Danger bird, he flies alone

Sunday held only more awful weather and Moises said he would drop me in A Gudina in the evening. Once more I hopped around A Eirexa for the day, my clothes taking in the woodsmoke from the open fires and Gallego flowing around me, I sat quietly in my chica inglesa bubble. Evening came and I was sat in the rest stop restaurant again, eating a plate full of meat and chips and watch Real Madrid vs Barcelona. It was late and I didn't feel like I was going to leave really. The owner of the albergue in A Gudina wasn't answering Moises' calls, so I went back to the albergue unfazed. The next day I would return to Vigo, and stay with Moises' godparents. It had been two weeks since I'd landed there and I had mixed emotions about going back. It seemed like th cosy option, another family home with a sofa and a fridge. 

We stopped at Javier's parents house in Verin on the way to Vigo and I got to see the flat Moises was going to rent for €3000 per year. It was open plan to the extreme, a large attic room with one window which had once housed four Brazilian girls. They most have gotten know each other spectacularly well. We went downstairs to Javier's parents flat which had all the comforts of two pensioners persuing all the hobbies an empty nest and retirement allowed. We ate walnuts and drank beer and I watched Javier's mother, who reminded me of one of my mum's friends, her thick wavy hair piled into a youthful pony tail, eyes sparkling playfully behind glasses propped haphazardly on her noes. She fussed warmly like the white geese from Aristocats when she realised I was travelling alone, insisting that I should take Moises with me - 'the bird that flies alone dies before summer.' 

We arrived at Moises' godparents house late. All the women of the house were bellowing. Moises' godmother, Nolly, had her father in hospital with a bad heart and her mother was trying to feed him fried food. Nolly was in a wheel chair with a broken ankle and blasted impassioned condemnation of her mother between puffs on her cigarette. Sara, her daughter, similairly demonstrated wildly to me with elaborate gestures the drama in the hospital, her grandfather who was bed bound but all there mentally, counterbalanced by her grandmother's Alzheimer's. Neice's muddled around and in the garage Jorge minded his own, hanging up cold wet washing late into the night. When Sara invited me to the bar, I recognised there were things to be said between Moises and Nolly that weren't for my ears, the edges of Nolly's eyes were a deepening red. 

Sara floored the car to the bar in two minutes. She struck me as a woman who needed a drink. We collected our drinks and crisps from the bar and made our way through several doors and empty rooms, past the kitchen. I assumed there was a beer garden but this was soon dispelled when Sara's hand encircled the handle of yet another door, and she turned to me with a finger on her lips. 'Dont tell Moises' she giggled. The door opened and I was engulfed by a warm glow and pot smoke.

And then there was Moises

Saturday morning consisted of consuming a whole packet of coffee-dunked biscuits and watching footage of the former president of Spain's funeral. Then Moisos took me to his friend Javier's butchery where I could see all meat being hung out to dry. We listened to the radio and had coffee from across the road with Javier's chorizo and Madeline cake. Moises took me into Verin to sort out my phone and then we went to the stables where he trains horses. The weather was getting worse - I was wearing all the clothes I had and Moises' coat and I was still cold. It felt good though, being looked after and not having to worry about food. I hobbled around in Moisos' slippers, the only things I could wear that didn't cause searing pain on my blister. The grounds around the stables had a bar and pool, even a jacuzzi, none of which were used. Hamlet's 'flat and unprofitable land' was in abundance everywhere I went. It was sad. It made me miss England, or the one I knew, where country houses were family homes, most public facilities were of a certain standard and used, and there was cohesion in restaurant decor. 

Me and Moisos had lunch and then he toured me round the local houses, where I was stuffed with cake and pears. I sat with a 99 year old woman whilst her son-in-law showed me his throat staples where he'd had to have surgery to unblock an artery. The local shepherdess had mental health and drink problems and one of Moisos' closer friends lived like a hermit, perpetually fearful of her isolation in old age. I held the only surviving puppy of a litter of six, the rest drowned, and watched men forking manure onto the back of a cart, the steam rising from it and heating the house above. 

We returned to the albergue for dinner, huddling to the electric heater. I more than needed a shower but the thought of getting wet with this cold was unappealing, so I went to bed stewing in my thermals.  There was snow in A Gudina.

Finding my North

Friday morning I rose early. I didn't have anything to pack as I'd literally crashed on the hostel bed the night before, so I went to drop the keys in the bar below. It was all shut up of course, urbanised Spaniards only see a couple of hours of mañana each day, so I walked to the tourist office (which later transpired to be the mystery albergue and not a tourist office at all) which was also closed. I crossed the road to a cafe and had a glass of orange juice with the bar tender, the only other early riser in the whole town it would seem. He wrapped me up a croissant to take with me and I was on the road again. 

I walked out of Verin on the N road, trying to remember the route from the camino map I'd looked at the night before. The path climbed up the mountain, through controlled burning sights and past forestries, and I tried not to think about how much I was asking of myself to get to A Gudina. I was a Homeric hero, immune to physical pain and strong willed, Odysseus didn't cry to his mum on Skype when he had a set back. No, he looked pensively out to sea, then slaughtered a pig or made love to a wanton nymph. I munched on my croissant.

Near the peak a mist descended on the mountain, and I came upon a rather spooky cemetery but lost the camino. I ran around on the top of this stupid mountain and lost height when I didn't want to. I dropped down onto an N road where I found a sign for A Eirexa; with attractions including a casa culture, which I had read doubled as an albergue. I pounded the road towards the village, my resolve for trying to find the camino again had dwindled. 

As I walked through a neighbouring village my phone died. This was fine because I had a back up battery, but when I turned my phone on again it said 'locked sim'. This was not fine. In despair I approached A Eirexa and found the Albergue shut up with not a soul in sight. It then began to rain. Telling myself that my star was still shining, I pulled out my sleeping bag and roll mat and put both inside my survival bag, then I climbed inside. There was a overhanging from the albergue which I was sheltering under but the wind was blowing the rain into it. Two or so hours passed and I faded in and out of consciousness with each passing car. Any passer bys view of me was obscured my the monastry wall (which was another thing - I was sleeping next to dead people). The light of day was fading and whilst the rain had stopped, it was getting colder. Suddenly I heard the scuttling of four sets of paws above my head and a man's voice saying 'ay'. From within my survival bag I deliberated the likelihood that it was another wierdo, but a Spaniard walking their dog was a rare species and so I poked my head it. The old man looked like he'd seen a ghost as I tried to explain in broken Spanish that I had wanted to sleep in the albergue and that I was a pilgrim not a tramp. He told me to pack up my bag and he would return with a car. He kept to telling me to be calm, he was married and only wanted to make sure I was safe. I felt completely at ease with him and he returned, as promised, ten minutes later. We drove into the centre of the village and he organised with the farmers about having the albergue opened, in a mean time, he said I should eat something. By this time it was late, and he drove me to a service station cafe on the outskirts of Rios, where I had Gallician broth and a massive steak which I could only just stomach. I had found another guardian angel, the kind of one that everyday we are made to believe are far and few between. After I finally convinced him that I could eat no more, he drove me to the albergue where I was greeted by some very friendly dogs and the guardian, Moisos. He showed me around the huge building, which had hosted the resident priest and an exhibition on mushrooms and chestnuts but as yet, no pilgrims. There were five sets of bunk beds, toilets, showers, a kitchen with a tv. I hobbled to my room were I peeled my poor feet out of my socks - they were a sorry sight, particularly the right one which had a vast oozing blister on the heel. I felt every single bone and muscle in my body aching for sleep and so I crawled back into my slightly soggy sleeping and let Nick Drake guide me through my hopes and fears.

I've heard it takes some time to get it right

I hugged Norman and Merle good bye at the door, leaving a trail of chaos in my wake, soggy cornflakes and half drunk coffee. Getting onto the camino was unproblematic; it followed the course of the river (one of the very few attractions of Xinzo) towards Verin and cut through straight through fields for miles, uninspiring but uncomplicated......or so I thought. For some reason I lost confidence in my route. This happens on the camino, you find a camino plaque and stride with confidence for maybe a kilometre or so and then you start to get skittish....where's the next one? Surely I should have found it by now? Stop. Check map. Look up again. Walk walk walk, stop, repeat the process for several more kilometres and then, when you least expect it, it jumps out of a bush......that little shell, unaware of all the stress it's been causing you for the past hour. You feel the emotions similairly to when you find your child in tesco's after scouring the isles for ages, intense relief dogged by irritation. Anyway I decided to take the pass over to cross the main road which my route had been hugging closely so far. I continued walking for several hours, feeling the gradient upping and trying to breath through my nose. I so wanted to make it to Verin that day but as I sweated it out up the mountain, I had come to accept that I probably wouldn't achieve this aim. There were several decent sized villages near the city and I figured one of them would have hostel or something of the like. I traipsed through shuttered streets, the 'sleepy towns' described in the guide books, which inspired both relief and alienation, as I wouldn't have to explain what I was doing and yet some sign of life would be nice. When I reached the peek I muddled my way around, disappointed with the progress I'd made on the mountain paths but not wanting to walk on the hard shoulder. I found a camino sign and started crying with queasy relief and maybe heat exhaustion. I started to decend down the valley, my feet and rucksack feeling like a tonne of bricks. I asked a woman with weeping saws on the back of her feet if there was a hostel nearby and she directed me to another village. She bestowed upon me a bottle of water that had a purpley tinge, which upon sipping I was relieved to find was caused by wine. 

In the next village I had a very difficult experience. I don't want to relay all the details as it's more than a week ago now and I understand and am at peace with it. It involved a man locking me in his house. My star is still shining. 

When I arrived in Verin I was physically and emotionally exhausted and very shaken. I went to a cafe and openly cried over a coffee. Then I went to a bakery and bought a very large pie and bag of biscuits, took them to my room at the hostel and stuffed my face. The hostel owner had advised I get a  bus to A Gudina to get out of Verin which sounded comfortable but I knew that when you fall you need to get straight back up, otherwise you're giving your fear time to grow. I decided to walk to A Gudina, which is one of the best decisions I've made so far and further proof for myself that my star is particularly shiny :) Protect the human, even the wayward ones.

Meandering to Xinzo

I was psyched to start walking on Wednesday, I wanted to put into practice everything Samantha and Toni had taught me. Belin was up early too, loading up her car with all the cake she had been making the night before, for what purpose I don't know. She hugged me tight and dashed off, leaving me in the arthritic hands of her mother, who seemed to be under the impression that if she spoke a steady stream of Gallician to me I would eventually understand. 

I have to say my biggest struggle most of the time is packing. There is some logic to be found but in order to achieve this I have to stand frowning at the rucksack for fifteen minutes every morning. Once satisfied with my packing, I joined Belin's mother in the sitting room and tried to stomach some of the tortilla left over from the night before. I was defeated half way through both the tortilla and my coffee tankard so I put my rucksack on and made to say goodbye. 'I go Xinzo' I said and the old ladies face crumpled as she made the sign of the cross. If this wasn't disheartening enough, as she waved me off from the door she started crying loudly and sank down to the ground. I walked quickly onto the street. How could I have that effect on a person and not even remember their name? It left a bitter taste in my mouth and I adopted a guilty pace as I thought about her all alone in that flat, the picture of her late husband hanging sadly on the wall. 

The walk to Xinzo was a stroll. I sat for half an hour reading a book and eating an orange in the sun and on the outskirts of the town I lay under a tree and watched a Crain feeding its chick. I met an old man on my path who spoke perfect English and he explained that normally he walked in the afternoon but because today he had a funeral he'd had to rearrange his schedule. There was little ascent or descent apart from climbing the hill to St Benedict's church which was 4 miles out of Xinzo, a place with strange stumpy sculptures and park benches. The suburbs of the town were ugly, gated with huge great dogs, the size of polar bears, barking relentlessly at anything that moved, just to pass the time. The way animals are treated here makes me feel quite sick actually. Dogs are never walked, kept outside to there own devices, where they sweat out their days in the sun, harbouring an aggression grown from their boredom. 

I arrived in Xinzo at three o'clock, the sun was high and when I entered the bar everything was blue for a while as my eyes adjusted to the dim. I ordered a coffee and blogged until six when Merle came to pick me up. She had been Xinzo for 6 months with the European voluntary alliance, or something along those lines, and her English was perfect, with a German lilt. Her flat, which the alliance provideded, had five bedrooms but only two current occupants - herself and a Hungarian guy called Norman who I was going to meet later. We sat and had coffee and talked about travelling until I had to go out and get food for my walk the next day. 

When I returned to the flat Norman was there to greet me; tall, thin and shy he told me that his friends called him 'Normie' which literally made me want to feed him cake. We ate pasta and drank wine and laughed a lot about our different cultures. Norman also managed to totally pull the rug out from under my feet with his genuine concern for my safety, looking at me like I was a dead man walking. I went to wrapped in three blankets and feeling slightly less invincible than before.

Overcast Allariz

Tuesday was of little note. I set my alarm for seven the night before having had an instant sense of regret for committing to staying in the beautiful but somewhat inactive town of Allariz. When the alarm went off however I felt like pulling the covers over my head for the rest of the day nd so nothing became of it. At 10 I rose and had breakfast with Belin's mother - a vat of milky coffee and bread with mouldy jam. She offered me some of her prescribed painkillers for her back and had me sat on the sofa next to her, our legs tucked under the table which had been rigged up with a hot lamp on it's underbelly. I was not entirely sure how safe this was, with the excessive table cloth, but when I saw how warped the old lady's hands were with arthritis I understood. 

I went to the bar at the end of the street again to sponge the wifi for few hours at the price of a coffee I really didn't need. When it got to 2 I knew I needed to leave, I was well beyond necessary admin and had begun the fatal Facebook scroll. I had thought I'd go sunbathe in the park which was by the river, but there was patchy cloud and a strong wind so I lay down on a bench and curled up like a bum for a couple of hours, snoozing intermittently. I reluctantly returned to the bar in order to kill some more time before Belin got home from work.

At 5.30 I went to the flat where I found out that Javier's flight had been delayed so that he wouldn't be arriving till the next day, when I would be gone. I tried not to look like the wind had been taken out of my sails and Belin suggested we go into Ourense. We got in her car, which had this smell which was unidentifiable, but synonymous with moist sandwich fillers on long car journeys. We arrived in Verin and parked near the river, where the free thermal baths were. The weather was rather grey around the pools, and there weren't many people, but there was an old woman valiantly sunbathing topless. The water was so hot that after 10 minutes my feet were really porky and red. We walked into Ourense to the butchers to buy Belin's meat then we drove back to Allariz. We returned to to the funky tapas bar for a beer and some tapas before going back to the flat for a Spanish omelette. Here I learned why Belin had bought so much cooking oil at the supermarket - she fried the onions and potatoes in an 8th of the bottle. Her mother was in the room next, lamenting the pain in her joints like a guttering candle, and I was more than looking forward to leaving the next day. I got my bag packed before sitting down on the sofa for the tortilla, which for all that oil tasted delicious, although it did rather bleed out its contents when cut. I had about half and went to bed, with the sound of Belin's industrial cooking equipment and her mothers squaks rocking me to sleep. The uncertainty of the road tomorrow provided a quite realise from the entrapment of another's domestic friction.

Farewell A Caniza

Monday morning I got up at 7 to pack my rucksack. I sat on the floor in the living area and looked out through the window into the valley. The dogs lay outside with their bodies pressed close to the glass and I breathed as Toni had told me to until Samantha came downstairs for breakfast. I had a mountain of toast and cheese with Toni whilst Samantha had coffee and cigarettes. At half past eight we all got in the little car and drove to A Caniza. I slid around in the back with Samantha's satchel and Toni's laptop as Samantha confidently weaved along the mountain road. When we arrived in A Caniza, Samantha had to go to her lesson and we embraced. I was going to miss her so much.

At Merce's bar I had a croissant with one of Samantha's students, a middle-aged guy who was learning English. We had the usual coffee talk until I mentioned I'd done mindful walking the day before and he said that yes, he enjoyed that too; he would take the 'doggies' into the woods where there was a stream then he would lie down, smoke a cigarette, well, marihuana, and enjoy his surroundings. It made me smile a lot, apart from anything because of the way he kept referring to the dogs as 'doggies'. 

Afterwards Toni realised my bus wasn't going to come for another two hours so Merci had me sit with the chicos from ER. We talked and laughed for ages and I almost forgot that I was leaving that day. I said goodbye to Merci and Toni, who by now felt pretty much blood related. When  I stepped outside the bar, there were he ER guys, waiting to drop me off at the bus stop in the ambulance. This made me pretty bleeding happy and sad all at once.

I boarded the bus after half an hour of waiting and when I arrived in Ourense I took a connecting bus to Allariz. The way the highway cut through the mountain meant that in 45 minutes I had arrived in Allariz, which would have taken me two to three days to walk to. It was still early afternoon when I stepped off the bus and walked over the bridge to Belin's street. I sat in a bar for an hour to update my blog before asking the owner if they knew Belin. She told me Belin was a cook at the school and wouldn't let me go sightseeing until I had checked in wih her. I was in no position to argue as she had my backpack behind the bar, so I crossed the road and entered the school, feeling like an intruder. I approached a lady with a black chefs hat on and asked for Belin Gonzalez. She told me to follow her and after a while of walking down the hall I suddenly realised she was Belin. My belated and effusive greeting was met with bemusement and coffee with a slice of cake. Belin took me to her flat, where she lived with her aged mother and I was able to shower and crash in Javier's bedroom. Javier had a pretty sweet setup, posters of activists and musicians donned his walls and his bookshelves were filled with political and philosophical works. I also found a newspaper article on Javier's art exhibition on Palestine with a picture of the man himself looking knowing in oversized knitwear and a nose ring. 

That evening Belin returned in flurry of excitement and insisted marching me up the hill to the castle, breathlessly touring me through the monuments on the way. Allariz from the top was beautiful, with the last light of day elongating the shadows of the town and reflecting its warm hues in the river. We walked back down and along the banks to a bar, where the owner had owner had more than 2000 key rings hanging from the ceiling, and Belin taught me how to eat pepas. Afterwards we had tapas at a restaurant owned by one of Belin's former lovers, anchovies with garlic and a plate of smoked hams with pepper...... The music was so awesome and the owner seemed unaware of the rock gems he was playing. We had a cafe liqueur for the road and we were walking back to the flat when I made an off hand observation that living with her mother must be hard. Belin started sobbing and leaned into me gratefully. I didn't know what to do, opening up an emotional can of worms is all very well when you have the language capacity to dig yourself out, but I didn't. By the time we reached her street however, Belin had taken to singing the Galician anthem and dragged me into the bar I had spent most of the day in for more coffe liqueur. The moon was high in the sky by the time we reached her front door and Belin had some how managed to persuade me to stay another night to meet Javier. My head hit the pillow grateful and I optimistically set my alarm for 7 the next day.

Reasons to be mindful, part 3

The last four days have been incredible. I think I only realised today in the car how different I feel about everything when Toni said to me that my star is shining bright. It was like a wave of self belief rushed over me; I can do it all. Being outside, surrounded by the mountains and animals, drinking the water, talking about mindfulness, and breathing, most importantly. I feel protected by this star that is shining, I suddenly have direction - I can see where North is. You have to accept that you are lost in order to be found. 

Today Samantha woke me up in good time to have breakfast before Toni's mindful walking class. We drove across the border into Portugal and then alongside the river Mino before crossing back into Spain into the town of Tui. Tui is very beautiful, with small plazas and balconies, and many old buildings. We parked and met the rest of the group in a tea shop before driving up the nearby mountain for our walk. 

To begin with we stood in a circle and held our hands out, touching one another's palms. Toni instructed that our attention should not waver from our breath for the time being, which should be entirely through the nose. Standing in the circle this was easy, but once our ascent began, your instinct was to breathe with your nose and your mouth. After a while, we were put into pairs, with one person blindfolded and the other shadowing them for protection. I noticed the light more through my eyelids and the way my foot fell on the ground, time seemed to slow down. When the pairs switched it was equally interesting watching the other person having to process their surroundings in a different way, as if they were a newborn. We came upon a monastry at the top of the mountain which was beautiful, all green and forgotton. Toni reiterated his mantra for mindfulness and we stood once more in a circle, our thumbs pressed to our forefingers, and I felt deeply at peace. We continued to a clearing with trees and again we practiced being blindfolded, this time searching for trees. What was interesting was that when you found the tree you felt such a strong affinity towards it, like it was a mother. Afterwards we lay stretched out on the ground for a while, as Toni spoke about being mindful of our bodies. We came upon some great stones where we sat, with our right hand on our chest and our left hand on the stone. It was centering. 

Afterwards we went for coffee and tapas with Toni's sister and her partner. Her partner was from Columbia and when Samantha explained what I was doing he said that my trip was a beautiful thing and that it would help me find my nina interior, a point of equilibrium between the mother and father inside us all. I need to hold these things close because there are going to be times when it's difficult to know why I'm doing what I'm doing.

When we got home Toni and Samantha strung up a hammock in the garden. I had Gallician cheese wih cinnamon on bread, which tastes delicious. I was sad to leave but I didn't feel scared like before, Samantha started singing 'on the road again' and I knew that come tomorrow it would be time to go again. I replotted my routes from Allariz to Verin with Toni so that I wouldn't be walking on the main road. I packed my rucksack as best I could for the next day and went to bed determined.

The kindness of strangers

On Wednesday I slept until 10 before I rolled out of bed and joined Samantha on the porch with her two adopted dogs, Matilda and Sarah. The house was designed by Samantha's partner Toni and is a beautiful medley of wood and stone and glass, fitting snugly into its mountain side landscape. Samantha made me a basket of toast which crunched through absent mindedly until she told me to sit straight and 'enjoy'. You know when you meet someone and everything they say is so true and they burn like Jack Kerouac's Roman candles? This is Samantha. 

I drank green tea and caught up on my blog on the sofa. Samantha showed me around their garden of Eden and explained how she had measured the light energy in the waterfall which ran through this ancient chestnut tree, and it was remarkably high. It certainly tasted better than anything Thames Valley produced. 

After lunch I had a siesta and then went into A Caniza with Samantha to top up my phone. Samantha runs a English school in A Caniza, and had a lesson with a prospective Cambridge student that afternoon. I had not been in Merle's bar long before Jesus and Javier offered to show me around the local sights. They seemed to pick up on my slight retecents as they kept saying 'no problem' and 'we amigos'. Our first stop was a huge abandoned monastry which was 'muy muy antigue', it was pretty magic being able to walk all over it, up crumbling turrets and into great ballrooms. Me and Jesus passed my Spanish dictionary back and forth, whilst Juan provided a running commentary of the purpose of every single building, which he just seemed to know as there were no signs. As we were leaving we had to dodge through a funeral party which was walking towards an adjoining church, which sent Jesus into a fit of nervous giggles. 

Afterwards we walked around the walls of the castle of the Sarmientos in the town of Ribadavia. Jesus started rambling something about 'judios' or Jews and I thought he was being inappropriate again until I realised he was talking about the town's prominent Jewish history. The sun was slowly sinking as we walked back up the cobbled streets to the car and everything seemed as it should be apart from me.

Driving back, Juan kept trying to cheer me up playing Rihanna loudly and giving me cigarettes but I was so tense about travelling to Ourense the next day I was finding it hard to smile. My toes were really hurting again because I'd forgotten to put plasters on them after my salt bath the night before so I went to the Chemists. When I came back to Merle's bar Samantha had returned from her teaching and was sat with Merle talking. As I sat down they both looked at me and Samantha said 'we're really worried about you'. I gulped hard. I felt like I was filled with knots but I didn't realise everyone could see them too. Samantha and Merle had decided I should stay until Monday to rest and replan my route with Merle's mountaineering friend. I started crying. 

People said before I left that I was brave. I wasn't and I'm not, I just didn't understand what I was undertaking. I've been unsure all my life about what my faith is. Right now though, it's in the incredible capacity complete strangers have for generosity. Protect the human x

I wandered lonely as a cloud

Knowing that it didn't get light until 7.30, I decided to get up a little later on Tuesday. I had a slice of Spanish omelette and Bruno wished me well with 'good trip, good trip'. I walked onto the main road and began my 20km ascent in the hard shoulder. There was some good news; this road was much quieter than the one going into Ponteareas. As I reached the towns outskirts I was approached by a couple of old men asking me if I was doing the Camino de Santiago. I explained in broken Spanish what I was doing; 'esta lejos para une chica!' they exclaimed. At around 10 o'clock there was a mild sense of peril as my gps cursor disappeared on my map but returned an hour later. Situated on one of the many false peaks I reached that day was a bus stop with a spring. As I went to drink a random man came and readjusted my rucksack for me, speaking unremittingly in soft Gallician so that I don't think it was odd at all. Later, at around 11.30, and this was worse false hope than all the false peaks combined, an old man told me that it would go down hill soon. At 2.30 I finally began to descend into the valley of A Caniza, stopping briefly for a sandwich so that my legs wouldn't seize up. I listened to some Dire Straits, thinking it would cheer me up, but at this point I felt so sorry for myself I somehow managed to translate Telegraph Rd as a microcosm for my own predicament. 5km before A Caniza I turned off the main road onto a snaking farm track. I foolhardly tried to zip straight down the mountain but I was soon confronted by waist deep brambles and had to do the walk of shame back up, which almost killed all my resolve, so that when a pink eyed mangy dog approached me I practically invited it to maul me just so it could all be over with. Just my luck that it was crippled and looked inbred to the point that it only had half a functioning brain. When I finally arrived in A Caniza I called Samantha, my host for the night, and jibajabbered down the phone. Samantha came and peeled me off the pavement and took me to her friends bar where I drowned my sorrows in a glass of coke. I taped up my feet and generally tried to collect my thoughts whilst the regulars looked at my route plan and tutted. My lips were so dry and burned the top one had turned yellow. Eddie, the brother of the bar owner, applauded my cause, saying I would see real Spain and how it was really like three countries. When it was time to go, Eddie took a picture for the bars Facebook page and everyone hugged and kissed me, which was pretty nice. I had completely forgotten that I wasn't supposed to have dinner at Samanthas but she made me eggs and vegetables anyway. We discussed what I should do, as my next stop Outomoro, was another mountain away, and I didn't think I could make it. I went to bed uncertain about both my options; either walk tomorrow and try and find a hostel before Outomoro or take a bus to Ourense, stay a night, and walk to Allariz the next day. In the end I decided to stay another night in A Caniza which felt right straight away. Post shower and salt bath my troubles felt halved and I slept like a baby.

A Pilgrims Progress

I woke up almost every hour before my alarm went off at 6.30, panicking that I had overslept. By 7 o'clock I was packed, with only one minor hiccup in that I had been trying to open my camelback by turning it clockwise, but Pedro, the brains of the operation, turned it anticlockwise and that worked a treat. I looked out the window and could see nothing. It was still pitch black. Slightly bewildered I decided to sit for another half an hour and forced myself to eat, even though I was feeling sick with nerves, until it got lighter. Navigation my way out of Vigo was not the nightmare I had envisaged. I walked straight up out of the town and it was relatively quite. I continued to walk up and up, through a village and wooded area until I came upon a sign which said 'Monte Faquina'. It was very pleasing that all that gradient had concluded in a mountain and I positively skipped through the Industrial park which populated the peak. I descended the mountain, through the many 'sleepy' villages, where I saw almost no one apart from women emptying their bins and dogs. There were vines growing in every garden, supported by the same sort of fences which surrounded the industrial park buildings, angled at the top with barbed wire so as to prevent intruders. Economic; yes, beautiful; no. At last I reached the bottom, where a small town clustered around a main road. Here I ate an orange and put on sun cream as the sun was high in the sky, quite the opposite from what I had prepared for; wet and grey Gallicia. I followed the main road towards a roundabout where I found my mapping app view ranger directing my to walk along the hard shoulder of a flyover. This made me feel quite sick, even though for the most part it was single lane traffic, as I had fantasised mountain tracks not tarmaced roads. I came to the small town of Dormelas which was shaded and beautiful, and I sat in the plaza whilst I charged my iPhone and ate a sandwich. This was more like it. Mothers and daughters openly arguing in the street, old men sat on benches together smoking....... I walked out of the town and once again found myself at the mercy of the hard shoulder. Three lanes worth of traffic rushed passed me, honking occasionally, and I began to climb my second mountain of the day, but I felt no relief at reaching the summit. Ponteareas still looked very far away and my bag felt very heavy. Where was this 'spiritual path' I was meant to be taking? It certainly wasn't on the hard shoulder. The road seemed to go on and on as I descended into Ponteareas, with endless scrubby looking suburbs and coca-cola signs in road bars telling me to stop and drink. I began to get angry with people who weren't even there, everyone who hadn't listened to me or given me false hope about things totally unrelated, they were the ones to blame. I could feel the sun in my head and my eyes were hot by the time I reached central Ponteareas. I still had not heard from Bruno, my next couch surfing host, Pedro's ex-girlfriends-best friend's-ex boyfriend. Galicia, the land of healthy break ups it would seem. I sat in the doorway of an apartment block, texting and trying to preserve my cellular data whilst desperately trying to get hold of Bruno. It was mid-afternoon and the thought of trying to find a room and communicating in Spanish was more than I could bear. At last I got a message on What's App from Bruno, apologising that he had not heard his phone. I texted him the street I was on and within ten minutes he arrived in a car driven by his friend. He dropped me at his apartment, which was literally a side street off of the road I had been waiting on for the past hour. Bruno gave me a set of keys, a towel and apologised prefusly for the lack of wifi and lights in his apartment, told me to make myself at home and that he would be back in the evening. I was so relieved that I didn't have to talk to anyone and I just sort of lay in the middle of the floor for half an hour, drinking out of the camelback which lay next to me and feeling the sun escaping my head. I had a long shower and then went down the road to buy sandwiches and oranges for the next day. It's funny but my appetite has actually diminished on this trip, I don't know wether it's stress or what, but I don't really get hungry. Cocacola on the other hand, just seems like the best idea. When I got back to the house I had a large glass and took one of Dora's Taiwan painkillers and got into bed to have a tiger sized cat nap. At 9 o'clock Bruno returned with a Spanish omelette and noodle soup from his parents house and we sat down together to watch the discovery channel, because it was the only English programme which wasn't dubbed. The tense music and the narrators dramatic detailing of the horrific solar storms and temperatures on the various stars didn't do much for my nerves so I asked Bruno about himself. He had been a mechanic for Citroen, but quit a few years ago to pursue his dream of running a indoor go-karting rink. Unfortunately, with the current economy, he had to close it down last year and so went travelling in Australia for 3 months. Pedro similarly was a trained pilot, but companies were taking advantage of the 50% unemployment of Spanish pilots, and charging extortionate prices for the pilots to get trained for particular planes. These were hard times for dreamers. 

I was in bed by midnight, shaking at the thought that I was going to have a similairly long walk the next day, but this time only on the main road. 

Domingo en Vigo

I woke up at 10.30 this morning and was keen to get up and out of bed so as to avoid the potentially awkward situation of Pedro and Hilary wanting to get on with their day but being afraid to disturb me. By 2pm I was beginning to wonder if they were even in the flat as I tip toed round the flat, eating an orange and trying to detect sounds for other life forms. I was just finishing skyping my mum when I heard Pedro's favourite London radio station in the kitchen and a hand peeped through my door holding a note saying 'coffee and toast?' with diagrams. We had black coffee in glasses like Audrey Hepburn does in Breakfast at Tiffany's and jammy toast with Oreos. Afterwards we went to the park and looked at the views of Vigo's port. Pedro pointed out the hundreds of Citroen cars, which were made in the nearby factory, waiting to be shipped out, as well as the fishing ships. Then we sat down and had pork sandwiches whilst Hilary passionatly expressed her love for the shitzu dog, which Pedro did not seem to share. Walking into central Vigo there was a lot of commotion as people lined the streets in anticipation for the parade. The motley crew ascended Vigo's steep hill in an eclectic mix of costumes, from Vikings to flamenco dancers, there did not seem to be recurring theme or concept for the parade. The main attraction was the ginormous nodding mammoth from Ice Age, which struggled up the hill, with Gallician children in dodo costumes confidently dancing beneath it.

As the day drew to a close, we wandered through the dilapidated old town towards the sea and had a drink in an a tapas bar. Pedro showed me pictures of the Galician countryside which could have been of Wales, it was so lush and green. We drove home to the flat and had spinach and mushroom stir fry with salad whilst watching Breaking Bad, which I had introduced Pedro to. It was almost 1 by the time I got to bed, with my back pack ready but my mind apprehensive for the next day.