Friday, August 28, 2009

An uninspired haiku series with questionable grammar (Gijon, Spain)

My last few posts have been so long that even I am intimidated by them -- so this one is going to be a shortie. I considered writing it in haiku form, but . . . wait, that's an excellent idea! Genius. Here goes:

MONDAY:

Jesus at the docks
shares the history of Foz,
does not like pizza.

Ex-seaman Pepe,
friend of Alberto's, tells me
about Moon's effect.

Full moon: fish spread out.
New moon: fish stick together.
Plankton glow in dark.

He knows, too, about
life cycles of anchovies --
now almost fished out.

Fishermen seem all
to have a firm grasp on each
species' life cycle.

Later, evening-time,
Alberto introduces
me to old cousins.

They see love sparks where
there are none. They wink and smile.
Wonderful people.


TUESDAY:

Bus to Gijon -- five
hours. Once here, I see two
art museums. Then

I meet host Daniel,
who takes me on a great tour
of non-tourist parts.

Daniel is a vet
with well-developed views on
politics, world, us.

I learn much from him.
(Bifidus mystery solved:
yogurts not suspect.)


WEDNESDAY:

Hours among plants
at botanical gardens.
I really love plants.

Then, motorcycle
ride to nudist beach below
glorious cliffs. Wow!

I hike, fully clothed.
Sun is bright, people outside.
Drink water or die!

At night, dinner with
another CouchSurfer named
Cristiano. Hmm. (Is "Cristiano" three syllables or four? Ergo "hmm.")

Also mmm: good food.
Italian politics
outrageous, I learn.

The late-night habits
of the elderly also
surprised Cristiano. (This time it's three.)

Girlfriend's theory is
that old women have worked hard;
now this time is THEIRS.


THURSDAY:

Two-hour walk to
the industrial port, which
is like a city.

Another Jesus,
kind-eyed man, tells me about
seaweed collection!

Fascinating, but
alas! I do not see it.
Maybe in Llanes.

Long conversation
with Cristiano that evening.
He is so thoughtful!

Impossible to
sum up life philosophies
in haikus, but here:

Live every moment.
Find beauty in the small things.
Material things fade. (Oh no. Is "material" mah-tee-ree-al or mah-tee-rial? Probably the former. I'm a big-time haiku cheater. Also, I need to go back to elementary school and learn about syllables.)

Made me think a lot.
Lucky to meet people who
make one think a lot.


FRIDAY:

Gray and rainy day.
Soon my toes will be chilly
as I walk around.


WEEKEND:

The plan is to go
to Picos de Europa
with a CouchSurfer!

Big mountains, big sky,
trees and rocks and bugs and birds --
my friends. Peaceful breaths.


Well, I would call that a dismal failure. But I'll bet it took a lot less time to read than my usual posts!

Monday, August 24, 2009

A boat ride and a very old cathedral (Foz, Spain)

(I wrote this last night but have wifi this morning.)

Seasickness: no laughing matter. I spent most of my twenty-hour fishing excursion from Thursday night until Friday evening as horizontal as possible -- spread-eagled on a bed (so as not to roll over while the ship rocked) or clinging to the deck railing and leaning on the flat surfaces in the bridge in a most undignified manner. And this in perfect weather, with the sea "like a plate." "It doesn't get calmer than this," I was told numerous times by Jose, who was probably thinking, "NEVER AGAIN will I say yes to someone who wants to get on my ship as part of a wacky 'project'." He also said, though, that there was more "mar de fondo" -- deep, long, smooth swells that make the ship tilt in all sorts of wild angles -- than usual, and other sailors told me that they had also been seasick the first few times they'd been at sea. They, however, jumped right back on the ship to get over it, whereas I am appending to my name the words "pathetic landlubber" (as in, "Irene Toro Martinez, Pathetic Landlubber") and chaining myself to a tree the next time someone suggests a boat ride where there might be "mar de fondo."

Whines aside: I did learn a lot about the work of a trawling fisherman. We left the port at Celeiro at around 10:30 pm on Thursday night, after the fishermen on the Pino Ladra had spent an hour taking the previous day's catch out of the hold with a crane and shoveling ice over each box (upwards of 400 boxes per ship, for a total of about 10,000 kg of fish). Jose and the captain of the partner ship decided, by scrambled radio, upon the night's course, and, as his ship is only five years old and equipped with the latest in fancy-shmancy technology, Jose simply put it on automatic pilot and pointed out the line on the screen that we would be following. He didn't rest easy after that, though; almost all of the times I saw him in the bridge, he was talking over the radio with his partner, alerting him to the presence of other ships in the area and discussing possible changes in the plan for the day.

It was at about this time that most of the ten-person crew were eating two "floors" down at the tables near the kitchen and the sleeping quarters. Jose told me that he would join them soon, shortly after eleven, and I made my first disappearance, deciding instead of eating to try to sleep until 6:00 am, when the net would be released. Before going to bed, though, I went out to the deck to look at the stars -- oh, glorious! Wowee! Oof! Not a cloud in the sky, and I even saw a shooting star. I love shooting stars!! I went to my luxurious private room, one "floor" down from the bridge, where the four highest ranking men on the ship sleep (the captain, the second mate, and the mechanics, one of whom was spending the night at home and in whose room I'd been placed), and clung to the raised sides of the bed for dear life (remember: "pathetic landlubber") until I fell asleep.

A 987245984524579-decibel siren sounded at 6:00 am to announce that the net was going to be released. Jose and most of his crew had slept about five hours (one man had stayed in the bridge, because there is always somebody in the bridge), and Jose, at least, wouldn't sleep again until the next night. We were now far from any shore, near the drop-off of the sea floor into deeper waters, surrounded by darkness and comforting little splashing sounds (presumably waves and not monsters from the deep). There were still stars in the sky (wowee! oof!).

Releasing the net is not as easy as it sounds, particularly for a two-boat trawling operation. To begin with, the net is enormous and has various clips and cables that have to be checked as it is unrolled (by machine) -- it takes a long time, and several people on the deck, to get it into the water. Then, since the net is strung across two boats, the other boat has to maneuver close enough for the fishermen of the main boat to toss the other fishermen a rope connected to an end of the net. This is simple enough in good weather; I can't imagine how nerve-wracking it is when the waves are strong. Finally, the two boats have to travel side-by-side, a set distance away from each other, in the same direction in order for the net to be effective (easy when you have a ship with cruise-control). They do this for several hours in the late morning and early afternoon, hope that the net sensors indicate that the net is full, and, at 2:30 pm, the same deafening siren sounds to call the fishermen back to the deck for what ends up being a full afternoon of work.

(Side note: I know that nobody cares about this insignificant detail, but, lest I give an inaccurate account of the mechanics of trawling, I wanted to say that I'm not actually sure when the net is joined from the main ship to the secondary ship. I vaguely remember the other ship approaching in the early morning, but it seems strange to me that they would be catching fish from then until 2:30 pm -- a long time. Since I was mostly out of commission between sirens, they may well have joined later in the morning without my noticing.)

It was more exciting to watch the net come in than it was to see it go out. When it was mostly rolled in, Jose pointed to the surface of the sea and said, "See? Look there. That's the fish." I could see a mass of something just beneath the surface of the water (this is very unnerving -- masses of something just beneath the surface of the water), and, when the other boat came close and took the net, the mass turned into a bag of fish the size of . . . oh gosh, I have no spatial intelligence. A big bag of fish. Really big. The fishermen pulled this really big bag of fish to the side of the boat and used a crane-assisted scooper (like a giant butterfly net) to pour fish into the hold of the ship. The idea is that each ship takes about half of the catch and prepares the fish for the sale; Jose and his crew complained, loudly enough that the other crew heard and laughed, that they always ended up with more than half. The really big bag of fish (now half as big) was returned to the Pino Ladra and its contents poured directly into the hold, where the fishermen spent the next four hours sorting fish by species (mostly bacaladilla and pescadilla) into boxes with the help of shovels and gutting the fish that needed to be gutted. Long and dirty work; Jose told me that they usually finished just as the ship was pulling into port.

I had been looking forward to this -- pulling into port -- for many a long hour, and, when we finally did at 7:30 on Friday evening, I was a happy camper. So were the fishermen! After unloading the boat, they had two days of rest to look forward to. On Sunday night they'd go to sea again. I took the last bus back to Foz and was grateful to the universe for solid ground.

My time in Foz has been wonderfully calm. I decided to take it easy on Saturday (I was dizzy until Saturday morning!), so I spent much of the afternoon sitting on a bench in front of the sea. An old woman named Leonor stopped and talked to me for a while (she said that she will be my first interviewee when I come back to Spain as a journalist -- I said, "Okay!!"), and, later, a young man named Alberto walked by twice and on the third pass started a conversation with me. A nerd after my own heart. We talked for a while (about nerdy things), then he invited me to go to a concert with him that night, and I said, "Sure!" The concert ended up being a bit disappointing, and we went to a club that he liked, where we awkwardly stood and watched a few people dance. Eventually, he asked if I had a boyfriend, and I said, "Nope. I'm gay!" He told me that he wasn't (I'd figured), that he liked girls ("Me too!"), but that he had a gay friend (good!), and then he said, "Well, we can be friends, then." Oh, Alberto. So now I have a friend in Foz, and I'm meeting with him again tomorrow afternoon so that his father can introduce me to a fisherman friend of his. We also agreed to have coffee when I'm in Madrid, where he lives (he's in Foz on vacation for a month). Excellent.

Today I spent walking in the countryside to a small chapel called O Bispo Santo, and then to the oldest cathedral in Spain, the Basilica de San Martin, which dates to the sixth century! Of course, the sixth-century parts have been mostly (but not completely!) covered up by further construction in later centuries; I saw stones that had been placed in the ninth and tenth centuries, and frescoes and murals from the eleventh, fourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. It is mind-boggling to me that this church has stood through so much history. So many people have lived their entire lives -- birth to death, with love, knowledge, jobs, original and unoriginal ideas, hopes, failures, und so weiter -- while this church has stood, and I don't know about any of them! I can't even imagine their lives! It is exciting to me that I will be one of these mystery hypothetical people to somebody in a thousand years. Maybe they will think about it upon entering the same church.

The church also made me think about something that I love thinking about: What will remain of our time in a few thousand years? Few buildings, I think, are made to last (we just don't use giant rocks anymore), but maybe the road systems will be preserved, or, smaller-scale, things like plastic or glass bottles, airplane parts. Ooh, back to large scale: I can't wait for future archaeologists to unearth particle accelerators and neutrino detectors! Or mirrors from giant telescopes. And satellites -- those will be relics in the sky. And spacecraft on the Moon and Mars -- someday they will have been there for thousands of years, and people will know that. Ours is the time that they will have an abstract understanding of as the "breaking of the space frontier." And here we are now, living it!

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

A pretty fish (Burela, Spain)

I had been told to come to Burela to learn about bonito fishing, and oh boy have I learned about it. Not only did I go on a tour of the official bonito museum (which floats -- it is a boat), but I have seen boxes of bonito at the pre-dawn bonito auction and, what's more, "interviewed" a man who used to own a bonito boat. In short, I am a bonito expert. That's a lie; I am no expert. But, thanks to Tono (there should be a tilde over the "n" -- the name is like "Tonio"), the gracious man who chatted me up at the lonja (reversal of roles!) and invited me to come and talk with him this morning at his office, I know much more than I did before I came to Burela. Allow me to write at length about this fish:

Bonito is, true to its name, a pretty fish. It is also a migratory fish, and travels in shoals from the Azores Islands towards the northern coast of Spain between June and September, making its way to the region near the British Isles called "Gran Sol" by October and then, mysteriously, disappearing. Its movements have everything to do with the temperature of the water, and are therefore, to a certain degree, unpredictable; the climate refuses to do the same thing twice. You have to look for bonito to fish them, and every year you end up looking in new places. Burela has always been economically dependent on the costera, the passing of the bonito, and its float had up to eighty ships at some points in the past century. Now there are about thirty, and, although they are made of metal instead of wood and sport fancy-shmancy tech toys like global positioning systems, the method of fishing bonito remains (almost) exactly the same as it was fifty years ago.

On the Galician coast, bonito is fished with hooks, fifteen of them, which are attached to lines strung to an elevated horizontal bar at the stern of the ship, which allows for the bait to appear to swim through the water as the ship moves. The bait is not live, though -- it is a little bundle of ribbons covered with a jiggly, squid-like piece of plastic. Back in the day, when artificial materials didn't reign supreme, fishermen used corn husks to make the bait, but to their disadvantage; apparently the fish are more likely to bite certain colors of bait on certain days (which makes the rainbow that plastics offer a boon to modern bonito fishermen). On cloudy days, light-colored bait is used; on bright days, dark-colored bait. And on good days, this is how the fishing happens: A boat comes upon a shoal of fish, and they, liking the color of the bait on the hooks (I imagine: "Neon pink?! I've never eaten anything THAT color before!! I wonder what it tastes like!"), start to bite. Quicklyquickly the fishermen pull the lines with fish on them towards the side of the boat, grab the fish by the tail with a long hook, and whack it on the head with a wooden club with the intent to stun. If they hit it too gently, it thrashes its way to an ugly demise, and if they hit it too hard, blood might fall into the water and frighten the other fish away. This is the last thing the fishermen want, because they will continue to make passes through the same shoal until they stop catching fish.

The boats go out for a maximum of twenty days at a time, but come back sooner if they get lucky with the fishies. Tono recalled that when he first started fishing for bonito, at age fifteen, they knew that they had gotten lucky with the fishies when they saw whales; both whales and bonito eat shrimp, so, where there were whales, there was likely to be bonito, too. (He didn't say anything about whales these days, but many people have told me that they keep retreating farther and farther into the deep ocean; I wonder where and how often modern-day fishermen see them.) (I would really like to talk to a whale.) Tono also said that overfishing is not as grave a problem with seasonal fish, like bonito, as it is with fish that stay in the same place, like merluza/pescadilla. However, fishermen at other ports catch bonito with circular nets (that don't just catch bonito, but anything else unlucky enough to be swimming by), which he looks down upon because it is "industrial" and the quality of the fish decreases immensely. Also, until a few years ago (ten?)(ish), it was legal to fish by stringing long rectangular nets in the water, but, of course, some ships were caught placing nets that were eight times longer than the legal limit, and the harm to non-fishy species, like dolphins, was so great that the practice was banned entirely. Before the ban, bonito did suffer from overfishing; now they seem to be doing all right.

Well! I hope that you are impressed! It is really an interesting form of fishing, particularly because it's changed so little in the past fifty years. In addition to learning about bonito fishing, I have formulated a plan of attack against my recent moodiness (I'm lonely, but I deserve no pity, because 1. I am having an adventure and 2. it is a learning experience) (3. and it builds character! I don't think Calvin ever bought that, though): I will go on day trips to nearby towns! Yesterday I spent the entire day in and around a town called Mondonedo (the second "n" has a tilde over it), which is tucked between green hills a ways south of Burela and which used to be much more important than it is now (now it is a tourist hub; it used to be the capital of a province). I saw the impressive cathedral and the exteriors of several other churches, a convent where nuns still live, many an old beautiful building bathed in sunlight, which makes everything old beautiful, and much more in the way of camera fodder. I also went walking around the neighborhood called Los Molinos, through which artificial water canals run (some houses are accessed by little bridges!), and explored the rural surroundings. Narrow dirt paths bordered by trees and bushes that sometimes formed a dense ceiling -- ugh. Beautiful. In the spirit of my guide book: charming.

Something else charming that I've been meaning to mention: In several of the towns I've been in, I've stumbled across the Place Where the Old Men Meet. This is an unofficial landmark -- usually somewhere near the water, and usually somewhere with benches or steps -- where something vital to the functioning of the town takes place: old men reminisce! When I found the Place Where the Old Men Meet in Burela, I asked a man nearby what the building where I had seen them gathered was called. He said that it was a social room of sorts, but that everyone called it "the story benches." Isn't that lovely? In every town (or at least many towns), every afternoon, old men gather to tell stories, or, if the words aren't flowing, to sit in silence (but also in company). Routines of the retired. May we all enjoy them.

In other news, it is looking like I am going to be able to go on a fishing excursion with Jose (the man who had agreed to let me go with him last week, but whose ship broke) tomorrow night. I am nothing if not persistent (and BOLD), and on Friday, as I was returning by foot to Viveiro from San Ciprian, I passed by the port at Celeiro and decided to leave a note for him at the main office of the lonja. It read something like: "Oh hey there, Jose! I hope your ship is fixed soon! If it is, think I could go with you sometime next week? I won't be far away and I'm great at taking buses! It's okay if you say no! Well, let me know! Great! ~Irene" but sixteen times more formal and maybe only half as obnoxious. I didn't expect him to write -- because half as obnoxious is still pretty obnoxious -- but yesterday I got a one-line e-mail from him, all capital letters, telling me to show up at the dock any night this week. I'm tempted, at this point in my writing, to go wild with exclamation points, but I've resolved not to reveal my inner enthusiasm, lest the sea gods notice and cause the ship to break again (I already saw the weather forecast for tomorrow: rain all along the northern coast of Spain) (i.e. waves!). To that end, I'll say: If I do get to go on the ship, maybe it'll be sort of interesting. I probably won't learn that much, though. Honestly, I'd rather stay in my hostel room and watch TV or something. At least I wouldn't get seasick. And who wants to be around a bunch of flopping dying fish? Probably only weirdos. Lord knows I am not a weirdo! (Do you think I fooled them?! Oh probably!)

Sunday, August 16, 2009

A couple of months already! (Burela, Spain)

My two-month anniversary with Spain! Still no serious relationship problems; we continue to discover new things about each other, and the butterflies haven't gone away.

I did end up going to a fish farm near the town of San Ciprian on Friday, but discovered that they are no less paranoid here than in Camarinhas. My brief conversation with the Head Honcho revealed why: industry secrets! (Not, as I had thought, worries that I would contaminate one of the tanks or end up being an undercover Greenpeace activist.) The type of fish at the farm, rodaballo, has only started being raised intensively in the past five years, and nobody has quite perfected the process yet. Different companies use different kinds of pools (I've now seen both an array of small circular pools and a line of long tanks accessible only from the sides) and distribute the fish differently (some fish hatch in the same farm they will mature in; others are shipped to the farm after reaching a certain size at a separate hatchery). Surely the feed and countless other aspects of the process are still being developed, too -- the experimental phase of what will probably become a freakishly efficient industry in the next few years. Head Honcho did let me see one of the pools full of fish before escorting me off the grounds, and, though I smiled and said "thanks" afterwards, I was an unhappy camper. The fish looked like a pile of pancakes that had been tossed in the water -- overlapping, hardly moving, pale (I think that they are pale anyway, but at the time I thought, "Sickly pale! Fish farm pale!"). I had rodaballo for my birthday dinner -- going to this fish farm was like somebody snatching back that birthday present.

I also walked to the toxic waste dump of a nearby aluminum plant (which dominates the San Ciprian landscape and skyscape both -- it's huge and smoky) after asking the fish farm security guard about an artificial-looking cliff at the top of a big hill. That cliff ended up being part of a wall that goes around the perimeter of a multicolored (but not like a rainbow is multicolored) lake of who-knows-what-deadly-chemicals. It was enormous and had obviously once been forest, because there was a single black trunk sticking out of the water near one of the edges, and there were piles of rock and dead dirt at the shores that made it look like even the hill had suffered (suffered as in "ouch," not just the obvious damage) (don't worry, I know that hills don't go "ouch"). I was angry when I took photos here -- wished I were a Greenpeace activist! -- and became sad when I talked to a man who lived nearby. He told me that the dump site had been there for thirty years, and that the adverse effects on the surrounding environment were noticeable. Fruit didn't stay on the trees anymore; the soil was bad. I wondered about all of the people who lived in the area, and especially the children; what happens when you grow up on toxic land, drinking (possibly) toxic water? Ugh! Industry!

I decided to walk back to Viveiro, which took me six hours and was good for the soul. So many trees! Such green fields! The vast blue ocean, yonder between those hills! Not so good for the soul was the Swedish thriller I had invited myself to, which has a different title in Spanish and English. In Spanish it's "Los hombres que no amaban a las mujeres" (which means "Men who didn't love women" -- I think gay) and in English it's "Men who hate women" (I think misogynist). It's the English title for sure! I walked out of the theater in shock -- so much sadism, rape, violence, cruelty. I hope it's only the Swedes, and I'm safe in Norway. (I hope it's not because they didn't get enough sunlight!)

Now I'm in Burela, a town which people in Viveiro had assured me I wouldn't like. I can see why they said so -- there is no historic center, and the city is lacking in architectural charm, museums, cultural activities, sculptures and monuments (the woman at the tourist office circled exactly one thing in Burela on the map and then about five others in nearby towns) (ha ha) -- but I certainly don't dislike it yet. The port is impressive, and some people have smiled at me. That's good. And the surrounding landscape is beautiful! I went on a long hike to a mirador on a mountain this morning (this is becoming the Year of Solitary Hikes) -- pine forests on cloudy days are an excellent idea. Ten points to Mother Nature! Tomorrow I will hang out at the docks, as is my wont, and boldly start a conversation with anyone who wanders within a ten-foot radius. "Bold" is my adjective of the month. Irene the Bold. Maybe bold will get me on a ship.

An unpleasant realization (Burela, Spain)

I mentioned earlier that I wanted to write about my desensitization to fish death, which I should really call "desensitization to all damage caused by fishing." This broader term covers individual fish deaths (poor guys); the decimation of entire fish populations; harm to other non-target marine animals; the pollution that the boats produce; the pollution that the trucks that transport the fish to other cities produce; the pollution and diseases that fish farms produce (because these are growing in number and size as a response to overfishing); and much more.

The first item on the list -- individual fish deaths -- is first because it is what was initially most shocking to me when I arrived here. I had just given up my vegetarianism to be able to fully enjoy the cuisine of the countries I'm visiting, but I wasn't prepared to confront the seeming disregard for life that dominates at the fishing ports. The lonjas were full of little fishy corpses, kicked about and bleeding, handled dispassionately; at the docks, I saw live and writhing fish being eviscerated; and I am still horrified when I realize that some of the octopi waiting to be sold, in boxes that contain so many that they look like they are full of liquid, are moving. Well, no. That's not quite true. I'm no longer horrified. And I have gotten used to seeing hundreds of boxes of fish without thinking, "Boxes of dead life!" Now they are just boxes of fish, and it's not as unsettling to me that they had to be killed to end up there. (Furthermore, I have eaten all sorts of seafood, and sometimes also chicken and pork, and I no longer think, "You are eating an animal!" with every bite.)

So far I sound like an animal rights hippie -- the reason I didn't eat meat before is that the poor animals suffered -- but that's not (fully) the case. The boxes of "poor animals" are just representative of the more worrisome consequences of modern fishing, namely, that entire species are being fished to near-extinction, and that fish farms are seen as the solution (instead of a serious reconsideration of fishing practices and: action!). I just read "Omnivore's Dilemma" by Michael Pollan (good book!), in which he traces four meals back to the origins of their ingredients and reveals their "true cost" -- in damage to the environment, damage to human and animal life, damage to the economy. A fast-food hamburger, for instance, is reduced to retired milk cows that spent their entire lives in industry farms being fed genetically modified corn (they are ruminants, though, and aren't biologically equipped to handle corn) that comes from fields in the Midwest that are fertilized with nitrogen and other chemicals created in plants that require huge amounts of energy (so: petroleum) and which flow into rivers that provide drinking water for cities downstream. It is scary when he goes back to the bare essences, no?

So: what worries me about my desensitization to fish death is that I am becoming desensitized to these bare essences! I am seeing overfishing in action (those boxes of dead fish are a LOT of boxes of dead fish) and I am watching the demands of industrial giants being met (the people who buy those boxes of dead fish sell them to processors and grocery stores), and each day I think less and less of it. Pollan says that you can either choose to look away from the true cost of your meal or choose not to participate in the process that produces it -- but I am not doing either. I see, as firsthand as possible, the true cost of fish (the destruction of the oceans, pollution, fish farms), and I keep eating it. It's not all about the eating, though -- it's about my emotional response. I'm no longer reacting strongly to these experiences that should be spurring me to some sort of action. How does that happen? What to do about it?

Well, I'm not sure how clear this was, but I'm adding desensitization to fish death to my List of Unpleasant Realizations About Self That Will (Hopefully) Change the Way I Live in the Future. And I'll probably start eating less fish.

Thursday, August 13, 2009

A lesson in disappointment (Viveiro, Spain)

Well shucks. EXPLETIVES. It's Thursday night and I'm not on a ship. The Pina Ladre never came into port tonight -- its equipment broke and it stayed at sea. That should teach me to use the word "psyched"! Juuust kidding (really) -- it should teach me that the sea is fickle and the life of the fisherman unpredictable. I asked three other ship owners if I could go to sea on their ships, but they said, reasonably and not unkindly, "Not without a permit you don't!" And the people I had met yesterday night and early this morning were so nice to me. Francisco and others were the ones who pointed out the other ship owners and said, "What's another rejection? See that man? He owns that ship. He's a good guy. Go ask him."

I have a Plan B (suggested by Francisco): Tomorrow I will take a bus to a nearby fish farm owned by Pescanova and learn about pisciculture! The last time I tried visiting a fish farm, in Camarinhas, I was kicked out (they told me to go get a permit in a town about an hour away) -- perhaps they are less paranoid here. And in the evening I am going on a date with myself to the movies to watch a Swedish thriller. I might even invite myself to an overpriced bag of popcorn to hide behind when I get scared. Maybe my hands will accidentally touch when I'm reaching in the bag -- how cute.

Now I will try to sleep (my body is thinking, "What?"). I'll try to dream about being at sea!

Aaaaaaaghdf;lahdf;lkyjfasdf!!! (Viveiro, Spain)

I'm writing this a little past noon -- in ten hours I will be at sea on a boat, embarking on a twenty-something hour fishing excursion! Whoa! Aaah! Thrilling! adflajdpfoiuare;lkjfasdf. This post will probably be short and possibly incoherent, since I went to sleep just a few hours ago (my first post-college all-nighter!) and, according to my Master Plan, am not even supposed to be awake right now. In a perfect world, a world in which Master Plans are followed, I would stay up all night again tonight to be able to witness every activity aboard the ship; in order to do that, I need to be well-rested. Alas! Imperfect world! We'll see how long I last on the boat. Maybe I have vast reserves of adrenaline, like Alaska with its oil, and I can tap them unsustainably.

The past two days have been eventful, as you may have gathered by now. Well, no -- the past two nights have been eventful. I arrived to Viveiro on Tuesday evening (already a change in my itinerary! I could find exactly zero cheap pensions in Carinho), and that night, after exploring the old town, happened across preparations for a concert in the main plaza. Wonderful! I sat in the same spot for four hours, watching people pass me by before the music started, and then watching people dance and nod their heads after the music started, and felt pretty lucky to be alive and human. The music was great (pronounced "ga-rate!", with exclamation point) -- a fusion of folk (bagpipe and fiddle), jazz (saxophone and drums), and Caribbean rhythms, so people weren't sure whether to sway or shake their hips or folk dance. I tapped my foot and patted my knees with my hands -- classic solution to the which-dance? problem.

The next day, despite my steely determination to sleep in, I woke up early and walked to the port, which is enormous and technically in Celeiro, the next (tiny) town over -- a forty-minute walk from my pension, which is, as I'm learning many cheap pensions are, far away from the Places I Want to Be. It's called Pension Martinez, though, so, like the Restaurante Martinez, has an automatic 4-star rating. There was little happening at the docks -- not a single fisherman! -- so I wandered around Celeiro for a while, enchanted by the narrow streets and grape vines growing over tool shed roofs and countless (actually probably countable, because it is a tiny town) abandoned and decrepit buildings that looked older than most of the abandoned and decrepit buildings I'd seen so far. The towns, Viveiro and Celeiro, and the region itself, feel different from everywhere else I've been in Galicia, but, aside from the obvious differences in location, landscape, and history, I couldn't tell you how. I love the intangible qualities that make each place unique, that make the Galician coast seem to span several countries that just happen to share a language and culture. (That may not have made sense, but smile and nod for now. Remember: I am running on little more than the chocolate I had for breakfast.)

I had been told to go back to the docks at around eight, when the trawling boats that go out daily come into port and their fish is auctioned, so that is what I did! In fact, the boats arrived closer to nine, by which time I had accumulated enough boldness to walk up to the owner of two ships and say, "Hello! Excuse me!" And that was all I said, because he immediately responded, "Let me guess: You want to see the inside of the ship." Mind-reader! I said, "Yes!!!" and he called the nearest ship's captain over. Francisco, the captain, gave me a world-class tour of the ship -- a big ship (perhaps 25 meters long?) -- and explained how the nets worked (the boats go out in pairs and string a gigantic net between them), showed me where the fish were cleaned and stored, briefly led me through the loud engine room, and then took me to the bridge (I think that this is what it's called -- the window-walled room with the steering joysticks and so much more), where he described in detail the computer technology that makes navigating these days so much easier than a few years ago. "But this is a poorly equipped vessel!" he said. "See that ship over there? It's brand-new, just five years old, and has state-of-the-art technology. I know the owner. Want me to introduce you to him?" Mind-reader! I said, "Yes!!!"

Jose, the owner of this larger (over thirty meters long and eight wide) and noticeably higher-tech ship, told me to wait for a while -- the fish had to be unloaded before we could board without getting in the way. Then -- THEN -- we went aboard, and I had the longest and most intense question-and-answer session of my life (and I was the questioner!). Jose is intimidatingly intense, but I held up my own against his piercing continuous eye contact and pretty soon he started giving me more than simple explanations about the functioning of the ship and the lives of the people aboard it. The technology is impressive indeed! My goodness gracious me! At any given moment, he can see: the exact shape of the ocean floor, the weather and wind forecasts, currents, any objects around him (if they are ships, he knows which ship it is, in which direction it's headed and how fast), shoals of different kinds of fish, the positioning of the net and how much fish has been caught in it already, the period of the waves, the meaning of life -- you name it. Just about the only thing that the technology can't do is tell you exactly where to find fish; for that, he told me, you need a "sense of smell" (which he apparently has). He explained that they fished in a certain zone in the summer and another in winter, both near the place where the ocean floor drops off into the deep, and, at the end of the long conversation, when I finally managed to tell him what my project was about (he's a talker), immediately exhibited prodigious knowledge about every natural cycle that could affect fishing.

Some of the information was not new -- migrations, spawning -- but some things I had never heard before! For instance: the power of the moon. Until now, I have always linked the moon to the tides, and hadn't heard a thing about how it affects fishing far from the coast. Jose assured me that it does, and most dramatically. When the moon is full, certain kinds of fish rise to the surface, thinking it is day (or at least sensing that it is light), and others sink farther into the depths, taking advantage of the greater visibility to feed in more richer zones. Other species behave differently when the moon is waxing than when it is waning, although I didn't understand why this was (what factors other than amount of light?). Well, those two sentences surely don't do justice to the moon's role in fishing (which is more obvious on the coast, where the magnitude of the tides changes over the course of the lunar cycle and also over the course of the year -- when the Earth is closer to the Sun, the tides are greater), but I was thrilled that these were connections that the captain of a state-of-the-art ship had made. Jose also told me that many fish populations follow a four- or five-year cycle -- after one good fishing year, there are usually three or four bad fishing years before the next abundance -- but he couldn't explain why. His closing remark on natural cycles was: "Even with all of this technology, we're still subject to the exact same things that our forefathers two hundred years ago were subject to" -- those things being the patterns and whims of nature.

I had one last question for Jose, and asked it in characteristic awkward form: "Jose -- I have a question to ask -- butpleasedon'tfeelobligatedtosayyes -- it'sreallyokayifyousayno -- okayhere'sthequestion: do you think that I could go out with you on the boat tomorrow night?" He didn't say, "Yes!!!" but he did say, "Yes," stressing that there was going to be bad weather (I promised that I don't get seasick -- I am pretty sure that this is true) and I wouldn't see the boat or ten-man crew working at its prime. No worries! I get to see them working! Sub-prime or not, it's so exciting! The boat leaves at around 10:00 pm each night and comes in the following evening -- probably 8:00ish on Friday, Jose told me. Almost a full day in the open sea! I almost skipped away.

I wanted to see the large boats come in at around 2:00 am, so I decided to walk back to Viveiro to watch another open-air concert in the main plaza (there are concerts every night for two weeks). This time it was rock -- a group called Burning, which has been around for decades -- and I sat, as I had the night before, alone in a crowd of couples and families. Sob. But: miracle! The empathetic capabilities of children! Out of the blue, an adorable little boy came and sat next to me on my step. I said, "Hi!" and he said, "Hi! What's your name?" His sister joined us soon afterward, and I spent the next hour or so getting to know Jorge and Marta, who are six and eight, respectively, dancing with them, and waging sunflower seed war against them. They are from Madrid. Jorge's best friend's name is Victor. Marta's best friend's name is Celia. Jorge thought the music was too loud. Marta plays the flute and thinks English is hard. She asked me what my mother's name was. Instant intimacy. They were the most delightful children I have ever met. They were like miniature versions of adults (except for the sunflower seed wars), complete with typical Spanish hand gestures combined with the appropriate meaningful eyebrow movements, and I couldn't stop laughing. Once again, and in the same place, I felt pretty lucky to be alive and human. I met their parents, also extraordinarily open and friendly people, who told me that they couldn't get their children to shut up or stop engaging strangers in conversations (this with big smiles on their faces), and -- ugh. The world is full of such good people! I hope that Jorge and Marta have beautiful lives.

When the concert was over, I walked back to the docks (the walk was scarier each time I made it, because the street was darker and more deserted), and spent the next four and a half hours in a zombie-like daze, watching boats that had been out at sea for two weeks unload their cargo and occasionally talking to a worker or to the director of the lonja, who was bent on making me feel as comfortable as possible. It was interesting to see the boats unload, and less interesting to watch the 5:00 am auction, which was exactly like every other auction I've seen (if at a larger lonja than most, and spread out in four separate halls). The main reason I stayed at the lonja all night was so that I would be able to sleep today and stay up again tonight. FAILED PLAN. Perhaps I'll manage to conk out this afternoon after posting this.

Or maybe I am just too psyched (I haven't used that word in so long! it is a great word!) about the upcoming boat trip. I hope that watching the fish die isn't too traumatic an experience. That's something I've been meaning to write about: desensitization to fish death. But it will have to be another day. My "probably short" post has turned into a chapter, and I doubt anyone has been able to read this far. What's an appropriately nautical way to end this post? Thar she blows! Land ho! Yaaaargh! Thus shall I speak tonight.

Monday, August 10, 2009

A reunion with (month-and-a-half-)old friends (La Corunha, Spain)

I'm so glad that I planned to stop by La Corunha for a few days on my way east along the north-facing coast of Galicia, Asturias, and Cantabria! I'm staying with Simon, who was my one-man welcoming party when I first arrived to Galicia and with whom I spent that lovely afternoon on the coast (ancient stone dwellings, ancient burial site, long sand dune, and friends: Almudena, Sylvia, Juan, and little Giulia) long ago, when seagull cries were still novel and exhilarating. Now when I hear seagull cries I expect to see a box of dead fish nearby (association), but Simon remains extremely welcoming and kind. He, Almudena and I went walking yesterday night and had a light and very Spanish dinner at a restaurant in the older part of town, after which we came back to the apartment and, by turns, admired and chased their cute chubby rabbit, who is named either Cocky or Cookie. I hope it's Cocky.

I have seen other friends, too! I spent all of this afternoon with Guillermo, Mirela, and their children Nicolas and Nicole, at their home, where we had a very Spanish lunch (featuring olives, pimientos de padron, ham, chicken, bread, ice cream!). Guillermo is the fisherman without whose guidance I would have been totally lost at the docks; Mirela is his wife, without whose help at the early-morning fish auction I would surely have managed to get impaled by a fish hook -- an undignified death. I caught them in the middle of a move; last week they left their apartment to live in the upper floors of a storage unit at the docks, the first floor of which is Guillermo's workshop, where he was making octopus cages today. They are setting everything up themselves -- sinks, tables, shelves, kitchen -- and, during breaks, providing so much attention to their black cocker spaniel that he must be the happiest canine in the world. I like to judge families by the friendliness of their pets, and both Cocky/Cookie and little Hyperactivity Embodied (he has a much nobler name, but I've forgotten it) are excellent representatives for their respective households.

Guillermo and Oscar, the man who drove me from the lonja to their place, told me that fishing has gotten considerably worse in the past ten years. Oscar said that, five years ago, he used to catch five kilos of a certain type of fish; now he catches two kilos on a good day, and good days are few and far between. There are no fish! The type of fishing that he does, minhos, which are long rectangular nets hung vertically in the water so that fish get caught in them, has a theoretical (and legal) maximum length of net per boat. However, Oscar, and every other fisherman who has to support himself and a family, has been increasing the length of net that he puts out every year, only to catch the same amount of fish or less. Oscar attributed this diminishing catch to climate changes and, more importantly, overfishing, about which something should have been done years ago. Now, both he and Guillermo said, the only thing to be done is to wait for the sea to set its own limit; when there are no more fish to catch, the fishermen will have to stop fishing. A lose-lose situation, downward spiral, no good no good.

I haven't yet written about the rest of my stay in Malpica, which was mostly uneventful (in the most neutral sense of the word) but spattered with interesting characters, to whom I'll briefly introduce you! I spent a lot of time at the docks, mostly attending the fish and percebe auctions; at the latter I met Dona (imagine the "n" with a tilde over it) Carmen, an elderly woman who sold her two sons' percebes, and three strapping young lads, Richard, Yarmin, and Ivan, with whom she tried to set me up. Dona Carmen was initially cold towards me -- no smiles, little eye contact -- but I decided later that this was probably due to a hearing impairment; when I spoke very loudly directly into her ear, she responded immediately and with a lot of hand-patting.

Even speaking very loudly directly into her ear might not have been enough to achieve total comprehension, though, because our conversations tended towards the incoherent. For example, I might ask, "Oh, so, you have a son who lives in La Corunha! Do you get to see him a lot?" and she might respond, "I have two sons. One of them is single -- but he's good-looking. And it's not just because I'm his mother! He's a handsome chap. The other one is married, and his wife's name is Maria. But my eldest is single." Being single seemed to be a problem, because when I told her that I was single and traveling alone, she immediately recommended that I find a boyfriend. Later, when I introduced myself to Richard, Yarmin, and Ivan to ask them about their work as percebeiros, she came up to us, patted my hands, and told me, "There, see, now you've met some nice boys." The nice boys took it well. They are a few years older than I am, and have been gathering percebes as a full-time job for several years. Knowing the people who had collected the percebes made watching the auction a much tenser experience. Every time a buyer passed by one of their boxes without displaying the least bit of interest, I booed at them inside my head, which didn't help at all but made the whole affair seem a lot more like a basketball game than a transaction of goods. I was also reminded of the hardships of sea-bound livelihoods -- Richard's father had died eight months ago doing exactly what Richard does almost every day: gathering percebes.

And another anectode: Another afternoon at the docks, I met a man named Paco, who, with minimal prompting, volunteered his life story. He had been, he said, the best percebeiro in Malpica in his day -- I could ask any older person in town! -- and had fulfilled his duty as a parent by providing each of his six children with a place to live. Two of his children still lived at home, but hadn't spoken to him for three years, because he had fallen in love again four years after his wife's death. His children disapproved of the relationship because it had blossomed too soon after their mother passed away, and also because they found the age difference between their father and his new companion appalling: they are 80 and 64, respectively. (I find it so funny that this is an appalling age difference!)

But he was very much in love, and had even proposed to his "amiga" that they move in together to spend the rest of their years building a new life. She also had children, but one of her daughters had turned out "bad." I thought, "Drugs, prison . . . lesbian?!" Yes! Lesbian! Ten points for me! She was, in his words, "lisbana -- I don't know the word -- but, you know, she got together with another woman." I almost laughed out loud, because I immediately thought of a Capitol Steps sketch I heard months ago in which "Sarah Palin" lauded Dick Cheney's foreign relations experience because his daughter is Lebanese. How exciting that Paco's amiga's daughter was Lebanese, too! We talked a bit about parental love, and how it was sometimes difficult to accept that children hadn't turned out quite as expected; at some point, Paco said, "Well, everybody's different." With this he won my heart (he was halfway there already with the late romance). Also, much to my joy, he told me that the Lebanese daughter and her partner had adopted a little girl who was the apple of her grandmother's eye (and Paco's, too, I could tell). Even though the mother and Paco had trouble with the idea that the daughter's romantic partner was a woman, the family was whole. I hope that Paco's children start talking to him again, so that his family becomes whole, too.

Oof! All of these people living their lives! It makes me want to meet everyone in the world.

In other news: I think that I know where I am going to live in Mexico! More information forthcoming.

Thursday, August 6, 2009

A difficult profession (Malpica, Spain)

(Once again, I wrote this last night but am posting it this morning. Soon I will go meet with Elisa and Gloria!)

Percebeiros have it rough! The barnacles they scrape from coastal rocks grow precisely where it is most difficult and dangerous to reach them -- where white-capped waves break even at low tide. At the trickiest spots or on especially windy days, the percebeiros tie ropes around their middles, which they then attach to higher ground or a strong and trusted friend; between waves, they rush down to scrape as many percebes (goose barnacles -- the Spanish term is about fifty-nine times more appealing) off the rocks as they can before the next wave hits, by which time they have (hopefully) rushed back up. In calmer areas, they still have to avoid big waves by occasionally running up to higher ground, but the rope is unnecessary. It is heart-thumping work! I got a thrill from just watching the big waves crash and break apart on the rocks from a good ten meters up the hill; the wet-suited percebeiros were getting drenched.

The work environment is one thing, but percebeiros also have fascinating work schedules! Like most Europeans, they work ten and a half months out of the year, but a mix of natural and human laws makes their work weeks vary in length from one to five days. Percebeiros can only go out at low tide, which occurs about an hour later each day (today it was at around 11:00, and tomorrow it will be at around 12:00) -- the natural law, gravity -- but they are also only allowed to gather percebes between 8:00 am and 5:00 pm -- the human law. On days that low tide occurs later than 5:00 pm, there's no work and no money. (The five-day maximum work week is also human-imposed -- weekends!)

On a shorter timescale, the rhythm of percebe-gathering varies according to the weather. Diego, a young percebeiro I met (and interrogated) at the lonja this afternoon, told me that, in good weather, there is a pattern to the waves: three or four big waves in a row are followed by a calm during which one can go down and scrape the percebes. In bad weather, there are more waves, but it's the days with neither good nor bad weather that are the most dangerous; it's easy for a percebeiro to get overly confident and be hit by a sneak-attack wave. I have been told that, every year, somebody dies gathering percebes. Diego said that the last percebe-related death in this area happened seven years ago.

Percebeiros are not all men, nor are they all young! In fact, most of the people selling percebes at the lonja yesterday evening (and this evening, though I didn't stay for the auction) were women, and several were well into their sixties. The women always work on shore, though, while the men sometimes go in boats to the nearby Islas Sisargas, and the older people work in the least dangerous places (and collect the least valuable percebes, which are still in demand and expensive!). Also, though it is not done here, percebes can be gathered underwater by divers -- these are of lower quality, because they haven't been exposed to the sun. The best percebes are, of course, the ones that are hardest to get -- crashing waves! aiiie!

And now for something percebe-unrelated: I spent a good deal of the afternoon talking with Elisa and Gloria, two net-menders who talked over each other to give me more information than I could process about the history of Malpica and other nearby ports; the effects on fishing of Spain's joining the European Union; their work on the nets; the repercussions of the Prestige oil spill; their opinions on schools being taught in Gallego instead of Spanish (they are anti); places I cannot miss in Asturias and Cantabria (I foresee more feverish poring over my guide book and maps); und so weiter. They also told me that, since the winds are going to start blowing from the north tomorrow, it's unlikely that the night ships will pull into the Malpica port in the next few days; rather, they'll take shelter in La Corunha. (This means that I can sleep later!) And Elisa offered to lend me a book on Malpica's history and a CD of new and old photos of the city -- I'm meeting them again tomorrow morning. (Not that much later, though.) Wonderful people!

Wednesday, August 5, 2009

A new favorite town (Malpica, Spain)

(I wrote this last night but have internet this morning. I was just at the docks -- the night boats didn't come in! They went to La Corunha instead. Now I will go look for percebeiros along the coast!)

Oh woe! Morpheus has forsaken me! The past few nights have been somewhat sleepless (or somewhat semi-sleepless, which is even more frustrating -- lying in bed in the wee hours and drifting into and out of conscious thought processes, most of which culminate in: "Irene! You need to go to sleep!"), and tonight the wakefulness continues. Agony! I must suffer more than anyone I know. (I just finished reading "Middlemarch" -- I'm channeling Rosamond.) But don't worry -- I've decided to fight back by staying fully conscious and writing in my blog! I know. It is a pretty great idea.

I'm incredibly happy to be where I am right now! During most of this trip, my "favorite town so far" has always been the one I find myself in, for obvious reasons (I'm closest to my most recent good-hearted acquaintances). However, my stay in Camarinhas wasn't as pleasant as I had hoped it would be. I can think of several reasons for this:

1) The port was devoid of relaxed old men standing around holding fishing poles and shouting things at each other. In fact, the port was mostly "empty" when I tried to hang around and make friends. I put the word "empty" in quotation marks because there were people -- secretaries and port authority officers behind desks in the buildings, and, at the auction in the late morning, a small group of women and men who were selling their clams -- but very few of them seemed interested in answering any of my questions. Since the fishing takes place mostly at night, I only first met fishermen on Monday evening, and even then it was just one crew (an extremely friendly crew, though!). (Side note: My theory about the lack of old fisherman community is that, since the port is fairly new, and sardine fishing fairly boat-contained, retired fishermen don't have docks to go "back" to, nor are their services sought out by working fishermen.)

As I had already planned to leave on Tuesday morning (and I was a little bit desperate to), I ended up feeling that my visit to Camarinhas was largely unproductive. Positive Irene would say, "No! You did get a sense of the place! You thought a lot!" But Irene Who Worries About Squandering this Opportunity, who can talk at least six times louder inside my head (she has learned to project), would lock Positive Irene in a closet.

2) I felt a lot like a tourist after having spent the first two days hiking along the coast and walking through town wearing my conspicuous adventure backpack, Fabio, and I think that people already saw me as one of the many landscape-admiring passers-through by the time I started loitering (first at the docks, then in other social spots).

3) One homophobic remark, directed at a man whose long hair was gathered into a pony tail. It wasn't particularly hateful (as far as such things go), but it was completely unnecessary (as all such things are), and it ruined for me what would have otherwise been a nice meeting with a nice group of nice old men -- it turned into a disappointing meeting with a suspect group of prejudiced old men.

During the weekend I had noticed this (adjective-free) group of men sitting on some benches under the ceiling of an unfinished building along the main street, and had decided to sit on one of the benches early on Monday afternoon to chat up the first ones to arrive. My plan worked! Francisco was the first to show up, and he sat next to me and told me about his life in Camarinhas -- he had been a farmer, and now that he was retired and had little else to do, he spent every afternoon sitting on these benches with a group of men he'd known since childhood. They'd been at these benches for three years; for thirteen years before that, they met at a road crossing near a soccer field a ways up the hill. He had five children, nine grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren, to which Manuel, the next man to arrive, said, "Now you can die happy!" Manuel had been a fishermen and a farmer, and had spent some years working in construction in Switzerland -- he occasionally rubbed my head like it was a dog, and he told me what kind of man I wanted for a husband (thank you, Manuel). He was also the man who made the homophobic remark; and shortly after he made it, I said, "Well I'm going to go take a nap!" and left.

I think that I reacted strongly (in my head) because I have been feeling the pressure of heteronormativity since arriving to Galicia. Especially in the small towns that I've been visiting, there are no signs of queerness anywhere, and I've been hit on by many men under the age of forty and given love advice by many men and women over the age of forty -- all of whom assume that I am interested in men! (I'm not!) I know that this is Most of the World, and that I'd have this shock going from my Pomona bubble to just about anywhere else -- but I'm having it here.

4) PMS. Really. Starting to cry a few seconds after turning on the news should have tipped me off. This, combined with NO CHOCOLATE FOR TWO DAYS (a lot of Nutella, but that doesn't count), probably threw all of the chemicals in my body out of whack and may also be responsible for my entire "mood" regarding Camarinhas -- maybe I was just seeing things through PMS-tinted glasses!

5) Anxiety regarding my living situation in Mexico. Where will I live? How much will it cost? Shouldn't I know this by now?! (This last question is the killer.)

Goodness! So far this entire entry has been a complaint! You'll be relieved to discover that I'm in an infinitely better mood tonight (even though I know that I'll be groggy tomorrow morning), and that I would only use positive adjectives to describe my first impression of Malpica and my experience here so far. The town is beautiful -- worn down but colorful, with some houses built on the edges of cliffs -- and, by far, the most vertical one I've been in so far. There are narrow alleys everywhere, most steeply inclined, and long flights of stairs serve as shortcuts in some places instead. The port is full of boats and, more importantly, people! At the fish auction today, where I saw several species I'd never seen before, many of these people smiled at me, and some even talked with me! When the fish auction was over, I sat through the entire goose barnacle auction (highest price 74 Euros/kilo, lowest 14.25/kilo), and a woman who was chewing on them raw noticed me looking at her and gave me one to try! The point of all of these exclamation points is: human contact! The point is not: raw goose barnacle. That may well be my only sample of goose barnacles, cooked or uncooked, since they are prohibitively expensive both ways, and I'd be fine without seconds. I do hope, however, to see people collecting them along the coast. Low tide is at 11:00 tomorrow morning, and I was told that if I start walking west at 9:30 am, I am bound to come across some percebeiros. That is my morning plan!

My living situation is also ideal. I'm staying in a comfortable room above a restaurant in Seaia, which was probably once its own town but is now an extension of Malpica. It takes me about twenty minutes to walk to the port (downhill) and thirty minutes to walk back (uphill!), which is great! A disincentive to take an afternoon nap! And a reason to spend many an uninterrupted hour at the docks.

Now I just have to fall asleep. Morpheus!

An itinerary (Malpica, Spain)

On the evening before one of my somewhat semi-sleepless nights, I feverishly pored over my guide book and map to create the following itinerary, which I hope duly impresses you ("duly" being an amount proportionate to the fireworks of brain energy that went into it):

* Malpica, Galicia -- 8/5 - 8/9
* La Corunha, Galicia -- 8/9 - 8/11
* Carinho, Galicia -- 8/11 - 8/15
* Burela, Galicia -- 8/15 - 8/20
* Foz, Galicia -- 8/20 - 8/25
* Gijon, Asturias -- 8/25 - 8/28
* Oviedo, Asturias -- 8/28 - 8/30
* Llanes, Asturias -- 8/30 - 9/2
* Santander, Cantabria -- 9/2 - 9/7
(Note: From Santander I will also be visiting Anselmo and Angel, the two men I met at the waterfall in Ezaro, in their town, which is called Soria.)
* Madrid -- 9/7 - 9/11
* Toledo -- 9/11 - 9/13
* La Corunha -- 9/13 - 9/15 -- and then I fly to Morelia, Mexico via Barcelona, Philadelphia, Chicago, and Mexico City, because my carbon footprint isn't big enough already.

!!! We'll see how much this plan changes. But I like it for now!

Saturday, August 1, 2009

A long walk with two Germans (Camarinhas, Spain)

I am writing on a bed in a hotel room – oh no! My strategy of inquiring about available rooms in bars failed here in Camarinhas (it was bound to sometime, I guess). The upshot is that there is a giant column about two meters to my left, right in the middle of the room, and I feel a little bit like I’m in Greece.

Camarinhas is larger than Muxia, and there are more boats in its port! However, since it’s a weekend, there’s almost no activity until Monday, and even then it will be slow compared to Tuesday (the night fishermen will go out for the first time on Monday evening). The main type of fishing here is sardine fishing, and, as I understand it, boats sell the fish directly to buyers, who load their trucks at ungodly hours of the morning (even more ungodly than 5:00 am, when some of the big fish auctions have taken place). My plan is the following: On Monday morning I will hang out at the docks and chat up whoever is looking particularly eager to talk, and by Monday evening I’ll know if I’m feeling masochistic enough to wake up and watch the sardine boats arrive in the wee hours. A two-step plan – doable. I’m excited to see a port in action again, and to smell like dead fish.

The past two days I’ve been extremely fortunate in finding non-fisherman subjects (victims) to interrogate! In Muxia I expected to watch the sunset alone, thinking about, you know, the meaning of life, but instead I ended up talking with two French women for about an hour! We met when I asked one of them if it was possible to see Camarinhas on the other side of the ria, and, after the obligatory small talk (“Where are you from? How long are you here for? What have you done?”), I ended up telling them about my project. They seemed interested, so I asked if I could “interview” them (I also put quotation marks around that word when I’m talking), and they said oui! I wrote about our conversation when I went back to my room that night, and have retro-posted the entry, so it appears as though I posted it on July 30th when really I’m posting it along with this one. Manipulation of facts! But I’m confessing so that I don’t feel too dishonest.

Yesterday, Friday, I took a bus from Muxia to Camarinhas, and, after hostel bargain-hunting for Too Long (and with the end result that there is a column in the middle of my room), ran into a German woman and girl I had noticed on the bus in the tourist office. They were having serious communication problems with the young men behind the counter and were about to resort to interpretive dance when I offered to translate (too bad!). We had the cliché tourist conversation (they are from Muenchen and Spreewald, here in Spain for a few weeks, and had just finished the Camino de Santiago), then decided to go on a hike together to a lighthouse called Faro Vilan, about eight kilometers away. Gaby, the woman, was very religious (Christian, Protestant), and asked me about my faith even before I asked her about hers as part of my project! She, Linda (the 15-year-old daughter of a friend of hers, whom she had taken on vacation, and who is Catholic), and I ended up talking about theology and spirituality for most of the five hours that we were walking together. I learned so much! And I was impressed by Gaby’s willingness to share personal thoughts that she had obviously been developing over the course of her life. Linda, too, was candid, and told us about both what she’d been taught in her religion classes (e.g. that the meaning of life was to find one’s soulmate-of-the-opposite-sex-and-gender – not the kind of meaning of life I would want to reach watching the sunset!) and what she found questionable (the same).

That night, Gaby, Linda and I agreed to meet and go together to the Fiesta de la Juventud at a nearby beach, which Juan, a worker at the port, had told me about. We ate grilled chorizo, ribs, and pimientos de padron (no spicy ones), and I taught Linda what little I knew about dancing! She had obviously been repressing the dancer within for some time, because she kept dancing alone even when I occasionally got distracted watching other people and stopped. When we walked back to town, Gaby gave me two German poems as a parting gift – what a super gift! I am inspired to start giving poems that I like to people along my travels! Just have to find a printer (or let loose my inner scribe).

This morning was rainy and gray, and I walked around in my rain coat with the hood up, seeing only what was directly in front of me. But I heard an interesting sound! Camarinhas is known for its lace, and I happen to be here during its first annual lace contest! It is an impossibly complicated-looking process – a bunch of pins stuck into a pillow with many dozens of wooden bobs hanging from them by strings, and the women toss the wooden bobs back and forth from hand to hand faster than the eye can follow. It looks totally random, but somehow little lace flowers and arcs emerge from the madness (like monkeys at typewriters producing Shakespeare, but consistently and with good spelling). And when the little wooden bobs bump against each other, they make a soft little “click-click-click” sound, which I heard every now and then from the open window of a house as I wandered through town. Super! Now it is sunny, and I will wander again without my raincoat and with a much wider field of view.