Vigo + — Ilana Lehrman

I had originally planned to travel to Bilbao, Spain in one day, the day that Logan left, which turned out to be foolish. I only realized the day before that it would be an overnight affair because of a layover, and that I would have to find a hotel in Vigo, Spain, which is a very small city directly above Portugal. I was able to find a last minute hotel room, and boarded the Vigo bound train at 7PM a few hours after Logan departed. I will start by saying that the train system Europe, at least in Portugal and Spain, is NOT easy, contrary to what I’ve heard from many. Not at ALL.

For whatever reason in hell, even when one has paid for a Eurail pass (which I did) with whatever deal (I got the deal with 10 days of travel within 2 months) they require you to make reservations for every leg of the trip in person at the stations, which often have additional costs. And it turns out that trains are frequently booked hours before one would arrive at the station. (Logan and I suffered slightly from this idiocy on our journey from Lisbon to Porto, when we had to wait four hours for the following one.)

My train from Porto arrived in Vito at 10:30PM. I needed to reserve my ticket for my next train, to Miranda de Ebro, which left the following morning at 7:30AM, but there was no one at the ticket booth and trying to use the machine turned hopeless. I had an acute feeling that things would not work out in the morning, but I left for the hotel, hoping that someone at the station would be able to help me before my train in the morning.

I arrived at the hotel extremely hungry because I had eaten minimally that day, was exhausted, and very worried about getting to Bilbao the next day. I had to use google translate to tell the young boy at the “front desk” that I was checking in. I also had to use my phone’s light to find my room upstairs. In my bag I had the four cans of sardines that Logan and I had bought for our Tua venture and not touched, along with the rest of the digestives. I did what I needed to do. I opened my window, leaned out with a sardine can in hand, opened it, and ate it with my special sheep spoon. The stuff was absolutely repulsive, but I was so hungry that I wolfed it down as quickly as possible, and then ate two digestives. I left the opened can on the exterior windowsill and it is most likely still there to this day.

Content warning: grieved ramblings ahead. Skip if desired.

I barely slept that night because of the anxiety about the following day, and because the springs of the bed were stabbing my back horribly. I had been long awake when my alarm went off at 6:30 and I got ready and rushed to the station to try to sort things out. I still had the horrible feeling that things would go wrong. Indeed, the woman at the ticket booth, who knew not a word of English, told me the train to Miranda de Ebro (my second layover en route to Bilbao) had sold out and the following one was not until the next day. I desperately searched online to try to find another option, and! I found that a train to Miranda de Ebro was leaving from the other Vigo station at 8AM, which was only a 20 minute walk away. I had time.

My travel outfit has become: my pants that have massive pockets, because pockets are crucial for traveling, and a red “muscle tee” turtleneck, which happens to be made of wool. It’s a pretty ridiculous travel shirt because a shirt that is not made of wool is also crucial for travel, and I really realized this now I was speed walking up steep hills to this other train station. I was dripping by the time I got in line for the booth, at the bottom of some mall. I was told that it was the very same train, which was just stopping at this station after it left the other. My desperation clearly blinded my common sense. So I rushed back to the other station to reserve a seat for the tomorrow train, with my now habituated anxiety manifested as the immense fear that it would be sold out by the point I got back there.

When I arrived, the same woman told me that I could not reserve my tickets until 9AM. It was 8AM. Absurd. So I returned to the hotel to get my included ~free breakfast~. I prepared myself for the worst. I sat in the breakfast room, a small office-y room with a tiny TV at the ceiling and was asked if I wanted tostada or gratin (I think). I assumed that tostada was toast and that gratin was something with potatoes, and figured that at this point my body would welcome potatoes more readily than bread. But alas, the gratin was a frighteningly sweet brioche croissant. Unfortunately I was so hungry that I ate it all.

Remembering that I would have to book another night at the hotel, I went to the front desk, and was told that they were booked. (What??) However, I somehow comprehended from the (nice!) owner’s Spanish rambling, they had a partner hotel nearby that had space for me. I will venture to say that this hotel was worse. The smell of mildew in my room was horrendous, though the bed was not conspicuously painful. I changed out of my red wool turtleneck and then returned to the station to reserve my tickets, with a glimmer of excitement because some progress was surely about to be made. Sometimes the relief of welcoming hope not as a danger is enough in itself.

Figuring out the legs of my trip was complicated even without the language (and glass) barrier, and with them, it was nearly impossible, but we eventually figured out my route. She was clearly not pleased with my incompetency and desperation, though at the end I said “gracias para todo” and I think we parted on fine terms.

After obtaining my beautiful (they really are) printed tickets, placing them with truly shaking hands next to my passport, I decided to buy some fruits and vegetables and then make my way to a park. I found a little store and chose two tomatoes, some cherries, and a massive head of kale. (I still have most of it sitting in a plastic bag with me on the train, and at this point it’s getting yellow because I had no fridge and I have gotten so tired of eating it raw — it’s very tough — but I am keeping it around because I really need those nutrients right now.)

I figured that I should get some seafood while in Vigo, apparently something it’s known for, so I found a street with a bunch of restaurants lined up that all sold big platters of seafood. I had not eaten normally for two days and was, once again, famished, so I decided to order a seafood platter for one. It turned out be both quantity- and monetary-wise more than sufficient for an entire day. I consumed all of it. Pictured:

Clams, scallops, shrimps of various varieties, mussels, small lobsters, crab.

I never want to eat seafood again.

Some photos from my afterward walk by the water:

Movement study!:

My mind my far too exhausted at this point to keep the mental distress at bay, and I returned to the hotel to prepare for my 4AM wakeup. But the woes were not over! There I was sitting in my bed, writing on my computer, ready to sleep imminently, and suddenly there was a POP and all the lights shut off and a very bad smell emanated. I turned on my phone’s light and saw smoke coming from the outlet a few inches from my face. Aha — it was my 2 euro adapter that I had bought in Porto that had cut the circuit. Of course. All power was out in my room.

I absolutely needed to charge my phone for the following day (the battery life is poor to begin with — causes problems) so I went downstairs to find an outlet. I plugged it in again, and a few moments later, there was another POP and the lights in the whole downstairs area shut off. It was such that the front desk had a mirror so that from my position it I could see through it the faces of the two guys who were sitting there, and they could see me, and one of them said in Spanish “was that you?” I tried to smile… they were not amused. I used google translate to explain that my adaptor had popped, kind of sighing over and over while typing to direct the attention to something outward that we could all bond over. Might have been a bit too meta. They ended up having to call in 3 different guys (though in remarkably quick time) to fix the power. They let me borrow a phone charger for the night, and I slept for 4 hours.

I felt extremely ill with fatigue of all kinds the next morning, and the event of the woman scanning my ticket was devastatingly underwhelming, and 2 out of the 3 trains I took were practically empty, but I was on my way with all my tickets in hand.

I have waited for the sake of effect to mention that in my new train itinerary, there was yet another transfer, between Vigo and Miranda de Ebro, which took place in… Santiago de Compostelo. Yes, the finishing point of El Camino, the place of the Cathedral of Santiago. (Refer to my first post for its relevance.) Since I had a 2 hour layover I was able to walk and spend some time there. What a bizarre experience it was. I arrived there at exactly 7AM, and there was only a handful other people in the piazza: several pilgrims, and some staff from the hostel nearby. As I approached the center, a man asked me if I wanted him to take a picture of me. I immediately said no. I was still in a very poor headspace. But then after I sat down on the ground I realized that was silly, and asked him if he actually would. We exchanged a few words, and I returned the favor for him.

Looking kind of goofy and especially “long” here, as Amir from Lisbon liked to describe me.

The cathedral truly is something. During those 10 minutes or so when dawn changes from fuzzy to lucid, soon after I arrived, the square started to fill with pilgrims. It was a strange sensation to be at the place that stands for the completion of the thing I have been dreaming of doing for years, yet not having actually done it. It was also strange to be there with all of these pilgrims who had just walked for weeks, who had been and were experiencing what I wanted to experience, and that I, with my backpack, was surely mistaken for a pilgrim as well. The man who had photographed me approached me again, and asked what I thought about being there. I told him that I had not actually walked the Camino, that I was just passing through, and described why it was a weird experience, and why I am drawn to the whole idea of it all. I don’t think he understood a third of what I said (he was very Italian) but it was nice to voice it, then and there. (“Walks of life” was clearly not in his vocabulary, much less “fleeting”.) I asked him what the Camino was like for him, and he said that he had found a new man, and that he had felt free. I smiled and nodded very sincerely.

For a while I sat in the middle of the piazza next to my backpack, like all the other pilgrims were doing scattered around the square. The stones were large and comfortable. I was, like them, drained, emotionally and physically, and relieved to be there, appreciating the beauty of the cathedral. But I also felt like an impostor. I started eating some kale leaves, but they were not much better than the sardines at this point. A woman came up to ask me to take a photo of her, and we exchanged a few words. Then a man asked, and then another. I realized that everyone else had migrated to the back of the square to lean against the pillars, so that I was sitting in front of them, which is why people arriving kept choosing me to take their photos.

I decided that I liked that I was the one to be taking so many of the photos for people. They were sure to be looked at by many people, and perhaps especially regarded, and yet they were so insignificant, even minimizing, compared to how the people were feeling, right then, upon their completion. And further, I was witnessing this monumental moment for all of these people — not anyone they knew or who knew them. Concurrently with feeling severe impostor syndrome, I felt like an anonymous angel who was looking over a slew of vulnerable and tender mortals. The faces of relief and pride and even joy in the piazza were rejuvenating for me.

This woman did not move from when I arrived to when I left.

The first wave of pilgrims, before they relocated behind me.

I returned to the station, bought a 14 euro USB chord with a European block for peace of mind (still would have to buy an adaptor for my computer) and continued on with my 8 hour leg to Miranda de Ebro, where during my layover I would find some ice cream in the very unsettling town, eat a can of the plain sardines in the train station (these were manageable, the second box of the tomato variety had been fervently tossed) and then board the third and final train to Bilbao. From when I woke at 4AM, the journey from Vigo to Bilbao lasted 18 hours. As long as I keep hold of my passport, it can only go up.