Month: October 2018

Jean Paul and his wife run the Jacquaire Information Centre in Lourdes. They are located slap bang in the middle of tourist central. Lourdes is a Mecca (pardon my french) of religious tourism. Shop after shop sells bottles for you to fill with holy water, devotional tat, candles, incense, rosaries. The Info Centre has wide open doors and Jean Paul is full of energy and positivity. He gives me my credencial, and it seems I’m the 663rd pilgrim to start here this year. Three away from a much more appropriate number. The credencial is like a passport for pilgrims allowing us to sleep in various priories etc along the way, run by the faithful.

I walk to the basilica and the grotto in Lourdes to fill up on holy water, and I immediately give myself a fat lip removing my pack, butting my mouth into the top of my walking pole. Newbie error. First injury. Minor. My lip is bleeding. I fill my flask with holy water and drink some to swill my mouth. That’ll fix it. Gets all the holiness right into my blood stream. Holier than thou I finally hit the road. The first Saint statue I pass is Margaret of Scotland. Dad would be proud. Off I go. To my right the river. Behind and to my right a soaring amplified male voice singing in Latin. Beautiful.

There are a couple of reasons why I’m glad I started in France. First it’s not at all crowded on the trail so I get a lot of alone time. Second I can speak French acceptably. I’m shit in Spanish. I’m learning this pilgrimming as i go along, and I have made the schoolboy error of not packing a lunch today. I’ve got nothing at all to consume except for holy water. Coming from London I expect a shop on every corner. Where’s Ryanair to sell me that Kinder Bueno now? There are no shops here, or they’re closed for Sunday if there are any.

By lunchtime I’m starving. I’ve filled my pockets with chestnuts and I can make fire so I won’t actually starve. But I’d sooner find a more elegant solution as making fire will waste time I don’t really have.

I end up in in Rieulhes, a tiny village West of Lourdes. Blessing my French I talk to two women who are thrilled to find a hungry pilgrim. We are sufficiently rare here, it seems. I am brought into a drinks evening for St Michel, the patron saint of the village. It was his day yesterday. I’m offered beer but I really don’t want it. A teenage girl is despatched to make me a ham sandwich. She adds an apple and a nectarine. I take them with huge haltingly expressed gratitude and make my way to a brook where i crash out and eat them watching the water.

The course of the day has taken me through French countryside, rolling hills, pastures and – for a short while – deep  a wood. I get lost in it on purpose looking for mushrooms and then lost confidence. I run into two German pilgrims heading to Lourdes. They were in Santiago a week ago but took a train. There’s a lot of that going on.

As evening falls though, my energy begins to fail despite the sandwich. I start to crave a recharge and a rest. I eventually make it to Asson as the sun starts to fade, and I’m limping again with tiredness and foot pain. Seeing the sign for Asson is like finding the holy grail.

Shot with adrenaline I work up one last hill and get to the auberge. It’s a priory backing onto a church and it’s completely dark and closed. And Madame Loupy is not answering her phone. To me or any of the locals I find.

At least it gives me time to write. But after two hours gradually getting stiffer in the cold I resign myself. This is miserable. It’s half eight and dark. My body hurts. Thankfully there’s a little place that’s open for food. But I’m gonna be sleeping outdoors on my first night it seems. Shape of things to come? I hope not.

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I made a little nest in the doorway of this Catholic priory and disconsolately chanted Daimoku. Literally just as I finished I heard a shutter overhead. I hobbled out of the porch on my hurting feet to explain the situation, once again praising my French teachers despite the fact they were mostly assholes.

There’s a bunk in her room. She only needs half of it. She rang ahead, in the morning. That’s what you’re supposed to do. Not just show up half dissolved in the evening.

I didn’t know this, plus didn’t know if I’d make it this far, plus I wanted to avoid using my phone to ring local numbers as it’ll cost the earth. She is totally cool about me bunking up with her. I drag my bag up her stairs, sit on the floor in her shower, talk with her a little about feet, get shown her missing toenails with the rest optimistically painted red – “I pulled that one out.” – and significantly improve my vocabulary.  Then I pass out after giving myself a foot massage. I’ve gone the whole day without speaking a word of English.

Miles: 21

Total Pilgrim Count: 3

In front of me at security coming off the plane in Lourdes, a young Australian woman starts talking about Camino. Her name is Matilda. She’s full of beans. She plans on doing it in stages over time. Walk, fly back to London, do some work, fly to where she left off, carry on until finally she gets to Santiago. Auspicious that she’s there in front of me. She’s getting the train to St Jean before she starts though. It’ll take me more than a week to get there on foot by the look of things.

We say goodbye and I go to the baggage reclaim. My rucksack has made it. But it’s wet. I open it. The order of things has changed. It’s been inspected. And someone has taken the stopper off my deceased mum’s sixty year old holy water to check it’s not a bomb. I’m walking the water out to Santiago – what’s left of it. They haven’t put the cork back properly. There is still some water in the flask, but the bulk of it is now soaked into my clothing. A little impromptu blessing for the trail gear, perhaps. I take that as a lesson that nothing is sacred, and I head into town. They don’t sell flasks like this tin one now. It’s all plastic. I don’t buy one. Leaky tin flask is just a little extra difficulty.

In 1858 – not so long ago really – a young woman called Bernadette Soubirous followed that great French canonical tradition of hearing voices. Unlike Joan of Arc, she wasn’t told how to beat the English. She was directed by The Holy Virgin Mary herself to a spring of water. Holy water that heals the sick. It was immediately scientifically analysed and found to contain nothing out of the ordinary. But it still has a great reputation for healing. Science be damned. Faith can move mountains, or at the very least it can change your attitude to them. I fill my drinking flask with the stuff. Then I go for a stroll.

Up the hill nearby, big gold Romans persecute Jesus in an elaborate series of stations of the cross. Groups of devotees follow monks bearing crosses, and are devotional in Latin at each stop. I’ve realised I don’t know the call and response here so I just go “mumphy mumphy mumphy” and cross myself like my mother taught me. She’s with me, her big flask, mercifully a bit lighter for the spillage but still a heavy burden. I light some expensive candles for her, for my uncle Peter and for my grandpa – all Catholics. Then, with all the holy water swimming in my veins I make a somewhat rash decision. I’m gonna keep walking until I hit fifteen miles. Even though I’m sleeping here in Lourdes. In a circle. Pointlessly. Let’s find out how this is going to be, I think.

It’s going to be HARD guys. I’m lying on my back in the Airbnb and my feet hate me. I booked a luxury stay for the first night and I’m glad of it. Hot bath. Rubbed sudocrem into my tootsies. I’m gonna find out a lot about my feet in the next month. And my shoulders. I might actually HAVE some shoulders when I’m finished here. But the little things I have today ache. After just one day I’m feeling it. I warmed down nicely but I didn’t warm up. I feel a daily routine coming on if I’m going to minimise damage to myself. I’ve got a lot of ground to cover…

Break it up into stages though and it seems smaller. Tomorrow I’ll walk to Asson. A little bit north and a long way west. About 14 miles but I’ve got the whole day. And I’ll remember to bring lunch so I don’t get to Asson starving and unwilling to walk anywhere further for food. That cost me two taxi fares this evening, to find a cheap bowl of pasta and a glass of table wine. You live and learn.

Before I leave though I’ll unpack my whole bag and seriously establish if there’s anything I can dump from my packing. Bits of packaging. Unnecessary clothing like that smart shirt  Anything. I need to lose as much weight as I can without losing practicality.