Roncesvalles

Roncesvalles - Monday

We took a taxi from Pamplona to Roncesvalles, about 30 miles. The taxi took the same road that we will be cycling on tomorrow. Yikes!  It's narrow with switchbacks and steep ups and downs.

Upon arriving at Roncesvalles, our bikes were already at the hotel. We set them up and fitted them.

Then we sat out on the patio and met pilgrims who had hiked from Saint Jean Pied de port where most of the walkers start.

We stayed at the Hotel La Posada Roncesvalles and got our first pilgrim's stamp.

Dinner was pasta with chorizo and a fish with frites followed by flan.

After dinner over 200 pilgrims packed the monastery church for the blessing of the pilgrims Mass.

Then we packed up our panniers and went to bed.

Burgos Cathedral

A spectacular cathedral in Burgos. It's also a World Heritage site.

The ceiling:

Gregorian chant:

The church has more than a dozen chapels like this, paid for by wealthy donors who are entombed in their chapels:

I hope they realized that you can't earn your way into Heaven by furnishing a chapel,

Can You Tell Me How to Get to Sesame Street

Thousands of pilgrims travel the Camino de Santiago each year. 1.000 years ago there were many routes, as pilgrims left their homes in Spain, England, France. Portugal, or wherever. And headed towards Santiago de Compostella. 

Most modern day pilgrims take the French route, westward across northern Spain.

The path is clearly marked with yellow arrows or seashells,

Camino de Santiago souvenirs:

Camino de Santiago t-shirts:

Everyone says that it's completely obvious, you can't get lost...

However, there are no yellow arrows on the bike route, and we have managed to get lost every day. 

Asking for directions:

This cyclist in the Ernie and Bert jersey is Raphael. He is a Spaniard who speaks no English, but he is giving us directions to the Camino from Logrono.

From what we could understand, Raphael told us that you have to be very strong to bike the Camino, then pointed us in the direction to go.

We had to bike several km of the rocky Camino path, but still couldn't find the road, about 30 minutes later we ask another cyclist for directions. Oh, he's also wearing a Sesame Street jersey. 

It's Raphael again! Please note that Raphael is riding a mountain bike and we are on road bikes so we need to find the road, but he can ride the dirt. His English is no better, and our comprehension is no better, but somehow he conveys his story to us.

This isn't the first time that Raphael has ridden the Camino de Santiago, and he has a photo of  the newspaper clipping to prove it. Raphael had Hodgkins Disease, and rode the Camino solo by mountain bike. After his Camino, his Hodgkins Disease was cured! You have to be very strong to ride the Camino. I hope that my faith can be as strong as Raphael's

Respect the Mountain

Our first day bicycling from Roncesvalles on the Camino de Santiago started with hairpin switchbacks with steep climbs and descents.

It took a few days before I realized that this sign means "switchbacks."

 

After loading up our bikes with panniers, handlebar bags, extra water and other luggage, it felt a bit wobbly to have so much extra weight on the bike. We headed towards Pamplona and the climbing started. Up, up, up 6 to 10 percent grade switchbacks. At the peak people had spray painted "Respect the Mountain," in Spanish of course, but no translation was needed. The warning was very much appreciated, and I rode conservatively down the mountain, braking hard to keep my luggage laden bike from going over the cliff or into the oncoming traffic coming up the mountain, showing the mountain all the respect I could.

Buen Camino

We are traveling across Spain on the Camino de Santiago with pellegrinos (pilgrims) from all over the world. Although most are walking, we are bicycling. 

When greeting a pellegrino, the standard greeting is "Buen Camino" which means "Have a good Camino." This phrase is interchangeable with "Buenos Dias," "Hello," "On your left," or "get out of the way because my shoes are clipped into these pedals and my bike is very heavy with these panniers, so please don't make me swerve to get out of your way."

Since we're biking on the road, and the walkers are walking on the path, whenever our paths cross we greet them with "Buen Camino!" 

Pellegrinos respond with either "Buen Camino" or something in their native language. We don't comprehend, but assume that they could be saying, "the same to you," "you're crazy to do this on a bike," or "my feet are killing me."

Train from Barcelona to Pamplona

We left Barcelona this morning and we're taking the train to Pamplona. Even Hank is ready to go!

We had our first pilgrim spotting, seeing two men with backpacks. And yoga mats that are still in the Target shrink wrap. Definitely movie pilgrims. (People who got the idea of walking the Camino de Santiago from watching the film The Way, with Martin Sheen and Emilio Esteves.)

 My three amigos are all sitting together in car 6 and I'm in car 5. Hypothetically that's what happens when you work so much that you don't prioritize making your Camino travel reservations when your amigos do. 

I've built up a lot of good travel karma switching seats with people on airplanes so they could sit with their amigos. So I figured that we could convince the 4th person in their row to take my seat in car 5. It was a man traveling alone, but the four of us couldn't speak enough Spanish to get him to budge. He kept looking at my ticket and saying that seis aqui non cinco. Perhaps I should have thought to call American Express Global Assist to translate for me.

I gave up and took my seat in car cinco, and met my first American pilgrims. God had specially reserved this seat for me, across the aisle from Alan and Marla, caminowalkers.wordpress.com. 

Alan and Marla live about 15 minutes from my home in California, and they've been training for the Camino by hiking Whiting Ranch for the last year. The couple that you've seen hiking with backpacks weighing 10% of their body weight is them. Of course I asked them if they go to Saddleback Church, and they do, and they've been to Mariners Church a few times. As we say at Mariners, God is good, all the time! It's time to play some Tim Timmons tunes.

Lunch on the train is a jamon Camembert baguette (aka ham and cheese sandwich) and a bottle of Solan de Cabras agua. I send my girls photos of water from all my travels since they are hydration innovation experts. Here's your photo, girls:

I've joked that the only Spanish I know is "agua por favor" and that still seems the most important phrase for a cyclist to know in Spain.

The scenery looks a lot like California. Think Banning, on the way to Palm Springs, except the occasional sign is in Spanish... And the are no windmills... Wait, there are windmills!

The World is Flat.

Pilgrim Baggage

Pilgrims traveling the Camino are advised to limit the weight of their backpack to 10% of their body weight. I couldn't find a similar benchmark for cycling pilgrims. My bag seems bigger than what my three amigos brought. Maybe it's the 6 pounds of Cytomax and Gu that I'll consume while cycling. Perhaps it's the 7 travel guides. I ripped out the pages of the paces in Spain where we're not going in order to lighten my load. 

Or perhaps it's the electronics gear.  A geek like me doesn't unplug easily. I had no problem leaving my work laptop at home since it wouldn't fit in the panniers. But I brought the Blackberry because surely the company won't be able to get by without getting me on a conference call. I'm well known for getting lost while cycling, so I downloaded maps of Spain to my GPS and routed each day. I know they have yellow arrows all along the route pointing in the right direction, and all the pilgrims are heading west, but getting lost is one of my core competencies, so I didn't want to risk going without my Garmin. 

God wouldn't expect me to make this pilgrimage without having GoPro video for the blog, would He? Perhaps I overdid it bringing a solar panel for recharging all the devices while we ride. But, who knows how many outlets there will be at the alburgues (hostels). I'm sure the solar panel will have another use when Florida loses power in a hurricane, and I'll be able to charge my phone. At least that's how I justified the purchase.

I guess you could say that I'm carrying a lot of baggage.