We Pilgrims on the Camino de Santiago

PART I

September 2003

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León to Astorga

Gaudi's bishop's palace in Astorga

Day 1 - León to Villar de Mazarife

On a sunny morning in the autumn of 2003 I stepped off a train in León to begin my first ever Camino. I had no idea what lay ahead and I was hilariously ill-prepared. I'd first heard about the Camino de Santiago on another sunny morning years before that in a mountain village in France called Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port, where completely by chance, I'd spotted a group of pilgrims with their backpacks starting their journey to far away Santiago.

Despite my Catholic upbringing in a Catholic country, I had managed to spend the first 32-odd years of my life blissfully unaware of the Camino's existence. All I knew was that the walk had a beginning and an end, but I had never met anybody who had walked any part of any Camino and what lay along that long trek was a complete mystery to me.

My online research had yielded almost no information. My only reliable source was an ancient guidebook with useless maps and from this I'd gleaned that if I showed up in León I would find a pilgrims hostel where I could sleep and where I would be issued a passport giving me access to other hostels. It all seemed surreal and if I hadn't actually seen those pilgrims with my own eyes ambling out of Saint-Jean, I wouldn't have believed such a thing was possible at the dawn of the 21th century.

At work I told them I was going to Spain for a week, carefully avoiding saying anything more specific in case the whole thing turned into a complete fiasco. On Friday evening after work I flew to Madrid and the next morning got a train to León where, in the warm late morning sunshine, I set out on foot carrying my backpack. It was the only one I owned and it had served me well on various holidays. It wasn't a hiking backpack, it was more like a soft suitcase you could carry on your back, and for the Camino it was completely unsuitable. Of course, I'd also packed far too much stuff. And nearly all of it was the wrong stuff. I had a couple of changes of clothes, jeans, cotton socks and T-shirts, rain-gear that wasn't waterproof, a spare pair of shoes, an ambitious quantity of reading material, and loads of other things you'd normally bring on a week's holidays.

It was probably just as well I only had a week.

I had no map and only the vaguest of directions and in the narrow, winding streets of León's city centre I was soon completely lost. I wandered for a while at random until, in desperation, I accosted an old lady, who somehow seemed to know I was looking for the albergue - as pilgrims hostels are called - and exhibited a surprising degree of concern, even accompanying me for a considerable distance because it was obvious I couldn't understand her directions, and pointing the street out to me.

Despite her best efforts I still had trouble nailing the albergue down and walked past it twice thinking it was a garage. I don't know what I had expected an albergue to look like but I think I'd expected it to stand out a bit more than it did, and obviously I didn't expect it to look like a garage. When I eventually found it (it's connected to a convent and its entrance, even today, really does look like a garage) I suddenly found myself in a world which was entirely foreign to me.

Reception was outside in a courtyard, under an awning. Lots of people were milling around when I arrived but there was nobody to check me in. Seeing me looking a bit lost, one of the pilgrims took it on himself to propel me upstairs to the dorm where he motioned to me to take a bed and make myself at home. So I did. I copied everyone else and spread my sleeping bag on my bed and stored my backpack beside it. Then I went back downstairs.

In the meantime the hospitalero - as the people who run the albergues are called - had reappeared. He was an elderly French gentleman and he looked at me in surprise over the top of his reading glasses when he saw I had no luggage. He then looked at me in greater surprise over the top of his reading glasses when I told him I already had a bed because another gentleman had given me one. This prompted an annoyed remark about people 'taking it on themselves when clearly it was none of their business' and an intense scrutiny of the assembled masses to try to identify the culprit. This having been unsuccessful, he asked me where I'd arrived from. I told him I'd come from Madrid on the train. With a shrug he asked me if it was my first time and I confirmed that it was. Then he asked me if I'd walked from the train station and I said I had. He explained that the hostel was really only for people who arrived on foot but since it was my first time and I'd walked from the station he'd let me stay anyway. He then did something which surprised me, he told me I was very welcome and not to worry about a thing.

We sat at the table which served as reception and he began to walk me through the formalities of issuing me a pilgrim passport (later I found out it's more commonly called a Credencial). First he asked for my identity card and when I handed him my passport he was surprised to see that I was Irish because from my accent in French he'd taken me for a Belgian. So I explained about how I'd lived in Luxembourg for six years, and, well, hence the accent. He complimented me on my French and apologised for his lack of English. Then, copying from my passport, he filled in my name, date of birth and nationality on the Credencial and at the bottom of the page he wrote 'León', explaining to me that this is my starting-point and that your starting-point is important. Then he wrote my details into an enormous book before swinging it around for my inspection and signature.

Then he handed me my Credencial, took my money, and all the formalities were complete. I was checked in and officially a pilgrim. He shook my hand and said Bienvenido Peregrino!

I thanked him and storing my Credencial carefully, set out to explore this new world into which I had just been admitted.

I looked around the albergue (which in the intervening years hasn't changed much), got kicked out of the women's dorm, found the showers and wondered at there being only three for all those people, and had a good look at my fellow pilgrims. They were mostly elderly French and German men with a few Spanish here and there. I remember being astonished at how strong and fit and sun-tanned they were. With more than half the Camino behind them most of them had already been walking for several weeks, some for a lot longer.

I went out and walked around the surrounding streets for a while, looking for something to eat. It being early evening there was nothing going apart from tapas, which suited me fine, since my Spanish didn't really extend to reading a menu. So after tapas and a couple of glasses of wine I headed back to the albergue and sat in the reception area and observed the few pilgrims arriving in at that late hour and the comings and goings of the pilgrims who were already settled in. Many were heading out to dinner in groups and I felt a bit left out. I had random conversations with a few random people then it got quiet so I sat and read.

At about half eight a nun came in and asked if anybody wanted to go to the pilgrim blessing. There were only three or four of us there and we all demurred. She made a comment to the hospitalero which I didn't understand but which I assume was something along the lines of, fine bunch of pilgrims these are. There was shrugging of shoulders and what-can-ya-do gestures on all sides, and she disappeared.

I was a guest of theirs again several years later and, nuns being nuns and being pretty good at foisting religious observance on the reluctant, they'd come up with a way of upping their numbers. They had moved the curfew back to something ridiculously early, so everybody had to be back in the albergue before the pilgrim blessing began. This way they have a captive audience! The last time I was there, their attendance rate seemed to be approaching 50%, which is pretty impressive given where they started.

Anyway, people arrived back in dribs and drabs and we were packed away to bed at some childishly early hour and I slept very badly. It was Saturday and the convent albergue in León is in the Zona Humida, the area where all the bars are, and the noise outside went on until the early hours. I had no earplugs so I lay awake for hours until exhaustion got the better of the party outside. Somebody - I can't remember who - once described night-life in Spain as consisting of a lot of standing around and talking. They hit the nail on the head.

When I awoke the lights were on and (it seemed like) everybody else was already up and silently packing their backpacks. I got myself up and, just because I was a complete newcomer, went and had a shower, wondering all the while why the showers were empty. I think everybody knew I was new because one man took it upon myself to tell me what I now call rule number one: don't shower in the morning. If you do you'll be putting your boots on when your feet are wet, leaving you more susceptible to blisters. And, as any pilgrim will tell you, you don't want to be susceptible to blisters.

It was like that in those days, you learned as you went along. People told you what to do and what not to do and helped you where necessary. There were no internet forums where you could ask thousands of questions and read millions of answers on every possible aspect of Camino life which had already been asked by generations of bewildered prospective pilgrims before you. You arrived, like I did, wide-eyed and apprehensive, with absolutely no idea what to expect or what was expected of you. But, with the help of other pilgrims, you figured it out pretty quickly.

Nowadays I think some people arrive over-prepared - and as the author of a book which tries to help people prepare, I fully admit I'm guilty of cashing in on the preparing for the Camino industry. But some people prepare and plan so thoroughly that there's hardly any room left for surprises or spontaneity.

Anyway, back to León where, half asleep, numb, bewildered, I stumbled out into the pre-dawn city and followed other pilgrims through the streets for what seemed like an eternity. We passed a café and there were pilgrims inside so I went in myself, desperate for a coffee. As I drank my coffee and ate my croissant I experienced for the first time that early morning Camino ritual of breakfast television news on RTVE, followed by the all-important weather forecast. Then, as the dawn light turned the morning sky to grey, I hit the road again.

Eventually, after wandering for what seemed like forty days and nights, the urban sprawl dissolved and I found myself on the open, dusty Spanish meseta, the high altitude plateau which takes up much of the centre of the Iberian peninsula, where I soon fell in with two pilgrims who were walking together. Arturo was an engineering student from Ourense, and Wolfgang an elderly man from northern Germany. With my rusty German and basic Spanish I soon became the translator between these two friends who had, if I understood correctly, been walking together for several days already.

At the time my Spanish consisted of a couple of hundred words, tops, and quite a lot of French with a Spanish accent, mixed up with quite a lot of pure guesswork. You can go a long way with very little Spanish if you know some French and don't mind making a fool of yourself. You can throw in a French word where you don't know the Spanish because lots of the basic words are fairly similar, pan, vino, dormir, grande, bien. It works OK for simple stuff, although there are many pitfalls. You'll get funny looks if you say burro for butter (it actually means donkey), and you'll get lots of laughs if you say teta for head (it means breast). And once you get beyond the basics, and especially when you start encountering verb conjugations, the results quickly become very hit-and-miss and the potential for misunderstandings are limitless. Although it helps that Spanish people are quite receptive to pointing and gesturing as a way of making up for gaps in vocabulary.

We three pilgrims advanced at a leisurely pace that morning. Arturo was suffering from a sore knee and was walking with the aid of a stick and with some difficulty, especially on descents. It was sunny but not hot and our frequent breaks made the going easier. Early in the afternoon it became obvious that Arturo's discomfort was increasing, so when we came across a man in a van who was accompanying a group of pilgrims (remember, this was 2003, so the man in a van phenomenon isn't as recent a development as some people would have you believe) Wolfgang accosted him to ask, mostly through sign-language and pointing, if he'd mind giving Arturo a lift. He was very obliging and cleared a space for him among all the luggage and arranged to drop him in Mazarife where we'd easily find him. Mazarife at that time only had one albergue, a so-called municipal albergue, owned and run by the local community. Today it has three private ones.

With Arturo gone Wolfgang and I continued at a brisker pace. I was fine with this and didn't really feel tired when, about 5km before Mazarife, we met a group of French pilgrims who had spread out along the Camino for quite a distance. This irritated Wolfgang who accelerated to try to pass them as quickly as possible. I followed for a while but when I fell into conversation with a woman from Toulouse I was relieved to slow to her pace and watch Wolfgang disappear into the distance. I wasn't in any discomfort but now my legs were tired and I felt like I couldn't match Wolfgang's speed any longer. The French woman was friendly and chatty and happy to meet someone who spoke her language, and the remaining distance to Mazarife, across featureless, flat farmland, passed quickly. Once in the village we said our good-byes and I went in search of the municipal hostel.

When I arrived, an argument was in progress between an Eastern European pilgrim and the hospitalero. The Eastern European pilgrim was alone but had the Credenciales of two friends who were walking behind. He wanted to check all three of them in for the night. The hospitalero was trying to explain to him, with the help of other pilgrims and in a variety of languages, that people could only be checked in when they arrived. It was my first day and even I knew that (having read it in my guidebook). I waited, saying nothing, for the discussion to end.

The Eastern European pilgrim eventually gave up and left and I was checked in and paid my €3, got my Credencial stamped, and was pointed in the direction of the dorms, without having understood a word of what was said to me.

That hostel has since become a private hostel called Albergue de Jesús. It has been extensively renovated, including the addition of a swimming pool, although to call it a swimming pool is being generous because it has no water filtering system and is really just a concrete pond painted to resemble a swimming pool. They've also built some kind of Viking boat in the back garden which is visible from a great distance and looks faintly ridiculous. But at that time the albergue was just an old village house which had been treated to a very perfunctory renovation and the addition of a shower room, toilets, beds and rows of mattresses along the covered balcony which encircled the inner courtyard.

I installed myself on a mattress at one end of the balcony, excited by the idea of sleeping outside under an awning. Arturo was there too, although Wolfgang had apparently continued to the next village, 15km away. I was pretty astonished that he had had the energy to keep going. The distance I had walked that day was the furthest I had ever walked in one go in my entire life. There was no way I could have continued. I felt exhausted and stunned, almost like I'd been beaten up. I played rugby in school. Twice. Both times in my first week there. And that's how I felt after my first day on the Camino, like I'd been chased around a muddy field on a dark November's evening by a group of ruddy faced, hairy legged, farmers' sons wearing boots that seemed to be designed for inflicting pain. Even the freezing shower room, lukewarm water and total lack of privacy all felt vaguely familiar.

After my first week in that school I'd found out from the other nerds in my class that you could sit out rugger practice in the safety and warmth of the library with a book open in front of you and that nobody would bother you. But here on the Camino there was no escape! So, although I had enjoyed the day's walk, as someone who'd spent my life thus far carefully avoiding most forms of physical exercise, I was beginning to wonder what I had gotten myself in for.

After lying down for a while, I just about managed a walk around the village. Mazarife, apart from the addition of two albergues, a (horribly) renovated church and a spruced up bar, hasn't really changed much in the intervening years. It's a sprawling agricultural village, typical of that part of Spain, where farm-houses and outbuildings are clustered together rather than being out in the countryside. It had one small shop which was closed but which opened for us after one of the locals told us to knock on the window. (Recently, in another Camino village, I saw a sign on the shop door telling people not to knock if it was closed - they must have gotten tired of being constantly on-call!) There wasn't much in the way of food in the local bar so I bought myself some bread and cheese in the shop and the shopkeeper presented me with a free bottle of the local wine. It was red, properly corked, but with no label of any description. I couldn't understand why I'd been the recipient of such generosity. Maybe she's taken pity on me! But when I got back to the albergue, clutching my prize under my arm, I discovered that everybody who'd been to the shop that day had also been given a bottle of the local plonk. It was receiving good reviews too! In some parts of Spain a quantity of wine is put by every year for local consumption. It isn't aged, so it doesn't fit any of the standard classifications, but it tastes fine. (They're hardly going to reserve the crap stuff for themselves, are they?) If you ask for 'El vino de aqui' / 'the wine from here' in shops in wine regions they'll often produce an unlabelled bottle from under the counter and sell it to you for a euro or even less.

So, it was bread and cheese and wine for dinner, shared with an eclectic bunch of pilgrims sitting around