Day 31 or What a Painter Nature Is

Notes on Day 31, March 26, Villafranca to Vega de Valcarce

With my arrival in Villafranca last night I officially crossed the ¨less than 200 km to Santiago¨ mark. I can hardly believe it.

And amazingly, the outpost albergue woke us all by playing Gregorian chant this morning. They have redeemed themselves a modicum with that bit of coolness.

This morning there was a choice in trails. Literally the low road or the high road. The low trail followed the main road, the high road a mountain ridge. Not one, not one single peregrino from either albergue took the high road this morning, so in the rain I had this mountain ridge entirely to myself. And I spent the morning congratulating myself on what a fearless adventurer I was and what suckers everyone else was, because even in the rain, what a view I had!



Spring wild flowers speckled the mountainsides in shades of butter yellow, electric blue, rosy pink, smokey white, and lavender against a backdrop of the blue-gray shale in the hillside. The shale itself was streaked with veins of ochre, gold, umber and rust and was encrusted with minty lichens. These colors blended flawlessly with the lingering hues of last autumn: the straw colored grasses, the burnt sienna and vermilion of the spent ferns and the pumpkin colored leaves.

And I strained to remember my Wordsworth:

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed--and gazed--but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

It was this kind of morning, you know? I looked in admiration at the canvas I was walking through and mused, ¨what a painter nature is!¨ to so keenly pick out such glorious and un-thought-of juxtapositions of colors, such combinations and depths of texture.



The slate here is so exquisitely veined and intricately hued I keep thinking what a gorgeous kitchen counter top it would make and I want to bring some home with me but alas, it is too heavy.



And that was morning. By afternoon, after I had my fill of walking in art, the rain changed to sleet, and the wind drove the sleet so hard that it blew sideways into the ridge from which I was trying to descend. It caught in my poncho, making me look like an inflated puffer fish on the mountain, and I laughed and wished I had a picture of myself in all this ridiculousness. Until the wind finally tore my cheap ass poncho to pieces and rendered it useless. My gloves, feet, head, every bit of me soaked, I thought what a sucker I am for taking the high road and how intelligently cautious all those other hikers are for taking the low road. They were probably breaking their hike in some cozy roadside bar right now, drinking Mahou or San Miguel, eating jamon and tortilla, while I was up on that ridge thinking about how blue my corpse will look in the coffin when I die from hypothermia. It was a bit harrowing, I have to confess.

Elainie and Roberto had told me about this albergue in Vega de Valcarce that was run by a Brazilian couple. I knew they would be there, if they had made it this far today, because Elainie seemed so comforted about the idea of a Brazilian albergue, with real Brazilian food and other reminders of her home country.

And sure as I am divorced and still hating my ex, when the hospitalero gave me the tour of the women´s bathroom, there was Roberto brushing his teeth with Elainie!

We spent the afternoon in this Brazilian albergue with its rustic Brazilian artwork on the walls and mellow Brazilian music on the CD player, with Christina (who sang to everything) and her husband (whose name I can´t pronounce). Christina put my clothes (all my clothes - I wrapped my sleeping bag around my bare ass) in the washer (there was no dryer, so I was leaving a lot up to fate), and the temperature in this albergue was even more glacial than last night, so Elainie and Roberto and I crawled into bed in the afternoon for another siesta in self defense.

In the evening I went downstairs to find that Christina´s husband had built a merciful fire, that Elainie had kindly hung all my clothes on a drying rack by the fire and that everyone was crowded around the blood reviving flames with Pepe and Maria, a father and four months pregnant daughter from Valencia.



So the five of us huddled around the fire, the only six square feet of warmth in the entire albergue, and held our wet clothes up to dry and watched the steam billow from them. It was an intimate evening, as we were the only five in the albergue. Pepe (I absolutely adore the name Pepe and want to get a goldfish and name him that), is a retired genetics professor and now restores antiques. Maria is beautiful and petite and adorably pouched in the belly, with the exact haircut with the micro short choppy bangs I was trying for. But she can actually pull it off with her coal black hair and sweetly round face and perfectly pale complexion.



Elainie wondered where I was last night in Villafranca because they did not see me at the municipal albergue. They met this tall, gorgeous, blue-eyed Brit who had just chucked his misery-inducing corporate job and became a teacher. ¨He remind us of you!¨ Elainie said, and ¨Oh, and I thought, ´where ees Kreesteen? We have to introduce her to him!´.¨ And where was Kristin? Kristin was freezing her nose hairs off in the outpost across the street instead of happily ensconced in the clean, dry, warm municipal albergue with you and Roberto and Mr. Tall Handsome Brit because your guidebook did not describe the outpost as ¨legendary.¨ That´s where Kristin was.

Christina made us a home cooked meal of traditional Brazilian food and before dinner her husband offered a few words about the camino. ¨If your heart is open on the Camino, you will always learn. But if you´re heart is closed, you will suffer.¨ A bit ominous to be sure, but I know what he means. If you are not open to the physical discomforts, if you are not prepared to be cold and wet and dirty and smelly and share your bed and your bath and your food and your bandaids, you will be miserable here. Utterly miserable. But if you can find a way to be open and unfazed by those experiences, then you will be embraced by the surprising and nurturing comforts. Like those of a zesty salad followed by a main course of red beans, some sausage, and baked rice. It was hearty and warm and delicious. And for dessert, the most divine homemade dolce de leche I have ever tasted topped with gorgeous walnuts from trees that grew right there in Vega de Valcarce. It was a tiny dessert, only a morsel really, but transporting. Just enough to savor and contemplate its sweet nuttiness and then regret it´s too quick demise in your stomach and leave you longing for more.