Day 3. Roncesvalles - Zubiri [Part 1/2] (A Pilgrim's Diary)

Dawn

Join me at the start of the Camino HERE

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Day 3. Roncesvalles - Zubiri

Most woke up before sunrise. There’s no point dawdling about when the Path calls. Some of the pilgrims had already started to pack their bags in the dimly lit room, doing their best to avoid clattering their things, but unable to silence the sound of opening and closing of zippers. I got out into the yard with my little gas stove and began to boil some water in a small gas cooker to prepare hot tea. Then I went back to the busy room, where everyone was either folding stuff or throwing it into backpacks, to offer a cup to my fellow pilgrims. After have a cup for myself, I went to the bathroom to wash the used utensils and, in a stroke of luck, noticed that I had left my towel to dry in the bathroom the day before and threw it in the backpack with a long sigh of anticipated relieve. Still far from a main city, where towels are aplenty, that could’ve been a problem.

All set, I walked towards early dawn outside, under a beautiful moon and a thick and unblemished cover of snow spreading as far as the eye could see.

Snowy Forest

Shortly after leaving Roncesvalles, the Path takes us through a forest. Tiny flakes of snow still fell from the grey skies, breathing great life into the landscape that was already unspeakably beautiful and I walked unhurriedly through the forest, finding my own rhythm and listening the squeaky noise of the snow being walked on by my big boots. Suddenly, I heard a noise behind me, I turned and saw a face wholly covered by a wool mask except for two smiling eyes. I could still recognize Danny, a Spaniard from Barcelona.

"Buen Camino", he said.

"Buen Camino, Danny", and hastily he went, with a much lighter backpack and a much faster pace.

Further on, I encountered the White Cross of Roldan, a meaningful part of the story of Roncesvalles, as the lasting memory of the death of the illustrious knight Roldan and the defeat of the armies of Charlemagne by an ambush of Basques in the battle of the Passage of Roncesvalles. Legend has it that, finding himself surrounded by a horde his enemies, Roldan plunged his mythical sword, named Durendal, into the rock of the mountain, with the purpose of destroying it and thus preventing from falling into pagan hands. The sword, who was said to have magical powers and thus, be indestructible, resisted the stroke of Roldan and instead of breaking in the hands of its wielder, opened a huge crack in the mountain, a geological rarity, now called La Brèche of Roldan, much studied by historians and geologists.

Roldan was defeated in this battle, his army ambushed by another numerically far superior to his.

Death of Roland

Later on this story would be recounted countless times, but instead of Basques, the Saracens would be the opposing army, as this was a common bedtime story during the Holy Crusades. This was also one of the stories that was the base for the quintessential model of the knights of the middle ages as we know them today.

Shortly after I entered the small village of Burguette, known not only for being part of the Path, but also quite notorious for being a vacation spot favored by Ernest Hemingway, who loved walking through the mountains of Navarra, when yearning for a little peace. Burguette was the typical village of the Camino de Santiago, composed of a main street, stretching throughout the entire village, along both sides of which the whole village had been built, house after house. If not for a smoky chimney here and there, the village could have been said to be deserted, as the streets were without the slightest movement, except for the local bakery, where I saw one of the pilgrims from the night before, a friendly German, who was more or less my age and had come from Saint Jean on a bike. He was at the door of a bakery, concentrated in the bags hanging from the both sides of the bike.

"Hello! They sell bread to take out, right? "- I asked, more to spark a conversation than to have an answer to my obvious question. The pleasant smell of warm bread was unmistakable.

"Hello! Sure, they do", he replied, "I have also stopped to buy me some."

I walked to the warm and inviting interior which was quite busy with customers. Some of the pilgrims were sitting at the tables, having breakfast, but something in me wanted to walk the Path as closely as possible to the experience of twelfth century, which meant no bars and no restaurants, so I bought a baguette of bread for my lunch and left. The German was serviced at the same time as me and walked out with me. We greeted each other with a handshake.

"Buen Camino", I wished him.

"Buen Camino to you, hermano", he answered as he climbed into the bike. We chatted for quite some time back in the albergue, the night before, about Spain, the path from the previous day and our own lives and I had really enjoyed his companionship. We would never see each other again. We both knew that. The fact that he was in a bicycle meant that tonight, he would be many miles ahead of me. Nobody mentioned the fact, so was the Path.

He rode the bike and disappeared in the main road and I, having carefully packed the baguette, returned the backpack to my back and ventured again into the white paths of the peaceful forest.

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Day 2.

Day 1. Saint Jean Pied-de-Port - Orbaitzeta
Day 2. Orbaitzeta - Roncesvalles
Day 3. Roncesvalles - Zubiri (YOU ARE HERE)
Day 4. Zubiri - Pamplona
Day 5. Pamplona – Puente de la Reina
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:

Dawn - hschmider (Pixabay)
https://pixabay.com/en/users/hschmider-3108740/

Snowy Forest - Tante Tati (Pixabay)
https://pixabay.com/en/users/TanteTati-77004/

Death of Roldan - Batalla de Roncesvalles en 778. Muerte de Roldán, en las Grandes Crónicas de Francia, ilustradas por Jean Fouquet, Tours

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