Witch hunting

The Baztan Valley lies to the North East of Pamplona and is famous for its deep forests, lush valleys, and witches.

I’ve been interested in this area ever since I read the Baztan Trilogy which are a brilliant detective series set around the real town of Elizondo. So joining a small group tour of the area seemed like a great idea, although the idea of ten hours touring only in Spanish was a bit daunting. It became slightly more so when it became clear that neither the guide nor my seven fellow travellers spoke any English. This was immersion made real.

The Baztan Valley is very pretty. It gets a stupid amount of rain annually so it’s incredibly lush. But its deep forests and mountain surrounds kept it isolated for a long time. By the time the Catholic Church was stamping hard on any signs of alternate thinking, the area had maintained traditions of rituals, wise women, and celebrations which were easily labelled as witchcraft. Thousands were tried by the Inquisition and quite a few women were burnt alive; others who had failed to survive the inquisition were burnt in effigy. Those who recanted either were sent home or had their property forfeit to the Church. The scale was such that Baztan became forever synonymous with witchcraft.

We visited two cave complexes which had appropriately named caverns (think black mass) but which historically seemed to have been used more as community halls or smuggling routes. The local villages are incredibly pretty – all whitewashed walls and red roofs, nestled amidst green fields nurturing cows or the local miniature horses. The houses speak to riches which probably owe as much to locals emigrating to the new world as to the local farming conditions. I did like the fact that on every farm you could see the main house which was the parents’ and inherited by the eldest son, and then an, always, smaller house for the younger brothers.

We had an enormous lunch, ridiculously huge which did nothing to help with my attention span at all, and strolled about several of the villages on both sides of the border. While smuggling has declined (but not disappeared as evidenced by the police road-blocks we passed through) there is a thriving cross-border trade created by Spain’s lower prices. French people come over to buy patrol and groceries in an enormous set of purpose-built complexes which serve food on French time.

We finished the day in Elizondo, where I greatly enjoyed seeing the places from the movies made from the Baztan books. I also enjoyed the local chocolate. I was a bit bemused as to why it was famous until I realised that the local dairy farming made sense of it. And of course, because it was seriously good chocolate.

Ten hours of Spanish that wasn’t catering to me did test my limits. The guide spoke so fast I extracted about 60% of what she said about three seconds after she said it. But my current, publicly-stated, goal for Spanish is to be able to function at a dinner – so I was really pleased to be able to participate in the conversation at lunch. But I must admit to be being equally pleased to hug everyone good-bye and return to English in my apartment for a while.