A Journey to Santiago de Compostela
We were just outside Barcelona when I bought my Basque shopping trolley, now known as Gonzo. There are three of us on this walk along the northern coast of Spain, Gonzo, myself and the Field Marshall. The weather is like a Hobart summer this time of year and our journey on foot is 900 km of purity and pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela.
I started the day with a bottle of Möet and the Field Marshall ate a duck, to my amazement he just crunched through the beak like it was peanut butter.
We had stayed at a local monastery in San Sebastián to recover from the jet lag. The monastery was like Mt Athos, high on a hill but was ruled by a High Priestess, who checked us in and took our possessions. By this time the Field Marshall had started in earnest to shed his material possessions. Already he had dispensed with his passport at Barcelona airport, his carry bag, a jumper, then a credit card left in a metro ticket vending machine and finally his hat placed on a seat in a restaurant and promptly forgotten.
We wandered silently through the monastery known as ‘the Mercure’, looking for our cell, passing the cafe and reading room. There were some ancient computer screens in a lost room gathering dust as if this technology was no longer required. The other inhabitants walked slowly around, heads bent in prayer, staring at a book with a silver glow emanating in wonder across there face. Every so often a child would exclaim in Spanish, French, English or American ‘another Pokemon’.
The food was bland, without sauce and fishy, the Basque chef had been trained in the British Army and the Maitre d’ at Bank Santander. A committed act of poverty as we ate food and emptied our pockets of all our remaining possessions.
After two days of wandering the streets of San Sebastián in a holy haze of jet lag, searching for vin and victuals, we needed to start our journey along the Camino El Norte. Looking west along the coast to Zaurutz, the Field Marshall tried to escape, taking his opportunity as Gonzo rolled away in fright. It was 20 km of terror, blisters, starvation and solitude, facing us, the trail was hardly marked out. Like Hansel and Gretel, the Camino is littered with a shell designating the direction towards salvation or Santiago de Compostela in the far west of Spain.
That morning before we started, we visited the local Bishop, who through his charming secretary offered to legitimise our efforts by registering our credentials for the Camino and the reality of what we were doing moved through our feet slowly, we made an effort to actually start. Zaurutz screamed at us to start, With Gonzo leading the way and myself pushing on, the Field Marshall followed with a 6kg backpack, his only worldly possessions, his soul shattered and in need of sustenance. Gonzo and I quickly realised action was needed. After a long lunch of fine food and the good company of our new mate Jon Guerra Txufo, tuna, salmon, dill, prawns and a crisp white wine, we caught the train to Zaurutz.
To be continued …
*Greg James is a malcontent capitalist. He has employed (and fired) a lot of people and spawned many business opportunities for himself and others. Some have been wild successes and some abject failures. Greg refuses to accept that Tasmania is second rate, it is only the people who occupy it who are second rate. Greg is a self and state educated owner-operator. He has been Chairman and President of State and Federal organizations, has owned a gay bar, built a suburb and wasted his life hoping that others around him would see the light as he see it. His brain is addled, his motives suspect and age has caught up with a life well lived. He writes about himself in the third person.
