Scott just popped up in the seat in front of me (there are lots of empty seats on the train) with a big grin: "Do you realize this is the first time we have been transported anywhere without using our own feet in over a month?!"
We are both like kids on this modern train, excited and investigating everything. I expected the same cramped, stuffy 6 person cabins with narrow passageways to one side like the trains I took in Europe in 1985. Bleh, I remember the toilet was just a hole in the floor emptying onto the tracks, you could only purchase Turkish coffee (grounds and all) to drink, and you were allowed to stand outside between the cars! Am I that old that things have changed this much since my youth? I suppose I am.
Whoa, business class airline seats, ventilation, movies, and the ride is nearly silent. Yippee! I also like that you can walk around, go to the bathroom, and bring your own food (cheese, chorizo, a tin of mussels, crusty bread, corn nuts, chocolate with Spanish almonds, raw green beans and peppers, carrots, oranges, potato chips, biscotti, and some leftover Rioja wine in one of our water bottles.) My kids will attest to the fact that I never go anywhere without "adequate" food and water.
We are in tourist class cheapest seating. Wonder what first class looks like?
A long train ride is the perfect thing for reflecting on this journey. I only hope that my iPhone battery lasts long enough to record my thoughts, but oh, hey I just found an outlet under the seat. You better get a cup of coffee then, because I will probably have a lot to say.
Really I wasn't expecting any magical transformation or anything. After a rocky start, this has been a great decade for me and I am content. I do worry over loved ones from time to time, like everyone. I came on the walk hoping to let a few things go and on the first day's walk I realized I already had and they were non-issues because it is all out out of my hands anyway. For example, my brother Chris's alcoholism and feeling such a sense of loss over the ruination this disease has caused generationally. (Chris, if you ever read this, I know you already know how very much I love you).
But here is a little story of what often happens with my "weighty" things...There is this one high spot 3/4s of the way through the walk called La Cruz de Ferro. Millions of people have placed stones here they have brought from home, often signifying something. Before that the Romans placed stones there as a gift to Mercury. And before that, Celts marked with cairns that this was a special high place. So now there is a mountain of rocks from millions of people through the ages. I had drawn on mine at home with pigma pens and carried it in my waist pocket, planning to have a little quiet moment and carefully place it when I arrived, symbolically letting go.
Instead three colorful Spanish men ride up in their spandex and encircle Scott and me. They take our cameras, and insist that we place my pebble on a long flat launching rock, which we are to swing from either side. They roar some Spanish chant and off my precious pebble goes into the enormous pile. And that's that. Kind of emblematic of trivial things I sometimes suffer over.
Anyhow, I am so glad we took this trip. The memory is going to ripen even more after a bit of time, just like my memory of our less than "fun" time in Nepal, and I am sure I will look back at this trip as one of the bests. It was a deeply satisfying journey.
Back to the train ride. A boy keeps his toy laser gun zeroed in at point blank range at Scott across the aisle. He "shoots" him twice and the noise is alarmingly loud. A young man yells into his phone behind me for 90 minutes even after I stood up and made painful grimaces and pointed to my ear. Tolerance is always a balance with sticking up for one's self, but when I am a little hormonal, forget about it. Grrr.
More reflections...
Things Scott loved:
Plentiful, high quality and cheap olive oil and olives.
Very good wines from several different regions, usually under $2 per bottle. Rioja was his favorite.
Coffee vending machines actually grind the beans first so it's not half bad.
Wifi is almost everywhere in bars and private albergues.
Smoothest, quietest, and most comfortable buses and trains ever. Great mass transit system.
Spain takes the camino seriously and most people earnestly wish you a "buen camino!" or "animo!"
The amount of clean rivers and streams here.
Ancient things are still used like the horreos in Galicia
(Ornate raised edifices used for drying corn and keeping rats out)
Olive oil potato chips
The different perspectives of people from all over the world and having such interesting conversations every day.
He saw many glimpses of his own childhood, and was especially reminded of his grandfather, Nono, when he saw older men lovingly tending their grape vines and fruit trees.
Things I loved:
Doing all this with the best traveling companion, Scott. I love how neither person is in charge, but we both are vigilant with directions and planning, we both have the same rhythm, and somehow we always seem to have such good luck. I love his company :)
Everyone has a garden with onions, artichokes, lettuce, and Brussels sprouts already planted. They also all have free range happy chickens everywhere, so the eggs were plentiful and delicious.
Many strangers spontaneously pointed the way for us.
Pilgrims did everything they could to help each other. For example, a Wyoming couple lent Bernt 300 euros after a bank ate his card, never knowing if they would see him again.
The way our bodies adapted to some pretty strenuous days.
The feeling of family among peregrinos, very similar to the ice family.
The way conversations dove right into deep and meaningful topics. I think walking and chatting is a wonderful way of interacting.
The way many Spanish people will hold your arm when they talk to you and kiss your cheeks when they like you.
The fun I had in grocery stores looking at the different foods (um, really? Whole pigs snouts right next to the chicken legs!)
So many birds here I have never seen or heard before. We walked with a birder from Canada one day, a retired professor and he had counted 112 varieties in his short few weeks in Spain. The birds always sounded so cheerful :)
Making a friend out of one feral kitten and loving her instantly.
What Scott didn't like:
Graffiti everywhere, even on ancient churches.
The coffee was served in minuscule amounts.
The dogs and cats are largely not cherished in this country. Many dogs are kept to guard some crumbling down old barn and are alone all the time on a short leash. Almost all the cats are feral.
Excess drinking here
The subtle but pervasive level of competition for everything from bed space to miles walked per day among pilgrims. Can't imagine what the summer high season is like.
Worst cookies and cakes ever - basically just flour, shortening, and sugar. Looks nice but tastes awful. Elizabeth could take this country by storm with her cookies.
The trail has been locally altered in many places to bring foot traffic past bars, etc. sometimes robbing pilgrims of great views and adding scores of miles over the course of the camino.
So much smoking!
Only one beer to choose from and it's just like Budweiser.
Things I didn't like:
The few surly bartenders who hated pilgrims, even though we were paying a pretty penny for our cafes con leche.
Young people who stayed up all night partying then sang at the top of their lungs at 4am.
Drunk people in general (in every country, of course). A passenger vomited all over the train station floor this morning and he was still completely drunk. I almost slipped and fell in it and now my shoes stink! Estupido!
The smell of 50 pilgrims sleeping in small unventilated rooms.
People who get up at 5 am, turn on their headlamps, and rustle their bags for a half hour. Or those who set loud alarms but never hear them because they put in ear plugs.
Snoring.
The fact that hundreds of thousands of people walk the camino yet we only came across 3 public bathrooms in 500 plus miles. This is especially hard on women because nettles and blackberry brambles cover the side of every trail. You do the math - ouch! And of course there is toilet paper strewn everywhere. I did what I did in Nepal - carry several wads in my pocket and keep folding them over and using them until the end of the day, then throw them in the trash. Of course this leads to sodden smelly pockets though :/
And I am sure I flashed countless people unintentionally. Yes, I did bring anti-bacterial gel.
Honestly I grew a little bored with 9 hours of walking every day toward the end. I need intellectual stimulation. Talking with folks in Spanish really helped but toward the end, most Spaniards had gone back to work and we kept a faster pace than a lot of other people anyway. I also didn't love that walking-on-stumps, achey-feet feeling that hit every late afternoon. One afternoon on the 26th day walking in a row, when we were deciding whether to stop after 20 miles, I turned to Scott and said, "let's just get this fucker done" and we walked on for another three hours. (Sorry for the vulgarity, Mom) Luckily Scott laughed long and hard, knowing how rare it is for me to swear. I was feeling so done.
So much white bread! It is THE staple here. Just like in Nepal, my legs and arms are all fit and trim from all that exercise but processed foods like white rice and white bread always make my tummy pudgy. Plus lack of fiber leads to lack of movement. Unfortunately I don't have the Battaion's super efficient digestive system. We resorted to making 10-vegetable soups whenever we found a kitchen and that helped.
Many places had kitchens but lacked one crucial element, like a working stove or pots and pans.
Super loud ringtones and loud talking on cellphones everywhere and by everyone.
And that's it.
So we travel on the Barcelona tonight and take a plane to Italy on Friday. I will try to keep posting on these add-on travels, but for now I am looking forward...
To seeing Elizabeth and Ben, and Kevin and Emmie, and Corn and Junebug (Ben's and Emmie's baby pug).
To breathing Montana air and being in our beautiful spot on this earth
To seeing all the pics Scott took
To cooking in my own kitchen!
To planting another garden
To bike riding
To my new job. I got offered the supervisor job the day before I left and eeks, I accepted! Oh boy.
PS - We never saw Cowboy again and other pilgrims who had recently heard of him were beginning to think it was all a hoax. I can only hope we don't run into him in Barcelona, or worse yet...Montana. Via con dios, caballero.
PPS - A later observation in the evening on the train - seems incredible that we walked all this way. Today has seemed like a magical reliving of a lifetime backwards in only a few hours since the train largely follows the Camino. I loved the train ride!
1 comment:
We enjoyed keeping up with your travels. See you when you get home.
Frank and Connie
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