Portomarin to Palas de Rei was a long 25km day up long sloping uphills and downhills. I had only planned to walk about 15km, but took one look at my lodging options, and decided to walk on to the next town. A pilgrim is always grateful for a place to lay their head, but I wanted to wake up with mine in the morning.
As the sun rose over the hills and flooded the vineyards and cornfields in the valley below, I stopped to identify the source of a strange sound coming from the path behind me. It sounded like the chorus from Katrina and Waves' Walking on Sunshine in a really heavy Spanish accent.
It was.
Alexei stood about 6'2 and had a walk which suited the larger than life personality he carried with him. He introduced himself as a sort-of Russian from Barcelona who didn't speak any Russian. He loved to travel, hugged and high-fived everyone he passed on the trail, and had amassed a group of followers who were all trekking behind him from O Cebreiro a few stages prior. He didn't know a stranger, and walked about collecting Instagram accounts, asking people their names, inviting them to drink a beer, and he doled out encouragement to those who needed it as he charged down the Camino.
"Aaayyyyy Williams! Willie! USA! USA! USA!" he chanted after I introduced myself, and though I couldn't keep their pace, I heard the chants again every time I passed them at a rest stop or watering hole for the next eight and a half hours. His very existence seemed to be a testament to the regenerative power of Spanish Estrella Galicia beer, so I finally stopped and had one about 2km from Palas de Rei.
When I next encountered the roving band of merry hikers, they had made it into town, and were crowded under an awning at a taverna during a blustery thunderstorm that had interrupted everyone's dinner and cafecito plans. I crowded in with them, and I asked where they were headed. "No clue" said one woman in the crowd. They were all still following Alexei, wherever that might take them.
I suggested that I was headed up the road to get some pizza - a much needed break from the pilgrim's menu of baked chicken and boiled potatoes I'd been eating for nearly two weeks. Eyes lit up, and bags began to rustle. Five minutes later, ten soaking wet and hungry pilgrims were marching up the sidewalk to chants of "USA! USA!" courtesy of our new Barcelonan-maybe Russian friend. Dinner was a raucous affair full of belly laughs and English lessons, and by the time the night was over, everyone agreed it was the shot in the arm they needed to push through the blisters, the tendonitis, and the creaking knees we'd acquired along the way. Arriving back at the municipal hostel, I gave thanks for the positive energy, and I set my alarm for 5:00am the next morning.
The trek to Melide the following morning was about 15.1km, a shorter day than most had been until now, which was a relief. The daily morning ritual of taping toes and heels took about 15 to 20 minutes after you'd packed up your things and cleaned up your bunk, and it was largely undertaken begrudgingly, in silence, in the common hall before everyone ventured out. By 6am, I had a café con leche in one hand, flashlight in the other, and I was marching head-down into the early morning woods.
By lunch time, I was in Melide and asked for directions to the pilgrim's hostel, run by the Xunta de Galicia (local provincial government). I was directed towards a main plaza a few blocks away by the local pharmacist, but I was puzzled by what I encountered on my way there. It looked like a soccer riot, and nobody seemed to bat an eye at the chaos unfolding on the streets.
Entire groups of people were dressed in like-colored t-shirts, painted with slogans and nicknames. Wine was being thrown at passers-by from the balconies above. Bottles of beer were being sprayed on musicians as they played their instruments on street corners. People were being hurled into the fountain in the center of the plaza. Something resembling music roared from the makeshift stage that occupied the street corner across from me. Merchants were yelling. Street vendors were hawking. Somebody ran past with a long green metal tube and some enthusiastic followers. A shoulder-mounted something-launcher?
It was either the end of days, or I'd missed a memo somewhere along the way. I jumped headlong into the melee, because Google Maps told me I had to. Realizing my mistake, I sidestepped onto a stone stair step alongside one of the alleys, and I slowly shifted my way into a local bar.
"It's a religious festival" yelled the bartender when I asked what I'd wandered into. I've known a religion or two in my day, but none of them featured wine-filled water balloons being hurled at pedestrians from balconies. It looked like something that had been conjured up during halftime of a Florida State football game - a night game. Part of me was ready to join.
It was the feast day of St. Caralampio, a 2nd century priest who was martyred in Ephesus at the age of 107, and whose memory is vigorously defended in Greece (and apparently, Spain). According to what little we know about him, he spent much of the waking day inebriated and/or passed out before eventually waking up and tending to his priestly duties in the evening. His contributions to Christendom are therefore celebrated in Melide on the 2nd Sunday in September, during a festival known as "la fiesta de los barrachos" or, the day of the drunks. Revelers partake in Melide's reputation as the octopus capital of the world, eat boiled potatoes, and hurl alcoholic beverages at unsuspecting pilgrims. Nobody said laying the foundations of a religion was pretty, folks.
I managed to get to the pilgrim's hostel and get settled for the evening, but it was far from a quiet night. Alexei and his roving band of merry followers had gone on to Arzua, so things were relatively quieter than they had been 24 hours prior. Every 20-30 minutes, however, from some corner of Melide, the guys with the green shoulder-mounted rocket looking thing (one has to assume) would send up a burst of fireworks that shook the walls of the entire city. The practice continued until 4:15am, at which point, the police finally decided they needed to take control. The last explosion was heard some time around 5:30am.
We all wanted to get some sleep before the 3 longish days that remained between Melide and Santiago, but the atmosphere was decidedly festive now - you had no other choice. For one night, the sometimes somber and heavy weight of all the walking, and all the reasons for the walking, seemed to lift, and everyone managed a bit of a smile. Two stops remained on our way to meet St. James. Some were relieved at the idea of being done, while still others weren't ready to let go of the journey they had been on for several weeks, or a month, or more.
I wasn't sure where I fell on that spectrum, but having moved beyond injury and self-doubt, I had fully embraced the Camino and all of the interesting juxtapositions it presented. Something was different, and I found myself wanting to bottle it up and bring it home with me. A part of me was going to make it to Santiago, but I'd left another part of me somewhere along the way.
And I didn't mind it one bit.
As a group, those of us in Arzua that evening were on track to reach Santiago on September 13th, for which the priest at the evening pilgrim mass offered the prayer of St. John Chrysostom, whose feast day we would celebrate upon our arrival:
"Almighty God, who has given us grace at this time with one accord to make our common supplications to you and promised that when two or three are gathered in your name you will grant their requests: fulfill now, O Lord, the desires and petitions of your servants, as may be most expedient for them; granting us in this world knowledge of your truth, and in the world to come life everlasting."
Finally, l'shanah tovah to all my friends celebrating Rosh Hashanah, as many are doing along the Camino - may you have a good year!
Party on,
Will