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It
is twenty past six in the morning when we leave Belorado, it is cloudy and
it rains as if in Galicia. Two American women walk with us, they are
Catherine and her mother. They do not know the route (they fear getting
lost) and so they walk with us for a while. They leave us, they do not
trust us very much. You know, how these Yankees are!
Paca
and I have breakfast in Espinosa del Camino. The bar is very humble and
there is no coffee machine, but the landlady is an industrious woman who
prepares coffee with milk for the pilgrims on her own cooker. We have our
white coffees with some homemade fried donuts. Two boys meet us, they are
two of the Five Alpines that we met at Roncesvalles and who today are not
together. Two Italian women, from Rome, have breakfast with us.
The
rain continues when we arrive at Villafranca Montes de Oca. We do not
enter the bar where the trucks stop, because some people have told us that
it is not a good place.
Villafranca Montes de Oca.
We
stamp our credentials at the pilgrims’ camp/hostel (Kosovo-style) that is
there. Then we suddenly start to go up the mountain. It will take an
hour to get to the summit. The Mojapan well appears slowly amidst the
fog and rain, then the monument to people who were shot there in 1936
during the Spanish Civil War and, finally, after crossing along some
kilometres among wood and pine trees, San Juan de Ortega.
In the Fuente de
Mojapán, with rain and fog..
A
little while before arriving at San Juan de Ortega, we find Salo, Miguel’s
daughter, who goes with three of the Five Alpines. The boys and the girl
are having a nice time. You can hear their laughing and shouting from a
long distance. I take a picture with Paca in the group. We leave them,
young people like to be on their own.
Salo, the
Alpines and Paca.
We
get San Juan de Ortega at noon. The priest opens the pilgrims’ hostel at
one o’clock p.m. and he does not seem very happy with pilgrims’
voluntary alms. The hostel is spacious, old and with a lot of tradition in
the Camino, it has cold water, but not toilet paper. The hostel is a
monastery with a nice cloister and a church. The priest is the only one
who lives there all year.
San Juan de Ortega
In
his dignity, this priest inspires both respect and grief, the same grief
that came from people who, devoting a lot of time to others, rarely
receive the same in return.
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"Mass
is at half past seven for those interested, I close the hostel doors
at ten o’clock, if anyone is outside at this time, he will have to
deal with the wolves. Is this clear?"
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"Father,
can we donate some money?"
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"Yes
but, please, never more that 10.000 pesetas. Put it in the iron box in
the wall.", says the priest with irony and then adds :
"Oh, I forgot to mention! I usually cook garlic soup for we’re
having dinner together, but I haven’t done so for some days now
because it does not make sense with such a huge crowd. Is this
clear?"
We
have lunch at the only one bar, we eat the only meal that is available: fried eggs,
black sausage, spicy sausage, pork sirloin and red wine. Welcome to
cholesterol paradise. I beg your pardon, I forgot salad. We have the same
for dinner. The boy in charge of the bar is very nice and very solicitous
towards pilgrims.
You
can find a lot of "pilgrims" here, but the real pilgrims know
each other, there are not many of us. Late in the evening a bus picks up the false
pilgrims who, quickly and ashamedly, get on with their rucksacks towards
Burgos.
At
ten o’clock everybody is in bed. Nobody wants to sleep outside in this
isolated place. The priest was not joking, he closes at ten o’clock and
that is all. Is this clear? So, you know what to do.
Stage10  Stage11 |