After a shower and freshening up, I went out to a café opposite our lodgings to have some breakfast. Günther and Szilvia were already there gulping down hot coffee to stave off the cold and some toasted bread to do the same with the hunger. Dinner last night was good but given the time we arrived, there wasn’t a lot of choice and we had to make do with soup, salad and one helping of octopus between the three of us. A rather light meal. Over dinner, Günther and Szilvia again brought up the recurring theme of the “energy” that we had experienced on the ascent to O'Cebreiro. With all due respect to both of them, I told them that I wouldn’t be talking about any specific energy that had taken hold of me, rather just a sense of wellbeing that I hadn’t felt for a while, and in Spain we call this feeling de puta madre or, in other words, feeling fucking wonderful. Nothing more, nothing less.
It’s clear that Günther and Szilvia are not alone on their crusade for energy or in their pursuit of personal balance through places on earth which supposedly emanate more positivity. These types of people are in abundance on the Camino, especially amongst foreigners. Some of them give a supernatural feel to this journey, but with more of a nod towards the esoteric than towards the religious or existential side of things. And that’s fine by me, as long as they don’t try to convince me that black is actually white. Over dinner last night, Günther insinuated that there is something inside me that I don’t let people see. Apparently it’s very difficult to get to my heart because there are a lot of barriers around it and that maybe that’s why I wasn’t able to feel the energies which, according to him, are flowing all around us. Well how about that. The Tyrolese version of Mystic Meg. I wasn’t sure how to reply so as not to offend him to tell you the truth, as I think this is a delicate subject and I get the feeling that he’s a bit sensitive about it. So I simply told him that it was one thing that I’m a little introverted when it comes to sharing certain stories with others, and quite another that I’m generally sceptical about this supernatural forces in the universe business.
Maybe the problem lies in the fact that as a good guy and, to make matters worse, Aragonese, I tend to oversimplify things. In any case, this whole energy thing that seems to be so important to Günther and Szilvia is really quite simple and can basically be summed up in the following way: there’s one energy that we’ll call “very good” which is what I experience when I’m feeling bloody brilliant, and another “very bad” which is what I experience when I’m fucked. Once we have identified the two fundamental types of energy, the equilibrium consists of doing everything possible to ensure there are more “good” moments than bad ones. And if in my pursuit of this equilibrium, which is practically every day, I had to go to Machu Picchu or to an underground volcano in Iceland, then I’d be done with it. If you want to call all this Ying and Yang, then bully for you. If believing these things helps some people endure the troubles of their own existence and find meaning in things, then that’s great too. But don’t go telling me that the rest of us don’t feel anything because we’re not on the same wavelength and, if possible, don’t take advantage of people who are having a really hard time by telling them porkies to make a quick buck or two.
After breakfast we went up to the room to gather our things. The woman that runs the inn asked me where I got the txapela I’m wearing and I told her it was my grandfather’s, as he was born in Legazpia. The landlady’s face lit up as she told me that her husband is from Idiazabal, very near there, and that she herself lived in San Sebastian and in Guipúzcoa for over forty years. She told me that when she was 14 years old and hardly able to speak any Castilian Spanish, a family from the town who had prospered after moving to the Basque Country offered her the chance to go and live with them in San Sebastian to work as a nanny and help with the housework. She said yes but only because she thought San Sebastian was “just a little further past Ponferrada”. She doesn’t remember ever being so scared in her entire life as on that trip, especially as she saw that they were leaving Bierzo and then all of Castile, and they took forever to get to San Sebastian. She thought that there were actually kidnapping her to sell her to someone. Once she overcame her initial fears, as is always the case after a big change, this brave Galician girl made it through, got married, started a family and then, at retirement age, came back to her parents’ town to refurbish the family house and use it as pilgrim lodgings. Her husband was watching the television that was on in the living room but he was also listening in to our conversation as, every so often, he would nod at something his wife said. I found it quite amusing how the landlady kept referring to her husband as “that one”, and not his first name: “I married that one; that one retired; I came here with that one”… all the while that one just nodded at her words without uttering a dicky bird.
After saying goodbye to them and thanking them for everything, I went with Günther and Szilvia to visit the pre-Romanesque church of Santa María la Real and the memorial tribute to one of the old parish priests of the town, Don Elías Valiña, a tireless advocate of the Camino and creator of the famous yellow arrows that guide us to Santiago and to whom those of us who don’t need a map, GPS or anything similar to get to Galicia, owe a lot. As we left the church, we ran into the American guy Michael and so we started our descent together through thick fog and snow that just kept on falling.
Soon after we left the town, we came across a donkey that started to bray and, with a serious look on my face, I asked Günther if he wanted anything. He didn’t get it at first and asked me what I meant so I told him that I thought I heard someone speaking German. We all laughed, but I think Günther did so half-heartedly as became clear a little further on when, as we passed by some cows, I made the same joke and the Austrian very seriously told me that that was enough. What can I say; I thought it was fantastic that he said that. Despite the fact it was only a joke, it was good that the Austrian put me in my place if the joke wasn’t funny to him. I know that my sense of humour can be a bit draining sometimes so there’s no harm in reminding me of it from time to time. Just another of the many things I’ll take note of that I like about Günther.
In Liñares, after four kilometres of walking downhill in the midst of a never-ending downpour, we stopped to have a hot Cola-Cao. Our next stop was in Padornelo, in the church of San Juan, where we sat down to escape the rain and rest with Gregorian chants in the background. As we reached Fonfría, ten kilometres from Triacastela, we stopped for lunch and had hot Galician broth, a bit of empanada and a good glass of locally-produced red wine which managed to warm us up. We had a well-deserved rest and took a few videos of us horsing around, in which Günther was again the star of the show. After this we set off for Triacastela, where it still wasn’t clear if we would finish the stage, at least if I would, as I was waiting to hear from Zach about his bowel movements or lack of them.
As we arrived in Triacastela, I met Tim, the American guy from Kansas, who was already having a drink with John, a Canadian man who he had met early on in the Camino. I still didn’t have any news from Zach, I was soaked to the gills after being out in the rain all day and well, I fancied a whiskey to warm me up so I decided to stay in Triascastela, if not for the night, at least for a while until I was sure Zach was still alive and that he hadn’t been gobbled up by that monster he must be carrying around inside him. Michael said he was staying too and Günther and Szilvia decided to go on for another ten kilometres to finish the stage. Two hours after arriving, still without any news from Zach, I decided I would stay in the town for the night. I had dinner with Tim, Michael and the Canadian John and we had a good time. John showed me his travel journal where he paints postcards of the Camino and writes some comments to go with them. He does it really well and he’s contemplating whether it’ll get him some publicity once he gets back to Canada.
After dinner I received a message from Zach. He told me that as he was walking down from O Cebreiro, he met an Irish girl in a bar having a coffee and that, given how worried he is about the situation, it didn’t take him long to open his heart and tell her that it’d been a month since the turtle had poked its head out. The Irish girl must have entered into a state of shock as she told him that he had to get to a hospital as soon as possible or he was at risk of death. Needless to say, it didn’t take Zach long to order a taxi and go to Sarria, which is where the nearest health centre is. Those there recommended that he applied another enema and that if that didn’t work, he’d have to go to the hospital in Lugo. He reserved a room in a hostel for the night, hopeful that everything would be sorted in a few hours. I told him that it’s a bit late for me to walk to Sarria now but that I’ll get up early tomorrow to get there as soon as possible and that if he has to go to hospital, I’ll go with him. I once again insisted that I would leave my mobile phone on all night and that if anything happens, he shouldn’t hesitate to contact me no matter what time it is. Zach thanked me deeply and so we left it that we would see each other the next day.
After our exchange of messages, I settled down at the bar to have a drink. I’m not a doctor and I don’t know what could be happening to the American but you can’t help but worry a little about something that is just not one bit normal. In my case, I don’t leave home without sitting down in my office first thing to review the most important matters of the day, so it seems like something from science fiction to me that the guy from Kentucky hasn’t been to the office for nearly a month.
At the bar there was a group of locals trying to fix the country speaking in the Galician language. They were talking about the good old crisis, as it would seem there’s no other topic of conversation in Spain at the moment. One of the things I’ve enjoyed most about the Camino is not reading the newspaper or watching the news. For a whole month I haven’t heard a pick about the crisis. The barman said to one of the punters, who was as drunk as a skunk, that the problem is that Europe doesn’t work: “you go and tell a German that he’s like a Spaniard and he’ll tell you to fuck off”. In his thick Galician accent, the punter replied: “what the hell, I don’t want to be German either, no fucking way”. He then went on to remark: “what we need to do is join forces with Italy, Greece and Portugal, and leave the Germans to do their own thing”. After nodding my head and toasting the local man, I told him he was exactly right and that he could count on me for the Mediterranean team. I’m not sure if we’ll win anything, but we’ll sure as hell have a damn good time…
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