by Eddie Rock
“Señor, is that your dog?” they ask me.
“Not anymore,” I joke, shooing the dog away as they giggle.
* * * *
I finally feel at peace with the world. I’ve known nothing but pain from day one, and last night it all finally came to an end.
I spot my first-ever eagle soaring high on the thermals as free as nature intended, but peace never lasts long. I hear him long before I see him. Ahead of me is walking, talking, sea-shanty whistling, sexual octopus Steve Irwin and his handsome Fräulein. I watch in dismay as his hand slides in and out of the back of her safari shorts like he’s checking the oil of his Volkswagen as he whispers sweet nothings into her ear.
Finally, I arrive in Triacastela and am immediately tempted by the Devil in the form of a German version of Benny Hill sitting and drinking a large bottle of San Miguel lager, which he offers to share with me.
I’m quite tempted, but a deal is a deal, so I show him my tablets and tell him I’m on medication.
I check in, have a shower, and find I’m sharing the disabled quarters with the man with one leg. I’m humbled again, and a bit jealous, as he has the company of the feisty German girl with the large breasts to keep his mind occupied.
In the paddock behind the hostel, fine-looking bay horses graze happily on the lush green grass. I like the idea of doing the Camino on horseback, but I couldn’t stand the saddle sores and having to look after the poor animal. I’ve had enough trouble just looking after myself recently, but blisters on my arse, no thanks.
I go to bed early and notice the German girl sneaking into our room and sliding into bed with the one-legged chap, and in seconds she starts giggling.
TRIACASTELA TO PORTOMARÍN
PABLO COOLIO 1; GERMANY 0
AN EPIC 9:00 A.M. LIE-IN, followed by coffee and toast in the café. I feel happy and on top of the world. “There Must Be an Angel” by the Eurythmics is playing on MTV, and I resign myself to the fact that I still have no hope in hell of mastering the Stevie Wonder harmonica solo in a million years. I could quite happily sit here all day, deep in contemplation, but the wheels of steel are already in motion. According to Swiss John’s theory, these last few kilometers are where I should be reflecting and wondering how to live the final chapters of my life, but the thought of returning to Scunthorpe fills me with dread.
On the outskirts of Sarria I see the two very familiar figures of Dr. Andreas and Greta resting at a bridge. They are amazed to see me again, and the good doctor is even more amazed that I’m fully recovered. They laugh loudly as I tell the story of “the miracle at Ruitelán.”
Both the good doctor and his wife look absolutely shattered.
Greta explains. “We spent the night at the monastery at Samos in a converted crypt where everybody had nightmares.” She shudders.
“It’s where the plague victims used to sleep,” says Dr. Andreas.
“Truly horrible and now we are shattered again,” she says.
I feel for both of them, and I’m pleased I stayed where I stayed, but I have to be on, so I bid farewell to my friends and hope to see them in Santiago.
As I approach the hostel in the woodland village of Ferreiros, I notice the blank, expressionless faces of ghostlike pilgrims, haunting around the entrances and exits with their worried gray faces already deciding my position in their queue. “Well, not today, José.”
I give them five loud blasts of The Great Escape theme and a V for victory sign as I pass. Their shocked, sour faces say it all.
Rain clouds gather above me and the sky turns black, but I don’t care.
I feel alive! Then, without warning, the heavens open and the cleansing, baptizing, rejuvenating rain ruins my last cigarette.
The light fades quickly as I cross the great bridge of Portomarín, with the yellow arrows leading me into a deserted hostel with no sign of life. So, cold and hungry, I trudge farther into the deserted town, sitting for a while on the steps of an empty hotel as darkness falls.
The place reminds me of a seaside resort closed down for the winter, and I can’t sit here all night, so I follow my instincts and press on through the deserted streets.
I hear him before I actually see him. “Theo!” I shout.
After an eardrum-shattering, hand-crushing reintroduction, he shows me inside the hostel to the bottom bunk on the very last bed, telling me that most of the lightweight pilgrims have stayed here for another night because of the rain, creating a pilgrim backlog of miserable faces.
I manage to find a dry T-shirt at the bottom of my pack and have the pilgrim’s meal at the restaurant with Alyssa, who tells me that Dave and Eva are very much an item now, staying in cheap motels and pensions instead of the pilgrims’ hostels.
“They’re even talking about starting a family,” she says.
So on that note, I opt for an early night with Pablo Coolio. Maybe now in my sobriety I can understand what on earth he’s talking about.
It might make me a better person, maybe even benefit from reading it? I climb into my damp sleeping bag and settle down for an interesting evening with Cocker’s old book, but someone else has other ideas.
The man in the bunk next to mine is laid on his back with his legs in the air, farting loudly and laughing. His horrible wife on the bottom bunk next to him thinks it’s funny too! The bitch.
I, however, do not think it is funny in any way, shape, or form, as a cloud of obnoxious fart gas drifts into my sleeping zone.
“Did you hear that? Ya, dat vas ein beauty!” he jokes.
“Ya, vell done, Rolf.” She grins.
I knew my rehabilitation wouldn’t last long.
Hatred, medieval torture, and painful death fantasies invade my once-peaceful mind. I put my earplugs up my nose and pull my sleeping bag over my head, exposing my bare legs to the damp, cold air. A deep, dark vengeance unfolds in my agitated mind, involving a large firework, a roll of duct tape, and a farting German bottom hole.
I wake up freezing in the middle of the night to a chorus of snoring and now I’m wide awake and still angry.
Pablo Coolio gives me an idea.
The industrial elastic band that once formed the cover of Cocker’s prized book is now stretched tight, like a catapult, with a neatly triple-folded piece of Pablo Coolio front cover missile. Gripping it between my teeth, I take aim at the snoring German.
A couple of shots go wide. The snoring stops, and I fear my position is compromised, so I hide beneath my covers until the snoring starts again. Vengeance is mine, said the Lord.
Twang!
“ARRRRGGGGHHHH!” echoes through the darkness.
“Mich hat eine wespe gestochen” ” he screams.
“Rolf, vas was dat, wat was dat?” says his wife, with her head torch on.
“Vat is happening there?” says another German.
“Rolf has been stung by a vasp!” she says.
The snoring has now stopped, and others are awake, babbling, but it was worth it. Well worth it. Pablo Coolio 1; Germany 0.
PORTOMARÍN TO PALAS DE REI
BIRD WOMAN
THANKFULLY, THE MUNCHEN-FARTERS have gotten up early and gone. People are wondering if I’ve finally gone insane, as I keep bursting into hysterical fits of laughter about my silent attack. The bathroom door seems to be jammed on a stick or a pebble. So I pull it shut again and give it a good shove, shunting an elderly fool across the bathroom, and three elderly faces glare at me, waiting for an apology they are never going to get. I’d love to conduct a scientific experiment with these idiots to see why they need to block every doorway in the land. I need to brush my teeth, and one of the fools is sitting on one of the two sinks. I need to piss, and the other fool is leaning against the urinals. What the fuck is wrong with some people? I’m so angry that I manage to do all my ablutions in the one and only shower. Then I slam the door on my way out to a chorus of international abuse, as I reel off every Euro swear word I have ever learned.
Back on the trail, up ahead o
f me is a small woman I have seen a few times before. She has a strange birdlike face and big round glasses like Deirdre Barlow from Coronation Street. She even tweets and flutters nervously as I pass by. Deep down in the deepest depths of madness comes my new repetitive song:
“Bird woman, bird woman, are you fond of dancing?”
“Yes sir, yes sir, I am fond of dancing!”
I look across at her and wonder, but she’s no river dancer, that’s for sure. No sign of the amigos yet. Maybe I’ll see Cocker and Swiss John. Tucker perhaps? Dave and Eva? Who knows?
The heavens open again and I am soaked to the bone.
In the hostel I share my small room with the bird woman and the ZZ Top look-alike I saw back in Pamplona all those weeks earlier.
My medieval buddy, Aymeric, doesn’t reckon much to this section of the Camino either. He says,
Innkeepers and servants along the road to Santiago who take pleasure in illicit gain, are inspired by the Devil himself to get into pilgrims’ beds at night. Harlots who go out to meet pilgrims in wild parts between Portomarín and Palas de Rei for this purpose should not only be excommunicated, but also stripped of everything and exposed to public ridicule, after having their noses cut off.
Wow, steady on Aymeric. Meeting a harlot on route! Chance would be a fine thing, but one climbing into my bed at night, well . . . even better. But I think I would reserve his punishment fantasies for rude, farting Germans.
Eleventh-century Irish pilgrim Emmet Haggard says of this area,
I doth sallied forth, till after a couple of leagues I reached the posada of Los Gatos Negro’s in a deep valley at the foot of lofty hills. Our host now demanded whether we were hungry and upon being answered “Yea” he did produce from yon larder a dozen eggs and some bacon and a gallon of wyne from’t thyne bodega. While our supper did tarry, I was plyde with this finest of wyne by the finest of fair maidens and did venture forth to drink Aguardiente, a fire water most similar to our Irish poteen. Thyne host proclameth that to drink such a brew was to make thyself robust again thy powers of the local Brughas (witches) that were plentiful in these parts, upon taking heed of his words I did empty vas after vas and made merry with the maidens until I could take no more. . . . I did waketh sometime later naked and confuseth with nowt more than my pilgrims hat atop my ached head.
PALAS DE REI TO SANTIAGO DE COMPOSTELA
SANTIAGO OR BUST!
IT’S 7:00 A.M. and sixty-nine kilometers to Santiago! What would Andy McNab do?
The thought of staying in yet another boring hostel full of farting, snoring, door-loitering, bathroom-hogging, energy-sapping Hieronymus Bosch–faced pilgrims is too much for my head to take. I just want to get it all over and done with now, get my sins forgiven, and get on with my life. Excitement spurs me on through the pines and fresh-smelling eucalyptus. After twenty or so kilometers I stop for a well-needed break at a roadside café and read a final story from my pilgrim guide.
This is what my old friend Aymeric Picaud says about this final stretch:
There is a river called “Lauamentula,” because in a leafy spot along its course and two miles from Santiago, French pilgrims on their way to Santiago take off their clothes and, for the love of the Apostle, wash not only their private parts, but the dirt from their whole bodies.
Nowadays it’s called Río Lavacolla, which means in Latin, arsewash!
I wonder what Scunthorpe means in Latin?
Two locals sit in the window seats opposite, muttering and staring as I sit down and await service. An equally grumpy little waitress appears, bringing them coffees, toast, and six minutes of babbling conversation—while I cough, hum, fidget, and sigh loudly but to no avail. She then collects their plates and disappears off the face of the earth as I wonder to myself if I have somehow attained the power of complete invisibility! She finally reappears and starts chatting again.
“Excuse,” I say loudly. All three stop and stare. You could hear a pin drop, and the waitress casts me the evil eye.
“Un coffee con leche y amón y queso bocadillo, por favor,” I ask politely. I feel hatred burning inside them, but I’ve done nothing wrong. What’s with these people? The sour local asks me in English if I’m a German. Then his bitter woman asks me with a hiss if I’m a tourist.
“No, I’m a pilgrim and I’ve come from Roncesvalles!” I tell them.
They both sit back in their chairs, pulling faces and casting sideways glances. Eventually my teeth-shattering bocadillo arrives, no doubt containing an array of pubic hair, bogies, dingleberries, and phlegm.
I can all but guess that this place has been the scene of some serious pilgrim ill behavior. Maybe the farting Germans have literally followed through here? As I leave, an Aryan-looking couple on a tandem arrives.
“Hola, hola, buen camino,” they say to me, momentarily happily.
I hope for their sakes they are not German. I have a little laugh to myself and continue on into a large forest, and as the day grows long, the kilometer markers are fewer and fewer. By late afternoon I’ve reached the village of Santa Irene and spot pilgrims of all shapes and sizes gathered around the hostel. The sight and sound of them alone spurs me ever onward.
I can’t wait to see the bright lights of Santiago and feel the magic. Maybe Cocker will be there with Swiss John, doing a turn as a resident DJ in a top nightspot and gunslinging Crint Eastrood
I wonder about the nightlife, the clubs, the discos, and the sexy Galician ladies, but by 6:00 p.m. the cathedral of Santiago is still nowhere to be seen. I pass the airport and the radio station. On my left now is the Monte de Gozo pilgrims’ hospital, with eight hundred free beds, looking like some kind of zombie launderette, full of dejected beings pottering around in their underpants with buckets of washing.
Their negative aura spurs me on into the city, but I still can’t see the cathedral! I need to see it, touch it, and feel it.
Even my toenails are beginning to ache, and I daren’t stop, even for a few minutes, as I fear my whole body will turn to stone.
Finally, the modern buildings make way for authentic medieval, and I lose the arrows for the last time. It’s a quarter to ten at night, but where in the name of Saint James has this place got to?
I check into a small guesthouse and immediately head straight back out to find this cathedral, if it’s the last thing I do.
THE FIELD OF STARS
MOORE’S IRISH BAR: SANTIAGO DE COMPOSTELA
“WE ARE ALL MADE OF STARS,” said a young hippie girl many moons ago. Well, Suzie, I made it here in the end. Saint James kept his side of the bargain, and I kept mine. The fact that I can’t sit, stand, crouch, walk, or move my legs without profanity is another story altogether. As for now, I shall celebrate my success in Santiago’s finest alehouses, and tomorrow morning I will have all my worldly sins forgiven at the Pilgrims’ Mass, where I will place my hand into the sin elimination handy handhole and turn over a new leaf once and for all.
The Spanish version of Big Brother is blaring out of the television screen above my head, distracting me from my drinking. With its silly ginger-haired, ponytailed host running around like an idiot, shouting his head off and doing my head in!
But it’s got me thinking . . . big brother?
Maybe the concept of spirituality is like a game of Big Brother? With Big Brother God setting the tasks and choosing who you spend your time with. When you die / get evicted, BBG sits you down in a big black leather chair and goes through a video diary of your entire life, starting with your first day a school right up until your very last breath. Including special guest appearances from BBS (Big Brother Satan)! With extended footage of all the bad things you’ve done in your life. All in front of a baying crowd, televised in heaven and in hell for all to see. In the studio audience, dead friends and relatives cheer you on while waving flags with your face on them. Finally, you climb into the elevator, and BBG poses the final Big Brother question: Will he go up. or will he go down?
To vote up,
phone 000. To vote down, phone 666. Please remember lines close at midnight. . . . Calls cost £1.50 per second.
Either way I don’t care, so I drink up and look for someplace better to go. Ten minutes later I’m sitting with a lovely pint of Guinness in a bar called Casa das Crechas behind the cathedral. The ambience is good, and I settle for a night of serious drinking in the company of several like-minded individuals and not a pilgrim in sight.
A couple of tourists pull up barstools next to me, both obviously Irish. The woman is very sexy, with that proper black Irish look about her, and her man wouldn’t look out of place on Crime Watch or Rogue Traders. His chosen specialized subject would be drug running, gunrunning, or tarmacing your driveway! Maybe he got his flight mixed up with Santiago in Chile—to arrange transportation of cocaine to Ireland in Pablo Coolio’s specially converted submarine.
Or maybe they’re just tourists and I’ve got a very vivid imagination. “Cheers! Sláinte!” we shout, toasting our respective futures and making our introductions. With swaying pints, Finbar tells us about the time that he shagged a trainee nun and knocked a Christian brother unconscious with a hurling stick. We clink our glasses again then Finbar proudly announces that he’s also excommunicated from the Catholic Church, we all laugh and cheer.
He reminds me a lot of a workmate I once had by the name of Paddy Power. Paddy was a savage-looking Irishman if ever there was one. He had the scars of Christ tattooed on his hands and feet with his front teeth filed into vampire-like fangs. When we went for a haircut one day, the poor girl cutting Paddy’s hair let out a bone-chilling scream as she shaved through the layers of wool to reveal “666” tattooed on his head. He was a rum lad to say the least, a bit like this chap.
