Tent Shun in Ireland

It was inevitable that I'd see something burn before the weekend was over.

But first -- a quick history lesson (and a flawed one at that, because I don't have much time to write).

July 12th is an important date in Northern Ireland (as well as some places in the Republic of Ireland, but this is quite rare) and, at least on paper, appears to be a counter-balance for the green, Guiness fury of March 17th. Towns and cities sprout Union Jacks and the Ulster Flag overnight, while papers and radiowaves are jammed with concerns about public decency, sectarian tensions and whether certain marching routes should be opened up to men in bowler hats and orange sashes.

The reason for this is that July 12th - known as "Orange Day" - commemorates the defeat of James II (a Catholic king) by the Protestant king, William of Orange, at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690. And it wasn't just poor James who was cracked on the noggin; this event is credited with establishing the United Kingdom as a Protestant dominion forever more. The organisation that oversees the July 12th celebrations each year, called the Orange Order, is a protestant fraternity named in honour of William's victory.

In short, July 12th is an instant divide between Catholic and Protestant, a hand-on-nose waving "nyah nyah" to those who prefer the colour green.

But that's just one part of it. In light of 20th century Irish political history (formation of the Free State, the Troubles, etc -- sorry, I'm not really here to teach you anything), July 12th has also become an occasion for the Orange Order and its sympathisers to demonstrate that Northern Ireland is still a part of the United Kingdom: completely separate from the Republic of Ireland to the south.

To the outside world, you'd think that Northern Ireland settled its differences with the Good Friday agreement back in 1998. For the most part, the world would be correct, but humans are a stubborn species and we tend to hold onto grudges and consider our differences as a reason for violence. Nowadays most people are talking about the recession and credit crunch, but there are still memories of the past scattered about, waiting like dry kindling for the spark of a divisive political demonstration.

I definitely recommend that you take a tour around Belfast's murals, as this is a visual demonstration of how politically saturated parts of the city still are. Both sides, Protestant and Catholic, have their painted shrines, depicting heroes and martyrs, and it really is breath-taking to see the entire walls of houses covered in symbols and faces. Some of these murals are frozen in time -- their historical and social importance is too great for them to be replaced -- while others are constantly being covered up with new messages.

A recent trend, in an effort to move Belfast away from sectarian violence, is to replace images of masked men holding guns with other cultural icons, such as characters from Celtic legend (though even they are politicised, such as Cúchulainn who I saw depicted as the defender of Protestant Ulster).

But, aside from the murals, you will also see the Peace Line that still stands between the hardcore Catholic and Protestant parts of the city. Unlike Berlin, this wall never came down and its gates are still locked at night, completely sealing off flashpoints where the two sides neighbour one another.

I was brought to one of these spots -- on the Protestant side -- to see the massive towers of wood and tyre being built for their transformation into a bonfire on July 11th, the night before the march of the Orangemen. Such constructs are dotted all over Northern Ireland, and are usually built in circular formations, as if they were forts. Some are also decorated with politically aggressive symbols, such as the Irish tricolour and effigies dressed up as gaelic sportsmen. They are, despite their violent connotations, impressive sights to behold.

All of this build-up was preparing me for what I thought would be a turbulent weekend in Belfast.

But it wasn't to be.

Instead of witnessing city roads melted by rubber firestorms, I was whisked away to Co. Kildare for Oxegen, a four-day music festival. Mary, one of my companions from the camino, happened to have a spare ticket and tentspace with my name on it.

Though I've been camping at festivals in the past, I've never seen anything to the degree of Oxegen. 80,000 people, mostly Irish, were crammed into fields without any concern for the trippy netting of guylines that formed around them. Madness was further guaranteed by the sight of campers trawling in slab after slab of cheap beer.

By the second day I felt like I was in a warzone, or a refugee camp: guard towers stood in vigil over a landscape of haphazard tents, organised around tribal craters of beer cans and ruined camp chairs. Like the growth of mould, it worsened over time and tents were destroyed by the drunken stumblings of thousands; each morning revealed forlorn souls picking through trash heaps to dig out clothing for the day ahead.

My own tent was ruined on the Friday night. Mary and I returned from having seen the Kings of Leon to find its crippled frame sticking out at odd angles, and a gaping hole ripped all the way through its once-water proof side. Luckily, we managed to patch this up by cannibalising a nearby tent, left derelict from the previous night by one of our rowdy neighbours. The tent remained like this, slung up like a war veteran, for the rest of the festival.

Sleep was something people spoke about in hushed whispers, occasionally with a nostalgic tear in their eye. Each day you'd drag yourself out of your tent and hope that the toilets had been pumped clean and restocked with toilet paper (they had, but it was hours ago, and the paper had already been stolen by someone who needed something to throw at the finale of their favourite band's set later that night). With the lack of showers, toothbrushes became the only vital cleaning device -- everything else was a luxury.

Once the morning ordeal was out of the way, you'd stumble into the festival, and it was here that every gripe instantly became redundant.

There are too many highlights to mention, but I'd definitely tip my hat at being able to see the Pogues in a tent filled with thousands of drunk Irish folk. Shane MacGowan commanded the crowd with his drunken drawl and, though no-one understood a word he mumbled, they cheered him on all the same.

For some, the festival was not about the music however, and I returned on the Saturday night to find a wasteland of trash where quite a lot of tents had stood earlier in the day. It turns out that my neighbours, who never slept and did nothing by drink and fight, had wiped out some other campers, who had consequently summoned the police to evict the louts. Though they managed to plead their case and stay on site, they didn't cause as much of a ruckus after that.

Which brings me to the inevitability of a bonfire for me this weekend.

The festival finished on Sunday night, and the majority of the camp decided that they couldn't sleep, instead dedicating themselves to finishing all of that beer (so they wouldn't have to carry it back to the car in the morning). As luck would have it, one of our party left for home early, so he volunteered his tent as a upgrade from our previous, semi-detached wonder. We were finally able to pretend to sleep without the tent touching our heads, though any actual sleep was laughed away by the constant, noisy threat of having a drunkard step on your face as they tripped on a nearby guyline.

By 6am I decided that I couldn't wait any longer, so decided to brave the morning chill to march to through the new bog that surrounded the toilets. A light drizzle had misted the campsite up, and I could still see revellers huddling together in pockets, sharing stories of the weekend that had been.

And that was when I saw that my old tent was on fire.

Burning nylon is a beautiful sight. The plastic continues to spark as it melts away, giving the impression of watching fireworks reflected in a rippling pool. Unfortunately, it also billows toxic smoke into the atmosphere, and hot nylon is a little too effective at removing layers of flesh if you let it get onto your skin.

Though most of our stuff had been moved into the new tent, Mary still had some bits and pieces lying around (fool that she was, trusting in the decency of humans), so she stamped the blaze out in her gumboots. For the most part, we'd caught the fire early enough, because some of her stuff was still salvagable.

Her toothbrush, alas, was not.

It turns out that this is an actual tradition at Oxegen, with many people prefering to set fire to their tents, rather than pack them up. In an effort to stop this, the festival organisers suggested that remaining tents be donated to charity, but given the number of security guards I saw running around with extinguishers, this gesture didn't quite get off the ground.

Seeing the Dead

Yes, a lot of people danced around Stonehenge to celebrate the summer solstice here in Europe, and yes, back in Australia there were probably naked bodies writhing by the light of a pagan pyre because the day was just too darn short. But, believe it or not, I think I experienced something weirder on June 21st.

After receiving directions from a man with a ponytail for a beard, I boarded a bus filled with people. No-one knew where we were headed, so I wondered if the majority of the passengers were actually just seeking shelter from the rain.

Oh yes, it was raining that night – quite heavily, actually, and you should remember this fact because it plays an important part later on.

Evidently, someone onboard knew where we were headed, because the bus pulled up a short while later in the most random of places: a desolate field of rubble and asphalt, punctuated by some ruined administration buildings and industrial lighting rigs.

A man in blue gumboots led us through this wasteland, the wet crunch of glass and rock underfoot, towards two rows of wooden benches. People continued to chat once we were seated, while others scanned the emptiness before us, trying to detect the slightest human presence.

Someone saw the man first and fell silent, then two others shut up, and soon more beyond that, until everyone stopped talking, as if a vacuum seal had progressively closed above us. The man, now centre of everyone’s attention, trudged mutely across the ruined ground, eventually stopping about fifty metres away from us. He sat down in a puddle.

Another man appeared, this time from the opposite end of the vacant lot, marched with purpose towards another point – this time almost 500 metres away – before collapsing to the ground. He did not move again.

With painful slowness, more figures arrived in the wasteland, and as if we weren’t there, carried out strange, menial tasks.

In complete silence.

Then they started killing each other.

An hour later, a naked woman – the last person that we could see – buried herself under rubble. And then it was over.

Now, paste atop that scenario an overzealous serving of rain and freezing wind, while remembering that we sat still and patiently throughout. Obviously, you can’t celebrate the longest day of the year in any other fashion.

What we’d just witnessed was a performance by a Dutch theatre group called Companie Dakar, and it was part of the Cork Midsummer Festival. For the record, it wasn’t enjoyable to watch, but it was of a good quality, by which I mean that the performers were committed, and that they were well-lit and the space added to the vibe perfectly. But, then again, people with university degrees can be very forgiving when it comes to the label “art”, so I’ll shut up now.

To completely transform the vibe, Andrea and I spent the next day in the warm, dry Spiegeltent, drinking beer from over-sized glasses while watching local artists perform. The first performer was a really dull, “soulful” singer/songwriter, but the next two acts definitely made up for it – especially Mr Ian Witty and the Exchange, who sang into telephones while playing violins and cellos (yes, I’m a sucker for gimmicks). I can’t remember the name of the other group, but their lead singer wore a cowboy hat (note my previous parentheses).

I actually had the chance to ask Ian, via a friend of his on a mobile, whether he was saying “prettiest dress” or “pretty-arse dress” in one of his songs. Ian’s a gentleman; it was the former.

Now, I’ve lost my Little Book of Segues, so I’m just going to detonate a hole in this stream of logic and say that Andrea and I drove a hired car between Cork and Galway. By which I mean, Andrea drove, because the car was a manual, and while I know my way around them, I seem to think that swearing and stalling (not in that particular order) are integral to the entire endeavour.

Anyway, our story takes up again just outside of Galway, in the beachside town of Salthill. The last time I was in Galway, I’d befriended Gabriella, a Brazilian-Italian girl who was moving to set up a new life here in Ireland. Since we’d parted ways, she’d found a house and now lived with her sister and parents. Andrea and I were happily put up for the weekend on a blow-up mattress that had been bought especially for the occasion – the entire family gathered around to witness its virgin inflation with the mood of guests at a christening.

Though Gabriella’s entire family were wonderful hosts, special mention must be given to her father, Salata.

If Belgian comic illustrators were allowed to create human life, Salata would be the golden child of their first generation. Short, pot-bellied, but with meaty arms that swung wildly as he talked, Salata commanded attention, whether he was standing or making a wooden stool look incredibly comfortable. He wore thick glasses that gave him cartoon eyes, and his moustache was more like an Amazonian bird that nested eternally upon his upper lip. Also, the way his head seemed to roll back into his body gave the overall impression of a man who was always relaxed.

And yet, he was never still.

Salata loved telling stories, and he couldn’t just tell stories with his mouth, he had to dance about, pointing at invisible actors and directing the rest of us in re-enactments. Often he’d point to me and say, “Now, you’re me, ok, and I’m the dentist”.

In fact, he loved telling stories so much that he refused to let his lack of English get in the way of a good yarn. This wasn’t too bad when Gabriella was in the house, as she could act as translator – though, sometimes she didn’t agree with her father, and would chastise him in Portuguese. He always responded to this in the same way: he’d turn to us, point at her and say, “No, no, no, she es stupido!”

When Gabriella wasn’t around, however, we all played a game of charades, trying to guess what the other person meant. Unfortunately Salata’s choice of story was such that simple ideas, like table and milk, weren’t enough – try working out “metaphysical” from random gestures and clues such as, “not here, but for here, yes?”

The reason for Salata’s need for complex language came from the topic of conversation. Before he’d moved to Italy, Salata had worked as a police officer in Rio de Janeiro, though he’d also made a foray into politics (it failed – “it’s stupid, people speak for you they love you, but only if you give them beer, and that’s why they do…I don’t have enough for that”). However, behind all of this was a 40-year involvement with the Brazilian spiritual practice of umbanda.

So, for the benefit of Andrea and me, Salata danced around his kitchen for hours, flinging his arms around, re-creating the world of Rio; a place inhabited by corrupt cops, drug dealers, demons and…

“I went to the dentist, yes, and I sat while he worked, but he speak for me (note: Salata would say this instead of “he said to me”) that I must wait one moment. He walk to the corner, and talk to a man, but the man was not there, no, but I could see him, and the dentist, he come back, and he speak for me, this may sound mad…but I stop him, because I saw and I know, and falle (Salata uses the Portuguese word for “I said”):

Yes, yes, I saw – now tell me what John Lennon told you!”

The Moor's Last Sigh

The chair across from me was occupied by a man in his early 40s; short-cropped dark hair and a very old-fashioned suit were all I can really remember about him. A muscular, white cat sat in his lap and, though it did not seem to mind being petted, it did not purr, nor did its large eyes suggest any awareness of the man's affection.

"Don't mind Mitzekatze," the man said, "he's been funny in the head ever since he fell off the roof."

But that's a story for later on.

Mr Irving, as I was advised to call him, had lived in Granada for the past year, occupying a studio space in the picturesque Nazirid Palace section of the Alhambra. An American diplomat, Irving took leave from business in Madrid to travel through Andalucia. Something about Granada had captured his imagination, so it was here that he'd settled and where we were currently chatting.

"There's a shadow hanging over this city," he said, gesturing towards the white-toothed hills of the Alybacin.

"1492 was a very big year for Spain, you see. While Columbus was busy discovering the New World (though let's not remind anyone here that he was Italian), the Catholic kings were equally successful in driving the Moors out of Spain once and for all. The last sultan to have made his home here, Boabdil, left Alhambra and Granada in disgrace, but it is said that he turned back - at the final point, just before his beloved red fort vanished beneath the horizon - and let out an awful sigh as he watched the Christian cross be erected atop his beloved palace."

That moment entered legend as 'the moor's last sigh'.

Mitzekatze leapt off Irving's lap as the latter arose and gestured that I follow him to the window. From its arabic arch I could see the irregular lattice of tiny streets, woven and criss-crossing amongst teahouses, shishah dens and market stalls. Locals passed through the thronging touts with practised ease, but camera-laden tourists found themsevlves bogged down and press-ganged by skillful charlatans.

Most talented of all were the Gypsy women, who waved sprigs of rosemary at passers-by and, if ever anyone responded, would press the herb deep into their victim's palm.

"Oh, you will have a handsome husband, he will be rich, very rich, and oh so many children shall you have," the women cooed to their prey, then, "now, you give me twenty euros".

Irving shook his head, smiling at the gullibility of his fellow citizens.

"They are seduced by the legends, by the mystique of the Orient," he said, returning to his seat (Mitzekatze was busy pooing in a nearby pot plant), "but there are other, more modern tales to be found in this part of the world."

I'd arrived in Granada two days earlier, where the sun actually felt like something that heated billions of humans from millions of miles away. Unlike Barcelona, this city is small, and I found its streets cosy and filled with dog faeces. Thankfully, Bianca had phoned her local friends ahead of my arrival, so I was woken up by a cheery text message informing me of plans for the evening.

My bed at that point was a ledge above a toilet in the overbooked hostel I'd arranged a day earlier. With a mattress barely wider than my body, and an ancient pair of rotten socks nestled in a crack near my head (karma, perhaps?), I was struggling to find the deep, mid-afternoon siesta that my body craved, which meant that the buzzing of my phone didn't so much wake me up as it gave me an excuse to open my eyes.

Emily, Bianca's friend, was taking me out to tapas, followed by something called a "botellon". The first part of the night was fairly straight forward: Granada is renowned for its tapas because, unlike the rest of Spain, every bar serves you the tapas free with your drink. A lot of places actually insist upon your loyalty by staggering the quality of the tapas, so that the more you drink, the better your food. Locals will start their nights out at the bars with the more generous portions, before ending at the nicer, but stingier joints later on.

With a nice dollop of food in our bellies, our group multiplied when we arrived at a nearby park to meet some more locals. I was introduced to a Spaniard by the name of Alberto who told me that I'd have to pay one euro if I wanted to drink. Not quite sure what was happening, I gave him the money, and our entire party made off into the old quarter of the city, climbing up cobbled mountains until we arrived at an old Moorish monument.

This is where I learnt that 'botellon' means 'drinking on the street'.

It was only one of Granada's odd rituals however, as part-way through our session, we were interrupted by the arrival of yet another strange local custom: the midnight tour group.

A horde of Spanish students climbed up the mountain, led by their guide, and stopped right in front of us. Without batting an eyelid, the tour guide gabbled away to his followers, telling them all about the important historical value of the steps we were sitting on. People nodded, took notes in their books and then continued walking down the street.

Twenty minutes later some local kids started chucking rocks at us, so we decided to leave.

Unfortunately it was not too much later that I found myself sitting in a cafe having breakfast. I had three missions for the day ahead: change hostels, discover some examples of good graffiti and explore the Alybacin.

Mission one was taken care of fairly quickly. I'd already booked into the Oasis, a very cosy establishment right in the heart of the old quarter, so I was soon showered and presentable. Mission two was sorted out over breakfast - the women behind the bar of the cafe looked like the kind of person who knew all about graffiti. She did, and with the help of my new companion, Ida, told me where I could find some amazing examples. Mission three was also achieved with the help of Ida, who'd befriended a local boy last night and, in a bid to woo her, he'd agreed to give her a tour of the historical areas in the city.

If you're interested in street art, Granada is definitely a city to mark on your itinerary. It is impossible not find amazing artwork on the walls of this city; every corner will reveal a new plaster canvas. But, a must-see is definitely a section somewhere in the barrio of Realjo, just to the south-east of the Alybacin. Here I found, and photographed profusely, houses and walls covered in what looked like brush-stroked portraits.

The artist is known only as 'el niño de las pinturas' - the kid of the paintings (and his website is here: http://www.elninodelaspinturas.com/). Ask anyone, they'll be able to tell you where it is.

Exhausted after a long day of walking and photographs, I bid Ida and Isaac (the local boy) farewell, leaving them behind in a shishah bar. I thought that it was time to have an early night, but the Oasis would prove to have other plans in mind.

Skipping through a tapas pub crawl and a live-music club where even the band's line-up was improvised, I found myself in an ex-bordello somewhere in the city, sharing a bottle of wine with Jess, a German-American 'army brat' and Natalia, an exchange student from Melbourne. This was also where I met Mitzekatze.

"I don't think he even had a name before I got here," Natalia said, "but he's totally crazy. The love of his life lives outside of the building, but there's this little window that she goes up to, and the two of them will sit there for hours, looking at eachother.

"Once, years ago, she was allowed in here, but for some reason was banished outside. That was when Mitzekatze first tried to commit suicide. He leapt from the top floor of this building - a three-storey drop, but somehow he survived. Hasn't been the same since."

As if on cue, Mitzekatze's focus snapped onto something in the shadows behind me and he bounded away into the darkness.

"I think he can see ghosts," Jess said, giggling between purple-stained teeth.

It was getting late, so late in fact that Natalia's features occasionally blurred into those of a middle-aged man in an outfit far too old for our modern times.

"Make sure you see the Alcazar when you're next in Seville," Mr Irving said as I stood to leave, "the building isn't anywhere near as gorgeous as the Alhambra, but the gardens will strike you down."

I would remember this recommendation, days later, while walking through the gardens of the Alcazar with Phil and Sean. The two boys were traveling around Europe and trying to survive on twenty euros a day. That included transport, which meant that a lot of the time they'd sleep on park benches and face 24 hours without food. Despite all this, the tales of the gardens' beauty had led them to pay the eight euro entry fee without a question.

"Thank you, I'll definitely check them out," I said.

With a simple, civil nod, Mr Irving reached out and shook my hand. Our farewells concluded, I closed my book - Tales from the Alhambra by Washington Irving - and turned to look out the plane window where Andalucia, the Sierra Nevada, and even Galicia's verdure had long vanished, replaced with the lush patchwork of French farms. Ireland, Andrea and weeks of rest now lay only an hour away.

It's no surprise then that my final farewell to Spain came in the form of a relaxed sigh.

One Hundred Grams

The last time I saw Mary, she put her mouth right up to my ear and whispered: "Whatever you do, please sit next to him."

The him she was referring to was Brian, a 35 year old man from Louisiana. He had come up to me at the bus station in Santiago, looking for his bus, which, as luck would have it, happened to be the very same one that I was catching. Mary and I were in the middle of our goodbye, as she was leaving on a different bus bound to Granada - the result of a last minute coin toss decision.

Brian was a giant, but a stooped one due to a neck that thrusted out at a right angle from his shoulders. His arms could easily wrap around a tree trunk and break it in half with a flex - one arm at a time. However, any sense of danger or threat immediately melted away the moment you looked into his eyes. Eyelids hung at half-mast across summer grass orbs, giving the impression of a lamb staring docilely at that friendly metal rod flying towards its temple.

The bus ride from Santiago to Barcelona was 17 hours long. As the sun floated towards the horizon, a familiar landscape flashed past; a roll of film sucked through the spools of a projector at too great a speed, rewinding the scenery of my last five weeks. Nightfall hit over the meseta, burning the celluloid into darkness, and my camino was officially completed.

That left just Brian.

"I love ham, Jimmy, you know?" Brian said, taking a piece of chorizo out of his bag, "and the ham here is fantastic, just superb, you know. What you have to do is go into a supermercado, like El Corte Ingles, you know, and buy yourself a nice pack of ham. All you need is 100 grams. In fact, remember that Jimmy, 100 grams of anything will do you quite nicely over here."

Brian patted his not-too-shabby belly and grinned at me. His eyes still remained lamb-like.

"So, Jimmy, have you accepted Jesus into your life?"

In that instant a building shuddered and collapsed somewhere inside me, killing millions.

It was still 16 hours until Barcelona, and I was helpless as the grinning, ham-obsessed sheep spouted verse after verse of biblical scripture, telling me about the joys of being born again and that "you have to look to the nation of Israel, Jimmy, its fortunes are the clock that counts down to the end of days - think about every nation that has gone against God´s chosen people. Every empire has collapsed, but the Jews have carried on."

Brian´s sermon ended by about the ninth hour of the bus trip, when we were joined by two Nigerian born agains. One of them, Ojo, misheard me and introduced me to his friend as Jimmy the Christian from Sweden (I had earlier made up a story about coming to Jesus so as to get Brian to shut up). Having found the flock he´d never had, Brian and the Nigerians proceeded to chant "Praise God!" and "Hallelujiah" at every stop.

My first experience of Barcelona was a grid of empty streets, flooded with blinding sunlight, and a stumbling attempt to find my hostel, despite having not slept at all. When I finally found the place, I discovered a locked door that refused to open, no matter how many times I buzzed my way up. Luckily, a resident left it open long enough for me to sneak through.

The next challenge was to get into the hostel itself, as it was part of a larger building complex. No amount of knocking achieved anything, until the door opened of its own accord to reveal a startled girl doing her best to find a toilet. Unfortunately, the shock of seeing me appear on the doorstep was too much, and she had no choice but to vomit all over the floor.

Welcome to Barcelona.

A trick that I´ve learnt in hostels is, if you don´t know anyone, just go to bed during the day. Every time I´ve done this, I´ve been woken up about half an hour later by a very apologetic person. The apology is enough to start a conversation, during which point you discover common ground and make plans for the evening.

This is how I met Bianca.

Somehow we ended up at an "Australian" pub, called Hogan´s, in La Rambla, where the Swedish girl behind the bar didn´t understand what Coopers Red was, but swore that Fosters was enough to make it an Aussie establishment. I opted for a Newcastle Brown instead, and at this point was introduced to Jarred, a commerical diver from Adelaide, but more recently of Long Beach, California.

A funny thing I´ve learnt about travel stories is that the other person always tells the better tale. Bianca´s and my eyes goggled at tales of deep sea welding work in the middle of the Atlantic, and of near death experiences in Romania, and yet Jarred whooped with excitement when I told him about walking across Spain.

"Maaaate, I wish I´d had the chance to live your life," Jarred said, having just finished telling me about how he´d been traveling the world and getting paid silly amounts of money since he was 22.

It was an early night for me that day, mainly because somewhere between jumping over a pool of vomit and being woken by Bianca, I had decided to explore the city.

The map I´d been given at the hostel mentioned some place called the "Museum of Comics and Illuminations". This obviously was the most interesting place in the city, so I set off, navigating the grids and streets to find the museum. Another trick I´ve learnt, so as not to look completely like a tourist, is to make a note of the important streets I need to find, and do my best to memorise the general shape of the route ahead. This means that I don´t have to pull out a map on the street, and it works especially well on grids.

But not with maps that don´t list every street you´ll come across.

Having brutally murdered a few hours, I arrived at the non-descript, mirrored glass building that supposedly housed the comic musuem and found it to be empty. A security guard on his smoke break grabbed my map and pointed out Montjuic - the Mountain of the Jews, which is located on the opposite side of the city from where we were standing. It had moved.

I´ll look at comics tomorrow, I decided, thanked the man, and made my way back to the hostel. However, the clouds immediately burst into rain, causing my sleep-deprived mind to pull me aside and offer the most valid counsel ever:

Jimmy, the only option you have now is to go and drink in a bar until the rain stops, and then climb up to the top of La Sagrada Familia.

Trusting in the better judgement of my higher consciousness, I found the nearest cafe-bar, sat it out until the rain stopped (only a half hour later) and promptly skated my way across wet pavement towards Gaudi´s incomplete cathedral.

I don´t usually suffer from vertigo, and the climb up the tower was definitely lovely, awe-inspiring, and filled with all sorts of naturally-inspired architecture. But, when it came to climbing back down, especially down the madman´s bowel of a spiralling staircase, I found myself in the grip of white knuckled terror. Definitely enough to evaporate the warm glow of alcohol from my veins, yet without doing a thing about my sense of balance.

The experience must have driven any desire to see Gaudi´s further works from my mind, because the next day was spent exploring the works of Dali and Picasso instead.

Of the two musuems, Dali´s was by far my favourite exhibition. I didn´t know too much about his work, beyond his interest in drawing his wife nude, lots of surreal landscapes and his interest in cannibalism. However, it´s his work in pen and ink, around the mid 1960s, that I really admired. Ironically, it was his religious ilustrations that I loved the most.

The Picasso Musuem was also great, especially its temporary exhibition about how many artists have been fascinated with Velasquez´s Las Meninas. Also, being an art neanderthal, it was interesting to see Picasso´s earlier works, and to finally confirm that despite his famous work looking like something Ken Done could´ve painted, he actually had a lot of classical skill and talent behind him.

This was, for the most part, my experience of Barcelona. Despite my disappointment with the Camino´s tourist epidemic, I fully embraced Barcelona´s, having always known what to expect there. There was only one time that I had a truly local experience.

Catching the tram from the city centre, I made my way to the outer suburbs of the city, where I was greeted by Carlos, from the camino. He´d invited me over to dinner at his apartment, where he had prepared a Catalonian-style meal.

It turns out that I was the guest of honour here, as Carlos´two young daughters greeted me at the door.

"When they heard you were coming, they went straight into their rooms to put on their make-up and dresses. I think they like you." Carlos said, with a cheeky grin (his daughters were 9 and 11).

All throughout our walk together, Carlos had always told me that he cooked an amazing tortilla. He was not proven wrong - it was by far the best tortilla I´d tasted, with zucchini as an extra special ingredient.

Carlos´youngest daughter was overcome with excitment by my arrival, and ended up having a heated "discussion" with her dad in her bedroom. Shortly afterwards I heard her ask how to say "buenas noches" in English, before she sheepishly crept out to give me a kiss goodnight.

Before leaving that night, I asked Carlos if he had kept to his suggestion of spending each day as if he were walking the camino. He nodded and smiled, saying, "Jimmy, I can´t stop walking at all."

Neither could I, really. My last day in Barcelona saw me climbing Montjuic in an effort to finally see the comic book museum. Obviously it must´ve been a massive collection, to have been moved to such a prestigious location. Yet, it was strangely not listed on the map, and no-one in the tourist information had a clue what I was talking about. In the end, I was directed to the Military museum, where I was told that this castle held the comic collection.

I paid for my entry, navigated through the impressive fort, and came across my goal. There, sandwiched between some stones from an ancient Jewish graveyard, was a small collection of glass cabinets. Inside were some yellowing sheets of comics; pirates, cowboys, knights and soldiers from the 1950s. All in Spanish, and completely out of my grasp.

In an attempt to cheer myself up, I decided to check out the Miro Foundation in my last hours before the bus to Granada.

A large swarm of bright colours and sweet smells, bleating in American accents, surrounded me once I was inside. They leapt from room to room, walking up to paintings and sculptures, cracking jokes about how bad they looked, before grabbing a friend to take their picture next to "the painting that Miro obviously made for his fifth birthday".

I couldn´t help but think back to Brian´s rule about 100 grams. Just enough culture to say you´ve done something, but not enough to really get it. The Americans must have it written in their constitution.

Memories of Brian were hard to eject from my mind when it came to catching the bus to Granada. Though I knew he was safely back in Louisiana, my eyes kept avoiding contact with any potential anglophone.

Instead, I ended up catching the bus part of the way with a Catalonian called Jordi. He wore a "dreadlock mullet" - the trendy shaved head with dreadlocks spurting out from just above the neck. I couldn´t help but ask him what it all meant. In an effort to practise his English, Jordi told me that he was an "okupo", a Spanish squatter, and that rasta culture is a big part of that scene. Funnily enough, I´d actually passed his squat on my first day in Barcelona, when trying to find the Comic museum.

I showed him the picture I´d taken at the front of his building - a piece of grafitti saying "Tourist Terrorist".

Jordi nodded sadly, but then smiled and said, "If you like grafitti, you will love Granada. Just ask around."

I wished him well and we parted ways. In another 11 hours I would have the chance to see if he was right or not.

Beyond the End of the Earth, Back to the Field of Stars

There is an older path that lies beyond the terminus of the Camino de Santiago. Striking out west towards the Atlantic Ocean, the Camino Fisterra has its roots buried deep in pre-Christian culture.

At Fisterra, the End of the Earth, you can find a gateway to the underworld deep below the freezing waters. Here pagans came to celebrate the sun, watching as it fell to its death in the extinguishing ocean. Others, though, came to witness the procession of the dead -- loved ones who had departed in the previous year, marching along a dirt road and into the mysteries of the eternal deep.

Today it is a seaside resort crawling with tourists.

The road to Fisterra was a colder, harder road than the relatively pampered one I´d stumbled along to Santiago. Though only three days, the path takes you away from the catered, tourist-flooded areas and into a wilderness where you´ll be lucky to find one refuge within a day´s trekking.

Most of the time this would be fine, as historically the Fisterra walk is not as heavily trafficked as the major Camino Frances route. Unfortunately, Hape Kerkeling decided to write a book.

Apparently it was very popular, because this year saw an unprecedented peak in the number of Germans making the pilgrimage -- not only to Santiago, but also beyond it to the usually footnoted Fisterra. Albergues found themselves booked out within twenty minutes of opening for the day, even burning through their usually sufficient summer overflow options. While turning up late to an albergue pre-Santiago wasn´t a problem (most towns had several accommodation sources), the Fisterra was cruelly barren and forced stragglers to march out for anywhere between 12 and 20km for their next chance at a bed (which was probably occupied by a man called Rudolph).

To make things even more terrifying, I overheard rumours that Krekeling´s book is going to be made into a feature film sometime in the next year or so.

And it is here that I have to shake my head sadly. Not because I don´t want Germans making this pilgrimage, but because I don´t actually think that the Camino de Santiago is a true adventure anymore.

Millions of dollars have been pumped into the Camino Frances, making it one of the cushiest walking experiences, where you know that your chance of a bed at the end of the day is 100%, and that while a lot of locals won´t speak your language, at least you know that their menu is almost identical to the town you just departed.

Why then would anyone want to make a movie or write a book about what is now just a very long walk to the beach?

It may have something to do with the pagans, dancing naked on the beach as they cheered the sun onto its watery grave.

There is a lot of mystique and romance associated with the Camino, and I can definitely see why. You walk through a beautiful, everchanging landscape. You hear stories about interesting pilgrims (the two men who started at their front door in Holland, stopping every hour to drink wine and eat meat, or the man who carried a tuba all the way with him from Cambridge). You have heard the legends of St James, and of the knight Sir Roland, and it all sounds like an epic quest.

And then, there are the aphorisms that you hear along the way. Paul, a priest from South Africa told me, while massaging his swollen knee, that "you stort yor Caminoo wan you leave your front door." And Laurie, who I was later reunited with in a small restaurant 12kms short of Fisterra, smiled despite dripping with rainwater (reports suggest that this was the wettest May in the history of Spain´s weather records), saying, "it´s out here, while walking, that you see the true nature of God. It´s here, not in that Cathedral back there."

But, most memorable of all, are the words of Nora. She was the first pilgrim I met, many weeks ago, as I unpacked my bag in St Jean Pied du Port. A traveller from Belgium, she´d just arrived in St Jean that day, having not only walked from there to Santiago two years earlier, but also trekking from Le Puy in the south of France to close her personal moebius strip.

We shared dinner in a Basque restaurant, where she said to me, "Remember, no matter what happens, you were chosen to walk this Camino."

Those words stuck by me throughout my whole journey, especially when I was shivering in a wet tent, or losing my mind while stumbling that extra 12km.

For me, seeing the ocean was a lot more momentous than walking into the Cathedral in Santiago de Compostela. There is something electrifying about watching ancient trees peel back one by one, drawing the speck of blue slate water closer and closer towards you until, finally, it is the only colour in your vision and the sky and sea have melded into a singularity.

Despite the rain and my heavy backpack (once again plumped up to its 20kg bulk), I took off my boots and walked barefoot into the ocean, taking the last part of the pilgrimage feeling ice water and sharp sand scour my feet clean.

In contrast, the Cathedral at Santiago was a nest of tourists, clambering over eachother to take photos of golden statues. The density of money and a willingness to spend had drawn all manner of opportunists to the steps of the Cathedral, including a man dressed as a pilgrim selling lottery tickets.

Happily, though, none of them were Germans. In their defence, the Deutschlanders actually took the time to walk the entire length of the Camino. Santiago, on the other hand, seemed to have swallowed them up, leaving American pips in their place, crammed into every alley way and hotel room.

And this is why I would not recommend the Camino Frances to anyone. It has been gutted, hollowed out and transformed into a symbol for people to parade about in a series of photos and stamps. St James and his Field of Stars is top heavy with tourism, and the sense of achievement, growth and challenge that a pilgrimage should represent seems to have faded away.

Days earlier, while still walking towards Santiago, I had the pleasure of walking alongside Carlos from Barcelona. Always embodying the soul of the true pilgrimage, he said to me, "When I return home, I plan to live my life as if I was walking the camino. Everyday you wake up, prepare yourself, and then march on towards a destination. It is not like my old life, where somedays all I´d do is wake up, work, then go back to sleep. You need to keep your life´s purpose in mind, whatever it is, and walk towards it. Every day."

Santiago de Compostela, then, was not the end for me. Neither was Fisterra, despite its romantic, pagan connotations.

Or maybe I´m just grumpy and spaced out after the 17 hour bus ride from Barcelona -- but that´s a story for another day.

Off the Beaten Egg

The young bartender adjusted his smudged glasses as he peered at our drunken faces.

"Do you remember how much you had? It was six, yes?" he asked.

We nodded, not exactly sure how many beers our table had consumed, but six was an affordable number. As he fumbled with the till, we shook our heads at the thought of Spanish honesty -- no Anglo-Celtic pub would ever dare be so lax about their alcohol supplies.

Still, we had good reason to celebrate. It was the eve before our arrival in Santiago de Compostela and, after 32 days of walking across Spain, our goal was only a 5km skip down the road. Along the way our numbers had dwindled, as the original fellowship of pilgrims broke away, while new faces had passed through only briefly: it seems that friendships from the first days of the Camino set firmer than those of the sophomore weeks.

Naz had left, driven off by dogs and blisters. Scott and Peter reached Santiago days ahead of us, and were already back in their normal lives. Abigail, determined to reach the Cathedral of St James for the feast of Corpus Christi, had pushed on into the black, soaking night by herself. The final challenge of suburban labyrinths, followed by the majesty of the cathedral itself, was enough to strike her down with tears at her destination. Alone and crying in the Praza do Obradoiro,
Abigail ended her pilgrimage by checking into the most expensive hotel in the city.

The concierge at the desk gave her a 70 euro discount.

But let´s go back, before the end, before the rain and wind and more beer than anyone could dishonestly remember. Before we crossed the frontier, leaving red mesetas for the drenched emerald of Galicia, there was another table dressed in empty mugs.

"I´m interested in seeing how all of the food changes from province to province, as we travel across the camino," said Laurie, her hippy gums and peaceful whites shining across at us.

"In the start it was all of this asparagus, then lomo, lomo, lomo. It´s so wonderful being able to walk past these things, growing in the land, and then finding it on your plate that night, knowing that you probably waved at the farmer who picked it."

Laurie was very right about this, and from that moment onwards I started taking note of the food around me on my journey towards Santiago de Compostela.

Pork, otherwise known as lomo, was a major staple of the early Camino. This has been one of the greatest mysteries for me - despite Laurie´s observations about homegrown food, I never once saw a single pig on my travels. Yet, bacon, ham and pork took up the greater part of my digestive system over this last month.

Probably best not to dwell on that one, given that lomo directly translates to the scarily vague "loin".

This is why I jumped to eating beef the moment I saw cows in the fields beside me. Sometimes this could be a little cruel, especially when I ordered veal a few hours after patting the head of an inquistive calf. But that´s the beautiful horror of life, I guess.

Galicia is renowned for its cows, as well as its octopus, which I´ve had the pleasure of trying a few times. My best experience was in the town of Melide. Here, an old woman plunged fresh, whole octopi into a bit vat of boiling water. The bubbling liquid turned purple from leeching all the deep sea hue out of the creatures´gelatinous bodies. When an order was placed, she´d fish out a monster and hack its tentacles into bite-sized chunks, drowning them in salt, chilli and olive oil. We ate them, sucker pods and all, with bread and white wine that was so homemade that it looked like murky water.

Burgos, a city of so long ago that I only have a stamp to remind me that I visited it, is equally famous for its "Morcilla de Burgos", which is a type of blood sausage. I´m neither here nor there about its ingredients, but it was always very tasty and one night in Burgos we ate it as tapas while being treated to an impromptu magic show by some very talented bartenders.

However the crowning honour of most amazing, useful and cheap dish has to be awarded to the Spanish potato omelette, aka Tortilla aka Tortilla de Patates.

It was a bad day when breakfast didn´t start with a slice of this delicacy. The potatoes, rich in carbohydrates, and the eggs, powerhouses of protein and fat, were the best possible ingredients to push weary pilgrims across the finish line.

Which is why a cold fear set in when we arrived in the lush land of Galicia and found that tortilla isn´t that popular in these parts.

Any sense of torment, of starvation and exhausted collapse on empty roads were dispelled shortly afterwards, thankfully, when we were introduced to something that the Galicians do make in great abundance. Empanada, the spanish pie, sometimes filled with fish, mystery meat or chorizo and wrapped in the crispiest pastry imaginable, has occupied the tortilla-shaped hole in my heart ever since.

I know that last time I promised to talk about what I´d discovered by stopping in towns off the recommended way, but the rumbling of my stomach might have had something to do with my sudden change in topic. So, for now, it´s time for me to go and discover some new gastronomical wonder, or canoodle with an old favourite.

Or both, because I´ll need my energy for the days ahead.

Tomorrow I set off west - towards the end of the earth.

Sir Bawls-a-lot: Worst Spirit Guide. EVER.

...somewhere I passed an old man pushing a wheelbarrow. Hiw toothless smile touched me so deeply that I had a momentary impression that he was my father: a representation of The Father. Tears well up again and I am left speechless...my reality is shifting...why is it that I cannot recall the last few hours? This altered perception and emotional surge is overwhelming me. My heart feels so open my chest is aching. I seem to break in and out of conscious awareness, one instant of complete clarity, the next only haziness. I resolve in this moment to continue my pilgrimage in total silence. I don´t know for how long; I know only that something is seeking to reveal itself that can only be heard in the silence. Amidst these uncontrollable tears I write this simple message to hang around my neck. I trust others will understand what I can´t articulate or comprehend it myself. I don´t even know if it makes sense in Spanish, "Saludos. Yo peregrino a pie, caminate en silencio. Paz."

Every night we have a bed time story from one of the main English guide books for the camino. Back in 2005, a man by the name of John Brierley apparently cried his way along the entire pilgrimage. Anything would set him off, be it an old man´s smile, or a local peasant waving from their field. For this reason, we have taken to calling our "guide along the spiritual path" Sir Bawls-a-lot.

In his defence, he provides some great maps and practical tips for the days ahead. But, unfortunately, there is a wealth of personal reflections and advice for having your own spiritual experience along the way.

Perhaps there´s something wrong with me, but this leaves a bad taste in my mouth. One day, Bawlsy directed me to look at all the bees buzzing around and to think about the "buzziness" in my own life. I wonder such deep introspection had caused him to vomit a little in his mouth too.

Walking 800km across another country is a pretty big undertaking and, when it is steeped in centuries of Christian and pagan tradition, it is understandable that a lot of people will see the path as one leading towards a spiritual terminus. But, to think that this "inner journey" can be packaged and presented as some holiday tour for the soul is awful. Unfortunately, it happens a lot out here: there are buses of pilgrims who hop off for a quick, 15km jaunt before hightailing it to their hotels and hot showers. Other pilgrims sit and write in their journals, not because they´ve necessarily experienced a form of enlightenment, but rather because that´s just what you do when you walk.

For me, strangely, I´d have to say that this pilgrimage has become one of physical and pragmatic growth. When I started, 26 days ago, my body burnt and ached and I hobbled with blistered feet and sore joints across the way. Something changed a few days ago, and now we burn our way across the countryside, melting 30kms beneath our soles in the space of 5 hours a day. My feet have healed amazingly; they are not tough and calussed, though there are still razor-sharp shreds of skin from old blisters, but instead they refuse to be injured any further. Even my baby toenail, now an angry shade of Spanish Onion purple, is still holding on, despite all the stories of other pilgrims having lost their entire collection.

Mountains are no trouble anymore, either.

A few days ago, the hellish mesetas bowed down and their red earth cracked apart as rivers of grey slate rose up into new, healthy mountain ranges. These mountains hid many secrets.

I came to the town of Foncebadon. Back in the 80s this was where Paulo Coelho, starved and driven mad by his own spirit guide, attacked and defeated a dog. It is also where Shirley Maclean was menaced by local dogs (perhaps they had something against pilgrims after previous experience). For me this ghost town, abandoned to the misty mountains, was a point of tension.

I found, instead, a village reinvigorated by the life blood of the pilgrimage and the very reassuring sight of dogs sleeping in the middle of the road. They just didn´t have that demonic fighting spirit anymore, apparently.

Beyond Foncebadon, the path climbed steeply towards the Iron Cross, a place where pilgrims are meant to bring a stone from their homeland. I didn´t know about this tradition, but it was very moving reading all of the messages left in the past. The pole (a simple telegraphy pole) to which the iron cross is attached was festooned with memorials to lost loves, faded photos of pilgrims, strange nick-nacks and Korean student cards.

The Iron Cross marked the highest point along the camino. Miraculously, it also marked a transformation in the landscape. Once we left the cross, we were transported into the west coast of Ireland: grey and white stones pushed through the ground, while yellow-flowered bushes did their best impression of gorse bushes along the way. Hidden amongst this new, cooler world, was a small hippy hostel, built out of natural stones and watered from a nearby well. We did not stay here, but I could already see an outcrop of dreadlocked folk sipping chai in front of it.

For me, there was nothing spiritual about these experiences. At least, there was nothing tear-inducing, striking me down to the ground and forcing me into a fit of silence. But, maybe I was doing something wrong.

Germans are one of the most common sights along the camino, so I asked a few travellers what guided them along the pilgrimage. It turns out that a German comedian had written a recount of his travels and that it was this that encouraged them to flock in gigantic numbers, clogging the arterial routes and enfuriating locals (we noticed that if ever we did anything wrong, a local´s first question was "Are you German?"). Supposedly a feature film is being made based on this book, which bodes ill for the "spiritual purity" of the Camino pilgrimage.

Mr Spain noted his dislike of the Germans on the day we entered Leon. Skipping around the rest of our group, he used his walking stick as a machine gun, firing bullets into the air and screaming:

"It´s a fucking war, aye, yeah, these Germans, we´ll beat them, aye, we´ll take them out before they get to the next city."

Needless to say, I haven´t seen Mr Spain since Leon.

But, he did make a good point, in a lateral way, and that is that the camino experience can be easily trampled by the immense number of pilgrims walking the way. Bawls-a-lot sends thousands of English-speaking travellers to the exact same towns every day, and I think that this is a major reason why a lot of the stops are either overcrowded or starting to develop new hostels (and why dogs are no longer attacking pilgrims).

To experiment, and get away from his pre-programmed path to Nirvana, our group has started finding beds in towns and villages off the beaten track. So far, so good, but I´ll leave this for another day.