Camino Notes #3

Onward to Granada

The black line is this first third of Camino Mozarabe; I’m in tiny Quentar, just to the east of Granada. The Sierra Nevada have been in view for most of the walk.

The Camino is improving. Or I am. Or both.

After a pretty rough week to start, as already reported, things have gotten much sunnier, both figuratively and literally.

The weather is clear, still quite cool, but when the sun is shining, it’s perfect walking weather. My cold is abating, the antibiotics are working on the tooth abscess, and I’ve shed a few items that were breaking my back.

For a guy who “travels light” through life, I…don’t. Then again, any time without my steel-and-glass buddy here – through which I communicate with y’all – is just not on. (Do they make laptops out of plastic?)

In any case, since I left Guadix six days ago, post-emergency room and on the mend, the landscape has gotten really wonderful, though the climbs have been…significant. And I had a bad slip and fall after a long downhill…the places where the dirt-and-gravel hit pavement are particularly tricky, I have found. But Jean-Claude, my French Saigonese masseur, fixed me up in no time.

The back is still a bother, but it is better than it was. My god, I hate getting old. Seriously. No fun at all.

Except, of course, every day is fun, and I am grateful. What a privilege it is to be walking like this, through this beautiful country, alone and inspired. Wow.

238 km (148 miles) so far. I’m a third of the way through. I’m in no hurry for it to end.

I am now on a rest day, my second in 12 days, but not because I really need it, physically. It’s just that, when I walked into tiny Quentar, just east of Granada, I trusted my instincts and headed to the local albergue, which was officially sold out. And indeed, it was. But conversation with the lovely young German gal at the entry led to her revealing that they keep a special little room for emergencies. And she decided that I was an emergency.

Thus I found myself living in a converted chicken coop, the albergue’s overflow room, which turns out to be better than the albergue dormitory itself! My little coop had first been converted into a sauna, but saunas are not really a thing in Andalusia, and so it was converted into a tiny apartment, which suits me perfectly.

Turns out the place is owned by a German, and employs a couple of others (including a fellow Berlin-escapee) and on the wall of the entrance were listings for reiki and massage, hypnotism, even – and Buddhas all over the place. I suddenly felt like I was back at the old, pre-fire Harbin Hot Springs. No hot tubs, but lots of little tucked-away hang spaces, places to write, do yoga, nap…just the vibe, the hand-crafted feel of old Harbin. I was IN.

This is no ordinary albergue. I will stay two nights. So now I have some energy to write.

This Camino is really beautiful, and much different than the others. There are very few services or even humans at all in between stage stops, especially the last couple of days, which were very much out in the country, quiet except for birds, with no signs of life other than a rather feisty (but tiny) snake that I played with with my new walking stick, and beautiful, ever-changing views of the Sierra Nevada, which I have been walking around for most of the last 12 days.

Earlier highlights included an albergue built, like so many homes around here, into caves that have been used as shelter here for as long as anyone can remember (think Mattera in southern Italy, but more rustic). I walked for two days through these little settlements, and the albergue itself was really sweet, as long as I kept my head down, and was as quiet and dark as, well, a cave.

Aside from such settlements, the landscape is very familiar for a Californian, and not just because the mountains are called the Sierra Nevada. The foliage, the rock, even some of the more extreme land formations, like this one, remind me of my home state.

In addition to my improved physical state, I am mentally more in the groove now. I haven’t forgotten or lost anything for days! More importantly, songs and other creative ideas are starting to come, the writing is getting much more fluid, and planning for my return to Saigon more substantial.

The Camino always delivers.

I have long used the Camino as a creative as well as physical challenge, and it has been both, with good results with each. The physical challenge is, of course, far more dramatic, but the rhythm of the walk, the silence – I’ve snuck peeks at the news, but managed to keep it to a minimum – are really rewarding.

And it’s just so beautiful…

And so I say goodbye for now.

Onward!