September 25th, Granon to Belorado (15 kilometers):

Much of what I remember was the wind.  When I left Granon in the pre-dawn, I could see the Camino stretching out far into the distance, and with the wind and brisk morning temperatures it was the first morning that actually felt chilly.  A solid portion of the first hour is spent walking with Diane from Alaska, a chipper middle-aged woman who claims she is a slow hiker but who succeeds in setting a pretty quick pace.  

This is the day I actually get lost on the Camino.  People have talked about this moment, I’ve read about it, and I’m still not sure how it happened... especially when there are GIANT SIGNS ALL ALONG THE WAY:

Here’s what I recall: Diane and I are walking along.  There is a long, straight portion next to the highway, heading toward a village in the distance.  I want to stop, go to the bathroom, and grab a granola bar from my pack, so I do.  Diane and the people walk on out of sight.  Less than five minutes later I follow, and I swear I see a yellow arrow pointing toward a visible village in the distance along a dirt road to the left, directly perpendicular to the road.  I turn left, right?  

About half an hour later it occurs to me that I haven’t seen a yellow arrow in some time, and that the village I’m approaching looks… somewhat… abandoned.  At this point it’s go all the way back to the road, or keep going forward.  Shortly before the village, next to a small backyard garden, I see a tiny cardboard sign stapled to a fence, pointing to the right along a footpath heading through what are obviously sheep pastures.  At some point in the distant past, the sign may have been yellow.  Maybe.

I don’t know how long I stare at this sign before I hear someone whistling at me from the garden.   There’s an old man standing there with a  hoe beckoning me over, and he basically tells/shows me on my map that I’m the idiot that turned left when I obviously should have continued forward, along the road, like every other intelligent pilgrim did when I wasn’t looking.  HOWEVER, all is not lost, because if I merely follow the cardboard sign, I’ll get to the top of a saddle and see the town I want in the distance and arrive in record time.  It’s not a diversion to a murder hole, it’s a shortcut.

Trust in providence, I tell myself, and off I go.  Sure enough, when I get to the top of the hill (ignoring all the ‘private property’ and ‘no trespassing’ signs), I can see the town I’m supposed to be walking toward.  I can also see tiny little pilgrims trudging along next to the highway way off to my right.  

So I book it into town, find the café, get my cup of coffee and when Diane shows up a few minutes later, ask what took her so long.  

The rest of the walk is through grain fields into driving winds.  Headwinds.  It’s a ‘put your head down and push on’ kind of day, where mostly I stare at my boots and keep telling myself to just go a little further.  I see plenty of pilgrims along the path, but the whole process feels lonely and vast as the horizon stretches out in all directions and people walk at their own pace – conversations are difficult and stilted because the noise of the wind steals our words away.  I see plenty of people I know, but we pretty much just smile, curse at the wind, and plod on.  

Coming into Belorado I’m heading past the newer, fancier albergue on the hill and into the old town when Gitte calls down to me – she’s stopped for lunch at the new albergue and so I go join her.  I order up my standard: a café con leche, orange juice, and a jamon bocadillo and we watch the steady stream of pilgrims come shuffling into the town below.  The weather looks cloudy and overcast, and I’m looking forward to finding my hostel and getting showered up, and so I’m sad when Gitte says she’s moving on to another town.  Little do I know, this is the last time I’ll see her on the Camino.  When I think of her now, I mostly remember her laughter and how she’d break out a menthol cigarette the moment she sat down, anywhere.  

The hostels in Belorado proper seem to be clustered around a couple of blocks, and after I pick one and get my stamp, I can’t help but feel less than impressed with where I’m staying for the night.  The bunk rooms are closely packed and poorly ventilated, there is a warm kitchen area with tons of photos of past pilgrims, and an open courtyard in the rear that would be very nice – but it’s chilly and drizzling outside and so I have a difficult time finding a place to be comfortable.  My bed is surrounded by a group of older French men who I will see sporadically over the next week – they are loud and seem visibly irritated that I’ve been assigned a top bunk in between them, and the guy below me immediately gives me some kind of sass, in French, when I start arranging my things.  I try to find some common ground in Spanish, to no avail, and I’m so tired I give up and ignore him.  

It’s one of those moments when I know exactly how non-English speakers in America feel – I know I’m not doing anything wrong or rude, but these guys can’t seem to grasp that I don’t speak French and increased volume or repeating whatever they want to tell me will not magically teach me the language.  

So I go out to explore the town, wander around to the parque central where I run into the Irish boys Paul and John, a guy I’ll call Michigan, and Welsh Rob on a break for lunch – all folks I’d met the night before in Granon.  I spend some time at a café facing the square as an afternoon rain shower comes down, sipping strong coffee and reading the end of Ken Follet’s The Fall of Giants.  It’s a welcome counterpoint to the Elderly Rude French, and after the siesta hour I wander in and out of shops and back toward the hostel in search of dinner.

Dinner is a communal meal upstairs; I end up with four people I haven’t met, the unofficial ‘English’ table with Barry from South Africa who I will enjoy running into again and again all the way to Santiago de Compostela.  He’s a bald older guy who bears a striking resemblance to my stepfather, and Barry’s quiet reservation and clipped speech gives him a solid, engaging dignity.  That sense of personal class, alongside his open, welcoming friendliness leaves me jealous – I typically feel rough and uncouth in that kind of company, but the conversation is easy and the night ends well.