Show Me The Way

I'm directionally challenged.  If you're giving me directions I need left or right. North, south, east, west?  Means nothing to me.  I don't do too bad in familiar places -- as long as the place is small, I can relate to landmarks. Where I live the river is to the west so everything is in relation to the river. But put me somewhere I've never been and I have no idea which direction I'm facing. Unless it's sunrise or sunset.  At high noon, I'm hopeless.  So how did a directionally challenged girl hope to walk across northern Spain?

Getting off the bus in St Jean Pied de Port, France, I simply followed the rest of the back packs to the pilgrim office.  And for the first part of the Camino that was all I had to do.  There was always a steady stream of pilgrims to assure me I was going the right way.  But as the days passed and the pilgrims started to spread out it wasn't unusual to spend many hours walking without seeing a single other person.  But I'm happy and proud to report that I didn't get lost once, not even a teeny little bit.  Oh, one morning in the total darkness I headed off on my own and decided after about a kilometre that maybe, just maybe, I wasn't on the right path.  I started walking back the way I came until I saw the approaching head lamps confirming I was on the right track after all.

It's really quite impressive how well the Way is marked.  Sure, there are lots of sections where getting lost is simply not an option.  I mean, if this is the view in front and behind you, just where exactly are you going to make a wrong turn?










Big cities were a bit tricky.  You had to keep your eyes down and watch for the brass shells...

There were a lot of "official" markers.  Some old...

...some new...

...and sometimes enterprising pilgrims took matters into their own hands.

But it was the yellow arrow that brought comfort and relief just when you were thinking you must have screwed up somewhere...

The most amazing thing about the yellow arrows?  Someone has to maintain them, make sure they are visible, repainted as needed.  Who does this?  And consider this -- pilgrims rely on these arrows to make their way to Santiago de Compostela.  What's to stop marauding bands of vandals armed with yellow spray paint from wrecking havoc?  I mean, seriously -- what could be more entertaining than watching unsuspecting pilgrims wandering in circles? Ending up in Madrid or Barcelona.

That this doesn't happen, speaks volumes.

Book Review:  I'm sure there is no one, in the reading population at least, who does not know that Robert Galbraith is the pseudonym for JK Rowling of Harry Potter fame.  Being a huge fan of all things Potter, it was a no-brainer that I would read whatever came next.  After being disappointed with The Cuckoo's Calling, the first in the Cormoran Strike series, I was a bit reluctant to read number two, The Silkworm.  But I have to say I enjoyed it much more than the first and Strike is starting to grow on me.  I like that Galbraith has given him a huge handicap to deal with, his having lost a leg in Afghanistan. But the head hopping between the main characters -- sometimes within the same paragraph -- drives me nuts.  And when he/she slips into the omniscient narrator voice?  Well, don't get me started.  

The Last One

I walked right on by the big beautiful cathedrals in Burgos, Leon and Astorga...

I was saving myself for the grand finale.  The church in Redecilla ruined me for anything that would follow.  I wanted that jaw dropping moment when I entered through that simple wooden door to be my defining church experience on the Camino.  So I only went into two others.  One was in the sad little town of San Juan de Ortego.

There was nothing special about this church to draw me in except for the fact that SJdO boasted a population of twenty and there was little else to do there.  No wait, "little else" is a gross exaggeration.  There was nothing else to do there.

The next was the Knights Templar Church of Santa Maria in Villalcazar de Sirga.  Partly because of the history and mystery surrounding the Knights Templar.  And partly because my guide book stated, "If visiting churches along the way is not your 'thing' make an exception for this one."  I made an exception.  I even broke my own cardinal rule about not paying to go into churches and shelled out a euro.  It was worth the euro.


And that was it until the grand finale, the end of the line -- the cathedral in Santiago de Compostela.  But first, a word about scaffolding.  Yeah, scaffolding.  When I visited New York City back in the early 80's the Statue of Liberty was totally encased in it.  When I visited the Sphinx in Egypt? Scaffolding.  The Parthenon in Greece?  Scaffolding.  You see where I'm going with this?  So it was no great surprise to walk into the square in Santiago after thirty-one days walking 800 kms to find the cathedral behind a facade of scaffolding.  Oh and those printed panels that are supposed to fool you into thinking you're seeing the real thing.

Oh well.  It held no religious significance for me.  I was a pilgrim in name only.  I'm not among the many who believe that the bones of the apostle St. James are housed there (although I did go and take a peek at the box that allegedly holds someone's bones.  Sorry no photos allowed.)    And even I have to admit, it was pretty cool inside -- once you got past all the scaffolding that was in there too.






First the mullion.  (Yeah, I googled that.)  Behind barricades.  No touchy.  Hundreds of years of pilgrim's hands have left their mark.  Damn, I really wanted to fit my fingers into those grooves.

There was a bunch of other cool stuff...

And the piece de resistance -- the Botafumeiro.  Filled with charcoal and incense and originally swung through the air to mask the smell of a bunch of stinkin' pilgrims. Confession time (we are in church after all) -- I didn't get to see the botafumeiro swing.  Not that I didn't have the opportunity.  I waited with the hundreds of others packed like sardines in the cathedral.  It was hot, the smell of smoke from previous swingings was nauseatingly heavy in the air. I lasted through a good part of the pilgrim mass, slowly working my way to a back wall to lean against and finally to sit against.  Then I had to admit defeat and bail.  You see, my stomach was feeling a little, shall we say, delicate.  Too much "yay, I made it to Santiago" celebrating the night before.

Perhaps I should have stopped here on my way out.

Book Reviews:  What I Was Doing While You Were Breeding, a memoir by TV writer Kristen Newman, starts out like this -- I am not a slut in the United States of America -- or words to that effect.  She then details how she is a slut when she is traveling everywhere else in the world.  Mildly entertaining.

Our April book club selection was Harvest by Jim Crace.  Yawn...zzzz...

Joseph Finder has written a bunch of books, like ten or something. Bestselling mysteries.  Suspicion was an okay read.  Nothing to jump up and down about but entertaining.  I may try another.

If you picked up a book written by a French speaking novelist who lives in Geneva, Switzerland, where would you expect that story to take place?  If you guessed New Hampshire you'd be right.  I didn't.  The Truth About The Harry Quebert Affair by Joel Dicker was a translation from the French and maybe it lost a little something in translation.  Highly touted in Europe, it was a mystery with what I think was supposed to be comedic dialogue.  Fell kind of flat for me.  And it was a little too long with one twist too many.  Okay, maybe about five twists too many. Yeah, that kind of book.