There are a lot of bulls on the way to Pamplona. I don’t know why that surprises me.
The official pilgrim’s hostel in Roncesvalles is the only structure aside from an old Spanish monastery that dots the landscape. Many of the 150 people that make up the entirety of the town’s population are volunteers at the hostel, or employees who tend to the buildings at the grounds. Were it not for them, the place might not exist. While it is a substantial drop from the 4,500-foot peaks on the way from St. Jean, you’re not quite all the way down to the valley and out of the foothills. The descent from Roncesvalles to the midway point of Zubiri is steep, covered in rocks, slippery, and unforgiving at times, but the scenery is as equally rewarding as the day before.
I walked into the courtyard to stake out the direction of the path and grab a coffee, when I noticed the old church door was open in the adjacent wing. Inside the door is the beautifully appointed chapel that serves as an auxiliary location for religious services at the hostel. The room was fairly cold and dark with the exception of the brilliantly lit altar. I wandered curiously and took a few photos, before I crossed paths with a plainly dressed man in one of the alcoves, who was sweeping up after morning services. We chatted for a bit as he asked me about my background, how far I planned to walk, etc. He noticed the straps on my pack were uneven and helped me fix them, and then inquired after my feet, shoes, and overall general preparedness. I turned to end the conversation and shake his hand, but he instead grabbed my forehead, broom in hand, and pronounced a pilgrim’s blessing.
I’d been chatting with the pastor at Roncesvalles and just didn’t know it, and I felt suddenly embarrassed that I’d failed to recognize him. He wished me “a peaceful journey” and “the wisdom to see God’s hand in all things.” It was a great start to the morning, and I was through the tunnel into the Enchanted Woods before as the church bells rang behind me (they do actually ring the bells too – a great sound).
I took a picture of the informational placard as I trekked into the Enchanted Woods (for later leisure reading), not wanting to think too much about the apparent history of witchcraft and witch burning that made it such a great place to be. It was dark, I’d just started walking, and I really didn’t want to mess with the mojo. So, I booked the first 2 kilometers and got out of Dodge.
Being such a well-established network of hiking trails, there are scenic detours and bypasses that keep you on the Camino, but briefly divert you to interesting historical sites and religious houses along the way. I’d mostly kept to the main road, but I decided that the route through Burguete was worth missing the guidebook detour, and would be far less strenuous. Burguete first captured the American literary imagination in Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises, which describes the town in stirring detail, and affords protagonist Jake Barnes a few quiet days of fishing along the banks of the town’s rivers and streams. Hemingway’s own early 1920's trip to the town and down the Camino to the San Fermin Festival (Running of the Bulls) inspired the plot and location, and it remains a staple of every American high school backpack to this day.
Hemingway stayed at the Hostal Burguete while he was writing nearly a century ago, and I had to knock and ask if I could come inside when I got there. No answer, but a woman who was sweeping the sidewalk acknowledged me, and a negotiation ensued. The hostel was closed for cleaning, she insisted (everyone has to be out by 8am), but I didn’t want to stay, I just wanted to see the piano in the back parlor room as I knew others had done before. She eventually relented, and I ran in for a 20-second glimpse of “the piano Bill played to keep warm.” Inside the top lid, etched into the wood: E. Hemingway 25-7-1923. I have no idea if he actually etched his name into the thing, but it was pretty darn cool.
I walked with a pack of folks who would occasionally pass each other, fall behind, and then pass each other again as we each found our rhythm. But when we walked together, we still walked mostly in silence, very careful not to disturb someone else’s peace and quiet. As we wound our way down into the valley below, I found myself thinking of my great-grandfather Ysidro for no particular reason. Cuco, we called him, was a gentle, blue-eyed, teddy bear of a man who was always busy doing something. Building a shed? Check. Hand-rolling homemade Cuban croquettes? Check. Replacing a neighbor’s door? Ok. What about that blue, white-top ’67 Oldsmobile sitting in the driveway? Took care of that too. The every man’s man.
He was a carpenter by trade, quiet and reserved by nature, but you remembered his laugh if you ever had the good fortune of hearing it. His passing when I was 13 was my first real experience with losing a close-family member (my great-grandparents were daily constants in my life), and I remember the jarring reality of suddenly realizing that this was going to happen again and again as time charged ahead. I hadn’t spent a whole lot of time thinking about it before then, and there wasn’t anything I could do about it. Looking back, family members recall that he had a sense about the end of his time as it drew nearer, making food for family members he hadn’t seen in a while, and helping us rebuild the fence in our yard after Hurricane Andrew. He was getting things in order. Tying up loose ends. He knew. His photo in the center of the mantle of my parent’s home in Miami is still one of my great comforts when I walk through the door.
Nearing exhaustion and tired of stepping on jagged rocks, I pulled up for an afternoon beer at a small taverna just before the town of Zubiri, in Biskarreta. Recognizing the look of a tired pilgrim and seeing the heavy pack fall from my shoulders with a thud, the bartender whipped around and grabbed a frozen mug out of a small refrigerator before pouring me a delicious San Miguel. He had deep blue eyes, and I noticed the name tag pinned to his light-yellow shirt: Isidro F.
I thought of the pastor at Roncesvalles and his blessing, then sat back and smiled, and had one for the old man.
My daily dedication is for my grandparents and great-grandparents – the ones I still have and cherish (Raquel, Alberto, and Merida) and the memory of those who have gone before, but did so much to enrich my life. For so many years, they were the gravitational center of our family’s orbit through good times and bad, and they remain towering examples of having a strong work ethic and devotion to family as grounding principles for living a happy and fulfilling life.
I had two roads to choose from at the start of the day, though it doesn’t seem I had anything to do with the choice at all.
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could go
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and water wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I –
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
Robert Frost
- The Road Not Taken, 1916
Tomorrow, we run with bulls.
Onward,
Will