PPPS VALENCIA

Went on a night train from Santiago to Madrid. I had a rather stuffy sleeper compartment that was well worth the extra 20 euros and which I shared with 3 Spanish men, two of who were rather charming. The trip to Valencia was uneventful on a fast train. Joseph met me at the station. He is a camino mate from last year, a 22 year old taciturn German student. He is interested in Spanish history and is spending a year in Valencia learning Spanish and taking history classes. He was sweating his final in Theory of History and so did not have a lot of time to spend with me.

Valencia is very rich and busy. Lots of nice old buildings with domes and towers and bric-a-brac. Lots of plazas, fountains, little parks, stores, young folk, partying, and traffic. There were too many remnants of America´s Cup which was held on the Mediterranean and had just recently ended. Lots of blonde big guys and blonde babes in Polo-ish shorts and flip flops.

The old city is mostly surrounded by a diverted riverbed that has been turned into a park. The traffic is on all the old bridges above. At the port end is the Calvatratta museum building complex that is probably his signature work. I got to see it in the sun, under blue skies. The sheer size and audacity of the project are stunning. The plazas are grand and spectacular. Pilgrim walker extraordinaire that I have been, it was easy for me to course through and around them. I do wonder what other lessser mortals think of all that hiking. Spain is getting a(n) (un)healthy dose of American style overweight bodies--they are most evident on weekends at at tourist locales. They seem more geared to driving to the mall and walking to the nearest fast food outlet.

I went to the beach too. Water was not as beautiful as Finisterre but a whole lot warmer. The beach stretched for many a mile with a wide vale of smooth sand. Sailboats out in the distance and only one skidoo to mar the calm. Many more bodies too. For the men, there seems to be a law that the bigger the belly the smaller the swimsuit. And there were a lot of tiny little numbers stretched to their limits. Most of the women had their right arm up holding their cell phone to their ears, talking and yelling at their children at the same time

Now I am in Barcelona. Dave gets here in 2 days. I hope to get to the beach again. Since the city is filled with lots of young people, I fully expect the beaches to be too. I hope not too many Celtic tattoos!!!! What do these young people think they are expressing? Identity, independence, specialty cult? Oh well, I was young once, I just survived without a permanent physical mark.

Post Post Script--Suero de Guiterrez

Santiago de Compostela, Spain

Oh, I had a 7th thing I wanted to do on this repeat camino. I wanted to see the iron collar of Suero de Guiterrez. He is probably my favorite camino personality and I am sorry he died about 700 years ago and I cannot meet him.

He was a love sick Spanish knight who fell in love with a lovely lass but was spurned by her in his offer of marriage. He donned a iron collar, challenged all the knights of Europe to jousts at Hospital del Orbigo, a lovely spot with a long long bridge that is a little over halfway from St. Jean to Santiago. He vowed to break 300 lances or die trying.

Knights from all across Europe answered his challenge and came to Spain. He was successful and when he broke his 300th, he doffed his iron collar after he walked to Santiago as a pilgrim. He left it there and it ws supposedly in the museum collection. I do not know how his love interests fared. But he continued on as a knight, participating in the interminable Spanish civil wars. He was out in the field on a day some 20 years later and met the last knight whom he had defeated at the bridge. They had a final battle and it was Suero who fel--this time to his death.

So I am in the museum yesterday looking for this item. Surely, I thought, it would be a manly studded affair, something that Mel Gibson would have worn in MAD MAX. I saw nothing to fit the bill. I was stymied and went up to the guard. Luckily I was wearing the only shirt with a collar I had. I pointed to the collar and asked "¿que es en espanol?" Of course I had to repeat the request the requisite 4 times before he understood me, giving me perplexed looks all the while. So he said"cuello" finally. So I asked, " ¿ Donde est el cuello de ferro de Suero de Guiterrez?" That was the longest--and probably the most intelligent question I have ever asked in Spanish. I was really quite proud of myself. Of course, the guard did not understand me. I had to keep repeating it, but unfortunately had forgotten already the word for collar. So I kept saying "de fero" and "Suero" before the light clicked in his head and he figured out what I was so insistent on.

It turns out I was right across the hall from the hallowed object. It was in the reliquary room, always my favorite outpost in a religious musuem anyway. I garnered from the guard's detailed instructions (alas, of course, in Spanish) that Suero´s love necklace was in the middle of the wooden altar cum retablo. The guard thankfully took me in and pointed it out--otherwise I would have certainly NOT spotted it on the neck of the absolutely fab CAPUT ARGENTEUM, a golden bust reliquary that purportedly holds the head of St. James Alpheus (a close relation????) .

So did this studly knight have the big dog collar like something out of MAD MAX that I was expecting.



NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!

He had a dainty little choker (pictured here--sorry for the fuzzy picture--I had to stay behind a gate to take it) that would have looked divine on Audrey Hepburn´s neck. It looked a lot like gold not iron and had a huge stone in the center. No wonder Suero had to fight so much. He had to prove his manhood wearing that piece of stunning jewelry. Bet he was the butt of many a joke on the battlefield. And it is no wonder that the last knight he conquered was burning so with revenge--can you imagine the ribbing he got from his mates. "So, you couldn´t even knock down the guy with the lady´s necklace, huh?"

Explanations? Well, I might have been shown someone else´s collar. Or the original collar might have been gilded and be-stoned. But I kind of like to think of this manly man riding out on his valiant steed probably humming songs from BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY´S and fingering his little choker and wondering which boots would look best with it at the castle later that night. I wonder if he missed it later?

POST SCRIPT

Back in Santiago...

Yes, life is tough. 3 months in Europe with nothing much to do but get up, go to the bathroom, get a cup of coffee, don backpack and walk, have lunch and more coffee, walk more, find a room for the night, shower, eat and sleep. Or carouse with like minded people. Now that is over and I can relax.

I went with my friend Diego, the Argentinian to Finisterre by bus the other day and stayed 2 nights. This is the spot where medieval pilgrims supposedly went because it was considered the end of the world and had something to do with St. James' bones being found near there, etc.

Modern pilgrims go for the sunset, to drink wine on the rocks, and burn something from the camino.

I just spent time on getting a serious tan and having some seafood. It was blessedly cheap. We paid 12 euros each for a shared room without bath (but nice one down the hall). The above picture was the view from out window. The picture below is the beach we went to. Water was quite cold but refreshing and clean. Unfortunately, not much eye candy. But that is life.

I met Anne Marie again in Finisterre. She had walked there with a few of my other friends. I had a few little pangs about not walking myself but they were soon extinguised. Anne Marie is going to WALK BACK TO PARIS. She is already a camino legend. I have a reputation as an intrepid fast walker who is all over the place. Kinda like the cow shit in Galicia, I guess.

Back to Santiago yesterday. I found a lovely room with private bath and double bed for myself. A minor luxury at 40 euros but not much else available in town. Next month the place with have to accomodate 3 or 4 times the number of pilgrims here now. Many will have to sleep in the streets methinks. I met a bunch of Turks here and so get to speak my foreign language. The Turkish pilgrim got here yesterday. We are all going out for Turkish food tonight.

I bought some English books today--JUDE THE OBSCURE by Thomas Hardy and THE NEW SPANIARDS by John Hooper (now I can learn more about this country, eh?).

Since I have a lot of off time, I also decided to get a knitting project. I walked about 50 blocks of the city looking for a shop, only to find one about 50 ft from my hostal. That was a riot trying to get yarn, needles, a pattern and what all in my fractured Spanish. But I have to devise own pattern. Oh well, should keep me out of trouble.

To Valencia tomorrow.

YES, DOROTHY, THERE IS A YELLOWish BRICKish ROAD

Santiago de Compostela, Spain
June 3, 2007

I think I left off with news of a freak snow storm impeding my progress on the trail. And that I was intending to just throw caution to the wind and walk 202km in 5 days. Well, I was 5 km short of that and ended up in Monte de Gozo right outside last night. I was helping an injured German teenager with bilateral shin tendoNEEtis, right Achilles tendonNEEtis, bilateral knee pain, and right hip pain get to the last alburgue, fondly called "the modern grief" by my guide´s author. Other people have helped me on the way, so I was not at all sorry to give him a hand. It didn´t hurt that he was very appreciative, witty, charming, and quite grown up for all of his 19 years.

The snow storm was up the highest point and the weather got very nice for an afternoon. I then had overcast days for another day with high humidity and put in about 47 km. On the next, I had to climb the steepest portion of the camino, O CEREBRIO, home of the Holy Grail. I had to do that in a rain squall at 7AM. All the pilgrims were huddled in all the densely crowded bars so I went down the mountain in the squall and ended up doing another 45 or so. And that is when I came down with the first blister in 2300km of walking this road over 14 months. It was on my right heel and slowed me down only a little. I popped it after the first day, dressed it, and it pretty much went away.

Kilometers don´t really add up--I should have finished those 202 easily by Saturday but fell short. The way was fantastic when it wasn´t raining. I hit another rain storm at the 100km mark, the same as last year but not nearly as torrential or never-ending. This camino was a breeze in many ways.

So I got up this morning, not having imbibed the large amounts of wine that most people seemed to have. I was probably the first or second pilgrim in the square. I did have to share it with all the drunks coming back from the discos. They were peeing in the corners but I decided they weren´t worth photographing as they wouldn´t be on postcards.

Part of the push was to get to Santiago on Sunday to see the world´s largest incense burner in action--5 men have to swing it across the transcept. Pilgrims are a smelly lot and need to be fumigated and deloused. Well, it turns out that the rope was in need of repair and the butafumenco is out of service for the interim.

I wanted to accomplish 5 things on this camino.

One was to go over the Route de Napoleon which I couldn´t do last year. I did that but in complete fog.

2 was to walk from Villafrance to Ages on the camino. It was fantastic and beautiful.

3 was to see the 4 brothers' haircuts in Sahagun. I saw 3 of the 4. The oldest brother was not around--last year he had dyed quarter sized blonde dots on his head looking quite a bit like a walking fuzzy large golf ball. #2 I actually spotted in a town truck as I was coming into town. His long locks are still luxurious but not so well kept. He looked worn out. I couldn' t imagine how I could have had all those fantasies about HIM. #3 put on a bit of weight, was not attentive like last year and now sported one of those pencil thin carefully trimmed beard things that Latin men seem to love and look so good on. I think he has a love interest. #4 was the epitome of charm. Last year he had shoulder length straight hair with a half inch of bronzed tips This year he lost the tips, still had the shoulder length hair but on the sides it was closely trimmed back to the middle of his ears--I guess some kind of punk thing.

4 was to have lunch in the most upscale restaurant in Molinaseca--where I could not get served last year due to Father´s Day crowds. Got there on a Monday and everything was closed.

5 was the butafumenco and you know the story....

Still all it all it was a blast. And I still have another month in Spain. So the Karaoke Camino is not exactly over. YET!!!!!