The Way of the Stars: Journeys on the Camino de Santiago

2. Pain

 pain The point of the pilgrimage is to improve yourself by enduring and overcoming difficulties. —oliver statler, japanese pilgrimage The sun was shining when I left Roncesvalles in the morning. I interpreted that as a good sign, compensation for the misery of the previous day. Even better, the bar of the Hostal Casa Sabina opened at 7 a.m., allowing me a leisurely breakfast. My pretty waitress was nowhere to be seen, so I settled for a balding bartender to take an order for what became a favorite breakfast during my pilgrimage: a large café con leche and a couple of chocolate churros, sugared sticks of fried pastry for dipping into the coffee. I also imitated another patron by having a shot of anisette, the early-morning starter for Spanish laborers. Muscle lubricant , I figured. Not that my muscles really needed lubrication. To my surprise I felt pretty good. My legs were a bit stiff and my shoulders sore from the unfamiliar strain of the backpack, but the night’s sleep had restored me. I even felt cheerful. There was none of the anxiety I’d felt the previous day. I actually looked forward to the day’s walk. By 8 a.m. I was on the pilgrim path, walking off the stiffness in my legs as I headed for the town of Zubiri, about halfway to Pamplona. It took all of five minutes to walk out of Roncesvalles. In the daylight I was able to appreciate the gray stone monastery complex—the Romanesque Chapel of Sancti Spiritus and the marvelous Gothic Church of la Real Colegiata—with its steep zinc and slate roof. I was now one of the millions of pilgrims who’d passed through this hamlet over the last SIBLEY, The Way of the Stars.indd 26 SIBLEY, The Way of the Stars.indd 26 7/25/12 9:19 AM 7/25/12 9:19 AM pain  millennium and received the blessings of its priests. I found the notion appealing. At the edge of town I passed a weather-worn stone cross with a carved relief of the Virgin as I followed a gravel path—the pilgrim trail—into the forest.I paused for a moment to enjoy the warmth of the sun on my head and to breathe in the crisp morning air. I felt a surge of nervous excitement as I stared down the trail as far as my eyes could see, wondering where it might take me. It was a flat, easy-walking corridor with tall beech trees on either side. In summer the trees would provide much-needed shade. But now, in late March, with the green buds just starting to show, the sun fell through the bare branches, dappling the path with a shifting pattern of light and shade. El Camino—literally, “the way” or “the road”—was marked every few hundred meters or so with painted yellow arrows or sometimes a slash of yellow paint on a tree trunk, a stone, or a fence post. These yellow markers—flechas amarillas—served as directional pointers to keep pilgrims from getting lost. In some areas along the Camino they were plentiful but in others less so. Over the next month I would become very fond of them, taking comfort in their presence. When I didn’t see one for a while I grew anxious. On this day the yellow arrows took me to Burguete.The white walls of the houses with their red-shuttered windows and green doors shone brightly in the morning sun. Occasionally, through an open door, I saw polished tile floors and a length of hallway leading to cool, dim interiors . Large terra-cotta urns filled with flowers or shrubs stood guard at the doorways. Some homes had armorial plaques on their exterior walls, evidence that people had lived there for centuries. Walking past a shoulder-high hedge in front of a house on the eastern edge of town, I inhaled the sharp tang of fresh dill. The smell made me stop and peer over the hedge into a newly planted garden. I couldn’t spot the dill, but the memory of my grandparents’ house in my hometown of Hanna, Alberta, filled my mind. They’d had a small white house with green trim on the edge of town. A white picket fence encircled both the house and a large garden, one corner of which was thick with dill, which my grandmother used to flavor her...