1. Algemesí

The way begins. I was up and at ‘em early this morning after a good sleep.

A quick photo as I left my digs for the past three nights and it was off to the cathedral, the official starting point of the Way. 

To my delight, I discovered an arrow on the pavement just 20 metres from the cathedral. This was a relief after a rather disconcerting experience last night. I was heading out for dinner in roughly the opposite direction to the one I thought I’d be heading today and saw an arrow and camino shell painted on the road. 

I followed and more appeared and they were not going in the direction I expected. I’m not sure what Camino they are marking but I was hoping it wasn’t mine. That first arrow this morning in the direction I was expecting was comforting. More were to come.

As it turns out, this way is pretty well marked so far. You need to know where to look but with eyes trained from two previous caminos I started to see them pretty regularly, which was great when I came to a big and complex intersection. So far, I have only made one wrong turn and it felt wrong almost immediately. It has added half a kilometre to a long day but that it not too bad. 

All this reliance on signs served as fodder for today’s haiku.

Crowded city streets

Traffic, noise, people with dogs.

Eyes peeled for arrows.

Walking out of any decent sized city is much the same. The old centre gives way to less celubrious sections and the grungy hinterland and industrial areas. Most of this stuff is missed when you leave a city by fast forms of transport but it’s there, and on pilgrimage you get to walk through all of it. There is something important in this for me, it’s part of the cost of our so-called civilised way of life and it’s where a lot of people spend a lot of their lives. Here’s an example. This was the busiest bar/cafeteria in an industrial area that I have ever been into. The photo only captures one half of what was there.

 

This was my first off-road section. Hardly a wilderness path but a sign I was leaving the big smoke. Piles of broken tiles and rubbish dumped here and there, plastic bottles and the like, but it was a sign of leaving the city. More satellite industrial centres were to follow with factories, and noise.

I had to walk on this narrow wall to avoid the traffic on this road as there was no verge whatsoever. Peregrino survival tactic!

 By mid-morning the sounds and smells of the city were giving way the those of a more rural hinterland. Trucks gave way to tractors, motor bikes to bird song, crickets and the sound of water gurgling in irrigation channels beside the road, and all around me the signs of spring greeing - the new crops are appearing and the trees are leafing.

As you can see it’s pretty flat at present, in fact, I think I am a grand total of 5 metres higher than when I started this morning. It was a massive day of walking. All up I think I have walked about 40 kilometres. I was feeling pretty weary as I stumbled into the town I am staying. Relieved to be there, my concentration lapsed for a moment and I lost the yellow arrows that had so faithfully shown the way. I stumbled around for a while asking occasional passers by if they new where the turismo office was or an alberge. No one spoke English and it was pretty difficult but eventually with a gesture here and there I found my way to the alberge. As I was apporaching a guarda stopped in the middle of the road and gestured that I needed to go back a few streets to somewhere, (I couldn’t understand) for the key. I went back and with the help of a girl who spoke broken English but didn’t live in the town but who was able to speak in Spanish to a guy who did, I ended up being pointed to the police station. I walked in and was greeted by a friendly guarda who took my passport and gave me a key. He was amazed that I was from Australia, or at least I think he was as he spoke only Spanish. I walked back to the alberge with the key (free of charge) only to find Giovanni from Italy was already there. He is the only other pilgrim I have seen on this route. He had not walked as far as me so I have caught him up. He’s a veteran on his 7th camino. What a relief it is to get here, and to get showered and gear washed and hung. Here is my bed for the night. Nothing flash but it is gratis and it is more than enough.

I have found it okay walking alone and especially once it got quite out in the country. I had some interesting little interactions with people along the way - two women very worked up about a spider that had just crawled under their car, an old man who realised I was walking to Santiago and looked wistful as he spoke in racing Spanish, and so on. Once again, I have found people have been mostly friendly and helpful. At one point I was casting around for the way and I heard a whistle. I looked up and bloke over the other side of the road was pointing me in the direction I needed to go. Such was my first huge day. I am so grateful for the those who have marked this way. If I was using the guide books alone I never would have made it. Although I have worked out that droit means straight, not right, in French. Finding the way was a theme today and those who have helped to waymark this route have made it much easier for me. So often around a town the way goes somewhere totally unexpected in order to avoid a highway or railway or something. It makes for an adventure and I’ve had a great day.

I suppose I’d better go and see if I can find the arrows again, otherwise I’ll never get out of here in the morning. Mind you, by the morning my legs might be so stiff that I won’t be able to move anyway!!