I take quite few day hikes and I thought I would share some with you to give you a flavor of what fun a day out can be….
Camino
Day 38
Day 38 – Final travel day, but not last post
Yesterday, I traveled from Santiago to Madrid. I went by train and it was supposed to be the high speed rail train. The first three hours was mountain climbing and curves and the speed on the train averaged about 120km/h. I knew the speed as the train car had an electronic message board that displayed route, stops, time and speed. The fourth hour speeded up some, but still was just 140km/h. We were running about 10 minutes late at the next to last stop, so the engineer turned the after burners on for the last hour and averaged above 230km/h, with a top speed of 239km/h. That was flying down the tracks at above 140mph. To add some perspective, for the last 4 plus weeks, I have been traveling at a speed of 3.5 to 5km/h. I think we covered over 500k in those five hours on the train, counting stops and it took me 32 days to travel 800k.
After arriving in Madrid, I took a cab to the hotel, that travel was worse visually and mentally than the train, so many signs flying by, so many cars zooming in and out, so much information and action. When you do it on a daily basis, you don’t think about those things, but when you have been out of cars for that long, your mind forgets the amount of information one takes in driving or riding in a car, expecially in a big city.
Needless to say, it did take a little adjustment to get back to moving by engine versus feet, not a bad adjustment, just a whole different view that one is not used to after that amount of time without an engine except the motor God gave each of us with our heart.
Today was a whole different story on speed! I flew from Madrid to Frankfurt to Chicago, then on to Denver. The realization of moving hundred of miles per hour means we traveled what was my average daily foot distance of 25k in about 7 minutes. Flying did not take a mental adjustment, I like flying, it is an efficient way to get from point a to point b. I did not hear any roosters crowing or tractors starting while traveling today, but I did cover a lot of ground.
I did feel like I needed or missed walking, so at each airport, I spent time walking halls, just to give my legs the stretch they wanted.
Do I miss anything else from my time on the Camino after just a couple of days off the trail? Yes, I miss the daily routine and simplicity, but more than that, I miss sitting with an absolute stranger at a table at a bar and having that total stranger smile and probably strike up a conversation. On the train, in last night’s restaurant, on today’s planes and at the airport areas, we would never dream of walking over to a group of strangers and say, can I sit and have lunch or a glass of oj with you at your table. In public, we lead private lives because we don’t know if we have anything in common with the person sitting next to us on the train or plane, we fail to bring our since of caring and love out in public. It was a role I fell back into immediately. I will have to work on myself, because as previously talked about, the Camino gave all the pilgrims common ground to share friendship without conditions.
I have been asked how this adventure has changed me and I am still thinking about the answer to that, I will address that in a future blog. I do know it has changed me, it brought me closer to God, closer to my family and closer to my life, which sounds strange, but sometimes an inward look is healthy.
Glad to be heading home!
Proverbs 20:24
Day 37
Day 37 – Post Camino Randomness
Today I am traveling from Santiago to Madrid and tomorrow will fly back to the states. I have loved my time abroard, but I am ready to get back home. When I exited the original train station in Bayonne France, many days ago, I was able to tell the pilgrims from the fresh faced wide-eyed backpack carrying newbies to the world of cross country hiking. I was one of those! Today, this train station doesn’t have as many, but it does have some weary looking, comfortable travelers carrying those same backpacks. I am one of those.
In visiting with various pilgrims, the first thing everyone said they were going to do was eat a meal of spicy food. While the food was good in Spain, it was not spiced and mostly bland. They grow great vegetables and fruit and use olive oil to cook, but they don’t know how to use seaoning. I will have to agree with that sentiment, except I would like a little meat on the bone too. In speaking of food, the other thing I missed was wheat bread, all the bread was white bread and it all had a hard crust. Some like a hard crust, I don’t really like the hard crust. We decided it would be impossible to follow any dietary restrictions on this Camino, way too many starches and carbs. They served french fries as a plate filler on almost every meal. As a diabetic, I actually had to feed myself extra due to the exercise of walking that much every day, it will be interesting to see what my blood work looks like next time I go to the doctor.
On communal living, the biggest complaint was not the snoring, we all had several great after dinner conversations on the snorers and their harmony, or lack of it. The greatest complaint was the use of the microfiber towels and how it was basically drying off with a chamois. They are good to absorb water and dry quickly. The problem is we are all used to a nice fresh smelling and soft towel, so effectively using a chamois to dry off leaves one questioning whether you are really dry or not. Try it sometime and if you have 24 inch by 24 inch shower or box, try using the microfiber towel in there. The towels are great for getting the first batch of rinse water from hand washed clothes, you know of we all have hand squeezed the excess water out of rinsed clothes, but squeezing them in the towel soaks up a ton of the excess water and allows clothes to hang dry faster.
What infections, diseases or insect attacks do I have after so many days of this style of living. First, I am amazed I don’t have athlete’s foot. You would think with 20 or 30 to a shower, someone would be spreading something. I have no other infections or diseases either. My gastronomical system worked good and life was great. Insects were no problem, other than those darn flies. A few people got a spider bite or two, but I was lucky! Bedbugs were none existent, the hostels have apparently done a good job of getting them cleaned up and gone.
We all loved the small villages and the caring that all had for the pilgrims that came through their town. In many of the small towns, the services to the walking pilgrims were the lifeblood that keeps the town alive. The smallest town I stayed in had a population of 13, the smallest hamlet I passed through had a population of 4. I really enjoyed being in the rural areas, even the early morning rooster crowing was not annoying. You would never see those sites, smell those smells or hear those sounds on a bus or car tour of a foreign country, or even our country. Traveling by 2 feet is definitely a unique way to see a country. I bet none of us would have the patience to do much more than a month, which I did on his trip.
The big towns were a mixed blessing. To enter a larger town, you usually had to walk through 6k to 8k of industrial areas or lower class suburbs to get into the city and then, there was some walk through the “newer” parts of the city to get into the old town area, where the Church always was and where the path always passed and the services for pilgrims were located. Then the next morning there was the walk to exit the town. I must say that the big city people were also very nice to pilgrims. In one large town, I was walking in the newer downtown area with another pilgrim, we were standing close to a very busy round about looking and feeling lost. A car braked hard, stopped, the driver stopped all the traffic behind him, got out and pointed us in the right direction. That is caring for pilgrims.
I have talked many times about the community of pilgrims and it truly is one. It is hard to believe that there are groups just like the ones I saw yesterday traveling this Camino on a daily basis. The day after I originally left St. Jean, another group started, as did one 2 days later. Today, some in those groups trekked into Santiago and went to another pilgrim mass in the Catholic Church. Tomorrow, they will come to the airport and train station to start their journey home. This cycle goes on pretty much year round, but is more active from March through October, perhaps 240 groups or more a year that develop their community. That is the wonder of this shared journey.
I have been asked if there were any embarrassing moments or comments. One thing we all got a laugh with one night during an after dinner discussion was a nice lady named Stacy looked around after we had taken a group picture and said, how am I going to explain to my boyfriend that I have slept with every man at this dinner table, most multiple nights. That is the fun part of the community, we laugh at the dumb jokes and the communal situation. It was amazing, there were probably no more than 2 or 3 people that did not respect everyone else’s space or dress decorum. I had one older guy who always stripped to what looked liked speedo shorts every night by his bed before crawling under the covers, he could have saved everyone a lot of strained necks from turning away if he had just slept in tomorrow’s hiking shorts! It really is amazing how well everyone respected the other people and dressed appropriately at all times. I did mention the French couple who ended up in the same bed one morning. I also had one German married couple that got a little amorous one day in a really nice hostel’s handicap bathroom (the only handicap bathroom I saw on the trip). The owner was checking two others and myself in and showing us the facilities, well, the Germans forgot to lock the door, thank goodness for shower steam.
Two sore feet and plenty of sore toes still wanting to go forward
Ecclesiastes 8:15
Day 36
Day 36 – Arca to Santiago De Compostella
20k – 795k total
I was up at 5:30 and was on the road at 6:15am, a full two hours before sunrise today. I wanted to be in Santiago in time for the noon mass at the Cathedral of Santiago. I made it into town by 10:30, went to the post office to store by backpack till mid-afternoon and then walked around and people watched until about 11:30 when I went to the Church. The Church was very large and ornate. The mass was good and was ended with the swinging of the famous botafumeiro. Since the botafumeiro is not used in all the pilgrim masses, I feel lucky to have seen it. I videoed the swinging part of the service, be sure to check the link below for the video. The botafumeiro is basically a huge incense spreader that was used in olden days to cover the stench of unwashed pilgrims who had been on the road for weeks or months and definitely did not have the bathroom facilities that modern day pilgrims have access to help get rid of some of that stench. The botafumeiro is a 5 foot tall censer that is lit with incense, then several priests or monks control the swinging back and forth with a huge rope hung from a pulley on the rafters. As you watch it, you can imagine it being done that way for hundreds of years. A great tradition that lives into today’s time and makes the service even a little more special. Here is a link to the video of the botafumeiro.
After the service, I went to the Official Pilgrim Office and received my Compostela, a document of completion. It is printed in Latin, so I will have to brush up on the translation before I can tell you what is says, but to me, it says job well done team David.
I did see quite a few of the “regulars” that have been traveling together on and off for over four weeks. There were quite a few high fives, a lot of hugs and a ton of smiles. Yes, there is a sense of accomplishment, no matter the reason the Camino was traveled. Speaking of reasons for traveling the Camino, they were as varied as there are pilgrims. Several were there for health reasons, many for the physical challenge, some for various personal reasons and a few for religious reasons. The reason I say a few on religious reasons is that I am only talking about those that traveled the longer distances and not just the last 100k. Those were the starting reasons, the finishing reasons were entirely different, some realized it really was a religious experience, and not just a Catholic one, some found self discovery and were introduced to parts of themselves they never realized existed and finally, almost all found a community of friends that laughed, cried, had good times and shared pains together. There was a realization that when we get to the basics and strip all the trappings of our lives away, we are all equal and being equal makes it easy to like the person next to you, even if they can’t speak a lick of English and I can’t speak a lick of any other language.
I intend to write a few more posts as I decompress and try to absorb all that I have experienced on this adventure. Has this adventure changed me? Absolutely. How has it changed me? I don’t know yet, I need a little time to process. Would I do it again? Not tomorrow, but yes, I think I would. Would I suggest this experience to another? That is a tougher question due to the demands on the physical, mental and lifestyle challenges. This adventure is not for everyone, but it is rewarding for those that do accept the challenge. I think there are so many adventures in life, that we need to always let God lead us to our own adventure, maybe the Camino, maybe fishing in Montana, maybe suffering at a spa in Mexico or maybe taking grandchildren to Disnleyland!
I have been heading west every day on my feet, time to head west on a jet plane!
1 Corinthians 12:14
Day 35
Day 35 – Melide to Arca (aka O Pino or O Pedrouza)
33k – 775k to date
Today led us one day closer to Santiago and the goal many have set as achieving. We are now 20k from reaching that goal. The discussion around dinner tonight was how will everyone feel once they stand in front of the Church in Santiago. Most felt it would be a joyous sense of accomplishment of what they had done over the last five weeks. I think all come feeling they will complete this journey, but then reality sets in on the first few days that walking 15 plus miles a day is not the cake walk everyone thought it would be. First, nothing is flat on this trail, you must literally hike up mountains, then down again, but not only go up and down, but up and down on stone trails that are centuries old. Then life as you knew it is thrown out the window just when you are your most tired and you are pushed into communal living that includes sleeping in rooms with as many as 100 beds in them and sharing a six stall bathroom with those 100 bunk mates, both male and female. Next is learning to find food, whether shopping in a market or ordering at a bar. Finally, you must deal with the aches and pains caused by walking on rocks, sleeping on thin mattresses and back aches from ill fitting backpacks.
All of us know people that have fallen by the wayside and decided this adventure was not for them. That is OK also, not everyone is made to climb a crooked trail up a mountain or sleep in a giant room with master snorers. But those that have made it, it is a personal accomplishment. Mine is not my personal accomplishment, but my team’s group accomplishment. Without Sherry, I would never have been able to even dream this dream. Without my three girls, I would never have been challenged to go. Without a supportive mom and dad, I would never have received the right encouragement. Without my business partners, I would never have found the time. Without my friends, I would never have received the support. Without my Church home, I would never have received the prayer to get me here. Finally, without my God, I would never have been able to take the first step or the last step.
One tool that has really been an asset on this adventure and is used multiple times every day is the guide book. I choose a “A Village To Village Guide To Hiking The Camino De Santiago”. I knew it was not the most used, but it was newly written and received good reviews, so I chose it. Probably one reason I did not choose the most used guide book was the reviews that said the author pushed personal new age views in his writing. In visiting with pilgrims and what they used, those that choose the most used Brierly guide were not overly happy with it, while those that had the guide book I used had nothing but praise for it. There were probably five times I loaned it to Brierly guide users who wanted to compare and they all wished they had mine. What makes a guide book useful? First, it must be able to lead you down the path from start to finish. Mine has a great 38 pages of pre-trip information, then the actual guide is broken down into 31 suggested stages, however the details of each stage are such that those can be adjusted easily to match your desired travel distance. Second, it has to be detailed enough to give you,the information you need on a daily basis. In my guide, each town or village had a description and also a list of places to stay the night. Also, it had a list of services available in those towns. It listed towns with a population of 4 and sleeping capacity for 6 pilgrims, that is detail. Lastly, it must be understandable by all that read it. I had an easy guide to read and use and those that compared it also thought so. My guidebook was indespensible.
I should also mention that my guidebook to understanding the universe is also indespensible. It is written to lead you from start to finish, it is detailed throughout and it is easily understood by all who really read it. What is this guidebook? The Bible. If you don’t use it on a daily basis like I did my Camino guidebook, maybe you should get it out and try using it more often and see where it leads you.
Today’s hike was a long trek of 33k, however, a group of us Americans got together about eleven and stayed together to help everyone finish the day. We pulled into Arca about five. The trek was beautiful just like the last two days, the land in this region of Galicia is very consistent. A lot of green, a lot of huge trees and a fog that stays till noon.
Hopefully one day from completion of a journey.
Psalm 119:105 (I also thought about 2 Timothy 3:16-17)
Day 34
Day 34 – Hospital Alta De La Cruz to Melide
28k – 742k to date
Today ended up being a very sad day for me. I lost Spot, no not my pet rock Spot, but my GPS tracker that I have had for years. I had the leather covering for the Spot hung onto the backpack and apparently somewhere, it tore off and I did not notice it until I got to my camping spot for the night and reached down to turn it off. I hired a taxi to take me back to the last signal and then up the trail a bit to a bar I stopped at for orange juice. The Spot was nowhere to be found. I left the bar owner a 20 euro bill and gave him my phone number and the name of the place I will be tomorrow night and told him if anyone finds it to call me and I will come back to pick it up. As of now, the tracking page on the blog will not update tomorrow or Saturday as I hope to enter Santiago then. I will say, it was fun tracking for the last month. I hope you used it and enjoyed it.
According to the signs along the trail, I am 51k from Santiago. My guidebook puts it at 53k or about 33 miles. About 30 minutes in a car, 3 hours on a bike or about 2 days by foot. The question raises, am I excited to finish or do I wish it would last longer. Honestly, I have loved this adventure, but I am ready to get back home to family and friends. Sherry is helping me now work on adjusting the travel plans to meet with a Saturday finish. Some of the people I have walked with will take an extra 3 days and walk to the Atlantic ocean to a place called Finisterre, translated, the end of the world. To the original pilgrims, it was the end of their world as they knew it. For me, although I had penciled in the extra days to go there, this adventure is special to end in Santiago and that is what I am comfortable with at this point. That was my goal and that needs to be my stopping point.
The problem with heading back home will be the culture shock from living this simple life to adjusting back to the hectic, fast paced lives we all lead. One of the important things I will take from this adventure is that life can be as simple as we want to make it. I now think the fast paced life is just a state of mind. Over here in what I call the simple life, there are still roles and responsibilities to be carried out on a daily basis, they are just different from our normal ones. If you don’t wash clothes daily then you will lose your dinner and walking partners. You still have to brush your teeth, shower and comb your hair everyday, even though you don’t have to shave. You have to walk to the next stopping point to have a bed for the night and you have to find your food daily, sometimes that takes good planning. So the simple life I have talked about is not without its responsibilities and consequences if not performed correctly. Really, it is just like our current everyday lives, just in a different place and doing a different job. For me, this job over here has been a joy! God has truly blessed me on this journey.
Oh, today’s walk was a great little hike almost entirely equal to yesterday. We are still in the low mountains of Galicia and the immediate scenery is beautiful. There are not a lot of vistas to see as the area is so dense with trees and foliage. Also, the trail is so old and worn down in the moist soil here that much of the time we are walking in a 4′ to 8′ deep trail. The weather for this whole adventure has been wonderful. This was a great time of year to come, but I bet other times of the year also have special weather to offer. Tomorrow will be a hard day of a lot of small ups and downs and a high mileage day to set up the Saturday finish.
Everyone over here is excited and all the talk is about the walk into Santiago. It really is amazing how many people I have seen over the last 4 weeks and how many of those are now converging again as we get close to the goal.
Closer to reaching the finish to a journey.
Proverbs 16:9
Day 33
Day 33 Barbadelo to Hospital Alta Da Cruz
30k – 714 to date
Today was a testing day and to be in the town of Hospital is aptly named. One of the great things about this adventure is the tests we place upon our physical and mental capacity. When I look at the guide book and see 30k, I think that kind of day is very attainable and not that serious of a test. Problem is this is not walking on the track or the flat roads of Dimmitt, it is a challenge to traverse the landscape as God made it. He made this landscape with a lots of ups and the related downs and the related ups and the related downs. Oops sorry, got a little carried away.
As with this entire journey, the test we have traversing this trail is similar to our lives, we have a lot of ups and then downs. But the thing I am finding out over here is that God will give me the ability to climb that first hill and to also climb the last hill. He won’t promise my feet won’t get sore, but he helps me find a way to get from my daily starting point to my projected finishing point. I really haven’t thought about it that much before, but he does that in life too, he always helps get me to where I need to be, sometimes with sore feet, but he gets me there!
Today was another beautiful weather day, the fog you have seen in previous day’s pictures hung around during the morning till about 11am, then started burning off. It got a little hot about noon, but then we started back upwards after Portomarin and the breeze cooled everything down. The trails today were magical, for lack of a better description. A lot had massive tree coverings, much of the area was moss or ivey covered and some had fern ground coverings, effectively giving a sense of walking through one of those magical forests you see in a movie.
This morning’s start was a time I wish I had a recorder going. After about 1k, I went by a farm and the rooster crowed, that caused the next rooster to crow, then the cow in the barn mooed and finally a duck up above somewhere started quacking. That is what you get to wake up to in this rural part of the country. If we were on the high priced tourist bus, going to see Churches and museums, we would never hear those sounds or smell the barnyard scents. This adventure puts one in touch with the essence of life, not just the high points.
Midway today, we went through a town named Portomarin, in 1956 the town was moved due to the building of a dam and river. We entered the town on a high bridge that overlooked the river and gave a fantastic view of a lot of the ruins in the river and river walls. I know the camera catches a glimpse of what I see, but I wish you could see the full panorama of those ruins, it was great to stand there and see. Also, there were many comments by the pilgrims that walking over a long bridge that high was a little disconcerting, which it was when you are not expecting it. I and several others were staying a good arms length from the edge.
Tonight I am staying at the municipal hostel, which is quite nice and has only 32 beds. The town is described as a tiny hamlet and it is, it has three businesses, this hostel, a hotel/bar and a John Deere equipment dealer. They probably had 12 tractors in their storage yard, but the tractors were all small. This town is probably smaller than the town I stayed in that had a population of 13. The record for the smallest populated town so far, with any Camino services, is Morgade, with a population of 4, which I walked through today, but has a hotel that will sleep 6 people. I bet all 4 people work in the hotel, that is how this trail has an economic impact on keeping some of the small towns alive.
Appreciating every day of this adventure!
Psalm 54:4