Going to Santiago
"It's insane; utterly mad! Why?"
I was sitting in the book-lined rural home of my old friend and former tutor. Our respective wives were wearily aware that having already drained a couple of bottles of wine with only modest help from them, we had set about the malt whisky. Logs smouldered gently on the fire.
"You're mad. Why?" repeated the Professor.
This was the first time anyone had challenged my plan. The usual response was to humour me with an air of casual enthusiasm tinged with mild disbelief.
The Professor, however, was blunt and earnest. In his view I had a duty to examine my head and, whether or not I shared with him what I found in it, I had to be sure I knew what I was doing. And the odd thing was that I had rarely been so sure of anything.
I was proposing to cycle from St Andrews in Fife to Santiago de Compostela in Galicia. 2000 kilometres. In July. It was something I just had to do.
Later that year, exactly 12 months before our planned departure, I did have a slight qualm as I lay in my air-conditioned hotel room in Paris. Outside it was 42 degrees and I was watching the Tour de France grind up an Alp in heat that made the road melt. For a moment I doubted my own sanity but I soon resolved that it was nothing that couldn't be rationalised. Doubts, like early morning mist, could soon be burned away with hot-headed enthusiasm.
The idea of cycling to Santiago was hatched at the Ceres Inn, where I go every Wednesday night to drink beer and talk. One such Wednesday, during the usual rather serpentine conversation about nothing much and after a quantity of beer sufficient to bring us to the realms of fantasy, one of my companions declared he was going to Santiago de Compostela on university business the following week.
"Wouldn't it be fantastic to cycle all the way from here to Santiago" I suggested.
"It's a long way".
"Exactly. Weeks on the bike, camping, cycling. . . "
"Crossing the Pyrenees."
"Ah yes, well, we'd be fit by then."
"At least it's down hill all the way!"
We chuckled and fell into a boyish reverie.
"What route would we take?"
"The pilgrim route"
"The what?"
"The pilgrim route. Santiago is a famous place of pilgrimage."
"Have you been?"
"Oh yes, there's a spectacular cathedral, very beautiful, and inside there is the biggest whatsitsname in the world. Huge thing with incense in it. What do you call it?"
"a bong?" mirth breaks out disproportionate to the quality of the joke.
"a censor"
"that's it, a censer; in fact, I know someone who used to do physics tutorials based on the way the thing swings and how long it is stationery at the end of its arc. Takes a whole load of priests to get it moving and you wouldn't want to be in the way when it is at full tilt. amazing thing."
"Have you seen it?"
"No, well yes, but not moving. They only swing it twice a year. It's about the size of a car."
"Talking of which, my new car still hasn't turned up."
"Pint anyone?"
"About bloody time!"
And so, most weeks, the conversation would have turned to cars and then perhaps fragmented as a few discuss football while those who hate football discuss something else until the point where the something else becomes so interesting that the football correspondents rejoin the pack.
This week, however, the Santiago idea wouldn't go away. More beer, more enthusiasm.
"You could go by boat to Santander and just cycle the last bit"
"You could get the train down"
"You could take a car"
"No, no , no, this is supposed to be a pilgrimage, you do it under your own steam. Vehicles would be cheating."
"So how do you get across the channel?"
"You could get a pedalo and head south!" More hilarity.
"Bikes are vehicles"
"Surely boats must be allowed. Mediaeval pilgrims would have used boats"
"but not trains"
"no, mediaeval pilgrims probably didn't use trains."
"Bikes are vehicles; they've got wheels"
"You could take the new ferry from Rosyth"
"good idea"
"bypass England"
"shame"
"what's this you're talking about"
"they're going to cycle to Santiago"
"why?"
"because it is there"
"we're going on a pilgrimage"
"I didn't know you were a catholic"
"I'm not"
"I am"
"Are you? Well I suppose you would be"
And the conversation turned to religion.
After midnight, I crept into the house, hoping not to disturb my sleeping wife, checked the children, cleaned my teeth, stumbled over the pile of clothes on the bedroom floor and sank into bed. I was pleased with myself for achieving all this in the dark so as not to disturb Liz.
"What was the craic at the pub tonight then?" She was wide awake.
"We're cycling to Santiago de Compostela"
"Are you dear, what a good idea. When are you doing that?"
"probably next summer"
"jolly good"
and with that, the beer overwhelmed me and I fell asleep.
Two weeks later, Gustavo returned from Santiago and to the Ceres Inn for the Wednesday night gathering.
“I’ve spoken to the Mayor of Santiago. We will have to book early for 2004 as it is a special year. They are expecting many thousands of pilgrims.”
“So you’re really going to do this thing.” Challenged Ken.
“Aye, it’ll be great.”
“So it will. I envy you.”
“Why don’t you come too?”
“Because you haven’t bloody asked me!”
“Gus! Ken wants to come too.”
And so it was agreed.
We vowed to do lots of planning and to write a book about it. Ken said nobody would be interested in a book about three blokes cycling to Santiago. People did it all the time. Gus and I said our book would be different.
“and it will sell.” Said Gus. “Do you know how many copies my last book sold? thirty!”
“Well it was a bit obscure.”
Gustavo is an academic. He teaches Spanish and researches Uruguayan literature and tends a little flock of administrative responsibilities at the University of St Andrews. He started cycling to St Andrews out of necessity and became passionate about its benefits. As a consequence of his sermons on the moral superiority of the cyclist, many of us dragged our rusting bikes out of our sheds to test his theories first hand.
Despite his enthusiasm for cycling, Gus lacks a certain practicality when it comes to mechanics. Consequently, he relies heavily on the good nature of our mutual friend Ken, who knows a lot about bikes. Ken is an experienced cyclist, wily at conserving energy on long hauls, savvy about equipment, diet and technique and occasionally grumpy.
Around the time that my new bike and I were getting to know each other on the way to St Andrews (downhill with a tail wind) and then falling out with each other on the way back (uphill and into the wind), Gus and Ken took to going touring together. There are many pleasant daunders you can do from Ceres and, if you are prepared to spend a night or two away, or to use a car to take you the first hundred or so miles, the possibilities are endless.
They began to return to the Ceres Inn with tales of Glen Devon, Arran, the Borders; the hostel at such and such, the hill out of so and so, the pub at wherever. I began to be interested.
At first, and with great trepidation, I joined them for 20 mile runs from the village. I worried about not keeping up with them; I pushed myself up hills to prove I could do it and I always came back more drained than them. Gradually, however, I learned that you can use up a lot of energy being competitive and, if you are not racing, it does not matter. The wise cycle tourer uses that energy building trust with his fellows so that we can help each other out over the long distance. Touring is an expedition, not a race.
Ken and I went away to Montrose one weekend while Gus was in Uruguay. We camped and found a pub and drank far too much beer. But I got there and back. I did 100 miles in a weekend. I could barely walk the following day. But it felt good. Later, and in larger groups, we went to Bute and to Islay. All the time, I was cycling in and out of St Andrews and it was getting easier and easier.
“Did I tell you that we are cycling to Santiago next summer?”
“Yes dear, that sounds like an exciting plan. I think you should do it.”
So, Liz really had agreed. I might have expected to be told not to be so ridiculous or that I wasn’t fit enough or that if I thought I could disappear off with my mates for weeks on end, I had another thing coming. However, instead, I got:
“Yes dear, that sounds like an exciting plan. I think you should do it.”
At least, that is what I heard.
At work, I mentioned it to my boss. “I’m thinking of going next summer on a cycle trip to Santiago.”
“From here?”
“Yes. To Santiago de Compostela. In Spain.”
“Oh, I thought you meant Santiago in Chile. I was wondering how you were going to do it.”
“So I can go, then. It will mean missing graduation.”
“Yes, you should do it.”
That is what I heard.
I reported back to the Ceres Inn that permissions had been obtained. It quickly became a joke that the ease with which consent had been granted was solely down to the fact that nobody really believed it would ever happen. They were humouring me. It didn’t occur to me that I might be deluding myself and neither, apparently did it occur to the other two. They also made arrangements for time off and it we turned to the planning phase.
The first plan was to tell as many people as we could that we were doing it. That way, we would persuade ourselves that it was really going to happen and we would set up an expectation that had to be met.
“Did I tell you that I’m cycling to Santiago de Compostela next summer.”
“What, from here”.
“Yip! Crossing the Pyrenees by bike.”
“That’s fantastic. You are very brave.”
Of course, not everyone was so blithely impressed. Others of my friends and colleagues sought to temper my enthusiasm more subtly. They lent me books by others similarly afflicted by the idea that a bicycle would be a good companion on a long journey: French Revolutions, It's Not About The Tapas, The Third Policeman. I devoured them all with appetite and they left me all the more hungry. I avoided the biographies of Tom Simpson and Lance Armstrong, though, to spare myself any descriptions of how painful it might actually be to spend all day and every day in the saddle.
I did, however, read the quite terrifying Serious Cycling which told me about training and diet and heart rate and lactic acid. This book recommended that the serious cyclist should prepare for the season by building up to 250 miles per week, seeking out as many hills as possible. Two months prior to departure, it was a good week if I managed 25 and the worst hill hardly merited the term at all.
I got the map out and looked on the Internet for information about the pilgrim routes. I drew a green line right across France and into Spain. I calculated the distances, using the Michelin web site. I printed out the findings of my research.
The following Wednesday, at the Ceres Inn, realism set in.
“2500 kilometers.”
“what’s that in real money?”
“about 1500 miles”.
“How long is that going to take us?”
“I’ve only got three weeks holiday leave.”
“How are we going to do 1500 miles in three weeks?”
Ceres Inn; we have a problem!
After much discussion, we resolved to do the trip over two years and aimed in year one to get to the other side of the Pyrenees. In year two, we would follow what remained of the Camino de Santiago. Further research revealed that this was not cheating. Others before us had done the pilgrimage in the same way. Some took several years to do it. Comforted, we shortened our horizon and continued to plan.
Last updated 17th August 2005