Camino de Santiago Yellow Arrow
Start the Camino here:
@whymonkey/day-1-saint-jean-pied-de-port-orbaitzeta-part-1-3-a-pilgrim-s-diary
Day 1. Saint Jean Pied-de-Port - Orbaitzeta (Part 2/3)
One hour down the path and I was ambushed by a fiendish hunger, so I stopped to rest and have a bite. In the distance, two houses decorated a luxuriant green valley surrounded by mountains. The sun already soared in the blue sky, igniting the mist that drifted in the atmosphere. A chimney exhaled a white cloud that seemed to hang motionless, suspended over the valley. There was something magical in this moment that could not be put into words and so, I took my notebook and started drawing while resting from the two hours of pushing myself up the mountain.
An old lady passed by, treading gaily on a bicycle, probably the only person I had seen since Saint Jean Pied-de-Port.
"Bonne route, Pelegrin ...!" she wished me with a smile, a moment later disappearing in the curvature of the mountain. “Merci, mademoiselle!”
Just ahead, nailed to the yellow dirt floor of a crossroad and crowned with a seashell - the traditional symbol of Camino de Santiago - I came upon a shabby wooden sign, worn out by a thousand storms. The sign pointed "Vierge d'Orisson" - 1H30. When I came by Vierge d'Orisson, a statue rising boldly on the edge of a crest in the mountain, holding the infant Jesus in her arms, I found all kinds of offerings strewn around the statue. Small objects of all kinds - compasses, pendants, photographs, figurines and, funny, enough, a brown pair of worn-out boots, that had probably done El Camino back in their day.
Le Vierge d'Orisson
A few hours forward, I was in complete isolation and I began to grasp the true essence of the Pyrenees. In the pure mountain air echoed a deep and absolute silence as if some god momentarily stopped time and was about to breathe in the pure and deep cold soul of the mountain. It was so silent it was loud. No one for miles and miles. The space around me was quiet ecstasy. In any direction the landscape was a still frame, a painting lasting only for that moment in space and time. Only the sound of my footsteps and the rhythmic beating of my staff on the stony ground led each moment to the next. Eagles soared high above, gliding around in their unmistakably majestic flight and the sweetest fawn appeared running happily on the mountainside until she saw me and then turned around and ran in the opposite direction.
Around noon the water I carried was gone and, to my utter misfortune and I still hadn't found any natural source of water along the way. About five miles ahead, dry as the rocks I was walking on and after debating numerous arguments inside my head regarding whether or not the snow would make me sick, I took a handful of snow to my mouth, letting it dissolve and slowly extinguishing the fire that was burning in my throat. Then thirst took over and I ate indiscriminate handfuls of the snow that was lying on the side of the road, though I kept sensing that I was risking, at best, a severe indigestion. The rationality that came with that sudden hydration advised me that I should stop doing that, on the risk of getting sick and so, as I enjoyed a few minutes of very much needed rest time, I took my little gas stove and a cooker from the backpack, caught in a few handfuls of snow and threw them in the cooker to melt, doing the utmost effort to protect the small flame from the vicious wind that was blowing from the East, by using the backpack as a makeshift wall. Then and there, absorbing that beautifully landscape and having some time to unwind, I had this small epiphany in which I became aware of the situation - I was so overwhelmed by freedom, in a situation so out of everyday life, where my salvation depended solely on myself, that this deep feeling of BLISS took over and I smiled, alone, basking in the white peaks of the mountains all around me.
The Pyrenees
I waited for the snow, now transformed into water, to cool down and then drank eagerly from the cooker, overflowing with self-pride from that whole idea. Here’s to you Christopher McCandless!
Man, did I feel like a survivor of the wildernesses!
All that came tumbling down when I found out how foul-tasting that liquid was. The snow wasn’t exactly pure so I had boiled a tea of little sticks and blades of grass along with the snow. I drank a little more just to satisfy my debilitating thirst and poured down the rest to the empty water bottle, planning that in an emergency I would always have that option. I packed everything and persevered, sometimes walking in the right direction, toward the southwest, sometimes in the wrong one, depending on the willingness of the topography of the mountain, always following the road. My back was beginning to complain severy, due to the weight of the backpack.
Somewhere beside the road, I found the stony grave of a pilgrim. An inscription on the stone slab read only "Je suis le Chemin...” I paused a little on the meaning of those words and whispered a solemn "Rest in peace, brother".
Only later would I understand the true meaning of those words
A reddish-gray stone construction, looking massive and very old, was staring at me from way up in the mountain top, like some kind of old-fashioned watchtower from some forgotten war of an ancient realm. In the middle of a grassy field to my right, slightly out-of-the-way from the road, there was a structure with a stone built tank filled with crystalline water! Probably for horses and other pasture animals to drink. None was on sight. I tasted a handful to make sure it was clean, and marveled on the lightness of that water. I pigged out on that water, filled my bottle and then drank some more. Nearby, there was a tall wooden sign in the middle of nowhere pointing to the opposite direction of the road that I had been following - a Basque name - unknown to me. The day was already drawing to a close and darkness would soon fall upon the mountains. I thought to myself I should never leave the road, at the risk of me losing myself further inside the mountain, and so I decided to ignore the possible indication of a village and continue on the road.
Index
Day 1. Saint Jean Pied-de-Port - Orbaitzeta (YOU ARE HERE)
Day 2. Orbaitzeta - Roncesvalles
Day 3. Roncesvalles - Zubiri
Day 4. Zubiri - Pamplona
Day 5. Pamplona – Puente de la Reina
Day 6. Puente de la Reina - Estella
Day 7. Estella – Torres del Rio
Day 8. Estella - Logroño
Day 9. Logroño - Najera
Day 10. Najera - Grañon
Day 11. Grañon - Belorado
Day 12. Belorado - Atapuerca
Day 13. Atapuerca - Burgos
Day 14. Burgos – Castrojeriz
Day 15. Castrojeriz - Fromista
Day 16. Fromista – Carrión de los Condes
Day 17. Carrion de los Condes - Sahágun
Day 18. Sahágun – Mansilla de las Mulas
Day 19. Mansilla de las Mulas - León
Day 20. Léon – Hospital de Órbigo
Day 21. Hospital de Órbigo – Rabanal del Camino
Day 22. Rabanal del Camino - Ponferrada
Day 23. Ponferrada – Vega de Valcarce
Day 24. Vega de Valcarce - Tricastela
Day 25. Tricastela - Ferreros
Day 26. Ferreros – Palas del Rei
Day 27. Palas del Rei - Àrzua
Day 28. Àrzua - Santiago
Disclaimer. I did not carry a camera with me, but I will do my best to illustrate these texts with free for use images found around the web and later sent to me by my fellow pilgrims. All images that are not mine will be attributed to their rightful owner at the end of the post, even if no attribution is required. When no attribution is stated, the image is from my notebook.
Thanks to the following authors for kindly providing the CCO License Free To Use photography that illustrates this post:
Camino de Santiago Yellow Arrow - larahcv (Pixabay):
https://pixabay.com/en/users/larahcv-5320615/
Le Vierge d'Orisson - sandropasini (Pixabay):
https://pixabay.com/en/users/sandropasini-5629772/
The Pyrenees - jackmac34 (Pixabay)
https://pixabay.com/en/users/jackmac34-483877/