First doubts.

Novelda to Sax  23.5km

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Novelda

Arriving on the outskirts of Novelda, I was approached by a man who asked if I was on the Camino.  This is not so obvious as it might seem:  I was once given money by a tramp who took pity on my bedraggled state.  He said there was a good place to stay and took me into the town centre to the Procurator’s office where I was greeted very warmly by Fransico Serra, one of the authors of the guide to the Camino del Sureste .  This was my first of many contacts with the Amigos del Camino in Alicante, Albacete and Cuenca.  I doubt if the Templars were ever so completely dedicated to helping and protecting pilgrims.  “Paco” gave me all sorts of advice and a detailed route as well as lists of telephone numbers of places to stay.  On the Camino Francés many people said that they had decided against the Ruta de La Lana for its lack of infrastructure.  These Amigos, apart from marking the route with yellow arrows………….. have negotiated terms for lodging from individuals, casa rurales and Hostals, as well as offering their own houses to Pilgrims and establishing some excellent albergues.  “Don’t give me a donation, give it to the next beggar you meet,”  was the encouragement I received.  The Spirit of the Camino thrives with this group of men and women who keep alive the tradition of  hospitality, opening their doors and the hearts to all who pass their Way.

I was exhausted and had only walked 31 km in two days.  Although I had arrived early, about 2pm, I lay in bed full of aches.  Many of these were normal muscle pains included my usual list of ankle, knee and shoulder.  However, 10 days before I began this Camino I had developed a urinary infection and was just about to finish my second course of antibiotics.  They had seemed to be working, but now I doubted it.

Corrosive Doubt

The morning always brings new energy and unfailing surprise at  being able to lift my rucksack again.

It was hard going all the same.  Paco had suggested that I visit a sanctuary designed by a great admirer of Gaudi.  This building came into view immediately on leaving Novelda and appeared like a mini Sagrada Familia. It was perched on a hill above the valley.

Mini Sagrada Familia near Villena

I was flagging. 34 km into a Camino of 1300km, Day3!!  In the weeks before beginning my Caminos I awake in the mornings with no desire to go off walking again.  A house is a comfortable place to live.  When faced with an approaching departure into a life on the road, central heating, clean clothes and a cosy bed conspire in trying to convince me to stay at home.  For the first week, the walking is always hard and my confidence shaky, but I am full of determination.  This time, however, I felt washed out: I looked up at this strange sanctuary and had no strength in me to climb up to it. Already I had lost the path twice. ( You can see this if you zoom in on the map where the track leaves Novelda.) Each time I had to double back, just 50 metres or so, but this was a sign of weariness.  I found a rock to sit on in the barren valley beneath the church, where the rain has eroded the saline rocks into fascinating bas-relief forms which tickle the imagination.

natural bas-relief

My doubts about this Camino were growing.  Concretely, my ankle was very painful.  The surgeon in Caceres had told me that I couldn’t walk any more Caminos, just a year earlier.  What if he was right? My reasons for taking on a Camino are complex but I’ve always felt it was something I was meant to be doing.  My desire on this one was to have time to pray in solitude.  I had chosen this route for its reputation as the most solitary of Caminos.  I longed for silence and days with little human contact. Maybe my discernment was skewed and what had come to me in prayer as something I should do was just a romantic notion stimulated by reading Belden Lane’s “The Solace of fierce Landscapes”.

As I sat beneath the sculpted rock in this valley of corrosion where locals bathe in pools of warm salt water seeping up from the earth’s crust,

A salt pool prepared for bathing.

another pilgrim approached……………….