I see London, I see France...

Brushing your teeth with someone is an intimate experience.  Usually you're married to the person, you're best friends, or you're dating. Tonight I brushed my teeth with a lady who doesn't speak much English.  I don't know where she's from because when I was going to ask her, she had a mouth full of foam.  She didn't say anything to me because after she spit the foam out, I was flossing my molars.  As I flossed, she put a heavy cream on her face, smiled at me, and left the bathroom.  While I finished up with the floss, a German guy who was maybe in his 60's walked in and began to brush.  We stood there, comrades in personal hygiene. He said nothing when I pulled out my zit cream, and I said nothing when he picked his nose with toilet paper.  

I have experienced more intimate, personal things with these "strangers" than I have with some of my closest friends and family members.  I can't even remember the last time I saw my dad brush his teeth (I promise he does, though!).  The other morning there were seven middle-aged French men in nothing but their tighty-whities walking around the room.  The scariest part was that I didn't even really notice...

 

This morning when I was stretching and yawning, trying to convince myself to sit up, I rolled over and came face to face with a 70 year old Spanish gentleman who had his chin on my mattress, waiting for me to notice he was there.  "Está lloviendo," he told me with a grin.  I knew it was raining, because my face was right next to the open window and I had also looked at the weather the night before, but he was so excited to talk to me that I couldn't help but smile back.  We had had a conversation the night before about his previous hiking experiences in the rain and this week's rainy forecast.  He patted me on the cheek and headed off to the bathroom with his toothbrush, wearing absolutely nothing but his underpants.

K

Boadilla del Camino, Spain

You are the way

We arrive to San Juan de Ortega just in time-- I don't think my body could have carried me another step.  This kind of exhaustion is still completely unfamiliar to me.  I hate it, but I love it.

I have felt many different kinds of fatigue.  The absolute physical exhaustion after playing three ninety-minute soccer matches in one day is exhilarating, especially after winning.  I remember that the feeling of relief when I took off my cleats and sat down to stretch was pure bliss and felt well-earned.  The mental exhaustion of writing a twenty-page paper in another language always left me a little hazy, sometimes to the point of not being able to string together a full sentence in either language.  I always felt so proud of myself.  I would sit back with a sigh, re-count the page numbers, and click the save button about eight more times, just in case.  With only about 5% brain function remaining, I would shut my laptop, promising myself that I would proofread it tomorrow even though I always knew I wouldn't.  The emotional exhaustion of depression used to consume me entirely, rendering me unable to operate normally in society.  I was so worn out that I couldn't feel any emotions at all.  Love, joy, angst, misery... I felt nothing.  

I guess the closest I can come to describing the exhaustion I feel now is is how you would feel after crying for an hour.  Not just a few tears, but those shoulder-shaking, soul-wrenching sob sessions that make you sleepy for two days and leave your eyes burning and red.  When you're done crying, you feel relieved but still haunted by what induced the tears to begin with.  Then add the searing blister pains, muscle cramps, sunburn, and overall got-hit-by-a-semi-truck feeling.  That is the exhaustion of the Camino.  It leaves me with a combination of all of the symptoms I described earlier,and then some.  Pride, exhilaration, numbness, shame, awe... 

Emily and I have likened the Camino to a lifetime playing out in the time it takes you to walk 800 kilometers.  Every day, you feel the emotions you would normally feel in a month's time.  You are forced to face demons you didn't know still existed within you, you feel things you haven't felt in years, and you have hour after hour after hour of walking into the distance to think about it.

The ups and downs, the fellowship, the diversity of people, the honesty, the struggles and successes, they all represent your life.  The pack you carry is the weight of your material belongings and your emotional baggage, and the kilometers represent the milestones you've reached.  You have nothing but your own two feet propelling you forward.  You are the vehicle in which you must traverse life.  Someone might offer to carry your pack for a few kilometers if you can't, but ultimately you must carry it yourself.  Others will be there to help and guide you as best they can, but it is your Camino.  You ARE the way.

The blisters are my imperfections that I can only heal and learn how to deal with.  My scars are my past, and without them I would be full of gaping wounds.  The exhaustion is, well, exhausting, but it's a sign that I'm alive and living as much as I possibly can.  It's what makes me fall sound asleep every night to be able to wake up so I can do it all over again.

I feel more like myself right now than I have ever felt in my life.

K

San Juan de Ortega, Spain

Logroooooooño

In Pamplona, I felt a little guilty putting the Camino on pause, like maybe I was cheating the Way or avoiding something I was supposed to be doing.  Now I understand a bit better what it's all about.  My foot was infected-- why the hell would I have expected myself to walk on it?  I would have told anyone else to take a break, so why would I not give myself the same TLC and understanding that I give others?  Plus, Pamplona is a kick-ass city that I could see myself returning to live in someday.  If we hadn't stopped, we would not have met Lori and Suzanne.  We would not have stopped in the little town of Zirauki, and even if we had it would have been days before their festival.  Everything happens for a reason!

So this time around, I didn't feel guilty about stopping to enjoy Logroño.  I'm walking across Spain-- I deserve to enjoy the places I stay! The Camino is meant to make you live in the moment, because while you're here there is nothing but right now.  And living in the moment in Logroño meant taking care of our feet... and eating tapas and drinking damn good wine.

For those of you who haven't been to Spain, tapas are a truly glorious experience.  I don't think I stopped grinning for the entire time we wandered around Calle Laurel, the famous tapas street.  I'll be honest... at first I had no idea how to "do" tapas.  Luckily, we ran into the Spaniards from Santander who were at our hostel.  In typical Kelly fashion, I bluntly stated that I was clueless and could they please show me how to proceed now that we were on the correct street.  It ended up being a simple pay-as-you-go system where you order drinks and one of the numerous delicious concoctions on display on the bar.  (Apparently in some cities, you get free tapas with every drink you order!)  They heat up the tapas, you pay, and then you take your mouthwatering delicacies to a table and enjoy.  The pacing last night was such that by the time you got the food, you were already halfway done with your glass of wine.  Perfect!  Each tapa consists of about four bites of pure bliss.  We ate a crostini with goat cheese, orange marmalade, and walnuts, a mini chorizo burger, garlic sautéed mushrooms with mini shrimp, bull tail "brisket," and steak and mashed potatoes wrapped in a tortilla.  I also ate another goat cheese crostini from another bar that had raspberry preserves, candied walnuts, and sunflower seeds because, well, why wouldn't I?  The wine was perfect, the tapas nearly made me dance with delight, the Spanish guys were hilarious, and I was with my best friend in Spain.  Talk about living in the moment!

When we arrived at our destination for today, we found Elona sitting at a cafe!  It had been more than a week since we last saw her, but she has been taking her time and also spent a few days in Logroño.  It was like seeing a long-lost friend after many years, and with a jolt I realized just how much these new friends, my new family, mean to me.  Everything happens for a reason, and our timing was impeccable.  Had we dawdled just five minutes longer in the park watching ducks, or had we decided to stay at the first albergue we looked at, we would have missed her.  I'm not sure how or why, but our paths were meant to cross again and I have a feeling we'll be seeing her again very soon.

K

Navarrete, La Rioja, Spain

Remember when I said all dignity had been lost?

Well I found some more that was hiding...

and promptly lost that, too. 

What day is it?

Time has ceased to matter.  The days blend together and I don't remember what happened on which day.  There was one day that we walked through a field of grasshoppers and I was sure they were going to leave welts on my legs there were so many of them bouncing around.  Did you know they're cannibals?  Many of them had been squished by cars or pilgrims, and... well, you get it.  Once we were stopped by a group of mountain bikers who asked us to take their photo by a waterfall, so we had them take one of us, too.  I tripped and had to put my foot in the river while walking out to the waterfall,  but it actually felt pretty good in the heat.  While we posed for the photo, we realized that they could steal our stuff and run away if they had wanted to.  Oops.  There was the time that we arrived at our destination at 12h45 and at 13h the town's yearly week-long festival began with fireworks and the church bells right above our heads clanging incessantly for a good five minutes.  A group of little boys ran up to the fountain we were sitting by, put a firework in it, and sprinted away just as water exploded out of the fountain.  The entire town was dressed in white with red accents in celebration.  

A typical day on the Camino goes something like this:

Someone's alarm clock goes off around 6am and you can hear the collective groaning of the fifty or so people in the room.  I push my earplugs in tighter and roll over, the bed creaking incessantly as I do so.  I wonder if the person in the bunk below me has gotten any sleep with my tossing and turning.  Someone turns the lights on at 6:30 (or 6:25 if they're being impatient) and I wake up again.  At this point I lay in my bed and watch the commotion of people trying to repack their bags, bandage up their feet, and get everything sorted for the day.  I love people-watching and hate waking up, so this just seems like the natural thing to do.  I lounge in my bed until 6:40 or so, stretching and making funny faces at Emily, before I finally get out of my sleeping bag.  Usually I plop down on the floor and pretend to sort things (even though they were never unsorted, because everything I have with me is in a bag of some kind inside my pack) while really just leaning against the bedpost and trying to wake up.

Once our bags are packed and we're ready to go, we sit down for a small breakfast.  Today, for example, it consisted of one hard boiled egg and an apple.  This leaves me very cranky, because I now refuse to drink vending machine coffee after a few bad experiences but need the caffeine, and one egg and an apple is not enough of a breakfast for me.  We leave the albergue around 7:30 or so, depending on how much we dawdle, and this typically puts us in the last third of the pack.  After a kilometer or so, we're warmed up and have a pretty decent pace.  We might chat with others, we might walk alone.  Within the first two hours, we usually find a restaurant with a good espresso machine and plop down for what I consider a real breakfast: coffee.  Today I had cafe con leche (espresso with milk), a yogurt, and a croissant.  Oh, and I also bought some plums and a banana.  I am now a very happy, well-fed pilgrim with a few extra snacks to eat along the way.

We resume walking, my socks getting progressively filthier because I am wearing sandals with them.  (Remember, all dignity has already been lost.)  We stop every once in awhile, but it's less frequent now than it was a week ago.  We've gotten pretty good at getting to the essentials without stopping, and my bladder seems to have expanded a bit.  We might stop to have a picnic of baguette, chorizo or canned tuna, and cheese, or we might keep walking until we get to the town for the day and have lunch then.  We usually arrive anywhere from 1:30 to 3:30, at which point we proudly hand over our pilgrim passports to have them stamped, pay the six euros for a bed, and start unwinding for the afternoon.  What happens after that varies day to day, but typically includes a shower, washing our clothes by hand, and reading or journaling for a bit.  Today we sat under a tree and shared a bottle of wine with these two Canadian gals who have been friends for the same number of years that Emily and I have, but who are more than twice our age. 

Of course, strange things always happen along the way, and if something can go wrong, it will inevitably go wrong for me.  Today, for example, I went to pick a few wild blackberries and ended up with tiny thorns in my legs.  Blisters, a sore Achille's, bruises, scrapes, allergies... apparently I'm a recipe for disaster.  But so many amazing, random things have happened as well.  During the festival that we found ourselves at a few days ago, I got pulled into the middle of the drunken dancing circle to help the guy with the microphone demonstrate this goofy dance the whole town was doing and ended up dancing in a circle with my finger in his belly button.  Good thing I speak Spanish, or who knows where I could have put my hand... Today we happened upon a guy with a donkey who didn't want to walk anymore, so I sang to him and told him what a handsome donkey he was in Spanish (he was a Spanish donkey with a Hungarian owner, so perhaps he was just feeling homesick) and he seemed to like that a bit.  Every time something random like this happens, I have to pinch myself to remember that this is real.  I keep saying that I'm avoiding "real life" by traveling, but perhaps this IS my real life.

I really hope it is.

K

Viana, Spain

Perma-purple tongue

This morning we woke up around the same time as the other pilgrims left.  As we made our way downstairs to have breakfast, I tried to count the bottles of wine we drank last night.  I think between five of us, we drank four bottles.  Not bad.

We are now steadily climbing into the mountains yet again.  The blister on my right heel is throbbing and my Achilles' tendon is sore, probably because I walked on tip-toes for 16 kilometers on Monday.  Shit.  Emily has her headphones in, but I have decided to do the Camino earbud-free.  It's time to face myself and stop ignoring the noise in my head.  A couple with grey hair passes us.  Damnit.  Why didn't I train for this?  A man who looks to be about 65 passes us, wheezing, "Buen camino!"  I grudgingly reply, but I'm really angry now.  I have the stamina, strength, and drive!  Why can't I just fucking walk?!  Another middle-aged couple breezes past.  "Buen camino!"  I keep my head down, ashamed for not having the decency to respond.  Angry tears well up in my eyes, threatening to fall for the second time this week, which is already more than I've cried in the last year.  I yank off my bag, sit on the side of the path and start untying my shoe while tears silently stream down my face.  Emily puts her bag on the path and tells me to put my foot on it so my leg stops shaking.  She's so thoughtful and selfless.  I switch back to my Chacos sandals, blow my nose, and get up.  "I swear, I was only crying to relieve the sinus pressure," I tell Emily with a grin.  She smiles and puts her earbuds back in and we fall into a slow but rhythmic pace.  

I miss Elona, the Danish lady who danced at the snack stand at the top of the mountain 5 kilometers from Zubiri.  We crisscrossed paths with her all afternoon on day 2 and she slept in the bunk above me at Trinidad de Arre.  I also miss Sylvia from Brazil and her no-nonsense attitude.  She made our elderly friend Nick drink a coke and eat a banana at the snack stand where Elona was dancing and stayed up chatting with us by candlelight where the monks bandaged my foot.  I miss Susan and Hildy, the two feisty baby-boomers we ate dinner with after surviving the hailstorm on our first day.  "I'm embarrassed that I let this happen," I told Susan one night, referencing my blisters.  She took my face in her hands, looked me dead in the eye and said, "You get rid of that thought right now.  It happened, now you just need to take care of yourself.  You have absolutely no reason to be embarrassed."  I tried to let it go then, but today it is sizzling at the front of my mind, scorching any remaining positivity.  I miss Dorothy and Toto, our friends from Kansas who brought the guitelele, a hybrid between a guitar and a ukelele.  At breakfast in Zubiri, Dorothy said that Toto and Nikko could take turns carrying my pack and he would carry me to Pamplona.  Emily could be with the "original" group right now if it weren't for me.  Hell, I could be with them too!  I can't get them out of my head.  There's something about having started with them and sharing crucial moments together.  I wonder if they miss us, too.

One kilometer to go.  I can see the town in the distance.  I contemplate walking the other seven kilometers to Puente la Reina, to try to close the gap between us and our friends, but with my leg shaking with every step I take, I don't think it's even possible.  I have to listen to my body.  

We arrive just in time to get beds at the albergue and I go straight to take a nap in the hopes of easing a bit of the self-loathing that seems to be the theme for this day.  

End rant.  Tomorrow is a new day.  

K

Uterga, Spain

Running with the bulls... or not.

I woke up in Zubiri on Monday morning and felt like I had been hit by a semi-truck that threw me into the path of an oncoming train.  I guess sleeping on the cement floor will do that to you.  But hey... at least we had a roof over our heads and somewhere to shower.  Everything happens for a reason.  Everything happens for a reason.  Everything happens for a reason.

I'm still trying to find the reason for these damn blisters that have landed me in Pamplona for a few days to rest.  I walked on my tip toes for about 16 kilometers on Monday and slept at Trinidad de Arre, an ancient church and hospital that has been a pilgrims' albergue for over 1,000 years.  There are three retired monks who run it, and one of them bandaged my foot by candlelight when the power went out.  He assured me that one of my blisters was infected and that I had to go to the doctor the next day.

Yesterday Emily and I spent the first part of the afternoon at the doctor, where it was deemed that my blister was indeed infected and that I couldn't walk again until Thursday or later.  I had saved the left foot from infection because I had threaded that blister with a needle and thread, allowing it to stay open and begin to heal.  I'm kicking myself for not doing it to the right foot as well.  The blister is so deep that I cannot put any pressure on the heel when I walk.  

Everything happens for a reason.  Being stuck in Pamplona is wonderful!  I love the Camino and the people we have met so far, but I'm grateful for having the chance to explore this beautiful city.  Emily and I both love the old, winding streets with the colorful buildings and their beautiful balconies.  Last night, Hugo from Quebec cooked for us and tonight I made omelets.  It has been a necessary break from the Camino, but I'm anxious to start walking again.

Time for more wine.

K

Pamplona, Spain