Monday, May 14, 2012
Day Nine
Queridos amigos,
So much to tell and so little computer access to tell it.
When I checked into the hotel yesterday, just ahead of a dear French couple I see off and on in the trail, the clerk swiped my credit card and then with a long face and a look that showed he thought I was trying to defraud him, handed it back with the machine’s statement that it wasn’t acceptable.
Using a trick I learned from a check-out clerk at Whole Foods, I folded the rejection slip over the magnetic stripe, handed it back to him with the same gimlet stare he was giving me, and told him, Run it again.
Slowly and suspiciously he ran it again, and when it cleared he erupted in joyful wonderment, as did the French couple. He grabbed some other hotel employees to show them this new magic. I like to think I did my bit to restore respect for American ingenuity. ‘Those Yanks…handy with a spanner, eh wot?’
In Logrońo, the woman ahead of me at check out time paid in cash. The clerk ran each bill through a counterfeit detection device. He told me it beeps if the bills are phony. I don’t check my euro notes and am grateful that so far all but one hotel accepted credit cards.
Navarrete was a charming town. There was some sort of festival going on, a crowd in the street. A group of men in white shirts who had been milling around outside a bar, suddenly formed themselves into a band with curious horns, short and shrill, and marched down the street playing The Happy Wanderer (Val-de-ree,Val-de-ra).
One event was a table offering wine and a bit of meat for a euro. I took advantage of it.
Last night I was rushing to finish my email and left the bar right at closing time. Returned to my hotel and realized I had left my camera on a table and my card in the computer. I raced back to the bar, but all was locked up. I raced back to the hotel and went to the dining room where the staff were finishing dinner. I explained my problem and one of the employees called the bar but no answer. She said they opened at 7, and I was there when the proprietress arrived.
As soon as she saw me she said they found the camera but didn’t know where I was. I picked up the camera, extracted my card from the computer, and tried to give her a 5 euro note in gratitude. She absolutely refused to take it. I said, Seńora, I insist, and dropped the note on the bar. As I walked out the door I heard her soft, ‘Gracias.’
My Hotel in Navarrete
Returned to the hotel for the most meager breakfast yet. Ann of Staffordshire, Stoke-upon-Kent, was there with her mum. I asked if I could join them. This was the first time since I started that I have not dined alone.
Ann said she was young and didn’t mind staying in albergues. Her mum had a different take. She said the snoring allowed her no sleep at all, people were getting up at 5 a.m. and making coffee even though the sign next to the coffee pot said Silence until 8 a.m. Someone shut the window and it was stifling. Worst of all, her daughter awoke with bed bug bites. She told her daughter, never again.
When Americans think of a British accent, they usually think of the upper class, Oxbridge accent. That’s not what I’m hearing on the Camino. Sometimes it is difficult to understand. If you want to try it yourself, check out the movie Kes, about a working-class boy in the north of England and his love for a kestrel he found in the mountains.
I bought two long whole wheat loves on the way out of town to compensate for the slim pickins at breakfast. I much prefer to lay waste to a fulsome breakfast buffet; this was such a disappointment
An easy hike this morning. I’m breaking a long stretch, 18+ miles, into two shorter trips. The air was cool. I never stopped for a break or a drink of water.
Beautiful scenery of vineyards stretching to the mountains, one of which was not snow capped but snow dappled.
Came into a beautiful little glade overflowing with beautiful birdsong and flowers and a magnificent view, which included in the far distance a church
Pilgrims like to leave marks of their passage and frequently stack up rocks for this purpose. There was only one such stack here, and I left a lock between the top rock and the one below.
As I walked into Najera I was greeted by large sign reading, in Spanish, Pilgrim, when you are in Najera, you are a Najarino. Their way of saying, Mi casa es tu casa.
The Local Welcome
Entrance to the City
I came upon two women trying to find a hotel. I had tried the three star by phone and found it was full, so I chose one with a private room and a shared bath (a nice one). I suggested they see if they liked it; they did, and checked in. Then we all went to lunch. They were from Capetown. I asked how things were in South Africa, and they said depressing, frustrating, and a few other disparaging comments.
They spoke of the corruption and, what really depressed them, the lowering of entrance standards for entering South Africa’s justly famous medical school. I asked if it were a black thing and they both readily agreed it was. One was 52 and just finishing her Ph.D. in psychology. The other, a year younger than I, was trying to sell her farm. They were both on a spiritual journey.
The Psychologist and Farmer from South Africa
They were both very New Age, especially the psychologist; very into Eastern philosophy. She regularly goes to a sweat lodge. Both were vegetarians. We all ordered paella, mine drenched in black squid ink. Also wine for them, beer for me. I treated, grateful for the company, although I really don’t mind eating alone. That way I finish very quickly.
They both said they almost never drink, but here had drunk quite a bit of wine and never got a headache. Every place in Spain where Susan and I ate included a bottle of wine with the meal. Was surprised when dining alone that they still bring a full bottle of wine. On a few occasions I’ve downed the whole thing, then am grateful when I can fit my key into my hotel room door on the first try.
They also had a dreadful hostel experience. Four men came in drunk and made noise for hours, then went to sleep in their clothes. The stench of their feet was overpowering. And of course, no sleep for the ladies. While we were dining, the four men who were drunk came up and sat close to us, but said nothing. A blander group of paunchy, middle aged men you cannot imagine.
I asked the psychologist if she planned to write a paper about her Camino. She said she was. I asked if she would send me a copy, and she said she would, so I gave her my email address.
Somehow I started talking about my vade mecum, which my sister gave me in 1975. This is a book of blank pages on which you write your favorite poems, aphorisms, quotations, etc. I mentioned a few and the psychologist really liked one from The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit by Sloan Wilson. The protagonist in that story was a paratrooper in WWII, and recited a three-sentence mantra as he waited to jump into German-occupied France. She asked me to write it in her Camino guidebook.
Apropos of nothing, I mentioned something Sloan Wilson once said in an interview, which is not in my vade mecum. He said, “My idea of a beautiful woman is one who loves me.” Boy, did they come alive with that.
It seems they had gone to a bar the previous night and saw the most beautiful man they had ever seen. He was dark; they thought he might be Mexican. He had thick, grey hair tied in a ponytail, and made a funny little move when he danced. They were both smitten. In the middle of the night, they woke up and began talking and discovered that both were having fantasies about the same guy.
People tend to be very direct on the Camino. First names only are used, and usually you are talking to someone from another country.
I’m now using the computer in the public library, and am already at the end of the available time. The two students using the other computers are still at it and I’ll continue until they throw me out, which looks like soon.
Many thanks to my birding instructor who informed me that the mystery bird is a European robin. My friend and neighbor Robin also pointed it out. She said she was named Robin by her father because of the kindness a robin showed a crippled boy in The Secret Garden.
My son and his computer savvy wife are cooking up a blog, which I’ll explore at my next stop, a parador, a luxury hotel. Hopefully I can send more pictures from there.
This is an extraordinary experience. I thank all of you for your kind and supportive messages. I’ll try to respond to each as time allows.
Un abrazo para todos,
Juancho, el Najerino
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