Day 2: Orisson → Roncesvalles (17.5 km)
The sunrise from Orisson was epic. I took my hot chocolate outside and watched it with some of the ladies. Tears were shed. Breakfast was toast with butter or jam and fresh orange juice. I had rebelled against my mother’s advice to buy the dry ham sandwich and instead picked up an equally dry chorizo sandwich to take for lunch.
I never bother to check the weather because back home it’s pretty much always the same, but other pilgrims checked and assured me that it was going to be a clear, beautiful day. By the time I had my pack together it was raining. My socks still weren’t dry from their shower the night before, so I had pinned them to the outside of my pack. So much for that idea. Luckily, I had an absolutely enormous rain poncho. I pulled it over my head, made sure it was covering my pack, and set off with my new friends to hike up and over the Pyrenees.
It wasn’t raining very hard and the visibility was still good everywhere. Every new turn revealed views like paintings of a fairytale with snow peaked mountains in the distance and closer grassy mountain sides dotted with horses roaming freely with bells around their necks. Gorgeous big birds of prey glided on the cool wind above and the sound of flowing streams echoed from below. I probably would have been perfectly happy walking in circles in those mountains for the whole five weeks.
We were technically on a road for part of the way and the occasional Donkey Service van passed by. (A service through which you can send your backpack ahead for 6 euros.) Some pilgrims shot ahead and I didn’t see them again. Others I saw all day as we periodically passed each other. We were certainly in no hurry. I stopped with a lot of pilgrims for lunch in a nice spot between a hillside of little yellow flowers and an emergency shelter. Michelle, Eunseok, and I forced ourselves to swallow the very dry sandwiches from Orisson and got to know each other a little better. That’s also where I first chatted with Geraldine and Troy, who took a year off from their jobs to travel the world.
As we got higher the air got colder and windier. Most pilgrims walked with poles—I think Eunseok and I were the only exceptions—and they complained about their fingers getting cold and numb. I kept my hands inside my warm poncho and felt unjustifiably smug about not having wasted my money. Don’t worry, karma was waiting for the right moment to exact her punishment on me. Somewhere near the highest point there was a food truck. I remembered my sister’s advice and bought some cheese for later and also had some hot chocolate, which reenergized me. At the very highest point there were some tiny patches of snow leftover from the day before. There was so little of it and the air was warm enough by that time of day that it most likely completely melted within an hour after I passed by.
Once we were over the top and had started down the other side, we encountered the first of something I hadn’t known existed on the Camino: a fork in the trail. To the left was the traditional path, to the right was a slightly longer detour. We could see that the left path was a steep descent through a forest somewhat resembling the Fire Swamp in the movie The Princess Bride. The detour was rumored (by the other pilgrims standing around consulting their apps) to be a lot less steep. The choice was clear for me without the need to consult an app. I was supposed to follow the yellow arrow and the yellow arrow only pointed down into the Fire Swamp.
It wasn’t really a Fire Swamp of course, but it was steep, muddy, and populated by black slugs. Actually, now that I think about it, the black slugs might be the most consistent thing I encountered on the Camino (besides pilgrims, yellow arrows, and shells). I saw them regularly from the second day to the second to last day.
It seemed like most pilgrims had taken the easy path but Michelle and Eunseok were with me and we soon found Teresa, Archer, and Kim Kimmy. My friends weren’t afraid of a little mud! Any doubts we might have had about choosing this path were quenched when we saw a wild garden of purple flowers scattered through the trees and unanimously decided it was all worth it.
Around this time I started wondering out loud when we were going to get to the Spanish border. I was justly laughed at. We’d been in Spain for several hours. I couldn’t believe there was no border check or even a sign. Turns out there was a sign. I had even taken a selfie with the sign, not knowing what it meant.
The path got even steeper and more slippery and I started to regret not having poles until I found a big stick to use as a staff. I had quite a vibe going with that and the baggy poncho tied around my waist with a length of red cord. Unfortunately, my shyness got the better of me again and I didn’t get a picture of the outfit (this time).
I recognized Teresa and Archer from Orisson but this is when we first became friends. I learned that Archer would be turning twelve in a week. How cool is that! Not many kids get to celebrate their birthday on the Camino. Right away I thought he was a great kid (and I’m not just saying that because I know his mom is reading this). He could already converse with adults better than I could when I became an adult myself.
We arrived at Roncesvalles after walking for 6-7 hours. I abandoned my staff at the edge of the forest and after some brief confusion over where the entrance was, we entered the large monastery that now houses pilgrims instead of monks.
Most of the people working there were volunteers who didn’t necessarily speak the languages in which they were asked questions, so check-in was a slow process. No reservation was no problem, but apparently that hadn’t been the case the night before or any night in the previous week due to the holidays. I was beginning to appreciate how lucky my choice of start date was.
Upon checking in I also bought a scallop shell—the symbol of the Camino de Santiago—to display on my backpack like other pilgrims I’d seen. I had begun to develop the preposterous apprehension that without a shell people might not be sure that I was a pilgrim once we got to a more populous area. I hadn’t yet learned that even in a busy city, one can easily recognize the pilgrims and distinguish them from the tourists and locals.
“When two
thievespilgrims meet, they need no introduction. They recognize each other without question.”–
Ekai, The Gateless Gate-Me, This Blog
I was assigned a bed on the third floor, which was a huge open room full of single beds. It wasn’t even 6 pm but there was already an old man snoring louder than I thought was humanly possible. My socks were exactly as wet as they’d been when I pinned them to my pack in the morning. Luckily there was a laundry service with dryers that Eunseok and I took full advantage of.
After the first of many cold showers to come, I tried to keep myself awake until dinner. I put on my sandals, plus toe socks to keep warm, and went exploring. I found the church where the pilgrim mass would be held and discovered I would have been very late except that it had been moved from 6:00 to 8:00 for a reason that would become clear at that time. Next, I went to the restaurant where the pilgrim dinner would be and found pilgrim friends relaxing with pilgrim drinks. I joined them for a soothing pilgrim hot chocolate.
Dinner started at 7:00, which is the earliest that the Spanish will even consider serving it. The food was good and exemplified the typical pilgrim meal: vegetable soup, pasta, a choice of chicken or fish, and ice cream for dessert. I made the right choice, which was fish. Each person who ordered it was served a whole little fish on a plate, head and all. This wasn’t novel for me, but for Michelle it was completely unexpected. She was a good sport though and fully embraced the new experience, short of eating the eyeball. Fair enough, I wouldn’t either. The other fun thing was listening to all the different languages being spoken. The hour went by quickly though, and before I knew it we were about to be late for mass. I scarfed down my ice cream and we hurried to the church.
We were technically on time, but the only pew left was the front row. I felt very self conscious with my bright orange toe socks showing, but throughout the Camino they are very understanding of the limits of pilgrims’ wardrobes and don’t enforce a dress code.
Mass started and we got the big news: the pope had died that morning. I wasn’t familiar with how a typical mass is done at this point, but thinking back on it now that I’ve been to more of them, the ceremony was a little different with a lot more talking at the beginning (about the late pope) and less reading. I understand Spanish and speak it well enough to get by, but I couldn’t understand everything the priest said. It could have been because of his accent or just that the traditional biblical language is beyond my comprehension. He also may have switched between Spanish and Basque, which is a totally different language also spoken in northern Spain.
You don’t actually have to understand any of the words to follow along, just stand, sit, or kneel when everyone else does and shake hands with the people around you when they offer. The only tricky part is the Eucharist. The priest explained in Spanish that if you aren’t Catholic you can come up with your arms crossed over your chest and receive a blessing instead of the wafer. Then he repeated the instructions in what he thought was English. I’m used to interpreting a certain person’s thick Spanish accent back home and sometimes translating it into clearer English for others, so I understood what he said. Unfortunately, those whose ears weren’t used to this kind of shenanigans didn’t recognize a single English word and thought he was still speaking Spanish. I managed to explain to the other non-Catholics next to me what was going on and we went up with our arms crossed. Eunseok was sitting farther away and he didn’t get the memo. He went up and innocently tried to walk away with the wafer. The priest glared angrily at him until he ate it.
The last thing they did was call all the pilgrims up to the front for a pilgrim blessing. I didn’t know what to expect and was a little afraid he was going to tell us that we’d better convert or else be damned to burn in hell for eternity, but he didn’t say that at all. Basically, he wished us a good journey, which I appreciated. It felt comforting to know that we were on a sanctioned journey and weren’t just wandering forth into a foreign country willy-nilly.
By the time pilgrim mass was over it felt like pilgrim bedtime. I awkwardly changed into my jammies inside my sleeping bag and closed my eyes, hoping that my body would cooperate and sleep through the night. The old man was still snoring just as loudly as earlier, and he managed to keep it up the entire night accompanied by many others in a symphony of snores.
Victoria Castillo 