June 15--The Beginning of the End
As of right now, we are at 2 strikes – one was VERY related to being in the last 100k and the other is just… the vibes being off…
So I collect sellos, right? – the stamps that we get along the Camino to prove at the end that we’ve done it. Most bars, hotels, albergues and businesses along the Camino have them – and sometimes they will advertise if they have them because it means more potential business. Today, we were probably 5k into the walk, and we see a sign of a souvenir shop that says they have a sello. So another student and I go in, and the guy is asking us where we’re from, only speaking English, and basically forces us to try these bracelets he is selling at the front of the shop. He asks us if we have seen them before and yeah of course I have seen the super cheap bracelets all along the Camino. Basically, guy tells us the bracelets are 1.5 euro and we say we don’t have any cash and ask if he has a sello. He literally looks us STRAIGHT in the eye and says NO. Man literally has a sign outside advertising a sello and he is telling us TO OUR FACES he doesn’t have one… I understand paying for a sello, like if they don’t want someone to have the sello without purchasing that’s totally fine, I’ll find a sello somewhere else or I’ll give them a 20c piece, but if you advertise a sello with no stipulations and then lie to people about not having it, that’s just not cool. That was strike one.
Another thing you should know about the Camino is that everyone respects everybody and their faith. It is something that unifies us – most people have faith who come on the Camino – and if they want, they will talk about it. It is just like an unspoken, agreed rule that everyone respects everyone else and where they are in their “faith journey.” I know that might sound cheesy, but like for real, people just talk about God or don’t and it’s just very respectful, very open. Today, I was walking slightly ahead of my roommate Emilee when she strikes up a conversation with this lady, which Emilee is great at doing. Seriously, the amount of people who say hi to her randomly in bars or at hotels or along the way is a testament to how kind and sweet she is.
So, she is telling this lady about our group from BYU and the lady is like, “Oh so are you all Mormons?” and Emilee is like yeah. The lady proceeds to tell Emilee that the ONLY context she has for our church is the Book of Mormon musical and the boys (ONLY boys as she was adamant to point out) that she sees occasionally walking around her neighborhood. After that, she then proceeds to tell Emilee that she thought the play was pretty funny, quickly adding that “Oh, but you probably don’t right?” As the conversation goes on, despite the woman fully admitting that she has almost no knowledge of our religion, like literally saying, “I don’t know anything about your church…” she proceeds to ask several questions that are VERY assuming in their subject matter – that we are very “loyal” to our beliefs, that Emilee studying to be a nurse would only be able to go certain places with the church’s permission etc. In actuality, I have not had ONE conversation along the Camino where anyone has made assumptions about our religion based on where we say we are from OR heard such prying and honestly insensitive questions in any conversation while I have been here. I understand this lady might have been ignorant, but she approached the learning process in a way that just came off as very offensive. Of course, Emilee was so kind and patient, but both Isaac and I were CLOSE at hand. Isaac was actually about to join the conversation when it ended because he was getting so tired of what this woman was saying. Contrasting all this is all the experiences we have had with people who simply talk about the simple spiritual experiences they have had, the spirit they have felt, the atonement of Jesus etc. So that whole conversation, not even being PART of it was strike two for the last 100k and how different it will be from the beautiful experiences we’ve had so far.
We also saw some cool nature things along the way. As described by Emilee, we were passing the field and watching the farmer cutting the crops with some of his farmer equipment. But as this field was being cut there were, no joke, eight hawks in the air ALL circling this relatively small field. When the farmer cuts the field, all the mice that have called the field home scatter in the wind. And do you know what is waiting on that wind, ready to scoop them up? You guessed it! Those circling birds of prey! I have never seen so many in one place and they were LASER focused on the group, it was so cool to watch! I only saw two catch mice but MAN to see them in action was intense.
Can I just say, Franco is an IDIOT. TOTAL change of topic, sorry, but let me tell you about Portomarin, the town we stayed in tonight. Portomarin was a beautiful medieval city located on the banks of the river, that had been standing for hundreds of years. On a whim, France in the late 40s decided they needed more hydroelectric dams and reservoirs, so plans were drawn to dam up the Rio Mino. Well, you know what that would ALSO do?! Flood the entire area around the river, and cities near the river. SO the solution was to disassemble and reassemble the two gothic churches higher on the hill in Portomarin and COMPLETLEY rebuild the rest of the city, leaving everything else to sink under the rising waters. BUT, because the river is now used as a reservoir, in times of drought and at the end of the summer, the Medieval Portomarin emerges from the water, still mostly intact and standing. The most impressive structure is the Roman bridge that is still completely standing and usable when the water level is low. We crossed a giant bridge today, but when the water is low, the roman bridge stands just as strong still, and rivals its bigger but younger brother. Isn’t that crazy? That entire city is STILL there, but because some idiot thought that was the best place for a reservoir, it is just lots beneath murky brown waters!
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