Pilgrim's Road

village.
    I had also been warned about the fierce dogs of Foncebadón and had my ‘Dog Dazer’ at the ready. Dogs are a problem in many countries, especially now that so many people keep guard dogs that they cannot control. Cyclists particularly suffer from them; even dogs which are usually quite placid can be vicious towards cyclists — no one quite knows why. Over the years I have tried all sorts of ploys to deal with the canine menace. The latest was this ‘Dazer’, a device that gives out a high-frequency sound which is beyond the range of the human ear, but which dogs can receive, and which they are supposed to find very off-putting. I had yet to try it out on one.
    Foncebadón was a strange and eerie place. It had more the feeling of a film set than a village, for the land all about look quite wild and uncultivated. The single street stretched on bleakly for quite some distance, lined with houses on either side, many of which still appeared habitable, though all wore the effects of decay and long neglect, and some had daylight showing through the roofs. The surface of the unmade road was in a parlous state, with deep trampled mud in many places and large rocks breaking through the surface elsewhere; so that it was not easy to wheel Roberts through. As I began to pass between the houses I saw that many of them were used as shelters for animals. From windows and doorways that had been roughly patched and secured, faces of sheep and cows gazed out at me as though wondering who was this stranger. There was not a human to be seen; it felt strange and uncanny.
    Then ahead I saw the dogs, quite a posse of them, though I didn’t waste time trying to count them. They looked big and threatening, and at least two of them wore wide collars with three-inch spikes sticking out of them like a menacing ruff. They started to pace stiff-legged and alert as I approached. I felt less than confident, but as I could see no escape route, I had no choice but to go on. The one that came for me first was not the most frightening. It was a poor thin Alsatian bitch, her ribs prominent and the erect hair around her neck and shoulders sparse and caked with mud. As she lowered her head and muzzle towards me and snarled her challenge, I pointed the Dazer and pressed the button. As much to my surprise as to hers, I think, she backed off immediately, shaking her head as though to rid it of something unpleasant. The others circled round, still stiff-legged but keeping their distance. I pressed the Dazer in their direction a few more times, and that was the end of the confrontation. They slunk off slowly, and I was left feeling absurdly sorry for them because they were all so thin and in such poor condition. All the same, the incident gave me a confidence about dealing with dogs that I had never possessed before.
    As I passed what was left of the primitive little church of Foncebadón I could see that its bell was still hanging in the ruined belfry. A middle-aged man was letting the cows out, their warm breath heavy in the cold air. He nodded an unsmiling response to my greeting, and I continued on to join the road once more, wondering if there could ever be a reprieve for this ghost village before it disappeared completely beneath the grass and bracken.
    As I curved back to the road from Foncebadón, the mist came down and the air was suddenly full of moisture. Visibility shrank abruptly to a few feet and the wide view over the way I had just ascended vanished together with the village. The famous iron cross on its tall pole which marks the start of the pass loomed up before me out of the greyness. Traditionally every pilgrim passing the spot adds their stone to the mound on which the cross stands. Ahead of me lay what had always been one of the most fearful passages of the pilgrimage, so much so that Aimery Picaud included a short chapter in his guide to record the names of the men who had repaired the road from Rabanal in the twelfth century and who rebuilt the bridge over the River Miño which a Queen Urraca had destroyed. In some respects the dangers were as real today for a walker or a bicyclist. I added my stone and took the opportunity to don my rain gear. I also read aloud the medieval prayers for the safety of pilgrims.
     
O God, Who didst bring Abraham, Thy servant, out of Ur of the Chaldeans, and did preserve him unhurt through all the paths of his pilgrimage... Be unto us a covering in the rain and cold, a staff in slippery