Day 23 or To the Cheater Goes the Spoils

Notes on 23, March 18, El Burgo de Ranero to Leon

This morning, in the mule crap town of El Burgo Ranero, Ana (the doctor who massaged me with olive oil yesterday) and her friend joined me for breakfast (at the same bar that blew chunky yesterday). She fished around in her pocket and pulled out her business card. ¨Thees ees my phone number. Jou call eef jou need anything, Ok?¨ I was touched. Clearly this woman cared about me. I have no idea why, but she cared about me enough to rub my meaty calves with oil and eat breakfast with me and give me her phone number. Maybe I reminded her of her daughter, I can´t say. I kissed her on both cheeks (Spanish tradition you know), and thought that was goodbye. But she and her friend waited for me to leave the restaurant, and began to walk with me.



And so it was that I spent a rather peaceful day on the trail with Ana. Sometimes we walked together and talked, at other times continued singly. We picniced around 11:00. Ana kept offering me all she had: half a tomato, more rosemary oil (this time for my salad), some lomo (smoked pork), nuts, dried fruit. I had very little to share in return and almost felt bad for taking all she offered. But then I remembered the words of Ana Maria at the Albergue in Belorado. On the Camino you have to learn to give, but you also have to learn to recieve. Ana showed me pictures of her lovely home near Barcelona. It looked so picturesque, so effortlessly comfortable. ¨Eef you come to Barcelona, jou can stay with me. Jou will be welcome like family.¨

And so we walked quitely, talked simply and ate together until we reached Mansilla de las Mulas, the mountains of the Picos de Europa standing sentinel to the north. When we reached Mansilla, I wanted to stay, and Ana and her companion wanted to continue. So we hugged and kissed and said goodbye. And I find myself struggling to comprehend this quiet kindness she showed me, an unexpected acquaintance of hers for no more than a few hours. Did she sense how much I needed a to be taken care of a little for a day? after so many solitary days of taking care of myself? Who was this woman with the salad oil and the softest voice and the kindest eyes?



I felt the loss when she left too. I wandered around the town not finding the same comforting shelter I found with Ana in the fugly town of El Burgo Ranero, even though Mansilla was much, much cooler. I poked my head in at the albergue, and it looked cold, and wet. Cold and wet is a combination I have come to despise, even if I encounter it daily. And I couldn´t bring myself to cross the threshhold of the albergue and hand over my 5 €. I just couldn't do it.

I pulled out my guidebook looking for an out. And there it was: in beautiful black and white. ¨You may readily recall the tiresome access into Burgos (do I? The memory of that day is burned in the back of my skull) along the busy roads into that city. Whatever your prior experiences and intention for this pilgrimage, there is the possibility to avoid the busy (and dangerous) main road into Leon by taking the regular bus service from Mansilla direct to the city centre.¨

That does it. I was saved! After Burgos I made myself the promise that if the puritanical guidebook author so much as mentioned the word bus again, I would take it. And for a mere 1.20 € I was happily perched in my gaudily upholstered motor coach seat eating cookies and gazing out the window at other more dedicated (or more enslaved depending on your P.O.V.) pilgrims who were treking along the concrete motorway on foot.

By the way, do you know how fast cars and buses go? They go, like, really fast. I have not been in a car in over three weeks and now I am in awe of the phenomenon that is modern motor travel. In just 20 minutes, 20 measley, itty bitty, teensey tiny, pequeño mintues we were in Leon. (It would´ve been 15 if we hadn´t stopped everywhere in between for more passengers). That´s it! 18.6km in 20 rediculous minutes. I can´t wrap my brain around it.

And I am not sorry either. At times I felt like I was riding through Gwinnett County Georgia for fuck sake, or Anywhere, U.S.A. with the bill boards, the road signs, the industrial buildings and box stores. Barfola.

Irish Charlie would be proud of me for refusing to be oppressed by the tyranny of the Camino. And if there was any lingering guilt on my part, I reasoned it away by deciding that by now I have taken enough mini adventure detours, explored enough towns and cities on foot, and gotten lost on the Camino and had to retrace my steps enough times that I have more than made up for my missing 18.6 km. So there. Guilt, Ye Are Vanquished!

I entered Leon with renewed feet and renewed spirit. I found the albergue tucked away in a convent and again I recieved more blessed reassurance that taking the bus was a stroke of genious. This albergue had heat. I mean HEAT! Enveloping, snuggly, toasty heat that emanated from the multitude of glorious, heavenly radiators and I knew I would not have to entomb myself under 18 stinky wool blankets tonight.



After droping off my crap and cleaning up. I set out to explore Leon. Then I got a wild hair up my ass and decided to get my hair cut. Doesn't everyone do this while hiking across a foreign country? See, before I left my friend George (fabulous hair person that he is), lopped off all my locks cause I didn´t want to fuck around with hair on this trip (point of fact: I have not combed or brushed my hair since I left the States). But I just wanted my bangs a little shorter. You know, kind of pixie-ish, like Mia Farrow in Rosemary´s Baby? So try not speaking a word of Spanish and walking into a salon and miming what you want done with your do. (I told you I got a wild hair up my ass). But she got the gist, and I got the bangs, and I was ready for my night on the town.



So I had already gotten oriented to the city earlier in the day, and I found out the Holy Week procession that night was going to depart from close by, and I found a spot in the crowd lining the street and wedged my way in. Apparently, and I think I vaguely remember reading about this somewhere like the doctor´s office a long time ago, but the Holy Week processions in Leon are of ¨international cultural interest¨ (or so my little brochure says). And after seeing one, I get why.



But first one must get over the mildly disconcerting resemblence of the costumes worn by the processors to those of the KKK. The pointed hoods are a bit, mmm, well, lets just say that if you were black and in the U.S. and you saw these dudes coming, you´d be hoping there wasn´t a tree nearby. And the guys with the rounded hoods look for all the world like medieval executioners. I had asked Ana what the hoods symbolized. She couldn´t tell me for sure, it was not an aspect of religion she ever took an interest in, but she thought they were a sign of penance, and that the hoods protected the anonymity of the penitent.



But intimidating resemblences aside, the ambiance created by these processions is at once somber and rousing. The streets are filled with the scent of incense. The barges are guilded, carved, festooned with roses, alums, birds of paradise, every you-name-it flower you can imagine. The staturary on the barges presents the scenes from Christ´s passion: the garden at Gethsemane, the betrayal of Judas, the carrying of the cross, the crucified Christ, the Pieta, the Virgin Mary, etc... Each barge is carried by maybe 70 or 80 pall bearers, each steping in time with the slow pound of the drums and the high blast of the trumpets. The trumpets are tiny and seem excuciatingly difficult to play judging by the occasional dischordant squeak escaping one here or there. But the music works. It swells, it thrums, it vibrates within you, it gets in your chest and haunts there.



Sure, we could mention the niggling incongruity of the sword carrying military escorts in a religious procession, we could quibble about the authenticty of a Mary depicted in royal blue velvet robes embroided with gold and other finery, we could question the humility of a church that processes with huge, ornate expensive looking silver crosses and silver lanterns.



But as far as sheer cultural spectacle goes, I could absolutely get down with it. I could enjoy it, marvel at it, and be thankful I´d gotten the rare opportunity to see devotion, penitence, mourning and rejoicing celebrated in this way. It is not done so anywhere else in the world as far as I am aware, so I was prepared to give over my piddling doubts and just observe, absorb and appreciate. To be sure the Leonese procession was not as moving as the intimate little Palm Sunday procession I happened on in Sahagun, but it was certainly impactful and stirring.

And finally, as if this monster of a day had not already had me doing absolutely every disparate activity one could do in a day in a foreign country, I went to hear vespers sung by the nuns at the convent that runs the albergue. We peregrinos sat in a brightly lit 18th century chapel and listened to the nuns sing, their high, soft voices filling the high vaulted space.

I was pretty wiped, but I think I could have listened to them sing all night.