In the morning, we just pack and head on our way out of town, foolishly thinking we'd find a wifi cafe on the way, but nothing. Nothing except a police station where we have our pilgrims credentials stamped and then continue on towards the next town.

On the way, the cold is bitter and cuts through. Then it starts to snow.

As we wind down the Camino, there are these hutches perched on top of large, vertical timbers with flat rocks on them, not sure what they're for, but my imagination came up with a million things they could be:

We get to a small to a small town called Posada that has a train station and just as we get to it, a freight train halts in the tracks, blocking our way into it. We stand here for a while, watch the driver get out and water his horse in front of it, then decided to jump down onto the tracks, walk all the way to the front of it, cross, then get to the train station just in time to buy a ticket. The guy hand's us the ticked and the passenger train pulls up in front. Best luck we've had in a while.

The train pulls into Oveido and we realize we don't have any way to contact the couch surfer we were to stay with here, a 20-something college student from Poland. We can only email her and unfortunately, we find NO place that has wifi. Not even an internet cafe, cyber cafe or anywhere at all that has internet. We walk and walk in a perimeter around the train station then use Hari's phone to send her an email and head back to the train station to wait for her to reply. There I meet another young woman named "Maria." She is the second Maria I've met here who gave me her email. She was waiting to go back to Madrid. Maria spoke great English and has done a part of the Camino herself. We invited her to come to Colorado when she could and that we would show her around.

12 February 2010

Once Veronika decides I’m not a complete psycho, the hangs with me like a mother hen while Hari has to fend for himself among three Polish girls and an older Spanish woman who teases him for his Spanish. I keep my mouth mostly shut, giving the illusion of the wise, old soul. It’s works, as far as I can tell anyway.

We were out of the alburgue just in time to see a pack of fellow peregrino’s coming down the path, so we waited and joined them. They were not a very genial or happy crowd, barely mustering a “hola” in the process.

Seeing their equipment, packs and clamshells to identify them as peregrino’s and seeing their steady pace, I thought we would be behind them in no time. We stayed with them for a while, then one by one, we passed each until we were pretty far ahead of all save a few that were initially ahead of us. The trail was literally a walk in the park. It did have some steep sections and some mud, but nothing that compared to the Del Norte route. There is a small bar where the Cuban guy is already sitting and having a beer so we go in, have some food and  get a stamp, the only one we’d get between Lugo and Santiago, then push on. We catch up to more peregrino’s and pass them. At the point we’ve hit about 35kms for the day, there is not a soul behind us. We’d left all of them in the dust. The Belgium couple, the German kid, the guy from Cuba, all.

No wonder we get lost so much, which way is it?

Asking the Cuban guy (he never told us his name) what these were, he said, “for grain.” He said they put them on flat rocks to keep the rats out of the grain. 

There is an alburgue about 4kms from Santiago, but I suggest that a few km’s shouldn’t hold us back from completing this in one day. By this point we’d done 40kms and why stop there when a few more kms would get us to Santiago, the cathedral and the end of our journey. At that point we could do whatever we wanted and no longer be pilgrims, but just tourists.

Last 10kms to Santiago:

Just coming into the city limits of Santiago:

Our hips, knees and feet feel like they’ve been punished for enough sins now and I have to take frequent breaks to be able to go on. The pavement is turning the soles of my feet into hamburger and my hips need a break from the hills and stones about every kilometer.

After the 39kms it is from Arzua to Santiago, it’s another 4-5 to the cathedral. When we finally round the corner to the Cathedral, the sight is breathtaking.

The backside of the Cathedral:

It is the largest and most ornate church of any kind that I’ve ever seen.

 Cathedral of Saint James the Pilgrim:

Going inside (the back door is the only one open) we ask around about where we can get a stamp on our credentials. We’re given a number of different directions, but since we’re used to this, we take it in stride. Two policemen outside the church finally tell us where the office of Santiago Pelligrino’s is. Climbing the stairs, I expect monks to welcome us from our long journey. Instead, we find an ultra-modern office with many young women behind computers. We each walk up to a different woman and show our passport. The travelers passport or “credentials” as they’re marked.

The one helping Hari just takes his and starts to go through the paperwork, mine goes through the stamps with a fine-tooth comb. She asks how we made it from Lugo to Santiago in one day. I say it was two days and she says it still can’t be done and that I needed more than one stamp between there and Santiago. When I explain that all churches are closed and that we just walking on, not stopping at every place along the way, she says that even supermarkets can stamp them. She then folds it up and says that she cannot issue a Compostella, I think this is the thing saying that I am absolved by the pope of two, count them, TWO sins (but only because it’s a ‘Jacobian’ year) and instead gives me a certificate that says “Thanks” for making the journey as a pilgrim (and supporting the Catholic church all along the way in the process).

I walk out, feet in agony after walking 44km since 10am this morning and feel totally anticlimactic. No absolution of sins, some cute, young chick tells me what I’ve walked is just not good enough (now I know why the other pilgrims we left behind were stopping at every bar and had planned to take two-days for the 44kms, not one like us crazy Americano’s) and I would have to keep my sins for another day. I didn’t feel the need to mention that I probably commit that many sins before I even get out of bed and most those would make the pope shit his robe, but hey, at least they’re the “fun” sins and not shit that hurts anyone else. When we took the bus out of Lugo after stumbling around for HOURS looking for the Camino out of the town, we knew it would probably kill our chances at absolution so I have no one to blame but..., the fucker who was responsible for marking the Camino route out of each and every Goddamn town we came to and totally screwed the pooch on that job..., yeah!

Before I turned away from this young lady who was basically accusing me of trying to get something for nothing, I pondered the rather tantalizing idea of telling her she could “stick her compostella where the sun doesn’t shine,” but that would surely take away at least one of said absolved sins, so it seemed pointless. Now, after weeks of sweat, tears and cussing the likes of which would make a sailor blush, I’ll have to continue seeking another way of “absolving” my sins. Or maybe forget the whole “sin” concept entirely and just continue to live the golden rule...

Finding a hostel just a few blocks from the Cathedral in the old city was a boon. It was the last night of carnival here and people were all over. We left our things in the room and headed to where all the music and people were. In true fashion, Hari wanted to have some good beers and I was tired of eating at eleven o’clock at night, so we found a Doner Kebob place and ate and had a beer. I had a soda, but also planned to start drinking.

 Fountain a few blocks from our hostel:

After a few pubs, we asked about wifi and were directed to a place that allegedly had both wifi and a staggering selection of international beers. I had an Austrian lager and Hari had something that was marked as 9% alcohol. He wanted more, but I was too tired, dizzy and in pain at this point to continue and needed to be supine soon. The place didn’t have wifi after all so there was no other reason to be here other than drink. Hari was already anesthetizing his aches well, so of course he wanted to continue drinking. We compromised with going back and he would take the keys and go out again while I settled into the room and nursed my body.

 This is the last night of Carnival here and people are all over town:

On the way, I see that the cathedral is lit up with lights and would like to get some pics so we head that way. Hari stopped for a wifi signal he found. I said I’d be in front of the Cathedral and he says he’ll meet me there in a minute. That’s the last I see of him. I wait at the Cathedral for 20-minutes or so, taking pics, admiring the work that went into building it.

 The Cathedral at night:

After waiting for Hari not to show up, I head back in a route directly to where he was. No Hari and I didn’t pass him on these narrow streets that I could see everyone who passed. I then head back to the hotel. He’s not there and they haven’t seen him. So I head back to the Cathedral and he still isn’t there so I sit down on the cold, many centuries-old stones and wait, looking up at the sight before me and watching each person who enters the huge area in front of the church. Still no Hari. I stay for about forty-five minutes and finally limp back to where he was, checking every pub along the way knowing that’s probably where he ended up. No sign of him anywhere. The hotel guy says he hasn’t seen him either when I get back, so at this point I figure he either found someone and was getting laid, or was happily drinking himself into his normal stupor somewhere. Many parallels came up tonight, déjà vu experiences with my brother Dan when he was an alcoholic. He would totally ignore, or just forget, that other people were put out of their way. He would come in late at night and wake everyone up, or just disappear and show up with some other “good-time” drunkard who gave him a ride home, wake up the house and then drink some more and be loud and obnoxious because it was cool and everyone must be having as good of a time as he was. Drunks think everyone is as happy and anesthetized as they are. I was worried about Hari, but also glad that my experience with Dan taught me to get the room keys before the drinking got out of hand or I would be out till four-am tolerating drunks the whole time. I now find myself in “self-protection” mode, not having slept for a few nights and not able to take a sleeping pill tonight in case I need to deal with something in regards to Hari.

I came up to the room, stripped off most of my clothes and crawled into a warm bed. My heels hurt like they have huge blisters on them so I can’t lay on my back, laying on my stomach with my feet hanging over is better, but everything aches so much that I still can’t sleep. I periodically get out of bed to open and look out the window for any sight of Hari, even getting partially dressed and walking down to the front door at 3-4 in the morning to see if he’s showed up there.

At six-am, still no sleep on my part, Hari bangs on the door. He smells strongly of alcohol and limps-in saying he was sleeping down by the hostel door till the bread guy let him in. He is loudly snoring away now, filling the room with that alcohol-breath smell that will probably get me drunk soon myself.

Not a wink of sleep, but I did rest a bit, so I’ll get up, pack what little I had unpacked, shower, then hobble down the three-flights of stairs to the café, get a café con leche and decide what to do with the next week I have left.

The thing to do now, for pilgrims who’ve finished the Camino walk, is to go to Finesteria (sp?) on the coast and burn our clothes. Legend has it that the clothes of most pilgrims are so smelly that it’s the only socially responsible thing to do. I think I’ll burn my “Thanks, but not good enough” certificate the young lady at the Peregrino office gave me when I’m there and walk barefoot in the cold sand for a while to sooth my punished feet. At least they should be forgiven any sins they’ve committed.

Then my plans are to come back to Santiago, get a shave for the first time in a month so I don’t look so “Peregrino’ish,” gather my stuff from the Hostel that they said I could store there, go to the Pilgrims office, shake the dust and mud from France to the far coast of Spain off my boots and on their doorstep, then turn and head South to Portugal to spend the rest of my time with couch-surfers and whatever cheap lodgings I can find in Lisbon and Oporto. I think Hari and I need a break from each other anyway and I certainly need to get back into a “normal” schedule of sleep, eating (meaning, NOT at 11pm) and waking, not staying out to close the bars down every night, only to wake with a hangover you need a beer to chase away. That’s not a life for me.

Hari came down to the café and had a coffee, asking what happened to me last night. I’m tired from days of no sleep and all-day hiking and just want to finish things, so Fisterra is the last thing. I say I need to find a Peliqueria to get a shave, but unlike most countries, barbers and shave shops are far and few between here. I’ll look for one once we get to the coast. Hari says he met some Aussie musician women and might meet them again tonight, or go to Oviedo where they are supposed to play next. Barbara, our fellow Peregrino from the north route emailed him to say she was stuck in Santander at a pension because she lost her passport and needed to wait for one to get to her, I suggested he join her there to keep her company.

I emailed a few couch-surfers in Portugal about coming earlier since I now have a week, but need to wait to hear back from them via email. My cash reserves are gone now (costs were way higher than I thought they’d be, no one housed or fed us because we were peregrino’s, only one nice young woman because we were couch surfers) and I’m on credit from this point out, so I need to do whatever I can to conserve. Since I have a backpack and sleeping bag, as long as I can get somewhere that it isn’t raining, I can camp out.

Neither Spain or Portugal are places I would chose to visit, but I had a vastly different idea in mind when we talked about walking the Camino. Of course at that time, we were talking the Camino Frances, not the Del Norte. Everyone’s opinion of the Del Norte route is that…, it sucks. In the winter, it sucks worse. We didn’t find this out until we were walking it. 

On the bus now headed to Fisterra, on the coast, the traditional place for pilgrims to finish their trek. I bought some fruit at an open-air market in Santiago this morning, I’m tired of the sam stuff, “omelets” (basically a quiche of eggs and and potatoes or chorizo sausage) and café (espresso)  or a croissant and café.

Lunch is sandwiches that are just bread and sliced chorizo or ham (jamon) or queso inside, only one town did we find a sandwich that had tomato and lettuce in it, the same town we got the –1 star room, Llanes.

Vegetarian sandwiches. Most all of these come with ham. Thin sliced, salt cured pork, “jamon.” When you ask for a vegetarian sandwich, it comes with this. Here in Northern Spain, ham is considered a vegetable. It’s certainly a staple. Barbara, our fellow pilgrim, was a vegetarian. She jokes about having to remove half of what she buys when she asks for vegetarian and if you don’t do eggs and cheese, you might as well starve to death. 

The bus ride, costing 20euros ($30) took three-hours. There was little beach, per say, mostly harbor, but we did find some sand to walk in.

I take my shoes off and notice my ankles are really swollen, like a COPD patient’s ankles. My heart seems fine, I think? For the last two and a half weeks it’s rate has been elevated for eight to ten hours per day, asking more of it than it usually sees with no issues (those of you with the comments on “heartlessness” can save them...) so it’s probably not that, I’ll guess just the pounding of the last day of 45kms of walking on dirt, rock, pavement and stones to get to Santiago.

Walking on the beach feels great, cold, but soothing to the blisters and soles that have been abused mercilessly, not to mention my newly-found swollen ankles. The air is warm, relative to where we’ve been lately, and it feels freeing to remove some clothing. I still haven’t found a barber to get a shave, so I’ll head back to Santiago and look there once more. Otherwise, I suppose I’ll just wait till I get to Portugal.

The bus is heading back to Santiago now, grinding up and down the coastal streets that it follows all the way back and forth to Fisterra (pronounced “Finestria”)

I have two options, one is to check email when I get there and see if a couch surfer replied back and has a couch for me tonight, the other is to catch an overnight train to Portugal. It’s another “you can get there from here” things where I’d have to change trains in Bergos or something like that, then take another train on south to Portugal. Either way, I’d be out of the country by morning and in Lisbon or Oporto. There are couch surfers in both places who could host me, but I’m not sure how many days they will tolerate my presence and I have a week left to go.

Just realized that Hari spent most of the start of his birthday in bars and out in the cold in front of the hotel. He was only there a few hours though as the bars or party he found himself at didn’t wind down till four-AM. Meant to do something special with him today, but I’m just too tired now. Tired of everything. I need a room to myself where I don’t feel responsible for anyone but myself, a nights sleep that I can actually spend sleeping, some healthy food. Yeah, I’m spoiled, but I like my life that way. I’ve lived out in the weather and cold enough to appreciate that it sucks. People say it builds character, I say screw that, I’d rather be completely lacking in it if I had a choice again.

In some ways I feel some hurt at not hanging with Hari, but it’s killing me to eat at 11pm, stay up till midnight or one or two, then NOT sleep, then get up at 8am because it’s a waste of time to just toss around in my bag. The diet is so not me; fats, meats, carbs, caffeine and cigarettes. Whether you smoke or not here, you still smoke. Every restaurant, café, bar, station, etc. is smoke-filled so you’re instantly a second-hand smoker, like it or not. I’ve forgotten how spoiled we are and how good we have it in the US. Even most smokers I know in the US appreciate that restaurants aren’t so smoky you can’t see ten-feet ahead.

So for all the pissing and moaning, I’m trying to look at the good here. One of those that I constantly mention to Hari is the build quality of things here. The very day I mentioned this, looking at the beautiful welds on the stainless steel railing along a path, Hari manages to break an elevator. It dropped him three-floors and trapped him in. He yelled and banged, but to no avail. When he tried to call with the emergency phone, it rang somewhere in some other city to a general switchboard that deals with these things. They were more interested in his name and who he was, than where he was and if was OK. Luckily he had the box of Rioja we bought for picnics while hiking. He finally had to unscrew a panel and release a cable to get the door open so he could climb out. No one seemed concerned that he was trapped in there or that he had to crawl out a small opening between floors to get free. Weird. Oh, the elevator was an Otis. American.

The building materials and the way things are built, even modern things, is top-notch. Most rivaling or surpassing American build quality. The buses are Mercedes, most of the cars are French, but there are all kinds imported here, Chevy, Ford, French, German, Italian, etc.

Back in Santiago for the night, again at Hostel Suso, they’re very reasonable, modern, clean and sincere staff. If I’m ever in this town again, I’ll stay here, no question.

Today I’ll take a train to Burgos, then connect on to Lisbon. There are a few couch surfers there I can stay with and save some euro’s (not doing well on funds since the costs have been a lot more than anticipated, but staying with couch surfers is a great way to see a city with someone who knows it so it’s actually a good thing) 

Well, Hari and I had breakfast and decided the best thing to do is for him to head up to Llanes and start a repeat portion of the hike since that’s what he came to do anyway and our energy together is great when working on cars and jeeping, but not so great when hiking. I think we both drove each others energy too much. He’ll have a better time hiking by himself or with our fellow peregrino from the monastery and I can already see I’m winding down a bit and have totally changed directions.

The bus to Oporto doesn’t go except on Monday’s, Wednesday’s and Friday’s. It’s Thursday. Hari and I walk toward the bus station where he’ll catch one to Bilbao and then to Llanes. I go with him, sans pack and walking stick, feeling constantly naked. Actually, I’m pretty comfortable naked so that wouldn’t faze me so much, it’s the not having the pack on and something in my hands…, something hard…, OK, I mean wood…, I mean a stick…, oh forget it…

We pass a peliqueria that does men and I still needed to shave off the peregrino look if I planned to stay with any couch surfers, so I walk in and leave my face at their mercy.

So I’ve now lost my “curmudgeon” look and surprisingly..., am also loosing the attitude that goes along with it. Hari made a comment for me to be happy when we hugged at his parting for the autobus estacion. Not sure if the nights of not sleeping or the pain (which is pretty normal for me anyway?) or the days of no sun, or what, but I’d become the grumpy old fart I looked. At least I play a part to it’s perfection.

Me, “post peregrino”

For the first time this trip, I’m relaxing into being a tourist. A cheap-ass one, sure, but a tourist nevertheless.

One of the couchsurfers here in Santiago that I contacted some time ago had given me her number. I called her on skype, sitting in the restaurant of the Hostel Suso. She knew the hotel and said she was off from three until five and that she would meet me here. When she walks in, she recognizes me instantly, so she must not have seen any pics of me with the peregrino look (or she probably would have moved on, pretending she was someone else). She has her car parked where it will be towed if we don’t get back soon, so we grab my stuff, the hostel staff drags my pack out and Gloria tries to lift it. They don’t let her, rather carrying it over to me. She tries and then looks at me like, you’re stupid enough to carry a pack THAT heavy on the Camino?

We make it back to her TDI (diesel, all but maybe three cars here are diesel) Passat, pack my stuff in and head for her place. By the time we get there she’s decided I’m not a total loony and shows me around. We settle in and start to cook lunch together. She has a fish thawed and gives me a pan to make something. I find some spinach in the freezer and cut up some onion to put into a “soup” with some salt and spices. We have the soup, the fish and some rosemary tea while enjoying some conversation.

Gloria is a teacher of ancient Greek. That rings a bell. There was a guy we met in Oviedo at Karolina’s place who was studying ancient Greek and Latin. She’s been everywhere, but not the US. Of course I invited her and she said she hates cold. I told her to come in the summer, it rarely snows then in Colorado.

I have a chance to walk around, looking and acting the part of the bumbling tourist and as chance would have it, the Cathedral is open. Apparently I just missed the swinging incense basket, a huge, HUGE, metal incense burner that gets to swinging. Really swinging. All across the Cathedral and FAST! There is still a lot of smoke from the incense so the lighting is quite surrealistic. Lots of German tourists are snapping pics inside (most of the churches won’t let you do that), so I assumed it was OK. I can pull-off a German tourist until a German tourist comes around. One did. He had a Canon G11 like the big camera I was going to bring. I told him it was a good camera, he asked if I spoke deutch, I said no (“ich farstayenzee kine deutch” – about the only German I know), so he tried to ask in English (also a foreign language to me most of the time) if I knew what the problem was with his camera. I had told him I had one and it was a great camera. I looked at it and he had accidentally shut-off the display. I have that same problem with my big hands. The display button is in a bad place. Glad I’m not the only one who looks like a bumbling tourist when using my G11...

There is intricate art and subtle signs everywhere, to the point you just get numbed to it. Here’s pics of the Cathedral, enjoy (find the eye):

Wait..., what were you people thinking anyway?

I looked around, poked into shops, basically relaxed and focused on just seeing and experiencing new things. Not something I felt I could do when we had a focus other than “bumbling tourist.”

Gloria says I am welcome to stay as long as I wish, but she plans to go to the coast and see her mother this weekend. Not sure I want that responsibility, but she’s great company and we like each other already. It would be nice to relax somewhere for a bit and get my senses back, at least what little I had anyway. There is a couch in Oporto waiting for me too, so lots of great options. Got to take the bus tomorrow, or wait till Monday, so we’ll see how tonight goes. Again, lots of options now.

I’m at the public library checking out the smart chicks and tapping this out. Now that I’m relaxing into not hiking all day, I should be able to update this journal more often. Need to head out to meet Gloria in town for a drink, then we’ll head home and I’ll give her a slide-show of my life as a “Renaissance man,” as she called me. I’d say just a short attention span, but whatever term she likes is fine with me as long as she doesn’t snore...

19 February 2010