Pilgrim's Road

imagery anywhere, there appeared to be a real spiritual dimension to the place. This might have been there before the Confraternity came of course, but it had certainly not been destroyed by anything they had done to the building. I thought it was exactly the sort of refugio pilgrims needed. The only problem with it, I gathered, was that it had been decided that it must have a resident warden, and this would mean it could not be open at the bleaker end of the year when the ‘real pilgrims’ could use it.
    ‘The reason that Rabanal is special,’ said Asumpta, breaking into my thoughts, ‘is because of the pilgrimage. For eleven hundred years and more there has been this great passage of pilgrims through this place and it has left its mark. Rabanal del Camino was on one of the hardest and most dangerous parts of the route, and a special atmosphere has been created here, you can feel it.’ And indeed, I was sure that I could. But if it was the passage of all these pilgrims which had made it so special, then why were large numbers of modern pilgrims so intrusive? ‘Because they are not pilgrims,’ said Charo forthrightly. ‘In summer the atmosphere is quite different. They are in big groups, very noisy; many come in cars. For many it is just a cheap holiday. The real pilgrims get swallowed up in these crowds.’ Which sounded very like an echo of what Madame Debril had been saying in St Jean-Pied-de-Port.
    Even without the very special atmosphere, Rabanal was a most attractive village, not unlike the over-prettified Castrillo de los Polvazares, but real and lived in. The single unmade street was lined with thick-walled stone houses, whose roofs were wide-eaved to protect the wooden balconies and secluded patios — typical mountain houses, in fact, but with their own regional character. At their back a surprising amount of sheltered land was planted with fruit trees and vegetable plots. Halfway along its length the street opens out into a small dirt square with a tiny church of the Romanesque period built in the same rough, dry-stone construction as the houses. This small square is where the Confraternity’s refuge stands and was clearly the original heart of the village. But in recent times a more modern road had been put through on a parallel course fifty yards to the left.
    Chonina’s bar stands at the side of this narrow tarmac road with ample parking space in front of it, and this newer centre of village life was my next port of call. It was the only place where pilgrims could sleep when I was there, if they were too feeble to cope in the dilapidated old refugio. I often make the excuse that my blood has been thinned by my various desert crossings, and certainly I feel the cold more than I used to. I had thought it chilly enough in León, but up at this altitude, once the thin wintry sunshine had been swallowed up in the mountain mists, it was freezing. Having been shown the refugio in the old school, I knew I could have survived a night there if I had to, but was most relieved that Chonina could find a corner for me in her small house. And wonder of wonders who should I see as I walked into the tiny bar but Harrie, the ‘reluctant pilgrim’ and his two companions whose long legs had been eating up the miles while I had been wallowing in the flesh pots of León.
    I was introduced to his companions, Guillaume, the gynaecologist from Switzerland, a slim man with exquisite manners and the gentlest of smiles who encouraged everyone else to talk while saying surprisingly little himself, and Paul, a rather stout and argumentative Belgian priest, who was at least twenty years older than the other two and who was treated by them with a mixture of pride and affection and a little gentle mockery. Harrie and Guillaume had rooms at Chonina’s, but Paul was sleeping in the refugio. ‘He takes the pilgrimage very seriously,’ Harrie said. ‘He thinks he has to suffer which is why he carries twice as much as he needs.’ I saw what he meant the following morning as the other two helped to heave the huge rucksack onto Paul’s back. He seemed an old-fashioned Christian, for whom suffering would certainly have its reward in heaven, but I didn’t think that was why he was carrying such a load. Although he had been ordained a priest, he had worked all his life as a teacher until he retired a few months before. The Santiago pilgrimage was something he had been planning for a long time, and burden and blisters