Camino Odyssey 4

July 14th, a Wednesday. I like Wednesdays though I don´t know why.

Sue Kenney likes breakfast. I am more of a midnight snack sort of person myself, but Sue has found a café which serves coffee, toast or croissants with butter,cheese and mermelada, and orange juice for only 3 euros so I decide to join her at the 25 de Julio Café which turns out to live up to its reputation, especially the cheese. We meet Danish Michael and his girlfriend who is from Venezuela. Michael is an economist and he has just spent 3 months in South America “giving something back” to the people. “Their destiny was decided for them 300 years ago,” he says. He speaks articulately and convincingly and he leaves an impression on both Sue and me.

Later I decide to spend some time looking around the Corticela. This little chapel at the north east corner of the cathedral often goes unnoticed and I have never really given it much time. For some reason I feel obliged to sit in the back corner. I tell myself that it is because there is a Visigothic tomb there, but it seems more than that. I take a few pictures and one rather sneaky one of a pilgrim who has sat with his head in his hands since I came in. Then for some reason I decide to examine the bench I am sitting on more closely and I see that there is something tucked down inside the back. It is wrapped in a plastic file folder. It is a picture of an elderly man and it clearly wasn’t meant to be found. I wonder about him: who is he and why has his photo been placed here? I wonder what his name is and decide to call him Benito because it is a Gallego name and it suits him. I light a candle for him and then carefully put his photo back where I found it making sure that it is no more visible than it was before. This whole incident touches me very deeply.

They are putting a new rope on the Botefumeiro. I spent ages watching the workers balanced high above the nave and felt a vicarious vertigo. They must have been a hundred feet in the air!

I love this cathedral!

I decided to go shopping for a few little gifts to take back with me and a silver medallion to add to my collection (Sue Kenney has one of these necklaces too!) And so I met with Marcelino. He sees me looking at the novel La Casa de Troya which was written at the turn of the 20th century and is set in Santiago. “You should buy it,” he says. “It is the second most read book in the whole of Spanish literature.” I tell him that I have never finished Don Quixote and he tut tuts. He is in his 70´s I would guess and has an incredible head full of curly grey hair; laughter lines decorate his bright eyes and he has a little goatee. I find him quite attractive and tell him he must be a ladies man. He denies this vociferously: “I am un hombre sincero,” he explains, “very formal and serious. I have been married to the same woman for 53 years.” I ask him his secret. He doesn’t hesitate. “Mutual respect,” he tells me.

Later I stopped in at the Hostal Suso for some of their excellent pimientos de Padron and got “home” to the Alameda quite late.

At some point in the night I woke up to the sound of doves outside my open window, but I couldn’t see them. Then it dawned on me it was a gentle snoring from the room next door! Well, I guess that’s one way to deal with it…
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Camino Odyssey 3

My day begins within the forbidden sanctuary. I have prearranged a meeting with Xose who is the Medieval archivist at the Cathedral. I walk past the long line up outside the Platerias door and soon am shown throught the vestuary into the cathedral cloisters. In the archives, I am welcomed with great enthusiasm and it is appreciated. The last time I was here I got fobbed off with unlikely answers. But Xose is very keen to work with me, and his English is appreciated as my questions are technical ones. I find out that I can't go out the way I came in so I get to wander around the museum for free. The "guides" there are no more knowledgable than they were last year. Oh well, at least in our 20% unemployment rate they still have a job.

It turns out that Lopez Ferreiro, one of the most important investigators and the bishop at the time of the rediscovery of the tomb, is quite wrong about his conjecture that Diego Gelmirez is buried in the cloister. This is a new cloister and not of Gelmirez' time and subsequent researches have not unearthed (sic) any remains which might be the archbishop, or anyone else for that matter. As for where Diego might be buried, Xose has no more foggiest than I do. We part with him agreeing to answer the rest of my questions ("un monton") by e-mail or the next time I am in town.I leave him a copy of Pilgrimage to Heresy and tell him to hide it. He grins complicitantly. He is delighted.

Tito at Casa Manolo remembers me. He points a finger: "You!" I love this. Monica and Antonio are serving downstairs and I miss them but I leave bookmarks for all. The menu stays the same price and I've never tasted better chiperones - not even at the now defunct Restaurant at the End of the Universe in Finisterre.

And speaking of universes, I booked a tour of the University of S de C for noon today. Since I have one of my main protagonists in Compostela spending a fair bit of time in the uni and especially at the library, I thought I should get a bit of a feel for the place.

I didn't want to leave! I even found what would no doubt be MY seat at MY desk with MY view. Perhaps in another life - or Laura's. As it was I almost didn't have a cho0uce but to stay. I was so enthralled with the History departmnent that it took two professors (one well beyond his sell-by date whom I couldn't understand at all) to explain to me that the university closed at 2:00 p.m. and that if I didn't leave with them I would be locked in overnight!


On my way back, I met with Tomas from Germany. He has just picked up his Compostela and is gazing at it in wrapt fascination. I poke a bookmark under his nose and we get into conversation. Tomas says that walking pilgrims have gained an unfair advantage. Bicycle pilgrims, he says, have their own problems (where to soak those blisters for example?) and are denied access to any albergue until 8:00. Even then, if any foot pilgrims arrive afterwards, they,the BP's, are mercilessly thrown out! Tomas claims that bicycle pilgrims cover twice the distance but they also do 100% of the work that foot pilgrims do, and I am sympathetic to his plight. Maybe there should be specific facilities for BP's as FP's often think they are a breed apart anyway.


I meet up with Cristofer from Cologne whom I met on the cathedral roof yesterday. He is studying Spanish in Valladolid and I comment that if he really wanted to challenge himself he should try it in Malaga. Cristofer doesn't get the joke. You probably won't either. You don't have to decode my son-in-law's Spanish, bless his sweet heart.


On my way round to the Museo das Peregrinos (a monster new building under construction. I guess they will start to ask for money but then the Cathedral Museum have been doing that for years) I overhear someone pontificating much as I do. He is saying that St. James never preached in Spain (I concede that as a possibility that he did) and that he is not buried in the Cathedral (no way). Needless to say I invite myself into the conversation. His name is Manuel, he is a Spanish literature teacher from Madrid and he has read Peregrinos de la Herejia, but says that my book only confirmed what "the majority of Spaniards" already know. I find this gratifying and tell him that, alas, many foreign pilgrims accept only what their guidebooks tell them and that theylike their myths intact. He is non-committal. Most Spaniards are born diplomats.


Tonight is my booksigning at Follas Novas. If you wish you can check out my encounters with the manager Jose Luis and the owner Rafael Silva - an expert on the Portico de Gloria - from last July. I think I felt a little bit in love with Rafael with his long silver locks and his cravat swept over his shoulders. Alas he isn't there and I tell Jose Luis to tell him he has broken my heart.


Sue Kenney appears and decides to re-arrange the books and the massive poster board and thank goodness she does as I am feeling like a right pillock. Sue says she loves booksignings. I approach them with the same spirit as I do tooth extractions. Anyway, thanks to my new exposure I generate a modicum of interest and we all go home - um to the Parador for that $5 glass of wine with the Million Dollar View and there we meet up with a group of American conventioners who were, by that time, well into the Albariño. One of them has taken a copper bowl down off tyhe mantelpiece and is playing it like a sort of percussion instrument. Fellow guests are asking for a modicum of decorum. I want to slink off to a quieter part of the planet, but Sue gets into the fun and says that he( Frank) is a Master Bowl Player. We are invited to join the fun. They are noisy. I don't do that. So I suggest to Sue that the cafe is a better choice. (Yes, I am sure you are saying what a bore I must be. I'm not, really.) At the end of the night our drinks and tapas are found to be paid for.

God bless Americans!
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Camino Odyssey 2

As far as I can see, there is no way to avoid the fact that I am going backward in time. Not literally, alas; I am not Merlin. But in order to continue this retrospective on my Camino journey, I have to take you back to July, the 12th to be exact. A misty Monday in Santiago de Compostela.

I had a lot to do and first headed to the university library where Almudena very kindly offered to make a list of books about Diego Gelmirez for me. Next I made my way to the Palacio de Diego Gelmirez next to the cathedral for the rooftop tour.

While this is advertised as a tour of the bishop's palace, in fact, as a tourist you get to see very little of it. I have seen a little bit more than I was supposed to, but that's another story. Anyway, the biggest surprise of all is that after climbing the stone stairs up from the formal dining hall, you suddenly find yourself looking down on the nave of the cathedral. The first time I did this I actually burst into tears! Then, if that is not enough, the small group is taken up onto the roof of the cathedral for a bit of a walkabout. It's magic (and only 8 euros for pilgrims). The guided tour is in English and Spanish and lasts about an hour. The hard part for me is not butting into the commentary!

Perhaps it is only a few times in a person's lifetime where he or she can say "here is my home". I felt that way about Cornwall in my teens; I felt that way about Granada the minute I arrived there 14 years ago. And I feel that way about Santiago. I find myself happily taking shortcuts around the city and I probably walk a full day's etapa doing just that, but somehow or another, I feel that this is where I fit in: where the cathedral is the centrepiece of it all, the Obradoira a handy place to meet up with friends, where I am recognised and welcomed in Casa Manolo, Hostal Alameda and the Bar Suso. Where museum staff and tour guides are happy to see me and librarians are delighted to help me with my research.

I live in an enviable part of the world. In Marbella, we get upwards of 325 days of sunshine a year. But do you know what? I'd trade it for the nmists and rain of Galicia any time.

Maybe one day I will...

2010: A Camino Odyssey

"She knows not where she's going
For the Camino will decide
because it was not the destination
But the glory of the ride"

And glory it was!



These comments from the pilgrims' guest book at Bar O Xardin in Muxia from "Joyce, Holland, 9th October 2008" are the best way I can sum up these past three weeks.

From having written optimistically "More tomorrow", more than two full weeks have passed. Two weeks in which I drove 4,789 kilometers (point 5), had five radio interviews- one of which was conducted by telephone while parked a bus stop - , was on TV three times (terrifying), and 20 newspaper write-ups, and in which I met many friends I didn't even know I had. I have spoken with scores of pilgrims, hospitaleros/as, people in churches, museums and tourist offices. I have screamed with joy with the owners of my favourite Pension in Santiago when Iniesta scored that oh so anticipated goal. I have been to a romeria in a tiny pueblo where I was treated like visiting royalty; I have shared several very expensive glasses of wine with a Canadian author and fellow pilgrim at the Parador Cafe with the "Million Dollar View"; I have almost learned a lesson about roads one should not go down (or up) in a two-wheel drive car. I have sat at the back of a church and listened to black-robed Benedictine monks sing at 7 in the morning as the mist rose up through the valley - and no-one even knew I was there. I have slept in the car in the middle of one of the most dramatic thunderstorms I have ever seen. I have been a resident heretic in the house of Christian journalists and their animals in a tiny pueblo and eaten some of the best burritos in my life. I have had my feet washed in a pilgrim ceremony and visited the mountain spring of an abbot who disappeared one day while meditating on the psalms only to reappear a hundred years later! I have been a guest at the house of a friend of Paolo Coelho,and who never takes off his trademark black baseball cap. I have met a Spanish lady in a dusty village who gave me her book and I found my favourite poet quoted on the back. And I have attended mass in Toledo two days running but still haven't heard that Mozarabic Rite because of ecclestical jealousy and red tape.

And I have stood in the wind and morning chill on top of the mountains in Somport to celebrate 10 years since I last walked downhill from there with the Camino to the west.

It was quite the ride! For the next couple of weeks I hope you will join me on it.

Camino Odyssey Part 1...

Well, here I am in Santiago otra vez and what a week it has been. I should really have been blogging as things have happened but that hasn't been possible so here is a condensed version.

I couldn't shake off that nervous feeling when I left Marbella on the 6th, but as I moved north (and west) all that seemed to change despite the horrendous accident I witnessed involving a drunk driver (at 11:30 in the morning!) only a few kms inside the Portuguese "border". It served to remind me to drive very carefully.

I arrived late at Fernanda's pilgrim refuge on the Camino Portuguese, but that didn't matter. Within minutes I had a plate of good home cooked food in front of me and I was back with my Portuguese family once again. It was as though I had never left.

I have written extensively about Fernanda, Jacinto and their daughter Mariana, but it bears repeating: this woman opens her doors to all pilgrims and for every single one she treats them as though they are not only the first pilgrims to climb her steps but the most important guests ever to grace her table. This time I met also with Dominique from Belgium and the next day, Julianne from Australia arrived and between us all we shared pilgrim stories.

Soon we were joined by Benny from Denmark, and shy Horst from Germany. At dinner, Benny was aggressively cornering Dominque (rather dogmatically in my opinion) about her inability to speak Flemish. Dominique defended herself as best she could, and I added that perhaps for her it was less important than for Benny who felt that one should consider oneself a failure if one didn't speak five languages as he claimed to do. I would have traded her smile for his smugness any day.

It was the night of the football match between Germany and Spain, and to everyone's surprise, the Spanish "selecion" won the game. Horst who was sitting beside me throughout was most gracious in defeat. Perhaps for a pilgrim who had walked from his house it was not so important after all. I who hadn't walked here was, however, absolutely thrilled for Spain. Next day, I was reluctant to leave but I know that I always have a place in the heart of mi familia Portuguese.

The following day I drove directly (finally breaking down and using the toll roads) to Galicia. Along the way I stopped at several pilgrim albergues that would not open until five o'clock, leaving many tired pilgrims outside the doors in the 35 degree heat. I cannot figure this out. In Galicia these albergues are run by "paid workers" unlike most others elsewhere which invite volunteer hospitaleros from all over the world. The latter are open at reasonable hours: that is the sort of time one would expect to arrive when one has woken up before the sun rises and arrived after 25 - 35 kilometers in the Spanish heat hoping for a shower of any temperature and a bunk to bunk in. I don't understand the pedantic nature of the Gallego system.

In Tui I again met Maria Teresa who runs the hospice there. She repeated (as last year) that she had to be the most unpopular hospitalera in all of Galicia because she sticks by the rules: Foot pilgrims first, bicycle pilgrims later, and if you have arrived by bus intending to start the Camino Portuguese at the border of Galicia and Portugal, well, you are gonna have to wait. She said that she appears to be on the hit list of a German Forum and one pilgrim arived to find out if she was really as bad as she was painted! Left bookmarks, my sympathies and good wishes and continued on...

to Muxia. I had intended to walk from Santiago to Finisterre, finishing my Camino in Muxia this year - the last stages of 10 years of journey - but two cracked ribs this year have made that impossible. I stopped at a little shop to ask about rooms for rent and was subsequenjtly met by Begona (there appear to be a lot of Begonas in my life right now. My editor is one, and my publicist is another).

The room was small with shared bath but homely (so many little ornaments and lace tablecloths that I had no room to put anything down on tables!)and had a traditional glassed-in balcony overlooking the street, though not the sea unfortunately as we were one street in. Never mind. After 1200 kilometers I slept like a baby.

More tomorrow.
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Where Has Tracy Gone...?

A very good question and not one I can answer easily tonight! I am in Santiago and Spain has just won the World Cup and it seems that Spain has stopped - a little pause in time - while we enjoy something that this country needs a great deal at this time in her history. Unemployment is at a high of 20% and many people, especially the young, and those in their middle age who have lost work because of the economic downturn in the real estate industry, needed something to put a little happiness back into their lives. For this moment this is it. This country is on fire with joy.

Paul el Pulpo, we love you!

Of course, we are not alone in our "crisis economico". But I live in Espana and that is where my heart and my loyalties lie.

I am "on the Camino". Not walking this year, but if you like you can check out last year's Portuguese Diary from July and August. Though I intended to walk to Finisterre and Muxia, this year I have two cracked ribs and a dodgy hip but not much keeps me away from Galicia for long so I have driven here instead (from Marbella to Santiago as I write). I have a diary of the last few days lost somewhere in the depths of the detritus of Simone, my car, and I am sure I will find it soon. I am planning to visit and talk with as many hospitaleros and pilgrims at as many albergues as I can over the next two weeks after I leave Santiago (I have a book signing at Follas Novas on the 22nd, then east towards Jaca I go), and I hope to report some of my adventures here. So, if you have found me and are wondering what this blog is all about, please do come back!

In the meantime, Viva Espana! I watched the game with the family who run my favourite hostal in Santiago, the Alameda, which is on the Rua San Clemente very close to the Cathedral. They treat me as if this were my second home everytime I come and it was wonderful to be able to experience Spain's triumph with Antonio, Rosa, and their family. And also with fellow Canadian Sue Kenney, the author of "My Camino", whom I met last night and feel as though I have known forever!

I'll try to catch up the next few days with comments on the Camino Portuguese and Santiago today.As we go into the end of the week I'll be reporting what the Camino Frances is like today as I drive towards Aragon.

Stay posted!

By the way, I have just noticed that this is my 100th blog post! What better way to mark my anniversary than with a win tan importante by our equipo de futbol!
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Reflection...

Why did all this happen in the first place? What was it they wanted from Diego? This remains an interesting question and to answer it we have to give up a few assumptions.

First of all, while he certainly performed an ecclesiastic role, Diego Gelmirez was more than just a raised cleric. He was powerful, almost as powerful as the queen, and far more powerful than any single lord of Galicia, the Duke of Traba included, and remember it was he who was the keeper of Alfonso Raimundez, the future king. Diego Gelmirez claimed vast units of property: castles and lands which stretched far outside Galicia. He even owned his own navy: an armada thought to be the first in Spain. Perhaps he was the prototype for that bishop of your chessboard who is second in power only, really, to the queen...

What's more, Diego also had no difficulty with the idea of nepotism. Half his family it seems were under his employ: he used his brothers as ambassadors to foreign courts. One, Gudesindo, he made “villicus” of the town – a position once enjoyed by Diego himself.

One “nephew”, Pedro, was made Prior of the Chapter. (This enigmatic figure of whom we know almost nothing will become a key character in my new book Compostela.) For many, Diego was a hated figure. There seemed no end to what he would do to bring fame and glory to himself, and his cathedral city, but clearly not all of it trickled down to the nobility. If Diego had pretensions to becoming the Spanish "pope", he certainly chose who would likely benefit the most. And who would not...

If all this were not enough, Diego Gelmirez, Bishop of Compostela, turned his nose up at all things Galician; such was too provincial for his way of thinking. No doubt it was to a man who loved French ways in all things. He made key positions available to French clerics; trusted his official records to a Frenchman. And when he made his escape from Santiago in 1117, it was to a French town he fled.

He may have been born Gallego, but Diego Gelmirez had French pretensions. Not surprisingly, it was not liked.
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A Revolting Tale Part 2

Having been promised safe conduct, Urraca was allowed to leave. But there’s no saying what will happen under mob rule. The queen was physically attacked, possibly even stripped of her clothes before being able to escape the city. Diego Gelmirez, who seems to have had more lives than a cat, somehow managed to escape the burning tower, we are told, through the mediation of the abbot of San Martín Pinario. But others were less fortunate. In the fracas, at least four people were killed, most likely including members of Diego’s cathedral chapter. The fire was so hot that the cathedral bells melted in the blaze. So says the HC.

Diego and Urraca escaped separately to the hills outside Compostela. Five armies converged upon the city, and the insurgents surrendered.

Not surprisingly, the queen wanted blood! (or large sums of money in lieu of, no doubt). Diego was more moderate. He knew that the point had been made, and more importantly, he was the one who had to put the city back together. Urraca could return to Leon or wherever she chose. The bishop had to stay and live with the aftermath.

A court was convened. The ringleaders were sent into exile and the remainder heavily fined. For a while at least, Diego could breathe easy.
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A Revolting Tale Part 1...

When Urraca learned that Arias Perez and his associates had disregarded her orders for peace in Compostela, she sent an armed detachment to disarm them and just to make sure that everyone recognised that the Queen’s orders were not to be questioned, she came with them herself. The Historia Compostelana doesn’t tell us exactly what happened, but the attempt went drastically wrong.

The Brotherhood and their militia turned on the queen and she and Diego were forced to flee to safety. They chose the bell tower of the cathedral. It was a mistake!

The besiegers set fire to the lower storeys no doubt helping themselves to the timber which lay scattered around: the building material for the cathedral which was still in construction. The bishop and queen were trapped.

“I don’t know what you're worried about,” said a frightened Diego to the queen. “It’s me they want. Not you!”
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A Royal Tap on the Wrist...

Finally! I'm back with more stories to tell.

Urraca had enough on the royal plate with the Battler without that upstart in Compostela challenging her authority and so she sought to humble her bishop with a little warning. She needed to look no further than the brotherhood who were more than happy to oblige. Diego was suitably “embarrassed”: in fact he lost all control over the town, virtually besieged in is own Episcopal palace.

Of course, he threatened the wrath of God, but his excommunications remained unheeded. Eventually, with rental income from the suffragens effectively cut off, and having suffered continued attacks upon his palace which was badly damaged, Diego Gelmirez saw that discretion was indeed the better part of valour. After 6 months he gave in to the queen, and to Arias Perez who it shall be seen, let this momentary victory go to his head. He forgot the fact that his help had been enlisted by Urraca.

In order to re-ingratiate himself with the people of Compostela, Diego made a big show of translating new relics given to him by the queen as a peace offering. His congregation may have been impressed. But the Brotherhood were not about to give up so easily what they had gained.

(P.S. It's a pumpkin!!!)
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