Entering another era

The world is as we see her. I felt like Frodo, or Sam, passing by the ancient Towers of the West that guarded the entrance to Santiago from the seaside for many centuries. Ah, travel adventure and imagination bring such moments of joy! 

The photo was made during the boat trip that is part of the Variante Espiritual, summer 2018, on the Portuguese Coastal Way. The way that according to the legends has been travelled by the body of Santiago. Towards Iria Flavia and finally to the town that has been named after him. 

Sober

One of my most joyful moments on Spain's Caminos was making this photograph. Camino Primitivo, end of July 2013. It was a noisy, ugly village with many closed shops. The treasure was to be found on a terrace where I had my first morning break. Four older men at a table. I asked them if I could photograph their bottle. I wanted it for my blog. Of course they allowed me. When the picture was taken they offered me a Soberano drink. So I zipped my 'first brandy of the day' at 9:30 in the morning.. Good Johnny Walker that day!

What about money

Crowdfunding; PWYW. It's hot. The Camino has it's own ways in the money issue. On the Primitivo there were quite a lof of donativo albergues. The price is voluntarily: you pay what you think the bed, the food, the hospitality is worth to you. The Camino Frances also has these donativo albergues, although it seems to be hard to compete with all the others. The idea is great, and fits well into the old tradition of pilgrims travelling without money. I met young people now and then who tried to walk the entire Camino without money. Sometimes they earned money with selfmade jewelry or souvenirs.

On the photo a donativo market stable with fresh products like fruit, water and coffee

little jewels on the Camino

'Coffee, tea and a stamp for a smile'

Walk life

The old people of Galicia, I love to watch them going up and down the street. Are these past lives?
We cannot know. He may be a writer of a well-received-but-fast-sales-dying war novell, or a crane driver who never caused any accidents in forty years. Had three mistresses and made them happy. Or fetched the flower cabbage for his wife for decades on Sunday morning. This man.
Do not judge. Do not fear.
It is your life.

the circle of time

                                 such a beautiful symbol for the Road

huge labyrinth circle laid down by hundreds of people but started by one

Rituals

At seven it is still dark in Western Spain. Most albergues don't serve breakfast, so at around seven it's pack'n go! I put on my walking shoes. Careful, slow ritual. Always gives this special feeling of promises- outside, new ways, nature. I put on my backpack. The weight always feels good.
Where is my hat. Where is my walking stick. The guidebook under my belt. Water bottle filled up. Cellphone out. Ready. Stepping outside. Feel the temperature, look at the sky. Another day on the road.

Only need to find the first yellow arrow. First present of the day: sunrise!

Life as it is

Walking towards Vilar de Mazarife

Once there was a Mexican fisherman who - when he had caught enough to live on for a few days- went to sit and enjoy the sun. A rich American came to him and said: 'If you catch more every day you can expand your company and in the long end become very rich!' 'And', the fisherman asked, 'what will I do then'. 'Well', said the American, 'then you can retire early.' 'To do what?' the fisherman asked. The American answered: 'Then you can sit and enjoy the sun!'

Somebody once asked Gandhi:
What do you think about Western civilization?
Gandhi answered:
That would be a good idea.

in your eyes I see

David... This man was fascinating. Living in a deserted barn all summer, somewhere in the fields, cycling to the village every morning to store fruit, bread, coffee, anything. The approaching peregrino sees this barn, a stable with food, a nice bench, colourful texts 'anything is possible here' and 'take what you need, it's free'.

Some walk on, scared by so much freedom, others take this unexpected bath of kindness.

But the only thing he sells is love.

Every day

We are walking through the small village of Moratinos. Sometimes me and my fellow-wanderers speak about a fascinating thing like the atmosphere of a village - why does this village feel good and another other one not at all? This place feels nice. Before the last house a man sits on a bench. Bendend forward. Watches and greets every peregrino. We walk past him, can't really see what he's doing. But something makes me turn back. I speak to him, he speaks to me, we don't and do understand each other. He is making little knots in a thin rope, at a very regular distance. And unties them again. And I realise he sits here all day and does nothing but making knots. Is he making a dark mind at ease?
In my country he would not sit on the street but we would find some official rope-knot work for him - which is actually my last job - and in this little village, in this moment of understanding each other, I see a glimpse of my own future. We shake hands. Walk on to your destiny.

  

impressions: they stopped somewhere






lots of remembrance monuments for peregrinos along the camino

doubleclick on the photo to enlarge it

agri-culture

Sometimes on the Road I could be sad or angry about the path and the landscape.
Due to age, experience, education and an open eye for it I learnt to 'read' the landscape. See it with different eyes. About the past, developments, history. For example: If you see a nice, large cornfield on the Meseta, I might see monoculture, influence of Brussels, the trees that have been cut down, or natural landscape that has disappeared. Or: if you notice how smooth and broad and straight the paths are, I might think- well, this looks quite new, must have been some project to approve the Camino. How was it before that, what is lost?
'Spain' can be so... rücksichtslos in how the landscape is treated (this German word is the best I can find for it, it's also figurative: not looking back...). There is so much space... every one can build a factory anywhere, a barn, a house, and there's not much care about what it looks like. Or the huge eucalyptus forests you see a lot,  which have negative influence on the local species and need to much water for this dry country.
Of course- I'm from a totally planned country. But Spain is quite the opposite.
You even still see nature that is being cultivated. Unimaginable in Northern Europe since a few decades. I do hope the world might need the products that are grown there someday..

So a lot of the Spanish landscape has changed over the last decades. So agri-culture (agri means field) might destroy other culture.. I'm glad there's so much left to enjoy.

Gitlitz writes they saw less and less cowherds, watched by mostly older people, over the last decades. About the eucalyptus tree: "Their biggest 'advantage' is that their owners do not have to stand all day, umbrella in hand, watching them grow, but instead can work in the factories in Lugo or Compostela."
(from Gitlitz and Davidson: The pilgrimage Road to Santiago, p. 338)

The young farmer - in his 40.000 euro tractor with airconditioning, a good chair, radio and all that - has to make a living too. Economic chains we're all tied into. But could you grow slow food on a field you can't even plough in a whole day? 
His grandfather - or even his father - might have ploughed part of this same field with two oxes. 

Just think about it for a while. Be aware.

distances

Pilars and stones, but also traffic signs make you very aware of how large the country is and how far it is to the cathedral. I'll never forget I looked at a map after the first three long days of walking. I couldn't even see the progress I had made...  

Spain: siesta & the best coffee

Archaic word with the sleepy sound in it. With this vague idea of donkeys and sleeping men under a tree. But this is Spain 2012. What doesn't change is the dry sound of the churchbells every half an hour, the shadows slowly passing by in time, the voices inside, a shy cat on the street, and every now and then an airconditionado Peugeot. And then the silence again. All shutters closed. The street belongs to the sun.

Spanish coffee

lekker..............................................

one of the best coffee countries in the world

España con Dios

Indeed, the doorstep grinded away, so may feet have been inside here, in this deep religious country. Is it outside splendour, is it inside? Fact is that I can only be lyric about the way Spain shows all of it- the churches, cathedrals, monasteries, ermitas; most of them filled with centuries old treasures.

Why you should walk the whole way

Somewhere between Burgos and León it happened to me. I forgot about time. Was it in Villalcázar del Sirga, in San Nicolás del Real Camino, in Rabé de las Calzadas? I don't know. Didn't know the day of the week, the exact date. Not the time of the day: just -it's light or dark. No news. No papers, no phone. Just getting up in the dark and walk. Enjoying a delayed breakfast.

A break whenever there is shadow. Walking through another beautiful Spanish village. No blisters. No schedule. No plan. Great, joyful experience, and so unique, it makes you go 'inside'.

some more place name poetry

Inspiration from Mekka

One of my sources of inspiration I've just been reading is: Pelgrimstocht naar Mekka  (Zu den heiligen Quellen des Islam. Als pilger nach Mekka und Medina). Lovely book by Ilija Trojanow.

It's got to do with my intention with this blog. The Dutch society for St. James published in their latest newsletter an overview of publications about the Camino. In Dutch alone, there are already 40! Most of them quite personal stories. I'm trying to have another mixture.  
So Sober Camino, this blog, is intented more in the tradition of how the Hadj is described (of course, dear reader, I'm not comparing Camino and Hadj - those are different worlds). But it's interesting what Trojanow writes about the travel stories: 'Islamic writers don't put their own feeling on the foreground, their own moods are rarely leading. A travelling story in which the physical health and the psyche or soul of the writer are central, is a rather new western phenomenon that highly contributes to the discredit of the travelling story genre.'
A conclusion I can surely live with.

About the islam and the hadj

In Trojanow's book I couldn't discover how far the pilgrims actually have to walk. There are many rituals, and they stay in Saudi Arabia for many, many weeks.

There are a lot of gifts for the pilgrims, like free food, which used to be a habit on the Camino to. One of the monasteries along the Camino had these two shelters where they put food and drinks for the pilgrims passing by.

Pilgrims, Trojanow writes, can live without compromise, which you cannot do in ordinary life. The pilgrim gets an idea of how a perfect religious life could be like, it is simple, ordened, pure, with a purpose. Some people do pick up a different lifestyle after the hadj, the majority steps into normal life again, with the hadj as a beautiful memory of a happy, spiritual holiday.

In the islam Mekka is the most holy city. The sacred Kaaba was built on holy ground, that was already worshipped in pre-islamic times. The Kaaba was built by Ibrahim, ordered by God, the Koran tells us. The virgin Maria and Venus were also worshipped there, once.. so religions vividly mixed up. It is so holy that birds can't fly over it, it is said.

Beauty leads to religious contemplation, Trojanow writes. That is what you can experience during the Camino to, the peaceful churches invite you to sit and muse about life, faith, whatever is important for you at that moment.

Interesting difference with Christianity: in the islamic world there is hardly any place for hermits who want to live apart from the world, there are no monks or monasteries either.

Trojanow goes back home, and found out a way in which he could make this beloved trip once again: by writing this book. And so we can end with me: that's why you're reading this blog right now...

Learning from other cultures. I'm trying to.

Inspiration from 1933

As I walked out one midsummer morning. The title of a lovely book and one of my inspiration sources. Laurie Lee published it in 1969. He left home in 1933 and left for London. He worked there for a while and decided to go abroad. But where to go? He suddenly remembers a sentence: the translation of 'Please give me a glass of water' in Spanish. It makes him decide to go to Spain.
He arrives by boat in Vigo, and walks for months to the south. It's a real wanderer's journey. Being at a crossroad and then the sound of Vallodolid makes him go there in stead of to Oviedo/Leon.
Some things never change. "You're on foot? I musn't think of travelling by foot!!!" a woman in a village cries out. I hadn't expected that in the thirties. She must have had a donkey.

He is heading for Madrid, Sevilla, Cadiz and ends up at the southern coast. Has to go when the civil war starts. But the book ends with another journey into Spain...  

Lee makes some money playing his violin. But he doesn't need much, he can get a bed for two pesetas and a meal for some music.
He's not the only one traveling, he meets other vagabonds. And many gypsies. Really a different world, Spain in the 1930's. Lonesome roads. No traffic, airplanes or telephones. He encounters wolves or wild dogs, he's not sure.

It is great if you can travel like this. Just where the wind leads you to (no yellow arrows..).
Next sabbatical?

A few days ago my friends John and Helen took a walk to Slad Valley, where Laurie Lee left from on his long journey, and took this photograph for me... It's the pink house where Lee lived... (pretty much in the middle. 2nd house from right and south-west of the church)