Camino Journal Day 14

On the way to Santillana Del Mar - View from the trail

April 15

There’s beauty in breath. Even more so in synchronized breathing. The hostels in the wee hours are much like a dance or even symphony. If there is snoring, people snore together and breathe at the same time. Ever been in love, lying next to the one? They fall asleep first and you placate yourself by matching your breath in perfect rhythm with theirs? Pilgrims breathe in syncopation; one breathes in as another breathes out. Everyone has a unique rhythm, but somehow while asleep everyone lines up to be one, to sleep together.

The first risers break the siphon, and the stirring begins. Although the Brazilian father and son duo were quiet while getting their packs and leaving, it still woke more than a few of us up. When I got to the foyer, their key was on the check in desk, and I scooped it up and went out to the 5am streets of Santander to have a spliff and drink my Coca-Cola zero I’d stowed away the night before. I love early rising and there is no caffeine available in Spain until 7, at the earliest.

There was very little life to the early morning streets, aside from the occasional street sweeper passing by. There are very little homeless in Santander as well. Britta says goodbye to me as I’m smoking a spliff outside the albergue and heads off into the night. I’ll prolly never see her again. It’s still too early to rustle around inside the albergue to get my guitar and sing for her, and nothing about the moment struck me as one in which I should abandon my plan to stay an extra day and set off walking with this woman. I waved coolly to her as I exhaled another drag off the spliff. This hash was just so clean and tasty. I couldn’t be more fortunate.

Breakfast

Since I’ve got a key now, I set off walking to find a cafe and have breakfast, I found something on google that says they open at 6:30, right by the cathedral. It’s probably expensive, but I’ve spent so very little money, I’m happy to splurge 10 bucks on a tourist breakfast. I order something sweet with my first coffee and then a toast with tomato and olive oil to go along with the second. I have a large fresh squeezed orange juice and smoke another spliff while scribbling in my notebook there on the terrace before heading back over to near the hostel.

Being Good Friday, nothing would be open. Hanging around Santander all day meant that I wouldn’t be doing much of anything. Even some of the bars and cafes would be closed, and although I’ve never minded sitting around smoking spliffs and writing all day, this city just didn’t inspire me. In 1941 a fire ravaged the city and in its stead are gigantic concrete buildings that soak up all the sun and keep the streets cool through the early summer. There’s documentation showing activity in Santander back to the 11th century. I tried to feel this life in the walls, in the streets, in the air. But nothing. It felt stale. It felt too new. Here’s a town newer than all America.

Second Breakfast

I went back up to the hostel to grab my guitar. Maybe I’d just have a day of busking and writing tunes, I ordered another coffee at the cafe below the albergue and sat out on the terrace with my little guitar. There were only a few people around, a couple workers heading to open a shop, a few more parents dragging their sleepy children along with them to an early morning errand and a couple of pilgrims here and there, whisping away down the city streets and off into the trail to start the day like parachuters diving in sequence into the black night from a plane.

The weed was great, my mind was open. I tried to envision the ideas for songs floating in the ether, right above my head, like something tangible I could reach out and grab, and throw into my notebook. I’ve heard it said, “You don’t choose your songs, they choose you.” Was I worth this morning for a new melody? Something inspiring to move the masses and startle my bank account? I hoped. I let my mind wander for the first line or hint of melody. Something came

“I’m raring and roaring
Going on up.
Waiting for blast off
You’re preparing to duck
I’m out here at night
No care to who’s dying
I’m killing myself
Without even trying.
That’s what life was like
when falling felt like flying.”

I got it down into the notebook. Reminded me of Jeff Bridges character Blackey Buck singing in the movie Crazy Heart, “Sometimes falling feels like flying/For a little while.”

There’s nothing new under the sun, I reassured myself. Plus, I spun the phrase. It could be considered unique. I wasn’t feeling the lyrics stuff and so attempted to journal a bit. I wrote a little while forgetting where I was. I’d look up to orientate myself in this reality every few minutes, taking a long pause in the middle of the writing to roll anther spliff and order another coffee. When I came back out there were a couple of young pilgrim girls sitting at one of the other tables on the terrace. They had their packs next to the table on the ground and were chatting it up with such youthful exuberance and humor it was hard not to notice them. I sit smoking and trying to eavesdrop.

As I look up, I see Johnny racing past with bristling speed.

“Johnny!” I suddenly yell without thinking of it. He stops and turns towards me, and I get up and go to shake his hand. It’s been since before Bilbao that I’ve seen him and meeting a pilgrim who I walked with before feels like a joyous reunion of friends.

“Joe! What are you doing here? I thought you were staying in Somo last night?”

“I was. I was, but there wasn’t actually an albergue where I ended up. So, I made it here. I stayed at the municipal albergue. Where did you stay? I figured I would have seen you here last night.”

“Ah, no. I stayed at another over closer to the ferry. I really thought I was out of the city already,” he says again a little astonished to see me.

“Let me treat you to a coffee or breakfast, yeah?” I ask tapping him on the shoulder and steering us toward the cafe and out of the sidewalk.

“Ok. I can do that.”

After we order we are sitting out on the terraza and Johnny lights up a Lucky Strike. He drinks a little of his Pepsi Zero and munches on his chocolate croissant. He doesn’t do coffee. By now I’m on my 4th of the morning and feeling pretty good.

“How far are you going to go today?” I asked him.

“Oh, I don’t know really. Maybe Santillana del Mar. Maybe a little before that. What are you doing? Where is your pack?”

“I was thinking of taking the rest day, but now that you’re hear…. would you mind if I walked with you for today?”

Johnny said it wouldn’t bother him at all and I went to gather my belongings. Johnny had a good pace. He was about 20 years older than me, a former corporate hedge fund manager (or so something similar), and since he had a stroke and can “no longer think the way [he] used to”, has taken to walking Caminos and biking around Europe. He moved back to his hometown and got a cheap apartment. He no longer works and lives on Social Security and/or a pension. Despite his brain injury, or maybe due to, Johnny is very good natured and easy to get along with.

When I come back down with my pack Johnny says, “I’m glad you’re coming along. I promised myself and my sister I would be more social this time around. You’ve got to be social these days, you know,” he says with a humorous tone in his voice. He’s from Denmark, speaks and understand English very well, even my accent, and he doesn’t have a very thick accent either.

“Well, we can start the day being social by meeting those two lovely young pilgrims who were sitting at the terraza.”

I turned to find them where they had been and approached and offered them a song. At first a little standoffish, but all the same inviting to a fellow pilgrim, they obliged. I did a version of Wish You Were Hear.

“Oh my god, that’s one of my all-time favorite songs. I can’t believe you just did that right now.” she looks over at her friend. Johnny captured it all on his small go-pro style camera. I give them some stickers and a business card, and we ask them where they are going and what they are up to. Today is their last day of the Camino for now. They have a bus back to their hometowns and will come back another day and continue on from where they left off. A lot of Europeans do it this way. For Americans the most expensive cost is the flight over, so better to do the whole thing while you’re already there. Johnny and I set off after giving hugs and two kisses to the two girls. They were Spanish and really did enjoy the song. It was one of those moments the Camino gives you, where a simple action you might do, an action that costs you nothing and is even enjoyable, provides sustenance to those around and to yourself as well. Johnny wants to be sociable, I want to sing and be admired, the girls wanted to remember a friend together over their favorite song at the end of a very meaningful hike. It was perfect and food for all of us.

As Johnny and I started down the trail, I thought about the songs that everyone knew the globe over. I tried to figure out why was it that everyone knew English music, but I knew very little music from Spain (before living there) and still, to this day, Justin Bieber is popular in Spain, but could you name me a single foreign artist not from Great Britain or Australia that is popular in America? Things are changing, and Bad Bunny, who can rack up 35+ million streams on YouTube in under seven days, with another countless songs at half a billion plays, has a much more extensive global reach with Spanish than any English-speaking artist could imagine. It’s going to be interesting to see the most popular music in the world no longer be from America or England and also not in English, for me anyway.

Johnny from Denmark - on the trail

Maybe my Spanish speaking ability could be something after all, so far proving worthless other than to travel in Spain, or to work in the bureaucratic hell that is education. I sing in Spanish from time to time, but still have an accent and don’t put the stresses on the words right. In English you can stretch out words and add or take away the stress points without ruining the meaning or making it sound weird. In Spanish you have to be careful where you do this and it’s really hard to not revert back to the things I do in English while singing in Spanish. I make good tips singing in Spanish in Spain because I’m one of the only Americans to do it, and it comes off as quite funny and a little cute to hear me sing Juaquin Sabina in his tone with raspy voice, but with an American accent. Maybe we were moving toward a more bilingual society back in Texas. The hottest up and coming band out there right now does some Selena songs in their set. Another hot band has an accordion and plays country covers like a Mexican conjunto, but in English. No one ever guesses how diverse Texas really is. All they see are white cowboys shooting anyone who disagrees with them saying things like, “Savvy that? You Savvy that?”

As Johnny and I walk together I notice a pleasant non-intrusive vibe. He doesn’t have to talk and maybe even prefers to walk in silence yet listens to me when I go to babbling with ease. Johnny had a few strokes back a few years ago, maybe that limited the part of his brain where mirror neurons are. To me he seemed to speak fine, walk fine, and have all the motor skills of someone who didn’t have a stroke. Maybe his clot happened in the parts of the brain that control the immittance of brainwaves and other social things. I felt no vibe, good or bad, while walking with Johnny and that was a pleasant relief.

Breaking for Snacks about 10 miles in for the day

Myself included, most people are constantly transmitting. It’s a non-stop barrage of watching someone think about this world like you’re not there doing the same thing. Johnny seems to relish in the walking. He’s fast and takes large strides. I only got out ahead of him on the declines, as it hurt his knees to go down so steep. Another thing I liked about Johnny is he liked his smoke breaks. We took one every two hours, or every 5 miles. We planned on going just 17 miles to Requejadas. It was very hot outside. I’d taken my scarf and now wore it over my head like a shawl to keep my face from burning. I’d need to get some sunscreen soon.

When Johnny and I arrived to Requejadas we were both worn out. My small blister in the middle of my sole had been raring up and was now aching again. I took my shoes and socks off on the patio to the dusty small-town cafe. The albergues, two of them just across the street from the bar, were closed due to financial ruin during the shut-down. Pilgrims were to get the key from the bar when passing through and then go to the albergue. I was very disappointed to learn we’d have to carry on for another 5 miles or so to get to Santillana del Mar.

“Okay Johnny,” I said while making us a couple of cheese and membrillo sandwiches to go with our Shandys, “See that bus stop over there?” I pointed to about 20 meters from us, “It’s going our way. If by chance it comes when we are exactly leaving and it seems natural and with the flow of things, we get on and take it. What do you think? Would that be a cheat?”

“Oh, there are no cheats on the Camino. I don’t mind walking though. I was planning on getting to Santillan del Mar today anyway. I would have stayed here just to be sociable though. It’s a big albergue there in Santillana. I think Heiko is there too. So yes, if it lines up perfectly. I will take the bus with you, but I would feel a bit weak for sitting at a stop and waiting.”

“The camino give you what you need, not what you want,” I say laughing.

The thought of catching Heiko again piqued my interest. How did he get ahead of me anyway? I was hoping I’d run into him when he passed me back in Pobena, but he must have been in a groove. When we were about to leave, a German couple arrived. The man’s shirtless skin, suntanned to a leathery gold, came up and threw his pack down and stretched his body out to the world, protruding any and all parts he could, establishing his territory, and then salutes us with a “Buen Camino.”

“Here, take a sticker and a card. when you get bored, listen to some of my music,” I say before they can order their beers.

“Oh, you have sticker? I have a sticker too!” he says triumphantly digging a Jerusalem Way sticker from his wallet giving it to me.

“Man. that’s awesome, but you’re going the wrong way. Jerusalem is East. We are going West.”

“You cheeky mother fucker,” suddenly his English betters, “I’m walking the Camino with my good woman friend here. Then when I’m finished, I walk from the End of the Earth to Jerusalem. I’m going the right way you bloody bastard.”

We laughed it off and slapped each other’s shoulders, I’m always a sucker for a little toxic masculinity, a little pissing contest if you will, a back and forth of shit talking for no reason at all except to see if the other guys got any balls. The sting of his open palm on my shoulder fired my little rage machines up and I felt my fists balling and trying to come up with something that would really sting, but only said, “Buen Camino! Maybe we will see you in Santillana del Mar tonight…if you make it that far.”

Johnny and I set off and not after 30 minutes I had to stop and adjust my sock and blister bandage. Johnny offered me a piece of his Compeed, and I plastered it over the blistering skin and put the sock back on correctly and we went about our way without much talk. I was looking up the times the bus would arrive to the stations along our route and calculating the distance and speed we were going to see if the Camino would give me what I wanted, fuck what I needed at this point. It was too hot. The ground was too hard. My legs too sore and my spirit a little dampened to have to walk so much further than I had planned. I put Manu Chao’s Clandestine album on and let the rhythm take me the rest of the way down the trail, stopping once more to smoke a spliff and break with Johnny.

“The Camino gives you what you need, not what you want,” Johnny reminds me snuffing out his cigarette butt before we push on, noticing me dragging a little bit.

Arriving into Santillana Del Mar is like traveling back in time. Everything is cobble stone and aside from all the modernly dressed Spanish tourists enjoying the start of Easter weekend, most of this place looks as it did back in the 16 century. I sit tired on the couch waiting for our turn to check in. The albergue is an old convent and despite the age was very well kept and super clean. There was a common area, a dining room, a large foyer, and a gigantic backyard with patio seating to lounge around in and meet other pilgrims. Despite a frowny face and dozing off every 30 seconds while waiting my turn to check in, I was super stoked.

Checking in at the Albergue in Santillan Del Mar

The receptionist informed us of a community meet and greet with prayer at 7:30 before the dinner. I opted not to pay the extra for the dinner so hoped most of the pilgrims would be at the meet and greet. Johnny and I checked into our room. They were assigning everyone two to a room with one bunk bed per room. They must have been the old monks or nun’s quarters back in the day. It was super clean, had a large window opening to a palm tree almost sticking inside our room and the beds were comfortable with electrical outlets on the wall adjacent to the pillow on each bunk. I was so glad we made it. It was already 7pm.

I showed and doctored my feet and dressed out to got to the meet and greet with prayer. I’d hoped to meet some other spiritual seekers on the journey. Some like-minded people who pray and meditate, who like Frued and Jung, who can see the condor and the eagle for the inherent beauty in each other. Maybe I would find them there. coming back into the room from showing and getting ready, I notice Johnny doctoring a humongous blister taking up half his foot. It’s almost like a half sock.

“Jesus man! What the fuck is that! How have you been walking all day? And you gave me Compeed for my small little pansy ass blister? What’s wrong with you?” I get excited by the site of exposed flesh.

“Ah, it’s nothing,” he pauses, and I look at him with disbelief, “Okay, I guess. It’s not nothing. But it isn’t too bad.

“Yea it’s not too bad, it’s the worst fucking blister I’ve ever seen in my life! It looks like you’re wearing a skin sock over a piece of raw chicken breast. Not too bad. No. it’s fucking terrible! You gotta do something.”

“Well, I was thinking I would take a rest day here and let it heal some.”

“And go to the pharmacy, man! They got good drugs here in Spain. They will get you something. Holy shit, Johnny. I’ve never seen anything like that.”

He smiles with a bit of pride as I go out and he continues his self-care routine. The meet and greet is terribly awkward. I’d hoped to be able to just observe and interact as I felt like it but there were so few there. There was a retired nun leading the group and she opened in prayer, then had everyone introduce themselves. Halfway through as everyone spoke in Spanish she looked at me and asked, “Are you understanding?”

I half-way was, as I was more in and out of my own thoughts and not paying too much attention to everyone introducing themselves. I felt like a child in a classroom caught by the teacher when supposed to be answering a very easy question, “Yes. Yes. I understand.”

“Would you mind translating into English for us then?”

A bit confused I agreed and started translating.

“Sir, what are you doing?”

“You asked me to translate into English, didn’t you?”

“No, I asked if you needed anything translated into English for you. Please stop translating for us. Thank you.”

I tried to figure out what it was that could make her speak to me that way, and realized I had my hair down and a beanie on. I was also a little high and looking like a character from a high school stoner movie. Maybe that was it. The meet and greet went on with another prayer and then finally a song with hand motions that the nun insisted we all do. Begrudgingly the group complies, and we run through her little chant of a song a few times, just when the entire group is sure she is finished and we’ve all been super kind to oblige her, she begins the round again, lifting her arms above her head with a sinister smile. A few of us erupt with laughter and the woman is shooken and glares down at us. “Fucking Pilgrims,” I thought as I wondered the halls back to my room. I rolled a spliff and as all the other pilgrims were eating a communal meal at 12 euros each, I went out and order a bottle of sider and a bowl of Fabada.

I was so hungry and tired from the days walk of nearly 24 miles, with the last part being unexpected and most definitely unwelcomed. I ate a few bites and would pour myself a swallow of sider, then step outside and take a couple puffs from a spliff and then repeated this series about 10 times over the course of an hour. I people watched the others and the others people watched me back, staring at my long hair and hippie/pilgrim garb. On one of my return trips back inside from hitting my spliff there was a group of three people now occupying the small space to my right on the bar mounted into the wall. The youngest of them seem to be but a teenager but bossed the other two like a princess out of some Disney movie. The two adults counseled her and advised her, even steered her thinking, still impressionable at this point, but she was audibly voicing her more mature desires to mingle among the people and chit chat over Fabada and sider. I made eyes with her. She smiled quickly without her caretakers noticing and turned back quickly to her conversation, “But why can’t I be like all the other girls? I want to go out and sit on the ground in the plazas and stay out all night with a bottle of red wine and my girlfriends, talking about boys and clothes and all the stuff young women talk about these days. I mean you won’t even allow me to have an Instagram. How else am I supposed to meet someone?”

I couldn’t help to listen to their conversation and grew more and more curious the more I couldn’t nail down exactly what was going on. Was this a member of the Spanish Royal Family? It certainly could be. This would be a place you’d take the great-Neice to as she was beginning to wish to exert her power over this world and travel about. I stepped out and took another puff on my spliff. I wondered how old she was. Couldn’t be more than 17, I thought. How fun would it be to steal away with a member of the Spanish Royal family? I thought of Aladin and movies like that. Anything’s possible right. I came back in to finish continuing eating and drinking my sider, the girl and her escorts were now pouring sider for themselves. To do it properly gives the drink its flavor and allows the liquid to dance on the tongue. You must hold the bottle above your head and the glass below your waist and by slightly tipping the bottle, allow the sider to pour out in one continuous stream as it hits the bottom of the glass, the impact providing the gassy texture when you drink it. The girl laughs as her they all take turns trying it out. I simply pour the sider into my glass from about a 1/2 meter away. It does the job I think and finish off the last couple pours from my bottle and the last bites of my Asturian Stew. I order another bottle of sider and drink it outside in the plaza.

Feeling a little tipsy I mosey back over to the albergue while meandering through the beautiful Spanish town. I can almost hear the horse drawn buggies and clopping of the hooves on the cobble stone and feel the old vendors and medieval people wandering in the cached data files of this ancient city. It was families and small groups everywhere. No sense of real party or communal holiday, just a tourist zone, each one taking their turn in the different shops and eateries. I smoke another spliff outside the entrance to the albergue and grabbed a beer from the vending machine. I went to the room to grab a couple Ibuprofen and Magnesium tablets and came back down to enjoy the beer with Jonny and a couple of other pilgrims sitting out on the patio.

An Irish woman named Linda has us all rolling with her accent and her stories, “My mum always said when you’re feelin bad, take a spot of whiskey and it will fix ya right up.” I can’t tell if we are laughing because she’s beautiful or because of the accent, but she has us all in the palm of her hand. “You boys better not get used to me cause mama needs some time alone in the mountains. I’ll head that way day after tomorrow.”

As I’m heading off to my bunk at about 10pm, a group of pilgrims, including the ones I’d met in the Bilbao hostel, are all scampering down the steps to the common room with a case of beer and heading to the patio. I have no desire to join them and make eyes with one of the guys from Hostel Quartier and neither of us hesitate to leave the other be, like two ships passing in the night. Before I can make it to the stairs leading to the rooms, I have to traverse a sea of about 10 pilgrims all congregating outside the dining room. I zig-zag through them before I hear, “You walked here?” with a tone of reprimand.

I turn to see Britta there and respond simply with, “Yes with Johnny. We got here at 7pm.”

“No seriously. Did you really walk here?” She asks again now calling the attention of those immediately around her onto us. “Like today?” she contiued.

“Yes I walked all day with Johnny. You probably saw him at dinner.” I responded a little defensively.

“Well, you told me you were staying in Santander. Did you really walk here?” she asked again.

I started moving toward the stairs and out of their little group as I retorted, “Are you interrogating me, or what?”

The group that was listening to us all laughed, and I managed to escape to my room. Despite being a little perturbed at Britta’s public accusation that I wasn’t walking, I’m asleep within seconds of my head hitting my pillow.