attach them to our packs). I decide against it and instead transfer my shell to a bag that is smaller and more transparent. I also pick up some bandaids. Dorcinda buys a shell-shaoed pin for her hat, and some needle and thread.

We spent a bit of time in the Cathedral, which was also a museum. There was an exhibit on Western culture, which seemed odd, and I breezed past. I was mostly looking for the preserved Gothic kitchens, which were supposed to be a rarity since few churches bothered to preserve them through various renovations over the centuries. This one had an enormous central chimney and four corner chimneys, to let out smoke and smell. I looked for relics, and toured the chapels.   But I did not ascend to the bellringer’s apartments, in a tower of the church. There was a sign warning away the elderly or people in poor health, but I knew as soon as I saw the entrance that the warning applied to me as well. Stairs? No way. Not today.

We walk on out of Pamplona, with me leaning heavily on my walking stick as I learned how to use it. We make it only a little ways out of town before I decide and can go no further in the heat. We stop at Cizur Menor, at a hostel by a unused chapel, run by the remnants of the knights of Malta.

It’s cheap – 6 euro, plus food, which we cook, is donativo. We are greeted by a German guy who calls himself Ambrosio, big and bald with a red nose. He jokes about whether we want the sibling discount or the group travel discount – it doesn’t matter, since it’s 6 euro either way. We choose the smaller room, which is already half-occupied by Masha, the Russian from Zabaldika, and a Taiwanese woman named Pez. We gamble that we’ll sleep better here than in the main room, which may fill up with snorers later, although it is empty now. There’s a sing-a-long or something in the chapel later, and we decide we’ll probably go, despite our bad experience with prayer at Zabaldika.

We chat, over wine, with Masha and a young German named Max. While we chat, Ambrosio offers to make dinner with us. Masha and Max largely ignore him, but Dorcinda and I, feeling guilted, go upstairs to join in. But when we get there, he’s petulant, and says he’s already cooked dinner for himself, and we can go ahead and use some of his leftover rice. He turns the radio on, loudly, and leaves. We groan – it’s the Eagles, and we feel rude turning it off when he’s just in the other room. We start to cook, but have trouble with the stove. We ask Ambrosio, and he tells us to experiment and figure it out on our own. Despite the fact that he’s JUST managed to cook some fried rice, he tells us he has no idea how the stove works and can’t help us. We eventually figure out how to turn on some heat, and make a poor man’s fried rice, with a bit of chorizo, red peppers, tomato, and onion and garlic. It’s not great, but it works.

We join Max and Pez for a game of Uno, with crazy Max rules – he insists that they’re common in Germany, but we are skeptical. If you throw out a seven, you switch hands with someone of your choice. And if you throw out a zero, everyone’s hand switches in the direction of play. Dorcinda wins, and leaves, then Pez, who started out thoroughly confused, comes in second, then me, then Max. Rather than play another round, Dorcinda and I head to town to find a bar to write. I’ve gotten a bit of sunburn just from sitting out playing Uno. We wander lazily towards the town, and an old man waves us towards one of the few bars – come in, we have beer, great prices, very cozy! We follow his advice, and are happy to have done so. We write for 1.5 to 2 hours, and I feel very productive over the course of two beers, finishing a chapter in my fantasy story. St. June has gotten through her trial of valor and now faces a more serious foe.

We come in late to the singalong, and its basically Ambrosio noodling along on an acoustic guitar and singing Americana. Johnny Cash. We hear the Boxer, which sticks in our head for days, and then he ends with Amazing Grace. At the end, an old American or Canadian guy (there with his boyfriend/husband?) whips out a harmonica and plays a couple of lines. Ambrosio asks if its a Hohner, and the guy tells him its a Suzuki. Ambrosio’s guitar is a Yamaha.

At bedtime, Dorcinda makes a mortal enemy. Again, at 10pm sharp, Masha turns out the light, but Dorcinda is using her phone or headlamp to read a little. Masha insists that she turn it out and Dorcinda refuses. She tells Masha she can put a sheet over her face if the faint light bothers her. Masha tries again “It’s the reglas.” Dorcinda says, no, the rules say quiet at 10pm, not no lights. Masha gathers her things and storms off in a huff. It’s 10:05. She doesn’t return.  Dorcinda, daring another confrontation, tries sleeping in Masha’s abandoned bed for a while, after finding the higher bunk, away from the window, too hot for comfort. But she abandons that, and returns to her original bed.

In the morning, Masha refuses to say hello and avoids us. Max sits around bullshitting with Ambrosio. The Harmonica guy comes by and Dorcinda asks a dumb question: “What was that instrument you played last night?” She didn’t recognize the brand names, and was confused into thinking they were talking about different instruments.

“It’s a harmonica,” he says, beaming, enunciating slowly and clearly, like a cartoon turtle, like a wise sage polishing a pearl of wisdom before handing it gently to an ignorant listener. The words, the tone, they’ll stick with me for quite a while. It becomes an inside joke, an easy reference for all of the many wise and pious men we meet on our Camino, all the ones who are so sure that they have found wisdom on the road, or else have brought it with them.

[unedited]

At breakfast, we meet an old French woman who has walked already 5 weeks, from  Le Puy-en-Velay, and she complains about the dinner at the casa rural. She paid 11 euro for a small meal with no wine, and for vegetables, it was just lettuce from the garden outside. We’re glad to have skipped it.  She complains about the breakfast too, but it’s too late to do anything about that.  Its 4 euro, which seems high given that its basically bread and coffee.

On the road, we pass the Americans who beat us to Pura Corazon, an older mother and son from Pennsylvania, along with two Jans (Janet and Janice) and a woman from Australia.

In Zubiri, where a medieval pilgrim named Domenico Laffi was robbed*, and which Jack Hitt called a “wretched hamlet,” we met a man who, on this his third Camino, began by simply walking out of his front door in Sweden. With more than 3,000 km already under his belt, the 700 to go seems like a short ways.

“When people ask what I was thinking, I said ‘not much’, because that’s the only way. The mind cannot hold it all in.”

Viktor’s first Camino was in April 2014, the Camino Frances, and his second was the Camino del Norte. He has a website, Every Step Counts, where he raises money and updates followers on his progress.

The road from Zubiri to Larrasoana is more like I’d expected, hot, sunny, and dusty, walking between two roads, between two tall columns of dry grass. The Pyrenees and just around them were full of woodlands, cool, shady, misty. I already missed the green mossy forests seen yesterday and earlier in the day.

Before Larrasoana, pilgrims gather in the shade by the fountain. We see a blond woman who smiled at us at Zubiri bridge, (we later learn she’s Belgian/Russian – but for now I mostly note, with surprise, that she’s walking in skinny jeans).  Other pilgrims stop and rest, or refill their bottles and pass on. Ours is a silent communion. We speak quietly to our traveling companions, but not really to pilgrims from other groups. There is a Spansh couple and an older American man, besides the woman from Zubiri. A sign across the street informs us that we should not poop in the yard.

We walk on, but my feet are killing me. I took some wrong steps on the mountain, and feel pain in my right knee, my right ankle, and up near my right hip. Our goal is to walk 22.5 km to a convent run my nuns of the Sacred Heart. Dorcinda would like to press on another 9km to Pamplona, which would catch us up to the pace in our guidebook, but I refuse.

We make many stops to ease my cranky ankles, and linger too long each time over beer or coffee or orange juice.

On the way to Zabaldika I try to stop at an earlier hostel, but they’re full up. There are two women on the road ahead, a French mother and daughter.  The mother keeps looking back, as if suspicious. My legs hurt, and I doubt my ability to make it to the nunnery, which seems far away and poorly marked. It is very hot.

In the last town before the convent, we finally catch up with the French women, and they are getting directions from a cheerful old Spanish man. He at first seems to be offering them a place to stay, but is actually encouraging them on to the convent. He points to a patch of trees in the distance. “See, you can just make out a bell tower,” he says. We see nothing of the sort.

I realize that the French women actually don’t speak Spanish at all, and are thoroughly confused and growing frustrated. They both speak English, the daughter better than the mother, and so I offer to translate. We realize we’re heading towards the same place, and join forces, with Dorcinda in the lead. The mother is exhausted, grumpy, while the daughter is somewhere between cheerful and sarcastic, with more energy to spare. They meant to stop at Larrasoana but missed the turnoff at the bridge and walked right on by. It was a long way to go for the mistake.

We arrive around 6pm, and again I translate. The hospitalera at Zabaldika is fussy, repeats herself several times, and consults with the nuns on what to do, since there are four of us and only three beds. After asking the nuns, she decides we can stay, as long as one of us sleeps downstairs on a couch. The younger french woman (something like Mariposa? Marisol?) volunteers. I offer three times, but she insists more strongly. Dorcinda and French mom end up in a room together, while I end up in the common room. (It later turns out that I’ve gotten the better end of the deal – the French mother is a champion snorer. That may also explain the younger Frenchwoman’s eagerness to sleep on the couch).

I help set out plates for dinner, then the younger French woman and I are pressed into service gathering more laundry so that the nuns can do a full load.  “Mas ropa! Buscame mas ropa!”

We meet a Scottish woman, Eileen, who seems nice, but turns out to be a bit of a nutcase.  She tells Dorcinda all about a religious experience she had on her last Camino – something about walking with a woman  who was a real pill – she had an evil spirit about her – and through the grace of God she was able to walk with her all the way. Seems like an underwhelming sort of awakening, but I can’t bring myself to pay attention enough to be sure. She’s not pushy though, and seems relieved and eager when Dorcinda asks about her experience, as though she’s been dying to tell someone but is cognizant of the fact that it will appear a little kooky to nonreligious listeners. She is kind enough to give up her bed and sleep downstairs when a final guest, a Hungarian woman, arrives at 6:30. The woman who greeted us frets further, saying “que horror!” when she realizes that not one but TWO guests will be sleeping downstairs. At dinner, we talk more with the French women, the daughter says she is about to start her masters degree in sustainability and something else, and she plans to leave her mother in Burgos. Her brother intends to take her place and will walk with mom after that. The nuns invite us to an after dinner prayer, and we agree. The French girl pretends to be very interested in a neighborhood cat, but her mom sees right through the ruse and insists that she come. She had the right idea, though, and we all soon regret our decision to attend.

The service, simple enough, takes forever since we end up translating everything into Spanish, English, French and Russian.  I see on the program that they intend to ask us about why we’re walking and our experience so far. My heart sinks. That can’t be right. An older Spanish woman reaches the same conclusion, and, bravely, walks out during the nun’s introduction. Eileen snorts in disgust and goes to close the door behind her. We are trapped. The younger french woman, despite her reluctance, is tapped to read the sections in French, an even younger (18-20 yo?) blond Russian woman named Masha reads in Russian, from her own Bible, an overeager Englishman named Tom is picked to read in English (he loudly volunteers to read in Spanish, happy for an opportunity to show off his facility with the language, and entirely missing the point of the nun’s request). Meanwhile two old nuns switch off reading and translating in Spanish.

Tom’s attitude is increasingly annoying. He reads his section of the prayer dramatically, like a priest on his first day on the job, or a student in an acting class.  When he tells of his experience walking the Camino, he says, first in Spanish, some baloney about Jesus interceding on our behalf, not like a lawyer who’s nitpicking around the definitions of the crime/sin, but as someone who says simply, ‘Tom did wrong, but I love him, he’s mine.’ That’s what the Camino taught him. He’s walked for only a few days and leaves tomorrow – I guess he’s just here to show off his Spanish and pal around with religious folks from other countries. Although we’re going to see a very different Iago, I’m reminded of the words of the villain from Othello – one may smile and smile and be a villain (Edit – OOPS that’s from Hamlet!). I want to slap that smug sonofabitch.

Masha is also incredibly annoying – she talks about how the Camino has taught her to let go of her plans, just walk and trust in God, and good things happen. That night, she harshly reprimands an old Spanish woman for not turning the light out fast enough at bedtime. Other than Masha and Tom, no one seems too eager to speak, especially after the additional lag of translation. The nun calls on a man from Valencia, essentially saying “Hey Valencia, what have you got?” He is shy and demurs, but the nun compliments his singing voice from the hymn we sang at the start – you sing so well, why don’t you express yourself with a song, she cajoles. No luck. She moves on to New York, and I reluctantly speak up, rushing through some thing about how my job had become my life, and I was spending all my time working for another man’s desires, another man’s pocketbook, and I was walking to take a break from those responsibilities and explore what else I could be dedicating myself to. I choose not to attempt to translate my story into Spanish, leaving the job to one of the old nuns, who takes her sweet time with it. There is the dutiful nodding of heads, as though I’ve said something wise. We repeat this show of mute appreciation after every speaker has his or her turn, no matter what they actually say. At the final prayer, there’s something in Latin which repeats again, and again, and again. And again. Eventually, me and the younger french woman start giggling whenever a new round starts up, as if to say “This again?? We just did this one!” The whole thing takes just over an hour but feels like far longer. I’m too worn out to write by the end of it.

At bedtime, Tom makes some loud jokes about how creaky and noisy his bed is, and a Spanish family laughs. For maximum comic effect, he tosses himself around some more, making yet more unbearable creaking noises.  I am glad I don’t have to see his punchable face.  Sharply at 10, the young Russian insists on lights out, annoying an older Spanish woman who’s fussing with her bag. I again rely on my trusty earplugs.

* The Camino de Santiago: A Cultural Handbook quotes Laffi as writing: “The bridge is guarded by soldiers, better described as thieves and murderers. As it is a deserted spot, they will strip passers-by of their belongings. Persons of high rank are made to pay, that is, made to give them a ‘tip.’ Anyone who refuses gets brutally treated. They will break open our head with their sticks and wil sometimes get rid of people by makng the river their grave.”

[Unedited]

At breakfast we meet a retired Canadian diplomat named Louis Robert, who’s traveling with his wife.  He is proud of the fact that he’s gotten his pack down to 6kg. (Mine is 7.5 kg with an empty water bottle, and I’m sure I’ve forgotten something). He eagerly plays the role of the wise old man, and he says two things that stick with me. First, he found that giving up books was the hardest part of packing and prepping for the trip. One book he wanted to bring weighed 1kg. “The weight of words,” he said sagely. The other thing, he said, is that he had to learn to give up things that he would carry “just in case.”

“When you carry things ‘just in case,’ you carry your fear with you,” he said. “And that can be a heavy thing indeed.”

Leaving St Jean, our hostel host warns us to take the low road, the Valcarlos Road, not the Napoleon Road. That’s the way that real pilgrims walked, the route used by Charlemagne during his wars of Christian reconquest in Spain, and besides, the rainy weather will make the high road dangerous. He also suggests moving a little further past Roncesvalles, which is where most people stop on their first day. He suggested Burguete, and said we should find a bar behind the church, where the priests drink, and ask around until someone finds us a casa rural.

After seeing the nickel and diming prices going on on the website, we shouldn’t be surprised, but breakfast, at 5 euro, is a big disappointment, basically bread and jam and coffee.

On the way out of town, we meet a grump from Kansas City – Dorcinda had tried to start a conversation with him over the fact that we both had the same book. “Everyone has the same book,” he said yesterday. Today she tries again, asking him if he knows a song from the musical “Oklahoma” about Kansas City. “Everything’s up to date in Kansas City,” he says. He knows it.

We walk out of town and along a roadside, single file and on the left, against traffic. The road is littered with dead frogs and, especially, dead slugs. And living slugs. “It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door.” Especially if you’re a slug. Many slugs have martyred themselves to the feet of unwitting pilgrims, on the road to St. James.

There’s some confusion right away about which road to take – most of us want to take the high road but its not that clear to us.

We stop at Orisson, less than 8km from our starting point in St Jean. It is raining, but not too terribly. We meet a young guy from Sydney and he says he’s pressing on. We decide to stay, hoping for better weather and better views in the Pyrenees. It is a decision we will come to regret for several days as we try to bust our butts to match our planned pace. We stop at 10:15am, and have lots of time to write, read, and reflect.  We are hesitant to give up on the rest of the day, but the forecast is 80 percent rain. We look hopefully outside at a break in the clouds while drinking coffee, but end up staying.

It rains very little and we feel foolish for deciding to stop so soon. All the younger pilgrims move on and we’re left with a room full of retirees, splitting time between a bedroom with six beds and the common area of the bar. We go out for a brief walk up the road and back, but there’s not much to see – everything is covered in cloud and drizzly mist.

We end up sharing a room with Louis Robert and his wife. Louis Robert looks on in horror as he sees us pull books, notebooks, and a laptop from our bag. I’ve got two notebooks, three books, a computer, and a goal of writing at least 1,000 words a day. The weight of words, indeed.

At dinner we sit by an overweight young American, Rachel, an older Australian man who’s been separated from his wife by the chaotic seating, and Kansas City, who actually turns out to be a pretty nice guy, but was probably uncomfortable and self conscious when we first met him. After soup and wine is served and conversation begins to flow, a waiter whistles for attention and ostentatiously shushes us. When everyone is quiet, attentive, and even chagrined, he simply says, Bon Apetit, and everyone laughed as the tension broke. They gave us so much soup that we wonder whether that will be the whole meal or whether we should save room for later. Dorcinda asks, and the waiter points out that we have plates under the bowls, knives and forks, and even dessert spoons.

You must be like Sherlock Holmes, he tells her. These are clues.

In fact, they are very generous, bringing more wine and more of the main course (chicken).

After dinner, they tell us there is a tradition in this hostel, and make us stand up, say our names, where we’re from, where we’re going, and who we’re traveling with, We switch between English, French, Spanish. A little bit in Italian – one man spoke for a long time and I didn’t understand until the end, when he said, in English, “My wife, she push me.” People are mostly from Spain, France, Italy, Canada, Australia and the U.S., but Brazil, Japan, Korean are also represented. One American does his bit in Spanish – the Australians and Americans near us are impressed by his accent, but I am appalled by it.

I went to bed soon after dinner because there wasn’t much else to do. I was glad for my earplugs, because Louis Robert, on the bunk below me, was quite an accomplished snorer. He discoursed at length, asleep or awake.