My uphill walk from the quiet simplicity of Portomarin began in rain. I had not anticipated more of the sheets of rain as I’d seen coming off the mountain passes near O’Cebreiro, but as I readied myself to step out into the darkness of another 6AM morning in Spain, there was a crowd of pilgrims by the doorway, reluctant to venture forth. I politely nudged my way through and plunged into the morning downpour. I was nestled deep in my rain shell and rain-proof pants. I was in a cocoon of mental quietude left over from the night before. I was impermeable.
Fifty meters up the street I ducked my head into a bar/cafe on the right side of the street, already soggy. I had that paranoia that sets in when you know that your boots are waterproof but, even so, between the knowledge that you’re walking through puddles and the chill of the water all around, you convince yourself you feel a leak. This did not bode well for the day’s walk, as I was on a fairly tight timetable to reach Santiago, meet up with my friend Susannah, and have time to make my flight home.
The cafe was too brightly lit and smelled of cigarettes; the old Spanish man sitting at the bar and the man behind the counter both seemed cut from a Cold-War espionage film: wide lapels, dodgy facial hair, small eyes, and some slight outward hostility. Some pilgrims had already claimed territory at the tables, but as I dropped my pack and hiking poles next to the door and looked around, I saw the Brits, Chris and Liz, already warming their hands around coffee cups. I gave them a quick nod and ordered at the bar; before I finished speaking the man was already throwing fresh bread into a skillet to make my toast while simultaneously working the espresso machine.
Breakfast was hot, and plentiful, and good. I ate slowly, hoping the weather would break if I lingered long enough, and saw several of my fellow pilgrim friends come and go. When I saw the light begin to shift toward day, I gathered my things to go and made a quick detour toward the bathroom - mistake. I thought I’d seen the most frightening bathroom in Spain already, but this one was some sort of murder closet/outhouse hybrid. I could wait.
As I walked into the morning, the weather did, in fact, seem to ease. I remember the hiking as easy and natural, even unremarkable. The landscape generally followed an uphill path toward Sierra Ligonde and looked like nothing so much as my youthful visions of The Shire. When I was an awkward, lonely ten year old gifted with academic ability but few other valuable skills, one of my schoolteachers took a mercy on me one day and gave me a book. I remember she took me aside after class and told me that I was so good at reading that I had earned the privilege of reading an extra book for class. She told me the book was special to her when she was my age, and that she picked it out specifically for me. The book was The Hobbit.
It was a fateful meeting, J.R.R. Tolkien and myself at age ten. Since then, my imagination immediately reaches for a few key things when I want the image of an idyllic, fanciful place: greenness, and fog, and stone, and laughter. The twisting walk from Portomarin to Palas de Rei offered those things in abundance; even in the stretches where the Camino intersected with roads and development, it quickly diverted back toward secret pockets of trail between homes and low stone walls, sharp rocky paths abutting sheep fields, and clusters of trees hiding the promise of other creatures, other worlds.
During my walk there weren’t many places to stop, however, at the roadside cafes I leapfrogged with the Brits, the two young Australians, the older Vermonters, Joe, and the Wonderful Quebecois (Jean-Louis and Danielle). I stopped at one cafe for brunch and found it so crowded inside that I took my tuna empanada outside to the partially covered stone barn and ate my food on a wooden bench next to piles of hay, manure, and rusty old farm tools. In the afternoon I again found Chris, Liz, and the Australian gents at a cafe and joined them for two rounds of Cola-Cao - perfectly suited to the day’s drizzling weather.
On one stretch I walked purposefully alone, holding on to my rosary and trying to begin to appreciate the length and distance I’d come along the Camino thus far, when I was approached and accosted by a pilgrim I’d seen off and on in the last several weeks. He was tall, dirty, French, and reportedly walking the Camino without any money. I already had a resistance in my gut to him: although he was walking on the kindness of others and completely unafraid to approach strangers to ask, outright, for a meal, wine, or cigarettes, I felt resistant because I never saw him in want of cigarettes or alcohol. The night prior after mass, I watched him charge up behind the altar to ask the priest for money.
I wasn’t really certain how to deal with him. I’d experienced so much kindness and freedom from judgment on the Camino thus far, and my natural instincts and convictions told me to offer kindness without expectation. On the other hand, after working in wilderness therapy for many years, I knew when I was being manipulated. When the man approached me and began a conversation, I was polite but distant, wary of what he may want. True to my expectations, he soon abandoned his questions about me and asked if I had a cigarette. I said I did not smoke. He asked again, and I told him, truthfully, I did not smoke. He shrugged and picked up his pace; I decided to sit by the road for a while.
For the rest of the Camino, he didn’t approach me. Nearly a year later, I’m not certain what I should have done. Obviously I did not have what the man wanted, but if I had been less reserved, potentially less rude, would our interaction would have been different? If he had been more observant in respecting the church in Portomarin, would I have been better able to see Jesus in him? I have no idea.
Arriving at Palas de Rei was strange. The Camino comes in on a downhill trajectory toward roadways and concrete; the town itself didn’t strike me as more than a stopping point on the way to Santiago. I had heard, and was afraid, that the closer I one got to Santiago the more suburban the towns became. On top of that, I came bustling in during siesta so other than a loud American group outside a bar, there were few sounds and little activity. I more or less picked a hostel at random and went in to find myself in a downstairs full bar packed with pilgrims, many of whom I didn’t recognize. This itself was disconcerting as it pointed toward the numbers of latecomers who were only finishing the last 100k. I put down my euros, got my stamp, and was led up steep staircases to the top floor and placed in a bunk next to the window (overlooking the bus station and a laundry line festooned with someone’s underwear) atop my friend Trish from Australia. There I met Dave from Vancouver who was very, very friendly, and blonde, and energetic, and re-introduced myself to Martina and Angela from Germany. This time there were no awkward moments but smiles and inquiries about their hikes. I spent some time looking at Angela’s blisters with Martina and tried to assure her across the language barrier that covering the damn things with Compeed was probably a better bet than nursing them throughout the final stretch to Santiago.
I spent some time wandering around the hostel, finding the Quebecois in the bar and sharing a dark beer which left me immediately tipsy and silly, coming across Lotus in the topmost floor insisting to the hospitalera (and to much eye-rolling of her roommates) that she needed to have the single bed underneath the skylight for reasons of health and safety, and eventually making my way to the streets outside. There seemed to be one restaurant offering a pilgrim’s menu, so I walked in and was immediately made aware I was out of my element.
The restaurant was well-decked out in proper dining form, and it was packed. I stood there for a moment, quietly resigning myself to a probable meal of grocery store snacks and a soda, when Jean-Louis and Danielle came up behind me and pulled me into their group. Somehow they’d connected with the Vancouverite and another random Dave, and insisted I join their table.
The meal itself was loud, and hectic, and I struggled to find a way to work in any words of my own; the conversation flowed between English and French quicker than I might follow. I stuffed myself on such amazing Caldo Gallego and homemade bread that the mediocre chicken course went barely noticed. Our table sank bottle of wine after bottle of wine with seemingly little effect, until one of the Daves noticed the alcohol content on the bottle was listed as 4%, placing the wine somewhere in the category of weak grape beer. Naturally, this discovery called for more wine, and as the waiters didn’t seem prone to clear our table, or for that matter any table in the restaurant, we stayed until closing and loudly made our way back to the hostel with a few minutes to spare before lockout. I do not remember going back in. I do not remember walking up three flights of stairs. I do not remember climbing into my bunk, and I do not remember falling asleep. But I do remember a night open to starlight, a crisp bite to the air reminding me of the happiest nights as a soldier on watch at Ft. Jackson, and so much laughter.
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