AlBarclay

Like the old lady that swallowed a fly, the meseta has upgraded from flies to spiders. The hay has recently been baled, and we are walking downwind of empty fields which once stood tall. Millions of spiders that used to live in the hay have lost their home. They’re ballooning, looking for pastures new. Humans are not the first creatures to learn to fly by artifice. The spiders had thousands of years on us. They make a little hang-glider of silk and blow until they hit something. They can get a long long way if they catch the right wind. They might hit a tree or a bush, or they might hit a wandering Al. Their webs are strong and persistent and sticky.

The good news is that they’ve eaten a lot of the flies. So now I’m getting webs all over me as I walk instead. Spiders are trailing around my hat, dangling off the visor before my eyes somehow avoiding my hand as I attempt to detach them. They’re using me as a free ride or working out if I’m a good tree to live on forever.

If you have a phobia of insects, do this walk. There’s nothing like exposure to help with these irrational phobias. But it’s ridiculous when I start to think about it.

Here we are on this ancient route, this ancient rite. Here we are, millions of pilgrims over centuries, walking towards ourselves. These big skies, these high mountains, these long days walking on tired feet with sickening bodies. Here we all are and “The thing I’m most worried about is bed bugs”. “The flies keep getting in my mouth.” What is it about the tiny things? The King, sitting on his throne of gold, loved by all and yet somehow he just can’t scratch the itch in the small of his back… It’s the beginning of a story that ends with a scratched back and a destroyed Kingdom.

I’m on this Camino, I have the means and the time to do this trail, my body is capable, my mind is strengthening. All around me are fascinating people from all nations walking the same route. I’ve climbed every mountain, forded every stream, followed every river. And yet today I almost made myself sick from heat because I didn’t want to fill my water from a fuente. And why? Because I’m worried about something that is so small that it’s impossible to even fucking see it. A virus. That I’ve already had now anyway. Like maybe there’ll be another one? No. Bums!! I’m just looking for reasons to make myself uncomfortable.

This is what we do all the time. We forget the shape of our happiness because we’re looking at the smudge. When I received Gohonzon as a Nichiren Buddhist they coincidentally gave me a scroll that has a tiny smudge on it. When I chant to it my eyes are more frequently on the smudge than on any other part of the scroll. That’s me. My mind. My predilections. We get put up in a suite at the Ritz and go nuts because there’s no hairdryer. Someone gives us a free steak and we send it back because it’s overdone. Or we live in a beautiful place, get the chance to do beautiful work with beautiful people but feel incomplete because we’ve never auditioned for any of the regional theatres let alone a place like the RSC or the National. Bums! Oh why can’t I get an audition with so and so and x and y I say, knowing already that I’m going to do a beautiful show in a month with people I love. “I’ve got a smudge on my scroll.” When I get back to London I’m getting the damn thing changed at Taplow Court because if you don’t like something, change it or shut the fuck up.

I’ve walked with Luisa today. First time I walked with someone for about 20 days, but the meseta is stark. We’ve both been sick recently and we are neither of us as recovered as we are pretending. Company is good. We met last night and she mentioned she had wanted to get a tarot reading in Estella but it was closed. Perfect perfect opportunity to reduce the unnecessary item count to 0. Moments later there’s me triumphantly brandishing my cards and Luisa completely taking it in her stride. That sort of thing literally happens all the time on this route. Thousands of years of hopes and dreams and prayers and resonance to the universe. Even the meseta, this hard place, carries a magic. We both carry amulet stones which we washed in the full moon. Another hippy on the Camino! Who would’ve thought it? Nice to have some company.

I’m back on the meseta. All around me people I’ve met are getting sick. “It’s definitely not the fountains,” say lots of people on the forums. “It’s you filthy humans with your filthy ways. Spanish water is fine.” And yet it always seems to happen in this area at this time. I blame the clams. They’re trying to take over. But seriously, these fountains…

I’ve seen people give their dogs drink from them. They joyfully lick all around the tap. “Get the water boy!” Then some pilgrim fills their flask. I doubt it’s dog slobber though. If it’s the fountains I suspect they’re loosely treated groundwater and not treated as effectively as the tapwater here. It could be a norivirus that just happens to always hit this area at this time, as first respondents on the forums will be quick and aggressive to attest. But personally, and call it superstition, don’t drink from the fountains on the meseta. Better safe than sorry, eh?

The meseta is a stark and extensive high altitude plateau that runs most of the way from Burgos to Leon. I’ll be walking this road a few more days yet. There is very little to either side. Just fields or scrub. The flies are persistent. I am not the only pilgrim to have found a way to cover my face entirely while walking. I look like I’m about to kill you, but it’s that or spit out a fly out every few seconds.

As I sit here in my sarong, I have my hand over my wine glass because the fuckers are literally all over me. And I’m having to make myself okay with that because it’s that or sit inside on a lovely evening. They go with the territory.

They call this “The mind section”. It’s hard, hot and not known to be beautiful. It’s a high altitude plateau swimming with flies and sickness. A lot of people skip it for that reason. They get a bus from Burgos to Leon, and who’s to blame them. I’m up for it though. I’ve got shit to do.

After a blissful day of rest yesterday I walked for the first time since France without compeed or bandages. After I stopped I did not end up flat out on a bottom bunk in the Albergue as many have. My body has got this now. Nick is nothing but a hard bit of skin. He is unchanged today. I know my limbs are functioning well. I’m fit. Physically I feel like I’ve come out of a cocoon. I feel so much more connected with my body and my breath than I did a month ago. So now I can smash out the miles on my own terms and look at the inside of my head as I go. There’s a lot going on in that head. Once that part of the cocoon is broken then some sort of mad wonderful butterfly can emerge and startle you all. But first it’s a few more days of flies and heat as I come to terms with all the conflicting voices and influences, and tease out what is really important to this bundle of flesh, while trying not to eat too many flies or catch another hideous vomiting nightmare disease of death. In a convent.

Whatever happens to me it can’t be as bad as what happened to the sister in the convent who helped me move rooms. The Filipino sisters of Santa Maria de Belén are a very devout, robust and practical order. They are the stick flavour of nun, not the carrot flavour. But she happened to be on the corridor while I was having a particularly glorious noisy bout, simultaneously, through both ends. I could reach the sink sitting down thank God. Once it was done I collapsed where I was, exhausted and unusually silent. The silence worried her. She came to check on me. The cubicle door was open. I fear she saw more than she bargained for. The poor thing is likely still flagellating herself. Once she’s done with the hair shirts she’ll at least have a good story.

“The Camino brings what you need.” That’s what they say. So I’m trying to work out for what reason I needed to be turned into a double ended human water pump/hosepipe system for 9 hours.

I thought it was the clams. It stands to reason. It’ll be another 15 days walk before I see the sea and they were cooked in a rush by microwave. There were so many closed clams in the soup that I abandoned it as potentially unsafe 4 spoonfuls in. Too late. 40 minutes later, just as I get back to the convent, very familiar symptoms start. I know where this is going. Last time it was moules mariniéres in Jersey. The time before, God help me, spicy green curry mussels at Belgo. Nothing can ever be that bad. I get parenting myself immediately before symptoms get too pressing.

I try to look for the nuns. I need to move or I’ll keep everyone else awake all night. Also my room is a long way from the bathroom. That won’t do. They think I’m complaining about the bed at first. Eventually mid conversation I have to excuse myself to give them an auditory demonstration. Then she immediately moves me to a room opposite a little bathroom with a sink inside. Perfect. A fever is starting, and the convent is unheated. It’s cold. My temperature is all over the place.

At one point there’s a solid hour or two of constant horrorshow exorcism style madness. Where does all the water come from? My feet and legs are tired anyway after the longest walk I’ve had for a while. At one point I keel over slowly like a toppled Ent on the way from my room and pass out just for a moment. I wake thankfully still clean and relatively undamaged, but with no idea who I am or where. It comes back quickly because it has to. My fever is higher than I thought, I comment to myself, probably out loud. I don’t really remember fever the other times I’ve had shellfish poisoning. “Screw you, clams,” I mumble a few times through mounting delirium.

I’m in a waking fever dream where I just have to get over the hill to Roncesvalles to get away from the clams. They’re in the fog. Every time I try to drink my body rejects the water, but logically I know I need water badly so I keep trying. I wash my face and hands and arms in the sink. Maybe some water will get in through the skin I think, but it makes me cold. I was just hot. Now I’m shivering. The clams are waiting.

The hours tick by, uncomfortable and repetitive and endless. Piggypillow comes into play as I feverishly clutch his stupid friendly pink trotters. “We’ll show those stupid clams,” he whispers.

Piggypillow providing companionship in adversity brings the unnecessary object count down to just 1. Good old piggy pillow. 

I’m tired so I’m hugging him to help me stay lying on my side rather than my back. Things are happening too quickly for safe sleep. “Oh Al, yeah he drowned in spew in a Filipino convent in Spain.” Nope. Not thanks to piggypillow.

At 4.30am I successfully drink 3 mouthfuls of water and keep it down. That feels like a huge victory. At 5.30 I manage half a flask of water with no repercussions. “That showed those clams, piggypillow.” I pass out on my side for an hour and a half. Then I get up for breakfast and because we have to leave at 8. Bread. Banana. A slow cup of camomile tea that one of the nuns gets specially. It all stays down.

Donal, another pilgrim, is grabbing breakfast too. “You were puking last night weren’t you?” he asks. “Yes I was. And more. All night. Bad clams.” “No mate it’s a disease. Happened to me two days ago. Something about this area and the change of seasons. Take a day of rest, and you’ll be right as rain.” I’m resistant. I’ve already decided it’s the clams. “Seriously,” he continues. “I even phoned the restaurant I’d eaten at so they didn’t do it to anyone else. Then I met an old guy – he’d had to go to hospital. I mean I know how these rumours spread on the Camino, but apparently the doctor said to the old guy that it happens every year at this time in this area. Take some rest.”

So now I’m not sure. I’m maybe contagious, maybe not. I still want to blame the clams. Too much of a coincidence surely. Those damn bivalves…

I throw on my pack and walk to the monastery nearby. All the pilgrims are checking out as I’m checking in. I’ve booked a room of my own for a day down. I’m just waiting for them to sort the room when one of the pilgrims says to another “I’m not walking today. I had terrible food poisoning all night last night.” “Where did you eat?” I ask her immediately. “I didn’t eat last night. I was already too sick. It must’ve been something at lunch.” I tell her about Donal. Everybody goes and washes their hands.

So logically it’s norivirus. Seems the clams might have been innocent parties here all along. Stupid Clams. I’ll have to work hard to forgive their little clammy faces. If you’ve invested a lot of blame on something it’s hard to unpick that blame. But I get the sense the clams might have been innocent here. Piggypillow still hates them.

Now I’m in a private room in a monastery. It’s heated. Glory. I’ve mostly slept. I ate some bread and three raw garlic cloves – kept them down. Normal service is resuming. I’m still parenting myself. I keep stopping myself from getting up and exploring the town. But I’m here to get better. So that’s what I’ll do. The cloister is beautiful though. Ten second timer plus idiot.

I’m staying in a convent in a town called Carrión. Pronounced “Carry On.” I’m sleeping in a nun’s cell. The convent is dedicated to the Virgin of Belén. “Carry On Convent”. I fully expect to be calling the mother superior “matron.” She will be played by Barbara Windsor in a skimpy surplice. I’ll be disguised as a monk for some reason and she’ll tell me I have a dirty habit. “Ooh I know,” I’ll reply and Sid James will cackle. Then I’ll keep saying “Bell-End” instead of “Belén”, Kenneth Williams will drop his trousers, we’ll all start running in and out of a corridor full of doors. In 100 years time it’ll still be playing at 4 in the morning on Dave.

I’m sure the picture above my bed was looking directly forward until I wrote that paragraph. For those if you unfamiliar with Carry On films, now you know all there is to know.

Oh but It’s been a long day on my own.

I’ve been back into France rules. Carry a lunch. Walk until you can’t walk anymore. Then do another 6km walking. Then find a bed and hope you can eat before you fall over  It’s been good and flat and pretty and I’ve pulled two official stages in a day. It’s late now though and I’m feeling it. I think it’s a dinner of cheese and chorizo from my pack because everything in this town is shut on a Monday. I won’t get any food out of the nuns and there’s a curfew at the convent pretty soon.

I walked down a portion of the Canal de Castillo. It goes for 200km in total and took 70 years to engineer before being rendered obsolete almost immediately by a railway “built by the English”. They haven’t bothered maintaining the weirs so it drops more than 14 metres. So essentially now it’s lots of little canal sections at different heights. There was one boat on the bit I walked, guarded by an attack dog on a short leash.

Then an impossible multi weir waterfall.

I imagined careening down it in a narrow boat.

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I’m crossing through Palencia now, and again it feels like a different country. The grape vines have died away entirely. Whatever crop they have is here is being sprayed obsessively right now. I was downwind of a load of tractors puking all manner of chemicals on the fields. The wind was fierce. I swear one guy was deliberately gassing me. I had my scarf over my face, running with my pack to get out of his cloud and he turned his tractor to flank me. That was the low point of the day, but if there are any bedbugs in the convent they’ll be dead before I’m asleep for sure. Problem is I might be too. So much for fresh country air. At least his crop won’t have ergot…

Today also involved lots of adobe houses, some whole towns made of mud.

Piles of crosses. Inevitable ancient stone churches, all of which would in isolation elicit gasps of wonder, but right now it’s like walking down Brick Lane going “Wow, a curry house!”.

It is more and more apparent how this ancient route drives the economy here. Every little village has a place that opens at 6am for coffee. Everyone wants you to stay with them if it’s after 1pm, and they’ll follow you down the street. Old men sit in cars by the side of rivers waving stamps and shouting as you pass. We all have passports to be pilgrims, you see. They allow us entry to the cheap albergues. To get your Compostela you need to have a good string of stamps proving you have walked the route. I just get one in my sleeping place and occasionally if I like a place and the stamp is free I’ll get one. It’s advisable to get 2 per day in the last 100km as lots of people just get the bus. But some pilgrims are collectors and want to catch ’em all. Anyone with a cork and some ink can charge a euro for a stamp and hang out somewhere pretty as if they made the place. Then, even if they only get half of the Korean supergroup, they’ll still make €35 for ten minutes work – and chances are they’ll get closer to €70 from that lot. I saw 8 of those guys shell out two euros each for a stamp to some lads selling instant coffee out the back of a van near Roncesvalles.

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And I ended up eating in the only place in town that was open on a Monday, and ding went the microwave and out came the clam soup and I knew I shouldn’t have touched it but I ate half of it because i was hungry. And now both orifices busy for hours and I’m getting a bit feverish in my little nun’s cell with the blessed Virgin above my head as night falls. All the progress I made today… Ugh. Literally down the loo.

I hope my constitution can process this properly. I don’t want to lose too much time. Let’s see where it goes. Strapping into the rollercoaster…

Ergot is a parasitic fungus on crops, mostly poisonous to humans. It particularly likes rye. If a farmer didn’t want to lose his profits he might sell his crop anyway, ergot and all, and  hurt a lot of people either through greed or ignorance. If the miller didn’t know what to look for it would end up being baked into rye bread and eaten across the village. Which would be messy. It does have medicinal properties in context. A bit of ergot, well measured, can help with menstrual bleeding. Any ancient midwife worth her salt would have some of it handy for bad births etc. It is this effect that caused Hoffman to start isolating compounds from it eventually leading to his discovery of LSD for the same purpose.

So, kids, what do we get if we munch ergot? A spot of serotonin. Lovely. Uncontrollable spasms with the serotonin. Jolt giggle jolt giggle. Hallucinations. That’s the LSD bit. And they are usually affected by the prevalent myth of the area. Nowadays it’ll be “Minions! They want me to be their leader,” or “Dementors, they want to take me to Azkhaban.” Back then it was Jolt giggle jolt giggle “ahhahahaaa the devil is here he wants to have sex with me!” Spasm spasm giggle. So if you haven’t been burnt by then, or hanged like they did in Salem, or had heart failure which can be a thing too then it gets even more fun. Tingly burning skin. “St Anthony’s Fire.” You’ve been bad. God is punishing you with the fire. This is the same symptom that helps with excessive menstrual bleeding. It leads pretty quickly to gangrene. But over years it also led to a solution, via monks with knives. “Your skin is burning? You need to go to the monks of St Anthony.”

In the middle ages if you had “St Anthony’s Fire” you would walk or donkey it from France, where Rye Bread is prevalent, to the monastery of St Anton – that I passed through today. They preferred wheat in Spain. Symptoms would improve on the path, praise the lord. Holy magicalness? Or leaving the source of the problem? Either way, by the time you arrived at the monastery you’d be symptom free. No more party time with werewolves and Judas Iscariot. Just gangrene. You don’t just get better from gangrene. Which is where the monks come in.

Monks are practical people. Supply and demand. And they wrote things down and shared them which barely anyone else was doing back then because they didn’t know how. This particular monastery was on the crusades route home so lots of injuries were coming by. The monks of St Anthony knew more about blood circulation and amputation than anyone else back then. You’d get a stick in your mouth, no anaesthetic, but likely they’d get you very drunk first. Then it’s time for some dude in a cowl with a bone saw, a tourniquet with a tao cross on it, and a load of monks holding you down and singing about God. Screamy screamy saw saw ave maria aaargh sick pass out. If you were still alive half an hour later you’d be gangrene free, considerably lighter and with a grisly souvenir of your journey. A foot, or a hand or an arm, cast in stone. They would offer your amputated foot to the flames probably as it would be stinking, but first they might cast it in clay as a nice memento of your fun trip to Spain.

The monastery is all but abandoned now.

The roof is long gone. The order left in the 1700’s so it is mostly a ruin.

It’s home to a pleasant auberge with no electricity. I would love to have stayed here and had dinner by candlelight, but it was too early in my day. I had hours of hard hot walking to come.

I found myself wondering what metaphorical poisoned rye bread I am leaving behind as I walk. What am I going to have painfully amputated when I arrive? Hopefully something metaphorical. I don’t wanna lose a foot. Nick can do his worst. It’s more likely to be a habit.

One thing I’m sure of – I’m glad I am not one of those ancient gangrenous people. The flies here are unbelievable. They’d have been eaten alive. I totally understand the cliché of Australians with cork hats now. They like getting in your face these buggers. They even get eye side of my specs. They’re always trying to get into my mouth. Right now as I sit here they’re crawling on my face and my legs and my arms and I’m just having to be zen about it like I learnt with the mosquitos in The Amazon and let them do their fly thing. It’s all just transitory discomfort. Especially compared with losing a limb with no anaesthetic because you ate bad bread.

Reflecting back over this summer gone I’m very aware of how much time I’ve spent outdoors. We were given such an incredible season in the UK, and now I’m scratching onto the remnants of heat as I trek through Spain. We are up on a plateau now though, and we’ll be up here for weeks. The autumn is forcing itself through, here, finally. Heavy winds are taking the leaves off the trees, bringing a chill that is at odds with the force of the sunlight. But it’s glorious.

I left Burgos through avenues of falling leaves, and hiked back out into the countryside. I’m very much on my own again, which is a state of affairs I am mostly cultivating on purpose based on a decision I made before I even left – to whit “I’m not here to make friends.” But friends are happening by mistake as I coincide with people again and again. It’s pleasant to leave it to chance too. I still don’t know what I’ll take from this trip. It’s not my job to project forward. Right now I’m just relishing the daily mileage, and noticing as my body subtly shifts.

I’m writing this as I walk aimlessly around this little town in my espadrilles.

All the other pilgrims are sitting together in a communal room, silent, on their phones. I’ve been exploring. There’s not much to explore and I’m not quick in the evenings. But I’ll never be back in these places. There’s too much world. So it’s right that I see them.

I just ran into my first Brits in a little wayside bar. They were drinking beer. They do a week of this Camino every year. This year it’s Burgos to Leon. I had very little to say to them, but it was a strange familiar moment hearing their accents. I didn’t relish it.

Now I’m at the church. It’s a tiny country church, essentially, but if you’re on this route you get the bling bling even in a small town. That’s the Camino rules.

There’s a mass at 6. I might go and get some magicbread. I intend to walk a big day tomorrow so I need all the help I can get. Today’s plans for a long one were thwarted when all the alberges in the next two villages turned up already closed for the season. Just as well I rang to check. I’d have been walking all night, or paying way over the odds. Although a Halloween advert I’m in is screening in Ireland so my agent will likely have a present for me before long, God Bless them. This all means I can potentially risk not finding an alberge and covering more ground, knowing I can make the shortfall if I have to book a room.

I want to make up at least one more day from the recommended stages, not least because staying in halfway towns is usually more satisfying and cheaper than staying in the official stops.

Although saying that, this town is an official stop, and I’m in a brilliant auberge. Every bed gets its own plug socket. I can’t tell you how luxurious that feels when you’re used to leaving your phone plugged in under the sink three rooms away.

This walk is a teacher. I am learning so much as I put the miles behind me. Learning about my body, and how my diet and my sleep patterns affect my mood and capabilities. Learning about myself as a social animal – how it takes time for me to trust and to relax, but learning how I can give myself that time. Learning about how I package data. How I store and prioritise memories. How I construct narratives. Learning when I compromise or sell myself short, when I don’t seize opportunities because of unhelpful narratives I’ve made, when I don’t allow myself to want what I want for obscure reasons. And today, learning about gratitude and the meaning of luxury.

Some friends put some money into my account. You know who you are. Thank you, you mad beautiful buggers. I spent it on something I would never justify paying for normally. A king sized room with a whirlpool bath on the third floor of the AC Hotel Burgos. I booked it last night as I lay on a sticky plastic mattress in a damp chilly hostel. I cancelled the page thrice before I went through with it. I struggle to pay for things that I know to be too expensive. But right now, it’s worth every bloody penny.

First I had to get here. That involved getting lost in the dawn out of Atapuerca before finally finding the right hill and struggling up to the top alongside the Danish guy. As soon as we got to the top he strung his hammock between two trees. “I couldn’t sleep in that shit hostel. Gonna get an hour now.” I pushed on, past vast stone circles that have been made over time by thousands of pilgrims before me.

I had a place to go, and I was damn well gonna get to it. Just as well. The last 8 miles into Burgos are probably the least pleasant to walk so far. A huge empty airport, truck depots, big roundabouts, warehouses and filth. Lots of graffiti.

I stopped for lunch and watched the Korean Supergroup file past my window. Not as far ahead as I thought I was clearly. As I passed the cathedral, there they were with a queue of pilgrims outside the municipal hostel. I sashayed past and a little further on, into reception at this lovely hotel. The bemused receptionist stamped my credencial. I staggered into my huge room, immediately threw all my clothes all over the place, grabbed a €2.50 beer from the minibar and slipped into the whirlpool bath. Now I’m on the bed with conditioned hair and beard, pumped full of endorphins, mildly upset about the fact that I draw the line at using their laundry service (they charge by the item.) I’m going to have to put some clothes on and go to the laundrette. But that’s fair enough. I need to check out the cathedral too while I’m here…

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Outside the laundrette a young man is playing the didgeridoo while he waits for his clothes.

Inside an angry Spaniard is folding things at me. He resents anyone in his space. You can see the didge is pissing him off too. I mean – the guy can’t play yet. But that’s how you learn. We aren’t all Mozart.

I’m lost in a vague amusement at myself and at the absurdity of my decisions. Twenty days in. If I’ve got this right I’m halfway to Santiago. I’ll need to do some hard days, but I know I can now. I’m learning. And I think the investment of time is part of that path to better self knowledge.

I wish these clothes would hurry up though. I want to see the sights, and hang out in my sexy room.

This morning I woke before dawn, just like 60 people did in this village 82 years ago. I walked up the hill out of town like they did. The mist was down and the trail was dark. I had to have portable illumination to see the way clearly. I used a maglight.

They would’ve had torches. The torches would’ve been held by unsmiling silent young men. About an hour until dawn. It was very dark. An hour uphill through mist. An hour uphill to the summit. I walked in the footsteps of these liberal minded men. This path was the Camino then, as well. Maybe a pilgrim would’ve stood aside as this crowd came up the hill, wondering as they told their rosary. Did all sixty even come up at once? It is hard to think about it. As the mist began to clear and the fingers of dawn broke the darkness and brought the day I arrived at their destination. A cold silent hilltop far from the town. A shallow grave. Were they blindfolded? I don’t know. Did they dig the grave themselves? Very possibly. Because of ideas. Because of a conflict of ideology. Because General Franco chose a swift and decisive means of preventing threats to his dictatorship. These sixty people were shot for their liberal ideas, in this cold forsaken place in the morning mist. Shot by men who returned to their families. Maybe played with their daughters. Maybe read them a goodnight story, turning the pages with their trigger finger.

A monument stands here now. “Their deaths will not be useless – their execution was useless.” We can only hope. But again, extremism is becoming mainstream. “Justified”.

It just takes another scared little boy in the right position going “It’s the kind people. They’re the real threat. The ones that think humans are just humans and that ignore the structures we have created to attribute relative measurable value to them. Human worth has to be measurable! We know this because we have constructed our patented human values measuring scale. Those people in the next village think our scale is arbitrary andn it just reflects our birth priorities, but they don’t count because the scale tells us they aren’t important.” And then the cold eyed frightened young men come with guns. This is just 60 people. The liberals from one village in Spain. Ideas have killed so many people – and liberalism vs fascism  is a big one still – on and on forever because these two worldviews cannot be reconciled. Protect vs welcome. I sit here in my espadrilles thinking “Why can’t we just all get along, man?”

The walk was beautiful today and I’ve stopped early. I stopped before I had to, for the first time in ages. I hit Atapuerca. It’s one of the most important archaeological sites in the world, with Ice Age cave paintings and human remains dating back 800,000 years. I’ve booked a tour. It’s in Spanish. The guy kept on telling me “it’s in Spanish. You don’t speak Spanish.” I told him “me looky looky think think. Understanding some wordy. Okay be me yes yes thanky.” He still didn’t really get why I was so keen to go…

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I see his point to an extent. My feet were freezing and it was a guy standing by a wall talking for ages in Spanish. I occasionally asked the Mexican pilgrim “what’s he saying?” and got “They used to trap animals here. The rest is shit jokes.” Reminds me of when I used to tour guide on the boats. But these ancient humans used to eat each other. Maybe the ones who thought the mammoth leg was better eating than the mammoth flank. The perverts. They deserve to be eaten with their incorrect leggy ideals. So we’ll eat them even though it gives us degenerative brain diseases. Because flank is better. It always has been. I haven’t had leg and I don’t need to cos I know. Kill ’em. Leggy twats. Bury them in a shallow grave.

On a typical day on the path you’ll pass the same people multiple times. Everyone has their pace, but everyone stops from time to time. Maybe for a photo, a stone in a shoe, a blister inspection, a water refill. I stop every morning for half an hour. I stopped this evening to make a little water cup for a kitten that was clearly hungry and thirsty but way too scared of me to come when I was there. I left her some cheese too. When people pass they say “Buen Camino” That’s the default. It’s what the internet tells us to say. I don’t like it much. It’s used so automatically that it has lost all meaning. Like “Have a nice day!” It’s fine from someone not walking Camino to someone who is. But I’m after something a bit more engaged.

The Codex Calixtinus is a twelfth century Lonely Planet Guide for The Camino. It tells you which rivers will kill your horse, where you are likely to get jumped by robbers who are dressed up as pilgrims. It tells you which cities are important, where the dead saints are buried, where to eat. It’s a mine of superhelpful very very out of date information. Right now I’m approaching Burgos: “This country is full of royal treasure, of gold and silver, fabrics and the strongest horses, and flush with bread, wine, fish, milk and honey. It is however lacking in firewood and the people are evil and vicious.” There we go. Forewarned is forearmed. They paint good murals:

But their graffiti needs work:

The Codex Calixtinus has solved the “Buen Camino” saccharine problem for me. “Ultreya,” it suggests as a pilgrim greeting. “Ultreya et suseia – Santiago”. This has the immediate advantage of being ancient and being born on this path. It’s also much deeper than “Have a nice Camino.” It means a mixture of things. “Onwards!” and simultaneously “Go beyond!” Stretch your usual boundaries, physically and mentally. The journey doesn’t end in Santiago. Go beyond. The response “et suseia” is “and upwards!” To the heights. To the gods! To the height of what you can be! Ultreya et suseia, Santiago.

I’ve been trying it as I go. Mostly my enthusiastic “Ultreya” is met with a pause, and then an efficiently morphed “Buen Camino” from someone who is not native Spanish but pretending. “Buen Camino” also kind of means “Go away and leave me alone, I’m doing the basics. You’ve had human contact. Now exit my space.” But I keep trying. “Ultreya!”

Sometimes people have come upon me later and asked me about it. “What was that you said?” It’s written on all the monuments to the dead pilgrims – heart attacks or road accidents mostly. I can refer to them. Onwards! Inwards! Up and beyond!

Once, gloriously, there was a high five moment. I said “Ultreya,” to the hairy good looking Spanish guy who passed. Beaming he responded “et suseia” and then we both simultaneously said “Santiago!” We didn’t high five. We should have. But we both wanted to make out like it was just an ordinary moment. Because it really really ought to be. It’s just BETTER than obediently mouthing Spanish niceties whilst walking past graffiti saying “This is not Spain.”

It’s mostly road flanking at the moment, this bit of the way. We trudge in a strung out line past grapes and sunflowers and fallow fields on the left and past trucks and trucks and trucks on the right. Ever west. This isn’t France where it was maize and cows and goats and sheep. There is very little livestock here. It’s mostly just grapes, which I’m not complaining about. Yum.

The sun is still shining. That’s a blessing. And we will go onwards and we will go upwards, and some of us will fall off and others will not. It inevitably starts to feel like a community when the same faces come staggering into the hostels at the end of every day wondering what’s in store for our tired bodies this time. I just told a noisy table full of Americans that I didn’t want to join them, earning the nickname “Antisocial Joe”. It’s affectionately given but it’s also a tactic by the group to absorb the loner. I’ll probably have to go do the basics. I might be flanking them for a few days.

Everybody ends every day walking like very very old men, slowly and deliberately showering, massaging our feet, swearing a bit, getting some wine, and looking at the maps for the next day. Finally I’m ahead of the Korean supergroup, and the predominant language is Spanish. I have a small nucleus of French people who I chat to. And that big pile of Americans. I haven’t met a Brit on the path yet. I wonder if I will. I wonder if I want to – too familiar perhaps. We will see. Meantime, Ultreya!

Grañón is described in the guide book as a town where “they like to party.” I’m sitting outside a bar opposite the church, in the evening sun. There’s a piano and guitars just … scattered around for pilgrims. Steve is currently hitting the piano beautifully. He’s the guy who was singing hymns the other day. Earnest hard working Steve. He’s a beautiful human. I’m glad I’ve coincided with him and Cody, these pleasant talented ex US army guys again.

Another extra long walk today, and I’m glad to get distance from where I slept last night. I left that place with my immune system in tatters. A superhostel, packed with flesh, all in one room, very little space, brimming with all the transferable human nastiness you can imagine. No hot showers in the flooded bathroom. I stood at the edge of a cold trickle and swore copiously as I cupped and sloshed cold water on my tired limbs. It was something between a concentration camp and an army barracks where nobody shares a language. Someone repeatedly almost suffocated themselves noisily in their dreams all night right by me. There are probably bugs when you do actually sleep, and certainly horrific smells when you don’t.

My blepharitis came back overnight. Suddenly again my eyelids are red and trying to stick together. I feel like I’m coming down with a cold as well. I found a pharmacist in Santo Domingo and stocked up on vitamins and they actually let me have the antibiotic eye drops I need rather than just fobbing me off with some sort of palliative crap like the pharmacists in the UK did for a whole year until I took a course of antibiotics for an unrelated issue and it cleared up immediately. Bastards.

I also got myself weighed. I’m 12 stone 3.3 recurring. I have no idea if that’s good or bad but it’s lower than I remember and it’s infinite.

Another long hard road today. The path goes through Cirueña. Cirueña is a warning to us all. It sits on top of a hill, not far from the bustling town of Santo Domingo de Calzada. There’s an 18 hole golf course that actually still functions. The rest of the town is a dead monument to greed and optimism.

I remember family friends in the late nineties and early noughties, evangelising about Spanish property. It was a bubble. This is what their hubris created. Cirueña. And many other places like Cirueña. The streets are immaculate for all the feet that will never fall. There are huge playparks for all the children that will never be born here. There are beautifully landscaped totally pointless empty blocks of flats and empty houses. Thousands and thousands of empty beds across Spain. They could be used to house people who have nowhere to live but they’ll be kept by private owners believing it might come back. Everything here is empty, and desperately and visibly for sale for too much. Not even the pilgrims can sleep in this new town. Empty dead houses that nobody has ever slept in that will sit empty until they collapse because whoever invested everything in them was never interested in bringing gradual money through work or fostering community. They bought into the big shiny flip twist bucks bucks bucks dream. No cars on the roads. No sound at all but the crickets and the birds. Dead town. Dead hopes. Dead end.

If you want a retreat, buy a house up here in the dead hills and pretend you live in post apocalyptic Richmond. Although there’s no point asking. The remaining landlords are probably HODLING. They still think they can make some of their losses back… Maybe in fifty years there’ll be life again in these hollow tenements. An artistic community perhaps? But for now it’s just a sad folly. It’s funny how these get rich quick schemes so often do the opposite. My dad used to say “If everyone starts saying you have to buy something, just hope you’ve already got some and sell it immediately.” Devil take the hindmost. Pop.