This was a short day for which we were glad because it got so hot in the middle of the day and we were walking through an endless new burb. More on that later.
First thing in the morning was climbing uphill out of the Nájera downtown over the ridge that separated it from the ever-closer alteplano (though we were not nearly there). On the other side of the ridge, we walked past vineyards interspersed with poppies. We also started going by big cement irrigation channels that ran alongside the vineyards.
Compa took this wonderful photo of the poppies that grow between the rows of vines. The soil here is so, so red.
Unlike some of the walking the Chemin de Saint Jacques in France where we went up and down in river valleys and never had a sense of where we were going, more often than not, we had a very clear idea of where we were headed — usually quite far away. This vista was one of those 'onwards' shots, where we knew that we would follow that white ribbon for as far as the eye could see and then some. Oh my, look at all that WHEAT (as I wrote in my journal: 'nice landscape, rolling hills, wheat and wheat and wheat!')
Noon found us climbing up a hill to a golf course/high income suburb development, Ciruñuela. The heat was brutal and there were NO trees anywhere for shade. There didn't seen to be any place to eat either. We had a few things to eat but what we really, really wanted was a cold beer. Once we passed through this empty construction site that looked as though it could house 10.000 people, we landed on a small local village, totally eclipsed by the growth. There, we found the local bar-restaurant and while the food was a bit greasy, it had cold beer and free internet. It was from here that I sent this posting. I shared the space with a Frenchman. I really couldn't see what I was doing and being a Mac user, I am always at a disadvantage with a PC, so I had to ask for a little help.
A word about the white shirt. It was brutally hot that day and the sun shone brightly. From that day on, I no longer wore short-sleeve shirts but wore a light-weight white cotton shirt to protect my skin from the sun. At that, even with SPF 35 on my hands, they got burned and tanned. I upped the lotion to SPF 50 and still I burned and tanned. So the shirt seemed a small sacrifice in the comfort zone to stay a bit more healthy in the long, long run.
Finally, we got to Santo Domingo de la Calzada, known for its holy chickens. The story is one of those crazy medieval ones that has now stuck.
Dana Facaros and Michael Pauls in the Cadogan Guide to Northern Spain write of the holy chickens in their Gothic cathedral:
'The Gothic interior is simple but lavishly decorated, but what everyone remembers best are the rooster and hen, cackling in their own late-Gothic henhouse. Their presence recalls the miracle that took place in Santo Domingo's hostal: a handsome 18-year-old German pilgrim, named Hugonell, travelling with his parents, refused the advances of the maid, who avenged herself by planting a silver goblet in his pack and accusing him of theft. Hugonell was summarily hanged by the judge while his parents sadly continued Compostela. On the way back, they passed the gallows and were amazed to find their son still alive and glad to see them, telling them it was a miracle of Santo Domingo. They hurried to the judge and told him; the judge, about to dig into a pair of roast fowl, laughed and said their son was as alive as the birds on his table, upon which both came to life and flew away. Since then, a white hen and rooster have been kept in the church, and are replaced every month; pilgrims would take one of their feathers and stick in it their hats for good luck. Under the window you can even see a piece of the gallows (138).'
The administration doesn't allow photos inside the cathedral but the image I grabbed from the web shows the glorified henhouse well. There are other treasures in the cathedral, too: a beautiful 12th-century Madonna and child behind the high altar in a nice and simple chapel. The 16th-century tomb of Santo Domingo is also amazing: a two-storey affair, one can look down into the crypt to the lower level of the tomb which also serves as a small chapel.
Kerry Egan writes of this in her Fumbling,
'The Holy Chickens made me very happy, almost irrationally happy. They seemed to make everyone happy. In the stores in town, a dozen different postcards with the images of the chickens could be found. Some were taken from a distance, with the entire chicken coop edifice on golden display, and some were close-ups of the chickens' faces in profile, like 1930's movie stars. I sent out a dozen postcards.
'While walking the Camino, I just accepted that chickens would live in a cathedral. At that point, it seemed as reasonable as a woman who used an attack dog to alert her to pilgrims passing or the wine fountain in Irache…. Chickens in a church were par for the course at that point. When I got back, all those people who received chicken postcards were baffled...' (126-27).
