by Eddie Rock
* * * *
The stony descent is a total nightmare and I’m in agony again with my torn knee. Up ahead is a statue of the Virgin Mary. Maybe she can help me. I feel like praying but feel a fool. There’s no way I’m kneeling in front of a statue in a field.
What? Am I religious all of a sudden?
Beyond the Virgin stands the small town of Uterga and it’s time for lunch. Pilgrims gather in the café, blocking every possible thoroughfare. I see the rude Frenchmen sitting around a table all red faced, drinking big tankards of lager and smoking an array of cigarettes, cigars, and pipes.
A happy Frenchman from a different group holds out his belly.
“Now,” he says, pushing it out. “Santiago.” He laughs, holding it in.
“I hope so, mate. You and me both,” I say, looking down at my Buddha beer belly.
Inside the café I almost choke to death on my sandwich as a flashback of Cocker’s rocket foot makes me laugh over and over.
The sun finally breaks through the clouds, and I find myself walking with a French biker pilgrim wearing a Harley Davidson sweatshirt. Unfortunately, we get so engaged in conversation about motorcycles that we miss the yellow arrows and carry on right down the road to god knows where. A roar goes up from behind us as pilgrims shout for us to turn back. So we retrace our steps and eventually part company on yet another very hilly stretch.
On a stony track coming into Puente la Reina, the firm but pert bottom of a lone female makes slow progress. I see the quiver of each toned bottom cheek time after time through her tight shorts. So I hang back for a while to view such a fine sight, and then step up a gear to check out the front.
“Hola, buen camino,” I say as I pass by.
“Hola,” she says in a sexy Euro accent, smiling.
Was that a hint of German, French perhaps? What a cutie. I hope she’s staying at the next hostel! This is more like it. Yes!
In the old Roman town of Puente la Reina the sun leaps from behind the clouds, making all things bright and beautiful once again, but right outside the church door, a bird lies dead, with its intestines spilled out over the pavement with flies buzzing all over it.
From the shade of the church porch I watch and listen as a fuzzy-haired woman asks one of the locals the whereabouts of the pilgrims’ hostel. The local points back the way we came, so I follow her and catch up.
My polite hola is met with an impolite grunt, and I can tell by her accent that she’s Australian and very rude and contradictory from the start. Probably the mother of the rude little bastard I met yesterday, knowing my luck. As we approach the pilgrims shelter I see Swiss John loitering around the doorway.
“¡Hola!” he shrieks at the top of his voice. He’s delighted to see me and announces that Belen and Cocker are staying here too.
“Fantastic!” I throw off my pack, remove my boots, and shake his hand.
We chat for a while until the Australian woman appears again. She is overjoyed to announce to me in her coarse, outback cattle-station voice, “Looks like I’ve taken the last bed mate.” She lights a cigarette, smiling.
“For fuck’s sakes!”
Swiss John excitedly begins to direct me to the hostel on the other side of town, but after what happened at Larrasoaña, I’m not taking the word of the bush-tucking old bag. So I have a quick look around, but sure enough, it does look like all the beds are taken. Then Tucker appears from up the stairs.
“Hey, where are you going, dude?”
“No beds left,” I say despairingly.
“Hello!” he shouts. “There are three empty rooms up here!”
Two minutes later I’m sitting and grinning beside my new bed in an empty and spacious dormitory, with me at one end and Tucker the other.
I remind myself for the second time in two days to beware of false prophets in the form of obnoxious pilgrims.
The bedroom window looks out onto a large garden with a drying area for clothes. Behind it, a disused factory chimney with what looks like some kind of dinosaur bird nest perched on top. I’ve never seen anything quite like it before. Now what shall I do for the afternoon? Definitely no more theme bars or police stations. In fact, after yesterday’s shenanigans, I could do with an alcohol-free day.
I begin by taking a leisurely hot shower. Then I wash my boots and muddy clothes at the nearby fountain.
I feel almost human again and get chatting to the tall Dutch girl from earlier, who’s washing her undercrackers at the sink. Then I get harassed and poked by an ancient French lady blaming me over someone else’s washing in her way.
With all my jobs and ablutions done, it’s time to respect a centuries-old tradition of afternoon siesta, so I head back to the room. But I should have known better.
A pillow flies across the landing, followed by a shrieking Dutch teen.
I watch in dismay as she picks it up and charges, screaming back into what was a nice, quiet dorm.
The youths have taken over, and bang goes my siesta!
Undeterred, I grab my roll mat and pilgrims’ guide and go out onto the lawn for a sunbathe, snooze, and siesta. But no sooner do I set myself up than the youths arrive en masse and start throwing a Frisbee.
A Frisbee that looks remarkably like the one I left in Larrasoaña! I’m soon joined by Cocker, Tucker, and Swiss John, who persuades Cocker to let him give him a reflexology foot massage. It looks a painful affair and Cocker is yelping like a fanny.
“Dude, did you find a boot shop yet?” Tucker grins.
“No, I’m going to get another pair of sandals,” Cocker says.
“Noooo!” we all say together.
“Don’t be so stupid,” I protest.
“Or you could just get one, dude.” Tucker laughs.
“I was wondering about doing that, actually,” says Cocker seriously.
“It was a joke, man.” Tucker shakes his head.
“Or you could find the Spanish girl, and she can take you,” says Swiss John. This idea appeals to Cocker the most by the look on his face.
“Yes, maybe I’ll do that!” he says, with his eyes lit up.
It’s a beautiful afternoon in Puente la Reina, and we all look up to see a Frisbee flying through the air, followed by the Dutch girls running onto the grass in their swimwear. The Dutch boys are lying facedown on the grass, watching the girls more than the Frisbee. Invisible clouds of teenage sexual tension float through the air at the sight of seminaked female flesh, bending, wobbling, and rolling about with their legs akimbo. Our group has gone strangely quiet too.
“Tjonger, tjonger, and tjonger,” I say, wiping my brow.
The Dutch boys look up and laugh.
“Dude, what does that mean?” asks Tucker.
“It’s Dutch for, oh boy, oh boy, and oh boy!” I tell them.
I shut my eyes and drift off to the sounds of girls’ cheeky laughter and Tucker’s tjonger, tjonger, tjongering. I drift a bit more to girls’ laughter and finally into a Dutch hard-core porn dream involving naked girls and a Frisbee.
“Ahhh, my arse!” I scream, leaping up from the ground as a large, angry red ant falls from my shorts.
“The little red bastard has scored a bull’s-eye right on my—”
“Tjonger, tjonger, tjonger,” says Cocker, laughing along with all the Dutch youths.
“Yeah, very funny, thank you.” I skulk off back to the room and apply some after-bite to my ringing sting.
I return to find the guys with their books out. Cocker reads The Pilgrimage by Pablo Coolio. Tucker reads the Darwin Awards and Swiss John is reading Dope Stories by Howard Marks.
“That book by Pablo Coolio—is he that drugs baron?” I ask Cocker.
“No, that’s my book,” says Swiss John.
Cocker sighs. “Paulo Coelho is his name. You wouldn’t like it, and if you must know, he’s a guru, not a drug lord or whatever you think.”
“What the fuck is a guru, and how do you know I won’t like it?”
Cocker pulls a sour
face and hides in his silly little book as I read from my professional pilgrims’ guide.
Today’s episode says,
In the Church of San Pedro Apostle here in Puente la Reina, the image of a bird is worshipped. Legend has it that when the statue was kept in a small chapel in the middle of the bridge, a little bird used to go and clean the Virgin’s face every day, which was seen as a good sign by the local community.
But what about the dead bird outside the church I saw earlier?
What kind of sign is that? Is it a sign for me, I wonder? It’s definitely not a good sign, that’s for sure!
Belen appears, looking bright and beautiful, smelling fresh and exciting.
“Would you like to join us?” asks Cocker, getting up and offering his chair like a dapper gent.
“No, the town is open now. I go for shopping,” she replies softly.
“Oh, what are you buying?” asks overtly enthusiastic Cocker.
“Erm, err . . .” She looks funny all of a sudden, not knowing the English word for it while we wait for an answer.
“You know, erm, ladies’ things, err, ladies’ time.” She shrugs, red faced.
At once, three heads turn back to book reading and one head goes into town with Belen to buy ladies’ things and new boots (we hope).
The happy shoppers return a few hours later with happy, smiling faces.
I reckon Cocker must have coaxed her into a bar for a few drinks, as they both look a little flushed, and he looks very pleased with himself in more ways than one. His brand-new pair of beaming boots are indeed a sight to behold, and Belen offers us all an apple as we study his new footwear.
“Dude, are they Gore-Tex?” says Tucker, prodding and squeezing.
“Never mind that. Are they even leather?” wonders Swiss John.
“How much did you pay for them?” I ask him.
“Eighty euro,” he says.
“Wow, they definitely saw you coming then.” I laugh.
“And they definitely will see him coming now,” scoffs Swiss John.
“But they are so comfortable and light,” says Cocker.
“Cocker and his Technicolor dream boots,” I joke.
* * * *
As the night closes in on Puente la Reina, a group of pilgrim musicians gather outside the hostel, drinking wine and singing South American love songs. The Austrian guy I met this morning sings “Wish You Were Here” by Pink Floyd, as the Brazilian Afro guy beats out a funky rhythm on a small drum. It has all the makings of a good little party, but as with the other hostels, we all have to be in by 10:00 p.m., lest there be any ill behavior, I suppose. Tucker and I go back to our room and stumble upon some more quality entertainment in the form of the sight and sound of girls prancing around in their underwear while doing girlish things with powders and creams. The boys lie facedown on their beds with their eyes on stalks, trying with difficulty to suppress a lifetime of pent-up sexual tension. It’s hard to know where to look, so I stick my head straight into my book, as does Tucker at the other end of the room, and we communicate only by using our eyes and eyebrows, frequently peeping out over our books for a quick perv.
One of the girls looks out the window and screams, signaling for her friends, and my heart misses a beat as ten nubile girls bend over at the window in an array of G-string lingerie, laughing, giggling, and wobbling at two familiar figures behaving very strangely on the grass below. Eventually I get up and see what all the fuss is about. On the lawn below us, we see Swiss John and Cocker crouching down on the ground, then rising slowly with their arms in the air, chanting some wacky mantra with their eyes closed.
“What are you doing down there, you clowns?” I shout.
“We’re pretending to be seeds,” shouts Cocker, pointing to his Pablo Coolio book laid out on the grass.
“Are you guys high or something?” laughs one of the girls.
“No, we’re pretending to be seeds. Why don’t you join us?” shouts Swiss John, arms outstretched like some kind of messiah.
“What are they doing down there?” Tucker yawns, rubbing his eyes.
“Pretending to be seeds?” I reply.
“Dude, those guys are nuts,” he says, shaking his head.
“No, seeds!”
Tucker’s beady eyes keep peeping over the top of his book as one of the girls bends over to take her socks off, giving us a full view of her undercarriage. Another girl removes her T-shirt altogether to reveal a small but firm pair of breasts as a strange man walks into the room. Tucker and I exchange worried looks as the little guy takes off his shirt, drops his trousers, and sets off strutting round the room like a banty cockerel wearing only a leopard-skin posing pouch.
What on earth is going on here?
Who the fuck is this? I mouth to Tucker.
Dunno, he shrugs back.
Now the guy is talking to the boys and the half-naked girls. I wonder if I ought to say something, but they don’t run away, so I can only figure that he must be their teacher and not some pervert who’s wandered in off the street.
I’d often wondered who was in charge of this lot.
“Another mystery solved.”
I climb into my still-damp sleeping bag as a G-stringed girl to the side of me climbs up to her bunk like a clumsy baby giraffe.
I look the other way but come face-to-face with the crotch and bouncing breasts of another girl, failing miserably to jump onto the bed above me.
Then, as if by magic, the lights suddenly go out and the room falls silent. I hear the youth across from me scratching an insect bite, and then someone down the room farts a little tune.
“Tjonger, tjonger, tjonger,” joke the youths as the place erupts into laughter. I hear the kinky teacher shushing them up as the squeaking and scratching gets louder and faster to a chorus of girly giggles.
Then the penny drops. The youth is masturbating frantically for all he’s worth.
Oh well, as the saying goes, If you can’t beat ’em . . .
PUENTE LA REINA TO ESTELLA
TECHNICOLOR DREAM BOOTS
THE NEXT MORNING TUCKER and I pass the ominous decaying bird, and somewhere from the galaxy I get an overwhelming feeling of doom, a special something reserved just for me.
“How the fuck can you walk the Camino de Santiago in G-string underpants?” I ask Tucker.
“Dude, I got abrasion just thinking about it!”
* * * *
In the ancient village of Cirauqui we spot the boots before we spot the owner, Lord Cocker. He is sprawled out in the street like some kind of Roman emperor as Belen feeds him olives and grapes while fanning his grinning face with a huge leaf.
“How’s it going? How goes the new footwear?” I ask him.
He looks up and bangs them on the cobbles, showing off their robust qualities.
“They are just great, so light and comfortable,” he chirps, like he’s in some kind of walking-boot commercial.
I’m still not convinced, though. I reckon in a few days he’ll be walking like an Egyptian.
I sit with them awhile as Tucker disappears into the distance and I read what medieval French pilgrim Aymeric Picaud has to say about this area.
Take care not to drink the water here, neither yourself nor your horse, for it is a deadly river! On the way to Santiago we came across two Navarrese sitting by the bank, sharpening the knives they use to flay pilgrims’ horses which had drunk the water and died. We asked them if the water was fit to drink, and they lying replied that it was, whereupon we gave it to our horses to drink. Two of them dropped dead at once and the Navarrese flayed them there and then.
Hard times for poor-old Aymeric.
Belen invites me to join them in some traditional Spanish food: crusty bocadillos with nice soft cheese and chorizo, gorgeous ham, and large misshapen tomatoes, green and red in color, with a melt-in-your-mouth taste. I could happily sit here all day long but the urge to continue is strong, so I leave the young lovers to their blossoming courtship and marc
h on. Eventually I find myself walking next to a beautiful green river, and finally I cross over a lovely old bridge into the beautiful town of Estella. It hasn’t been a long walk today, but with every single step comes pain, starting at my feet and moving to my knee via my back and ever painful ribs and on occasion coming out of my mouth via terrible expletives.
As per usual the queue to get in the hostel is mobbed with rude pilgrims. As the doors open, they stampede in with packs on, and a young Italian boy is almost trampled to death.
* * * *
Today is Friday, traditionally the day where the working man puts down his tools and drinks beer to celebrate the start of the weekend. In the grand plaza I sit alone with a large glass of wine to fortify me before my shopping trip to the chemist, as it’s bound to end up with some kind of stressful Euro confusion.
It’s a lovely day to sit and people-watch from behind my sunglasses, with plenty of women to report. Unfortunately, none of the nubile variety, only heavily-made-up mothers smoking lipstick-stained white cigarettes while drinking wine and coffee in garish outfits dragged down by heavy jewelry.
I spot the rude Frenchmen at a café across the way, drinking tankards of lager in the hot sun. They all look sunburned to hell.
Maybe someone should tell them to apply sun cream and not to drink beer, smoke fags, and eat frogs and whatnot. See what they say?
The kinky Dutch teacher and one of the students appear and sit directly in front of me, not noticing me behind them. They laugh and joke like a pair of young lovers, and I deduce from their body language that the sly old dog might be giving her the bone.
I’m joined at my table by a worried-looking Swiss John.
“I can’t get hold of my wife! It is most unusual!” he cries.
“Well, you know what they say. While the cat’s away,” I joke.
His poor face drops, and immediately I wish I hadn’t said it, as it plunges him into deeper despair.