Solo on the Camino de Santiago Part 4: Luck in Misfortune
In 2008 I cycled solo from the Netherlands to Spain without a tent. In part 1 in the south of France I found Jaqueline, a bluebell, who from then on kept me company at my handlebars. In part 2 we cross the Pyrenees via the bike-friendly Col du Somport and present 7 other mountain passes for bike pilgrims. In Spain, at the beginning of the Camino Frances in part 3, my wallet and camera got stolen. In part 4, we continue with scarce resources against wind and rain on our pilgrimage by bicycle. Jaqueline, however, my flowery travel companion, will leave me. Read the whole story below and follow along on the route to download.
Day 25, Friday April 11, 2085 km
Today the pilgrims slept longer, although they would swep us out at 8 o'clock sharp. Of course, my laundry wasn't dry yet. I had one more pair of socks and underpants. I could do without the bra. But the wet cycling pants I just put on. They would get wet every time it rained anyway.
At breakfast I chatted with an Australian boy who was also cycling. But for the sport, mountains up and down. Like me, he often slept outside. We exchanged experiences about bus stops and agreed that the ones closed on three and a half sides in France were the best.
It was sunny but the temperature had dropped to 5°C. First, I had to cycle on the hiking Camino and overtook all my roommates. Then I went back to the road. In Najera, I took a break. It was cold and I didn't feel like drinking the cold chlorine water from the hostel's tap in my water bottle. I liked the town from the beginning. In this rarely ugly part of it, I spotted a café called Sofia and had a coffee. At least I sat on a chair with my damp cycling shorts instead of on cold stones. Bladder infection was really the last thing humanity needed. Outside I ate bread with chocolate.
Thanks to Jaqueline, the Spanish people rushing along stressed by their daily routine, arranged their squinted wrinkles into an amused smile as soon as they got aware of us.
At the other end of town, you could find all of Navarre's storied history Najera had to offer. It began to rain. I passed on the sightseeing. Also on the "detour" via the 3 monasteries from my travel guide. Instead, I unabashedly took the N120 to St. Domingo de la Calzada. For the next 20 km I was busy avoiding the trucks on the half meter wide hard shoulder.
In St. Domingo I took a break on a bench sheltered from the rain. Two sociable pilgrims from Osnabrück joined me. We traded chocolate for magnesium tablets and laughed at the rain. When the rain stopped, we moved on.
To Belorado, I rode 20 km on an easy track. Rain. In the quiet place I looked for the Albergue. I found it; €7 per night plus €3 for breakfast. So far, we were two pilgrims. I slept first and then took a lukewarm shower. At least warmer than the rain. Amazingly, the hostel was fitted with radiators. However, they were cold despite the 7°C outside. Probably only intended for sub-zero temperatures. There was no kitchen.
With Michele, the other pilgrim, I went to the supermarket. When he asked why I had my money in a plastic bag, I told him about the stolen wallet and camera. He invited me for a coffee straight away.
I had my diner in the Albergue's dining room. In the supermarket, I couldn't help it and had bought cheese for €2.99 in addition to the usual chocolate and baguette, so I had spent a disgraceful €5 on food. A misdeed that was put into perspective by the marvelous taste. Moreover, Michele didn't finish his pilgrim menu salad! The second taste explosion. It felt like I hadn't eaten a fresh salad in weeks. Then hot tea.
I wrote in my diary. Spain hadn't gotten much prettier, but I had started to like the country. For example, I turned my head to the unusual, colorful birds that flew around here and understood a little more of the language. Nevertheless, I didn't want to stop at sights, but ride to the sea. Jaqueline, my bluebell, agreed, because as soon as we arrived by the sea here in Spain, we could cycle back to France, where the climate was more favorable for a travel campanula. And at home we would find a suitable place for her in the garden.
Day 26, Saturday April 12, 2165 km
The day began cultivated with breakfast in the company of Michele. For 3€ we got a pile of rusks, jam, 20g butter, juice, lousy coffee and warm milk. That was smart, because the rusk and milk coffee mix was still swelling in my stomach 2 hours later and filled me up.
Michele kept statistics of his journey on large sheets of paper in meticulous writing. He was running late and left soon.
Outside the sun was shining from a cloudless blue sky and my friend the west wind was blowing against me. My body immediately tuned in to the pleasantly familiar French weather conditions.
According to the sign on the N120, it was 48 km to Burgos. "You could have cycled that yesterday," my confused brain suggested, although yesterday in the afternoon I almost collapsed on the walk to the supermarket. Still not in the pilgrim's mindset.
Through the open sky, the snow-capped peaks seemed concerningly close. I decided to stay on the N120 and save a few kilometers and thereby energy, food and money.
Possibly a fallacy. The N120 first rolled up to Villafranca and then came up with a 7 km long 5% climb to the 1150 m high El Pejara. The route continued against the wind uphill and downhill. Not a village far and wide. Then finally, out of nowhere, a bus stop - closed with an entrance.
I stayed outside and made myself comfortable behind a ledge in the sun, sheltered from the wind. Inside it was badly littered. The roadside was also littered with plastic bottles and Red Bull cans. For kilometers. I bought the spare water bottle on my luggage rack at a gas station in Hanover. That was on my bike trip from Berlin to the Netherlands in February, visiting my cousin on the way. I was still using it.
The sun slowly thawed my ice-cold feet. Baguette and chocolate did the rest for my blood sugar level. I was pretty exhausted from the long climb. For the next 25 km I fought against the wind.
Burgos started like any other city: I passed under the motorway and the ring road, rode through industrial areas and new housing developments. The yellow Camino arrow led past such shabby backyards that I began to doubt the authenticity of the signposts and feared a tourist trap. But nothing like that. On the contrary. Whenever I lost the arrow, an attentive citizen immediately helped me back on the right path.
Suddenly I was in the tourist center and stood in front of the tremendous cathedral. For a brief moment I felt an impulse to escape welling up in me. Pretty overwhelming after the prolonged deprivation of urban stimuli of recent times.
I rode to the Albergue in the El Parral Park. 3€, fantastic. I was exhausted. Probably chocolate poisoning. That's why constantly eating sugar is not good. Still, I staggered back into town, found a bakery and bought bread and a thing with ham, egg and cheese and tried to soothe my stomach with protein-rich food.
Burgos had a lot to offer. I liked the many sculptures and the river promenade on the Arlanzon. With my camera I would now have taken a sculpture photo series and bored people at home with 30 pictures of sculptures only. Were they lucky that the camera was stolen.
Every couple of minutes I had to rest on a bench. After a while, my stomach had calmed down and the lead disappeared from my legs. I went to the train station, which was shockingly tiny and insignificant. Either I had confused something here or that was a minus for Burgos.
I went back to the hostel and slept surrounded by pleasantly loud Spanish buzz.
Day 27, Sunday April 13, 2220 km
The bed had held up. The nice overweight Spanish guy didn't break through.
Despite my overdose and his intentions to lose weight, we both had chocolate for breakfast. As well as my bread remains with honey and cheese.
I talked to a woman from Canada who took care of her battered feet. I felt under the weather, had a sore throat and thought out loud about whether I might try praying in the big cathedral. I told her about my stolen wallet. I didn't need a cold on top of my tight budget, and after all, it was Sunday. The woman found this an excellent idea. When I came back from the bathroom, she was gone and a 10 euro bill stuck in my luggage. That was the jackpot. Did she know how much 10 euro meant to me these days?
I went to get my bicycle and met the woman outside again. I introduced her to Jaqueline. Pleased to meet you: The woman's name was also Jaqueline!
The city was wet from the rain during the night, 5°C, trimmed with west wind. No one around. I would have waited for people filling the streets and done some basking playing the flute to make a few euros. But with the 10 euro extra in my pocket I could continue on my cycling route without worries straight away.
Shortly behind Burgos, the landscape with round green hills looked pleasant. Only for a short stretch though. Then the strange brown rocks that looked like the top was broken off were back . After two inclines I ended up on a plateau. Nothing for the eye to get a hold on. I seriously wondered what people had fought about here 1000 years ago. Vultures, storks and milans felt comfortable here, but people?
The wind vigorously swept over the barrier-free plateau and cleared the thoughts out of my head. After 25 km of headwind, I arrived in Castrojeriz. I found an open supermarket and a dry bench in the wind shadow on a playground and was grateful. 2 apples, bread and lentils, as well as 2 chocolate-containing biscuits were my lunch.
I continued against the southwest wind with rain every now and then. Jaqueline needed more wind cover. I hadn't adjusted the scallop shell in her flowerpot on my handlebar since France. Our cycling route headed straight to the west now, so the shell pointed into the wrong direction. The wind rushed over the bicycle bell directly into Jaqueline's leaves. First, I filled up some earth from the field and watered her. Then I build a wind cover from thistle stems. That was better.
After 100 kilometers I arrived in Carillon and found the Albergue. First thing I did was cooking lentils.
The large Albergue was connected to a monastery. Novices explained that the door would open in the morning between 6.30 a.m. and 8 a.m. to slip out. You could use washing machines, dryers and the Internet with coins. In the kitchen I found tons of pasta bags with leftovers. Together with 2 pilgrims from Sweden we made pasta with pesto.
The hostel was cold. After showering I crawled into my sleeping bag and wrote in my diary. Someone found a guitar; the two Swedish girls sang a song and the Spanish pilgrims continued with Camino songs.
Day 28, Monday April 14, 2320 km
An important day. It started shortly below 0 degrees with dense fog.
At 6.30 a.m. sharp, they switched on the lights and happy Camino music and at 8 a.m. the key-rattling cleaning lady threw the last pilgrims out. I had the best breakfast ever: lentil soup. The soup came from a coup-a-soup bag and was warm; that first of all, warm.
For the first 15 km , the travel guide sent me to the unacceptably stony hiking trail. The fog settled down on me as rime – also on Jaqueline. I couldn't do anything. When the fog cleared after an hour and a half and released the cloudless blue sky, Jaqueline was frozen to death.
My Camino companion, my travel campanula hung withered over the edge of the flowerpot. Carried off by the frost and no way to revive her. I felt how the loss would depress me and ignored the sad scenery on my handlebars for the time being. Appropriately, for kilometers, there was nothing around me but plateau desert, every now and then interrupted by green and red fields. In the north I saw the snow-covered mountains, my back route ran somewhere there.
Compared to yesterday's wind, it was rather calm today. Wonderful weather and until Sahagún the fields had risen to a pleasantly hilly landscape. Sahagún looked welcoming. I saw overhead lines - a train station!
Sahagún's train station was neat. A small unusual station building with a café, the floor littered with cigaret butts and sugar bags, but equipped with beautiful cast iron furniture and artistically tiled tables.
I was in the mood for a civilized breakfast with a cup of coffee in a warm place. Somehow I had to overcome my loss of Jaqueline. There was hardly a better place for this than a train station. For me, train stations have always been the epitome of movement, getting away from A to B or to an unknown place. A train station provides certainty. Certainty of a dry place in harsh weather, certainty of having a way out of any place, out of forlornness. A train station – no matter how small – is a gateway to the entire world.
So I bought a coffee and made my cheese-and-honey baguette. The bar woman didn't bother me at all. She was busy helping an old man to crack the machine. The two were lucky or skilled; I heard the sound of jackpot followed by tinkling coins.
To Leon, it was another 60 km. Since the loss of my camera, I had lost all interest in historical ruins. But after my fine breakfast I felt like reading the information in my travel guide and learn more about the country I traveled through. Here in Sahagún was once the greatest monastery of Spain, but because it was a French Benedictine abbey, people in Leon felt disturbed and destroyed it. Aha.
On the way to Mansilla it got warm. In Mansilla I took a break on the village square and let the sun heat my stiff joints for an hour. I had lentils with apple snippets and contemplated on the 3 exhausted stone pilgrims that a sculptor had thrown over the steps to a stone cross. One had his head resting on his arms. On the other side of the cross a woman with a piece of stone bread in her hand adored her pilgrim friend looking up to him, while he was fiddling about on his stone backpack, probably to impress her with a stone apple.
It was getting warmer on the 25 km to Leon: 20°C. A bit like when I cycled to Pau in the south of France. In the background the mountains and a few hills, just not as flowery as in France. Neither the landscape nor on my handlebar. Jaqueline's delicate violet flowers went limp and already began to lose their color.
Leon was a good city, not overly signposted with Camino arrows. I got lost a couple of times, but people always hurried to get me back on the right way. I stopped at the Albergue. It was free or rather on a voluntary donation base. For the first time there were separate dormitories for men and women, and breakfast was free!
First I washed laundry and pegged it out in the warm weather. Then I walked into the city with the remaining 4 pieces of clothing on my body: shoes, jacket, my windproof pants and the fleece body warmer, all pretty dirty.
Close to the cathedral I met Juan. He approached me from the side; Whether we wanted to have a coffee, he asked. I made clear that I had no money for coffee. Juan invited me. He spoke Spanish, Mallorquí and a bit of French. That was little overlap in our languages... We soon agreed that most of what people utter could just as good remain unsaid. However, we communicated splendidly.
One of the temples on Juan's glasses was missing exactly on the other side than on mine. He drank tea, I had coffee. He built a big joint. He was traveling through, he said. His train would leave around 9. He said tomorrow I would pass in the village of Foncebadón on my way to the mountain pass. In the private Albergue run by Phillipe I could get a meal and accommodation in exchange for doing the dishes or the like.
We walked a bit and went to the supermarket. For €3.22 I bought 2 apples, bread, lentils in a glass and 2 bars of chocolate. Juan bought fruit, cookies, bread and cold cuts. We sat on a bench. Juan built himself the next joint, fed two cookies to the pigeons and gave me a pear. I ate bread with chocolate.
We visited the train station, unlocked Juan's luggage at the bus station and went resting on a meadow in the sun. The life-of-Riley feeling had returned. Spain was OK, too.
At 8 a.m. I made my way to the Albergue, who knew if I would find it back soon. Juan gave me his phone number and I gave him mine. We had a chilled afternoon in Leon together. On goodbye, he rummaged in his pocket, pulled out a 10 euro bill and put it into my hand. I was a lucky dog!
That was it; the 10 days of my pilgrimage together with my bell flower Jaqueline. 10 out of 70 days of my solo bicycle trip from the Netherlands to Santiago de Compostela and back. My lucky phase continued. Juan was right: the next day in Foncebadón I got board and lodging in exchange for 2 hours of cracking almonds and helping with the dishes. In Santiago de Compostela I was able to make some money for the way back by playing the flute on the streets, and a helpful pilgrim from Germany gave me 200 euros in cash that I transferred back to her account.
Currently, we are planning our bike trip from the North Cape in Norway to Cabo de São Vincente in Portugal next year. The review of my diary from 2008 showed me how little we really need; how important it is to just start and that a journey always goes on.
I met friendly and helpful people not only on the Camino, but on all my cycling trips, whether solo or together, whether in Portugal or from Moscow to the North Cape or on the commute to work. Until today. So don't wait for the perfect bicycle, the right partner and a comfortable budget ...
Get on your bike and share the most beautiful, safest, shortest, or longest and most practical bike routes with others. Talk about holidays by bicycle. Give someone a bike or a bike day! Just don't give up until everyone's riding by bicycle. Because cycling makes you happy.
