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.

Landing in Vigo

Saying goodbye to my mum at the airport was pretty tough :( but the sorrow was soon replaced by crazy panic as I went through the security barriers and realised I hadn't contacted the bank to say I was going abroad. I'd only been away from home for 10 minutes and already I was frantically and recklessly texting all my bank details to mum. Independence is overrated. 

Madrid Jueves airport is pretty strange. After landing half an hour late, passengers were encouraged by cabin crew to adopt a running trot out of the plane and towards waiting buses which shuttled us to the various terminals. After having my hand luggage scanned again I waited with one other person, a middle aged platinum blonde Spanish lady in wet-look everything and reptile cowboy boots, for a bus to another terminal. The only place to get food was a sit-down steak house which was neither within my budget or time frame so after boarding the plane I ordered a toastie which didn't arrive until we began our descent into Vigo. I insisted on practicing my broken Spanish on my fellow passenger Marta and I think the site of her sea side homeland was probably a relief. 

My first couch surfing host, Pedro, met me at arrivals and welcomed me in English with a definite london accent. I was very taken aback and walked in silence next to him for a while, weighing up the likely hood that he was English with a name like Pedro and acid wash jeans. I confronted him as to what his nationality was and he was pretty bemused - he said he liked to watch Inbetweeners and Little Britain, which seemed like a good enough answer so I got in his car and went to the beach. There we met his girlfriend Hilary and a couple of his friends, and we walked along the beach which was so beautiful with this wood of trees which looked like pines running right up to the water. Pedro told me it was known as the 'horror woods' as it was a popular site for cottaging..... 

Pedro helped me get a Spanish Vodafone sim, I couldn't help but think how I would have managed this without him. Afterwards we went to Hilary's flat to help her set up for a friends surprise birthday party. The flat was proper awesome - the land lady had pasted loads of DVD covers around the dining area as a sort of border, she clearly had a penchant for Woody Allen, and the walls were a really friendly lime green. Me and this girl Dora peeled potatoes for the Spanish omelettes Pedro was making and listened to Mumford and Sons, it was pretty surreal. Dora was from Taiwan and had been in Vigo as a student studying Spanish but more recently had been travelling around Europe, with her parents money she was quick to confess. She was so cute and had hair like Jackie O. by the time it got to midnight I was proper shattered and had a headache so Dora gave me this packet of yellow Tai painkillers for me to take and I slinked off to the sofa to have tiger sized cat nap. At two in the morning the party dispersed to various clubs but I was gone to the land of nod, whatever was in those pills was very nice. Hilary and Pedro scooped me into his Skoda at 5am and went back to his flat where I enjoyed that proper dreamy second slumber that you only get after all your worries have been put to rest. Good first day.