Day two Zubirit to Pamplona-745 kilometers to go to Santiago
We got off to a kind of late start today, eating eggs and onions and baguette and hitting the trail at ten o'clock. We walked through more of the fall color changes in the Basque country today, streams, five hundred year old stone bridges, and got to Pamplona by about two thirty. We walked maybe seventeen miles. Walking across the Puente de Magdalena and through the Portal Frances into old Pamplona was an amazing experience-a castle wall perhaps sixty or seventy feet tall towered over us as we entered. We found a public wi-fi zone and found a pensione for $45.00 Euros near the old section and headed out for something to eat. What we found was really something extraordinary in every regard.
Now keep in mind that Spain is in the middle of a severe economic crisis, what the locals refer to simply as, well, 'the crisis.' their economy has tanked hard. They also refer to it as a 'popping of the bubble' of over valuation, similar to the U.S. housing collapse. While wandering Madrid, Teo and I spotted a hand written sign in a shop window stating three simple words with a very large meaning behind them. It said, ' Fuck the crisis.'
As we went deeper into the old section to explore and to find some bars to get cañas and pinchos, (aqui no hay tapas, hay pinchos!) we found the same, classically European mis-en-scene of sodium phosphorous street lights beaming their yellow, soft, under water light onto the cobblestone and wrought iron playground, people meandering or standing in front of establishments in the ten to fourteen foot spaces between the buildings that constitute roadways here, partaking in precisely that which we were about to receive.
We passed a street vendor with the Beatles 'Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds' playing, but with Spanish lyrics pasted over the top. This set a bit of a surreal stage for things to come. We then saw a small street, more of a lane, if you will, stretching off to our right and, spotting the people gathered at the small, rounded stand up tables, maybe two for each, outside of the drinking establishments that we were interested in, decided it was right for us.
Our first stop was Basseri, a tiny bar maybe ten feet from side to side and twenty five feet deep, and sauntered in to order two pinchos and a couple of cañas. We brought them outside in order to people watch and, okay, honestly, so I could smoke. The pinchos were outrageously gourmet. One was two items on a stark, white plate-browned, grilled cheese akin to Camembert, on top of a slice of tomato, on top of a slice of grilled eggplant, drizzled with olive oil and honey.. The other a small bowl of traditional Basque potatoes in an oily, flavorful sauce with pieces of fish. We talked, laughed, watched others passing or standing for maybe thirty minutes before heading for bar number two, San Nikolas Cocina Vascsa(Basque).
Here I let Teo go in and choose and order two pinchos and two more cañas. And what delights he indeed brought out. Two deep fried balls about the size of tennis ball filled with eggplant, a Brie like cheese, and pancetta, and two small bowls of morcillo topped with a fried egg, along with a small basket of four to five pieces of baguette. We dined most gleefully on these culinary marvels, the taste of which I can only tell you rate mucho mas more than what I could attempt to explain. With some odd centuries of history, all I can tell you is that they have refined these dishes to the apex of fine dining.
We told stories, talked family business, rebelled in our good fortune, and all in all had a really great experience. When we had finished these Teo ordered mother round of cañas and an incredible pincho that had shredded eel on top of grilled mushroom, topped with crispy pancetta pieces all piled onto a slice of grilled baguette.
While we were doing this I kept jotting down notes for writing this after we got home. Hilariously enough, my ipad's auto-correct continued to produce faux pas. Examples include 'lo Scientology' for 'lo siento' (it just tried the very same substitution as I write this!), and 'nos vamps' for 'nos vamos'!
We paid about $30.00 Euros for the beers and the amazing, indescribable food and I bought two bocadillos, sandwiches in the Spanish parlance, filled with egg and chorizo, different from the Mexican variety, closer perhaps to what we think of as pepperoni, for our lunch tomorrow for $3.60 more Euros, and then we took a walk around the old quarter and then on to the Pensione Leyre where we are spending tonight. As we wandered we saw a street label, painted on ceramic tile, mounted on the walls of the buildings at street corners in lieu of street signs, that stated, 'Antigua Rua de Los Torredondas,' to which I stuck a, 'huh?' Teo caught the etymological lineage and guessed, rightfully so I figure, that it meant the road where the bulls go. Pamplona is famous, of course, for the running of the bulls, and this calle must be one of those used each July.
Pamplona derived its name from the Roman general, Pompey, who took the city, formerly called Iruña, or 'the city,' by the Vascones, from their leader, Sartorius in the winter of 75-74 AD. The original name given the town by the Romans was actually Pompaelo. At the time of the Muslim invasion in 711, the Visigoth king, Roderic, was fighting the Basques, who still fight for their sovereignty today, but needed to turn his attention to the new invaders from the south (presumably the pinchos and cañas scene didn't hold as much allure then as today!). By 714-716 the Moors had engulfed the city, incorporating it into their Iberian empire. By 755, however, the last wadi (king) of Al-Andulus, Yusef-al-Fihri, detoured an Arab army near Pamplona, resulting in a defeat at the hands of the Basques.
The city changed hands between the Muslims and Basques, a history marked with the name of Charlemagne, Charles 'the hammer' Martel, and many others, and was not much more than fortified position near the entry to the defensive line of the Pyranese. The two Battles of Roncesvalles, the starting point for our walk, served as major milestones in the quashing of the Moorish drive north into European lands. In 924 the Muslim authorities described the city and it's inhabitants, the Basques, as being, 'incomprehensible,' and the resistance continued into 1083' by which point the Muslim armies had destroyed the town and pulled down it's churches. The eventual overthrowing of the Moors in Pamplona can be thus attributed to the influx of Christians due to the Way of St. James, or, as we call it most idiomatic ally, the Camino de Santiago.
As I write this I am squatting on a bench outside of our pensione, on a busy street in downtown Pamplona, Teo asleep upstairs, which given that it is half past midnight, is more than reasonable, while I sit outside so that I can smoke and sip from a small bottle of brandy and do what I enjoy, playing with words. It's a blessing that my children, at their ages, do not see any advantage in squirreling themselves over to the Nth end of the bell curve where I seem, best I can tell, to dwell. There exists tonight an Ellensburg type of wind, blowing a steady fifteen, gusting to more than twenty, making lighting a cigarette a task in itself. The temperature is grand, perhaps sixty four or more, seventy five plus during the day, and I inhabit this wooden bench here, making it my office for the time being. A lovely device, the Power monkey Extreme, a solar powered battery storage device, recharging my iPad, down to 4%, and thus allowing my continued communication with you all.
Tomorrow we will find a post office, already located on a map not but a kilometer away, and mail home those items that we feel are available for release, this saving some odd pounds from the thirty plus pound packs that we will carry each day for the next thirty, to the Atlantic coast of the Iberian Peninsula. Weight in our packs, at this point, is a really big deal; an in depth examination of need vs want strips a combined seven pounds from our backs. Extra t-shirt for going out? Nice pants? The deflated soccer ball and small hand pump that T has been carrying and that we have twice pumped up and kicked around? The solar powered rechargeable battery pack for our electronics? And more-gone bye bye.
As I rest here on this bench in this foreign town, at 12:55 am local time, I am awash in the historical significance of this place, the meaning of its many castles and defenses, and the understanding that my son and I are modern witnesses to more than a millennium of struggle, a struggle which the Basque continue to this day. Businesses, street signs, highway signs, town names, are all in both Spanish and Basque, a language that, in the characters of the Roman alphabet, look largely like computer code, gibberish. Too many xs and ks.
Looking around it is difficult to see that youth unemployment in this country is fifty percent and that an exodus is occurring that will have a lasting effect on the economic future of this country. Combiined with the cuts in educational spending, the unemployment numbers and the exodus makes the Spaniards fear for their future.
As for us here in their beautiful land, we are simply happy to be able to take this time to walk and visit and to meet generous and friendly people and to able to partake, if only for a small time, of their historical and glorious culture.
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