Two years and a half in the Asturian mountains. Not bad, just that the plan was for a year or so, then the pandemic stroke.Honestly I don't really complain about the "extra" year and half, I know for sure it would have been way more difficult anywhere else. In those remote village we were already socialy distanced from the rest of the world and when 16 persons "own" a village that used to be inhabited by more than 300... you can imagine the freedom we had. But still, tghe moment the restriction were lifted we just had to move. Ramon flew to Estonia to meet his mum and believe me, Bill Gates didn't ask him to show a vaccination passport. The negative test was enough. Me, I moved closer since I don't have money to fly anywhere. Galicia, or, as they call it here, Galiza.
And I ended in O Picouto, concello de Ramiras, provincia de Ourense...
I was a bit concered about the communication, zero English, mostly Gallego, and to my delight I found out that the galician language is leaning to the Portuguese but is also way more similar to Italian than the proper Castillan is. Another delight is that I live 30 meters from the only bar in the 15 or so neighboring villages. On the bad side is the fact is that I'm far from my host's house and every morning I have a nice warm-up just to reach him.
Last week I was a bit sick of it so I took a few days off and decided to try if I'm still at the age of trekking. Packed jus a small backpack, tied the sleeping bag on it and hit the road. Destinatin: the ocean. Roughly 100 km or so, following the river Miño that shares the border with Portugal. The weather forecast said it won't be too hot and not a drop of rain for more than a week. It didn't help me to get dripping wet on the first day.
Galicians are proud of their stone cutting traditions. Not only the houses are made of stone blocks, I was a bit surprised to see that even the vineyard post or fenceposts are made of stone. And not only in some old, abandoned vineyards, even the new ones are. And it's not like they lack proper strong wood, forests of oak, chestnut or acacia are covering most of the area.
After a good half day of walk I finally reached the Rio Miño in Cortegada. With enough food on my back I bought me just a few liters of wine, crossed the river on a fancy highway bridge - I wanted to stay on the right side of the river, the Galician, at the time Portugal was on a complete lockdown - and started to look for a nice spot for the night. And at one point I had to pee. No problem, what can go wrong with that? It's not like I'm pissing in front of a police station, right? Well, it can be worse if you're affected by OCD (obssesive compulsive disorder). For example, when I take my backpack off of my shoulders I simply can't let it lie on the ground. Heck no, it must be standing properly, that's the reason why I pack it so properly every time. And it stood properly for a few seconds, long enough for me to take my willy out and start pissing, then it decided to roll down the slope, in the river. Willy still in hand, willy still releasing some liquids, I just followed the backpack into the water. Good job. In the end it was a fu**ing miracle: the camera in my breastpocket was dry. In the backpack the toilet paper was dry. And the loaf of bread was dry, too. Everything else looked like some idiot threw it in a river. My boots were fool of the river. So was my underwear. Fuck rivers, they are wet! Sleeping near an old roman bridge didn't dry anything.
My shoes made funny noises all the nect day and in the evening started to fall apart. Yup, cheapfuckingamazonmadeinchina, the only I could afford. Buying locktite or superatak for the next days preserved them fairly well (money spent on glue was more than the price of boots). The aunt of my hosts told me that if I'm discovering the Rio Miño I have to stop somewhere and try the local delicacy, the lamprea. And WTF is that? Oh, it's a fish, a very special galician fish.
A fish my foot! It's a fucking overgrown leech 500 milions or so of years old. I don't give a shit if it's considered a jawless fish with no scales, for is a leech. A bloodsucker is not a delicacy for me. But I started liking it for some weird reason after seeing the picture of its mouth on the web. Have no clue why the image made me think of vast areas of sand, of dry and hot winds, fat flying pigs... ah, well, this pic is from wiki.
In the end it took me three days to reach the Atlantic ocean. Nothing basically interesting happened in that time. Nobody chased me with pitchforks and hoes... This one needs an explanation. While in Asturias we had a very unpleasant meeting with a certain person (read "a piece of shit") from a Balkan country, codenamed "Experiment V". Well, the piece of shit kept explaining how Galicians are primitive tribal mentally underdeveloped persons because had had troubles everywhere in Galicia. He actually told us that once when he was trekking people from a village nearby came to chase him away with forks and other farming tools. I believed him. Completely and totally. Because that's what happened to him in Asturias also. He was chased away, not with forks, but with scorn. Shit persons are not welcome anywhere.
The only mentionable feeling is that when I finally reached A Guarda and had a good look on the open ocean I felt elated like I didn't in a long time. I can't explain why but I felt exactly the same like I did twelve or thirteen years ago (fuck this time that flies by) on the island of Tokunoshima, on my first trip to the Mushiroze beach. The wind, the waves, the rocks. I felt like I belong there. And nowhere. Because nothing really matters.
