THE TWENTY-SECOND DAY

“If you wish to arrive, never stop on the Way,
One must from light to light forever forward strain.”

____ Angelus Silesius, The Cherubic Wanderer[i]




Through Riego de Ambrós
(920 m.)

Forests of Sweet Chestnut into

El Acebo rises out of the green brushland of the río Meruelo. That river is fed by the río Grande and the río Pequeño, and a series of arroyos that wrinkle the landscape were one to look at it from some great height: the arroyos Duque, Alantio, Prestadura, Santa Catalina. The land, while rich and green, is not for large-scale farming because it is so broken up by hills and streams. It was bitterly cold when we departed the town in the morning. Rainfall during the night had left all things damp; the rain, thankfully, had ceased by morning.
We traveled on the carretera and then off on foot trails, downhill almost all the way into the town of Riego de Ambrós. As we walked through the town, dogs—confined by fences on the left and on the right of the path—barked violently at us. The homes here looked solid, well-tended, with black slate roofs. Past the town the path veered right into an alley and away from the road. It led us down a hill and onto a dirt path, which, because of the night rain, had turned muddy. In the dark I was unable to detect puddles, and stepped in some cold mud. Walking these trails, we passed through forests of chestnut, contorted and disfigured by the elements. The trees appeared as if they were aged warriors suffering from the wounds of their valiant and reckless youth.

From the town of Riego de Ambrós we descended to the narrow valley of the arroyo Prado Mangas, and from there into the basin of the río de la Pretadura. Finally, we made it to the village of Molinaseca, which sat happily at the edge of the río Meruelo. The buildings of the town of Molinaseca were of gray stone, and the dwellings, which were emblazoned with coats-of-arms, were covered with roofs tiled with black slate. Before we reached the town proper, we passed on our right an old hermitage on the way to ruin if not already there—the distinction is sometimes fine—the santuario de las Angustias. We crossed the Muruelo River by way of a medieval bridge, the puente de Molinaseca, and were deposited by it at a street called the calle Real. There was a church there dedicated to St. Nicolas. Further on we passed a hermitage dedicated to San Roque. The churches have steeples with metal roofs. The town looked more French than Spanish. The dawn had come as we walked into Molinaseca, and we knew cafés would be open at this hour.
Molinaseca
(595 m.)
The town of Molinaseca has many cafés, but most were closed as it was Sunday. We found one that faced the plaza. In the plaza was a cross on a column, a cruceiro. The café was open, and we headed for its promised warmth, which beckoned us though the light of its open doors. A couple of cheery Spanish women took good care of us. We broke the morning fast.

Sicca-molina
Across the stream of Valde-garcía into Campo

Over the río Boeza via the Puente Mascarón


After breakfast, we left Molinaseca and traveled onwards, following the lead of the Meruelo River for a couple of kilometers, after which we bore southwards toward Campo. Vineyards abounded.
We came upon a fork in the Camino: either way took you into Ponferrada according to our guides. We decided—on a whim and not much more—to bear left crossing the arroyo Valdegareta into the town of Campo. We passed by the old hermitage of Santo Cristo, on our left, and then approached the río Boeza. The road thus led into San Esteban de Valdueza, a suburb of Ponferrada, and to the puente Mascarón, which was our means across the Boeza River and our means of entry into Ponferrada. The sun was out by now and it was cloudless. The air still remained crisply cold. The pilgrim shivers in the shade. But the day was buoyant and the route cheery, for it abounded with cherry trees whose boughs weighed heavy with the bright red drupes. Unfortunately, all the branches that were accessible to us without trespass had been picked clean by earlier passing pilgrims.
I I I




Into Pon-ferrada

O
Castillo del Temple

On the Way: Ponferrada
Ponferrada sits in the junction of the Boeza and Sil rivers, but the pilgrim enters it from the east before the rivers join further south. Once past the puente Mascarón we went left on the calle Bajada de San Andrés, until we reached the calle del Hospital. We took a right on this street, and it led us to the church of St. Andrew and the Templar Castle, the wonder of Ponferrada.




Pons Ferratus
The castle of the Templars originates from a grant of Ferdinand II of León, who gave the town to the Templars in 1185. As a result of the order’s controversial suppression, the knights were expelled from the town in 1312. The Templar castle remained, however, and has served Spain in different ways: as a castle proper, a palace, a monastery, and now as a tourist attraction. In 1811 the French vandalized this place, and yet it still reeks of the medieval and the knight. It has all those things we expect from a good, solid castle: turrets and tower, machicolations, and pointed merlons and embrasures which made up its crenellations. Without, the castle is immense in size; it is in quite good shape. Within the castle is empty of the stuff that gave it life. Gone is the faith and love of Christ of the warrior-monks, motive of both the Templar’s charity and sword. There were no Templar banners flying: the Beau Seant of black and white was nowhere raised. Oh Templar, fair and favorable to the friend of Christ, but black and terrible to Christ’s foe, where have you gone?
I I I

As we walked into the town of Ponferrada the bells of the Basilica of Our Lady of the Encina began to peal. It was eleven o’clock, and Mass was beginning. We hurried there to meet our Sunday obligation. As I hurried to Mass, I walked by some graffiti which read, “Religión = Propaganda.” No, I thought, religion does not mean that. Religion comes from religere, which means to bind up again. It is how we tie ourselves to Reality, to the Truth, to the I Am Who Am. Tying ourselves to Truth is the opposite of propaganda. The fool who had so defaced the walls of his town, was a fool thrice over: in civics, etymology, and theology. Had I had time and the disposition (and a can of spray paint) I would have written underneath: Este graffiti es Propaganda.
I I I


N
Basilica de la Encina





At the basilica of Nuestra Señora de la Encina I prayed before Our Lady of the Holm Oak, patroness of the Bierzo. She—whose statue was found it is said hidden within the heart of a holm oak tree or encina—is now here in a place of pride above the main altar. Perhaps a Visgothic priest hid her in an oak as he sought escape from an impending moorish razzia, or raid. Perhaps it is a pious tale, a fabricated legend. In any event, whether the story that she was found in an oak tree is true or not, it is true that she has blessed these good people with fair and fecund country. And since I intended to partake in the fruits of the Bierzo valley, I owed God and her thanks for these fruits of earth. Dignum et justum est. It is a wicked and loathsome thing to be an ingrate, and so I thanked God, His Son, and Mary of the Live Oak, for the fruits of the earth in this most wondrous valley of the Bierzo.
After Mass we were hungry, everything near the Basilica appeared closed. So we passed by the Templar castle again and crossed the River Sil to find a café at which to eat. There we had a tortilla and received directions about how to depart town.
I I I



On the Way: Magic and Ponferrada
There at the café, within sight of the great Templar castle, I recalled the strange and heterodox tales of Paulo Coehlo and the bizarre initiation ceremonies he recounts in his book on the Camino. I also remembered the weird recountings of Shirley MacClaine’s Camino during her stay in Ponferrada. My heart went out to my fellow pilgrims Shirley and Paulo as I lounged in Ponferrada. I wondered how it was they could be so tone deaf to the orthodox Catholic and Christian hymnody that is captured and petrified in the portals and tympana of each Romanesque church, told in each legend, and scribbled into the Codex Calixtinus. It is the idée fixe of the Way. The genie of the Gospel is thus captured on the stones and parchment on the Way. As I thought of these things, I was captured by a muse (not a very good one, but a muse nevertheless; and one should never spurn a muse) and so I penned these lines.
Oh Paulo, Oh Shirley, pilgrims to Santiago,
On the Camino, but took a wrong turn.
For the spirit you heard goes by the name of Mago,
What you embraced, you were meant to spurn.

Priscillian’s blind minions you followed as guide,
Damned spirits chanting Hermogenist spell,
Sirens androgynous, priapic, venereal. They lied!
Metempsychic cagos from the privies of Hell.

Oh Paulo, Oh Shirley, pilgrims to Santiago,
It’s never too late to take the way home.
But you must shun the magic, about face, and go
West to St. James and the dogma of Rome.

I I I





Depart Pon-ferrada over the río Sil across the Puente del Ferrado

On the Way: Ponferrada to Cacabelos
Ponferrada is named after the iron-reinforced bridge built there by Bishop Osmundo of Astorga at the end of the 11th century, for pons ferrata means iron bridge in Latin. We left the town, I suppose appropriately, through the bridge that gave the town its name and past the church of St. Peter, also built by Bishop Osmundo. The river we crossed was the Sil, and it joins with the Boeza river just below us. In the merger, it is the Sil that survives. We turned right off the calle San Pedro onto the avenida Huertas del Sacramento which merges into the avenida de la Libertad, and then out of Ponferrada through an industrial part of the town and what were once separate towns but now are suburbs of Ponferrada.

Through Compos-tilla

By Colum-brianos

Into Fuentes Nuevas

We crossed the suburb of Compostilla, passing by the power station of Ponferrada as we went uphill and around a curve. We walked by a hermitage and a well-kept residential area into the town of Columbrianos. From Columbrianos we took a paved road to Fuentes Nuevas, which we passed through by means of a street called the calle Real. On the left of the town was the hermitage of Campo del Divino Cristo. In the middle is the parish church. On the far end of town, a cemetery. Throughout it all are multiple vegetable gardens, all gated and fenced, and all fed with water from an irrigation system that runs along the road.





Campo-naraya

Descend the Hill of San Bartolo, through vinyards,

Once past Fuentes Nuevas and the ermita del Campo del Divino Cristo, we came upon Camponaraya, which is by the N-006-A carretera and between the río Requera and the río Nayara. We stopped at a café in town and had some soft drinks and olives. As we rested our feet, I looked around and watched the men of the town drink and play cards. They were all dressed alike, for all wore dark pants and short-sleeved white shirts. Only their drinks and the amount of gray in their hair varied. Oh yes, and their hands were different.
We left the café and traveled through the town. Past the arroyo Requer, the Camino descended in the vale between three hills, across the arroyo Magaz and the arroyo Valdemagaz into Cacabelos.
The land was fertile. Tobacco was grown here, as were onions, potatoes, tomatoes, melon, watermelon, cabbage, and lettuce. Orchards of cherry trees, apple trees, and pear trees abound. Only the cherries were ripe. The apples and pears are small and green as we walked by them. We also walked by some wonderful vineyards, that were full of the promise of good wine.
As we crossed into Cacabelos, we walked across a bridge over the carretera, which must have been fairly new, for it did not appear on any of our guides. At the end of the bridge we met Fred, a pilgrim who had been walking from Le Puy in France, where he had started the pilgrimage. He was Swiss. In his late 50s, Fred sold his orthopedic prosthesis store and decided to enter into a second career as a producer of videos. His English was fair, but limited and grammatically weak. But he spoke German well, and so what he was not able to convey in English he conveyed in German; what I was unable to convey in German, I conveyed in English. We walked with Eric into Cacabelos and, later than evening, had a pleasant dinner with him.
Carca-vellus



But Catholic men that live upon wine are deep in the water, and frank, and fine; Wherever I travel I find it so, Benedi-camus Domino.
(Belloc)

toward Cacabelos

Through Pieros by the Castro de Ventosa
In Cacabelos the Camino took us to the plaza of San Lázaro and its fountain. A hermitage dedicated to the saint (St. Lawrence) stood here once, but it does not any longer and so, but for the name of the plaza, there is no longer proof of the people’s devotion to the holy deacon and martyr. The town had a single-steepled stone church, dedicated to the Virgin, on a street of like name. It had a typically artesonado (panelled) ceiling, nave and aisles, and King describes it as “of the land and the town, homely as bread.”[ii]
The dinner at the mesón across the street from the hostal where we stayed was memorable. I had Gallegan-style soup: a broth-based soup, with beans, potatoes, and Galician cabbage. The main course was a mixture of sausage and pork chops. It would have given an Orthodox Jew, a Muslim, a Priscillian, or a modern vegetarian shivers. Only a Christian (who is not a Carmelite) could eat it with a clear conscience. Between the three of us, we consumed great quantities of wine. In times past, the wine here was strong and burned the sensitive gullet of some pilgrims. The German pilgrim, Hermann Künig, complained that the wine in this region on the way to Villafranca gave some pilgrims heartburn like the flame of a candle:
Darnach hastu 5 myl gen Willefrancken
Da drinck den wyn mit klugen gedancken
Dan er bornet manchem abe syn hertz
Das er ussgeht als ein kertz.[iii]

But the wine has bettered since the days of the pilger Künig and his Wallfahrt, or our palate was strong, for the wine in the area was fine, and not strong. It did not burn, yet it gave great warmth and yielded happy hearts. And with thankful hearts we three pilgrims from three different lands but common goal quaffed down goodly portions of wine from a land not our own, but withal within the limits of Christian and peregrine moderation.
After dining, Fred showed us his sketches of pen and ink and watercolor. They were sketches of the memorable places he had seen since Le Puy. He told us of his great adventures. He told us of the time he stayed in a French Abbey which had a gites d'étape or refugios that ministered to pilgrims. He took a wrong turn in those old halls in the vast medieval structure and surprised some cloistered nuns who frenetically ushered him out of the nunnery. He also told us of the time he slept in the barn of a French farmer, and made a bed between the farmer’s dog and the farmer’s pig.
We talked late into the evening and agreed to leave Cacabelos and walk to Villafranca together. We also agreed that, in view of the lateness of the hour when we split up, we would depart a little later than our usual 5:00 a.m.

k
[i] Angelus Silesius, The Cherubic Wanderer (3:232), p. 81 (Classics of Western Spirituality, Paulist Press, New York, 1986, transl. Maria Shrady).
[ii] King, II.363-64.
[iii] Aebli, Santiago, p. 208.