Pilgrim's Road

Thy guidance they may happily reach the end of their journey...’
     
    And when these solemn and deeply inspiring prayers were concluded, the priest opened his arms out wide to us all and said very simply, in Spanish that even I could understand, ‘Pilgrims, remember to pray for us when you come to Santiago de Compostela.’
    I think it was this moment that finally made a real if reluctant pilgrim of me. The entreaty ‘Priez pour nous' had moved me in France, but in the atmosphere of Roncesvalles it had a compulsion that I could not ignore. It got me off the fence. It was the point at which I had to admit that this was not like any other journey; that no matter how light-heartedly I had set out, I had made a commitment more embracing than simply arriving at a specified destination. What that commitment might mean I didn’t really know at this stage, but accepting that I had made it was somehow comforting, like laying down a burden.
    When I woke, Roncesvalles was wrapped in one of its infamous mists and appeared more medieval than ever. Sophie’s and Eva’s wet clothes were still dripping disconsolately onto the rough boards, and they decided to stay warmly cocooned in their sleeping bags until Casa Sabina opened its doors for breakfast. I could well have followed their example, but reluctant though I was to leave both Roncesvalles and the first fellow pilgrims of the journey, it seemed best to get going. I didn’t want breakfast because I was still recovering from supper. At home I have my evening meal between six and seven, and it had been ten the previous night before Gabriel brought the three of us his Navarrese speciality of mountain trout cooked with a thick slice of ham inside. It had proved delicious but had also given me a wakeful night. Clearly I was going to have to adjust to a different timetable in Spain. In the meantime I wouldn’t need to think about eating again until I was down in Pamplona.
    The saintly, quiet Spanish group had got themselves together and departed before I had even washed myself at the spartan sink. I caught up with them just before they turned off the road and we called suitable pilgrim salutations to each other before disappearing into the mist.
    From the Spanish border the Santiago pilgrim route, unlike that from Vézelay, is precisely laid down, though I gathered it was still very easy to get lost in places. It would not be possible for me to travel the original path the whole way, as quite large stretches of it are very rough or waterlogged, suitable only for walking, and not even a mountain bicycle or a large-tyred hybrid like Roberts can get through, especially not a laden one. Wherever possible, however, I would go off the road onto the true pilgrim track, and in any case, all the main villages and towns of the Camino would be on my route, as road and path come together at these points.
    Painted yellow arrows were what I had to look out for, these and the more formal scallop shell signposts and information boards set up by official bodies along the highways showed the course of the Camino across the Spanish countryside. The first yellow arrow roughly painted on a rock marked the turn-off down which my Roncesvalles companions had now vanished into the mist.
    With a marvellous north wind at my back I was soon below the swirling cloud and was speeding joyously down the mountainside, only to have to toil up the next ridge back to the same height as Roncesvalles. This pattern of down and up again continued for some time, though it was mainly down, until I reached Pamplona, the Basque capital — Hemingway country.
    Pamplona was built by Pompey in the first century BC when the Romans were trying to subdue the restless Basques. A city with a long and interesting history, it did not at first prove a good experience for me. Maybe the Basques of Pamplona only really come alive when the bulls are run through the streets before going to meet their deaths in the bull-ring in the heat of a July afternoon. A traveller’s view of a place is to some extent coloured by the people they chance to meet there, and no one seemed to be smiling in Pamplona when I arrived. The day was grey which did nothing for the local stone, and worst of all, the famous cathedral was firmly locked. This last would not have mattered quite so much, in spite of the tempting things I had read about it, had not a notice on the gate firmly alleged that it would open in an hour or two. I hung about for ages after