Day 9: Ventosa, and the familiar faces of the Camino

A Ventosa wall covered in ceramic seashells, the traditional Camino symbol

Today was about 20 km, from Logroño to Ventosa.  We're still passing through red wine country, and all the red earth vineyards have been stark and beautiful, along with scattered olive groves.  I had no idea some vineyards pruned their vines back so severely, but they look like severed tree trunks with this year's new growth on top.  For reference, these vine-trunks in the photo are only about are only about 3 ft tall:

Right now it's my absolute favorite time of night: nesting time!  I have the top bunk at this hostel in Ventosa, which I much prefer to the bottom, because on top people can't see you.  It's 8:45 pm, which on these people's crazy schedule means almost everyone's snuggled in bed, and some are already fast asleep (it's still light outside, and the normal Spanish citizens are wandering around in the streets having lively conversations, not going to bed yet).  But here in the albergue, it's nesting time.  I'm stuffed full of lentils-and-eggs-and-sauteed-onions-and-carrots.  Face is washed and teeth are brushed, though not hair, as I haven't brushed my hair in several days and I don't think the difference is noticeable.  (Curly hair makes excellent pilgrim's hair.)  I've gotten my hand-washed clothes off the line, now dry after being rinsed out when I first got here mid-afternoon.  I have my sleeping bag unrolled to claim my bunk.  And, gathered all around me, I've heaped my nest: clothes and book and notebook and sketchbook and guidebook and phone and water bottle and headlamp.  Its like the bunk is your only real personal space, in the hostel.  Like, for 10 euros a night you get a twin-mattress-sized piece of real estate, and access to communal rooms along with this one tiny private zone of your bed.  It's sort of mutually understood that when somebody is in their bed, it's like they're having quiet time in their 'room', and everyone- regardless of language - will diligently ignore you while you're in your bunk, all playing along with this charade of pretending we each have actual privatebedrooms, pretending we're each invisible if we're changing clothes, when actually we're in plain view of everybody. 

My second favorite time of day is... supper scavenging.  The arriving in a new town, unloading the bag, and then scurrying off in search of food.  It's like being a modern hunter gatherer, in every new town, with a budget of approximately 6 euros to make oneself feel stuffed full and satisfied and hopefully have some fruit left over for breakfast.

My third favorite time of day is... eating the food I have scavenged.  (Hunger makes all food taste infinitely better).

And my fourth favorite time of day is... the morning break, finding a spot to sketch somewhere in a small town, after 10 or 12 km.  This usually involves mixing up instant coffee in that travel mug (with cold water from a fountain, but it still dissolves, with enough shaking) and a sketch, and a sunbeam, and saying hello to the constant trickle of passing pilgrims.  This was me finishing up the last of the German chocolate yesterday, while my socks dried in the sun on a stone wall:
 

Today I walked for about 5 km with a Taiwanese guy named Li, who was very talkative because he said it took his mind off his sore tendon; he'd been a workawayer in Australia and New Zealand, and also studied Spanish in university and read part of Don Quixote.  He'd taken an excellent self-portrait of himself by the windmills, with his trekking pole raised like a sword to attack them.  I... could not believe it.  He was from Taiwan, but had read Don Quixote (while studying Spanish, and he also spoke English) and took a selfie of himself with trekking pole raised in battle toward modern industrial white windmills. 

Humor is so universal. 

I also met a Canadian and South African, and now here in the hostel there's a whole PACK of Germans - not traveling together, just a dozen individuals who all happened to stop here - and two are from Ulm!  I complemented their Ulm cathedral.   It's very comforting to see everyone else limping around and bandaging their feet as well.  There's a British girl with terrible blisters on the small toe of each foot, and she'd never gotten blisters in her life before.  We agreed it must just be a Camino thing.  Perhaps God just smites all pilgrims with blisters to make us more humble. 
 

The guidebooks all warn about 'ugly' days of walking past industrial zones.  But today, passing a wood chip and wood pellet factory in a sprawling industrial zone, there were stray wood scraps blowing everywhere, and in what was clearly the work of years, the chain link fence was interwoven - for at least a half kilometer - with all these lovely wood scraps picked up by people and turned into crosses:
 

It was unexpected, and beautiful, and so clearly the work of thousands of pilgrims over years. 

And, my favorite graffiti yet, from a trail underpass along the highway:
 

I think the artist had blisters.  Judging by the ample graffiti on signs and bridges, pilgrims obviously have much free time to think of doodles.

My blisters are doing much better, and as far as bodily ailments go, I'm in good company.  When I took a break on the trail today, I saw one man limp past with a knee brace, then one woman hobble past in flipflops with her boots hanging from her backpack, and then one Korean guy walking with his heels sticking out over the back of his boots (all one after the other; it seems like the majority of people are walking stiffly at this point).

It's also rather amazing how often you bump into the same person day after day - for example, on the very first night in St. Jean, I was in the tiny 10-bed hostel of the crazy cat lady with a german girl, Magdalena.  Then I saw her at the next hostel, didn't see her for three days, and bumped into her on the streets of Los Arcos - in the middle of the day, seventy kilometers later - as I was buying antiseptic and she was going into a barbers to get her hair cut.  We've coincidentally wound up in the same hostels 3 times since.  I also repeatedly meet a Canadian ex-massage therapist who slept next to me in the bunk way back in Pamplona, along with about a dozen other familiar faces.  I suppose if you take a giant herd of people, and funnel them all along one single trail, a few are bound to keep bumping into each other, even after splitting up at different speeds. 

Another figure I keep passing and spotting - and by far the most memorable person so far - is the elusive 'red-cape man'.  He started near the same day as me, because I first spotted his ridiculous red cape in the Pyrenees, and first wrote him off as being someone silly seeking attention.  I've since decided he might actually be a high-quality human being.  He wears an old leather hat, and has a bushy beard, and wears the cape draped over his pack so he looks like a strange billowing hunchback; also, he's always in the company of an old man smoking a pipe.  Since that first sighting I've grown to feel great empathy for the red-caped man, because I saw him limping along in socks and sandals yesterday, and the few times I've passed him by the side of the trail he has a very kind smile.  I think he's a German speaker; not sure.  I've developed a long-distance crush on him, and it's become my mission to find out who he is before we reach Santiago.  This is the red-caped man yesterday, ahead of me entering the streets of Logroño:

Buen camino,

-mlj