Friday, May 18, 2012
Palas de Rei to Arzua

This morning's walk is beautiful. It seems as though it might rain: indeed, the slight drizzle prompts me to pull out my "SWITZERLAND" poncho, a red plastic one I bought at Zurich airport just for this. However, the weather soon turns warm and I foldit up again as I reach the woods.

I am out fairly early 8:50 a.m., but usually at this hour there would be quite a few people preceding me. I see none for the longest time, and when I do, they are behind, not in front of me. The warnings of bad weather seem to have kept many at breakfast.

I stumble upon a frog pond --or rather, I hear its rumblings, a marvelous sound, like giant rubber bands being twanged. A cuckoo calls --that has been a constant in the part of the world. When I reach a village, cocks crow, dogs bark. One has a mule in a paddock, others horses. The smell of fresh manure is omnipresent, but also the smell of woodsmoke.

The walking is helped by the ski poles I brought along. They seem to take some of the pressure of the discs in the lower back. I find walking with them much more helpful than walking without. I think this is an activity much-favored in Europe, under the name "alpine walking". I am a convert, especially when it is done in the quiet of the countryside.

And it is utterly quiet. I am aware of how safe I feel: I would never walk alone as nonchalantly in any of the quiet glades in New York City's parks. Here I do so without a thought to any risk to my personal safety.

At noon I stop for something to fuel me for the remainder of the walk. Today's is the longest so far: 28 kilometers. I stop at A Taberna in Melides, a very small town, but not without charm. It's dilapidated buildings are 19th century two-story structures with carved wood fronts or iron balconies Majas --could peer from. Like all the villages I walk through on the Camino, most of its windows are shuttered. Things go on behind shuttered windows that are not for the rest of the world to see or hear.

The tortilla is indifferent, although the salad is quite good --they are all made with lettuce, onions, carrots and tomatoes from local gardens. I go on my way, getting one more stamp on my credencial, which is filling up.

As I walk I pass a pair of Galician men in their thirties talking about the economic crisis in the country.

"It seems the situation is much worse than they told us." says one.

"And now how do we get out of it says the other."

The crisis trickles down to the local level, of course. Stopping at a cafe to buy a banana ("Yes", one place along the road had the forethought to buy them for pilgrims), I ask about whether there are fewer pilgrims coming by.

"Yes, much less than last year. --Fewer Spaniards." she says. Tourism in Santiago does not necessarily translate into tourism in the cafes and albergues along the route. One albergue owner tries to attract business by the attractiveness of their offerings. In San Xullan do Camino there is a charming hostel, run by a man named Agosto. His hostel has flowers growing in front, and inside he burns incense. The design of the albergue, too --like all the houses in the village-- is picturesque, inside and out. He sells postcards of the town made by a local photographer, a unique offering.

Further down the way in the village a young Swedish woman mans a boutique that makes modern pendants using semi-precious stones and silver hammered into chaps that lie against the stones, the two hanging from a leather thong for wearing as a neclace. I am particularly struck by the pendants with a cut out horizontal arrow --that arrow is what everyone who walks the Camino uses to guide them along. It is an icon of the Way of Saint James, and very clever of the jeweler, the young woman's husband, to have thought of using it in his jewelry.

At about four o'clock I stop at the albergue in Ribadiso for an orange juice and a chocolate croissant and meet Werner, who was sitting with my fledgling doctor friends last night. He is staying in Ribadiso in the albergue for the night, and tells me Arzua is not much to look at. He knows: he has done the Camino de Santiago eight times along every one of the routes from France, and the Camino Primitivo along the coast. Ge works at the Nuremberg airport and ten years ago made his first walk. He says his works is so stressful, he looks forward to getting away and being alone on the Camino. He is very knowledgeable about the various distances entailed in walking each of the routes, and plans to continue doing yearly walks. His sister lives in Leon, so he has good reason to return to Spain each year, "It's perfect!" he says in German.