Breakfast in one of the few coffee shops that open early – cocoa drink with sweet cake and curros, that’s what everyone does here (except that only I drink cocoa). This time I may stay seated and write my blog… Most important observation, again now, not just last night: wearing a mask is no longer compulsory, but still an integral part of every face. So too when entering the coffee shop and ordering at the counter. But as soon as the guests sit down and start chatting, they lose their good Corona nursery and are in high spirits, laughing to each other, getting excited, fully in their element – without a mask, of course. Just like children in the sandbox, when they forget mum’s rules of etiquette while playing and are completely absorbed in the now. – Lively communication is obviously in the DNA of every Spaniard. Until the bill comes, and everyone dutifully returns to the new normal.
The ride on the ArgoFram is calm and fast in the same time, hard to describe, because the long stretched ‘waves’ (swell hills) in ten to 12 second intervals are terrifying, but as soon as the first excitement and inner tension has subsided, the ride becomes highly exciting, even thrilling! – Like on an extended roller coaster, it goes up and down, and the water just whizzes by.
I really enjoy this ride; I’m no longer ‘fleeing’ from the threat of bad weather as I was a short time ago, I’m now permanently riding towards the sun. At least that’s how it feels; the successful passage of the Bay of Biscay has worked wonders: a long pent-up, foreboding but subliminal fear has dissolved – it worked!
No, I didn’t ‘conquer’ the Bay of Biscay, there was no struggle – I simply traversed it. And now I’m looking forward to gliding from place to place here in northwest Spain, enjoying the weather, taking in the encounters and seizing the moment. Onwards with confidence. (Of course I think about what it might be like along the west coast of Spain and Portugal, I once cycled along there and saw the violent water movements in the stiff winds… But now I feel more and more confident that I will also learn to read and navigate this water).
Arrival in A Coruna; the mighty lighthouse, built by the Romans (!) some two thousand years ago, already greets us from afar. (I still have to have a closer look at it…) Big city, large, extensive marina, everything generously laid out and correspondingly spacious – actually there are several marinas, I decide on the first one. I have the usual conversations, but also have to repair the bike, which has not survived the rollercoaster ride (the swell) without damage. Then the tent is put up – and off to Santiago di Compostela; with my own bike to the station, folded up in the train, and in Santiago with it to the ‘grave church’ of Jacob.
I cycle up the hill and through the streets, and everywhere I meet swarms of walkers, pilgrims, those who set out some time ago to walk the Way of St James, and now find their way here from all directions – impressive, this joy, this energy that these people radiate – this feeling of happiness, this euphoria of self-affirmation that the people here carry with them on the last metres before the goal of their journey.
Touching scenes take place on the square in front of the main church: People falling into each other’s arms, kneeling down, or lying down exhausted and just crying with happiness: “I’ve made it, I’m here after weeks of constant walking – I’ve arrived!
No idea with what wishes and hopes (their own or others’) these people set out from home to walk the Way of St James. No idea what personal effort and deprivation they took upon themselves – did they want to come closer to God, to gain his favour? Or to get closer to themselves, to explore their own potential? Or to learn to understand the world and feel the power of their own actions? – No matter, now they are here, now comes relaxation. Salvation?
Do they now realise that their life will go on, that in the next moment everything will begin anew?
And yet: being on the road as a form of existence? Do these people, during their pilgrimage, fall back on a state we all knew when we (as humanity) were still nomads? Have they found happiness precisely because they have temporarily abandoned settled life, left their familiar home behind for the meantime and entered into new encounters every day?
I, too, am on the road – and feel happy precisely because I have given up the settled life and opened the door to the unexpected…
I don’t stay long, I’m already on my way back to A Coruna, and from the station I cycle along the ‘old’ lighthouse (which has of course been repaired and renewed again and again over the centuries) and I’m amazed at how people built their waymarks 2,000 years ago (and probably even earlier). And thus helped other, following travellers to find their way or the destination.
In the evening, back in the harbour, I meet six sailors from Switzerland. All newly retired. For the first time ‘free’ and off, as they say… They came with their sailboat across the Bay of Biscay, as I did, but they had been out for a little over three days (two nights at sea), and ask quite directly whether I hadn’t been afraid, so alone, and that the engines might break down on the way…
To be honest, I’m a bit confused about this question. Firstly, because I would be much more afraid of being at the mercy of wind and weather for several days on this route (instead of making rapid progress), secondly, because this is the first question that is obviously burning under their nails (and not how/why I undertook this trip), and thirdly, because I hear from it that my way of travelling (alone, at our age, so far out in the sea) is not safe at all.
Because I’m confused, I just laugh out loud – but it doesn’t go down well. And I notice that these gentlemen just don’t understand that I feel safe(er) with this boat. And yes, the fear that the engines will fail always travels with me. Subliminally. That’s why I always pack enough water and more food than I need in the best case. But if I were already standing in front of a mountain of fear at the start, I probably wouldn’t take off.
I can’t explain it any other way: as long as the ArgoFram floats, everything is fine.