We awoke from the luxury of sleep without the smells and sounds of a dozen friends rather late. As usual I do my nutty professor morning routine and Pete can't believe I'm considered a competent adult back home. In my backpack I have 6 smaller bags: 1 for toiletries, 1 for socks and underwear, 1 for shorts (the pair that are not hanging to dry) and shirts, 1 for prayers from home, etc. On the back of my pack hangs a cotton string bag for my shower sandals and dirty clothes. I safety pin the wool socks that won't dry overnight to the cotton bag (the cotton bag was Ketl's idea and Pete and I praise her name at least every other day for it). So all in all, if after you've done you laundry the night before, a normal person can dress and pack up in 15 or 20 minutes. Well morning after morning, I sit opening bags, talking aloud, 'now where is. . . .?' I risk losing something every day and I take more than 15 minutes every day.
It is 8:30 before we begin to wander out of Villaviscosa for our next target, Deva, just outside of Gijon (for those with Google maps). This morning is very overcast and it begins to sprinkle. We both have drying socks, our four tailed animal look) dangling down, so we break out the rain gear. I brought a pancho. Pete uses a pack cover and a rain jacket. Both of us heat up quickly if we have this on, but Pete a bit quicker than I. So instead of the morning soaked with sweat time coming a hour into the day, it comes in about 10 minutes. About that time the sprinkles stop. We stop again, take off the rain gear and continue on.
Today features a climb over a 400 m ridge (these foothills of the Picos make us thankful we didn't have to cross the Picos). We start upwards about 10 am. Sometimes the Camino follows a road, sometimes not. When it follows the road, the grades, now that we are stronger walkers are 'easy'. The goat trails through the woods are still better on the feet (pavement is hard!), but tougher on legs and lungs (my morning prayer---the Shema, followed by 'thank you Lord for feet, legs, lungs, and arms. Please keep them strong today.' When you are a pilgrim, you really can take nothing for granted, eh).
On one section of pavement, the rain starts again. We make it to a stand of trees that provide shelter enough to dig out the rain gear. Up the hill comes a party of four: an American couple from California (a bit younger than we are) and a pair of Danish women (one of them is the first Nordic type Imve met that said she wished it wasn't so hard). We share the shelter, break out water, cut a couple of apples to share, and it turns to a 10 minute rest and gab fest. The rain stops. They move on. We put the rain gear away and up we go again. We climb for the next 2 hours. The views are magnificant. We do our devotions overlooking the valley and are filled with joy (have I mentioned yet that sometimes we are simply overcome by this journey?) I share prayers this day with one of the chief architects of this journey Caroline W. She helped me get in condition (I should have followed her advice more diligenty). She found a recording of music from the 12th century dedicated to Santiago. She provided equipment advice. More than she knows, she made this possible, and I hope one day she too can come to walk this Way. I also shared prayers with an anonymous friend---may healing come.
We start down, down, down for over an hour and come to a very small village with that one institution all villages should have--a bar. There are other peregrinos gathered in the outside seating area. We join them, then I venture inside to see what's to eat.
The further west we walk in Asturias, the less English, pigden English, and desire to be helpful to the language impaired like us, we find. Inside the bar, when I ask for a menu, a quick point to a sign on the wall is what I get. The sign says menu al dia and lists three choices separated by a very short word and then three more choices, followed by the price 11€. My experience in Spain says this is the typical Spanish lunch: two courses, premiere and secundi (sp?), with wine, water, bread, and a small dessert. I think the two sets of items are first and second, and you pick the combination. The woman behind the bar is completely indifferent to my lack of understanding, so after a few attempts at charm or playing the buffon to get her to help me understand what I'm ordering, I just give in and point--afterall I'm adventurous, I'll try anything. So I return ouside and pretty soon the waitress brings glasses and water and bread, asks if we want vino--nope, 5 miles to go--and drops a lovely plate of cheese, pimento, anchovy, and olives down. Things are looking up. The plate is lovely to the eye with red, green, white. The anchoy is salt cured (not my favorite--I loved the Basque way with olive oil and lemon), the cheese is marvelous, creamy and smooth a nice contrast to the salty anchovy. The olives and pimento--well Pete and I have decided that Spanish olives with their low salt cure are worth quitting our jobs over to become importers and distributors. So all is swimming along nicely at lunch. We finish the plate, chat with the other pilgrims (the Californians and the Danes have bagged it after the hill, they've found a driver who will take them 13K to Gijon). We meet a couple of German lads. And nothing happens on the food front. I tell Pete that maybe I've completely misunderstood and we just ate an expensive appetizer plate. Pete's wife calls and he walks off to chat, when the waitress reappears and puts bowl and spoon done for each of us and walks off. Being the regular Sherlock I am, I surmise the secundi is coming. Sure enough, 5 minutes later she brings a large steaming bowl out and seats it down for me. I signal to Pete (silly man talking with his wife is more important than food) and return to open the bowl. Oh my, it smells of the sea--there are mussels, clams, shrimp, chunks of fish, a razor clam or two, some snails all swimming nicely together in a saffron broth with elbow macaroni. This is just the ticket. I'm swooning with delight. The other pereginos notice my groans of pleasure as I ladle out this sumptuous smelling stew into my bowl. On first bite I nearly fall over with the intensity of the flavor. Here in this simple bar with surly staff I'm having a rapturous moment. Saffron laced aroma fills my nose. The chef has been added the various seafoods at just the right moment so as not to overcook them (the macaroni, not as deft a hand, too soft, but the sea food. . .). Pete returns and digs in as well. After our hard climb and steep descent, we eat our fill and beyond--a second ladle full, and part of a third. The waitress comes by and takes away the bowls. More than satisfied I rise to order some coffee. As I am going in she is coming out with two more plates of food. I nearly fall over when she sets them at our places. "No, dos platos" I say. "No, tres platos', she replies. I suddenly understand what I was looking at on the board. It's Saturday, there are two, three course choices on the menu al dia. I "chose" option 1. The third couse is the Spanish version of french fries--french fry cut potatoes pan fried, two fried eggs, and a chorizo sausage the size of Popeye's forearm. The other peregrinos are rolling on the ground laughing now. The language impaired Americans have fallen into it deep, over their heads now. I sit back down stunned by what is before me. This is the world's largest lunch. I pick at the overcooked eggs (by the way, yokes of nearly all the eggs we eat here are bright orange not yellow). I try to cut the chorizo and nearly send it across the room like a missle from my plate because the skin is tough from over cooking. The potatoes were not adequately drained of oil. Course three was unexpected, and after the sublime course two, simply atrocious. And no we have a five mile walk ahead of us to the next albergue: life for the language impaired on the Camino.
More in Part 2
No comments:
Post a Comment