There are horrible stereotypes all along the camino, my favorite illustration being this...
Asking for Directions:
Germans will give extremely precise instructions, usually going so far as to draw a map.
The French will generally walk with you but will likely try to either seduce or feed you on the way.
Italians are rarely asked as they tend to travel in herds and that is intimidating.
The Irish will walk with you as well but will pursued you to stop off at the first bar for a pint. Hours later, you will realize that you didn't really need to go anywhere anyway.
There is no need to ask Americans as they will tell you anyway..
A Spaniard will point to the very next corner, telling you to go that direction and ask someone there. So that by the time you reach your destination, you will have chatted with at least 38 Spaniards.
On Camino, I learned how to say the word 'blister' in five languages, how to tie boots properly, how to sleep in a wheat field, how to make friends in any room, how to touch the arm of someone I am talking with, how to wash underwear in the sink. I learned how to play more than six chords on the ukulele, how to let go of vanity, how to swim in a river, how to poop...in a field, in a forest, audibly with people nearby, in a bathroom so foul that I wished it were a field. I learned how to walk while looking up at stars, how to drink water from any source, how to kiss cheeks and how to guesstimate times and distances...wrong.
I learned that harem pants can be worn by men, that it's safe to eat cheese which has been in someone's backpack for more than three days, that the 'C' on the water faucet does not mean 'cold,' that crying is ok, laughing is ok and shouting is ok. I learned that a chocolate bar smashed between two slices of bread does a sandwich make, that though it's hard walking uphill... the view is so worth it, that just because you don't speak the same language, doesn't mean you can't be friends and I learned that goodbye is never forever...
I sat at the end of the earth, wind whipping past my ears, and I watched the fading evening sun leap over the edge of the sea into oblivion. My camino had ended.
While the figurative heart of Saint James lies in Santiago, marking the final stopping point for many weary pilgrims, legend says that were it not for the devil's interference, Jim's final desired resting place would have been Finisterre, the perceived earth's end. And so, after visiting James with Marion and Genevieve, I bid a temporary farewell and went back to Sarria to walk again the last 115 kilometers of the camino with my Chicago friend Barb and the wonderful friends we made along the way...Daniele, a kind italian man who loves God and mom and has a beautiful smile, Adan, a spanish man who taught Barb and me a long list of inappropriate spanish phrases (which we immediately committed to memory..) and Ash, a sweet tiny canadian woman with a quick humor, lovely blue eyes, and a 7 foot walking stick that she was trying to figure out how to take back to Canada.
I found myself for a second time with pained knees, kneeling on the unpadded kneelers in Jim's grand house. Except this time, I had arrived on my 33rd birthday, the age of our lord. I had thought that a second visit with James would have given me some sort of closure, but even as I was leaving the church, James was still talking. "...Jen, I have more to show you!!" And so with James yapping in my ear (I could be schizophrenic) I packed my backpack yet again and wandered west alone into a cloudy cool Galicia, aiming 90km for the end of the earth.
After hiking three hours alone and thinking about nothing but peanut butter and jelly, I ran into Henry, an american political science professor who I had last seen weeks before in Logrono. As we walked, we shared camino adventures and he told me that he had fallen for his walking companion, a lovely austrian woman who was trying to let go of a painful divorce. Before heading home to Austria, she had invited Henry to come and finish his camino by staying with her and letting her show him her life. He had quietly declined and said his goodbye. "WHAT??? How could you just let her go!!??" "I didn't see how it could work.. she lives here and I live in the states.." "Seriously, that's your excuse? When was the last time you met someone who made you feel like this? There are ALWAYS possibilities, ways for things to work if you make them!!
Three days later, Henry handed my phone back to me while trying to suppress a huge grin. "This is crazy... this is SO not fiscally responsible!" He was on his way to Austria.
I left the beautiful seaside town of Finisterre behind and walked the final 3.5 kilometers (uphill) of my camino to the light house at the end of the world. I sat, contemplated, and wrote my goodbye letter to Saint James. Hours later, Henry joined me as the daylight weakened and together we watched the sun dip his toes into the ocean before diving below the waves. We shared a glass of red wine, toasting our accomplishments, our camino, our lives and his impending austrian adventure. And as darkness fell, we took our letters to the fire by the ocean and burned them...our final letting go. We walked the 3.5 kilometers back to Finisterre and our beds quietly, the sea on one side, the road on the other, the humid wind racing past our ears, the smell of salt and pine filling our lungs, the flickering light from the lighthouse mingling with the pale beauty of the stars. The next morning we boarded a bus back to Santiago.
"James, I am at your house for the third time and I am wondering at what point you will begin asking for rent.." "Why now, of course! You see the collection boxes and the women begging at the entrances." "But James, I am nervous to leave you. I know that it's time to go home, but I feel like I should start my camino all over again." "Jen, you can't use me to hide from the world, but at the same time, don't think that we are finished, you and I..."
