El Puente, Days 3-6

Part I of II


On the morning of that third day I packed my bag, drank a warm diet coke, and began walking up the highway north out of Salamanca. I cut a piece of white cardboard off a box I found lying on the roadside and scratched on it with my black sharpie "HACIA LEÓN" and, below that in smaller letters, "POR ZAMORA." About a kilometer out of town I set down my pack with my new sign strapped to it and stuck out my thumb.

That evening I was in León.

Two nights I stayed in León and on the morning of that third day, I headed out through a network of minor roads which would connect with the curve of the highway bypassing the city, keeping to my left the labyrinthine alleyways and ancient cobblestoned plazas which had seen me the night before, passing from bar to bar sampling the region's wine selection, snacking on the free tapas served with every drink, meeting up with an irish guy from Limerick and the large, rambunctuous gaggle of Spanish girls with which he traveled.

Garbage collectors had passed the night before and taken up all the cardboard. So I dug through a rubbish bin, at last pulling out a cereal box, slicing it open with a single pass of my knife, unfolding it and marking there a bold "HACIA RIANO." This I secured to my backpack.

Again a ride was almost immediately forthcoming. But as I made my way further North, my waits became longer, colder. The sky -- just that morning cast in the transparency of a cornflower blue -- began to darken equally with my luck as a threatening cloudcover gathered, shadowing the distant stretches of highway and the lone figure transplanted therein with what might have been the cheap photoreproduction of a black heavens, now rendered in a dull, pixelated grey.

For what must have been two hours I was trapped in the foothills of the Picos -- a town called Caceres -- with the cold slowly mounting upon my unaccustomed skin, the rain falling lightly just at the point of coagulant humidity, but steadily, unceasingly, a constant cloud of suspended droplets subject to an apparently whimsical gravity. My extremities one by one grew numb: first my entreatying hand reaching out over the asphalt, then the other, then my feet despite their insulation of two layers of woolen socks and leather boots to boot. I began hopping around from left foot to right foot on the shoulder of this abandoned highway that the motion might warm me. I put my headphones in and started singing and flapping my arms. When a car passed, I would quickly recomport myself, take off my fedora and hold it in my free hand across my heart in a posture of gentility and stick out my luckless thumb. And watch the car rush by. As each car passed I resumed my erratic bouncings.

At the gas station across the road, a local who had been watching this madman's dance for some time finished fueling his car and pulled up beside me.

"Hombre, te puedo llevar cinco kilometres pero no más."

"Pues, cualquier lugar mejor que aquí."

The ride consisted of a lecture on the idiocy of trying to hitchhike up here in the cold in the mountains no less, and benevolent offering of the sage advice that I take the goddamn bus -- but this is always the case when I am picked up out of pity instead of comraderie.

He dropped me off at a building where the road forked -- "donde por lo menos no te mojas" -- and as fortune mandates, it was down this interrupting stretch of asphalt that my next ride soon came.

He was from my Madrid, thankfully, so I could understand him with relative ease. We chatted the whole time -- he was on his way to see his girlfriend in Cangas de Onis, a larger pueblo some 100km in front of us and a portal to Asturias. The plan was to drop me off at the intersection of a road which he viewed evidently with some dubious regard and which would cut down the mountains into the valley in which lay my destination of Posada de Valdeón.

The landscape here was fantastically verdant. Winter was rushing upon us in full force, but the road upon which his beat-up jalopy wound its crankety way was moist, lush, painted in broad strokes of rich green and spackled with the rust-oranges and brown-streaked yellows of the birch trees caught in this isolated remnant of fall's memory. We would turn the corner to find an airborne streak of unfrothed, sparkling water plunging inexplicably from within a shadowed bosom wound round with tentative creepers and broad, tear-streaked leaves of groundcover which hung off the herbaciously softened edges of a vertical, rocky cliff face punctuated by shelves upon which perched -- foretelling and harbring calamity with their very living -- tall, waxy needled conifers marking their presence with a stature further accented by the deepness of their green as if the Clorophyll therein wert not issued by any tangible warmth of the here unseen sun but carried within the dark bloodlines of some other-force from some other-forest and only here emanated without, rendered texturously intoxicant some arboric nectar. Or that deep romantic chasm would appear, just as fertile as had been foretold, a gorge not disclosing its whence nor wherefor yet within its unfathomable depths always accepting the violating passage of this water's cascade -- the rude force by which by means of its very admittance will it eventually be destroyed, but do not therefore remit not. Or some equally ancient pastureland, the fields suddenly swept of the towering, bosquian forms but for arbitrary lineages surveyed out in that eminently recognizable manifestation of the distance traveled in our algebraic placental severance, but not therefore cleaned of that swathe of green, the very terran color here absinthian in its herbacity, and there dotted with the equal forms of man and beast, neither quite herding the other and botch clothed in the other's skin in whatever sense thought allowed by men.

"Aquí me recuerda de Escocia."

He was right. Or Ireland, perhaps, as I pointed out in continuance. The half-rolling half-jagged hill forms, the overcast sky and constant rain, small, newly-formed creekbeds winding, finding the low path of least resistance around grassy pastures with stalks bent for dips in rhythm to the light wind according inexplicably with the bubbling of the streem while graze thick-bodied, cocoa-maned horses somehow vibrant despite the eternal wetness. They could be fields of shamrock for all one noted.

At some point indeterminate, veiled by the camoflauging of the scenery's very grandiosity, the landscape began to change. Ferns first dropped away, and as this industrial castoff creaked and clattered, enginge groaning now jerk now bursting forth a high wine of protestation under the gravitational and centripetal duress of our corkscrew ascension, the grasses and then too the broadleafs surrendered to the encroaching snowcover. A gaze directed upwards earned a rather more unwelcome vista. The clouds it seemed intended to emphasize that their threat was not empty and cross their undulatory magnesium surface rend now broad schisms of that grey so deep it taunts the impossibility of achieving that absolute black which appears not in nature but in the hearts of men. From ominous possibility to unmitigatable ferocity. I tried to mentally command a broader perspective: coming out of this yawning valley in a helical arising is this insignificant speck yet epicentral to my decidedly temporal existance, conveyed by a banging, primitive control over inefficient properties of combustion housed within rusty metal walls -- a white speck entering a white backdrop as drop away all but the most stalwart trunks which too must fade along this tree-line which upon this peak is but a part spreading across the entire range, a horizontal plane slicing through the young geological perturbacions of the Earth's rocky shell -- traveling upward in repeated retrocessions pointless to the planar being yet always upwards, and apotheotic, Babelonian approach to the menacing vortex of the heavens seated painfully on the mountain's apex swirling turbulently frigid, inverted whirlpools of leaden blizzard.

And in such a context did I reach the pass to Posada de Valdeón. I can bring the image immediately to mind if I desire it. From our minor stretch of highway branches off to the right a yet more minor, one-lane wind of tarmac. Snow is whirling about the stalled vehicle and obscuring contrast upon the road which twenty meters hence turns its high snowbanks leeward into the mountain's bulge, disappearing into a rushing, unfathomable greyness. A choice is offered me: eit here and continue with the plan anterior, or stay and ride as far as Cangas de Onis. I do not leave the vehicle. I simply was not prepared for such weather. My jacket wasn't even waterproof.


One night I stayed in Cangas and the following afternoon I took the two-euro bus to Arenas de Cabrales which lay some six kilometers by road from Poncebos and the northern trailhead of the Ruta del Cares. Posada had been the southern. This six kilometers I attempted to hitchhike, but ended up walking all but the final kilometer. The plan from Poncebos was to connect with a tiny pueblo called Bulnes nestled somewhere high in the mountains and well off the beaten path. In fact, until some two or three years ago the only access to the village was by poorly-maintained donkey path, though that changed with the recent construction of a funicular railway. I had wanted to give the donkey path a shot, as it was popular with would-be amateur mountaineers and such. However, it was already late afternoon when I was dropped off in front of the railway, so I went to inquire about the fare. €13.13, I found; more than I wanted to pay. So I asked the attendant if she would kindly point me towards the path. She told me to cross the bridge, turn left and I would find it five-hundred meters down the road on the left-hand side. For this I thanked her and made to leave, but she stopped me with her voice.

"Pero vas a subir ahora?"

"Sí."

"Viene la noche," she pointed out, nodding slightly at the warning sign which admonished "DO NOT ENTER THE MOUNTAINS AT NIGHT" in several langauges.

"A qué hora se pone oscura?"

"Seís, seís y media." It was 5:50 by my watch.

"Y cuanto tarda para llegar?"

"Hora, hora y media."

"Gracias."

For starters, the weight of my backpack was all wrong. Much too heavy, I mean. I had brought no sleeping bag to Spain and hadn't wanted to buy one for just this excursion, so I had settled on carrying one of my landlady's thick woolen blankets; the kind of sleeping accesory that should be packed on a horse's rump behind a saddle, it consumed at least two-thirds of my pack's main pocket. In addition, I had almost all the winter clothing I owned, crammed into each available crevice, together with enough food for two, perhaps two and a half days. And a liter of brandy, of course. Only one time before do I recall being more heavily laden -- in Tarifa.

But this was no Tarifa. Tarifa was a walk on the beach.

Here the conditions were foul from the outset. Here where the rain refused to cease. Here where not rocky a muddy sludge -- yet where rocky, some perverse ogre-formed stairway unfit for the weakly popping tendons of my thighs creaking and rubbing abrasively against the sides of my kneecaps with each unwelcome step. A sign at the beginning of the route reminded that this was the most difficult hike in the entire western massif: some 1.4 kilometers of ascension in just 2.1 kilometers of hiking. "Dificultad: Alta."

Thankfully it was short. Time, then, my enemy. For though I find myself stooped at the waist, hands on rocks at chest-level in front of me with knees grazing rough against the grade, lower back in lactic protest against its burden, I knew that I was in good enough shape to make the approach. The pain, therefore -- right foot sliding out from under me in a grotesque squelching of the mud, left forearm slamming down on the boulder to my side, neck contorting backwards face raised to an unsympathetic night in painful, silent grimace -- was temporary. The flesh, however, believes only the present. The flesh and mind in argumentative feedback.

The consequence of these postulates, of the cognization of this ephemerality, that this struggle against time becomes psychological, inernalized. For how, then, might one engage hand and fist against time? But the manifestation nonetheless physical: the slapping of soiled soles slick against moistened loam, the brusque attack of stick on rock, the heaving grunting and raspy breathing in the frigid air -- here of this lone figure with dark hair against dark hills shaded by dark night the conceivable yet non-existent observer might think locked in some consequential battle against the very Earth.

Yet this not so, for any action with end predetermined is no action at all but merely the maintainence of eternal existence (for that which exists always exists, at least when it exists) and therefore tautological. Such physicality then a projection of the conflict which matters -- mattering because of its indetermination -- the will against the body.

For, I say again, that which the flesh is capable of it has already done, and it is only the will which may or may not fail.

A conflict which began on the most elementary terms possible: simple disregard. Ignore it. Which moved to adolescence with distraction -- a form of manipulation. Wherein did I admire the starkly haloed moon, near animation, clearly a Goddess in a Universe of Dark; or the red-leafed tree trapped in bluish lunar illumination, glowing ever so faintly an orange of constantly elongating wavelength, as though perhaps it just recently forged in Vulcan's hand, a multi-faceted dagger then plunged upwards from the mountain's belly tumbling dirt in clods to fall on this infirm pathway and remain an ember engendered that I might recollect with greater facility the forces against which I flirted. Yet disappear, as you will, predictable moon, and left in such depths of blackness athe machinations must become more subtle as I am transplanted within a plane which is no earthly plane (for Earth portends of past and future and spatial expanse) but one of vicinity and present pain; in which there is only that which I touch and that which, unbeckoned, touches me, which is this acid begun its corrosive passage in taut calves, then spread up steel claws through hamstrings to plunge sharply into weary glutes yet push on. Pain as much a hindrance as sign of my progress.

So subtler they become. And then do I reflect upon the nature of progress when return is impossible. Why is it, I wonder, that the will must effect when alternatives are none? For behind me is nothing. More empty night with no destination. Not a path but a very loss of significance: the step effected which moves the wanderer who yet is not lost to a position so marginalized as to not merit elaboration; but not, even, a movement into profundity so deep this elaboration is defied but rather a loss of all context such that even postmodern nonsensicality is denied. Then wherefore struggle I? For each step is merely that tautological maintainence of meaning.

Nietzsche and Kundera speak of the idea of infinite return as giving significance to actions which otherwise would be the infinitessimal upon the infinite. The question, then, of the cyclical. For if this step, and this one, and here this stumble and bruise won upon unyielding rock are visited time and time again, I mustn't fear the temporal marginalization which accompanies finitude. For though this selection of the will be no choice at all, it is nonetheless effected. And with this infinite recurrence we see it take shape, form and solidity. It's simple existence gives it magnitude.

But then we come to the crux of the matter. For if there is infinite return then we can not say, as earlier supposed, that return was impossible! But if there were return then were there progress willed. Yet I look around me in this valley now barren of form but shadow, and know that there is no return which my flesh may effect. If there is progress then -- indeed if there is choice at all -- it is of my will which will a hundred thousand times hence choose the inevitable step forward as the hundred-thousandth part of this inconceivable summation. But my flesh does nothing.

And it is with such certainty that I arrived, weary and filthy, to the high mountain village of Bulnes.

A total of three lights illuminated the seven buildings which made up Bulnes. This was about as backwater as it gets. I tried briefly to recall the translation for "ass middle of nowhere" into Spanish but it would not come to mind.

The first creature I confronted was a monstrous sheepdog which immediately began barking, rapidly and voraciously. A low rock wall separated me from it, and this was one of the only times in my life I ever genuinely feared a dog. Adrenaline in my throat. I thought perhaps I smelled of some American delicacy. So I pulled out my knife and snapped it open, walking this swampy village path with the blade hanging loosely out of a closed right hand.

But then I encountered man, or at least his primitive beginnings, calling off the animal. I reflected briefly upon my appearance. Unshaven for days, I stumbled on infirm legs up the path, not quite supporting my thin frame, some old man breathing hot fog into the yellow-lit night air; my fedora fallen haphazardly over eyes which saw not, blackening the face until a line above chapped and peeling lips, the right arm hanging limp yet clutching a three and a half inch steel blade in closed fist with intent unclear. I closed and pocketed the knife, despite the beast's continued entreaties of his master that he be given leave to tear into my jugular, and approached the backlit, pajama-clad form.

Here I learned of the Asturian accent. It made me wonder what would result were a foreigner to wander into some trailer park isolated in far West Texas, and I have tried to translate the brief conversation accordingly.

"Hello, sir, have I arrived in Bulnes?"

"Meh?"

"Is this Bulnes?" Then, correcting my pronunciation, "Bool-nays?"

"D'ell you mean dis Bulnes!? You done show'd up aintchoo!?"

Not understanding, "I'm looking for the albergue."

"D'ells dat?"

"The albergue?"

"D'alber-gay!" He made it clear that he was asking a question not by raising his intonation, but by shouting at me.

"Yes, sir, the alber-gay."

"D'alber-gay!"

"Yes."

"D'alber-gay!"

"Yes."

"D'ells dat!"

"Sir, I need a place to stay."

"Liss'n boya you jus'n gowon down to d'alber-gay," he advised wisely, pointing vaguely in a sweeping arm movemont towards several thousand hectares of enclosed pastureland.

"Yes, sir, can you tell me how to get there?"

"To d'alber-gay!" He shouted, as if he were not totally convinced of my sincerity.

"Yes, sir."

"Liss'n sonny, you jus'n gowon down to d'alber-gay."

"Is it down this path?"

"A-cose is down dere. D'ell else'd be! Ain gone take but fo minuss."

"Thank you, sir."

"D'ell fo!"

Twenty minutes later slipping and sliding down the half-river, half-path I managed to reach the second light of Bulnes. Here I found what could have been a well-tended bar, but the idea was nearly comical given our isolation. In the back I could see through the door the heads of an older man and an ancient woman, bodies obstructed by some unidentifiable shadow of formation. The heads turned to each other, wrinkled mouths opening and closing silently, tongues wagging serpentine. I knocked. The heads continued their oblivious ruminations. I knocked again, louder; reaction uncertain. I ran my hand, skin dry and flaking from the cold, fingernails caked with mud, across the geometric carvings on the wooden door frame; picked carefully where I would make this third attempt, aiming for maximum resonance. I rapped, firmly, three times. The leathery face of the man jerked in my direction -- stared unknowingly precisely into my eyes with weather-worn his. The old woman's countenance went unaltered, and momentarily her fixed gaze was met by his. Three times I repeated this coquettry, each with the same result. Upon which third time did I leave to reconnoiter the pueblo. Upon which did I find a hostel that I had known to exist, yet were the windows blackened with vacancy. But as it happened this empty and haunting abode lay connected to the lair of the heads, so again I returned.

I pounded upon the door with all the percussive insistence that I could muster, and this time the man-head unfurled its body from behind the obstruction, making his way to the door and flinging it open to my impossible presence without.

"I'm sorry, sir, I do not mean to disturb you, but I'm looking for a place to stay."

Pause.

"Whaddaya want!"

"An albergue, sir."

"D'alber-gay!"

"Yes, sir."

"D'alber-gay!"

"Yes, the alber-gay."

"Dey's an alber-gay right there!" He said pointing at the abandoned building, perplexed at the disutility of my faculties of observation.

"Yes, sir, however, it appears to be closed."

"Clo'd!"

"Yes, sir."

"Das mah goddem alber-gay, boy, how you go'n tell me das clo'd!"

This I didn't quite know how to respond to.

"Well, can you point me towards and albergue which is open?"

"D'alber-gay!"

"Yes, an open one."

He pointed down the street past his own albergue. I thanked him and took my leave.

The road of the old man's choosing led eventually to the village's third light, where I would solve the mystery of the second albergue. The lady that opened the door turned out to posess not only intelligible Spanish, but the same Spanish which I had conversed with on the phone that morning. Which call I had made by dialing the number listed for Bulnes' second albergue. Yet the door at which I stood barricaded the entryway to the romantic "Casa Chiflon: Alojamiento Rural." The duena informed me that "Casa Chiflon" was none other than the former "Albergue Bulnes," and that the cheapest room here was a €40 double. This I could not pay, so I took my leave, with no particular destination in mind nor even conceivable.

But after she closed the door a though occured to me and again I rang the bell. The door opened immediately.

"Perdón, usted puede llenar mi botella de agua?"

"Sí, hombre." She took the bottle and invited me inside, but I pointed out that my boots were caked all over with still-damp mud and that I did not wish to dirty her floor. She explained, then, that despite her hospitable intentions she could not afford to allow the heat to escape, and regretfully closed the door to my face. I pulled it all the way shut. Moments later, she reappeared with the liter of water which was to last me indefinitely. She handed it to me and I thanked her.

My boots echoed on the wooden planks of the porch as I took my leave, and in two steps more I blinked from existence, crossing the line demarcating the tight circle of orange light illuminated by this final lamp from the night beyond.

---

---