This campsite closes next Monday and is almost empty now. It wouldn’t surprise me if I am the only one left at the end – though I’ve been trying to plan a route back to Bilbao but that’s not till next week, or the end of this week.
Time, Being and Time. Time passes slowly when you are restless. After breakfast up on the lovely terrace and saying goodbye to the intrepid cyclists who were aiming to do 70k today and who saved me from solitude, I started reading Heidegger in manageable chunks, and swatting flies from my salty body and having innumerable showers and then ventured out on foot – twice. Orientated towards finding a supermarket and the beach I had failed to notice a residential convent next door – just the other side of the stone wall. There was a very catholic 19th century chapel, cool inside and the sign Reception over a door which I did not understand at the time. I did notice the stone path up the side of the hill in front with pillars containing plaster reliefs of the stations of the cross (just to remind you: Stations of the Cross (or Way of the Cross; in Latin, Via Crucis; also called the Via Dolorosa or Way of Sorrows, or simply, The Way) is a series of artistic representations, very often sculptural, depicting Christ Carrying the Cross to his crucifixion in the final hours (or Passion) of Jesus before he died, and the devotions using that series to commemorate the Passion, often moving physically around a set of stations. Thanks to Wikipedia), so of course I started to climb to the top, through all 14, through the recently burnt out undergrowth (it still smelled of charcoal).



What an amazing sight it must have been when the whole hillside caught file and those 14 pillars survived, just needed a fresh coat of whitewash. I’ve just noticed I can see the convent from where I am sitting by the tent, though a gate. There’s nothing going on there. I climbed up my personal Golgotha all the way to the top. What a change of mood from the beach and search for a supermarket. And what a strange story. Is this a very good metaphor for life, an uphill struggle, to an ultimate cruel death and being laid in a tomb? Its formalised – how many times did Jesus stumble? Like my 14 days in Spain, I’ve stumbled three times, coming to an abrupt halt with a struggle to keep Bertha upright. And why did the soldier give him vinegar, not water or wine? Vinegar seems to go well with the overall bitterness of the story. (Apparently it was used as a kind of painkiller to prolong death on the cross and Jesus refused it – which I had forgotten.)
Tomorrow I will ride up to Cape Finesterre – its not far – then back down the coast . It does look beautiful. It was good to rest today but some boredom crept in.