A
spontaneous choir are singing jotas* at the gate of Bar Kaioba until the
small hours of the morning:
"Like
a wounded partridge that came to die in the grove..."
"Let
her go to hell and die..."
"If
the cow charged you, to hell with you!..."
"Don’t
fuck me on the ground as if I was a bitch, and with these big balls you
throw dust on my cunt..."
etc.
As
you can see the folklore of the country is not mean with time and
imagination and so therefore can afford to provide sound and virile
pastimes at fiesta time.
Paca
and I leave their room at quarter past six in the morning and we head for
the Alto del Perdón with great humility provided by not having slept a
wink.
In
the ascent of the Alto del Perdon we meet a very fat man, almost like a
Sumo wrestler, he is sitting on a rock. A woman is with him. The man is
puffing and panting and it seems that he cannot go ahead. When we greet
them we notice by their accent and the flag on his shirt, that they are
Brazilien. It looks as if the man has let himself in for an impossible
adventure. They give us such a helpless image that we bashfully leave them
alone.
-
What
a nice idea to install fans so as to keep pilgrims from getting tired
while they go up!
-
Excuse
me, madam, but they are aeolian energy generators!
-
On
top of this, do they produce electricity? So, all the better!
When
we get to the top of the Alto del Perdon some bikers ask us to take a
picture of them. One of them is Santiago’s son, the neighbour we greeted
the day before,
When
we leave Uterga we meet two young girls that, wearing a kind of violet
habit, are doing the route in a mendicant style. They knock at doors and
beg for food in the villages. They are from a foreign country. Some
pilgrims tell us they have also seen the girls and they nicknamed them
"The Little Shepherdesses".
In
Muruzabal we overtake another pilgrim, she walks as slow as a turtle. The
slow pilgrim carries a rucksack, she has plastic bags tied around her
everywhere and in her hand a staff topped with a shell and a Spanish flag.
Can you picture that?
We
arrive at Puente La Reina at eleven o’clock and we lodge in the pilgrims’
hostel of the Hotel Jakue (500 ptas per a pilgrim). Paca and I quietly
tidy ourselves up, we are alone, because we are the first pilgrims to
arrive at this hostel today. The hostel is private and new. It is on the
ground floor. A double room with bathroom costs 17000 pesetas (VAT not
included) in this hotel.
After
a while a very fat woman in deep mourning arrives at the hostel. She is
pushing a trolley. A man, about a good twenty years older, is with her.
They both maintain they are on the pilgrimage, but they are going by road.
We have never seen the couple. The woman is very very big and neither she
nor he look as if they have walked a single kilometre.
After
a while, a sixty year-old man arrives at Jakue’s hostel. The man has a
rest in bed without unplugging his headphones from his radio. His name is
Pepe and he comes from Jaca, walking the Aragonese route.
When,
after washing ourselves, we go in search of the bar for a juice, we find
the slow pilgrim with the Spanish flag there. She is sitting beside a
table, eating a tomato salad with anchovies and drinking a big glass of
red wine.
After
an hour, our colleagues the pilgrims are still waiting for the municipal
hostel to open. By the way, this hostel has a personal computer that is
not still connected, like the one at Larrasoaña. There are three bunk beds
and mosquitoes in the municipal hostel, people tell us.
We
greet Sevillian people, the Five Alpines, the Bishop and the Archbishop (we
gave these nicknames to the two elderly pilgrims with the big staffs) and
other known pilgrims at the entrance of the hostel. We drink a glass of
Navarrese wine in a free tasting post next to the local hostel.
The
two foreigners with the baby and the black boy also arrived. How did they
do it? Only they must know. Nobody saw them walking. Everybody tries to
help them. They accept their help graciously but do not answer questions.
They leave the same way they come.
We
eat the Sunday menu because today 11th is Sunday. The Sunday menu at the
hotel Jakue costs 2500 pesetas, but it is very good, I am pretty sure.
Everybody
knows that working on Sundays is a big sin, so Paca and I go for a siesta.
Then we go for a walk along the town. We visit its churches. They show us,
all the pilgrims, the Santiago Beltza (A black Santiago) and the Virgen
del Txori (A Virgin with a little bird). We finish the day feasting on
fast-foot and a glass of red wine in a tavern.
Paca
and I sleep all alone in a pavillion for twelve people in Jakue’s
pilgrims’ hostel. And the most wonderful thing is that it has a sauna
for 500 pesetas!
*jotas.-
Popular Aragonese and Navarrese dance and its music.
Stage
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