Camino Entry 58

Entry 58, January 21^st, 2012

I've been lost twice today and it's only lunchtime. The signs do not work nearly as well in reverse. It's okay, though, I have dad's luck in wandering. I think I found the old camino at one point . . . I was following markers, but the road was only ruts and they were all covered in vines. I don't remember crossing the mountain that way, either.

The ancient old lady running this bar is looking at me like I'm crazy. Which I suppose I am. I am the only customer.

I probably look more like Arno right now that I do like normal people. He spoke about his relationship with the city . . . when he was in silence for six months, he would come by the church to get fresh water from a spigot. No begging or anything, but even then the people coming out of mass would not make eye contact with him. “What were they talking about in there?” wonders Arno. Sometimes the priest comes by Arno's chapel, driving his BMW . . . the thing reads like something out of a Sunday school textbook.

Alright. Time to go.

Later

I met another American! His name is Simon, he's from NYC, and he walked from Sarria. He's 32 and lives very fast – lots of traveling. He is trying to do Lisbon and Madrid in the two days after Finisterra . . . I don't know if he will need an extra day or not, he has a double layer blister just like the Spanish guy that the Master told to go to a hospial.

Got lost a third time, this time for six or seven kilometers. Pressed on, found the camino. It was a long day. The marker says 67km from Finisterra . . . pretty good for two days' work.

When Simon asked about the camino to Finisterra at the pilgrim office in Santiago, the man was insulted. “That's a pagan route; we don't have any information on that here!” How 12^th century of him . . . fascinating, especially since the pagan routes predate the death of St. James.

Today's realization – I cannot make anyone happy. I do not know what would make them happy, and I do not have the power to realize it. So, I release myself from the obligation to make myself happy as well, because emotions are like the weather.

Instead, I assume two new obligations. First, to love everyone instead of trying to make them happy. Simple, but not easy. Second, to live in harmony with myself, instead of trying to be happy. Again, simple, but not easy.

I am accumulating bug bites all over my body. I worry that my sleeping bag is infested. Also, my left big toe is a little swollen and numb on one side. My right ankle wore through the sock today and began rubbing. I am starting to wear out – time for a rest soon.

Expenses, Day 58

Breakfast: 3.50

Internet: .50

Lunch: 4.20

Dinner Provision: 8.00

Albergue (Negreira): 5.00

Total: 21.20

Trip Total: 1308.76

Also important: the best way I can love others is to know myself, so that I can be truthful and genuine with them. Or at least that would be a good start.

Camino Entry 41

Today's street view:  http://goo.gl/maps/VSddq

This is the bar where I asked directions by scribbling Spanish phrases in my notebook.  Damn oath of silence . . . they sent me down the road to your right.

Entry 41, January 4^th, 2012

¿Como voy a San Martino del Camino?

No puedo hablar hoy.

¿Carratera?

The above are my side of a conversation with a bartender in a little town outside San Martin del Camino, asking for directions. I'll get to that in a minute.

The Albergue in San Martino del Camino.  A chilly evening with no heat . . .

A few notes about the cathedral before I forget (I went back this morning before leaving León). There are a series of sculptures on the front, including a set of demon heads devouring the damned whole and spitting them out into vats of boiling oil. Yikes!

Also, the cathedral has two huge Gothic bell towers in the style of Notre Dame, but they are disconnected from the central nave, allowing far more internal surface area to be stained glass. An ingenious move.

Also, the count's palace (designed by Gaudí) is a subtle, restrained masterpiece. The windows increase in size as you move down the building, and the stone changes colors whenever the windows change size. It is a very small change, though – from light gray to dark gray at the bottom. Much different from his crazy stuff in Barcelona, and yet I can still see his touch. The way Gaudí paints with the colors of stone really captures the eye.

It took most of the morning to leave León. The usual slog through cheap housing, the industy and warehouses, and finally through freeway interchanges and all the in-between forgotten places. Places where damaged lawn chairs come to die, and where the municipal authority stores spare manhole covers. I took the alternate path, which was a good choice as it quickly left the freeway and made it into very quiet country. It was a good complement to today's oath of silence.

I kept the oath (so far, at least). A few observations:

I was happy all day. I don't know why, but the one who does not speak is loving and content. I wanted to smile at everyone and tell them with my eyes how genuinely I appreciated it when they helped me. In fact, my eyes have never felt quiet so expressive and twinkling. Even when I thought of people that made me angry it brought a smile to my face.

People treated me differently. A little bit like the slow cousin – even my compatriots on the road who know me very well. When you don't talk, people forget that you still understand. Also, they started to try to communicate with me non-verbally as well, even though I was certainly not deaf. I wonder if we have a subconscious urge to adopt the mannerisms of those we communicate with to facilitate communication?

I got lost at one point. Do you have any idea how annoying it is to be lost when you've taken an oath of silence? Hence my conversation with the bartender earlier.

It would be interesting to take one of these oaths for a longer period. I wonder what sort of music a person who never spoke would make?

Ernesto said something the other day that really hit home. I had just told him the story about _____, and mentioned that I was thinking of looking her up when I got home.

“Why?” he said. “What are you trying to accomplish with that?”

Why am I indeed . . . one of the reasons that I came on the camino was that is was the only thing that interested me more than her. Now I am full of ideas, all of them more important than her, and she is suddenly less attractive.

Is this finally what I meant when I said that I could only contact her again when I didn't care about contacting her anymore? It doesn't feel like I expected, but it is good to be free.

To be honest, I will probably throw something her way when I get back, but I am not going to put much into it. There is more important work to be done!

Expenses, Day 41

Breakfast + lunch pastry: 10.00

Albergue Municipal San Martino del Camino: 4.00

Dinner: 8.00

Total: 22.00

Trip Total: 942.64

Song: “Nosotros”

Leaving a city (where I considered sleeping when I was lost) on the alternate path, I saw a shepherd with his sheep. This has always been a good sign on the camino – one with mixed meanings. It is a good sign, because it means that I am going the right way, but it is also sobering because it usually means that I am about to be challenged. Sure enough, I soon became unsure as to if I was heading the right way – the same demon arose to do battle that I defeated on San Juan de la Peña. I defeated him again, and after asking directions I found I was heading exactly the right way. I saw another shepherd there. Santiago smiles.

Camino Entry 15

(Day 15 continued)
I managed to get good and lost today. There was a weird intersection of roads in the middle of some fields that was signed in an odd fashion . . . I took what I thought was the correct way and was totally wrong. I found myself at an old firebreak, and the guide mentioned a firebreak so I followed it, again in the wrong direction. Just as I was about to give up a tractor drove past on the road I’d been looking for; it was hidden in the brush not 50 yards from where I was standing. I took the road around to Bolea, turning an easy 20km day into a long, 25km cross country day.

But the past two days have been days of beautiful, perfect country roads. Even when lost I found myself in places so beautiful. At one point I was following a country road (which stretched for kilometers in each direction) with the mountains on my right partially visible above through the mist while on the left a huge empty field swept up the side of the mesa. It was dotted with islands of unplowed earth, each dominated by a single tree that I knew must be massive but from my distance looked miniature. I actually thought about sleeping there, snug in the dry grass amongst a sea of brown earth, but not tonight. It’s going to be a cold one.

As the elevation increases, the land opens up. It feels bigger somehow. Since yesterday the farms are bigger and the landscape more remote. Maybe the proximity of the mountains helps . . . I saw frost this morning. Elevation 700m and climbing, according to my guidebook.

I’m spending the night in an odd little albergue. The friendly lady I talked to at the edge of town (who is hosting a twelve year old Ukranian orphan) told me to ask at the Bar Rufino; the brusque barman gave me the keys (I think the albergue takes business from his Casa Rural upstairs) to a strange set of rooms off of the local elementary school gymnasium. The kitchen and baths are downstairs and the beds are up, but they’re connected by a passage that is open to (but separate from) the gym floor. I’m listening to basketball practice right now.