Camino MMXVIII: surfing the Pilgrims' wave
3rd and last part...
Day 5: we were part of the crazy few who ventured on the alternative route - the "Calzada Romana" - which ended with a 24 km stretch with nothing else than open fields under the burning sun. Nothing! You would never see the end of it, the earth was literally curving in front of your eyes - forcing you to move forward...
Such a tour de force ended at the Auberge municipal de Reliegos, where we were reunited with the American dudes and a whole batch of new people. Most of the pilgrims from the day before were cut off from the race. We had seen no one on the road, feeling again like first class adventurers.
In the village we caught a glimpse of the mysterious Italian girl we met on the river in Carrion, but she disappeared into thin air after talking to our old friend Xavier (whom- following his prediction- we kept meeting all the time)...
Having cooked a delicious common meal with Dan and Zlatan, I had the brilliant idea to invite Xavier (an invisible force pulling me towards doing that…) who in turn brought in a Spanish lady . The crucified face pulled up by Zlatan and his dry ‘Aha!’ made me doubt the new guests were well received. The realization came that the sausage he contributed to the common good might have been expensive. But one look at the happy face of our guru Xavier was enough to instantly dissipate my worries..
(Insert here the non-compulsory bonus material at the end of the page)
Day 6 (Reliegos-Leon): we got to Leon and stayed at a large albergue run by local nuns. The highlight of the day was the face of the Korean guy who bought 2 kilos of steaks only to realize that there was no proper kitchen in the hostel. We shared our food with these guys. After an afternoon of prowling around in Leon we were recruited for the pilgrim blessing in the evening by some nuns running around with bells and had to spend half an hour in a church looking at ceilings. The following morning, our donation of a pack of stale brioches to the nuns for use in the communal breakfast was very well received _"Gracias! Que bien!”...._followed by general excitement...it did not last long: the brioches were gone well before the pious nun could put them on a plate!
Our walk out of Leon via the alternative, wilder, route is again a painful stretch under the sun in nowhere land...until we see again our beloved Italian girl (eyed again the day before in Leon). This time she is the one talking to us ....we are both attentively nodding to each and every word she utters (in Italian of course, but what a music it was for Seyi…). A few minutes are enough to diagnose her with a serious case of boyfriend disease.. She stops in the next village and we move on to Hospital de Obriego. Grand entry to the village via a magnificent bridge. The parish hostel has a very nice (and sunny) inner court, where I get stuck into conversation with an American couple of fresh retirees. They seem to be in a good physical shape but pretty worn out mentally- both had quite stressful jobs (she had 155 people reporting to her apparently) which seem to have gotten most of their vital sap out. Good people, probably, but a warning to the self. Freedom is best served ice cold and with a good dose of physical vigor. In an impetus of zeal, we decide to attend again the evening meeting between pilgrims, where we found ourselves in a circle explaining the reason for doing the Camino to the local priest. He then start telling us parables and examples of how God can present himself during the Walk. He was very spiritual and quite a nice character, so that at a given moment I really tried to suspend my disbelief and started thinking that maybe a Deus (sive natura) is a necessary concept to live the present and interpret our age.. Maybe not literally believing that there is a God doing certain things, but simply using the concept of God to enhance our experience of this world?
On Day 7 we have a short march on woody hills to Astorga. We stop at a hippy shack along the way, where we get some nice food in exchange for a donation and experience again the principles of the gift economy..."This is a self-service, not a shop. If you cannot give, you don't. Don't thank me, thank mother earth..." we hear him saying. Then: "Hay mucha gente caminando, pero pocas que van haciendo el Camino"...referring to people ploughing by without stopping. After visiting similar places, it comes natural to feel privileged for being alive, grateful and willing to give unconditionally... (mood that was promptly exploited by my beer-thirsty travel companion..)
Before marching into Astorga another occasion to do good presented itself: we were stopped by a French youtuber who asked us to be filmed. He was a survivalist adventurer- trying to understand why the heck people choose the Camino -and drilled us with a long list of questions. While hearing our voices answering, I couldn’t help thinking that over a full day this guy must hear a lot of shit.
The hostel in Astorga is run by highly-principled nuns, I hear them turning down a telephone booking attempt. "If someone shows up at our door asking for a bed, we cannot tell them there are some empty beds which have been reserved. When our hostel is full we normally direct you to other hosts". Music to the ears of two pilgrims who refused to book even during the harshest pilgrim stampedes. But- alas!- our esteem for these nuns lasted only until check-in time, when we found out that the ruling principle of the place is age discrimination. Everyone was ruthlessly asked to declare their age aloud in front of a whole queue (can't you just estimate it, or read it from the ID card I just gave you?). What's worse is that the information was then used to assign to you a bed within your peer-group. For some reason (I believe because we look way younger than our passports...), we managed to wreak havoc in their lists, so that the hospitalera had to spell everyone's name (and age, of course) again before distributing people to their rooms. We ended up in a 4-beds room with an 80 year old who was already snoring at 2pm and a 36 y-o guy, who looked like my grandfather and was therefore assigned the lower bunk without further age inquisition. The guy had done practically all the Caminos, as testified by the logos sewn on his backpack: “I must warn you that the Camino can become a little bit addictive..." he stated (German accent on the ‘a little bit’ and proud look).
At dinner we start getting acquainted with the wave of pilgrim who started in Leon and I have a chance to experienced first time the sense of disconnect with those whose feet are still fresh...Cheaters. No wonder in Burgos our clean T-shirts were looked upon with such contempt. Amongst the newbies stood a peculiar German lady to whom we offer some dinner (consisting of rice we embezzled from the kitchen earlier on). I was quite shocked by her extreme mood swings and by reading the terror in her eyes due to the mountains to be faced the following day. Newbie who’ll make her bones in a few days.
Despite the heavy snoring of the strapping lads in our room, we slept splendidly.. at least until Seyi's spectacle-case fell ruinously on the floor at 5am (no earplugs have yet be invented to account for the proverbial awkwardness of my travel companion).
Day 8: we set off with our "old-times" pace (when we were young, 3 years ago), skittling past incredulous pilgrims of all ages and sizes. The landscape opens up, as we gain altitude with breathtaking views on forested and flowering hills. We decide to have a cana (pron. cania) in the ruined village of Foncebadon (freezing, 1400m above sea level) and then ended up staying at the local parish hostel, which seemed to be well-principled: nice hospitalero, community dinner all together, donativo (...and what's best, donations are only accepted at the end, because " La cena de hoy es gracia al donativo de hier"...muy bien...spreading full hands the ideas of the Gift economy, based on interdependence between all pilgrims...or maybe an invite to let tomorrow's pilgrim starve?)
Day 9: Foncebadon-Ponferrada: Seyi doesn't waste time at breakfast to strike conversation with a nice hospitalera. He will later on get her number in front of my astonished eyes (and those of her boyfriend). At the “iron cross” mountain-pass we ignore the millenary tradition and challenge the Gods by not deposing any rock under the cross. It’s like stating that we have no major sins to declare. Some black clouds on the horizon are now cooking up a storm…
The route after the Cross is lovely, flowery, open to the surrounding mountains, going down. We rock on like usual for us in downhills. The last stretch to Ponferrada in the heat is a (punitive?) sauna, but we are now used to our daily drill. Luckily the volunteers at the hostel have mercy on us, letting us take a much-needed shower before we had to the bus station. A bodily-refreshing close for yet another mind-refreshing adventure.
Bonus Material: Characters of the Day
Time to hit a nearby bar, joining some cool lads for a pint: Rich- the self-deprecating brummy, and Peter- my Australian/German nemesis...obsessed about my jokes about Germans... drilling me with concerned questions about it...
Rich mastered the art of self-deprecatory humor as a way of talking uninterruptedly about himself. His lack of self-restraint in buying useless crap. The contrast between his old girlfriend talking in a low voice "Ua-ua-ua", creating problems out of nothing and generally "passing the days on the couch drinking wine and getting lazier.." and the new Spanish one, cute accent, who did the Camino alone and pushed him to do it as well, who's earning more than him but spending nothing, who's healthy-walking- running etc.., cooks delicious healthy food and makes fruit salads for him... The only time I got my fair share of attention was when exposing my theory on how we were now ahead of the big intake of pilgrims who started at St. Jean on May 1st: let's keep on surfing the pilgrim wave!
Back in the kitchen at the auberge we met a cute couple of beautiful souls- he rescued her 3 days before on the side of the road after she got injured (by trying to walk the whole camino in 21 days...). Since then they had been walking hand in hand, small step after small step... FastForward: we see them in Leon's cathedral square parting from each other in tears ..she walks away without turning back and he stands looking like a frozen image.. the following days he'll be walking alone with a very mumbly look...
