Camino de Santiago Day 29: Triacastela to Barbadelo
It's tempting to think at this stage - 5 weeks in and 6 days from the end - that you've seen it all, but you must remain open to the trip, as it's there's still great potential to be surprised
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I’ve Seen it All
It’s tempting at many points to think “Oh this is how the Camino is, and this is how it’s going to be from now on.”
You might think it after the first day, or the first week. Like in the Pilgrim’s Office all those weeks ago when I thought I was mis-speaking that “I expect this to be easy”, when it might have been more honest than I’d have been aware of at the time.
At several points you think “Now I know this place”, or
“Now I’ve arrived” – I know what I’m doing or I know how this is, and this is how it’ll be here. Positive or negative, it’s not just a form of hubris but of attachment – you want some measure of stability to your situation, and so you project a measure of knowledge on How Things Work.
And after a while you realise you know nothing yet, until you learn something new and think
“Now I know everything”
But the reality is – you never do. Just when you think you know something, you’ve to move on, and something new happens, you go to a different place, you meet someone you really weren’t expecting to – or the opposite: you think things will be radically different, but they’re not. They’re the same, and somewhat mundane now.
This gets more dangerous the closer we get to the end. It’s still dark in Triacastela, though at this stage of the year it’s around 8am.
I accidentally/inevitably/obviously/sub-consciously intentionally/fatefully/serendipitously bump into the Gang at the breakfast spot.
I think to myself: “I guess this is it, we’ve all been together for the last few days, we’re all going to be together from now ‘til Santiago.”
Only six days to go.
This is a trap
The spiritual test is to not to declare the journey done until it’s done.
To remain aware of the fact that the road may throw you new things, new people, new experiences.
Right when you least expect it.
This is the Camino, and this is life.
So it goes.
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It’s People All the Way Down
I head off on my own (which is part of the routine, of course at this stage all part of the grand dance which sees me leave on my own, perhaps even resolve to stay alone for the rest of the trip, before inevitably bumping into friends along the way, or choosing an albergue at random from the book or the town and checking in to find them all there anyway. By now I understand that this is simply a flirtation technique of life and the universe at large).
A steep but magical misty morning climb out through what looks like Tipperary or somewhere, which of course I tell everyone.
I make new friends on the road, just when I thought I knew everyone. Sometimes you pass people or meet them regularly through mutual acquaintances and feel bad that you’ve never gotten to know them – you’ve made excuses or haven’t bothered or just didn’t feel like it or sometimes you just haven’t the time or energy, and don’t owe anyone anything at the end of the day.
But then you remember that there’s only so much time and energy in the first place, and if you get to know just one person better each day – on a long enough timeline of, say, five weeks – then that’s a lot of people, and a powerful amount of human connection you’ve established over that time.
If your Camino is not that social, then that’s also good, it’s just good to put in perspective the regularity with which you meet people, not to mention the circumstances which make these relationships so powerful – it can accumulate, and it’s intense stuff.
8km, mostly uphill, passes like a breeze.
I stop at an oasis of calm and openness in the countryside.
Some pilgrims rented a place many years ago and dedicated themselves to making it beautiful and sharing it with those that walk the Camino. Some of them welcome people into the thoughtfully arranged garden and enthusiastically offer coffee as much as they can. There’s a labyrinth built out of rocks down the way; I go down and take photos of it cos I can’t be bothered walking it.
A friend returns from it his whole life having flashed before his eyes, so I say I’d better check it out. When I come back I joke that it was ‘a load of shite’ but I’m only messing really. I did not have any sort of epiphanic moment of revelation, though I did enjoy the structure and its surrounds, the thought and time and effort that went into building it, and at times I’m stopped in my tracks by how the simple-yet-also-intricate nature of the labyrinth’s layout can completely transform your perspective of the countryside before it as you loop around it for the 16th time.
There’s an older gentleman called Henrik, from Denmark – just like our friend Henrik, from Denmark, who’s about my age – who stopped here for tea three days ago and hasn’t left. He fetches coffee for as many passersby as he can possibly manage.
He loves the Camino because of the people.
“The people are the trail!” he points out with what feels like profundity at the time.
“There isn’t even a trail!” my friend Colin quips.
It’s kind of true, and at this stage whether you’ve done the Camino, or are just reading about it, I’m sure you’ve gotten the point:
“It’s all about the people”
And it’s all people below that, and it’s people all the way down.
I stop for an instant coffee and stay for two hours.
Onwards to Sarria – the beginning of the Tourist Camino, and truly the beginning of the end. Things change here.
Sarria gets bad press – someone just told us that she’d a friend who was ‘so disgusted’ by this supposed tourist trap and the hordes of people who’d descended on it for the final 100km stretch to Santiago, that she’d left the Camino Frances to do an alternate Camino to bring her into Santiago.
I thoroughly enjoyed it myself: I bump into some fellow pilgrims at a restaurant, they’ve a three kilo steak resting on the side of the table. We join them for a typical pilgrim lunch of cheese, bread and wine, though it’s probably got more stars than the sort of fare they’d have had in the days of the Inquisition. I order octopus – the Galician speciality – and it’s delicious. I’m told not to watch any documentaries on them until I get home.
There’s Ralph from Germany, an eccentric but loveable dude whom I met in Villafranca a few days before; Rick from the Netherlands, who’d just greeted me that morning, Joe from Florida and Juan from Galicia, who runs a tour company that brings people from Ireland to the Camino. He’s done the Camino 15 times (‘not including business trips’), and has at times lived in Cork, Clonakilty and Thurles. His Irish credentials check out as he describes Clonakilty as ‘overrated’ and Thurles, where he lived for six months, as ‘a nice place when you arrive – there’s the castle, the river, it looks nice – but scratch the surface, and it’s a shithole’, which is exactly how anyone I’ve ever met from Thurles has ever described the place, and now that I think of it, is exactly how anyone I’ve ever met from anywhere in Tipperary has described their hometown.
We’re joined by a few friends passing on the Camino, and end up having a 3 hour lunch, the owner filling our table with bottles of liquer after our meal, compliments of the house (Juan’s a good tour operator). The bad reviews of Sarria mean a few of us are leaving Sarria to go to the next village, though I really don’t know what anyone’s complaining about – I thoroughly enjoyed my time there.
Five Days in One
And there’s still more to come.
There are faces in the trees in these woods, it looks like animals or spirits reside in them, in a way that’s far more realistic than the usual looking at clouds.
We make it out of the lost woods and into a light so powerful it transforms the world.
I meet more strangers and join them for dinner.
Rather than knowing everything and things becoming stale and predictable, the days continue to multiply; I feel like I’ve had five days in one. It is not about the food or the drink, rather the connection.
You get to know one person in a day and that’s a powerful rate of return; you get to know four or five, and it’s something far more profound and magical and intense than we normally get in 24 hours.
The trajectory of the journey is not linear, it is exponential.
We’re not circumnavigating the world here, we’re going to the moon
If you’re still open to it, of course.
Don’t ever declare that you’ve seen it all, the journey’s not over til it’s over.
If you’ve done the Camino, are thinking of doing it, or are just interested in discussing the Camino or travel in general - then please leave a comment. I’d love to hear from you.