OM10 | stumbling through the camino

My Spain can be summed up as ‘uphill’ and ‘caught buses’

Posted on September 11, 2015 by MT

What would you rather be doing?

I last updated this blog in France. Currently we are a week from reaching Santiago. But I have a very good reason for not updating. Spanish towns are worse than French towns for getting film developed.

I firmly believe that pretty pictures are essential to break up text that can only be called travel-whining. No breathless descriptions of cheerful pilgrims met, or daring climbs, or cheerful waiters to be found here. If you want vicarious optimism and wanderlust, look elsewhere.

Hey, the start of Spain started well enough. We caught a train to the border, fresh from a lazy few days at Bayonne, excited about a change of scenery and a new country. Spain was lovely and immediately different. The biggest immediate difference was that all of Spain is uphill.

Crossing the bridge into Spain

Falling in French roadside ditches did not prepare us well, but we persevered. I saw my first proper European beach at San Sebastian. We stayed in a proper pilgrim Albergue. It looked like the place you set up families when their houses get flooded or burnt down in wildfires. A big basketball-type room with bunk beds everywhere. And pilgrims. God, what a hateful bunch they are. Johnny-come-latelies who started that day in Irun, with their bandannas and sensible trousers, doing elaborate stretches on the floor, waving around their walking sticks like four-year-olds having a pissing contest. Like a cheap hostel in Berlin but with much more foot odour, which is saying something.

We did a good solid week, crawling over hills any respectable goat would have driven around. We swam at beaches and laid on sand and tried to even out the horrendous tan lines. We even tried our hand at Spanish. I was eager to learn until I learnt how to say ‘Can I have a coffee/beer” and ‘Can I have another’ and after that my desire to learn stalled.

I even managed to get a surf in. Our hostel for the night was overlooking the beach, and there was a pitiful break of half a foot, but I didn’t know if I’d get an opportunity to go again. So I hired a board and caught ripples. The water was so shallow I could step off the board when I was finished on the wave. Still, getting in a surf on the other side of the world is a nice box to tick.

So many towns on the coast are as pretty as a picture

After our first solid stretch we took a few days off. I was accumulating a bunch of aches and pains that wouldn’t go away. Feet hurt all the time. Joints raised their voices in a chorus of agony at every movement. I had less range of movement than a rusty action figure.

It was incredibly frustrating. Hadn’t I acclimatised myself to this nonsense already? Isn’t there a point where the body gets used to it and I can walk trouble free? And after the three-day break we were off again, this time a 30km day. And it hurt, not from step one, but pretty bloody close to it.

I don’t mean to cry my woes out or anything but I was mighty sick of it by this stage. Showbags were dropped. Toys were out of the pram. So I said to L that night I was done for the time being.

She took it well, but didn’t offer to cart me through the next stage in a wheelbarrow, which I found hurtful. This was somewhere around, hell, I don’t know, which is annoying. A beach town? I don’t like travelling so blasé about the destination, the towns, but I found it hard to care when I was walked like I was recovering from a hip replacement. Travelling to me is agonising over catching public transport. Pissing off locals with inferior language skills. Walking aimlessly through a new town. That’s the joy of travel.

Beautiful views, steep walks

L was good about it. And surprisingly fresh. Had I been that type of man, I could have been ashamed at tapping out before a mere woman, but hopefully that type of man will never have anything in common with me. Every day she groaned her way out of bed to tackle a new 20, 30 kilometres, and was ready for more the next day. When we caught buses and trains along the route to Oviedo, she was bummed that she missed out on the roads and trails. I wasn’t sure if we were looking at the same hills. But I guess she likes hills, and I like complaining about them.

We decided a long stay in Oviedo would do the trick. A rest for my aching joints and enough time to develop film. The first place we went to said they could do it in a few hours. Handy tip – in a foreign country, if you want your film developed quickly, book a place to stay for at least five days. Every other time we stayed for a day or two, the photo labs said at least a week.

Oviedo had a decent second hand store which had exactly one pair of trousers for me. Spanish men like to wear clothes made four sizes too large, or quite possibly for horses. You know how old men wear their clothes from 20 years ago but they’ve shrunk a bunch since then? That look is very popular here.

Had to slide over a lot of mud to take photos of these boats

I sent the OM1 and the D-Lux 4 home as I wasn’t using them. Really happy with how the photos are turning out but many of the days have not been blindingly clear. I would have loved to get some B&W film for the misty days for some brooding shoots, but getting it developed would probably involve some sort of blood sacrifice, knowing Spanish photo labs.

Anyway, we’re about a week out from the finish, and it’s back to walking. It’s only a week. Hopefully the legs pull through and hold it together. Wouldn’t do to walk the last stretch doing my best Quasimodo impression.

Bordeaux to Bayonne – Knees aren’t what they used to be

Posted on August 19, 2015 by MT

There are some moments where the particular planets of too much walking align favourably to provide a pleasant experience, and quite a few of them occurred on the walk this week. These moments happen when one has had enough sleep, limbs haven’t fallen off in the middle of the night, and the roads lack traffic, leaving one to walk along the road and not on the sloped ankle-grinding runoff ditches to the side.

The fields of wheat have given way to fields of corn and baby wine, neat and regular in their straight green rows. You may think endless rows of cereals are boring, and you would be right.

Magical mornings

The forests have changed, which is welcome. Now they’re long rows of pine trees with ferns that feel like you’re tramping through a prehistoric route. But the change in trees feels as though you’ve actually made it into a new area and not some giant treadmill going through the same scenery. Around Castets a lady told us there were storms that, combined with the sandy soil, ripped up a lot of the old forest, which explains why the pines didn’t look so old.

This was a lovely little bridge leaving a town with a name I can’t remember, just before Castets, with the happy black dog called Zorro that L got along famously with (although who I got to pat first)

I had the worst food experience in Onesse-Laharie. We stayed at a pilgrim hostel, which was fine, on a Saturday public holiday, which was not fine, as the small hospitality industry was shut for the day. Same for the grocers. The camping site could dredge up dinner that night, they said, so we returned for what was the foulest cheeseburger in creation. The bloody thing was still cold in the middle.

It’s one of those double lapses in logic that leaves you stumped, as you can’t get past the first logic brainfart to deal with the next. First of all, why do you microwave a cheeseburger patty? Especially in France; you have certain culinary expectations to live up to (even though yes, it was a camping site, have some bloody pride). While I didn’t expect to be taking this trip and writing damning critiques of the quality of the pilgrim hostel champagne, I didn’t expect the cooking standards you find in a mechanic’s lunchroom. Using a microwave is like dropping food on the floor. It’s fine to eat unless you’re planning on serving it to someone else. Second of all, if you’ve chosen to live your life like that and misuse a microwave, how do you not know how to competently cook a chunk of meat properly?

So I handed it back and I didn’t have enough French to be a bitch about it, and I didn’t really care if it came back at all, but a few minutes later it returns, like a bad penny. This time the whole thing’s been nuked to within an inch of its life, resembling a French-Polynesian atoll in the 90s.

I mean I still ate it. I was hungry.

While waiting for the man with the OM1 in Bordeaux, I saw this building and snapped a pic. Future building!

There were some nice spots, even though the gloom of the cheeseburger spread not just through my insides but through the weeks ahead and behind. Castets was nice. We stayed with an interesting family who switched to English enough to keep me in the conversation. Dax was recovering from a fete and didn’t have a photolab able to do photos in a day so we left. How did we lose this technology? In the 90s every pharmacy had a 1-hour service. But we got to Bayonne and didn’t look back.

Afternoon light in Bayonne, OM1

We were close to the border and could see signs of the Spanish everywhere. The buildings changed a bit and there are a lot more paintings of people killing bulls. Bayonne is a bloody lovely town. I only knew of it through the Elysian Fields song of the same name. Didn’t know anything about the town but wanted to visit it based purely on that reason. Well, the band didn’t do anything wrong as the town is my favourite so far. Quick film development time and a beautiful city to take pictures of. Furthermore, we had French-style tapas which was 90% cheese and who the hell could ask for something better.

The lads out for a sesh, OM1

Early morning driveway

I got a roll back on the OM1 as well. At Bayonne I got to put in a roll off the OM10 and L’s Trip 35, and then finished the OM1 later that evening walking through the streets. There’s so much to photograph. The OM1 came out nice but it was tricky shooting without a lightmeter. Some shots were easy (when it was bright and over the water) but the shadows in the afternoon through the streets made for risky business. Still, happy with how both cameras performed, especially in some of the low-light shots, the OM10’s bane.

Morning sunlight in the pines

I asked L how far we’re through the trip and apparently we’re halfway through in time but not halfway through in distance. I worry about this as my joints, which were fairly easygoing and dependable things before, are now protesting the slightest movements. I know I’d come good with about a month’s recuperation and a team of Swede masseuses but we’re lucky to have these two days in Bayonne before hitting the Spanish border in two days.

Garden in Castets

It’s going to be sad leaving France. I’m getting to be halfway competent in ordering at restaurants. My hard-won language skills, honed in dozens of villes, will be all for naught once we cross the border and start over. But L and I are more or less starting Spanish at the same level, so it’ll be fun to learn a language together. Given that I walk faster than she does, this will give me more opportunities to practice while I wait in bars for her to catch up. Let us hope then for a steady and patient run of Spanish bartenders from here to the west coast, but this late in the pilgrim season, I daresay they’re sick of the sight of another ungainly, sweaty, pack-laden hump mangling their language.

But we’ll see. In any case, goodbye France, hello to tapas, pilgrim-clogged roads, fart-bunker hostels, and if there’s not one op shop between here and the coast I’m throwing my pack in the ocean and never leaving home again.

Saintes to Bordeaux – Slowing down for wine country

Posted on August 11, 2015 by MT

Kid fishing, Saintes, OM10

The little stretch from Saintes to Pons, Mirambeau and Saint-Sauvin was pretty nice. Nothing to really fault except from the tightening of calf muscles that no amount of deodorant can rolling, no matter how painful, can alleviate. It’s as though we’ve passed the point of no return for leg muscles that get better with rest. So we go on.

I’ve been browsing a few of the other blogs on the different walks people are doing and can’t fathom the enthusiasm and hyperbolic wonder others seem to get out of it. Does this cross over into normal life, and could I one day be the type of person that jumps out of bed every morning, with joy in my heart at the thought of heading to the shops for milk and toilet paper? I really think in this day and age we can think of a better holiday than a long walk. After all this manner of vacation was invented by an ancient people who still thought cholera was caused by witches and sex before marriage.

Yes, I suppose I’m healthier for the experience, and my body is a patchwork of bronze and pale red from the sun, but mentally? Spiritually? Surely one can reflect on the quiet nature of things far better at a café. And I don’t like the earnest, wholesome look I have to adopt when entering a church to get a stamp. It’s the face you make going for a job interview or bank loan.

And I’m ashamed to say I’m tired of the hotel tour. I am tired of the road. I used to love all-day showers and artic-level air-conditioning. Now when the hotelier explains how the doors work and why water comes out of the taps I think of course, it’s the same bloody thing in every hotel room. It’s not as though I haven’t been indoors before. Maybe I need to sleep in a few ditches to get the magic back.

I am getting fed up with the smug, sympathetic looks passing drivers have been giving me. Yes, I’m having fun. I like sliding into ditches along the sides of roads.

A friend infected me with motivational quotes from the hobbit and now I can’t get that out of my head. They compete there with the latest Taylor Swift album, which L had subjected me to non-stop before we left. It gets in the way of the zen-like reflection everyone else seems to be having.

But all in all there’s not so many bad things about the walk, I just can’t see where these people are getting their entertainment from. They’re certainly not hanging around in the same bars.

Sexy hay

We’ve been getting up at five-thirty to walk during the cooler parts of the day. At least that’s what I tell L. Our routine – starting as early as possible – is designed to take full advantage of provincial happy hours.

Once we entered wine country, which I guess all of France is to differing degrees – the walk was lovely. One could see the beautiful origins of wine ripening right there on the vine. This was something I could get into. At St-Sauvin we stayed with the grandparents of the kids I babysat in Paris, and they convinced us to stay for a few days. It rained most of the time, which was lucky for us not to be walking, but in the sunny bits we made full use of the pool. We drank unlabelled bottles of rosé from country markets, ate like kings and waddled out after three days, catching a train to Bordeaux. I had been looking forward to Bordeaux. The last big stop of the trip before Spain. I thought it would be fun.

The gate, Saintes

Bordeaux looked like a nice town but it was, at the time, a festering pile of youths and hippies. Never seen such an unwashed mess of juggling pins, fire sticks and waste of taxpayer money. Bordeaux would make even the most left-wing liberal yearn for a return to mandatory military service and universal crew cuts. Shirtless bodies, dreadlocks, stupid little fedoras, and more idiots wearing Thai fishing pants than there are fisherman in Thailand. I have a question: if hippies are all such free and independent spirits, why have they all arrived at the same hygiene conclusion? I smell a fascist undercurrent of regulation there. And so, the busker market is overwhelmed in Bordeaux. Every set of traffic lights has a few hairy buffoons dropping juggling pins between cars and expecting money for it. I’d happily give one a fiver if they just sat there with a sign that read ‘I’m sorry.’ In order to stop the constant overly-cheerful requests for money I had to start wearing a bar of soap around my neck to ward them off.

Ducks in line, Chaterallault

Asides from that there was some positives. I bought an Olympus OM-1 off leboncoin. Everyone loves this camera, or so I read when I was looking for information on my other camera, the OM-10. The OM-1 is a classic and I’ve been on the lookout for a while for one of these bad boys. It’s not in the best of condition – there is mould in the viewfinder and a few other things, but I’m still happy to have it. The only problem is that I have to now share the lens from the OM-10 for both cameras. The guy was selling lens but damn, he wanted 450 for the 18mm, and that’s too rich for a humble pilgrim.

Actually, there is another problem. The OM-1 takes my favourite type of battery, that lead abomination that isn’t made anymore and that a viable alternative is impossible to find when on the road. I wish I had normal curses, like normal people, who are cursed with forever stubbing toes on furniture, or having red-haired children. Instead I get cameras with a discontinued battery and the only replacement is maybe the one they use in hearing aids. Christ.

Batteries aside, I was buying a sandwich from a place when the guy asked me what I wanted before noticing the OM-10 around my neck. His face went blissful and he told me about the exact camera that he used to have. We bonded for a brief moment about how much we liked that camera, and then the moment got better when I bought a bacon and feta baguette and ate it.

Boat on the water, Chaterallault

The photos from the last roll on the OM-10 came out beautifully. The photoshop printed the shots out, so I got a bunch of prints to use as postcards, but I had to beg him to scan them onto a disk, as he had said it would be too hard to do after the fact.

Tomorrow we’re starting on the road to Bayonne, the final stretch before Spain. Hoping for clear skies, tethered dogs, and the occasional brocante magasin who’s selling a decent Olympus lens cheaply. That or a spare goddamn battery.