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We leave Guadalajara by train at half past nine in the morning on
July the eighth. Our destination is Pamplona. Vicente Pastor takes
us to the railway station. We meet a biker pilgrim on the train. He
is a man from Cádiz who is going to bike it from Pamplona to
Santiago all alone. He has a mobile phone and he does not stop speaking
to his wife and friends during the whole trip. He tells us that the
most exciting thing of the route (Camino)* is living it alone. Imagine
that!
It's two o'clock in the afternoon when we arrive at Pamplona. We go
to the town centre by bus (95 pesetas). Even though it is Festivals
of San Fermin, we have a squeare meal at "Casa Manolo",
near the bus station. After eating and while we wait for the departure
of "La Montañesa" (the bus that goes up to Roncesvalles)
we have a cup of coffee in the "Plaza del Castillo" and
we wander around the crowded streets of the old town laden with our
rucksacks.
Lively atmosphere. There are plenty of beggars, ticket-sellers, buskers,
stoned people, drunk people, tipsy people, African drummers (who,
surely, must have made it here far less comfortably than Paca and
I), mimics, pickpockets, and all kinds of people. Pilgrims, like us,
with their bulky rucksacks, drift among the crowd like dumb fat people
that strike everything they pass.
It is six o'clock when "The Montañesa" leaves for
Roncesvalles. The bus is crowded. We are leaving Pamplona, when a
small red-scarfed grandmother sternly stops the bus in a street. The
old lady orders the driver to let two biker pilgrims on. They had
been asking the lady for the departure point of La Montañesa
just at that very moment. This is civility for you, yes madam. Boldness
if you like. Because you must be very brave to pluck up the courage
and stop a bus in chaotic traffic of the Festivals of San Fermin.
¡Aupa, grandmother!
The two pilgrims, we learn they were two bikers from Tenerife late
in the evening, carry their bikes inside the bus and join the shorthaired
club. (We Pilgrims, who crowd the bus, look as if we are just about
to start our military service).
Paca and I chat with a group of five people from Seville during the
trip. They are 52, 40, 38, 19 and 16 year-olds. The only woman is 19.
All of us are nervous and all the more so when we see from the bus
the route we have to walk towards Pamplona. It is impressive. We are
so excited that we do not stop speaking; it is as if we are lifelong
friends.
At quarter past seven we are in Roncesvalles. We go to the Abbey where,
with a lot of fuss and question, one of the canons marks our pilgrims'
passports (credentials), asks us for the reasons for our pilgrimage
and tells us, in a very circumspect way, that both the Camino and
hostels for the pilgrims have been crowded the whole year.
Abbey of Roncesvalles
We go to a sung mass at eight o'clock. The canons speak about the
protection the Saint will provide the pilgrims, the protection that
pilgrims will receive from the villages and townspeople (Shame on
you if you do not help a pilgrim!!). Canons also speak, search me
why, about the great significance of women's virginity. Have you got
any news about relaxed morals in pilgrims' hostels?
As I'm getting a little bit bored, I use the "...peace be with
you" moment to kiss my wife with loving care and then to kiss
a foreign young woman, next to me, in the same way. The foreigner smiles
at me happily (she must think this is a country custom) and Paca,
in anger, pokes at my ribs.
Some pilgrims get moved with the "Salve" song.
Instead of going to the "campa" provided by the army (Kosovo
style) we get a room in the Hotel La Posada. There we also have a
copious dinner...
*Camino.- I use this word so as to mean the whole trip and its various
names and guises (Camino de Santiago, Road of Santiago, Route of Santiago,
The Way of Saint James, Le Chemin de Saint Jacques, Camino Frances,
GR65, GR653, E3...)
Stage
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