A rainbow or two and a ferry ride (La Guardia, Spain)

After writing my last post, I went on a walk to the far reaches of La Guardia (which are not so very far from anything – this is a small town) and saw a rainbow! It was bright and enormous, a whole arc with a beginning and an end, and I got so excited that I looked around wildly for somebody to tell about it – but the streets were empty. I had to enjoy it by myself. That’s becoming the theme of this trip; it will take me a while to get used to it (or I’ll crack and start talking to my imaginary friend Eduardo -- I’m sure that will make it even more difficult to find someone to tell about exciting things.)

The next morning, in the hours before Antonio the fisherman would come to port and his friends would help him untangle and de-fish his net, I went on a walk along the coast. LO AND BEHOLD: another rainbow! This one went right into the ocean, and a ship passed through it as I watched – I’ll have to keep a look-out for extra colorful people these next few days. There were, again, no other people around, so I pointed it out to the snails crawling over the rocks and grass. I’m sure that they sat there for a few moments in awe of refraction. Along the coast, I passed several ruins (yes!), one of which was mostly underwater. It appears to have been some sort of fort . . . but I have yet to ask about it. I’ve also seen many ruins of another kind -- new but empty houses that are beginning to break down. They are everywhere, and every time I see one I’m tempted to move in (“Can’t get cheaper than this! Take that, hostel!” – because hostels here are expensive). It’s a constant reminder, though, that Spain is going through two economic crises: the international crisis we know and love, and also the building crisis. There are half-finished and finished but empty houses and apartment complexes everywhere.

At eleven I was at the docks, speaking with several old men. Two of them told me about the connections between Galicia and the Caribbean islands of Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic – many Gallegos have moved there, and many have moved back, so that, as my hostel keeper had told me earlier in the morning, there were “many, and I mean many” Puerto Ricans here in La Guardia. Two nearby streets are called Puerto Rico and Republica Dominicana, and I’ve seen a Villa Borinquen as well as a Café Quisqueya. I spoke with Benito again, and this time tried to tell him more directly about my project, but I think that I didn’t make sense to him. When I asked him if he would make a drawing with which he would explain to someone what time was, he just kept talking, and I felt like a failure – but really I’m learning! I was expecting to approach this topic obliquely anyway, and I’m sure that as I observe and experience more my understanding will become more concrete. I’ve decided that these first few weeks are the trial period – I’ve been in a big city, am now in a small town, and will soon be visiting even smaller villages and another large city. I’ll get a feel for each of the settings and then decide how best to distribute the rest of my time in Galicia (because time is a commodity). And soon I’ll be in a better position to compare! It’s difficult to do that right now, having visited only two ports.

Speaking of comparisons, I do have one to share. Benito said something interesting when I first asked him about time: “The fisherman always leaves at the same time, but he never knows when he’ll come back. It could be the same day or it could be two days later. The sea is treacherous.” He mentioned fogs (and what if the fisherman has forgotten his compass?) and bad weather. I imagine that this happens occasionally here, because the boats are small and manned by only one person (personned by only one man?), but I can’t imagine any of the fishermen in La Corunha telling me this. They have larger ships with built-in computers that tell them exactly where they are, and, while they’re still at the mercy of the weather, they probably manage to avoid getting stuck where they don’t want to be. In La Guardia, things seem a little less certain than at La Corunha – and, because there’s much less demand, it’s okay. Nobody expects perfect delivery all of the time, and, if bad weather or some other treachery of the sea throws a wrench in the commercial machine, at least the machine is smaller.

In the afternoon I walked back along the coast to Camposancos, where one can take a ferry to the Portuguese town of Caminha. (On the way, I was able to climb on the ruins in the water because the tide had fallen!) I did this, and wandered around Caminha for a few hours. It is a beautiful town, with tiled buildings and long stone paths and well-kept gardens and parks, and many churches, several of which I went into. It felt like Portugal, not Spain, although I don’t know enough about Portugal to say why. And it was colder! No joke! I wonder if it has to do with the way the wind blows. Or maybe Portuguese weathermen are meaner than Spanish ones.

I came back to the hostel and read . . . “Dracula”! I’m about three-quarters through now and think that most of the characters need to get with it (and spend way too much time writing in their journals . . . but who am I to judge?).

This morning I went to the mercadillo, where, instead of fish and food, as I had expected, I found stalls and stalls of clothing. I went grocery shopping instead of clothes shopping, then visited the tiny Maritime Museum (reading every single word in it, in Gallego, took me about fifteen minutes) and left to wander the coast on the other side of town – more ruins in the water, and a lot of crumbling stone walls that now encircle bushy wild ferns and prickly plants instead of the gardens that they probably housed before. Tonight there is a public music festival in the town’s open-air auditorium! And tomorrow morning I leave La Guardia for Baiona, after which I will go to Vigo.