I lace up my boots, slip on my backpack, and head out to the city center of Pamplona as it slowly comes to life. The day is usually a stressful day for me; April 15, taxes are due, and this ordinarily causes me anxiety. But, per my agreement with my CPA the year before, we would have the return filed by April 1 in anticipation of my pilgrimage. I can’t honestly say there is no stress today, but the stress of this day is more physical and is compensated by stunning views of mountains to cross and rolling hills of rapeseed in full bloom. Yellow flowers spreading in every direction as far as the eye can see.
Some of my friends spent an extra day in Pamplona taking in the sights. My rest day would be postponed for another three days of walking. I’m still in the first week of walking since leaving St. Jean Pied-de-Port, and the physical demands of walking five to six hours every day are starting to take their toll. My knees are aching, and the soles of my feet hurt like someone has been pounding them into submission. My body is angry with me, which is no surprise, but I am told this only lasts for two weeks, then the body complies willingly.
I have trained myself to be comfortable in my discomfort, and trusting that I only have another week of my body resisting what I am putting it through, it seems a little easier.
I am walking with Jerry, my friend from Australia, whom I met in the first kilometer out of St Jean. We emerge from the outskirts of Pamplona and see the hill off to the west lined with large windmills, and know this is a hill we must climb over in order to get to the day’s destination of Puente la Reina. At the top of the hill is a famous sculpture of pilgrims facing the wind as they cross to Santiago. This hill is also known as Alto del Perdón (Hill of Forgiveness). It rises to more than 2,500 feet in elevation, and it is there that we will rest a bit and have a picnic of sorts.
The climb is grueling over loose stones, with patches of mud. The trail is very narrow in spots, maybe only a couple of feet, with the cliff on the right-hand side offering an unforgiving descent of hundreds of feet. Paying careful attention to every foot placement becomes mentally fatiguing in a way that is equal to the physical fatigue. Wispy hints of clouds in the distance offer hope of protection from the direct sun.
Finally, we reach the summit, and my elation is uncontrollable. I am giddy, and I snap multiple photos of these iconic sculptures alongside all the other pilgrims. So many different languages are spoken; I feel as if I just climbed the Tower of Babel. Jerry and I find a place to sit down; I take off my socks and shoes and dig into my backpack for the meager provisions I thought to pack. I produce some sausage, a half loaf of multigrain bread, and a not so sweet cookie. Jerry shares his dates, and we feel like we are dining at the Four Seasons.
It is on the descent of this hill of forgiveness that I realize there is nothing forgiving about this decline. It seems almost straight down and a mix of potato-sized rocks and gravel. Every step registered extreme pain in both of my knees (the good one and the other). Everyone seemingly was passing me. I have never felt so old. At the bottom, under a tree, Jerry was kind enough to wait for me. I apologized for my tardiness, to which he replied, “No worries, mate.”
The walk to Puente la Reina would take another three hours, mostly along paved and dirt paths. We fell into a nice rhythm, interrupted only by my stops to take another picture or to fill water bottles along the way. Since we were staying in different places, we parted company at the first church upon entering the city. I popped into every church along the way each day to pray. I found many of the churches in remote areas locked, but the three between this one and my hotel were all unlocked, and I hit each one.
The town is named for the eleventh-century bridge, built for pilgrims in honor of the queen; the name translates to “Bridge of the Queen.” Like other small towns I had passed through, this one had narrow cobblestone streets and an abundance of churches. The main road crossed the bridge, where I was to travel the next day on my way to Estella.
After I washed my clothes (and my body), I set out to explore this beautiful city and discover this famous bridge. As it turned out, the road ends at a gate leading to the bridge, making it difficult to photograph the six arches of this Romanesque bridge. I crossed over the bridge and, looking back, took the photograph for this post. I am so happy that I did, because if I had waited until I crossed the bridge in the morning, it would have been under cloud cover with loads of people crossing.
It was once I crossed over that I saw a small park on the other side just under the bridge. I thought, what a perfect place to write in my journal and have a pre-dinner snack. I crossed back over the bridge, found a bodega, and procured a non-alcoholic beer, half a loaf of bread, and a large bottle of water. By the time I sat down, I was quickly joined by a handful of twenty-something pilgrims. I watched as relationships formed before my eyes.
They discussed their home countries, reasons for walking, fields of study, and generally getting to know one another. I found this to be a beautiful part of walking the Camino. There is an intimacy among fellow pilgrims that would never exist in the “real world.” Walls and pretense don’t exist. Social status doesn’t exist. If you find yourself in this little corner of Spain, it is only because you walked here, on your own two feet. This is the great equalizer. We have shared history and a shared goal.
It would be weeks later on the Camino that I would make friends with some of these very same people and learn: one was a PhD in Plant Biology, one lives a block away back in England from a woman I would meet in the next week, one recently graduated from university, two would develop a relationship, and none of them were from the US. I was 25 years older than the oldest of the group, and every bit their peer.
As a person who is deeply interested in people, I found these little encounters one of my favorite parts of the Camino. Unlike other ways of traveling, in which one may encounter and make friends with others, the Camino provides a six-week opportunity to travel alongside and bump into others over 500 miles. If you didn’t get a chance to chat when you first met them, don’t worry; you will get another chance later. More on that in a future post.