Asturias vs. Galicia

In this photo, you see an obelisk and a yellow arrow. This is what I´ve been following for the past 280 km. I hope there´s a really big piece of cheese at the end. And a glass of vino tinto? A few words about the markings along the Camino. First, you´ll notice a number, which on this particular marker appears to be 123.810. That is the precise number of kilometers and meters separating this particular point in space from the Cathedral in Santiago de Compostela. The exact number of meters. That´s pretty specific, right? Yes, to be sure, but not as specific as it could be. Why not centimeters or even millimeters? In the age of GPS, I´m not sure that meters is good enough anymore. A square meter is a relatively large area when compared to the size of... the speed of light. (If you think about that for long enough, maybe it will mean something.) The point I´m trying to make is this: how disheartening, how gut-wrenchingly tragic would it be to walk over 300 km only to get lost in the final meter?

The second thing about the obelisks is actually crazy. The one pictured in the photograph is "un muñon gallego" (that means it´s in the province of Galicia). You may have already wondered why the redundancy of the obelisk and the arrow. Well, in Asturias, the interpretation of the shells is exactly the opposite, which is to say that if the above monument were in Asturias, I would go left. But because it´s in Galicia, I go right. Please, please, help me to understand this system. I have two theories, and I´m not crazy about either of them. The first attributes the difference to a long-standing rivalry between Asturias and Galicia. Perhaps they are like feuding siblings, and the one - not wanting to be accused of copying the other´s system - did exactly the opposite of what the first did. My other theory is that the confusion this causes is intentional and great for the economy. Lost pilgrims spend more time in Spain and furthermore need to buy more maps, more nights in hostels, and probably more rides from the previoulsy mentioned Don Miguel. Yes, it´s a bit of a conspiracy theory, and, if you have a better one, I´d love to hear it.

Finally, if my last entry piqued your interest in the history and legend of Santiago, you should definitely check out the "comentarios" page. There you will find some very interesting and well-reserched additions to the story. It gets even better! (Especially if you enjoy irony.) I am now in Melide - 54 km from Santiago de Compostela - so if all goes well, this leg of my journey should reach its end soon.

The Barefoot Killer

Here is my favorite part of the day in photograph form. The first hour of walking. My legs feel fresh, my pack magically lighter than yesterday. The air is crisp like fall in New England. I walk toward the setting moon, behind me the rising sun, and above me a deep blue sky still speckled with stars. The dogs haven´t started barking yet. The air is still and my mind almost quiet.

Tonight I sleep in the city of Lugo - the capital of Galicia, the "old city" is entirely surrounded by a 3rd century Roman wall of 8-12 meters in height. A mere 103 km separate me from Santiago now. So perhaps it is time to ask who or what is Santiago anyway? And why on earth am I walking towards it as if this alone is what I were born to do? A few days ago I went to the public library in Grandas de Salime to learn more about Santiago and to use the internet for free. I learned quite a bit about the man we call St. James, but because the internet is obviously way more interesting than history, there remain a few gaps in my knowledge, which I will fill with pure speculation. Fortunately, this is a blog, not a dissertation.

James - son of Zebedee and brother of John - was a fisherman until he met Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus said something that caused James to re-evaluate his priorities. James realized that catching fish with a net was not, in fact, his calling in life. James and John became disciples of Jesus. After Jesus´well-documented death, the apostles brought the Gospel to the world. James, who had always kind of wanted to travel anyway, decided that he would walk to the end of the world (the northwestern corner of the Iberian Peninsula). It took him a few years, but James brought Christianity all the way to "Spain". He liked the area so much that he chose it as his burial site, which he would soon occupy. After walking all the way back home, James was beheaded.

Many centuries later, a blinding light alerted the local population to the presence of a corpse of supernatural powers. Then king, Alfonso II, became the first pilgrim around the year 800. Others followed - presumably because Alfonso needed help cooking and bathing and dressing - and a great tradition was born. Here comes my favorite part. You were probably thinking this story couldn´t possibly get any better, right? Well, it does. This is the part where Santiago, the man who walked - supposedly barefoot - across Europe preaching love, becomes Santiago Matamoros - "The Moor Killer". In the 10th century, with the Iberian Peninsula occupied by infiedels from northern Africa, Christian soldiers began to report Santiago sightings during victorious battles. Radiant white light eminated from Santiago, who rode a horse and carried a staff or lance or lightsaber. The soldiers repeatedly invoked the name of "Santiago Matamoros" and slowly but surely drove the Moors from the peninsula. This legend helped to inspire the later creation of "los caballeros de Santiago" - the knights of St. James - a religious military order dedicated to killing people for Jesus and protecting pilgrims enroute to Santiago de Compostela.

So if you´ve been worried for my safety as I travel in foreign lands, fear not! I have an order of knights watching my back. Hmmm... I better amend my last blog entry where I said I´m not a devout Christian.

Thank you so much for all of your "comentarios". They make me smile and laugh. To answer a few questions. Yes, I did mount the antlers of the ATM when I eventually caught it. No, my blog will not soon be released in book-on-CD format (anyone know a good agent?). And yes, I did decide to bring my camera with me on this trip and I think that was a good choice.

Taxi Don Miguel... llame 666.666.666

Whew. I am halfway done with the trek. Today I crossed from the province of Asturias in the province of Galicia. After seven days of walking, I´m about 170 km from my starting point (Oviedo) and about 160 km from my hopeful destination (Santiago de Compostela). I wake each morning at 6:30 and try to start walking by 8:00 am. The sun doesn´t rise here until just after 9:00, but I´ve been blessed with a close to full moon this past week, so I´ve walked the first hour each day by moonlight. My standard pace is about 4 km per hour and the average daily distance is 24 km, so I tend to arrive in the next town between 2-4 in the afternoon, which is perfect because that is when the Spanish eat their big meal of the day. I refuel with the "menú del día" - a brilliant concept where you get bread, a drink, two courses, and dessert for a fixed price. Yesterday, for example, I paid 7.50 € for unlimited bread and red wine, a first course of pasta with squid, second course of fried cheesey ham patty things with french fries, and super savory cheese cake. That´s a little better than the typical menú del día, but not by much. Other than walking and eating, I stretch, write, and sleep. Rinse and repeat. Oh, and I am completely and totally alone. I have not seen one other pilgrim, and the log books in the albergues (3 € donation suggested hostels for pilgrims walking the Camino) tell me that I might be the second person in January to walk this particular route.

Each albergue has a bulletin board where they post important notices like, "throw any your trash", "leave the albergue as you´d like to find it¨, etc. And often there is an advertisement or two on the bulletin board. What is by far the most popular advertisement on the bulletin boards? Taxis. I do not consider myself a devout Christian, but I grew up in church so I know the story. The taxi cab company calling card on the bulletin board is definitely the devil in the wilderness. Every day, usually more than once, a voice in my head reminds me that no one would know if I just called Taxi Don Miguel and took a day off. That´s the thing about walking alone (aside from the loneliness) is that I´m the only person who will ever really know whether or not I walked to Santiago. I could wake up, call the taxi, ride to the next town, find the person who stamps my official pilgrim credential, sleep in the albergue, and wake up the next morning to repeat the farce.

Last night I slept in a town with two churches. And two church bells. I think that the albergue was between the churches. Or inside them. Very close to them. Why I wonder do the bells ring all night? When I wake up in the middle of the night, I often glance at my watch or clock. I don´t know why I do this exactly, but if I wake up I like to know what time it is. Perhaps in this town (Grandas de Salime if you´d like to Google map it), when people wake up in the middle of the night and want to know what time it is, they wait for the church bells. I think it´s more likely that the Catholic Church of Spain is in the pocket of the Spanish pharmaceutical industry, and the 24 hour bell ringing is an incredibly effective way to promote the sale of sleep aid medication. My only evidence for this assertion is that the two bells are not synchronized. So at 4 am, for example, instead of hearing four rings, you hear 1... 2... 3... 4... beat 1... 2... 3... 4... How hard would it be to synchronize those bells?

Many Spanish restaurants have the afternoon television news on during lunchtime. A few days ago I saw a broadcast of the Academy Award Nomation show. The nomination show. This appalled me, and you´ll never guess why. I haven´t seen or heard anything, not one word about my father´s recent achievement - recipient of the first annual Ben Franklin Award for scholarship in American history. The Ben Franklin. So apparently the world cares more about people who have a 20% chance of receiving an award for two hours of entertainment than a person who has actually received an award for a lifetime of academice achievement. Well, congratulations Dad. If my blog wins a pulitzer, you can have it.

I like being silly and prefer writing silly things to serious things. But the Camino is not silly. It is serious and pretty hard. So I think I´ll end this entry with an excerpt from my journal. This is from my first day of walking. (Things have gotten a lot better.) I don´t use punctuation in my journal writing so hopefully you can figure this out.

Where was I? oh yes here in the albergue San Juan not sure what to do next want to shower but waiting for the water to hopefully heat up want to sleep but don´t want to get into my sleeping bag this filthy want to do yoga but it´s so ridiculously cold in here want to eat but I don´t really have much other than the donuts fruit and granola type stuff which is the same stuff I´ve been eating all day and I´m taking it slowly with the water because I forgot to ask whether or not it´s potable and I just noticed - really great timing - that my Sweet Water chlorine drops expired in July of 2004 or two months after I graduated from college so those won´t be of much use so I cried for a while until I realized how little toilet paper there is here and decided that it would be prudent to use toilet paper for, well, the things you use toilet paper for also it wasn´t a very satisfying cry on account of the shortage of tears due to dehydration I suppose my crying must´ve looked and sounded more like a cross between dry heaving and laughing so hard that it doesn´t make a sound just causes the body to convulse

To end on an upbeat note, the weather has been exceptional - sunny and warm every single day. In a season where it snows up here in the mountains, I have been unbelievably fortunate so far. I need to go because it´s getting dark and I have another 1.5 km to walk to the albergue tonight. I miss you all!

Hunting

Given the overwhelmingly positive response to my first entry - and the uncertainty of internet access along the pilgrimage route (I really hope the camino de Santiago doesn´t have wi-fi yet...) - I´m going to waste no time in writing another. My uncle tells me that there are more blogs on the internet than human beings on planet Earth, and that 99% of those blogs are read by no one other than the author. So thank you for putting me in the top percentile of this elite group. And, seriously, I love the feedback (when it tells me how great I am).

This afternoon I took the ATM tour of Madrid. I saw close to twenty in under one hour. I know what you´re thinking. That´s a cursory tour at best. I really didn´t do each individual artist justice. That´s a fair criticism I suppose, but after a while they all sort of blend together. Call me an amateur, but, to me, a Caja Madrid looks an awful lot like a BBVA which in turn closely resembles a Santander. Here´s the other thing: there´s no guide book. Who dropped the ball there? Given all the ATM enthusiasts who visit Madrid, there has to be a market for a guide book and also a gift shop with other ATM merchandise. Here are the tips I´d include if I wrote such a guide:

1. If your ATM card´s PIN is longer than six digits, stop showing off and make it shorter. At least 50% of Madrid´s ATM population won´t recognize a PIN of such extreme length.
2. Know how much cash your American bank will allow you to withdraw in one transaction and/or one business day.
3. If you are experiencing difficulty in the withdrawl process (perhaps because your PIN is too long or because you ask for more money than Bank of America will permit you to withdraw...), do NOT try again, then again, and then try the next ATM and the one after that and so on until you´ve covered every inch of one square mile and visited nearly twenty ATMs. If you do this, Bank of America - suspecting that your card has fallen into the hands of a villain - will deactivate your card and freeze your account.

Aside from that, my day was pretty good. And in an odd way, the ATM hunt was gratifying because it was almost like actual hunting (ATM=money=food). ATM don´t move very quickly so it´s sort of Dick Cheney-style hunting. I had to get back to nature and provide for myself. For an hour or so, my basic evolutionary instincts dictated my every move. No room remained in my brain for the luxury of idle thought and daydream.

As much as I enjoy this jest (a lot!), I want to say in all seriousness that it gives me a wonderful sense of purpose to be completely occupied by something so meaningful as the procuring of food. I seem drawn to places - home, Haverford, Bishopswood, Eaglebrook, Kripalu (odds are you know me from one of these places) - where massive quantities of lovingly prepared food are simply placed before me, or straight into my hands if I´m in such a hurry that I can´t sit down. This is a weird thing. With the possible exception of royalty, this is not how human beings have lived for the vast majority of our evolutionary existence. In Madrid, I´ve gone from zero barriers to eating to at least three possible obstacles:

1. I run out of cash and can´t get more out of the ATM.
2. I miss a meal because I forget that they happen at different times here. (Lunch: 2-4, Dinner: sometime between 20:00 and dawn)
3. I can´t order due to language barriers. This almost happened today at the Magic Wok. The waitress and I tried to communicate in our shared second language. It didn´t work and they had to send over another waitress of superior Spanish skills (because clearly my Spanish wasn´t the problem, right? right?...)

In reality, I haven´t missed a meal yet, but it´s always sort of an adventure. And who knows what the hell ¨carne entreasada¨is going to be anyway?

Yes... I had a coffee at McDonald´s.

Wow. First ever blog entry and I figured out how to add a digital photograph. It´s probably not going to get much more impressive than this. That´s me squating by an homage to my favorite literary character of all time - Don Quijote de la Mancha.

You´ll notice my short hair. My mother kindly offered to buy me a haircut before my departure. The last time I flew internationally (to Santiago, Chile) I had shoulder length hair and what was generally agreed upon by everyone who knew me at the time to be a pretty poor attempt at a beard (you´ll see I still haven´t given up on that front). Anyway, I guess I looked like the kind of individual who ought to receive special attention from people in uniforms. And I did. The folks with blue clothing and slow-twitch facial muscles examined my Eaglebrook faculty ID card. Then used the internet to verify that Eaglebrook was not founded in a basement by me and Hewlett-Packard. And then quizzed me to be certain that this real school really employed me: Location? Deerfield, Massachusetts. Year of founding? 1922. Current record of the hockey team? Are you serious?!

My mother hoped that an improved (read shorter) hairstyle would prevent more ´get to know you´games with immigration officials. I agreed, but opted to spend the $20 on a Conair reusable haircut. I´ve already had two haircuts for the price of one! And I got through security checkpoints and immigrations like Obi Wan Kenobi. Thanks mom!

I have to share my proudest accomplishment of the trip so far. I carry a small black moleskine in my left pant pocket at all times, and I decided to use it to record every expenditure I make. (This may not seem like a revolutionary idea to those of you who do responsible adult things like keep a budget and/or balance a checkbook.) I hope that this system will accomplish two excellent things - 1) help me to avoid ridiculously regrettable expenses AND 2) provide a remarkably thorough log of my days. Since expenditures of time are often linked to expenditures of money, I´ll have a pretty solid account of how I spent my time too. Here is a typical example (Sunday, January 13th):

• 8 AA batteries purchased at El Rastro (Madrid´s big outdoor flea-type market) 2 €
  
• donation to Plaza Mayor string players 1.76 €
  
• lunch supplies purchased at el Corte Ingles supermarket 2 €
  
• cafe con helado from McDonald´s 2 €
• tapas, chocolate y churros (dinner) 11 €
• entrance to a discoteca 8 €
• coatroom fee at same discoteca 1 €
  

My most common cost-free activities - ranked by time spent - are 1) walking 2) writing 3) yoga. I enjoy walking so much that I´ve decided to do it for the next 15 days with 25ish pounds on my back. I leave tomorrow by bus for the province of Asturias and town of Oviedo where I plan to walk the Camino Primitivo - one of the pilgrimage routes to Santiago de Compostela. Everyone says the Camino Primitivo is beautiful, but they also say it is mountainous and - in this season - plagued by some combination of rain, snow, and mud. On the plus side, I shouldn´t have trouble finding an open bed in the albergues (free hostels for pilgrims with official documentation). I obtained my official documentation yesterday and found it far easier than I had imagined. In my fear-based fantasy, worthy candidates were identified Inquisition-style: prayer recitation, biblical verse recognition, Latin chanting, and ´name that saint´. In reality, I had to show them my passport, sign my name on the dotted line, and then drink wine and eat snacks with the kindly souls who shared their advice, experiences, and food recommendations with me. I didn´t even have to convert to Catholicism!