I walk up a hill in the rain once again. Streams of runoff flowed past my feet, carrying sand and gravel of the dirt road. Rain has become a familiar accomplice of the Norte, and as in Olympia, I’ve learned to accept it.
It had been an inland hike all day, walking over hills wrapped in fog and back down to soggy valleys, past the occasional village or cow. But now as I walked up another steep road I could make out a lone building on the top of the hill. A church.
As I approached I heard a voice. A woman’s voice, singing through the rain, a beautiful mystic sounding melody. Curious, I followed the sound to the stone church on the hill. I passed through a black steel gate to the covered front door of the church. But before I could enter, I was greeted by a smiling man sitting behind a hard plastic table next to the church door.
“Buenos dias!” He jumped from his chair to offer me a plate of honey sandwiches and sliced chorizo as he poured me a cup of hot chocolate. I happily accepted, as I shivered in my damp rain jacket and drenched shorts (I have no pants for the camino).
As I sat talking to the churchman, a car pulled into the church driveway. A middle-aged Spanish couple stepped into the rain, and ran to the sheltered area by the church door. The churchman didn’t miss a step, quickly offering more honey sandwiches and sliced meats.
Apparently, this church on a hill was some sort of tourist attraction. The churchman beckoned the three of us inside for a tour. Despite our tour guide’s kind attempt of speaking slow enough for an English speaker, I couldn’t pick up on most of the words that the Spanish couple oohed and awed at, but striking characteristics of the church spoke for itself.
It was rather modest, with tall arches of grainy rough stone supported the building. A metal chandelier hung from the ceiling holding unlit sunken stubs of white wax. Front and center was a large window, symmetrical curves painting the glass, the cloud smothered sun cast a dull grey light that seeped past the head of Jesus who hung from yet another cross.
The churchman said something I couldn’t understand in Spanish which prompted the Spanish couple headed for the door. Assuming the tour was over, I thanked the churchman and picked up my stick to leave.
“No no no! Don’t you want to go to the tower!?” I was eager to keep moving, but I couldn’t refuse his enthuthiasm. So, along with the Spanish couple, I followed him through another gate, through the back cemetery of the church, and into a door underneath the large stone church tower.