Burnt toast

When I first met Salima, I thought that she was a sweet, interesting, talkitive young woman (she´s the same age as Naomi). Ten days or so later, my opinion has not changed, but I´ve learned that she is also a person who does not take any shit. This makes her a good travel companion. Though her Spanish is minimal, she does not hesitate to ask for what she wants, and, if she doesn´t get it, to ask again in a more pointed manner. This morning was a mild example--when her toast arrived at our breakfast table more black than brown, she simply sent it back and asked for a less well-done version. And why not. However, I would have just eaten it (and actually did, as my own was darkish as well). I admire forceful people, especially when they can pull off their forcefulness in a way that is reasonable rather than demanding. And Salima manages that. I told her she was indeed a lawyer, but I have a feeling her demeanor predates law school.

Yesterday when we arrived in Finesterre we had decided to get hotel rooms rather than wait for the albergue to open at five. In this Salima took the lead and the rest of us let her. The first couple places were full, but the third, Casa Velay, had one room, a double. Salima tried talking the proprietor into letting us four share the room but he refused. Instead he walked us five minutes along the waterfront to a house and took us inside. It wasn´t a hotel or pension, simply someone´s house with two available rooms upstairs. The problem was that it smelled like shit. Literally. For me this was an immediate deterrent, and it didn´t help that one of the rooms had only one big bed ("matrimonio," they call it here). The man who lived in the house, and who had proceeded us upstairs, might have been the source of the smell but I couldn´t tell. His neck was sort of collapsed, emphasizing his unshaven and massive jaw in a disturbing way, and he could only aspirate his words, which were utterly incomprehensible to me. Noting the pained looks on Salima and Mandy´s faces, I said (in broken Spanish) something like, ok, we´re going back downstairs and we´ll talk about it--just wanting to get back out in the street and have a big clean breath of air.

Once outside we simply said no thanks, and then returned to the Casa Velay. Salima and Mandy took the one room, though with some reluctance, and Eddy and I set off together to find other lodgings. Which we soon did at the Hotel Finesterre--two single rooms, twenty-five euros each. We climbed to the third floor and found the rooms passable, and you could see the harbor out the window if you craned your neck to the right and ignored the construction site just below. Eddy said, "is better than Darth Vader," which was inappropriate I suppose but it made me laugh.

After walking to the point we ate dinner, an excellent menu del dia--first ensalada con arroz, then a big platter of cooked potatoes and two types of fish, all soaking in a delicious orangey sauce. Salima thought the dessert tart one of the best pastries she´d eaten in Spain.

After eating we reprised the previous night´s discussion by addressing a number of further refelctive questions. I had one this time: would you walk the Camino again? The others all said yes, but I would´ve said no until recently (simply because I´ve done it, not because I haven´t liked it), but now I´m thinkng yes. I imagine that each time it would be a much different experience, depending on the people you met, but also on the albergues, the weather, the time of year....

Other questions ranged from the less interesting (to me) "do you have the sense that you´ve done the Camino in a previous life?" to the fascinating "what is a pilgrim and are you still one after you´ve finished the Camino?" Answers varied considerably to this question. I said yes, I was always a pilgrim, because I was always seeking--not so much something like St. James or Jesus or God or the city of Santiago, but simply experience and knowledge. Mandy also spoke of seeking as a constant in her life; Eddy said maybe he wasn´t so much a pilgrim, and that he had more questions at the end than he´d had at the start; Salima said she didn´t think of herself as a pilgrim, that she was trying not to seek but instead to live more in the present, to be happy now rather than always deferring happiness to a time of future accomplishment. Have I said how much I liked these people´s company?

We also spoke in a nostalgic manner of what we had done in recent weeks and would do no longer, all the Camino experience. It´s been something that has encouraged analysis and discussion, more so towards the end, and those are two activities that I sort of enjoy.

Today we ate breakfast together, then wandered around the waterfront. Finally the time came for parting. We shook hands and hugged, and Mandy and Salima and I kissed cheeks, and then they all got on the bus to Santiago (with reluctance--none of us has used such transportation in some time) and drove away.

So now I am again solo, after what seems a long time in company. There are a few people around town that I know. I ran into Susanne, the Hungarian woman, and I might join her on a walk to the end to burn stuff later. Still an acquaintance is different than a companion. I had only known Mandy two weeks, but it seemed much longer, and I´ll miss her.

It turns out that I am not quite done walking. One can walk one more day north along the coast to the town of Muxia. So tomorrow another day afoot. On my own this time, but that´s how I started and so it´s appropriate and even satisfying to finish that way.