by Eddie Rock
I quite like the writings of these medieval pilgrims. One of them, in particular, has an edge I can associate with.
The French pilgrim Aymeric Picaud says of the Basques:
They are a barbarous people unlike all other peoples in customs and characters, full of malice, swarthy in colour, ill favoured of face, misshapen, perverse, perfidious, empty of faith and corrupt, libidinous, drunken, experienced in all violence, ferocious and wild, dishonest and reprobate. Impious and harsh, cruel and contentious. Unversed in anything good, well trained in all the vices and iniquities, like the Geats and the Saracens in Malice and everything inimical to our French people.
In certain regions of their country, that is Biscay and Alva, when the Navarrese are warming themselves, a man will show a woman and a woman a man their private parts.
I seem to remember my father saying something along the lines of this on his first-ever visit to Scunthorpe, but he got straight to the point by saying to my mother, “I’ve never seen so many miserable bastards in my whole life.”
The Navarrese even practise unchaste fornication with animals. For the Navarrese it is even said that they hang a padlock behind his mule or mare so no one can come near her but himself. He even offers libidinous kisses to the vulva of woman and mule. That is why the Navarrese are to be rebuked by all well informed people.
Aymeric also says, “Their language is like the ‘barking of dogs,’ and they force strangers to take down their trousers.”
“They force strangers to take down their trousers? Wow! That would be great,” I say to myself, looking across at the sweet, smiling waitress. She reminds me a bit of a girl from the Basque region that I met in a bar in Clonmel, County Tipperary, back in Ireland.
She was as pretty as a picture until she opened her mouth. Her face twisted into a sneering mask of hatred, hating everything and everybody, saying she wanted to join the IRA so she could learn terror tactics to blow up politicians back in her own country. Nice girl, really, but definitely in need of some hard-core anger management of the sexual kind.
A young man wanders in and starts his shift behind the bar, busying himself in chatting up the two waitresses. He sees me waiting but chooses to ignore me. Eventually, he comes over.
“Yep?” he sighs miserably.
“Pint of Guinness, please.”
“Yep,” he says again, looking down his nose at me like I’m a piece of shit on his shoe. “Three euro fifty,” he sighs again in an Australian accent, holding out his hand and moaning because I haven’t got the right money.
“Oh, and some more tapas while you’re at it, mate.” I nod.
He slinks off, muttering under his breath, then returns minutes later, throwing the plate down next to my drink. Then he’s back to laughing and joking with the girls as I start to imagine how his head might look in a slowly tightening vice.
Returning back to the guide, I can’t believe what I’m reading. It says there are two routes from Roncesvalles to Larrasoaña, and instead of choosing the good earth track or the tarmac road, Cocker and I chose the “Very stony, steeply rising paths. Then the very uneven path with loose stones, and the very dangerous descent from Erro Hill, with loose stones and many torrent courses.”
And today, instead of choosing “the tree-lined path and asphalt road,” we chose “the hillside path, a very dangerous one and not to be recommended.”
Fantastic! Follow the yellow arrows, said Cocker, and it’s no wonder that angel Benny from ABBA and Manuel were so clean.
“Stick to the road!” shouted the German at Roncesvalles. “Bloody hell!”
Again the little wanker is ignoring my empty glass on purpose, the fucking little prick, obviously fresh out of Australia and at the pre-violent-assault stage of his young life.
He saunters slowly over, smiling at girls and then looking all serious at me. “YEP?” he goes again.
“You wouldn’t happen to know where the internet café is, would you, mate?” I ask him politely.
“What do you think I am, mate? Tourist info?”
It takes me a while to count out my change as he moodily stands, sighing before me.
“You wouldn’t be going to England at all, would you?” I ask him.
“Why, what’s it got to do with you?” he says, all tense.
“Just wondering; that’s all.”
He wanders over to the till, glancing back at me with a worried look on his face as I fantasize about giving him a vicious right hook to his ribs, so he can remember me on every breath for the next three weeks. It’s crazy to think that a puny little midget like him would be so rude to someone twice his size. I deduce, therefore, that he has never been properly assaulted yet. I know I don’t have to do a thing, because in three months’ time, Brenda and Bill Douglas of Claremont, Perth, Western Australia, will be getting a call from the emergency room somewhere in south London to determine the blood group of their son so they can safely remove the broken glass from out of his cheeky little face.
I return to my book and check if there are any easier routes to Puente la Reina. Thankfully, there’s just one path.
I’ve had enough of reading about churches, old battles, and what medieval pilgrims had to say. With what this is costing me, I could have gone to Thailand, never mind Ibiza! This walk has just been a nightmare from the start. At least I met Cocker, who’s provided me with a little light relief, but it has to get better than this, surely.
But the fearful question hits me: What am I going to do when the pilgrimage is over? So I consider my options:
Go to San Francisco to work with Powelly?
Go back to Holland?
Go back to Scunthorpe?
That last thought alone plunges me into despair and anger.
“Hey, mate,” I call as he slowly makes his way over with a face on. “Another pint,” I say, handing him my glass.
“Yep.”
As he goes to grab it, it slips from my fingers and smashes onto the tiled floor.
“G’DAY, MATE!” I hobble out of the now-silent bar.
Back at the hostel, Cocker looks up from his book.
“Where on earth have you been?” he shrieks. “I’ve been looking for you all over the place.”
“I went for a pint of Guinness. I was feeling iron deficient.”
“Iron deficient? Have you eaten yet?” he whines.
“No.”
“Well, we should get something to eat. We’ve got a long day tomorrow,” he says, going all serious all of a sudden.
“I’m going for a siesta. Give me a shout in an hour or so,” I tell him.
I climb onto my bunk and stare at the ceiling, immediately wishing I’d brought a personal CD player or something. Instead, I listen to people’s Euro babble, and now I find I’ve climbed up here, I need to take a leak, so I jump down painfully.
“Rickety bastarding bed! Aaaagh!” My leg almost buckles.
“Where are you going now?” Cocker shouts.
“I’m going for a piss! Is that OK with you?” I shout back, as shocked gray stares follow me out the door “I don’t believe it.” Every single cubicle is in use, even the women’s toilets. I can’t wait a second more, so I run across the street, dive straight into the bar, use the gents’, and order a large beer. Sorted.
Half an hour later the quest for enlightenment has brought me back to the Australian theme bar and the company of some rather plump but foxy Canadian backpackers called Sheena and Lisa. The girls are traveling around Europe on a year off. They are a great craic and certainly know how to drink, so we buy endless rounds of whiskey and Baileys on the rocks, and at last I’m having a good time.
The last thing I remember is ordering three double Jameson whiskeys.
I dream I’m in a hotel room with the two Canadian girls romping naked on the double bed, beckoning me over with their eyes while doing exceedingly rude things to each other.
“Here comes Eddie!”
I leap in between as they smother me with their
huge, soft breasts, and . . .
Ting, ting, ting, ting, ting.
“What the fuck is that?”
The girls shrug and then disappear from view as the stark interior of a Spanish jail cell comes into focus.
A gruff-looking cop is standing there smoking, while banging a saucepan with a small hammer.
I can taste the whiskey on my breath as he gives me back my belongings, including five crumpled postcards of the running of the bulls.
“Buen camino, peregrino—no more whiskey.” He laughs hoarsely.
I bum a cigarette off him and find my way back to the hostel. It’s 5:30 a.m. again. It feels like Groundhog Day.
I just want to get out of this town, never to return again.
I spot the pepper pot posse’and ZZ Top gathered by the door, and yet again I need to piss like ten horses and yet again all the toilets are occupied!
“Jesus Christ! What do these people do in there?” I ask myself.
I find Cocker packing his stuff, with a big red mark on his left cheek. He’s totally outraged.
“Where on earth have you been?” he protests angrily. “You smell like a paraffin lamp,” he says, screwing up his face.
“Is that posh cockney rhyming slang for smelling like a tramp?” I ask him.
“No, you do actually smell like a paraffin lamp.”
“What’s happened to your face?” I ask him.
“Oh, it’s nothing. I tripped into a bedpost in the middle of the night going to the toilet,” he says, rubbing the mark.
And so for the third day running, I clean my teeth sitting on the bed and wash my face with the wet corner of my towel. Then, during a fit of rage, I rip the zipper out of my sleeping bag while standing cross-legged trying not to piss myself yet again.
PAMPLONA TO PUENTE LA REINA
MUD AND LAUGHTER
AS WE CROSS THE PARK I finally seize the moment to empty my bladder. “Hola, buenos días.” I wave to one particular woman looking over in horror at me. She turns away in disgust to watch her fat Rottweiler curl one off next to the children’s swings.
I think I’m still drunk. What on earth happened to me last night?
I remember being locked out of the hostel and being in the Irish bar again. But after that I dunno. I dread to think. It’s in the past as far as I’m concerned. Speaking of which, in the distance is the remarkable contrast of past and present, with Cocker in his great-granddad’s walking gear representing pilgrims from the 1870s to 1970s era and Tucker representing the modern-day pilgrim in his pricey North Face and Berghaus. I catch up with them and find Tucker is busy taking the piss out of Cocker’s sandals. For an American he has quite a wicked sense of humor, but then again I bet even the Aborigines and Tibetan monks were pissing themselves laughing when they saw Cocker coming down the road.
“So, where did you end up last night then?” asks Cocker.
“If you must know, I met a couple of sexy Canadian girls in the Australian bar, and—”
Tucker interrupts. “Whoa. Canadian girls, dude. They sure know how to party,” he says approvingly, giving me a loud high five.
“Why didn’t you come and get me?” Cocker whines.
“I did come back for you, man, but the hostel was locked up. I was knocking for ages!”
“So, where did you sleep then?” he asks.
“The Hotel Europa,” I lie. “The girls said I could sleep on their couch in their room, so . . .”
“And?” says Cocker, looking well and truly miffed.
“What do you mean and? Surely you don’t need me to explain what happened next, do you?” I laugh.
“Yeehar!” Tucker punches the air. “Hey, well done, man, you got laid! Awesome news, dude!”
“Yeah, but I think I might have snapped my banjo string, though. It was like riding a bucking bronco. No, wait a minute, two bucking broncos.” I laugh, rubbing my bellend for Cocker’s benefit.
“Yeeeehar!” wails Tucker again in my right earhole.
“I’ll get you to rub some cream on it for me later, Cocker.”
“I will not,” he says. “I hope you used a condom with those girls.”
“I used quite a few,” I tell him.
“Yeeeehar!” wails Tucker in my left earhole with another round of high fives as Cocker shakes his head.
“This is a religious pilgrimage,” he says, “not a trip to Benidorm!”
“Hey, at least you never got bitch-slapped by an old lady,” says Tucker.
“What . . . ? That was an accident; it’s his fault!” says Cocker, pointing at me.
“Why is it my fault? I wasn’t even there,” I respond.
“He bitch-whipped and then he got bitch-slapped, dude,” says Tucker, laughing.
“I didn’t mean to hit her like that; it was his towel,” he says, pointing at me yet again.
“Oh, so it’s not my fault then. It’s my towel’s fault. You whipped an old lady with my towel, and it’s the towel’s fault. You really are a bad mofo, Cocker,” I tell him.
“It cracked like a bullwhip, dude, and then she got up and bitch-slapped his face.” Tucker laughs.
* * * *
It’s a busy day on the Camino, with lots of new faces and more younger people, thankfully, including the ever-so-noisy Dutch students and a tall Brazilian guy with a huge Afro and a guitar strapped to his back, casting a strange silhouette in the distance.
I chat with a friendly Austrian man and a nice Danish girl, who have both just started this morning, as have many others.
In fact, it seems like a lot of people have started in Pamplona.
Why didn’t I just start here, and who says you have to start in Ronsaysbollocks, anyhow?
In the foothills of the Sierra del Perdón, the past rains and constant procession of pilgrims has turned the path into an out-and-out quagmire. My boots soon become three times their size, covered in heavy clay, and all unnecessary conversation has died.
A backpack lies abandoned in the mud—possibly someone suffered a mental or physical breakdown right here. Probably both.
I grit my teeth and crack on, stopping every few meters to literally kick the mud from my boots, sending lightning bolts of pain from knee to rib to back to brain to mouth, and to top it off my hangover is kicking in badly. I find Tucker sitting by the side of the trail, cutting the clay from his boots with a dangerous-looking knife. So we rest for a while on our packs, laughing at the hapless Cocker making a spectacle of himself in the middle of the muddy bog. Cocker is now almost half man, half mud, with his green woolly socks a magnet for the heavy clay.
Why he chooses to aim straight for the wettest and deepest part of the path is a mystery to all. A thought no doubt coming from the same part of his brain that told him to buy sandals instead of sturdy waterproof boots. It’s painful to even watch him as he eventually grinds to a halt with the mud at his knees, panting for breath. He rests for a moment, wiping the sweat from his brow, then suddenly he bears down on his stick and gives a mighty push forward.
Whoosh. We both duck for cover as his bright-white foot shoots out of the ground like a rocket. Luckily the other foot anchors him down, or I fear that he may well have reached orbit.
Splosh! He lands back down in the bog, and loud raucous laughter fills the valleys for miles around. Then more laughter ensues as Cocker tries to stand while looking like the short-circuiting android C-3PO from Star Wars.
A spectating Dutch girl jumps up and down on the spot, laughing and crying at the same time while holding her crotch and trying unsuccessfully not to piss herself as her classmates take pictures of the unfortunate incident. Luckily for Cocker, two stern graybeards plow into the mire and help him to stand. Then we all laugh again as he delves back into the mud bath to retrieve the remains of his sandal and at last a muddy sock. Then with another almighty effort he frees the other foot and retreats to the side of the path, sitting in the muddy grass, trying to piece it all back together again.
“Ayers Rock, Nepal,
Pennine Way, and day three of the Camino de Santiago, the journey has come to an end for his shit sandals.”
Suddenly, in a fit of rage, he throws the sole into the field and everyone cheers again—and again—as he then dives angrily into his pack, producing the gleaming white training shoes. Then like a crazed magician, he waves his finger and puts one shoe back in his pack, then one on his foot, and now he’s ready.
A final cheer goes out on the trail as the dandy highwayman’s gleaming white shoe sinks straight to the bottom of the sludge.
* * * *
In the hillside village of Zariquiegui the Dutch have regrouped, and the tall blonde girl has her hand on her crotch again, with tears running down her face. “Whoops!” she shrieks, kicking her leg into the air, reenacting the precise moment when foot, sock, and sandal all parted company. Everyone is laughing again, including me.
Up ahead is the famous Fountain of Denial—talking of which, I cannot deny the fact that I need to piss like ten horses.
Now, according to legend, an exhausted and parched pilgrim was tempted by the Devil, who offered to show him a spring to quench his thirst in return for denying his faith. The pilgrim resisted, and his staunchness was rewarded by the appearance of Saint James dressed as a pilgrim, who revealed the location of a spring and gave him water from a scallop shell. Maybe the Devil will turn up now and show me a pristine urinal with an attendant on hand with crisp white towels and a selection of designer aftershaves, if I renounce my faith.
He doesn’t show, and eventually I find myself walking alone, my hangover almost sweated out of my system. As I near the shrouded summit, I hear strange whooshing noises coming from within the clouds, and I glimpse the large white propeller of a wind turbine, followed by iron cutouts of pilgrims on foot, on horseback, and some with donkeys.
At the summit a freezing wind blows up my wet, sweaty back, chilling me to the bone, and the Dutch students arrive, shattering the peace and prompting me to leave immediately
Just before the descent and out of the wind stands a small 1980s camper-van with a jolly rosy-cheeked fellow on board, reminding me of Captain Pugwash, an infamous old cartoon favorite from the 1970s A cardboard sign on a fold-up table says two-euro donation and foot massages. I don’t mind the donation, but the thought of Pugwash massaging my feet is a vision I can well do without at this hour of the day. So I opt for just a coffee, half a packet of custard creams, and a scallop shell for luck.