Tomorrow is another day
When I stopped walking in the spring, I didn't finish at the most accessible of towns. I had simply run out of time, and had to stop. Now I had to get back there, to Markina Xemein, by plane to Bilbao from Victoria via Toronto and Frankfurt, and then by a couple of buses to the town. And it took the best part of two days to get here.
As I flew, I wondered how long we would continue to enjoy this convenient but very dirty means of getting from one side of the world to the other. Apparently, air transport contributes 10% of total atmospheric pollution. I once met a woman who was principled enough not to travel by air for that reason. Only one, though. Not so long ago a British prime minister mused about limiting Brits to one overseas flight a year, but his concern for the environment wasn't as strong as his fear of losing the next election, so he backed down. Expediency always wins in the end.
There is a confraternity, or should I say consorority, of Camino walkers, and we recognize one another, even when far from the trail, not from a secret handshake but the more visible symbol of the backpack. On one of the flights as I lined up with fellow zone-four travellers, mine initiated a conversation with a lady who had recently walked the Camino Frances and whose friend was now walking the Primitivo. It happens all the time. The only other person I spoke to was a Trinidadian, who, learning I was Australian, proceeded to give me a ball-by-ball description of every cricket match he had seen during the past 50 years. Actually, I didn't speak much at all; I just made the appropriate response as someone hit a six or bowled a maiden over. Stumps was called only when the typically long Tim Hortons line split into two at the counter.
A word about boots. This time I am wearing a pair of Scarpa Active leather boots. Expensive, and perhaps a little heavy (1.71 kg), but very comfortable. I am sticking with leather boots, especially after my blistered experience with a pair of lighter-weight Keens a few years back. I wore out my recent pair of Zambs in the spring, the sole having given way completely. I had worn them from Paris to Saint-Jean, and then Montpellier into Spain, but even so, this was nothing compared to the pair I had bought in 1990, which lasted at least 15 years and quite literally thousands of miles. Strangely, it was just as I was entering the medieval town of Conques that they finally conqued out.
Now here is another example of why MEC is such a great store. I took the Zambs back, saying that they had lasted nowhere nearly as long as my first pair. "Well", said MEC, "our policy is to give you your money back if you are not satisfied." Ah, very good, I thought. "But," she went on, "in fact, your boots lasted as long as they were supposed to." She told me that nowadays boots were made to be comfortable rather than durable, and that was why my new Zambs hadn't lasted as long as the old ones.
For the first time in my life I declined to accept a refund. That may seem rather noble of me, but I reflected that on one occasion in my original Zambs I had suffered a nasty case of shin splints, but not so in my recent pair, and were I given a choice between comfortable and durable footwear I would choose the former. Besides, MEC has always been extremely fair to me in the matter of refunds. So my Zambs will end their days as a geranium planter at the cabin..
Back in Victoria, I have two other pairs of extant leather boots. Asolos, which like liberal shepherds, I sometimes give a grosser name, since I wore out the soles on one walk, and Meindls, which I'll never wear out as they were made many years ago when men were men and soles were soles.
There seem to be more people in the hostel than in the spring, most of them young and female and Spanish. I haven't met any French, and I haven't met any compatible deaf old buggers with whom I can carry on a diverting conversation. But there's always tomorrow. For supper I ate the pilgrim's menu: thin soup, thinner steak, and frost-bitten ice cream.
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