… and now Spain

We´ve made it to Spain and have been spending all our time adjusting to the new language and customs and now we are high up in the mountains in Foncebadon at an overcrowded albergue …. sleeping on mats on the floor in the yoga room off the barnyard with the goats and donkey and chickens: How did we get here?

We took the train and the bus to the French border town of  St. Jean Pied de Port, found an albergue and tried to book another albergue for the next day 8km up the mountain so we wouldn´t have to do 25 kilometers the first day to Roncesvalles. Orrison was full so we ended up at Huntto only 5 k from St. Jean. The view was gorgeous from our room … even 5 k up the mountain yielded spectacular vistas and a gradual reentry into walking: Dinner was also amazing and we made several new friends from Germany, Italy, France and Ireland. The next day the sunrise was spectacular over the foothills and the weather was perfect for taking the higher, more scenic Napoleon route, (and more deadly  in bad weather). The hike was incredible, the views stunning and the exersion stunning as well! We passed flocks of sheep and wild horses. The sunn was warm but the wind was very cool so the climb was manageable: At the Virgin of Orrison Clara left her violin tuning peg that she had been wearing as a necklace, as a momento for Oliver. I´m sure he would be pleased with it there very beautiful!

Near the peak of the highest pass of the Pyrenees we came upon Martha Gay. She is walking with her harp all the way to Santiago! She pulls it behind her on a one wheel frame attached to her waist with a harness! We thought we were crazy carrying a violin, but we are merely eccentric! Martha is crazy, but delightfully so!

At Roncesvalles that night Martha and Clara played together in the thirteenth centrury stone albergue that housed over 100 pilgrims on one room in row upon row of bunk beds. Pilgrims were delighted to be drifting off to sleep after such a hike to the sound of medieval harp music and fiddle tunes. Very fun!  After the 10pm lights out Clara recorded a few minutes of the snoring symphony of 100 exhausted pilgrims. At 6am the lights were switched on and a man in a loud voice began singing gregorian chant and urging us to wake up in many languages, all sung, to wake up and begin to walk again: What a wild experience!

The next day we descended slowly and painfully to Zubiri. The downhill is much harder on the bones and joints than the uphill: And it was hot and exhuasting to walk in the heat. We walked with a group of Germans off and on, Sebatian, David, Natalie, Nicole. In response to the music the night before, David gave Clara a tuning fork that he had carried with him since he was a child givien to him by his uncle who was a trumpet player…. a very special item for him as a musician and we were very touched that he thought enough of Clara that he would give it to her. In Zubiri we sat in the river to cool off … it felt great! Dinner and great conversation with a family from San Francisco.

The next day we set off for Pamplona and were caught in an incredible thunder and lightening and rain storm: Our stuff was wet even through our rain clothes – even the violin case was seeping in the sides but the violin was okay. Eventually Clara couldn´t take the stress any more of the intense weather so we caught a taxi the rest of the way to Pamplona and booked into a very nice Albergue and re-met Robert, andolder pilgrim we had seen in Nasbinals way back in France on day when I was sick and he had bad blisters! And here we both were in Pamplona Spain, by somewhat different routes! As Clara slept I went out and came upon a Corpus Christi parade full of 1st communion kids in their best white dresses, families all dressed up, priests, shrines, incense and a great marching band! They wound their way through the whole old town on the streets strewn with fresh greens and rose petals!

After Pamlona Clara and I had to tke trains and buses to meet up with Alex who was arriving in Leon June 9th. We trained to Burgos and marvelled at the cathedral and ate tapas and window shopped. The next day we took the bus to Leon. We met three Mexicans on the bus – one who was a university professor in Montreal, who told us we have to stay at the Parador San Marcos to really experience Leon… a five star hotel that is in a building that was once a pilgrim refugio in the middle ages. So we walked with them to this truely amazing palcial building. Our guide negotiated a good pilgrim rate for us so Clara and I booked a room for the following night when Alex would arrive! What fun!. Meanwhile the rainy weather continued so we spent our time looking at the wonderous stained glass in Leon cathedral and the Mosarabic scalloped arches in San Obispo? church. The we checked into our pacial suite early and slept and waited til we could pick up Alex at the Leon airport.

June 10 we spent the morning showing a blissed out Alex the sights of Leon while he told us all about what he learned about scotch whiskey distillation on his distilleriy tours on his few days in Scotland! In the afternoon we took a bus to Astorga and then began walking 5k to a tiny municipal albergue with a man with a donkey and a well liquored host. Very amusing evening.

Today we hiked 22k up and up to Foncebadon through 7 hours of a head wind and spitting blowing rain, and now we are up in the mists of the mountains waiting for our pilgrim meal with a veritable united nations of pilgrims and I´m going to regret sitting still so long at the computer with my muscles seizing up to write this. Tomorrow we go to Cruz de  Ferro to leave our stone for Dad-grandpa that the whole family signed. A good day and very intense, too!

Toulouse and Carbonne

We arrived in Toulouse in one piece more or less and spent a night in the same hotel as one week ago. This time we had a view of the spire of St Sernin the amazing romanesque cathedral, another pilgrimage church on the Arles route through southern France. It’s very nice to gaze at at 3 am when you can’t sleep because your body doesn’t know if it’s day or night. Very strange to back. The next morning we walked to the church and I had a wonderful time inside enjoying the double ambulatories, the carved capitals, and the strange and beautiful reliquaries in the crypt. Clara wasn’t so happy still needing sleep and missing her dad, home, and friends.

In the afternoon we took a train to Carbonne to stay with Sophie, sister of my friend Emmannuelle who generously opened her home to us to rest til we felt able to continue. The train was like the train in the Harry Potter movie and that made Clara feel almost as good as the cathedral made me feel. Sophie’s home is large and full of wood and windows, built in 1969 and very modern, not unlike what Dad built for us. Clara and I dozed on the garden patio for the afternoon surrounded by scent of honeysuckle, the rustling of bamboo leaves, and two very curious and eager to play dogs. Very soothing. Clara was nervous of the dogs but then got into playing with them …. great, except now she has very itchy eyes and we fear she may be allergic to them. We had a lovely dinner with Sophie and Eric who spoke some English with Clara which always makes Clara feel better.

We slept till 11am the next morning then slowly breakfasted, visited with Sophie on her lunch break, then went on a walk along the Garonne river and through the town. Tonight Clara has fallen asleep very early. Tomorrow is a train day to St. Jean Pied de Port near the French-Spanish border and hopefully we’ll be up for the adventure of climbing the Pyrenees the next day. We are both tired but also itching to be walking the chemin again. It gives focus.

May 29th

Today it is drizzling in Vancouver. Clara and I are re-packing our packs and getting ready to fly back to Toulouse. After we re re-adjust to the time change we’ll take the train to St. Jean Pied de Port on the French-Spanish border and resume walking. Our hearts are full of memories of Dad and family and the over 400 loving people who came to his funeral. Not surprisingly we’ve both been kind of sick with colds and sore throats so we will take it one day at a time. It’s been wonderful to be with the family for the week remembering, crying, laughing, playing, singing, lots of singing, and just being with each other. Time outside of time …. now we slowly inch back to regular life without Dad and I think this is the hard part. I’m grateful that we have tasked ourselves with just walking every day. A blessing to have the time to reflect.

Conques

All I know for sure is that I need to be in Conques before we go home for the funeral. I know the Church is amazing and I have been told that the abbey St Foi that houses the pilgrims is an amazingly loving and special place to be. It is also closer to Toulouse and the airport. Alex is trying to book us flights and deal with the insurance claim since I actually (for the first time in my life) took out trip interruption coverage. I organize for Clara and me to go with the pilgrim baggage transport van to Conques. We take the trip we would have walked over three days and see the terrain we would have covered on foot as we go with the man picking up and dropping off pilgrim bags. In Estraing we stop at a Gite and across the road is Lisset the donkey in a field. She runs up to the stone wall and and is looking at us sitting in the front seat of the van. We get out and give her one last hug and pat. There is no sign of Mathias. At another baggage stop a pilgrim comes up to the van and gives us a message from Mathias that he has decided to stay in Estraing for an extra day. We arrive in Conques about 1pm. We see pilgrims we haven’t seen for days. I weep with relief.

We go to the abbey. There are 96 beds. 92 are taken. There is room for us. Pilgrims we haven’t yet met come to help us – Florence and Gilbert bring us tea then go to the boulangerie and buy us things for lunch. A volunteer at the abbey comes up, sees the violin and says she has a letter for us. It is from Sophie and Gerome who are thinking of us and leaving us their emails. Other pilgrims we have met come up and hug us, ask my father’s name and say they will pray for him and tell us he is here with us now. We have a room with 15 pilgrims – our bunk bed is next to the window overlooking the slate tile roofs and the beautiful valley.

We go to the church. It is incredible! The sculpture on the tympanum and inside on the capitals is stunning. Clara and I sit in the church and we hum and sing, making harmonies with each other and the resonant stones of the building. We go back to the abbey to sleep. Florence and Gilbert tell us they will wake us for vespers. 6:30pm we go to vespers in the church and sing. 7pm we go together to dinner and have fun with Florence and Gilbert and two Franco-Swiss guys who are drinking a lot and failing miserably at speaking English but having a good time trying. We go back to the church and Clara plays for a few minutes before the evening service to bless the pilgrims. The priest invites Clara to play as part of the service but she is too overwhelmed. After the service we stay inside and I comfort Clara while the other pilgrims go out to listen to a talk in French about the tympanum. Then all return to hear an organ concert. We are allowed to climb the precariously narrow stairs to the arcade level and circumambulate the church one level up – stunning! Subtle lighting, organ music, incredible capitals, dramatic views of the nave 100ft below! (Well I don’t know if it was 100ft but it was really high- vertigo material). Dad would have loved it – music, history, architecture, lighting, sculpture, spirituality all wrapped together.

Afterwards we sit in the church courtyard looking at the stars in the sky completely blissed out by the experience. Then drift off to bed surrounded by new friends brimming with love for us.

In the morning I call Alex and he has a flight for us from Toulouse the next morning. We need to spend the day traveling to Toulouse. A woman working in the office asks around and finds a priest driving the 30k to the nearest town with a train station. We get a ride with him and then take the 2 1/2 hr train ride into the city. After we drop our packs at the hotel the priest has recommended we walk to the romanesque church in Toulouse. It is closed but outside there are people walking and jumping on  bouncy stilts – they are incredible! We then walk to a large town square and have dinner in a restaurant on the plaza re-acquainting us with the urban France with abundant youth energy and immigrants from Africa as well as sophisticated cuisine and traditional French culture. We watch a critical mass ride of roller-bladers take over the street then go back to the hotel to sleep before our long journey home to be enveloped by family for a week of remembering Dad. And the pilgrimage route has taken another unusual turn for us.

May 19th – Dad

We left our hotel after both of us had wild dreams. Clara’s pack is bothering her. We stop at the church plaza to transfer some weight to my pack. We start to leave the town. We see a man with a donkey asking which way is the Chemin St. Jacques. he speaks English. We point him in the direction. He misses the turn. We head back to the church to correct him and take a photo of the donkey. We chat – he is walking the same way as us today – Do we want to walk with him and the donkey can carry our packs? Yes! We hold the donkey’s rope while the man goes in to look at the church. I am holding the rope, the camera, the walking stick, 20 tourists are taking our picture with the donkey. The phone rings. Now I am also holding the bag with the guide books and the phone and answering the phone. It’s Alex. He tells me I need to sit down. I hand the donkey rope to Clara.

My Dad has died. I am sitting and crying, the sun is streaming into the square, the tourists are swirling around, the man returns from the church to the donkey. Clara comes to me. I mouth the word “Grandpa” and now she is at my knee weeping. The man and the donkey wait patiently while we talk and weep into the phone. While Clara is crying with her brothers across the world I tell the man what has happened. He says he will wait for us and walk with us until we know what to do. He loads our bags onto the donkey. Clara disappears. I hear the violin in the church. I go to her. She is standing in the the glow of the morning sun shining through the stained glass windows, tears streaming down her face and playing. The tourists are all gone. we are alone in the church with the glow of the stained glass, the music, and our tears. Clara plays and we weep. The church is full of love and sadness – it is incredibly beautiful. When Clara stops we laugh that Grandpa would send us this donkey and angel man to comfort us – just like Dad. We walk with Mathias and the donkey Lisset through roads, then woods, treacherous paths, easy paths, past fields of very curious cows with beautiful sounding cowbells – sometimes we talk, sometimes silent, some crying, some laughing, much remembering. The landscape is exquisitely beautiful – the sounds are subtle and dramatic with wild wind and gentle bird songs, woodpeccker drumming on a hollow tree, feet and hooves on the earth.

I lead the donkey remembering bringing the cows in for milking on the farm. Clara leads the donkey and learns the ways of leading an animal. We come to a high cliff overlooking Espalion. We rest beside a large Madonna overlooking the valley. We descend into the valley and enter Espalion along the banks of a river with fishermen casting from the shore. We stop for lunch. I have beer for Dad. Mathias needs to find some long grass for Lisset to eat lunch since she’s not enjoying the short lawn. He invites us to continue with them. But Clara wants to stop. So we find a Gite and hug them goodbye.

We drop our bags and go for coffee, tea and pastries then walk to a 900 year old Romansque church. The old wooden doors are being restored by two workmen using ancient-looking square nails. They are hammering and listening to the radio. One has dark hair falling in ringlets just like Dad in his 30′s and 40′s. He is whistling to the radio just the way Dad used to. The only difference is that it’s not opera. We sit outside in the afternoon sun and wind listening to the men working on the church and call Mom and Russ and talk a while. Dad had been at Russ’s helping him repair the wood floor. They had had a wonderful day together talking, listening to music, eating lunch, working. Dad collapsed after Russ went out to run some errands.

We spend the rest of the day by the river. It is very calming.

Walking to St. Come d’Olt

It felt good to get walking again from St Chely d’Aubrac to St. Come d’Olt. It was finally sunny and warm with cool breezes, ideal for walking. We stopped at a tiny farm village l’Estrade for water and the farmers had set up tea and coffee for pilgrims. There was a small gathering of pilgrims visiting with each other and with the farmer … even one young woman from Australia who had very good French. We asked where the toilet was for Clara. The farmer told us around back of that building …. and he meant it. In the lane behind the shed was a path with lots of little wads of toilet paper dotted along the lane … so Clara added her contribution before we continued on.

We had lunch by a stream in a forest dipping our feet in the water. We also walked through a chestnut forest and the ground was covered with fallen chestnuts almost like a chestnut paste. As we came down to the valley of St Come d’Olt the flowers became more and more lush -red poppies replacing mountain meadow flowers and yards bursting with flowering trees, wisteria, flag iris, and cala lilies – very Vancouver and beyond – our hotel had a lime tree and a lemon tree in the back yard. Clara took a nap at the hotel and I wandered around town, totally inspired by the church with the twisted spire (caused by demons, giant oxen lashed to the spire and pulling … or was it carpenters drinking too much wine while building during the hot summer) and the narrow medieval roads and buildings of the town. Our laundry dried on the line in just over an hour because of the warm wind.

At dinner we met a couple walking the Chemin with their 9 month old baby in a snuggly and all their gear on their backs! They had just finished three days of over 20 k a day! Wow they were tired! The husband was eager to practice his English. After dinner Clara played for them and he was very touched telling us he would never forget this moment.

St. Chely d’Aubrac

Today we came down out fo the high Massif Central where we have been walking and freezing for the past week. It’s been hovering around degrees windy and rainy since the beginning except for the brilliant 19k hike day. We’ve stayed with many many interesting people at many interesting places. ‘the singing gite’ at Villeret d’Apchi was great fun as were the Swiss Germans we met and Paul the 62 yr old Quebecois walking all the way to Santiago. Mostly the route is full of French people doing a week or two of the route as a vacation, but there was one fellow who had walked from Cluny and was going the Santiago as a way of turning the page from work to retirment. Whe he gets to Finnestere to will be the first time in his life that he has seen the ocean. And the three belgian woman who ended up in the same gites with us several times. They all loved Clara dearly. One cried when i told her our reasons for doing the Camino. They happened into the church in St Alban de Limagnole when Clara was playing and were very moved. Two other dutch women came in whom we’d never met and one burst into tears. We met later on the chemin and she told us she she was deeply moved and she didn’t know why but she was happy to have experienced it.
So it’s been amazing meeting people as we walk through the countryside in the mornings and trudge along to the gite in the afternoons. 15k a day is alot to do!!!
Finally at Prinsuejoles we were exhasted and decided to stay a second night ….. good thing too becaues I got sick with the runs and couldn’t have walked even if I wanted to. Ater our second night there we were offered a ride into Nasbinal, a town big enough to have a bank machine and a couple of stores including a pharmacy. We payed an extra 2E to be able to come in to the gite early and sleep all day. Then this morning we got a ride down to our next stop in a valley not near as cold as the mountain top. The gite we are in is lovely and I think I will be well enough to walk again tomorrow. Clara played again in the church here in St Chely d’Aubrac and this time we were all alone which was quite nice. Our current target is to walk to Conques by the weekend