The Camino: Part 5
Torres del Rio , Los Arcos and on to Logrono.
The road snaked through dry countryside, some parts flat and others rolling, occasionally steeply up and down. On the downhill sections my big toes were starting to get sore. The scene and the trail brought back pictures to my mind, reminding me of places I’d been and things that I’d done. The difference was the trail had travelers walking in front and behind, others sitting under trees and still others, leaning on walking sticks.
My walking speed was faster than James and Alain, and turned out to be faster than everyone I encountered except Donal Ryan who I would meet later in Leon. I arrived in Los Arcos at 11:00 and waited for James and Alain.
We ate brunch in Los Arcos and James thought, and hoped, that he was done for the day. He felt less than his best, we all just thought he had gone beyond his limits, a day or 2 later it appeared he was suffering from some type of allergic reaction. Later we found out that it was worse than that and would have been preventable if we’d had the information about the refugio and the bed bugs before staying in Estella.
After brunch we talked James into getting back on the trail for another 9K or 5+ miles. We already had 21K in and the added 9K wasn’t an easy sell to James, especially when we hadn’t had any breakfast. James swore that we/he would never again go without breakfast. After eating his spirits picked up and we were off.
Later when I went back to St. Jean Pied de Port to finish the part that I’d missed because of the lost passport, I got a topographical map that showed the elevation changes between points. Some seemed more difficult than the map indicated and some seemed much easier. I guess that adds validity to the saying, “the map isn’t the territory.”
I had teamed up with a lady named Dominique who was from Paris. Her story on the Camino was quite interesting, about why she was even in Los Arcos and would continue on until reaching Burgos. I didn’t know the story until James told me later and it’s best told by him sometime later, at Belorado.
She had been one of the first people to show up at Los Arcos while I was waiting for James and her walking speed was almost the same as mine so we teamed up for most of the way until the day before Burgos.
Dominique was a good walking partner, She didn’t spend all day talking. I was told that she’s the wife of one of Frances’ most prominent surgeons, had 3 children, had recently begun working as a model for cosmetics for the mature woman and appeared to have some things in her life that needed to be worked out. Like most of us, she had her reasons for being on the Camino. Whatever they were, they were none of my business; she didn’t say, I didn’t ask.
Dominique and I got to Torres Del Rio before anyone else only to find that the reservations that had been made from Los Arcos hadn’t been copied down correctly. We had reserved beds for 4 but the reservation only said 3. Others who had given us the information about registering, found that they had no reservations at all. The lady at the alberque was less than friendly and we walked out in the street to contemplate our options.
According to our sheet with names of the alberques in the different towns, this was our only choice. We went back inside and asked the lady if she possibly had any other space where one other person could stay. She took us down the hall and off the entryway where she showed us a room with 6 beds. We asked how many of the beds were vacant and she said all of them. A little confused about where things were going because if all 6 beds were available what was the problem with reserving 4? We told her again that we’d like to reserve 4 of the beds and she said that wouldn’t be possible. Things were getting more confusing, complicated and frustrating as time went by.
We said we would be glad to pay for all 4 beds in advance but she said she wouldn’t do that. We could pay for the 3 reservations she already had for us or for the 2 of us, Dominique and me, but not for 4. We said that if our friends didn’t show up we wouldn’t expect to get the money refunded, we just wanted to be sure that they had a place to sleep when they showed up. She wasn’t going to budge and it showed in her stance and body language.
About that time a couple of other people came in, asked if she had any beds and she put them in the room for 6 she’d shown us. Now there were only 4 beds left. Again we tried to reserve them and pay for them but she still would only do 2 or 3 but not 4. Frustrated we went back out into the street.
About that time a woman who’d been an hour or so behind us came up the road. She asked if we were staying at the alberque that we were standing in front of and we briefly told her the story. She said she’d seen another alberque on the side street when she’d come into town and told us where it was. I told Dominique that I was going to go investigate and left, directions in my mind.
I found the other alberque, talked to a nice young lady sitting at a desk, looked at their facility, which was new and quite nice, paid for 4 and went back to get Dominique.
At the first alberque we grabbed our backpacks and as we were leaving the lady asked us if we were going to stay or not. We told her that since the 4 of us couldn’t stay together we’d decided to go elsewhere. She said, quite sharply, that if the reservations had been made correctly in the first place there wouldn’t have been a problem. I’d been standing next to Dominique when she was making the reservations and she had made reservations for 4.
We took our gear to the other alberque and after stowing it on our beds I went looking for James and Alain.
I found them just as they were about to enter the other alberque and, not wanting to have to deal with the lady there again, I told them to follow me and explained the situation as we went.
When Dominique and I had arrived at the second place we were the first to make the switch from the other alberque, others got fed up with the woman later and followed suit. Being first we had our pick of places to sleep, hot showers and time to wash and dry our clothes before going to dinner. People came trickling in and the alberque was full by 6:00. My trapezius and calf muscles were a little sore. My feet were tired and the downhill parts had been particularly hard on the toenails on both big toes. It would be a couple more days before I discovered why my toenails were turning black and what I could do about it. A good first days’ walk that was bad for big toes.
Where we stayed was new within the last few months, was clean and well run and they had a very nice peregrino meal. There were multiple choices for dinner, which they explained in Spanish and broken English. Everyone knew what they offered because they brought out samples. The alberque and restaurant were owned by a couple who had recently immigrated from Argentina and their 2 young, preteen, kids who served the meals. Everyone had a good time and great meal. Approximately 50 people stayed the night and I counted 30 at the dinner tables. I was glad our second choice had become our first, by chance and choice. It was a nice alberque, the other in town not as good and the one in Estella had been a flophouse.
We met a lot of nice people at the alberque and at dinner. Some we would see on the trail the next day or two and some were never seen again. We walked at a faster pace than most and after 3 or 4 days we were a day ahead of the others and meeting new people.
The next morning we were on the road by 8:30 after a typical Spanish breakfast of coffee con leche and a sweet roll. Breakfast, or the lack of it, would prove to be one of my biggest complaints. Later, at times, our experiences would allow us to compensate for the problem.
Chapter 7 Another bad choice of alberques and Cleuso
JAMES
Camino – Day 6
Buenos Dias Los hombres
Today’s walk took us from Torres del Rio to Logrono, the first major city since Pamplona and definitely the biggest place we have visited so far during our slog across the heartland’s of Northern Spain.
The day started well, largely due to the fact that I ate the biggest breakfast that Spain has ever provided. I may have been caught as short as a US insurance company the day before, but today I was taking no chances! The Argentinean refugio owner will certainly be rethinking his policy on "eat as much as you like" as I rolled out of the eating area, enough fuel on board to make it to Santiago without a single stop!
Due to my foresight in making all the others go to Torres Del Rio the day before, something which I am still waiting for them to thank me for, we only had a modest 20 kms to travel instead of the 26 endured by most others today. I say modest, but I have realised that pilgrims down the years have basically been pushed further and further down the food chain as progress and commerce have altered the Spanish landscape.
Even though it was only 20 kms, where once I am sure the trail pointed in a straight line from Torres to Logrono, now we were forced to follow every hill and hummock that God had time to envisage during His 7 days of construction. If it was no good for a farmer, shepherd or errant goat, then it was fit for pilgrim use!
This made the stage much harder than it needed to be because everything was pretty much either uphill or downhill. In many instances you could still see the original trail, from some unnecessary hill top, which had been diverted to make way for some new road or convenience store. Like I said, pilgrims are lower than shark shit in these parts! It is actually really frustrating to see a perfectly good road headed straight in the direction of the place you want to go to, only to find the little yellow arrows pointing off, up some hill that is not even remotely in the direction of your destination. I am sure if God were walking the Camino he would start early, stand at the start, and shake out the trail like a giant towel in the right direction and then proceed merrily on his way. Unfortunately we do not have this luxury and the Camino demands that where the arrows point, we shall follow.
The road into Logrono is a classic example of mans desire to help, but in the process he manages to make things worse. I remember when Blue Peter raised a ton of money to buy cattle for the poor and starving in Ethiopia, everyone chipped in, the beef was bought and herded from the lowlands to the high Veld, where every one of them promptly died from the disease carried by the Tsetse fly. Somebody had forgotten to consult the locals, who could have told them in a heartbeat that lowland cattle can’t live up in the Veld.
Logrono is the pilgrims Veld! Where once stood a perfectly good dirt track, gently meandering into the city centre, some religiously inspired bureaucrat, endeavoring to ingratiate himself before a papal visit, decided to introduce a tarmac alternative to aid us in our final descent. Let me tell you right now, the pilgrims biggest enemy is a tarmac road, the only worse variation of which is a tarmac road going downhill! Yes, you guessed it, Logrono is at the bottom of a very large hill. Imagine going to the supermarket, resting your chin on the handles of a trolley and then running the same trolley over cobble stones – that is the walk into Logrono! By the time most pilgrims get to the refugio they are trashed – 8 kms of tarmac path in the blazing sun is not a pleasant experience, especially when it is after 6 days of hard graft, sweat and tears.
As I sit here now, I am satisfied with the way my Camino is going. I have come through a tough day or 2 when others have fallen. Berndt’s knees have given up and the last time we saw him he was hobbling into a doctors surgery 6 kms from Logrono. Alain is in permanent pain with his Achilles injury, Mary, the washer woman, is talking about going home – only time and the perseverance of her boyfriend will tell if she does – and Larry’s early swagger has been quashed by one of his big toenails detaching itself on part of the walk today.
For now I am in pretty good shape considering the frankly astonishing fact that I have now walked over 140 kms and have crossed from one side of Navarre to the other! I am easily the largest person I have seen on the Camino and, unfortunately, Junky’s new nickname for me (Sumo), revenge I am sure, is starting to stick with an alarming number of people.
Tomorrow is another day and the main thrust for Burgos, 8 days and 200 kms away, begins in earnest! If I get there it will be because I was meant to and because of the amazing support of my family and friends.
Adios los Amigos and Buen Camino.
Sumo!!!
LARRY
Logrono was our next planned stop with Alain as guide since he’d been there and on the entire Camino, as far as Santiago, before. The scenery between Torres Del Rio and Logrono was quite nice and when we arrived in Logrono we found the alberque was located in a church not far from the town plaza.
We were assigned beds and when I went to the number I’d been assigned I found a young man asleep on the bed. Alain found gear on his bunk as did Dominique. We looked around and found some empty beds on the top floor and deposited our gear there while we took showers and washed our clothes.
When we were finished showering we found the man who’d been at the check-in area waiting for us by the beds.
He began telling us that we couldn’t just choose beds, that we had to take the beds that were assigned to us. He spoke very little English so I told him in Spanish that 3 of our beds had had someone sleeping in them or gear on them. It was beginning to look like a reverse of Goldylocks and the 3 (4) Bears; the man being Goldylocks with a hangover.
I took the man or maybe more correctly he took me, down to the bed I’d been assigned. When we got there no one was sleeping on the bed but it was covered with gear. You could see that someone had been lying in the bed, imprint and all and the sleeping bag was still on the bed with backpack, etc. It seemed obvious to me that someone had been there, and in a prone position, a short period of time before.
The man took everything that was on the bed and threw it on the floor. Then he turned to me and said, “See, I told you no one was sleeping on the bed.” He did the same with the gear on Alain’s bed.
Dominique had time to put the stuff on her bed in a neat pile before he did the same to her. We slept in our assigned beds that night. I hoped that those who had gear on our beds didn’t think we were the ones who’d thrown their equipment all over the dormitory. I guess we’ll never know.
After getting the bed situation straightened out we went to the courtyard to soak our feet in the fountain. When we were sitting there the man who’d thrown the equipment on the floor came down and made an announcement to everyone in the courtyard. He said that the gates were locked at 10:00 PM (22:00) and if you weren’t in by then you would have to stay somewhere else for the night and pick up your belongings the next morning after 7:00 when the gates would be unlocked. Then he spun around on his heel and marched back into the church. Later a man and his son, who were both very mellow, made the statement that “The man at Logrono had no flex.”
We put shoes on tired feet that were at least 1/2 size larger than normal, and made our way to the plaza to find something to eat and drink. A couple of beers whetted the appetite and, even if still swollen, the feet didn’t feel as bad. After eating I wandered off to sight see a little and when I got back to where the others had been they were gone.
It was Friday, the weekend for all intents and purposes in Spain, and the plaza was being transformed into a stage and staging area for music. Apparently the merchants on the plaza sponsor the music because there was no charge. The outdoor seating at the cafe/bars had grown from a few chairs to many and people were beginning to congregate.
The live music didn’t start until 21:30 (9:30) and I would have liked to stay for a while longer than I did. But, with the gates being locked at 22:00 and Mr. No-Flex in charge, I left after the first song. I got back with 15 minutes to spare to find the others in bed and a Frenchman named Cleuso, who turned out to be many times worse than anything the Pink Panther had ever come up with, sleeping across from me.
I’m convinced that Cleuso suffered from sleep apnea or some other sleep disorder. He snored so loudly that everyone in our dormitory that wasn’t totally deaf, had a hard time sleeping. Being right across the narrow aisle from him was like listening to a Formula 1 engine becoming a pile of scrap metal at 17,000 rpm. He also would stop breathing for long periods and then inhale and gasp for air before going back to the high decibel snoring. I woke him up.
Twice more I woke him up and those times I had him out of bed. All to no avail. Finally, in an effort to get some sleep, I took my mattress off the bed and out into the hall under the stairwell so I could at least salvage some of the night. About 4:00 the bathroom became the busiest place in the alberque and my mattress was within a few feet of the door. I could see that the next day was going to be a walk with little sleep and not much patience.
I was not a happy camper when we went to breakfast, a coffee con leche and a croissant as the only choices available, did nothing toward brightening my day. James told me I should get a set of ear plugs, I told him I couldn’t sleep with ear plugs. I guess I’m used to wanting to know if something is sneaking up on me, possibly a grizzly bear, or if there’s an emergency that I should know about, like the place is on fire or something. James had been in another dormitory, not sleeping across the narrow aisle from Cleuso the rock crusher. He couldn’t understand why snoring bothered me so much, but he would and it would be soon. (When this was written I hadn’t read his past experiences with Cleuso).
We had planned to stop at Navarrette for lunch but James’ allergic reaction or what we thought was an allergic reaction, was bothering him and he was going very slowly. When I got to Navarrette, 13K from Logrono, it was too early to stop for lunch so I went on toward Najera another 15K. I was feeling OK but the lack of sleep was a problem. I’d had to make a couple of unscheduled pit stops in the vineyards along the way. The food? was my prime suspect.
It rained lightly for a short time and a few K from Najera. I put on my poncho, with a lot of trials and tribulations, loosely translated as kicking dirt and cussing. 2 women who I’d passed earlier, passed me after my fit and a group of cyclists buzzed me off just outside of town. With the hood of the poncho over my head it was hard to hear anything coming from behind. Most cyclists seemed to think you should be walking backwards in order to see them coming. I hadn’t heard, or seen that group coming but I’d see them again the next day and we’d discuss the matter.