Day 10, December 4th, 2011
168km completed
Expenses, Day 10
Breakfast: 2.20
Cheese!: 4.00
More Pastries: 2.20
Pensión: 18.00
Apples and mini chocolate donuts: 1.80
Coffee: 1.30
Total: 29.50
Trip Total: 278.23
I spent most of the morning in farmland again. I reached Balaguere, gumpy because of my lame breakfast, and devoured a pair of chocolate croissants. The city is pretty cool – it sits on a river coming out of the Pyrenees and has an old wall surrounding it. I left via one of the old city gates.
Now things are hillier, and the farms less prosperous. I’m headed for the hills again.
It is funny to see how the signage changes from one zone of the trail to the next. In addition to the ubiquitous yellow arrows, I have seen horseshoes (painted yellow), the big official signposts (sometimes with incorrect distances), orange arrows, fluorescent lime green dots, yellow dots, posts in the ground with seashells carved in the top, brass seashells on the walls of buildings, delicate hand painted Gothic text (C.S.J., 960km to Santiago!), and today a staff with a shell and gourd hanging from it under a freeway overpass, outlined in yellow paint. Different trail wardens all have different tastes, I guess.
Later
It figures that not more than thirty minutes after writing that I found myself without any signs at all. They petered out outside of Balaguere, but this has happened before and I figured that it just meant “keep going straight” as it has in the past. This is how I ended up at a dead end dirt road in the middle of a field.
As I was consulting my guide a man came walking along. I asked him where the camino was, and we talked for a bit. End result: he says that he’ll show me how to get to Castelló de Farfanya, because the way is not well marked (no kidding). We set off across the fields.
Not only was the way poorly marked, but it has been totally obliterated in some places by farm equipment. It was all roughly parallel to the carreterra (paved two-lane highway), so I wouldn’t have been too lost, but it was good to have the guy in the blue coat along. It was very generous for him to walk with me as far as he did (several kilometers) and it’s the first time that I’ve had any company on the camino. The kilometers really fly when you have someone to talk to, even in my mangled Spanish.
The man in the blue coat is a local, but his family is mostly French (which is why he doesn’t have black hair and a beard, according to him). His brother lives in Buenos Aires with his girlfriend and he would like to visit but doesn’t have the time. A friend of his walked the camino from León and really enjoyed it. We talked about the weather I’m likely to encounter and he gave me some advice – apparently the signage is better in Huesca than in Cataluña.
Finally he had to turn around. “Esperes un momento . . . (wait a moment)” he rummaged in his backpack before giving me a little key (llave) lanyard with a compass on it. “Te acuerdes mi (to remember me).” Now it hangs on the back of my bag.
Martin was right – do not buy anything to take with you as a gift to Santiago. The gifts will come; people will give them to you or you will find them. My shell from the beach in Malaga, the arrow from the Amics dels Peregrins Barcelona, and now this little lanyard. I find a place in Santiago for it, so that he can make his own trip and visit his brother in Buenos Aires.
And I don’t even know his name! Thank you, walking guy in the blue coat.
I can only hope that I am worthy of all the kindness and luck (suerte) that the world is showering upon me. I must reach Santiago!
Speaking of Martin, I wonder how he is. I hope he’s reached the ocean by now, and that it is as beautiful as he thought it would be. His plan is to follow the coast to the Ebro estuary, work the sport fishing up the river to pay for his lodging, and continue south to Seville before heading to Santiago. It will take months, but he will avoid the snow that I may encounter. He is in no hurry and is braver than I. I hope he is well, I have no way to get in touch with him again. Maybe the records in Montserrat . . .
Tonight I sleep in Algerri, pop. 459, in a little motel off the main road. This trip is changing my definition of “small.” Hung out in the bar for a bit, drinking coffee and watching the locals. I do not fit in. Sleep now.
30.1km completed today.
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
Music -- Sunset
Here's a beat I wrote in the second half of 2011 but never had a chance to upload. Ravi Shankar + Questlove = good. Enjoy!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdONtxKHLPQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdONtxKHLPQ
Monday, February 27, 2012
Camino Entry 9
Day 9, December 3rd, 2012
143.7km traveled
I've decided to take the Cami de San Juan de la Pena, the Northern route.
Expenses, Day 9
Pastry and Baguette: 1.50
Resupply (shop with nice lady): 4.37
Hostal Ca L'Angeleta (c/Pons i Arola #5): 15.00
Internet: .50
Mass: 1.00
Total: 22.37
Trip Total: 248.73
One thing I will miss about Europe is the pastries. If the town is bigger than 500 people, you can get some fucking good pastry.
Later
The Catalan independence movement is strong here; lots of “Catalunya lliure” graffiti.
Quite a pleasant day today. I've been out of the hills and in farmland for two days now – mostly flat dirt roads where the going is easy. Overcast, but no rain. I'm stopped for a rest at Castell de Remei, an interesting old military camp from the 19th century. The main building is castle-like, although I'm not sure how effective the fortifications would actually be – they are mostly decorative. There are some other museum buildings, a petting zoo, and a nice restaurant; altogether it's a cozy little tourist trap. There's also a refuge for Fransiscan monks. With the leaves red and orange underfoot and the evening sun mixing with the cooing of doves, I am quite content to rest my feet for a bit.
Lots of irrigation systems here, which tells me that the summers must be brutal. Troughs crisscross the fields and duck under access roads with a combination of vertical shafts and a bit of siphoning (insert illustration here).
Also, cemeteries here are always walled with a large number of above ground graves, and are marked with the skull and crossbones. Yarr!
Later
I learned a lesson about walking today. Don't look at your feet; let them do the walking, not your eyes. If you look at your feet, you will get tired. Instead, keep your eyes on the horizon. It keep you moving forward.
So, the three lessons so far:
1. Let others be generous.
2. No pilgrim is alone.
3. Let your feet do the walking.
I stopped in a little shop in Tournabous for supplies. The lady there was very nice – she spotted me as a pilgrim right away. I was able to make myself understood (everyone in Spain is being very patient with me, despite the fact that I am a functional idiot) and got some delicious food (cheese cheese cheese cheese cheese . . .). She even gave me some gummies for free . . . I was happy thinking about it for quite some time. She's a bright light in the world.
Traveling brings out the best in people, both the traveler and the host. It has me thinking about the saying that the world gives you what you give it. This is one of the mechanisms that allows that statement to be true. Everyone has both positive and negative potential – you just have to act in a way that allows others to be positive. Like the master in the Tao te Ching, enabling the people – “We did it all by ourselves!”
Being a pilgrim does bring out the best in people, myself and the others around me. I have to trust strangers and rely on them, and so far people have been universally good. I still do not believe that humans are fundamentally good, but just because our potential for good and evil must be balanced doesn't mean that our actions have to be.
Later
I am getting in touch with old powers on this trip. Old wisdom. Sleeping in the woods, building fires, walking alone in the wilderness, meeting monks . . . even the concept of pilgrimage is an old power.
Today while walking along a particular bit of path I had a vision. Not much of a vision, more of just a feeling. The path, the weather, the pack on my back, the farmland, and my sore body . . . my mind is quiet enough that I heard it resonate with one of my ancestors. They had done something very similar, and I felt a great kinship with their sharpness of mind and drive. We thought so similarly that it was like slipping into a comfortable shoe . . . I knew him better than anyone I know in the present, because he was me.
But yeah, very short, and not strictly a vision. Maybe it's just tricks of the brain? Does it matter?
Speaking of old things, I went to mass tonight in search of a stamp for my credential. I went with the lady who runs the hostel – an energetic, forceful, assertive old woman whom I cannot understand a damn bit (sometimes my Spanish is okay, but tonight it has been kicking my ass). Ever been to mass in an 11th century church? Neither had I, until now.
The priest was running a one man show, with only the altar boy and girl for help. I was amazed that he would just burst into the hymns by himself with no pitch pipe – a fine baritone that everyone else mumbled along to. Also amazing is how the lord's prayer is instantly recognizable, even in Catalan and even to a Unitarian. I never realized how important rhythm is to prayer . . . just like poetry.
There was some music during the bit where they eat Jesus' flesh (some weird symbolism to me, but hey). Just as visiting Austria helped me understand Beethoven, visiting old churches has given me a new understanding of baroque and old church music. The place is inseparable from the music – it is the perfect sound for its respective places. I wonder if this is true of all music . . . and I wonder if the rhythm of walking is getting into my body the way that the rhythm of the ocean was when I was living on a ship. I want to get back to composing and find out.
After the mass I was leaving when the altar boy ran up to me. “Just one question,” he asked in perfect English.
“Yes?”
“You're English?”
“American.”
“Ah!” and he ran away. I wonder if he's ever met an American.
143.7km traveled
I've decided to take the Cami de San Juan de la Pena, the Northern route.
Expenses, Day 9
Pastry and Baguette: 1.50
Resupply (shop with nice lady): 4.37
Hostal Ca L'Angeleta (c/Pons i Arola #5): 15.00
Internet: .50
Mass: 1.00
Total: 22.37
Trip Total: 248.73
One thing I will miss about Europe is the pastries. If the town is bigger than 500 people, you can get some fucking good pastry.
Later
The Catalan independence movement is strong here; lots of “Catalunya lliure” graffiti.
Quite a pleasant day today. I've been out of the hills and in farmland for two days now – mostly flat dirt roads where the going is easy. Overcast, but no rain. I'm stopped for a rest at Castell de Remei, an interesting old military camp from the 19th century. The main building is castle-like, although I'm not sure how effective the fortifications would actually be – they are mostly decorative. There are some other museum buildings, a petting zoo, and a nice restaurant; altogether it's a cozy little tourist trap. There's also a refuge for Fransiscan monks. With the leaves red and orange underfoot and the evening sun mixing with the cooing of doves, I am quite content to rest my feet for a bit.
Lots of irrigation systems here, which tells me that the summers must be brutal. Troughs crisscross the fields and duck under access roads with a combination of vertical shafts and a bit of siphoning (insert illustration here).
Also, cemeteries here are always walled with a large number of above ground graves, and are marked with the skull and crossbones. Yarr!
Later
I learned a lesson about walking today. Don't look at your feet; let them do the walking, not your eyes. If you look at your feet, you will get tired. Instead, keep your eyes on the horizon. It keep you moving forward.
So, the three lessons so far:
1. Let others be generous.
2. No pilgrim is alone.
3. Let your feet do the walking.
I stopped in a little shop in Tournabous for supplies. The lady there was very nice – she spotted me as a pilgrim right away. I was able to make myself understood (everyone in Spain is being very patient with me, despite the fact that I am a functional idiot) and got some delicious food (cheese cheese cheese cheese cheese . . .). She even gave me some gummies for free . . . I was happy thinking about it for quite some time. She's a bright light in the world.
Traveling brings out the best in people, both the traveler and the host. It has me thinking about the saying that the world gives you what you give it. This is one of the mechanisms that allows that statement to be true. Everyone has both positive and negative potential – you just have to act in a way that allows others to be positive. Like the master in the Tao te Ching, enabling the people – “We did it all by ourselves!”
Being a pilgrim does bring out the best in people, myself and the others around me. I have to trust strangers and rely on them, and so far people have been universally good. I still do not believe that humans are fundamentally good, but just because our potential for good and evil must be balanced doesn't mean that our actions have to be.
Later
I am getting in touch with old powers on this trip. Old wisdom. Sleeping in the woods, building fires, walking alone in the wilderness, meeting monks . . . even the concept of pilgrimage is an old power.
Today while walking along a particular bit of path I had a vision. Not much of a vision, more of just a feeling. The path, the weather, the pack on my back, the farmland, and my sore body . . . my mind is quiet enough that I heard it resonate with one of my ancestors. They had done something very similar, and I felt a great kinship with their sharpness of mind and drive. We thought so similarly that it was like slipping into a comfortable shoe . . . I knew him better than anyone I know in the present, because he was me.
But yeah, very short, and not strictly a vision. Maybe it's just tricks of the brain? Does it matter?
Speaking of old things, I went to mass tonight in search of a stamp for my credential. I went with the lady who runs the hostel – an energetic, forceful, assertive old woman whom I cannot understand a damn bit (sometimes my Spanish is okay, but tonight it has been kicking my ass). Ever been to mass in an 11th century church? Neither had I, until now.
The priest was running a one man show, with only the altar boy and girl for help. I was amazed that he would just burst into the hymns by himself with no pitch pipe – a fine baritone that everyone else mumbled along to. Also amazing is how the lord's prayer is instantly recognizable, even in Catalan and even to a Unitarian. I never realized how important rhythm is to prayer . . . just like poetry.
There was some music during the bit where they eat Jesus' flesh (some weird symbolism to me, but hey). Just as visiting Austria helped me understand Beethoven, visiting old churches has given me a new understanding of baroque and old church music. The place is inseparable from the music – it is the perfect sound for its respective places. I wonder if this is true of all music . . . and I wonder if the rhythm of walking is getting into my body the way that the rhythm of the ocean was when I was living on a ship. I want to get back to composing and find out.
After the mass I was leaving when the altar boy ran up to me. “Just one question,” he asked in perfect English.
“Yes?”
“You're English?”
“American.”
“Ah!” and he ran away. I wonder if he's ever met an American.
Sunday, February 26, 2012
Camino Entry 8
Day 8, December 2nd, 2011
117.2km completed
Expenses, Day 8
Breakfast: 2.50
Provision (Gas Station food, ugh): 5.50
Chocolate Croissant: 1.15
Fruit: 1.00
Bread: 1.00
Cafe con leche: 1.40
Room at Ca N'aleix: 10.00
Cervera was a nice town. It's an old medieval hill city, with walls and a fortress and everything. Several people asked if I was a pilgrim and gave me directions through the maze of cobblestone streets. It was market day, too, and I got a great chocolate croissant along with some supplements to my shitty gas station provisions.
After Cervera it was a long straight shot to Tarrega, where I am now. This is where the Cami de San Juan de la Pena splits off to the North – I'll sleep here and decide which way to go. Two extra days on the Northern path is not much of a difference on a 1200km pilgrimage.
“The camino will challenge you,” I remember reading in some bit of trail literature. This is true. Today the challenge was my leg muscles – they were very sore and tired the last ten kilometers. Nothing broken, I just had to gut it out. I think I walked the first bit too fast – 15km in four hours. I walk fast when I'm angry. Still don't know why I was angry.
Now to find a place to stay, and pizza.
Later
I forgot to mention that I saw a canal under construction today – or, an aqueduct, to be more specific. It wasn't drinking water (no cover) and it wasn't for traffic (disappeared into a huge pipe in a hill) so I can only assume that it's for agriculture. It's always funny to see a river cross a bridge over another river.
The albegure is open! It is actually a shelter for people with mental illness, with a few spare rooms for pilgrims and the like. They had a room free tonight – 10 euros, including breakfast. What nice people, and what a great deal. The room is almost exactly a dorm room.
It makes me think of dad – many of the people here are probably clients of his Spanish counterpart. I think he would appreciate the irony of how well I fit in here. Think about it – I'm filthy, I smell bad, I piss outside a lot, I talk out loud to myself in a language that no one else understands (English) . . . I'm even carrying a meaningless trinket (the shell from Malaga). Anyone crazy enough to go on a pilgrimage . . .
Tough day, good ending.
117.2km completed
Expenses, Day 8
Breakfast: 2.50
Provision (Gas Station food, ugh): 5.50
Chocolate Croissant: 1.15
Fruit: 1.00
Bread: 1.00
Cafe con leche: 1.40
Room at Ca N'aleix: 10.00
Cervera was a nice town. It's an old medieval hill city, with walls and a fortress and everything. Several people asked if I was a pilgrim and gave me directions through the maze of cobblestone streets. It was market day, too, and I got a great chocolate croissant along with some supplements to my shitty gas station provisions.
After Cervera it was a long straight shot to Tarrega, where I am now. This is where the Cami de San Juan de la Pena splits off to the North – I'll sleep here and decide which way to go. Two extra days on the Northern path is not much of a difference on a 1200km pilgrimage.
“The camino will challenge you,” I remember reading in some bit of trail literature. This is true. Today the challenge was my leg muscles – they were very sore and tired the last ten kilometers. Nothing broken, I just had to gut it out. I think I walked the first bit too fast – 15km in four hours. I walk fast when I'm angry. Still don't know why I was angry.
Now to find a place to stay, and pizza.
Later
I forgot to mention that I saw a canal under construction today – or, an aqueduct, to be more specific. It wasn't drinking water (no cover) and it wasn't for traffic (disappeared into a huge pipe in a hill) so I can only assume that it's for agriculture. It's always funny to see a river cross a bridge over another river.
The albegure is open! It is actually a shelter for people with mental illness, with a few spare rooms for pilgrims and the like. They had a room free tonight – 10 euros, including breakfast. What nice people, and what a great deal. The room is almost exactly a dorm room.
It makes me think of dad – many of the people here are probably clients of his Spanish counterpart. I think he would appreciate the irony of how well I fit in here. Think about it – I'm filthy, I smell bad, I piss outside a lot, I talk out loud to myself in a language that no one else understands (English) . . . I'm even carrying a meaningless trinket (the shell from Malaga). Anyone crazy enough to go on a pilgrimage . . .
Tough day, good ending.
Friday, February 24, 2012
Camino Entry 7
Day 7, December 1st, 2012
94.2km completed
I just had a beautiful dream. There was flying and magic and fantastic creatures and a battle with an evil witch and true love.
I awoke slowly from that dream into another one. I was still someone else, someone young. My friend and I were lying in the dirt, mostly naked. We were about fourteen. There were dozens of other children around us, and we were all starving. We'd been there a long time.
I did have one thing that the others didn't have. Through some lucky chance I'd gotten an old, battered laptop from a Western aid group. I'd fallen asleep with an article about seals brought up up. I also had a notebook filled with stories.
The head man came by. He's friendly but strict and businesslike. He asked if there was anything we needed – we laughed and said, “more food.” He smiled a sad smile and said yes, he knew, anything besides that? We asked (as usual) if there were any jobs. He said no, but that he hoped for something to come up for me and my friend soon.
The my real self appeared. I was still in the body of the boy – I decided to talk to the stranger for a bit. He (I) was surprised by the starvation; I said that that's how it is here. He asked about the laptop; my friend told him that I wrote stories. He asked if he could see them (he collects stories); I thought about it for a long time before giving him my notebook.
Here I returned to my real self. I opened the book to read the first line. That's when I woke up here in Igualada. 4:46am.
Later
“Many of the places I've been have been closed because it isn't pilgrim season,” said Martin. He held up his hands to make quotation marks. “'Pilgrim season.' When is it not pilgrim season? This I do not understand.”
Expenses, Day 7
Pastries: 1.35
Lunch: 4.90
Pension: 20.00
Coffee: 1.30
Total: 27.55
Trip Total: 203.81
Today's road thought: most of the best things that have happened to me involve meeting people. Hearing jazz for the first time, making a best friend, falling in love, reading Coelho and learning about the camino . . . all of these things came about through meeting someone else.
Later
Everywhere is perfection, but here I can see it more easily. Two steps off the road in a tiny silent town called Porquerisses, I lay on a green embankment in a little patch of grass. It is half wild – a scattering of barren fruit trees lie amongst the wildflowers, all in the shadow of an old stone building. Across the valley are a few fields carved out of the forest. Spain abounds with forest – wild, untamed hills of twisted Cyprus and broken stone buildings. Perhaps that's why I love it so much.
The sun is hot, finally. Even in November the sun is hot here from noon to two or three in the afternoon. I can only imagine what it must be like in the summer . . . but for now, there is nothing to do besides sit and watch a few single gossamer strands of spiderweb blow in the breeze.
Later
Five minutes in La Panadella and I think I could tell you the whole history of the town. It sits astride the old N-11 national highway, but with the construction of the freeway most of the traffic has bypassed the village. The warehouses sit empty, and only of the three restaurants/pensions still has any life to it . . .
Pension Bayona is bustling, though. It has become a truck stop. Poppy would feel at home drinking coffee here, or dad for that matter. It reminds me of the variety of Midwest truck stops I've experienced, although with a distinct European flavor (the coffee doesn't suck, for example).
But the pay phone is broken, and I need to make sure tomorrow's albergue is open. Hmm. Problem. Tarrega is a fairly big town, I can ask for a pension, but I will try the albergue tomorrow. 23Km walked today.
94.2km completed
I just had a beautiful dream. There was flying and magic and fantastic creatures and a battle with an evil witch and true love.
I awoke slowly from that dream into another one. I was still someone else, someone young. My friend and I were lying in the dirt, mostly naked. We were about fourteen. There were dozens of other children around us, and we were all starving. We'd been there a long time.
I did have one thing that the others didn't have. Through some lucky chance I'd gotten an old, battered laptop from a Western aid group. I'd fallen asleep with an article about seals brought up up. I also had a notebook filled with stories.
The head man came by. He's friendly but strict and businesslike. He asked if there was anything we needed – we laughed and said, “more food.” He smiled a sad smile and said yes, he knew, anything besides that? We asked (as usual) if there were any jobs. He said no, but that he hoped for something to come up for me and my friend soon.
The my real self appeared. I was still in the body of the boy – I decided to talk to the stranger for a bit. He (I) was surprised by the starvation; I said that that's how it is here. He asked about the laptop; my friend told him that I wrote stories. He asked if he could see them (he collects stories); I thought about it for a long time before giving him my notebook.
Here I returned to my real self. I opened the book to read the first line. That's when I woke up here in Igualada. 4:46am.
Later
“Many of the places I've been have been closed because it isn't pilgrim season,” said Martin. He held up his hands to make quotation marks. “'Pilgrim season.' When is it not pilgrim season? This I do not understand.”
Expenses, Day 7
Pastries: 1.35
Lunch: 4.90
Pension: 20.00
Coffee: 1.30
Total: 27.55
Trip Total: 203.81
Today's road thought: most of the best things that have happened to me involve meeting people. Hearing jazz for the first time, making a best friend, falling in love, reading Coelho and learning about the camino . . . all of these things came about through meeting someone else.
Later
Everywhere is perfection, but here I can see it more easily. Two steps off the road in a tiny silent town called Porquerisses, I lay on a green embankment in a little patch of grass. It is half wild – a scattering of barren fruit trees lie amongst the wildflowers, all in the shadow of an old stone building. Across the valley are a few fields carved out of the forest. Spain abounds with forest – wild, untamed hills of twisted Cyprus and broken stone buildings. Perhaps that's why I love it so much.
The sun is hot, finally. Even in November the sun is hot here from noon to two or three in the afternoon. I can only imagine what it must be like in the summer . . . but for now, there is nothing to do besides sit and watch a few single gossamer strands of spiderweb blow in the breeze.
Later
Five minutes in La Panadella and I think I could tell you the whole history of the town. It sits astride the old N-11 national highway, but with the construction of the freeway most of the traffic has bypassed the village. The warehouses sit empty, and only of the three restaurants/pensions still has any life to it . . .
Pension Bayona is bustling, though. It has become a truck stop. Poppy would feel at home drinking coffee here, or dad for that matter. It reminds me of the variety of Midwest truck stops I've experienced, although with a distinct European flavor (the coffee doesn't suck, for example).
But the pay phone is broken, and I need to make sure tomorrow's albergue is open. Hmm. Problem. Tarrega is a fairly big town, I can ask for a pension, but I will try the albergue tomorrow. 23Km walked today.
Thursday, February 23, 2012
Camino Entry 6
Day 6, November 30th, 2011
69.6km completed
Expenses, Day 6
Lunch: 2.30
Pastries: 0.88
Pesíon Casa Ramón: 15.00
Resupply: 2.62
Hot Dinner: 6.75
Total: 27.45
Trip Total: 176.26
I traveled through some really sleepy towns today. St. Pau de La Guardia was what we like to call a one-dog town, in that it only could afford one dog. My guidebook says it has a population of <50, and I think that’s generous. It consists of a church and between one to five other buildings, depending on how you divide them. Most of them comprised an upscale restaurant, oddly enough – I was hungry, but it was out of my price range.
It was good to get on the road, but I spent the second half of the day raging against being here. This is only natural and I half expected it. Why am I wasting my time, I could be doing other things, I’m tired of Spain, my feet hurt . . . etc. It’s the fear again, trying a new angle. This pilgrimage business is slow, tedious, awkward, and with potential for intense discomfort. For instance, I still don’t know if I have a place to stay tonight. Gonna go check back at the Pensión in Igualada again at 5pm to see if they still exist (I tried once already, no answer) – if not, I’ll be looking for something else.
I take strength from knowing that I got to Montserrat on my own. Also I take strength from not thinking about things and letting myself be a little bit batshit insane. I sang “Jingle Bells” at the top of my lungs today coming down from Montserrat, replacing every syllable with the "C---" word just because I could. Little things like that. A strange pilgrim I would seem if anyone saw me.
Later
It’s funny how someone’s whole attitude can change in a half an hour.
I looked up pension in my dictionary; it means “boarding house,” sort of. I went back to where “Pensíon Casa Ramón” is supposed to be . . . still a shuttered storefront and a locked door with only one buzzer. I rang the buzzer and asked if this was La Pensíon Casa Ramón; someone answered and unlocked the door. On the second floor landing was an old man who knew immediately that I was a pilgrim. He’s quite friendly and has clearly dealt with many people who speak little Spanish. I think he runs a restaurant downstairs behind the shutter.
I got the pilgrim special – a 5’x12’ room at the back of the third floor with a cot, a nightstand, and a chair. The shower and toilet are down the hall. The window (I have a window!) looks out over the central air shaft, and laundry is hung on the clotheslines (I have a clothesline!) drying below me. There is no heat; it will be chilly tonight. I am ecstatic (I even have a pillow!) – I’m actually doing it!
A word about showers. The shower is “la ducha” here in Spain, rendering the American insult “douchebag” far less effective (not that it made any sense to begin with). They’ve all had their quirks so far. The showers in the monastery operated via the push knobs typical of public sinks; meaning, of course, that they would shut off every 15 seconds or so and you’d have to hit the button again with your hand to was the soap out of your hair. Whether this is done in the interest of energy efficiency or for some other reason I am as of yet unsure.
The shower here, however, is the first example of a temperature sin curve that I have seen in a bathing situation. Within two minutes, it alternates from blazing hot to freezing cold and back again, maintaining a regularity that mystifies me. Fortunately the cubicle is large enough to let me leap from the water at the appropriate times, which I’m sure is quite a sight, hobbling on sore feet as I am. 24.6km today.
69.6km completed
Expenses, Day 6
Lunch: 2.30
Pastries: 0.88
Pesíon Casa Ramón: 15.00
Resupply: 2.62
Hot Dinner: 6.75
Total: 27.45
Trip Total: 176.26
I traveled through some really sleepy towns today. St. Pau de La Guardia was what we like to call a one-dog town, in that it only could afford one dog. My guidebook says it has a population of <50, and I think that’s generous. It consists of a church and between one to five other buildings, depending on how you divide them. Most of them comprised an upscale restaurant, oddly enough – I was hungry, but it was out of my price range.
It was good to get on the road, but I spent the second half of the day raging against being here. This is only natural and I half expected it. Why am I wasting my time, I could be doing other things, I’m tired of Spain, my feet hurt . . . etc. It’s the fear again, trying a new angle. This pilgrimage business is slow, tedious, awkward, and with potential for intense discomfort. For instance, I still don’t know if I have a place to stay tonight. Gonna go check back at the Pensión in Igualada again at 5pm to see if they still exist (I tried once already, no answer) – if not, I’ll be looking for something else.
I take strength from knowing that I got to Montserrat on my own. Also I take strength from not thinking about things and letting myself be a little bit batshit insane. I sang “Jingle Bells” at the top of my lungs today coming down from Montserrat, replacing every syllable with the "C---" word just because I could. Little things like that. A strange pilgrim I would seem if anyone saw me.
Later
It’s funny how someone’s whole attitude can change in a half an hour.
I looked up pension in my dictionary; it means “boarding house,” sort of. I went back to where “Pensíon Casa Ramón” is supposed to be . . . still a shuttered storefront and a locked door with only one buzzer. I rang the buzzer and asked if this was La Pensíon Casa Ramón; someone answered and unlocked the door. On the second floor landing was an old man who knew immediately that I was a pilgrim. He’s quite friendly and has clearly dealt with many people who speak little Spanish. I think he runs a restaurant downstairs behind the shutter.
I got the pilgrim special – a 5’x12’ room at the back of the third floor with a cot, a nightstand, and a chair. The shower and toilet are down the hall. The window (I have a window!) looks out over the central air shaft, and laundry is hung on the clotheslines (I have a clothesline!) drying below me. There is no heat; it will be chilly tonight. I am ecstatic (I even have a pillow!) – I’m actually doing it!
A word about showers. The shower is “la ducha” here in Spain, rendering the American insult “douchebag” far less effective (not that it made any sense to begin with). They’ve all had their quirks so far. The showers in the monastery operated via the push knobs typical of public sinks; meaning, of course, that they would shut off every 15 seconds or so and you’d have to hit the button again with your hand to was the soap out of your hair. Whether this is done in the interest of energy efficiency or for some other reason I am as of yet unsure.
The shower here, however, is the first example of a temperature sin curve that I have seen in a bathing situation. Within two minutes, it alternates from blazing hot to freezing cold and back again, maintaining a regularity that mystifies me. Fortunately the cubicle is large enough to let me leap from the water at the appropriate times, which I’m sure is quite a sight, hobbling on sore feet as I am. 24.6km today.
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Crystal Symphony Entry 5
I finally left the sambadrome at around 3:30am after about five hours inside. Another school had just started and the party was only intensifying. I've heard that the parades usually run until five or six in the morning (about eight hours straight) on Saturday, Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday of Carnival, all without repeating a single performer.
I wandered for a bit, shell-shocked from the loud music. Finally I came to my senses . . . I had followed the performers from the sambadrome back to the staging area. Here there were hundreds of people of all ages, sweaty and excited from the show, eating food from paper plates and drinking beer. Other performers were lining up on the avenue nearby, ready for their turn, and passers-by clung to the chain link fence yelling encouragement. The avenue led back towards the ship, and the night was warm so I decided to walk back.
The street party around the sambadrome stretched for blocks. With the streets closed, people had set up camp around coolers and televisions to watch the parade. Even at 4am there were vendors of all types working the crowds. Police officers were stationed at most corners, as floats from previous days were still parked here on the street. All of the banks I saw were either boarded over with plywood, like preparations for a hurricane, or had erected temporary fences patrolled with security guards. Carnival must get rough sometimes . . .
I was almost back to the ship when I passed a place where people had been selling bottled water earlier. The coolers were still there, and as I looked closer I realized that the people were too – huddled up on pieces of cardboard, lying in the filth in the gutter. This isn’t just their territory for selling stuff to tourists – this is where they live, too. I can only imagine an existence that involves selling enough during the day to buy another pallet from the store, along with whatever food you need to survive.
The image of people sleeping in the street like dogs stuck with me as I crossed under the freeway overpass to the terminal. Here, only twenty minutes from the biggest party on Earth, are people who feel so hopeless that the only thing carnival means to them is a chance to make enough to eat for another week. How can a world like this exist? And yet it does.
Living on a ship is a strange thing. We bounce from place to place, in contact with land, needing it, but never really connected to anything. We’re not really responsible for anywhere – the ship, maybe, but ships wear out eventually and cease to be places. It's a fundamentally temporary relationship, unlike a resident’s relationship with a place like Rio or Barcelona or Detroit. We see people in pain, suffering, but it isn't real because the next day it will all slide under the stern like everything else. We feel no responsibility to help them because it isn't a part of the world that we feel responsible for.
And that’s just the thing. A world where people sleep on the street like dogs exists because we let it. The spectacle of people huddled in the gutter like stray animals is not unique to Rio or anywhere else that I've been in the world. No one “likes” poverty, but it says something unsettling about our values that we let it persist. If the will to end poverty existed, we would have done so by now. Our actions speak much louder than words.
Unless . . . I can't help but wonder if there is something inherent in the human condition that leads some of us to misery. It is said that everything in the world exists in balance; there is no good without bad, no hope without despair. Can it be that there are some things you cannot give another person, things which are vital for their well-being but which cannot be transferred from one human to another? If good and bad ARE balanced in the world, why do some have so much of the good while others have so much of the bad? Is it possible that while you can feed and clothe the wretched and the poor, you can never really help them if they do not choose to help themselves? Jesus of Nazareth said that, “Men do not live on bread alone,” and if that is true, how do you give them what is not bread?
This is a subject I've dealt with before in this blog, and I still don't have a good answer. How do you help someone find the will to live?
---
I just came back inside from a late-night stroll on the front of the ship. Here the lights are darkened so that the watch officers can keep their night vision. We’re just off the coast, and a stiff breeze brings the heavy, warm scent of summer to us from land. The stars are out in the full glory . . . what a strange thing to stand here under unfamiliar constellations off an exotic foreign coast in the middle of the night.
I wandered for a bit, shell-shocked from the loud music. Finally I came to my senses . . . I had followed the performers from the sambadrome back to the staging area. Here there were hundreds of people of all ages, sweaty and excited from the show, eating food from paper plates and drinking beer. Other performers were lining up on the avenue nearby, ready for their turn, and passers-by clung to the chain link fence yelling encouragement. The avenue led back towards the ship, and the night was warm so I decided to walk back.
The street party around the sambadrome stretched for blocks. With the streets closed, people had set up camp around coolers and televisions to watch the parade. Even at 4am there were vendors of all types working the crowds. Police officers were stationed at most corners, as floats from previous days were still parked here on the street. All of the banks I saw were either boarded over with plywood, like preparations for a hurricane, or had erected temporary fences patrolled with security guards. Carnival must get rough sometimes . . .
I was almost back to the ship when I passed a place where people had been selling bottled water earlier. The coolers were still there, and as I looked closer I realized that the people were too – huddled up on pieces of cardboard, lying in the filth in the gutter. This isn’t just their territory for selling stuff to tourists – this is where they live, too. I can only imagine an existence that involves selling enough during the day to buy another pallet from the store, along with whatever food you need to survive.
The image of people sleeping in the street like dogs stuck with me as I crossed under the freeway overpass to the terminal. Here, only twenty minutes from the biggest party on Earth, are people who feel so hopeless that the only thing carnival means to them is a chance to make enough to eat for another week. How can a world like this exist? And yet it does.
Living on a ship is a strange thing. We bounce from place to place, in contact with land, needing it, but never really connected to anything. We’re not really responsible for anywhere – the ship, maybe, but ships wear out eventually and cease to be places. It's a fundamentally temporary relationship, unlike a resident’s relationship with a place like Rio or Barcelona or Detroit. We see people in pain, suffering, but it isn't real because the next day it will all slide under the stern like everything else. We feel no responsibility to help them because it isn't a part of the world that we feel responsible for.
And that’s just the thing. A world where people sleep on the street like dogs exists because we let it. The spectacle of people huddled in the gutter like stray animals is not unique to Rio or anywhere else that I've been in the world. No one “likes” poverty, but it says something unsettling about our values that we let it persist. If the will to end poverty existed, we would have done so by now. Our actions speak much louder than words.
Unless . . . I can't help but wonder if there is something inherent in the human condition that leads some of us to misery. It is said that everything in the world exists in balance; there is no good without bad, no hope without despair. Can it be that there are some things you cannot give another person, things which are vital for their well-being but which cannot be transferred from one human to another? If good and bad ARE balanced in the world, why do some have so much of the good while others have so much of the bad? Is it possible that while you can feed and clothe the wretched and the poor, you can never really help them if they do not choose to help themselves? Jesus of Nazareth said that, “Men do not live on bread alone,” and if that is true, how do you give them what is not bread?
This is a subject I've dealt with before in this blog, and I still don't have a good answer. How do you help someone find the will to live?
---
I just came back inside from a late-night stroll on the front of the ship. Here the lights are darkened so that the watch officers can keep their night vision. We’re just off the coast, and a stiff breeze brings the heavy, warm scent of summer to us from land. The stars are out in the full glory . . . what a strange thing to stand here under unfamiliar constellations off an exotic foreign coast in the middle of the night.
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