Camino Aragones Day 22: Monreal - Puente la Reina

Tengo un alma y está cargada
- Tito Muñoz

(Graffiti in Muruarte de Reta)

Puente la Reina! Now we're on the Camino Frances, which is what most people mean when they talk about the Camino di Santiago, not realising that all roads lead not only to Rome but to Santiago de Compostela too - if you go the other way.

Hundreds of pilgrims set out every day on the Camino Frances, and they are well catered-to by the towns along the Way. Before even entering Puente la Reina we found an albergue where we can have a room with a private bathroom and even a television for twelve euros a head, as well as a three-course all-you-can-eat dinner, complete with wine, for fourteen... I get the feeling life will be so much easier from now on!

Maybe the Camino di Santiago is the Club Med, after all!

Though of course we did have to walk thirty kilometres to get here from Monreal. 

But what a contrast between yesterday and today! From a remote windswept village with a single shop to a hub of pilgrim life,  streets full of people from all over the world in brightly coloured backpacks and jackets, shops selling everything one might possibly have forgotten to pack or left behind on a previous stop, and cafés and restaurants vying for the walkers' trade.

We stopped along the way to visit the twelfth-century Romanesque hermitage Eremita de Santa Maria de Eunate.

It was here that we began to see other pilgrims. Used to knowing everyone on the Way, at first we mistook them for companions of ours from the Camino Aragones, but we soon realised we were coming up to the confluence of the Camino Frances, and, compared to the loneliness of the past three weeks, pilgrims seemed to be everywhere! 

We've made it to Puente la Reina! End of the Camino Aragones (165 km from the border at Col de Somport to Puente la Reina). 

I still think of him as Saint Jacques, but I guess he should be Sant'Iago from now on! 

Monreal - Puente la Reina 30 km

Camino Aragones Day 21: Sanguesa - Monreal

Le Chemin de Compostelle n'est pas le Club Med.

- Anonymous, posted in pilgrim hostel

Le Chemin de Compostelle n'est pas le Club Med..... You can say that again! To all those who say "enjoy your holiday" when I tell them I'm going on a Long Walk, I reply that that's not exactly what it is. (It's a holiday only in the sense that I'm doing something I'm not being paid to do.) And to all those who say "I'd love to do that, if only I could", I say: are you really sure about that?

Today has been one of those days that makes you wonder how the heck you got yourself into this. After a long night punctuated not only by the usual snoring but by rainstorms, thunder and something wooden creaking in the wind, my first thought upon waking was "what on earth am I doing here?"

After making our own breakfast we wrapped ourselves and our backpacks in plastic and set off in the driving rain. Our group split in two, as the other women in the group had decided to take the bus for the first five kilometres to shorten what promised to be a long day's walk in the rain. But they ended up taking a variant of the trail that was five kilometres longer, so in the end everyone walked the same distance!

The trail that Rodrigo, Marius and I took was completely soaked grass, mud or puddles wherever it wasn't simply a stream. Within minutes our boots were soaked right through, after which we didn't care any more and just slogged and skidded our way right through it all. It reminded me my first day on the Annandale Way in Scotland in September... but without the cow patties!

An encouraging message in a tunnel along the way

Visions of hot chocolate danced in my head by the time I reached Izco, a village alleged to have a café, but it turned out there was no such facility. By that time I really needed a break, but there was nowhere to go to get out of the rain. Marius had disappeared from view ahead of me and Rodrigo, who likes to set out before dawn, was most likely already in the pilgrim hostel in Monreal! I had no choice but to plod on. I reached the top end of the village and turned around to check whether the elusive café might be visible from that angle, only to see that the bright orange rain cover had blown off my backpack and was lying in the street below. As I hurried back down the hill to retrieve it, I spotted Marius, who had taken shelter in the garage of an abandoned house. I joined him and we ate the food we had brought with us. No hot drinks... I changed out of my soaking wet socks and put on the somewhat less wet ones that I had washed the night before, which had not quite dried in time for departure but were a considerable improvement nonetheless! 

After Izco we gave up on the soaking wet trail and took an abandoned old highway running parallel to the new motorway. This turned out to be the perfect solution, given the circumstances, and on the road we were reunited with our companions who had walked the other route. All of us were freezing cold, soaking wet, tired and disheartened, but the coincidence of running into each other like that gave us all a new boost and we managed to keep walking for the final ten kilometres into Monreal. We found the pilgrim hostel right next to the church, and I have never been so happy to see an open door!

Approaching Monreal on the old highway

Monreal turned out to be a rather more subdued town than the eponymous city in Canada, especially on a rainy afternoon, but it does have a café/bar, which is where we checked into the hostel, and a very talented church choir - which happens to hold its weekly rehearsal right next door to our hostel on a Friday night, and broke into the Hallelujah Chorus just as we were all getting ready for bed! 

Ce n'est pas le Club Med, non! 

Camino Aragones Day 20: Ruesta - Sanguesa

At dinner last night our new friend Rodrigo, the only Spanish pilgrim travelling in parallel with us, expounded about the beauty of getting up at 5:30 am and setting off at sunrise, so we asked him to wake us up too in the morning. He not only obliged but kept us all awake for much of the night with his soft but steady snoring! So after a short night's sleep we left the albergue in the abandoned village of Ruesta and began to climb steadily higher and higher above the Embalse de Yesa man-made lake.

We then descended again to the village of Undues de Lerda, where the only business in town is the local albergue and bar. After a quick snack we continued on our way, with no lunch supplies other than nuts and chocolate.

We crossed the border between Aragòn and Navarra shortly after Undues de Lerda.

By the time we got to Sanguesa we were all starving! We checked into the municipal aubergue and then headed straight for the supermarket to stock up on supplies for our next few meals. When we first crossed into Spain from France, it was a relief to find that the towns had more places of business in them, but now we are once again in an area where we have to carry enough supplies for a couple of meals in our packs!

After a shower and something to eat we explored Sanguesa.

The town has a bull ring, and all the street signs are bilingual, written in Basque as well as Spanish.

Suddenly I feel very far away from home!

Camino Aragones Day 19: Arrés - Ruesta

La vida esta llena de pequeños momentos que podemos convertir en instantes de placer

- Spanish chocolate bar wrapper

Hospitaleros Iosu and Juan gave us one piece of advice for today: stop and smell the flowers! 

We walked across a magical landscape much like that of the crete senesi back home. 

The only problem was the heat in the afternoon, with no shade or water for most of the way. Fortunately, near the end of today's stage, just as we were beginning to feel faint from the sun, the trail went into the brush and we walked mostly in the shade for the last hour or so up to our albergue in Ruesta, a name which also reminded me of home!

This Ruesta is an ancient fortified village that was abandoned when the valley was flooded as a result of construction of the embalse de Yesa dam in 1960. The village is currently undergoing (noisy) repairs, but the albergue is in the already renovated portion and offers everything we require - including ice cold beer at the bar for two euros!

Camino Aragones Day 18: Jaca - Arrés

Walk as if you are kissing the Earth with your feet. ― Thích Nhất Hạnh, How to Walk

On a pilgrimage there is no dead time. Every minute of every day you are using all your faculties to the full. All your physical strength, of course, and all your mental capacities in the effort to deal with different languages and situations and to stay organised and oriented, both on the Way and in the places where you stop for the evening.

When we reached our destination today after a long day of walking, the ospitaleros at Arrés had a packed programme in store for the evening. We had time to shower, wash our clothes and even sit down for a beer at the local bar, but then we were taken on a tour of the village. With a population of 42, you'd think Arrés wouldn't have a lot of sights to see, but our host Iosu knew every detail about every single brick the town was built of, and he talked at length about the village church, the tower, and various houses. As the only guest who spoke English with a smattering of Spanish, I was appointed to translate as much as I could gather for the English-speaking guests, while Mariella translated into French. As it was only my second day in Spain I didn't do a very thorough job of translating; hopefully by the time I get to Santiago my Spanish will have improved!

The tour was followed by a communal dinner and then a game in which we all had to write down a word on a bit of paper summing up what the Camino means to us in only a single word. The papers were then exchanged and read aloud, resulting in an interesting and multilingual discussion! 

We ended the day watching the Pyrenees, already far away, turn pink as the sun set. By that time we were all totally exhausted and fell asleep instantly, and I am happy to report that nobody rolled off the top bunk, even though there was no railing!

Mariella and I may well come back here one day as ospitaleros volontarios, as the hostel is run by the organisation we belong to!

Today's walk was mostly parallel with the highway

Lunch break in Santa Cilia

Donkey in Santa Cilia

Puente de la Reina de Jaca

Puente de la Reina de Jaca

Arriving in Arrés

Jaca - Arrés 25 km

Total so far since Toulouse: 372 km