about Estella, Navarra, Spain, September 15, 2016
I am sitting in a spacious apartment in the lovely small city of Estella. It is the 1st place where I thought I could live in Spain. It is personable with lots of small shops crowded around numerous squares.
I am happy because I was able to renew my phone with the help of a very patient young female sales clerk. Her English was limited. My Spanish is a shallow mess. But somehow we got it figured out.
I now have a Spanish phone number with plenty of text and data. This means I am no longer flying blind. Last night was a perfect example of why following the pelegrino route without a working cell phone is a bad idea. I understand that millions of people have followed this route for a millennia without a cell phone. I am happy to not be one.
I had purchased a pre-paid SIM card in Amsterdam—to my endless consternation and confusion. I conducted the transaction in English. But every communication after that was in Dutch. I could never figure out how to establish my account or upgrade my service. I would get come on messages, “Gebruik deze surprise deal alleen vandaag door’m te claimen op HTTP:// xxxx of bikijk een van de andere deals.” Even with the help of Google translate, I couldn’t quite understand what was being said. (Every effort to add more minutes to my card reminded me of the joke Jean-Marie Allion about the Dutch language. “The Dutch must gone have to the Czech Republic and stolen all their vowels.")
I cannot check ratings, make reservations, or look at the town’s website with a dead phone. Had I been able to do any of these, we would not have ended up where we did. We follow the guide book …and the crowd to a Pilgrim hostel on the lovely hillside town of Chirauqui.
It had been a long walk from Uterga, where we really enjoyed our accommodations and company but felt somewhat taken advantage…7€ breakfast, anyone? (away from the Camino, a great breakfast costs 2€.)
Many, many of the hordes with whom we are marching choose to stay in the lovely river town of Puente la Reina. They line up outside the door and around the corner of the cobblestone streets waiting for a chance for a bunk bed in a crowded room. The city was built in the 11th century to serve the medieval trekking hordes making the same hike we make today.
We make our way through the narrow streets, punctuated by ancient thick wooden doors set into arched foyers, little shops selling high priced wine, sausage, books or tobacco. What are some sage for books or tobacco.
We step into a square and squat church built long before the efflorescence of Gothic spire churches. Inside, it is dark and quiet and there is a strange little man there to stamp our pilgrims' passport—for a small donation, of course. But we are taken aback by the sight the massive bronze baroque main and side altars….so incongruous, so unexpected, so dusty and neglected. We sit for awhile and just look. There’s no stained glass. There’s no organ, just these strange middle European altars. They would not be a surprise in an 17th century Austrian church, but we can't fathom how they came to be in this tiny Spanish village.
On the way out of town, we cross the eponymous 11th Century Bridge. We stop on the high second stone arch to have a conversation with bright red parrot in a cage on a fourth floor terrace cage. Our short whistles back and forth capture the attention of spaniel on the second floor terrace, and the chickens on the ground.
We leave the town built for pilgrims to make our way to our hilltop sanctuary. I had noticed even before Puente la Reina, but especially afterwards, in the hot drylands above the river, a curious ant phenomenon. About every 25 to 50 meters or so, there is a big, busy ant superhighway. They are going from the nest, to the drying fields across the path-- hundreds of ants are picking up chunks of straw many times their size and making their way back to their nest.
Big ants, little ants, on hills and on flats, have gotten some message and are making their back and forth across the path? Why are they getting the straw in such a committed, communal effort? Do they feel the touch of fall in the air? Do they perceive the black and threatening clouds on the horizon?
We make our way through fields of grapes just turning red, grey green olive trees with masses of small green olives, and the occasional fig tree. The air is scented with ripe anise, from which I pluck and savor small yellow blooms. The ancient village glows on the top of its hill in the afternoon sun. We are tired. We have been walking a week and Wes is now wearing his sandals, having thrown his boots away, not only for the pain they were causing, but also because the soles were flapping away from the body of the boot.
After climbing all afternoon from the bridge crossing, we are ready to stop and concerned about the dark clouds and lightening in the distance. We follow a maze of alleys to the top of the rise, where the first thing we encounter is a group of drunken young men dressed in red and white. I try to warn him off, but Wes asks them for directions…in English… They surround him, laughing, poking, and prodding, until we make out one is pointing to a nearby sign.
Near the top of the town, we spot a massive tent with any equally massive sound system. It is the local festival. In a nearby bar, white and red clad young adults dance and roar to the thump of techno music.
At our albergue, our landlady is all business, hectoring like a seventh grade gym teacher. “This is your room. Don't lose your key. Dinner is at for 11 euros. We don’t provide breakfast. You need to get your own food from the store when it opens at 6pm; lights out at 10 PM. You must be gone by 8 AM.”
Our room is functional. We are glad for the private shower and that we are not sitting glumly in the crowded dorm waiting for a chance to clean ourselves and our clothes. There’s no common room, no place to tarry, so people crowd on the porch and sit cross legged on their wooden bunks.
At 6 PM, the crowd makes its way to the little carneceria, where we buy sausage, yogurt, juice, bread cheese, and a Coca Cola(!) for 6 euros. My stomach turns a little when it hits me have paid for 2 meals what we have often paid for one crummy breakfast. We rush back to hostel just as the rain begins to pelt.
At dinner in the low slung basement, we are seated with 2 male Brits, and two Spanish women. The women speak almost no English. The older male Brit has no Spanish and apparently no interest in acquiring any either. His partner, perhaps brother or cousin, has been living in Barcelona for 6 months and has passable conversational Spanish.
But he is neither prepared nor interested to serve as Mr. Instant Translator. I try to say a few sentences. Wes talks loudly and slowly. ..In English...But the stories are too complicated and the room is too clangy and loud, so conversation is a challenge.
The food is passable. I have no idea what the watery, bland bright green soup is, but the salad is fresh and delicious, and the spaghetti is voluminous and tasty. But no one is having much fun.
We beat a hasty retreat to our small room. As the rain subsides, the music begins. At first, we are tickled by the brassy sounds of folkloric music, followed by brassy, well rendered big band Jazz.
Then the cover band starts. We are less enthralled by imitation Frank Sinatra and Elvis Pressley, interspersed with Adele, and warbling corridos. By the time the lights are turned out at 10 PM, Wes and I have put in ear plugs.
We sleep fitfully, while the sounds of the party roars into the night. At 2:30 AM, I wake to the sounds of the band wailing Gloria Gaynor, “I will survive, I will survive” followed quickly by Queen’s “We will, we will rock you!” The world's least skilled, but most prolific cover band plays unrelentingly until 4 AM.
At 6 AM, the albergue wakes, if it has, in fact, slept. There's no coffee nor any place to get any. We pack and get out, just as the dawn is starting to peak over the eastern hills. We make our way through the detritus of the all night party --plastic glasses, spilled beer, piles of vomit, and corners reeking of urine.
The road out of town follows a derelict and rocky Roman road, then over and even more derelict and dangerous Roman bridge. As we march through the cool morning light, I see stretching before and after me dozens of hikers.
What brought them from Italy, the US, Canada, France, Germany, Australia, New Zealand, Korea, Greece, Japan and who knows where? I cannot say, but like so many ants, we march towards a goal not seen or understood, but driving us ever onward.
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