... which, I might add, is an amazing camera that I am happy to have recently purchased and begun shooting with. I brought it with me to photograph the Camino de Santiago this summer as I walked the 700 kilometers between Pamplona and Santiago de Compostela... but then I abandoned the burden of my own expectations to make a photo project out of it, and the extra pounds of camera I started out carrying around my neck eventually got stored in my backpack for most of the trip. And so the Camino was not work, but instead was meditative, slow, with no agenda or ulterior photojournalistic motive. In fact, most of the walking on the trail wasn't captured in photos - from the moment when I decided to pack it in my bag and forget it - a brutal hike uphill in the blazing sun at 2 p.m. in vineyards on red dirt tracks, to the fields of oats and wheat and sunflowers, to most of Galicia: the green, cool, heavily forested and misty northwesternmost region of Spain (though it could be Ireland, you think, walking through it), where the Camino often crosses paths with rivers and brooks, ancient moss-covered stone walls, cattle, and slugs of an amazing size.
And nowhere in photos are the people we met - the aggressively flirtatious and charming Italian guy, the awesome older Italian guy with whom we could barely communicate, the 'German ladies,' the 'Slovak boys,' the Spanish lady who gave me band-aids, the adorable Canadian runner from Toronto (my imaginary boyfriend) whose name I don't even know, hilarious David from New Orleans, Manuel from Valencia with whom we passed a comfortable afternoon of conversation in the shade, the Japanese anthropologist doing her doctoral project on the Camino, the bartenders and grocery-store-owners who answered my questions and gave directions and laughed at us and wished us well. Old people in the tiny towns, with the time to chat, to tell us about their childhoods, about their health care, about how Spain has changed, and to ask about how things are going with Obama. They would stop us in the middle of a street or a field and strike up a conversation - why wouldn't an 80-year old Spaniard and two 20-something Americans have something to talk about?
People in ones, twos, friends, couples, groups of six or seven, strangers who had fallen into walking together, parents and kids of all ages were doing the Camino. One German woman quit her job to do the Camino. A guy from Madrid was on the Camino after 25 years of wanting to do it. Some people had done the Camino five times already. Some were doing it because they had read Paolo Coelho's book, some because they had read Shirley MacLaine's. Michael Douglas has done the Camino and been knighted? Martin Sheen is making a movie about the Camino? Whaaaat??? All this information was shared with us by Spaniards, connecting, with a certain kind of elation, their culture with ours. One old man in a tiny mountaintop town in Galicia (where they speak Gallego first, Spanish second - and, by the way, play the bagpipes) lamented that more people can't speak each others' languages and proposed that we all just speak the same language - why not? he asked, with the utmost sincerity (and quite a bit of pride in his great idea).
The Camino de Santiago is a pilgrimage, and while you can do it for cultural or religious reasons, and while by and large people give you whatever kind of space and acceptance you want, there's a decidedly religious vibe to a lot of the Camino, which is understandable, valid, in fact completely to be expected, but also a little uncomfortable (holding hands and praying over dinner, leaving it up to God's will where you'll sleep that night) if you're not... really... religious. But I guess you realize too that it doesn't really cost you much to participate in these other worlds - you're just holding hands and wishing each other well, and people's motivations are only as public as they make them - nobody's asking you to state your position, join a crusade or swear on a Bible (or drive the moors out of Spain...)
Sant Iago = Saint James = saint Jacob, and the Camino de Santiago is also called the Way of Saint James and the Ruta Jacobea/Xacobea, the Jacobean Route. The Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela is the destination, the end of this pilgrimage, and the place where St. James is said to be buried. Fascinating, certainly, but not a destination that held the most closure for me and my friend Liz; we had in our minds that it would be great to arrive at the OCEAN after walking across the whole country, and we set our sights on Finisterre, the mythical, medieval 'end of the earth.' It turns out, though, that the route out to the coast past Santiago de Compostela is not so well-developed for walkers. There are fewer towns, fewer places to stay, and longer distances between the options... we set out walking but after two days were left in the rain by a highway with nowhere to stay-- all accommodation full from here to the end of the earth... so we went back to Santiago de Compostela and stayed there for a couple days before going to Barcelona and then home.
We never made it to the edge of the continent. But we walked some more in Santiago and Barcelona, and slowly re-entered a normal life, with Portuguese-Swedish fusion folk music, the first rain we'd seen in a month, and advice about where to eat octopus. The sound of strangers' snoring that had been our nocturnal company in bunkrooms across Iberia was replaced by the sound of the all-night party that is urban Spain, and it was startling how easy the transition was made from simple days of walking and reading and going to bed at 8 p.m. to city life, email, shopping, watching movies and thinking about work again. But being back in Moscow now is good, it's cooler than Spain and calmer than I remember and there are good people here. The hilarious and fascinating conversations I had this summer with Spaniards of all stripes reminds me, as it should, that it is worthwhile to learn others' languages... it reminds me too what I must be missing here in Moscow. I really need to do something to appreciate Russia more. It seems, from logic and experience, that if I can talk to Russians, that will be something. Besides, I always like a huge crazy project I don't really have time for. However, that's (going to be) another story. here are some of the scenes that were captured in photos from the trip:
this is what it's like to arrive at the festival of San Fermín, the Running of the Bulls, in Pamplona... it's 6 a.m. you've spent the night on the bus, and the night before on a plane. you're not feeling amazing, have a big backpack to carry, the ground seems... sticky? and everywhere you look you see... garbage. people. red and white...
a band plays while people dance in the stands, 7 a.m., the running starts at 8 a.m. and ends in the stadium (pictured here)
yes, it's totally crazy.
at the top of the first big climb west of pamplona
an old Roman road. It's 5:30 a.m. We always left early, to avoid the crowds in the morning and the heat later on
these kids had just invented this game the day before 'you know, to have something to do' they said, planting water balloons and lying in wait for traffic in their small town of Azofra.
la plaza, Viana
the cathedral in Burgos
una plaza en León
La Plaza de Toros Monumental, in Barcelona
La corrida de toros
people wave handkerchiefs to show that the bullfighter has done well and ask that he be awarded the bull's ear as a trophy
there is a lot to be said about bullfighting, la lidia....there is a lot of beauty in it, a lot of history and cultural relevance, and a lot of violence too, obviously. I am not completely opposed to bullfighting, but I do find this scene difficult, at the end, though it is probably the essence and symbolism of the whole event, in a moment.
And nowhere in photos are the people we met - the aggressively flirtatious and charming Italian guy, the awesome older Italian guy with whom we could barely communicate, the 'German ladies,' the 'Slovak boys,' the Spanish lady who gave me band-aids, the adorable Canadian runner from Toronto (my imaginary boyfriend) whose name I don't even know, hilarious David from New Orleans, Manuel from Valencia with whom we passed a comfortable afternoon of conversation in the shade, the Japanese anthropologist doing her doctoral project on the Camino, the bartenders and grocery-store-owners who answered my questions and gave directions and laughed at us and wished us well. Old people in the tiny towns, with the time to chat, to tell us about their childhoods, about their health care, about how Spain has changed, and to ask about how things are going with Obama. They would stop us in the middle of a street or a field and strike up a conversation - why wouldn't an 80-year old Spaniard and two 20-something Americans have something to talk about?
People in ones, twos, friends, couples, groups of six or seven, strangers who had fallen into walking together, parents and kids of all ages were doing the Camino. One German woman quit her job to do the Camino. A guy from Madrid was on the Camino after 25 years of wanting to do it. Some people had done the Camino five times already. Some were doing it because they had read Paolo Coelho's book, some because they had read Shirley MacLaine's. Michael Douglas has done the Camino and been knighted? Martin Sheen is making a movie about the Camino? Whaaaat??? All this information was shared with us by Spaniards, connecting, with a certain kind of elation, their culture with ours. One old man in a tiny mountaintop town in Galicia (where they speak Gallego first, Spanish second - and, by the way, play the bagpipes) lamented that more people can't speak each others' languages and proposed that we all just speak the same language - why not? he asked, with the utmost sincerity (and quite a bit of pride in his great idea).
The Camino de Santiago is a pilgrimage, and while you can do it for cultural or religious reasons, and while by and large people give you whatever kind of space and acceptance you want, there's a decidedly religious vibe to a lot of the Camino, which is understandable, valid, in fact completely to be expected, but also a little uncomfortable (holding hands and praying over dinner, leaving it up to God's will where you'll sleep that night) if you're not... really... religious. But I guess you realize too that it doesn't really cost you much to participate in these other worlds - you're just holding hands and wishing each other well, and people's motivations are only as public as they make them - nobody's asking you to state your position, join a crusade or swear on a Bible (or drive the moors out of Spain...)
Sant Iago = Saint James = saint Jacob, and the Camino de Santiago is also called the Way of Saint James and the Ruta Jacobea/Xacobea, the Jacobean Route. The Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela is the destination, the end of this pilgrimage, and the place where St. James is said to be buried. Fascinating, certainly, but not a destination that held the most closure for me and my friend Liz; we had in our minds that it would be great to arrive at the OCEAN after walking across the whole country, and we set our sights on Finisterre, the mythical, medieval 'end of the earth.' It turns out, though, that the route out to the coast past Santiago de Compostela is not so well-developed for walkers. There are fewer towns, fewer places to stay, and longer distances between the options... we set out walking but after two days were left in the rain by a highway with nowhere to stay-- all accommodation full from here to the end of the earth... so we went back to Santiago de Compostela and stayed there for a couple days before going to Barcelona and then home.
We never made it to the edge of the continent. But we walked some more in Santiago and Barcelona, and slowly re-entered a normal life, with Portuguese-Swedish fusion folk music, the first rain we'd seen in a month, and advice about where to eat octopus. The sound of strangers' snoring that had been our nocturnal company in bunkrooms across Iberia was replaced by the sound of the all-night party that is urban Spain, and it was startling how easy the transition was made from simple days of walking and reading and going to bed at 8 p.m. to city life, email, shopping, watching movies and thinking about work again. But being back in Moscow now is good, it's cooler than Spain and calmer than I remember and there are good people here. The hilarious and fascinating conversations I had this summer with Spaniards of all stripes reminds me, as it should, that it is worthwhile to learn others' languages... it reminds me too what I must be missing here in Moscow. I really need to do something to appreciate Russia more. It seems, from logic and experience, that if I can talk to Russians, that will be something. Besides, I always like a huge crazy project I don't really have time for. However, that's (going to be) another story. here are some of the scenes that were captured in photos from the trip:
this is what it's like to arrive at the festival of San Fermín, the Running of the Bulls, in Pamplona... it's 6 a.m. you've spent the night on the bus, and the night before on a plane. you're not feeling amazing, have a big backpack to carry, the ground seems... sticky? and everywhere you look you see... garbage. people. red and white...
a band plays while people dance in the stands, 7 a.m., the running starts at 8 a.m. and ends in the stadium (pictured here)
yes, it's totally crazy.
at the top of the first big climb west of pamplona
an old Roman road. It's 5:30 a.m. We always left early, to avoid the crowds in the morning and the heat later on
these kids had just invented this game the day before 'you know, to have something to do' they said, planting water balloons and lying in wait for traffic in their small town of Azofra.
la plaza, Viana
the cathedral in Burgos
una plaza en León
La Plaza de Toros Monumental, in Barcelona
La corrida de toros
people wave handkerchiefs to show that the bullfighter has done well and ask that he be awarded the bull's ear as a trophy
there is a lot to be said about bullfighting, la lidia....there is a lot of beauty in it, a lot of history and cultural relevance, and a lot of violence too, obviously. I am not completely opposed to bullfighting, but I do find this scene difficult, at the end, though it is probably the essence and symbolism of the whole event, in a moment.
1 comment:
what fun to read and what GREAT pictures! Thanks mary for sharing! And one day, WE will walk the camino juntas!
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