(May 29th) We woke up so beautifully in Roncesvalles and began our walk through flat farm fields in beautiful blue skies. We walked about 3 or 4 kilometers before we got to the next village which the guidebook recommended as having a fine panaderia (bakery). We arrived about 10 minutes before it opened, but we decided it was well worth waiting, so we did. And it was! And we started something, because as soon as we ordered, the place filled up. Suddenly, there were walking sticks and backpacks everywhere! Tee con leche (tea with milk). It´s what I have every morning at home, but it tastes so good in another language!
So fortified, we started off. Little did we know that it was going to be such a long, long day. When I was in grade school, my family took a vacation to New England and we tried to get to Mystic Seaport. Everytime we saw a sign for it, it was further away than the last time. That became kind of an icon for my family. This was a Mystic Seaport kind of day. And in fact, coming out of one hilly town, I followed the sign towards Larasoanna, our destination for that night. It told me so many kilometers.
It took me up a very steep and rocky, but quite beautiful, path with wildflowers everywhere, and a gorgeous view as I climbed near the top of this ridge. Then the path wound through woods at the top, past another memorial, this one for a Japanese pilgrim 
who died along the way, and finally - finally! - I came out at another sign for Larasoanna, which, just like Mystic Seaport, was now more kilometers away than when I had started up the trail! I felt like I had to have taken the wrong path (even though it was a very beautiful one through the flowers and the woods, and I thoroughly enjoyed it), but at the end of the day, when I checked with everyone else, they had all done the same thing!I stopped in one little town for a break and watched a little boy, playing at being grown up with his dad. He moved wood with his play wheelbarrow, taking it all very seriously. He's very cute and oblivious to all the people who walk by.
We were still in the mountains of the Pyrenees, although coming out of them, which means going down hill, which means very hard on the knees. Some of the descent was exceedingly steep. There are lots of metaphors about the Camino in relationship to life and one of them is that there is lots of variations in the surface. Some parts are smooth and others are rutted and rocky. Others are simply dirt, while others are fancy. We have seen quite a variety. Parts of the walk that day were on flagstone paths, others were through wooded sections, still others through pastures. The descent into Zubiri was very steep, rocky and rutted and long. It was necessary to be very careful. Life, of course, has different sections, each of which has different textures, some of which are more difficult than others. One of the many other metaphors is that of sharing the journey - sometimes we walk alone, sometimes we walk with others, sometimes we change partners, sometimes we walk with many people and sometimes, we encounter people again. All of that has also already happened and happened that day.
I walk faster than Mary and Stella, even when I am not walking fast by my normal pace, so I was ahead of them by a ways by the time I reached Zubiri. It seemed to be a good time to wait on them and give them time to catch up. I wanted to make sure they saw the sign to Larasoanna. And also, there was reportedly no opportunity to get food in Larasoanna and the next day was Sunday and nothing would be open until we got to Pamplona, so we might want to think about getting something at the little tienda, or market, in Zubiri.
There was a lovely shaded spot, right where the trail to Larasoanna veered off - unfortunately, it was not down by the crystal clear little river where I so badly wanted to dip my feet! But I waited for a while. Which gave me a chance to meet and talk with Michael from Denmark. Mary and Stella didn´t show in the next 45 minutes, so Michael and I went to the market, got a few things, rounded up his friend, Christian, from Sicily (I just love the internationality of all this!) and the three of us headed onward. And onward. And onward. Did I say onward?
In Spain, you get more for your money with the average kilometer. Don´t believe the signs. They´re approximate, I´m sure. There are special signs just for the camino and you get used to looking for them everywhere. Yellow arrows will never be the same for me again. They are everywhere, though sometimes you really do have to have your eyes about you to see them. They are, or can be, on the pavement, on the side of buildings, on little posts out of the groud, on the back of street signs, on light poles. Sometimes they are just yellow arrows, sometimes they are a logo-ized version of a scallop shell, the symbol of St. James and the camino. (See my "Camino" page for why the Scallop shell is associated with St. James.)
We should have been getting pretty close when we saw one that said Larasoanna was just 1.9 km away. Okay, that´s less than one and a half miles. We can do that. We walked and we walked and we walked, through fields and woods, by hedges. Finally, as we were passing a horse farm, I asked the guy in my pigeon-Spanish and he said something like ´yea, yea´and waved us on down the road, so we continued on further for a ways. Then we passed a backpacker coming our way and asked him and he said in broken English, "Oh, you´re really close, just a few more steps!" Well, about a quarter mile later, we finally were there. Mystic Seaport, all over again.
Quirky little place, Larasoanna. There's a little bridge crossing over to it from the pilgrimage trail. The guidebooks say that bandits used to lay in wait for travelers entering and leaving the village to rob them. Fortunately, there don't seem to be any on this day. There are lots of trout swimming in the river, though. The village is small, and skinny, squished between a highway (it's easy to forget that you're close to civilization when you're on the Camino) and the trail, but not very long. Perhaps a hundred or more folks live here. Again, they grow beautiful roses, but there is not much else to recommend it.
The lady who checks me into the refugio is not terribly welcoming and doesn't appreciate my attempts to speak Spanish. She tells me, "You are in Spain; speak Spanish!" Sounds rather like some not so kind Americans I have heard. So Larasoanna is not high on my list of must-see villages. No-frills refugio, with an awful ladies' room. At least four men around me snoring all night. Mary and Stella were late enough checking in that Stella gets one of the bunks downstairs just outside the bathroom doors, so she is awakened all night long as the lights are turned on and the doors are slammed. We eat at the only little restaurant bar in town. Ed and Terry from Rochester NY were there, along with Peter from Germany and Laurence, a woman from Quebec, and others we met along the way. Not very good pasta, pretty good beef stew and some runny rice pudding. My first Spanish beer - Keler. Not bad. Moving on in the morning which will be okay.
