From Portomarin, I had planned a short day of seventeen kilometres. My legs were tired. The same thing had happened to me on my previous trip at about the same time. Although my spirit was full of enthusiasm, my body was reminding me that I was a fifty three year old woman. Fifty three may be a prime number, but I was not feeling in my prime. Nevertheless, I was having a wonderful time in beautiful green Galicia.
It was an all-day climb out of Portomarin. I fell in with a Dutch woman I'd met near Barbadello. We'd be playing tag for most of the day, after which I wouldn't see her again. I complimented her on the lightness of her pack, at which she told me that she was walking sin mochila. This was just her day pack! A lightbulb went on in my head. All those people I'd seen with impossibly light packs, those people I'd tried so hard to emulate all this time, were having their backpacks taxied! I felt very dumb, not for walking with a pack, but for not realizing what was going on. Suddenly, I felt stronger.
There were parts of the route I didn't remember, and I suspected, by all the clear cutting I was seeing that perhaps the route had been changed a bit. It was nice to be walking somewhere new, yet familiar. All the major landmarks were there for reassurance, the cafe at Ventas, the cruceiro at Ligonde. I was amazed how much the plantings along the highway had grown up in just three years. Where before, the stretch between Toxibo and Ventas de Naron had been hot and open, now there was some considerable shade from the spring sunshine. I returned to the cafe where I'd had dinner with my Australian friend Vita who shared the last days with me last time. It was a little bit surreal to be feeling nostalgic for an adventure while in the middle of the same adventure.
In Toxibo, I admired the smoky hills in the distance. I didn't enjoy the smoke from a nearby fertilizer plant though. Its extremely difficult to hike along uphill while holding your breath, and I renamed the place Toxico.
It was here where I met a young Spanish peregrina, lagging behind her companions and looking very sorry for herself. Animo! I said quietly to her as I passed. It was a gamble, because there was no guarantee she would take that admonition, which translates roughly as "Chin up!", well, but to my relief she smiled and dug in her heels. I think she just needed someone to notice her struggle and to be on her side. I'd had so much kindness come my way I was glad to be someone else's leg up.
I was feeling thankful for clean clothes. I'd had the luxury of a real washer and dryer in Portomarin. It was amazing how much more fresh I felt . The stretches of pavement made me feel thankful for every time my foot fell upon the soft forest duff. It was like sinking into the earth's embrace. I really was sauntering today.
Ligonde had been a memorable place for me in 2008. Here I had seen a stone sarcophagus of ancient origin being used as a cattle trough; a field which housed a medieval pilgrim cemetery, and a house, now a cattle barn, where Philip II had slept on his way to England to marry Mary Tudor. Cattle was still king, as we learned to our chagrin as we were caught in a Pilgrim traffic jam behind a herd going down the main street; but Ligonde was changing.
I hardly recognized the sleepy little village of old. Drains were being put in under the road, and we had to walk the plank all the way through town. Stones were being repointed, and windows replaced. Large banners proclaimed that the work was being done by the Xunta de Galicia. I caught a glimpse of the cemetery, behind some earthmoving equipment, but I didn't see the royal barn or the trough of the dead. I missed that.
On this day of revisitation, I had one more stop to make. Here is an excerpt from my 2008 diary to set the scene:
By the time I reached the gorgeous hamlet of C........, the sky was looking distinctly grim. I stopped, awestruck , in front of what would have been the manor house, had this been England. This was definitely one for the ‘places I could really live” file. It was stone with white parging and exposed quoins. It commanded the road. It, and its outbuildings, was kept immaculately. Even though the house was evidently 18th century, the guidebook said that the village had been the site of a Celtic castro, and Roman camp. It felt old, and I think that was why I liked it.
The skies let loose with thunder and lightning while I was gawping, and I ran for the porch of a hostal just up the street, and watched it pour down. As soon as it stopped, I was off up the hill, where I reached a small open bar with a dutch door, just as it promised to let go again.
I scuttled inside and settled in for the duration. The young girl behind the bar, an angelic blonde in slippers and a house dress, looked very much out of her proper element. She was a radiant beauty, and I wondered how long the place could hold her. I soon discovered one of the reasons that she might be staying. On a bench against the back wall, a pile of plaid blankets stirred. It turned out to be her semi-comatose father. Whether he was sick or whether he was sleeping one off I didn’t discover, but evidently she was running the show. She and I watched the news on TV and gazed out the open door at the rain on the hills. Eventually, I decided that I was just going to have to get wet, so I thanked her, she wished me “Buen Camino”, and I went on.
Three years later, the open fire was still burning in the grate, the news was still on the TV, and still almost as incomprehensible as before, but the old man was gone, as I knew he would be. The bar was no longer dark, but painted a lovely pink tone. My chica, was still there! I told her that I remembered her from 2008. She smiled ruefully, saying that she was older now, and that she'd been in that cafe for twelve years. And it was true. She looked a lot older and more like she belonged. Her hair was duller and her teeth were not what they might have been. Maybe I'd been under an enchantment on my earlier trip, because C......... was not as I remembered it either. It felt oddly nice to see someone familiar though. We talked about how the crowds had been in Holy Year. "Orriblay", she said. I promised that if I came back again,we'd have another visit. Part of me hopes she will be there, and part of me, for her sake, hopes she finds something more exciting to do.
She had some beautiful pink pilgrim shells on the counter. I always wait until I find the one that speaks to me, and here it was. I like the pink ones, and this one was highly coloured with bands of pink shading to maroon and purple. Funny how it took until the end of the trip to find what I was looking for. And I don't just mean the shell; I was finally "feeling" the Camino as I had the first time.
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