In the
morning I rushed to reach Alto de Poio, the last mountain peak in the altitude
of 1300 meters to have breakfast there. In fact, I was not to reach it until
11:30 am and all energy I used for intensive biking uphill came from one little
croissant and infamous Coke. It was rather cold in the mountains which was a
nice change after the unbearable heat from yesterday, but soon I wished that
the sun would do glimpse through heavy fog because I started to freeze despite
biking with strenuous effort. No wonder, it was only about 7 degrees and I had
shorts, T-shirt and a thin sweater on it. It is interesting to see how the
weather can influence your perception of the landscape. The fog was like a milky
pool and I could not see an inch. That was particularly dangerous on the
meandering road, but fortunately there was not much traffic on the road in the
morning. The weather inversion in the morning gave me another interesting
moment when I managed to escape from the fog to a completely different world,
full of sunshine and beauty around. The world below, looked glum and scary, and
being just above the clouds was like reaching another reality.
On the way
I wanted to visit one particular place that was dear to my heart from stories
that I have heard. It is a small church Santa Maria de Real in a small mountain
village Cebreiro. This place is fabled with a famous Christian legend. It is
said that once there was a mass held here that was more mess than a mass.
Nobody, even the priest himself, truly believed in what he was doing and the
whole ceremony went into a farce. Then, suddenly, the wine changed to blood and
the Host to human flesh. Since then, it has become a holy relic. The king
Ferdinand and his spouse Isabella intended to move the relic to the city, but
it could not be heaved, as if it got stuck to the altar. The flesh was later on
examined with modern technologies and it has been confirmed that the tissue
comes from the human heart. This is a famous story of the true beliefs and
inner doubts about them. It would be great if the God made more miracles like
this to show “formal believers” that what is happening in the church is not
just a ceremony. However, for the God this would not bring much delight from
his worshippers if the religion were taken as a solemn truth and an undeniable
fact. Therefore, he just throws us a bone from time to time, to keep our faith,
but does not overdo it with miracles the world. After all, he left this world
to us so why should he mingle too much. That is actually perfectly logical. You
will also give some sweets to children from time to time, but you will never
give them too much sweets because it could do more harm than good. Besides, you
will more enjoy their sympathy if you are austere than if you are too generous and
basically buy their favor with goodies. Maybe the God sees this same way and
spares with miracles for times when they are really needed.
This place has
a particular particular importance for me due to the following reason: I have not
always been a Christian; in fact, in the past I used to be against the Catholic
Church. Having read many books about Christian history, I felt profound anger
and hatred towards the Church for all mistakes and trespassing that it has committed,
especially in the dark Middle Ages. I have even had my own moments of open
rebellion against Christianity. It was more of in an intellectual sense, but
still, it was very profound. I even refused point-blank to go on the First Holy
Communion when I could not get over with the hypocrisy of my classmates who did
that either out of tradition, or, much more likely, with clear intentions to receive
expensive presents from their family. I simply saw no point in this then for me
false and empty religion. What an irony, one could say, that I have become a
Christian even despite my earlier animosity towards the Church. I do not even
know how it happened. At first, I was literally pumped up with anger, but over
the years I have become calmer and got over the injustice that happened in the
past. However, that does not mean I forgot it and I am actually glad that I
read it. Every Christian should read into the Christian history besides reading
the Bible all over again in order to broaden his view. It is not pleasant and
easy reading, in fact, it is vile in many cases and not everybody has stomach
for that. But it was the man, not the God who was responsible for all
atrocities. As always, the worse crimes are done with the best intentions.
Besides, we cannot change the history; only take the lesson from it.
Alto de
Poio
Reaching
the mountain pass was quite difficult; I got there about 11:30 am. I enjoyed
the well-deserved brunch break. It was quite late and I was running out of
energy. The day before, I prepared a special chocolate drink from 90% chocolate
and milk that I put together. However that milk was bought on a special offer
and opening it the day before, mixing it with chocolate and then letting it on
soaring heat did its business. The milk came out to life and the result was a
very peculiar structure, something between curd, milk, and sour cream, with a
crystallized ball that did not let milk pass through the bottle. Whatever it
was, it was absolutely disgusting and thus not drinkable. With outpouring grief
I had to say goodbye to my morning chocolate, the supposed first ration of fast
energy and see through the whole morning only with my Coke. Maybe I should have
taken a break earlier. When I came up to the peak, I already felt my hernia
again. It did not hurt, but I had a very peculiar feeling in the affected area.
That was a clear sign for me that I had better take it easier.
The Galicia
region is actually very pleasant to the eye. No more arid landscape, but green
forests, lanes, rivers, and fields. Once again I felt as if I had entered
another world by riding down from the mountains. This region reminds me
Slovakia the most.
I had
ridden another 30 km before I took my lunch break. The place I found for my
lunch was splendid - it was a small park with an ancient chapel from the 9th
century. Not many people visited it, even I ran into it quite by chance. While
I was drinking Panaché and eating my musli (unfortunately, I did not have
anything else), I also charged my devices in the nearby toilets. I had to play
around with the electricity circuits first to turn it on, hopefully I did not
screw up anything. Then, happy and tired, I took a short siesta until 4 pm.
In the
afternoon, I rode to Sarria, the last bigger city before Santiago de Compostela
where I intended to do some shopping. It did some sights, too. Visiting this
place was rather time-consuming, but on the other hand, my legs could at least
enjoy some rest. From this place, it was only about 100 km to Santiago which
means that the major endless stream of commercial tourist-pilgrims was to start
from this place. Many an Asian tourists, equipped with their mega cameras shot
everything what moved, especially what did not move and stayed at the same
place for a century or so. The reason for this might be the honored certificate
of a pilgrim that one can obtain when he proves to walk at least 100 km (or
bike 200 km). For authentication serve stamps from places the pilgrim has
visited, such as auberges, historical monuments or simply a restaurant or a
touristic information centre. There are many tourists who flack the rules by
doing Camino on bus – the ultimate Camino Rapido-Touristico (my newly coined
term) Such tourists align from the bus at a bigger town of some importance,
swoop on local bars, souvenir shops, have their passport stamped, rest for a
while and leave. Well, I do not want to spring judgment on anyone, but like this
they will not achieve the true pilgrim experience for which required dozens of
hours spent in contemplation, silence and solitude. I experienced a funny
moment in one auberge where an elderly lady with high heels and a nice hat came
into a refugio and asked for a stamp. It was blatantly obvious that she has not
gone far on foot. She got the stamp and rushed away as soon as she could. Quite
lame, I thought firstly. However, I guess walking pilgrims whom I have
overtaken so far might have been of the same opinion about me, like look at
that guy, that is the Camino-Facile, certainly not honorable like doing the Camino
on foot. I have to agree to a certain extent: I did not experience the same
feeling by finding a shop, restaurant or an auberge because I ride 3 times
faster, thus everything is 3 times smaller and closer to me. Yet, I have been
on the road for 6 weeks now which is even more than it is required for the Camino
Francais on foot. Now, I am enjoying the reward of the hardships I have had
before, during which there were no pilgrims, no auberges, just me, my bike, few
people I got to know on the road, and many problems and difficulties. This is
also an interesting parallel to the real world: We have it in our very nature
to pass hasty judgment on people without knowing much about their situation. A
wise person should refrain from similar behavior. Therefore, I have to correct
the false statement I made intentionally above. Those people might have their
own Camino in their own way. If they are just regular tourists from far away
who only came to do the sights – so be it, it is their own choice. After all,
the only abundant commodity that I posses as a student is time. Not everybody
can fee up one month to undertake the whole Camino de Santiago on foot. Similarly,
not everybody is the position to manage the whole Camino physically or
psychically. Everything is very relative and a challenge that one can bring on
the verge of exhaustion can be a piece of cake for another. Everyone has his or
her own Camino suited to the person's abilities and needs.
…
Great that
I stayed so long in Sarria! As I later found out, the way did not really accord
to the elevation table in my bike guide. In the long distance it probably did,
but since Galicia basically consists of hills, hills, and once again, hills, I
biked like crazy up and down which was extremely demanding. I felt like Sisyphus
because when I could ride downhill, I could not really enjoy the ride, but had
to prepare myself physically and psychically for another uphill struggle. As if
I did not have enough mountains passes behind me in the last days… . The height
of folly was the last bigger town that day called Portomarin. It was a village
with proud and ancient-long history since the Roman Age (an ancient Roman
bridge, a “highway” and a castle). Yes, it was, but it is not anymore. In the 60s,
, Spain was under the dictatorship of General Franco and during this glum time
period a water dam broke and spread havoc with the whole village. It is like
the real Atlantis – the remains of the original village can be seen only in
September when water in the reservoir sinks. This was a huge tragedy not only
from the cultural and historical point of view. All villagers were practically
homeless and had to build another village. They said: Let's build our village out
of scratch on that super steep hill over there and something like this will
never happen to us anymore. And they did – and poor Marek, totally worn out,
had to do another crazy uphill to finally have a rest for dinner.
Before
that, I got to know one Spanish man with whom I chatted for half an hour in
French. He was very nice and garrulous, explained the history of the village
with all interesting details to me. I was very glad that I could understand him
and that somebody actually took the effort to explain all of that to a complete
stranger, but I was so hungry that I could not wait until he ended. When he
eventually did, I went into the city centre to enjoy my dinner, but was unable
to find a bench. I had to go away and had my dinner on a bench in the front of
some village houses. One woman observed me with some interest for a while
(obviously there are not many tourists who come on a bike with gigantic luggage
and instead of eating in local restaurants, have a picnic outside the city
centre on a bench) and when we exchanged greetings, she asked if I wanted some
Coke. I was not sure whether I understood her correctly, but said, yeah, why
not J She
came down and brought me an ice-cold can of Coke – what a bliss after the whole
day on the sun! This time I managed to talk Spanish for one minute, which
basically included phrases like where I am from, why I travel alone and that I
am sorry that I speak Spanish so miserable. Afterwards there were no phrases I
could use and thus our conversation ended. Still, I am proud of myself that I
could hold a longer conversation in Spanish, and that the woman looked pretty
complacent with my answers and reactions. For the night I wanted to find a nice
place with some benches, but I did not have much luck for that. I was already
tired and decided to stop after it got darker. So I stayed at the back of beyond
and in the middle of nowhere, but still somewhere near the Camino. And nearer
to Santiago.
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