Lost and Found on the Camino de Santiago: Part 4

The scallop shell Luis gave me just before we left the house clanked against the side of the bus. I had my own shell now, just like the one I had seen on all the websites and at the Ultreia bar. Because he was my first caretaker on this path, Luis wanted to be the one who gave me the shell to attach to my pack. These shells are a symbol of the Camino—their lines converge at one point on the base. Although each person’s journey may have a different starting point, they connect along the way and become one in Santiago de Compostela.

“The shell is also a reminder that all people are fragile and broken, but beautiful and we all belong to one another.” 

“What?”

“You’ll see.” 

He handed me a ham and egg sandwich just before we stepped into the bus. “Make sure you always eat well.” 

I opened the backpack, grabbed my journal, and a pen.

“Good luck Miguel. I hope you find what you are looking for. Buen Camino,” he said. 

We hugged. 

“Gracias.” 

I walked up and into the bus, looking for seat 33. It was only 7:55 in the morning. I looked at the other passengers and seemed to be the only pilgrim. At least it felt that way. I hadn’t seen anyone loading a backpack like mine onto the bus. The bus engine wailed as it climbed out of the underground bus station and into the heart of the city. The golden light of early morning colored the gaps between the tall buildings and filled the bus as we drove out of the city.

The sun was slowly rising over Madrid. The Camino was only about six hours away, and tomorrow I would be walking. Only God knew what it would bring, what lessons it held and what it would ask. I leafed through the guidebook, looked at the pictures and traced the path with my index finger, following the climbs and descents.

Will I walk alone most of the way or will I make friends? Can I do it in twenty-five days? Could I finally leave all the pain from the previous year? Can I heal? 

I remembered a picture my roommate took of me in Prague on a gray, rainy Sunday, on one of the few days we walked around together. My eyes were sad and I remember thinking, “What’s wrong? Why don’t you smile more?” Too many of my pictures looked that way. I knew why I didn’t smile anymore. I had thought that no matter what happened, despite all the mistakes, God’s providence would bring us together. All I had imagined, all I had dreamt, was gone. I opened my journal and wrote: 

Beatrice, I’ve said goodbye to you over and over in my heart and my mind, attempting to, working to, wanting to convince myself that you are gone. Perhaps one day I will accept it. I hope this walk will be a step in that direction and lead to forgiveness, and a normal life. That is all I ask. I will give myself to you Camino. 

My eyes grew heavy, and I lay my head against the window. The azure and auburn divide between the city and the sky blended into wide farmland, open roads with long, white brushstroke clouds running parallel to the highway. I peeled the aluminum foil from the sandwich. The earth was gold in some patches, green with vegetation in others, unlike the land near Madrid. Giant white windmills spun in the distance, standards of the modern thirst for energy on ancient mountains. The cool wind made waves in the fields of flowers and wheat that lined the land closest to the road. The world was mostly silent save the cars that zipped by on occasion, and the murmur of the engine. I closed my eyes again, but instead of sleep I thought about how cool it seemed up here and how unprepared I was for any type of chill. 

In Pamplona that peace of the bus was replaced by putrid diesel exhaust that filled my mouth as I stepped onto the pavement. A woman sitting in the distance also had a scallop shell hanging from her blue backpack. She was writing. I was in the right place.

I grabbed my pack from the compartment, strapped it on, and followed a pair of pilgrims over to the ticket window for tickets to Roncesvalles—waited, handed the cash to the attendant, and then looked for a place to eat. There was nothing appetizing in the station, just a few magazine stands and what seemed like a third-rate restaurant. There wasn’t much outside either, save a small shop not far from the station, and most places were closed. It was only 2:00 pm, siesta time. The bus was scheduled to leave at 4:00, but I didn’t want to venture into the city because I still felt awkward walking around looking like some kind of out-of-place nature enthusiast. A group of old men in black berets sunned themselves and talked with such patience and in harmony with the slow passage of time that the two hours felt like they dripped away drop by drop.  

When the bus arrived, the mass of pilgrims swelled, then swarmed it. The driver stepped out and made all of us store our packs underneath and then form something that resembled a line. When I finally pressed my way in, I took a window seat and a redhead sat next to me—Laia from Barcelona; it was her fifth time doing the Camino. 

“Five times!”

“My daughter puts my backpack together for me.”

“Why?”

“She sees the effect it has on me. I’ll tell you, that despite the struggles, something inside you changes. It renews you, no matter what religion you are or where you come from.”

“Maybe it’s the struggles that help you change.”

“Yes, I think that’s part of it, but there is something more here. You will make friends here that you will never forget, never lose, and always feel connected to.” 

The bus climbed mountains that reminded me of Michoacán, my birthplace in México. Soft, round feminine mountains stood with taller muscular ones, all covered by a mix of bright emerald, drab olive and shadow. The mountains of Michoacán were the first I climbed to seek solace, solitude and God. The wind blew chilly like the winds of early autumn in the Midwest, just as I had feared. It was not warmer, but colder still—the alpine climate of the Pyrenees.

“Is that all you have?” Laia asked. 

“Yes.” I looked down at my paper-thin sweatshirt, embarrassed. It was more of a long-sleeved T-shirt really.

Laia shook her curly red mane, zipped open her pack and pulled out another thin sweatshirt. She handed it to me.

“Here, put this on, and when you get to the shelter, search the things other pilgrims have left behind. See if you find another sweater, jacket or another shirt.”

“Won’t you need this?”

“Don’t worry about it,” she said. “I have this jacket.” 

When we arrived at Roncesvalles and Laia stepped off the bus, I followed. It was obvious—painfully so—that I was new at this. Trailing Laia like a lost duckling made it more evident. After registering, getting our pilgrim’s passports and then the first stamp—a Roncesvalles seal and date—we claimed our beds in the vast pilgrim’s refuge, more of a cave than a building with gray, poorly lit stone walls. Medieval monastic chants—I guess they were medieval—played in the background as pilgrims ambled in and out. Some were speaking, but most sat quietly on their bunks sorting through clothes and other personal effects. Three rows of bunk beds lined the space and we were separated by sex, though you had to guess who got the middle row. I went to my side, put down my pack and asked about the items other pilgrims had left behind.

“Downstairs. By the computers.” 

I lifted boots, moved some T-shirts and an old canteen, pulled out by the collar a long sleeve shirt whose tag read XL. It’s big, but it fits. As I struggled to pull it out, the smell slapped me across the face and my head rocked back. Aged armpit! I coughed and dug around some more. No. It was the only thing my size. I held it up, examined the buttons, the sleeves, but shook my head. I’d rather be cold than smell like that. I stuffed it back in the pile and walked back outside. Looking up the road, Laia was puffing on a cigarette and offered me one as she was trying to make something out across the road. 

“Thanks, but I don’t smoke.”

“It’s my last one before I begin walking.”

Riiggght. Just like Luis. 

She looked at her watch.

“Mass begins in a few minutes.”

We had to push our way through a small crowd at the entryway. The pilgrims’ Mass had already begun. We walked in and stayed in the back on the small steps. Not many people seemed to be under thirty or even under forty. 

After the gospel reading, I sat on the steps as the back area of the church had cleared. Most people had walked out or moved into the pews. And that’s when I saw her. Wow! She was petite, thin, light skin, curly, long reddish brown hair, shapely legs. Her smile was warm and friendly. She seemed to be in her late twenties. I shook my head and looked down. Focus on the Mass! Focus on the Mass! I closed my eyes and bowed my head. People lined up for communion. Laia shrugged when I spotted her in the line. 

I was there to forget about one woman and heal, and yet another piqued my curiosity even before I began walking. After the final blessing, she hugged the man standing next to her. She’s not alone. I won’t see her again. Good. Laia touched my shoulder. 

“Let’s go to dinner,” she said. 

Laia and I snapped a few pictures of the church then walked over to a small restaurant. Pilgrims and other patrons waited outside, but we walked in right away. 

“Miguel, make sure you always eat well. No skipping meals. You’re going to burn a lot of calories. And before you leave this town in the morning pick a small stone and take it with you. You will find out why you need it later.” 

I must have seemed really young or inexperienced or scared, but for whatever reason Laia became a substitute mother. 

“Make sure you always drink plenty of water. Enjoy a beer or a glass of wine, but don’t ever drink too much.” 

Ok, mom. 

“Miguel, I am just trying to help. Some of you seem so lost and new to this. Just look at that woman over there—she looks like a lost puppy.” 

The woman wearing a green and red cotton scarf around her head didn’t just look lost, she looked frail and sick, and was flustered because a waitress could not understand her hand signs. I could tell she was from the United States. 

“She doesn’t even know castellano,” Laia said as I walked toward her. 

“Can I help you?”

“Oh, OK you speak English?”

“Yes.” 

“Good.”

“Please tell her that I want to eat.”

“Oh, sure, but you see dinner starts in about ten minutes, so we all have to wait.” 

“Is that what she was telling me?”

“I think so, I didn’t hear.”

“Oh, ok, thank you.” 

“Thank Laia, she noticed you were having trouble.” 

She walked over to Laia and said, “Thank you.”

“De nada.” 

“I’m Mary from Arizona, USA.”

“Laia de Barcelona, Cataluña. Mucho gusto.” 

“I’m Miguel from México and Chicago.” 

“Cena con nosotros,” Laia said. 

I became the interpreter between Mary and Laia and sometimes it became difficult to communicate everything being said, but it seemed that we understood why we were there, why we had come so far to walk even further and why we had to be alone in the company of strangers on their own search. It was some spiritual yearning or need that drove us. Mary’s scarf reminded me of my godmother who had battled cancer a few years before. When I returned to Mexico City from Rome, I gave her the scarf that I had received that summer. It became her standard during chemotherapy. She didn’t take it off until her hair grew back some months later. I thought Mary was ill too. 

“I cut most of my hair off as an outward sign that my heart would be in a different place during this walk,” she said, removing the scarf.

We learned, she had come to continue healing from personal difficult. Her husband had died five years earlier on this very day. They had been best friends since their days in college and his death had thrown her into a downward spiral of depression. She ended up in the hospital, but when she was released, she refused medication and instead sought a new life of creativity and spirituality. Laia spoke about her divorce and her family. Although many thoughts raced through my mind, I  did not speak of my life. 

The meal became a ceremony—the final significant act before the next morning and our first steps on this ancient path. We held hands, said grace and broke bread, ate fish and drank wine. We said “salud” every time we filled our glasses with wine as they both toasted to our loved ones, so far away. 

Afterwards, we had to zigzag around pants, socks, briefs, and bras that the cold wind had yanked off the refuge clothesline and scattered across the road. I shivered. This would be a cold night for sure. At the refuge, Laia took out her pack of cigarettes. Mary smiled. Laia passed her one and lit up.

“This is the last one, absolutely.”