The farther the train carried us from Barcelona, the more this felt
like Spain. Not Hemmingway’s Spain
– that’s long gone – but the cityscape we had grown used to changed to fields
of wheat, vegetables, grapes and fruit trees and small towns with churches and
the ruins of feudal castles. As
the Barcelonans got off and were replaced by locals and we began to hear
Spanish, not Catalan.
The train stopped in Tafalla, not Pamplona. Someone had apparently been run over on
the tracks ahead and no one knew when we could proceed so we were bused the
rest of the way. No problem; we
had no real plans except to find a hotel.
Which isn’t as easy as it seems in Pamplona, not a reasonably priced
one at least.
Pamplona was made famous in the US by Ernest Hemmingway in The Sun
Also Rises, and is the site of the “running of the bulls.” But the city has been know since the 9th
Century as the first stop on the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela, the Way
of Saint James. Millions of
pilgrims including El Cid, Louis VII and St. Frances of Assisi have followed
the “route of forgiveness,” one of Christianity’s three great pilgrimage
destinations along with Rome and the Holy Land. And they are still coming. And going. The
route from Roncesvalles to Santiago de Compostela takes from four to six weeks
to walk. I was joking with a guy on the bus and said he was cheating. He replied, "It's a miracle! One day I am in Pamplona and the next I find myself in Ponferrada." It will be one hell of a miracle for us; Pamplona to Santiago de Compostela without actually setting foot on the trail.
Pamplona's other event, the running of the bulls, opens a week of testosterone filled drunkenness that is Pamplona’s
bull fights in July. Hemmingway believed understanding the bullfight was integral to
understanding Spain. And manhood. I
am not as macho as Papa (who is?) and the bull fights we have seen on Mexican TV are pretty brutal not to
mention unfair – to the bull at least.
The only time the bull is in charge is when they chase the brave,
foolish, and drunken to the arena early each morning, balls swinging, horns gouging
and snot flowing. The men also have snot flowing and blood, too, but their balls are tucked up tight.
