The Camino is a long, wide road and it’s a fox trail. It is up mountains and down hills. It is hot sweltering sun and biting winter winds. It is hard, paved stone roads, slippery gravely slopes and beautiful stretches as far as the eye can see. It’s the beauty of the land and the majesty of the Spanish countryside.
The first day we hiked 27km up the French Pyrenees. We walked in the dark for an hour before the sun came up and it crept up on us before we even realized and all of a sudden the mountains were aglow, basking under the soft light. Gentle.
We only enjoyed it for a short while as the wind started swirling around us and the rain beat down on us. The rest of the way was pure drive, staring down our shoes, one step at a time. It was hard to look up; my rain jacket hoodie only let me lift my head a little bit and the muddy path needed my attention.
It was hard to stop, not because we had the energy to keep going, but because it was too cold to stop. After a few hours of plowing through, I realized it wasn’t going to warm up. I stopped to put on my puff. My fingers were so cold and numb, they got stuck in the arm of my jacket and I couldn’t quite get them unstuck because I couldn’t feel them. I was so cold and I was so close to putting my jacket on, but my fingers weren’t cooperating quite as fast as I wanted…
It’s funny how we want one thing but then our bodies are just a few seconds behind. Like this one time we were chugging along and I saw these fat, juicy blackberries and I went to pick them but my fingers were fat and swollen so I managed to grab the blackberry but didn’t quite move my pinkie finger fast enough to avoid the thorny branches and then ouch! Pricked.
We’ve been waking up before dawn and hiking before sunrise. We’ve been stopping through Spanish churches and getting our pilgrim passports stamped. We eat breakfast and lunch on the go and throw a euro down for dinner (mostly spaghetti and baguettes, so carbs and carbs) with an occasional bottle of wine thrown in. It is luxurious when we arrive in the afternoon knowing we’ve walked for 6 hours and it’s only 2pm and we’re able to check in, grab a bed in the albergue, shower, wash clothes, go to the store, sit and talk and sit and talk some more.
I’ve seen the more introvert side of me come out on the Camino. I’ve spent stretches of time by myself and find myself drained at the end of the day and it’s been harder to push myself to socialize and talk to others and hear their stories. When I do, it is amazing. We’ve met people who are grieving…a father who lost a daughter 5 years ago, a lady who lost her mother and brother, a man who lost his brother and then recently his mother…we’ve seen people of all ages. I talked to a girl yesterday who is walking the Camino with her father and they’ve broken it up: they did the first third a few years ago, the second part two years ago and they’re hoping to finish this year.
There was another lady whose done it 4 times, from Ponferrada to Santiago, walked twice, another time biked, another time ran. We met a couple who met in Santiago after they had walked it individually and now they’re walking it together again. Another person who intends to walk it every year until they die. A lot of people have a gap year and take this time to walk or when they’re coming into retirement.
We’ve stumbled upon this community : we’ve shared meals with people, we’ve walked alongside people and relaxed with them. It’s a common experience we share: we walk as far as our bodies can handle and sometimes more. We walk until we can’t walk anymore and then we spend the rest of our days resting and talking. And then we sleep and the whole thing begins all over again. We have another 8 days until it’s over and while my body is tired, my spirit is revived.
Please pray for our bodies and encouragement…we have a long uphill route and downhill route tomorrow and more days of walking and my body is tired.
