Pilgrim's Road

notwithstanding, he seemed to me to be enjoying it as much as anyone. He had had very little opportunity for holidays he said, and had really gone to town on all sorts of gadgetry with which camping shops tempt the young and unwary — like a massive knife with twenty-one blades, self-igniting matches, heavy torches and so on — no wonder his rucksack weighed a ton.
    No sooner had we sat down and Chonina had brought in the soup than Paul began to ask me what a Protestant like me was doing on pilgrimage. ‘Or are you a heathen like these other two?’ he joked. At the other few tables in the tiny bar locals sat drinking, cracking jokes, playing dominoes. The inevitable television rumbled on in a corner ignored by all. Chonina bustled about between kitchen and bar, and every few minutes the door opened and someone else squeezed in or out. ‘Even in this noise and when we are trying to eat our food,’ said Guillaume tenderly, ‘Paul seriously expects us to discuss questions of theology.’ All of us saw the joke at the same time, just as Chonina chose the moment to set down a plate of pigs’ trotters in front of us, which at the time also seemed uproariously funny. The effort of subduing our laughter and restoring the atmosphere to one suitable for appreciating this speciality of the house ended talk of any sort for a while.
    When supper was over there was an attempt to return to the topic of ‘real pilgrims’, but little came of it. Words like ‘religious’ and ‘spiritual’ meant different things to each of us, and perhaps Harrie was wise to refuse to use such labels. When he had first told me about his travelling companions I thought they sounded an unlikely trio. Meeting them together had only reinforced that impression. The three came from such different backgrounds, and their interests and attitudes were also so diverse as to make it highly unlikely they would ever have met outside the thread of the Camino. Yet along the way they had developed the sort of understanding and sympathy towards one another that comes usually only after a long acquaintance. Each seemed able to pursue his own line of thought without interfering with the other two, as though the differences that ordinarily make up our lives had become of no importance.
    As Harrie said, ‘You see life differently when you are walking to Santiago. There’s no time, no distance. You have the chance to find out what really matters.’ Which, when I thought about it in my cold little bedroom afterwards, seemed no bad description of pilgrimage.
     

12
     
    Wild Dogs and Wilder Descents
     
    R UGGED though conditions were at Chonina’s fonda — even a little hot water for a bucket bath could be obtained only by negotiation — it was nonetheless a haven in the wilderness. Ahead lay the ascent of the Pass of Foncebadón and the long trek through the unpeopled hills. Any form of civilisation would be rare now until I descended into the valley of Ponferrada. The modest breakfast of a few dry crackers and a cup of coffee was not the best start to what would be a strenuous day.
    Much as I looked forward to the passage through the hills, I parted from my companions with some regret, for it was unlikely that we would meet up again on this journey. As I started on the ascent I could hear Paul, who had set off first, singing a ‘Venite Sancti Spiritus ’ as he swung along on the parallel track. I wished I had as true and tuneful a voice, not that I could have joined in; I needed all my breath to get going on the fifteen hundred foot ascent. Starting on a steep climb first thing in the morning always seems a most terrible effort. For the first ten minutes or so I am convinced it is impossible and that I will have to give up and walk. My lungs feel as though they are on fire and my legs have no strength in them at all. But if I can keep going past the ten-minute point I usually find I have settled into a rhythm, and after that it is much easier. Then if I am alone I do sing, no matter how untunefully, just for the sheer joy of being alive and in the mountains.
    I stopped just before the summit to make a detour through the village of Foncebadón, which lies a little to the left of the road. This village appears to be totally abandoned at first sight, but I knew from lasmadrileñas that a mother and her unmarried son were still living there. The mother often joked with Asumpta that she or Charo should marry her son and produce a family to repopulate the