Part 24: León

For the second time on this trip, I’ve decided to take a day of rest. In this case, it was almost mandatory after last night’s revelry in The Wall, a pub in the Barrio Húmedo run by Johny, a friend of David’s who I had already had the pleasure of meeting in Stockholm. David and I both spent a year studying in the Swedish capital. When I say studying, it’s really just a figure of speech. David is the life and soul of every party. A party without him is like a garden without flowers. He is a real people person and lots of friends came out to visit him during our time in Stockholm, amongst whom his brother Óscar and this guy Johny who I struck up a bit of a friendship with. They had such a good time that they ended up staying with us for a month. I remember a few funny anecdotes from those weeks. Johny is a little guy but definitely not backward about coming forward and we had to ask him to cool it on a couple of occasions, like for example when he shouted over at a couple of Finnish girls, who were commonly known as ‘the praying mantises’, that he was “going to ravage both of them”. The ‘mantises’, who were a little bulky to put it kindly and got their nickname for their ability to trap unsuspecting students at University parties, looked at Johny and smirked as they began to seductively outline their radiant bodies while screeching the chorus made famous by the curvy Italian singer Sabrina at the end of the eighties: "boys, boys, boys!!!"

We arrived at The Wall around half eight in the evening and left at half four in the morning, and not in a great state I might add. We had a good time, it has to be said. Johny was an excellent host and David really got the party going, so much so that 24 hours after meeting him, Zach, Ruta, Szilvia and company were treating him as if they had been walking with him from Roncesvalles. The party was good to get to know my new friends a bit better. Zach levelled with me and told me that last January he had a health problem due to stress from his job and lifestyle. I connected with the guy from Kentucky quite quickly. We’re the same age and have quite a few things in common, even though we were born and grew up on the other side of the world to each other. In the end you realise that your problems, whatever they may be, aren’t that different to those of people in other places. As much as we’re made to feel like we’re poles apart, we human beings really aren’t that different from each other. The differences only amount to being born in one place or another and having our basic needs covered or not. I don’t think we need a psychologist to tell us that stress caused by a certain type of lifestyle or the quest for happiness, such a recurrent theme, are nothing more than problems caused by abundance, in all senses. There’ll be those who say it’s to do with the crisis but deep down we’ve actually got it pretty damn good, much better than millions of people around us. What’s more, to be in a position where your future depends on your own decisions while exercising your freedom of choice, is a privileged position to be in which not everyone has the luxury of.

Alyson and Hilly headed back quite early as they were staying in a nuns’ hostel, only for females. They excused themselves to the rest of the guys they are walking with and justified the harsh nocturnal ‘apartheid’ with the hypothetical madness that would quickly ensue if they had to spend one more night listening to men snoring. I wished them all the best and as I said goodbye, I told them that as they get older they’ll learn that snoring isn’t exclusively a male thing. The Israeli guy Gahl, the American guy Tim from Kansas City and the Danish guy Thomas also left at this stage as they are all in hostels with a curfew. Günther, Zach and Michael had more sense and were staying in hostels where they can come and go as they please. Ruta and Szilvia gladly accepted David’s invitation to stay at his house and so it was the starting line-up that lasted until closing time.

At lunchtime, when we were feeling human again, we met up with David, who had gone to do his bit for the country like a true hero, and his brother Óscar who I hadn’t seen for a little while. Óscar was doing a job similar to mine before I ventured off to do the Camino, although it was more oriented towards the world of business and public institutions. One day he decided to put a halt to that and work in something more related to fair trade and international cooperation and, with his grain of sand from his hometown of León, attempt to make the society we live in a fairer place. “You don’t have to go very far to help others and if we want things to change, why not start with ourselves and our immediate field of action?” Óscar said, leading by his own example. He was telling us that he’s one of the patrons and contributors of the Ethical World Festival being held in León this weekend and he went on to explain the various activities that will be taking place to try and get as many people as possible involved; from concerts to film discussions to various workshops and activities for the young ones. After lunch, David and Óscar got back to work and the rest of us to whatever it was we had on the cards. In my case, it was resting for a while and then contacting Kim, who I’d received a message from to tell me she’d arrived in León, to tell her to meet in The Wall at around half eight.

Kim was really happy to see David and myself in Johny’s pub. She gave us each a gift to thank us for our help during the rescue operation in Reliegos. Mine was a little pin with the yellow arrow that guides all pilgrims on the Camino de Santiago, and David’s was a feather. I wasn’t going to start to weigh up the emotional value of both gifts, but I think the size of David’s has something to do with his car appearing in the equation, without which, no matter how much good will I showed, there was no way in hell we were getting out of that jam. Johny served Kim a glass of white wine and us each a beer. The Korean girl confessed that we are her first non-Korean friends and she recorded a video of each of us introducing ourselves, which she later posted on Facebook to the delight of her friends. As if there weren’t reliable translators of all languages nowadays, one of her friends didn’t have any qualms about leaving a comment with some advice for Kim below the video: “he’s too old for you”.

I’m sure that, with these videos, David and I are the trending topic in Korea by now. Just in case there was any room for doubt, we ordered Japanese food for dinner and Kim took a photo of me holding my chopsticks. The way I’m holding them must be to her like a Korean holding a fork by its teeth to me. She found it really funny and it didn’t take her long to post it on Facebook for the amusement of her followers, who would likely be jumping for joy at the double helping of European eccentricities that Kim is giving them today. I’m really not that surprised that we’re her first non-Korean friends as with the language barrier and their natural shyness, it’s not usually easy to strike up a friendship with them. Having said that, once you make an effort to gain their trust and you forget about the unpleasant sound they make as they slurp their noodles, the reward is worth it as you discover people who are generally very pleasant and have an innocence about them, in the positive sense of the word, that you don’t come across very often nowadays. I wasn’t the biggest fan of the Koreans after our unfair elimination from the World Cup in Japan and Korea in 2002 and the more recent appearance of Gangnam style, but it seems as though I’m going to have to back down once again on this Camino.