Day 11 -- San Xulian to Ribadiso

23.5 km
Wednesday, June 13

Cool (maybe 50 degrees) and cloudy all day, with a breeze that promised rain but didn´t deliver until about 3 pm, by which time I had my bunk at the albergue and was eating the banana and empanada de carne I´d bought earlier, in Melide, "an important small town known for its cheeses."

In Melide, halfway through my walking day, I ran into Miss South Africa of the cell phone charger, along with her more down-to-earth German friend. These girls are definitely the petty tyrants of my last few days. Though they have been taking the occasional cab and then lingering in places for more than one day, somehow our pace is similar and we keep seeing each other.

My pack still on, I perched on a plastic chair at their cafe table and we compared notes about recent days. They´d stayed at the Samos monastery the night I´d bailed. C., the German, told me that a pilgrim came in just under the wire (the albergues usually close their doors at 10 or 11pm), drunk out of his mind. He groaned and thrashed for a while, then toppled out of his top bunk and pissed himself on the floor. There was a mad scramble as people tried to help him and move their belongings away from the spreading yellow puddle. I told them about the giant toad of a man in Gonzar whose snoring had been so loud and wet that people sat up in their bunks, outraged, then moved into free bunks as far from him as possible.

Still not wanting to commit to taking my pack off, I told C. about my off-Camino experience, and how wrong it felt. She replied, ¨But isn´t that what the camino is all about? Adventure? Surprise? Doing exactly what comes, what you want?"

Maybe, and maybe not, but her reply made me realize that I´ve been alone too much, in my head, taking myself and my experiences too seriously. These petty tryrants remind me to lighten up (even if I don´t want to lighten up to their level of fluffiness).

Can´t get away from each other
We ended up in adjacent bunks that evening.

I asked the hospitalera if I could have the bunk by the window (not to get away from these girls, but because I wanted the breeze). She said no and told me pilgrims should do what hospitaleros want, not the other way around. "No quejas!" she told me. (Don´t complain!)

That wasn´t very pilgrim of you, said C., asking for another bunk. Didn´t you tell me that it was all about this heavy inner procedure?

You make it sound like I´m doing psychic surgery, I said.

I think you qualify there, she said.

Miss South Africa put in: At least she´s not one of the 60-something soul searchers.

That´s the privilege of the young, I said. Categorizing and judging.
(Though of course I do the same, and was in fact judging the judgers).

We are each other´s petty tyrants, and we can´t seem to get away from each other.

The next morning, we ended up at the same cafe table, as tentative as lovers who´d quarreled. We ajusted our behavior accordingly--I didn´t share my overwrought inner proceedings, and C., at least, was careful to demonstrate to me how she really wasn´t that judgemental.

¨We talked to this politcal refugee from Iran last night´," she told me. ¨M.(Miss South Africa) thought he was tragic, but I just thought he was really interesting."

And so we rub up against each others´rough edges, and adjust our behavior accordingly.