Snowy Mountains and Saving Souls

We assume those left reading the blog have looked up the Camino de Santiago by now. In case you are still in the dark about it, the Camino is a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela where St. James the Greater, who was one of the 12 apostles, is buried.

There are several walking routes all over Europe ending in the city of Santiago de Compostela. We chose to do the Camino Frances. It is the most popular and well travelled (for us that meant safest for only English speakers) of the Camino’s. From St. Jean Pied de Port, France, it is 30-40 days of walking depending on your walking speed.

Some of you may be familiar with the Camino due to the documentary about it a few years ago and/or the Martin Sheen movie about it. We have seen the doc, not the movie.

We can’t remember when or why we decided to do the walk, but somehow it ended up on our travel itinerary.

Day 1: St. Jean Pied de Port – Roncesvalles

Distance: 23.6 km, including elevation 28.5 km (Sidenote: We won’t be converting kilometers to miles in our blogs. To better understand how much we are walking – 1km = .62 m. So 10km = 6.2 m, 20km = 12.4 m, and 30km=18.6 m.)

This was the hardest day of the Camino for almost everyone.

We began day one leaving St. Jean Pied de Port headed to Roncesvalles, Spain. Everyone gets an early start at the beginning of the Camino, often rising at 6-6:30 AM. We left around 7:30 as we were not aware of such departure times. We had covered 200-300 meters before stopping for pastries. Probably not a great idea, but who knows when you will be in France again.

After a croissant and pain au raisins (which was incredible and the best pastry of our two months of travelling so far), we were back on the road and ready to cover the other 28+ km.

No rain the first morning as we walked through the French countryside. Some of the walking is on the road, albeit very narrow rural roads. Much of it through mud/dirt paths. Our sights consisted mostly of valley views, cottages, and farm animals. The trail also followed the river dividing Spain and France so we trekked back and forth between the two countries for a bit in the morning.

Once solidly in Spain and having covered a few km’s, we stopped at the first supermercado we encountered. We had not brought sunscreen on the trip and the day was proving to need it. We bought what we needed and had our first conversation with a pilgrim on the same path as us.

She was English and carrying a larger pack than either of us. That was a bad sign as I (Clay) knew my pack was already too big. Elizabeth and I discussed whether or not we would see the woman later that day because the hike is extremely strenuous and she was already having a rough go at it.

Content with our sunscreen, we carried on. The countryside was lovely. We enjoyed being out in nature, away from large cities and traffic.

And then we began the ascent. The hill begins at 5 km but doesn’t start getting steep until the 17 km mark. And it doesn’t stop getting steep until the top of the mountain, km 23. The entire 6 km was also covered in snow/ice. So for every three steps you took, you really only took two because you slid back a few inches each step. For some of the more snowy portions, there was no place to take a break, to sit down, to take off your pack. So you just kept walking, waiting on the opportunity to drop the pack. I managed to find a limb to set my pack on to grab a few seconds of air.

Since Elizabeth walks hills at a slower pace than me, she caught up with me just as I was ready to start walking again. We discussed how difficult the walk was and then started walking again. Further, longer, steeper, and finally out of the snow for a strech, I sat down in the middle of the trail. I was spent.

By this point we had covered 12-13 miles, the last several all uphill. I pulled out my water filter and started drinking water running directly down the trail. I knew with the filter, it wouldn’t kill me. I also knew if I didn’t drink any water, I might die on the trail.

We also failed to eat anything of substance during this entire stretch of walking. Stupid we know, but we did not consider that for several miles we would be abandoned and left for dead in the Spanish wilderness (there was a clean, cleared off road only a 100 feet to the right of the trail that we later found out most people walked on because the snow was too challenging).

Eventually we made it to the top of the mountain, the last few feet crawling because the snow was too deep to walk through without falling or getting stuck.

At the top we were ecstatic, having covered all but 1 km left of our walk/hike for the day. We were exhausted, completely gassed. We celebrated for a few minutes and turned towards our final destination as a van pulled up at the top of the mountain. We don’t pay much attention to the van, but as the sliding door opens up, we see a familiar face. The English woman.

She locks eyes with us and we can tell she is embarrassed. She starts talking to us, and we are all laughing at how we all made it to the top of the mountain at the same time. She mentioned how she didn’t think she would use her “get out of jail free” card on the first hike of the Camino.

We didn’t mind that she cheated and she was disappointed that she was unable to climb the mountain. Of course, we were proud that we had worked our asses off to hike what we had set out to do. And a little annoyed. But that is not what the Camino is about.

We made it to our albergue and ended up staying in the same four person bed cube as the woman. We also were with an Australian woman who we got to know later on the Camino.

We both needed showers but had failed to pack a towel. We thought the places we stayed would have clean towels we could pay a euro or two to rent. Nope. So Elizabeth toweled off with her long underwear. Clay airdryed, after squeegeeing as much water as he could off his body. Shortly after we put “Buy a towel” on our to-do list. 

We had dinner later than most other pilgrims so Elizabeth could attend mass at 7. Since it was Palm Sunday, mass started outside in the church’s crypt. Elizabeth followed the procession to wherever the congregation and priests went. I stayed back sitting on a rail somewhere outside of the church waiting for the congregation to rejoin, bitching internally at the cold temps, choice of shoeware (flip-flops since I had just taken a shower), and anything else I could find to complain about.

And then I heard it. A loud banging sound. And again. And again. “God is that you?” I thought. Surely not. Sounds more like a door. And I follow the banging to a large wooden door. A door with people behind it. And the door is locked. Thankfully one of the individuals spoke English because I explained in my best Spanish that I only knew English. I also explained that I understood they were locked behind the door and did not need further information, especially in Spanish.

So I found a man who looked to be working at the church and attempted to explain to him what was happening. He told me he understood English, but after I explained, he explained that what I said was impossible. And he explained it to me with many hand gestures and in Spanish.

I explained again more slowly in English (which never works), and commenced to drag the old man over to the door so he could unlock it. Out popped three poor, unhappy souls whose only reaction is to walk off and leave without so much as a thank you to anyone.

That’s the last time I help strangers locked behind a large door.

Church was relatively normal but at the end the priest prayed over all the pilgrims. It was humbling to hear him pray for all of us in our native tongues. He prayed for us pilgrims in in Spanish English, Italian, French, etc. Although we still didn’t understand all of mass, we did understand the pilgrim prayer.

After mass we headed to our first pilgrim dinner. It was underwhelming and we tried to avoid this as much as possible in the future.

We eventually made it bed, ready for day two. The hill on the first day is known to be the worst you will face the entire Camino. Athough we were a little tired and sore we knew we could walk any day from that point on.