Day 60: Roof tour

The video of today's swinging incense burner at mass,
but this time, from the back of the church. =)

October 10: When I woke up in the morning, I still hadn’t decided if I was going to spend another day in Santiago or not. When I first arrived, I figured absolutely not. One zero day was plenty! But I had such a good time the day before, catching up with several pilgrims I hadn’t seen in for weeks, and I found myself more and more inclined to spend another day in town and see who else I could find.

I went downstairs where I ate breakfast (included with the cost of the room)—cereal, toast, orange juice, muffin, and an apple. I got online and checked the weather forecast—a chance of rain today, and all but guaranteed the couple of days after that. It wasn’t a forecast I liked, and I refreshed my browser page hoping it would return something different, but it didn’t. It continued to stick with its miserable forecast.

And finally, after hemming and hawing, I finally decided to take another zero day.

Late in the morning, I headed out to the cathedral before mass to find out who showed up. I didn’t see anyone I knew in the main square, and with nothing better to do, I first wandered into a door to the left of the main entrance where I inquired about the “tower tour.” I first learned that they give guided tours of the cathedral—to areas where most peons can’t go—from Nancy, Jeannie, and MaryK the day before, but we wound up drinking at a restaurant and chatting with passing pilgrims (occasionally providing applause to newly arriving pilgrims) and missed the tour. Since I was going to be in town another day, though, I was inclined to do it. The woman there told me that an English-language “roof tour” was scheduled for 5:00 that afternoon. Ten euros for non-pilgrims, and eight euros for pilgrims. (Our credentials were our proof of pilgrim-ess.)

“I’ll be back at 5:00, then!” I told the lady. =)








 The roof tour was absolutely awesome, and it is indeed an actual roof tour. The tour guide took us out onto the uneven roof. The rain had mostly stopped, but drops still sputtered and a terrific wind blew through shredding my umbrella to pieces. Literally. There’s not really much to report about the roof tour. We walked around it, and the guide told us about the cathedral and carvings and such. The views were wonderful, though, and we could see stuff from angles that most people will never see. Looking down from a bird’s eye view into the cathedral was pretty awesome. =)



 

Looking down into the south side of the cathedral from the roof.

Day 59: Giant Incense Burners, Paramedics, and Webcam Adventures!

October 9: Santiago! The promised land! Without a doubt, I intended to take a zero day and explore this bustling town. You read my webcam misadventures at the wine fountain, but you didn’t read about another aborted webcam cameo in Burgos. The webcam Wassa found was indeed pointed at the cathedral I would be walking past, but it was probably a half mile away and if I was visible at all, I’d have been the size of a mere pixel.

Wassa had been wanting to catch me in real time, live on a webcam somewhere, and I found an online website in front of Santiago Cathedral at http://www.crtvg.es/crtvg/camaras-web/praza-do-obradoiro#.ULPFSoZXlLY — look for me there I told him, somewhat jokingly. “I was there yesterday, and I’ll be there again today.” Not sure when I’d be there, but Wassamatta u, I knew, had nothing better to do than watch a webcam in Spain all day, right? =)

Before leaving my hotel room in the morning, I checked my email and he was online, so I told him that I’d be leaving the hotel and probably be in front of the cathedral in as little as 15 minutes. I told him I’d be carrying an umbrella—it was raining outside, after all, and I headed out.

I arrived at the cathedral, where I spotted Vivian, the Australian women I met the first day I hiked out of Saint Jean. It wasn’t a coincidence—I’d gone there specifically to meet her. I hadn’t seen her since the day I left Burgos. She skipped a large section to Leon and had forever since been two days ahead of me. We kept in touch through email, though, and knew she was still in Santiago meeting up with all of her friends she had left behind. Which included me. =)

I told Vivian we had to stand around in front of the cathedral for at least a few minutes so Wassa would have a chance to spot us. We saw a camera on one of the buildings, and I pointed to it saying that I thought that was the webcam. The angle was right. We waved to the camera, and Vivian wanted to see us on it herself so she pulled out her smart phone, loaded up the website with the webcam, and there we were! It wasn’t a very good image of us, though. We were tiny little dots, and had we not known where we were standing, we’d have had a tough time picking ourselves out of the image. With her smart phone, though, we could also see that we were close to the edge of the photo, near the back, and we moved into a more prominent location to make it easier for Wassa to find us.

We were out there, on display in front of the webcam for probably 15 minutes or so, and later, when I got back to the hotel and got online, checked if he had seen me. He probably did, but said he couldn’t tell which of the dots were me because everyone had umbrellas. There wasn’t enough detail to pick me up. Drats. Foiled again….

Vivian and I went out for breakfast catching up on each others adventures, then she directed me to a fairly large bookstore where I went in search of a guidebook for Finisterre and Muxia, but we came up empty. It wasn’t that critical since I had maps for most of the distance, but it would have been nice.

Eventually, we headed back to the cathedral for mass. I hadn’t been to mass since… well, the very first day I started my hike in Le Puy. =) Somehow, it seemed appropriate to bookend each end of my pilgrimage with a mass.

Vivian took us to the very front for a seat on the ground in front of the very front pew. Shortly before mass started, they roped off the area where we sat, not allowing anyone else where we were. But then Hilary found us, and when the coast was clear, she ducked under the rope and joined us. =)

This mass had a few differences from the one I was at in Le Puy. For instance, this time, they all spoke Spanish rather than French. Which meant I could actually pick out some of the words they said, although they still spoke too fast for me to understand the entire sentences.

Then, I was a little surprised to see Charles, the priest from New Zealand, up there dressed in priestly robes. It looked like they took several pilgrims from various countries to speak a few words, and Charles came up and said his few words—in English since he couldn’t even pronounce the word ‘alburgue’ correctly in Spanish if you threatened him with his life. =) There were half a dozen of these pilgrim talkers, but Charles was the only one I actually knew. I assumed the others must have been priests in their respective countries as well, and they clearly spoke all sorts of languages that I couldn’t recognize. Undoubtedly, some of them were French, German, Korean, and who knows what all else. I rather liked the international spectacle.

And then, there was one other little difference: the incense burner. This was no ordinary incense burner. It’s called the Botafumeiro, a famous thurible (yeah, I didn’t know the word either) is enormous, weighing in at 80 kilograms (about 176 pounds), and burns an enormous hunk of incense as its swung dramatically through the cathedral on a pulley system. Truth be told, probably 95% of the people who go to this mass are here specifically to see the incense burner swinging through the structure.

They lowered the Botafumeiro, started the incense burning, then a priest swung it by hand as far as he could to get the thing started at which point six guys in robes pulled at the rope attached to it to swing it higher and higher and higher! Cameras flashed everywhere, an endless parade of flashing lights that gave the whole event even more appeal. From our perch in front of the front pew, the incense burner seemed to pass almost immediately over us. We could practically reach out and touch it—if we wanted our hand ripped off as it swung by.

So very awesome. *nodding*

Then it slowed down to a stop and mass was over.

I wanted to stop and see crypt at allegedly held Saint James’s mortal remains, but I decided to come back later and see it. Now that everyone was leaving the mass, the line for it was absolutely enormous. I'd come back later when things were less crowded!

Vivian was the first to peal off. Hilary and I wandered around a bit before we eventually parted ways as well.

An hour after mass had ended, I headed back to the cathedral to check out the lines. There were actually two lines. One that went down to the crypt with Saint James’s remains, but the other went up to a large statue of the apostle, which I thought looked kind of like a large Buddha, which people can hug or whatever. I walked around to check out the lines where I saw Nancy and MaryK.

“Hey!” I said, “How are you guys! Did you catch mass?” =)

Nancy seemed positively freaked out, though, and told me that Jeannie was in there helping someone who had hurt themselves. Huh? I was completely oblivious to anything unusual going on.

Eventually, I pieced together the story that they had gone up to see the “Buddah,” but on the way down, a woman had fallen and hurt herself. Since nobody else seemed to know what they were doing, Nancy pushed Jeannie into going in to help. Jeannie was a doctor of some sort, so probably knew what to do better than the rest of us did. But Nancy was really quite agitated and worried about Jeannie. “Maybe I shouldn’t have told her to go in there?”

Eventually, some cathedral personnel happened along and closed off the doors leading into and out of the Buddha exhibit, and we were told that help was on its way. In the meantime, we waited around the exit for Jeannie to come out. About ten minutes later, she popped her head out asking if paramedics were on their way—this woman needs help ASAP. We told her that that’s what we were told, help was on its way. We had no idea why it was taking so long, though. We were in the middle of a major city in Spain. It seemed like help should have been practically right around the corner. Jeannie went back to the hurt woman and we continued waiting outside just chatting. I tried to cheer Nancy up and assured her that sending Jeannie in was the right thing to do and that she’d be fine. And I tried to distract her from the emergency by talking about other stuff.

MaryK was funny, though—“Oh, it’s YOU!” At which point she admitted that she didn’t recognize me at first. “Who’s this strange guy who acts like he knows us?” I’d always seen them while hiking on the trail when I always wore my hat with the handkerchief underneath it. Since I was indoors and in the cathedral, I didn’t have the hat or handkerchief on my head, she completely didn’t recognize me. It wasn’t the first time this had happened—apparently, I look quite different when I’m in town and when I’m hiking. =)
Another ten minutes go by, and even I’m starting to grow a little concerned about the lack of paramedics arriving. What the hell is taking them so long? It’s not like we were out in the boonies in some sort of obscure, hard-to-find location. We were at probably the most well-known building in the entire city, the middle of a big city! Finally, though, paramedics arrived. I still have no idea what took them so long, but Jeannie finally left the woman and rejoined the rest of us where we got more details.

The woman who had hurt herself, she told us, had high heals on, and on the steep, narrow staircase, Jeannie thought she must have slipped or stumbled and fell hard down the steps. The steps were solid rock—not wooden, or carpeted, or anything soft. Just solid rock, and she apparently hit her head pretty hard and was going into shock. She was modest, though, saying she didn’t really do anything for the woman, except monitor her pulse and making sure nobody moved her until the paramedics arrived. “And why did that take so long?” she asked us. We shook our heads. “Don’t know.”

“Well,” I told them, “you girls certainly know how to keep things interesting!”

I walked around with them a bit, and they needed to go down to the train station to buy their tickets back to Madrid. Looking at a map, I could see that the route to the train station went right past my hotel and I volunteered to lead the way. I didn’t really have anything else to do now that mass was over. They planned to get tickets for the afternoon a couple of days later, but were told that that trail was full. The 10:30 PM train tomorrow night, however, still had space, and that’s what they booked for themselves. Then I walked back towards the cathedral with them again.

I spent the rest of the afternoon and evening with them, a pleasant time. They seemed surprised that I would want to hang around with them all day. Not at all disappointed that I did, but just surprised, as if I wouldn’t want anything to do with three women that might have been old enough to have been my mother. (I don’t know how old they are—but they’ve definitely got at least a decade or two on me!)

During dinner, I got online. I had told the girls about my webcam misadventures and said that I still didn’t know if Wassa had seen me or not that morning since I hadn’t been online. So I got online


 Wassa did see a lot of people in the webcam, but he couldn’t identify me specifically because everyone was carrying umbrellas. I reported the findings to the girls. I replied to Wassa saying that that was disappointing or something, and he replied almost immediately since he was still online. Not surprisingly, really, since it was probably close to noon Pacific time where he lived. Maybe we could give it another shot?

I told him it wasn’t raining anymore—not at the moment, at least—so nobody had their umbrellas open. I’d go back to the cathedral and twirl around my open umbrella. Look for the figure with an open umbrella. I’ll be the only one this time! I told him to give me a half hour or so. I wasn’t that far away, but I was still at dinner and needed to finish up before walking down there.
The girls were headed to the cathedral again as well, so we all started off. They bumped into some other pilgrims they knew that I did not, however, and stopped to talk to them. I knew Wassa would be waiting and looking for me on the webcam, so I didn’t want to linger and continued on. “Catch up with me in front of the cathedral when you’re done!” =)

The cathedral still had quite a few people milling around, but none of them had any open umbrellas. Perfect! I opened up mine, and started twirling it around in the air to get the attention of the webcam. =) I did this for about ten minutes when I spotted two of the Australian girls I had been camping with earlier—Kathy and Emily—so we chatted for a few minutes.

“Did you finish 50 Shades of Grey?” I asked, curious.

Yes, they did.

“Let me guess—it ends with Anna signing the contract and that’s what the next book is about, right?”

“No, she didn’t! They break up at the end!”

Really? Wow—well, I guess that why there’s a sequel. =)

One of the character names in the book is “Grey,” and I joked that the sequel—called 50 Shades Darker, must be about a different man Anna sleeps around with named Darker.

In other news, Erin had apparently fallen ill and was getting better in a hostel somewhere. All the while we’re talking, I’m still swinging around the open umbrella as if I were Mary Poppins, and explained that I was trying to get the attention of someone who was watching a webcam. =)

They continued on, and eventually Nancy, MaryK, and Jeannie arrived they all waved to the webcam. They came to see the cathedral lit up at night, but it wasn’t really lit up at all and they were a bit disappointed about that.

At that point, I had spent about an hour swinging around my umbrella, and I figured that was good enough. If Wassa hadn’t spotted me then, he never would. I walked back to my hotel for the night and waved goodbye to the girls, already thinking about seeing them off from the train station the next day. I hadn’t decided if I’d take another day (or not) in Santiago, but if I did, I knew when their train was departing. I rather liked the idea of going down there to surprise them and wish them good luck. =) But that would only happen if I stayed in town for an extra day….

 I set with Hilary (center) and Vivian (right) waiting for mass to start. =)
Vivian took this photo with her phone which, I suppose, might be
why this one is so grainy compared to the others.

Charles, the priest from New Zealand, says a few words at mass. It was
kind of neat to see him here, not just at the podium, but because I first
met him my first night in Saint Jean. I thought I’d never see him
again after that, but not only did I see him quite often along the
trail, but we wound up in Santiago at the same time. =)

This pillar, near the bottom, is where millions of pilgrims
have worn their fingertips into the bottom of it. (If you’ve
watched The Way, this is that column.) It’s
blocked off so people can’t touch it anymore, though.

I stand triumphant in front of the cathedral.

Because, you know, you just can’t take too many photos
of yourself in front of the cathedral. =)

From left to right, Jeannie, MaryK, and Nancy.

Galicia, apparently, is famous for their octopus. Yum!

I rather liked the look of this dish with the food being
served on scallop shells. How appropriate!

 Wassa finally catches me on a webcam in front of the cathedral
in Santiago! =) The commentary is his own....

Swinging the incense burner higher and higher and higher!    
Here the incense burner goes so high, it seemed like it was about to hit the ceiling!    Here's a video from YouTube with some nice shots of the Santiago Cathedral which is pretty cool. I did NOT make this video, however. =) The only thing I really feel is missing from it is that they never actually show the swinging incense burner. An oversight, I'm sure.  

Day 58: Santiago!

October 8: It rained overnight—a lot!—but my tarp did me proud and kept me dry. By morning, the rain had stopped, but an extremely thick fog with fat drops seemed to seep into everything and tree snot from the eucalyptus trees kept hitting my tarp, so I wasn’t always sure if it was actually raining or not without looking into the clear cut of trees.

Most of the day’s hiking was an unpleasant road walk. I’ve seen photos of the Santiago Cathedral from a distance that seem to dominate the skyline, and I kept my eyes open for that, but I never saw it through the thick fog. I didn’t stop for any but the briefest of rest breaks and a drink at a trailside restaurant. I was anxious to see Santiago in person, and anxious to arrive before the rain started—a probability that seemed to increase throughout the day.

I followed the yellow arrows through the streets of Santiago until I arrived at the square in front of the cathedral, a towering masterpiece of architecture. It was the end of the Camino. Oh, sure, I still planned to hike on towards Finisterre, but //this// was the “real” end of the trail. This is where 95% of the people who walk the Camino call it quits. Looking around, I was surrounded by dozens of other people, many of which were clearly pilgrims, but nobody I recognized. I felt a little sad about that. It somehow seemed wrong to have arrived by myself like I did.

I didn’t go inside the cathedral—not yet, anyhow. Mass is held each day at noon, and I had missed it by a couple of hours. I would return tomorrow for mass, and I didn’t want to see the inside of the cathedral until then.

In the meantime, I had a reservation at a hotel to check into. I didn’t know the name of the hotel, nor did I know it’s location. I had gotten online briefly the day before at a computer station in a restaurant when I made the reservation, leaving my pack with the Australian girls at the time, so I had nothing to write with or write on after I made the reservation. The information was online, though, if I could find somewhere to get online.

But I was pretty sure I remembered that the word “nest” was in the name of the hotel, so I wandered over to the tourist office where I had my credential stamped, picked up a map of the city, and asked if they had a list of the available lodging in town I could look through. They did, and I scrolled through the list looking for a place with the word “nest” in the name. I didn’t find it, though, and scrolled through the ten pages of the list a second time to make sure I hadn’t overlooked it, but I still didn’t find it. Shoot.

I asked about Internet access, and the woman at the tourist office said that a restaurant just around the corner from there had wi-fi. Perfect! I thanked her and headed out to the restaurant.

I pulled out my laptop, but the wi-fi connection required a password. Drats. I suppose I could actually BUY something and ask for the code, but I just wanted to log in for the ten seconds it was necessary to look up my reservation details. The guy at the table next to me was typing on his laptop, and I asked him if he was online and new the password to get on. No, he didn’t. Drats!

But a woman passing by had heard me and said she had eaten there the day before and had the password. She went to look it up on her cell phone, but the password was obscured as passwords often are and she couldn’t read it to me.

“Would you mind if I just logged in with your cell phone?” I asked. “Just be second! I only want to look up my reservation so I know where my hotel is!”

She didn’t have a problem with this and gave me her phone. I don’t have a cell phone, smart or otherwise, and I’m not particularly experienced figuring out how to navigate the web on them. Trying to go back a page after clicking a wrong link, or finding the “login” button when I did get to the right website—these were all challenges for me. It probably took me close to five minutes—far longer than I would have imagined—but I finally managed to look up my reservation for the “Nest Style Hotel Santiago” and the address.

I found the street on my map from the tourist office and now knew where I was going. =) I used booking.com for my reservation (if you ever need a hotel reservation in Europe, I think this is THE website to use for it), and the woman started asking me all sorts of questions about it. She hadn’t used it before but had heard a lot about it. Since she was kind enough to lend me her cell phone to look up my reservation, I helped explain to her how that website worked and helped her make a reservation for herself in Barcelona a couple of days later. She had a reservation to fly back to the United States from Barcelona. It’s an usual option back to the states, and I asked why she didn’t get a flight back from Madrid like most people do. It’s closer and cheaper to go to.

“I’m flying US Airways,” she told me.

Now, I know a thing or two about US Airways, and I know for a fact that they have flights out of Madrid, so that didn’t really answer my question. In fact, I was planning to fly out on US Airways myself, but I planned to fly out from Madrid. So I said that US Airways had flights out of Madrid too—so why Barcelona? Just curious—no wrong answer here (except implying that US Airways didn’t have flights to Madrid—that WOULD be a wrong answer!), and she went on about having never been to Barcelona before. That’s as good as reason as any. =)

While we were talking, a waiter came along asking if he could get anything for us. I felt a little guilty taking up their table and using their wi-fi without actually buying anything, so I said I’d have a Coke. And it’s not like I wouldn’t enjoy it either. The Coke arrived, and much to my surprise, included a silver tray with potato chips on it. The bill for the Coke was 2.50 euros—kind of steep for a small bottle of Coke. The cost, I assumed, was because it included the cost of the “free” potato chips that I didn’t really want in the first place. The woman said she “accidentally” bought a 20 euro lunch the day before. “This place isn’t cheap!”

I finished my drink and potato chips, then headed off in search of my hotel. I found it about ten minutes later, right where my map said it would be, and checked in for the night. The room was small but serviceable, and I had my own private bathroom that wasn’t crowded into the size of a small closet. I hate those showers that are so small you can’t even bend over to pick up that dropped bar of soap or you have to step out of the bathroom just to dry off with your towel, so I was pretty happy to have the full-sized bathroom at my disposal. =) And all for just 35 euros. Almost all of the other hotels in town were going for nearly twice that amount.

After showering and cleaning up, I headed back to the hotel lobby and returned my key to the desk clerk. (They want you to turn in your key whenever you leave the hotel.) I asked where the nearest grocery store was, and the desk clerk told me outside, right across the street. I walked outside, and sure enough, there was a large grocery store. I felt a little sheepish that I hadn’t noticed it on my way in. =) I did my grocery shopping, then headed back into the historical town center where I checked in at the pilgrim’s office to register my successful walk. I arrived there at close to 7:00 and avoided the crowds earlier in the day.

An English-speaking man greeted me when I entered the room, and asked where I had started from. “Le Puy-en-Velay,” I answered.

He said, “So you started, what? Last week?” Obviously a joke.

“No,” I told him, “the trail was a lot more difficult than I had thought. It took me closer to two weeks!”

He congratulated me on my hike—certainly not the longest one anyone has done, but definitely one of the longer ones they see arriving into town and told me to walk up to the counter in the next room and they’ll take care of me.

I did so, and had my choice between three different clerks twiddling their thumbs. I picked the guy closest to me, and he took my two credentials, looking through them and asking me about the purpose of my journey since they give people a different compostela depending on the reason. I said something about it being a “cultural journey” for me, and they stamped both of the credentials I had used, had me fill out a form with my name, citizenship and where I started from, handed me a compostela, return my credentials and congratulated me.

The compostela, my certificate for having completed the trail. According to the church, half of all my sins have been washed away upon completion of my journey. Had I hiked in a Holy Year (the next one is 2021), all of my sins would have been washed away. I didn’t feel any different, though. The only difference was that now I had a sheet of paper that said something in Latin that I couldn’t read. And truth be told, it wasn’t even a very pretty piece of paper. No artful design. No colorful images of the cathedral. Just a flat, off-white sheet of paper.

And that was my first problem: What do to with that sheet of paper. It seemed like it would be wrong to fold it up or bend it, but I didn’t have anywhere in my pack that I could safely store a sheet of paper without damaging it. Many pilgrims, I was told, buy little tubes to store it in, rolled up safely, until they get back home. I didn’t really want to carry a tube, though, and they didn’t have anymore available at the pilgrim’s office anyhow. I rolled it up and carried it for the time being, but I’d have to do something with it eventually.

Then I headed back to the hotel for the night. The laminated welcome page they had in my room said you could switch the TV to English, but the directions for that weren’t particularly clear. So I bungled around with the TV remote control for about ten minutes before I figured out how to change many of the stations into English. English! Not off the stations were in English—their local news, for instance, didn’t have an English-language counterpart. But now I could watch exciting shows like Two and a Half Men, American Dad, or CSI in English. =) Oddly, The Simpsons was still in Spanish. I knew there was an English-language counterpart for that show, but for whatever reason, it wasn’t available.

But for most of the night, I caught up on email, blog posts, and watched way too many episodes of “How It’s Made” on their version of the Science Channel. =)

Although it didn’t actually rain during my walk into Santiago,
the weather certainly wasn’t good either!

After I had checked into my hotel, though, it did
start to rain. Officially, though, I consider this a
non-rain day since I didn’t actually have to hike in the rain! =)

A courtyard outside of the cathedral.

The Santiago Cathedral! I had made it!

A woman getting her picture taken with a pilgrim statue, you think?
No, that’s not a statue! That’s a guy who makes his
living dressing up as an old pilgrim and has people pay him
to have your photo taken with him. I didn’t want to pay,
though, and took this photo of a complete stranger
getting her picture with him. =)

My compostela. Truth be told, it was a little anti-climatic as far as
certificates go. My credential I thought was more interesting
and had more sentimental value than this certificate, so I decided
to fold it in thirds until it got home. =)

And the Hiking Begins….

August 12: Late in the night, my neighbors trickled into their beds and promptly went to sleep. The next morning, when I was ready to get up and get going, they were still all fast asleep so I left them that way. I sneaked downstairs and took a shower—presumably my last one for quite some time—and grabbed breakfast which consisted of cereal and bread. Bread, if you didn’t know it, is a staple of the French diet. They can’t have a meal without bread. They have entire shops dedicated to break—not unlike Starbucks in Seattle with one on every block. Maybe even two on some blocks. People walk around with bread in their packs, in their hands. It’s always a hard bread that I find difficult to chew. I think they might even play a form of baseball using their bread as a bat.
The other folks eating breakfast were all French, although one of them spoke a little bit of English. Mostly, I just felt left out of the conversation, which was fine by me. *shrug*
I headed back to my room and my bed to pack up all of my worldly possessions and finally my neighbors had woken from their slumber. Two of them were German who also spoke no French, but they did speak English so I could talk to them. The third person was French, but he also knew English. A room full of English-speaking people! That couldn’t have been coincidence…. I suspect the girl who checked me in assigned English-speaking people to that room.
One of the Germans said something in French and asked me if I understood it. “Not a word,” I told him.
“Wow,” he commented, “you really are in trouble.”
Uh, thanks…. “So what did it mean?”
“Let me ask you further down the trail and see if you’ve figured it out.”
That was less than helpful. =) The two Germans left for breakfast and I continued chatting with the French fellow who taught me a few words in French, such as how to say “United States” when people asked where I was from. (I have no idea how to write United States in French—I wrote it down phonetically so I could correctly say the words later, but the French guy told me it’s not unlike saying United States in Spanish (Estadios Unidos) and dropping the last syllable of each word (esta uni). He also taught me “Good luck!” so I could wish people “Good luck!” when I saw them on the trail. In five minutes, I single-handedly doubled my French vocabulary. =)
Then I went in search of an Internet café which I saw the day before to let Amanda and my mom know that I had made it to Le Puy okay and would be starting my hike soon. Except that the Internet café was closed on Sundays. Curses! Foiled! I ended up walking to the tourist office and I noticed they had a computer available free to use, but they asked people limit themselves to using it for only 10 minutes at a time. That was plenty for me!
Until I sat down and tried to type. I know foreign keyboards can be a challenge—I’ve typed on many a Latin American keyboard and fumbled my way through it—but the French keyboard confounded them all! These people actually switched around the letters of the keyboard! And it type a number, I had to use the SHIFT key! The symbols I never use—no shift key required. But oh, for people who want to type a number, they make you work at it. Dates, times—I found myself chasing that SHIFT key all over the place. I barely managed to type two sentences before my ten minutes were up.
I wandered back to the cathedral and figured I’d sit in on mass. I was out here for cultural experiences, and I’d never been to a mass before, and I knew one was about to start. So I marched in and took a seat. I didn’t really think I’d enjoy the experience, but that wasn’t the point. I wanted a new experience. So off to mass I went. =)
It started off with a procession of folks, including one person swinging incense around all over the place. A little while later, all of the kids were sent to the back of the cathedral. Why segregate the children? This was the Catholic church we’re talking about here! Fortunately, though, it all seemed to turn out well when the kids came back out later in the progress carrying candles towards the front and left them there. I have to admit, they were pretty adorable. One kid waved to everyone he passed, marching to the front like he was the grand marshal of a parade. Another boy waved to his parents, obviously proud of his part in the proceedings. Then the kids left their candles up front and they all scattered back to their parents.
There was a lot of talk—none of which I understood since it was all in French, but honestly, I didn’t understand most of the English-language preaching going on in the states. So it wasn’t really a whole lot different, and I found myself nodding off and itching for something more entertaining like I did in church as a kid. In fact, the kids seemed pretty itchy for something more exciting stuff to happen as well.
They had everyone stand up, sit down, stand up again, sit down again, stand up again, blah, blah, blah…. Then everyone stood up and started kissing. WHAT THE HELL?! I looked around in panic. Why was everyone kissing? I didn’t want to kiss anyone. I didn’t want anyone kissing me? Oh, those French…. I should have guessed…. Had I known I was supposed to kiss all my neighbors, I would have squeezed myself next to the cutest girls I could find. The guy next to me must have sensed my discomfort (or found me repulsive), because he stuck out his hand for a handshake. Thank GOD! Praise the Lord! A handshake will do just fine! I can do that. =) I shook his hand, and that of an older lady behind me.
When they passed around baskets to collect money, I threw in all of the change in my pocket. 1.10 euros. Less weight for me to carry. =)
Then they started with the whole communion thing where everyone marched up to the front to be fed stale bread. I didn’t really want to participate—I just wanted to watch the proceedings, not to participate in them. Anyhow, I already shook the hands of two strangers nearby! Wasn’t that enough already? I guess not….
Near the end of the service, the kids came back up and retrieved their candles and ran up with them to the front of the church, but I couldn’t see very well what they did with them after that. When the service was finally over, I officially started my hike a little after 12:00, local time. =)
I didn’t get more than five minutes down the trail before I took my first detour. I had seen the impressive, volcanic summit the day before I wanted to hike to the type. Since then, I learned it was called Saint-Michel d’Aiguilhe, and it cost 3 euros to enter. So I detoured, paid the price, and climbed the steep hillside path. It didn’t take anywhere near as long as I thought it would and the views from the top were spectacular. The summit was crowed with a 10th century chapel dedicated to St. Micheal—it really amazes me how old some of these places are. In the tenth century they were building this chapel! The first person knows to hike from Le Puy to Santiago did so over a thousand years ago! This kind of history basically doesn’t exist in the United States. The New World hadn’t even been discovered when these places were built. They were already hundreds of years old when Columbus sailed the ocean blue.
I couldn’t read any of the information signs since they were all in French and everything I learned was from a partially-English brochure I got at the entrance.
I returned to the trail, but I didn’t go for another five minutes before I detoured off trail again to go back to the tourist office and pick up a sandwich at a small shop. Except that they were closed. Curses! Everything was closed for lunch. It was going to take some time to get used to “French time.”
The rest of the day, I took no more details and stayed on path, each step taking me closer to Santiago. The trail climbed steeply over roads out of Le Puy, eventually heading off onto dirt roads with almost no traffic at all. I only traveled 22 kilometers that first day, but managed to go through several towns so small that you’d miss them if you blinked including: St. Christophe-sur-Dolaison, Tallode, Liac (where I had to scare off two mean dogs by shouting them down in English and waving my trekking pole at them), Lic, Ramourouscle, Montbonnet, and Le Chier.
That’s a lot of little towns for such a short distance. =) Most of them had absolutely no facilities, and probably wouldn’t show up on any quality map.
Le Chier did have a water faucet in town, however, and I filled up with water there and camped in a meadow near some trees outside of town. I only passed two Camino hikers the whole day, but I figured most of them left Le Puy much earlier in the day than I did. Three times I ran into herds of cattle on the roads, and I stood aside as the traffic jam passed.
The hike itself, so far, was largely uneventful.
Don't forget--if you haven't already--sponsor me in the WTA's Hike-a-Thon! =)

I take my first steps along the Camino. You can
see the cathedral behind me in the distance.

But, of course, a side-trip to Saint-Michel d’Aiguilhe was in order!

The view from the top was pretty good—you can see the statue
covered in scaffolding which where were I first spotted this
summit from!

Inside the cathedral, after mass was over.

This is the first official marking I saw for the Camino. I think the
guy in the corner is supposed to be St. James, and the yellow
sign with an arrow shows that Santiago is over 1,500 km away. =)

The trail is generally blazed with white and red horizontal
stripes. If there’s a turn in the trail, another white line
under it is included indicating the direction. In this case,
it says, “Turn right here!”

If you try to take a wrong turn, you’ll see a red and white
stripe set in the form of an X. It means, “You’re going the
wrong way! Turn back right now!” (I deliberately went the
wrong way to get this photo.) The yellow X, I assume,
means the same thing but for a different trail that is overlapping
the Camino.

This is a pilgrimage trail, so I guess it’s no surprise
that you’ll find crosses like this ALL OVER the friggin’ trail. =)

The “tail” end of a herd of cattle, apparently also
walking to Santiago. =) Any wildlife larger than me gets the
ride-of-way!

Home, sweet, home for the night. =)

To the Camino!

August 11: I didn’t plan to start hiking the trail today, but it was a big day for me. It was the day I’d go to the trailhead in Le Puy-en-Velay, or as most people refer to it, Le Puy. (Kind of pronounced like “Lu Pwee!”)

Amanda left early in the morning to catch a flight home. I slept in an hour later before I had to navigate the Paris subway system to Gar de Lyon, the train station. Technically, I could have walked to the train station, and the thought did cross my mind, but it would have taken close to an hour to do so and I’d have had to wake up even earlier. The subway required me to change lines at two different stops, including a stop at the Bastille. But admittedly, I didn’t have time to sightsee and check out the Bastille—except what could be seen from the subway line which isn’t much. One moment of panic gripped me when I wanted to get off the subway but the door didn’t open. Why didn’t it open. I pointed the door urgently and a fellow traveler turned up the knob on the door and it opened. Hmm…. Why didn’t I think of that? A doorknob. Oh, I know, because every subway system in the world I’ve EVER ridden on has doors that open automatically at every stop!

Fortunately, though, I got off at my stop before the subway continued on, found my way to the subway I wanted to change to, and the rest of the subway ride went without a hitch.

At the train station, I tried to buy tickets from a self-service vending machine, and annoyingly, it wouldn’t let me buy a 2nd class ticket because it was “full.” Bah! So I paid for a 1st class ticket to Lyon, but at least I managed to score a 2nd class ticket the rest of the way to Le Puy.

At the appointed time, I boarded the train. First class folks, like myself, had assigned seats that were quite large and cozy. Not worth the extra 60 euros, I’ll say that much, but it’s better than nothing, I suppose. It seemed odd, but I was actually a little jealous of the 2nd class folks.

The train took out of the station like a rocket and never stopped. I was a little amazed at how fast this train was. At times, it paralleled a highway and we passed cars going in our direction like they were standing still. I don’t know how fast this train could travel, but I’m pretty certain I’ve never traveled so fast on land before in my life. The scenery went by at an astounding speed, and they built a double set of tracks so trains could go in both directions without getting in each other’s way and built it so it never crossed a road—the train, quite literally, never stopped once until we reached Lyon two hours later.

I had ten minutes to switch trains, and I hoped if the train station was as big or sprawling as the one in Paris that it would be enough time. Turns out, my train to Le Puy was immediately next to the one I got of off. I was off the train for all of about ten seconds before I boarded the train to Le Puy and found a seat.

This second train was a lot slower, but the terrain we travelled through was considerably more rugged and mountainous with a lot more sharp curves along the way. It also stopped at many stops along the way and I was riding the train to the end of the line this time. Very scenic, but I found myself gazing at the scenery thinking, “Gosh, I hope the trail doesn’t hit the top of every single one of those mountains….” It would be very exhausting if it did.

In Saint-Etienne, the train stopped and a guy got on asking if I was going to Le Puy. “Oui,” I told him, and he said something I didn’t understand and waved his hands around. Everyone else on the train started getting off, and I asked if anyone knew English and what was going on. One of them said that everyone had to get to a car further up the train—these near the end were being taken off.

I quickly packed everything I had sprawled out everywhere. I had taken off my shoes for the 2 1/2 hour train ride, had a water bottle at my side, a book in my hand, trekking pole overhead. My stuff was everywhere, so I threw it all together and pushed into a car further up the train—a crowded car with all the seats already taken. Seriously? Standing room only? And they didn’t have room for me in second class on the first train?

A woman at a nearby seat had had her stuff spread out on it and she started to clear it and I ended up with a seat. Thank goodness. Most people who had luggage sat on their luggage—my backpack wasn’t hard-sided and sitting on it wouldn’t have been nearly as comfortable.

I was too tired to read anymore, so I mostly just sat and watched each station go by. I noticed that the next station was seemingly called “Prochain”—the reader board would scroll the words “Prochain arret!” and I knew ‘arret’ meant stop. (Amanda and I figured that out earlier.” But I got a little suspicious when the station after that was also called “Prochain,” and even more suspicious when the next one was also called “Prochain.” When finally, it occurred to me that that wasn’t the name of the station at all—it actually meant “Next stop!” See, I’m learning French even while riding the train. It also announced the next stop on the intercom, so I even learned how to pronounce the words correctly.

The train finally arrived in Le Puy with Swiss punctuality at 2:23 PM. I picked up a rough map of Le Puy at the train station, but it wasn’t very detailed. I walked in more-or-less the direction of the cathedral and my start of El Camino de Santiago, but it was a sort of aimless wandering where my first order of business was to find lodging. Eventually I wandered next to a sign that pointed to a hostel and followed it to another sign which led to another sign and finally to the promised hostel.

The woman manning the counter didn’t speak a lick of English, but I managed to get myself checked into the hostel and she gave me a small piece of a paper which I knew was a clue of some sort. She also indicated that there would be breakfast available in the morning, but when she told me the hours, I didn’t understand her. She wrote it down on a scrap of paper—another clue that I had trouble figuring out. 7h 30…. Then it clicked: 7:30. That was a relatively easy code to crack. Clearly, the French don’t even write times like we do. She walked me to the entrance, pointing to a building on the other side of the parking area, waving up the building, and I figured that’s where my room must be—somewhere above the ground floor.

I went in and up a flight of stairs, and I noticed small numbers by each of the closed doors. My little piece of paper had a number 5 on it, all by itself. A room number? I found room #5, and there was a keypad on it. Locked. Hmm…. The piece of paper also had a code of some sort on it C5678Y—maybe that was the code to get into the room. I tried it, turned the knob, and was in.

It’s amazing how satisfying it was to figure this out. The room had five beds in it, two of which already had stuff on them but the owners were nowhere to be seen. I claimed a bed myself, then went back outside to explore Le Puy.

I headed to the Cathedral of Notre Dame, but aimed east of it to way away from the trail. Although there wasn’t any logical reason for it, I wanted my first steps on the Camino to be at the very beginning—not intersecting it further into town. I ended up walking in through an east entrance into the giant cathedral—quite the show! This—this was the start of my hike. Tourists were walking all over the place, and many of them bought candles to light and pray and do whatever it is they do. I followed an exit sign down a staircase which took me out to the west side of the building through an arch and a view of the town framed in it. The view was stunning, and it seemed like a good as place as any to start a hike. I walked back into the cathedral and headed to their gift shop where they had all sorts of materials for pilgrims—I was a pilgrim now, on a pilgrimage to Santiago. I purchased a creanciale, my passport of sorts in which they stamp every time I stay in a hostel along the trail. They pre-stamped it with the stamp for their cathedral—my first stamp of the trail.

I also bought a book with a description of all of the hostels along the route and another book that had maps of the trail and, more importantly, an elevation profile of the trail. And finally, I bought a patch of a scallop shell—the symbol of pilgrims on the Camino.

Walking up to the cathedral, I noticed a volcano summit with an enormous statue on top—absolutely beautiful except that the statue was covered in scaffolding. Obviously, it was being refurbished, but I wanted to get a closer look and walked up to it where I learned I could hike to the top for 3 euros. I paid the price and climbed the steep trail to the top. I couldn’t go in where the statue was—it was boarded off—but the views from the top were spectacular! I also noticed another impressive volcanic summit nearby with what looked like a castle at the top, and a third volcanic summit further in the distance with a tower at the top. I saw people walking up the castle-top mountain, so I knew it could be climbed, and I put that on my to-do list. The tower further off I decided to pass on. It wasn’t as impressive and it was much further away from the trail.

I took my photos, descended, then headed to a pilgrim’s gathering near the cathedral. My guidebook explained that people who’ve hiked the Camino would be there to ask questions or get advice. I didn’t really have any questions or advice, but I figured it might be a good way to meet a few of my fellow travelers, so I attended anyhow.

Turns out, one of the people who showed up was the woman sitting next to me on the train to Le Puy. She didn’t look like a hiker and I assumed she lived in Le Puy or was just visiting it for some reason. So we formally introduced ourselves. I have no idea how to properly spell her name, but it sounded like Katreen.

The passed around a bottle of some sort of alcoholic beverage—and anyone who knows me knows I’m not a big fan of alcohol. So I sniffed it a little when nobody was watching and it didn’t smell like alcohol, so I figured I’d go ahead and try it. Which I did. I have no idea what it was, but it didn’t kill me. =) It didn’t even taste bad, but I still liked water better and drank that the rest of the evening.

None of the other hikers I met were planning to go all of the way to Santiago—they were all planning to section hike the trail. Katreen would do only three days on it. Most of the others planned for at least a week, and one person had a maximum of three weeks and he’d stop wherever he was after his time was up to pick up and continue again next year. I didn’t really have any in depth conversations with any of them them, though—most didn’t speak English and those that did didn’t speak it well.

At any case, I got another stamp in my creanciale for showing up. =)

As I was writing in my journal, Katreen walked back in and waved me to follow her. So I did—a woman who worked there was going to give a tour of the place and she knew English so I could follow along. In the floor under us, they were doing some renovations and discovered paintings under the false ceilings that nobody knew about and dated from hundreds of years earlier. The renovations stopped and the restoration began. They were only discovered about three months before so one room they had finished restorations—the other room was still exactly as they found them. It was all very cool and fascinating.

After the tour ended, I wandered off on my own to a shop where I purchased a sandwich for dinner and bumped into Katreen for the third time completely by accident. We talked for a couple of more minutes and wished each other luck on the trail. Then I headed back to my room at the hostel. Another bed was taken during my absence, but the room was empty. I still had no idea who my roommates were.

In other news, no new contributions for the Hike-a-Thon since my last report, but it’s still not to late to sponsor me now! Don’t make me post more photos of my feet! I just finished a 20+ mile hike today through 100 degree weather. They aren’t looking pretty!

The view through the arch of the cathedral and my
first view of El Camino de Santiago

The Cathedral of Notre Dame in Le Puy—and the starting point of my hike.

I’m sure the statue would look more impressive it
it weren’t covered in scaffolding….

This old volcanic hill intrigued me when I spotted it.
Look at all the people going up the right side! I can DO THIS TOO!

These are some of the recently discovered paintings hundreds of years old
that have already been restored.

My abode for the night….

It’s interesting walking around foreign countries. Even though
this sign had no French on it, I still had absolutely no idea
what it meant. Spiders, to the left? Everyone else to the right?