The next day we left early to go to a cafe for breakfast. It had been another sad home; a man whose wife had left him after he had a stroke, he had given up on happiness and had a dog when he shouldn't. We got on the road again. It was strange driving past all the place names I had been to, they felt as well understood as the lines on my palm but I was surprised at how far apart they were. The mountains stood high and imposing, with snow in every crevice and only blackness in there cliffs. If I had never considered climbing them I would have happily have watched out the window as they rose and fell, thinking about how they looked like a dark chocolate pudding topped with icing sugar. But I saw only ancient warlocks, old as time, holding both the strings of fate and the scissors, concerned for the greater good of the universe and not the individual. I truly felt that I'd made a very narrow escape and that what I was looking at could have been my final resting place.
We dropped down down down into Puebla de Sanabria and I held my breath to see the snow. There was none. We bought sandwiches and drove to lake Puebla to eat them. The water was like a fairy tale mirror, framed by the mountains and perfectly still. Afterwards we walked alongside the river, past the remains of a Roman village which someone was using as an allotment. I felt euphoric, there was no snow and I had a friend in Moises that made me feel safe to continue my trip again.
We walked up to the castle on the hill, which had a beautiful plaque for all the pilgrims which said lots of things about history and civilisation but finished with 'the love is the way'. I've got that tattooed on my heart.
We rounded the corner of the castle onto a plaza on the edge of the hill which looked out onto the suburban villages of of Puebla. The clouds broke and the sun cast onto the figure of a tramp cutting his nails on a bench. He started talking to me in English about the recent snow, occasionally returning to some language which didn't particularly sound like Spanish or Gallego. He was very brown and looked well fed, and he seemed only to have his bottom teeth, which had a creamy residue about them. When he started calling me beautiful I said to Moises that we should go. Moises said that I'm too friendly, or confident, that if anyone ANYONE asks; I have no money, I have a boyfriend, I'm not travelling alone and I have family in Spain. That made me feel better in a strange way, I have control over what people know about me, I can choose who knows more to a certain extent. Honesty is not the best policy when you're travelling alone, I'm still learning that now.
We went to the tourist office to get my pilgrim passport stamped. I was so nervous that the woman was going to be like 'what the hell are you doing here?' but she was so nice, she stamped my credentials without question and gave me this insane guidebook and map. I felt like my dad, I was ecstatic about this map, I wanted to paint the castle red.
After having a final drink in a bar nearby me and Moises set off to find my CouchSurfing host, Angel. He appeared in a clapped-out white Peugeot, instantly asserting that we were all going to drive up the mountain to see this lake. It was kind of uncomfortable as I knew Moises had to get back to Verin for work but Angel clearly wasn't budging. We drove up the mountain for half an hour in Moises' car, past lake Puebla again, and when we reached the top there was snow up to my knee and a cruel wind which picked up tiny pieces of ice and force-fed them to your face. I ran down towards the bank in an attempt to appreciate the lake but it was a hopeless feat. Moises puffed back to the car behind me and I felt bright eyed and bushy tailed from the onslaught of the senses.
We transferred my rucksack from Moisos' car to Angel's and I hugged Moises good bye. He was probably one of the most generous people I have ever met in every meaning of the word. But it was time for a new chapter.
No comments:
Post a Comment