Twelve years ago, while I was working as a labourer
on a construction site for some new apartments, I was given the news that no one
ever wants to hear. Today I returned to this neck of the woods to start the Camino de Santiago (Way of St. James). I’ll
cover around 850 kilometres on foot which I hope to complete in a reasonable
period of time.
I went into a café near the abandoned
station as I arrived in Canfranc. After
serving me breakfast, the waiter showed me a couple of small bottles of pills
that he bought on the internet. “Viagra for budgies”, he confessed. He must
have seen the look of utter shock on my face as he explained that he breeds
budgies and canaries in his free time.
Every time I hear the word budgie, I
remember a friend who invited me over for dinner once after work. When his father, a doctor to set the scene,
arrived and sat down with us for a chat, my friend got up, took out the budgie
they had in a cage and put it on his father’s bald spot as he imitated a parrot
repeating “daddy, daddy”. The father, rather than swiping the bird off, telling
his son to fuck off, or both, started to tell me about the terrible state of
the health service in Aragón, blaming the relevant Minister, all while the
budgie remained motionless on his head.
With this personal background, I listened
carefully to the waiter in the Canfranc café telling me that he spent a fortune
online buying a canary that is the Singing Champion of Spain. He’s really
pleased because, in his own words: “he’s proving to be a real hit with the
ladies” and he already has 7 baby birds which aren’t out of tune when they
sing. With the success we normally have in the Eurovision song contest, I
suggested that he enter some of them when they’re a bit older. He looked at me
as if he would actually consider it and told me that he plays them CDs of the
songs of other canaries so that they can train and improve. When I asked him if
he had noticed any progress, he told me with a lot of conviction that he had.
He also told me that in the beginning he had the Champion of Spain in the café
so that he could entertain the customers, but on the fourth day his mother got
sick and tired of the same drone all day long and took him up to the house. “It’s
a losing battle”, he admitted defeatedly as I paid for my breakfast.
Once outside, I headed for the apartments I
used to work on and the chosen point to start my pilgrimage to Santiago. The
truth is I was surprised to see them still standing. And not only because I
worked there, but because of the workmates I was lucky enough to have. I
remember that in the beginning my duties were limited to collecting the rubble
and preparing the material for the others. However, as time passed and I showed
the Site Manager my willingness to take on tasks of a higher calibre whenever I
could, I began to clear away the undergrowth for sockets and pipes and to use
the drill.
Even though I had already done other
seasonal jobs, this one in Canfranc was my first experience in construction.
Another world, as I would come to know. The first time I was given a drill I
started to dig like a madman following the instructions of the Site Manager. As
soon as he left to get on with other tasks, a hefty 15 stone workman appeared
from amongst the shadows flapping his arms about like a tawny eagle, a signal
that I interpreted as an order to stop the drill which was going like the
clappers, never mind the fact I couldn’t hear a damn thing above the noise
anyway. “This is it, I’ve drilled into the gas pipes” - I thought swallowing hard,
convinced that we were all about to be blown to smithereens.
What are you doing, maño*? , the workman
asked me, annoyed. “I’m just doing what
I was told” – I answered, blaming the manager for whatever might happen next. “So,
you were told to drill, right?” “Yea”, I answered. “Good lad, but I bet you
weren’t told how fast to do it?" “Well no, he didn’t say anything about that” - I
said, to which he replied “perfect”, with the condescending tone of a master to
his apprentice. “If you keep going at that rate you’re going to finish before
you know it and you’ll be given something else to do, won’t you?”. I would have told him that that was exactly
what we were being paid for if I wasn’t convinced that that was the wrong
answer. “Besides – he went on without giving me time to respond -, if you
finish and the rest of us are still in the middle of the job, you’ll make us
look bad. So do me a favour and take things a bit easier, stress is very bed
for ya, y’know” - he concluded as he gave me a slap on the back of the neck
that left my neck bones trembling. The
truth is that as a life philosophy it didn’t seem like such a bad approach to
me. Stress is “very bad for ya” in my opinion too. What I couldn’t quite
understand was why, every time he crossed paths with the foreman, this same
workman puffed and panted like a rhinoceros and put his hands on his kidneys as
he complained about the stress in his body…
It was with these cherished memories that I
began my descent towards the village of Canfranc and my stroll along this
thousand-year old route walked by thousands of people before me – a trip I had
been planning for many moons. The weather conditions could have been better and
the 25 kilometres I had in front of me posed a certain degree of difficulty. It
wasn’t snowing in Canfranc but it was falling heavily on the border, 5
kilometres north, and with the prevailing cold, snowflakes were expected to
fall at any moment. In fact the weather forecast said exactly that. The
Republican flag was flying in the square of the Canfranc village and I couldn’t quite
work out if it was a form of protest against the current regime or because it
had been there since 1936.
In Villanúa, half-way through, I met up with
Gus for a drink. Gus is the brother of my cousin’s husband so we’ve decided to
call ourselves cousins from now on. When I told him about the flag, he said
that I shouldn’t pay much attention to what people from Canfranc do. They’re just like that apparently, and if
there was a Republic they would fly the flag of the Monarchy. “Don’t you see
that in this valley there are very few hours of sunlight?"- he declared,
attributing any type of eccentricity of his people to the adverse weather they
endure. As I devoured a slice of Spanish omelette, Gus told me that there is
very little work in the Pyrenees and that he’s going to go and work in a
restaurant in Berlin where he worked last year too, and that after he’s
thinking about heading off to California or Canada, preferably to a state where
smoking isn’t banned and he can live a peaceful life. While exchanging email
addresses, I had to show him how to send an email from his phone because, as he
confessed, he pays little attention to “these modern things”. I let Gus pay for me, as he told me that it’s
good luck to be hospitable with a pilgrim, and we said goodbye with a hug
before I continued on my journey.
I managed to get all the way down to Castiello
de Jaca without coming across a single soul. Instead of following the route
that runs parallel to the road, I took Gus’ advice and veered inward a little
to the Paseo del Juncaral, a forest that runs along the river Aragón and where
only the noise of the birds and my footsteps on the fallen leaves could be heard.
After Castiello, and when I only had 5 kilometres left to go, I began to feel
an irritation caused by a blister on my right foot and, as if that wasn’t bad
enough, clear signs of the mother of all chafings near the perimeter of
exclusion where I keep “the Three Amigos”, as I like to call them.
I continued on my way and not long after, I
made out a man of about 65 in front of me, dressed in military clothes and carrying
more than 15 kilos on his shoulders. It turned out to be Manolo, an ex-legionnaire
and ex-member of the High Mountain Special Operations Group, who was on his way
down from climbing the Collarada, the highest peak in Jacetania at about 2,900
metres. Nothing more than a morning stroll. He didn’t ask me why I was walking
with my legs arched but if he had, I would have been sure to tell him that it’s
because I love rap. On the final path to Jaca, he told me that he passed by the
reserve a few years ago and that it’s now a company that organises survival
courses in extreme situations for different types of people. As we arrived at
the Mountain Military School, he wished me luck as we said our goodbyes. I
headed for Prado Largo, where courtesy of my friend Miguel, the first Samaritan
to take pity on me on this pilgrimage, I enjoyed a well-deserved hot shower.
For my first day I think I did pretty well. Still a few left to go before
reaching Santiago though…
And to finish off with today, a song
dedicated to a great friend of mine and some good Aragonese music.
*a
person from Aragón
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