LARRY
Chapter 2
We left the house at 6:45 AM. The drive to El Paso is through the high desert and to the East. The sunrise was magnificent and I hoped it was an omen of good things to come. I only wished that I hadn’t packed my camera, it would have made a great picture.
The freeway was the same Mad Max mass of moving metal, lane changes and people trying to get somewhere before they left where they had been. A policeman sitting under an overpass got into the act with his radar and another picked one off who made an exit on an off ramp to the right from the far left lane.
When we got to the airport we had almost 3 hours until my plane flew. We picked a few red bird of paradise seeds off plants growing in the parking lot, put them in the car and took my backpack and cardboard box to the Delta check-in station. The man checking me in asked where I was going and when I expanded into the information about the Camino he shook my hand, wanted to know more and wrote down the name so he could look it up on the internet. He seemed almost as excited about the trip as I was.
Celinda and I sat in the airport until I had about 2 hours before my flight. After hugs and kisses, I went up the ramp to security. This time it was easy, with shoes unlaced and knife in the check in items, I breezed through without a problem. Shoes back on I went to sit in the waiting room, read the Spanish phrase book I’d brought and began a waiting game that would continue at every airport, train station and bus stop until I got back home.
We flew on time from El Paso to Atlanta. The dark tan desert turned to light tan flat lands with not a mountain, hill or even a bump as far as the eye could see, and one can see a long way from 35,000’. Below there were small, or what appeared small from that height, squares. One could only guess that in the squares were houses and one could only wonder why anyone would chose to live there. We live in the high desert but there are mountains around to break the monotony of scene.
The further east we went the more clouds there were, clouds sitting on a dark blue sea of air. As time passed the bottoms of the clouds grew darker and lines of rain could be seen falling to the earth below. Heat and humidity drove the tops of the clouds upward and they took on the appearance of white sauce in a pan with burnt black bottoms and bubbling tops.
As the plane banked to the right a picture of Snoopy came to mind, flying through the tops of thunderheads, ears flapping, lips curled back in a smile.
The dark blue sea of air turned to gray, the color of glacial melt flowing into a pristine lake. We banked again, Snoopy would be proud. We continued turning in a holding pattern while a thunderstorm passed over the Atlanta airport. Turning and banking we waited our turn to spiral down. Below I could see other airplanes circling and waiting. Another 15 minutes went by before we began our descent. I hadn’t been that far east since I was 5 or 6 years old. Visiting Europe would be a first for me, a first in 65 years.
We touched down with a few bumps, disembarked and the 2 hours of waiting for the next flight, which would be 8 plus hours long, began. Walking the corridors of the airport some faces began to look familiar. Others are walking too, like me they were probably getting the kinks out after a long flight, hoping the walking would alleviate some of the pain, burning off time waiting for a connecting flight or all of the above.
The plane from El Paso was about 60% booked. Every seat on the plane to Madrid was filled. The aisle seat gave me a chance, between carts with food and beverages and passengers going to the bathrooms, to stretch my legs a little. A stewardess brought the menu and between selecting my meal and writing my notes, the plan was to study some Spanish.
My legs are long and with the flight to Madrid 8 hr 20 min. long, I knew my knee caps would be sore from rubbing on the seatback in front of me, by the time we touched down. With my seat back as far as it would go and the blanket pulled up over my shoulders I tried to get some sleep. I did manage to get 5 or so hours of sleep, awakening very stiff with a kink in my neck. Some sleep was better than none but it wasn’t high quality.
I did some Qi Gong and Rue Sri Dut Ton breathing techniques and some self-massage all of which helped immensely. The only part I couldn’t work the kinks out of was the thoracic section of my back. By the time we got to Madrid I was more than ready to be on the ground and moving.
I wondered if the flight attendants ever got used to bleary eyed people with bad breath and uncombed hair, who walked to the bathrooms like stickmen. A couple across the aisle drank 4 or 5 mixed drinks, were asleep or whatever, most of the way to Madrid and looked pretty hungover by the time we were preparing to land. We had a continental breakfast, which I’d never learn to like or get used to the whole trip. The man in the seat next to me lived in Madrid and confirmed James’ information about Astocha station.
I’m always amazed how much luggage is pulled from the bowels of the plane. The turnstile rotates, people wait impatiently tapping their toes and my check-ons always seem to be among the last off the baggage trailer and through the flaps at baggage claim. During the trip when I flew from place to place, I tried being the first to check my bag, check it somewhere in the middle and to check it as close to last as possible. No matter what I tried it was still one of the last to come through the plastic flaps.
Chapter 3 Off the plane and on the train.
We were in the terminal at 9:25 and my box came through the plastic flaps at 10:00. With backpack on and box in hand I made my way through the crowd and waited in line for my turn to get a taxi. The driver didn’t speak English but my Spanish got us, 35 euros later, to the train station. Some time later James told me it cost him 15 euro for the taxi from plane to train.
We wound our way through the freeway traffic to Atocha station. The same station where the terrorists set off the bombs a month or so earlier. This was all new and somewhat confusing but it was also an adventure. At the information booth the girl spoke some English and with my, some, Spanish we managed to get me headed in the right direction to catch a train to Pamplona.
I bought a 6 euro phone card and tried to contact James to no avail. A lady came up and when I couldn’t get the phone to work she tried. It didn’t work for her either and she tried to see if the old, bang it down a couple of times on the hanger-upper part, would work. Apparently it didn’t and didn’t on the next 2 phones either. I was afraid to try for fear someone would come along and arrest me or something. My objective was the Camino, not the cooler.
I’d changed dollars to euros in Atlanta but with 35 euro for the taxi, 46.50 euro for the train and 6 euro for a phone card that didn’t work, the stash was already getting low. I could have put the train ticket on the visa card but hadn’t thought about it.
Total immersion in order to learn a language seems to be the best way for me, if I have a few of the more often used words beforehand. Es dificil cuando ud. habla pocito Espanol and los otros no hablan Ingles. Nosotros salidamos Astocha a 14;10 Y llegado a Pamplona a 17:38. I was glad I knew enough Spanish to at least get me por la puerta.
When I got to the waiting area for the train to Pamplona, it didn’t leave for 2 1/2 hours, I had to send my bags through an x-ray machine just like at the airports. The man asked me in Spanish, if I had a knife in the cardboard box. I told him, “No habla, Espanol.” He asked, “Do you have un cuchillo?” He apparently didn’t know the word for knife. I knew the word both in English and Spanish but repeated, “No habla.” He shrugged his shoulders and passed me through. No hablo (I) is correct but no habla (you) works better if you want to convince someone you don’t speak Spanish.
I went over, put my stuff under the seat and dozed off for awhile. I walked around, sat down, got up, looked at the train schedules on the electronic board 6 or 8 times, walked around, ate a snadwich (maybe that’s a Freudian typo, slip because it tasted more like a snadwich than a sandwich), and finally got on the train. By the time I got back home I was a little more used to waiting but a little less apt to like it.
3/4 of an hour out of Madrid the countryside began to look more and more like the area around Santa Barbara, CA, only without the wall to wall condos and freeways jammed with cars.
We passed small towns with red roofed houses, orchards, vineyards and plowed under grain fields. Groves of ancient appearing olive trees clung to hillsides and a cement statue of Christ stood watching a small village from the top of a hill. After a mile or so of fields and more olive trees another cluster of houses went by on the left. The scenery was straight out of a tour book of Spain.
I understand why the Europeans love their trains. They’re electric and quiet, not too crowded and it was the first time I was able to stretch my legs, with the exception of walking in the Atlanta airport, since leaving El Paso. The only thing I didn’t like about them were the tunnels. There’s a pressure differential in the tunnels that makes my ears hurt, sort of like not equalizing pressure when in an airplane.
Outside it had been green for miles with rolling hills and trees to the horizon. We passed a high point of ground with an old decaying cathedral or citadel perched on the end of the finger, overlooking the fields and orchards below.
Las Chicas de Calendario (Calendar Girls) was on the video screen hanging from the overhead in mid-aisle. I had no headphones, there were headphones on the plane but I didn’t watch that movie, a movie I wouldn’t even bother to check out at home as a free library loaner, and hadn’t brought them along. It’s just as well, I’m sure it was dubbed in Spanish. The plot was obvious, quite simple, and even with writing notes and not having any audio, it was still easy to follow. The item of most interest to me on the movie screen while on the plane, and would be on the return flight also, was how much longer we had to go before we could disembark and do some serious moving of the body parts.
Hilltops were covered with hundreds of giant 3 bladed wind generators on tall, white steel poles. They turned slowly pushing their electrical charge into the grid. I almost expected to see a 21st century Don Quixote, probably on a motorcycle, charging across the ridge but none appeared. A small town was nestled in the valley below with wind turbines standing sentinel on the high ground but no one tilted at them.
As we pulled away from the platform of a small town I noticed the trees were leaning and the cornstalks were bent, all in the same direction. An indicator of constant wind from the same direction and why there were so many wind farms.
The countryside was dotted with harvested cornfields, patches of woods (bosques) and old stone buildings. Many of the buildings were merely piles of stone, others had only sides with roofs lying on the inner floors, some were still relatively intact.
We rattled across a steel bridge that spanned a river. Looking at the map I picked up in the train station, I saw the river was the Ebro. I’d read about the Ebro and that it has big catfish. According to my map we were getting close to Pamplona. The lady in the seat ahead of me had her arm next to the window. The image of her watch reflecting from the window said it wa 7:00 PM, changing the mirror image to what it really was meant it was 5:00. We were due in Pamplona at 5:40. Short on sleep after the plane ride, I’d been dozing off and on, at least I hadn’t slept through my stop.
On the left we passed an old castle, parapets still jutting out from the stone walls, with more wind farms on the ridges to the right. Are we ahead or behind in the US? Where we live our electricity is generated by burning coal. At one of the electric coop meetings the question was posed concerning why we didn’t use more wind generation. One official said, with a smirk on his face, that it wasn’t a good idea because he’d heard an eagle was killed after running into one of the spinning blades. Mercury poisoning is a reality and so is the human disease and suffering it causes. Coal is a major contributor to mercury in the atmosphere and we don’t use wind because someone heard that an eagle got killed. Get real, tell the truth. It’s power and profit, not dead eagles that make the decisions.
I saw a sign on an old train station that said Tafalla. Tafalla is the last wide spot on the map before Pamplona.
The soil took on more of the red color of adobe bricks. New houses were close to the roads in clusters with old stone and brick houses at the bottoms of rolling hills. An interesting mix, crumbling citadels, new construction, burros in fields, freeways, ancient aqua ducts, wind turbines.
Before the train could stop in Pamplona, most of the passengers were out of their seats, standing in the aisles, in front of the doors. With a hiss the doors slid open. Like a giant metal snake with many mouths in its’ belly, the train spewed its’ contents onto the platform. The train had a layover before continuing on its way. Passengers were surging on before I could get off. Planes, trains and buses: we hurry on so we can hurry off after impatiently waiting during the interim. Life seems to be the same no matter what big city or country we’re in. No reason for me to hurry, other than a name on a map, I wasn’t totally sure where I was going and had no idea exactly how or when I would get there.
start next Jan. 16 GR here
Chapter 4 From Train to Bus and on to Estella
The parking lot outside the train station was full of taxis jockeying for position, private cars loading luggage in trunks, passengers in seats, staring out windows and people looking like ballet dancers or bull fighters, trying to make their way across the tarmac without being impaled on the front of someone’s car.
In a few minutes the arriving, loading and departing in cars of one group and the coming, unloading and departure on the train of the next was over and the parking lot was safe to walk across. Taking a taxi from the airport to the train station in Madrid had been within a few dollars as much as the train ride half way across the country. With that in mind I walked to the bus stop to see what my options were for getting a bus to my next destination, Estella.
The driver in the bus sitting at the curb was busy reading a gossip magazine and when I asked, in Spanish, whether his bus would take me to the bus station where the bus to Estella could be gotten, he scowled and answered in rapid fire something that I only caught part of. I asked, in Spanish, if he could talk more slowly he looked at me as if I’d asked for him to give me his magazine. I walked back across the now deserted parking lot and went in the train station to see if I could get some information from a friendlier source.
The lady at the ticket window pointed me toward a bus schedule and I was able to figure out that buses ran every 10 minutes, the problem was I had no idea what the destinations listed meant. The bus that had been at the curb was gone so I walked back to the bus stop in hopes of better results the next time.
When the next bus pulled up I waited for the others to get on and then asked the driver if his bus would take me to the station where I could catch a bus to Estella. I told him I didn’t speak much Spanish and he spoke no English. The driver asked the passengers already on the bus if any of them spoke English, one man said he did.
The man asked me to come sit by him and he would direct me to the station. I put a handful of euros on the stand by the bus driver, he took what he needed and the machine next to him slowly rolled out a ticket. It was an interesting 20 or so minutes. The man who I sat next to taught English and Basque at a local college. He gave me a quick lesson in how the city was laid out and got off the bus when we got to the station. He directed me to the company that operated the bus line to Estella. I thanked him for saving me a lot of time and confusion and he departed to go his own way.
Being on ones’ own can test the patience, ability to communicate in a foreign language and create a lot of stress or, it can be seen as an adventure and challenge to owns’ abilities to cope.
Buses came and went and not knowing for certain which was the correct bus, I asked every bus driver if his was the one to Estella. After about the third time a lady who was sitting on a bench waiting for a bus, told me she was going to Estella and would let me know which was the right bus to take. Looking pathetically confused has value.
With my backpack and cardboard box I fit right in with the others traveling on the bus. There were no chickens, goats or ducks like one sees in the movies, just commuters coming and going with packages, laptops, briefcases and groceries, a few had cardboard boxes of their own. It wasn’t far but we took all the side roads through the villages that marked the way and it was almost dark by the time we rolled into Estella and I hadn’t been able to contact James to tell him when I’d arrive.
As soon as I was off the bus I tried his cell phone, again with no success. Finding James was difficult and would have been virtually impossible without help. I asked a man in a bar if there was a cyber cafe anywhere close by. He told me I had to go 2 blocks up the street, then turn right and the cyber cafe would be on the left. I knew James’ cell phone had internet capabilities and hoped he had it on. The people at the cyber cafe were very helpful and between my some Spanish and their some English, we managed to get a message through on the internet and in a short time, a return phone call on their phone from James.
I told James where I was, he asked someone in the background if they knew how to find the cyber cafe. The person in the background wasn’t exactly sure so we made arrangements to meet where I’d gotten off the bus. A few minutes later I was glad to see a big man, that I recognized, accompanied by a young lady named Joanne, coming down the street toward me.
The first time I met James he’d shaved his head. When we were fishing during June in Canada, he had hair. I told him I wasn’t sure whether to look for a bald person or a hairy one. He’d shaved his head again so we were back to square one.
Chapter 5 All alberques are not created equal.
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