Camino de Santiago: Travel diary

By Balazs Teremi

You cannot explain it, you just have to feel it: the Camino is calling. This unique, awakening, inviting feeling kept coming, and wouldn’t let me rest. I felt that I had to do it, even though it was irrational: long holiday, relative discomfort, enormous effort. There was no reason for walking in nomadic conditions in a foreign country for thirty-some days! It was only the feeling that would not let me rest until I set out on my journey. The Camino calls. The Way of Saint James calls us. And we are going, sooner or later. We are on the road.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Balazs Teremi
• Release date: Apr 25, 2022

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Balazs Teremi

Camino de Santiago

Travel diary

© Teremi József Balázs, 2022

Content

Foreword 1

prologue 4

Chapter I: The pilgrims have no permanent address 5

Chapter II: Picking flowers 12

Chapter III: Thus extincted the House of the Duke of Aquitaine 20

Chapter IV: Sheeps climbing the bank 27

Chapter V: Everything you wanted to know about the history of St. James’ Way! 36

Chapter VI: Evening mass with hens 39

Chapter VII: Ciao Paula! 49

Chapter VIII: If you are afraid, just shout: Winetu! 58

Chapter IX: Oh, this is a trans-European trip! 67

Chapter X: Flashback 76

Chapter XI: Look, Mr. Teremi! 79

Chapter XII: Fidel dies every half minute 86

Chapter XIII: And down there, that town is Triacastela 96

Chapter XIV: A single word: Mercatos 105

Chapter XV: Five minutes later 114

Chapter XVI: We will all be together in Santiago 121

Chapter XVII: Vamos a playa! 134

Chapter XVIII: Back along the road marked with yellow arrows 144

Epilogue 148

Foreword

Today is my twenty-ninth birthday. I’m sitting in my room, looking at a webcam image for minutes. The Praza Do Obradoiro square appears on the screen in Santiago de Compostela, Spain. It’s a rainy autumn day, so along with nostalgia, I still have vivid memories of the warm summer day when I first stopped in the square at the foot of the Cathedral. The Cathedral of St. James, the finish point of one of the world’s longest and most famous pilgrimages, the Camino de Santiago.

In the shadow of the ornate towers, on that August morning, I came to the end of a journey, a five hundred miles pilgrimage. I had been walking for a month, covering between thirteen and thirty miles a day, to stand at the foot of the Cathedral.

I would have been disappointed if I hadn’t realized in time, way before Santiago de Compostela, that the purpose of this journey was not to arrive. The pilgrimage itself was the point, as the old saying goes. But it’s not enough to say it; you have to experience it! You have to notice the small wonders that the journey offers. It’s better not to rush but to appreciate all the beauty that comes with the road.

As I’ll use it in my book, five hundred miles of walking - or eight hundred kilometers - is far enough to make you run out of ideas. Before I set off, I thought I would have time, at last, to think about the Big Things In My Life. But after the first week I spent on the road, I found that I was not preoccupied with the usual problems. The road, the walking itself, clears the head completely. All that matters is the beauty of the surroundings, the weather, the people you meet, and the miles you walk. I don’t know if I will have another month like this in my entire life. For thirty days, my biggest problem was: what time would I get to my accommodation for the day.

I intend this book as a narrative and practical guide for those planning to make their journey. I have listed a few useful facts on the pages to help you prepare, and I have also tried to include some practical information in the notes. There is still a lot left to write down, though. My story is pretty much complete, but there are still so many exciting things about the Camino. Each settlement tells a new tale! I didn’t want to write them all down, but I wish You would get there and listen to them. The Way of St James is a journey that everyone must make for themselves. Eight hundred kilometers outside and even more inside.

You’ll see, the number of kilometers is one of the least important things on this route. This may sound strange, but when you walk the Camino, the distance you cover is not the measure. The miles fly by unnoticed. The concept of time and distance is quite different on the road. Something that only someone who walks the Camino can feel and understand. I recommend it to everyone: it will be a unique and unrepeatable experience! An opportunity not to be missed. That is what this book is about, an opportunity not to be missed.

Balazs Teremi, 9 November 2007.

prologue

- It’s too late, replied the aging Frenchman, who had been sitting in the stuffy air of the pilgrim’s office for hours.

- So, what do you suggest?, I asked with some uncertainty in my voice.

- Half-past six. At the latest. As I told you, 7:30 is too late. Then you won’t get there in time.

I was afraid of a similar answer. I was reluctantly aware that I would be forced to get out of bed at the crack of dawn the next day. Just to get to Roncesvalles in time. What did he think when he said in time? I felt like asking him that question, but then I just said, with half wrong French word order:

- Thank you very much; I will take your advice.

I grabbed the rucksack resting peacefully by my feet for ten minutes, and placed it on my right shoulder with a big jerk. I could half-see the aging Frenchman clinging with both hands to the table and the objects I had just dropped with my rucksack, but I let only a brief sorry before I stepped outside with my freshly received pilgrim’s passport and took a big gulp of the oxygenated, fresh mountain air.

Chapter I

The pilgrims have no permanent address

In this chapter, I do the first four meters on the Camino and then cross the Pyrenees. The road maiden, Evil Moors, and a raging fan in the story.

At this point, I was in the first meters of my official pilgrimage. The first leg was relatively short: my accommodation was four meters away across the road. The L’esprit du Chemin - which I also first heard pronounced correctly by the aging Frenchman back in the pilgrim office - was the last place on the Camino where you could book in advance, and I took advantage of it. I knew that there would not be a single bed available in Saint Jean Pied de Port in mid-July if I didn’t make arrangements in advance. So I made it a month and a half ago, reserved the place by email, written to the owner.

I caused him some embarrassment because he started searching for my name in the middle of the reservation list, so it took him more than a minute to recognize it in the phonetically engraved row of letters at the top of the page.

- Here it is! Teremi. Mr. Teremi!, said with a beaming face the man, in his forties, namely Arno.

- From Hungary, I said and was about to continue, but Arno cut me off.

- Ah, Budapest! - I was sure that now the goulash and Puskas were coming, as every time I had a conversation about Hungary with a foreigner. Arno continued enthusiastically: Hometown of Ferenc Puskas, right? I was there once, a wonderful city! I ate there some…

- Goulash.

- That’s it! How did you know? By the way, that was delicious. You know what? Have dinner with us tonight! I’ll show you what authentic Basque cooking is like, okay?

I was delighted to accept the invitation.

After snuggling comfortably into the top corner of the bunk bed, I set off on a tour of the small town. The settlement - which roughly translates to Saint John at the foot of the path and refers to the pass over the Pyrenees - has maintained its medieval townscape. Narrow, cobbled streets wind steeply uphill, and five-hundred-year-old ramparts surround the inner perimeter. The proximity of the hills somewhat tempered the summer heat, but I still kept looking for shady spots as I wandered the streets between the ancient buildings. Brownstone houses and tiny, brightly painted two-story homes alternated, tightly packed together. Above their wooden-framed windows often bore construction dates: 1543, 1681, and 1744. Centuries of witnessing pilgrims begin their long journey to Santiago. I had my first Coke of the trip before climbing to the top of the eight-meter-high ramparts and to the citadel, which used to be a military school. It was seven in the evening; the sun was beginning to fade as I looked around from the town’s top, gazing towards the nearby peaks. I tried to gauge what was in store for me tomorrow. Mountains in the distance, just like mounds of sand, were left behind by a giant. They didn’t seem insurmountable - even though I was currently looking at the two-thousand-meter peaks from about a hundred and fifty meters above sea level. I ambled back to my accommodation. By evening, the old town was full of backpacking pilgrims, all of whom had the same look of anticipation and excitement on their faces that I felt. I hadn’t looked forward to the beginning of a journey like this since I was a child.

A long wooden table waited for me in the small atrium dining room with a warm dinner on it. When I sat down among the other guests, Arno had been bustling about for minutes, bringing and taking plates. Across from me sat a middle-aged couple who had cycled from Amsterdam and stayed at L’Esprit du Chemin at the end of their journey.

- The French parts are endlessly boring, said the bespectacled husband as he spooned his asparagus cream soup, just miles and miles of endless lowlands.

- I can understand that, I agreed, eating a tuna salad, even from the train window seemed monotonous, although I had traveled through the country in one night.

-It was a refreshing way to relive the mountains, they said while eating spaghetti with apple and mandarin on top.

I found it much easier to walk on flat terrain. That’s why I was waiting for the Mezeta because I thought that was where I would really be in my element. Long, flat terrain, high speed. I wish I were there already; I thought to myself as we enjoyed an excellent basque. {1}

Next to me sat three more Dutchmen. They came from Rotterdam and were quite young, in their early twenties. Two langalettes and a Smurf, the latter - to look at him - shivered at the slightest wind. Little did I know that they would be my almost constant companions for the next thirty days.

Finally, the orange kefir was served for dessert. I already suspected that I had consumed the most delicious meal on the Camino. In hindsight, I was right.

I took my washed clothes from the garden shed, climbed onto the bunk bed, and turned the fan on to maximum. True, it was roaring with the sound of heavy machinery all night long, right next to my ear, but I slept like I’d been hit over the head with a dead hedgehog. I was tired from a warm-up day.

***

The second stamp is already on the credencial{2}, and I haven’t even started yet - that’s what I thought as Arno printed a red stamp on my pilgrim’s pass and meticulously wrote the date: 15 July, my first day on the road.

- Bon Chamen!, I heard from behind me, from the aging Frenchman I had met yesterday, as I officially took my first steps on the road.

Photo in front of the house, photo with the pilgrim’s office, photo with the Spanish Gate, the bridge, the exit road, the first road sign - I was beginning to feel like I was about to embark on the following eight hundred kilometers with a significant media presence. One after another, locals stopped me to say they would shoot a picture of me. It would be a pleasant memory, they said. So it took me half an hour at least to leave Saint Jean Pied de Port, almost together with the Dutch I had met yesterday - the two langalettes and the smurf. They immediately set off at a gallop, and for some reason, I had the feeling that I was the last to leave town that day. And it was only 7:30. Remember, too late, as the aging Frenchman described.

I thought it was also relatively early, and it was still pleasantly cold, the biting cold of the mountains, which I had only felt on trips to highlands long ago when I was a child. The smell of dewy grass was everywhere, and sometimes, with a stronger gust of wind, the smell of cow dung. The countryside surrounded me.

However, everywhere I looked, sheep and cows were unfenced. I had been told well in advance that animals had priority and to try not to bother them. It wasn’t tricky; the cows just stared at me from the weeds, munching away. They are no longer surprised by people with large backpacks.

I remembered that in the little time I had spent in the pilgrimage office, the aging Frenchman had told me that the most physically demanding part of the journey to Santiago was the first crossing of the Pyrenees, the first 10-12 kilometers would be the hardest. Climbs, rocky paths, severe climbs with no end in sight. It didn’t take me half an hour, and I ultimately agreed. The road wound steadily uphill, and I kept hoping for a break at the next part. There wasn’t. The climbs got harder and harder. The only consolation was that I was surrounded by beautiful valleys, steep cliffs, and picturesque scenery to the right and left for tens of kilometers. The sun was already shining brightly at nine o’clock, from such a height that the whole area was almost without shade. The pilgrims were few and far between, and I was alone as I galloped up and up at the end of the world. The whole Pyrenees seemed to be mine alone.

***

I felt on top of the world in the shadow of the Virgin of the Road.{3} I hid among the stones from the stormy winds predicted the day before by the weather forecast on the pilgrimage office wall. The sun was almost at its meridian, it was just past noon, and I was halfway through the stage. Beside me, Germans with guidebooks in hand were pointing enthusiastically to a nearby site, a hospital that must have stood here a couple of hundred years ago, I gathered from their words. I wasn’t in the mood to climb out of the wind-proof hut. Despite temperatures above thirty-five degrees, the wind operating at gusts of 50-60 km/h was unpleasant. Sometimes I had to lean in to avoid being pushed off the narrow path on the ridge. I had a little piece of the local specialty that the Arno had prepared for me: scrambled eggs with ham and peppers wrapped in a large bun{4}.

The strange feeling that I had only just befriended the night before came over me again: the sense of unknown, adventurous freedom ahead. That I don’t know what the next month will bring: I don’t know yet how my feet will sting in the shower in Leon; I don’t know how the wind will blow me down the hill in Alto de Perdo; I don’t know that I’ll have a nightmare in Santo Domingo in the thousand-year-old pilgrimage hut. I don’t know all that yet, but I feel it in there that it will be excellent.

I drank five liters of water in the mountains that day. The first lesson: water is always the heaviest in the backpack. A pilgrim soon learns the average weight of the rucksack, and the shoulders are sensitive to the extra kilos.

- I don’t take a liter and a half of water with me anymore! - I remarked to a Dutch langaleta I met at Roland’s well on the French-Spanish border. He nodded correctly.

I even found a 5 cent nickel on the French part on the way up. It was lying alone on the concrete, dirty. It looked like many people had passed it. Some cars might have trampled it. It seemed to be waiting just for me. I picked it up and hid it safe. Who knows when I might need it on the road? I had no idea then that I would make the best use of it a month