"A Spaniard's Dream"
Fonollosa, Spain
October 27, 1983
Dear Folks,
Crossing the Spanish Pyrenees ten days ago, near the principality of Andorra, left no doubt in my mind that I'd entered the rawest phase of the walk yet.
I spent two bitterly-cold days in high mountain passes. There were no villages, and the snow and the fierce winds pushed me about like some toy. At night in my thin tent, dressed in all the clothes I have, I shivered hour after hour in below-freezing temperatures.
Then came the sharp, quick decent into the valleys which run to the Mediterranean Sea...and a different danger: For nearly two days, every breath I took was tainted with the tastes of uncontrolled air pollution trapped in the narrow, steep-walled corridors leading toward Barcelona. Everywhere, it seemed, was the smell of rot--rotten buildings, dead animals, and raw sewage.
There were many signs of tension: machine gun-toting guards patrolled the family dwellings of the national police; some factory windows had bullet holes in them; and on many walls was the hammer-and-sickle emblem of the Communist Party ("PCC" in Spain), with the word "affiliate" violently scrawled underneath.
On the fourth day I turned away from the Mediterranean and all the dust, and traffic, and cramped cities and headed to the southwest, toward the nation's distant south coast that faced North Africa.
At last, on the high brown plains that make up Spain's vast interior, I found the warm persons I had been told Spain was famous for. One such person was 39-year-old Pep Cruell. He lived in the tiny village called Calders. A gentle man with a deep laugh and a fiercely independent spirit, he asked me to be one of his family for a day or two. Of course I accepted.
We'd bumped into one another on one of Calder's narrow side streets early in the morning. Short, dark, broad-shouldered with gray-streaked long black hair, he was dressed in faded denim pants and an old corduroy jacket. He had a straw carrying bag slung over his left shoulder, and in his right hand he was gripping a large dark sickle.
"Are you American?" he asked in flawless English.
"Yes," I replied surprised. He looked like the last person one would expect to know English.
"Follow me," he commanded.
I followed him down a tight, shadowed street that was lined by very old stone homes tightly crammed together. At the end of a dusty lane, we stopped at a three-storied building of equally rough stone and crumbling mortar. It was his home, he informed me, while proudly adding that it was 300 years old.
I followed him through a creaky plank door, across the dirt floor of a cellar strewn with burlap sacks, sleepy cats, and rusted bicycles. We then climbed some narrow, ladder-like steps to a kitchen that was barely large enough to hold four people. There I met Imma, his younger artist wife. Although it was still very early in the morning, she was already frying the lunch that was to be served to Pep in the field at around two o'clock. In Spain, lunch is the main meal of the day, and it generally lasts for two to three hours, at which time the entire nation seems to nearly shut itself down.
Pep informed Imma that the family would be having a guest that night, and then we went to the almond grove that he had initially been heading to. All day we shook almonds from trees and put them into burlap sacks. We only took a break when Imma showed up with the enormous lunch and one of their two small sons, Pepit.
Under the bright, hot Mediterranean sun we filled ourselves with a main dish of eggplant, rice, chicken, peppers, carrots, onions, celery, and garlic. Side dishes included "Indian Bread" (a flat, gray-colored tortilla), cooked cauliflower, wine, and a French bread loaf spread with a marmalade.
After we had worked past sunset and collected nearly 1,000 pounds of the almonds, Pep and I returned to his home of low-ceilinged, cramped rooms with walls covered in the artwork of his wife and sons. They had no television, and so we sat in front of a roaring fireplace, talking of our adventures and dreams. Since I can speak quite a bit of Spanish, the entire family was able to join in, including Pepit and the other son, Pol.
During the day, Pep had questioned me incessantly about the States, particularly California. I had asked him why he was so interested in California. He told me he had traveled all over the world, except to America. And now he had a burning desire to visit that faraway land "with all the Spanish-sounding cities."
"I want more than anything to sail around the world and eventually land somewhere like California. That is why I couldn't let you go this morning--not when I had the chance to find out from someone who has been there what it is really like."
As I stared at the fire that evening, I knew how he felt. Like so many others I had met in France and Spain, he had many questions about America but because of where he lived there was no one to ask those questions.
The notion that Americans are "everywhere anymore" is not true. Since leaving the States in July, I've met but three Americans outside the major cities. For most people in the rural areas in which I've walked, their only contact with Americans and America has been through the media. Hence, they are not exactly sure what we are really like.
Much later that night, after a light dinner around 9 p.m. and presentations of drawings to me by the boys and a look at Imma's beautiful batiks of dragons and butterflies, Pep showed me one of his most prized possesions. It was a tattered copy of a large book titled The last Whole Earth Catalog.
He handled the five-pound book as carefully as one might their family Bible. The book, published in English by a California group, was filled with listings of books dealing with alternative lifestyles. It covered everything from natural childbirth to bartering to Pep's favorite--building your own boat.
"I built a small rowboat from directions last year," he said thoughtfully. Then, looking me in the eyes he added, "It wasn't difficult at all. I know I could build a boat that would make it around the world--I know I could!
"I had no car to take my rowboat to any lake, and so I filled it with water to test it for leaks," he said proudly, rubbing his sides. "She didn't leak at all. Not one drop!"
Then, more to himself than to me, he added, "Ten years--that is when I will try to sail around the world!"
The next morning, as I was leaving Calders, I heard my name being called from somewhere far away and above. Imma was high atop one of the hills, with a straw bag in one hand. She was calling and waving to me. She was, like countless other Spanish housewives that morning, making her daily rounds to the butcher and bakery shops.
"Muchas gracias!" I shouted happily at her, not at all sure she could hear me.
But she did hear me. For, ever so faintly, came the unmistakable..."Da nada." ("You're welcome.")
Steven