Grañón at dawn (in the rear view mirror). Swaths of standing grain were flattened overnight.
Sanctuary from the Storm: A Private Room in Grañón
Having abandoned the hostel in Grañón, Bob and I found a private room in a nearby B&B. It cost more than the municipal bunks, but the luxury of real sheets—no plastic covers—and the absence of snoring (or eccentric) neighbors was worth every euro. We even had a kitchen to ourselves, where our laundry hung drying from the chairs like colorful bunting.
Outside the rain came down. It pelted the window panes and poured down the copper spouts. But we were oblivious. We were safe, dry, and well fed.
We walked out of the B&B at dawn, although it was hard to judge. The sky hung down woolly and wet. Rolling thunder could still be heard in the distance. Rain gear, typically buried deep in our packs, rode on top, just in case.
The trail consisted of mud and water.
When el sol did eventually break through, it did so in pieces. Puddles reflected this brokenness; the dark mud slurped and absorbed everything else (including our dry socks). The low light accentuated the contours of the surrounding grain fields, where wind-flattened swaths formed unpredictable patterns across the landscape.
We slogged through the muck, spattered. We were anxious to put some miles between ourselves, the Talking Woman, and Mad Jac MacKnife.
We approached the northwestern corner of the Ebro River basin. The open landscape is backed by the central Iberian mountain chain (Sistema Ibérico). Image courtesy of Google Earth.
The Opium Fields of Spain: A Bronze Age Legacy
Between Grañón and Villafranca Montes de Oca, we crossed the tributaries of the Ebro. By hugging the south flank of this narrowing valley, we skirted the Sierra de la Demanda. This route is as old as the Camino Francés itself; historically, pilgrims avoided the rugged heights to escape the wolves and bandits that once haunted the peaks.*
None of these presented themselves. Fact is, after the panic of the previous evening and the storm of the night, it turned into a beautiful day. The threat of rain dwindled. The trail dried under the summer sun. We found ourselves surrounded by pleasant and relatively uninhabited farmland.
A field of bulbous pods.
We passed a field of slender plants with bulbous pods.
“Poppies!” I cried (with probably more glee than I should have).
These fields are rare, unmarked, and heavily monitored. The reason? Raw opium is derived from the latex "tears" of Papaver somniferum. I later learned that Spain is the world’s second-leading producer of legal opium, providing nearly 28% of the planet's morphine from a single factory in Toledo.**
The term “opium” comes from the Greek opion, or “poppy juice,” but the drug’s history is far older. *** It appears in Bronze Age sites and may even be indigenous to the western Mediterranean. My own knowledge of these pods came from studying ancient ceramics; specifically, the bilbil juglets common in the Late Bronze Age. These small containers—likely used for oils, perfumes, or opiates****—suggest that the ancient Canaanites were a wilder bunch than often depicted!
Left: Spanish poppy pods, image inverted. Right: Late Bronze Age Cypriot “Bilbil,” formed in the shape of a poppy pod, and used as a container for opium. This image is from here (accessed 12/26/2021).
We shot a few pictures of the field and the poppy pods and hurried down the trail. No telling if there were security cameras around.
Rural Spanish architecture.
Round Two: Hail and “Miasma” in Villafranca Montes de Oca
By the end of the day, we made Villafranca de Montes de Oca. The hostel, San Antón Abad, was comfortable. To make things even better, I got a bunk beside an screened window. I was determined to sleep with it open all night.
Bob and I purchased microwave dinners from the nearby grocery and cooked them in the communal kitchen. As we did so, round two of the storm moved in. Rain and wind swept in with force. Unlike round one, this round produced hail. Pea-sized pearls fell from sky and bounced off the the pavement. Fortunately, we had a dry perch from which to watch the show.
A dramatic sky hung over Villafranca de Montes de Oca.
The storm faded by nightfall, and I drifted off into a cool breeze. However, when I woke the next morning, I found someone had closed and locked the window tight. Apparently, someone still feared the “miasma” of the night air!
¡Buen Camino!
We have a full slate of Bible Land trips ready to launch in 2022. Check out a complete list by clicking here or peruse under the heading “Find your Trip.” For more information on how to join one of these trips or if you are interested in helping to craft a unique trip for your own group, church, or school, contact me at markziese@gmail.com.