Saturday, May 26, 2012
Queridos amigos,
Once again I was the only English speaker in the hotel last night. The place was overflowing with Germans who all seemed to know each other. Some of the men were hugely fat. I wondered how their Camino was progressing. The I took a walk around the village and found the answer: a big, comfy van. These Germans know in their bones the truism so memorably expressed decades ago by Lightnin´Hopkins in Black Cadillac Blues: Rubber on wheels is faster than rubber on heels.
Yesterday when I arrived, still carrying my pack, I stopped for Coke out of a machine in front of the albergue that adjoins the hotel. Cost was 1.2 euros. When the machine didn’t work, I entered the albergue and complained that the machine had eaten my euro. The manager came out, checked out the situation and discovered the 20 cents but not the euro. Somehow I had forgotten to put it in; when I did, out came the Coke. At the end of the road each day, I'm a little punchy.
Later that night I stepped up to the bar to order something and a middle-age man was sitting there. He asked about my yellow wrist band. He was wearing one too. I told him I had lost my wife to cancer. He reeled off a list of relatives who had been claimed by cancer. I told him cancer killed my mother at 53; he had lost a cousin of 23. My mother would have been 101 last week.
Every night, everything comes out of my pack. I reassemble everything in the morning. Last night I decided to get an earlier start because of the heat and packed everything up. This morning was decidedly colder than yesterday. I had my short sleeve Patagonia t-shirt and that is all. People were bundling up in nylon and fleece jackets, ski caps, gloves, etc. There was no way I was going to remove my compressor pack and start over. It will soon warm up anyway, I thought. Never did. Instead, the chilly breeze turned into a cold wind right in my teeth. Felt great.
My guidebook has called the landscape of the past two days "flat and featureless." We would love to have this verdant, rolling landscape in Texas. Imagine the drive from Austin to Dallas on I-35. Or worse, the drive to the Rio Grande Valley through the King Ranch. Now that's flat and featureless.
Lush, spangled with wildflowers, fragrant. We should be so lucky. I leave Susan’s locks in a bed of poppies overlooking a peaceful and pretty valley.
A few miles out of town, I came across a small headstone reading only "MORT" Some poor, unidentified pilgrim buried there I think. Mort is the note played on a hunting horn when a deer is killed. A little farther on are quite a few of these markers and they read, in fact, MOPT. Probably some kind of public works project.
I’m passed by at least a dozen cyclists, all of whom carry day packs. I´ve started ditching things that are heavy and not necessary. My copy of Nabokov, for example, or the little bottles of bath gel I use to wash my clothes.
Among my clothes are three pair of what Patagonia calls body armor. Early in my walk I thought I was missing a pair. So as I entered Pamplona, I stopped in a lingerie shop, my first time in one. The only thing not cotton are spandex briefs. In my size there were only two colors: fire engine red and black with white and green pinstripes. A man my age has no business wearing red underwear, so I got two pair with pin stripes. For two or three weeks I carried these things, unpacking and repacking every day. Yet every time I looked at the slimy things the thought of actually pulling them on gave me the willies. So next to my copy of The Defense, I leave them, with a note to the chambermaid that they have never been worn.
Bull fighting continues in Spain, but is dwarfed by soccer. I've seen only one bullfight televised in bars, against scores and scores of soccer matches. A strong Spanish tradition, the corrida de toros seems to be slowly dying. No doubt the bulls are loving it.
Spaniards, whether in tiny villages or big cities, take the siesta very seriously. Stores are usually locked up during this time. Many, many times I've walked through villages between noon and 4 o'clock, and absolutely nothing is moving. Well tended flower boxes at the windows, shiny cars outside, but not a soul stirring. Reminds me of a line from a 1950s song, There´s nothin' shakin' but the leaves on the trees.
What the siesta does is makes each day more. People don’t have to live for the weekend as we do; they get a nice break every day.
That's it for today.
Saludos a todos,
John
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