Blog No. 195 - Camino Soul Songs Part 5: 6 March 2025

On the 18th of April 2013, I walked from Uterga to Villatuerte Puente, a distance of about 25 kilometres.  Although there were no mountains to climb, there were many never ending hills and the path contained a flourishing field of stones.  The walking was grim.  Adding to the difficulty of that day’s walk was the noticeable deterioration in my feet.  Both feet had developed blisters and walking on the smoothest surface was an exercise in pain control.  I bandaged my feet and plastered them in the ointments I had brought with me, but the pain was intense – particularly at the start of the day’s walking.  After about an hour, my body became used to the pain of the blisters and the blister pain receded into the background. When I eventually arrived at the albergue in Villatuerte Puente, I could barely stand.  I knocked on the closed door and there was no answer.  I stood back from the door wondering what I should do.  I had very little energy to walk anywhere.  I was about to try and find somewhere for a coffee when Simone arrived.  Simone operated the albergue and showed me my room, where I fell into exhausted sleep.  I roused myself only for the delicious peregrino meal that Simone laid out for me and the other peregrinos who had arrived at the albergue.

By the 18th of April, my body was becoming bruised by the hardship of the long daily walks, but it had not yet become sufficiently toughened by the experience that I was able to shrug off the mounting tiredness I felt.

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I started walking before dawn on Thursday the 18th of April, but there was some light from the Moon.  I was not the only peregrino who started walking before daylight.

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This is me while en route to Villatuerte Puente on the 18th of April 2013.  My feet were very sore and the ache in my left shoulder was very painful by then.  It is now 12 years later, but my shoulder still aches – even without a backpack.

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The Camino route to Villatuerte Puente is filled with stones and long, exhausting hills.  I walked through the town visible in the distance.  Walking for hours across small stones is hard work, particularly when your feet are bleeding and aching from multiple blisters.

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Stony Camino track, but this time with pretty scenery all around me – 18th of April 2013.

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I was not the only peregrino walking to Villatuerte Puente, but on that April day, the number of peregrinos was much less than when I drew closer to Santiago de Compostella.

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Diary Entry Made on Thursday 18 April 2013 at 4:15 pm

I arrived at Villatuerta Puente at about 1:00 pm today after leaving Uterga in the dark at about 6:45 am.  The Brierley book says I covered about 25.1 kilometres today.  I had previously calculated the distance as being about 28 kilometres.  Otherwise, I would have planned to go further.  It was a good thing I got it wrong.  When I arrived here, it was all I could do to stand up.  It looks as if I averaged about 3.5 kilometres per hour.

There were four big hills today and no outstanding countryside.  Much of the Camino today was studded with stones and it required careful navigation.

Distance Walked Today: 25.5 kilometres.

Total Distance Walked So Far: 111.2 kilometres.

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Soul Song Number 5 - Stony Ground

(18 April 2013)

What a hackneyed metaphor this poem uses.

It is all about walking on stony ground,

Walking and walking,

Walking to Villatuarte.

Picking your way carefully over the stones.

It was impossible to avoid them,

So you did the best you could.

One slip and you would damage the only things that mattered,

Your real walking equipment,

Your feet, ankles and legs.

It would be better to bruise a rib than to disable this equipment.

Dawn became very busy while you walked.

Birds tweeted and the sky blossomed with light.

It felt wonderful even if you did have to pick your way through the stones.

Gerlinde had told you that the German for uphill was Die Berg.

There was too much die berg today.

This wasn't like the Pyrenees,

Then you were fresher and you knew what was coming.

This was different.

These die bergs kept sneaking up on you,

They were happy to inflict mountain climbing by stealth.

So you toiled up die berg,

Never daring to imagine that it might ever end.

Every time die berg did come to an end,

It was followed by another die berg.

Die berg and the stones,

They constituted the rhythm of the day.

This was a day for using raw physical power,

You had to use it with every step.

Like all days though,

This day did have an end.

The end of today's stony ground came when you met Simone,

At the front door of her wonderful albergue in Villatuarte Puente.

What a wonderful ending it was.

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This stretch of stony track on the way to Villatuarte Puente was easier to walk on because the surface was smoother.

Blog No. 194 - Camino Soul Songs Part 4: 5 March 2025

On April 17th,  2013, I walked from Larrasoana to Uterga, a distance of about 32 kilometres.  There were no mountains to climb today, but the walk was a long, slow grind.  Although my feet had not yet begun to blister, they were beginning to show ominous signs.  I had plenty of foot repair stuff in my backpack, but repair is never as good as never having anything go wrong.

Once my feet did begin to blister, the blisters never went away and the first hour of walking each day became a pain contest until my body became able to ignore the pain of the blisters.  The blisters eventually went away a week after I finished my Camino walk.

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Early morning in Larrasoana as the day’s walking was about to start on Wednesday the 17th of April 2013.

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Gerlinda walked with me from the top of the Pyrenees to Cizur Minor.  I took this photo at the start of our walk on Wednesday the 17th of April 2013.

Flowers in full bloom in the municipal gardens - Pamplona 17th of April 2013

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Before you reach Uturga, you walk for hours towards a line of hills with a row of windmills generating power.

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Diary Entry Made on Wednesday 17 April 2013 at 6:02 pm

According to the John Brierley Guide Book, I walked 32.2 kilometres today.  This was a tough day on top of the last two days.  We left Larrasoana at about 7:00 am as dawn was breaking.  Gerlinde wanted to coffee up at the local mini mart where I also had a stale bread roll.  The lady in the mini mart asked us both how far we were going today.  Gerlinde said she was walking to Cizur Menor about 21.2 kilometres from Larrasoana and I said I was walking to Uterga, about 33.2 kilometres from Larrasoana.  The mini mart lady then started saying how I would never make it to Uterga because it was so far.  This brought me down a bit until Gerlinde interrupted her and told her that I certainly would make it to Uterga because I was strong and determined.  Gerlinde's contribution to the discussion heartened me a lot.  Her confidence in my ability to walk to Uterga made me believe within myself that I really could walk to Uterga.  The odd thing about our little discussion was that the mini mart lady only spoke Spanish, Gerlinde only spoke German and I only spoke English yet it was perfectly clear what each of us was actually saying.  Communication is not dependent solely on the words in any given language!

Both Cizur Menor and Uterga are beyond Pamplona and for most of the way to Pamplona the track followed a river into Pamplona.  We stopped for coffee and fresh bread rolls in Arre, a satellite town of Pamplona.  I managed to ring Margie from there.  From here on the walking was difficult - it required walking on concrete or on cobbled streets.  It was tough on the feet.  I taped the feet up this morning and despite this, I have some hot spots although so far I seem to have come through unscathed.

Gerlinde stopped at Cizur Menor just outside of Pamplona proper but still in the suburbs.  I toiled on from there to Uterga and got here at about 4:30 pm.  After Cizur Menor, the track winds its way relentlessly up for about 800 metres to a line of hills decorated with windmills.  The track up is stony, rutted and hard to manage.  At the top of this line of hills (called the Alto del Perdon) is a series of iron silhouettes of pilgrims.  Coming down from the Alto the track is also rutted and covered in stones.  This was a really tough day.

The albergue at Uterga is clean, it serves pilgrim meals and it has hot showers.  I was able to wash and hang up my clothes.  I feel I have done well to have covered the distance, especially given the heat.  I think it was in the low 30s today.

Distance Walked Today: 33.2 kilometres.

Total Distance Walked So Far: 85.7 kilometres.

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Soul Song Number 4 - Iron Pilgrims

(17 April 2013)

So now you think you are an Iron Pilgrim.

You're not.

The legs on Iron Pilgrims never ache.

Metal fatigue doesn't inflict pain on the metal.

Where do you ache?

Overwhelmingly, you ache in the legs.

There can be no doubt about that.

You probably ache in both shoulders,

Although the left one is complaining the loudest,

It is easily louder than the right.

What about the feet?

Compared to everywhere else,

They don't have much to say.

But being in pain doesn't make you an Iron Pilgrim.

It is only lack of pain that would make you an Iron Pilgrim.

So what are you then?

You were out of bed at 6:00 am,

A whole hour before the dawn tumbled back into the world.

You started walking just as the birds started to wake up.

You kept walking until you stopped at 4:30 pm.

You walked through the forest,

Alongside the river.

You were refreshed by this.

Then you hit Pamplona and its suburbs.

Being an Iron Pilgrim would have been a great boon here.

An Iron Pilgrim would not have felt the hard city streets.

An Iron Pilgrim would not have been deafened by the traffic noise.

But you weren't an Iron Pilgrim.

So your feet and ears hated it.

With Pamplona behind you, you started to climb.

What a hard climb this was.

You beetled across a treeless plain,

Headed for the line of hills in front of you,

The ones festooned with the giant windmills.

The track was hard and stony,

The temperature was too hot,

And the windmills never seemed to get closer.

Slowly, slowly, the hills inched towards you,

But only when you were not looking.

When you stopped looking, time started skipping its normal course.

Many time skips later,

You were noticeably climbing a hill.

Is a hill still a hill when it takes you an hour to reach the top?

Who cares?

At last you got there.

At last you were looking at the real Iron Pilgrims,

Perched on top of the Hill of Pardon.

Have you been forgiven your misdeeds if you climb the Alto del Perdon?

Your hard work must have born immediate fruit.

Now you have started to forgive yourself.

You have begun to realise that God never did hate you.

You hated yourself and made your very own Hell right here on Earth,

Long years before you ever had the chance to arrive at the real one.

Soon, you stumbled downhill,

All the way to the bottom.

Dodging the rocks,

Maintaining a precarious balance,

Until you stumbled into Uterga and greedily drank an ice cold orange juice.

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I took this photo of a memorial to Frans Koks while plodding my way to Uterga on 17 April.  May his soul rest in peace.  He died while trying to find his way to get closer to God.

Blog No. 193 - Camino Soul Songs Part 3: 4 March 2025

The albergue at Roncesvalles has a large accommodation capacity because so many peregrinos start their pilgrimage in Saint Jean.  Although more peregrinos start the Camino walk than are ever able to finish it, most are able to walk from Saint Jean to Roncesvalles, so the albergue at Roncesvalles is equipped to provide a bed for several hundred peregrinos.  Many peregrinos actually start their Camino walk from Roncesvalles.

In the middle of the European summer, even the large bed capacity of Roncesvalles may not be sufficient to enable every peregrino to obtain a bed.  The website for Roncesvalles contains these stirring words.

Orreaga-Roncesvalles maintains the memory of songs of heroic deeds, of ancient roads and exhausted pilgrims on the road to Compostela of kings who raised hospitals, churches, cloisters and chapels of hosts who were and still are devoted to shelter of the love from the neighbouring valleys for their Lady, of their guild and their pilgrims, and of their many crucifixes… Today, something new is awakening in Roncesvalles

Although the walking when you leave Roncesvalles is much easier than the walking needed to climb over the Pyrenees, it is still hard work.  The start of the Camino walk contains some of the hardest walking you will meet on the Camino.

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This was me on the 11th of August 2009 when I walked part of the Camino.  This photo was taken in the “Witches Wood” between Roncesvalles and Larrasoana.

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Photo of a drinking fountain taken between Roncesvalles and Larrasoana on the 11th of August 2009.

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Nes and I stopped for coffee at this wayside café on the 11th of August 2009.

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I took this photo of the trails left by overhead aircraft on Tuesday 16th of April 2013.  Although the trails were so visible, the planes which left the trails were usually unseen.

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I took this photo on Tuesday 16th of April 2013 on the track between Roncesvalles and Larrasoana.  The air was cold and filled with mist.

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I took this photo on Tuesday 16th of April 2013 on the track between Roncesvalles and Larrasoana.  After the dizzy heights of the Pyrenees mountains, it seemed strange to see rolling countryside rather than mountains.

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Diary Entry Made on Tuesday 16 April 2013 at 5:25 pm

I am now at Larrasoana municipal albergue.  I got here with Gerlinde at about 3:20 pm after starting the walk in the dark at 6:30 am.  Dawn happened at 7:00 am.  Gerlinde had trouble all day with the area behind her right knee.  She took some anti-inflammatories given to her by an Australian pellegrino.  He had some knee problems in Australia and he had been under GP care and the GP had given him the tablets that he offered to Gerlinde.

Today was a very difficult day of walking, especially after climbing the mountain yesterday.  Mostly the Camino avoided busy roads and took us through gorgeous countryside.  The constant rise and fall meant continual climbing and constant descents, even though none of it was particularly difficult on its own.

My feet ache so I soaked them in Condi's Crystals after the end of the day's walk.  I will tape them up tomorrow.  I feel exhausted, just like yesterday.  I am having a Peregrino Meal at 7:00 pm and then I am going to bed.

There were constant vapour trails above us today and a mist was hanging around the mountains when daylight came.  There was no wind today.  Much of today was spent walking out of the bowl in the mountains that Roncesvalles is situated in.

Distance Walked Today: 27.7 kilometres.

Total Distance Walked So Far: 52.5 kilometres.

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Soul Song Number 3 - Vapour Trails

(16 April 2013)

At first there really wasn't much to see.

It was dark and dawn thirty minutes away when we started.

Along the track we strode

Dodging the trees and sometimes dodging the mud.

The track ended just as daylight broke.

Daylight revealed a sign saying that the woods used to be a meeting place for witches.

Dawn brought more than news of long departed witches though.

Light showed that we were framed by mountains on all sides.

The mountains had their own signature, their own trademark.

Although The Camino was clear,

The mountains roiled in mist.

The mountain vapour trail had its heavenly counterpart.

Like the mountains, the sky displayed its very own vapour show.

Although the planes couldn't be seen or heard,

They still left their mark.

Airplane vapour trails streaked across the sky,

Visible signs of the invisible.

Wearily, we started climbing once more,

There were mountains that needed to be left behind us.

Unlike the invisible planes, we didn't have wings.

Trudge, trudge.

Left leg,

Left foot.

Right leg,

Right foot.

Ignore the aching thighs,

The ache doesn't exist unless you gift awareness to it.

Then blessed relief.

You have reached the top.

Now it is bound to get easier.

But it doesn't - of course.

Whosoever goes up must - tediously - walk down.

Watch your footing here.

If you misplace it, you will definitely inflict self harm.

Ah, that is better.

At long last you are down.

Now you realise the truth of the old saying.

Be careful what you wish for.

You just might obtain your wish.

Now it is time to tackle the next hill!

So the day passes in a blur of wonder,

A constant sense of awe and unrelenting effort.

Until miraculously, here is Larrasoana.

The day's work is now over.