Part 16: Santa Uxía de Ribeira

Who's that playing? Rasheets Wallace.

I don’t imagine I would enjoy a car ride in which I was blindfolded and taken to a surprise destination. Mainly because the element of middle-of-nowhere execution seems to be the most-likely outcome.  

But our roadtrip to Santa Uxía de Ribeira gave me hope that I might one day enjoy the blind-folded car ride concept. 

As we made our way up from Guimarães, we hit the type of weather I always feared driving through in a SmartCar. A vicious rainstorm reduced visibility to nothing and constantly tried to tug our car off the road. As I drove blindly through the country highway, I gripped the wheel, attempted to correct for every gust of wind, and focused on not dying. 

The next morning we woke up and realized that we were in a breath-takingly beautiful forest. We climbed a stairway to heaven that was actually a stairway to the top of a boulder that mildly resembled a frog and took in the 360-degree views of Galicia. Then we drove to the top of a higher lookout and absorbed even crazier views. 

There's no point for me to try to describe how pretty the stuff was, so there's a ton of pics at the bottom of the post.

I Only Rent Tents and Bounce Houses
As I sat on the patio of a roadside bar, I sipped a beer to dull my frustration that the bounce house shark I was staring at was anatomically correct. 

It was during this moment of faux stress that I came up with the idea for an art exhibition I will never put into action. Bounce houses as a medium of art. 

To my knowledge, nobody’s ever done this before and it seems to make perfect sense. The art would be interactive and it would represent my triumph over the only serious injury I ever sustained in my life: When I once worked at a children’s bounce-house play place, I ran down a giant slide and sprained my wrist. I would say severely sprained my wrist, but the fact it’s just a sprained wrist is pussy enough, without me pussifying it further with the word “severely.”

So if anybody has access to a ton of vinyl and generators, let me know if you want me to curate a bounce house gallery. 

SANTIAGO BONUS:
If you're a hiker/cyclist who endured the elements and thousands of kilometers of St. James Way, the feeling of arriving at the finish line of Santiago will be incredible special.  

If you're a deeply religious person who believes the apostle St. James was buried in Santiago, visiting the town will be a moving experience. 

If you drove about an hour from Santa Uxía de Ribeira, and your only connection to Santiago/St. James is that it enables you to make a shitty "I'd rather pray to St. Durant" joke before a pivotal game 3 of the 2012 NBA Finals... Well the city is likely to disappoint you. 

Because I was obviously in the comical mood, I also took this picture.