Spain
Tuesday, 21 November, 2000:
BARCELONA, SPAIN > > >
After spending two days on my own here, the others arrived from Germany on Saturday. These past six days have been really packed with exciting stuff. Barcelona, although a large and sometimes seedy city (at least where weīre staying), is very nice; the streets are so narrow and old-feeling. It is really fun to just walk aimlessly, discovering new streets and cathedrals.
On Thursday night I went into a church and found a group of blue-robed monks and nuns congregated there, in a side chapel. I stayed for a while. Their prayer was very beautiful: they read and meditated, and every ten minutes or so would break into song. The songs were so gentle and lovely, and simple. The girls are good singers. Most of them are around my age or slightly older. After the service, I talked to a few of them and discovered they are of the Dominican monastic order; they are from France and are part of a specific community known as "The Lamb". They invited me home for supper, and I went. My french was put to good use. The food was simple (and donated), and also very good. They are really nice. I told them all about Corrymeela and the rainforest and what I do back in Canada. They told me about their daily lives: reading, meditation, feeding the poor, church, baking bread, Bible discussion.
I was up late with them. I went again on Friday and they invited me to a special lunch for the entire community and close friends on Saturday. It would be special because Barcelonaīs Bishop would be there. We all went to mass, which was translated for us by a monk and a nun, one into English and the other into French. It was a privilege.
Lunch was so special. There were about 30 people there. So much food!! Course after course... salads, noodles, couscous, then soup, chicken, coldcuts, fish, fruit salad... I had a really great talk with an older nun about the environment and global issues. She was really informed and brought an interesting perspective. She believes our destruction of the environment is a reflection of our sins, that we canīt even respect our own planet. We talked about the fact that the richest 10% of the planetīs population controls 80% of the resources and wealth, while 1.5 billion people donīt even have enough to eat.
She also wanted to know what I thought about the First Nations in Canada, and she agreed that what our culture has done to theirs was abhorrent. She said, and I agree, that we must learn from them.
On Sunday we did a Gaudi tour of town, exploring the eccentric architecture of modernist Gaudi. His church, Segrada Familia has 8 spires so high and out of proportion to the church. We climbed all the stairs, to the top. It was really exciting. We also found a park designed by him, and played there for a while.
Wednesday, 29 November, 2000:
RONDA, SPAIN > > >
Before leaving Barcelona last week, we walked around the city seeing the architecture of Gaudi, who inspired the word "gaudy" because that is what his architecture is. We climbed to the top of the mind-boggling Sagrada Familia, Gaudiīs masterpiece, a twisted and monstrous (but also somehow elegant) cathedral a la Dr. Seuss, which tall skinny finger-like spires stretching to the heavens. The entrance is scuplted in an ultra-modern industrial style, with Biblical sculptures such as Jesus hanging on a giant steel girder and Roman soldiers looking more like Skeletor from He-Man than foot soldiers.
We also played in Gaudiīs Park Guell, a vast playground of Dr. Seuss candy houses with swirly coloured roofs and a dark hall of pillars (hundreds of them!). We played in there for a while, a game of hide-and-seek where noone can really see anything because of all the pillars. So fun!
We then bused down the coast to Valencia, a city with a beautiful old quarter (you enter through a huge gate) and wide boulevards. Then on to Malaga, a city which takes "tourist development" to its illogical extreme -- malls, fish and chip shops. From Malaga, an hour-and-a-half up into the mountains past Competa, to the tiny hillside town of Canillas de Albaida. The town is of small whitewashed houses seemingly stacked atop one another in a jumbled sort of way. The streets are too narrow for cars (although some attempt it) and cobbled -- all very charming!
We are staying just outside town in a wonderful house lent to us by a friend in England. It is so perfect! The views of the mountains and sea are spectacular from the porch.
We went for a full dayīs walk in the mountains behind the house. The whole area is so far from tourists. We walked through the valleys, up onto a very windy rock crag on top of a mountain (almost getting blown off it was so windy!), over ridges, past ruined shepherds houses from days gone by. It was a great day. At night I practiced my cooking skills, with a few dishes Iīve learned from people weīve met (a Pakistani curry and a Spanish rice and chicken dish).
Flora and I are now in Ronda for a week. It is a really nice, small town in the mountains, away from the horrid Costa del Sol, where package tourists do time. The town is split in two by a 100 metre deep gorge, the Tajo, which is crossed by three bridges of varying ages and amazing engineering, one of them dating back to the Arab times. Today we will see the famous bullring (no, not going to any bullfights), and tomorrow will catch a morning bus to Cueva de Pileta, a big cave near Ronda.
Friday, 8 December, 2000:
BARCELONA, SPAIN > > >
I was so sad to leave the small mountain town of Ronda last week. I really love it there -- itīs one of my favourite locations yet on the trip. You know when youīre there that the town would exist without tourism, unlike many towns in that area where package resort tourism is rife. The bullring was neat... we sat in the stalls in the sunshine for a while and it was really relaxing. We also went down the 100 metre gorge to the river -- via The Mine, a secret escape tower that goes vertically down the edge of the gorge and is hidden by vines. It was built hundreds of years ago, to allow a secret escape from the town in the event of a seige. It was eerie inside with water dripping down all over and practically no lighting!
We met Binia and Mallan in Seville, where theyīd spent a really fun week. We then caught the bus north to Madrid, and then on to Toledo, just south of Madrid. That was great! A little touristy, but worth it! The city is so medieval, with tall walls, towers and twisty cobbled streets everywhere. Even the youth hostel is in a small castle! We met some really great people there. Allan and I got mobbed by a crowd of 14 year old girls on a school trip, while we were trying to relax in the park. It was pretty funny.
Then we went back to Madrid, where we met another Canadian, Amanda (from Ontario), who went with us to the Prado art gallery the next day. The paintings were really impressive -- lots of Velasquez, El Greco, Goya, and a Rafael (I walked right by it, because I saw the sign and thought: "It canīt be the Rafael"... but it was). We fed small brown birds on a park bench.
Iīm now back in Barcelona to meet a friend from Corrymeela in N. Ireland (Tiffany and a few of her friends). It is a holiday long weekend so there is a festive air about the place and a lack of rooms!
Wednesday, 13 December, 2000:
PAMPLONA, SPAIN > > >
I had some different experiences in Barcelona the second time around, and some the same. All was good, though, especially the Historical Museum of the City, which was built atop huge mazes of ancient ruins, which you get to walk through: Roman baths, laundry, wine factory and fish salting factory, a Visigothic church, and the early foundations of the modern day cathedral.
I tried to visualise life in the ruins in my mind. I saw people bathing in a cold pool, heard the thunderous rolling of wine barrels down a cobbled slope, smelled the wine in vats and horse dung on the street, heard a shop owner squabbling with a customer, watched ancient priests file, chanting, through arched church corridors, heard the dripping of water in a deep well, brought up the water in a wooden vessel and tasted its cold, pure flavour; saw women and men washing clothes and dying them, heard the clip-clop of horses pulling carts through the streets, watched an ancient baptism, and a hundred other things. The place was full of (closed off) dark corridors and stairways, deep wells, mosaic tile floors, and a cool mustiness like a cellar; I explored each dark space in my mind.
I am now in the town of Pamplona, which is in the province of Navarra, way up in northern Spain. Iīm actually within 50 km of the border with France. Pamplona is where they have the "running of the bulls" every July, you may have heard of it (itīs where they let the bulls loose in the streets to chase people... quite a festival, apparently). I am in the town of Pamplona, which is in the province of Navarra, way up in northern Spain. Iīm actually within 50 km of the border with France. Pamplona is where they have the "running of the bulls" every July, you may have heard of it (itīs where they let the bulls loose in the streets to chase people... quite a festival, apparently).
Why am I in Pamplona? When I was in Barcelona, I went to see the monks before I left yesterday and got the priest to write me a letter of recommendation:
"This 12 December, 2000, I certify that David Ball will start the pilgrimage of Santiago de Compostela, starting in Pamplona and heading to Santiago de Compostela.
-Padre (Father) Pascal Narie,
Community of the Lamb, Barcelona"
Thatīs right, Iīm doing a pilgrimage. The story goes that around 60 A.D., only thirty years after the crucifiction, the apostle James (Johnīs brother) was martyred by King Herod in Jerusalem. A few Christians brought his body by boat to the very North-West corner of Spain, in the province of Galicia, and buried him. His tomb was discovered 750 years later, and ever since this has been one of the most popular pilgrimages in the world.
I plan to do about 5 or 6 days of the route (perhaps even more), staying in pilgrimīs refuges along the way. I will then catch a bus to Galicia, the final destination, and walk the last few kilometres to the tomb.
Is that cool or what? I am so excited!! Iīm doing it all alone, I think Iīd get more out of the experience, spirituality-wise. Think of me this coming week, please! I donīt really know what to expect from this.
Tuesday, 19 December, 2000:
LOGROŅO, SPAIN > > >
From Pamplona, I walked to Cizur Menor, then on to Puenta de la Reina, where I got locked in a 12th century church because the caretaker didnīt know I was there (I escaped by pulling up the massive iron bars from the floor and opening the 5 metre tall church doors).
The next day I walked to Estella, a beautiful little town, where I met a lot of locals at the pilgrimīs refuge. They fried me dinner one night, eggs and greasy chorizo sausage, fried in a centimetre of oil (thank god it was olive oil!!). They eat eggs all day here.
My Spanish is improving, and I can understand people now, although speaking it is trickier! From Estella, I walked to Los Arcos, a boring little town where, as is my luck, the refuge was closed because a family member had just died. I stayed in a hotel.
Then, the last stretch: to Logroņo. What was supposed to be 25 km (a fair walk) was in reality 35 km. When I got there, after walking all day long with few breaks, the refuge was also closed, and I walked an additional two hours trying to find a cheap hotel after dark. The adventure of it all! I have a mild ankle/Achilles heel injury, so no more walking for a while!
Yesterday I saw the weirdest thing: a flock of tiny birds flying in a massive black cloud through grape fields. They looked like a tornado about 7 metres tall and swirling, then morphed into a human-shaped blob moving fast through the fields. Too coordinated for my comfort! Like something out of The Birds!
Wednesday, 20 December, 2000:
SANTIAGO DE COMPOSTELA, SPAIN > > >
Last night, as I was waiting for my bus to Santiago from Logrono, I met a guy who works for both a Fair Trade store and the governmentīs Ministry of Youth. It was a time I wish I had a dictionary! He and I talked for a long time about political issues in Spain, specifically relating to the issue of Basque (Euskadi) independence. Their newspapers here are very different from in Canada -- they each come at stories from a different perspective, and are open about it (ie. they donīt pretend to be unbiased reporting); in this region alone, there are five newspapers, ranging from far right (government line) to radical left (pro-independence) and a whole range of shades in between.
I then caught a train after midnight to take me all the way west across northern Spain. This seems a bit odd and it was all very surreal, but I ended up sitting in a cabin with Spainīs most popular rock band, Estopa, for the trip. They are so famous here that their new single, just released, went straight to number one in the charts. And on top of that, I actually listened to their CD a few weeks ago in Madrid and liked it enough that I was going to buy it when Iīm back in Madrid in a few days (they said theyīll mail me a copy for free).
We were bombarded by paparazzi photographers on station platforms we passed, and there were actually media spies on board the train who tipped off their photographers about which stations they were going to, which train, what time, etc. Quite exciting, really! I had a really fun time just talking, singing and joking all night (singing was, however, frowned upon by the controlling manager). There was the band (singer, drummer, guitar, backup vocals), plus three security guys, a translator, and the girlfriend of the singer. The singer also gave me his shirt, signed. (No, I didnīt ask... and I think it would have been rude to turn down the offer!)
I arrived in Santiago de Compostela at around 2pm, and set out backwards on the pilgrimage route. I thought that since I was lazy enough to train most of the route, the least I could do was walk to last 5 km on foot! It was definitely better than arriving by train, since the route goes through the oldest parts of the medieval town and past all the cool churches. I finally arrived at the ultimate destination: the Cathedral wherein is the tomb of St. James the Apostle.
I love the rituals involved in this pilgrimage, although I have obeyed few of them. When you come into town, youīre supposed to wash your feet in a fountain. You then enter the cathedral, where there is a statue of St. James, and under him is a sculpture of the sculptor, Maestro Mateo; the tradition is that, if you bang your head hard against his three times, you can gain a little bit of his superior intelligence. The next step is to place your five fingers into five grooves on the pillar, which were created by the millions of pilgrims, over the last thousand years, who have placed their fingers in the same spot. Amazing.
The tomb of St. James, the highlight for most people, wasnīt that big a deal for me. Maybe I donīt get much from a dead body, I donīt know. I suppose the guy was pretty famous. (Boy was that an educated observation!). The tomb wasnīt even scarey like in most crypts. Oh well, coming here was worth it anyway. This town is so beautiful, there are university students crawling over the place like termites. And the Cathedral is the most interesting cathedral Iīve ever been in -- itīs style upon style for a thousand years... they just keep adding bits to it. Tomorrow is a big celebration -- the start of the Christmas week. Glad Iīm here. Merry Christmas everyone!
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