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Part 37: Arzúa - Santiago de Compostela (40 kilometres)

I hadn’t woken up this happy in a long time. I can’t think of how to explain the feeling without the risk of sounding like a right plonker, which is pretty much what I must have looked like when I woke up with a slight goofy smile on my face. I had been blessed with a fantastic night’s sleep, which on other nights wasn’t the case because I was overly tired. The aches and pains were still there though, just as they had been since I left Canfranc but I didn’t notice them. I still remember the early days of my pilgrimage when I thought I’d completely lost it for taking on so many kilometres, when blisters spontaneously sprouted on my feet and the cramp in my neck made me see stars due to the weight of my rucksack. Yet now I’d turned into a snail. I was walking slowly but confidently, the majority of my blisters had gone and I couldn’t go anywhere without carrying everything but the kitchen sink on my back. And any time I took my rucksack off, I missed it. Yes, I was ready to go to Santiago and that’s why I was smiling.

It seemed like today’s stage was going to be tough but I wasn’t too worried on the whole. Even if I had to reach Santiago at night with one of my legs dragging behind, I was determined that today would be the day I’d pay my respects in memory of the Apostle and all those who travelled the Camino before me, and then afterwards sprawl out in the Plaza del Obradoiro to just take in the moment. I went down for breakfast and after packing my rucksack for the last time, I set off on my forty-kilometre journey to the Galician capital. The path to Santiago doesn’t have too many ups and downs and so I marched my way through the first few kilometres at a good pace. Despite the fact I’m looking forward to reaching the finish line, I can’t deny that I’m going to miss all this; the feeling of being free, not having to stick to any timetables, with your only worry being what you’re going to eat that day and where you’re going to sleep. This is, undoubtedly, one of the Camino’s biggest charms, the fact that it gives you the chance to break free from your routine, look at reality with a little perspective and assess your life, all in a setting like no other and surrounded by people who you have more in common with that what you think. Needless to say, it’s done me the world of good.

While walking this path, I’ve been thinking a lot about the people of my generation and those who are just behind me. I thought about my younger sisters, who are now joining the world of work or are about to finish their University studies, quite a lot while writing these lines. I thought about the situation they are walking into and the difficulties they’re going to encounter or are already encountering to get a job and keep it after all the effort and sacrifices they’ve made. These difficulties affect me too but the difference is that I already have previous professional experience and a healthy track record, mainly abroad, which gives me more room to manoeuvre. Or, at least, that’s what I believe. I thought about them and all the negative messages they’re receiving due to the blasted crisis. I’m not trying to set any examples but, by means of these lines in which I’ve narrated the adventures of my professional beginnings, I’ve tried to send them a message of encouragement by implying that it doesn’t matter what other people say or think or how grim things are looking, what’s important is what we think and where we want to steer our path in life. And with “time, hard work and determination”, as Óscar said, we’ll come through. Didn’t our grandparents come through after a fratricidal war which left them totally and and utterly miserable? Now that was a crisis, lest we forget. I don’t think that the Spanish youth are in crisis, how could they be when they have their whole lives ahead of them and the energy to change their fate?  Those who are in crisis are those who are governing us, those who got us into this situation, those who got too greedy and left us to suffer the consequences, those who still say that this is the way forward and that these are just black clouds that will pass. It’s them who are in crisis, and seriously at that; and no matter how much they stick by their principles, we have to make it clear to them that they can’t be the answer for the very fact that they’re part of the problem.

I also hope that these lines have helped to give some friends and colleagues of mine, who aren’t particularly happy with their jobs in various sectors, a different perspective and show them that a different working reality, such as that which I was lucky enough to experience, is possible; I’m referring to all the young people who are having to endure this so very typically Spanish leadership which goes something like, “you’ll do this and you’ll do it like this because I bloody well say so”, who go into the office every morning already feeling quite bitter, waiting to see what type of mood the boss is in today, accepting the fact that this is the price you have to pay nowadays for having a job; you’ve got to take crap for a few years and then things will get better. I don’t think things will get any better with this attitude because there’ll always be someone above you who’ll take advantage of your good nature and ensure that you continue taking crap. And if this is the system that you’ve been immersed in right from the very beginning, then it’ll be difficult for you to apply a different one to the next generations because you’ll come to the conclusion that this is the right one. That’s exactly what I’ve had to listen to in Spain from people who are supposedly very well-qualified graduates from the best business schools in the country: apparently one of the qualities that a good manager should have is knowing how to inspire fear in their subordinates so that they deliver, as apparently people work better with a certain dose of fear. No-one should have to listen to this nonsense… My experience has taught me that things don’t have to be this way. I’ve spoken about Gavin here before, but I’ve also been lucky enough to have other bosses who were, above all, people too and that’s exactly what they instilled in me: Vicente, Alfonso, Captain Pareja, Usama, Paul. Despite the bad name the banking sector gets, it was there that I met some of the most honourable and righteous people, many of them in the City of London. Real English gentlemen in a place where they make us believe that only voracious sharks lurk. The problem arises when organisations prioritise profits over people and give the promotions to those who not only say three-bags-full to the “company policy” but who also generate the highest profits, without caring about what means they use to do so. Rewarding this type of professional profile is like lighting up in a petrol station. And I think that’s exactly what’s happening…

   

I lived and worked abroad for eight years and no-one ever disrespected me in my professional duties. I got things wrong in my job, of course I did, and I was corrected as firmly as I deserved, but always in the most polite and courteous way. In Spain, things are different, and I wish I only meant a tad. There is a widely-spread business culture in our country which we’ve inherited from way back when and which we need to change if we want to go out into the world and be taken into consideration, as nowadays nobody buys into all this ‘huffing and puffing, showing you’ve got balls and raising your voice so that the staff deliver’ palaver, and Spain can’t go on being an autarky governed by the same four gangsters. I really hope that, instead of waiting around for the State to solve all our problems with a government job or different kinds of benefits, this so-called crisis creates a breeding ground for many young people to find the necessary conditions and support to create new companies where they can implement a new philosophy that will make you feel part of a project, where there is no peer-envy, where we’ll try to learn from that outstanding employee rather than wishing for their fall from grace, where the spirit of self-improvement is rewarded, where your boss teaches you without worrying that you’ve got your eye on their job and understands that they only shine when you do and that’s why they are your boss after all, as they have supposedly gotten to that position on their own merit and not for being someone’s son, daughter or friend. Then things would start to change and the people who have the drive to do things, but to do them in a different way, wouldn’t be forced to emigrate and the ones who would have to go and wash dishes all over the world would be the incompetent leaders themselves who are encouraging us to leave because the experience will do us good. And if we did strike this balance where they were the ones who went off and came back and those who want to change things and fight for a different future didn’t, then Spain would be a less mediocre country than what it sadly tends to be nowadays. Or at least that’s what I’d like to think, although I know I can be a bit too utopian at times…

Fifteen kilometres after I left, I arrived in a town called Salceda and decided I would stop off to get something to eat and drink. The Lithuanian, Ruta, had sent me a text message advising me to visit “A Casa Verde”, a rather unusual little bar apparently, run by a woman called Sonia who she asked me to say hello to for her. When I walked in, the bar was quite quiet and it didn’t seem to have anything special except for a load of graffiti and phrases written on the wall by pilgrims along with photos. Out of all the phrases, and there were a lot believe me, the one I liked the most said: “Just live your life and don’t give others any shit”. There was a young woman serving at the bar who I thought must be Sonia and a young lad of about twenty or so who I later found out was her godson. The chef peered out of the kitchen, inspiring confidence in me with his huge belly and rosy red cheeks, so I decided I’d have something to eat. I ordered a house-speciality empanada and a Coca-Cola, which they served me right away and which didn’t last any longer on my plate than what a sweet would at the school gates. I went over to Sonia and told her that the Lithuanian girl who was here in the bar a couple of days ago says hello. I described Ruta and her face lit up as she said that of course she remembered her. She suggested that we make a toast to the Lithuanian with a shot of their very own home-made coffee liqueur and, although it didn’t seem very sensible to start drinking at midday with the twenty-five kilometres I had still ahead of me, I thought one wouldn’t hurt. And one definitely wouldn’t have hurt, but the half a bottle of the stuff that I polished off did. After the first shot came a second, then a third, and what with the music, dancing with the people that arrived, more shots, the Mexican wave we did at the bar, Sonia’s godson trying to lift the chef up... I almost didn’t make it out of there. Sonia told me that I wouldn’t be the first one who came in for a piece of empanada and ended up staying a week. I really was enormously grateful to her for the good time they’d given me, one of the best of the Camino, but I told her I didn’t want to put off my arrival into Santiago any longer and that I should get going. A Casa Verde, now that sure as heck is a magical place on the Camino. Thank you Sonia and company!

   

I left Salceda at around two in the afternoon, a little sozzled to be honest, and under the blazing sun. After a month of rain, hail, snow, wind, and with only one or two exceptions, moderate temperatures, the last thing I needed was for the hottest day of my whole pilgrimage to be today of all days. I bought a litre and a half bottle of water which I decided to glug as I walked so as not to get dehydrated or waste any time. An hour later I stopped off in Santa Irene and sat down to rest in a tavern where the walls were covered in football scarves. I have to admit that that hour between two and three in the afternoon nearly finished me off what with the intense heat and the effects of the coffee liqueur that had kicked in. After resting for half an hour I left the town and three kilometres later arrived in O Pedrouzo, the theoretical end of the stage as stated in most guides if you split the distance to Santiago into two parts. I only hung around O Pedrouzo long enough to buy another bottle of water and have a brief look around the main streets of the town.

The next few kilometres ran through Galician woodlands and the truth is that it was quite a pleasant walk. The trees protected me from the intense prevailing heat and it was around this time when, after all I’d sweat and how well-hydrated I was after drinking three litres of water, I finally managed to shake off any hint of drunkenness I’d felt after leaving A Casa Verde. I received a message from Tim from Kansas telling me that he was with Michael from Boston and that they would wait for me for dinner. Sadly, they also told me that Eva and her father had left Santiago that morning but that they had finished the Camino together and looked really happy. I have to say I was really pleased to hear that the Californian girl and Dave had put aside their differences and finished their pilgrimage together. This news along with the fact that I had virtually reached the finish line put me in an even better mood. The Camino will always travel with me and I know that once I reach Santiago, it will hold a special place in my memories. This pilgrimage has, without shadow of a doubt, exceeded my initial expectations. Well, I know my mother and grandmother think that I just need to fall in love, find a white blackbird as my grandmother says, but this sort of thing starts to get a little complicated at my age. I think my grandmother knows that too. The last few times we’ve been in each other’s company I got the impression she’d thrown in the towel and written me off as a lost cause. At one of the last family gatherings, she took me aside and told me that she needed to talk to me. I told her I was all ears and, as if she was one of Al Capone’s deputies, she whispered, “Not here, let’s go into the kitchen”. I followed her, intrigued, and once we were over beside the stove, she said, “I’ve found you something in town, an only child with two flats in Zaragoza; you know what that means, don’t you? H-E-I-R-E-S-S! So get your socks on before somebody else gets in there first!” My reaction mustn’t have sounded as though I was too convinced because she then added: “come on son, do me a favour and don’t turn into one of those single forty-somethings who are alone in life”.

   

My only expectations before starting the Camino were to be able to overcome the challenge, fulfil a desire I’d had for some time now and to have a few weeks to reflect and get some perspective on the last few years and on how to deal with the ones to come. I achieved all of that and much more. This trip has reinforced my belief that life is a Camino with only two moments we can be sure of and which we don’t get to choose: life and death. What we can choose however, is what we do in between those two points. I wouldn’t say that doing the Camino has helped me to understand why my friend Alberto had to leave us, just as it hasn’t made me regain the little faith that I had back then, but it has helped me to finish coming to terms with it and to understand that people leave but their memory remains, and that by means of his example of always being there for people who need you and by means of that pilgrimage I couldn’t join in on all those years ago, Alberto was actually following the example of someone called Jesus Christ, who preached exactly the same thing many centuries ago, which for me is the essence of this Camino: stop contemplating your own navel and start thinking about others a little more. Or just open your front door and walk 800 kilometres with no destination in mind. The majority of people who embark on this adventure want to meet others and share their hopes, dreams and fears and, in my view, that is what makes the Camino so wonderful. If this Europe which is coming undone stopped contemplating its navel and went back to its roots, to the Europe of towns and people, not economic interests, then maybe, just maybe, things would be very different.

It was tough-going getting as far as the perimeter of Santiago airport. I thought I’d never get there; the path just kept on going. What’s more, the Camino brought me down a peg or two one last time for having got on my high horse the last few days thinking that I was unstoppable in the shape of a couple of painful blisters, one on each foot, which gave me hell. I walked through woodland running alongside the airport runway and then joined onto a main road which passes Televisión Gallega and the regional offices of Televisión Española. I thought I’d be on the Monte do Gozo (otherwise known as the Hill of Joy) by now but it took forever to get there. I was especially looking forward to reaching this point because I thought that I’d be able to see the spires of the Cathedral of Santiago, the goal after so many kilometres on the road. I finally reached the Monte do Gozo and was disappointed like you wouldn’t believe. I couldn’t see them at all. The little I could see was hidden by a row of trees which some bright spark decided to plant on the line of sight of Santiago city centre. It’s hard to explain what I felt at that particular moment. I suppose the tiredness, the little bit of dehydration I felt and the half a bottle of coffee liqueur that I drank at midday will have played their part, but I was bitterly disappointed. I had gone over this moment in my head so many times, arriving at the Monte do Gozo, seeing the Cathedral in the distance and sitting down for a while to go over my whole trip in my head, stage by stage, before finally making my way down to the Plaza del Obradoiro and concluding my journey. I just couldn’t believe that all I could make out were concrete blocks and trees. It was the same feeling I’d gotten as I arrived in other cities such as Logroño, Burgos or León, and I really thought Santiago would be different, special, an image that would remain imprinted on my retina. Nevertheless, it just wasn’t the case and I was left devastated.

I bought a couple of small bottles of water and sat down on the steps that lead down to the city from the Monte do Gozo, with the ring road to my right. Not one bit how I’d imagined my entrance into Santiago to tell you the truth. I took off my shoes and socks to let my blisters breathe a little. I then rummaged around in my rucksack and took out the t-shirt I have with Bud Spencer on it, one of my childhood idols, which I bought myself a few years ago but still hadn’t been able to wear because it was too small for me. Now, without that awkward moment of the scales glaring up at me, it was time to see if I’d lost a few kilos during the course of the Camino. The t-shirt fit well which improved my mood somewhat. I tied my cachirulo scarf from Zaragoza with the Basilica of the Pilar printed on it around my neck and put on the txapela I inherited from my grandfather Andrés. I put my shoes and my rucksack back on for the last time before tackling the last four kilometres to the Plaza del Obradoiro. I walked through San Marcos and the streets around the town where people were making the most of the good weather by spending the evening out on the bar terraces. I gradually headed further into the Old Town and found I was in a much better mood as I met other pilgrims and tourists who were cheering me on to the finish line, especially given that it was almost nine o’clock at night. As I arrived at the Plaza de la Inmaculada and the Palacio Arzobispal, the noise the seagulls were making made me look up at the sky and there, for the first time, I saw the spires of the Cathedral. I really thought I would have seen them before on the Monte do Gozo, but I can’t deny how overjoyed I was to gaze up at them defying the skies and, just then, I began to feel my body trembling ever so slightly. A couple of bag-pipers were gathering up their things in the arch leading into the Plaza del Obradoiro and, after saying a friendly hello, I asked them if they would play one last song to accompany a humble pilgrim, who had been walking for a little over a month from Canfranc station in the Aragonese Pyrenees, on his arrival into Santiago. They said they’d be delighted to and asked me what type of song I was after: happy, a little melancholic or just pure sad, to which I replied happy, of course. And so that’s how, to the sound of those Galician bagpipes playing the Muñeira de Lugo, without being able to hold back the emotion, 37 days and 883 kilometres later, I made my way into the Plaza del Obradoiro...

In loving memory of my dear friend Alberto, also affectionately known as Pasi…

 

Part 36: Palas de Rei - Arzúa (30 kilometres)

Just as I had predicted, today as I woke up it felt like there wasn’t one bit of my body that hadn’t succumbed to yesterday’s efforts. I walked over to the shower as if I was Chiquito de la Calzada (a Spanish comedian known for his particular way of walking) and spent a good while under the stream of hot water trying to warm myself up a bit and loosen my muscles, especially those in my limbs. I went down for breakfast and it would have again been about ten o’clock by the time I got started on the stage. I decided that, depending on how I felt, I might adjust the amount of kilometres I do today but that I’d try to do thirty so that then I’d only have another forty left to reach Santiago. Despite the fact my guide implies that today’s stage is a bit tough on the old legs due to the constant ups and downs, I’m convinced I can walk it with relative ease. Then, on the last day, given how eager I am to reach the Plaza del Obradoiro, I’ll be able to rev the engine and power on once more, not letting anything come between me and my unstoppable march to the finish line.

Moreover, thirty kilometres would mean getting as far as Ribadiso da Baixo, the town where Kelly’s Heroes told me yesterday over text message that they’d finish today’s stage, so that’s yet another reason to try and get there. I haven’t seen them in a while so it’d be great to have a natter with the friendly gang of Catalans. During our exchange of messages, they also told me that the group had expanded as they’ve joined some other Catalans and an Italian guy and now they’re all walking together like some sort of hippie commune, taking it easy. I get the impression that Kelly’s Heroes don’t want any of this to end, even though they’ve been walking for over a month and a half now. Some of them are unemployed and going back home means facing up to the harsh reality: a future without any great prospects all because of the situation in Spain.

I don’t know if the Camino has sparked anything inside them to make them put themselves out there and turn the situation on its head rather than waiting around for a job to come knocking at their door. In my own personal opinion, after having spoken to many people this last while, I think it’s a real mistake to do the Camino and expect a miracle or stroke of luck in your life. The true Camino doesn’t end in Santiago, rather it begins straight after. And that’s when the real graft starts, as you won’t get very far if you don’t do your bit. The Camino provides you with the tools and the ideal natural setting, allowing you to get away from the hustle and bustle of daily life, so that you can reflect and identify what needs to change, and it also gives you the motivation you need to take on new challenges, which comes from the personal satisfaction of overcoming this particular one. But very little, if anything, will change if you leave here and just sit back and wait for something to happen. After all I’ve experienced during this pilgrimage, I wouldn’t recommend that anyone do the Camino in order to "find themselves”. You might not like what you find or else just find someone you already knew. If you’re looking to find yourself, you don’t even have to leave your own living room for that. I think the people who really get the most out of this experience are those who come here to challenge a part of themselves that they’re not happy with or want to change. Without the will to change, you could walk to the ends of the earth and the only thing that would change would be the number of blisters plaguing your feet.

   

Despite the fact I haven’t felt this good both physically and mentally in years, too many to count, as far as I’m concerned I just want to get to Santiago, finish off this trip that I’d been planning to do for so long and embark on new adventures. Travel around Asia, which is what I had planned, and spend some time, exactly how long I don’t know yet, travelling and writing which are the things I enjoy doing most. We’ll take it from there and see if a lifestyle that puts food on the table and pays the bills comes of it. There will be people who think this is all good and well as a hobby but that it’s not realistic to earn a decent living, but I ask why it’s not realistic. Of course it wouldn’t be if I didn’t at least try; if I just expected it to happen without lifting a finger. One thing I’m sure of is that I don’t want to be on the verge of retirement and then look back at my life and regret not having been bold enough to move away from what I had, at the risk of a fall, and try something different. There are people who find stability in a permanent job, in career opportunities or in owning a house even if it takes them their whole working life to pay it off. This, in turn, makes me feel very uneasy, as paradoxical as that may sound in today’s society. There was a time in the past when I made plans, and those plans hardly ever turned out the way I wanted them to, which was very frustrating. We plan a lot of things without realising that there are many factors beyond our control; the main one being our own existence. Losing loved ones in uncontrollable circumstances has shown me that you have to enjoy life, as you don’t know how long it’s going to last. There’s no need to make too many plans because no-one knows for sure if you’ll actually be able to follow through with them. There’s no need to make spur-of-the-moment decisions while getting caught up in the emotion of the moment. However, if for a while you’ve been getting up and doing something which leaves you feeling numb, then it’s time to think about how to change that.

I also think it’s important to know yourself well, and I’ve certainly been putting up with myself for some time now. I don’t know exactly where I want to be. Actually, I’m quite suspicious of people who have it all figured out in life. They’re usually people who get completely lost and don’t know where to turn next if their plans are disrupted even the slightest bit, which makes them unpredictable and, generally, unreliable. The one thing I do know is where I don’t want to be. It unnerves me to think that my life could have the same routine year in year out until I retire. There might come a time when I have to be sensible and accept that dreams are great and all that but we all have bills to pay and I may very well have to go back to the life I left behind. But until that moment, why not give it a shot; why not fight for what I want. If Óscar had thrown in the towel and accepted the doctors’ verdict when they told him he’d never be able to walk again after the stroke left him confined to a wheelchair, I’d never have met him. “Time, hard work and determination”, he repeated to himself every single day until he was finally able to stand up and walk again. I also plan to repeat this to myself diligently, especially when I’m feeling a little low. Thank you Óscar; you have no idea how much it’s helped me to meet you and see with my own eyes your shining example of overcoming adversity…

I thought about stopping off for lunch in Melide and trying the famous pulpo a feira, otherwise known as Galician-style octopus, which the town is renowned for. However, a short while before reaching Furelos, the town before, the hunger pangs set in and I couldn’t help stopping at a makeshift marquee just off to the right of the Camino, where some locals were selling portions of octopus, small parasols for protection from the intense midday sun and cold beer. How could I not stop? In the end, despite the fact it was nicely presented, the octopus wasn’t as tender as what I’d expected and I knew I’d probably regret it as soon as I got to Melide. After eating, I was getting ready to start walking again when a friendly group of Polish pilgrims asked me to take their photo. In the group were pupils in their last year of school who were celebrating getting into University and a couple of young Franciscan Friars wearing the habits of the order. I reached Melide half an hour later and as I was walking into the town, a waiter from the first pulpería I came across tried to usher me in to have a portion. I apologised and admitted that I’d already had a pretty big portion a few kilometres back, but the waiter tried to convince me that I’d made a mistake and that I should try a bit of his so that I’d realise for myself. I put the bit that he offered me in my mouth and by God was he right. This one fell apart as soon as it hit my palate. I reluctantly acknowledged the err of my ways and admitted that he was right, but I also said that committing the sin of greed didn’t seem like the most appropriate thing to do now that I’m so close to Santiago. Well, I wouldn’t even have walked a hundred metres when I said to myself, what the hell, when are you ever going to enjoy the octopus in Melide ever again and, on that note, I headed back to the bar to gobble up my second portion of the day.

After stuffing myself full of octopus, I decided to rest for a while, stretch my legs and wait for the sun to go down a bit, as it was still quite strong at that point. Afterwards I took myself off for a stroll around the main streets and monuments of Melide. Another Camino route, el Primitivo, which begins in Oviedo, also goes through this town and you notice more pilgrim traffic than on days gone by, even though the Camino Primitivo isn’t nearly as popular as the Camino Francés. This is where Günther met up with his wife last week after a month-long spell. It’s such a shame I missed that moment. Given how hard the Austrian squeezes you when he gives you a hug, I wonder if his wife will have survived. It was about five in the afternoon when I decided to get going on the Camino again and tackle the last fifteen kilometres to the end of the stage.

I don’t really know why I chose Asia as my next destination after the Camino de Santiago. From time to time I take these notions which don’t usually have any rational explanation but, given that following them has always turned out well to date, I usually take them into consideration. I got to know Europe, America and the Arabic world quite well from my years working in banking and my own personal travels, but I’ve only ever been on one trip to the Far East in the past and I remember I had an absolute ball and didn’t want it to end. I suppose that’ll have something to do with it. Not to mention my childhood, the travels of Marco Polo, the Tintin comics I was given as a child and the atlases where I read about thousand-year old civilizations and yellow men with slanted eyes which awoke my curiosity. And, if I delve into my subconscious, maybe also a soft spot for Oriental women and those smiles of theirs that melt a man’s heart. Well, mine anyway.

I have to again take it back to my childhood, my second year of nursery school to be precise; the year I fell in love with the smile of a girl who wasn’t Chinese but looked like she was. Boys and girls were separated during class time but we saw each other in the playground and I remember that I wanted to be with her at break times. I followed her every move from a distance, overcome with shyness which stopped me from holding her hand, like horrible E. did, watching her as she played as if I was some sort of vulgar prowler. All I needed was the trench coat and then to give her a fright when the bell rang to go back to class. One day, our teacher, who I’m convinced was a dyke with the benefit of hindsight, saw me wandering aimlessly around the outskirts and said, “hey, you! What are you doing watching what the girls are doing, are you some sort of fruit? Go and play football with the boys.” They were other times. We’re talking about just over thirty years ago when education was very different.

Whatever it was that teacher was trying to tell me, I got the message loud and clear and even though it wasn’t exactly my desire to play with the skipping rope that had brought me over to the group of girls, I got back to my usual violent activities which I’d left somewhat neglected due to that inexplicable first love. I led a stone-throwing war against the class next to us who we didn’t get on with one bit; I gave myself the airs of a top-ranking bullfighter as we played a game which consisted of turning the closet into a makeshift bull pen where we would lock up some of the others and then fight and mercilessly prong them with banderillas and, one day, I grabbed hold of horrible E. and made him swallow soil and a maggot from the playground. E.’s family were good friends with the family of the little Chinese girl who wasn’t Chinese and I couldn’t bear seeing how close they were or watching them walk around holding hands during break time. I paid for all of these actions with several clouts from the teacher. I was damned if I did and damned if I didn’t with her. It didn’t matter if I was well-behaved and sucked up or if I acted the macho man and got into all sorts of scuffs with everyone. As a good friend once told me referring to a girlfriend he had: you just couldn’t win with that teacher, the only thing you knew for certain was that no matter what you did, you were going to screw it up. That wasn’t the only broken heart I’ve suffered because of my attraction to what, for me, is the mysterious culture of Asia. There were others over the years but that was the first one. I wonder if there isn’t a bit of underlying masochism in my hidden desire to steer my path in the direction of the Far East…

   

With around five kilometres to go until reaching the town where I had arranged to meet Kelly’s Heroes, I bumped into the pair of Franciscan Friars and their pupils who were again looking for someone to take a photo. The boys commented on the coincidence that I was yet again the lucky one and one of the Friars also pointed it out as he handed me the camera. I confessed to him with a smile that it’s no coincidence and that God had sent me here to follow them all the way to Santiago and take as many photos of them as they please. The kids revelled in my joke but the Franciscan Friar didn’t seem so taken by it, and must have thought it nothing less than sacrilegious. After taking their snapshot, I said goodbye got stuck into the last few kilometres to Ribadiso da Baixo.

It would have been about eight in the evening when I arrived in the town. As I was crossing the bridge that lies over a little river at the entrance, I immediately caught sight of Kelly’s Heroes, sprawled out on the banks soaking their feet in the water. They introduced me to the new members and asked me to stay and have dinner with them. Arzúa, the town where I was planning on spending the night, was only three kilometres away so I said I would. We caught up on the latest adventures over dinner and they were completely astounded when I told them about Zach, my American friend, and the four days we spent in Lugo Hospital. They went on to tell me that they’ve really slowed down the pace and after Santiago, they’ll go as far as Finisterre and one is even thinking about going back to Catalonia on foot by doing the Camino del Norte in reverse direction. No, Kelly’s Heroes definitely don’t want this to end. I get the impression that the fact that she group has grown bigger has caused a bit of a rift between the original members of the Heroes. I think one of them has a bit of a thing going with one of the new girls and obviously now he’s on a bit of a different wavelength to the rest. I hope their good vibes aren’t being threatened now due to these circumstances. It’s as if Oddball has seen countless black cats or something since leaving Montserrat, as he had a temperature which forced him to head off to bed early. After staying and chatting with the others for a while, I left them there at around half past nine and set off for my final destination which I reached at nightfall.

People stared at me in amazement as I arrived in Arzúa, looking like a fugitive no doubt, nevertheless a content one with a mile-wide smile on my face. How could I possibly begin to tell them that those last kilometres I walked as it was getting dark, completely alone on the Camino, are the ones I’m enjoying the most, or that after a lot of effort and over a month on the road, I’m only forty kilometres away from Santiago and, if all goes according to plan, that’s only one day until I reach my long-awaited goal…

 

Part 35: Sarria - Palas de Rei (50 kilometres)

We got up early this morning. Zach wanted to make the most of his last day in Spain and take the 8am bus to Santiago from Lugo. His plan is to stay in the Galician capital until after lunch and then go to Vigo, relax on the beach for a while, weather-permitting, and then get an early night as he’s leaving for the United States first thing on Monday morning. We went to the bus station with plenty of time to spare and I acted as translator to buy his ticket. I still can’t get over the fact that it’s so hard for a tourist to make themselves understood in a country where tourism makes up one of our main sources of income, as hardly anyone speaks a bloody word of English here.

There was still half an hour to go until his bus was due to leave so Zach and I sat down to wait. He looked a little sad so I asked him if everything was alright. He said it was and that it’s just that he’s a bit disappointed at not having been able to finish the Camino. He was really looking forward to the challenge and can’t seem to understand why he had to spend several days in Lugo Hospital, something which he never dreamt he’d have to do and which, in the end, kept him from reaching his goal within the given time period.

I told Zach that I didn’t understand it either and that maybe there just isn’t an explanation. It happened and that’s that, we shouldn’t give it any more thought. However, if we really want to attribute it to something, why not consider that maybe he’s still not ready for that change in his life that he’s been yearning for, his body has been demanding for months now and which he came to do the Camino de Santiago in pursuit of. Finishing his pilgrimage would have to be the turning point, the final push before moving on to new goals, and it’s just not the right moment for him to face up to that. He’ll have to go back to his old life, deal with some issues, draw up a plan B and then, when everything’s ready, come back to Spain to finish off the remaining kilometres that he couldn’t do on this occasion so that reaching Santiago isn’t the end of a Camino which then leads back to his unfulfilling reality, but rather one which leads to the beginning of a new chapter of his life that will make him feel good about himself.

Zach told me that this is exactly what he thinks too, or at least what he wants to think. There are indeed things he needs to reflect on once back in the United States, as well as a mortgage to get rid of to gain freedom of movement and a plan B to draw up. He said that once all of that is done, he’ll definitely come back to Spain to finish what he came to do. I told Zach I thought it was a good idea and that he was to let me know without fail, as I would love us to finish off those last remaining kilometres together as we had originally planned to do before being forced to go to Lugo Hospital.

The driver opened the door at the front and the passengers began getting onto the bus. I wished Zach a safe trip to Santiago and told him to enjoy arriving in the city, even if not on foot this time, because he was a pilgrim too and had more than earned his Compostela. I also wished him a happy return to the U.S. He then told me to savour each and every kilometre left to Santiago and asked me to keep putting up photos on Facebook to keep him up to date with my whereabouts, which he’ll closely follow from back home in Kentucky. He thanked me again for all I’d done for him and assured me that I’d have everything taken care of the next time I set foot in the United States. I thanked him for his words but added that there was no need to reiterate how grateful he was, as after getting to know him these last two weeks, I’m sure he would have done the same for me.

Just then, in the middle of our goodbye, a man of about 60 appeared, completely pissed, and started speaking to Zach just as he was on the steps of the bus about to board. He thought the drunkard simply wanted to get on so he stepped to one side. Yet the man continued speaking to Zach in a language that I only managed to understand a snippet of, which was: “don’t go with him” referring to the driver, “he can’t drive, come with me”.  Zach started to get a little irritated and asked me who the fuck this man was and what the hell he wanted. I couldn’t resist telling him that he was the bus driver who would be taking him to Santiago and he was merely asking for his ticket. Zach bought it and held out his ticket while looking at me nervously and letting out a “fuck me!” I couldn’t stop laughing. Just as it seemed that Zach had escaped intact from Lugo Hospital and was finally about to leave this country of barbarians who eat nothing but bread and cheese, ham, Spanish omelette and pilgrim menus and whose diet had made him suffer the mother of all constipations, this had to happen, just to test his battered nerves one last time: a driver who was completely off his face was going to take him to Santiago.

After a few deserved chuckles, I told him not to worry as he was just some drunkard wandering around and there was no need to pay any attention to him. Actually, it wasn’t a bad thing that that man appeared, in the completely drunken state that he was, to keep up the surreal feeling of the last few days that Zach and I had spent together. It was the perfect goodbye, the icing on the cake to a story that will stay with us both for life. We embraced each other warmly and I left him heading for his seat, after which the bus started up and pulled out of the station. I said goodbye to Zach knowing that we would definitely see each other again, we would be friends for a long time and without the slightest doubt that I can count on him in future, just as he can on me. I came to do the Camino de Santiago feeling the loss of one of my best friends and, unexpectedly, the Camino put another one in my path. Coincidence? Likely, who knows? But coincidence or not, what’s for sure is that it has given meaning to my Camino and, if only for that, it’s all been worth it…

   

I was watching the bus go off into the distance when I noticed that the drunkard from before was right there beside me, gazing in the direction of the very same bus. I don’t know whether I did the right thing or not, but I decided to say goodbye to him and, in doing so, accidentally snapped him out of his daydream which meant he started to pester me, just as he had done with Zach before. Luckily, he was a little more coherent now, with emphasis on ‘a little’, and I managed to find out that he used to be a bus driver who did that same route from Lugo to Santiago for 30 years and that he had been forced to take early-retirement a few months back. He said that nobody drives that coach like him and that they shouldn’t have laid him off as he was still fit to drive. Just then, a North African man came up to us to ask if the bus that had just left was headed for a town in the province. I told him it wasn’t and the drunkard looked at him and said, in perfectly comprehensible Spanish to my surprise, that his bus doesn’t leave until 9. He then returned to his previous state and as if he was the great Antonio Ozores (a Spanish comedian famous for his surrealist, unintelligible sense of humour) himself, gave the North African a right unintelligible earful which ended in “go and get a coffee sure and then come and find us if needs be”, which he said with his hand resting on my shoulder, as if he and I were headed somewhere together…

Waiting for me outside the bus station was Suso, the taxi driver from Sarria who took Zach and yours truly to Lugo Hospital. He was a nice guy so I wanted him to take me back to his town to get back on the Camino again. He offered me a coffee after which we headed for Sarria. Suso was happy because Celta had maintained their place in the First Division and Depor had been relegated. “They had such high hopes and thought we’d be the ones relegated. A year or so in the Second Division’ll do ‘em good and take ‘em down a peg or two”, he remarked in his thick Galician accent. He was sorry to see Zaragoza relegated and told me not to worry as they’d be back in the First Division very soon. I said I hoped he was right and that hopefully we could also get rid of that idiot of a president who’s done the club enough damage as it is. A short while later we arrived in Sarria and Suso left me at a cafeteria so that I could have breakfast before starting to walk.

What with one thing and another, I started the stage at about ten o’clock. I wanted to start in my own time as it’s easy to forget that I haven’t walked properly in four days and I don’t want to risk any pulled muscles or new blisters which might make the remaining one hundred and twenty kilometres completely insufferable if I’m not careful. I reckon that by doing an average of thirty kilometres a day, I could be in Santiago in four days, last thing on Wednesday, and if I don’t have the energy or have to slow down for whatever reason, then it’ll be Thursday or Friday depending on how I feel. By that time a lot of the people I walked with will have finished their pilgrimage and gone back home. Thinking about that made me feel a bit down. I know that I want to walk into the Plaza del Obradoiro alone, in the same way that I started my pilgrimage alone at those apartments in Canfranc a little over a month ago now, but of course afterwards I’d like to embrace some of the people I’ve shared blood, sweat and tears with on the way to Santiago, not to mention some great moments too. Anyway, what can you do, that’s just the way it is. Besides, if I’d have left Zach to fend for himself in my quest to get to Santiago yesterday, as was the original plan, I would have felt even worse so there really wasn’t any point in crying over spilt milk. I put that thought out of my head and continued walking.

A short while later, I ran into some girls who sounded like they were from Aragón by their accents. So I asked them and they told me that they were indeed from a little town in Teruel. One of them asked me how I knew and, before I’d even had time to open my mouth, her friend said “sure you can really notice our accent; we don’t realise back home because we all sound the same but when we’re away people notice...”. Having been a little down in the dumps before, these fellow Aragonese girls managed to cheer up my day no end with their comments. They told me that they’re starting the Camino today and they plan to take it easy. They had sent their rucksacks on ahead in a van to the end of the stage as they weren’t going to take any risks today. The truth is that after having clocked up so many kilometres, they didn’t need to tell me that they’d just started the Camino. You can tell the newbies a mile off. These girls weren’t even familiar with the yellow arrow, which guides you to Santiago every step of the way. We reached a point where the path continued on to the right, as it was only possible to walk a few metres to the left before you hit a small pond. The most disorientated of the girls asked: “where do we go now then, maña?” to which another replied, “well I’m screwed if we go left because I didn’t bring my water wings, so we’ll have to go right”. We later hit a steep slope where the group of girls from Teruel were left gasping for air and decided to stop and rest for a while. I, however, said my goodbyes and continued on.

Sarria is a starting point of the Camino for many pilgrims. The distance between this town in Lugo and Santiago constitutes the minimum distance required on foot to be considered a pilgrim and to be eligible for the Compostela. From here to the Plaza del Obradoiro, the number of walkers increases no end and it’s quite a challenge to get into the pilgrim hostels, or even just to find accommodation in general. In the mornings especially, the Camino seems like nothing short of a Sunday stroll along the main promenade of any given Spanish city. It’s a strange feeling for those of us who have already clocked up a few hundred kilometres in our boots. The more kilometres you have behind you, the less curious you are to meet new people. Sad but true. You just want to get to Santiago and complete your objective alongside the people you walked with for most of the way. The atmosphere amongst those who do the Camino for a week is a little different to that amongst those who’ve decided to take a month-long break in their lives and start from the Pyrenees. It’s quite difficult to come across pilgrims who are doing the Camino alone starting in Sarria as the majority are families or groups of friends or couples who generally interact more amongst themselves than with others. There are of course exceptions and I’m sure that I’ll still meet interesting people in these last remaining kilometres. But the atmosphere is different. I’m not saying it’s better or worse, just different.

Even though I knew that the human landscape would be different from Sarria onwards, I was left feeling a bit uneasy due to the fact that I didn’t meet anyone I knew and had to greet everyone I was meeting for the first time every step of the way, again having to explaining who I am, where I’m from and what I’m doing here. It was a strange feeling, like this wasn’t my place, this wasn’t the Camino I had been part of, my Camino was the one with the people who were reaching Santiago now or who were already there, those with whom I shared reasons in common for being here and who had overcome the same or perhaps even greater difficulties to reach their goal. I was approaching the Camino milestone marking the last hundred kilometres left to Santiago and I had all of this swirling around in my head. And the conclusion I reached was that I’d have to up the number of kilometres per day and get to Santiago as soon as possible to be able to embrace and celebrate the achievement with Günther and Szilvia, while basking in their energy and vitality, and with Kelly’s Heroes, the tough Catalans who had started walking right from their front doors and had been my first friends on the Camino, and with the fearless Óscar, a fine example of courage and self-respect after having managed to get up out of the wheelchair he had been confined to, with the German guy Matthias who was fighting to give up the drugs for good and to assimilate the loss of his parents, with the old man Santa Claus who taught me that your problems travel in your rucksack with you and you don’t solve them by shipping them off to the next town in a van to make the trek more manageable, with Eva and her father and their strange relationship which was more love than hate and who I’d shared some great times with, with Ruta from Lithuania, with the lovely Kim who told me I was her first non-Korean Camino friend, with Tim from Kansas, Michael from Boston and so many others…

It was about three in the afternoon when I reached Portomarín, the theoretical end of today’s stage according to all the guides, especially for those who start their pilgrimage in Sarria. A steep downhill walk leads you to the banks of the river Miño and you arrive in this pretty little Galician town after crossing a long bridge. It was a lovely sunny day so after crossing the bridge, I sat down to rest and take in the pleasant view. Afterwards, I went into the town centre and sat down in a café where I had a salad for lunch. There, guidebook in hand, I started to consider how much further I would go that day. After four days without walking and the 25 kilometres I’d clocked up today, my feet were definitely weary enough to stay in Portomarín and rest, but I knew I had to go on if I wanted to get to Santiago and see my… why not say it, “my Camino family”, as the Americans put it. Doing two stages in one, another 25 kilometres, to get as far as Palas de Rei didn’t seem like the most sensible thing. I didn’t think my legs would hold out and even if they did, doing 50 kilometres in one day in my desire to get to Santiago as soon as possible wouldn’t be worth it if the cramp, pulled muscles or whopping blisters gave me no choice but to take a day or two’s rest in order to recover. However, I came to the conclusion that an extra 10 or 15 kilometres was reasonable, as I’d done it before and even though I was a bit tired, I knew I could power on for a little while longer. I phoned around a few pilgrim hostels in little towns that were more or less that distance away, such as Ventas de Narón or Ligonde, only to discover, to my surprise, that all of the beds were already taken. Nevertheless, I decided to keep walking so that, once there in those towns, I could check in situ if there were any beds or rooms free, as not all accommodation is listed in the guidebook and besides, sometimes people reserve a bed and then don’t turn up so I wasn’t worried and was pretty much convinced that I’d have somewhere to stay there.

   

This afternoon and evening were, without doubt, the hardest of the whole Camino. The towns between Portomarín and Palas de Rei are small and accommodation is limited. In every hostel in every town I passed through after the 35th kilometre, which was the minimum distance I had set for myself on this stage, I got the same response: “sorry, we’re full”. Not only was I given that same response in Ligonde, about eight kilometres from Palas de Rei, but they also confirmed that I wouldn’t find anything until Palas. It was at that moment when I knew I’d just have to cope and find the energy from somewhere to get there. I went into the restaurant of one of the pilgrim hostels where all the pilgrims were sat having dinner and asked for an Aquarius and some water to quench my thirst. I was beginning to feel exhausted and I could feel my legs were getting weary. I felt people’s eyes on me and, as I turned around to the tables, I saw several foreign-looking pilgrims staring at me as if I were an alien. Those people, who usually get up at the crack of dawn and finish their stages around midday, must have thought that a creature from outer space was doing the Camino de Santiago too, as why else would I appear at eight in the evening looking like a fugitive, rucksack on my back and walking poles in hand. I took a deep breath and set off on the last eight kilometres. They were probably the sweetest eight kilometres of my pilgrimage, walking alone through Galician woodlands as it started to get dark, the late evening breeze rustling the leaves on the trees while providing me with some timeout from my weary steps towards the end of the stage.

It was almost ten o’clock by the time I reached Palas de Rei. It was practically night-time and, yet again, I had the door shut in my face in the first three hostels I asked in. I saw a sign for a hotel with several floors and thought there was bound to be a room free there. It would cost more than in a pilgrim or normal hostel but I couldn’t take another step. The receptionists turned pale with fright when they saw me walk in. I must have looked like a prisoner of war and they, naturally, weren’t one bit used to having pilgrims walk in at ten o’clock at night. Luckily, there was one room left that was for smokers. I would have taken it even if they’d told me I had to share with a skunk. The receptionists said that if I wanted to have dinner I’d have to hurry or else not eat at all as the whole town shuts down at ten. I needed to rest and stretch my legs but I also needed something in my belly, so with the threat of not being able to eat until the next day hanging over me, I went out in search of a couple of places that they’d recommended.

The owner of the first one abruptly informed me that the kitchen was closed and that I should have come earlier. I didn’t have the energy to tell him where to stick it so I just went off in search of the other place. Luckily enough, even though they weren’t serving the set menus anymore, it wasn’t a problem for them to make me a burger to take away, which I devoured after taking a long, hot shower and doing some stretches. I went to bed feeling completely worn-out and with my legs still stiff, without knowing for sure whether or not I’d be able to walk tomorrow or for how long. Nonetheless, I went to bed grinning from ear to ear because I had been capable of walking 50 kilometres and because I was getting closer and closer to my objective.

 

Part 34: Lugo Hospital

Yesterday I promised Zach I would get up early and be at the hospital first thing so as not to miss the doctor’s first ward round. I left him looking at flights back to the U.S. for tonight or tomorrow (Sunday) and we agreed that, depending on what the doctor said, we would activate operation “Storm on the Camino”. If we couldn’t beat our enemy, we’d have to join him. If we hadn’t been able to evacuate what Zach’s carrying in his bowels then we’d have to evacuate everything; Zach and his bowels. We’d put ourselves in the hands of the medics in his hospital in Kentucky and let them solve the problem, and we’d ask Uncle Sam to keep our dear Zach from suffering any mid-flight stomach cramps, and maybe also for him not to be put through the X-ray scanner before boarding as then they’d discover that the arsenal of chemical weapons that Sadam was supposedly hiding was a mere piss-take in comparison with what Zach’s planning on bringing into the United States.

I arrived at Zach’s bed at around 8 and found him still fast asleep, so I headed down to the cafeteria for
some breakfast. When I came back he was already awake and up doing some yoga exercises, which he does very conscientiously to see if he can unclog the plughole any sooner. I looked at him nervously and, pulling a face, he gave me the usual: “nothing, man”. He told me that he’d been looking at flights last night as we’d agreed and he’d found one due to leave first thing tomorrow, Sunday, from Vigo headed for Madrid and once there, he could catch a connecting flight with American Airlines which, after another change once in the States, would leave him in Lexington, Kentucky, late tonight. It was a hell of a journey but Zach told me that he was willing to sign the self-discharge form and scarper from the hospital this instant.

It was about half past nine in the morning when Hugo, the doctor on duty came to see him. Zach’s face lit up as he was the only doctor there who was able to hold a conversation in English. Zach met him in the corridor the day he was admitted and they chatted briefly. Hugo said that the X-rays have shown a vast improvement in the last 24 hours and it seems there is some activity getting underway in his intestines. He then proceeded to feel his abdominal area and said that the alien is moving and is now approaching the descending colon. The birth is imminent: “one hour, two?” Hugo suggested, “but in any case, it’ll not be later than this morning, we’re starting to unclog this”. Zach and I looked at each other and smiled as we high fived each other in pure American style: “yeah man, that shit rocks!” he exclaimed in his thick Yankee accent.

After Hugo’s visit and the good news he gave us, Zach and I agreed that it was time to re-think the plan and look at what we were going to do over the next few hours. After a brief exchange of impressions, we agreed that it didn’t make much sense to change the ticket in light of the new circumstances. It was almost better to go into Lugo in our own time so that Zach could at least see the city whose name he’ll more than likely never forget for the rest of his life, and then have a leisurely dinner in some restaurant. Then tomorrow we’ll go our separate ways, which in my case means going back to Sarria to re-start the Camino again and take on the little over 100 kilometres left to get to Santiago.

Zach agreed with the plan. His only doubt was whether or not to go straight to Vigo, which was where his plane was leaving from first thing on Monday, to have a day of relaxing on the beach while staying in a nice spa-resort hotel or if he should take a bus to Santiago to at least see the Cathedral and the Plaza where he should have arrived and, in doing so, catch up with some of the people he was doing the Camino with who have already reached their goal or will tomorrow. If everything had gone to plan, Zach and I would have reached the Plaza del Obradoiro today along with Günther and the Hungarian girl, Szilvia. The Santiago option brought out mixed feelings in the American. On the one hand, it would be a little sad for him to walk the streets and reach the plaza without having completed his objective and, on the other, he doesn’t want to pass up the opportunity to say goodbye to people he walked a lot of kilometres with on the Camino and who he may never see again. After mulling it over for a few seconds, Zach said what the hell, he’s going to go to Santiago, as despite the setback that stopped him achieving his goal, he was a pilgrim too and he wants to congratulate and hug all the people who achieved their final goal after all that effort.

The next two hours passed quite slowly. We played cards and walked around the hospital floor. Every now and then, Zach did Chunk’s “truffle shuffle” and we both laughed. Shortly after midday, he got up to go to the bathroom and, like every time he goes, I crossed my fingers. When he came back, he had the same expression on his face as during the last few days so, in order to avoid putting him under any more pressure, I didn’t say a thing and continued reading the magazine I was already engrossed in. Zach lay down on the bed and coyly uttered: “so it seems like this is starting to work”. I turned around and had to ask, “what did you just say?” as he confirmed that the lottery had indeed begun and that even though he hasn’t won it yet, one of his numbers has made an appearance at least. My face lit up as I said, “bloody hell, give me a hug!”. I never thought I’d be so glad to know that someone, apart from me, had done their business. I don't know if this was the same magic of the Camino that Paulo Coelho talked about, but I’ll never forget that moment for the rest of my life. I was so overcome with emotion that I almost forgot that someone would have to act as volcanologist and get up-close and personal to the crater to translate the size, colour and consistency of the lava that had begun to descend down the sides of the American volcano in order to keep the nurses informed. The shoemaker’s son always goes barefoot, and the guy from Kentucky, birthplace of fried chicken, told me that what he had expelled was a “nugget”, and he wasn’t lying, but I’m never eating another one ever again. I gave the nurses the good news and they asked me to keep them informed every step of the way as the rest of the lottery numbers were called.

  

Over the course of the next hour, another couple of balls made their way out of the lottery drum and I went over to the nurses’ table like one of the San Ildefonso children and, grinning from ear to ear, sang the numbers. “Great, keep up the good work” they said. The doctor was informed and he gave permission for Zach to be given food again. He hadn’t eaten for a couple of days and despite not feeling the hunger too much, he was grateful. He didn’t eat much, a broth and some salad, as he’s aware that what’s coming out at the moment is nothing in comparison with what has still to come, so he wants to be careful and not add any more fuel to the fire. When Zach had finished eating, I went down to the visitors’ cafeteria to do the same.

On my return, Zach told me that seven nuggets had come out of the kitchen, a big enough portion to be able to discharge him according to Dr. Hugo. We were overjoyed to hear the news and Zach, not knowing how to thank everyone for how well they’ve cared for him, dedicated a few heartfelt words to the doctor. He said there was nothing to thank him for and that Zach should continue to follow a fibre-rich diet until the situation improves and if any type of setback occurs, such as intense abdominal pain or vomiting, we were to go straight back to hospital. He also recommended that he get a full check-up once back in the United States to determine why he kept us on edge for so many days. Zach reiterated how grateful he was and began to pack up his things, tidy up around him and get dressed. We went to collect the discharge note after and Zach asked if they could give him a copy of his X-rays to show his future grandchildren, which unfortunately wasn’t possible. And so, without further ado, we left Lugo Hospital after almost four days.

Zach and I took the bus down to the wall and then walked about two hundred metres to Hotel España, where we booked two single rooms. He has things to do and needs to concentrate harder than for any end-of-year exams, so that’s why we didn’t share a double room. I asked Zach if he would mind if I had a siesta to which he replied that it was no problem but he’s not tired so he’s going to go out for a walk around the city.

We met in the hotel reception hall an hour and a half later and wandered around outside for a while. Zach wanted to buy his nephews a Spanish football shirt so we went off in search of a sports shop. It didn’t take us long to find one which had the usual choices of shirts from Real Madrid and Barcelona, who’d have victory guaranteed if they joined forces one day, the Spanish national football team and, for a change, the Galician teams Deportivo and Celta. There were only different sizes available in the Real Madrid and Spanish national football team shirts, so Zach went for those two in the end.

After hitting the shops, we went for a walk around the wall and on the way, I stopped off to buy a souvenir thimble for my mother’s collection. I always try to bring her one from every place I visit and she’s got quite a few now, it has to be said. As we were walking around the Wall, Zach suggested we go for dinner in a nice restaurant. He’s not going to eat much as he’s still not one hundred percent but he wants to buy me dinner to show his appreciation for staying with him all this time. And he also told me that the hotel room for tonight was already paid for. The American had already offered me money every night I went back down to stay in Lugo, but I couldn’t accept it. On this occasion, I told him I’d happily accept his gestures and suggested we go for a beer before dinner to toast him getting out of hospital.

We did indeed make a toast in the end, but with a fruit juice in Zach’s case as he thinks it’s still early days to be drinking alcohol. I told him I didn’t know what his hangovers were like but that if mine were anything to go by, maybe it’d be best for him to get absolutely hammered tonight given his condition. Zach admitted that maybe I was right but that even so, he’d rather keep a low profile until he gets back to the States. There were a few locals watching the football in the bar. The crucial final stage of the league championship had begun and it wasn’t looking good for my beloved Real Zaragoza who were taking their chances against the Galician teams and Mallorca to avoid being relegated.

   

As we glanced at the matches every now and again, Zach asked me to talk about my friend Alberto and why I was doing the Camino. Until that moment I hadn’t told anyone the real reasons but I thought that after what Zach and I had been through these last few days, there was no sense in keeping big secrets.
Alberto was one of my best friends in my teens and early adulthood. Someone who was always willing to help and listen to his friends’ problems. He suffered dearly with other people’s problems and also his own, which led to an ill turn during his teens resulting in depression. He found the recovery tough and the whole process affected his academic performance. He had always been a bright student. He wanted to study medicine and the average to get in was very high which meant the last year before University was very important for him. He had promised himself that, come what may, if he managed to get out of that hole, he’d do the Camino de Santiago on foot from Aragón to show his appreciation. And that’s what he did, even getting into the Faculty of Medicine in a year when the average had shot up and many others whose first choice was to study to be a doctor, as was my case, had to settle for something else.

Alberto suggested that I do the Camino with him and another couple of good friends, Joaquín and Miguelo. The latter is an old friend of this diary after he accompanied me on a few stages to Castile. Pasi, as all of Alberto’s friends affectionately called him, said it would be a fantastic experience which would set us on the right foot for the new chapter we were about to begin. Regrettably, I couldn’t go with him. At that time I didn’t have the money or the permission to leave home for a month so as much as I was devastated, I had to say no, some other time. That trip was left pending.

The Camino was quite an experience for Alberto and he spoke about it at every available opportunity. That month of covering Spanish geography and overcoming hardships (20 years ago the Camino wasn’t as popular and there weren’t as many pilgrim comforts as there are now) undoubtedly helped him to grow inside, focus on the important things in life and put everything else into perspective. Slowly but surely, he managed to leave behind the sadness that had overcome him for a while and regained his zest for life and desire to help others which is what made him a special and different person. He completed the six year degree with outstanding marks and thoroughly prepared for the MIR to be able to get into his chosen speciality of psychiatry in the best hospital in Spain in that field. It was his dream to help others and especially those who had fallen into the depths of that terrible illness that traps you and pulls you further and further down into a dark hole which sucks the will to live right out of you. And he did it. He got one of the best marks in Spain that year and secured the placement he wanted.

While he was preparing for the MIR exam at an academy in Madrid, Pasi met a girl from the Canary Islands and fell in love. I still remember him phoning me all excited to tell me about it. He had suffered a lot due to an unrequited love during his teens, the type that is so hard to accept at a certain age, and had become quite wary when it came to relationships. But this time it was for real, this girl was worth it. At long last, life was looking up for him; he had gotten into the speciality he had always dreamed of and he had a girlfriend who he loved. After all the hardship he’d endured and how he fought to go on during that time when he wasn’t well, I couldn’t have been happier for him. That summer, before starting work in Madrid, Pasi decided to go with his parents to Vigo, where his mother hails from, to have a few days’ rest in the place he was so emotionally attached to. On the way, they were going to stop off in Santiago and Alberto was going to again hug the Apostle to show his appreciation, just as he did a few years before after having got into the Faculty of Medicine.

At that time, my life was on a different path. Stuck with a degree I didn’t enjoy and sinking deeper and deeper every semester, it’s not that my future was bleak, it’s just that I didn’t want it to come as I knew it’d be upsetting. It reached the stage where I knew I had to make a decision about my life or else drown in that mud. So without excuses, I decided to flee from the embourgeoisement that was indoctrinating me and from that real or imaginary prison where I was, and go and study abroad, sort myself out there and find a way forward. I enrolled on the Erasmus programme and got a place to study at the University of Stockholm. It wasn’t a bad destination to start with. The problem was how I was going to finance the adventure. My father didn’t support the project. He thought, and rightly so, that if I couldn’t pass in Spain, there was no way I would pass in a language I didn’t speak. Besides, I grew up in a big family where we never wanted for anything, but there wasn’t exactly a lot left over for whims either and, in my father’s eyes, this project was, understandably, the height of stupidity given the string of flunks I was taking home every semester.

During those difficult years, Pasi always encouraged me not to give in and to apply for the Erasmus grant as he thought that leaving home and spreading my wings abroad was likely the answer to all my problems. Regarding the economic issue, he told me not to worry, he was going to start work in a month and, if necessary, he would tighten his belt while living in Madrid and send me part of his salary every month so that I could live in Sweden. I could pay him back the money when I started work and I wasn’t to worry about that anyway, the most important thing at that time was to go to Sweden and fight for what I wanted to be and do with my life. We were in the games arcade beside my parents’ house playing a few games on the football machine where we usually challenged each other to settle our differences, as he sided with Lazio and I went with Roma. Ever since we went on a school trip during our last year of school before University, both of us had held the Eternal City very dear in our hearts. But Pasi was a Lazio sympathiser and I was a Romanist and Roma again defeated Lazio, as was almost always the case. It was to be our last game together.

The next day I went up to the Aragonese Pyrenees, to Canfranc, where a friend of mine, Iñaki, was the site manager on the construction site of some apartments. I needed money to pay for my flight to Stockholm, the first month in the student halls of residence where I had secured accommodation and a little more to help me get off the ground until I was settled at University. Iñaki told me that I’d have to work hard, which wasn’t a problem for me. They paid well and I needed the cash. The first day Iñaki had me boring holes in the ground with the drill which resulted in another workman on the site telling me to cool it, as we should all take it easy in this life. On the second day, after seeing that I was good with the drill, Iñaki put a demon-like machine in my hands to bore holes in the wall for electrical sockets and water intakes which, if it gets pissed off, can put a hole in you too. While I was hard at work, Iñaki signalled over at me to stop the machine as we couldn’t talk over the noise it was making. I unplugged it and he said I had to phone my friend Luis urgently. Luis knew I was working up in the Pyrenees so I thought it was very strange that he had to tell me something so urgently that couldn’t wait until that night. Besides, I noticed something on Iñaki’s face as he passed the message on to me which gave me a bad feeling. I went into the room used as Iñaki’s office on that construction site of apartments in Canfranc and dialled Luis’ number only for him to tell me the sort of news no-one ever wants to hear.

Pasi never made it to Santiago. He lost his life in an ill-fated road accident, depriving him of his promising future, so full of hopes and dreams. His departure left a massive void in my life, just as I’m sure it did for many others who were lucky enough to have known him. The little faith I might have had at that moment was gone in an instant. Despite being raised in a Catholic family and school, I found it hard to believe in a God who could allow so much injustice in the world if he did indeed exist and was in any way watching over us. After all my friend had fought for, after all the people he had helped and now, just as life was starting to go his way… That was the last straw for me and it plunged me into agnosticism.

A month later I went to Stockholm to start a new life. In spite of his generous financial offering of help, I didn’t have Pasi anymore so I had to figure something else out to get by economically. Nevertheless, his words of inspiration and his encouragement to continue fighting when things aren’t going your way have always stuck with me, as has the strength he had to face new challenges and overcome adversity and to not lose hope that there is always light at the end of the tunnel. That’s why every time I have to make an important decision in my life, I remember him and how close he always was to me when it really mattered. And that’s why now, facing this new challenge that life has thrown my way, it seemed like the right time to set out on the exact same Camino that he travelled all those years ago and which helped him so very much. The right time to tread the very same path as his boots did on that trip I couldn’t go on but that I had been meaning to do for so long.

Zach said that Alberto must have been a great person and a great friend and I told him that he was indeed, but that I’m equally as glad to have met him and to have lived through these unfortunate circumstances together because, in some way, being there side by side in that hospital, I felt very close to my old friend, even though I met Zach barely ten years ago. I told him that if he’s capable of following the example and helping someone who needs it once back in his own country, without expecting anything in return, it’ll mean that Alberto’s spirit, in other words what he represented for his friends and those who were lucky enough to have known him, will travel with him and remain alive amongst all of us. Zach told me that he’d have loved to have met Pasi and be his friend and that he’ll take this story back to the United States with him. I thanked him and told him that, if only for that, this Camino has been worth it…

 

Part 33: Lugo Hospital

Yesterday I got down to some writing and what with one thing and another, it was four o’clock in the morning before I knew it. I had set my alarm for eight to go to the hospital first thing but I turned it off and set it for an hour’s time as I needed a bit more rest. I was again woken by the tune from my mobile at nine and sat up. I plugged in my phone and saw that I had a message from Zach on Facebook. I opened it anxiously, hoping that he would tell me that World War III had broken out right there in Lugo and that the hospital was already sealed off, with a giant mushroom cloud of smoke and incandescent material visible from hundreds of kilometres away, leaving a huge crater in Galicia that could be seen from a satellite, and some guys in protective suits had come into A&E in search of any sign of human life yet they’d had to leave, convulsing and with their nose hair singed. Nothing could have been further from the truth. There hadn’t even been any contractions during the night; the birth would have to wait. In his email Zach told me other things. I had to re-read it and make an effort to keep my composure and not shed a tear. My American friend, who I met only a week ago in the Elvis Bar in Reliegos, León, told me more or less the following:

My dear friend that I have just met,

I must beg you to return in your journey and complete your pilgrimage to Santiago.  I will forever be grateful for your genuine kindness and hospitality.  But you are also a pilgrim and you have your journey. I have really enjoyed getting to know you better and am very impressed by your strong character.  Your parents are undoubtedly proud of the man they produced.  I would feel regret forever if I cannot convince you to continue.  I am in very good care here. I may decide to fly home sooner as well as I will need to return in order to complete the trip.

Your grateful friend,

Zach

To which I replied:

“Good morning Zach,

Thank you for your heartfelt words. Despite the fact we only met a short time ago, I connected with you quickly and even though we grew up in very distant and culturally different places, I think we have a lot in common, apart from our age. Sometimes you never really get to know a person and sometimes a week is more than enough. I consider you a friend and a friend is someone you stick with through thick and thin. One of the reasons I’m doing the Camino is because of a good friend of mine who I lost a few years back, who was always there for me when I needed him. If I left without making sure you were ok, neither he, wherever he may be, nor I could ever forgive myself so I don’t want to hear any more about it. We walked into this hospital together and we’ll walk out of it together too. Let’s wait and see what the doctors say this morning and we’ll figure out our next steps from there. I’ll be with you in an hour.

Hug,

Javi”

   

I arrived at the hospital around ten. Zach wasn’t in the room so I sat down beside the bed to wait for him. A few minutes later he appeared, looking a little down in the mouth. He had come from the bathroom after the latest in a long line of defeats. Zilch. Each time Zach gets up to go to the toilet, those of us in A&E hold our breath, not because of the radioactivity that could emanate from in there, but because of how anxious we are to put an end to all of this. It reminds me of one of those American films where the aliens invade earth and the film shows clips of people from all over the planet glued to the television, be it at home, in a bar, at the office or at the hairdresser’s, watching how the invasion unfolds. I imagined a similar pattern; CNN opening the early evening news with the case of an American who was doing the Camino de Santiago and who is still quarantined in Spain after not being able to crap for a  month. I imagined people of all nationalities glued to the TV, in New York, London, Madrid, Rio de Janeiro, Tokyo, Nairobi, Sydney and Jerusalem, waiting for the latest news, all working together, the world putting its differences aside, uniting in a game of virtual tug-of-war and pulling in unison to dislodge that meddling creature of Satan lying in the American’s lower abdomen.

A short while later the doctors came by on their morning ward round. It was a different pair to those yesterday but still a surgeon and an internist. As soon as they came in, they asked me to step out into the corridor for a moment and I told them that was fine, but that I took it they spoke English. The two of them said no at the same time and told me to stay if Zach didn’t speak any Spanish. The truth is that if we don’t insist on our leaders speaking decent English so that they don’t make a fool of themselves when they go abroad to supposedly defend our interests, we can’t expect it from doctors in Lugo Hospital either, but I think that in Spain, in general, language teaching needs to be reviewed as how can it be possible with English being compulsory in high schools until 18 years of age, for us to leave without knowing a damn word of English after all the money our parents invested and the time that we ourselves put in.

Apart from not speaking English, it became apparent that these doctors hadn’t read Zach’s history and didn’t seem to know much about his case. They were a bit surprised when we told them how many days he had gone without dropping the log down the waterfall, but they told us not to worry as they were going to apply a miracle-cure solution that would have him sorted in half an hour. As I saw they were a little lost, I asked them if they were referring to the solution that is applied for colonoscopies and, again with a surprised look on their faces, they told me that it was indeed and asked why I would say that. “Because you’ve already given him two litre and a half jugs of the stuff we still haven’t flushed anything away” – I replied, as the two of them almost fell over in shock. “Sweet mother of God!” - exclaimed one of them. The other one asked me if Zach has any history of this illness-with-no-name in his family and I said I didn’t know and that I would feel a little uncomfortable asking. She said they need to know as it could be something unexpected and undesirable obstructing his bowel, so I put the question to the American. Looking pale, he told me that there was no family history of any serious problems with the digestive tract, not immediate family anyway. The doctors said they were going to do more X-rays and try again with another dose of the same medicine, only a little stronger this time. For our peace of mind, we were told that his abdomen is still soft and as there aren’t any other symptoms, such as intense pain or vomiting, it’s safe to say the situation is under control.

After the doctors on duty visited, it became more or less clear that we had another personal ordeal ahead of us today in Lugo Hospital’s A&E. Given the outlook and the recommendation from the medics that Zach get up and move about, we decided to take things in our stride and walk up and down the corridors and then the ground floor. As we were walking Zach asked me if I’d ever seen the episode of South Park where one of the characters breaks the world record for the biggest crap in history. He showed me the video on YouTube and we both fell about laughing. Zach said that that episode of South Park is a joke in comparison with what he has cooking and that they’d be better leaving him up out on the roof terrace of the building.

   

We continued our walk, stopping off in the newsagents to buy some Sudoku books, as Zach has never tried it and I thought it might entertain him, and a deck of cards to have a few games while we waited for something to happen that now seems impossible. After playing cards for a while, I went down to the visitors’ cafeteria for some lunch and then outside to get a bit of air. For someone who doesn’t like hospitals, I’m certainly getting my fair share with the American.

After lunch I decided to do a round-up of events with my sisters, the doctors, to let them know how things are going. They both agreed on the diagnosis: if there was something seriously obstructing the bowel, as the surgeon who visited us today suggested, the congestion would be accompanied by other symptoms which Zach doesn’t have. They said it’s very strange but that everything is pointing towards this being a very brutal case of traveller’s constipation caused by a certain predisposition of the patient, maybe to do with the apprehension of doing his business in pilgrim hostels where the Geneva convention wouldn’t even let a prisoner of war sit, dehydration from the long walks in the sun and everything that comes with a change of diet: Zach’s a vegetarian yet he’s been stuffing himself with all sorts of meat here.

One of my sisters, Doctor Zen, added another variant to the equation which, in my humble opinion, shouldn’t be overlooked: Zach is in a hospital in Spain where he doesn’t understand anything of what’s happening around him and is far from his loved ones and home, so he’s likely so overwhelmed that instead of literally shitting himself, as we vulgarly put it when fear relaxes our sphincter muscles, he’s holding it all inside and there’s no medicine for that other than shipping the American back off to the motherland and letting him listen to the stars and stripes hymn once every eight hours; “Javi, I’ll bet you that this guy won’t go until he’s sat on the plane and sees the Statue of Liberty from the window”, she very graphically illustrated.

   

As I made my way back into the hospital, I spotted a guy in the entrance hall selling tickets for the Red Cross ‘golden lottery’. I thought that if “mierda” is used as a synonym for good luck in certain contexts, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to tempt fate by buying a couple of tickets, one for Zach and the other for myself with the aim of splitting the prize money between us if either of us won. With the amount of luck the American has inside him, the chances of us winning are, in my opinion, quite high. Zach was delighted when I gave it to him and put an alarm on his mobile so that the 18th of July, the date of the draw, wouldn’t pass him by. Afterwards he told me that, in my absence, he had been doing some yoga exercises and he also showed me a video that he took of me dancing during that night out in The Wall in León, which he tells me inspired him to start a specific type of exercise that he thinks could stimulate his lethargic bowels. The dance in question was no big secret and was nothing more than the epileptic movements of someone who had has too much to drink and is convulsively moving in time with the music. Something similar to the Chunk’s “truffle-shuffle” in The Goonies.

   

Zach also told me that while I was down in the cafeteria having lunch, they took him down for more X-rays that we haven’t been told the results of yet. “What a year I’ve had”, he said all of a sudden, “it’s the second time in less than six months that I’ve ended up in hospital despite the supposedly healthy life I lead”. Zach had already told me briefly in León that he had a health scare in January which led him to seek urgent medical assistance. One Friday, as a stressful week at work was coming to an end, he started to feel very weak as if he was going to collapse at any moment. He used all his strength to make it home and spent most of the weekend in bed sleeping. He felt a bit better by Sunday and on Monday he was back at work in the IT company that provides solutions for financial institutions where he works. As he returned to the daily grind and stress, he again began to feel the same symptoms and as weak as before. At one particular moment, as he was speaking to a client in India who he had had it up to here with, he felt a pain in his chest and began gasping for air. He apologised to the client and told him that he was going to have to take himself up to hospital as he didn’t feel very well. Instead of saying of course and telling Zach he hoped it was nothing too serious, he continued speaking and asked him not to leave until they had resolved the problem at hand. “To hell with this”, Zach said to himself as he hung up with the guy still talking away.

He asked a work colleague for help as he didn’t feel strong enough to drive to the hospital himself and when he got there, he was treated as an emergency as the ECG detected an irregular heart rhythm. While he waiting for them to come and do some tests, Zach lay on a bed in the middle of the corridor connected to a machine to monitor his heart rate, as the hospital already had a lot of patients waiting. He had such a load of work on those weeks that his blackberry was still firmly attached to his hand even in those trying circumstances, as he replied to emails from the hospital bed. I’d like to think that it was partly to distract him and also to forget about the state of shock that his body must have been in as he found himself in that situation. Just then his blackberry started to ring. It was the pain in the ass Indian client again, this time on his work mobile. The mere sight of that jerk’s name appearing on the screen of his phone got Zach so worked up that the machine he was connected to began to beep, meaning that his heart rate was out of control. It was only then that he understood that he was in there because of the stress associated with his job, so he turned his mobile off and tried to relax.

Zach was diagnosed with atrial fibrillation, the most common type of abnormal heart rhythm in clinical practice which can be caused by many different factors. In this particular case, the subsequent tests and analysis showed that the American was absolutely fine, and that maybe a virus had caused this anomaly. When doctors don’t have an explanation for something they usually blame a virus, the medical catch-all term which is given to everything that can’t really be explained. He wasn’t prescribed any medication and was simply told to rest up for a few days. Zach had his own theory and was convinced that this incident was linked to his lifestyle and the stress that comes with a job that he doesn’t even particularly enjoy. The fact that the machine he was connected to went crazy when the annoying Indian phoned only served to confirm his theory. Zach wanted to change his life but he could never find the right time and didn’t know what else to do job-wise as he’d spent so many years training in the same field. He decided to do the Camino to have some time to reflect and think about where he was in his life and what he wanted to do next. And look where he ended up, in the same place he said he never wanted to end up again; in a hospital, afflicted with an unknown ailment which isn’t looking good.

  

I listened attentively to the American’s story and again began to think about whether fate exists and if so, why it made Zach and I meet on our respective paths. He seemed so dejected as he told me his story that I decided to tell him a similar story about something that happened to me, even though it’s not something I usually talk about, as I thought it might make him feel better and help him understand that what’s happening to him is more common that what he thinks and, in my personal opinion, based on my own experience, his body is telling him to change his lifestyle and look for something that makes him feel good. There’s no job in the world that’s worth losing your health over and at such an early age at that. Life’s too short to live it in fear. He has to be brave and not resign himself to going into the office like a zombie or taking medicine, if it gets to that stage, in order to be able to do his job; you don’t necessarily have to accept things due to a false sense of duty or because “that’s just the way it is”.

A few years back, I also went through a stressful time. I had started to work for one of the best banks in the world as head of department, as young as I was, and the pressure was on. Obviously due to the results that are expected from someone who holds a certain position in an institution of this calibre, but also due to the pressure that you impose on yourself out of fear of disappointing those who believed in you, in order to uphold your professional reputation and also out of amour propre, which can sometimes be excessive. Why is it so hard for us to admit that very often our problems are caused by a lack of modesty. So after several fifteen-hour working days in the office due to a couple of deals that needed closing at the time, my vision began to go all blurry and I started seeing double. At first I put it down to the amount of hours I’d spent in front of the computer screen and closed my eyes for a few seconds. When I opened them, I was still seeing double and no matter how much I tried to focus on the screen, I couldn’t read what was on it. I decided to get up and go to the bathroom to splash some cold water on my face, only to be left with the same negative results. It was no Lourdes and the water sure wasn’t holy.

I began to get worried as the minutes passed so I decided to go down and get some fresh air and walk about for a while. I did so for about ten minutes during which the situation didn’t improve. In certain types of jobs, such as the one I was doing, every now and again you hear about people who get a bit of a shock at an early age and, in these cases, fast acting can be crucial. As I’ve already made reference to on other occasions, I grew up amongst health professionals and perhaps being over-informed makes me pay closer attention to health issues than what others possibly would. I began to consider that maybe this double vision was related to something serious and that I should hop-skip it down to the hospital. I didn’t want to worry my sisters or my parents so I decided to phone Joserra, the brother of my friend Alberto. I’d already mentioned to Zach that this friend is one of the reasons I’m here doing the Camino de Santiago, and I clarified that a few years back I lost Alberto but gained his brother Joserra who, until then, I only knew briefly but those tragic circumstances brought us close in the same way I was close to his brother. Joserra got the highest marks in the MIR (resident doctor examination) in his year and is an internist in la Paz, one of the best hospitals in the country. I’m convinced that in a few years he’ll be recognised as one of the best in Spain in his specialisation, given his dedication and passion for medicine. I told Joserra what was wrong and he told me that the sensible thing to do would be to go straight to the hospital, even though it probably wouldn’t be anything too serious. He added that he was busy and couldn’t wait for me personally in A&E but that he would phone the doctor on duty to tell them to see me as quickly as possible.

I arrived at A&E fifteen minutes later and let those in admissions know what was wrong with me. Ten minutes later they called me into a room and a couple of male nurses asked me what my symptoms were and then took my blood pressure. They leapt up as they saw the reading on the instrument and told me to follow them. One of them asked the other if they should put me a wheelchair to move me and the other said no, we’d be quick. I started to think that this wasn’t real, this couldn’t be happening to me. I was only 34 years old and was hearing things that we all hope never to have to hear. They took me to a room where a couple of doctors were already waiting for me, surrounded by several nurses. They told me to take off my shirt and connected me to an ECG machine. They put a pill under my tongue and began to examine me and ask me questions to see if I knew where I was and if I was answering questions in a logical manner. I was relatively calm because I was convinced that all of this was excessive for what I thought was wrong with me, which was just that I was stressed and hospitals make me ill and make my blood pressure shoot up. “White coat syndrome” I think they call it. Afterwards they asked me to touch several points of my body with different fingers each time to see if I had coordination. There was a girl opposite me wearing the green hospital uniform who didn’t say a word. She was young and very pretty and seemed alarmed as she looked over at me. Her lips were lightly quivering and I thought she was going to burst out crying at any moment. I think she was a student on her first day of placement. The poor girl was scared stiffless. I smiled over at her to try and reassure her, convinced as I was that there was no way I was going to kick the bucket under these unfortunate circumstances due to the stress of a couple of loans and all the pain in the backsides who wouldn’t stop phoning me to tell me to do this and that as it was the most important thing in the world and it couldn’t wait. A bit like Zach and the asshole Indian client.

The diagnosis was a hypertensive crisis related to stress. The tests that they carried out in the subsequent weeks showed that everything was alright. The analyses showed normal levels of cholesterol and sugar. My resting blood pressure was absolutely fine but it went up a bit during working hours, nevertheless the average reading for the day was within the normal range for my age. I spoke to the doctor who took on my case and he told me there was nothing to be alarmed about but that the type of job I was doing was causing my blood pressure to increase and that this could, not now, but within ten years or so if I continued on the same path, place me amongst the population at risk of suffering from high blood pressure and I could need continuous medication. I was pretty sure that the problem was to do with me rather than my job as such. Of course, my job had its stressful moments but my blood pressure could have just as easily gone up while working on the till in a supermarket or in a bar where you don’t get a moment to come up for air, or in a mine. Not forgetting that those jobs pay a lot less than what I was getting so I’m not going to blame my misfortune on the type of job. I feel it would be disrespectful to all those other people who don’t have freedom of choice or who have to go on with what they have and what’s more, be thankful for it. No, my problem was something else, something I had been chewing over for some time. My problem was seriously analysing if what I had been doing for some years now was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life, however much satisfaction it may have brought me; whether or not I wanted to retire at 65 after working twelve hour days from Monday to Friday, then look back and realise I hadn’t given the other restless ideas I had in me a chance to flourish. Given that 100% of the time the answer was no, it was at that moment, while confined to a hospital bed in A&E, connected to a machine, I said to myself: “dammit Javi, what the hell are you doing here”. So from that moment on I knew I had to draw up a plan B. There were no excuses, it was time to be brave and break the dynamic. Take risks, like ten years ago, when I left for Stockholm empty-handed, then Belfast and after Belfast, London. At that moment, I decided that the first stage of that plan B would be to do the Camino de Santiago, something which I had promised myself for a long time.

Zach listened to my story just as attentively and thanked me for sharing it with him, telling me he found it very inspiring. He also admitted that this is the exact same problem he thinks he has but that he still hasn’t worked up enough courage to take that leap into the unknown, break away from a comfortable life and try other things. I think Zach now gets why I think we have so many things in common and why I connected with him so quickly. In some way or other, I can see myself in him and I feel the need to let him know that if the untimely loss of the friend I told him about these days taught me anything, it’s that we are here for a short time. We only have today and every tomorrow is a gift. Being as privileged as we are to be able to make decisions about our lives, we can’t afford to waste them by doing something that doesn’t fulfil us or that makes us unhappy. Manifestations of stress are, in my opinion, nothing more than signs of inner dissatisfaction, conflicts to be resolved, signs from your body that you should change certain things in your life; after all it is wiser than you, it has gathered genetic information from generations passed and it knows what is best for you.

   

It was getting late so I told Zach I was going to look for the doctor on duty to see if there was any news. She told me that the last few X-rays were better and that some gaseous activity and bowel movement could be seen, so they hope that the volcano will start to erupt over the next few hours. Despite this, the American can’t leave until some magma has been expelled. I explained the situation to Zach and told him that we would have to make a decision tomorrow as if there is no “Big Bang”, he’ll have to consider signing the self-discharge form and going back to the United States off his own accord to get a thorough check-up done once there. For obvious reasons, I didn’t want to tell him that it was likely that they didn’t want to do this check-up in Lugo due to fear of what they might find. He turned to me seriously and said that whatever happens, he intends on leaving the hospital tomorrow and will look at flights to see if he can go back home a day earlier than planned.

I travelled back down into Lugo again and spent the night in the same hotel where the owner can’t quite believe his eyes every day he sees me coming back with my pilgrim rucksack, meaning that the D-day landing in Normandy has again been postponed. After the customary hot shower to relax, I went out for some dinner and while in the tapas area, I ended up running into the attractive internist who dealt with us on the second day. She was having something to eat with her boyfriend and offered me a pintxo and a beer, which I gladly accepted. She was surprised to hear that we were still at the hospital, as she was off today, and told me that this is all very strange and that they’ve never seen anything like it before. She added that it’s a pity that the American is going to leave and have the problem solved elsewhere as this story is worthy of publication in a medical journal. After spending a while with them, I decided it was time to leave and politely said goodbye, as even though her boyfriend was perfectly nice and friendly the whole time, I got the impression that he didn’t exactly want to spend the first evening of his long-anticipated weekend, apart from with his girlfriend, with a third wheel who’s there because his American friend hasn’t been to the toilet in a month. Perfectly understandable, of course.

As I arrived at the hotel I sent Zach a message to tell him that I had some good news and some bad news for him. The good news is that I had met the doctor who visited us yesterday out having tapas and we chatted for a while. The bad news is that her boyfriend was there too. Zach made me smile with his typical American reply: “shit man, I was getting really excited until you threw that part in about her boyfriend! Oh well...”