el peregringo

My longest day so far at 31 kilometers. Fortunately most of the terrain today has been rolling hills through the vineyards of La Rioja. This is my last full day in La Rioja as tomorrow I’ll enter the province of Burgos.

I mentioned in an earlier post that I had passed the ruins of the Hospital de San Juan de Acre, and that at some point the portal of the hospital was moved to become the door to the cemetery in another town. The image to the right is the door.

The town of Santo Domingo de la Calzada was founded in the 11th century by Domingo García, born a few kilometers from here sometime around the year 1019. It’s a town I’ve wanted to visit for almost 5 years because of a legend which took place here, the story of which I have regularly assigned to my students in third year Spanish. As it turns out, the story of Domingo García is even more interesting than the legend I knew.

Much of the information here comes from the great cultural guidebook I’ve been using about the Camino by David Gitlitz and Linda Davidson, combined with the information I’ve learned using the story of the legend in my classes.

Domingo García was a shepherd here who wanted to become a monk. Things didn’t go so well for him and he was essentially tossed out of the first order he tried to join, so he became a hermit in the forest. In a dream he was “told” to do whatever he could to improve the experiences of the pilgrims traveling to Santiago. At the time, the road here was very poorly developed and ran through dense forests. He first joined forces with San Gregorio Ostiense and together they worked at improving the road, but when Gregorio died, Domingo returned to his homeland along the river Oja and spent the rest of his life working for the pilgrims and the pilgrimage.

At the time, there was no bridge across the Oja river, so Domingo built a stone one, part of which is still standing (hence the “calzada” part of his name since calzada means ‘paved’). Next he set out improving the road through La Rioja, and with a sickle, he cut a 37 km path through the woods. His own legend says that while he rested from his labors, angels continued to widen and extend the road with his sickle and to chop timber to be used in construction of the village.

The “ownership” of the area around the village changed hands several times through the centuries. At time the Navarran king would take control, and at times the Castillian king. At some point between 1035 and 1054, King García III Sánchez el de Nájera gave Domingo permission to use the site of an old ruined fort to serve as the basis for a pilgrim hospital, and from this base, Domingo built his village which would eventually include a cathedral which came to be the bishopric of the region.

Domingo spent his entire life dedicated to the lives of pilgrims, and as he neared the end of his life, he carved his own crypt, which can be seen in his cathedral.

The legend I referred to above is alleged to have occurred during the 12th century, after the death of Domingo. There are many versions, but this is a shortened version of the one that my students read:

A family of German pilgrims–father, son and mother–we making their way to Santiago de Compostela, and passed the night in an inn in Santo Domingo de la Calzada. A young girl who worked in the inn decided that she fancied the son, and she made advances to him which he rebuffed. As we know, hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, so to get her revenge at being rejected, she hid one of the inn owner’s silver cups in the boy’s belongings, and then denounced him to the owner and the authorities. Punishment for theft at the time was death by hanging, and the tradition in the middle ages was that once hung, they left the body there to rot away as a further reminder to the citizenry of the dangers of wrongdoing.

Since there was nothing they could do, the boy’s parents continued their pilgrimage to Compostela. On their return, they stopped to visit the body of their son (or what would be left of it), only to discover that their son was still hanging there, quite alive, and happy to see his parents again. Given the obvious miracle, the parents hurried off to see the mayor and to ask for their sons release since the miracle proved his innocence. The mayor, who was just sitting down to his dinner, scoffed at the parents pointing to the two roast chickens on his table, and told them it was just as likely that their son was still alive, as it was that the two roast chickens on the table would come back to life.

At that moment, both chickens jumped up, grew back their feathers, and ran out of the room.

To commemorate this miracle, ever since, the church officials have kept a live rooster and hen in cages on either side of a small altar in the church. They birds are changed with some regularity and the local convent is the keeper of the stock of chickens to rotated into the church. (You can stay in the convent itself as they have an albergue there, and some pilgrims put chicken feathers from there into their hats). Further, mounted high on the opposite wall, is a chunk of wood said to be from the gallows used to hang the young boy.

I arrived in Santo Domingo de la Calzada late after my long walk, and checked into the municiple albergue. This albergue was quite the contrast with the one in Ventosa. It’s one large barn-like room with a hundred or more beds. Since I was late, I didn’t get a bed and had to sleep on the floor near the large barn door to the outside where they stowed bike gear, but I was glad to be indoors. Shortly after I arrived, it started to rain pretty heavily, and continued to rain all night.

The one “grace” this albergue had was the information about the pilgrimage in murals around one end of the room. It was hard to shoot much of the images because they were all so near people changing clothes or sleeping. Other than the information on the wall, it was really quite factory like, but since it was completely “donativo” (ie., free, donations only), one can’t complain.

A funny anecdote happened here, however. There are three “french” girls on the Camino that have coincided with me in a few places along the way. Actually two are Quebecois and the third is French. As I was sitting on a bed and talking to Daniel, a spanish guy from Madrid, Cloe, the french girl across the aisle, shifted positions as she was reading on her bed, and the strap of her shirt slipped off her shoulder and her breast came into full view. She hadn’t noticed and she sat like that for a couple of minutes. At one point she looked up and I motioned to her to cover herself. She turned completely red and all three girls giggled and laughed. This wouldn’t be worth mentioning except that later, as I was walking to the bathroom, she saw me again and said thank you. I motioned to my wedding ring, and told her not to temp me–that I was a married man. (I’m writing this sometime after the event–apparently this has become quite the joke among the group of pilgrims who are closest to these girls and they kid her for making moves on pilgrims… This picture of Cloe was taken later in Burgos).

I mentioned in my post about yesterday that I had dinner with the french couple who arrived so late in Torres de Río. They arrived late again as a small group of us were just sitting down to our own dinner, and we invited them to join us. Like so many of the dinners, language issues tend to dissolve, though in this dinner we had a young woman who spoke German with only a few words of English, a Spaniard who spoke only Spanish (but who didn’t let that stop her from speaking at length to anyone and laughing a great deal), the French couple (she speaks a few words of English, he only French), the hospitalero who joined us (who speaks both Spanish and French), and me. Somehow, we all managed to achieve a deep communication that I think only fellow pilgrims could ever understand. Late in the evening I learned something that literally made me cry. I would have guessed that the french woman was a little older than her companion, but I was very surprised to learn that she is a grandmother and he in his twenties.

But it was the rest of her story that was heart wrenching. It turns out that just over a year ago, her husband of 20 years died of cancer. On his deathbed he asked her to promise to do the Camino, and she agreed. I am a mere 9 days into my own Camino, and I discover that she has walked from Geneva — she has been walking for 10 weeks already. Some few weeks into her promised Camino, she met this young man and they connected as soul mates. She tells me that she is absolutely certain from her prayers, that her husband knew she would meet this young man–a “man of god”– and that in so doing she would be able to continue living her life. I started to cry and she hugged me, telling me not to be sad. She says she is happy because she knows her husband is with god, and that in walking the Camino he has ensured that she will continue to live happily, and to not be alone. I can’t even begin to understand this kind of faith, but it literally arrests my breathing…

So after this powerful event, this morning I began my walk again. As I’ve mentioned before, so far I have walked alone the majority of the time, and today was no exception. As I left Ventosa, the hospitalero having given warm and genuine embraces to most all of the pilgrims as they departed, I’m left wondering at the spirituality I have discovered in one short week. Yes, this has been a christian pilgrimage for a millennium, but I have met many people who are not here primarily for christian reasons, yet spirituality pervades practically every step. As I was pondering this, I came upon something else which stopped me in my tracks and caused me to sit down and cry.

Every day that I have been on the Camino, I have encountered small piles of stones–some actually not all that small. Frequently the piles are placed on top of the concrete or stone markers which indicate the route of the Camino, or upon any small monument along the way. I had wondered about these and considered them to be some kind of spontaneous, group art. In Logroño I learned that the tradition is more spiritual than simply artistic. Each stone represents something the pilgrim wishes to leave behind in his or her life. Perhaps a problem, perhaps some worry. One carries the stone some distance and in prayer, conveys whatever negative idea or issue into the stone and leaves it behind them on the Camino. Here are a few images of what I came across. Even if I could create a sound track and use a wide format camera, nothing could convey how moving this was.

This thing, this Camino may just break my heart.

This was a day of vineyards. That’s to be expected given that I’m walking through the heart of La Rioja. I didn’t take too many photos today, because I have plenty of photos of vineyards already, and honestly, a photo just doesn’t do justice to what I feel as I walk through this wine producing kingdom.

I did snap a couple of interesting shots for those readers who may not have seen too many vineyards. From a distance, they’re lovely lines of green, but many people don’t realize that grapes actually don’t grow well in “good” soil. They do best in “challenging” soil–if you can call this soil at all…

Everywhere you looked all day long there were vineyards and small wineries. I have no idea which winery the last image is here, but it’s pretty typical of what you see. Spanish wineries in general have done fairly well in the last decade, so many of them have built new facilities and/or expanded their facilities. Unfortunately, the actual growers aren’t doing as well as the wineries themselves, as grape prices are about as low as they have been in a very long time.

After a week of following the yellow arrows, it’s beginning to feel like life is going to be difficult to navigate without them. It’s a subconscious thing, but when I don’t see the arrows, I feel a touch lost. I had to laugh, though, when I came across this particular arrow. The Camino itself seemed to come to the edge of a paved road, and it looked like it might actually cross (crossing pavement isn’t all that unusual so far). Just to make sure, the painters of the arrows left clear indication that the path that “looked” correct wasn’t the way to go… If only life itself were this well indicated…

Since the Camino has been traveled for well over 1000 years, ruins of pilgrim hostels and hospitals are fairly common. Today I passed the ruins of the Hospital de San Juan de Acre.

This hospital was founded in 1185 and was in business until the late 1500s. It was finally completely destroyed during the Carlist wars in Spain. According to the information I have, the portal of the hospital was moved to the other side of the next town, Navarrete, to serve as the entrance to the cemetery. If I see it, I’ll grab a shot of that as well and include it later.

Some of the other pilgrims I’ve encountered in the albergues these last few days are planning on going on to Nájera today… I decided that 20 km. is enough for today and that the extra 10 km. is more than I want to do. To get to Ventosa, there is a small side detour of a couple of kilometers. I am SO glad that I decided to stay in Ventosa. Though I don’t have images, this was the best albergue I have encountered yet. Entering the front door, there is Vivaldi playing in the living room and it’s a beautiful, recently renovated facility. The hospitalero is Spanish, but he’s spent the last 10+ years living in France. What a wonderful place…

Dinner with my french pilgrim friends and Carolina, the german girl whose birthday it was in Logroño. I really don’t know these people, but I feel so very close.