El Camino 1

Early in the morning in the 'Buen Camino' albergue in Palais de Rei, I awoke refreshed and excited about my day. It had been so cold during the night that through the single window in our room, the air had made my face pretty cold during the night, but I managed to stay reasonably warm otherwise under my double-layered blanket that Bethany had made for me before leaving for Europe. One side is a dark blue fleece and the other side is a green plaid, a nice celtic-ish blend just for me! At any rate, as you can imagine it is enough to keep me warm with something else, but perhaps not the best choice as a single cover while sleeping. But I was comfortable enough. The night before I had carefully arranged the things in my borrowed backpack as such: in the central bottom would be clean clothes and things I would need to use every night, in the central top would be clothes that wait until Portugal, towel, shoes then dirty cothes. On the bottommost pocket would be things I might need on the trail - first aid, food etc... Before I arrived there it was just an unholy mess of things... which isn't to say it was much neater inside after I rearranged, but definitely easier to use. The night before I had also set out the clothes I would need and upon waking up all I had to do was dress, put away my PJ pants and pack my blanket on top of the pack and be on my way.

As mentioned before, I had no idea what to expect... would it be a medieval trial of robbers and dangerous spaces along the trail with a fire swamp and Rodents of Unusual Size? Who could say... well many people but not me at least. So I scurried in the brisk cold morning air - everyone else seemed to have long since left the place, I was getting up at about 10am (I would find out later that the norm would be to leave the albergue by 8am) - and got dressed and closed up my back. Having asked the night before, the daughter of the owner of the albergue showed me where the path led from where we were and I set out in that direction. From the town there was a pleasant little stone stepway onto the path that seemed very much like what I would expect the path to look like - similar to the much trodden Appalachian Trail. While there was a little bit of mist, the scenery was similar to the deep countryside of VA leaving winter but with tons of rain, lots of leaves and no red clay - great cold blues and heavy dark greens, leaves fluttering in the cooling wind... all the while with lots of very tall evergreens and shrubberies. It surprised me how much green I saw, heavy strong grass and very fertile looking plants all over. Every once in a while I would see a splash of flowers coming from nowhere - just a bunch of purple flowers or a couple of tiny white blossoms. Beautiful.

The dirt trail led through meadows and on the sides of hills and over mountains and every once in a while I would pass by a stone tablet in the ground, very much what one thinks of when you think of the 10 commandments, and inscribed deep in the stone would always at the top be a depressed square and in the middle of the square would be a 3d impression of a scallop shell (Concha) which is the sign of Saint James (Santiago), and if I was lucky it would have an additional inscription below that - 46.7 km (or whatever it might be) to Santiago. There was always a stone tablet at a crossroads to indicate which way the trail to Santiago led and when it still seemed unclear there were always yellow arrows blazed in spraypaint. There were many yellow arrows and many stone tablets indicating the amount I had travelled, and it was very motivating. As I walked along the path listening to music I could tell that I was making progress and actually getting an idea of where I was in my day's travel. The first day was a long long one - 33 kilometers. Roughly half of the entire trail I was to go.

As I walked along the trail, I realized what I had gained from my years of being a Boy Scout - I knew how to hold my backpack and I was strong enough to hike quickly and pick the best places to walk and after a little while I came to a little road (there were lots of roads of all kinds crossed on El Camino) where there was a huge stack of sticks. I saw one particularly off to the side on the ground that was about as tall as I am, guessing 6 feet tall and just barely taperingfrom 5'' around to maybe 3.5'' around. It probably weighed 5 lbs or less and I decided that I would like for it to be my walking stick! I took out my trusty knife and began carving a handle of sorts as I continued listening to music and hiked on. As I hiked, I saw farms as far as the eye could see. If it wasn't forest and there was a road nearby, there were at least 3 farms within sight. These farms consisted of great stretches of land, large squares of firm green grass with cows or sheep or goats grazing, with a stone-founded house at it's front with beautiful wood roofing and usually a dog to the side, or several walking around in front. These houses were more often than not close together with their farm-land stretching out to the sides and all around. There would always be many of these constructions all over the place that I can only assume were used for storing things off the ground. It would be two pillars of either brick or stone with mortar supporting wooden stilts that held up what looked to me like a realy long dog house. It usually had a cute little triangle roof hanging off the sides to protect from the large amounts of rain that the region usually gets, and between the large but not airtight wooden planks on the side I could sometimes see sacks of perhaps grain and sometimes piles of dried corn (maíz). I had never seen these stilted dog houses before, but let me tell you they are EVERywhere. There was a wide range of decoration on them, from nothing whatsoever to elaborate conchas and signs of Santiago to simple solid paint.

It was perhaps 1.5 to 2 hours before I arrived in San Xulian do Camino. I don't recall in particular having passed anyone but with my walking stick in hand I arrived into this little village at the top of a hill where there was of course a grouping of stone houses with sheds/barns and a stone church with a tall bell tower to tell the hour and call people to mass. As I passed some cute little dogs and the occasional barn cat, I came up to an Albergue/café where the owner was helping a man in a plaid button down shirt, hiking pants and boots, a nice little black fanny-pack kind of thing on his side, an artistic bandana tied around his neck and a black skull cap. In his Italian accent I heard through his short beard that he was from Venice and has been hiking since France. After he asked for some coffee he was also offered and given some Orujo de Hierbas which come to find out is traditionally a home-made liquor of over 50% made from the solid remains left after pressing grapes for wine. Seeking for some kind of breakfast, I asked for some bread and butter since I already had some water with me. The owner was very obliging and gave me a plate full of fresh local bread, butter, Spanish olive oil in a glass service piece and strawberry marmelade. This bread, I must guess, was made from stone ground flour with a nice firm crumb and incredible bubble networking and a crispy but golden and tasty crust. It was unspeakably delicious, even without the flavorful and perfectly soft butter, fruity olive oil or veeery sweet and delicious marmelade. I was already convinced that I was going to experience some of the best food available in Galicia on this hike. I watched as the owner decanted his jug of orujo into a serving bottle and I asked him a little more of why it was outlawed. He didn't quite know and supposed that the police we unhappy about losing the tax money of having it produced in houses. That is a pretty good reason to me, however unfair it might be. The longer I sat there and enjoyed my simple breakfast, some other people came in, the first of which were the two German ladies that I recalled briefly speaking to in Palais de Rei. After them came in a group of 4 people who I came to learn were from Catalunya. Once I was ready to go and paid the small fee and headed out on the trail with the Catalans.