Camino de Santiago Day 1: St Jean to Roncesvalles
I begin my Camino with a full-on assault of the Pyrenees, the wind in my sails and the sun in my hair. Don't let anyone commiserate with you: it's the sort of challenge that you live for
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Start as you mean to continue:
I wake in the dark some time after 6; by the time I’m showered, packed, have eaten breakfast and am leaving the hostel it’s a quarter to 8.
By the time I’m walking through the gate in the town’s wall at the end of the street it’s 8 o’clock, as I stopped into the church for a minute to say a prayer and gather my thoughts, but mostly because I stopped to take pictures, and got a French gentleman to take a few of me, in my hiking gear and finally wearing my backpack containing all my things, my school uniform on, ready for my first day at school.
I power past a group of chattering elderly French ladies before stopping for some photos as the sun rises and washes away the mist from the valley that we are intent on leaving. Every time I stop they’ve caught up to me. At one point as I power on past them again I hear one commenting that I’m going awful fast, before I stop again and they once again catch up to me. I tell them I prefer to go fast and stop often.
Start as you mean to continue.
I’d been wondering about using the phone while I walk – even considered leaving it in the backpack. To stop and record beautiful things in words or photos or just in mind; or to keep walking and let it wash all over you – the eternal dilemma of the artist, of the human being. Maybe photos do steal your soul, but not the one in front of the gun, as it were: the one behind it.
“Everybody gon’ respect the shooter,
but the one in front of the gun lives forever”,
or something like that.
It’s a misty morning in St Jean, the brown stone buildings burning red through the cloud. At least it’s not raining.
The tarmac road south forks and begins a fairly steep ascent into the hills.
Not only is it not raining but the sun is coming out from behind farm houses, parked trailers stacked with logs or hay, hedgerows that wind with the road.
I begin to join a slow and steady trail of pilgrims, the odd car passing as I stop to take photos of fields, of corn, of tractors, of farms, of mountains and of the sun.
I’m beginning to work up a sweat. It’s much steeper than I was expecting, though we do have an entire mountain range to cross today.
It’s 25km (give or take 1 or 2) from St Jean in France to Roncesvalles in Spain. St Jean sits at the foothills of the Pyrenees, about 200m above sea level – the highest point today is over 1400m, before a steep descent back down to Roncesvalles at 1000m. They say it’s the toughest day and that the Camino is ‘mostly flat’ thereafter.
I had just learned from a recent cycling trip not to trust the words ‘mostly flat’.
On the way I begin chatting to fellow pilgrims, as I’ve heard that’s what you do on the Camino. However I’m still walking way faster than most people and find it hard to sync my walking speed with making conversation with strangers. At least I feel entirely myself today, unlike yesterday where I realised early on I wasn’t in the form to have an intelligible conversation with anyone. However being entirely myself means I still prefer to walk as fast as possible rather than to adjust my pace to chat to strangers.
In any case, I’m still not sure what the rules of engagement are here: do you just barge in and interrupt other people’s walk by chatting them up? I assume most people would rather be left in peace to walk in solitude – I don’t want to interrupt whatever spiritual quest they’re on, certainly not if they’re hoping to get off to a good start here.
Let us all just walk and enjoy the nature, eh? Enjoy the solitude, being present in the moment, yeah? All this nature, don’t be wrecking my head talking to me.
Looking back it’s kind of funny how your expectations of other people’s expectations of the Camino interfere with your ability to make normal conversation with friendly people. A returning pilgrim would tell me later that evening that you can see how no-one quite knows where they stand – second-guessing what they think they ‘should’ be doing, keeping to themselves or just going along with the crowds – for the first few days. Once you’re past Pamplona people begin to relax into the trip and become a bit more open as they get used to the Camino life.
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The higher I climb along the road the closer I get to the sun – it’s a lot steeper than I was expecting.
The hills roll around like sponge cakes, farm animals dotted all around, hills stacked on valleys stacked on other valleys, a Super Mario World of sponge-cake and cookie mountains which pop up like tropical islands from the sea of mist that blankets the world perfectly, yet to be peeled away by the sun.
The first stop is Orrison, about 7km past St. Jean. Many pilgrims split the journey from St Jean to Roncesvalles into two by stopping here – the steepest part is over. I stop for coffee and a sandwich with my first Camino friends, a couple from Dublin (of course). On a deck overlooking the valley the view is sublime, and I have to admit that some views are just better than others.
I stay for close to an hour before realising I should probably get going, as I’d already felt like I was the last person leaving St Jean this morning. Only 7km done and there’s a mountain range to cross. 100m up the road I get a text from Dad: “Orrison? Condors next”
I tell him I’ve just left that very minute – well guessed – and he replies that I must have had a “good night last night” cos I’m “running late”.
I’m looking forward to the condors.
The road continues to climb but flattens considerably after Orrison, winding its way gently up as the hedgerows and woods give way and the mountains and sky pull back in all directions. The day and the environment continue to give.
Days from now it would become apparent, and a regular point of conversation right to the end, that the weather this week took away as much as it gave; every second day was either wet, overcast and miserable, with poor visibility, or like today: glorious sunshine, blue skies and incredible views.
It would rain for most of the following day and so I felt blessed with the weather I got. To be honest, I didn’t really know what to say to anyone who told me they did this walk in the rain, with no views. It would become an ordeal rather than an experience. Though as I realised coming to the end of what would be an unexpectedly dry trip overall, although we may enjoy sunshine and comfort the most, there are different ways to see the world, and different weather simply provides a different perspective of reality: there is no ‘right’ weather to experience the world in.
Still though – I think if I’d done this in the rain I’d have to go back again and do it in the sun. It’s that good, and sure don’t I’ve enough rain at home.
The backpack isn’t too bad. Although the climb is steeper than I was expecting I’m also fitter than I was expecting, and I’m storming over the Pyrenees like Napoleon, making it my business to overtake every pilgrim I pass.
I get into the routine of wishing ‘Buen Camino’ to everyone, testing for signs of any interest in reciprocating with a conversation, though most seem more content to stick to themselves.
I take photos and jump over felled logs like a boy playing in the woods.
I feel like I could walk all day.
I enjoy the sight of so many wild-roaming farm animals: cows, sheep, horses, all wearing cowbells that make a pleasant soundtrack to silence.
I reach the food truck that I’d been advised is the only spot for refreshments between Orrison and Roncesvalles. It’s more of a travelling shop, stocked with cereal bars, fruit, wheels of cheese and local sausages (of course). Portly men in berets and farmer’s vests stand around yapping and drinking coffee. Cowbells clink as a couple bookend a procession of large cattle, guiding them slowly over the mountain, the only traffic up here.
I get some water and take my snacks for the road.
Around the corner and at a plateau at the top of the mountain, and almost right on cue:
A lone condor floating in the air, circling and gliding higher and higher. I sit on a rock and enjoy my snacks, pausing for the first time in the wilderness. More condors hover into view in the distance.
The Camino veers off-road and over a small rocky trail onto a dirt track. The border crossing to Spain is almost non-existant; the main indicator is a text message from a Spanish phone operator welcoming me graciously to their country.
I’ve made it to Spain.
I pass through nicely shaded trails, though don’t care to slow down.
Lone birds of prey swirl in the air, sometimes I see two or three at a time but they all seem to spin on their own time.
It’s past midday and I still have 5km to go. I’ve heard from someone, or read somewhere, that the alburgues tend to fill up by 2 or 3pm and it can be hard or impossible to find a bed thereafter and so if anything I start walking faster. I’m kind of loving it though – maybe it’s first day enthusiasm but I feel like I could walk all day.
Maybe this will all be easy.
I come out of the woods and the valley opens up – in the distance the satisfying sight of a quaint little village (from here it looks quaint, it could be a run-down shithole overrun by drugged-up adolescents and feral dogs up close); slightly closer is a monastery.
As I descend the mountain trail I hear a whoosh that I presume to be distant thunder – maybe the close heat stirs up monsoon rains in the mountains. When I turn though I realise it’s not thunder:
CONDORS
A flock of condors (a ‘condo’, apparently), twenty of thirty or fifty come slowly floating over the hill like an army on patrol, the collective power of their wings making the sound of an approaching storm.
Having only seen them in ones, or twos or threes all afternoon, here and there, now they seem to have all regrouped into one large unit, though not with the menace of an attack squadron, more like a gang of friends heading home after a day of hunting, their work done. Maybe they work in France and live in Spain, to avoid paying tax or something. Whatever the reason for their sudden convergence, it’s a powerful moment, an ominous one but in what feels like a sign that good is about to happen, not evil.
I wonder if anyone else saw it, or felt like it was just for them.
By the time I get to Roncesvalles I’ve a bruise in my toe from my fairly rapid downhill descent – I became increasingly worried I wouldn’t find a bed. I get into the monastery at 2:30pm, all checked in nice and handy, still feeling out the etiquette and procedures of alburgues, where to eat and how things operate around these parts.
As it turned out, I’m probably in the first 30% of pilgrims in the place, judging by the number of beds taken.
Not only that, when people ask in subsequent days how long it took me to get from St Jean to Roncesvalles, and I tell them six and a half hours (with an hour coffee break) they think I’m a maniac.
Start as you mean to continue.
In the coming days I’d learn that there isn’t quite the need to rush that I’d assumed on the first day; and in the days after that I’d realise that I didn’t actually have the ability to rush quite that fast again.
Most people I’d meet split the trip in two by staying Orrison; the alburgue must be like Dr. Who’s tardis inside for the relative number of people who stayed there. Many people commiserated with me for doing the whole thing in one go, as if it were some sort of ordeal; though the reality of it is I did it all for myself, and it made me feel alive.
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.
Am totally looking forward to reading and following your journey in the Camino. I have done a short one (5 days) last 2014 and has been thinking of doing it again starting from St Jean de port hence really interested in your blog.
Keep safe and looking forward to your next blog.
Buen Camino Peregrino!