The Camino de Santiago

Back in Mediaeval times when pilgrimages were all the rage The Way of St James, El Camino de Santiago, was considered to be right up there with Rome and Jerusalem as a top notch destination.

By the 1980s there were only a few peple who still followed one of the several routes that all end at the huge stone pile that is the Cathedral at Santiago de Compostela where the bones of St James the Great (one of the original 12 disciples) are said to lay. But at the end of the 80s some clever promotion revitalised the route which is now heaving with Christians and hikers keen to share the fellowship of walking the route. One of the official "passports", the Credencial, serves both as a record of the journey and a way of obtaining cheap accommodation along the way. Pilgrims only have to walk 100kms or cycle 250kms to be able to exchange their Credencial for a certificate called the Compostela once they get to the Pilgrim's Office in Santiago but most of them look to have walked a lot farther than the minimum.

One of our pals, Pepa, is still doing the Camino as I type. She started at Roncesvalles on the French/Spanish border and Santiago is about 800kms down the road in Galicia.

We kept crossing the Camino as we drove between Pamplona and Burgos and we saw lots of the Pilgrims with their sticks and conch shell symbols.

Strapped to his 'orse

I think that the bit at the end of El Cid where Sophia Loren gazes on as Charlton Heston is strapped onto his horse and rides out to defeat Herbert Lom's Moorish army single handed is a bit of a hoot. The real "El Cid Campeador", Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar by name was possibly just a little bit less honourable than Charlton. He must have done something that King Alonso VI didn't like anyway because he was exiled by him and Rodrigo ended up doing a bit of mercenary work for both Christain and Moorish bosses.

El Cid was born just outside Burgos. Our pal Jeremy has a flat in El Cid Campeador Avenue in Burgos. My guess is you can get Campeador sandwiches and Cid scrapbooks. Burgos is a lovely city with big stone buildings and a very cosmopolitan feel though it does have a reputation for being a bit parky in winter.

Castillo de Loarre

Spain had a bit of a problem with the Muslims back in the 8th Century ( Or the first Century in the Islamic Calendar). These Moors were stopped from sweeping through Europe by Charles Martel at the Battle of Tours in 732 and from then on the Spanish slowly pushed them back until the last city in Muslim hands, Granada, was recaptured in 1492 (When Cloumbus sailed acrosss the Ocean Blue).

We popped into have a look at Loarre Castle where the, one time, King of Aragon, Sancho used it as a base to harry the Moors. It was quite an impressive little spot.

Zaragoza

We saw a couple of cities as well as some trees when we went on our hols. This is a street in Zaragoza which is just chock a block with impressive buildings. Mind you a gin and tonic in one of the cafes on this street cost what I earn in an hour and about twice as much as it would in a bar back in Culebron (if there were a bar).

No more worries for a week or two

We had a bit of a holiday. Unlike Cliff, Hank, Bruce and the rest we didn't have a double decker and we didn't get away for a week or two. But amongst the places we went was the Ordesa National Park which is in the Pyrenees. Maggie and I didn't walk very far - maybe six or seven kilometres - but the place looked pretty good and we felt very virtuous as we toiled along woodland paths.

Interesting Spot

We'd read about a place called Alcala del Jucar in the region of Castilla La Mancha. It's only about 135kms from us so we thought we'd go and have a look.

Amazing place; there's a deep limestone gorge produced by the river Jucar and the town has been built by burrowing into the walls of the gorge so, despite their normal looking facades, each of the houses is actually a cave dug into the cliffs. The houses spiral up the cliff, fronted by narrow streets that climb to the castle on top of the hill. The only motorised transport in most of the town is mopeds that scurry up and down the steps though we were passed by one young bloke driving a dumper truck!

Nit de l'Alba

Elche, one of our local cities, is famous for its palm forest and for its mystery plays. Well, famous enough for them to be given World Heritage status anyway.

The mystery plays are on at the moment. Famous as they may be what the punters actually turn out for is the Night of Dawn (nit de l'alba).

From 11.15pm until close to midnight on the 13th August tons of fireworks are fired into the air. The noise is deafening. The sky crackles with light. The air is heavy with smoke. Rocket sticks and sparks shower down all over the city and everyone old enough to set fire to any sort of firework joins in before, during or after the main event. As the whizz bangs die away the power in the centre of the city is turned off, the streets go dark, and the grand finale begins. A choir sings out and, as their voices fade away, the tower of the Basilica is used as a launch pad for one gigantic firework that sends a column of flame hundreds of metres into the air. The show must be over.

But no it isn't. Young people now start to appear dressed in camouflage gear or boiler suits. Despite temperatures in the high twenties they wear gloves and balaclavas and then, in streets, specially set aside for the purpose, these young people set about fighting other groups of similarly dressed young people - their weapons, of course, are fireworks. The locals and tourists gawp.

Getting a drink

The system in Spanish bars and café's is pretty straightforward. You sit at a table, someone comes to serve you, you order your drinks and maybe a snack, you call them over if you want more, you call them over to pay the bill and, when you've paid you go and do something else. Occasionally the person who serves the drinks will leave a chit to tell you what you owe but it's unusual to be expected to pay there and then though it does happen in busy cafés especially in tourist areas.

If you sit or order at the bar then you are generally expected to stay at the bar though it's quite normal to ask at the bar and then move to a table where the person will deliver your drinks etc. The difference is that there is usually a small extra charge if you are served at a table so ordering at the bar and then carrying your drinks to the table can be seen as being a bit cheeky. Even at the bar you settle your bill at the end of the session though, sometimes, if a place is busy, say in a late night music bar, they will expect you to pay as you order your drinks so you don't get lost in the crowd.

At events there is often a system where you go to a ticket desk, tell them what you want and they give you tickets for the drinks and take your money. You then go to the bar and hand over your tickets in return for the drinks.

Tipping is usually limited to the small change left over from a transaction - so if your coffee and beer costs 1.85€ then the 15 cents is the tip. If you prefer to pay on percentage then 5% is acceptable and 10% is generous.

It can all go hideously wrong of course the most common problem being to get the waiter/waitress back to provide you with a second round or to get them to take your money.

More on the Pinoso Fiesta

EL Pinos is the Valencian name for the town

There are fairground rides


Stalls

Free beer

Free food

A firework display with no display; just lots of noise

And they do the washing up

All for a better life

Spaniards, in my opinion, are even more racist than Britons. Traditionally your average Spaniard has picked on the Gypsies but now with nearly 9% of the Spanish population made up of first generation immigrants (Moroccans and Ecuadorians out in front) they have a new target and immigration is a big topic of conversation and one of the two "political" things that worries Spaniards most; the other is unemployment.

There is a wave of people heading for Spain. The southern tip of mainland Spain is just seven miles from Africa, there is a land border with Morocco and the Canary Islands are just off the coast of Western Sahara. Spain is part of the EU - f you can get into Spain then France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and even the UK are possible though Spain's thriving hidden economy makes it a good destination in itself.

People from the Gambia, Mali, Nigeria, Chad, Guinea, Ghana, Uganda, Sudan, Benin, Niger, Sierra Leone, Cameroon, Senegal, Ivory Coast, Equatorial Guinea and Eritrea have all turned up in the Canary Islands recently having made the hazardous crossing in small boats called Cayucos. It's a regular news story showing the coastguard transferring stunned looking Africans from their overcrowded, and often, sinking boats to the safety of the the Guardia Civil launches.

A Cayuco turned up on one of the holiday beaches of Tenerife the other day. The coastguard had failed to intercept it and lots of the Africans on board were in a bad way with several of them suffering from hypothermia. Bikini and swimming trunk clad Spaniards rushed to the waters edge offering water and food and wrapping people in their beach towels to warm them up.

Barraca

The Pinoso Festival started last night. Over the next eight days as well as the "permanent" market and fairground there are a number of one off events ranging from big name teen bands (Estopa) through bull running and on to giant free paellas in the street. Most of the town centre is closed to traffic.

César, one of the people who works on the local telly, had been chosen as the Prégon - a sort of key note speaker and town crier rolled into one - he made a speech about how wonderful Pinoso and its people were and, when he'd done, the lights decorating the town were turned on and all the big wigs processed through the town heading for the town gardens where four dance troupes from all over Spain were due to do their stuff.

We abandoned them at that point and had a stroll through the stalls and up to the fairground, watched the firework display, had a free game of bingo and greeted nearly every Spaniard we know in the area. Compelled by our sense of duty we decided to watch at least one of the dance troupes. The team on stage looked as though they may have been from Galicia but, fortunately, we never found out as we bumped into my bosses.

Julie likes to dance; she has been a professional dancer and a bit of a TV celeb, that partly explains the urge. She suggested we went to Beguts, which means drunkard in Valenciano. Beguts is a Barraca - the dictionary definition of barraca is a hut or a shed but here what it means in this context is something closer to a warehouse party. The organisers take a very basic building, bung in a huge sound system and then pump out recorded and live music from about midnight till 8 in the morning.

Maggie's feet were aching before we got there. I'm just old. So as we dutifully trotted into this breezeblock compound, where the noise level was just right to make me deaf for a week, I spotted a portaloo, a gravel floor and an assorted group of young people who should been tucked up in bed after a nice cup of Ovaltine. My heart sank. A quick watch check revealed it was only about 1.30am; the night was still young. There was a bar though, and as Charlie pointed out, the organisers had made a point of putting good looking young women on the cash desk to help persuade young men to buy more drink. Old men do not need persuading to spend their hard earned cash on alcohol.

I felt better with a glass in my hand. We took up our position on the edge of the action. Jules shimmied a bit, Maggie did her best to join in. But as the night wore on the atmosphere amongst the crowd remained calm and friendly, the music seemed to become more tuneful and the night was warm. We moved closer to the action, we got another drink, we settled in. A drummer and singer (who may have been a man in my opinion despite wearing a frock) did their stuff. They were excellent. We left early, about 3.30am, to get some chips.

Not a bad start to the Fiesta and just a tad different to the Huntingdon Carnival