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.
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