Day 1 The Bull

2005.

I began the morning with cheerful optimism, waking up after the shock of my first albergue experience, bed pushed together with a mostly naked stranger, snoring, coughing.  Dawn breaks, the nearest breakfast is Burgette (a favorite of Hemingway, according to my guidebook); the promise of a good bakery leads me out the door.  I walk through beech forest, arrive in Burgette, just post sunrise, wander the main street in search of an "abierto" sign.  I find one at the far end of town.  Not sure if it's the place in my guidebook, but I have a croissant, fruit, and cafe con leche.  The sun is out in full as I make my way back toward the Camino, two men laugh and joke in Spanish ahead of me on the wide, muddy farm track.  I follow behind, a few hundred yards, happy to actually be walking this road, to finally have begun after so many years of talking about it.  They round a bend and I lose sight of them.  I hear a low grunting up ahead.

I arrive at the source, a bull.  Braying.  As I get closer, he begins to paw at the ground, head toward me, the braying increases in volume.  The men are long gone, there is no one to call out to:  I am alone, save a few cows, to confront an agitated bull.

The fence is low, maybe a little bit higher than my knees, if he wanted to he could probably step over it and maul me.  He doesn't, I back up.  He calms down.  I wait, reapproach to pass by, he begins to bray and paw angrily at the ground.  I back up, he stops.  I pray that the cows will somehow get him to leave me alone, they don't.  I approach, he begins.  This goes on for 20 minutes as I try to figure out how to get past, or if this is a gate shutting before me: my dreamed of Camino over on the first day.  I don't know how to proceed.

Minutes pass in this detente, and then I hear someone approaching me from Burgette.  I wait.  A young man, Spanish.  I wave him over, explain about the bull.  Ask if I can walk with him.

The man must think I am a fool, but he humors me, and walks past the bull with me.  The bull minds its own business as we pass by, head down, munching on grass, paying no attention to the two of us.  Acting as if nothing happened.

And so it begins.