Camino Journal Day 13

Somo, Spain - Waiting on a ferry to Santander

April 14

Waking in the morning around 8am, I felt so damn good. Life was great. I’d spent the last 24 hours in the company of good and interesting people. These people were all people I saw as ahead of me or better than me or smarter or more experienced in some aspect of life. You know what they always say, “make sure you’re the dumbest one in the room if you want to succeed.” In all seriousness, if felt nice to have the guitar and fill my role as the troubadour, or as Denise put it, the traveling minstrel. I was still feeling strange toward my instrument as it had been two weeks since I’d played a three-hour show. My whole life revolves around singing 3-6 hours a day, driving around North Texas, unloading and loading my equipment, nodding off at the wheel, slamming coca-colas at Love’s truck stops and wishing for the comfort of my own bed.

This walking the Camino was totally different from that. I felt strange to not be singing all the time every day. It had become a part of me I now missed, but I knew it was also good for my vocal chords to have a rest, and good for me to focus on other things for a little while. Still, with each note I strummed, with each person I engaged with and shared my music for, they responded with the best gifts of friendship, compliments, beers, conversations, and so much more. I stopped trying to explain that the guitar was so awful and tried to remember how confident and excited I was in 2019.

I patted the guitar like the good boy it was, and since I didn’t have to officially check out until 11am, went out of the room and ordered my first coffee for the morning. I smoked a spliff with the cafe con leche out on the terrace. The morning was foggy and damp with low visibility. You could smell the sea off in the distance and the trail beckoned me onward. I’d reach Santander today, 20 miles away, but I’d go through Ajo and continue on the alternative coastal route taking the ferry across.

I sipped my second coffee after gathering my belongings and checking out. Victor came out for a quick coffee and went back to shower.

“I’m staying another day,” he joked. I’d also thought about this but when I asked the clerk if there was any availability, he just looked at me and said, “You’re joking right? There’s nothing for the rest of the weekend, and very little until after Easter.”

“You got a room?” I replied

“Nah, I’m going to Guemes with the group today and then Santander tomorrow.”

“Cool, well I think I’m going to take a rest day in Santander, so maybe I’ll see you when you arrive.”

We agreed to meet, thanked each other for good company and parted ways. I was waiting around for my call from Fort Worth Roots Podcast and thinking how well things were going. Things were so totally different this time. Was it me? Was it the trail? The company I kept?

Animals along the trail.

One of my main focuses for taking the same trail was to have some sort of constant in order to measure my change. To view my old self with new eyes and get to know who he was/is. I was so beat up three years ago. I carried with me years of resentment and trauma, drug use and alcoholism. My body ached to move forward and with little money and nowhere to return to in the US, at times things seemed so hopeless. I’m lucky to have had a good Camino family back then.

The first day on the trail I met Lena. A German girl, who despite being fit and a good hiker, stayed around and hiked with me for her entire journey. We had great conversations and friendship and, in the end, a little romance. She finally kissed me in Bilbao. Planted the sweetest and most certain little loving peck on my lips as I told her I was going to carry on walking by myself and bid her farewell. The kiss changed things, and we spent her last week together walking and talking like a couple of many years. Sharing thoughts and longings and dinners, beers and a bed. She was just so lovely, but she was a grad-student back then and had to return to Germany after only three weeks on the Camino. I escorted her by bus to Santander to catch her return-bus back home and skipped a stage to spend those last moments with her. When her bus pulled out of the terminal, I was standing there on the street in the rain and looking for her. I thought of Jerry Jeff Walker’s other great original song titled Little Bird and the refrain, “Picture of my face/reflected on the windowpane/is it tears I see/or is it rain”. I hoped Lena and I would visit again at the end of my Camino, and to sort of prove my love to her, I bought a bus ticket for a month out to come visit her when I was done walking.

Me and Lena - 2019 in Castrol Urdiales

Her loved saved me back then. She was so happy and consistent in what she wanted in her life, but yet, she chose to spend time with me. To kiss me, to love me and listen to my stories and talk so wisely about everything with me. I didn’t deserve her love and affection, but I relished in it. I missed her when she left, and wrote and mailed her letters every other day for the rest of the Camino. It kept me going. Maybe I could stay in Germany with her and start a new life. I had nothing back home, nowhere to go, very few gigs and no money at all. I wished I would accidently run into her on the way, and we could continue on with what we’d started. What a gift that would be.

Things were totally different this time. I had everything to get back to and talking with Andrew from the podcast made me realize how much fun I was having, but also how much I missed playing gigs every day. I mean, I get paid to make music! When put in comparison to how hard it is to get a gig in an unknown place, I realized I was beyond blessed.

When I hung up the phone, I rolled another spliff, my third or fourth of the morning and after smoking it, headed off toward Ajo feeling light and very happy. I set a good pace and got to the little town around noon. There were people everywhere. Mostly Spanish people and they are all enjoying little beers and glasses of wine on the beautiful Spanish terrazas and plazas. I listen to a few old men greeting each other as they enter and exit the bar with “Arriba Espana!” and “Viva VOX.” I’m taken aback and astonished to hear such fascist talk right out in the open. It’s here in Spain too. When did this start? Did it ever go away? This hatred for the other. Ultra-right wing politics, seem to me, a blame game and sort of playing the victim, but instead of being sad about it, the remedy is to get angry and eventually kill off the ones that are stealing livelihood from its rightful owners.

Croissant a la Plancha

I get a coffee and a croissant a la plancha, and eat it out on the patio while waiting on my contact. It takes a little bit, but when all is said and done, we have a few Shandys together, catch up on old times and do the deal. I’m super pleased and now can just walk and get stoned all day and not really calculate how much I’m smoking or when I’ll need some more. I’d planned out two months to make the journey and had a return flight back home for June 1st. I could see I was going so much faster than before and would have to make some adjustments. Maybe I’d go home early. No sense hanging out in Europe spending more money and losing all the health benefits I’d of just accomplished. Even better, I thought I could just finish out the North Camino and then go back to Oviedo and start the Primitive and walk that one for two weeks. That would put me pretty close to my departure of June 1st.

33 grams of blonde hash.

I texted with a couple friends back home and checked in on my cat, who my neighbor was watching before setting off to make it to Santander. Along the way I took a break and drank a coke I had stowed away in my pack. While smoking a spliff I noticed a group of birds using a thermal to ascend and then fly off. Like an escalator depositing each person one after the other, the birds rose in a circular pattern until they were at a high point and then spreading their wings wide, rode off in series toward different directions. I admired with what ease the creatures rose to great heights. With little to no effort they were able to fly higher than all the other birds. From the ground one would think that the more effort equals more height. That’s certainly how rockets work, but no, look. they glide with ease and outdo anything one could imagine. Was everything like this? The only thing we really need to do is find the thermal and glide.

Finally approaching a bar midafternoon, I went in and ordered a large Shandy. I was parched, but noticing a guitar on the wall, asked if I could take it down and play it. It was full body. Not too nice but resonated so much louder than my little toy guitar. I sat on a stool and played them a few of my songs and a couple I knew they’d know. They applauded and made videos. I felt like a star.

Planned route to get back on the trail from Ajo

Sitting outside smoking a spliff and enjoying another Shandy, the owner approached me and told me he was looking for people to play here on the patio and asked if I’d be interested.

“No shit? Don’t fuck with me!” I laughed.

“En serio, tio. It’s a dream of mine to have live music here on the patio. You’re fabulous. How much would you charge.”

I explained to him my journey and how beautiful it was that things work out this way. I hoped for him and he hoped for me, and now we were together. I didn’t mention a price right away.

“When could you perform,” he asked a little antsy.

“Oh, like you mean, right now. You want to start this now? Well, I can’t until I’m finished with the Camino. It would be mid-May, at the earliest.

He insisted we exchange contacts and that I could come play there in May when I got done walking. Another idea then, I could begin my Spanish music career immediately upon completion of my journey. I didn’t have a PA though, but this was perfect. I could put him in contact with Borges from Liendo and see if he could make anything work.

“How much would you charge?” he cautiously asked again, fearful I’d be some premodonna and quote him an astronomical price. He gave me a piece of paper with his email.

“Well, for those like you who help me get started I could do a 2 hour show for 100 euro.” He didn’t bat an eye.

“Great. Estamos en contacto, Joseph.”

On the trail to Santander

I wondered if I should have asked for more but didn’t think too much about it realizing that I was absolutely right; interest in live music was growing in Spain. Ecstatic and a little buzzed, I left the place hearing my music blasting from their outside speakers streaming from their Spotify account. “How fucking cool can life get?” I thought. I made a few Instagram stories for bragging rights. They are listening to Joe Savage in Spain. How bout that?

After walking another 5 or 6 miles for a total of about 17 for the day, I got really tired, or maybe it was that the quality of the hash was just so good, I was super stoned, and I looked up on the guide to see if there were any albergues along the way so I could cut my day short and enjoy the great weather. The guide showed a place just 3 miles from the ferry to Santander, and that would save me at least an hour or two and I could have a short day tomorrow going into my rest day in the city.

After about 18 miles of walking, I got to the spot on the map where the albergue should be, but only see a row of very fancy chalets all part of one big hotel property. I doubted I was in the right place but saw a sign with a big letter ‘A’ on it and I assumed that meant Albergue. After a round and round conversation with the clerks to figure out what I was doing there, I explained that I had called and spoke with someone earlier in the afternoon and they told me to come on. Looking puzzled and meek, the clerk called someone else to handle the situation. I sat outside in the beautiful garden smoking and drinking my water.

Birds using the thermal to rise.

While waiting to get it sorted, rich people kept coming and pulling up in their Mercedes and BMWs and getting out so proper and dressed to the nines. I laughed to myself thinking how painful it must have been for them to see a lowly pilgrim sitting at the entrance and making the first impression to their luxury cottage for Easter weekend. Finally, the man comes out and speaks with me after attending to all the guests that had just arrived.

“I’m so sorry, sir. This is a hotel. Not an albergue. You see, our owner is a somewhat of a Christain and a kind man, so he lists that we have four free pilgrim’s beds here for people like you. Unfortunately, in the high season, which is now, we do not offer those places to pilgrims,” I’d already figured as much, but had wasted a good hour getting there and now sitting around, “We would like to help you find a spot to stay tonight. Let me see what I can do.”

Before he could get away, I said, “How about this, sir. If you don’t mind, the ferry boat to Santander is just a mile or two up the way. Could you drive me there? I’ll just stay in Santander tonight at the albergue. I’ve called them and they have plenty of space.”

The man hesitated for a moment, knowing this was some sort of a cheat for a pilgrim to go by car. I didn’t see it that way. I also relished anytime a local would scoop me up and take me a few miles down the road. I envisioned the pilgrims of old never turning down the opportunity to ride a wagon or go double on a horse if offered. The man agreed, knowing it would be the quickest way to rid himself of a potential problem, and he’d have to do nothing more than 10 minutes round trip of driving.

He agreed and, on the way, I told him I was a musician and gave him my card and a sticker.

“Man, music saves my life every day. I hate my job. I sometimes hate my life, but I have to live it, you know? So, I put on music, and I can escape right there in the moment.”

On the trail to Santander from Noja

I hope he will like my music. What a feeling to think someone could use my music as a life saving device. The ferry will come in an hour, and I get my ticket and sit out on the ledge of the pier. It’s sunny, but a little chilly. The seagulls are swooping overhead and with about 50 others waiting for the boat the small little pier is bustling with life. I make a sandwich with my chorizo, cheese and baguette I had stowed away in my bag and while eating I hear a splash down below where my ass was hanging off the ledge and over the water. My heart sank to think I’d left my zippable pocket open after paying for my ferry ticket, and I turned to embrace the thought my wallet was now floating down below with about 300 euros, my passport, my ID and all my credit cards.

To my surprise, and ultimate relief, it was merely the cheese package I saw floating just below me, the current slowly taking it where it will. I envisioned what I would have done if it was my wallet down there. First imagining jumping straight down the 30 feet to the rocky knee-high sea water. I’d of ran around to the boat launch and trying not to slip on the moss as I’d run down and submerged my body in the cold cold water, half swimming half running the 50 meters or so to where the cheese packet was. I guess I could have gone after the litter but continued on eating my sandwich. Some people had saw it happen and now watch the little going out to sea. “Fucking Pilgrims,” I imagined them saying.

After eating I was attempting to take a selfie in front of one of the signposts and a beautiful Italian woman, who was walking with her mother and had passed me earlier in the day, offered to snap the shot for me.

Waiting on the Ferry to Santander

Somo, Spain - Cantabria

We chit-chatted as we waited for the ferry and then a little more for the 20 minutes it took to get to the other side. What a lovely woman. She was a corporate lady working for Adidas in Netherlands, but from Italy. I couldn’t believe how fluent she was in English, and how lovely it was she purposely seemed to purposely maintain small hint of her Italian accent to let people know she was an English speaker as a second language. Again, I had a rise of all sorts of feelings, mainly asking myself how I could prolong listening to such an insightful beauty and couldn’t come up with anything so when the boat docked, she turned back to talk with her mother, and they disappeared from my life forever.

Santander’s looming buildings and many houses pepper the hillside harbor. Approaching in the ferry, the sheer immensity of the city is overshadowed by the shoreline buildings creating a picturesque billboard that almost looks like it would fall right over with the slightest push. Reminded me of some set from Hollywood film. But inside the city the buildings go on forever and the concrete endless. The rich banks just out into the sky and peer down on you as you navigate the city. It has a certain beauty, but the people are cold and mostly about business and high fashion. Today is the day before good Friday, the day Jesus was betrayed by his friends and sent to death by crucifixion. There would be some processions this evening around 8pm. The streets were filled with people already and many had brought their lawn chairs down to the main strip to claim a section for later watching. It reminded me of Fourth of July in the U.S.

I swaddled and scurried my way through the crowds of people and across busy intersections until climbing a few steps and then a steep inclined street to arrive at the hostel. It was 7pm. The hostelero wasn’t there, but I phoned the number on the door, and he told me to situate myself and he’d be around shortly to collect the money. He was out having a cognac at the moment. The albergue slept about 25 and was almost full. I found a bottom bunk next to a window and started to get my things together and make up my bed. I showered and while getting ready to go out, started talking to a Brazilian father and son who were sleeping in the bunks next to mine. The son spoke great English and so he translated for his father and him

“My first million were made so long into the journey, that I scarcely remember the feat,” the older Brazilian gentleman was telling a story of his fortune. He was inspired to see me with my guitar and after showing him some links he’d visited while I was cleaning up, he felt the need to give me encouragement. He could see some similar drive in me that he had, to get him to where he was, “But my first 100 I remember that so fondly. And my first 1000. And I also remember the big celebration for my first 100,000, but after that it becomes a blur. I’m now worth almost a billion dollars. The last few years I have seen my wealth triple and quadruple many times over. I’m so grateful. Even in the face of so much uncertainty and strife, while my competition failed, I thrived. It’s all about momentum. I wasn’t doing anything different from my competitors when the pandemic hit. They were even working so much harder than I, as I controlled a large portion of the market share they wanted, but I still continued to thrive, and they failed. Why? Momentum. All the work I put in over those years at the beginning of exponential growth. Nothing can stop me now. I’ll have more than enough wealth for my grandchildren, if he ever gives me any,” the man elbows his son and laughs.

“My father and I have to get ready to bed. We will be setting off around 4am. We like to beat the heat. we’ve already been here resting since 1pm, so we are ready for bed. It was great talking with you, and we promise to listen to your music.” he seems a little perturbed but honors his father’s wishes of him to translate although begrudgingly humbled.

I went out to the busy streets to find some grub, and after a few blocks realized I’d left my wallet back in the hostel along with my newly scored 33 grams of hash. I guess the talk with the Brazilian guy was stimulating enough for me to leave behind my most precious belongings in the most populated city I’d been to in at least a week.

In 2019 the night before I stayed here, some thieves had infiltrated the albergue, pretending to be pilgrims who’d been locked out. When some others with a key returned from their dinner and drinking, and thinking nothing of it, they let them come in with them. After everyone settled in and fell asleep, the two thieves robbed the entire albergue of all smartphones, some shoes, some packs and poles, clothes and other electronics that were out and accessible. The police came and took a report and the albergue was still a little cautious when I arrived back then.

Along the way

Earlier on the way a couple pilgrims told a story of being in an albergue in Bilbao and hearing a desperate banging on the door at 2am. The door-knockers pleaded with the pilgrims inside to get up and let them in, that they’d lost their key and needed help. Although all 12 of the pilgrims were awake by this time, not a soul said a word or moved a muscle. Eventually the would-be-robbers left. There are plenty of stories like this, and unfortunately a few where the thieves are successful. The cops usually catch them pretty quickly, and regularly harass known thieves and vagrants to protect the valuable tourist trade.

I turned back around and raced toward the albergue. I wasn’t so much worried about some outside thieves as much as I got a feeling maybe someone would accidently go through my bag and either take my hash or throw it out. It was in a sealed mason jar so didn’t smell, but I had the strangest feeling. When I got back into the room, I noticed an old man rifling through my bag. Seeing me he stood up grabbing my pack and handing it to me,

“Our packs look exactly the same. Sorry, I thought this was mine.”

Giving him the benefit of the doubt, as the way the packs were stationed could have led even me to mistaking his bag, I reached directly in and felt for the jar with the hash, grabbed my wallet off the window seal and realized I’d also left my phone charging there as well. I grabbed that, put it all in my pocket. The hostelero was now there as well, and said he remembered me from a few years ago, took my money and added my name to the current list, as well as tomorrows. “Take another day here if you’d like and explore the city. You’ve only just arrived and haven’t had the time.” He says.

“But I thought it was not allowed to stay in an albergue more than one night,” I questioned him.

“Well, my child, we are a bit slow at the moment, and it would be nice to be full up tomorrow. You staying an extra day can be beneficial to us both.” I thank him and then set out again to watch some processions and get a bite to eat.

Was I lucky or stupid? I couldn’t tell anymore. I also felt that some sort of eerie spirit of losing important shit was now upon me. Here I was over the last couple hours repeatedly thinking I was going to lose my wallet. If this were a simulation, this would be akin to a debuff, which would eventually wear off. Debuffs can be place-oriented or character-oriented. Like if you pass through a certain area and in that area, people are prone to losing things, then it’s a debuff put over the area. In Earthly terms, the debuff would be like a spell cast. It has a duration and maximum reach radius and will affect anyone who passes through it for a certain amount of time. I felt I had a character debuff going on. Maybe it was a penalty for taking the ride with the Spanish guy and skipping the 3km. Whatever it was, I wasn’t taking any more chances for the evening and put the wallet in my front pocket where I could feel and see it at all times.

I wondered around and took some photos of the processions. Man, even if it wasn’t an important figure like Jesus, I can’t believe crucifixion was actually a thing. The adding of the wreath of thorns is literally insult to injury. Funny how William Dufoe looks so much like the Jesus we have today. A sheik skinny, almost sexy portrayal of a virtuous man. And oh how curious it is that virtue signaling changes. People don’t often say it, or even recognize it, but one of the most important modern qualities of Jesus as a deity is that he is skinny. Despite the holy garb, he is fashionable, he looks cool, is handsome and clean. Despite the blood, the nailed hands and feet, the spear through his side, the crown of thorns, he is still ‘good-looking’ dead up there on the cross. To kill a one of the pretty people, to be murdered, accused and found guilty even with his looks and locks? Not fair by modern standards. Crime and punishment are for the ugly, the fat, the diseased and bedridden, not for the handsome and healthy, it seemed.

How did I see Jesus? As a friend sort of. As another man, a figureless man, a colorless body, a transparent mind. A noble and honorable man who was betrayed by an ally. Publicly ridiculed and sentenced to a painful and tragic public death. But then I couldn’t really begin to describe who Jesus is to me. I couldn’t imagine wishing this fate on anyone. What is it I’m supposed to learn here? Are there any nuggets of truth to this story anymore? Does his death mean anything? It’s got to mean more than the ‘died for our sins’ stuff they say at church. What does it mean to be saved by Jesus? What can be gleaned from this story, now over 2000 years removed?

I didn’t find any doorway to Christ until I found the Gospel of Thomas. Listening to the actual sayings of Jesus one after the other touched, my heart and opened my mind, healing my soul the same way other books by Kerouac or Hemingway had in the past, only slightly more fluid. What were the processions of faith? Had they retained any real non-commercial value? I noticed the communities that put these on and the large groups of people, family houses and exclusive clubs who made up each group of pilgrims. The colors, the artwork, the statues and garb all signaled to the other Spainards where they came from, who they were and where they’d been. All they’d gone through to survive to this point was recognizable to a keen, local eye. I could see myself participating in something like this if it was something I’d always done despite any actual beliefs. Something that all my friends and neighbors did. Something that brought everyone together.

Still the pointed hoods disturbed me and even alarmed some of the folks back home who followed my social media posts. It’s sad that they got it backwards. The KKK, for some unknown reason, adopted the pointed hoods from after the Spanish processions. These are the only two groups that use them. It’s a shame.

I smoked a couple more spliffs in the nighttime streets of Santander. They emptied pretty quickly after the processions ended. I ate another Kebab for dinner, one of the best values I was finding on this trip. 5 euros for a vegetarian meal with spicy sauces and French fries.

Most people were already asleep when I came back in the Hostel. It was just after 10pm and I sat in the foyer drinking my water and doctoring my feet out of precaution while talking with another pilgrim, Britta, from Germany. She prepared her pack for an early departure the following morning.

“Are you Joe Savage, the musician?” she asked already knowing there could be but one Joe Savage who is a musician from Texas on the trail at that time. “I’ve heard of you,” she added.

I hoped it was from some anomaly in the logarithm and she’d listened to my music and was somehow a fan, “Oh, really? From where?”, I asked, long ago learning not to assume the other person knows you from your music. Too many times people seek to make a fool out of someone searching some lofty goal as to being known by their art. The haters prey on their unsuspecting victims to the delight of their observing cohort. They wanna catch you being too proud of yourself.

“Your friends told me about you. Micha and Heiko. I saw the a few days ago and they were telling me you were such a super person.”

I felt good hearing this. I hadn’t seen the guys in a few days, although we were keeping up with each other’s location through the WhatsApp messenger. Heiko was a few kilometers ahead of me and Johnny was actually in Santander, but at another hostel. Micha had slowed up in Bilbao to walk a few days with a friend before heading home and getting back to work.

“They say you play music and that you’ve brought your guitar. How far will you go tomorrow? I’d love to hear something,” she sweetly batted her eyes at me. Maybe she wanted to walk together.

“I’m taking it easy. The hostelero gave me an extra day for free. I’m thinking of just taking a rest day and making sure my body holds up. I could play you something in the morning or if you wanna stay around for the day, maybe in the plaza with beers.”

“You’re going to stay here again? I couldn’t do that. I have a deadline to make. Well, if I see you again, I’d love to hear something.”

She went off to her bunk. She was a spunky traveler. Also, a little passive aggressive. There was so much wrapped up in what she was saying, it was difficult to unpack it all. She didn’t seem happy, so much as motivated. Like a Richard Simmons. He seems nice, and what he says is super peppy and upbeat, but he’s there to whip your ass. There’s an agenda behind the words. I chalked it up to nothing and didn’t mind either way if my suspicions about Britta were correct. I’d sing her a song the first chance I got, as I’d been doing for anyone interested.

There was already a bit of snoring in the room, so I put on Paco Ibañez’s Live in Paris and drifted off to sleep.