[Gocamino] [saintjames] Special camino stories wanted

[Robert Spenger]

Hi Sil,

I don't know if this is the kind of thing you want or not, but I am just about to repeat some of my steps of a decade ago, so it was on my mind al lot. I wrote this up not too long after the trip and was going to go on to complete the whold thing, but after that first day, the rest had an aura of being anti-climactic. At Sue Kenney's invitation, I sent it to her for a critique and she had some good suggestions. However, her main point was that I should have more in it about my own feelings. Good idea, i'm sure, but it is just not my nature. I think in terms of  things and actions and not in terms of emotions. Perhaps it is because I am a chemist - or maybe the other way around, i.e. I went into chemistry because it deals with practical matters of rather than inner feelings. Well, anyway, this is what my first day was like:

Montez! The word was new to me, although I was to become only too well acquainted with this verb after I left the level plains of the Rhone delta. This first time, however, there was no mistaking the open car door and the authoritative voice. It was clearly a command not a request. I don't know whether my hesitation showed or not, but two thoughts stood out in my mind. Don't accept rides from complete strangers and Hey! this is a pilgrimage - I am supposed to walk it all- not ride in cars.
 
It was the seventeenth of April, 2000, and at 8:00 that morning, as I stepped off the door sill of a motel near Arles, I repeated the old proverb to myself, "a journey of a thousand miles begin with a single step." It was a later start than I had intended and by the time I got into the town, la Poste was open. I had cards to mail and I needed stamps, so I lost more time waiting in line. I finally left the town by way of the bridge across the Rhone and very soon lost the white and red stripes of the GR653 waymarks. I was walking along a country road through open fields, when the car stopped along side of me. The driver rolled down the window and asked, "Pèlerin?" I managed to reply, "Oui," although I felt it a bit presumptuous after only an hour or two on the road. He immediately opened the door and it was decision time. The gentleman was well dressed, probably in his fifties, and the car was neither flashy nor shabby. Safety was only my minor concern. Accepting a ride instead of walking was definitely an upsetting thought, but the thought of having lost the waymarks on this very first day was also upsetting. I quickly doffed my pack, pushed it under the dash and got in.
 
My French and his English were negligible, so conversation was very limited at first, but I did learn that he had done the pilgrimage. Any concern about safety evaporated at that point. Now I understood why he stopped. The situation improved even more when I learned that he knew Spanish. My own knowledge of Spanish is very rudimentary, but it was a step up from my French. He told that he had two fincas (country houses) but my Spanish dictionary was buried at the bottom of my pack, so I couldn't look it up until later. I sort of got the idea when we stopped at the first one, an old two-story farm house, in the process of renovation. He had hired a Spanish couple to do the renovation work. He introduced me to their grown daughter, who spoke some English. She showed me around while he checked on the progress of the work. From her I learned that he owned most of the land around there. From there we rode to the other finca, several buildings on a ranch. I eventually learned that it was used for raising fighting bulls and the horses native to the Camargue.  He offered me a glass of wine and some olives. I accepted, but he did not join me. Then I was led into two long galleries which were decorated with the many trophies that his bulls had won, along with many pictures of himself with numerous world figures - several presidents of France, Prince Philip of England, Jacqueline Onassis, and one of the Popes. Needless to say I was quite impressed. Overwhelmed might be a better word.
 
Showtime was not quite over. When we left the ranch buildings, we passed a field where the horses were grazing and he pointed out that they were all the desired white of the thoroughbred Camargue. This rather bizarre interruption of my journey ended when he dropped me off at a busy highway intersection and, pointing to the road to the West, said that it would get me to Saint Gilles. I arrived there around midday and found the tourist office where I managed to get a reservation for a chambres d'hôte in the hamlet of Franquevaux and a second stamp for my pilgrim's passport. (The first was from the cloister at Arles.) It was another 5 km or so to Franquevaux, 24 km for the day, but I have no idea how much was bypassed by riding in the car.
 
After this astonishing first day it was good to relax in the hospitality of the chambre d'hôte, where I had an excellent dinner and breakfast, got my laundry done by machine, and enjoyed a long conversation with my Irish hostess.

Regards,

Bob S.
 
On Mar 25, 2010, at 10:08 PM, Sil wrote:

I am planning on publishing an anthology compiled of personal accounts of
special moments on the camino from pilgrims all over the world. Some
already received tell of kindness received from complete strangers;
inexplicable stories of 'angels' appearing just when needed most;
serendipitous accounts; amazing co-incidences and so forth.
I am appealing to pilgrims to contribute their special moment stories.
Every story included in the book will be credited to the author.
Muchas gracias,
Sil