It has been written that the woods outside of Gonzar which were used as a welcoming outdoor brothel during the middle ages. I must admit that as I was passing by that area I was wondering what kind of woods might have been here at that time. Now there are scrubby pine trees, very close together, pokey bushes and thick underbrush, none of which, in my imagination at least, are at all conducive to that kind of outdoor activity. Undressed, one could get seriously injured in that unfriendly, prickly environment!
For many years however, Gonzar has been a simple dairy farming community and although that still continues, the number of 'peregrinos' passing through looking for coffee, food and a place to sleep has diversified the local economy. At our lovely little albergue at Casa Garcia, our waitress was actually a young Romanian woman who has moved there with her husband to live. The rooms in our albergue were made of stone and the beds were tucked in little nooks with about 12 to a room. The food was delicious. We had a churrasco - a barbequed steak- that was wonderful although it probably took me about three days to digest it was so huge!
Unfortunately there was a bit of a nasty incident while we were there. A young American woman and her husband left her jacket on her bed while they were out in the restaurant section. When they returned her jacket was gone along with her camera, some money and her bank card which were all in the pockets. Hindsight is so easy of course and she knew she shouldn't have left it there but it is really easy to get lulled into a sense of security among the 'pilgrim' community where things really do feel safe. The thing that upset her most was her pictures as they had walked from Saint Jean Pied-de-Port and she was crying (who wouldn't be) while she was talking with the police. Strangely, about an hour later someone brought her camera in saying it had been found on a neighbour's windowsill. From everything that happened it seemed like it was a couple of guys travelling in a car, pretending to be pilgrims. But the reality is that most albergues are always open and anyone could come in off the street. It was really a shame to have this happen to them in the last few days of their camino but served as a good warning to everyone else.
The whole camino has been an amazing sensory experience. The sounds of the birds, the perfumed air, the food, the volume that everyone uses to speak in, cowbells in the distance, music in the bars and some albergues, the inimitable reminder of the cuckoo along the way. This particular area is full of the perfume of mock orange blossoms and roses, heavily overlaid with a very pervasive smell of cow manure! It's beautiful walking through the little villages but you sure have to watch where you step. The cows are frequently walked through the streets. One of the only advantages of walking in June rather than in early May is that in June the cow plops generally don't spread more than about 3 feet, whereas in May one cow plop can cover a good 15 feet in all directions!
This is also the area of the horreo - a little fancy storage shed on stilts. Essentially everyone has at least one in the back yard and they are traditionally used to store corn away from rats and other corn predators. Here's one on a misty morning.
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