After
having seen the error of my ways yesterday, I took the right bike route, but
first of all I had to get on track. I managed that after half an hour of riding
bad field lanes, but then I hit the main road along which the bike route went.
As usually, I took the harder alternative – a pass through the mountains. This
time; however, on a paved road with almost no traffic. It was hard, but it is
absolutely no match to my yesterday biking madness through the Pyrenees. My
reward was having brunch (chocolate spread with bread) with a magnificent view
on the landscape from 900 MASL. It was really worth it – as I said before, there
is no true joy without a little hardship. One must firstly deserve something to
be able to appreciate it. It is funny to read the lines in the bike guide: The
road is extremely steep and proves to be a challenge even for most fit bikers.
It sounds funny, because it was nothing in comparison to the Pyrenees off-road
tracks of Camino for pilgrims on foot or with the Pyrenees. This night I spent
on a beaten track for pilgrims by a cross. It was on a hill and scenery was
absolutely magnificent, especially as the sun set down behind the mountains.
I am really
glad that from now on I can follow the bike route. It will be way better than
trudging through classical pilgrim routes. Riding off-road is not a good idea
due to my bike, health conditions and available time, but if the opportunity
arouse once again, I would be ready to take Camino Francais nicely the harder
way, off-road.
Now,
pondering on the Camino after a great branch I came to the idea that this pilgrimage
is a brilliant parallel to the real life. Once you are enjoying your easy ride,
the other times all seems to be a constant uphill struggle, sometimes you lose
the right path, but if really want and try hard, you eventually find it again.
Only the yellow arrows marking the whole Camino are absent in the real life,
probably just to make it even more interesting. The only difference is the time
span. Here you can appreciate beautiful scenery to the fullest, because you
still feel you are still worn out from the whole day, but in the real life, the
good and the bad times are somehow more apart. That makes as sometimes to
forget about the bad times when the time of fortune comes and again, through
bad times we tend to be oblivious about the blessing that we had before. Of
course we are not supposed to look for solace in the past, but it can be our
springboard to a better future if we learn to appreciate the rights things. And
if we only wait until everything gets better, we might spend our life in our
own real misery that we confabulate. Remember that enjoying the life is not
about waiting for the storm to pass, but about learning to dance in the rain.
….
I daresay
that a religious pilgrimage has one huge advantage to travels taken by a not religious
people. Catholics can namely turn their hardship into a sacrifice, thus make
themselves think that they bear their burden gladly. That gives them the
ultimate power to overcome so many troubles in life and also have an incredible
healing effect for the soul. In fact, this applies in general to almost all
religions. Therefore, I think that atheists stand in a considerable
disadvantage because they cannot lean on their faith in bad times, but have to
see through it by themselves. This leaning, however, does not refer to any
extra help without that the religious people would be lost and thus are in
conclusion weaker than atheists. Nobody tells you that you are weaker if you
put helmet on by biking even though it might not be required either by the
traffic rules, or by the road itself, as well, as nobody will see you as a hero
if you do not take it with you. It is all about one's preferences. It is only a
pity that great many people do not see it so simply and tell of the others for
doing this or that.
The country
changed a lot since I passed the mountains. Now I was exposed to scorching
sound in the inclement half-dessert inland full of small hills and arid fields,
the omnipresent green color was changed for yellow typical for everything
suffering from dearth of water. It gave an impression of a dying land, but it was
perfectly normal for this Spanish region. I am just influenced by my
narrow-mildness and judge the environment in accordance with my own deep-rooted
standards. In the afternoon I visited Estrella, a bigger town in the inland. I
was curious to see a big town in this quite backwater. I wandered in the city
center on bike, by chance saw a famous market about which I read later in my
guide. I bought there two nectarines for an unfair price of 1 € and almost
destroyed a stand of one shopper with my cumbersome bike - luckily it was easy
to put together all the cans that I knocked off). For lunch I enjoyed my
luxurious prosciutto with a baguette and listened to a local street guitar
player.
Now I have
a very peculiar story to tell, hopefully you will not mind my religious
contemplation. As I have mentioned earlier, Christians gladly sacrifice their
suffering for a higher purpose in order to be rewarded for that later in the
future. On my ride out of Estelle, I ran into a Lidl shop. I knew that the next
big town comes after another 65 km through an old national road in the
abandoned inland, and I was thinking about buying some more food supplies. In
fact, I had enough food to get by, it was just a temptation to buy something
good, such some sweets, beer, wine and so on. In the end, after a ferocious
fight with my conscience I resisted and continued only with sufficient supply
of water, fruit and a last package of biscuits that was left. I had quite a
good feeling about my self-constraint and continued for about 15 km until I saw
a small monastery few kilometers from the road. Out of curiosity, I decided to
have a look there. On my way to the monastery, I was for a shock – near to a
museum of wine I found a wine fountain where anybody could pour as mach wine as
he wanted for free. Now I was wondering what is this suppose to mean. There
could be two possible religious explanations for this unusual occurrence. One
could say that well Marek, you have valiantly resisted temptation, here is your
reward, or another, more austere explanation could sound like this: Hey, Marek,
so you think you are a tough guy, let's see what you say to this: the ultimate
temptation. Of course, the first explanation suited me better and overindulged
myself to the point that I was not fit for the ride on the national road for
another 3 hours. I also took some supplies too, but obviously I was too greedy
because my water bag got broken and half of the wine leaked into my backpack.
This is an interesting parallel that one could apply when talking about sins
and sinners. Some people tend to admonish the others for being weak to resist
the temptation, but in fact, not everyone is exposed to the same kind of
temptation even though the external factors might remain the same. For
instance, if somebody who does not enjoy wine as much as I do visited this
place, he would probably just take some pictures, have few sips and carry on.
For me, however, this was like finding a paradise on Earth. Therefore, one
should refrain from springing judgment for we never know how big the fountain
for the other person you are about to judge really was.
After
being, in the, ehm, right mood, I made it eventually to the monastery. I was
surprisingly very talkative even in Spanish, but soon a monk working there as a
guide changed to English. That was great, I became even more talkative. He
looked also quite nicely surprised that he can finally say something else than
the 1000 x repeated shortened history of the monastery so I listened with keen
interest to the longer version. My new Spanish guide told me that he is bored
rigid anyway because there are not many tourist coming to that place (probably
never make it through the fountain) and he spends his time by talking to the
wall, especially wall stones. Those are according to him unique, everyone of
them has a special number and a "stamp" as an autograph from the stone
maker.
By the way,
speaking about the stamps, this monastery was presumably the first place that
started to give stamps to pilgrims and set this nice, more than 1000 years old
tradition in motion. The purpose of stamps was simple: they served as a
credential of a good pilgrim. In the middle ages it was particularly important
to weed out false pilgrims from the good because there were many thieves on the
road disguised as pilgrims, and the Camino was an adventure that could cost
people their lives. Nowadays there are no more bandits lurking in the dark, but
as I have heard from few pilgrims, thieves can be found even on the Camino and
one should keep an eye on his belongings in refugios despite the overall
atmosphere of trust that reigns there. One never knows.
I decided
to use some free time in the afternoon for a little bit of religious
contemplation and later reading in the park. No wonder that my overindulging
with wine had a profound effect on inner conversation, introspection,
contemplation, and prayer. I cannot rekindle everything what I was thinking
about that time, but I vividly remember the absolute sincerity of my thoughts
that were lingering in my mind.
Later I
went to see the miracle wine fountain once again and met there the Lithuanian
girl that I saw two days ago. This time, she looked rather tipsy and garrulous.
I found myself in the position of a consecutive interpreter once again as one
French man tried to warn to be more careful about her expensive camera. She
insisted that if she has a positive mindset and wants only good for everyone,
similar people would simply avoid her. The French man gave her an incredulous
look for her overconfidence, I exchanged basically the same statements for few
more times and eventually he gave up.
In the
evening I felt a little bit better and was finally ready for the ride. The bike
route went through a frequent national road, but fortunately drivers were
cautious enough and there was also plenty of space behind the traffic lines so
my biking did not slow down the traffic.
At 8 pm I
visited a small city Los Arcos. Firstly I went straight to an auberge because I
wanted to get a stamp from there. I ran into a very friendly old man who worked
there and we chatted for a while. He offered me the last bed available, but at
that time I wanted to save money and therefore refused the offer. Surprisingly,
he was quite ok with that and did not look like he cared whether I stay there
or not and continued with the conversation as if nothing happened. When I gave
him my pilgrim passport for a stamp, he immediately fetched a tape and scissors
for me. That was very thoughtful of him because my passport suffered from wear
and tear (literally and precisely) only after few days, most probably due to
the rain in Pyrenees). Then out of sudden, the wine in my camel bag started
leaking from my backpack and messed the whole floor on the terasse. That was
quite a source of amusement for other pilgrims who remarked that I was prepared
for the ride through the arid inland very well. I offered to take care of that,
but the old man insisted that I let it be. It took me few minutes to fix my
passport and in the meantime we talked about the Camino. He told me that he did
his pilgrimage from the Netherlands on foot and it took him 3 months. Now he is
helping out as a friend of the Camino in this auberge. He spoke very well
English and it was a pleasure to talk to him. Later he pointed out at an
elderly Japanese man who was admiring Eva. He later came up to me and said that
I had a very good bike. I felt very flattered, especially when I had a chance
to tell the great story behind it. The Japanese man also admired the gears,
saying that his relative works for Shimano. However, what surprises me the most
was his flattering about my "sportive legs". He referred to them as
very strong and big and I was wondering according to which standard he was
assessing them because by look they do not give such an impression. He insisted
that they do look great, strong and I must have made many a kilometer on my
bike to make them look like that. He pointed at his legs that were even thinner
than mine. However, when he told me that he made a hard-core triathlon in Japan
(120 km of biking on roads in the mountains, 42 km of running + "some"
swimming) in his 60's, he totally took my breath! This Japanese man, now 73
years old, but looking no more than 60, bursting with energy, just undertook
"some" 900 km as a pilgrimage for fun to escape the routine back
home. He is a real paragon of active retirement. I wish I could be like him as
in 50, 60 years. One is never too old for anything, only in the moment when he
or she admits that. Also, everything is just a point of view. I like making fun
of my legs as being a miracle - so thin, yet so strong and tenacious. They have
served me well and it does not really matter how they look. It is like the
Aesop's story of a lion and a deer: The deer despises his legs for not being as
gracious as his horns, but in the end, it is his horns what really betrays him
when they get stuck in the forest and he is unable to run away from the lion as
a consequence. Well, this fable had some personal significance for me in the
past and now I like my legs as they are and I do not need horns, either J
When I
fixed my passport, I wished bon Camino to everyone and left the place. Now in
retrospect I regret that. I should have really stayed there. There was exactly
the right pilgrim mood that I was never to find again. I was so consumed with
my pursuit for extra kilometers that I completely let slip through my fingers
this great opportunity to meet other open-minded pilgrims.
It was
already dark when I finished my dinner and left the town. I surely did not make
more than 10 km more when I pulled it over in the field next to the old
national road to build my tent. The landscape was inclement, gave an impression
of a wasteland. Cactuses were everywhere and sticking the tent pegs into the
arid ground proved not to be easy, either.
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