GoMad Nomad Travel Mag » essays

Along the Camino de Santiago

admin — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 18:58:38 +0000

a fellow pilgrim on the Camino de Santiago

Not a morning passes when I don’t hear the oop oop oop of the hoopoe. Some days I walk through vineyards, other days through centuries-old olive groves.

Usually the camino follows dirt roads, but at times I suffer the unforgiving impact of the pavement. Occasionally my way narrows into single-track, and I savor those moments. Wildflowers saturate the Andalusían spring. The waves of orange, yellow, and red make me smile when the pain in my feet demands otherwise.

When I arrive in Extremadura, free-range pig farms and cork forests compose the land. Later comes the monotony of the plains and the burn of the mountain climbs. I always pass cow pastures, and sometimes a toro stands alone on the opposite side: the road cutting the farm in two.

I can’t fully appreciate Spain’s history until I cross Merida’s 60-arch Roman bridge and slip underneath its triple-tiered aqueduct. Since I am an American, these are the features that imprint my memory and are too often taken for granted by Europeans who have grown up with them. In Salamanca, I ponder the generations of academics who have toiled inside the high walls of the university’s oldest buildings.

In Galicia, I pass through stone-built villages: Laza, Cea, and Laxe, so old they are inseparable from the landscape. The villages here are situated closer together than those in the regions I’ve come from. The green rolling hills are cut into lots by waist-high rock walls. The aging faces and lack of cars expose the sharp contrast between the outdated countryside and the vibrancy of modern Madrid.

view from along the Camino

I walk to experience life at walking pace. I catch what those traveling by car and tour bus miss. Moving at this speed I feel Spain in my tired joints, I hear Spain in the ringing of church bells, I taste Spain in each of the changing regional delicacies as I make my way north from Sevilla on the Via de la Plata.

Instead of pulling over to a scenic view point for five minutes, the view follows me for five miles. I see Spain unfold in front of me—the landscape picture book of back roads, front roads, agriculture, mountains, meseta, and lavender-lined footpaths. Time passes along the way: 38 mornings of café con leche and 38 evenings of tintos y tapas.

When I walk I become part of the environment. When the wind blows and the sky pours I become cold and wet. The warm Iberian sun dries me back to warmth and the thick oak groves shade my rest breaks when it becomes too dominant.

I am happy to say buenos dias to the townspeople in each community I pass through. I appreciate their brief hospitality and the fleeting moments we cross paths. They smile: surprised that I’m so young and walking alone.

I have always been told that the journey is more important than the destination. So, nearing the end, I try to downplay the significance of my arrival at the cathedral in Santiago. But I can’t convince myself that tomorrow will not be extraordinary.

Santiago de Compostela is a special place, and after walking almost six weeks to get there, the magnitude of my arrival will only be amplified by the journey that got me here.

Stephen Bugno walked the 1000 km from Sevilla to Santiago de Compostela on the Via de la Plata in the spring of 2008. His writing has appeared in The San Francisco Chronicle, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Transitions Abroad, and the Matador Network.

To Say We had been to Kosovo

admin — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 18:26:47 +0000

By Gilbert Carlson

We were in Bulgaria when we decided to visit Kosovo. All we knew about Kosovo was what we’d seen on the news about their war with Serbia and their unilaterally-declared independence earlier in the year. Our travel map was sketched on the back of our first guitar and complemented by a real map of the Balkans in Cyrillic that had been given to us by a driver on the ring road of Sofia. Because of our lack of proper tools, we avoided planning as much as possible and let random events guide us through the Balkans.

We’d hitched out of Sofia with the intention of going to Skopje for a day or so and then heading on to Pristina. But a very kind lady had picked us up outside the border crossing from Bulgaria to Macedonia and told us she was driving straight and fast to a hotel 10 km outside Pristina on the main road.

As we drove through Macedonia I regretted not stopping in the country: it was a sunny afternoon, the landscape was beautiful, the roads were tiny and beat up, and the living looked simple. It seemed like a perfect place to get lost in for a couple days. Our driver was having an affair with a Kosovan man and drove every weekend from Sofia to Pristina to meet him and we’d been lucky enough to cross paths. She drove fast through the lovely Macedonian countryside. We slowed down a little when making our way through the Albanian markets in the suburbs of Skopje, and again when we passed the UNMIK-controlled Kosovan border. We drove very quickly through the mountainous area of southern Kosovo and gazed out the window at the gorges, rivers and snow covered mountain tops. We were getting excited about the country until it suddenly faded into the flat and uneventful plain that surrounds Pristina.

Our driver left us on the parking lot of the hotel her lover managed. We enjoyed the last of our bread and cheese and took a minute to think about where we were and what we were doing. It became clear to both Nathan and I independently that we did not care much, if at all, about seeing Pristina, or the rest of Kosovo for that matter. We’d wanted to come here for one reason only– to say we’d been to Kosovo. Now that this was done we would be content just crossing the road and hitching back the other direction to somewhere else. Some of these thoughts were influenced by the fact that we were on a parking lot, surrounded by industrial sprawl on a very flat plain outside of a city that had no famous monuments nor anyone we knew. The sun was setting and it was getting chilly and the idea of sleeping outside in this climate was not appealing at all. We considered heading back down south to Greece and its sunny Mediterranean coast. We’d seen signs on our way up which was an encouraging sign for a hitchhiker.

We finally made up our minds and decided to hitch the last ten kilometers into town, spend the night and check it out in the morning: leave whenever we got bored. We’d hitched all the way here and the idea of turning around seemed somehow stupider than the idea of going to a country just to say “I’ve been there”. However ugly and uneventful Pristina may turn out to be it could hardly be worse than the parking lot of a hotel and gas station we were currently standing in. Greece was several hundred kilometers away and the idea would have been hard to sell to the two more reasonable members of our group of four. Hitching proved incredibly easy and fast. We split up into two cars that then drove together as a convoy to make sure we made it to the same spot in the city. Our meeting point had been “the oldest and most famous thing in town” but Pristina had nothing old and nothing famous in it so our cars dropped us off in the middle of town.

A contact on couchsurfing had told us about an abandoned building’s rooftop that we could camp on but we were having a hard time getting in touch so we went looking for alternatives. The big fancy five-star hotel had no free rooms to spare but was willing to let us sleep in a corner of the lobby as long as we could get the security guards to agree to it. With accommodation secured we’d decided to hit the bar scene. It was Friday night and we’d heard good things about the Pristina night life. Of course we still had all our bags which meant we had to find a spacious and relatively quiet bar to crash in.

The Contra fit the description perfectly. On top of that, the staff was extremely friendly, even to the point of forgetting to bill me my drinks and the owner was kind enough to let us spend the night in the bar. Closing time was midnight and we would have to be out by the time they opened the next morning at seven. I crashed at eleven, before the bar was either closed or empty, but no one seemed to mind the tall fellow stretched out on a couch in the corner.

I have no idea what negotiations went on during my sleep but the fact is I woke up the next morning to a thirteen-year-old kid telling me in broken English that it was way too cold for us to sleep in the bar and that we should absolutely come to his house and that his aunt and uncle would pick us up in a couple minutes in their car. Apparently he was one of the peanut-selling kids that go around the bars of Pristina at night. He’d seen us settle in to the couches for the night and according to the others he had tried to communicate all this to us beforehand, but my friends hadn’t quite understood what he meant and were in no mood to give up a comfortable set up in a bar to follow a kid into a cold night. Both he and his sister felt bad for us and convinced their family to come pick us up. When a working teenage boy from a war-torn country feels bad for you, you know you’ve gone very far in a strange direction.

Minutes later we were being driven around Pristina to a house that was well within walking distance of the bar. We were led into a well-heated living room to spend the night and in the morning given hot milk, bread, butter, and jam for breakfast. We got to know the family better and hung out with the two kids while resting after what had been a short and chilly night. After a couple hours we were served soup for lunch.

We went out for a tour of the city, which was a very short affair, and played the guitar to an audience of Kosovan kids. In the evening we drank some more at the Contra and enjoyed free pizza in a restaurant. We returned to the family’s home and spent the night in a warm, comfortable bed.

In the morning we left our generous hosts and hitched our way out of Pristina only to be ‘kidnapped’ thirty kilometers down the road by Isuf, who absolutely insisted on taking us to his house in the mountains, going fishing, showing me how to change the battery on a Caterpillar tractor, taking us out for coffee by the river, and dropping us off the next morning on the road to Albania.

Carefree Travel on the Cheap

Riding on The City of New Orleans

admin — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 01:04:06 +0000

by Stephen Bugno

As a child riding in the back seat on the interstate to my grandparents’ house in upstate New York, I looked to my father to pop in the cassette. Be it Willie Nelson or Arlo Guthrie singing, the words of Steve Goodman’s classic folk song, “The City of New Orleans,” summed up the essence of America to me.

Twenty years later, I’m living out my childhood dream of riding this magic carpet made of steel through America’s backyard. I’ve come to see if it’s as romantic as those poetic lyrics ingrained in my imagination suggested it would be.

The historic train line, that only since 1971 has been operated by Amtrak, shuttles passengers 19 ½ hours between Chicago and New Orleans. Instead of going the traditional way, I thought I would ride from already balmy Louisiana, north to the still-wintry Windy City, and follow the lyrics in reverse.

We leave the Big Easy at 1:45 p.m., with plenty of time to sleep off the previous night’s party on Bourbon Street capped off with spontaneous street jazz and a café au lait and beignets at the 24-hour Café Du Monde.

As we roll, the rich swamps on the edge of Lake Pontchartrain slowly give way to the forests and fields of Mississippi. From the slow-moving train, I manage to catch a glimpse of a sunning alligator, a couple of turtles and an egret taking flight. By evening, we pull into Memphis, too dark to witness the intimidation of the mighty Mississippi River. I stop to enjoy a couple of days here.

I indulge in the cliché of a pilgrimage to Graceland. And to complete the unrivaled Memphian experience, I see live blues on Beale Street after sinking my teeth into a pulled-pork sandwich at Central BBQ. Back on The City of New Orleans, we push through the night, and by morning we’re in Chicago. The cold spring wind stuns me as I step off the platform at Union Station. But

I’m comforted in knowing I won’t have a moment of boredom in this urban center of world-class architecture, cuisine and sports. Though I enjoyed my journey through the backbone of America, it wasn’t completely agreeable. The dilapidated rural houses and decaying cities of the Deep South reminded me that my country still has to pull its long-neglected people out of poverty. The unofficial segregation and racism that continue to plague our nation were even more troubling to this naive middle-class Northerner.

I’m not sure if The City of New Orleans was as romantic as the folk-song images in my boyhood mind. But there is something special about this train and its magical journey, complete with the passengers, sites and sounds to make a good, old-fashioned adventure through the heart of our country. One thing is for sure: If you’re looking to find the real America, you need not search any further than the people and places along this steel rail that still ain’t heard the news.

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A Mother’s Medicine

admin — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 20:21:56 +0000

by Jett Thomason

One of the many advantages to living with a host family in Uzbekistan was the free and doting medical care. Upon arrival at my work site, I discovered this the hard way. With the cold weather and the throngs of little children extending their germ-ridden hands to greet me each day at school, I quickly took ill. I called the Peace Corps Medical Officer from the depths of my cold.

“Cold viruses have no cure,” the doctor told me. “The body just has to learn how to fight the new strains.”

“So there’s nothing I can do?” I ventured.

“Drink lots of liquids and tea. Some volunteers take several months to adjust to the new situation,” came the cheerful reply. Did I detect a note of sadistic satisfaction on the end of line? Must have been the long distance connection.

I sat down to my fortieth cup of tea, shivering and sniffling. The doctor had delivered tough love and no matter how many generic cold pills I popped from my medical kit, I just had to suffer through the “adjustment.”

In the meantime, my host mom had been pleading to give me her natural medicines. She said she had been mixing and selling her medicinal teas for years.

“Jett,” Sveta looked at me with sad eyes, “Drink my special teas. I can’t sleep because I’m so worried about you.”

Well, what volunteer could say no to host mother’s plea like that? The hell with Peace Corps’ prohibition on local medicine, I decided. Tea is tea; it’s not medicine.

“All right, Sveta. I’ll drink your tea.”

I took my first dose that evening. The taste didn’t even reach me through my stuffy nose. I went to bed miserable and woke up feeling a thousand times better. I took the next two servings, and within a day was feeling perfectly healthy. My host mother just smiled knowingly as I gave her the positive results.

From that day on, I always asked Sveta for one of her teas whenever the worst laid me low. The colds were milder and my sleeplessness disappeared with one of her blends. As such, I felt free to ask her any time the slightest illness threatened.

As the weather began to cool again in the fall, I got my first sore throat. First thing that morning I told Sveta.

“Jett, come to me for some medicine just before bed,” she instructed. Obediently, I nodded yes.

That evening I went into the kitchen and asked for the tea.

“Not tea, it’s different for a sore throat,” Sveta explained. “Wait here and I’ll be back with the treatment.”

Curious but confident, I sat down to wait. A few minutes later Sveta came back. She had what looked to be a pumpkin wrapped in a wool scarf under her arm. I wasn’t too sure what to expect, but she hadn’t failed me yet.

As I watched, she opened the cabinet and pulled out a small bowl. Then a plastic bag. Then a strip of cheesecloth. Then came the vodka.

Oh God, I thought, her cure for a sore throat is the same as my host dad’s: lots of booze. I stood up and began to make excuses for not taking that kind of “medicine.”

“Just a minute, Jett. This isn’t for drinking.” She nodded at me. “It’s for your throat.”

I was confused but I sat down again in good faith. She opened the vodka and poured some into the bowl. Then she laid the cheesecloth in the bowl and soaked up as much vodka as it would hold. With the strip saturated and breathing fumes, she folded it and placed it on my throat.

“Hold this,” she said.

Dutifully I held the strip in place. Sveta then took the plastic bag and folded it several times. This was placed over the vodka cloth.

“Hold this,” she said.

Again I did as I was told.

With vodka running down the outside of my throat for a change, Sveta pulled the scarf-wrapped object to her. What could possibly be in there? I wondered. She unfolded, unfolded, and unfolded the scarf to…nothing. With a quick whipping action, the scarf was suddenly a thick woolen rope. Deftly she tied it around my head binding the vodka-soaked cheesecloth to my throat.

“The scarf keeps the vodka in. That way it works better.” She confided her trade secret to me.

I had to admit, it was an interesting sensation. Heavy and cumbersome, hard to breathe, just the thing for swollen glands. I smiled and nodded, my true thoughts about the process quite concealed.

“Now go to bed, tomorrow you’ll feel much better.” She smiled at me knowingly.

What to do but as she told me? As I walked up to my room I reminded myself that the teas had worked before. That Western medicine didn’t know everything. That this couldn’t hurt, at least.

Then I saw myself reflected in the window. I was the Woolly Lion. I was the Goodyear Tire Christmas Wreath. I was an astronaut. I was wearing the world’s longest scarf wrapped around my head holding a vodka cloth to my throat. I looked ridiculous.

I lay down in bed debating what to do. Perhaps it would work. Sveta seemed to know what she was doing. But I doubted her; I tried to imagine some kind of scientific basis for this simple, yet extravagant, treatment. I came up with nothing. The extra padding began putting a kink my neck. Suddenly, with a burst of free will, I ripped the thing off, took a deep breath and went to sleep.

Later that night, as the last cup of tea worked its way through my body, I awoke from tsunami dreams to a very full bladder. I got dressed and prepared to go down to the toilet. I stopped short as I looked into the courtyard. The light in the kitchen was still on. It had only been an hour since I had lain down and the family was still up. Sveta was still up. How to explain my missing treatment? I sat down, trying to reconcile my sense of dignity with my bladder’s pressing needs. I knew the truth, though. I was going to have to put that scarf back on.

Resigned, I strapped the mass of wool around my head and went to the latrine. Washing my hands, I dared a look in the mirror. I was caught in a fuzzy gray cloud. I was wearing the St. Louis arch on my head. At no time in my life have I looked or felt more foolish. Oh well. My business was finished; I’d soon be in my room and out of sight.

I wobbled out to the courtyard, trying to get used to the unfamiliar weight on my skull. I had no peripheral vision. I reeked of vodka.

My host dad and his apprentice suddenly appeared from the side. I nearly lost my balance craning to look at them with this burden around my skull.

“Sore throat, eh?” my host dad grunted.

Shrugging my shoulders, I nodded at them. They nodded back.

They returned to their work in the garage. I crept up to my room to take my medicine.

About the Author:

Jett Thomason was a TEFL volunteer in Uzbekistan from 2002- 2004 in the United States Peace Corps. Since then, he’s worked in Afghanistan and Iraq and traveled extensively throughout Asia, Europe, and the countries of the Former Soviet Union. He is currently pursuing a masters degree in public policy from Georgetown University in Washington, DC. This story, “A Mother’s Medicine” originally appeared in Americans Do Their Business Abroad, a collection of Peace Corps stories.