Camino de Santiago Day 5: Puente la Reina to Estella
Five days in - nice scenery, nice walking, nice landscape, nice people, and so on, and so forth - the landscape shifts again but I think I get the gist: it feels like I'm running out of things to say
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“Running out of things to say”
It says in my notebook.
Becoming aware of how often I talk of
‘cobbled streets’
‘old buildings’
‘friendly people’
and
other trite analysis
Over-dressing beautiful things in words is just as boring,
Maybe this is my Camino: how to stop writing down every single thought that comes into my mind
Though as with my walk, I must go on.
I must try.
Winding red dirt paths through green vineyards over brown earth, under blue skies, spiky evergreen pine cone trees; blue grapes hanging from trees leading up to whitewash and sandstone villages.
It hadn’t occurred to me in advance that every single Spanish village would be so old, so beautifully preserved, so naturally evolved over centuries, so aesthetically – not just pleasing, but – revitalising. To walk through them is to be born again to a world of the natural evolution of rugged, natural beauty, over the sterile functionality – more commonly known as ‘soul destroying’ – of modern architecture. We all use that phrase ‘soul destroying’ all too casually, without pausing enough to consider what it actually means, and the actual life-sucking and debilitating effect that it has on us, the exhausting trip to Tesco we think nothing of dreading, or commute to the perfectly square torture chamber that is the office. Some day soon I think we will realise that buildings and towns and cities are and should be alive just as we are, that things purpose built for commerce and entertainment alone are harming us more than we realise.
And so I stopped for a while in Cirauqui.
The most beautiful sight in the world is a clean line of sight carved through the heart of an ancient village – the natural evolution and juxtaposition of buildings seems chaotic to the orderly modern urban planner, though in fact deep down these arrangements are far more pleasing to us, they speak of life and authentic growth.
We might think of beauty in terms of symmetry and perfection, but this is not what speaks to us, this isn’t what stirs our hearts deep down.
We are organic, we are not planned from the top-down, nature is imperfect and therefore it is perfect.
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We are attuned to find a sense of organic evolution and flourishing to be beautiful, even in man-made places, buildings and businesses have grown as naturally as the branches of trees over centuries, and so do towns;
Streets that span the width of a conversation between neighbours,
Or the length of outstretched hands exchanging loaves of bead for gold coins, or offering a hand to mind a baby.
Generations of family houses stack on top of one another. An enclosed corridor leads through to the next stretch of the Camino, down some stairs and out into the open again,
Today is the first time where you really feel you are on a quest as the trail teaches you the Camino traditions of old, by showing not telling. From one village you can see the next in the mid-distance, perhaps a distance of 4 or 5 or 6km, it’s church spire sticking out above the other buildings. This is how pilgrims would have travelled in the old days, from church to church, monastery to monastery, guided only by their senses – and of course, the stars: the Camino is said to follow the path of the Milky Way (today’s destination: Estella, meaning ‘star’ in Spanish, was named after this) – and thus was followed long before Christian times or the establishment of a religious trail. You couldn’t learn this and not think there was something magical in this path, whatever the secret of it is, though you can feel it as you walk it today
Some assorted Camino thoughts:
Someone had suggested I should walk the Camino without my backpack – there’s a service for shipping it on to each stop – but I couldn’t imagine it now. It’s already a part of me, I’d feel naked without it. “Your backpack represents you”, for better or worse, and carrying it will make you wiser
It is good to experience meeting such a diverse group of well-wishing people – impossible to find in day-to-day life, everyone has such self-centred concerns and cynical outlooks – the poison of the modern world
I walk in horse shit cos I’m writing notes in my phone while I walk, the smell of it follows me down the road, and the little grass I find is too dry to clean my boot
You may not take much notice of that Spanish couple or old German guy, but every day that goes on and you see them still showing up, as much as you have, your subconscious respect for them grows – “they’re still here” – and vice versa.
And some day you will get to know each other.
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.