As I've been walking these last springtime weeks knowing it would all soon come to an end, I've contemplated what makes a good pilgrimage - why some days are so grand and other days such a trial. I've summarized it as the balance of the contributing components: the way, the weather, and the welcome.

The way changes daily, hourly even... an idyllic sheep-cropped broad, grassy path on a ridge offering a spectacular view with a clear perspective on where the path goes - ahhh, what a comfortable way! Or maybe a steep rocky slope of snow-covered scree where one misstep can mean grave injury or worse - uh, oh! Perhaps an unavoidable stretch along a busy, shoulderless highway in the rain where for some ungodly reason drivers are inclined to honk their horns, which causes nothing but alarm and further distress - arrgh! Now an unpaved country lane, a ribbon between harmonious villages spaced an hour's walk apart, one favored by all of the local songbirds and cuddly wildlife - >sigh<. Sometimes the way can be controlled through taking an alternate route; other times not. Sometimes a rough way is easily endured because it's only a short distance. In a daily distance of 30 or 40 kilometers, the quality of the way can change many times or, as in the case of the Ukrainian steppes, it's more of the same flat land of black earth for days on end.

The weather is related to the way in the sense that it's incrementally less miserable to be in a cold pouring rain on a paved, level country lane than climbing hand over hand up an over-vegetated rockface in the mountains. Conversely, it's incrementally more miserable to be on a long flat stretch of unshaded black pavement under a midday sun than it is to be prancing under the interconnected branches of an almond orchard in full bloom. The weather is the weather. The preparedness for being out in the weather can be managed to a degree, but only within the contents of a backpack.

Finally, the welcome. This runs the spectrum on the positive side - fabulous, warm, friendly, gracious... but stops at 'indifferent'. Indifferent is easier to recover from when persistence eventually produces an introduction to a positive welcome. This factor is not entirely random or in the hands of the welcomer. A friendly disposition, no matter how beaten down from the weather or the way, is likely to encourage a friendly welcome; a grouchy demanding disposition in response to the beating from the weather or the way, will more likely encourage a cold welcome - so I've learned. To be certain, a warm heartfelt welcome will trump crappy weather or a difficult way. Meeting the right people can dissolve away anything else. The accumulated aggravation from hours of walking in horrid weather disappear the minute someone taps on the pane and says 'would you like to come in for a cup of tea?'

There are some days, or portions thereof, when the way, the weather, and the welcome all bottom out and hit like a perfect storm - everything seems wrong wrong wrong. Hunker down and sleep it off until everything looks brighter in the morning. One can always have hope. Other days, though, the way, the weather, and the welcome all come together like hitting the trifecta at the derby. Nothing can be better on a pilgrimage than these days - the way is so memorable, the weather perfect, and the warmth and camaraderie of strangers summing up everything that is right with the world. Ah, to be on the pilgrim trail.

I told you I would not post much, but there´s free internet here and I intend to make the best of it!

I was last on this stretch of the Camino Frances in 2001. Nine years ago. I did not think a trail from a mountaintop monastic complex down to a grubby village could change much. I was wrong.

And I was oblivious, too. I had forgotten SO MUCH of what I saw then, and the scraps of memory I had of that first day´s walk are splattered with mud and driving rain. It was a miserable day, in mud that sucked the boots right off our feet. But I am getting ahead of myself.

First, Roncesvalles. I first saw this place in 1992, back when it might as well have been 1930. You could touch the things in the museum, and go inside Charlemagne´s Silo and peek down into the depths and see the skulls grinning back up at you from the eerie dark. Now it´s all cemented neatly and barred shut. Now that thousands of goobers flock into the village every year, God knows what kind of plastic bottles and candy wrappers were tossed down there with the ancestors´ bones. I can´t blame them for that.

But I am peevish about how I was treated. I should have seen it coming, seeing as thousands of goobers, etc. etc.,  and I am just another one, bounding off the bus and lining up for my Pilgrim Credential. But these days it´s a moving sidewalk. Two kids with punk haircuts take your money, stamp your credential (they charge THREE EUROS for a credential up there, and they´re not even the stylin´ new Holy Year model! For shame!) And a quick hustle of 6 more Euros to stay there at the albergue.

Used to be the albergue was not heated, but they said that was not true any more. What they did not say was that 20+ people were being crammed into bunks in a basement bunker with a single non-functional toilet and one shower. They did not bother telling us where this place was, either, before they blew away in their little car. It was a long, noisy, vile night. I won´t do that again. (the priests are sweet, and the pilgrim Mass is a jewel. But the albergue was like Midnight on the Kalahari. They oughtta be ashamed.)

But the morning was bright and beautiful, with a bit of snow still lying on the ground. Cattle and backwoods trails, huge birds circling in the sky (waiting for something to die). I´d been there before, but none of it was the least bit familiar. No mud, no stunning scenery, no medieval Basque villages, and no Paddy this time.

But I learned some cool things by stopping to read the signboards along the trails. (another big difference this time is I now can read and communicate in Spanish.) I learned that when you walk from Roncesvalles down to Biskarret for your breakfast, the little forest you pass through is The Witches Wood. Back in the 1600´s there were four big waves of witch-hunting up on that mountain, which ended with at least five local women burned at the stake in the plaza of sleepy little Bizkarret. Salem wasn´t the only place where people went nuts in the 1600s. It´s those women, I tell ya. Worshiping in ways that just can´t be tolerated. 

Not to let the Massachussetts people get a jump on them, the local tourist agency has charted out a Ruta de las Brujas, so you can load up the family for an afternoon of fun and adventure driving round to the places where mountain women got out of hand... or the locals just got so bored they started turning on one another.

And on down the mountain I went. I didn´t remember it taking so long, or these long uphill bits. I am sure, now that I´ve done it, the camino was somehow re-routed in the last nine years. I have a very good memory for places, and this trail completely eluded me. Weird. I am doing more thinking and less writing and socializing this time around. The things I always do, I am going to not do. The things I never do, I am going to give them a shot. Tomorrow I will meet up with an Irish pilg and his German friend for a St. Paddy´s Day Irish Whiskey Shot-O-Rama. (I may have to stick with bourbon, however.)

A couple of observations: People who walk this stretch of camino call it "Crossing the Pyrenees." It is a really tough couple of days of mountain walking, but it really is only one mountain, a single Pyrenee. And the really bad bits have been PAVED, for heaven´s sake. (I am of two minds on this. Dangerous places should be made nominally secure, but c´mon! This is a mountain path here, and a pilgrimage oughtta be kinda hard, no?) It´s not conquoring Everest, even though some of the people are dressed for that. But it´s not supposed to be Space Mountain either. So there.

And now I am checked into an unpronouncable, starts-with-a-Z private albergue in Zubiri. This place, too, has changed out of all recognition. The raggedy old stone houses alongside the 12th Century "Rabies Bridge" are all gone now, replaced by neat three-story ethnic-ironwork apartment buildings. You can get down here to the river and  put your toes in, even. (and God, my toes look like they belong to someone else!) (Pardon me, but toes and feet and ankles and knees are deeply meaningful to pilgrims, and I am now a pilgrim. So you may hear about my sad old toes. You were warned.)  Anyway, I am sure Zubiri is much improved now. It is full of young families raising their kids in suburban splendor.

But I wish they´d left a couple of the ruins, just for looks.
Bitch bitch bitch, I know. And bit of witch.
I am having a wonderful time!

Having walked the Via de la Plata and then the Camino Inglés two or three times I knew that I would eventually walk the Camino Francés. But I kept putting it off and walking other routes instead. So for a while the Camino Portugués and the route to Finisterre and Muxía took my interest. Both are wonderful but increasingly I felt the call of the Camino Francés. For a considerable time whenever I spoke to people I met about the pilgrimage to Santiago they assumed I meant the French route. Each time I patiently explained that there are many other routes and that I had not yet walked that particular one. Each time was also a prompt that it was time to get going from St Jean de Pied Port and walk over the Pyrenees into Spain following the footsteps of millions of pilgrims before me stretching back to medieval times.

I had to sit down and work out what had been holding me back. I had a mental list I worked through. Was it the fact that it was a popular and busy route? Was it the commercialisation I had read about? Was it the albergue industry which has grown up? Was it the amount of young people or New Age pilgrims, or itinerants I had heard populated this route?

Truth is, it was none of these. I was used to walking routes where I had long periods of splendid isolation walking alone often in the most glorious countryside. I had journeyed on lesser walked routes at times of the year when it was unlikely there would be many other pilgrims around. I had walked where it was still a novelty to meet pilgrims. I had to be honest with myself it was the fact that it was inevitable I would meet other people on the Camino Francés whether I liked it or not was what made me reluctant.

I looked at postings on pilgrim forums: Question, “Should I plan to walk with a friend or will I meet other people on the Camino Francés?” Answer, “You will meet other pilgrims even before you start walking. At the airport. At the bus station in Pamplona, within a few yards of setting out on the route”.

This typical dialogue filled me with apprehension. But it had to be done. As a last attempt at appeasing my fears I chose to walk in deep November. There were three or four of us in the Pilgrims’ Office in St Jean de Pied Port. I slept peacefully. There weren’t many others around, I thought. Indeed as I set off the next morning I seemed to be alone then as I walked with the road rising to meet me I spotted pilgrims in front and behind…well click the slideshow above to see and hear what happened.

Today was one of those epic stages of El Camino, where not only does the beautiful scenery weigh heavily upon your emotions, but so does the significance of a cross: Cruz de Ferro. In itself, it's not a spectacular cross, rather a "plainish" one set upon a tall pillar with a tall pile of rocks strewn at the base. But it's those rocks that are so significant. For years and years, tradition has it that pilgrims bring a stone from their own home. As they walk El Camino, they "put" into the stone a burden upon their mind and heart. By casting away the stone at Cruz de Ferro, the pilgrim symbolically casts away their burden.

I brought a stone from Kansas City. I put great thought into what burdens I would cast away. But then about half way through my journey across Spain, I realized my burdens were maybe a bit insignificant relative to the burdens of others. I met a man from Austria named Markus. I never got his last name. I had heard through the pilgrim grapevine that he had left his home in Austria on foot, walked to Rome, then left Rome and headed towards Santiago de Compostela. I had picked up his pack at some point and knew it was heavy. It was about half way through my pilgrimage that he told me about how heavy his heart was and the reason for his journey.

Back home in Austria, there was a car accident that took the lives of his entire family: his father, his mother, his wife, his son, and his daughter. In his grief, he left his home and his job searching for peace in his heart. By the time I met him, he had long exhausted his money. Putting a hand on his shoulder, I realized how little money he had by realizing how little he's been eating: he was incredibly skinny and it couldn't be healthy. From that point on, every time I saw him, I gave him all the food in my pack (except nuts, his teeth were apparently bad) and took him to eat if we were near a town.

Standing now at Cruz de Ferro myself, I looked at the pile of stones, many with writing on them, many weighing down pictures, and I wondered what other burdens lay cast beneath my feet. I placed my stone, spent a moment pondering my own burdens, said a prayer for all the pilgrims before me, the pilgrims after me, and for Markus.

Peace be with you, Markus.

Within some steps, I've gone from having a working vocabulary of dozens on top of a passive vocabulary of maybe 100 words to now being able to comprehend thousands. It's like taking earplugs out and being able to hear again. While I still must indulge on my patient and helpful interlocutors for basic conversational requirements like conjugating my verbs appropriately and declining the nouns and adjectives to the proper gender, number, and contextural position, Romanian, being not only a Romance language but also in Roman letters, is instantly comfortable. Ahhhhh.

Subtleties make houses here look more 'European'. Shops, road signs, barns, too. Such variety in the shops. There are immediate signs of functioning infrastructure. In particular, the absence of outhouses. Ironically, though, I've seen many pony carts being used to haul freshly cut marsh reeds across the frozen streams and fields. A throwback to the last centuries maybe, but one that works. The kilometer markers on the snow-packed secondary roads, with the names and distances to the next villages inscribed from both directions, look like they could be in Italy or France. Reflective of the former Roman presence? I never saw them in Ukraine. I get it now. To the ancient Greeks and subsequently Romans, getting to the Danube was one thing, but crossing the vast delta to the nearly endless marshy steppes was something else. Why bother, I can imagine them questioning. As far as I know, they weren't hurting for real estate. This is one enormous delta. It would need significant engineering works to be drained so a road could be built or the land worked. I can see why they never put forth the significant effort required to build some sort of network of bridges to cross it. All roads may have led to Rome, but none of them started on the far side of the Danube.

For me now, the snow remains, both the charming soft falling kind and the blanket accumulated on the hilly ground. It prevents me from really seeing the landscape well, much less doing any kind of painting to record it. It's gotten a little warmer, though, closer to the freezing point and I enjoy more freedom from peeling off a few layers. In addition to little village shops, there are little cafe/bars, similar to what can be seen in similar size villages in Spain and Italy. I've popped into a few for chai (fruity herbal infusions; no black tea here) and to warm up before a potbelly stove. Conversations start easily. I use an amalgam of Spanish, Italian, and French and am understood pretty readily. Upon learning I'm from America, the old men are all quick to demonstrate their English by saying 'I love you.' It seems to be the only English they know. Endearing in its way, actually.

Visa requirements and interest, I suppose, keep the Romanians from visiting Ukraine and Ukrainians from visiting Romania. I haven't been here very long, but I've seen many cars and trucks with French, Italian, Spanish, Bulgarian, and Polish license plates; in Ukraine, I only saw Ukrainian plates. I sense a different atmosphere because of it.

"I usually wake up at 8am in my flat which is about 10mins walk from the Cathedral. I turn on the radio and the coffee maker. I listen to the news and drink my café con leche, sometimes with my eyes still closed. I usually have just toast for breakfast. Then I get ready and set off for the first appointment of the day which is almost always the Mass of the Canons at 9.30 in the Cathedral. Often I’m nearly late and have to rush into the Cathedral and up the narrow stone stairs to the organ gallery to play for the entrance procession. I find this first mass of the day the most satisfying and interesting. It is the principal daily celebration when the Chapter of Canons usually sing Lauds, a mixture of Psalms and other scripture readings then Mass. I play for the Canons as they sing the Office of the Church and then at the Offertory and the parts of the Mass. I play a voluntary at communion and then again at the end of the service. During Holy Years, when the Feast of St James falls on a Sunday the order of things changes a little at this Canons Mass and they sing the great prayer, the Benedictus, towards the end of the Mass.

I love this job and I am very happy to be playing in this great Cathedral. The last full time organist was a priest in the cathedral and he had been playing for many, many years. When he retired the Cathedral authorities called a meeting of a number of musical advisers. They began the search for a new organist. Eventually they had 5 candidates to consider, 4 from Spain and 1 from France. But decisions are taken slowly in the Church and by the Holy Year in 2004 the matter had still not been resolved. My friend, Manuel was playing part time to fill in and he asked me to help. The Cathedral authorities liked the arrangement and asked me to stay. Manuel and I still share the playing to this day.

I have many wonderful memories of events in this Cathedral. Great weddings. The Royal occasions like the Feast of St James in a Holy Year when the King and Queen of Spain attend Mass. Sometimes there are huge, complicated processions and at other times such as Midnight Mass at Christmas the atmosphere is much more intimate.

Every day of the year at 12 noon I play for the Pilgrims’ Mass. There are few pilgrims in January but by the late spring the Cathedral is bursting at the seams. Pilgrims sit everywhere. On steps, on the floor. They come with their rucksacks if they have just arrived in time for Mass. Priests who have walked the Camino walk in the procession and you can see their boots under their vestments. My fondest memories are not of when the King was there, or Cardinals but rather Pilgrims’ Masses. I remember one in May a couple of years ago when there were an enormous number of Germans. When Sister Maria Jesus the nun who sang at that time intoned the Kýrie eléison at the start of Mass the response from the congregation was so loud it was as if everyone was singing at the top of their voices. There is a telephone just behind the pulpit which links to a telephone on the organ. Maria Jesus telephoned me to suggest that we use the rest of the same musical setting of the mass as for the Kyrie, the plainchant Missa Orbis Factor. Everyone sang everything. It was magical.

Maria Jesus has now moved to Madrid cathedral and I miss her a lot. She started singing at the Pilgrims’ Mass 10 years ago. Before 2004 there was only an organist at the mass when the Botefumeiro was in action. Traditionally whoever is singing chooses the musical programme. I tend to arrive no earlier than 5 minutes before mass begins and the nun calls me on the telephone to tell me what to play. I then turn on the organ and the little television that sits on top of it. On that I can see the procession so I know when to begin playing.

Like most other professional organists I pick up other jobs to earn a living. Sometimes I have a few pupils but I don’t really like teaching. Playing and performing is my thing. Anyway the daily commitment to the Cathedral makes it difficult to take on other work. After the first mass I generally go to the Hotel Costa Vella to have coffee and read the newspapers. Then back to the cathedral for 12 noon. At 1 pm I try to eat something, but I’m not a big eater. I try to practise on the organ or on a piano every day. Sometimes I’m in the cathedral late into the night when the cleaners have gone home. Then it is peaceful and I can have the place to myself.

There has always been music in my life. My father sang really well and played the classical guitar. I was also very lucky that when I went to junior school at the age of 5 in my home town of Caldas de Rei on the Camino Portuguese. We had a superb music teacher who was also a church organist. From the age of 9 – 13 I went to the Escolania, the Music School of the Cathedral. There were 28 boys. We had normal schooling and lots and lots of music. I then went to the Conservatoire in Santiago for piano lessons and then to Barcelona for organ tuition. At first I went there for 20 days at a time. Then they enrolled me full time for 4 years organ study.

I love the organ in the Cathedral. The present instrument is the result of 300 years of evolution. It looks Baroque and has Baroque features. It also has some later Romantic elements. The rest is 20th Century. Until 1947, when there was a huge renovation, there were two organs, independent of each other on each side of the Nave. It then became one organ with two bodies. From 1947 only one organist was needed! Some of the organ is original. The Cornetta stop with its 5 ranks of pipes dates from the 1780’s.

This Holy Year we are having 4 Pilgrims’ Masses every day to cope with the huge numbers expected. There are Masses at 10am, 12 noon, 6pm and 7.30pm. The King will be here on 25th July and there are rumours that the Pope will also come to Santiago. Funnily enough traditionally the biggest and most important feast is not on the 25th July but rather it is the Feast of the Translation when the arrival of St James’ body is commemorated.

In the evening I might have my most favourite meal which is fried eggs and rice. I’m currently re-reading George Orwell’s 1984. I frequently dream and a recurring dream is me sitting in a flying chair visiting places all over the world. I have few wishes. I suppose I would wish for health, music always in my life and peace in the world. Strangely enough if I could only have one piece of music it wouldn’t be on the organ it would be the Missa Papae Marcelli by Palestrina which for me encapsulates everything that is wondrous in music.

I often don’t go to bed until very late. Sometimes 2am. Currently I’m working on a secret project. Last year I played for the 25th Anniversary Service of the Confraternity of St James in London. It was a wonderful visit and it had been arranged that I would play the organ in Westminster Abbey. At the Confraternity Service they had a re-enactment of the Botafumeiro and everyone sang the Hymn to the Apostle or what is known as the Botafumeiro Music. Afterwards I told my friend Johnnie Walker the history of the piece. The tradition used to be that every Holy Year a new Hymn to St James was composed to accompany the Botafumeiro. That stopped in 1920 when people liked the new hymn so much it is still being used today. Inspired by this he suggested that for this Holy Year I compose a great organ voluntary for pilgrims incorporating melodies from many countries. So far I’ve worked out 15, but he has now set the target at 25. It is driving me crazy. But maybe it will be unveiled later in the year… "

Hi all, and sorry for the long, long gap between posts! For the last week almost we've been staying in Xunta hostels (since Sarria) and they had no internet and only once did Charlie find a wifi connection. I started typing this long post about everything from Christmas in Sarria to Palas de Rei, but then his computer downloaded  virus with a movie and went completely beserk, poor guy. He's had so much trouble fixing it.

Is there one of us who has walked to Santiago who hasn’t dreamed of running an albergue? Or working forever as a hospitalero receiving pilgrims in various locations along the many routes to Santiago? The urge to “put something back” seems almost universal. It is as if the experience of pilgrimage gives so much to us that we want in some small way to return the favour. For me I think the root of it was that feeling that on the routes we walk in the footsteps of millions who have gone before. Take the arch at Caparra which has stood since Roman times.

Google's mapping service has expanded coverage of their street level views to cover nearly 80% of Spain. Much of the Camino de Santiago's French route is included, although a quick look reveals that Google avoided much of the actual walking path. Hontanas, for example, shows only the nearby road and none of the meseta which surrounds you as you approach. If you are feeling nostalgic for your favorite pueblo drop the little yellow man on it and see if it is included. The Cathedral in Santiago shown here:

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Trailer Preview - The Camino Documentary (LQ) from The Camino Documentary on Vimeo.