Day Thirty Eight: Navarrete to Santo Domingo de la Calzada: Why did the chicken go to church?

May 4, 2017

FLASH: GREAT PHOTO TAKEN BY RICARDO GONCALVES IN VIANA YESTERDAY

Although I wrote on one of this blog's introduction pages that the Camino is "just another route", that is clearly a minority opinion. This approximately 900 km is very special to almost everyone on it, to the towns along it, and to the goverments of the regions it passes through. And that excludes all the churches and the actual religious pilgrims.

One indicator of how special the route is to the travellers on it is the way they have outfitted or decorated themselves for it. 95% (including us) are carrying the symbolic shells, but it does not end there. There is an array of sew on patches, and stickers - such as we have on our handlebar bags. There are Camino backpacks (we have one!) and Camino tee shirts (ok, we have one of those too). But I am thinking of this right now because of two individuals in particular. The first we met some days ago. He was part of a couple from Missouri. They were not remarkable except that the man had a Camino ball cap. I just thought it was interesting how this American had incorporated the Camino into this icon of national dress - the ball cap.

The second one in mind right now is Heinz, a cyclist from Austria who was at our albergue last night. Heinz's bike was sporting a Camino flag, and the same image was also on the back of his tee shirt. It showed the flags of the countries he would pass through from Austria, and the caption "Heinz Goes Santiago". What fun.

Heinz was also fun in another way. He knew a bit about Canada. He looked at us and intoned "Crazy Canucks". In the morning we must have left a lot earlier than Heinz, because we had time to reach the little town of Ventosa before he ever caught up to us.

Seen on a distant hill from our albergue. I have read in a travel book that these bulls on hills are common in Spain

Ventosa is not strictly on the "Camino", as defined by whoever puts up the direction markers for the walkers. But the town has made a major effort to siphon walkers off and to get them and their euros to pass through. For the walkers it's about a 1 km detour, but the town has billboards describing the benefits of doing it. Fo example there is supposed to be some kind of outdoor art exhibit. Whatever it was, it was enough to draw Dodie and as far as I could see, all the other pilgrims off the straight and narrow. For my part, the advertised cafe was good enough to go.

We had split an orange and a bit of bread for breakfast, so the cafe was a big thing. What's more, they actually made us bacon and eggs! It was super, and much needed protein and fat. We left with all kinds of renewed energy. But that's when the piper had to be paid, a bit. As always happens when we weaken and go off hobnobbing with walkers, the trail turned to a narrow uphill track.

Ventosa's billboards were great, but this ad is also attractive.

This is about where we reconnected with Heinz, who I guess had also followed the herd. Breakfast had not attracted him, since he claims to eat mostly bananas during the day. But we three retreated, back to a junction where a sign indicated a slightly better track, for BTT's. (In France, a VTT is a velo tout terrain - or mountain bike, and a VTC is a velo tout chemin - or road bike. In Spain, the B in BTT would be for Bici - bike, and presumably the TT would also in some way denote mountain bike). We shot off down the BTT track, with Heinz going out ahead. But the track dead ended, leaving Heinz scratching his head. Meanwhile our GPS showed the road we needed basically right where we were. But exactly where? Dodie figured it out and we called Heinz back. He carried his bike over a wheat field, up an embankment, over a railing. Finally we were all on the N120, a smooth, broad, almost car free biking dream that would power us all on our way.

Heinz was a bit dismayed, because he had lost his last banana in the scramble. This could force him to stop for breakfast. No matter, we expect he is Burgos tonight, since he routinely goes over 100 km. This left us to drift along in the direction of Najera.

Najera is a slightly interesting town, squeezed between a river and some unique red sandstone cliffs. We arrived on the other side of the river from the old town, but were gratified to find a market underway. It was quite small and lacked key things like much cheese, and any bakery. But there were some olives and vegetables including giant red peppers. Something we had not seen before was serious piles of heavily salted fish. Going over the bridge brought us to the several old town streets. The major attraction there was the Franciscan Monastery of Santa Maria la Real. This turned out to have an admission price of 6 euros, enough to scare us off. But taped to a wall was a mildly interesting strip map with drawings of all the major churches along the Camino. I asked the cashier where I might get a copy of this, which looked like typical tourist information fare. 6 euros was the reply. Ok, we left the greedy Franciscans and exited the town.

Najera is known for furniture. In the semi industrial lead in to town there were dozens of furniture outlets and factories

This pilgrim menu in front of a restaurant provides good translations. The dishes on offer are the standard fare fed to pilgrims along the route.

Just a cute dog in the street. a dog is a 'perro"

Way in the distance, a stork. Used extreme telephoto to get this shot, so did not realize the stork was posing with his backside

Back on the N120 it was smooth sailing, except that you do not usually sail continuously uphill. No matter, we could do it. We could see how in the heat of summer the route here could be a trial, since there was nothing along it. All we had to look at were the dead - frosted vines - a sure disaster for the vaunted Rioja wines. The road was deserted because of the parallel autoroute, and we could see the effect in abandoned gas stations. The whole scene was reminiscent of rural Texas. Eventually the road turned down to Santo Domingo.

We rolled up to the cathedral and paused to check in which direction our Hostal la Catedral might be. A lady who was part of a tour group standing front of the cathedral approached us and said a bunch of stuff in Spanish. We explained that we would need English. "English" she repeated, in a way that made us think she knew the language. But no, she continued to babble in Spanish. So another lady stepped into the breach. She did speak English and we showed her the address we were looking for. "That's in another city" she opined. You know what, ladies, just let us muddle through on our own.

The hostal was just around the corner, but the typically small door was locked. We pressed the buzzer and over the intercom came a rather irritated "Si??". We have a booking, we informed the intercom. After a while (long while) a man appeared and ushered us in. From there it was ok (it's a good feeling to have booking.com with the facts in black and white on hand). The bikes went into a garage down the street, and the man gave me the keys to it, so we could leave early. I hope I remember which of the many doors is the one!

Since we were early in the day we could go out for a look at the sights. That amounts basically to the cathedral. The cathedral was started by Domingo Garcia around 1040, when Garcia started a career of helping pilgrims on the Camino. He built a bridge across the Oja river, a hospital, roads, and a church. He died in 1109, but followers continued his work. The construction of the actual cathedral began in 1158 and all kinds of major works continued on the place until 1958.

That is the story of Santo Domingo, and certainly he got the town named after him. But the story that has had an equivalent impact on the town culture is about a miracle attributed to Domingo but involving a German pilgrim. The German was doing the Walk with his parents (sometime before 1350!) and was in town when the innkeeper's daughter fell in love with him. He rejectd her advances and in revenge she placed a silver mug in his luggage and accused him of theft. The penalty for that was hanging, and that was what happened. The boy's parents continued to Santiago, and began the return trip. On stopping in here to visit the grave of their dead son, they found him still alive and still hanging in the gallows. The boy said that Santo Domingo had brought him back to life, and he asked his parents to go to the mayor's house and ask him to take the son down. The mayor would not believe the story and said that boy is as alive as these two roast chickens I am about to eat. With that, the chickens came to life, sprouted feathers, and the rooster began to crow. After that the town was known as Santo Domingo of the Way, where the roosters crow after being roasted.

That's the story. The result is that chicken images are all over town, and in the cathedral are two live chickens in a holy and heavily decorated cage.

In the Cicerone guide book, the fact that there is a charge for admission to the cathedral is decried, with the words "you may be put out at having to pay to see two scraggy fowls in a church". Wow, Cicerone, so far off the mark! First of all, the chickens were not scraggy but very nice. But more importantly, the cathedral is much larger than it appears from the square in front - very much larger. And it is totally stuffed with magnificent art, relics, statues, and archeological finds. It is much more like a large museum than a church, and in fact they refer to their "permanent collection". Plus not only can you get an audio guide, but there are screens in front of many displays explaining what they are. We walked around and around until Dodie's knees gave out.

Once outside we found a grocery store and tried to find food for the next three meals. In the street, of course, pilgrims/walkers were filtering by. One of these was Annie, from Australia. Like Dodie, walking with two sticks and limping. The two ladies stopped to commiserate, and Dodie the nurse had a crack at Annie's problem. Annie's foot had given out on the trail, and she was carrying a mixed bag of treasures from the pharmacy down the street: ibuprophen cream, elastic tape, ibuprophen tablets, water, and potato chips. Her foot had already been wrapped by a doctor in the previous town. Dodie gave her advice about how to unwrap/wrap, how to wash, and so forth, and sent her to "our" grocery store for some real food. Meanwhile a German walker stopped. He had the same foot problem, and hobbled off with Annie to maybe both try the same solutions.

We hobbled off to prepare some food in our room and be ready for an early start tomorrow. We are actually not targeting a long (far) day, but it seems to be a lot of uphill to Burgos.

Dodie has heard that on the Camino, the first week is for the body, the second week is for the mind, the third week is for the soul, and the fourth week is all uphill. Hey, we are just in week two. What gives?

Dead or at least no production this year vines

A stylized pilgrim sculpture over the autoroute

Misc Camino (and chicken) stuff in a store window

Mainly I was intrigued by the football style helmet

A represention of St James. Do you notice how much he looks like Steve?

A hall of displays. The cathedral had really a lot of such displays

Roman pottery artifact - one of very many archeological pieces

A study in the revisions to the tower ove time

Finally, a gift shop. I like these rather stern looking football chickens.

These Santo Domingo clocks have no cuckoo function. I am sure something could have been worked out to use the chickens.

Dodie and Annie, from Australia - with a bad foot.

Today's ride: 41 km (25 miles)
Total: 1,664 km (1,033 miles)

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