Viana Waits For You

Viana Waits For You

Day 6-Torres del Rio to Viana-12 kilometers-about 630 to go

When sleeping in a dorm style room, five bunk beds in one room, I am very conscious that I am a snorer, and I work very hard at sleeping on my stomach so that I do not bother others. While it is no fun to sleep (or try to) near others who snore, my making it difficult for others is much more of my concern.

I stayed up later than everyone else, the albergue's owner telling me that I could skip the curfew, but needed to make sure that the front door was closed when I went to bed. I noticed that Teo had moved his bed from a top bed next to me to a bottom bed further away; this concerned me because he is a light sleeper and he wakes me if I'm snoring and I roll back onto my stomach. Since he had moved further away, I was concerned that I may bother the other peregrinos.

The very first thing I heard upon waking at seven with the others, was Menno's voice, speaking to Teo, something to the effect of 'blah, blah Boss Chainsaw." I had told Menno about the loud snorer in Rocesvalles who sounded, I thought, like a gas powered chainsaw, and he heard Teo call me 'Boss,' as he always does. It made me shove my head further into my pillow in self conscious embarrassment. Sorry! I briefly considered buying everyone in our room breakfast....

We had our small breakfast of a trail bar and a banana, I mixed and drank my small water bottle full of instant coffee, had two smokes, while Teo Face Timed with his girl, and then we left, about fifteen minutes after Menno. More or less right away we got hit with rain, a pretty good, steady rain that lasted maybe two hours. We swapped into rain jackets and rain covers for our packs, I put on my wide brimmed hat to keep my glasses and face from getting doused, and marched on at about four plus klicks per hour, a roughly seventy-five percent speed for us. We found and then passed Menno soon, knowing that he was only intending to walk twelve klicks today in order to test and then rest his knee. Our goal was Logroño, the first of La Rioja's (the Communidad Autonomia just West of Navarra) cities, twenty-two kilometers down the road.

Roughly forty-five minutes later Teo and I stopped for our mid-morning repast, duck pate, onions, cheese, baguette, huddling under four close together pines off to the side of the trail. Not ten minutes after we stop comes Menno, who joined us for a two cigarette break. He had some of our offered food, thanked us, and took off up the trail. We wondered if we would see him again, what with our intention of walking to Logroño, a full twelve klicks past the next town, Viana, than Menno was planning to walk. He had been averaging close to thirty klicks per day before his knee got fucked up in a weird act of God. He got stung by a horsefly, at least I think it was a horsefly, because the Dutch word that he used was completely incomprehensible to me, causing him, as he said, 'to move his upper body quickly to the right while his right leg stayed planted.

Soggy, a bit chilled, walking through these sublimely beautiful miniature valleys with vineyards and orchards of olive trees and figs, we saw small stone igloo looking huts made of stacked stone, with openings like a door on the side, but doors about three and a half feet tall, opening into the small spaces inside, maybe seven feet in diameter. Later we were to find out that these are emergency shelters for the peregrinos, who can, and you already know this if you have seen the movie, The Way, save your life if you are caught out in a cold, wet or snowy Fall or Winter day.

And the colors, magnifico. The changes in the coloration of foliage going into the Fall here are so wondrously presented in the reds,oranges and yellows that collect in splashes amongst the verdant greens of the grape vines splayed in orderly rows across the floors and sides of the little, undulating valleys, maybe an eight of a mile in length and two to four hundred meters in breadth, that the curving path of the Camino cuts through. Like brilliantly colored corn rows on a human head these vineyards are becoming more and more frequent as we get closer and closer to leaving Navarra and entering the next region, one of the world's most well known wine areas, La Rioja. The reds and oranges and yellows are not spread randomly through any one vineyard, but, rather, gather in patches for reasons that must have to do with how the weather and temperature effect the land in each micro-eco system. Sublime.

While we are taking a twenty-five minute break under the pines, yakking with Menno, many peregrinos pass us, the French couple, two handsome people in their forties, pass by. Their English and Spanish are fairly non-existent, but the woman says something about 'tinto,' a reference to their passing us at the Fuentes de Vino yesterday, and I hold up the half sized nalgene, half full now with the rest of the fuente's wine, (that I'm drinking from) and I say back, holding it up for them to see, 'Tinto!' They both laugh, he again with his great smile, big, gentle eyes, and keep moving on.

T and I walk to the outskirts of Viana, me thinking of the Billy Joel song, and see, as we first enter the edge of the town, a handmade advertisement for an albergue called Casa Asun, that has double rooms for $20.00, singles for $10.00. We prefer to stay in a private room, but need to balance the higher cost of such accommodations, usually $30.00 to $45.00 per night, with the low cost, dorm style albergues that charge $5.00 to $10.00 instead.

Upon seeing this we decide that perhaps we will stay here for two nights instead of moving through to Logroño. We can then spend money eating a meal out, tapas perhaps and cañas, or an entree, and still keep our daily costs below the hoped for average of $30.00 Euros, or roughly $40.00 dollars, per day. We can also, we figure, go to making our own stages which will be half way between the well published end points for each stage which most of the peregrinos will adhere to. Supply and demand dictates that we can get double rooms, therefore, for not much more than the cost of a dorm bunk bed in one of the stated towns in all the guide books that most all peregrinos will choose.

We rip a small map off of the advertisement for Casa Asun, tear off mapas meant to be taken in order to aide you in finding their place, and head into town. As we walk we hear, off to our right, a loud hailing, and turn our heads to see Menno a half block up the road, drinking a hot tea and smoking a cigarette. We walk over and explain that we will stay two nights here in Viana, taking our first rest day here instead of Logroño for reasons already stated, and he walks with us to Casa Asun, where we find only two single rooms exist and one double. Teo and I already decided that we would each like to have our own room so that I can sleep, for the first time on the Camino, fully on my back if I want to, where my 'chainsaw' sounds will not keep,either him or another's from getting their good night's rest.

The owner, a sixty-ish year old woman, hangs her he'd outside the window three flights up, oxygen tubes running into her nose, and tells us that her son will answer the door bell, which he promptly does. He is a gentle, bushy, dark haired man of about thirty five. Gentle. Kind smile. Sad eyes. Soft spoken. Like you would expect of a man his age living at home. He shows he shows me the rooms on he second flor, which has been converted into an income generating device, and when I report the accommodations to Menno and Teo, Menno, generous in spirit as he is, insists that T and I take the two singles and he will go to another albergue and we will hook up at seven for dinner in the Plaza de Los Fueros just in front of the cathedral.

We meet Menno, at about five instead of seven, and he is with an American from Palo Alto, Brian, a tall, kinky haired forty year old biking the Camino. We three go to a bar called Mibar (as in 'my bar')' have a few cervezas, and then head to some spot that they have picked out for a 'Pilgrim's meal.' Gerrod is there, as is Cecilia and a woman of about fifty named Julie. The seven of us sit at two tables pushed together, eating our meals, spilling wine, laughing, having a good time.

We finish our meals and Brian, Menno, Teo and I go out for more drinks, the others back to their albergue. At one point, as Menno is saying how he doesn't use a bike to get around, as most everyone in The Netherlands does, but, rather, uses in line skates, Brian says, 'Can I tell a really offensive joke?' We all say, 'Of course.'

'What's the most difficult part about rollerblading?' We all shake our heads, look at him with anticipation. 'Telling your parents that you're gay." We laugh and Menno does his best to convince us that in line skates and roller blades are not the same thing...!



It's later now, 11:35 pm, and I'm sitting in a wondrous, but entirely lonely space, my own private patio off of my room, my partner and son asleep, the small night sounds of the city of 3,500 souls lessening, and I have a need to try to assuage the feelings of disconnectedness that pull inside. Trying to take all the wiring that has been pulled loose and connect them back, the one with the other, trying to match the myriad colored wires in a too dark room. A poem I carry in my wallet perhaps does a better job of conveying some of the untethered feelings that swim around inside, leviathans searching for the way out of some deep, underwater cave.

Leaving Home-William Stafford

What you leave is the front porch in the evening,
dove sounds, the way you felt leaning back
in the squeaking sing, how your mother
pushed her hair back while ironing.

This isn't anyone's intention-you didn't decide
to be dutiful and remember your home. It's like a big
    breath.
But you just go on and no one can tell how you feel.

Someone says, 'Did you like your family? Were you
happy at home?' Now it's your turn to keep
anyone from knowing how those days were the
entire world,
and that now it's ended. You look away and say yes.

Thank you for allowing me to share. Thank you for tuning in. I have always said that I am comfortable telling anyone, whether they are known or unknown to me, anything at all, my deepest hopes, fears, memories-that I use the world as my therapist. Okay, sure, I can guess that those of you who know me are perhaps thinking something along the lines of, 'Dude, I think you need a new therapist."