Just dropped in? You can join me at the start of the Camino HERE

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Day 5. Pamplona – Puente de la Reina [Part 1/2]

City Streets

The following morning, as I was left Casa Paderborn, it was snowing heavily. The thermometer, behind the veil of falling stars, indicated 4 ºC below zero. I strayed from the Way somewhat and made my way up to the church of Saint Miguel who watched from over the door of the church in his likeness in stone. I asked the statue (while on the outside, of course, it was rare to see an open church) for his blessing for the path I was to make that day. As I turned back, the church bell rang once, the acute sound of metal scattering across the coldness of the air.

"Alas, a good omen!", I thought.

That same morning, I was to brave the famous (or infamous!) mountain top called Alto del Perdón (translated as The Top of Forgiveness), of which Danny had told me about the night before.

"It's very, VERY difficult", he explained to me, "That's why they call it Alto del Perdón. You reach the top… and you are forgiven!”, he laughed.

I walked out of Pamplona, crossing streets that grew ever more deserted and silent as they became distant from the city center. As I walked, my mind wandered over a thousand different thoughts about a thousand different subjects, but my instinct kept guiding me blindly as I went forth in some sort of pilgrimage auto-pilot. Yellow arrow to the left. Path. Yellow arrow to the right. Path. Intersection. "Where is that yellow arrow ...?", I looked around through corners and walls, looking for my guidance. "Ah, there it is, hidden in a road marker!" Yellow arrow to the right. Path.

After several country roads cutting through cultivated fields, I finally reached a marker signaling Alto del Perdón to the left. I dropped my backpack for a few minutes as I prepared for the challenging ascent and, as I rested, sitting in a small concrete wall by the marker, I took my notebook and drew that marker as a checkpoint. Alto del Perdón is the Goliath to every pilgrim’s David.

Finishing the simple drawing, I returned the backpack to my back and went up-hill for about 2 kilometers, walking in increasingly tricky upwards mountain trails, covered by a thick layer of soft snow. The trees’ naked branches, covered in white, were stretching towards the grey mantle of clouds that occupied the entire length of the sky.

The following 2 kilometers were of a much more vertical inclination. A path of slippery rocks hidden by snow and a wind so strong that would push me aside and made the white snowflakes shoot in front of me in horizontal trajectories. Step. Step. Step. Staff. Squinting through the hood that covered my head from the cold wind that howled through the white hillside of the mountain, I peered quickly from time to time to enjoy that wonderful landscape that stretched all the way to the horizon and the distant gray.

Pilgrim

Midway along the climb, standing on the hillside with his back against the wind in awe by this same landscape, there was a Japanese pilgrim with a classical Charles Chaplin bowler hat held fiercely against his head. He was trying to carry a bike up the hill and had, at that time, seemingly stopped to rest. The little bike was lying on the ground a few feet behind him. He turned swiftly, probably as surprised as I was by the presence of another person there in the middle of the storm. We greeted each other with a friendly nod. I was amazed by the fact that he could use only one hand to carry the bike up the mountain while the other HAD TO be holding the hat the whole time lest it be swept away by the elements. Step. Step. Step. Staff. Ah! Finally, the top! I climbed the last ten meters leaning heavily on my staff to support the weight of the backpack and reached the peak panting heavily, but bursting with pride and accomplishment.

In front of me, shining in kindness and compassion and protected from the snow and the wind by a stone monolith that kept her safe, the Virgin of Forgiveness. I thanked her for my safe arrival.

On the other side of that plateau, I saw a van selling hot coffee and cookies. By then my hunger was vicious, but my restrain took hold.

"Nope! Vans selling cookies is not pilgrimage. You’ll eat something else later", I said to myself, and I dropped my backpack on the snow as my attention wandered to the monument made for the Pilgrims that reached Alto del Perdón, a large sculpture made of iron, representing a line of pilgrims marching tirelessly against the wind and the snow.

Alto Del Perdon

An inscription in the monument read: "Donde se cruza el camino del viento con el de las estrellas" - "Where the path of the wind crosses the path of the stars."

And so there I was in Alto del Perdón, admiring the monument and, behind it, the landscape stretching far and wide, like an ocean of white, when one of the most memorable moments of my whole journey took place. Suddenly, in that inospit mountain peak of Spain, someone behind me called me by my name.

“Nuno...?! Nuno…!"

"What?! What is happening to me?", was my first thought.

And then I heard it again. “Nuno...! Nuno!" I turned in astonishment. To my great surprise the vendor of the van was calling me from afar, gesticulating to catch my attention.

"Oy! You! Are you the Portuguese?", he asked me from a distance

"Yes, I am Portuguese...", I replied, bewildered.

"Come here, come here. The Galician has offered you a hot coffee and a snack when he passed through here”, and saying this, he made a gesture so that I would approach him.

Oh, wonderful! Oh Joy! Ah, warm coffee and lemon cake with chocolate icing! Who was I to turn away a gift from the Universe? Begone restrain! It would surely taste good if I had bought it, but offered, carrying the fragrance of friendship, it wasn’t only healing my body but also my soul from the fatigue of the climb and the snow. I stayed for a bit chatting with the man from the van, who was curiously also named Daniel and he told me that Danny passed through there something like a half an hour earlier and had arranged for him to offer me breakfast. Finishing my coffee and milk, he offered me whatever was left in the coffee pot.

"Here, it’ll become cold in a few minutes and I don’t think anyone else will come through here today..."

I thanked him. Before leaving, he also offered me an energy bar, peanut butter and chocolate, saying I might come to need it.

"Bale...! Muchas gracias, Daniel. Buenos Dias!", I smiled and shook his hand. Then, seizing my backpack and my wooden staff, carried by the inner light struck by this heavenly offering, I began to descend the other face of the mountain.

Quite a few more hours ahead, I encountered Señor Francisco Xavier, about half a mile before the town of Obanos. A normal situation - two people cross paths on a road, walking in opposite directions. They wish each other a good morning and follow their paths. But on rare occasions, despite being complete strangers, something happens that these two people momentarily stop their route. And so it happened that time, the reason for this, I cannot recall or explain. We both stopped, started talking and he took the time to tell me about Spain, some of the history of the Basque people and commented on Portuguese immigrants, while I rested, leaning on my staff. His Spanish was very fast so I could not really understand everything, but I captured that he thought the Basques to be a very proud people and regarded the Portuguese as very hard working and I noticed that he mentioned with pride the fact that we are neighbors.

"Buenos Dias, Francisco", I wished him as he shook hands.

"Adios, friend. Buen Camino!", he replied amiably.

Adios, Friend!

When I reached the town of Puente De La Reina, the snow still fluttered densely from the heavy grey skies.

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Day 4. Zubiri-Pamplona [Part 2/2]

Index

Day 1. Saint Jean Pied-de-Port - Orbaitzeta
Day 2. Orbaitzeta - Roncesvalles
Day 3. Roncesvalles - Zubiri
Day 4. Zubiri - Pamplona
Day 5. Pamplona – Puente de la Reina (YOU ARE HERE)
Day 6. Puente de la Reina - Estella
Day 7. Estella – Torres del Rio
Day 8. Estella - Logroño
Day 9. Logroño - Najera
Day 10. Najera - Grañon
Day 11. Grañon - Belorado
Day 12. Belorado - Atapuerca
Day 13. Atapuerca - Burgos
Day 14. Burgos – Castrojeriz
Day 15. Castrojeriz - Fromista
Day 16. Fromista – Carrión de los Condes
Day 17. Carrion de los Condes - Sahágun
Day 18. Sahágun – Mansilla de las Mulas
Day 19. Mansilla de las Mulas - León
Day 20. Léon – Hospital de Órbigo
Day 21. Hospital de Órbigo – Rabanal del Camino
Day 22. Rabanal del Camino - Ponferrada
Day 23. Ponferrada – Vega de Valcarce
Day 24. Vega de Valcarce - Tricastela
Day 25. Tricastela - Ferreros
Day 26. Ferreros – Palas del Rei
Day 27. Palas del Rei - Àrzua
Day 28. Àrzua - Santiago

Disclaimer. I did not carry a camera with me, but I will do my best to illustrate these texts with free for use images found around the web and later sent to me by my fellow pilgrims. All images that are not mine will be attributed to their rightful owner at the end of the post, even if no attribution is required. When no attribution is stated, the image is from my notebook.

Thanks to the following authors for kindly providing the CCO License Free To Use photography that illustrates this post:

City Streets - StockSnap (Pixabay)
https://pixabay.com/en/users/StockSnap-894430/

Pilgrim - Free-Photos (Pixabay)
https://pixabay.com/en/users/Free-Photos-242387/

Alto Del Perdon - schnurzipurz (Pixabay)
https://pixabay.com/en/users/schnurzipurz-137881/

Adios, Friend! - besnopile (Pixabay)
https://pixabay.com/en/users/besnopile-6578876/