Sunday, July 29, 2007

16/05/07 Barcelona to Tortosa and camp Benifallet

16/05/07

Barcelona to Tortosa and camp Benifallet

The train was quite easy and I found a guy going my way and discovered we had to change trains as Tortosa is a little inland from the coast. We pulled into Tortosa station and parted company and I took a chance and set off to the left hoping it was the way I wanted. I found a bank and as it was open, here changed some dollars for Euro they would not normally do that but as he heard my story he said he would. Now I bought a loaf of bread and a chorizo, a few runner beans and two pots of yoghurt. I had a coffee at a stall and packed the shopping in my rucksack. I headed in the direction of the river and soon came to the bridge. I took a few photos of the monument in the rivers centre and the church Iglesia del Roser that was at the end, as I crossed the river and now knew I was on my way.









'My camino has started.' I said to myself. Using my maps I worked my way through the city suburbs.
Coming out of town I found the turning to the right where the canal had to be crossed. I knew I had to travel on the canals right bank as I walked up river so I crossed and turned up river. as I did so I saw for the first time a tiny green plate on the top of meter high post in a garden, it read (Cami de Sain Jaume). So this was the Ebro camino now. Walking along the canal bank was easy as the path was wide enough for farm traffic.

I was soon getting hot though so I stopped and removed my T-shirt from under my long sleeved one and packed it in my bag. This increased the weight and I was already finding the rucksack heavy! A little later I found a cane to use as a temporary second staff and this helped as got into my normal rhythm. As I was to find on this camino always when near the canal, the path was for all intents and purposes level although I was always climbing very gradually. By the time I got to Aldover I badly needed a coffee. I had to cross the bridge to get into the village and then after finding a tiny but crowded bar and enjoying my (café con leche grande) I returned the same way and continue up stream. There was supposed to be an albergue in the old train station in Xerta but when I found it, it was boarded up and the village shops closed at this time of day too. I did find one shop open but they only sold in bulk and would not sell me a couple of potatoes. I had filled my water bottles at the last coffee stop so on finding what I thought must be the Camino in front of the old station, I set off up what had once been the railway track. The path was very good and a steady climb up into the mountains. The scenery was fine, much better than the flat canal bank had been. My small torch worked fairly well but only lit a small aria in front of me as I passed bravely through several of the old dark train tunnels. Some are very long and curve so there is no light coming in from either end in the middle! Here it is mighty black!
I tried clipping my torch to my hat as it is supposed to be but could never get it to shine in the right place, so I held it in my hand and carried the new cane staff, this worked better, I felt safer too. Just suppose I had dropped it and it went out! I did have a backup clipped on my pack that a peregrina friend had given me, but this went missing somewhere on my journey. As it started to get late I now thought about finding a camping spot. Tunnels were not any good as traffic did use this track some times. The gaps between tunnels offered either a steep drop to the river or a high bank then as I came to the next tunnel there was a bit of a view point. Here I assembled my tent with the aide of some pegs and the use of the fence and a notice board. I dined on bread and chorizo and yoghurt for a sweet. I made it twenty-two kilometres but Maisie said almost twenty, I had no idea how much I had had in that wallet but calmed Maisie by a text as I left next morning before 8am











END DAY 1 = roughly 19.6kms? (12.1 + 7.4??) Total approx. 19.6kms


17/05/07
Benifallet to 2km before Batea

Text Mike :
7.40am Good sleep First time. All's well now. Just off.

The track kept climbing at a steady rate and I started singing a song about the workers and the old steam train that must have chugged up here, it helped to remember seeing them in 1957 on my first trip to Spain! I started to sing words as they came into my head and they formed the basis of second and third verses of this poem as I walked,














Puffin
g Billy
Xerta to La Fontcada


I know, I've never been here,
but as I walk along I feel their fear.
Is it because I'm walking all alone,
in my beloved Spain, so far from home.
Were prisoners made to work hard
by a patent hatted civil guard?
Was it really like that? I cannot say
I'm just a peregrino passing on his way
As I look down into the chasm below
there's my companion, the river Ebro


My imagination rolls, I see him too
Old Puffing Billy coming through
Smoke belching out the stack
black as night now falling back
Oh! so black that belching smoke,
from dirty coal that made you choke.
Soot still stains the tunnel roof
up there still, it tells the truth
I'm walking now, the rails have gone
but I see him clear as I trudge along.

"Our sweat and blood built this line,
we cut it through and it was fine.
We worked all the day and half the night
breaking rocks with all our might.
Tunnels, bridges we cut and built.
I hear her now she's going full tilt!
Look out mate they're gonna blow!
Get clear now, don't be slow!"
My old mate died, that wasn't right
No one cared, not a cross in sight.”

As I said, I've never been here
But I did really feel his fear
as I'm walking here all alone
in tall mountains far from home.
I've seen prison gangs working hard
watched over by the civil guard!
Was here like that? I cannot say
I'm just an old peregrino on his way
It's time for me to buckle up and go
If I'm to reach my goal, Santiago

©Michael Davey 24-07-2007




I saw trains like that many years ago some even had a double deck where people could sit in the smoke. The Spanish coal burnt very badly with lots of black smoke. I never saw anyone sitting up there though I but I did see prison gangs working on the roads breaking rocks in the time of Franco.















I came out of a tunnel and below me I could see La Foncada and a small river in the gorge. There was an arrow pointing down the steep side but I stayed on the track until a little while later then turned right and down a road to the small settlement. I called out and shouted hoping to find someone to
get a coffee but to no avail. Everything was closed and not a person to be found, it was completely deserted. Backtracking to where the road crossed the stream I stopped and I read in my guidebook that here I should take a small track along this side of the stream. Seeing stone steps I took them.
After climbing a lot of these steps up and down I was back in the streambed and I mean that, I'm standing on a gravel island. A yellow arrow on a rock said I was to climb up the four feet high mud bank that was the other side of a hole filled by the running stream. The bank was undercut for the first 50cm. I'm standing on a shingle bank in the stream! Ok, how?









I stood for a few moments pondering the question. I took off my rucksack, reached across and threw it up the bank and with my right hand propped it there while clinging precariously to my longer staff! Now with one staff and the aide of a whippy scrub that was growing there I tried to climb up. My right foot had had to be in the water to push off a small stone, and was now wet! That same foot needed to get a grip on the almost vertical clay overhang that after the first 20cm or so still went up at 45 degrees or more. Twice I nearly went backwards into the water but I got the other foot behind a tuft of grass and pulled hard on the scrub and pulled myself upright, and so precariously balanced, collected my bag and poles and set off up through thick canes on an almost invisible path. I came down again and out into a clearing and could see workmen in a farm cottage garden on the terrace above me laying some concrete. I shouted out and eventually one man called to another, I think his friend could speak better Castellano and therefore understood me better. Anyway this guy pointed to the left and I found a cart track, saw a fork and the calming yellow arrow. Now I found myself climbing up a rough cart track. In what you might say was the middle of nowhere I came to a monument to the peregrinos, two huge steel cut outs of feet and a plaque in Catalan! At least I knew I was going the right way.



I climbed higher and higher up the valley. High up the pass in pines I stopped for lunch. It was cool and windy but I was sweating, I had just found a 2E coin in the mud and thought well people do walk up here sometimes! I had not seen a person since I left Xerta other than the men working on that little farm house miles back at the bottom of the valley. As I climbed higher I turned to look out across the valley and back the way I had come. I was reminded of Guadalest, a mountain village set in the mountains at the back of where I used to live in Al Faz del Pi.

In the guidebook much is made of a big stone that is supposed to look like a walking stick. This might have been the stone I saw but as for looking like a walking stick well maybe I saw it from a different angle!!!!! At the top I came to a small tarmac road and turned left and down hill. I found my way into Gandesa and a café! Maisie phoned my mobile as I left town and as I spoke to her I found the road I was supposed to be on, both gave a nice feeling, perhaps things would get better.

Maisie's notes: Mike Phoned back – Yes it worked! – We had a nice chat, he said the tent worked well so he must have stopped in it last night too. He said he’d just had a nice meal in Gandesa which fitted him up as he’s been living on sausage and bread, chuckle!

Now I was climbing again and on seeing a shell marker I took a small road that the camino shell seemed to indicate. But after a while and no more markers I decided it must be wrong and went all the way back and joined again the bigger road I had been on. Sure enough painted just out of sight of the junction was an arrow on a steel road barrier. I had walked four km for nothing!!! It was long lonely road but hardly in the straight line as the guidebook said. I was only passed by a few tractors and I was getting tired again now, nowhere could I see a flat piece of ground for the tent. About 2 km out from Batea, I walked past a tractor working in a field. At a point where he could not see me, I decided to go up the bank and into some pine trees. Here I camped hoping no one would be out shooting deer or wild boar that night.


END DAY 2 = approx 26.4kms Total approx 46kms

Saturday, July 28, 2007

Start 14/05/07 The Ebro Story

Map












The Ebro Story

14th May
Perth West Aust
ralia


Maisie and I planted the new rose in its big pot, at least I could help with this before I left. I was feeling a little guilty leaving her again for so long. We then drove to the airport for the check in at 12.30pm and booked in my baggage. I told them that they lost both my walking sticks last time,
"Please make sure that this one is not lost!!!."
They put three special labels on it, having stuck stickers all over the stick I then had to take it to another desk and that was to be the last I ever saw of it!!!
Well done the French airline!!!! The other walking staff is now modified and unscrews into three pieces and is in my rucksack. I had also wrapped my rucksack in cling foil this time. It got filthy last time and it helps you to know if it has been tampered with on the journey. We were up in the café upstairs by 12.50pm and had a nice lunch of pepperoni pizza and potato chip wedges with a yoghurt dip.
Saying goodbye to Maisie, I then I went through the barrier at 1.45pm for a 3.30pm departure due to the strict security measures! It was hard saying goodbye not knowing when I would be back! I was soon distracted as they decided I might be a risk and body searched me! OK free at last I went through to the lounge and found a camera shop and decided to look into buying a memory stick for my camera. I bought a new half a gig one for $40.
I looked out across the runway, it was a bright sunny afternoon, a bush fire sent columns of smoke high into the sky over by the coast.
I text Maisie about 2.20pm to say I’d had to have a body search! Chuckle, she said 'I bet you liked that – especially if it was a woman officer '. I text again at 3pm to say I was on board. A young lady passenger asked me to change seats so she could sit with a friend and I now sat with a Scottish lady and we chatted for much of the trip.
In Singapore I found the mobile phone wouldn't work after all the trouble we had gone through before I left with Phone company who had assured us it would! I had a long wait till 11pm but got my aisle seat j39, in the middle of the plane on one side. I took my pills trying to adjust slowly to the new time I will find in Barcelona. As normal it was an uncomfortable long flight to Paris. I arrived at 6.30am, here all was a bit of a mess, with a big crowd and no one to ask as to where or how to change to the different F terminal. I pushed through and eventually got the bus too F2 and I found gate F29 and caught the flight on to Barcelona at 8am.

15/05/07 Barcelona

Here I took a chance as I left the airport that is about fifteen kilometres from the city centre, and took a bus there. I paid on the bus eventually as the ticket machine would not work. A man did his best to help me in tying to get a ticket and he was even prepared to pay for me as I had no small change!!!! I got off at the Central. Just outside the below ground tourist office, a tout told me of a hostel and I took his card and took another chance and walked to it past the Gaudí Apartments and here was taken to a different building where I was given a room for 20E.
Happy I now had a base, I chased about trying to buy the boots I wanted and after three different stores I decided that I had to buy something. I had found a pair the same make but a different model and one size smaller than the Spanish boots that had been so good but now needed replacing for the huge journey I was about to undertake. They seemed ok I decided, and they were cheap at 40E
My phone would still not work but I got a message to Maisie by email I think, just to say I was ok at 9.02pm.
I told her they had lost the B…. Staff again and I hoped to get it before I caught the train the next day to Tortosa.
I also said how I had seen Gaudí's apartments as I walked to my room and hoped to see a bit more of the city later and the next morning.
I walked into the city again and looked at the Cathedral then set off to see the Gaudí's masterpiece. On the way a man came out of a side street and stopped me and asked where he was in broken English. Two men grabbed me from behind. I knew the game but it was hopeless as they said they were police. On instinct I had grabbed onto my wallet in my pocket but one-man pulled my hand out and there was little I could do. They made a play at asking the first man who had accosted me to show them his wallet and they looked at the notes. They turned now on me and the first guy ran off. I almost got away with it as there was not much in the front compartment of my wallet. The smaller man was releasing his grip when the big guy spotted the zip. Now the big man started to act rough. I saw my entire precious Euros go into his hand and he made a play at looking at serial numbers. I was still being held by the smaller guy, but I made a grab for the money. The big guy deliberately dropped the lot. He then tried to scatter them with his boot. I was fast, and praying I don’t get hit on the head as I ducked down and grabbed all I could get hold of and stuffed them back in the wallet. The big bloke had been off balance but now picked up the rest and seemed to put it back in the wallet that was still in my left hand. I now found I was free and thinking I had saved the day, hurriedly distanced myself. I could only see the big guy and he was still playing the police officer letting go of a suspect. I, clasping my wallet, stuffed it into my trouser pocket and hurried round the corner, where I pulled it out and risked a glance into it. There was only 150E left and two Australian five dollar notes!!!! There's nothing I could do, they had gone and no one was in sight. 'Do what you came to do' I think to myself 'go see the Gaudí's building and hope you don't get beat up on the way back for that same Valencia street is the only way you know to get back to the damn room!!!!'
It was getting dark as I reached the building. I had seen it as a very young man, and now it looked much smaller than I remembered. Now, floodlit, it was very impressive and I wandered around trying to photograph it. Then headed back determined now to leave in the morning for Tortosa!