Cuéntame que te trae por aquí.
Day 1: Sarria to Portomarín, 25ish km
We arrive in Sarria around seven in the morning via an overnight bus from Madrid, not quite sure what to expect. Our first task: find coffee, as neither of us got much (if any) sleep in the bus. Our second task: find the Camino! The bartender at the café points us on our way, and we make our way through silent cobblestone streets to the old part of town. We pass albergues from which other pilgrims emerge, begining their traipse to the edge of town; we pause at an ancient church just long enough to take a few pictures and adjust our packs then join the rest on the dirt path that leads through fields into the Galician forest.
Why are we here? I suddenly realize that Leah and I haven’t discussed this. I’d heard about the Camino in my Spanish classes and knew that I wanted to do part of it while here in Spain, but I had been planning to stay later into the summer to do so. Had Leah not suggested doing it over the puente, I wouldn’t be on this path right now. But what made Leah want to walk? It turns out that we’re both in it to prove it to ourselves that we can do this. Also, from what we’ve heard, the Camino changes lives (if you let it), and we’re curious to see how this might happen. I think that’s a tall order for a four day hike, but we’re open to seeing where this takes us.
I’m in search of some clarification too. I’ve been questioned lately about faith and signs from God, and I’m quite sure I’m not the one with the best answers. If walking a route that the faithful have followed for eleven centuries can afford me a bit more perspicuity, I’m all for it.
Unlike Madrid, Galicia smells like fall, and I’m reminded of a moment in my childhood: when I was six or so, I had a brownish-red kitty surprise stuffed cat. The surprise part of the toy was that this cat’s belly velcroed shut so she could give birth to five little brownish-red kittens. One fall day, I had taken the kitties outside to play while my mom raked the yard, and I lost a kitten in one of the piles of leaves that Mom had been raking up and dumping over the ravine in the backyard. I was heartbroken. Why had I taken a little leaf colored cat outside when it was so easy to lose? My six year old self knew I would never find it. Mom suggested that we pray about it, so we asked God to find the missing kitty and put it safely in my little red wagon in the garage, which is exactly where we found it later that afternoon.
It sounds too simple, but I think if there’s a lesson in that story, it’s that at six years old, I knew that finding that kitten was something I couldn’t do on my own. At twenty-two I’m sure that most of what I’ve accomplished I haven’t done on my own. There’s much larger forces at work.
La muerte iguala a todos; la peregrinación hace lo mismo a los vivos.
Day 2: Portomarín to Palas de Rei, 23ish km
I roll out of bed at 6:40, much to my sore muscles’ dismay. My body asks my brain if I’m crazy. Quite possibly. As Leah and I pick our way through the dark morning with the help of my flashlight, down some rocky slopes and across a narrow bridge that leads into the woods, I begin to limber up. Today, I no longer question my backpack. I no longer blame it for any of my aches. It’s not: My backpack is straining my back, my shoulders. It’s simply: My back twinges. My shoulders throb. My chest pulls tight. This bag contains everything I need - nuts and dried fruit to snack on, a couple shirts, soap and shampoo, a pocketknife, my sleeping bag - but in exchange, it weighs me down, holds me back. No matter - now it’s just another part of myself.
Today, though, I mostly manage to divert my brain from counting kilometers and inventorying pains. I get songs stuck in my head, mostly, “Follow the Yellow Brick Road,” and the roquera tijuajense Julieta Venegas’s “Andar conmigo.” I’m thinking of friends, wishing I could be back in Michigan for Alison and Bryan’s wedding, imagining where I might find myself after this year in Spain.
We make a few new friends along the way too: a father-daughter team from the US via the Philippines whose wife/mother accompanies them on the journey via the spiritual exercises they’re working through, a gay couple from England who are currently unemployed and spending the next several months traveling, a few Spaniards from around Madrid, one of whom asks if I’m French. I’ve been getting that a lot lately. He says it’s my accent. I seem to be slowly losing my American-trying-to-sound-Mexican Spanish (Bueno ¿Qué onda, guey?) and picking up a lispier European Spanish (Vale ¿Qué tal, tío?).
Today’s not a particularly profound day. We’re just sharing the Camino and enjoying each others company (when not complaining about our pobre piernas y pies).
El Camino de cada uno es diferente.
Day 3: Palas de Rei to Arzua (that’s Ar-thu-a, with the Spanish lithp), some 30 km
Today turns out to be our most challenging day. Leah starts out in a bad mood, and I’m pretty sure I’m not helping. I’m trying to distract her by pointing out all of the cool things we’re passing - Look you can still see the stars! And check out the perfect spider web on that tree! Oh my, a cow! I think I’m becoming my mother, who spent family road trips during my teenage years pointing out all the animals we passed, while I did my best too-cool-for-this act. In my favorite voicemail from her, she’s driving back from Ohio, and saying, “Hi, Emily. You’re probably at work right now, but I just wanted to let you know...OH LOOK! DEER!”
Much of the Camino today goes up and down hills. Mostly up hills, it seems, and just when you think you’ve reached the top of the slope, you turn a corner and you’re only halfway there.
Today we also determine that the distances in my map book are wrong. Unfortunately for us, we figure this out as we reach the distance marker we thought we needed to be at only to realize that this village in the valley is not Arzua. No, to reach Arzua we have another 3 km to climb, which doesn’t sound like much, but will mean another 45 minutes of subiendo after already walking farther this day than any of the previous days. Though we pass pilgrims soaking their feet in the river that runs through the valley, we know that if we stop, we won’t be able to make the last few km today.
By the time we make it to Arzua, the first albergue we inquire at is full. We rush across the street - yes, they still have beds. We get pasta for lunch and I take the best shower I’ve had in Spain. (This is no exaggeration - to shower in my apartment you have to light the water heater, then decide whether you want hot water or decent water pressure as you hold the nozzle with one hand while rinsing and turning off the water while soaping.) As we rest, we discuss how far we want to be the next day.
Our decision: Santiago de Compostela, the end of the Camino, 37.5 km away, according to the marker in front of our albergue. We want to have some time in the city, and as our bus back to Madrid leaves at 2 pm on Tuesday, we figure we should get in on Monday night. This means ten hours of walking, so we call ahead to ensure that we’ll have somewhere to stay the next night. We also decide to take advantage of the albergue’s mochila transport service and send our backpacks on ahead of us. If we’re going that far in one day, we need as much help as we can get, though as I mention this to the guy from the US who’s been walking since France, I feel like we’re cheating. His response? Everybody’s Camino is different.
Before bed, I rub lotion into my feet, assure them that I love them and that they can do this. The Camino isn’t about rationality. We’ve all got to be just a touch delirious at this point.
Son tus huellas el camino
Day 4: Arzua to Santiago de Compostela, 40 km
This morning waking up I’m thinking of church. Before I set out on the Camino, I was talking with my mom, who’s concerned that I don’t have a church here. Here, as opposed to the US? I don’t feel that I have a church there either. The parish I grew up in split into two while I was in college, and at the time, I didn’t feel that the split involved me. And to be honest, I do all I can to avoid conflict and taking sides. But it’s left me unsure of how to label myself. As of late I’ve been saying I grew up Anglican, which works since there’s no differentiation between Anglican and Episcopalian in Spanish.
But I don’t want a label anyway. The denomination defines itself by its tradition, liturgy, creed, and for this, I identify as Anglican. Though I don’t always make it to church, I take comfort in the recitation of our shared beliefs and the telling of the stories that have shaped them. It’s tempting not to look beyond that, to gloss over the darker moments of its history, the illicit money that has funded it, the outside influences...I don’t expect perfection though.
I don’t ask it of anyone, actually. When you look at a church as a body of believers and break it down into individual members, that’s where you’re going to find the cracks. The struggle to live into one’s beliefs isn’t easy, and the failures that some might consider hypocrisy, I chalk up to our humanity.
Before I left for Spain, my friend Alison asked me what she could get me. I asked for a devotional because, in theory, I love the idea of organized spiritual lessons, though I don’t think I’ve ever actually completed any of the devotional books I’ve started in the past. Instead, Ali presented me with Anne Lamott’s Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith, remarking that none of the devotionals she had seen seemed quite right for me and that perhaps Lamott’s journey could enlighten my own. In a sequel to Traveling Mercies, Lamott writes, “...the opposite of faith is not doubt, but certainty. Certainty is missing the point entirely. Faith includes noticing the mess, the emptiness and discomfort, and letting it be there until some light returns.”
So back to the Camino: Today we’re making our way to Santiago. We’re uncomfortable in our ponchos, our stomachs are empty except for the dried fruit and nuts we’ve carried for eighty-odd kilometers and the ham and bread we saved from dinner the night before, my hair is a mess tied back in a bandanna, and we don’t really know where we are or where we’re going. Yes, we’ve got a map, but we know it’s flawed. Yes, there are markers along the path, but not with any real consistency. And our end goal is St. James’s grave, though we can’t know for certain he’s really buried there. We walk anyway.
That’s how I see life within the living church. The church (pick your denomination) has its creeds and its liturgies - its map. It’s got bishops and priests and the laity - its guides. But each of us still has to make our own way through.
I can’t prove God to anyone. All I have is my own experiences, and I’ll admit that I’ve filtered those through my expectations - I was looking for God. On this last leg of the Camino, as we wind our way through the hills of Galicia to St. James, we can’t ascertain that he’s really buried there. However, many have gone before us and many follow. Whether or not the legends of his burial are true no longer matter: the pilgrims make the Camino real.
I can’t prove God. But I believe. And my God is bigger than any divisiveness.
Buen Camino
Day 5: Santiago to Compostela to Madrid, ? km (no longer matters)
Last night we made it to Santiago. But the Camino doesn’t end here. We’ve got to get back home to Madrid. We’ve got eight more months in Spain.
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