ENG:

This letter (or rather “retrospective diary”) was written in March 2014 in 20 pages, which was then sent to 20 of my friends. The unsophisticated style occurring sometimes is due to the primary audience of friends. On those reading through themselves, it usually had a nice impact: many of them reported meditative experience pulling out of everyday greyness, that’s why I make the whole of it available here, in 12 parts...  /CLICK HERE for the former parts/

/…/ Let me introduce my tent: it also has a soul that it has already given up. I found it in August, a day after the last day of the Sziget festival, at the Dutch camping area. Many people used to leave their cheep tents behind, they don’t give a fuck about collecting it. I liked it immediately ‘cause it had kind of graffiti patterns on it. Simply single layered, for two people (or rather 1 person + big bag). According to its label it was 39,90 Euros. Some bums also have already been hunting between the tents, one of them even shared his opinion about my choice: “You want to go to the big world with THAT?” I say “why, with WHAT should I go?” “Well, with something... better.” Whatever, I left with THAT. When I looked into the tent, I found all in all a leaf of contraceptive with two pills left in it, three used bags of condom and also some tampons. So I knew immediately that the owner was a very good girl, since she double-protected herself: she uses pills and condon even when having her period. I built up and down this tent during my way approx. 50 times. Many times in the rain, wind, on stony ground etc. Some times it soaked from the rain, got full of ants, once bedbugs bit my leg fully swollen, and once it stank from dog shit for weeks because I accidentally built it up on a dog toilet in the dark.

Following O’Cebreiro, where the province of Galicia begins, at my most frightening horror night of my pilgrimage the storm of the century arrived out of nothing, and not only manhandled and took it with me, but the donkey as well. Galicia greeted me this way. She put me to the roof many times before inviting me to live inside her body... Now the tent was almost fully destroyed, but I finished my pilgrimage with it; I didn’t really have other option.

After Santiago I met a couple doing their pilgrimage without words. They really didn’t speak a word with each other until Santiago. However, they had tent-firstaid stuffs and helped me repair my tent around the end of the way - with not as much success. The point is that by this moment the tent neither had a part that would be complete, nor a function that would work normally.

Nonetheless, I built up this poor cripple structure in idyllic camping mood in the windless orange sunset, which I considered as a reward received for my previous trials. I leaned against the pilgrim statue, tied Roci to its stick, and I started my dinner with the rest of bacon brought from home, staring at the town. Absolute ecstasy. Until the donkey stepped in front of me, with his face gazing at me, asking “maaan, let me go, there’s not much grass here”. I answered: “well, sorry, you’re fuckin’ gobbling all the time, you were the reason I came here, and until now I was always dealing with only you. But NOW, this is my moment and I want to have a romantic dinner, and my cutey-sweety donkey should be beside me to feel like the king of life”. “Really?” – said my cutey-sweety donkey, and with the momentum he turned his ass into my face and crap out under my nose... OK, understood, dear universe and dear Mr.Donkey-with-shit-as-his-communication-channel. I let him go, cleaned the crap, ate, water-piped, meditated and meanwhile the donkey also remained quite close.

Not like the next day in the morning while I packed up. The problem is that in this area you find either trees which you can tie him to, or grass he can gobble. The two of them you never find together. By the time I set off the tent, the animal was grazing already some 100 meters away, so I could go after him. However, when he sees someone coming, the animal instinctively starts to run away from it. He ran down to a way apart from the camino leading to another village. And me after him. But without packs, the son of a bitch is extremely fast. At the same time he runs funnily but right now I was not in the mood to laugh. Fortunately he turned into a dead end (heh, the looser) where I could grab him.

I decided not to go back on foot so far, but instead, this motherfucker will give me a ride. I broke a nice little wand and got on him. But he was so angry and started to do rodeo, of course shaking me down at least three times. When you happen not to sit on him, this kicking-bouncing can also be pretty funny, but if you sit on him, it’s not as much funny. I already got used to the fact that donkey is a stubborn animal, and the only working method against him if I prove that he cannot be more stubborn than me. So following a few fallings and donkey steps on me, I succeeded to break and ignite this creature – I rode with pride back to the place of the tent. This little intermezzo even came with handy, because whenever I set on him before, he never moved, no matter if I hit his ass. The wand, in turn, is an effective ignition key, besides, Rocinante is a quick learner, so next time he just needed a subtle caress to start… Finally a vehicle to ride!

This photo was made from donkey back near Muxia :)

The council of Santiago maintains a canteen called Cocina Economica for local bums where they get cool food thrice a day, but otherwise anyone can go in and eat lunch for 80 Cents, three-course dinner for 50 Cents and breakfast for 20 Cents. Of course, not so many people have the desire to share meal with suspicious junkies, but I used to. I was already late from the mess, but just caught the end of lunch time.

At the Cervantes square near to the Cocina I met an Italian bum who I knew since autumn. Back then, he just left the pizzeria of his friend and got me pizza and beer to care with the donkey while I eat and drink. And now he saw that people are taking photos of the donkey and he was wondering about how he could use this animal to benefit from it. So I left the burro with him while I was eating to let him collect a little money. For three and a half days, during my staying in Santiago I ate here and hanged out with this lad. A run-down figure in his fifties, one of his eyes is from glass through which I got a glimpse into the local bum culture. Participative anthropological observation, but it’s not so hard to stick in it, especially here, where they fully thrive. /…/

 Here's a quite new photo of El Italiano, he spends some months in Santiago again