Searching Ourselves in a Dying Town
Camino. Chapter 9
This is my serialized story of walking the Camino de Santiago across Northern Spain with my sister-in-law. If you’d like to start at the beginning of our journey, click here.
Day 7. Our hike in the Navarra region of Spain has been one of breathtaking countryside and beautiful vistas and this morning proves no different as we walk two days out from Logrono, a small city we will need to navigate before reaching our goal of Burgos. First, attracting our attention is an artisan’s shop an hour from Estella, where we spent the night. I am more interested in finding an espresso, but Marlene, my sister-in-law, wants to look at the trinkets for her grandchildren. As a dutiful partner, I walk around the store waiting for her, touching tiny, iron-worked crosses and other Camino images for sale, and it is hard not to admire the craftsmanship. Finally, I find a table with paper cups and a pitcher of water, but, alas, no espresso machine.
Our pattern so far has been to leave the hostel before breakfast, hike four to six miles, say, for an hour or two and find a cafe or grocery store to buy a croissant, or baguette, or even, a banana. I have taken to espresso and discovered that this lovely hot shot of intense coffee (or two) puts me in my happy place, especially for walking on another three to five hours. Our guidebooks indicate how far each town is and from there, my innate sense that a cafe with an espresso machine is waiting for us, usually holds true.
Today, though, is different. Our guidebooks say we should eat breakfast in Estella and carry water. So we do - though, water is not an issue with us, as I have a two-liter Camelbak in my pack and Marlene holds two 16-ounce bottles of water in hers. We make sure the Camelbak and the bottles are full before we leave the hostel, as we expect a long day without towns to replenish. After a breakfast of toast, yogurt, and fruit, we grab bananas, say goodbye to our overnight bicyclist roommate, hoist our backpacks over our shoulders, find our poles, send our biscuit prayers out into the chilly morning air, and set off into the start of our second week.
Shortly after the artisan shop, we come up on the Irachi Monastry, famous for its free wine fountain available to all visitors and pilgrims. No cups are provided here but that doesn’t stop Marlene or any of the other people clustered around the spigot. (Reminded me of college, but we won’t go there.)
Both of our guidebooks mention an alternate route into the mountains which will join the main route five miles later. When we reach the junction in the road, we come up on a group of eight or so young hikers trying to decide which way to go. We planned to take the alternative route, but pretend to be indecisive. The last time we took an alternative route, we had a marvelous experience at the St. Stephen’s Church and are game for doing this again - only we don’t want to be in a cluster of other pilgrims. So we study our maps and wait for them to make a decision.
The main route is more traveled and appears to be very accessible. The alternate route looks like a tractor or cow path and leads up through a plowed field and into a distant woods. Finally, the hikers choose the main path and are on their way with a cheery exchange of “Buen Camino.” We look around to be sure no one is following and quickly hike up the hill to get into the woods and out of sight. Sure enough, one lone hiker ends up following us, but he quickly passes by. He is Dutch, twenty-something, and in great shape. After a brief exchange of pleasantries with Marlene, he, like us, wants to walk alone, so we say goodbye and never see him again.
Subsequently, we have a quiet, almost elegant, hike by ourselves up and down hills and fields for most of the morning. Several of the mountains in the distance we realize have monasteries, or castles, or some sort of fortifications near their summits. I can’t imagine the work it took to build such structures. Whether to isolate priests or fight off the Muslims invading Spain or protecting villagers from marauders from neighboring regions of the country, you can’t help but wonder. Still, we recognize we are seeing a glimpse of the area’s rich history and its people.
We love this walk and after a week of being together have gotten comfortable with each other. Soon we are talking about our lives. Marlene tells me she lost her mother due to a drunk driver hitting her mother’s car head-on with his pickup truck when he crossed into her lane. Marlene was in her early twenties. This is a shocking story and we discuss, as we walk side-by-side, what it must have been like for Marlene and her sisters. So too, I lost my mother in my early twenties when the small plane my mother was flying in crashed into the Allegheny mountains. I assure Marlene, when she looks over at me in disbelief, for my brothers and sisters and me, my mother’s sudden death was devastating and took many years to get over.
And our fathers? I discover Marlene’s father died a year or two after her mother. My father died of cancer back when I was a teenager, though he and my mother had separated for a number of years by then, and, as a result, as a teenager, I don’t recall his death being that big of a deal. At least for me, being next to the youngest in our family. He was never around anyway.
Still, I realize, as we take a break for water, we entered our twenties with both of our parents dead. Whether with children (Marlene) or work (my family’s business), we had to go on. Now, forty years later, standing on a hillside in Spain observing the distant range across the countryside, Marlene reminds me of the support we received from our spouses’ large Catholic family. Their mother, in particular, embraced us both, even with her involvement in the day-to-day issues all eleven of her own adult children were experiencing.
Yet, with so much in common, we seemed to have taken different paths to arrive here. Marlene’s faith in her family, her work (even after she retired), her community, and her church fueled her desire to walk the Way, and her word “surrender” seems so appropriate for her - I get it, surrender to God. Yet, I can’t help but wonder what I am supposed to take away from this pilgrimage - beyond Santiago when I return to my life? “Surrender to God” isn’t me, isn’t something I would ever consider if I wasn’t on this pilgrimage, but I so want to be content like I am now. Is it really “serenity,” the word I chose in the Pyrenees, that I am looking for? Why is this so important? This test of endurance seems so futile if I can’t answer this one simple question.
We rejoin the main route midday at a crossroads with a old village woman playing the accordion. We stand for awhile and listen to her play. Marlene has some coins from the gift shop and gives them to her. I press for us to move on. In the sky I can see the rains are coming.
Blessed are you, pilgrim, if on the way you meet yourself and give yourself time without haste so as not to neglect your heart.
We arrive in Los Arcos after a five-and-a-half mile afternoon hike and are happy to find our hostel, the Pension Los Arcos, a small boardinghouse off the main Camino “route” by several blocks. This is the first town we have come to that looks empty. It has a farm town feel with dusty streets and closed warehouses. Though we pass by an ancient church-like structure, no one is around. Of course, we are here at 3 PM and, perhaps, the “traditional” siesta has a strangle hold on the locals. Certainly, the stores here that still look open are temporarily closed in the heat of the day.
Los Arcos, for us pilgrims, it is simply an overnight “way” station. Not much to do or see in the town. We arrive early enough to hang wet clothes out the windows of our room. These clothes were from the wash tub back at Estella that didn’t get a chance to dry. In addition, we wash our current hiking clothes in our bathroom sink and hang these throughout the room, in our closet, and on the back of the desk chair, hoping they, too, will be dry by morning. I am now wearing tomorrow’s outfit and this is my last set of clean clothes.
We go to a restaurant up the street for dinner and are among the first to arrive. So many restaurants, we discover in the course of our journey, don’t open until seven o’clock, which drives us crazy as we are completely famished by seven. Still, as we order and eat our pilgrims’ meals of soup and spaghetti, listed at a good price on the chalk board out on the street, we watch a young woman, who appears to be the proprietor, run the bar and handle all the tables. In particular, she helps an elderly woman who sits at a distant table across the room. We discuss that, perhaps, this woman is the proprietor’s mother. At her age, she barely acknowledges the frequent attention she receives from her busy daughter.
Soon, other elderly women arrive in the restaurant, and, before long, these women sit in all the tables near us and near the door. Several are pulling worn playing cards out of their old purses. This must be their locale for playing some sort of (tournament?) card game, at least on Monday nights. All of the tables slowly fill and the young woman seems to know everyone. Several, in turn, try to chat with the elderly woman near the rear of the room before proceeding back to their tables.
Both Marlene and I enjoy being here and find ourselves frequently studied by the older women, some of whom smile at us as they start playing cards. We are the outsiders intruding in on their lives. We want to stay for desert, but recognize we need to give up our table for several women slowly making their way into the room, one with a cane requires significant assistance from the others.
For these women, Los Arcos, our one-night, overnight stop, is not a “way station.” Rather, they could be the last testament to what was once a thriving town.
“How sad,” I say to Marlene, walking back to our pension. “How very sad.”
Marlene says, “God has provided them with each other and an angel in the proprietor.”
She adds a minute or two later, “Perhaps they feel more blessed than us.”
Beautiful journaling. And the photos!