As I was checking my email, Richard, whom I hadn't seen since his bedbug attack in Cobreces, appeared. It was like seeing a long lost brother. We decided to go for some pulpo ( deep fried octopus) at Ezequiel's, famous along the Camino for this Galician delicacy, and talk over our adventures. Richard had chosen to go on the Primitivo, which he hadn't planned, and had loved the remoteness, though he said he was often lonely. His knees had behaved, and he told me that the profiles in the guide gave an exaggerated view of the steepness. So, in the end, perhaps I could have done it? We won't know unless another opportunity presents itself.
Pulpo looks better than it is. I've always taken a dim view of eating an animal as intelligent as an octopus, but I decided to give it a shot. I like the firmness of the white flesh, and I like the paprika spice, but there's an element of singed rubber mixed with fishiness in the flavour that is offputting, not to mention that they leave the suckers on, which provides an unwelcome element of texture. Still, with enough white wine and hunks off bread, I could get at least some of it down me.
The Oregonians turned up too. I hadn't seen them for a day, and was pleased to hear that they were enjoying themselves, and that they'd finally been able to reach their father/husband, who'd been lost in the wilds of Madrid. They didn't much like the pulpo either, judging by how much was left on the wooden charger.
I missed seeing a parade of 100 horses. On the other hand, I received a chocolate from the owner of a bar who was celebrating his one year anniversary of opening. On the other hand, in the same bar, I was chastised severely, in Galician Spanish, by an old man who believed that by turning my back on him to look at the television on the wall behind us, I was behaving very badly indeed. Por favor! I don't speak enough Spanish to have defended myself, so I just told the barkeep to apologize on my behalf. The old man refused to look at me. Who was really being rude here? I asked myself.
Later that evening, I was surprised to see the loving couple, literally falling down in the street, three sheets to the wind, but still planning to head to Ribadiso. They shouted out a hearty greeting, and moved on, supporting each other, and moving at the solemn pace of the very drunk. Also falling in the street was a young peregrina, with a heavily bandaged knee. She was crying with the pain, but refused to stop walking, despite the counsel of her friends.
I went to the local museum, which was reassuringly just like small town museums everywhere, where I saw an amazing overcoat or abrigo made from grasses. Like a thatched roof, it shed the moisture. I liked the ingenuity that created utility from the most humble materials, and I liked the way it must have made the wearer just like part of the landscape, in the way that a ghillie suit camouflages the soldier or hunter. When I got back to the albergue, my landlady was making lace. A vegetable market had sprung up, transforming a derelict square into a cornucopia of local lush greenery. It made you feel as if globalization might not have its nasty creeping tendrils everywhere, or that in Galicia, perhaps the locals had hacked those tendrils off with a sturdy hay knife, and started the fire with them. Waste not, want not.
The next morning, I was sitting in a cafe with my zumo de naranjas, freshly squeezed, and my newly discovered delicacy, larpeira, (of which more, later) when the Oregonians arrived....of all the cafes, in all the towns.....it was getting to be a shared joke! Fancy meeting you here!
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