On August 2nd in the evening Triacastela was full of people. We are all walkers, false walkers, drivers of the support vehicles, opportunists, riders, and people on holiday or simply tourists.

It is quarter to seven in the morning when Paca and I quit Triacastela. Two routes lead out of this village: the Samos one is more monastic ; the San Xil route is more authentic and wild, by hearsay. Paca and I, as usual, choose the wild one.

There are neither pilgrims nor cars in the first slopes towards San Xil, we can only hear a mocking bird twitter. Paca and I think we have taken a wrong route by mistake. As we go up, we see one meadow after another. It is incredible. The mocking bird goes on with its song without pausing and nobody, absolutely nobody appears. Could it have been that an exterminating angel spared the life of only the pilgrims who finished their dinners with some nightcaps of Chinchon dulce*?

After a while we hear a far away noise, not so far, it is already here: a Benemeritas’* Nissan Patrol. The car overtakes us and, after a short while, goes back. It passes us and we lose sight of it as it disappears down the road obviously looking for people in need of help. Paca and I do not deserve their attention, they consider us to be trusty pilgrims.

While we walk along this old and wonderful route towards Sarria, Paca and I, apart from enjoying the wilderness, compare this part of Galicia, crossed by the Camino, with the Navarra part before arriving at Pamplona. Both communities are wet, mountainous and their industries are largely cattle raising. Why did we see Navarra so rich and opulent? Why does Galicia seem so poor, and almost without hope? We do not know if this has something to do with it but, when we go through Leon, we sometimes see graffiti: « Leon* all alone, without Castilla », « El Bierzo* all alone, without Leon », « Los Ancares* all alone, without El Bierzo »... These Galician people say nothing but, in my opinion, they are really alone and abandoned to their fate. Don Manuel Fraga* (« Old Fraga » my grandma said, she was a bit of a red) has a lot of work to do over there. It is not fair what you can see in this part of Galicia: misery, isolation, dirtiness, neglect... and all these things in an area crossed by the Camino de Santiago (Route of Saint James), European Cultural Itinerary, and in a Xacobeo Year, the last one in this millennium.

Paca and I have breakfast in Sarria. The two routes merge here. What has happened? We walked it almost all alone from San Xil, now we are among a huge crowd. It already is neither a pilgrimage nor a fiesta, it is most like an old May Day demonstration. Paca and I fear that at any moment the police force will control the situation so as to prevent it degenerating into a riot. By the way, it is not a long distance, but it would not be a bad idea if our king, our prince and, last but not least, our Don Manuel Fraga chose the bit from Sarria to Ferreiros as the symbolic Camino stage that  they walk each year with journalists and other famous people. O Xacobeo in brotherhood with the Third World. But it will be better if we leave such sad matter in the hands of Providence.

Paca and I are thinking of ending our stage in Barbadelo but, when we ask for a room in a rural tourism house named « Casa Nova de Rente », the landlady, after hesitating a while and pondering over our looks, tells us that there is not a free room. We tell her that we will make do with sleeping on the floor, any place she tells us, and that besides we will both willingly have lunch and dinner at the house. She simply says no. We thank her and leave. I go back to the house for a minute so as to ask for some water for my hipflask. Even though she has a tap beside her, she says:

• « You have a well along the route. »

• « Thanks, madam »

I wish Saint Thorns would be more charitable! I say to myself. We find a source in fifteen minutes.

The Camino is becoming more and more of a show: Dog tired people that walk bouncing on their own blisters; teenagers with rucksacks that, according to them, weigh twenty kilos; Sunday pilgrims with staffs and smart clothes that complain about the smell of cow’s manure; lost bikers from the Xacobea cycling route that stubbornly want to bike along cows tracks breaking neither their machines nor pilgrims’ necks; young girl-scouts (brownies) that sing in nice choirs : « Conga, conga, I like the milonga, a hand is on my head, another on my little buttocks, we want the pilgrims to dance... »; stern gentlemen that tell the girl-scouts off : "Ladies, where do you think you are ? This is a pilgrimage and not the Carnival of Rio... "; ladies with a cross-like staff that say the rosary ; and Paca and I there, in the middle of this rumpus.

We come across the pilgrim from Cadiz, the one who admires the way we walk. We greet each other, have a snack with him and walk together for a while. Then we leave him with other pilgrims from Leon.

We have lunch in Ferreiros when the tired waiter of the bar can serve us. It is four o’clock p.m. The bar was not prepared for « the demonstration ». We borrow a tent opposite the pilgrims’ hostel and it is a good job that we get this. The pilgrims’ hostel is full up, but all kinds of people are there, not only pilgrims. It is madness to complain, nobody is in charge over there. Each one does just what he pleases. The other bar in Ferreiros is beside the cemetery, following the route. This bar owner lets pilgrims sleep inside on small mattresses, but it is already packed.

At five o’clock Paca and I are having a nap in our tent when seven, (Attention please, ladies and gentlemen!), seven riders from San Lucar de Barrameda and Jerez de la Frontera show up in the place. With a glass in one hand, smoking big cigars, using their mobile phones, they greet everybody. At least they are democratic! A servant is with them; he gives them everything they need from a Range Rover with plates from Cadiz. They drink one after another.

- Have a drink on us, Juan, for fuck’s sake we’re all equals here! They say to the servant.