Tenderness and treachery: Day eight on the Camino …

Mikel and Alexander outside Castro Udilies

A Journey to Santiago de Compostela

*Pic: Doing the Spanish laLiga football pools at breakfast in Liendo

The path to treachery

More treachery

Not an ordinary beach, it too is treachery, an enormous tide with rips everywhere

You have been warned

Badly designed housing with fantastic views of the ocean

Day eight Camino

Death in Spain is above ground and stacked up high

The mountains ahead are bleak and full of horror

Mikel and Alexander on Camino

The future is beautiful

Gonzo had to be carried, more treachery brewing

Little Mikel is eight years old. He is on the Camino with his Dad, Alexander. Mikel speaks four languages. Spanish, German, English and Chinese. His mother lives in Bilbao, his father in Germany, he goes to a Chinese school and he learns English from TV.

Yesterday he walked 21 kms from Castro Udilies to Liendo, they both stay in the Auberges, cook and eat together. Alexander only stops tending his son, when Mikhail sleeps.

They walk along holding hands, Mikhail plays with everything, his father makes him toys from any stick or anything else at hand. They enjoy their love for each other.

The path is treacherous, the roads we crossed are treacherous, Gonzo attempted an escape and in his panic he moved too quickly downhill deviating to the right and onto the grass, the treacherous little fascist. The Field Marshall constantly follows me and I detect treachery. I am alone and surrounded by elements that need careful watching. The Camino led us into a dark unknown town. The people lean and hungry.

I trust nothing, the woman who runs the Auberge speaks impeccable German but no English. It is clean, there are Spaniards, Germans and two Tasmanians. They all obey the rules, drinking, eating and laughing until 10.30 and lights out and I am abandoned, silently they slink away in seconds. I enter the bedroom where I sleep with 15 others and am told firmly to be quiet. I trust no one.

Yesterday we walked 15km and found an abandoned Auberge, no food but hot showers. We washed away our sins and made the dramatic decision to move on to Liendo, up a hill that was a continuous bastard, a main highway, no footpath and 3km of treacherous traffic.

The view as you can see was fabulous and I am so tired I cannot carry on.

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.