AlBarclay

This morning I woke before dawn, just like 60 people did in this village 82 years ago. I walked up the hill out of town like they did. The mist was down and the trail was dark. I had to have portable illumination to see the way clearly. I used a maglight.

They would’ve had torches. The torches would’ve been held by unsmiling silent young men. About an hour until dawn. It was very dark. An hour uphill through mist. An hour uphill to the summit. I walked in the footsteps of these liberal minded men. This path was the Camino then, as well. Maybe a pilgrim would’ve stood aside as this crowd came up the hill, wondering as they told their rosary. Did all sixty even come up at once? It is hard to think about it. As the mist began to clear and the fingers of dawn broke the darkness and brought the day I arrived at their destination. A cold silent hilltop far from the town. A shallow grave. Were they blindfolded? I don’t know. Did they dig the grave themselves? Very possibly. Because of ideas. Because of a conflict of ideology. Because General Franco chose a swift and decisive means of preventing threats to his dictatorship. These sixty people were shot for their liberal ideas, in this cold forsaken place in the morning mist. Shot by men who returned to their families. Maybe played with their daughters. Maybe read them a goodnight story, turning the pages with their trigger finger.

A monument stands here now. “Their deaths will not be useless – their execution was useless.” We can only hope. But again, extremism is becoming mainstream. “Justified”.

It just takes another scared little boy in the right position going “It’s the kind people. They’re the real threat. The ones that think humans are just humans and that ignore the structures we have created to attribute relative measurable value to them. Human worth has to be measurable! We know this because we have constructed our patented human values measuring scale. Those people in the next village think our scale is arbitrary andn it just reflects our birth priorities, but they don’t count because the scale tells us they aren’t important.” And then the cold eyed frightened young men come with guns. This is just 60 people. The liberals from one village in Spain. Ideas have killed so many people – and liberalism vs fascism  is a big one still – on and on forever because these two worldviews cannot be reconciled. Protect vs welcome. I sit here in my espadrilles thinking “Why can’t we just all get along, man?”

The walk was beautiful today and I’ve stopped early. I stopped before I had to, for the first time in ages. I hit Atapuerca. It’s one of the most important archaeological sites in the world, with Ice Age cave paintings and human remains dating back 800,000 years. I’ve booked a tour. It’s in Spanish. The guy kept on telling me “it’s in Spanish. You don’t speak Spanish.” I told him “me looky looky think think. Understanding some wordy. Okay be me yes yes thanky.” He still didn’t really get why I was so keen to go…

---

I see his point to an extent. My feet were freezing and it was a guy standing by a wall talking for ages in Spanish. I occasionally asked the Mexican pilgrim “what’s he saying?” and got “They used to trap animals here. The rest is shit jokes.” Reminds me of when I used to tour guide on the boats. But these ancient humans used to eat each other. Maybe the ones who thought the mammoth leg was better eating than the mammoth flank. The perverts. They deserve to be eaten with their incorrect leggy ideals. So we’ll eat them even though it gives us degenerative brain diseases. Because flank is better. It always has been. I haven’t had leg and I don’t need to cos I know. Kill ’em. Leggy twats. Bury them in a shallow grave.

On a typical day on the path you’ll pass the same people multiple times. Everyone has their pace, but everyone stops from time to time. Maybe for a photo, a stone in a shoe, a blister inspection, a water refill. I stop every morning for half an hour. I stopped this evening to make a little water cup for a kitten that was clearly hungry and thirsty but way too scared of me to come when I was there. I left her some cheese too. When people pass they say “Buen Camino” That’s the default. It’s what the internet tells us to say. I don’t like it much. It’s used so automatically that it has lost all meaning. Like “Have a nice day!” It’s fine from someone not walking Camino to someone who is. But I’m after something a bit more engaged.

The Codex Calixtinus is a twelfth century Lonely Planet Guide for The Camino. It tells you which rivers will kill your horse, where you are likely to get jumped by robbers who are dressed up as pilgrims. It tells you which cities are important, where the dead saints are buried, where to eat. It’s a mine of superhelpful very very out of date information. Right now I’m approaching Burgos: “This country is full of royal treasure, of gold and silver, fabrics and the strongest horses, and flush with bread, wine, fish, milk and honey. It is however lacking in firewood and the people are evil and vicious.” There we go. Forewarned is forearmed. They paint good murals:

But their graffiti needs work:

The Codex Calixtinus has solved the “Buen Camino” saccharine problem for me. “Ultreya,” it suggests as a pilgrim greeting. “Ultreya et suseia – Santiago”. This has the immediate advantage of being ancient and being born on this path. It’s also much deeper than “Have a nice Camino.” It means a mixture of things. “Onwards!” and simultaneously “Go beyond!” Stretch your usual boundaries, physically and mentally. The journey doesn’t end in Santiago. Go beyond. The response “et suseia” is “and upwards!” To the heights. To the gods! To the height of what you can be! Ultreya et suseia, Santiago.

I’ve been trying it as I go. Mostly my enthusiastic “Ultreya” is met with a pause, and then an efficiently morphed “Buen Camino” from someone who is not native Spanish but pretending. “Buen Camino” also kind of means “Go away and leave me alone, I’m doing the basics. You’ve had human contact. Now exit my space.” But I keep trying. “Ultreya!”

Sometimes people have come upon me later and asked me about it. “What was that you said?” It’s written on all the monuments to the dead pilgrims – heart attacks or road accidents mostly. I can refer to them. Onwards! Inwards! Up and beyond!

Once, gloriously, there was a high five moment. I said “Ultreya,” to the hairy good looking Spanish guy who passed. Beaming he responded “et suseia” and then we both simultaneously said “Santiago!” We didn’t high five. We should have. But we both wanted to make out like it was just an ordinary moment. Because it really really ought to be. It’s just BETTER than obediently mouthing Spanish niceties whilst walking past graffiti saying “This is not Spain.”

It’s mostly road flanking at the moment, this bit of the way. We trudge in a strung out line past grapes and sunflowers and fallow fields on the left and past trucks and trucks and trucks on the right. Ever west. This isn’t France where it was maize and cows and goats and sheep. There is very little livestock here. It’s mostly just grapes, which I’m not complaining about. Yum.

The sun is still shining. That’s a blessing. And we will go onwards and we will go upwards, and some of us will fall off and others will not. It inevitably starts to feel like a community when the same faces come staggering into the hostels at the end of every day wondering what’s in store for our tired bodies this time. I just told a noisy table full of Americans that I didn’t want to join them, earning the nickname “Antisocial Joe”. It’s affectionately given but it’s also a tactic by the group to absorb the loner. I’ll probably have to go do the basics. I might be flanking them for a few days.

Everybody ends every day walking like very very old men, slowly and deliberately showering, massaging our feet, swearing a bit, getting some wine, and looking at the maps for the next day. Finally I’m ahead of the Korean supergroup, and the predominant language is Spanish. I have a small nucleus of French people who I chat to. And that big pile of Americans. I haven’t met a Brit on the path yet. I wonder if I will. I wonder if I want to – too familiar perhaps. We will see. Meantime, Ultreya!

Grañón is described in the guide book as a town where “they like to party.” I’m sitting outside a bar opposite the church, in the evening sun. There’s a piano and guitars just … scattered around for pilgrims. Steve is currently hitting the piano beautifully. He’s the guy who was singing hymns the other day. Earnest hard working Steve. He’s a beautiful human. I’m glad I’ve coincided with him and Cody, these pleasant talented ex US army guys again.

Another extra long walk today, and I’m glad to get distance from where I slept last night. I left that place with my immune system in tatters. A superhostel, packed with flesh, all in one room, very little space, brimming with all the transferable human nastiness you can imagine. No hot showers in the flooded bathroom. I stood at the edge of a cold trickle and swore copiously as I cupped and sloshed cold water on my tired limbs. It was something between a concentration camp and an army barracks where nobody shares a language. Someone repeatedly almost suffocated themselves noisily in their dreams all night right by me. There are probably bugs when you do actually sleep, and certainly horrific smells when you don’t.

My blepharitis came back overnight. Suddenly again my eyelids are red and trying to stick together. I feel like I’m coming down with a cold as well. I found a pharmacist in Santo Domingo and stocked up on vitamins and they actually let me have the antibiotic eye drops I need rather than just fobbing me off with some sort of palliative crap like the pharmacists in the UK did for a whole year until I took a course of antibiotics for an unrelated issue and it cleared up immediately. Bastards.

I also got myself weighed. I’m 12 stone 3.3 recurring. I have no idea if that’s good or bad but it’s lower than I remember and it’s infinite.

Another long hard road today. The path goes through Cirueña. Cirueña is a warning to us all. It sits on top of a hill, not far from the bustling town of Santo Domingo de Calzada. There’s an 18 hole golf course that actually still functions. The rest of the town is a dead monument to greed and optimism.

I remember family friends in the late nineties and early noughties, evangelising about Spanish property. It was a bubble. This is what their hubris created. Cirueña. And many other places like Cirueña. The streets are immaculate for all the feet that will never fall. There are huge playparks for all the children that will never be born here. There are beautifully landscaped totally pointless empty blocks of flats and empty houses. Thousands and thousands of empty beds across Spain. They could be used to house people who have nowhere to live but they’ll be kept by private owners believing it might come back. Everything here is empty, and desperately and visibly for sale for too much. Not even the pilgrims can sleep in this new town. Empty dead houses that nobody has ever slept in that will sit empty until they collapse because whoever invested everything in them was never interested in bringing gradual money through work or fostering community. They bought into the big shiny flip twist bucks bucks bucks dream. No cars on the roads. No sound at all but the crickets and the birds. Dead town. Dead hopes. Dead end.

If you want a retreat, buy a house up here in the dead hills and pretend you live in post apocalyptic Richmond. Although there’s no point asking. The remaining landlords are probably HODLING. They still think they can make some of their losses back… Maybe in fifty years there’ll be life again in these hollow tenements. An artistic community perhaps? But for now it’s just a sad folly. It’s funny how these get rich quick schemes so often do the opposite. My dad used to say “If everyone starts saying you have to buy something, just hope you’ve already got some and sell it immediately.” Devil take the hindmost. Pop.

Something clicks in my left foot when I articulate it and Nick the blister brings new wonders daily. My right foot is mostly numb on the underside and I think there’s a blister coming on the sole which will be … unpleasant. My right Achilles tendon is deeply unhappy with me but has calmed down a bit since last week when I thought it might be gearing up to snap. My bum is tight which can only be a good thing. The sides of my hips are moaning, my thighs are beginning to look at their contract. My calves … they’re my calves. They don’t care  They have always been impenetrable blocks of muscle. I scream if you massage them. They carry me.

Mostly it’s feet. The dull pain in the bottom of my feet – the bits where there’s still feeling. This didn’t stop me waddling to the bar for a glass of remarkable crianza for €1. There’s a different relationship with a good glass of wine at the end of a day here. It goes into your muscles. It lessens the pain. And it helps you sleep in a room full of grunting stinking wandering people. It’s an earnt luxury and not an obliviating habit. I’m glad I didn’t go with my initial instinct of walking this route sober. It’d be wretched. I’ve never failed to wake up before dawn and it helps me make peace with these crowded auberges, which I still hate.

What the hell am I doing this for? You may ask. I’m trying to work it out myself. I’ve always been a fan of ordeal medicine. It’s the same tendency that sees me spewing into a bucket all night while someone plays didgeridoo, letting someone scrape frog poison onto a burn in my arm so I can cry-shout-purge for twenty minutes, put painful berry stuff in my eyes because it hurts. “It has no medicinal value. It just hurts.” “I know. Do it.”

This is an ancient rite, this pilgrimage. The path is narrow. It’s hard and long.

Different people take different things from it and do it in different ways for varying reasons. I now see no harm in people cutting stages out, taking taxis, sending their luggage ahead. Why not? I’m not doing that yet because I’m stubborn and I’ve got my ascetic thing going on. But I might have to soon. And they can do what they like. This is mostly just about you, every day, doing this as best you can. If I can walk the whole way without damaging myself I will. If I have to cheat, so be it.

The spiritual history is undeniable here. The stones resonate with prayer. There is power in shared articulated hope, in shared pain, in simultaneous wonder. When people breathe together they can do the impossible. When people pray together, in whatever form that prayer takes, that prayer has power. It’s why I’ve been mentioning my chanting in this blog more often. It’s become a big part of my day. Sitting in the morning watching the pilgrims pass, blessing their journey and hoping for mine, and that of my friends. Connecting with a universal flow and breath through “Nam myo ho renge kyo”  

Whatever we connect to when we meditate, be it the universe, God, our untapped inner strength – we connect to something and it gives us clarity and strength. I’m getting on very well with devout Christians and confirmed atheists. Everyone respects that we are all here on a journey experiencing similar difficulty together. For some of us it is worse than for others.

There’s a lovely Croatian guy I met who has already given himself shin splints so badly he had to get a cab yesterday and book a physiotherapist today instead of walking. That’s part of his journey. He will come out stronger and knowing his body better. In the hostel today the guy in the bed next to me can’t use his legs anymore until he’s slept. There’s nothing left in them. I left him flat out and went to get my wine. I’m lucky. I have a decent working knowledge of my body. If this clicking becomes a popping I might have to change something. But I’ve been going a week longer than most of these people. I’m not falling apart. Sleep rebuilds.

I didn’t know it but starting in Lourdes has given me a weird kind of kudos in the hostels too. I got a bottom bunk near a power socket out of the volunteer running the place. She likes it when people have been at it a while. She knew I’d need the bottom bunk. And I do. I’ll likely be asleep in an hour if I can find food. And it’s ten past seven.

Industrial path today, often by roads. Sun hard, path straight. Factories making it possible for me to have amazing things but poisoning the water. Much less tissue paper surprisingly. And the prize for the blingingest altar goes to Navarette. You pay a euro to light it up. I paid but I still had to rush the photo as there was a devout guy behind me fretting at the tourist blocking his prayer.

Unfortunately it doesn’t play gangsta rap when you pay. It should. It really should.

Logroño. The capital of Rioja. I arrived here in a rainstorm. It’s a Sunday though, which is luxury day. So I booked an Airbnb with a door and a king sized bed. Tonight I’ll go for tapas and rioja.

Right now I’m in a sarong and thermal leggings in a launderette, washing everything I have. I took off my trousers and shirt and pants like that guy in the Levi advert. Everything is in the machine. I’ll be here for a while, but there are vending machines selling coffee and no overexcited older women like the ad.

If the music was better I’d be fine. They’re playing modern versions of eighties ballads in Spanish.

This morning I got out even earlier than usual. I walked through pitch darkness and it felt magical knowing the dawn was coming.

I couldn’t work out how I’d managed to get out so early. I’d dispensed with some part of my morning ritual. But what? “Who knows”, I thought. “It can’t be important”, I thought.

An hour into the walk, two hours before the next town, my body urgently reminded me of what I’d forgotten. Oh shit. Literally.

Thankfully it wasn’t an open part of the trail, and it was quiet. I clambered up to the side of the path, got behind some trees and reminded myself practically not to overlook that particular few minutes of my morning ritual again. I returned to the path much lighter and with a sealed plastic bag full of tissues that I was very aware of until I finally found a bin. But… but I carried those tissues until I found that bin…

Every inch of the side of this pilgrim trail is littered with other people’s discarded used tissue paper. It’s really noticeable, thoroughly offensive and entirely preventable.

“Hi pilgrim. Here you are, on this ancient trail, having a meditative time. I was here too, pilgrim. I was here before you, having a meditative time. Then I squatted down and had another sort of meditative time. I’ve left the tissues. Why? Well because I’m an idiot, of course. No amount of meditative time will fix that. I want you to contemplate how much of a useless human I am. I want you to think of me, of us and our effluent. I want you to be horrified by how many of us there are, the thoughtless ones. The world is overrun by us. Even here on thoughtful-road-central.”

Seriously. Tissues everywhere. If you can’t carry your own tissue until you reach a bin there’s something seriously wrong with you. If you’re sorting your internal crap out on this trail sort that callous/squeamish shit out first. Yeah maybe it biodegrades over about five years if there’s enough rain. But meantime everyone who comes after you has to contemplate you and your bodily secretions. Stop it. Grrr.

Ok so there are some pretty naïve types here. There were three delightful young American GodJocks last night. One of them passed me earlier today singing hymns beautifully. He’s walking with his imaginary friend. As the rain started I found myself isolated and took a leaf out of his book. It’s amazing how many lyrics I remember from those unhappy mornings at boarding school. “Onward Christian Soldiers!” The poor animals of La Rioja have been regaled with enthusiastic half-remembered marching hymns littered with equally enthusiastic commentary. “And did those feet in ancient times walk upon England’s mountains green NO OF COURSE NOT.” It devolved into showtunes as the rain got heavier and only petered out as i found myself in the suburbs, dripping and wretched, and started walking alongside people again. 150,000 population here. I had no idea it was going to be another big town so soon.

It can’t rain much heavier than it did today. The wind was busy too. If that’s the worst it’s got then I’ve packed well enough. My thermals came into play and I was glad of them. I’m coming to like my highly organised carefully packed sack of everything. I’m starting to value the few little things I carry that aren’t strictly necessary. And I’m especially looking forward to tapas treat night tonight.

I’ve moved from the laundrette to my cheap Airbnb, with a door I can close. Sunday luxury. I’m heading into town now for that tapas and rioja. Wish I could call a friend to join me. But there’s always the inside of my head. And Jesus…

I’m starting to feel like I’ve been solitary too long. Yap yap yap.

I just ran into Han in Sansol. He doesn’t speak much English but I speak no Korean. I’ve booked into an auberge here tonight. “What’s it like?” he asks. “Not like last night,” I respond despondently. We both have a moment. “Ahhhh last night” he says eventually. A little hostel off the beaten track. Five of us. The best food we’ve had all trail. La Perla Negra.

Elena in Azqueta has thrown her house open to pilgrims, and in the process she’s met Pete. He’s Californian, and he’s helping her run the hostel as an act of service. He is a “care full” human. I like him but part of me is shouting at him. With his arms folded, he’s worrying out loud if there’s enough milk or if the food is hot enough, or are we comfortable or do we need more or can we reach the hummus or have we had enough? His help means she can paint again, and he is totally activating and vitalising her business. But he puts no value in himself, frames his past as failure and won’t take up his space. It detracts from his magnetism.

He vanishes into reverie after Han misreads their relationship. “I have no wife. No children. No wife. No children…” On repeat out loud to himself, lost in it. “But HEY you make a mean cup of coffee,” I interject eventually and he leaps as if stung, and spits my words back into the world like a mouthful of ants. He would lose nothing by taking up more space, this good man, by having more pride in who he is now. By leaving the past in the past. I take careful notes. I remember my mum had boyfriends like that. They never interested her as much as the fuckers, even if objectively they made her existence much better.

The road to Sansol has been long, exposed and straight.

There has been plenty of time for reflection. I’ve been thinking about the capacity in me to mirror Pete. To take up less than my allocated space. To devalue my contribution. I left before dawn today. Han said “But it’s still dark!” Pete said “He doesn’t care. He’s an adventurer.” I smiled as I left. Yes motherfuckers. I’m an adventurer. I don’t care.

I adventure up the predawn hill, breaking all the spiderwebs across the path with my face. I hit the top and there is sunrise laid out behind me in glorious technicolour. The Sun Also Rises. It really does around here, Ernest.

Han is one of many South Koreans on this trail. Catholicism is a minority religion in Korea, so the Korean Catholics are devout and careful. They care about the teachings of their faith, and try to live a life that reflects them. They walk this trail for their soul and their improvement. Some of them find it very odd seeing me with my gong and my beads by the path in the morning. Buddhism is the unthought ascendant faith in their country. I haven’t seen anyone else yet round here who practices – not that we wear a flashing helmet. I’ve seen evidence of one or two Hindus. No Muslims. We are in Catholic country here. But the South Koreans are doing Catholicism so well. It’s a lesson. As soon as a religion is primary in a country it loses some of its meaning and potency. It is the thing that has always been. The establishment thing. I’m sure I was drawn to Nichiren Buddhism because it wasn’t rammed down my throat when I was a kid. It was new to me when I came across it as an adult. I kept it because it works for me, but that was the draw. Like Han with his sexy new Catholicism. It works for him. In the end faith is and has to be about what works for you. Otherwise immediately it’s someone trying to sell an idea. On which subject there are two guys talking about Billy Graham on the next table. They don’t know I’m English yet…

Dawn brought cockerels and bells and birds. The scent of spice on the wind.

I’m in the Mediterranean now. Over the hill and into a different climate. Vineyards and olive trees. Ciccadas chirring in the evening. A slower pace in the heat.

The devil nearly had me in Lorca. I’d been distracted. “Dolmen” said the battered sign, with no indication of distance. It was almost time to chant. I figured I’d go to a place of power. But it was bloody miles uphill and involved breaking through a fence and fighting through a thornbush. I eventually sat sweating on the edge of a valley chanting down to a dolmen in the punishing sunshine.

Then a long squabble with more thorns to get back on the trail. All the while the devil had been closing on me. I stopped at a vending machine to get an ice tea in Lorca and “Tchack”. Fucker was right on me. I jolted forward, almost down the wrong path but an old lady waved to protect me and pointed to the right one. “Tathanakyou” I attempted in my ItalianoSpanish mess and ran from the devil. Or the confused monk. Your call.

I didn’t stop going after that. I didn’t stop for lunch. I kept on pushing on. The Fitbit zinged my fifteen miles way early and I was out the other end of Estella, where everyone will sleep tonight, limping up a hill. Estrella is a huge stone town, preserving and enforcing reverence in the way you can with stone. Monasteries and churches galore.

Impenetrable vast dark buildings. “You are in darkness. The light is above you.”

There’s character there. It’s irreverent too. At the base of one of the pompous raised stone edifices a little shop called “Namaste” offers tarot readings.

I had it in my head I was going to stay in a village called Ayegui. Why there? Well, it’s a little bit after Estella, which will be like Kings Cross in the morning. And Ayegui has a WINE FOUNTAIN. Which would be closed in the morning if I was leaving from Estella. And anyway, evening is the time for free wine from a magical wine fountain. There’s a webcam. It’s on a 12 second time delay. So I did a little silent comedy routine for a few persistent friends on the WhatsApp group. Then I had some free wine. It’s laid on by the monks. It’s just a delightful idea. It’s so completely silly and so completely right for this walk and this region. Free wine from a tap in the wall. I had a fair few glugs. It was good. Sticky hands and beard.

Then I discovered that the monastery was not an albergue. And the next town was a good 5km off. And my feet were already in shutdown. Back to the wine fountain. Glug glug and fill my flask with water. And off staggering slightly pished into the mountains.

All you have to do is walk through the pain. I was already halfway through the next recommended day stage, clomping vastfooted like Scott of the Antarctic through the tiny village of Azqueta when I spot “La Perla Negra.” And they spot me. “Come stay!” shouts the proprietor to this shuffling mangled human. And she’s right. I want to and I will. Normally I’m the opposite of a mark. But she was selling what I wanted.

It’s peaceful here. I’m sitting out front now, winding down, and I’ve got half a day ahead of the devil with no extra blisters. Onwards.

“Like one, that on a lonesome road
Doth walk in fear and dread,
And having once turned round walks on,
And turns no more his head;
Because he knows, a frightful fiend
Doth close behind him tread.”

As a kid I was a great fan of early Coleridge. The big plans ambitiously conceived and then abandoned but with the smash and colour of someone who didn’t give a fuck how it was supposed to be done. Wordsworth was plodding and Sam was fizzing and Willy largely won in the end – The Prelude is incontrovertibly brilliant – but I have always loved the above image from Sam’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. The whole poem is great but there’s something in that idea that we all prickle with. Something hideous following you. Don’t look back. And the use of the word “knows.” There’s no “think” about it. You “know” it’s there. What did you see first time you turned? Something? Nothing? Sam lets us answer that one. We know when we don’t want to turn round.

I’m being chased by the devil. I’ve told you that already. I know it. He got his credencial 3 after me at Lourdes. Stopping early at Pamplona was great. I got to play in a city. There are 200,000 people there and it’s lively. But he caught up.

There’s a man walking the trail that I haven’t seen before. He’s often been close behind me today. He dresses in old fashioned monk’s robes and his wooden pole makes a hard and distinctly resonant sound as it hits the loose stones of the way. Sometimes he is right behind me, at my left heel. Sometimes he vanishes for a while and then, when I’m distracted or slow, I hear the “tchack” of his pole, closing in on me. One time his stick hit a stone just behind my left foot when I was dawdling googling translations of obscure Basque words. He almost got to me. I tripled my speed immediately, dumped the phone for the rest of the day. When I looked back he had completely vanished. Half an hour later he was back there, but distant.

He is not the devil, of course. He’s just a monk wondering why this guy is avoiding him. He went to the side of the path for a pee. That’s why he vanished. He can move with supernatural speed when I’m distracted, but it’s probably just because I’m distracted. I know he’s not the devil because he shows up in photographs.

Or is that just vampires? Anyway, he’s not going to catch me. I went further than recommended today, but still not as far as I’d like to. I walked until the back of my knees were hurting with each step. My feet, my bum, my hips – they all go early. The back of the knees go and I’m reduced to old man walking. Then it’s rest time.

I was staggering over the bridge after Puente de la Reina. There was a sign for an albergue and I’d just met two American newbies. 5 kilometres to the next sleep, a thunderstorm coming and two people relying on my experience to get a good sleep. Rain in the air already and the wind today has been threshing, merciless and constant – catching my pack and trying to roll me. I booked the albergue. I’ve showered now. I’m relaxing. The devil is behind me somewhere. I’m way beyond the recommended stop. And I know what he sounds like now. Tchack.

Another long day tomorrow to put more ground between me and *tchack” until the time comes to turn and hunt, like Ged and his shadow. Don’t worry, I won’t be punching any monks.

Almost as if they were never there, the huge pile of tourgrims has mysteriously vanished – for now. Perhaps I got far enough ahead of them, or maybe they all got a coach to Pamplona.

The morning was spent walking down a river. I found a waterfall to rest and chant at, and they didn’t all come tramping by behind me.

There has been a lot of beauty and a lot of peace today. Time to arrange my head. I’ll be ready next time I’m in a herd of people.

This region is still clearly in dispute. Graffiti everywhere says “This is not Spain,” and frequently the “not” has been obscured, crossed out or painted over with a Spanish flag.

Clearly both sides in this dispute are passionate and active. It won’t go down quietly. I was in a conversation only a few months ago. “How come we never hear about the Spanish Civil War?” “Because it’s still going on” was the reply.

I’ve stopped in Pamplona, the Basque capital of Navarre. The walls have been rebuilt since Charlemagne rashly destroyed them, and you enter the city through a portcullis.

I knew the moment I arrived that I couldn’t pass through this city and sleep in some distant hilltop auberge. I need to see the place properly. It’s the only proper city on this route. Stopping here means I’ll have a long day tomorrow and it likely also means I’ll have to get ahead of the running of the cows in the morning as I’ve a suspicion they’ve been bussed here to see the sights before starting walking tomorrow again. I’m savvy to it now though. It’s about working out where they all sleep and then sleeping about two hours further ahead of them. I can get that done tomorrow.

It’s crowded down there on the street. I’m staying at The Hemingway Hostel, and I’m letting my feet rest after an arnica massage. I finally bit the bullet and bought a little Rosicrucian pin badge – a baroque red cross that’s now pinned to my chest. It was easy to get the price of my room discounted. I don’t know if those two things are connected but I fear they might be.

There are some practicalities to think about such as laundry, and preparing my clothes for tomorrow. I’ll leave in the dark, so need to be able to leave efficiently and stealthily. It’s a seven bed dorm. There are actual sheets though so I’ll sleep well. Often they make you sleep on plastic sheets with foul plastic pillows, usually still damp where they’ve been sluiced with insecticide and disinfectant. Here they’re cotton which almost certainly means little fuckers living somewhere, but I’ll still sleep better than on that repugnant sticky crap, and they only eat one person a week. In medieval times I’m told people would pay to have a pig sleep in their bed all day. Then they could change the sheets and head to sleep happy in the knowledge that the bedbugs ate the pig already. Unfortunately, it being the off season, most of the time, I’m the pig. Unless I can BUY a pig and take it with me?

I’ve got my misanthropist on again. I’m starting to regret leaving St Jean on a Monday when the week starts. Today has been a little bit like being on an elevator at Euston Station. If this was August I’d consider getting a flight to London to get away from all the people. At 11am I refilled my water at a roadside café and I counted 22 pilgrims sitting around probably eating butter. There’s a pod of Australians, a coach load of South Koreans, a Peloton of French and a huge pile of fat retired Spaniards. A lot of them don’t have packs. The coach drives their pack to the lunch spot for them. Then they all sit around with lardbutter gateaux talking about how hard it is, before putting the pack back in the coach, getting their snack bag and lumpfrolicking off. They can always sit in the coach and get a lift if it gets too tough on their tootsies. “I went to Santiago di Compostela and all I got was this stupid T-Shirt.” And gout.

I think part of the reason why I’ve been arse to mouth constantly with these tour groups has been because I left bit later than usual this morning. I was struggling to upload that fucking self tape. Half an hour to shoot. A lifetime to upload. I left an hour later than I like to, and it was when I sat down to chant for half an hour at ten that I heard them all filing past behind me in the mist, moaning and chattering like the army of the dead.

At one point I got so fed up “Have you had cannabis I’ve had cannabis cannabis is good how do you like taking cannabis” that I decided I’d get a bus a day ahead to Pamplona so I wouldn’t have to walk alongside these vacuous tits anymore. Then I realised there was no bus so I ordered a €30 taxi because I had it in my head I’d escape them. Then I thought better of it. They’re going to be part of the furniture. I went into the bar to try to cancel the cab.

“Hello. Need cancel taxi.” “Words words words taxi not cancel words words words.” “Ok. Good. No problem. Waitwait me.” She’s watching me. She knows me no waitwait. She goes looking for her manager who’s a big lad and hasn’t been walking all day. He’ll makemake me waitwait, because she knows damn well what’s about to happen. I smile at her beatifically, resist a thumbs up wink, and lift my half full drink to demonstrate it’s still half full. She turns her back. I knew she would. I sprint. I didn’t think I could still run. I’m laughing as I go because there’s something intensely childish about this. I’m round the corner and across the Rabies Bridge before anyone can stop me, and I’m back on the trail. Can’t cancel it but you can still run away like a twelve year old.

Everyone seems to have stopped to sleep in Zubera. I can’t now because some burly Spaniard will insist I pay them €30 for a cab to Pamplona. Just as well.

Back on the trail late I get the peace I’ve wanted. I walk to Larrasoaña. There’s virtually nobody walking at the same time as me. I take in the huge great magnesite quarry, then go walking down a river. DON’T WALK ON QUARRY LAND BAD PILGRIM BAD.

It’s a bit underwhelming so far compared to The Piémont Route, this Route France. I’m hoping to find more beauty as I get further in because after the mountain it’s not been much. Motivation was harder to find today. Also there are signs everywhere telling us that we aren’t allowed to do things. I feel funneled, conveyor belted and managed. We are close to Pamplona now which is the biggest metropolis on the route, so maybe it’s just a bad bit. I’m gonna have to push hard for a few days to get out of sync with these tourgrims plodding around scattering litter as the butter leaks down their pasty jowls. And then I’ll see how it changes. “Welcome to Basque Country” (BIG RED SIGN. NOT ALLOWED. BAD.)

Ps yes. There is a Rabies Bridge. The extremely dangerous superstition is that if your animal has rabies you just drag it across the bridge three times and it’s cured because of some dead Saint… Don’t try it, kids.