You're Only Young Once

This past weekend was the International Festival of Celtic Music in Ortigueira, on the northern coast of the province of A Coruña. It began on the Thursday, and ended on Sunday night. While there is some pretty good music from all over the world (including a Japanese group this year - don't ask where the Celt comes in here), most young people go for the camping, the beach, and the camaraderie to be found. 

My daughter, being twenty and young, also went this year. Fortunately or unfortunately, this month she has a temporary job, and her week ends at nine thirty on Fridays. This year, too, there was the threat of a general bus strike, which was called off at the last minute, and no buses to Ortigueira were programmed from Santiago. So, she was desperately searching for transportation from friends and acquaintances during the week before. She finally found someone to take her, her friend, and one more passenger. The bad part, that the guy driving was starting out at one in the morning, because he also worked until late on Fridays. 

For a trip of almost a hundred fifty kilometers, and around two hours, that's not an auspicious hour to begin it. Yet, they are young and adventurous. I took the phone with me to bed, still, just in case. Sure enough, when I woke up, I had messages from my daughter. The four of them arrived safely at close to five in the morning. She also told me the trip had been an adventure, and the final leg was made by taxi.

Apparently, the guy who was driving was low on gas, but had made calculations, and decided that he had enough to reach Ortigueira and then put in gas during the day, when the gas stations opened. (There are gas stations that are open twenty-four hours, but these are few and far between.) When they were just a few kilometers away from their destination, the car started shaking and making little jumps. Uh oh, the calculations were off. They went as far as they could, and when it was the continual shaking of a cocktail mixer, the driver pulled over and stopped the car. He did it at a propitious spot, just before a long stretch of lonely road through the eucalyptus trees and darkness of lack of streetlights. He parked in front of the last building on a lighted stretch, a ladies' club. 

As they got out of the car, a client pulled in. The driver asked if he could spare some gas, but no, the client had none to spare. Given that there were a couple of cars in the lot, they assumed someone might spare some gas. No one in the club wanted to spare any. I'm pretty sure no one in the club wanted to be recognized, either. So, the driver ended up calling his insurance, which sent a tow truck to tow the car to the nearest gas station that was open, and a taxi for the passengers to continue their journey. And so it happened.

Of course, once my daughter and the other two passengers arrived, they had to find their friends' tents. In a pine grove filled with similarly colored tents. At an hour when most were continuing the festivities in the campground. Finally, they managed to get in touch with their friends and were guided to where their particular tent city was, though sleep was not on their minds just yet. No one goes to Ortigueira to rest.
 
There were concerts, and people got together at the campsite with their own music. It was a weekend with good weather, so people went down to the beach. Much food, there wasn't, though there were people selling from tent to tent and official bars with sandwiches set up nearby. People also went into town, where the neighbors welcomed them, though some were a little leery of the occasional dreadlock walking through. It was, above all, a gathering of youth, doing things that youth has always, and will always, like to do.

I am envious of my daughter. She gets to do fun stuff I never did. Maybe next year I can try to tag along, act like I'm twenty-five, and suspend judgment for a weekend.