May 7th, 2017
Deba to Ziortza
Km walked: 31
Km total: 100
We walked inland today, up and over large mountains and through densely forested woods. The sea lay out of sight to the north, and instead we saw goats and sheep and horses, eating grass and laying in the sun under skies too blue and clouds as white and puffy as cotton.
The Camino Del Norte is a pleasant trail. It meanders along and surprises you when you least expect it. It’s tough on the feet, as one can expect from all the paved walking, but it is manageable and forgivable. There was a lot of dirt paths today which were nice, and streams that ran across and paralleled them, trickling away down mountainsides and into larger streams that lead to small towns.
The towns had old and new buildings, and churches with bell towers that rang at the top of the hour, and people sitting outside in plazas drinking wine in the sun. It was Sunday and everyone was out, walking their dogs and playing with their kids, barbecuing in the park and laughing, unwinding before the week recycles itself and Monday comes again, fresh with the promise of work and responsibilities and waking up early.
We ended the day at an old monastery in Ziortza. There are monks here and they let pilgrims stay the night in a few rooms they have set aside. The monastery is old stone and brass and it is quiet here. Walking through the inside your breath echoes against the walls and you can hear your heart beat slowly in your chest. It feels sacred and old, generations of religious devotion tucked away in a hillside overlooking lime green valleys and and tall pines, the bluest skies and the soft glow of the sun that turns everything gold.
There is peace here and that is good. There should be more places in the world like this one. We attended prayer in the church at 7:30 and listened to the monks sing. Their voices rang soft and mellow through the church. Old statues and paintings laced with gold hung holy in back of the alter. Candles danced and flickered as the waning sunlight shifted through a concrete opening near the top of the steeple, fractioning rays of energy into the dark air.
After prayer we had a meal together, us and 10 other pilgrims. We scooped pasta and oil from a metal pot and broke baguettes with our hands to scoop up the sauce. There were people from Spain and Germany and Italy and Finland and other places too. Everyone seemed to know at least two languages and maybe even three, except for us. We knew only one and a handful of words in Spanish. But that was okay. We listened to words we couldn’t understand. We knew what was going on well enough. Sometimes that’s all that really matters anyway. Sometimes that’s better than knowing everything that’s said.
