This past weekend, Lauren and I decided to participate in an (extremely) abridged version of the Camino de Santiago, a pilgrimage route through northern Spain. I had done a few (okay, TWO) days worth of el Camino with Mark and Annette one of my first weekends in Spain, but life got busy over the past two years and I never made it back. Until now.
Lauren and I were far from expert peregrinos (pilgrims). In fact, we decided we could have created a hashtag about our shortcomings, #caminewbs, and had a pretty decent twitter feed going. What we lacked in preparedness, however, we made up for in creativity. Early on, Lauren came up with a unique way of peregrino watching: making a bingo board to fill in with our sitings along the way.
Hence, our adventures as the Caminewbs de Santabingo.
Unfortunately, we never got bingo. But we did get: Danish flag, sheep, twins, guten tag, hiking in sandals, camping, PDA, and < 15. Not too shabby!
Now that we're on the same page, let me start from the beginning...
On Sunday morning, Lauren and I arrived to Santiago bright and early, thanks to our 6:30 AM Ryanair flight. (Oh, Ryanair... I will miss your prices, but not your flying experience.) Shortly after, Matt (another Fulbrighter) rolled in on his night bus and joined us for our day's adventures.
After a leisurely breakfast alongside peregrinos who had finished the previous day but were still accustomed to waking up at the crack of dawn, we headed to the plaza in front of the cathedral to do some people watching and to show off our Fulbright España gear. After all, Fulbright España just won the Príncipe de Asturias award (similar to the Nobel Prize for Spaniards) for its international cooperation. Represent!
Cheese it! This hat got Lauren into a conversation about Fulbright with a stranger within the first 30 minutes!
The only baseball hat that I have ever gotten that almost fits me... it must be child sized.
After some quality people watching (and some terrible street performer observing), we decided to check out the inside of the cathedral. And since it was Sunday, we did so by attending mass. It was difficult for me to engage since mass has a quite a few calls and responses that I don't know in English, let alone in Spanish. However, it was clear from the priest's approach to his message that he is used to visitors from different countries and different walks of faith and I appreciated the chance to hear him speak.
After mass, we headed out for lunch and I finally tried pulpo a la gallega (polbo á feira in Gallego) in the region of Spain it comes from! It was an achievement, though in the end I wasn't overly impressed. Perhaps it's just not my favorite way of eating octupus.
I do really like the plate though...
In the late afternoon Lauren and I said goodbye to Matt and headed for the bus station, where we took a 40 minute bus ride to the beginning of our camino journey, the small town of Arzúa.
Reality check: We then spent 11 hours over the course of two days walking back to Santiago de Compostela. #Caminewbs, YES.
When we arrived in Arzúa, we went to an albergue (hostel, but with more beds per room) that I had called earlier in the day. The price per bed was €10 so we figured it was a great option. We didn't realize that €10 meant it didn't have sheets (#caminewbs)... which we would soon discover were necessary for nights in northern Spain. Live and learn.
After showing us our beds, the hostel worker didn't take our money, instead encouraging us to shower immediately and pay later. Neither Lauren nor I had the guts to tell her that we hadn't walked that day... or at last not for more than a half an hour at a time when we were leisurely exploring Santiago. So we sheepishly went to our rooms, put our backpacks away, and awkwardly returned 10 minutes later with the money and our almost empty pilgrimage accreditation book to get it stamped. (Looking back on things, maybe we looked dirty?)
I say almost empty because I did in fact have a few stamps from my walk from Logroño to Santo Domingo. And Lauren also had a stamp because when she bought her accreditation in Santiago de Compostela (the END of the camino, #caminewbs), the worker asked her if she wanted the stamp. Still drowsy from our early morning flight, Lauren said yes. Thankfully, the hostel worker didn't bother to ask us about our lack of stamps or why Lauren's only stamp showed that she had arrived to the last city.
After paying for the hostel, we sat down to an early dinner so that we could go to bed shortly after. It was during dinner that we realized that with restaurants serving menú for lunch AND dinner, we definitely wouldn't be going hungry.
Pueblo prices: 2 plates, a drink, bread, coffee AND dessert for €9.90?!
When Lauren and I went to bed right after 10:00 (The time for lights out in albergues!), we tried not to draw too much attention to the fact that we were huddling under our still-unused towels and wearing our jackets... or in my case, a cardigan sweater (#caminewbs). We set our alarms for 6:45 and went to bed excited about being well rested for our first (and second-to-last) day of walking.
Well, little did we realize that 6:45 was way too late. The Frenchman who snored next to me all night was up and gone by 5:30 and many others were also gone by the time I finally got out of bed at 6:15. I checked on Lauren and we decided that there was no use in trying to attempt another half hour of sleep. When we were both out of our beds, one of the older peregrinos walked over and turned on the lights. Yep, apparently we were the LAST people still in our beds at 6:15... #caminewbs.
We had the bathroom to ourselves as we brushed our teeth and put our jackets back on to face the chilly morning weather. We managed to make it out of the hostel before a few of the peregrinos and contentedly set off, starting off our day with a beautiful sunrise.
It's been a while since I've seen a sunrise!
Land really is the best art.
- Andy Warhol
As we walked, I paid attention to my surroundings in a way that I rarely do in Madrid. I noticed the spots on the inside of flowers and the shadows that create their own beautiful image on the sidewalk. I smelled "green" and remembered that such pristine nature is a wonderful gift that needs to be appreciated and protected (by Lauren, who picked up peregrinos' trash whenever she saw it). The two days were a wonderful way to disconnect from city life and relax amid the emotionally-draining experience of moving away from Madrid.
These were novel the first hour... then I realized after seeing them EVERYWHERE that they must be one of Galicía's more common flowers.
After about 20 kilometers of walking and a few snack breaks, we arrived to Pedrouzo, our day's destination. On our way into the pueblo we found this nice sign...
Take what you need: To be heard, luck, inspiration, play, happiness, peace, beauty, silence, a break, breath, passion, optimisim.
It was a very nice motivator, but at the moment we arrived, what Lauren and I really needed were sheets. We had to shower that evening and didn't think our wet towels would keep us warm very well.
So, we decided that it was probably worth upgrading. We went big and rented a room in a pensión (similar to a B&B), where we had our own room (aka NO snoring) and a private bathroom with the best shower that either of us had experienced in the entire country. To us it was definitely worth the €22.50 per person, though some might call us pijas.
The owner of the pensión, surveying his advertisement methods, asked us how we had found his place. From his expression, it seemed he had never heard, "Well, we were walking past and it looked like it would have sheets." We then had to explain that we didn't have sheets the previous night and had used our towels. We blamed our unpreparedness on the fact that it was our first official day of vacation and we were a bit disorganized.
Owner: Wait, this is your first day of vacation?
Amber and Lauren: Yep!
Owner: But how then did you...
Amber and Lauren: Oh yeah, the 31 day camino that we are supposedly on the 30th day of... nope, we started today.
Owner: Today?
Amber and Lauren: Yeah...
Owner: So you only walked today? Okay...
I don't think he was judging us too much.
Enjoying our luxury lodging
Our adventures in Pedrouzo weren't too much to write home about... we ate lunch out in our grungy clothes (the camino is the only time that is socially acceptable), napped, read, and watched the Germany vs. Portugal World Cup game (Ronaldo: "I would like to be 110% fit but I am 100% fit and that should be enough to help the national team"... Guess not!).
Then, since we weren't blown away by our lunch, we went grocery shopping for dinner. After smelling pizzas in the bar where we watched the game, we decided a frozen pizza would be easy and would hit the spot. However, we hadn't taken a good look at the kitchen facilities. Though it was fully equipped, it was Galician equipped and the oven looked like this...
Yep, a wood oven.
We quickly decided it wasn't worth warming up the entire house in mid-June just to make a frozen pizza, so we got creative and made our pizza in a frying pan.
#CAMINUBES.
It was terrible. We got distracted chatting and eating with the other guests, Germans, who were kind enough to share their bread, cheese, and cherries with us. While we attempted to eat the pizza, the Germans chuckled at our pathetic dinner, a Dutch guest came down to ask what the terrible smell was, and we accepted that we were going to have to take full advantage of the older German peregrinos' generosity with their leftovers. After all, our pizza was black more than halfway through the crust. I don't think they believed me when I said that normally I'm a pretty good cook.
That event opened the conversation up and after about 30 minutes, they were roaring in laughter at our one day camino experience. One of the peregrinos showed us pictures of his different albergue stays (One with 130 people in an old chapel... imagine the acoustics of that snoring!) and we admitted to all of the failures that we had been keeping under wraps.
Then around 10 PM, one of the workers came out and told us that we had to keep it down... our group was being a bit too rambunctious. So we said goodbye and expressed our hope that we would run into them the next day. But they told us they were the "relaxed Germans" and weren't planning on starting until 9 AM the next day. They didn't seem to believe us when we said we would be walking by 6:45-7:00 AM. "We'll see..." they said. To which Lauren responded, "Or you won't! Because we'll be gone!"
And gone we were, following the little yellow arrows, stopping for orange juice and people watching, and chatting away as we enjoyed walking another 20 kilometers through Galicia.
We don't know where life will lead us post Fulbright life, but for now we'll just keep following these little yellow arrows we keep finding!
A sculpture on our way into Santiago
Back in the city!
Post-camino we checked into a hostel with paper sheets (we couldn't decide if that counts as sheets or not... probably not...), showered, and went back to the plaza to watch the peregrinos arrive. Unfortunately, we never ran into the Germans again, but we did meet up with María, the girl who had the farm in Galicia that I WWOOFed at earlier this year. It was a wonderful surprise to meet up once again and say goodbye. Or hasta luego.
In the main plaza of Santiago de Compostela
Well, once again I caught the camino bug. It was an incredible two days spent in a unique culture and community of people that I would love to invest more in at some point in life. Hopefully in one of my visits to Spain (because I AM visiting in the future!) I will get the chance to do a much longer part of the camino or even the whole thing... with sheets.
Much love from Spain,
Amber
