Cairns

This is the stone/drenched with rain/that points the way. Haiku by TANEDA SANTOKA

Wikipedia defines a cairn as "an artificial pile of stones, often in a conical form". Cairns can have a variety of uses and purposes.

They may mark a significant site, such as the summit of a mountain; or commemorate an event, such as a battle; or they may memorialize the dead (some UK Bronze Age cairns were found to contain small, square stone-built ossuaries or cists).

They may indicate a path - especially across stony, barren or featureless terrain.

They are created by Buddhists for use in religious rites; by Native Americans for cultural and sacred reasons, and for astronomical purposes; and by sculptors like Andy Goldsworthy as environmental art.

They may be formed quite simply and practically by farmers who want to clear their fields of stones (I've seen them in Wasdale in the English Lake District).

Cairns are just one of many different types of petroform. A petroform is a man-made arrangement of rocks or stones in the open air - it may be a stone circle, a dolmen or a menhir for example. The subject of petroforms and petroglyphs (carvings on rock) is a fascinating one - and one I hope to explore some time in a later post.

Between Santa Cilia and Puente la Reina (there are 2 Puente la Reinas on the Camino - this 1st one, Puente la Reina de Jaca, lies 5 km west of Santa Cilia) I passed hundreds of cairns along a path above the river Aragón (see photos) - constructed and added to over the years by pilgrims and other walkers and travellers. I felt compelled to add a few stones myself.

To what purpose? To give some concrete evidence of one's passing? To freeze in time a transient moment of one's particular Camino journey - and of one's life journey in general? To celebrate the beauty of the natural world and acknowlege its sacred nature? To express oneself by creating a primal piece of art as the early cave painters did in Lascaux and Altamira all those 10s of centuries ago? To remember and honour a significant person or event in one's life - similar to lighting a candle in a church? To build a primitive temple to the divine - a kind of spiritual vortex made of stone? I leave you to ponder...

Santa Cilia

At the entrance to the village Saint James was there to greet me ...



Here's the church of San Salvador. It was locked as usual ...





The baker's (panaderia) was shut too ...



Many of the houses had pretty balconies ...

And yes, you've guessed it, I saw more steles marking the final resting place of several pilgrims ...

My own resting place for the night was the village albergue - which was the best albergue on the whole of the Via Aragonés. There was a warm welcome from the hospitalera. There was a washing machine. There was a tumble dryer. There was even a TV. I checked out the kitchen cupboards and found asparagus soup and rice - and this formed the basis of my meal for the evening.

San Juan De La Peña

Early on the morning of Thursday 16 October I left Jaca slightly unwillingly and headed west towards Santa Cilia. (The night before the bars in Jaca - there must have been 30 or 40 of them - had taken part in a tapas promotion - all competing to create the most memorable tapas. You could vote for which one you liked the best. Each bar charged exactly the same price - which was €2.40 for a tapa and a glass of quality red wine. Not bad! I lost count of how many I'd had by the end of the evening ...)

After a few km I was faced with a choice of routes - either to carry straight on to Santa Cilia along an easy, level path, or to turn south into the mountains on a long and strenuous semi-circular detour which took in the monastery of San Juan de la Peña. Crazily I went for the difficult option. At first I didn't regret it as the views were terrific ...

But after a few hours I did begin to wonder if I'd done the right thing. The steep, rocky, woodland paths seemed to snake on upwards for ever. It was a hazy, sultry day, and I quickly became very tired. But there was no turning back now. Eventually, after descending into a shallow valley and losing most of the height I'd gained so far, I arrived at the small settlement of Atarés ...

After which it was yet more uphill for several hours. I was now climbing dry, stony gullies in a wilder, more open landscape. By the time I'd reached a small mountain road at the top of a remote pass I felt completely exhausted. Another long hour later and I was walking by the new, inhabited Baroque monastery of San Juan de la Peña. The old Mozarabic and Romanesque monastery had been abandoned centuries ago after several fires. I stumbled my way along a very quiet road which curved down into a deep-cut gorge and led to the old monastery, which was wedged, almost unbelievably, beneath a huge, overhanging rock ...

It was still a good distance from here back to the main route from which I'd deviated that morning. So, on hearing a car approaching behind me, I stuck out my thumb. The car stopped. And its very friendly Belgian occupants took me all the way down this dramatic valley, through the village of Santa Cruz de los Serós with its 2 fine Romanesque churches, and deposited me by the side of the N240 - which I followed for the remaining few km to Santa Cilia. It had been a tiring but wonderful day.