Camino Journal Day 11

On the trail from Castro to Liendo

April 12

The pleasant calmness of early morning greets my eyes at around 4:30am. I get up quickly and take my time packing my things nice and neat. Well rested, I knew this would be a good day of walking. The weather was forecasted to be enjoyable and sunny the whole day. I wondered why I didn’t just throw the little guitar away already. It was a really pitiful sight. They say that when you work really hard on something and then leave it for a little while, it gives the muscles memory time to settle and when you come back to the thing, you are even better, somehow smoother and with less obstruction from the ego.

Maybe that was what was going on. Even though busking went well last night, I don’t plan to do it every day. I figured I would again hit San Vicente de la Barquera, a place where I made the most money in one day back during my travels of 2019. With a quiet midnight street and a concrete alcove, the guitar sounds good and does its job, but even then, there is an element of force that sullies the performance that is not present with a great guitar and sound system.

I thought about taking the guitar down and smashing it in the plaza for a promo video to post on Instagram, but then decided that would be stupid. My pack didn’t even feel heavy anymore. I was in a groove, my heart rate was staying in the 140 range for most of the day now. I guess In Praise of Walking had some truth to it after all. I felt good, positive and healthy. Cleaned out. I didn’t mind thinking over things and trying to figure out who I am and what’s going on. I mean, I have a pretty good grasps on it, as I’m surviving, but I feel there is more to this life than what most people do on a daily basis. I needed to think about it all, and after years of thinking only about the big picture, my greatest achievement was realizing I was ignoring everything the “I” was doing in this reality. The Camino gave me that gift in 2019.

It’s great to get even closer with the mind. To walk in the beautiful countryside undisturbed by work, money, and other people. A bird sings a song, a butterfly flaps by, a cricket chirps, a dog barks, and none of it is obtrusive to your thoughts. The steps and their sound of crunching leaves, trekking over rocks, breaking twigs and splashing puddles is like one continuous percussive buffet of spontaneity accompanying the mental jaunt through memories, successes, traumas, griefs and the question so often ignored, who am I?

Sticking to my rhythm I was walking steady from about 7 or 8 to 10 before breaking and having a coffee. Then walking steady for another 2 hours or so and breaking at around noon for a Kalimocho (coca-cola with red wine). By the second break, I usually had done around 10 miles. I carried on toward Liendo, a word that sounds like “pretty” but doesn’t actually mean anything.

Along the way I started to take a mental inventory of all my little trauma monsters. I’d decided that the monsters are servants to the great accuser. And I began to suspect the great accuser to be something of the id inside me and the monsters his surrounding minions helping to control everything and get what it wants, and most importantly protect the “I” from me knowing what it was doing. I made a list:

The Helper Monster
The Rage Machine
The Persuasive Inspector
The Chameleon Monster

So far, I had these four. And more than monsters, I started to view them as behaviors as parts of myself. This re-humanization of some of my less desirable personality traits gave me some instant peace. “How many more are there,” I wondered aloud.

Heading Up on the trail.

Guriezo, Spain

The trail was right out on the seaside cliffs but meandering through small tree filled spaces. The whole thing reminded me of a Mine Craft biome. Moving along the trail you go in and out of distinct regions of vegetation, land formations and soil types. If I was living in a simulation, the benefits of the walk are inherent. I don’t have to do anything. Upon completion I will be granted the benefits of the journey, just like a character in a video game.

The trail was up and down all day. By 3 o clock, I was getting tired, but approaching the next break at Liendo. I would stop for a Shandy and a spliff and then head to Laredo another 5 miles up the trail. 30 minutes or so before arriving to Liendo, a man appears out of nowhere behind me on the trail. He’s another pilgrim. He’s got walking poles and a brimmed hat. He’s sweating pretty hard and looks a little dazed, but very happy. With the twists and turns of the trail, people can sort of just appear. Sometimes I wonder if they don’t just spawn as part of the quest.

When we catches right up to the side of me, there is an silent agreement we will walk together until at least the next town.

“So, where are you going to today?” he asks me with the high-pitched Dutch accent. The Dutch say all the words right and have great control over syntax and even phrasal verbs, but they sing their speech in the upper register. He’s a big man and, honestly a little gruff looking so the high voice is kind of funny.

“Oh, I think I will go to Laredo today. How bout you?” I ask.

“Me, same. I’ve been walking already 42km today.”

“Holy shit! That’s a lot man. I’m really only on about 24 or so. You’re going to reach 50 for sure.”

“I love it,” he says, “I love the Camino and I love to walk really far.”

He’s sweating and in shorts, digging his poles into the trail with each step. He pushes himself onward with his arms as well as his legs and he move fast. You can tell he’s slowing up to chat with me, and that we are almost to the next town where he will likely break for something to drink and a rest as well.

“I love it too, but I have never walked that far in a day. How do you do it?” I ask him.

“Oh, I just keep going and going. Around the 40km mark I start hallucinating. I keep pushing and try to see if I can see anything.”

“See anything?” I inquire

“Yeah. You know what I’m talking about,” and he gives me the one-eyed look as we both barely turn our heads toward each other from the oncoming trail, “To see something. Have you ever taken mushrooms or LSD?” I nodded I had, “Well, like that, didn’t you ever see anything? Now that I think about it, you could just be an hallucination.”

“You did say you’ve already walked over 40km. Maybe I am,” I say running with it, “Maybe we are all just manifestations for, and of each other.”

“You mean projections?” he laughs a little.

“I guess, but that implies too much that I am a part of you. That makes me a little uncomfortable.”

“Ah, but me being a projection of yours is not so bad, huh? Are you American?” he asks

I laugh at his deduction and admit I am, “from Texas,” I add. “What about you?” I ask before he can make some sly remark about Texas culture being even worse than American.

“The Netherlands. Holland. You know it, yes?”

I play along, “Amsterdam, right? Are you from there?”

“Well, actually, I am. I live in the city center.”

“Have you ever done the mushrooms there?” I ask trying to get us back on track. “I’ve taken the philosopher stones back in 2005.”

"They don’t sell them anymore in the shops. It’s illegal now. And as I told you already, I like to walk to get my hallucinations these days. I’m not sure I can see anything new with the common psychedelics. I may have outgrown them.”

He had an air of superiority to him or dignity, but it could also be he was actually tripping and just holding on for dear life. That was admirable. I’d seen friends looking the same way, and knowing they were frying their balls off on a 10 strip, I didn’t see it as superiority at all. Maybe I’d try and see what this “trip-walking” was all about. I’d get close to 40km today going to Laredo. I’d have to really push it to make it over 40 in one day. I still had about 40mg of Adderall. Maybe I could take a larger dose and geek-walk. But that didn’t seem fun at all, and also a bit dangerous and would negate the experiment all together. I wondered if the dude was eating. Maybe he was just fast-walking.

On the trail

The Dutch guy’s name is Johannes. We get to Liendo together and he agrees to have a drink with me and continue our talk. It was more of a lecture from him to me than a talk, though. He had good momentum and maybe I could walk in his slipstream to help push me the last three miles.

I was tired. It did worry me about the hallucinations. Was he safe to be around? He seemed a little off, the weird smile and wide-eyed stare had me thinking I didn’t want to be sleeping in the same spot as this guy. We stop at the only dusty cafe open at a little after 3pm. Lunch is over, and they are only serving beers and coffees. No food until dinner time at 8:30pm. We order a couple of Shandys and I bust out my bag of trail mix for sharing. I take my shoes and socks off to let my feet dry out. I was at the 17-mile mark sitting there in Liendo. I had about 3 more to go to get to Laredo.

It had been a good day. Johannes continues, “Have you never seen it?” he asks out of nowhere.

I offer up some of my trail mix, and take a drag off my spliff.

“Is that hashish?” he asks.

“Yes, you want a drag?” I offer him the joint.

“No, just curious. I don’t smoke it anymore. I know, kind of stupid from your point of view since I live in Amsterdam. But what was I talking about?”

Just then an old man notices my guitar sticking out of its sheath attached to my pack lying there on the patio.

“What’s that. Is it a guitar?”

I tell him it is, and take it out and hand it over to him. He tries to play it, but fails miserably. It’s nothing like a regular guitar. He tells us stories of playing folk shows around Liendo and the North of Spain.

“He’s a real musician. Verdadero,” a couple keeps saying to us from another table. “He played every night for years. Verdadero, un crack.”

The old man wanted to tell stories.

“I’ve written the only song about this town of Liendo. Titulado: Liendo Tan Linda,” he sings a couple of raspy bars for us. It’s all in Spanish and my Dutch companion has grown tired of sitting there idle and alone. He didn’t eat a single piece of trail mix. Maybe he is fasting. He excused himself solemnly yet politely and gave me the one-eye again as if to let me know he was disappointed in this stop. Maybe I’d blown his high. He didn’t wave goodbye as he got back out on the road, and the old man without pause continued telling his stories.

They invited me to a couple of beers, and I sat chatting with the whole group now and singing them songs I thought they’d know. When the old man left, the couple talking to me from the other table sent their niece of about 12 years old over to me to speak in English. She was home visiting her grandma who was coming to pick her up from the cafe any minute now. The girl shyly obliged her Aunt and Uncle and I tried not to make it worse on her, but also was curious as to what level she could speak. An education abroad at a fancy school for a little one like this is a blessing, and she spoke very well. Her youthful intelligence wouldn’t allow her to hide her disdain for the whole activity as she knew her Aunt and Uncle couldn’t understand a word we were saying and so the whole thing was futile and just an attempt to show off one of the exotic privileges money can by.

It was almost 4 now and the grandma had come and gone, and I was onto my fourth Shandy. The couple invited me to go with them to another bar. I obliged but it was yet another elaborate scheme to display their wealth. They talked of their extravagant lifestyle as the wife spilt red wine on her designer polo with a chaotic laugh and a rolling of the eyes of her husband. The husband was cool and collected, very nice and about 20 years older than his wife. She was cute and thin, but loud and obnoxious. She had a good heart and sometimes good intentions but was kind of annoying. She’d said she would go and get me some great weed from her house and so I was kind of hooked into waiting around for that.

While we were drinking, they invited another friend of theirs over name Borges. He was a gentle and jolly soul. Pulled up on his motorcycle and joined us for more drinks. He overheard his friends were going to get some weed for me as I’d sang for them earlier and asked me to play for him. He liked it, and invited us all back to his place for drinks and music, and he told me he’d give me a “shit-ton” of weed to take with me. Of course, I imagined a full turkey bag.

Since I’d be staying the night now in Liendo, Borges took me over to the albergue to get checked in. He knew the lady there and they had a laugh. Borges told me later that the hostelera has a beef with him from years ago when he was doing big festival shows and she worked for him. I laughed and he took me the backroads to his place because I was riding without a helmet

Everyone was there when we arrived, and Borges introduced me to his wife and kid and showed me around his Chalet. It was amazing. After serving up some drinks and making a few snacks, he mounted a sound system with a nice mic. I sang for about 30 minutes to eruptions of applause and requests for songs they knew. Borges really liked music and was flipping out that I was there.

View from Borges back yard

“Wow. Your voice. Man, your voice is spectacular. What else can you do? Frank Sinatra? Elvis? Johnny Cash? I love it man! Me encanta.”

I played them some more recordings as we drank more wine. The young woman spilled another blotch of wine on her white polo matching the adjacent one. The two wine stains looked like nipples and she laughed and took control of the spotlight and just carved the attention out of us. She was a little bit of a brat, but sweet and sexy in a way so everyone put up with it. She was also wasted and finally she and her husband left drunk as fuck and arguing about something.

Borges and I talked some more, and he agreed to represent me in the Cantabria region if I wanted to play a couple shows a year. I told him more like a few months a year. He was really excited and dropping me off at the albergue, we agreed to continue talking and making plans to work together. He had a history of doing shows and told me he’d even been really rich once doing it but left it because he had no time. He suspected he could enjoy representing an artist, and he had a lot of connections. We agreed that $500/week would be the minimum I could come over and work for. He really loved my music and promised to listen to it more and more and to help me out where he could. And that’s how it works. It just happens. A small connection. A little hit. A slight lead.

“What you don’t have are videos of you singing solo and sounding good,” He said. “I need that to make this work.”

I hoped I looked better when I got home and that any weight loss from the trail would transfer into good looks on camera. I also needed to sing with better equipment when I’m filmed. He had a point. This might work out. He was pretty smart.

When Borges pulled off on his motorcycle, I went in and quietly got my bed ready to go. I was all tiptoes around the bunk room when a German woman’s voice piped up, “You can turn the light on. It’s just you and I here.”

“Thank you,” I said, hoping I wasn’t stumbling around too much from all the alcohol.

I went back downstairs and rolled a spliff and stepped out front to smoke. There was a Spanish guy out there smoking as well. His name is Victor and from Girona. We talked for a few minutes and agreed to head out to the cafe together in the morning. I was glad to find someone who wanted to speak only in Spanish for a walking partner. The Cafe would open at 7am. After each flicking our spliff butts out into the darkness we turn to head off to our bunks.