Small disclaimer: I share a lot in these blogs and at the same time I keep a lot of things to myself. However, I also want to find that sweet spot between keeping some emotions private and making it seem like everything in my life is absolutely grand. While writing these blog posts I had to admit to myself that I was… not necessarily amping up the happiness per say, but definitely letting out a lot of pain and heartache that I experienced those few days. Back in Moratinos I received the news that my cat – my best, fluffiest, loveliest buddy in life – wasn’t doing good. So while there were definitely a lot of happy moments these days, as you can read, there were also a lot of moments with tears. I don’t really feel like writing about them, because I feel like that’s something I’d rather keep personal, but I did want to make it clear that not everything was sunshine and rainbows, ya know?
Instead of taking a zero day in Leon, we had decided as a group to stop a few kilometres before the city and walk up in the morning so we could take the afternoon off. We were joined by Kathy, an older woman from the USA, who didn’t have a head lamp and had asked the evening before if she could walk with us. The stars were still out, but the sunrise quickly took over. By the time it was halfway to being light outside, we had also already reached the suburbs of Leon. Somewhere in the last kilometres, I decided that I definitely wanted to keep in contact with the girls, but would start the day on my own the next morning. All the mornings together had made me realise how much I had valued those quiet moments beforehand: the feeling of almost being alone sometimes, in the dark, watching the sunset. I started missing the peace and introspection I usually experienced in these moments. Nevertheless, I did go to the big albergue in the city instead of getting a hotel room, because there is a vast difference between having slow, solo mornings and being all alone in a hotel room. Out of the two, I really liked one and would do anything I could to prevent the other given my current emotional state (this is absolutely, 100% regarding to the disclaimer at the top of this page). Jaco and I decided we had totally earned massages, and set out to find a place that could treat us. Unfortunately, neither of us had had the forethought to plan ahead, and it was annoying but unsurprising that all of the acceptable-looking places were booked full for the rest of the day. The massages a lost cause, I set out for the next best thing: when entering the city, I had seen a big billboard advertising the Leonidas shop downtown. Did I buy myself an entire box of pralines? Yes. Did I eat almost all of them in one day? Absolutely, yes. Sometimes the Belgian in me just needs to Belgian for a bit.
After the chocolate, we went to visit a museum (because of course I did) about Gaudi and… well, to be honest, the main theme of the museum was a bit hard to find. It was a house designed by Gaudi, so naturally there was quite a big section about Gaudi. There was, however, also a display with a very interesting disclaimer that read something along the lines of, “this is what we think the interior might have looked like.” I could mention something about correct historical representation here, but I won’t.* Moreover, when we moved one floor up, the museum suddenly switched into an unexplained display of random rooms. When I say unexplained, I mean that there was literally no information whatsoever, not about what we were looking at, why we were looking at it, or what it was representing. And when I say random, I mean that at some point, we were walking through a dentist office.
*And we’re all nicely going to ignore that with this statement I kind of did, anyway.
The last floor was, according to the museum, an art gallery with art that ‘they felt would have been chosen and appreciated by Gaudi’. Once again, historical representation but WHATEVER. At some point, we entered a small room somewhere in a corner that was filled with sketches. From Dali.
I’m going to repeat that, just to make sure everyone understands the gravity of this. Small room. Corner. Kind of hidden away. No advertisement whatsoever. Sketches. Dali. DALI. SKETCHES from DALI.
The rest of the afternoon in Leon was spent pilgrim-shopping. I had some clear goals in mind: check for new in-soles, because my feet had been hurting a suspicious amount the past few days* and a pair of gloves. At the end of the day, I had one (1) pair of earrings, (1) buff, zero (0) in-soles and zero (0) gloves. Go figure.
*I later figured out it wasn’t the in-soles, but simply the constant flat surface of the meseta.
The camino can be quite unpredictable in many ways, be it the weather, detours, people you meet or just overall things that can happen during your days. However, there is also a certain degree of predictability. One of those steady truths on the camino, is that when you ask an American person how they learned about the existence of the camino, chances are quite high that they’ll mention a movie called The Way in their answer. After hundreds of kilometres of having heard about this infamous movie, we decided that it was time to watch it and finally know what they were all going on about. Melissa had gotten a private room in a hotel for the night, complete with a television, and so she invited us all over to her room to have dinner and watch The Way.
My Honest Review of The Way (2010)
It’s… well, to put it eloquently and not use curse words: it’s not that good.
Story-wise, it had a lot of potential and then hanged, drawn and quartered it. Character development clearly wasn’t a priority, nor was there the need for the characters to have any kind of interesting and honest conversations. The only time the main character expressed his feelings was when he got rip-roaring drunk. There’s also a Dutch guy who is constantly smoking weed, an author who is portrayed as completely unhinged, and the one woman who gets more than five seconds of screen time is extremely rude. The movie also does not pass the Bechdel test, just adding that here. The actual story then, is much more Hollywood and not so much Camino. There’s a lot of drama going on, some of it completely unnecessary and some of it downright sketchy. If you want to watch a movie about the camino, it shouldn’t be that difficult to find one that represents the camino in a more honest and real way.
Nevertheless, here’s what stuck with me from the movie (spoilers ahead!)
- At some point there’s a scene where the four pilgrims are sitting in front of an albergue. It has a bright yellow wall, and it’s where I got food poisoning.
- The Dutch guy utters the amazing words, “If it ain’t Dutch, it ain’t much,” a quote I will be using as much as I possibly can from now on. Complete with finger-guns and all, because I have zero chill.
- When the characters reach Leon, they all get a separate hotel room only to realise they missed each other’s company. One by one, they show up in the room of the main character. It was quite funny to look at that scene, and then look at us, four pilgrims sitting in Melissa’s room. In Leon.
- In the morning, I passed by the hotel where the characters stayed at (it’s crazy fancy), and admittedly wondered just how many people had gotten rooms there because of the movie.
True to my decision of the day before, I hiked mostly on my own when I left Leon, occasionally joined by both people I had met before and new faces. I decided to treat myself with hiking “only” 20 kilometres. I was feeling the strain of the meseta on my body, and the choice was between 20 or 27-something, so when I arrived at the town of Villar de Mazarife*I decided to stay there. Also, when I checked out the first albergue, there was a sign mentioning massages by donativo. Given the failed quest for massages the day before, I figured it was a sign from the Universe.** On the way there, I had had breakfast at a place that had been recommended to me by a friend. It had a breakfast buffet for 8 euros, and you could eat as much as you wanted. Some truths: it was heaven, and also the first two kilometres after my breakfast were hell. My stomach felt like it would explode.
*I had to check the map to look up what the name of the place was, because in my journal I wrote the very informational, “I don’t know where I am to be honest.”
**It both was and it wasn’t at the same time: the massage was really really good, the masseur was… questionable.
The next morning I started hiking early, eager to get some time alone with the stars. There were more clouds than stars in the end, but I did see a rabbit so that made up for it. I also passed the 300km mark – and although those marks had been wildly inconsistent before I still chose to believe that one as true. When I eventually arrived at the next town and decided to stop for breakfast, I not only got a bocadillo and a coffee, but also a non-requested serenade from a guy with a guitar. It was fun and all until he started playing a self-written song about how he had once gone on a date with a girl who was trans. He also made it very clear in the song that he thought that was one of the worst things that had ever happened to him. It was quite sad he didn’t speak Dutch, because I would have liked to introduce him to Pommelien Thijs and her very iconic ik was jonger and ik had nog veel te leren / over grote jongens met iets kleins te compenseren.
Jaco had joined us somewhere between the first verse and the chorus, and we stuck together after our breakfast had ended, using the first few kilometres to fume about bigoted people because… seriously.
After a second stop for another coffee, the two of us split up again to get some more solo-hiking in. I started a new audiobook (about a lesbian accidentally stealing a spaceship and falling in love with a hologram, it was wild), and enjoyed the scenery. The last few days on the meseta had been almost mind-numbing with how constant and monotone everything was, and it made me double appreciate my surroundings now. It was an orange and dusty kind of environment, with dry shrubs and pine trees.
People like writing little messages on the camino signs. I have shared those a few times already – I like to call them “camino wisdom”. In this particular instant, however, the so-called camino wisdom was more of a dare: the sign was next to an old tower, and someone had written the words “I dare you to climb up!” in bold, black letters. Naturally, I did. The rest of the message read, “The view up there is amazing!”. They weren’t wrong either, because the view was truly pretty cool. You could see a mountain range in the distance and the nearby cities.
It had started raining by the time I reached Astorga, and I beelined for the municipal albergue. It was a big, old building, and bustling with pilgrims. I waited in line to get checked-in, and then one of the hospitalieros showed me to my room. Each room was named after other places on the camino with municipal albergues, and one of the rooms was named after Arrés – to this day still easily one of the best albergues I’ve stayed in. My room was on the third floor, and I got the last bed. The hospitaliero helpfully informed me that I was sharing with five young guys. I didn’t think anything of this, until I suddenly heard someone yell out in the hallway, in the sweet sweet tones of home, “godver!”*. Putting two and two together, I realised I was not just rooming with “young people”, I was rooming with the Belgian school kids. Now, nothing about this was a problem to me, except for the fact that they were kind of notorious on the camino for getting up at five in the morning. (To be honest, not even that was an actual problem problem, because that’s kind of what you sign up for anyway when you sleep in a hostel.)
*Translation: dammit
I spent the afternoon walking around the city together with Jaco. Up first was another Gaudi house, because when there’s a Gaudi house in the city you’re visiting, you obviously go to the Gaudi house. Even if you went to one two days earlier. Now, where the one in Leon had left me feeling slightly bemused, this one left me feeling angry. Get prepared for History-teacher Merel to make an appearance because this museum annoyed the hell out of me. The essence is this: the house is a episcopal palace, and the architecture is – obviously – out of this world. But. But. Pointing back real quick at the episcopal-thingy here: there’s a big, religious influence. Again, kind of an obvious one, given that: a) it was designed to be a literal religious palace and b) the camino de santiago – a pilgrimage – passes through it. I didn’t have a problem with any of this. What I did have a problem with is that Astorga is also known for the fact that there’s a lot of traces of the Romans in the city. What’s more, it was founded by August. What does this museum mention about the Romans, you might ask? Easy, they filled the basement with gravestones and mosaics they found, without any context or information, then elusively only mention the “early Christian influence” and how Astorga was “one of the first Christian cities”. It’s not like they’re lying, because everything they mentioned is true, but they also nicely skirted a few 100 years in the city’s history and that is what left me fuming. You cannot make a museum that is partially dedicated to the city’s history and then not mention the first centuries of its existence because it wasn’t dedicated to your religion. THAT’S NOT THE WAY MUSEUMS WORK.
Anyway. Now that that’s off my chest, I can tell you about the chocolate.
Astorga, besides having a palace designed by Gaudi, is famous for one more thing: chocolate. And I’m Belgian, so chocolate is holy to me. Still, somehow, I ended up with chocolate with jamon. To make up for that, I also got myself a bar of blueberry-chocolate, so at least something was right in the world.
