Camino de Santiago - Day 0: Saint Jean Pied de Port
I've been gone for a while but now I'm back. I've just been doing a bit of living: walking, travelling, writing, and - most importantly - meeting people.
Sometime shortly after the All-Ireland final I decided to turn my attention from a never-ending spiritual journey to one that, although quite long, has a definite destination and endpoint: the Camino de Santiago.
The Camino de Santiago (or ‘the oul’' Camino in Hiberno-English) refers to a series of pilgrim trails which traverse some portion of Spain and/or France and converge on the city of Santiago de Compostela in the north-western province of Galicia. The most popular route is the Camino Frances, named after St. Francis or the country of France – I never found out which.
The Camino Frances begins in the town of Saint Jean Pied-de-Port in France’s Pays Basque, walking distance from the border with Spain high in the Pyrenees mountains. Walking distance, that is, if your greater intention is to walk the 800km that crosses the entire north of Spain to bring you to Santiago (Saint Jean is about 20km to the Spanish border).
Which is what I would spend the next five weeks doing.
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I flew to Biarritz on a sunny Thursday morning, Dublin airport feeling like it was back in full swing again. Got the bus then to Bayonne and then to St. Jean Pied de Port. Kept trying to speak French and kept inserting Vietnamese words instead (“Je di au Bayonne” – well at least I haven’t completely lost those).
In St Jean I marvel at the old medieval buildings, the narrow cobblestone alleys, the cheese shops, the foreign words and rampant cigarette smoking. St. Jean reminds me of Sapa in Vietnam (everywhere reminds me of somewhere in Vietnam), a mountain gateway town that’s full of shops selling trinkets, jewellery, local sausages and cheap hiking gear, as well as being full of people buying them who look like they’ve never hiked a day in their lives, and tomorrow will either embark on their first ever hike, or take the bus home wearing things that make it look like they had.
I actually feel intimidated by the ones who look like they don’t hike or exercise, like a blend of wisdom and honest naivety that only age can grant you, along with some other je ne sais quoi, might be more important than physical fitness or walking experience in determining how one finds the physical and mental tests of the Camino.
I’m trying to find my hostel though some guy directs me to the Camino Pilgrim’s office, which is right next door to my hostel. This is very convenient, though to be honest it’s a bit too convenient, as now I feel obliged to join the lengthy queue for twenty minutes to do this chore rather than do the chore I want to, which is to check into my hostel, wherein I could at least potentially sleep or shower or not stand in a queue.
In the queue some American ladies make light-hearted conversation that tries to include me and I have no energy or interest in mustering up any responses. It could be tiredness though it feels more like Day 0 nervous energy – despite feeling quite excited about the trip and the meeting of people that travel facilitates, I’m just not feeling it today. Feeling a bit off, in one of those forms where no matter what you do or what effort you make you just won’t be on the same wavelength as anyone you speak to, everything will be mildly wrong, you will not be yourself.
In any case I feel guilty talking to people in English, even though any time I try to speak French it comes out in Vietnamese, and I don’t know any Spanish. I’m tempted to speak in Irish just so I can play the comforting “No speak-a the English” card. Instead I remain mostly mute, mainly as I can’t think straight in any language. Every statement ends with ‘Por Favor’, the language spoken on tomorrow’s walk, in tomorrow’s country, by tomorrow’s people, and one that I don’t even speak.
I will begin walking tomorrow, and maybe I’ll begin thinking tomorrow too, and learning Spanish.
In the Pilgrim’s Office I get the low-down from an American lady who has lived here since she was 12 yet has managed to retain a strong Californian English accent for the best part of 60 years. Beside me is Kathrine from Germany, who graciously offers to pay the €2 fee for my Pilgrim’s Credential as they didn’t have change at the office – the credencial is the large foldout passport-thingy (‘booklet’ in English) which you get stamped at each stop as proof of the distance of the Camino you’ve completed, as souvenir (every alburgue, restaurant and café has their own unique stamp), and perhaps most importantly: you need the credential to stay at any public, religious or private alburgue along the camino – they’re reserved for pilgrims only.
I know how to spell Kathrine’s name because following this brief meeting and act of pilgrim-like kindness – in an act of fate and synchronous energetic bonding which was so predictable we all would have called it right there and then – I would meet her again the following evening when I arrived in Roncesvalles, then at dinner, get to know her further as a friend walking on the road, and despite not seeing each other for several weeks after Logrono, or ever exchanging numbers, we bump into each other several times in Santiago, including at the plaza where we both came to meet another mutual friend. This is the Camino, after all.
(I was just flicking through photos from Saint Jean and spotted the distinctive head of a gentleman named Ignacio from Sardinia ahead of me in the queue for the Pilgrim’s Office - I didn't know him then but would see him regularly and get to know him somewhat over the subsequent days and weeks before we diverged on different walking paces, before meeting him again in Santiago, and finally, as I arrived for the early morning bus from Fisterra back to Santiago, he was there waiting at the bus stop, the very last pilgrim I would bump into - I gave him a big hug. So it goes.)
The official tells me as I leave that I look young and fit so “you’ll find it easy” with a wry laugh.
In my flustered Day 0 language-fumbling state I pause for a couple of seconds before blurting out “Oh I expect it to be easy”, hitting stop on the roulette wheel of possible replies in my head and deciding that this is about the height of wit and honest speech that I’m comfortable with descending to today, this is about all I can muster, with what I intend to be a cheeky smile but is more of a nervous laugh.
I’m half-joking which means that I’m half serious. I find these nervous chokings – that’s not what I meant to say, I was only joking, etc. – are often more telling and honest than we’d like to admit. Maybe I am expecting this to be easy. Physically, well I’m sure I’ll get tired and stiff and so on but I’m sure I’ll manage it as well as anyone. Mentally, who knows – I’m mentally in quite a good place and don’t feel like this walking or travelling for a month in a safe and relatively familiar country is going to exact too much of a toll on me. There’s always the unexpected of course: how am I going to deal with that?
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Chores done, I was able to check in to my hostel. Looking for some food I become disappointed over and over again. I’m reminded that this is France and the kitchens close between lunch-time and dinner-time. Only an animal would eat outside of those hours, and so after doing two laps of the relatively small town centre checking the same places twice, partly because I’m coming at them from the opposite angle and can’t be sure they’re not the same building, especially when the hostel guy gave me the poisoned chalice of hope of promising me that this one would be open (“perfect for you”, which I take to mean “the cheapest one in town”) I’ve to wait for dinner.
Nevertheless I’m enjoying once again being a in a place where I don’t fully understand what is going on and am effectively an idiot, whether conversationally or through ignorance of local customs and how things are done.
Not only is my French rusty but there’s Basque to contend with here too. It’s aesthetically pleasing with all those x’s and k’s, though perhaps only aesthetically pleasing as I don’t think I hear it being spoken by anyone, seems to be all French.
I find a café where I can sit and drink first coffee, then a couple of small beers before dinner. It’s a damp grey evening but there are groups of young people out and about.
There are far more pilgrims here than I expected – I didn’t think many would be doing the Camino this year compared to other years.
I take out my notebook and I write. And write and write and write. I’m trying to get a neat couple of pages outlined as to why I’m doing the Camino, and what I hope to get from it, but it’s proving to be more difficult than I thought. What do I want from this experience, from this trip that has proven over centuries to give so much to the people who undertake and complete the pilgrimage to this ancient religious site?
I feel like I’ve quite a clear vision in my heart of what I want from this though in trying to articulate it honestly it’s difficult, I keep circling the drain with cliches and generalisations and what look like gushing book blurbs though I can settle on one thing:
I have come here to travel and to walk, and to write about my experience, whatever that experience is.
Maybe I don’t have some burning reason to be here, other than curiosity and an interest in both walking and travelling? I don’t feel some drastic need to change anything with my life, as so many pilgrims tend to, or at least believe they do, such is the power of one of the many historic cliches of the Camino.
Café by a main road, spacious tarmac pavement. Wicker chairs under gazebos, rain dripping off. French accordion music on the stereo. Young lads sit around drinking demi-de-bières, then a round of gin and tonics. Pilgrims and locals sitting around drinking coffees, smoking casually, the streets evaporating around us as the rain dries. I write.
I relax.
When it gets dark I pay up and go for one last lap of town to walk off dinner. The town is quiet now, silently dripping after the evening’s rain. The old brown medieval stone sparkles. The silhouette of the surrounding mountains is cinematic, but its matte colours resemble an anime movie more than live action. The town seems to have already gone to bed, or at least the pilgrims have, as there is work to be done in the morning. I could do with sleeping myself, though first I take some photos.
This is not my first rodeo, and I know there’s always a bit of turbulence when you embark on a journey, as your mind and spirit are caught between worlds, the one you are leaving and the one you are about to enter.
Don’t write the trip off yet, rest well and you’ll be fine.
Tomorrow I’m going for a walk.
If you’ve done the Camino, are thinking of doing it, or are just interested in discussing the Camino or travel in general - then please leave a comment! I’d love to hear from you.
Beautiful writing, makes me feel as if I am there! So vivid and honest.......
Enjoyed that . Looking forward to day 1!