The rich man at the castle
The poor man at the gate
Through an interpreter I chatted with the owner of the bar, the keeper of shells, about how many he thought he had collected. He had no idea, but I would guess 10,000 or more.
As I walked out of town, a travelling vendor had pulled into a lane leading off to the left, offering groceries to the villagers, who had no store of their own. The back of the truck was open and the goods displayed. An old lady in a very old-fashioned dress and a headscarf looked at me and pointed frantically at the van. I said, no, I don't need anything. I have a couple of bananas in my pack. Peregrino, she said, and pointed again at the back of the van. She came up behind me and started feeling in the pouch at the back of my pack. No, I said, no, no. I don't need to buy anything. But she persisted. Was she crazy, I wondered. Then she pulled me over to an faint arrow on the stone wall beside the van. She wasn't pointing at the van at all. She was directing me to the Camino. There's a moral here.
I walked out of the village into thick Galician fog, and since it's Easter....
I don't think that any of the people I have met have been making a religious pilgrimage. Perhaps the two Spaniards whom I met a few weeks ago. One of them stopped at Salamanca. But Pepe was continuing. He was a heavy smoker and I have been following his cigarette butts to Santiago. The younger people don't seem to be interested even in religious art and architecture. The young Germans didn't stop, and Rene the Dutch girl, who holds the title in the Guinness Book of Records for extended bathroom occupancy, told me that she wasn't interested in visiting any churches.
After several kilometres on the uplands, I gave up all the height I had gained and descended onto a vast plain. On the way down, I made a little detour to see a ruined village, 250 metres in, and then 350 metres out to rejoin the Camino a bit father down the hill.
I was greeted by half a dozen dogs, who were quite friendly after their obligatory bark. Among the ruins, a couple of the houses were restored, or at least lived in. I don't know how they managed for utilities. One of the inhabitants, who spoke English, directed me back to the Camino. Nature was reclaiming its own.
It was more than 350 metres, as always, along a narrow lane almost overgrown in parts, that made its way in twists and turns back to the Camino. This had been a medieval thoroughfare, and the dry stone walls remained behind the brambles, setting off the road from the fields.
I wondered about the fellow who had built those walls. Was he happier than we are? He worked all day with his hands, breaking, collecting, sorting and laying the stones. Perhaps his wife brought him out some lunch, bread and cheese wrapped in a scarf, and a jug of beer or cider. At the end of the day he went home to a simple meal, and slept. He knew his place in the world, and he knew the meaning of life. And his stone wall remains.
Dogs. Every village has its mutts and strays, strange mixes, every shape and size, no designer dogs among them. They are a kind of sub-class in the village, tolerated, but not loved, and for this reason they are rather timid, wanting to be friendly but wary of being rejected. Often they sleep in the middle of the road in the sun. Sometimes they are misshapen or misformed. I have seen three-legged dogs, and even a two-legged dog once, and this morning I saw a male with a single dangling appendage. I thought of the old war song.
After a coffee in a bar at Vila do Barrio I continued on towards Xunqueira de Ambia. It was easy going, if a little monotonous as I walked along a straight dirt road for about five kilometres, a bit like walking for several miles along a section road in Canada. I passed through a couple of little villages, and then it was into the woods, very familiar country, a rambling path through the oaks. And I may have even seen an ent.
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