Camino del Norte

“The goal is the road”

Jakub Merta

I’ve always loved travelling. It’s not about the destination - actually I don’t care where I’m going – it’s the mere road what I’ve always enjoyed. The life of the nomad, the freedom and the thrill of the unexpected, the beauty of the landscapes, the randomness of the company and of course the friendships you make and solidify…

 There was on a July morning, I was looking for… Bus. From Barcelona to San Sebastian – the initial point of my Camino. In difference with the Uriah Heep’s song character, I was not alone – Dayana, my best equally-mental-ill friend, was there next to me, complaining about the weight of her rucksack. 

Alas, no free seats there were in the busses. It was impossible to spend another night in the capital of Catalunya for we had no host. Also, after having seen most of the important sightseeings of the city (I was impressed by “El raval”, the “young”neighbourhood in Barça, considered as “problematic”. Un mollón de grafitis, wisely painted pics, youngsters and the top of the cake – the faculty of geography, history and phylosophy where there was a huge poster appealing for resistance against the state, mutual support, solidarity and an open assembly… (so similar to Sofia…) thanks to Maite, Lena and Maja, who generously enough sacrificed a whole day to be our guides, we were rapaciously eager to start walking.

In order to save some money, we went to Huesca – a beautiful village in Aragón. The tranquility of the place was a perfect background of our first disputes: restaurants or supermarkets, busses or walking to San Sebastian, San Sebastian or Roncesvalles… Plus, a machine engulfed  my friend’s money cart… Nevertheless, we had a blast sleeping in a noisily-lokated hostel where we played some music on the telephone and made ourselves an impro disconight with neo metal musicJ

In Pamplona! Finally some traces of the Camino! Actually “some” is not an appropriate word to describe what we saw; it was more like “for-fuk’s-sake-Santiago-must-have-vomited-shells-and-arrows-and-shops-for-them-and-randomly-looking-people-everywhere!!!!!!!”. Commercialization of class.

The dispute between us grew stronger to errupt the very moment I said “Yes” about doing the Camino Francés. We were sitting in a park and I was furiously thinking “Fuk, fuk, fuk! This is the last time I’m doing teamwork! Next time I’m coming alone with a bike here and I’m doing Camino del Norte the way I want it!”. I remember also writing down in my diary something like “Viva la anarquía!!!!”: D

Nevertheless, I got lucky. I had chosen wisely my friend: she couldn’t bear the commercialization of the road as well and acceded into leaving for San Sebastian the very moment she’d seen Pamplona.

Butterflies conquered my mind and lift me up, making me perfectly capable of flying on the  whole day under the ardient sun with a heavy rucksack. After all we were going to San Sebastián, what were several hours of tourisming compared to that...

… next 5 hours I was a silent suitcase, drifting mindlessly around the city. Ok, not that mindlessly since I was the mapgirl, but anyway…

We reached a beautiful cathedral with two baby heads in the garden and Dna entered while I had a sit in front of it and enjoyed a pack of salted sticks.

After what seemed to me as a whole century, Dayana would get out and, emotionated me, we caught the bus to El País Vasco.

It was a gorgeus voyage! All the landscapes I saw, all the places I could recall… There it was Sabiñánigo, the station and the bench where i slept a whole afternoon waiting for the other bubaleños to come. All the faces, all the emotions came back to me, my friends… One year later the place was still the same (what a surprise! : D ). I thought of Sara who wanted to do the camino but couldn´t come, of my french friends and, of course, of Donojos – the one who had said he would come (I still didn´t believe he wold…).

The buss went on. I didn´t have enough time to experience melancoly the way i wanted for i was brutally taken back to reality by the whistling of my neighbour. He wouldn´t stop doing that during the whole trip! Didi also woke up, agitated by the ¨melody¨ and we both laughed as I played for her what i´d do with the head of this random guy if he was sitting closer to me….

Donostia! Rain! 20.30 h no albergue on the horizon!

I put my raincoat, the one my grandpa made for me with a whole volcano of love, only to find out it was entirely useless in its megalomany… 

 Wet and cold, we located a smal church close to the station and went on exploring the place. We got lost : ) A woman we asked for the direction took pitty on us and lead us to the church where the priest accomodated us in his personal car and drove us to an albergue, showing us the city meanwhile. He also invited us home if no space in the albergue was left.

 Luckily enough, there was enough space in the municipal albergue: a giant room full of two-level beds. Like refugies, we entered and sit in front of the desk of the hospitalero. Already had our credencailes from Pamplona where we doubted for a moment if stay for the night, we were just put el sello and given a book with las etapas del Camino and information about them. Then the hospitalero reminded us with a ¨friendly¨, absolutely no imperative voice that we were in an albergue donativo, so we had to donnate a sum (and placed the jar in front of us). Having payed, we rushed towards the beds and climbed up at the first free ones we saw. We had a shower and at 22h the lights were off.

We couldn´t sleep. It was not only about the noise snooring people were making, but also because of the emotions and, for sure, the lack of tiredness we had. : ) so we listened to music, chatted and discussed the ¨cute ugly German boys behind us¨ and why they were not appropriate : ) Eventually, at 00h we felt asleep, dreaming about the new day and the adventure we had already started…