6. Quo Vadis

“I know where you’re going” said a voice as I bounded across the main plaza in Villava, just outside of Pamplona. I was walking alone and hadn’t seen any other pilgrims for a while as we approached the busier outskirts of Pamplona.

The elderly man, leaning against a red bench in the hot Navarrese sun, motioned for me to come over. I obliged, and he grabbed me by the arm as he pointed his other finger in the air and began, in a raised voice.

“I used to go to Santiago every week – 1000km there and back on consecutive days. But I’m smarter than you are because I drove a truck.” We laughed for a moment, and then pointing his finger at me, he said, "people used to walk from here to heal their wounds, but some things are just too dark. “Jesus could walk through here with St. Peter on a burro, and some would

never forgive.”

He was talking about the sectarian divisions that evolved in Spain following the bloody and ruinous Spanish Civil War, and the Franco dictatorship that followed from 1939-1975. A few moments before, he’d been watching as I stopped to take photos of a pair of memorial plaques on the main road – plaques that commemorate the location of former residences which no longer exist. The homes were razed, and the occupants assassinated in the chaotic early days of the war. Secessionist slogans were spray-painted on the wall above the plaques.

“Es una absurdidad – It’s an absurdity,” he said, before going on to tell me about his own journey to Santiago many years before.

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Sectarian symbols are everywhere in Spain. We think of it an integral country, but Spaniards don’t really see it that way. In fact, they don’t ever really refer to themselves as Spaniards – they’re Galician, Navarrese, Castilian, Catalan, Basque, and so forth. They know they’re different, and they’re not willing to set aside those differences for the sake of achieving an ideal of national unity. The division has roots in the way the Spanish nation evolved and isn’t part of any deep-seated resentment held by one community over the other – it’s more so a question of cultural identity and how best to preserve it.

An oversimplification of the Spanish Civil War puts Monarchists and Nationalists on opposite sides of the trenches, with General Francisco Franco leading the eventual Nationalist victory, which exiled the Spanish monarch in 1939, and saw the installation of a near 40-year military dictatorship. It’s a time in Spanish history that is generally not spoken about in public as part of the pacto del olvido, or the pact of forgetting – an implied social contract. Spaniards have agreed not to revisit the dark days of their recent past, though so many of the issues that remain unresolved, have roots in the period.

The Camino begins firmly in the heart of Basque country, and Basque symbols and flags appear alongside and beneath Camino way-markers, as a subtle way of reminding you where you are. There are flags, graffiti drawings, Basque-nationalist slogans and anti-monarchical propaganda as you walk about, right there alongside St. James and the distance markers that move us slowly westward. Spain’s return to democracy in the post-Franco days was an uneasy one, and the Spanish federal government created a complicated network of autonomous communities that were intended to appease and soften these regional sentiments, while preserving national unity. The intensely bureaucratic structure has instead perpetuated the problem by inadvertently formalizing and promoting a certain degree of insularity, with each autonomous community passing its own set of laws with respect to officially recognized languages, the language of instruction in schools, and tolerance for interference in their internal affairs by Madrid. It means Basque, Catalan, Galician, Castilian, Gascon, and Aragonese as languages are all part of the mix, and how you speak says a lot about where you’re from. While the Camino passes through Basque country, the ideals it represents stand in sharp contrast to the political reality that surrounds it.

Like Gaelic in Ireland, and Welsh in Wales, Basque is prominently displayed on all street signs alongside the Castilian equivalent (sometimes above, or in the place of, altogether). Many Navarrese switch effortlessly between Spanish and Basque, and the language is spoken at home in varying degrees by about 900,000 people. Basque fluency is a source of pride for many, following years of brutal repression by the Franco regime of Basque and Catalan speakers alike. It makes for an interesting mix (Castilian Spanish and Basque having very little in common on the surface) and can make a fluent Spanish speaker like myself feel oddly out of place despite speaking the mother tongue.

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The conversation with my new acquaintance turns back to my plans on the Camino, and the remaining distance to Pamplona. “Take your time” the old man warns, “the descent isn’t for the faint of heart. You’re close, but you shouldn’t hurry.” Pamplona is part of the agricultural heart of Spain. The road here takes you through vineyards, cabbage fields, apple orchards, and wheat fields, before the city begins to emerge through small windows between the hills as you descend into the valley below. It’s the largest city on the Camino, and once you’re in it, a sprawling metropolis like any other.

The old man must have noticed I was walking with a sense of urgency (after 7 hours on the trail) and was wise to warm me to slow down and take my time. On the final descent, I hit a loose patch of rocks and slid down about 6 feet before catching myself with my poles. I didn’t think much of it then, but my knee would remind me of that moment as the day wore on, and in the days to come.

After traversing much of the downtown area, you reach the boundary of the old walled city of Pamplona. Walking across the drawbridge feels like a bit like walking back in time, and you are instantly greeted by centuries-old churches and narrow alleyways that wind their way towards the city’s cathedral. No bulls would run today, but you begin to get a sense of just how dangerous it would be to try to outrun one of those suckers on these old cobblestone streets with 500 of your closest friends. Tradition, it seems, isn’t always pretty. Or smart.

I spent an hour in the cathedral admiring artwork and sculptures older than ol’ Chris Columbus himself, then bought a cold beer in the local taverna as my knee screamed in pain. A young woman from the Netherlands with hiking poles and tears in her eyes sat on the bench next to me and began bandaging her knee. Suspecting we’d suffered the same fate, I offered her some of my cortisone cream, and she confessed she’d fallen in just about the same spot (with the bruises to prove it). She was going to take a rest day in Pamplona to recover, and then carry on from there. I offered her some extra bandages I hadn’t used, and I wished her a Buen Camino before hobbling off to the train station to hitch a ride to Leon.

The physical demands of the journey would soon create new mental and spiritual demands, which would require just as much patience and care to heal.

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Today’s dedication is for my aunt Griselle, and for her 3 exceptional children, my cousins Anthony Michael, Alejandro Gabriel and Natalia Ivelisse.

When I arrived in Leon from Pamplona, I was fairly hobbled, and convinced that my injury would put off any chance I had of completing the Camino as planned. Dejected, I planned to take a day off to heal and rest in Leon, but not without increasing feelings of doubt about my ability to go on. I sent home messages, indicating my need to reevaluate, but was encouraged to soldier on and plan according to what my body told me after getting some rest. I listened, and found a room for the night, with plans to stay put and take a zero day between Leon and Ponferrada.

After checking into my bunk for the night, I found myself thinking about my aunt who, facing the most daunting chapter of her life, chose to soldier on and make each and every moment count – even the painful ones. It would be a betrayal of my praise for her, under far more dire circumstances, to allow a minor setback to spoil the opportunity to partake in and share this extraordinary experience. She refused to budge and found another way up the hill, figuratively, and I resolved to do the same, literally. I’ll write about my brush with abandoning the Camino in a future entry, but it remains only a brush to date, and I carry her fighting spirit in my heart tonight.

Quo Vadis, says a sign on the wall, just outside the shared bunkroom. Where are you going?

It asks the question but fails to provide the answer, or reference to the biblical account. Perhaps a simple and subtle reminder that sometimes the destination, is less important than the journey.

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Be merciful to me, Lord

for I am in distress;

my eyes grow weak with sorrow,

my soul and my body with grief.

But I trust in you, Lord;

I say, “You are my God.”

My times are in your hands.

- Psalm 31:9, 14-15

Postscript: Formulating this entry on the train to Leon, I stopped in upon arrival to see the magnificent cathedral that dominates the city skyline, and said prayers of peace for my great-uncle Antonino Suau, and for Krista’s grandmother Lila Fox, who both also fought valiantly against the scourge that is pancreatic cancer. May they have peace wherever their souls may reside, and may others walking up the same hill, have the strength and courage to soldier on and write the final chapters of their journey, in faith and serenity.

Will