Istvan from Hungary joined us on the “red carpet”. He, too, has the Northern path under his belt. Add a two-year tour in Afghanistan, the blood-soaked land where the sun doesn’t shine, where death is common, where bombs serve as an alarm clock – except you don’t ignore or snooze them. Everything those people have is being alive. Children don’t know what kindness and love are.
Not long ago, Istvan got a wake up call in a form of an IED that went off near their convoy, so he went home. He realized it’s not worth it; there’s a son waiting for him at home. I asked him what he wants to do now that he’s done with war. He said he’s avoiding dangerous jobs and he wants to become a driving instructor. I laughed since I find that a pretty dangerous job.
Istvan is a fast walker and he likes similar music. Very simple, fun and kind person who couldn’t complicate things if his life depended on it. And he adores beer. He volunteered to maintain order and peace if necessary. Beer upon beer the previous night we got an idea that we should do it as a team.
Camilla, Istvan and I completed the path in three stages, while Polona did it in four. She didn’t feel well and pain in her leg kept her company. She reached the destination a day after us. Every day, we met a cavalry of dozen from Madrid, a quite interesting gang. They seemed to know how to enjoy, since they always arrived after us, laughing and full of passion. True, they drank a lot, so it’s probably better for their horses they took it slow. I’m not afraid of horses, although I prefer ponies due to their height. The fact is, I’m afraid of any four-legged animal taller than me, so I keep a respectful distance. I’m also in love with a Mustang, but not the kind with a hairy tail. Still, it’s better than being afraid of tiny black spiders.
Do you know that priceless feeling when you get to the finish line and realize you managed to walk a thousand kilometers in 31 days sans serious pain? You don’t. Don’t worry, it feels something like this: FUCKING AMAZING!!! And being with people who walked the same distance is also invaluable. You also realize it’s almost time to go home. Just a few days left until your summer in a shell is over. So we said: “ALL IN, BABY!” Three days in Finisterre were more demanding than 31 days of walking. Seaside attracts meltdowns.
I met a few really loco hikers in those three days: Andrea, Lucienne and Daniel. I think he was called Daniel. Andrea, I’ll remember the French guy as someone who got my attention with a song Lovers in Paris on the patio of the albergo. Since we listened to the song on the phone, I grabbed my JBL loudspeaker, since it makes all the difference. That song deserves high quality sound. I only heard it twice and one of them is mine. It is interesting, though, that Kitty and I listened to it on the beach in Finisterre a couple days before.
We were interrupted by a nice guy who asked us what the song is called; he liked it and it fit into his current milieu. Since sharing is caring I told him the title. Lucienne was the second one. She’s an Aussie girl and she also sort of found herself on the patio. But she didn’t sleep there. She opted for a bed on the beach under the open sky. Quite ballsy since she’s only 18. She did the French path and I’ve never met such a nutty child; red curly hair, face endowed with freckles, great sense of humor and music taste, but most importantly, her life stories.
It’s incredible she’s still alive. She’s anything but shy and her thick Australian accent is almost too awesome. She reminds me of Tina. We only spent a few hours together, but it felt like we knew each other for ages. I think about this charismatic girl a lot. What I’d like is another day with her. We have the same M.O., it takes her five days to text back, and she’s been compiling a playlist for me since the day we went separate ways. Her love for the word FUCK is only matched by Camilla. Not everyone is able to stick it in a sentence and accentuate it just the right way to make it stand out. It’s fucking art.
Then, there’s Daniel – if that’s his real name, that is. I think he comes from … I forgot. Exhausting day. I do know he’s done plenty of different paths and the reason for this year’s pilgrimage was quitting alcohol. I met him on Day 19 of teetotaling. When he wanted to have a glass of wine with me I told him I do not want to be the reason for him falling off the wagon. Stick to your beloved guitar, I told him. I didn’t, however, decline hash, which he smoked as ardently as I did cigarettes. He was good at making me laugh, but he was even better at getting me high on his booze substitute. Rumor has it he put a spin on that story the next day when I was 15 kilometers away from Finisterre. He always wants to be the protagonist. I would never pull astray a man on a mission like that. You know the tale: “Man, I quit smoking, drinking, yada-yada-yada.” They are never as fun as those that tell you how someone started drinking again. I do not want to be a character in that story, to be frank.
I also met a few veterans of the Path, which was a lovely surprise since I believed all of “my” fellow sufferers were already home in their beds. And when you think things cannot get better you hear a distant voice: “Tina.” It was my last day of Finisterre Fiesta with Lucienne, Andrea and Daniel, on the patio exploding by laughter. The patio faced the “main” road that led to the second most beautiful beach in Finisterre (out of three) where we had our farewell party later on. The voice didn’t belong to Polona or Camille; it belonged to a man. When I followed it, I saw my favorite German couple on El Camino: John Lennon and his Yoko Ono. I met them at lunch in Guemes. We sat next to each other and Lennon asked me how the hell did I walk so fast in such an infernal heat, let alone pass everyone and smoke while doing it. They said they followed my advice and walked to Finisterre. They were not sorry.
Since they were on their way to the beach we agreed to meet later in the bar opposite the bus station that takes you back to Santiago. Can’t miss it: oldies and goldies play there, music of my youth. I joined Lucienne, Andrea and Daniel to the beach where we had a farewell party. Due to the Holy Grail, it took us almost an hour to walk a distance of 300 meters. So much things to say to each other. The party was a success, but I had to be somewhere else, with Polona, Camilla and the German couple. But just like that, I ran out of film. The brain hamster flew off his wheel.
Not that I merely didn’t know where in Finisterre I was. I forgot on which side of the fucking planet I was. It’s quite something. I didn’t forget who I was meeting though, so I texted Polona to send me the address of the bar. It was a battle for survival. Anyways, the bar was just around the corner – no comment. Perhaps the most viable thing for me to do was to drag myself back to the albergo and call it a day, but you don’t screw over other people. What you do is say a prayer and hope to survive the evening. It was downhill from there. We met another Slovenian guy, whom I don’t actually remember. Half of the farewell party is also something my memory didn’t record. Like I said: an exhausting evening.
When we went back to the albergo, I lost my place in the universe once again. I couldn’t tell where I was. When Polona texted me the location I was actually ten meters away from the albergo, but the surroundings felt alien to me. When I managed to reach the end of the maze I was reportedly already asleep even before my head hit the pillow. The alarm went of at 6:30 next morning. Camilla and I had a plan to walk to Muxia for the last time, but since we love tradition, we took the plan to leave at agreed time and threw it away. It was 8 o’clock when we finally moved our butts and went for a coffee to “our” bar. They said we snored the entire night and they said we were quite loud when we left.
The German couple was also there, waiting for their bus to Santiago. John Lennon told me it’s a lovely walk with plenty of shadow and greenery. That was a relief. After a night like that, the sun would murder me. Like every day before, Camilla got lost. It’s a tradition. When I arrived to Muxia, she still had 10 kilometers ahead. See, we left at the same time. Don’t ask.
Oh, and another advice: when you order a drink in Spain, make sure you pay right away or waste half of the afternoon.