The Tasty Pilgrim

My last day in Bilbao was quite pleasant. It is also my last day in Spain, actually.

First I had some breakfast in the bar where I went the other day. One sumo de naranja (fresh orange juice) two café con leche and two pinchos. Delicious roll with a filling of tuna salad and two small pieces of toast with a tomato spread topped by jamon Iberico, Spanish ham.And all that for only 3 Euro. What a tasty region this Basque country is.

I walked the Bilbao riverside to find that cybercafé, where I could send some emails. Returned to the hostal to pack my backpack and decided to throw away my old socks. Paid the bill and asked if I could leave my backpack here and pick it up later. No problem, was the reaction. Went to find the church of Saint James in this city of Bilbao, a building dating back many centuries. After all I am on a quest for the holy martyr Saint James. Unfortunately I could not get inside to have a look. Walked back to the Calle Jardines, the street where I stayed in the old town. There is a nice looking restaurant here and I noticed they do a Menu del Dia for 12 Euro ! The name of the place is Gorbea and it turned out to be a great place to eat. Arrived there at two in the afternoon and it was already packed, so I had to wait in line. Decided to get a table inside and not outside in the street. After only five minutes I had a table for myself. It was a great Spanish restaurant with people talking in a loud voice and in this Babylonian confusion of sounds, Basque and Catalan, I concentrated on the menu. The staff is very efficient and immediately changed the table linen and placed clean glasses and silver cutlery and a bottle of great red wine and a basket of bread down for me. The waitress came to take my order and when I told her I wanted to choose from the menu, she said “I am the menu” and looked at me coyly.  Just for a moment I was tempted to discuss tetilla, it is a cheese in the form of a breast.

We had a great laugh about it. Anyway I choose the pasta Vaisco and the bacalao con tomate. The pasta Vasco, Basque style was a delicious plate noodles with a tomato tune sauce topped with some curls of goat’s cheese. Had two glasses of wine with that. The fish was cod and a tomato sauce with herbs. Had another glass of red wine with it. My head started to feel dizzy, as I never have a glass in the day time. I reluctantly went over to water, as I would love to have some more wine. To be honest later on I came to regret it. You see with all that wonderful food over the last week, I as afraid the kilos would be piling up ! But when I eventually got back, I stood on the scales and I had lost four kilos over the past month.  This wine came from the region itself and was superb in its simplicity of taste.  But I still had to make my way to the airport ! So the wisdom was “easy on the booze” ! As always I choose ice-cream for a desert and a coffee. In the meantime it was three o’clock and the waitress was surprised I did not take more time for my lunch, you re supposed to occupy your table for two hours or so. Went to pick up my backpack at the hostal and complemented them for the cleanliness of the room. Great hostal in which the lady even made my bed every day !

Walked the old city to find the entrance to the metro. I know now how it works, so I arrived within a short time at the bus terminal. There is a bus to the airport every twenty minutes. I found out. The bus took me through the centre of town and it was nice to recognise the shopping streets where I had walked. Within half an hour we were at the airport. The building is another wonderful modern construction. It seems that Bilbao only invites architects to create modern and challenging buildings. Everything runs smoothly here, except when checking in the lady at the desk told me that I had to pay another ten Euro if I wanted my backpack checked in. So I went to another desk to pay and was explained that the flight is only 52 Euro, but you pay extra for a good seat and if you have luggage that you cannot take inside the plane, you pay an additional amount. Only then I noticed everyone travelled with a small case to be put in the locker overhead. Every day I learn something new ! I went through security with my Nordic Walking poles, as I had done when I flew to Spain. A security guard did not want me to take along my poles. When I explained I had brought them in this way, and why could not I take them along, there was no answer. Yes, he gave me the chance to go back to the check-in counter again and check in these poles. Impossible I thought that would take too much time. Besides they were old and worn. In such an argument you can only lose. I teased the poor man by offering them to him as a “regalo”, a present. Of course I showed my great smile and trusted them into his hands. It was like a comic movie as the poles went from him to me and back again. The guy looked really desperate in the end. At last I stuck the poles into the box for forbidden objects and shook his hands and to his horror I said the magic chant “muchas grazias, muy simpatico ! “

Then I walked off to the gates. Time for a small beer I decided and heard a voice greeting me. I sat down. To my astonishment it was another Dutchman who had stayed at Gaucelmo in Rabanal. He had photography as a hobby and had made hundreds and hundreds of pictures of his Camino. He took a few of me when we sat there talking and would send them later. He was going to create a picture book with them. Over the last few years it had become quite popular for people to write books about their adventure and publish them.  Funny though, when I told him about the Tasty Pilgrim, he immediately knew what I was talking about. Yes, he knew about Aimery Picaud, that French monk who had completed the Camino in the 12th century and wrote about it. By the way, lots of pilgrims whom I welcomed in Gaucelmo at Rabanal del Camino had read about him. Many nice conversations ensued in the evening when the fire burned in the hearth and warmed the “salon”.  You are only dead, when people do not talk about you any more, so he is still very much alive and certainly his opinions on how to receive and offer hospitality to pilgrims. The flight to Amsterdam was relatively short, less than two hours and the seats were indeed too cramped. Never mind, I tried to catch some sleep. Still sleepy from the wine and that one beer at the airport, you see. Amazing that you find yourself in your own house again still dazed by the adventure just a few hours after you have lived in Spain for a relatively long time. First few days it feels like you have a jetlag. So many impressions to be digested.

It has been quite an intense month.

Wanderer, it is your tracks

Which are the road

And nothing else,

Wanderer there is no road,

Walking makes the road.

By walking

The road is made,

And, when glancing back,

You contemplate the trail

Which you will trample

no more

Wanderer, there is no road

Only the wakes on the sea

This is the text on a card that my friend Huberta gave to me as a farewell present, when I set out on my trail across the Pyrenees mountains from the refugio L’Esprit du Chemin in Saint Jean. Yes, walking makes the road. So I enjoyed every day of the Camino till I got to Santo Domino de la Calzada. This is a milestone along the Way for me, as I stayed in that wonderful Parador. First time I walked the Way I had a theme. I brought my fly fishing tackle along and was listening for the music of water. An opportunity to stand along a stream and fish. I was walking along as the Fly fishing Pilgrim. This time I had another theme. This time I was here as the Tasty Pilgrim. Again I enjoyed the landscape in a different way being among the asparagus fields and beautiful vineyards in that rolling landscape and smelling all the wild herbs along the path. And when I arrived at the place of destination at the end of the day, I observed how the refugio was run and how the hospitaleros took in the pilgrims. I learned a lot from them by asking many questions. It formed my ideas of how I was going to run a refugio for two weeks. One thing became clear, the small privately owned refugio is the best place to stay. The large ones are usually a municipal refugio and run by a civil servant, so the guy is not really involved with the plight of pilgrims. And of course these places really are too large to be kept clean, and what is clean in the eyes of a Spaniard. It means that you sweep the dust under the carpet and that is that. As to the food that I enjoyed on the way, it was a feast for the palate. How it is possible to serve a three course diner and a bottle of wine and water for ten Euro is a riddle to me. But many small restaurants do very well this way.

“When glancing back, you contemplate the trail which you will not trample no more”.  Walking the Camino de Santiago is an overwhelming experience in the life of a person. So may miracles come your way.

You will be hit by this virus to go back and experience the miracle again. But a miracle is a one time occurrence, it happens once in a lifetime. Trying to repeat it the same way, is an impossibility. “The thrill has gone, babe” these exact words from the blues by Muddy Waters describe it accurately. There are many roads that lead to Rome and this is also the case for Santiago de Compostella. For this reason may people then come back to walk a different route and are happy to do so. These two weeks I stood on the other side of the line, as it were. Working in a refugio for two weeks was very healing for me. It got me rid of the virus. The trail which I will trample no more. I am done with it and have turned a new page. First I imagined to walk the Camino until I would come to Rabanal. Then I would run that refugio Gaucelmo for two weeks and walk on to Santiago de Compostella. But the experience changed my mind. To make a success of running a refugio for some time, you must have first experienced the Camino yourself. Only then you know the mindset of a pilgrim. Having walked the Way, you know what he needs, a hot shower and clean clothes and some sleep and a sympathetic ear, a friend to speak with a listening ear. Running a refugio is like running a small hotel. Or rather you run a convalescent home ! They arrive all bruised an battered, having walked through snow and rain and scorching sun, at the end of their tether. Your task is to nurse them back to health, sothat they may continue the next day and forget the blisters and painful knees and cramped muscles. Walking for some 800 kilometres is top sport ! And you have to be top fit to complete it. Like any other top sporter you need to get a good rest and much sleep every day. Quite understandable that the majority huddle into their sleeping bag when they have had that hot shower and sleep for a few hours. Then you go out for some Menu Pelegrino and get to bed at nine. Six in the morning others will wake you and you want to get up also. At eight you are supposed to leave and be on the road again. Nobody in his right mind would do so voluntarily when he is home. But pilgrims are different, they take all the suffering in stride. They are a rare breed.

NO PAIN, NO GLORY !

This slogan sums it all up. I have found it immensely satisfying to help them along. It was one of those rare periods in my life, to do community work, to serve the community of pilgrims “the holy martyr for too seke “.

When I got back there as this kind e-mail from Rodger and July who are responsible for the volunteers who work at Gaucelmo. Their question reads, wasn’t it too tiring ? No, it was not tiring at all !

The job gave me immense pleasure and anything that you do with all your heart and soul will never tire you, but will load you with new energy. Cleaning the place every day, is just doing some household chores. But receiving some forty different people every new day and start building that relationship of welcome and kindness over and over again, will wear out the average person. Every group of pilgrims bring their own atmosphere. They all come in as individuals, but within minutes having chosen their bed in the dormitory, they bond. Mankind is a group animal and has this unique advantage of forming a group. We never experienced antagonism in a group. Only later people admit that they had little sleep, because there were some notorious snorers among them. You should also remember that as a hospitalero, you do not form part of that group. You are an outsider, although a nice person. But for them you are an alien, you are NOT a pilgrim ! Perhaps this is also an underlying fact, why for some it is tiring. Again here, there are many levels of psychology and undercurrents. When I close my eyes and think of all the wonderful people that I met, there is one exceptional man. He is a Spaniard and a very intelligent and cultured man.  He was a man of stature. A few had brought along a mini laptop, but that man had brought the right modern equipment. In a small pouch he carried a small modern camera with lots of spare digital cards. He also had a small tape recorder that worked on digital cards. Every now and then he sat down and told a story and recorded it. Upon his return he would type out all his short stories, he told me. He explained that he was a Spanish author and walked the Way to assemble material for a new novel that he intended to write. Having walked now three quarters of the Camino, he confessed that he had met so many amazing people that he could use the characters for at least a dozen books. He did not speak much English and my Spanish is good enough for daily communication, but

we both enjoyed discussing literature and Spanish authors. Sometimes I wished I had a better grasp of the language. To his delight we went deep into the works of Cervantes and the way Spanish people are profoundly religious. Being a linguist, it was so interesting to meet another one. Yes, a very remarkable man.

When he left the next day, we embraced warmly ! What is the meaning of life ? The meaning of life lies in meeting the other. As the Tasty Pilgrim I enjoyed the meaning of life hugely !

So here is good-bye and all that ! Hope you enjoyed my adventures as much as I do.