The Clicker Beds of Uterga, or Hot Flashes and Mite Bites

After a short snooze on the hill (during which time, either from relaxing on a slant, or for some other unknown reason, my back gave a tremendous "POP" and my hip didn't hurt for the first time in years!), we put our boots back on, load up, and head down the slope away from Alt de Perdon and towards Uterga. The way is very rocky and fairly steep. Once again, I am quickly left behind, because I am just ultra-careful about where I'm putting my feet. I just cannot afford to fall down and really hurt myself. The way continues down the rocky washes, where it's easy to see where the water might run if it rains. After a while, I catch up with the ladies, who are making a pit stop. The sun which was hidden in the morning, has come out in force and it's very warm. Again, I am SO grateful for my hat. We walk on, descending and descending, until the terrain flattens out and we are walking on sort of a berm between farm fields. We can see the buildings of Uterga in the distance, and are looking forward to our upcoming beds. I have no idea what the place is going to be like, but it doesn't matter. If there's a bed and a shower and a reasonable form of a meal, it will be heaven! Shortly before entering the town, on the right just off the path, is a shrine to Mary. It's outside, under some overhanging trees, and there are a couple of benches to rest and contemplate. I have to stop. There's just something about shrines of this nature that draw me. I don't care what religion, what saint, or diety, just this small area, right off the Pilgrim's road, just outside the first buildings of the village, is intriguing and attractive. I imagine if I lived here, I would come out here all the time to pray or meditate or talk to the pilgrmis as they passed by.

Rita has moved on, but Ingeborg and I stop and sit for a while. I leave before she does and catch up with Rita, and then Ingeborg joins as as we are chatting about our next steps. Ingeborg asks us to keep an eye out for a correro (mailbox or post office), as she has some postcards she wants to mail. We head through the main street of the small town, and start looking for our alburgue. We pass the church, and step out of the way for just a couple of cars. Again, we seem to be arriving around siesta time, and everything is shut up tight. But, we keep walking, and shortly we find what we are looking for: The Albergue Camino del Perdon:

The sun is out, and there are many pilgrims lounging at the tables. We drop our packs outside, and I go in to ask about beds. Yes, there are beds, and we are in time, they will take us up to show us the room and we can pick out our places now! Yes! The young woman at the bar is very friendly, and while I wait for them to lead us to where we need to go, I look around the place. It looks brand new! Later, she tells me it has been open for 3 years, but it's lovely--light blond wood bar and fixtures, tile floors, everything very clean and welcoming. When another young woman comes to lead us up the stairs, we follow happily.

The room:

has about the usual number of beds, but we are all early enough to claim bottom bunks! The bed I was in is actually the bottom bunk of the partial bed you see on the far right of the above picture. We tour the bathroom, which has a modern shower with HOOKS in it to hang your clothes! Wow! But there's still no soap dish, so I know I'm still in Spain. Placing all our stuff on the beds, we jockey for the shower, and then, refreshed, head down to see if there is anyone we know. We see Claudette, who I first met at Orisson (I was in the bunk above her), from Quebec. She is 61 and walking alone. She is very quiet, usually wrapped up in a book or on her BlackBerry. But she seems genuinely happy to see us as we are to see her. Then, as we are sitting outside with coffee, up walks Doro!! It's like a huge reunion to see her, and she agrees to have a coffee with us, although she is not stopping, she wants to go further with the afternoon. We talk for a while, and right before we leave, I run back up to my backpack and bring her down of the the prayer ties that my friends blessed for me before I left to come on this journey. For some reason, I feel very close to her, and I want her to be safe as she continues on her way. She is very moved by this, and promptly ties the multi-colored yarn around her wrist for a bracelet. Then, she has donned her pack again, and is off. I hope that I will see her again, but know there are no guarantees. Just like life. But, I am so glad to have met and connected with her here.

After she leaves, I want to wander around the place for a bit. It's really quite nice, not only with the bar and porch area downstairs (along with the restaurant area which is not open yet--but will open leter for the pilgrim "menu" at around 7pm), but also there's a little lounge area upstairs:

I sit down and write in my journal for a while, then go downstairs and am able to access the Internet via a laptop that the bar lady sets up for me at a table. After that, it's the usual routine of checking and re-checking Ziplocs and packing, deciding what to wear for tomorrow, and a brief discussion of how we want to walk. There is a small, old church that is somewhat off the main path, but it is supposed to be one of the last Templar churches in Europe, and Ingeborg really wants to go there, and I would not mind it myself. Ingeborg still has not found the correo, so she and I go off in search of, and to explore the town a little bit.

As we walk through, I am caught again at how deserted so many of these towns appear to be. On our way in, we had passed some kind of community center with various notices posted out front, and, as I wrote above, the church has a small playground outside of it, but there are no people here--other than the ones we have seen in the bar at the alburgue, where it is easy to tell locals from pilgrims, even without language differences. So, where are all the people? It's a question that I will ask more than once on this trip.

We reach the church, and a strong afternoon wind has come up. It appears that the church, too, is empty and closed, but when we push on a side door, it comes open for us, and we go in, in anticipation of some quiet time. To our surprise, a Mass is being held, so we quietly come in from the back of the sanctuary and sit down. There are only a few people here, mostly women, mostly over 60. The priest is just at the point of blessing the host, so we wait in reverence while the service goes on. I am so grateful to be able to witness these services. Again, I am struck on this way that whatever one's particular faith is, or whether you even have a particular faith, just does not matter. The fact that you are HERE, that you have made the effort to come here, to walk on this ground, to sit in these churches and share the space where hundreds, maybe hundreds of thousands, of people have been and worshipped before you is the point. This road strips away everything unessential from you. Just as I left my too-heavy baggage at the hotel in Roncesvalles, walking this Road makes you drop your assumptions, your prejudices, your judgments, even your wants and desires. It's just all about walking and about BEING, in company with the Creator and the Created. Powerful, powerful stuff.

Soon, the Mass is concluded and the parishoners file out. We exit the same way we came in, not finding the correo, but not worried about it, either. We wander back to the alburgue, revitalized. Shortly after we get back and get settled, it's time for dinner. The place has pretty well filled up, and I am glad we got here in time to shower and get settled in relative quiet. There's a woman above me, who is having some foot trouble. The day before she and her group walked 44 kilometers!! That's almost 27 MILES! That's INSANE. But, each to their own.

Since Doro has gone on, we ask Claudette if she wants to join us for dinner and round out our trio to a party of 4, which is always easier to seat. She agrees, and when the restaurant opens up, we are ready. The tuna, tomatoes, and chocolate seem FAR away!! This is by far the best meal I've had since Orisson. The soup is thick and wonderful, and while my entree is not exactly what I expected-it's some kind of breaded "cutlet" with cheese inside, it's good, and there is the most wonderful lemon ice cream for dessert. Yes, lemon ice cream and it's heavenly. Plus, two bottles of wine, good company, good conversation, and at the end of the meal, we get the whole group to give our servers (only 2!) a big round of applause! It appears that everyone is in a good mood this evening!!

Here we are at our dinner table, me, Ingeborg, and Rita, Claudette kindly taking the picture on her Blackberry, and was able to e-mail it to me to use now! By the time we are finished with dinner it's time to get ready for bed. We hope to be in Puente la Reina (The Queen's Bridge) tomorrow, which is not very far by the map, but we don't know how far out of the way it will be to go to Eunate, so we want to be rested. Here is where the evening adventure starts. As we all get into the room, and begin to try to settle down, we realize our beds are slightly different from previous ones. All the other bunk beds have either been on spring platforms or wooden platforms, which, while they my squeak or creak every now and then, it's usually a fairly quiet noise. These beds have METAL platforms. I'm sure you all know what "clickers" or "crickets" are--those child's toys that you can hold in your hand and make a loud clicking noise by squeezing a small metal "tongue" on the back of the toy? Well, these beds are just like that every time you move, only it's not a "click" it's a big "BANG". Turn over on your side? BANG! Move your legs in bed? BANG! Raise your head up to see what's making the bang? BANG! Oh boy, we're going to have 18 people in here banging and popping away all night! Yikes!

Well, I say to Ingeborg, at least we are right by the window, and can have some fresh air. But she will battle all night with an Italian woman on her top bunk who refuses to allow the window open. I do not understand the apparently European desire to be completely shut in at night, especially when lots of other people are in the room. Eighteen or more people put out a LOT of body heat (amongst other things) in a closed up room at night--we NEED fresh air!

And so it goes...a brief silence then bangBANGbangBANGclickclickclickBANG! Somehow, in all this chaos, I do drift off, then after a few hours, I awake, and realize my cotton sleeping T-shirt is SOAKED. I toss and turn a bit, but then feel bad about all the noise my bed is making, so I decide to get up and go into the lounge, for which I am eternally grateful. Also, this place has a heavy cotton blanket on each bed, so I bring that with me. I take the back cushions off of the 3-cushion sofa, take off my soaked shirt, hang it over the arm of a chair, wrap myself up in the blanket (which later proves to be problematic), and try to get a little more sleep. It actually works. Although I can still hear the dreaded clicker beds, it's fainter out here, and I dry off and begin to get warm. When I wake up again, it's still dark, but approaching time to get up, and my shirt has actually dried enough for me to put it back on. Feeling rested in spite of everything, I go back into the common sleeping room and begin to get everything ready to repack. It appears no one else has got much sleep, either, and we're all stumbling around, trying to get ready. Eventually, we make it downstairs, with packs and sit at one of the outside tables to decide our route. That's when we realized that Ingeborg forgot her really nice, wind/waterproof jacket at dinner, and it's been locked inside the restaurant. Okay, now what?