Friends – Spirit – Aiden's Journal

The Cathedral

The Cathedral was full of people. People in the pews, people standing under the arches, people painted on the walls, sculptures of people hanging in the rafters and holding up the golden artwork. Hundreds of statues depicting saints and cupids climbed up and down the two gigantic pipe organs high up on the walls.

“Catholics have the best churches” breathed Aidan quietly.

The mass began and we sat. A nun sang and led us in worship. Only Anne Domínguez understood the Spanish so the rest of us worshipped in our own ways. I bowed my head and prayed, others did similarly, some sang, others observed patiently. I tried to spy the person playing the organ but couldn’t find them from my vantage point in the back rows of the sanctuary. I’m still not sure if the music was recorded or not.

The priest would say something and then everyone would chant back in unison. The only words I could catch were, “Y con su espíritu.” – “and with your spirit.” The priest would often raise both of his arms when he spoke and there were several other priests standing around at the altar wearing red robes and nodding agreeably.

As the service continued I thought to myself that if Jesus were to come to church we might have to teach Him how to do it. He would have to learn about ushers, confessional booths, tithe baskets, hail mary prayers, etc.

As our way of worshipping God has evolved some very unusual things have been developed. We all were very excited when they swung a giant incensor across the room and any oddity was basically lost in the wonderful slapstick of the thing. People kept sneaking up behind the statue of James and hugging him mid-service. The priest carried the cup of communion wafers down the isle and myself and others lined up to receive it.

As the paintings and sculptures showed, people enjoy being a part of things. The cathedral in this case was a building dedicated to God full of people and depictions of people. People come from far and wide to see it; and most people seem to get a kick out of it. Maybe it isn’t narcissism though, maybe people just love celebrating their role and connection to their faith. If you’re given a gift why not be proud that it’s yours?

The gang and I left the cathedral quietly. The service had been pleasant and we decided to go and celebrate our completion of El Camino and each other with some gelato. A new tradition of celebration beginning.

Ballota

Ballota had a nice beach, so we stayed. Anne R. And I went scouting for albergues/ pensions while Annie and Maddie guarded the packs. Anne and I walked a bit and found nothing but more gardens and shrubs. We saw no people in the streets. Our last stop was a large pink building on the main road.

We entered an ornate hallway, paintings on one side, a floor length mirror on the other. Old yellow wallpaper everywhere. No one seemed to be home so we started exploring.

I poked my head in a doorway and found a wall-size painting of a woman in a ball gown. She had a small smile and raised eyebrows. She looked docile, and not unlike the Mona Lisa. The room was also full of antiques, including a crystal chandelier, a sofa, an armchair, and a dressing divider that all looked very old.

I turned to Anne.

“Do you think this place is haunted?”

“Oh it’s mad haunted dude.”

I couldn’t decide if that was a pro or a con. We checked upstairs and down and found no one. The stairs creaked eerily and there were several black and white pictures of ancient aristocrats. I decided on con.

We walked back out into the sunshine.

Annie ran up to us.

“I got an albergue guys! Thirteen euros!”

*****

Later Anne and I stirred from our afternoon slumber and went to go find Maddie and Annie at the beach. None of us had actually seen the beach yet, we had just heard a rumor that Ballota had a nice beach. I asked the desk lady how to get to the beach and we set off.

We trekked for maybe two kilometers down a steep dirt hill. Trees arched over us and the trail wound down to the rocky shore. The beach had very little sand but lots of rocks. All along the beach opposite the water were steep cliffs of stone.

No sign of Maddie and Annie.

Anne spotted it first.

“Dude it’s a cave!”

Sure enough, dug into the side of the largest of the cliffs was a narrow cleft. On closer inspection we realized that it didn’t go very deep, but Anne was fascinated.

Anne and I made our way back up the hill as she told me about Neanderthals. Neanderthals used to live in caves similar to the one we had found on the beach. Anne pointed out the red clay in the trail that the Neanderthals used for their cave paintings. She told me about their jewelry that they made and how the introduction of currency and trade ended their art for thousands of years. Anne has a passion for anthropology and archaeology and it’s fun to hear her get excited about it.

We returned to the hostel and found Annie and Maddie. They hadn’t actually been able to find the beach so they had spent the afternoon sitting together on a cliff near the ocean. No beach day, but we had each walked and talked with someone we hadn’t spent much time with. We went to bed knowing more about each other and that made our stop in Ballota worth while.

Church at Sobrado

Annie had been gone all afternoon. Aidan and I had done our laundry, gone to the supermarket and were unloading our groceries when we finally saw her again.

“Where have you been all day?” I asked.

“In the cathedral, you guys have to come check it out!”

There wasn’t much else to do so we followed.

We entered in through the bead curtain that lead to the back of the chapel. Instantly the temperature dropped 15 degrees. The sunlight faded away in the hall behind us.

It was dark like a cave. Shafts of light from the windows showed clouds of dust hanging between the building’s arches. Vines were in the rafters and on the walls along with patches of moss and green algae.

There was no ornamentation. No relics. And therefore no tourists. Only Jesus, nailed to the cross, looked out at us from the gloom. He hung in the center of the building; alone.

We became silent. After fifteen minutes, I left.

Annie Landis and I sat in the sun for a while thinking.

“I was hoping you were going to sing.”

I turned to Annie, surprised. “Really? Why?” Annie shrugged.

“I don’t know. I was just hoping you would.”

Later that night we returned; Aidan, Anne D., Annie Landis, and I. The atmosphere was the same. Again we stopped talking and sat quietly. For a long while we all sat, praying and thinking. I felt Annie’s eyes on me. I breathed in deep and sang.

I’m not sure what my friends believed in that night. But as I sang out the words of my favorite worship song it felt like worship wasn’t coming from me alone but from all of us. My last notes echoed out and we fell silent again. After a while we left quietly.

We had church in Sobrado in a thousand year-old building dedicated to Christ. I realized later that the church felt powerful because of it’s lack of extra fixtures. The cupids and saints in other churches are pretty but the message of the gospel will always be as simple as Christ alone, hanging there for humanity. Annie told me later that that night was one of the highlights of her Camino.

Singing With Cheryl

In the kitchen I cleaned the plates from dinner. I put two pumps of soap on the sponge (Annie says that that’s too much) and I cleaned each surface twice before rinsing. I sang as I cleaned, whatever song came into my head. I started with Valarie by Amy Winehouse which became a Fall Out Boy song which somehow became Amazing Grace. Amazing Grace was what was in my head when Cheryl came in to help.

“Oh what a lovely tune!” Cheryl exclaimed. “Let’s sing it together.”

We started from the top. Her soprano voice reverberated off of the stone kitchen walls. I shyly sang out in a lower voice to compliment her. Cheryl bustled around the kitchen pinching my elbows and directing me where to put the pots and pans. She kept on singing while she did this and I began to sing louder to match her.

“T’was grace that taught my heart to fear, and grace, my fears relieved.”

When the song was finished Cheryl clapped excitedly.

“How wonderful! Let’s sing another.”

I didn’t know any more hymns but she insisted I try anyway. She sang on and I hummed the verses and chimed in on the choruses once I caught the words. Annie and Aidan watched us from the doorway as we held church service in a 5×5 kitchen.

“Do they sing these songs in South Africa?”

“Of course dear! Do you know the 23rd psalm?”

“Yes of course.”

“This is how we sing it in Afrikaans.”

Cheryl grabbed my arm tightly, snuggled in to my side and began to sing again. I stood awkwardly and looked into Cheryl’s eyes as she sang the entire song 3 inches away from my face. Annie and Aidan grinned out of the corner of my eye. Cheryl meanwhile squeezed tighter and sang sweetly a psalm I knew every word to in a language I didn’t understand.

“That’s how we sing it in South Africa.”

“It’s beautiful, thank you.”

“Yes dear. Would you all like some coffee?”

It was almost eleven so we turned Cheryl down. Cheryl told us that coffee would make us ready to sleep.

“I’m pretty sure that’s not true.” Said Annie, but Cheryl paid her no mind. She only started singing again as the last plate found it’s home.

Pension

Maddie and I blew into San Vicente along with the rainstorm. We had walked from Cobreces through a beautiful sunny day, taking our time.

We arrived late and tired. No albergue in town. We spent maybe two hours searching and had found nothing.

The office of tourism was closed. The only albergue was permanently closed. We both agreed not to panic.

A cafe provided us with a base so we could think straight. After some web-surfing I left Maddie at the cafe to scout out a pension down the road. It was raining fiercely and I jogged through the street dodging city folk on my way to our last option. Finally I found a black door in a small alley.

I entered and stood in a dim, greasy hallway. Stairs to my left, wall to my right, another door directly in front of me.

I knocked.

Nothing.

I knocked again.

I heard shuffling behind the doorway, as if someone was coming down a hall. Fumbling at the peephole. Then nothing.

Weird.

I waited a few moments then knocked again. More shuffling. More fumbling. Nothing.

It occurred to me that this might not be the pension. I decided to go up the stairs.

I found myself standing in front of another black door. A light hung directly above it. A purple potted plant next to the door stretched it’s tendrils into the air giving the space an alien feel. I knocked. Shuffling.

A squat, plump man opened the door. He wore a plain grey shirt and was balding.

“Do you have a room?” I asked in Spanish.

“Yes.”

“How much?”

“30.”

“Can I see?”

The man turned without a word and walked back into a crooked and narrow hallway. I followed and was surprised as the floor rose and fell at unusual inclines and descents down the corridor. I turned to my right and was face to face with a teen pop star.

The poster was tacked to a door and life size. The model was posing with a hand on one hip and the other behind his head. His eyes were dark and alluring and his tight shirt was pulled up to show his stomach hair. It was a little gross.

I followed the owner down the slanted hallway hoping he had a daughter.

The man walked straight into a dark room to his computer to log me in. I was so tired I just accepted that this was where I was staying. As I walked around his desk for him to take my passport I happened to glance at his computer screen. An arcade game was open on the screen. A cartoon princess in a frilly pink dress stood on the screen surrounded by hearts and more pink. A high score showed in the background.

I averted my eyes quickly and then snapped a quick picture while the man’s back was turned. I hurried out of the building to fetch Maddie. I suspect that the man had no daughter.

Maddie and I returned to the pension. The man showed us to our room. Maddie, having seen the poster in the hall for herself, avoided eye-contact with the man altogether. I thanked him and shut the door. The two of us turned to find a room that seemed to be entirely filled with doily.

The walls of our bedroom were pink, the ceiling was pink, the beds were pink, and the whole room was covered with doily.

“What the heck?” Was the only thing Maddie and I could say to each other for about a full minute. We sank onto our beds and decided to embrace where the day had lead us. I looked out the window through the doily curtains and fell asleep below a painting of cupids in a soft pink bed.

The Party

Every pilgrim I had met since Santander was there. Heina and his crew of Germans and Danes waved me over as I walked up the drive to La Naranja Peregrina. Rian and Julie lounged at a table. Jaquelyn, Matius, and Alicia smiled and looked up. The stench of cigarettes stretched for a kilometer down the road. Bottles already lined the sides of garden walls.

Rian stood up and we shook hands.

“Bro every time I see your mark on the road I know there’s hope.”

“Yeah?” He laughed. “Good to see you man, glad you all made it.”

I plopped down next to Aidan at the table in the back along with Anne Randall, Anne Domínguez, Annie, and Maddie. English, German, Spanish and universal cuss words filled the air.

Aidan turned to me.

“You gotta go sneak a peek at the paella man.”

I got up and made my way through the crowd around the corner to where a massive cast-iron skillet was being tended by a hospitalero. Yellow, green, golden-brown. Colors seemed to bloom from the hot pan and the aroma steamed out from the hutch where the paella was being made. Nuts, peppers, chicken, tomatoes, and rice, together in fellowship.

I rejoined the party. Julie the gypsy was banging on a metal pot accompanied by Thomas who wacked away at a green plastic bucket. Others banged on tables and Rian whistled over the din on his recorder. Aidan and I joined in on two ukeleles.

I played G, D, Em, C and bobbed my head.

Julie danced wildly, banging on Rian’s scooter handles with sticks. The groove was sloppy, people went in and out of rhythm and the crowd laughed. Not pro, not tight, but a lot of fun.

I sat on the garden wall, sang, and strummed the uke. Julie and Anne R. sang along and Aidan solo’d away on his ukelele.

“Well a-you done done me in your bed I felt it. I tried to beat you, but you’re so hot that I melted.”

I sang into the fading light. The hospitaleros grinned and took pictures, obviously excited that their week-old albergue had drawn such a crowd.

The stars came out in earnest and empty bottles began to spill out on to the sidewalk. The hospitaleros brought out homemade tortilla around midnight and the pilgrims all gathered for a slice. A German girl about my age named Ranyanah showed off Rian’s mark that she had had tattooed onto her calf two days before. Rian carries around a small tattoo gun just in case.

Rian, Maddie, Annie, and I set up a tent in the backyard. The albergue was full but the hospitaleros had loaned us a brand-new tent for the evening. Rian said that this was to be the tent’s maiden voyage. I think he had maidens on his mind when he said it but no one took him up on the offer.

My second time sleeping in a tent in Spain was better than the first mainly thanks to more clothing and three other people. As I fell asleep I could still hear the last of the pilgrims carrying on the party. The butterfly Julie had painted on my cheek smeared on to my hand as I slept.

I woke up the next morning wearing Rian’s jacket. Everyone in the albergue was tired but smiling. Julie had fallen asleep on the couch and couldn’t remember getting into her bed. Some were so hungover they had to bus. Everyone agreed that it was the best pilgrim party so far.

Special Treatment

Two ladies stood side by side in the doorway. The first wore a white cape, white pants, and a paisely scarf popping out from her white jacket. Trendy turquoise slippers graced her tiny feet and matching paisely earrings rested on her cheeks.

The second, about 12 inches the taller of the two, stood poised behind the first. Her skin was brown and wrinkled, falling from her jaw bone across her neck in thick jowls. Her hair rose up from her head like a wave, white with a purple stripe across the bangs. Two rings were on every single one of her fingers, and bracelets lead all the way up her arms into the folds of her ornately embroidered jacket. Beady eyes poked out from under false eyelashes and purple mascara, scanning the room. She oozed the distinctive fragrance of the bourgeois.

The first flashed into the room like a young girl would, smiling tightly with a practiced crinkling of the eyes. Maddie, Jacquelyn, Annie Landis, and I stood in the lobby of the albergue, credenciales half-stamped, gaping a little.

The hospitalario desk boy, although seemingly acquainted, also gaped a little.

The first woman slithered up to Maddie’s side and rubbed her shoulders, exclaiming in flamboyant Spanish how tan Maddie was. Lifting up a strap of Maddie’s tank top the woman examined the tan line and giggled patting Maddie’s shoulder lightly and bringing her face in very close. Maddie looked back at me with “what the heck?” written clearly on her face.

The second strutted in, smiling with lips pouted dramatically and asked Annie where we were from. When Annie told her both women became very excited, and the short one seemed to vibrate in place still grinning.

They hung around as we finished checking in. As I hoisted my pack upon my shoulder the shaky desk boy stabbed a bony finger at me and said, “You four?”

“Huh?”

“You four in group?”

“Oh. Uh, yeah.”

“Want room?”

This conversation was confusing me because I couldn’t see why we would be here at all if not to get a room. It became clear that the wispy hospitalero was offering us a private room.

The short zippy woman was the owner and had apparently taken a liking to us. She escorted us to our private, 8-bunk bedroom. She flounced from bed to bed picking up pillows and beaming at us, asking us if we liked it. The gang nodded shyly and we waited till she had flitted away to collapse onto our bunks.

I glanced outside. The tall woman and a staunch Spanish gentleman in a blue suit jacket followed the owner around chortling as she waved her arms showing them her facilities. The desk boy lurched a bit in the doorway, looking to make a good impression. I stepped back into our private bathroom to take a shower. Sometimes it pays just to be yourself, and to know someone with a good tan.

Camping

Maddie, Aidan, and I showed up late to the albergue for the second day in a row.

“We have one bed left.”

Not what I wanted to hear.

Aidan and I looked blankly at each other. There was no other room in town, not even a hotel. We knew that we would let Maddie have the bed but what would we do?

We nodded and turned to leave.

Julie the gypsy popped her half-shaved head out from behind the doorway. “I have a tent!”

Aidan and I grinned at each other.

“We’ll take it!”

We made camp at dusk on a small bluff just off the beach. Cops were guaranteed not to bother us and rain was a 60-40 chance in our favor. Now we just had to actually set up the tent.

Aidan, being a man of the woods, went straight to work setting up the red and grey two-man MSR. I being a man of the couch went to the bar.

Nightfall found me hobbling back across the dunes to our hiding spot behind the cow pasture. Aidan was drinking whisky watching the bats. The tent stood erect on the hill watching us.

After wading through the tall grass I joined Aidan on the hill.

“Great spot man, this is gonna be so cool!”

“Yeah, just watch out for ticks, there’s a ton of them in this field.”

After I had plucked the last of some twenty parasites from my legs we got changed leaving our packs outside the tent along with our shoes and sticks.

The tent roof was open. Aidan and Aiden lay in borrowed sleeping bags beneath a freezing, cloudless expanse. I wrapped myself in the gold-aluminum emergency blanket that my father had insisted would come in handy. I crackled like a bag of chips whenever I moved but at least I was warmer.

I shivered myself to sleep, back to back with Aidan Ripley.

At 5:00 A.M. my eyes snapped open. The first rain drop had landed on my cheek.

“Aidan it’s raining!”

Aidan flew into action, scrambling over me to the door zipper. Helplessly I rolled around in my sleeping bag. Aidan’s backside wagged in my face as he fumbled with the tent opening. The covering flew on. We sighed and fell back to sleep.

At 6:00 we broke camp and headed back down the beach. Breakfast at the albergue was toast and coffee and cereal. Not much sleep. Sand in our clothes. Aidan and I laughed about our little misfortunes.

“It was worth it man.”

“SO worth it. But next time we keep the roof on.”

I was thinking later that having no bed turned into an opportunity for a good story because Aidan and I remained calm and trusted that things would work out. When I go home I think most of my problems will pale in comparison to being homeless in a foreign country. Many problems may seem easier to handle by comparison. And perhaps I will never have another blessing quite like falling asleep on a beach in Spain.

Black Magic

Rian tied a frayed piece of bright blue rope in a knot around my wrist.

“I found it on the street,” he said.

“Am I part of the clan now?”

“Yeah sure I guess.”

I met Rian outside the albergue this afternoon. Maddie and I were walking up the drive getting drenched by the rain. He was smoking a joint under a tree.

“Hey, you play ukelele?” We were on the bunks and he was plucking out a tune.

“Maybe.”

The uke flew between bunks.

‘Tocar’ is the verb used in Spanish when playing an instrument, it means “to touch.”

I touched the strings until my ears found Dm7, G7, and Cmaj7 – a jazz 2-5-1 progression.

“Hey man you’re really good!”

“Just figuring it out.”

Thank God for music school.

Rian is walking the perimeter of France, Spain, and Italy. No big deal. Someday he’ll return home to Ireland.

“Maybe.” He says.

“I’m a stone worker by trade. I have a mark and everything. Hold out your hand.”

Obediently I held out my hand.

Rian drew in black ink a symbol with three prongs, two crosses, and what looked to my uneducated sensibilities like male genitalia but was quite obviously sacred to him.

“That’s my symbol.” Said Rian capping the pen. “It’s black magic.”

“Well shit.” I thought to myself.

Later Rian and I were bonded in Celtic friendship by the bracelet made of trash he gave me. We now sit in a tavern together, he with his pint and me with my hot chocolate. He and Maddie take turns telling the day’s story in doodles cross-hatched out on notebook paper.

“Okay so ‘what’s the craic?’ In Ireland Is equivalent to ‘what’s up?’ In America?”

“Yeah” said Maddie smiling “and you respond with, ‘the craic is mighty.’”

“Perfect.” I laughed. “First thing in the morning then.”

“Oh, can we walk together?” Asked Rian looking surprised.

“Definitely.”

And just like that friendship is made on the Camino. Three mornings later my blue bracelet still rubs against my wrist even though Rian and I have parted ways. Maddie and I look for his black magic mark on stop signs wherever we go just to remind us that we’re on the same road.

Stealing

Annie D. Asked, “What’s the one thing you like here that you don’t like at home?” That’s hard for me because home is somewhere I like more than anywhere else. It took some thinking.

As I started in on my second package of salami in a sitting the answer dawned on me. Food!

Roció took me out looking for food one night in Pamplona. The menu was all in Basque-Spanish. Roció did all the talking. When our feast arrived everything looked disgusting.

Blood sausage in a bowl. Rocío thought I needed some meat on my bones so that was what I got. Octopus wedges was the first choice of our friend Esterr. Roció received a steaming plate of black goo.

After gulping down as much blood sausage as I could stomach I became desperate to try anything else. “Want to try my squid?” Asked Roció.

“HUH?”

“Oh don’t be a child.”

Roció passed me the plate of black goo.

“Why’s it black?”

“That’s the squid ink that they cook it in.”

Yuck. I bit in.

“I’m pretty sure I can taste its brain.”

“Oh shush it’s good.”

The squid tasted like what a fish’s butt must taste like. I informed the girls that I would not be trying any more squid.

“Come on let’s go out to the bar!” said Roció after finishing off the last off the squid.

“But I’m in my pajamas!”

The girls were already walking out the door.

A Spanish gay bar at 11:00 in your pajamas is only a good situation if you’re a certain type of person. The naked man on the wall with a telephone chord wrapped around his junk could have just been modern art. The holographic penises hanging from the ceiling were the dead giveaway. Loudly dressed Pamplona locals jostled up against us and Roció and I grinned at each other as I asked her what on earth we were doing there.

The answer to Annie’s question is this: everything here can be a little adventure, even the food. At home my Friday night pizza rarely leads to a night on the town in a medieval city. Roció is hosting me in Madrid in June and our first adventure together began over a plate of black goo.