A month already (Muros, Spain)

I have spent a month in Spain already! So much has happened that it feels like several years have passed, and at the same time I’m sad that only eleven twelfths of the Watson pie are left -- it is a very tasty pie.

I am writing in Muros, a town of about 10,000 in the southernmost region of the Costa de Muerte (or perhaps south of the Costa de Muerte? I’m not sure where the death begins). When I left Vigo I was hoping for a change in scenery, and Muros has not disappointed – the coast feels longer, since the town is not deep in a ria, and the cloud-topped hills are covered with dark pine trees and gray boulders. The town also feels much smaller than anywhere I’ve been; everyone knows each other, greets each other on the street, and is on the street in the first place – people spend a lot of time outside despite occasional and unpredictable rainshowers.

It is thanks to people knowing each other that I find myself writing this on a sofa in my very own apartment right in front of the port (really!) instead of in a hostel room six kilometers out of town. When I realized my mistake in making a reservation at a place so far from where I wanted to be, and also realized that every hostel in town costs more than my strict budget allows for, I asked the bus driver for suggestions. He took me to a bar and told me to ask the woman who owned it for a room – other drivers sometimes spent the night there – but the bar was closed. I went to the store next door, where two kind women insisted that I leave my bags and explore town while I waited for the bar to open, and when I came back, I spoke with the bar owner. No room! Alas. I went next door again to retrieve my bags, and asked the women there if they might know somebody who could offer me a room (or sofa or floor) for a few nights. They thought for a few moments and then said, “Mariloli!” (Auspicious name.) One of them walked with me to a barbershop, where I met Mariloli, who said that I could spend a few nights at the apartment that she usually rents, since the next renters don’t arrive until August. Luxury! I don’t expect to have this much room to myself again for the next 15 or so years, and it’s a minute’s walk to the port.

Now every time I pass the bar, the owner and I enthusiastically greet each other through the window, and Mariloli has invited me to eat with her family tomorrow, Thursday, which is the celebration for the Virgen del Carmen (three days of festivities start tonight – I think that it will be difficult to sleep). I’ve also met the next door neighbor, Susa, who saw through the second-story window that I had tended my clothing on the kitchen chairs and forcefully offered to give me clothes pegs (“Oh no, don’t worry, it’s fine like this.” “NONSENSE. Look, I have a whole bucket-full; I’ll lend you some.” “Please don’t trouble yourself – my clothes are almost dry already.” “I’M COMING OVER.”). When I went to her house to return the clothes pegs, she and her husband pulled out a chair for me and gave me coffee – like Mariloli, the bar owner, the women in the store, and everyone else I’ve met, they made me swear (stopped just short of telling me to sign my name in blood) that I will not hesitate to come to them if I need anything.

I have been equally fortunate at the port! That evening, I met Manolo the net-mender, who was working on the long nets for drag fishing (trolling? I’ll look it up) (I looked it up! TRAWLING). He explained how other nets worked (minhos and betas, which hang in the water from buoys and differ in the number of layers that they have) and introduced me to several other net-menders. Yesterday I spent most of the day at or near the port. I first met Felipe, who owns 14 bateas (rafts where mussels are raised) and was overseeing his three workers on one of the many ships with a large crane in the middle of it (to lift up the ropes full of mussels). I asked him if I could go out with them someday, expecting him either to say no or “come back tomorrow,” but instead of either of these he said, “We’ll go right now!” I was shocked, and felt terrible getting in the way of work, but he assured me that it didn’t matter if the boat was in motion or not – Francisco, Carlos and Nando, the three men on the boat, were just fixing the ropes to put more seed mussels on them. The water has had toxins in it for over two months and they haven’t been able to sell any mussels; all the work that they are doing now is maintenance. They took me to three different bateas so that I could see baby, teenaged, and eating-aged mussels – we clambered along the large wooden beams (they more gracefully than I) and pulled up some ropes (for the last group, the mature mussels, Felipe used the crane – one rope full of mature mussels weighs 300 kilos!).

Back at the port, I talked with Manolo again, who told me that most of the drag-fishing (TRAWLING) boats were docking in other ports, since the fish was in other areas. Most boats (80% of them) are fishing octopus now, which I confirmed later in the afternoon at the fish auction, where there were crates and crates of dead or dying octopi (I think that I had nightmares because of this) (I empathize strongly with octopi).

Before the fish auction, though, I was told to go to the beach, and soon! before the tide came back in, to see the marisqueras, women who rake or shovel the sand for clams. I put on my wet-shoes and squished through seaweed and liquid sand to the area where they were working – many dozens of them, and even more waist-deep or more in the water (but I didn’t follow them there). They are allowed to gather clams at this beach from July until September, and then they move on to another beach; this rotation allows the clam populations to replenish themselves. I asked how they knew when to come out -- i.e. when the tide was at its lowest – and they said, “Oh, we have calendars. The calendars tell us the time, and we watch the clock.” Yesterday the low tide was not very low at all, because the moon is not full or new, but they go every day to gather what they can. The fish auction was at 5:30, and I was proud to know what most of the fish were called before being told the names (learning!). I think that I’ll go again today – I have yet to talk to a fisherman of fish (or even of octopus).

This morning I walked to the nearby town of Louro, where I climbed up Monte Louro to look at the coast to the north and the open ocean. I worry that my legs will go on strike one of these days – but so far they are tolerating my abuses admirably.