06 November 2012

September 21st, Estella to Los Arcos (22 kilometers):



First up on this stage is a village named Irache where the infamous wine fountain awaits pilgrims – a fountain that pours free red wine generously provided by the local winery.  Imminent dehydration aside, the idea of fortifying myself with red wine at 7AM gets me up and moving pretty quickly. 
The day is overcast and comfortably chilly as the dawn gets going behind me; when I reach the Irache there is already a small crowd of pilgrims taking turns drinking wine from their shells and taking photos.  The wine is free… but it is not good.  Let’s be honest, though, it’s free.  I take my sip, have my picture snapped by Paulo of the Brazilian Booming Laugh, and keep moving.  

The first part of this day takes me through rolling farmland and an actual forest, which makes me sad I didn’t think to come camp out the night before.  I’m unclear on Spain’s camping laws/ordinances/whatever, but as there are well-used fire pits in the trees I’m guessing it would have been ok. 

Through this whole stretch I’m basically by myself, given time to pray a rosary for my family and for strength for myself, and when the coffee hits I’m able to find a well secluded place in the woods to dig a cat hole to do my business.  That’s actually the thing that makes me feel most at home on the Camino… a small, filthy connection to home, and work, and life in the wilderness.  

Coming out of this section and heading toward the next café in the distance, I come up on a man and woman who are about my age and look vaguely friendly.  My natural instinct is to say hello and keep pushing forward, but I know that I want tothere were take risks and just talk to people without expectation or embarrassment, and so we end up walking and talking together for several kilometers.  They’re from the Czech Republic, recently finished with college, and determined to make 35-40 kilometers a day.  It’s an easy conversation, the first of innumerable fast acquaintances that will grace me over the next 5 weeks, and when I stop to get coffee they move on. 

In the café I run into Tom the Hungarian Documentarian again, and, as I’m getting ready to leave, in walks Susannah from Australia.  We spend the next portion walking toward the imposing Monjardin in the distance, ragging each other about our hiking speed and hills, blisters and the ridiculousness of coming halfway across the world to walk hundreds of miles for personal reasons.  It’s a fast friendship that feels right and natural, and when our different speeds separate us I feel sad to say goodbye, even if it’s only temporary.




That’s the trick with the Way: I was glad I went alone because it freed me to make the pilgrimage my own, independent of anyone else’s needs.  I was glad that I had ultimate freedom in determining what I wanted and needed along the way, great stretches of time to be alone and be quiet with God in my heart.  I knew that’s what I went to Spain to find.  Being alone made it easy to meet everyone along the way without worrying about social dynamics… but there was always that possibility that the person you met and felt connected to might not catch up, or you might not catch up to them, or circumstances and events would mean you wouldn’t see them again, wouldn’t get their contact information, that ‘Adios’ meant, permanently, goodbye.  

So there was always an element of sadness to the transience of those relationships, and still I was, and remain, grateful to approach people in the moment, with Christ in my heart and an openness to whatever would come.  

There was a portion of the day where I walked damn near 8 kilometers with a Canadian retiree named Don – goofy, kind, almost bubbling with optimism – who proceeded to tell me more than I would ever need to know about the Canadian pension and retirement system.  If you have questions, just ask.  

Like magic, I’m alone again when I come walking around a corner to find Susannah waiting at the crossroads at Fuente del pozo de Baurin.  I still have no idea how she got ahead of me, because I’d last seen her in the distance as I pushed up a mountain, but she plays it off like she was waiting for me to catch up.  Los Arcos is on the horizon, and that’s where we head, through hay fields and farmland, drenched by sunlight. 



In town we pick an albergue called Casa de Abuela that is fancier than I’ve seen so far – big open windows in the bedrooms and a small, but comfortable kitchen area that gathers the pilgrims after the mandatory showers have been had.  Bearded Red Ryan is there with Bald Ralph, the two British women from earlier roll in (Blonde Rebecca and… the other one) and sit down across from us.  With a crowd of sarcastic English speakers things quickly become raunchy and loud, Rebecca refers to me as ‘the cute one’ which opens the door to massive amounts of teasing, and when we start sharing our reasons for coming on pilgrimage I tell them I’m considering a religious vocation.  

Note: If you want to immediately quash any romantic attraction directed your way from an attractive blonde British woman, tell her you’re thinking of becoming a priest.  

In any case, Susannah and I head out to explore the town and find the square in front of the church filled with pilgrims.  There is strong sangria for 2 shiny Euros, and immediately after getting our drinks the clouds break and it pours buckets.  I realize that the drains in the middle of the stone streets in Spain have a purpose as it quite literally floods the street, but we are warm and dry and on our way to becoming drunk under the stone awning of the bar.  

Gitte and Jeper show up, there is a delicious pilgrim’s dinner in the basement of the bar, which leaves me warm and full of laughter and sleepy, but most of us still manage to finish dinner in time to run across the street to my first Pilgrim’s Mass in the medieval church. 



This mass is where my Camino shifts, begins to feel more like a legitimate pilgrimage.  I can follow the liturgy in Spanish, but the effect of participating in the mass with the village residents who are opening their doors and kindness to us pilgrims and asking little in return, with fellow pilgrims who all have their own stories and struggles, passions and beliefs, with the priest who offers mass every night to a new group of pilgrims, asking them to pray for his church as they pray for us on our pilgrimage… well, it’s something else entirely.  I couldn’t articulate it at the time, but in Los Arcos I started to feel the weight of that history – that my companions and I were participating in worship in the same churches, in largely the same way, as pilgrims for the last 1,200 years, compelled to go on pilgrimage in a foreign land for largely the same reasons, in largely the same fashion: trusting in God, trusting in the compassion inherent to humanity, with little more than our love and gratitude to offer in return.

No comments:

Post a Comment