This piece was written by John and Pamela Voelkel, authors of The Jaguar Stones Book Two: The End of The World Club
Most people go to Spain for the beaches or the art or the flamenco dancing, but our favorite place is a world away in the wild northwestern corner. Galicia has its own traditions and landscape and weather.
The weather is probably the number one reason why more people don’t go there. It’s pretty much always raining. But rain suits this landscape of green fields and gray stone – and it suited us too, as we moved our story from the rainforests of Central America to somewhere else that gets the daily downpour.
We began our research in the medieval city of Santiago de Compostela, literally St James of the Field of Stars. You see the symbol of the saint, the scallop shell, all over the city. It’s said that his bones are buried in a silver casket below the altar of the cathedral. These bones draw pilgrims from all over the world to walk the famous Camino de Santiago.
Inside the cathedral, visitors line up to hug a plaster statue of Saint James, and fit their hands into handprints worn into the pillars during a thousand years of tourism.
If you’re lucky you’ll see the botafumeiro in action. The largest incense censor in the world, it still swings giddily across the transept, supposedly to mask the smell of travel-weary pilgrims. We were lucky enough to see it twice and it inspired a key scene in the book. Both times, the congregation oohed and aahed as if they were watching circus acrobats. It’s impossible to stay silent as a great brass tea urn filled with red-hot coals comes lurching towards you, one minute looking certain to drop on your head, the next to crash through the roof.
By chance, we arrived during Santiago’s medieval festival which added to its timeless air. But if you stroll through its arcades at any time of year, you’ll almost certainly be serenaded by a “tuna” – a band of university students dressed as medieval minstrels.
Just as ancient Maya souls followed the Milky Way to the underworld, pilgrims followed it to Finisterre, the official end of the Camino and embarkation point for Celtic souls bound for the afterlife. The lighthouse at Finisterre is on the Coast of Death, named for its high seas and lethal rocks. On the day we were there, the weather obliged with a violent thunder and lightning storm that left us in no doubt of our own mortality.
Further east, down a switchback coastal road, we came to the decidedly eccentric town of San Andres de Teixedo. Legend has it that if Galicians don’t visit in their lifetime, they will come after death as a lizard or a frog. This gave rise to the tradition of bereaved relatives bringing buying two tickets and traveling with the spirits of the dead. Just as in the book, a man sat in the cafe with two drinks, one for himself and one for the deceased. (And yes, if you’ve read the book, the lady behind the bar cackled like a witch.)
The food of Galicia can be as uncompromising as the weather. Chewy octopus and strange local crustaceans, beef steak smothered in strong cheese – and a particular delicacy called Pimentos de Padron, which earned their own episode in the book. Franciscan monks brought these little green peppers back from the New World and they thrived in the fertile soil of the monastery at Padron. They are served fried and sprinkled with salt. What’s extraordinary is that most of them are mild and sweet, but a few are fiery hot. Eating them is like playing Russian Roulette and they soon became our children’s favorite appetizer. (One that often ended in tears.)
Finally, we come to a beautiful, magical destination, and if you can find it in the maze of country lanes outside Santiago, you will surely have it all to yourself. An old stone manor house called Pazo de Oca, the model for Landa’s palace in the book. You can’t usually enter the house, still owned by the Duchess of Alba, but if you approach the great wooden door and dare to ring the doorbell, a maid will admit you to the gardens. And there, under leafy arbors, still dripping from the last rain shower, you will gaze upon a stone boat in a secret lake, and pinch yourself, as we did, to make sure you are not dreaming.
Get the book through Jon and Pamela’s website.
