Day 22: Casa Rectoral – La Isla (30k)

The hospitalero at Casa Rectoral wakes us up at 7am with some classic monk choir hits that soon go over into 70’s disco bangers including “Lambada” and “I Will Survive.” Though we rush to get out in time, we fail and at 8:06 he forces German Carpenter to pour out her tea so she can leave the building without the cup. Slam lock goes the door, behind it on goes the vacuum cleaner.

We stay on the terrace frenetically packing as she finishes her baguette with Iberian ham and the rain pisses down outside. We leave not so much because we’re ready as because we feel like the hospitalero may any moment come out and lecture us about trespassing onto other people’s property, as he did when, at 3:30pm the day before, he arrived for his albergue-opening duties to find two pilgrims had taken shelter from the rain underneath his veranda roof. Later, he shouted at German Carpenter for slamming the microwave door too hard. She does not understand Spanish so looked at him rather questioningly.

“You may not understand,” the hospitalero muttered. “But you know. You know what you did.”

I start walking with my two new faves, and they are just as funny as the day before but after a mere half hour my head starts spinning so I pause and say I’ll catch them later. I need some alone time. They go on and I slow down. There are puddles, cows, more butt-related nomenclature. Also the perfect tennis court.

True, it could’ve been red. 

After a while, I run into the Belgian guy from the night before, the one with the cheese and mushrooms. He left a half hour earlier than me but took a wrong turn, so we walk together to Ribadesella where we have coffee and talk about love. Infatuation. Passion. Wounds. The usual.

It’s like the first chapter of a novel so afterwards we separate again, with vague plans to reunite at an albergue in La Isla.

The walk is beautiful. Huge eucalyptus forests, stunning beaches, rolling green hills. I see more cows I vow not to eat. Still okay with the incomprehensible animal that is chicken. We shall see if veganism happens. 

It’s a long one today. I pass through a tiny village called Vega where everything feels right. They have an adventure centre offering surfing and horse riding and walks through the monte. Add some plant medicine and I’m home. IS THIS WHERE I WILL LIVE? I ask myself, as always. Surely that perfect place is around here somewhere?

Endless fields of nasturtium. I chomp away like a horse that’s broken into a hay barn. Vitamins! Long time no see, my old friends. Cute little houses on stilts. Wild tomatoes growing everywhere. An epic beach, as usual. Vega has the vibez.

I continue across hills above the sea. As always when I walk alone the beginning is anxiety and bad voices and all the exhaustive repetitive little “pretend voices” as Gertrude calls them. But just like with Mo Gawdat’s superb “Listening to Becky” journaling technique – and, of course, Mara – once those voices have been heard and acknowledged, you get to the good shit. 

Today, it’s the voice of the first narrator of my ayahuasca novel. I plan on having three. I’ve told the basic plot to a few people and they’ve been excited. This is good. I’ve never really done that, even though it’s the advice of all the writing books, especially Blake Snyder’s Save the Cat. Tell your story to loads of people before you start writing. Then you’ll naturally refine it, until you have something that works.

It’s true. It happens. Also with life stories, as you tell them to new pilgrims every day. You start seeing the patterns beneath the fluff.

Talking, folks. Not that bad after all.

So the first protagonist starts talking, which is nice, cause for two days I’ve walked around with a great plot and no idea how to go about it. But today it feels like things are starting to get shaken loose. Bird by Bird has helped. Bit by bit.

“E. L. Doctorow once said that “writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can see only as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.” ”

Also:

“All I am going to do right now, for example, is write that one paragraph that sets the story in my hometown, in the late fifties, when the trains were still running. I am going to paint a picture of it, in words, on my word processor. Or all I am going to do is to describe the main character the very first time we meet her, when she first walks out the front door and onto the porch. I am not even going to describe the expression on her face when she first notices the blind dog sitting behind the wheel of her car—just what we can see through the one-inch picture frame, just one paragraph describing this woman, in the town where I grew up, the first time we encounter her.”

I love books. I love Anne Lamott. I love writing. Whatever comes of it.

This is important. The road is life. Santiago is not the point.

Rinse and repeat.

Finally I get to La Isla. The hospitalero is so nice. The opposite of the night before. He doesn’t have a cat; he has four kittens.

Onwards and upwards. The Belgian and I cook some pasta and talk about our family histories, fathers, the thin line between madness and spiritual enlightenment. I love these stories you get on the road. I love the glimpses, the quick portraits that get deep so fast, and then bye-bye. See you, or not.

Let go, and know in every moment that you will never see it again.

#albergues #oneofmyselvesisacunt #selfflagellation #searchingforahome #AnneLamott #tennis #CaminodelNorte #ayahuasca #travel #LetItGo #Asturias #hiking #CaminodeSantiago #carnivoreguilt