En Busca Del Camino

In the morning I woke up to see the time... 9am... damn. My bus would leave the station at 9:30. Luckily everything was packed, I just needed to get dressed and get OUT! I rushed down the subway and waited patiently to switch trains and finally get down to the station at the southermost point of the city of Madrid! I made it! I got to the station with several minutes to spare and flew down to the bus portal when I realized as I looked at the ticket that I had absolutely no idea where the bus might be. Damn. I hunted and hunted as time ticked down. Alas I could not find the bus that would take me to El Camino. I missed it. Shit. What do I do? I was freaking out, sweating and imagining a great failure of this whole trip. Why did I let him arrange the trip for so early! WHY? I know I'm terrible at getting going in the morening, I can't even spell it I dislike it so much. Waking up means stopping sleeping which we all know is a wonderful thing. Anyways, I went up to the ticket booth and asked if I could get a replacement ticket for a small fee. Of course not, Europeans aren't friendly with customer service I have found. No, of course I had to buy a whole new ticket. $50 (€30). Oh bother. Fine, I'll bite, I need to get to Lugo. And so I did! I made the next bus out an hour later to Lugo in far northern Spain.


It was a long long bus trip, and actually something very interesting and unexpected happened right in the middle of it. Remember this is happening on Palm Sunday a week before Easter, officially beginning what the Spanish call Semana Santa (literally translated as Holy Week). As we were passing through Medina del Campo, our bus approached a large cathedral and was stopped as a long long procession marched into the church. There were various groups of the parade that were dressed up in different ways, but it appeared as if most all of them had a long-sleeved robe down to their feet covered with a crucifix studded cape, all of them wearing white gloves and carrying palm fronds and wearing medalleons set on what appeared to be rosary-like necklaces. There were lots of kids and a gigantic float bearing a resemblance to Jesus riding a donkey into Jerusalem to the greeting of people with palm fronds that required the opening of the great wooden doors at the entrance of the cathedral. There are always gigantic wooden doors at the entrance of any great cathedral, although before I had never seen any of them opened, I guess now I know what they're for. There were also dummers and flute playes, remeniscent of the US revolutionary war, although I'm unsure of what the historical coincidence of that might be, just perhaps the time period of origin - mid to late 1700s. I should also note that the float was on great big wheels, I was actually expecting - from the stories I had heard about Semana Santa - that the men would be carrying it on their shoulders, but it was a noisy fun parade that erhsp better expresses the sentiment of the celebration in opposition to the more serious and depressing processions of the Passion that I would expect to come later in the week.


At any rate after passing through that parade and taking a break for lunch in the middle of nowhere (I got a lovely grilled bacon and cheese bocadillo), we arrived in Lugo at 5:30. As we were arriving in Lugo actually, in the median of the road there were beautiful prple and yellow flowers that reminded me to JMU, come to think of it there were flowers all over the place, and tons of green grass and heavily sprouting things, which would only mean one thing: water and lots of it. We arrived in this little station that had a bunch of vacant ticket booths, a tiny little magazine store and a café. Well I looked around for the guy that was supposed to sell me my ticket to Palais de Rei, no luck. Apparantly they just come in whenever they feel like it. Great. I went into the café and got some café con leche and chomped on some of the treats that I had gotten for the trail, some honey roasted peanuts, some little bread crackers and iberico chorizo. And waited. And waited. Well the guy wasn't going to show up so I sat down and wrote some letters to Bethany - I did tell her that I was going to write every day on the trail. Why not, right? I had all the time I wanted to myself and plenty to write about. I'm not sure if I ever mentioned the beautiful stationary that she got for me - a nice parchment-like colored paper simply masculine with a frayed edge and nice crispness. Besides that she also got me a lovely wax stamp with a cool elaborate medieval K on it with several kinds of wax to seal with. If you'd like an example send me your name and address and I'd be happy to send you a personal letter :-). Anyways I finished a postcard and a letter and the guy still wasn't showing up. So I decided to explore the town a little bit. According to Wikipedia:


' In the region of Lugo in the autonimity of Galicia, located on a site above the Minho river and named after the Celtic god Lugus (let's remember that all of Galicia was inhabited by Celtic peoples), it is the only city in Europe to be surrounded by completely intact Roman walls (the Romans of course inhabiting all of Spain for 500 years), which reach a height of 10 to 15 metres along a 2'5 km circuit ringed with 71 towers. The walk along the top is continuous round the circuit. These 3rd century walls are protected byUNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural organization) as a World Heritage Site. The bridge over the Minho is essentially of Roman date, though many repairs over the centuries have effaced its Roman character. '


There is also a large plaza with a little playground and everything, I sat there for a while and took some pictures of the scenery with my film camera but I decidedly had nothing to do. I wandered around the scene, up and down streets hoping that when I returned to the office there might be someone to get a bus ticket from... and indeed when I returned there was someone - €2.50 to get to Palais de Rei, I'll take it! It did take a little longer for everything to get ready, I didn't know what to do except just sit there - purgatory between Madrid and El Camino de Santiago. What sin had I committed to have to sit doing absolutely nothing for 2 hours? Oh yeah, I missed my bus. Damn you karma. Anyways, the bus was eventually ready and it was a short half hour ride to arrive in Palais de Rei which is just a little closer to Santiago, I guess a day's hike closer that I perhaps could have hiked, but I decided I wanted more time to be in Santiago which later I would be thankful for.

The bus arrived in a little stone town with windy hilly streets at twilight. Unsure of what to do, I got off the bus and unloaded my pack. I'm not sure if I mentioned, but I had absolutely no plan whatsoever for El Camino, I just assumed that I would find places and be alright - and hoped that the trail would be obvious and reasonable. I was utterly and absolutely lost in the middle of nowhere without a map and without any idea of what to do. It is a somewhat invigorating feeling to be dropped off with no clue where you are, but I had a streange faith that everything would be alright and wasn't worried. As the sun continued sinking, I unusually did not listen to my iPod but instead tried to take in what I was seeing. This is the beginning of my journey, this is the beginning of my trial and insight. I felt comforted and intensely curious, as I walked down the steep stone path on the side of the cobblestone street into a stone plaza surrounded by small-town buildings. In the center of the plaza seemed to be a fountain with a statue in the middle of it, covered by a large steel beam canopy. As I got closer, I realized that the statue was of a pilgrim with the iconical robe, hood and walking staff with a drinking gourd and scallop shell (concha). I was in the right place I supposed. As I continued looking around, I just happened to see an open door and a sign that said 'Embasía de los Peregrinos' - Pilgrim's Embassy - again I'm in the right place. I went in and explained to the man that I just showed up with no plans or anything and needed help beginning my trail, finding lodging for the night and getting a pilgrim's passport. The pilgrim's passport is a tradition of El Camino where a pilgrim gets a very literal passport of El Camino where in each place you travel through (ideally everywhere you spend the night) you receive a stamp or 'visa' if you will to prove that you were indeed there. At the end of the trail I had heard that you could receive a certificate proving your completion of the pilgrimage. I was keen to acquire such proof of the journey and so made sure to ask for my passport. The incredibly nice man did indeed print me a passport and give me some information for the trail and walked with me to a nearby place called an 'albergue' or pilgrim's hostel to spend the night. I thanked the man for his hospitality and felt rather good about the experience, there is nothing more comforting than genuine generosity and friendliness. The albergue (al - bear- gay... not gway please) was named 'Buen Camino' which I would come to learn later is the common well wishing of the trail that everyone says to everyone in good faith - as you pass anyone on the trail is it considered a sort of blessing to tell them 'Buen Camino'. The very nice man from the embassy introduced me to the owner of the albergue, a lovely woman of her forties, and she led me inside. As I walked into albergue Buen Camino, the stone façade turned into a lovely wooden interior with a very clean and welcoming dining room with all sorts of Camino information on the side of the bar. The lady asked me all about where I was from and where I'm going and shared the embassy man's curiosity of how I could arrive without any planning. 'It'll be fine,' I told her, hoping not to curse myself (hint: I didn't). After asking the lodging price of €9 (none too shabby, eh?), she asked her daughter of 16-18 or so to lead me up to the rooms and to find me space in a men's room, and I found myself in a very nice small room with 7-9 beds and a rather homey feeling. The beds were set with basic sheets and pillows, and I first unpacked and plugged in my iPod to charge and soon went downstairs to the dining room. Undecided on what to do, I asked the lady for some food and she offered a bacon tortilla sandwich - sounds perfect! I watched the lady pull out some obviously fresh eggs and a hunk of home-cured bacon, she sliced the bacon herself and fried it perfectly in a pan over a flickering blue gas flame, thereafter perfectly mixing the eggs and bacon in a lusciously firm on the outside slightly soft on the inside tortilla on some very fresh and flavorful bread. I was in heaven. If you don't already know, my favorite food is bacon, my favorite meal is bacon and eggs. I thought I had tried the best ways to have bacon and eggs already, but I stood corrected. It was incredible, perfectly salty from the bacon, outrageously flavored from those angelic brown bits from the correctly fried bacon (noplace else in Spain seems to understand the concept of bacon frying, it's always fatty and limp), soft and sweet from the fresh local eggs... just perfect. I put to the side of it some peach juice which is very popular in Spain, which fit the southern home-food theme. All of a sudden as I sat there I noticed that I recognized the song from the concert I went to by Jarabe de Palo (I finished a blog from a while ago about Madrid, if you haven't read it, it's up... you have to go back to find it). As I continued sitting there, very friendly people came in and chatted with me about where we're from, where we're going and all that, in fact they were three people about my age, a girl and two guys. The mentioned that they were planning on going to the same place the next day and that perhaps we could hike together! I was pleased with that and continued sitting there for a while savoring my tortilla bocadillo. After a little while I saw the mother/owner pour some shots and beers for some of the guys in the bar, but I didn't recognize the alcohol, it came out of a sort of water jug and had a yellow-ish color. She told me that it was called Orujo de Hierbas and explained that it was a Galician treat and that the kind that she had 'está prohibido, la policía tienen miedo' - it's prohibited/illegal, the police are afraid. I didn't know quite what she meant but she offered a free little shot just because I had never seen or tried it before. Obligingly and curious I downed it and realized that I loved it! It was very sweet and flavorful of herbs, kind of minty and only had a tiny burn. I had no idea what there was to be afraid of except that it would be so easy to just drink this until I had no idea what was going on, but I settled for the free little shot, I was hoping to encounter more of that later on the trail.
There was even a little internet kiosk there but it was prohibitively expensive and I only spent 30 minutes on it to say hello and I made it to El Camino. Afterwards I went upstairs to take a lovely relaxed shower and then chatted in what little German I knew with some ladies by the dryer before going to bed for a rather pleased and relaxed rest.

I had no expectations of El Camino and didn't know what might be coming but as mentioned before I felt a sort of faithful peace that people had been along this trail for hundreds of years and that I can't possibly be in any danger or trouble - so I'd go with the proverbial and Taioist flow. I'm not sure if I mentioned my preparations for the trip - I needed to prepare a reasonable pack, some trail food and a knife. It took me a long time to decide what to bring, expecting to have my pack on my back all day up and down mountains, so I decided on a large supply of socks and a more limited supply of shirts and pants, attempting to save some nice clothes for Easter with Caroline in Porto. I went to Carrefour (the ubiquitous, even wal-martish Spanish food store) and got some cured Ibérico chorizo and some honey roasted peanuts and some cracker/crouton sorts of things that look like tiny loafs of bread, I figured they would be a source of filling starch if I needed it - I also brought on the trail my water bottle - a large bottle with a pop top (I'm not quite sure what to call it, but it's an easy open sort of thing where you just have to pull the top part up and it opens the bottle to be able to suck out the contents - trust me you know what it is) that must hold 24 oz or so. The knife I bought for €5 or so in a store near my Salamanca home from a very friendly vendor, a very simple reasonably short model with a plastic handle and flip-open forged blade with a stud to aid quick opening. I was considering it first of course for protection after my Porto incident, but after that I use my knifes every day - open fruit, open letters, cut random strands off clothing, hunting small game, peeling things, carving small sticks... things like that. I must say above all I was thankful that I had gotten that thing. I appreciated the easy-to-clean nature, easy-to-open, rather strong nature of the knife and I think it will last for a good long time.

To answer some questions asked of my last post:
1. The Thyssen-Bornemisza art museum in Madrid is named after its owner, a collection that started in the 1920s by the extraordinarily rich Heinrich Baron Thyseen-Bornemisza de Kászon, a German-Hungarian entrepreneur and art collector, the collection was continued by his son and sold to the Spanish government in 1992 for $350 million. It remains one of the greatest and largest personal art collections in the world. The family is now renowned for the horrific private participation of family members in the WWII genocide. Uplifting, I know.
2. Die Fälsche does indeed mean the counterfeiters in German and those counterfeiters in the movie that I saw were the Jewish prisoners under orders of the Nazis to counterfeit the British pound and American dollar. The counterfeiter prisoners, although of course still prisoners held to the same cruel indifference as all others, were shown some preference, given nicer beds and better living space and some autonomy in their work. In return for successfully recreating the British pound so that the British banking authorities couldn't even tell the difference, the prisoners received a ping pong table.
3. I have not been able to attend any church services except that of the Catedral Nuevo of Salamanca a long time ago since we have always been travelling on Sundays otherwise, however this upcoming Sunday I will indeed be free to attend a church service and I will be hunting around for a good place in Salamanca to go to, although I think I might visit a place close to the river that has a gorgeous altar and as I accidentally walked in on one time, a thriving community. The one service, as you may remember, was a traditional Catholic service entirely in Latin without any homily or communion which I found strange, although there was reasonably no congregation to connect with.
4. Yes, I am definitely still listening to a lot of Maria Schneider, I think I will try to take time to write about my iPod habits and trends sometime.