After five days of hiking the GR11 trail in the Spanish Pyrenees, Fabio, son Andrés and his girlfriend Natalia, and I arrived in Nuria, that, hundreds of years ago, served as pastureland for shepherds, a way station for pilgrims, and a sanctuary. We passed through because, like those early pilgrims, we must have been paying a penance—for what I had no idea. It had poured rain three of the five days of our journey. Water dripped out of our socks and boots. We had trekked nine to eighteen miles daily. Some days we climbed nearly 5,000 feet. Once we got to the stone sanctuary, I would promise anything to get us through the final two days of our trek.
We had started our journey in Encamp, Andorra, the town where we finished our hike on the GR11 (Gran Recorrido = long path) in 2018. The 520-mile path parallels the mountains from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean. Throughout villages along the way, we’ve overheard Spanish, Basque, French, Occitan, Aragonese, and Catalan. Since 2016, we’ve walked five legs of the route.
On the day we headed to Nuria, we savored a quick warm breakfast before marching into the rain. It drenched us within an hour. Over four hours of walking through forests, pastureland, streams, and slippery roots and rocks lay ahead.
My Gore-Tex boots, wool and liner socks, gloves, shorts, and bare legs got soaked. Although my Gore-Tex rain jacket shielded my chest, back, and arms from the deluge, I shivered to keep warm. Hypothermia crossed my mind. “Keep moving! Just keep moving!” I yelled to the others.
The mountain range has served more purposes than hiking since humans began to cross it. The Cathars, the “Good Christians” as they called themselves, took refuge in the valleys and ridges from the 12th to the 14th centuries when they tried to set up a religion that differed from Catholicism. During the Spanish Civil War, the range either prevented those opposing Franco from leaving or they crawled their way through it to get out. During World War II, hundreds of thousands of resistance fighters, civilians, Jews, Allied soldiers, and escaped prisoners climbed up and down peaks and valleys to escape the Nazis and seek safety in a supposedly neutral country. Resistance guides led men, women, and children often at night in their street clothes and flimsy leather-soled shoes.
Nowadays, farmers let milk cattle and work horses roam and graze in the valleys and forests. Skiers have their pick of fifty-two resorts. Mushroom foragers tramp through the hills searching for delicacies.
I’d expected to cruise along the trail under a blue sky soaking up the sun and the vistas. However, the rain and clouds obscured any views, and I was too cold and wet to take pictures of the few we saw. I’d looked forward to this vacation since January. Now I couldn’t wait to end it.
I picked up my pace to get to Nuria. There, in 700 A.D., a Greek, Sant Gil, had arrived in this narrow valley. He carved an image of the Virgin Mary which he hid in a cave when fleeing from Arab persecution. Lore has it that a pilgrim named Amadeu from Dalmatia had dreamed about this carving and began in 1072 to search for it. He also built a chapel for pilgrims. Seven years later, when he found the image, he placed it in the chapel. This place was soon called Sanctuary of the Virgin of Nuria. It has beckoned believers ever since. In 1967, the statue became even more well-known when Pope Paul VI issued a decree to canonically crown it.
I stepped into the sanctuary to pray for sun and a vacation memorable for fun, not rain. I penciled my wishes on a piece of paper. I tossed it into a caged receptacle where hundreds of notes lay. Those other sheets probably didn’t contain scribbles for fair skies. That’s all I wanted.
The clouds didn’t let loose the day I made my offering. Instead, the wind nearly knocked us to the ground
as we climbed up and along a ridge, the highest point on the GR11. The fog was so thick we only glimpsed each other swinging around a switchback. We bent over pushing against the wind to haul one foot in front of the other.
Two dry days later and penance completed, we ended our trip in the hamlet of Beget. Here I also went to church, the only tourist attraction in this tiny place. Built around 1013, it features a Christ figure and one of Saint Christopher, the patron saint of travelers and a symbol of safe journeys and protection.
I gave thanks that we’d finished and that, despite the rain, we’d enjoyed hot showers, striking panoramas, jokes, tasty dinners, laughter, challenging trails, and artisan beer. We petted horses and heard cowbell music. We struck up conversations with villagers hunting for mushrooms. We’d ended up in the right place.
Fabio and I have completed almost the entire GR11 route. One eight-day stretch from Beget to the coast remains. I must recover from this journey and let the rain in my clouded mind evaporate before I ponder that last section. The first order of business will be checking the sanctuaries along the way. The one in Nuria did the trick.
Oh goodness, I am so sorry to hear about all the rain! That was not the journey you intended! Gah - it sounds like a long slog but that you managed to accomplish it AND remember the good parts in addition to the hours of being wet. You will now need to dry out in lovely Madrid for a time before venturing anywhere else for awhile. Thanks for sharing the good, the wet and the saints: it was a lovely read!
Someone could make a fortune with just ONE Uber is all I'm thinking... but I'm glad you made it safely to dry-dom!