Tag: blacksmith

Day 9: Estella → Los Arcos (21.4 km)

I was startled awake in the donativo that night by a noise and voices. I thought maybe someone had fallen out of bed, but decided it was none of my business and promptly fell back asleep.

In the morning the vibe was not good. The disturbance in the night wasn’t someone falling out of bed; it was the scary pilgrim (“la jefa”) purposely waking Michelle up and berating her for snoring, even going so far as to tell her that, since she snores, she should get a private room. I don’t think I need to point out the incredible hypocrisy that took place here.

It is tempting, in the face of this hypocrisy, to get up on a soapbox and become a hypocrite myself. When we were teenagers, I used to use a white noise machine to drown out the sound of my sister breathing at night. So I was surprised to find that, on the Camino, a nightly symphony of snores did not bother me. The reason was simple: I had changed my mindset. I had read and taken to heart the advice of an ancient dead guy by the name of Epictetus. He said this:

“If you intend to engage in any activity, remind yourself what the nature of the activity is. If you are going to bathe, imagine yourself what happens in baths: the splashing of water, the crowding, the scolding, the stealing. And like that, you will more steadily engage in the activity if you frankly say ‘I want to bathe and want to hold my will in accordance with nature’. And do the same for every activity. So if any impediment arises in bathing, readily say ‘I did not only want this, but I also wanted to hold my will in accordance with nature; and I will not hold it like that if I am annoyed about what happens’.”

—Epictetus, Enchiridion

Replace “bathing” with “sleeping in an albergue”, and “the splashing of water” with “snoring” and the 1,800 year-old quote applies perfectly. For anyone who finds this advice to be easier said than done, he also wrote extensively about what is and isn’t in our control, viz. you can only control yourself, not other people. Scary pilgrim couldn’t put Michelle in a private room, but she could have put herself in one. The last thing I’ll say about this is that, for the record, Michelle only snores a little and not loudly. I will now step down from my soapbox and continue the story.

I slipped my donation in the slot and got out of there fast, because I had something important to address. Today was Archer’s twelfth birthday! I didn’t know if I was going to see him and his mom, so I recorded a birthday message in front of the church and stood on the municipal’s doorstep to send it using their Wi-Fi.

On the way out of town there was a slight detour around some road work that took the Camino right past a little café/convenience store. I picked up some zumo de naranja to-go and was surprised that it was half the usual price and had an ice cube in it.

Next up were a couple of attractions so famous even I had heard of them: a blacksmith’s shop and a wine fountain. The blacksmith’s apprentice was practicing his craft right there in front of the shop. The shop is full of interesting souvenirs, as well as larger art pieces. My mom has a shell necklace that she bought there.

Just up the hill from the blacksmith’s is the wine fountain. I didn’t want my water bladder to taste like wine for the rest of the pilgrimage, so I used my shell as a cup. The consensus about the quality was that “it could be better”. Makes sense that they don’t give the good stuff away for free.

It must not have been much later that I first heard the cuckoo bird. When I was a kid my mother had a cuckoo clock (she probably still has it somewhere), and we would occasionally set it and watch the little wooden bird pop out and say, “Cuckoo! Cuckoo!” As I strolled through a section of trail surrounded by grasses and small dense trees, I suddenly heard the exact same sound. I’d never heard one in the wild, so my first fleeting thought was to wonder what a cuckoo clock was doing in the middle of nowhere. My intelligence quickly kicked back in, and I realized that of course it was the real deal. I never saw the bird itself, but I would hear it many more times.

The trail passed through small towns, patches of forest, and fields. As I plodded along by myself with lamb’s wool between my toes, hoping to prevent further blisters, another affliction struck. I sprinted into the woods, jumped into a thorny bush, and dropped my pants mostly in time. I thanked my lucky stars, Jesus, Buddha, and anyone else I could think of that there was no one else around. The only two possible suspects were the wine and the suspiciously cheap iced OJ. The wine had to be ruled out because practically everyone drank it, and the woods weren’t full of spontaneously erupting pilgrims. The water in Spain is perfectly clean and drinkable, so I don’t know where that ice cube came from.

“Cuckoo! Cuckoo!” What was a delightful sound before was now a taunting reminder of the concept of time.

I continued plodding, taking short steps. It wasn’t long before the terrain changed to hilly fields of wheat, grapes, and olive trees; no more woods to sprint into in case of emergency. The California girl who’d just finished college (I can’t remember her name) came along, and we both observed that the hilly vineyards looked a lot like the Murrieta valley. She stopped occasionally to do yoga on the side of the trail. Yoga was the last thing I wanted to do. I kept taking short steps.

“Cuckoo! Cuckoo!”

There’s a common saying that “the Camino provides”. It’s the romantic notion that what you need will come to you. Usually it comes to fruition through pilgrims sharing and helping each other. Other times, much more rarely, the Camino itself provides. My feet got really sore and just when I was lamenting that I’d have to buy new shoes, I came upon a pair of boots next to a trail marker. I tried them on. They were broken in and muddy but not worn out and fit a little more loosely than my shoes. I finished the day in them.

At long last I shuffled into Los Arcos, tired, sore, and unsuspecting that anything might have happened in the world outside of the trail. I poked my head into a nice looking albergue, hoping to get a private room to recover myself in. None were available, and the proprietor was extremely agitated. He told me there was no hot water because the power was out in “all of Spain. And Portugal. And France, and Germany and Sweden! All of Europe!” I remember thinking it odd that he said Sweden. Unconvinced of the truth of his claim, and sensing he needed some space to calm down, I moved on.

I ended up at the municipal, which was a far cry from a private room. The power was out there too except for the fire alarm which no one knew how to turn off. I was checked in by a pair of Dutch hospitaleras who were very calm. They didn’t know the full extent of the blackout, but the rumor was that it covered Spain, Portugal, France and Italy. They did know that the hot water heater wouldn’t work without electricity. I didn’t care; I desperately needed a shower.

At no other time in my life have I found myself thinking about showers more than I did on the Camino. When you carry all your possessions on your back and only have two sets of clothes, things like the number of hooks available become very important. In the shower rankings I created in my head, the municipal albergue in Los Arcos still remains at the bottom. There were two showers facing each other with a shared drain in the center of the floor. Each “stall” had a short, swinging, saloon style door that didn’t reach the wall, let alone lock. There were no hooks. The top of the door curved down so that anything that was hung over it would slide to the floor. The only good thing was that, because everyone had been warned away, there was a little hot water still left. I used it all without remorse. The fire alarm continued blaring throughout.

Clean, but still feeling ill, I dragged myself to the plaza in search of food and to get away from the noise of the fire alarm. I encountered friends looking for the municipal and pointed them towards it. There was only one restaurant that I was every aware of, and apparently they had electric stoves. I sat in the plaza and listened to the rumors escalate. When I was tired of political conspiracy theories and foreboding predictions of World War III, I went into the church. It was beautiful. The ceiling was painted with magnificent murals in a light, calming color palette.

Teresa and Archer found me sitting on a bench outside the church staring into space. I tried to put some cheer into my voice when I wished Archer happy birthday, but I’m afraid I didn’t do a very good job. I think he said this would have been the worst birthday ever if he didn’t happen to be in Spain. At the very least, I’m sure it’s one he’ll never forget.

I told everyone I was going to rest for a little while and then come back to scrounge for dinner. Back at the municipal, someone had finally figured out how to shut off the fire alarm. I meant to lay down just for a few minutes. At 9:00 pm I woke up and decided to go back to sleep.

Day 10: Los Arcos → Viana (18.33 km)

I felt lousy in the morning. Eleven hours of sleep still wasn’t enough for my body to recover. The power was back. I never did find out what had caused the blackout, but I ruled out World War III and continued the Camino.

I trudged to the first town, trying in vain to force myself to enjoy the beautiful scenery along the way. The so-called town didn’t have much going on. There was one tiny café in which I got the last croissant. I went into the bathroom and the lights turned out on me, leaving me in complete darkness. At first I thought it was another blackout, but eventually, by aimlessly feeling around, I found the switch and the light came back on. I’d been a victim of the notorious automatic lights they seemed to use everywhere.

Michelle was waiting for a bus. I didn’t want to, but I had to make the call to join her or I was going to hurt myself. Any illusions I’d had of being a purist and walking every meter to Santiago were gone.

No regrets. The buses in Spain are way nicer and cheaper than back in the States. The driver asked if we were going to Viana. I didn’t know anything about it but said yes anyway. My blind trust in the universe paid off. It turned out to be a great little town with good energy and lots of history. There are ruins to explore and Cesar Borgia’s tomb is there. We found a nice albergue and had a good lunch right where we could wish pilgrims “buen camino” as they passed through.

Back at the albergue, I realized I’d left my soap (including my mom’s fancy little dry bag) in the horrible shower in Los Arcos. Oops. It did give me the opportunity to use the little soap and bag that the nice Korean pilgrim with all new gear had given me in Pamplona. The Camino provides.

There were a couple of pilgrims talking about paragliding and when they found out I was a pilot that’s all they wanted to talk about. I found myself quickly getting bored, so I begged off to run errands. There was a good hiking store in town where I bought another pair of toe socks to fight blisters and a souvenir pin.

Then I went to the cathedral, walking right over Cesar Borgia to get in. Inside it had beautiful muralled ceilings similar to the church in Los Arcos, only bigger with multiple rooms. I attended mass, which was in one of the smaller rooms, and thought I was the only pilgrim there. The priest called the pilgrims up at the end and there were three others. He gave us each a pilgrim blessing and asked where we were from. He was very jovial and when I told him I’m from California he laughed and said, “I’ve seen the movies!”

Dinner was a pilgrim meal at the albergue of soup and pasta. I went straight to sleep afterwards, hoping to be back to 100% health in the morning.