<![CDATA[

Pontevedra, Spain and Canary Islands

To wake up this morning with the smell of the ocean, the cry of seagulls and the gentle sound of water lapping onto the stoney beach, is heaven. To be able to sleep until I wake is a pleasure I treasure more than most others. Last night in the hostal I meet two French couples and a Dutch couple. The French are travel agents, walking from Tui to check out hotels. The Dutch started two days ago, and by the looks of things are not going to last. In spite of the fact that both groups have their luggage transported from hotel to hotel for them, they complain bitterly about how difficult the walk is. I am like a cat who got the cream telling them that I have been doing it for 25 days, WITH my backpack.

One thing I have learnt, is “mind over matter”. And I think (and have told the Dutch couple) that it makes a huge difference doing the walk on your own. You have no one to complain to, no one to compete or compare with. Something I learned many many years ago from James Piek, is to “just do it”. When I worked at the Holiday Inn in Pretoria a hundred years ago, I started at 06h00 in the morning. In those days I only had a motorbike, and getting up at 05h00, getting out in the Pretoria winter, really did my head in. I used to complain and moan and groan. One night James said to me: “you know, regardless of how much you complain about getting up and driving in the cold, you will still have to do it. So you are wasting an enormous amount of time and energy, while you could be enjoying yourself, complaining about the inevitable”. It changed my life. I tried it – and yes, I still had to get up, but not actually starting the painful process a day earlier, made it so much easier.

This journey is like that – I get up, shower, pack my bag (somehow I end up unpacking the entire bag every evening) and go. I don’t give it a second thought. I don’t work out how far, how steep, how long – I just walk. Also – I think the thing that irritated me about the guidebook was the fact that it was so full of the writer’s opinions. I don’t want to know that in 10 kms there will be a “scraggly village”. (I have the same thing about reading film or theatre reviews – I hate having my experience influenced by the opinion of other people). Let me see/experience it, then I will compare it, untainted, to the opinion of others.

Apart from one thigh-muscle-eating-mother-of-an-uphill , the road is gentle. Oh and course after an uphill there is inevitably a down hill. The down hill feels as if you are on points in ballet shoes (I am SO glad I am not wearing boots!). The really steep down hill takes you into Soutomaior, across an old stone bridge, fishing boats gently lazing on their buoys, the men sitting on the sidewalks, women doing the Friday washing and cleaning. The route ambles criss cross through the village. At one point I hear someone humming a familiar tune – a sturdy housewife is removing the washing from the line humming “o bla di, o bla da”. I get a beautiful smile from her when I say good day! It is such a pity (to me, I am sure not to the women) that technology has now made the public lavanderia redundant. The stone around the crystal clear water looks soft after years of scrubbing the working clothes of men, sheets and bed covers. I can imagine the stories being shared standing around the edge of the trough – husbands being unfaithful, dreams of far away places, secret admirers, lost loves. A communion of chores that brought women together in a ritual reserved for only them.

In modern day Spain, it is very interesting to observe the role of men in a city like Pontevedra. We saw the same thing when we were further south – men take the children to the square in the late afternoon. There is a very intimate interaction, games being played, football played and stories shared, (I hope the women are then at gym or pilates, and not cooking supper…). An hour or so later the women would join, often with the grandparents. And then the whole extended family would walk around, ending up at a cafe on the square, meeting friends, laughing, joking, teasing. The children play with wild abandon – balls, push-bikes, tricycles, swords and shields. The most endearing scenes of fathers cuddling and cajoling, wiping tears and sharing laughs.

Pontevedra lies at the edge of another piece of inland sea, a sophisticated town with all the brand names, stately building with exquisite bay windows, sophisticated people with pedigree dogs. (The other observation – so many Veterinary practices. If only they would release all the poor chained up dogs!). But dogs are everywhere in the city – beautifully groomed, well behaved and obviously much loved. The first impression I have as I walk (stumble) into to the city, is of vagrants on the square. It would seem that the more sohisticated the city (or maybe the ore touristy), the more vagrants are about. On the main square where the convent presides over life, there are scores of what seems like homeless people begging in doorways. At every street cafe beggars ask for money. I watch closely – most people actually give them something. (I reserve my cash for the Bergies in Cape Town).

I find an affordable hotel in the centre of town, making sure that it has proper double glazed windows. Just as well, because as I venture out to have a meal, a man with home-made bagpipes is entertaining the crowds on the square. Now with the high stone buildings and cobbled stone streets, he has better accoustics than the Royal Albert Hall. (Forgive me – but I do find the sound of bagpipes really really awful. Unless at a military tatoo – I once heard a thousand bagpipes in Edinburgh at the tatoo – it does sound like someone is slaughtering a pig with a blunt knife!). It is the most horrific sound ever.

Tomorrow I once again veer off the beaten track to follow the “caminho espirituale”. I have no idea what to expect, but hope for more solitude, peace, quiet and grace. Away from bagpipes!

]]>