Leaving Calzadilla

I'm now on the Camino del Norte but I have to go back a few days to wrap up our time in Calzadilla.  The two weeks went very fast.  We counted 192 pilgrims from 30 countries.  There were many stories, three camino romances, blisters - both minor and serious and many very happy appreciative pilgrims.  Like most first time pilgrims, they were doing something that they didn't quite understand but they were giving it their all.  Here a few last photos of Calzadilla.

A last communal meal.

Meet Eutimeo.  He is the grocer in Calzadilla.  He supplies villagers and pilgrims with cheese, chorrizo, beer, bread and almost everything necessary to survive.  He is about five feet tall and is always smiling.  His tienda reminds me of a old American general store.

Gemma and Leo run the bed and breakfast in Calzadilla which in Spain is called a Casa Rural.  Gemma was born and raised in the village and ran the B&B with her mother.  Leo is Cuban and met Gemma when he walked the Camino.  He came back to Spain and stayed and now they run the business together.  He is a terrific chef.

This helps keep the alburgue clean.  The last few days at the alburgue were very busy.  We could see the camino traffic slowly increase.  We were full two nights in the last week and our replacement finally arrived.  

A Study in Adobe

Adobe houses and barns are very common here on the meseta.  There is plenty of clay soil and straw.  Probably a third of the houses in Calzadilla are adobe.  The adobe blocks and stucco are softer here than in New Mexico but the humidity here is about 80%.  The following are from all around the village.

Adobe is used for clay bricks also.

Here is a modern twist.  This a new building with clay brick at the base of the walls and the corners and adobe for the bulk of the walls.

Alburgue adventures

Three nights ago after a day of rain, I decided to put wet pilgrim clothing in the dryer (electric).  The water heater, also electric, was running full bore after seven or eight showers and it was time for dinner so the pilgrims started making their dinner on the electric stove top.  Yes, we tripped a breaker.  I had to search for the breaker box, found it and order was restored.  But wait, no internet.  Okay, how do I reboot the modem?  It's not routed through a desktop computer. Hmm.  When in doubt, unplug everything and count to ten.  I think I read that in some technical manual.

Last night we had a thunder and lightning storm.  After the lightning, thirteen of us were sitting in the dark wondering what else could go wrong.  No electricity here means no lights, no heat and no water.  The Aussies and Koreans went to the restaurant that had no lights but a gas oven and stove.  The German pilgrims went to the store and bought salad.  Beth and I ate almond cookies and drank beer.  At 9:30 the power came back on and everyone went to bed.

Here is the interior of the alburgue.

The hopelessly inadequate kitchen.  Note the duct tape on the wall above the sink holding the plug for the water heater in place.  Appliance here are plugged in, not hard-wired.

Two showers, two toilets, two hand sinks.

The alburgue has four rooms with two bunk beds in each.  There are also three more bunks upstairs.

Dinner at the alburgue.

Every alburgue has a shelf for boots.  Helps keep the floor clean.

The countryside

Calzadilla de los Hermanillos is at the western edge of the meseta.  The meseta is a vast mostly treeless plain in north central Spain.  It's about 2500 feet in elevation and about 10000 square miles and is planted almost entirely in winter wheat.  And it's flat.
The Cantabrian Mountains run across northern Spain almost from the Pyrenees to Galicia.  Part of the Cantabrians are known as the Picos.  This photo is taken from Calzadilla looking north.  The Picos (peaks) are about 50 miles north.  They are very steep and jagged limestone mountains between 7000 and 7500 feet in elevation.
The last photo is actually the first photo from our arrival.  The very small villages on the meseta have some very long names.  

The folklore of the camino divides the journey into three parts.  The first is the crossing of the Pyrenees and the hills of Navarre.  The first third is a physical challenge.  The middle third is across the meseta and is considered a mental and emotional challenge.  Sadly, many pilgrims skip parts of the meseta believing it to be hard, hot and boring.  I understand the feeling but I don't agree with skipping over it. I loved the meseta.  Perhaps because I grew up on the prairie, I am comfortable with the emptiness and being able to see to the horizon.  Imagine walking across North Dakota.  The last third, from Leon to Santiago, as pilgrims near the end becomes a religious, spiritual, even existential challenge.

This photo of the Picos was taken from the upstairs balcony of the alburgue.  Good old John Deere is parked in the foreground.  The tractor belongs to the man that lives in the house to the left.  He drives out to his farm to work.  I have seen several more farmers in the village commuting to work.

Churches in Calzadilla

There is a church and a chapel in Calzadilla.  It's hard for me to imagine the role religion played for people in Spain and the rest of Europe in the Middle Ages.  Until the Reformation there was only the Catholic church.  Everyone was Catholic and everyone went to church and everyone pitched a few coins in the offering to build or maintain their church. But the number of churches is really amazing.  The Camino may be exceptional in that respect.  During the Middle Ages up to a million pilgrims a year made the trek to Santiago.  Their offerings built many of the churches along the camino.

The village church dedicated to San Bartolome.  According to the guide, there was a Visigothic or Mozarabic church here that was destroyed by the Mooriush King Almanzor.  The appearance is unusual as if it has had several additions over the years.  The core building is 13th century.

Someone constructed a platform on the roof of the church for the inevitable stork nest.

The cemetary.

La Ermita de la Virgen de los Dolores or the chapel of the Virgin of Sorrows.  Rumor has it there is a woman in the village that is the keeper of the keys to the churches. We will try to find her so that we can see the interiors.

In one week we have welcomed 92 pilgrims from 23 countries: Belgium, France, Spain, England, Wales, Ireland, Denmark, Germany, Netherlands, Italy, Hungary, Czech Republic, Korea, Japan, Taiwan, USA, Brazil, Australia, Romania, Canada, Israel, Switzerland and Scotland.

Calzadilla de los Hermanillos

Everything is going well at the alburgue.  Rain is falling in the plain in Spain and it's likely to continue for a week.  Coming from New Mexico, it's hard to imagine a week of steady rain.  It's time to go on an extended tour of the village.  This is a don't-blink-or-you'll-miss-it kind of place but it also has been a stop on the Camino de Santiago for hundreds of years so it has some history.

Spain has some recently discovered human living sites that are 900,000 years old. Since then, many Eastern European and Germanic people have arrived.  In the third century, the Romans were very actively mining and building roads in northern Spain.  This little park in Calzadilla has a few Roman artifacts and some good interpretive signs.

This is a section of Roman road built in the 3rd century.  It's called the Via Trajana after Emporer Trajan.  The sign tells me that the construction method was very sophisticated.  The route was excavated and progressively smaller stones were layered until the road was above grade for drainage.  The top layer was flagstones and that must made for a really rough ride in a steel-wheeled chariot.  The flagstones are missing and probably have been scavanged for other building projects.

Agriculture in Spain in the 18th and 19th centuries depended on draft animals.  This machine was built to lift oxen, horses, mules and donkeys to make hoof care and shoeing easier.  It's a wooden frame with leather straps to go under the animals belly. The modern roof over this machine is for protection from weather.

The Alburgue

Now the third day on the job and things have been a bit to hectic to write.  We have had 12-14 pilgrims here every night.  The pilgrims have been making a communal meal every night and we have been invited.  So what is a communal meal in an alburgue in Spain?  Imagine that 12 strangers that don't even all know each other invade your kitchen.  They start hunting through your cabinets and refrigerator and two hours later

an incredible three course meal for twelve emerges.  Here is the fabulous fruit salad. Next comes the lettuce salad crew.  We didn't have enough bowls so the salad was mixed and served in plastic shopping bags.  Tres chic!

Phase 3 - the cooks in the kitchen.  A very small kitchen.  And the cooks, pardon, the chefs are French so stand back and watch the magic.

Finally, the meal and the conversation and the ambiance.  How did they make that in that kitchen and the only spices are salt and pepper.  The French must carry special backpacking spice kits.  And a doofus hospitalero takes a photo with his mouth hanging open.  You just can't find good help anymore.

Leon

My long day of travel ended in Leon.  I also joined my fellow hospitalera, Beth Lord from Seattle.  We will take the rest of Thursday and part of Friday to recover from the flight, drink coffee and see the city.

This building is called Casa Botines.  It was designed and built by Antoni Gaudi in 1892-3.  Gaudi is best known for many buildings in Barcelona.  This building is fairly conventional.  He is best known for his whimsical designs in Barcelona.

 This the cathedral in Leon.  The guidebooks about Spain describe the three great Gothic cathedrals in Spain: Sevilla, Burgos and Leon.  This church dominates the city.  It's visible for miles to the east as pilgrims approach.

Friday was adventure day.  Our alburgue is in a small village (150 people) and not on a bus route.  There is a daily bus east from Leon to a small town nearby that arrives at 6:45 pm.  We hopped off the bus and asked a local senora which was the road to Calzadilla.  She replied that we should go to another town to start, we couldn't get there from where we were standing.  I knew that we could so we set off walking and reached here about 8:30 pm.  Saturday, the previous hospitalero gave us the keys and now and now we are "on the job" and so far nine pilgrims have stopped to spend the night.

Secret Pilgrim photos revealed

In a exclusive blogspot story, this author has discovered photos of the stuff that pilgrims carry in their packs.  Many have suggested pilgrims wear special clothing and carry many cult items.  It turns out that pilgrims have fairly ordinary stuff like pants and toothpaste and socks.  Here is the photo:

I survived Dallas to Madrid and now in Leon recuperating.  More photos in the net entry.

The Camino Symbol

The symbol for the Camino de Santiago is, in my mind, one of the most expressive visual signs that I have ever seen.  In fact, it's so good that it actually has multiple meanings.

The symbol is a stylized scallop shell.  The scallop shell is the universally accepted symbol for the Apostol James or Santiago and has been for a thousand years.  Real scallop shells were used in the middle ages as way markers, indicated places friendly to pilgrims and were a souvenir that pilgrims took home after their pilgrimage. Today, tiles just like this one line the caminos in Spain and serve as way markers along with the ever-present and much searched-for yellow arrows.

The rays of the scallop also represent the many caminos in Spain, Portugal, France and all of Europe that eventually converge in Santiago de Compostella.

Can it be a directional pointer?  One can imagine a sort of arrow with the junction of all the rays as the point.  The tile above is then pointing to the right.  The pilgrim community inevitably has this discussion as it moves across Spain.  Yes, it could be a pointer if the people doing the installation of the tiles would agree on the correct orientation.

Lastly, the European Union was born about the same time as the current revival of the Camino.  The politicians in Brussels and Frankfurt saw the Camino as the perfect expression of a new unified and borderless Europe.  A Europe that would be a mirror of the Camino values of patience, tolerance, generosity, kindness and optimism. Current events have put tremendous pressure on those values but the dream remains alive.

The Camino

I'm getting ready for another trip to Spain to volunteer in an alburgue and walk for a few days.  My friends wonder with all the places in the world to visit, why do I keep going back to the camino?   Difficult to answer.  Long explanation.  Eyes glaze over. The easy answer - because I like it.  I like everthing about it, the place, the people, the feeling.  The poets manage it the best.  Concise, visual, emotional.

The road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began
Now far ahead the road has gone
And I must follow if I can.
                                                   Bilbo Baggins

Walker, your footsteps
are the road and nothing more.
Walker, there is no road,
the road is made by walking.
                                                   Antonio Machado

like a person and place you had sought forever,
like a broad field of freedom that beckoned you beyond;
like another life, and the road still stretching on.
                                                   David Whyte

I go to the camino to reset my inner self and to remember once again that there is good in the world.  I go to test myself, physically, sure, but also see if can I still be patient and kind and forgiving and generous.  I go to see the divesity of the world.  I go to live in the moment where there is no tomorrow or yesterday, only right now.