Vigo, Spain

(A while ago I realized that what I have been calling “clams” are actually “mussels” -- I forgot that those existed. Oysters, clams, and mussels: ostras, almejas, and mejillones.) Here are some photos from Vigo!

1) Vigo’s port, as seen from the Parque do Castro.
2) The towns across from the Ria are called Mainha and Cangas. You can see the bateas, the rafts where mussels (not clams!) are raised, as little brown lines in the water.
3) Galician stone ready for exportation. I find cranes beautiful, especially when there are several of them together so that they look like a herd of grazing animals (also wind turbines).
4) This is Francisco, who gave me the royal tour of the port, standing in front of a mound of salt! The salt, he explained, is used to make a saline solution for the holds in tuna ships, so that the fish is preserved longer.
5) A ship loading (unloading?) aluminum ingots. This kind of crane slides along the sides of the ship and has much more lifting power than the upright ones.
6) Containers! 5000 of them on this dock.
7) These nets are used for drag fishing (trolling? something like that) and need to be fixed periodically.
8) Francisco in front of a tuna ship! This is the back of it – you can see the stern slanting towards the water and the machines used to winch up the nets. Also the high look-out posts! These are my favorite ships.
9) Traditional Galician fishing boats! Each village had a unique kind of boat, but there are a few main designs: gamela (rectangular bottoms), dorna (front and back pointed), chalana . . . Actually, those are just the names of the ones that this group had built. This one is a mix between two designs – it has the form of a dorna but the wood planks overlap as in a gamela. Don’t quote me on this – but do be impressed by how pretty the boats are.
10) These little boats are tiny, and Tonio told me about races between children (his daughter competes!) across the beach. Balance is hard to maintain – “tienes que usar el culo,” Tonio said.
11) Francisco took me up to Monte Alba – the Ria looks so far away! Very pretty, very pretty.
12) Unloading sharks in the wee hours of the morning.
13) This is the Gran Lonja in Vigo – there are lanes for people to walk along. The auction hadn’t started yet, but people were already selling and buying fish.
14) Swordfish.
15) All sharks. I have yet to figure out where they go.
16) Sunrise at the docks.
17) Luisa and Sito in the boat that we took out! This is the only photo I have of it, and I was told not to bring my camera along for the ride because we would get wet – but it is infinitely more beautiful when the square sail is hoisted and full of air, and there is water all around.
18) Cliché postcard photo of the Islas Cies.
19) Morning mist at the Islas Cies! It was all very peaceful until the seagulls started dive-bombing.
20) The reason for dive-bombing. Cute, no? They are little rascals. They purposely stood on the path in front of me so that I couldn’t move forward or around them without being attacked – so of course, I spent a lot more time at the top of the hill than I expected (I refused to risk my eyes, which the seagulls surely would have plucked out, or my life, which is what the seagulls were ultimately after). The chicks make an adorable squeaking sound, though, for which I forgave all.

Baiona, Spain

1) The port of Baiona – most boats are for sport. The green-roofed building at one o’clock is the lonja, where the fish are sold. There were so few fish (and so few buyers) that the auction was more of a conversation, and oftentimes a box or two of fish wouldn’t find a buyer.
2) This is the view from the water reserve on the mountain above Baiona – another day, I walked along Playa America, which is to the right of the green archipelago in the distance.
3) On the other side of this walkway is a steep dam! And the water in this tank is so beautiful. Look, you can see the bottom in this picture.
4) The mercado in Sabaris, on Monday morning. It was enormous!
5) Here is Juan Jose #1 (Galo) cleaning and sorting his hooks. He has four or five of these containers for his hooks, and every day he and his friends (look in the background!) spend hours preparing the hooks for the next day. The building behind them is the lonja.
6) These are octopus traps. You put a tasty morsel inside and the octopus enters through the hole at the top and forgets to come out. Octopus season starts this week, and many fishermen were putting away their nets for a few months to fish octopus exclusively. A single ship carries out over 500 of these traps, and each of the traps is checked and refilled with bait every day! I was told that there are about 20 ships that fish octopus – I don’t understand how any octopi are left alive.
7) These petroglyphs, at Outeiro dos Lameiros, are 4000 years old! Can you find the six-pointed spiral? It is the only such spiral in Galicia. A serious point of pride.
8) The Alto de O Grobe! Very high up! And there I am doing something like the YMCA.
9) The Virgen de la Roca. She was made in 1910 and is quite large. For scale: the ship that she holds in her right hand holds six people.
10) Roberto took me on his boat! I am standing where the fish are usually dying. Behind me, in the distance, are the Islas Cies.
11) Roberto! He is steering the boat. The metal cylinder that looks like it’s coming out of his chest is a winch, used to pull in the nets.
12) Clam floats! These rafts hold long underwater ropes where baby clams are put to mature. A book on Galicia informs me that the Rias, bays where freshwater from rivers and saltwater from the ocean meet, have such rich waters that clams grow at thrice the rate that they do in other places. (Sure! I believe it.) There were men on the ship to the right shoveling clams into boxes.
13) The wind and my wacky curly hair conspired to give me a 70’s look while I (yours truly, yes, Irene!) steered the boat back to the dock. If only I looked like this every day (and owned a boat).
14) I like the look of this long dock. (So close to alliteration. Shucks.)
15) UFO clouds over the fort that presides over the town. This fort (the people in it) fought against Sir Francis Drake! Also, Baiona was the first place to hear about the New World. Pinzon arrived here on the Pinta three days before Columbus arrived to Lisbon.
16) Guillermo, the seller of fish (among many other duties), holds a big (big) lobster.
17) The clams that Juan Jose #2 (Ge-ge) and I collected, and the instrument of their demise. We gathered two such buckets of them. My toes are there for scale.
18) The clams after Pura and I steamed them and picked them out of their shells! In this picture they look like diseased ears, but they were delicious.

La Guardia, Spain

1) The sky in La Guardia is always putting on a show, and the seagulls are always watching you -- do you see them on the crane? There are many cranes in Galicia.
2) La Guardia from one of the long docks around its harbor.
3) “Isto e Galiza non Espanha” – I’ve seen a lot of graffiti expressing that sentiment. Look, you can see boats in the other end of the harbor!
4) La lonja, where the auction is a calm and quiet spectator sport. The prices are posted on the big black board on the far wall, and buyers signal that they want to stop at a certain price by means of an electronic control.
5) These people are always at the dock at eleven! They are all helping one fisherman, Antonio, untangle and de-fish his net, and in return, they get good company and fresh fish.
6) This sea urchin is inedible, Benito tells me, but the blue and green ones aren’t. I asked what he was going to do with it, hoping for an answer like, “Oh, I shall toss it back to sea so that it can rejoin its family! Then it shall enjoy the rest of its life in freedom!” – but he said that they are a nuisance and are crushed.
7) Low tide!
8) This is the castro at the Monte de Santa Tecla – these stone circles were the homes of native Gallegos two millennia ago. In the first century AC, after the Roman invasion, the people started moving out of this kind of community and into newly established urban centers on lower ground.
9) La Guardia from the high and far Monte de Santa Tecla. I was probably out of breath when I took this picture.
10) This hill has a higher concentration of stairs than any other hill in the world (possibly) (it looked like it) (not an official factoid).
11) Look at the RAINBOW. It was about twenty-three and a half times more splendid in real life.
12) Look at the OTHER RAINBOW.
13) I have now seen three such fort-like structures that have been overtaken by the sea. I may have passed more without realizing it. (Later: Now I know what they are! Suave Gentleman Lito in Bayona showed me a similar ruin and told me that they were used to keep the catch until it was consumed – so these water-filled tubs housed doomed lobsters, crabs, etc.)
14) This is in the Portuguese city of Caminha, a ten-minute ferry ride away from Spain! Many buildings are covered in colorful tiles like these.
15) The coast is also full of these half-crumbled walls. Some are still used to enclose gardens, especially in the city, but many are overgrown like this one.
16) The view from an abandoned and crumbling house. ! Why would anyone leave?
17) Traditional Portuguese dancing. The little boy was my favorite.

SHUCKS

I have so many photos that I want to post! But I am wifi-dependent for photo uploads, and I haven´t had wifi in a while. Someday, someday . . .

Just imagine pretty, glorious, big, little, medium-sized, and a few disgusting things for now.