Somport Pass/Aragon Route in Early May 2001

[Donald Schell]

This concludes the notes on new albergues we found on the Aragon route.

After Arres, we walked on to Ruesta, also not listed in our guidebook as a
place to stay, but this time it was on the flyer of new albergues we got in
Jaca.  We reached it after a longish walk on overgrown medieval road (when
saplings growing up between the old stone pavers blocked any passage, the
camino cut through the low walls that lined the road and we walked alongside
the impassable ancient way.  Like Arres, Ruesta appeared suddenly around the
shoulder of the mountain, a stone tower and tightly-clustered houses built
right to the edge of stone precipice.  Some of the medieval buildings were
completely covered in climbing red roses, all in bloom.  Trees grew through
some broken roofs.  As the town revealed itself across a mountainous chasm,
we saw the church, a massive rectangular structure with an octagonal tower
that echoes of the crusader churches in Eunate and Torres del Rio, and then
we reached the end of the breach in the mountain and walked into Ruesta.

The Moors founded Ruesta as a fortress and it was an important small city in
the middle ages that lived on a home to farmers who worked the valley below.
In 1959 when the reservoir flooded the people's farms they left, and Ruesta
fell into ruin.  Now private owners and the province are slowly reclaiming
the medieval buildings.  The new Albergue (78 refugio beds in an old stone
building) is one of the newly reclaimed buildings.  The Albergue and the
cultural center beside it that looks as though it might have conferences in
the summer are part of that reclamation.

The refugio also serves non-pilgrims with a picnic area and tourist
camp-ground.  For lack of grocery store or bar/restaurant this albergue
offers  a simple, family-style dinner and breakfast (if you want to wait
around until 9 a.m. - we thought breakfast was timed more for the
car-camping crowd than pilgrims).  Our night in Ruesta, Ellen, me, and a
French woman were the only pilgrims, and we shared a dormitory room with
four bunks.  The 'campers' filled out some of the other rooms.  There was a
middle-aged group of Spanish car campers - six married couples - and a
younger, boisterous group of French campers whose drag party with wigs and
secondhand store dresses was beginning at dinner.  The two other groups
brought the number up in the albergue up to about thirty.   The hospitalero
put us three pilgrims at our own table in the small dining room for dinner.
Partying continued late, but our room was quiet with the door closed.  Ellen
and I were all up out before any of the others had stirred.  The French
pilgrim (who didn't speak any Spanish) had bought breakfast without asking
about the time, so she began her morning later than she would have
otherwise.

Our other stops were Sanguesa, Monreal (very nice new Albergue in an old
stone building), Peunta La Reina, and Estella.   In Puenta La Reina the old
albergue where Maria and I had stayed in 1998 was already full when we
arrived.  Maria and I had walked that way during San Fermin (running of the
bulls in Pamplona) and the albergue had brought in triple bunk beds which
increased its capacity substantially - up to 80 some.  In May it was full at
under 40.  Ellen and I arrived on the late side because we had spent an hour
and more sitting quietly enjoying Eunate's haunting Ermita, but at the
seminary's old albergue, the hospitalero sent us over to the
refugio/dormitory in the Hotel Jakue.  At 1000 pesetas, it was twice as much
as the older place, expensive by pilgrim standards but still a bargain.
What we found in the basement of the three star hotel was a windowless room
with solid pilgrims' dormitory bunks.  There was a washing machine (which we
did not use) and good hot showers with plenty of water across the hall in
hotel-standard modesty.  There were separate washrooms for men and women.

Estella, our destination this trip, was a city I'd wanted to show Ellen
since I saw it in 1998.  We stayed one night in the Albergue and then got a
nice room in the Hotel Yerri and spent two more days seeing the city in the
leisurely complete way that pilgrim's pace had not allowed the first time.
We also walked out twice to Irache, once to visit the wine fountain and the
second time to go to Sunday mass in the monastery.

Of course I could go on.  Like anyone who spends time on the Camino, I have
stories and memories to share.   But I've written I wanted to offer here,  a
little recent news of places along the Camino Aragon, which I offer with a
thank-you to this GOCAMINO list.  I don't think I would have attempted the
Aragon route without finding people here who could give some experience and
counsel.  Somport and the Camino Aragon were quite wonderful.  Thank you
all.

Donald Schell