Walking the Questions

 What does belonging mean? What is my territory? What is yours? What do you truly own? Where is the wild? How to listen to non-human voices? What is the power of slowness? The best way to answer questions is to live them and in order to do that I went on a slow journey with simple means through northern Spain from my home in Barcelona to The Foundry in Galicia, 6 weeks mainly on foot, moving attentively through the world to encounter people, places, none-human beings, to find new stories and new questions.

I walked in the three piece business suit I had worn daily for a year and embroidered with questions people asked me through calls on social media or when encountering me walking around in the suit. The suit gives the walk a performative aspect and in every new walking project in a suit (this is nr. 8) new meaning is added to the body of work. It addresses ecology, politics, gender issues, capitalism, the outside versus the inside (how we deal with appearances), the history of walking (a business suit is still officially called a three-piece walking suit) and many other things.

This time an unplanned extra focus on climate change – its causes and results – happened because the month I started my walk turned out to be the hottest month ever recorded on earth, or to put it in a question: “To what extend are the men in suits responsible for what is happening?” Still, all the questions are equally important and are connected to the other ones somehow.

I walked without planning, being guided by and putting my trust in the world, carrying everything I needed to survive outdoors in a walking cart, going through life with simple means, improvising, giving time to everything and everybody asking for it.

Although there was a final destination, the conference Territory beyond State and Property, organised by the Foundry – a non-profit space for artists, writers, artisans and other creators who seek to work outside of the institutional confines of market and university – the journey itself was the goal and the main work; a performative walking around of questions, of being in and connecting with the world in a different way.

The Foundry

 

It was never about arriving somewhere, but at some point I was almost at my destination. It is one of the strangest moments in a long walk, having crossed mountains and plains, having met dozens of people, having slept in the most comfortable and uncomfortable places and then one morning there are only 36 kilometers left, 25, 13, 7, 3, 5, 3 (how on earth did I take a wrong turn in the last couple of kilometres) and there it is, already in sight, although the road there hasn’t ended yet. I took a break with 500 metres left, to postpone something ending. I longed for a room of my own, a proper bed, a table to spread out the collection of treasures that had no value for anybody but me, but I would miss stretching out my arms in the morning and feel leaves and grass, waking up in a place I had no knowledge of until I arrived there in the evening.
Ten days later I would be asked by Victoriia, one of the Ukrainian artists staying at the Foundry, to reenact my arrival so she could take photos of me. I had forgotten some things she remembered, because she was there when I arrived, she saw me cross the bridge while the evening was falling, wondering where to enter the building, detaching the walking cart from my body, opening the door.
In a way it didn’t feel different from arriving at any of the other locations where I arrived after a day of walking, my feet hurt a bit more because I walked more than I usually would in the last 2 days and I guess I accomplished something by getting to a place after roughly 1400 kilometres of which approximately 700 were on foot. Still the distance is a side issue, it isn’t about achieving a walk, a slow journey, it is only a way to be. To be at, to be in, to be close to, to be under, to just be. Now I was here. There would be a different kind of journey tomorrow and the day after.

On my first full day I explored but throughout the week I would keep discovering new corners, buildings, paths, I would meet new people, hear new stories. The site was an ironworks in the 15th century, the castle that came afterwards didn’t survive Napoleon’s armies and the stones from the ruin were used to build a manor house. In the 1970s it was deserted and stayed like that for decades until new life was blown into it in 2018 and it became a non-profit space for creators of any kind “who seek outside of the institutional confines of market and university”: The Foundry, a site that “stresses that critical thinking is a way of living rooted in engagements with one another and with the environment”. Everybody is welcome and all are using and taking care of the shared space in a non-hierarchical way. Although the site was still privately owned, the goal was to create a legal model against real estate speculation and hand over 50% of the ownership to the to be founded Sindicato de la Tierra, which would make it impossible to sell it and safeguard its function of a free space, a model that could be used for other properties as well and would help collectives with similar goals as the Foundry to acquire a place to live and work..

In the week after my arrival we learned about different ways of commoning in Galicia (the commons are the cultural and natural resources accessible to all members of a society, commoning is a way to describe the commons as an actionable idea, not just a place. With commoning, rather than having everything decided for by markets or governments, it is possible to take matters in one’s own hands according to shared visions). The Sindicato de la Tierra and the Foundry itself are initiatives that attempt to construct a new type of commons to limit the hold of capitalism over our lives. Noortje Keurhof came to talk about the Brigadas Deseucaliptizadoras; a lot of Galicia’s common lands are covered in monoculture tree plantations, the eucalyptus trees are invasive, deplete the soil and form a risk in case of forest fires. The Brigadas work together with the local communities, removing the trees from common land.
Sabrina Rosina took us on a walk to reimagine and redefine territorial boundaries through the lens of botanical wisdom and gain insights into the symbiotic relationship between nature and human systems. Kilian Jörg talked about the car as a main driver and embodiment of the Homogenocene—the ecological era that is about the homogenization of biodiversity as a result of people—and discussed possibilities of undoing its auto-destructive homogenisation of landscapes, desires and economies. There was a debate about rural gentrification, two lawyers from Despacho came to explain the Sindicato de la Tierra, there was a communal work day and presentations by the Ukranian artists staying at the Foundry. On the last day, Dennis Schep presented his upcoming book “Bloom; Iron and the Theft of Space and Time”, written inspired by the Foundry’s history, Peyton Chipman and Siddiq Chan gave a workshop about fermenting and local products, Davoud Gerami showed us his movie “Age of Iron” and I gave a presentation about my walk. It was mainly improvised since I had prioritised spending time with everybody involved in the programme and the Foundry over sinking into all the material I collected and wrote during the walk. I used apples from the trees in the field outside to map my route, so that afterwards they could be transformed into community cider.

Day 40

Is there a difference between a person offering you shelter or nature offering you shelter? Most of us would think that if somebody invites you into their home to spend the night there, safe from cold and rain and anything that could cause harm to you or make you uncomfortable, they are offering you something whereas when you spend the night under an overhanging rock away from the beaten track, it is you who found the perfect place. But didn’t you also find the person who gave you shelter and didn’t nature offer you this opportunity to be comfortable at night?

 

 

 

 

Day 39

 

Day 38

 

Day 37

The pilgrims were gone. The last I had seen of them was when I left Ribadeo and passed the Albergue Pelegrino, situated at a privileged location just outside the city, at the water next to the bridge connecting Asturias and Galicia. Many people were waiting outside already to claim a bed. I will never understand this focus on arriving, on treating the walking as a means to get somewhere, not as the goal itself. It was shortly after twelve, I had only just started walking, I was in no hurry. It was easy to navigate, I followed the Camino Natural de la Ruta del Cantábrico, named after the Cantabrian Sea, the coastal sea of the Atlantic Ocean that borders the northern coast of Spain, the sea was right next to me most of the time. The pilgrims were following another route, inland in the direction of Lugo and to Santiago de Compostela from there.
I had seen pictures of As Catedrais, The Cathedrals, and had seen it described somewhere as “a natural monument with a supernational dimension”. The cathedral of the sea, rocks that had been hollowed out century after century to form arches within arches, resembling human-built flying buttresses, accessible at low tide. Several people had told me I shouldn’t miss them. It made me cautious, because I know that if you have certain expectations about something that is a kind of world wonder, there is a big chance you will be disappointed, especially since these monuments and places attract many visitors and often have restricted access. I’ve never been more impressed by something I planned to visit and had knowledge about before seeing it than I’ve been by unexpected landscapes, buildings, weather circumstances, historical sites, objects or living presences.
It was a 12 kilometre walk to Rinlo, a fishing village with 300 inhabitants, once a whaling port, and from there another 4 kilometres to As Catedrais beach. I found the first part breathtaking, no doubt it helped that the weather was fine and I was alone in the landscape for most of the walk. Sometimes it diverted from the coastline and led through fields but most of the time only a narrow strip of overgrown soil and barren rocks seperated the sandy trail from the sea. The stones were scattered with yellow lichen and sea figs, carpobrotus chilensis, grew everywhere, showing off their bright magenta flowers. I nibbled on some leaves and put some in my bag, apart from being edible the leave juice can be applied to the skin and is a calming curative for anything ranging from insect stings and cracked lips to burns, bruises and more severe skin conditions. The flowers close at night and open again in the morning.
In every walk there is at least one moment when everything falls into place, when doubts disappear, questions have dissolved, when all there is is being in this moment and nothing else matters. It hadn’t happen on this walk yet and I hadn’t thought about it but there is was, when I was sitting on a rocky plateau looking out over the ocean. “If I would fall down this cliff now, I wouldn’t mind”, I thought, not meaning I was tempted to actually jump off, rather the opposite. I am not sure how to explain this, I know the beauty and tranquility of a location can be of help but isn’t a prerequisite. I suspect reaching a point in a process (in this case the walking) where you’ve partially relied on will power to get where you are has something to do with it. I sat there for a long time, at some point quite aware of the question embroidered on my left trouser leg: “What is success?”
My favourite places are always the places where the aura of what has been there for a long time isn’t disturbed by humans to the extend that it has overtaken the essence of a place. Rinlo was a good example of that. It wasn’t in any of the “most beautiful villages in Spain” lists but I liked it more than the villages I’ve been to that are. It was small, with narrow streets and brightly painted houses, a lot of them having little vegetable gardens. It was lunch time and it it smelled of seafood everywhere. If you would think away the cars, you could easily imagine yourself being in another era.
After Rinlo everything changed. Access to nature was restricted to the path that turned into a long wooden construction to protect the natural environment from the big amount of people visiting daily. When I reached As Catedrais I didn’t go down to the beach, but promised to come back one day in winter, on a windy weekday morning before sunrise.

 

 

Day 36

Luarca was a charming coastal village, the harbour in the centre of town opening up to the Bay of Biscay and home to a fleet of beautiful little boats, most of them used for fishing, the posh tourist vessels completely absent. “You are in luck” the waitress said, “because of yesterday’s festivities all the boats are decorated”. I had indeed noticed the garlands in-between the masts of most boats. A party victim was still seated at the bar, asleep, an open bottle of beer in front of him. He smelled horrible and when he opened his eyes for a moment he didn’t seem to register anything.
I was still in Asturias, it would have been nice to just walk along the coast but if I wanted to arrive on the 20th as planned, there were only 5 walking days left and I wanted to have some time in Galicia as well.
A few people were waiting at the station. There was no ticket office, no information and no train arrived at the time it was supposed to. A man with a big backpack noticed my confusion and showed me his phone, it said the train was arriving in 23 minutes. He pointed at a QR code on one of the windows, scanning it gave you the real-time location of the train and the remaining minutes to the station. “Modern technology keeps amazing me” I said, pronouncing the Spanish words clearly since he spoke like somebody who couldn’t hear his own words but was eager to talk. He confirmed when i asked if he could read my lips. We talked for a while about where we walked and where we were heading and I was curious what his experience was as a deaf person walking the Camino but I didn’t ask because it must be something a lot of people ask him and it is tiring to answer the usual questions in new encounters.
I hadn’t thought through where I was going to get out so I just followed his example and bought a ticket to Tapia de Casariego, “one of the most beautiful villages in Asturias”. From Tapia station it was a 2 hour walk to Ribadeo, my goal for the day, but when I checked my map and saw that the village was nowhere near the station and visiting it would add 2 hours to the route, I leaned back and enjoyed the train ride a bit longer. The Ribadeo estuary, a narrow inlet that measures 10 kilometres and forms the border between Asturias and Galicia, can be crossed by car but not by train so we rode all the way around it, going south through Castropol and Vegadeo, then north again.
Ribadeo was home to the “Indianos”, people who left the area in the 19th century in search of fortune in the Americas, in particular Cuba, Mexico, Argentina and Venezuela, and who returned to Ribadeo after having been successful overseas, building majestic mansions - casas de indianos - and investing money in the community of Ribadeo by building schools, hospitals and cultural centers. Maybe because of the splendour and the variety of the city center, it felt much bigger to me than the current home of 10.000 people, or it could have been because everybody was gathered in the street I walked through: I landed in the middle of the Fiesta de San Roque, the co-patron of the town. The parade, where he was going to be carried around in his giant personification and people wear giant masks, was about to begin or had just finished.  
My sleeping place for the night was situated in the oldest and more quiet part, close to the harbour. The hostel itself breathed tranquility as well, decorated tastefully inside, while outside in the communal garden land and sea merged under a big fig tree: fossils and crystals were placed in-between the plants and from the branches of the tree, sea creatures made out of plastic waste were hanging, floating in the air. I felt immediately at home, even more when I explored the neighbourhood that had a timeless feel to it and where in a little park a small village was built that offered shelter to the stray neighbourhood cats. “There is no need to lock the door” Angel told me. “Everybody knows each other here, we’re like a big family. Nothing anybody does here goes unseen”. I know what that is like, having grown up in a village, but many times smaller than Ribadeo. Social cohesion and a mutual responsibility and care for the space you share has its benefits but it also has its downsides when you care about your privacy. I guess it is a price you have to be willing to pay and the trick is always not to be influenced too much by what your neighbours think of you.
One of the things that stood out were the signs with street-names and places of interest: white tiles with blue lettering and decoration, the names and text written in Galician or Galego, the co-official language with Spanish in Galicia and by law the first language of the local administrations and governments. During the Franco regime the written or public use of Galician was forbidden, these days the most common language for everyday use in the largest cities of Galicia is Spanish rather than Galician, however, Galician is still the main language in rural areas. The emblematic lettering on the tiles was designed by Sargadelos, the 19th century Galician porcelain maker that was revived in the mid-twentieth century with a mission to promote the motifs, forms and colours of Galician culture. My host had told me about the factory, urging me to make a little detour and visit the village where it was situated. For Sargadelos, a cultural icon, the commission came at the right moment: it wasn’t doing well financially and on top of that a new owner and company structure had led to questions about cultural legitimacy.
From the hostel it was a small walk to the harbour, through one of the narrow streets with houses painted in pale blue, light yellow, creamy white. In a red house with a white wooden door, Fernando Bellón Fernández once lived. “Aquí viviu Fernando Bellón Fernández nado 1905” a shiny metal plaque on the sidewalk said. He wasn’t a famous writer or politician or Indiano. He was just a man living in this house, a mariner who fought in the civil war. “Executado 29.12.1936 Lugo”.

Day 35

It was a tough walk from Soto de Luiña along the Asturian coast, going down into a forest to a river or stream at the lowest point and then up again for 6 or 7 times, rocky paths, muddy and slippery after the rain started. The sea was there from time to time, mostly from a distance, but sometimes almost at your feet if you were willing to make a little detour. I decided to walk to the Playa del Silencio, the Beach of Silence, but the amount of cars driving there made it clear there was not going to be much silence to be found. The views from the car park were beautiful though. Two and a half hours later I found myself on a beach that was noisy in its own amazing way, Rio Cabo beach, also known as Ballota beach, where the Cabo river ends and the sea begins. High cliffs, giant rocks sticking out of the wild sea and a beach consisting of uncountable stones and pebbles. Every time the waves crashed on the beach and the water withdrew again, thousands and thousands of stones moved against each other and created a sound that was the opposite of, but just as intense as complete silence. There was nobody there, just me and some sea gulls. I sat down and listened for a long time, feeling very small in the middle of these forces of nature.

The rain started again, C. had transformed from a black cart into a sky blue and fluorescent yellow walking trolley, my grey suit was hidden under a bright red rain poncho. When I took a break to catch my breath after another long climb out of a forest, a man offered me the bench under the roof of his house. I had noticed earlier that a lot of people looked a bit stern or sombre but every time you said buenas dias to them, suddenly a genuine smile appeared.

My aim was an albergue pelegrino, a pilgrim hostel, that had a field for tents. A bed and a roof would be nice with all this rain but I knew chances were small. There seem to be less facilities here than there are on the Camino Frances and most people either reserve a bed beforehand or they leave very early to arrive early and claim a bed. First come, first served. At the albergue where I camped last night I got a bit tired of all the people (it was a massive place with at least 80 beds, I was happy to be outside) asking each other where they were going the next day, if they had a reservation already, people who didn`t know yet spending most of the evening on their phone checking the Camino apps, even a big group of Gemans spending at least 20 minutes trying to figure out online which restaurant was open and which one was the best: the village was very small, we were a few minutes on foot away from the central square and 1 minute from the edge of town. I bought a pack of ice creams there at a supermarket, because buying 1 at a bar is just as expensive as buying a pack in a supermarket and then you can share them, which I did. People seemed to be surprised, somebody even offered me money. Somebody else said there was a freezer so I could store them for myself instead of handing them out. I could indeed, but why?

The pilgrim hostel I ended up in today was very different from the one in Soto de Luiña but it wasn`t the one I aimed for. That one was full, as I thought it would be, and camping was possible but for some reason I couldn`t pitch my tent until 20.30 and it was 18.30 when I arrived, cold and hungry. The place was in a rundown state, the man who was in charge arrived at 19.00 to collect the money from the 11 people plus 1 (who stayed in the garage on a stretcher because he had a small friendly silent dog that wasn`t allowed inside) and he seemed to be very impatient and unfriendly, talking in Spanish at double speed, annoyed when somebody didn`t understand him or didn`t have the exact amount of 6 euros, then telling me he would take me to some other place where there was a bed. There was no time to discuss, or think about my options, he was already putting the seats in the car down to load C. in the back. “We have to take the highway” he said. Where on earth were we going? Better stay here and try to install my tent? The drizzle turned into a proper shower, I had my answer. I jumped in the car and during the drive I realised he was not unfriendly at all, just very hurried and stressed. He told me there was a network to make sure every pilgrim had a place to stay at night, here they had been dealing with lack of financial support and other difficulties so it was hard to offer people proper lodging but they always found a solution and he and other volunteers often drove people to hostels that were a bit further away from the Camino.
He dropped me off in the middle of nowhere, handed me over to the man in charge there who assigned me the last bed in a room with 15 bunk beds, people were walking around everywhere. I felt lost, longed for my tent, but was grateful as well, especially when I saw the paella that was about to be served. Places like this, donation based, offer something else than the places where you have more privacy and facilities. I was welcomed with open arms, given time to settle in and allowed to eat my diner outside on my own. “Some people need silence” my host said and winked at me, “everybody does the Camino in their own way and I know who the real pilgrims are”. I didn`t tell him I wasn`t walking the Camino even when I was on the Camino but I think that it wouldn`t have made a difference to him. I am not sure what his story was, all he shared was that he had come here for the first time as a pilgrim, on his way to Santiago and the only way I found out he was religious was when I broke a glass and I apologised and he said “You don`t have to apologise to me, only to the Lord”.
In the morning, almost ready to leave, I watched the 2 ponies on the other side of the street and he joined me and told me he took care of them and that when there were many flies and musquitos he washed their faces with water and lemon juice to keep the insects away. The hug he gave me when I left was a proper one.

Day 32 & 33

It is interesting how in a moment the worst evening can turn into one of the best nights and how you can turn from civilized into savage in the course of half a day.
On Saturday I took a train from Léon to Gijon and after the last train experience where C. had to pass through a scanner on a conveyor belt and the train conductor shouted at me for 10 minutes, first outside and then inside the train because I hadn’t taken off the wheels before entering, I was prepared this time. I wore the full suit and a clean shirt to look respectable, I had packed everything hanging from C. neatly away, I had reserved for myself and a bike and made sure I had plenty of time. It went smoothly.

The train drove through impressive mountain ranges I could not have passed with a walking cart in my wildest dreams, at some point the sun disappeared and for a while there was only fog. The weather would be different from now on, no more scorching heat on wide open plains.

I walked through the centre of Gijon, then out of the city, following the Camino del Norte. Shiny metal shells, the symbol of the Camino, led the way on the pavement. Outside Gijon it was mainly heavy industry for a long time, enormous factories, run down houses, noisy roads. I had to get through it to find a good place to sleep, somewhere in a more green and quiet area. The trail was steep at times, the sky remained grey but it was hot, in no time I was soaked in sweat. It was long after 7 when I finally reached the forest, big mushrooms growing on tree stumps (chicken of the woods! I wouldn’t be cooking though so I let it be) made it clear the climate was different here. The forest was dense, eucalyptus trees and gians ferns, at some point I passed a house where a strong scent made me suspect there was a little cannabis field somewhere hidden between the eucalyptus trees. I wanted to find a cozy spot before coming out of the forest where there would be villages again and when I found an overgrown apple orchard just before arriving in the first settlement it seemed to be the perfect spot. I landed somehwere in the middle, invisible from the road and rested for a bit, getting used to the place, the sounds, the atmosphere. It was peaceful, some dogs barking and people talking in the far distance, birds whistling, all perfect. The thought crossed my mind that wild boar surely like apples but I ignored it, I was too tired to move on anyway.
Of course I should have listened to my intuition. Just minutes after I had prepared my bed (I don’t use my tent when it is warm enough) I heard some big animals enjoying their apples and one came very close, I think it was a young male boar. Whatever I did, he kept coming back and it was clear I was in their territory and sleeping here was not a good idea. So I packed everything up again, chasing him away inbetween stuffing my things in the trolley as quick as I could in the dark.
Back on the road I paused for a few minutes. What next? Worst case I would find a spot to sit down and stay awake until the first daylight, walking through the night didn’t seem a good idea since after the villages the trail stayed close to the highway. And so I went on my way again, to find an abandoned house just after the first bend in the road. It was close to some other houses, oI tried to go around the back on a hardly visible trail, too small for C. apparently. The cart tumbled over and so did I, thinking while falling “I hope this will end well”.
It must have been one of my worst moments in this walk, lying on the ground in the dark, covered by C., my clothes still wet from sweating, staying still to feel if any part of the body was seriously injured. My knee was hurting but the rest seemed to be fine. I managed to disconnect C. from the belt, walked around the back of the house, first saw a very dirty bathroom through a wide open window and considered crashing there on the floor or in the bathtub and then found the most perfect place, a barn connected to the house with what seemed to be some old hay bales inside. I couldn’t see what was in the dark part of the barn, later when I explored in the dark I felt there were more hay bales there, covered in dust and spider webs.
I just sat in the entrance for a long time, looking at the field where a cat moved around and the sky, that now and then turned red for some reason. Forest fires, I thought for a moment, but it seemed to be more consistent with fireworks somewhere far away. It gave the whole setting an apocalyptic touch.
I was dirty, bruised, dead tired but also very content to be in a peaceful place in the end and somehow the huge round hay bales felt like good company for the night, as if they were friendly sleeping giants.
It was a good night. I woke up around 8, got out of the barn unseen and walked through the tiny village, washed my face at the fountain next to the church and inspected the little book exchange house that was installed there. The first pilgrims passed, I followed in their steps. After the green valley the highways started and with them the factories. In a roadside bar on an extremely unattractive and noisy site I drank one of the best coffees I had in my life and it wasn’t because the coffee was so amazing. The woman who served me the coffee smiled when I told her. Or maybe it was because of the tip I left.
The day was mainly cloudy and if I would have been walking for the beautiful scenery I would have been disappointed. There was another city coming up, Aviles, which was supposed to have a beautiful historic centre but what I saw first when I approached were some enormous oddly shaped white buildings, the Oscar Niemeyer Centre. Aviles was indeed very pretty but also full of people enjoying the Sunday. The sun came out, I thought about staying but I didn’t really want to stay in a city. After some deliberation I decided to take the train for a little bit and then walk for a few hours to a pilgrim hostel with possibilities to camp.
Taking a train means planning, keeping an eye on the clock. Not seldom stressful situations. There was one in the right direction at 15.18 and I was there long before it arrived to buy a ticket but somehow the ticket didn’t get me through the portal, minutes passed, I tried everything in vain, then bought another ticket, that one got me through, just in time. 15.18, 15.20, 15.30, no train, another schedule than the one I had checked taught me there was not going to be a train until after 17.00 so I tried to get out of the station but without a used ticket the machine didn’t work and sneaking out when somebody entered or climbing over the portals was no option with C. The lady behind the button that offered assistence from a distance didn’t understand why I wanted to leave and I gave up after explaining 3 times. “There are worse things than waiting on a bench at a station” I thought, gave it a last try and this time the scanner let me through. When I came back 1,5 hour later neither of the 2 tickets worked, so I bought a third ticket, got on the train and enjoyed the landscape for almost an hour, deeper into Asturias following the river Nalón to Pravia and after crossing the river up north again, the river on the right side of the train now. From Muros de Nalon on foot again, 8.5 kilometre, only to discover that the place I had aimed for was not in the village where I thought it was but another 12 kilometre down the trail. I was close to what is officially (whatever that means) is called one of the most beautiful villages in Spain and in high season it was out of the question to find affordable accomodation there. Luckily the campsite had a field for tents and I was assigned a spot inbetween a bored Dutch family and a happy Argentinian hitchhiker who was exploring every corner of Spain. It was situated next to the tennis court where teenagers were more involved in telling dirty jokes than playing tennis. There was a depressing bar/restaurant/supermarket, a swimming pool that was about to close and would open again at midday, too late to use unless I would stay another night. I wasn’t sure my soul could cope with 2 nights here.
After installing the tent, showering and doing laundry, a little walk to check out the village felt like a good idea. Luckily I didn’t know it was 1.5 kilometre steep down, where Cudillero was build around a little bay inbetween steep mountain walls, the houses seemingly glued against the rocky surface. There were uncountable restaurants with terraces and most probably there was some good seafood on the menu of many of them, but I didn’t feel like joining the crowd and just stared at the dark water for a while. It would be nice to come back here early in the morning, before the tourists arrived.
 

Day 31

Day 28 & 29

Somehow I took a bus to Burgos and not Bilbao. I am not sure why but it felt like the right thing to do. At the same time I was pretty sure it would have been the right thing if I had been on a bus to Bilbao. I arrived in the late afternoon and took some time to explore the city without the intention to stay there. It was hot, this was Castilla y León, a landlocked region and the largest autonomous community in Spain, sparsely populated however. A large part of its interior consists of a plateau, the Meseta Central.
There were no pilgrims on the road when I walked out of the city, it doesn’t fit their schedule to walk late in the day, only the ones who do 40 plus kilometres a day are sometimes still walking when the rest is already installed for the night, showered, their clothes washed, enjoying a cold drink on a terrace.
At dusk I arrived in Tardejos, the streets were empty apart from a big group of neighbours playing cards outside. I greeted them, walked on, crossed the village square, it felt like a good place to wake up in. There was an Albergue somewhere, I passed the card players again, found the Albergue closed, decided to continue walking but before I knew it the whole village was mobilised to find the caretaker. Somebody called him, then called his neighbour, then somebody drove off to check if he was in the restaurant, somebody else pointed at a nearby house and said: “I live there, if we don’t find him you can stay with me”. It turned out he had left at 9 when no bed had been taken and was indeed in the restaurant. He let me in, I had the whole place to myself and next morning before sunrise he brought me breakfast. I was supposed to leave before 8 but because he was pacing up and down outside, clearly waiting for me to go on my way, I speeded up and was out and about at 7.30, like a proper pilgrim.
In the next village I tried to have a little break on a bench next to a church but not even a minute after I seated myself a nun walked up to me and invited me to come in. When I did she turned on some music, Pavarotti singing Ave Maria and while I was hiding away on one of the church benches, listening to 2 more versions of the Ave Maria, I heard her talking incessantly to everybody who came in. She handed out little plastic medallions with religious symbols and since she was talking to three young, clearly quite uncomfortable, Italian men, asking them the names of their mothers and telling them Mary would guide them on their walk, I thought I could sneak out but she didn’t let anybody escape without her blessing. She pinched my cheek as if I was a little child, put the Virgin Mary around my neck, started talking about me to the nervous Italians who were still waiting for the stamp in their pilgrim passport and when she lost her focus for one second because a new person was about to enter I quickly walked out. When I turned around I saw the Italians still listening to her with a dead gaze, realising it is the price you have to pay for collecting stamps.
“Are you lost? The right way is over there.” I had entered the next village and was walking around, exploring the place and also looking for a bar that was off the beaten track to quietly enjoy a coffee or talk a bit with the local people. “No, I am right here” I answered, “I only feel lost sometimes when I am on The Camino.” It wasn’t the first time somebody thought I took a wrong turn and tried to convince me to walk into the other direction, “the right way”. When it doesn’t matter what road you follow and you don’t have a specific place to be at a certain time, you are never lost.
Walking the Meseta was different from any landscape I walked through so far, the barren fields stretching out as far as the eye reached, the main elevations in the landscape consisting of little hills of piled up rocks that had been removed from the land to use it as arable soil. The road was dusty and almost white, bleached by the sun, sturdy plants growing on both sides looked as if they were artificial, covered by layer after layer of fine dust. Apart from the occasional sunflower field there were no bright colours, only different shades of murky green and every nuance of brown you can think of. Even the sky wasn’t the colour you expect on a sunny and cloudless day but something inbetween grey and light blue. It was the first time in almost 30 days I felt my mind wandering while I just followed the endless road.
There was going to be a village at some point, Hontanas, but space and time seemed to stretch out and reorganise itself in a way that was beyond the human way of measuring it. Just when I started to wonder if I would walk here forever, the landscape changed and a new horizon appeared, the endless road still in sight but also revealing a small valley and a cluster of stone houses. It was a charming place, clearly thriving on pilgrim tourism, not too crowded though. Walk on or stay? Sometimes decisions are easily made. “Can I buy you a beer?” It was the man who thought I was lost.

Day 27

Which way now? I knew I had to make a decision once I arrived in Logroño and I still hadn’t made it when I left the hostel at 11.30. I was tired, not too tired to walk, the body has been doing well, my back has been better than it has been in years. Pulling the walking cart has strengthened the muscles in my lower back and keep the discs that herniated in the past in place. My physiotherapist advised me not to walk but I believe that walking can cure, as long as you take care of and listen to your body. I’ve seen a lot of walkers who overdo it or are unprepared, walk too much or too fast, get injured, then are forced to stop and lose the time they thought they were gaining.

I am tired of the Camino, of the rules, the commerce, the countless people all doing the same thing. There is a lot of beauty in it as well but today I don’t want to say “Bon Camino!” 20 times. I don’t want to explain I am not walking The Camino even though I am on the same road as all the people walking to Santiago de Compostella. I am behind on my schedule (not much of a schedule, the goal was to be in/around Logroña after 20 days and today is day 27), I am behind on my writing but it is the way it is. Walking and being and spending nights outdoors and talking with people takes its time. Even when I write, I only scratch the surface, writing in more depth is impossible. That is fine as well, after all that is what I am doing physically as well, scratching the surface every day. I am not behind on my walking kilometres, around 400, and the subject I want to address in more detail at some point, the territory, is present inbetween the lines, under the surface, in my notebook and memory and camera.
Which way now? Take a bus to the north and walk from there? The best route in the North is the Camino del Norte, I heard there are even more people than there are here. The problem of walking through the territory between the Northern Camino and the one I’ve been walking, the Camino Frances, is that it is rough terrain, a lot of mountains, limited public transport. Of course that is why the trails to Santiago are where they are: where walking is not too complicated.
What is progress? Keep moving or stay and rest and write? I know it doesn’t work like that but I opened the Tao randomly like I do every day to see if the chapter for today gives me some guidance, a hint. It is as good a way to make a decision as thinking it through is. I got chapter 8, about water.

The highest form of goodness is like water
Water knows how to benefit all things without striving with them.
It stays in places loathed by all men
Therefore, it comes near the Tao

Yesterday I crossed the Ebro, the longest river in Spain, to enter the centre of Logroño. This morning I watched 2 men when I was sitting in front of the cathedral. One was cleaning the plaça with a big hose, the other was watering all the flowers and trees with a similar hose. But in the north there is the sea. Which water should I chose, staying or leaving?

I look at the man on his horse, high up on an enormous pedestal, surrounded by words chiselled in stone: fortaleza, patria, lealtad, victoria. Birds fly around his head. There are no answers here. I go to the Punto de Lecturo, a library in public space with a terrace around it, there are a couple of busses in the afternoon in northern direction, there is time to decide. I hope they have some poetry and when I go in I discover they specialise in poetry and there is a beautiful collection to chose from. I take Machado, Whitman and Basho, seat myself outside and breath. There is no decision, there is only poetry, that is until a man walks up to me and asks me about my walking cart and if I am walking to Santiago and before I know it he is telling me the story of his life and shows me photos of his son who is on holiday in the French Pyrennees, photo after photo of beautiful landscapes and a man in swimming trunks standing next to a lake, under a waterfall, on a towel in the sand. My rule number one is to listen to people when they ask for my time and attention but I have to control myself to not tell him “Please, can’t you see I am reading?” He says he lived in many places but they are all the same. He says one shouldn’t read in summer, winter is the time for reading. He leaves, I read, I decide to stay. I have to regain some energy.

So I stay. And I go to the other Punto de Lecturo, a converted aviary in a park where there are books about birds and plants, La Pajarera, and there is Thoreau and Rachel Carson but I read a book I don’t know, The bird within me, based on the paintings, letters and diaries of the Swedish artist Berta Hansson. There is a statue of a man there as well, but it isn`t made of stone, it is a wood, a man holding a book, on a pedestal as well but the pedestal is the trunk of a tree and he has no feet, as if they are one, the tree and he. It is Don Quixote, looking serious and sad. His head is covered in bird shit, there are feathers everywhere around him.

Day 25 & 26

Casita Lucia came as a complete surprise. I had slept outside in a field again: just like the night before, I couldn’t make myself stay at a place where people had gathered to enjoy themselves, relax, sleep next to each other. The man responsible for the Palacio de Sansol I entered to ask if there was a bed available tried to persuade me to stay, to join the group who had just finished their dinner, to make friends. My future friends were already firing questions at me, the usual ones: where do you come from, how long have you been walking, and when I asked for a few minutes to make up my mind they seemed offended, the man in charge told me he had to call somebody now to confirm I was going to stay there, “You can’t leave!” He said. “All you need is here, food, company, good conversation, friendship.” And those are indeed things I need, but at that moment I just needed a little bit of silence and the possibility to join people if I wanted to but not an expectation to be part of a group. And so I woke up again under an open sky, feeling a bit rough but also quite happy. The next village, Viana, was 8 kilometre away and I was looking forward to a cup of coffee in 2 hours. But like a fata morgana Casita Lucia materialised in the middle of nature, a little wooden bar next to the walking trail with a terrace occupied by a family of robins. People came and went and I found myself moving from one conversation to the other, with a local wine producer who came to bring some vegetables, a neighbour who passed by for a coffee, a group of Italians who sang along with the music coming out of the car parked next to the casita, two girls who left me a question to embroider on my suit (how much is enough?), a French drummer, and the owner who supplied me with more coffee, fresh orange juice, sweet bread and when morning turned into afternoon, tortilla and a beer. I exchanged phone numbers with some people and danced a tango with one of the Italians. Food, company, good conversation, friendship, all I needed. When I left, José, the kind owner, invited me to stay in his house in Viana and I happily accepted. In the evening he told me about the history of Casa Lucia, how he had spend most of his life working hard in a job he didn’t particularly like and how he sometimes went to his favorite place in nature during his lunch breaks to find some peace of mind. After he retired, together with a friend, he decided to turn his favorite place into a little haven for walkers and since 5 years he went there every day from 6 am to 2 pm from early spring to november and felt happier than he ever had been.
The next morning, when he was off to make orange juice and coffee for thirsty pilgrims, I explored Viana. The evening before I had already noticed all the big red wooden gates in every street in the centre of town and the open air bull ring on the central square surrounded by platforms to give an audience a good view of the spectacle, but only now I realised that the gates were meant to close off the streets so animals could be chased from one end of town to the other. The woman in the information office told me proudly that it was still happening twice a year and when she noticed my lack of enthusiasm she said the conditions for the animals here were not as bad as in Pamplona. Not as bad, exactly.
José sent me off with a bag filled with tasty things, I followed the road to Logroño through vineyards, this was Rioja territory. At some point a big car stopped next to me and a man who resembled a sherif from a western movie opened his window to tell me it was only 6 more minutes walking to a fountain. I suspected him of really stopping to check what I was eating, when he asked I showed him my hand filled with blackberries, not grapes. He drove on and I saw him again later, after I had passed the fountain and a mysterious mural resembling a Hieronymus Bosch painting, driving in the opposite direction.
The village of La Rioja mainly consisted of grape processing facilities and I passed it from a distance, not really tempted to make a detour. A simple sign asked for a cruel event to be remembered so history would not repeat itself, “los pueblos que olvidan su historia están condenados a repetirla”. At the exact spot where the little none-monument was placed, on the 3d of September 1936, 27 people from the nearby villages of Ábalos and San Vicente de la Sonsierra were murdered, victims of the Franco regime. I wondered how many pilgrims stopped here for a moment to give it their attention.
Dona Elvira - as the tiles next to the door of the cute little house read - was clearly tired of pilgrims knocking on the door to ask for a stamp in their pilgrim passport and had put a sign on a table that could be read from a distance, “SELLO NO”, but the man living a few houses away was sitting at a table in front of his house with no other apparent reason than welcoming everybody and stamping their credentials. His wife was sitting on a bench knitting and she waved at me. “Bienvenido a Logroño!”

Day 23

I left the campsite in Puente la Reina, followed the sign “bar” in the next village (Mañeru), assuming they needed customers more than the one right on the Camino and had coffee with some elderly men drinking beer who explained me all about Sociedad La Union (where the bar was). Ready to get walking again I bumped into a young man with a converted baby stroller, a month into a 7 year journey around the world. He came from London where, not long ago, he had a girlfriend and a job that bored him to death and weekends that all looked the same and so he decided to, instead of doing what everybody did -working long days and saving up for a house-, use the money he had to go on a long journey, living on a budget of 10 pounds a day. He said he felt a bit silly since leaving Pamplona and I knew exactly what he meant. It didn’t take long before we were talking about the meaning of life, the meaninglesness of life, we were both wondering about everything in a similar way and it was a pleasure spending a bit of time with him. We exchanged contact information and he invited me to come to South America where he was hoping to spend some time as a ranchero. (Check out Walkyboyz on Instagram).
In the village of Cirauqui I stamped my credential because I didn’t have to enter a church to get a stamp, it was on a table outside, attached to a mailbox.
A few kilometres outside the village I stumbled into an olive orchard that was used as a resting place for walkers. “Help us to keep creating this place” a sign said in 3 languages. There was nobody there and it seemed like nobody had been taking care of the place for a long time. There were chairs and tables inbetween the trees, a book exchange, a gifting area, a garbage area with different containers to seperate trash but they were all overflowing and the books were mouldy and the gifting area only had things that were broken or completely worn out. In the middle of all of this was a tree where people had left little tokens. You find them here and there on the route, sometimes in places with a special meaning, sometimes at a random place where somebody started, others continued and just by the act of leaving something behind turned it into a site of contemplation.
I found Jesus on the road. Or next the road to be more precise. He was on his cross, but lying on his back in the grass.
A grasshopper travelled along for a while, clinging to my walking cart. There was a box filled with plums and pears with a note inviting people passing by to eat them, sunflower fields, a map giving information about la trashumancia, the transhumance. Where the Camino went right, the shepherds and their animals went left in the past. I went right, but not without hesitation.
Estella was a small city, pleasant at first but noisy and soulless after passing through the centre and I decided to walk on. In a bakery I tried to explain the sweaty owner -she was baking all day inbetween running the shop- I couldn’t spend 7,50 on the tasty looking big empanada and she started a litany of complaints about the difficulties of living here and making enough money and I bought a few overpriced cookies, partially to support her and partially because I was hungry. On the one hand the Camino offers local people an opportunity to sell their products but there is a lot of dissatisfaction as well, possibly because many walkers are mainly tourists, having a good time, dropping in and out of shops and bars and restaurants to consume and then continue their adventure while others work long days, week in week out, to survive.
Half an hour walking out of Estella there was a wine fountain. I blinked my eyes but it was real. The Bodegas Irache wanted to continue the tradition of the Benedictine monks to offer pilgrims the wine they produced to give them strength and vitality on their walking and so they had constructed The Fountain of Wine on the outer wall of the bodega. No wine came out of the tap though, I wasn’t sure if it was broken or if the 100 litres they provided daily had been consumed already.
The campsite I had set my eyes on was a massive site, the size of a small village almost, surrounded by long walls and metal fences, not a place I wanted to set foot in. The forest that came after was a better option to get some rest. In the middle of a harvested field, on an elevated island filled with trees and rocks, away from the trail where in the early hours of the morning the first pilgrims would pass, I slept undisturbed by animals or wind or rain.

Day 21/22

I am incognito today, still wearing my dusty walking boots though. The smelly suit and all my walking gear is in a campsite just outside Puente de Reina, where I am alone on an open field with beautiful views when you sit down and the highway is out of your vision. It is a pilgrim campsite, which means it is cheap but nothing is allowed. You can’t be there after 8.30 in the morning unless you booked another night, you can’t use the bathrooms after 8.30 until midday, you defenitely can’t use the big swimming pool, clean and blue and shiny, and you can’t leave or enter after 11 at night. There is a fence around the field and the owner is hostile, he doesn’t even look at me when I come back after pitchig my tent to ask a question. Maybe he is frustrated because the place (there is a huge hostel building as well) is rather empty, most of the pilgrims stay in one of the albergues in the village.
I am on the pilgrim highway since Monday, when I left Pamplona around 4 and discovered it is impossible to even slightly doubt in what direction to go when walking the Camino de Santiago. At every crossroad, roundabout, sidewalk and wall there are signs, symbols, arrows, traffic signs directing the 2 streams of travellers: the ones on foot and the ones on bikes. I felt lost and stopped at the outskirts of the city, next to big roundabout with cars rushing by, looked to the left where there were some streets crossing a green area and could hardly believe my eyes when I saw a deer, following the road for a bit and then disappearing in the trees and bushes. I don’t believe in signs, but sometimes you need something to help you decide, to take away your doubt and sometimes the world throws it in your lap.
The road was easy at first, I filled my pockets with little plums, wondering why the trees were so overloaded when so many people must be passing here on foot. It got steeper and and rockier the further I got though, I didn’t see too many walkers but there were some bikers passing me now and then, wishing me “bon camino”. The fields were yellow, either showing long rows of stalks where wheat had been growing, big stacks of hay bails catching the eye everywhere you looked, and sunflower fields, the seeds slowly maturing in the sun. Some of the flowers looked like faces almost, the dark areas where the seeds were gone resembling eyes and mouths and only when I saw one that had a face that was too designed to be a coincidence did I realise that the passers by had been trying to be funny. I saw an arrow and some names. Where does this need of leaving your name, marking a place, come from? I was here, it says, but in a different way than leaving your invisible footsteps somewhere. I had no aim for the day but when I got close to a village where there was an albergue pelegrino I decided to take my chances. From a distance it looked like a strange place, situated at the foot of a long ridge dominated by an endless row of windmills and at the higher part of the historic settlement, where the best views were, another long row of modern human constructions, big tasteless chalets, all looking exactly the same. The shadows were long by now, it was close to nine already when I walked/rolled into the charming centre of town, mentally prepared for a “sorry, all beds are taken”. I disconnected C. from my body outside the door, walked in and was welcomed by a big applause.
Two bikers had apparently been expecting me, they got me a beer and another one and told me they were from a village close by and often came here to chat with Pilar, the owner, who was sitting at the bar with them, and her son, who served me the beer. It was wonderful to be welcomed like this and when all the pilgrims, seated in the back of the bar, were off to bed already (before 10) we were still talking as if we were old friends. They disliked the chalets as much as I did, but not the windmills since they brought in a lot of money and the villages benefitted from it.

Next morning, when I got up just after 7, everybody was gone already, the beds empty, the 20 pair of walking shoes in the entrance gone. I went to the shop where Pilar was selling coffee and croissants, her son was off buying supplies. Not an easy life, working every day, weekends included, from 6 am to 10 pm. She told me she had tried to hire somebody but it was almost impossible, only through agencies that charge a lot of money. “Young people don`t want to work,” she said. “The rather get unemployment money and live with their parents.” I asked if I could help her out for a few hours, “No tengo prisa” but she shook her head. “I need somebody here every day.” I couldn`t help her with that.

I sat next to the church for a bit and saw at least 50 people walking by before 10 am, entering the church to get a stamp, then into the shop to buy some supplies and then on, to the next village. The local police man was around to offer people help, he fixed a bike, answered questions and when it got quiet we talked for a while. “We call this village little Siberia. We get all the wind and in winter it snows when in Pamplona it is a fine day.” When I asked his name he said: “We go by numbers here, I am 3.”

I left shortly after midday and walked. Somewhere in the middle on the way to Puente la Reina, at the Mount of Forgiveness, I met Lars, who doesn’t have a passport but can cross borders when travelling on foot, Daniel and his magnificent moustache, who had a question for me I didn’t understand at first because it was obvious to me “why there are flowers on weeds” (and when I met him again the next day he showed me a photo of him on the Mount of Forgiveness with a big bag filled with garbage, our chat inspired him to do some cleaning at that special site). And there was Graham, the slowest walker I saw so far, his legs don’t allow him to walk more than 1.5 km. per hour here but still he was faster than the woman with the heavy electric bike, of no use here and impossible to drag up the steep stretches of road on your own. Luckily everybody helps each other so she managed with some extra hands. Graham was walking here for the third time, he had a sad story to tell but at the same time he seemed to be a happy man. I wondered if I would see him again somewhere down the road.