Finding treasure on the Camino de Santiago

MONDAY 4TH JULY 2016  SARRIA TO PORTOMARIN and TUESDAY 5TH JULY 2016 – PALAS DE REI

Km’s walked – 26,68 ; steps taken – 39834 ; flights – 48 (4th July)

Km’s walked – 26,31 ; steps taken – 39165 ; flights – 56 (5th July)

“One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things!” Henry Miller

(Jennie, Rachel and I leaving Sarria on Monday)

MONDAY

I am feeling somewhat sad as the clock (the time clock and the odometer) are ticking. I have 72kms to go officially and three walking days. Where have the last 36 days gone? 

(We met Pick the dog and his owner from Madrid.  They had walked from St Jean as I did – they only walk a few Km’s a day)

Jennie’s daughter Rachel joined us today for her first day.  She is a beautiful, gracious quiet thirteen year old.  She seemed really excited, and walked well.  She never moaned or whined, but her feet were aching and blisters were developing. Today she really battled (though I never walked with them) and Jennie tells me her feet are in an awful state.  They might even only walk the half the distance tomorrow and then taxi the rest.  I am really heartsore for Jennie and Rachel and I guess myself as I was looking forward to walking with them for a few days. That’s the thing about the Camino it teaches you that expectations are there to be adjusted often. Flexibility in thought and body are key to a beautiful journey.

(We have been walking through Dairy farm country and the cows are everywhere.  You come around a corner and suddenly you’re surprised by a munching and or mooing cow)

(The last few days we have walked through farmland, and we keep seeing such interesting gates.  I am not sure if they are to keep the Pilgrims out or the animals in or both.  When I get proper wifi I will post my study on the gates of the Camino in Galacia)

I have throughout my beautiful journey savoured every moment, I have made sure to look up and around and back, and to notice everything.  Everything form the smallest ant to the the biggest tree and mountain and sunrise. I have been commended several times by fellow Pilgrims for being so inclined to stop and enjoy and look and notice. I am making sure that I look more, and stop more and soak up every second. In Galacia (the region I have been walking through since Saturday) the markers count down the kilometers so every five hundred meters the markers tell you how many kilometers are left.  Now when you’re running Comrades or a marathon this system is really welcome as my maths doesn’t work when I’m running so I like knowing how much is left to run.  Now walking the Camino and nearing the end, I really don’t like those markers any more. What a change of mind set.  Now I just want to walk slower and slower and ignore those markers.

(Just in case you are wondering I do wash my clothes so I’m not wearing dirty clothes everyday, I just realised that many photos show me with the same clothes – tee hee – LOL)

Rachel had a lovely first day walk into Portomarin, pity about her feet getting blisters.  We encountered cows around every corner, we watched as two naughty little goats escaped from their mom and perched on a little wall to eat tasty brambles. We saw streams and rivers, we saw beautiful birds and butterflies and walked through kilometers of woodlands and shade.  The weather was beautifully overcast and we stopped several times to rest and let her take off her shoes. At one point we were walking past a closed barn, an old man walked out with a “Pilgrim pole” in his hand, we greeted him, he showed us to stop bent down picked a thistle and gave it to Rachel with a big smile and some Spanish.  We smiled and thanked him profusely in Spanish. He then proceeded to assemble a bouquet of wild flowers and then played “eeenie, meenie, minie,mo”, pointing to Jen then me etc.  Jen pointed at me and he gave me the flowers.  We asked if we could take a photo he agreed and was beaming from ear to ear. When we were done, he walked back inside the barn, it seemed his mission was to make us smile. We were all charmed, but especially Rachel), it came just when she needed something distracting. What a delightful Camino moment!


We stopped for coffee at some point and we met a young woman named Chloe from Vancouver.  She had started her Camino in Le Puy in France on 27th April.  During her journey she got blisters that got infected and she had to go to a hospital and be up under so they could remove her toenails and check that the infection had not gone to the bone. A very brave young woman.  And she was still walking with a lovely smile and a  Pilgrim greeting for us.

(Chloe, the brave young woman that had an operation on her feet during her walk)
At some point we watched some naughty goats running away from their mom and eating the brambles. Mom goat was bleeting for the little ones, but they were just munching away. They were perching on a tiny wall ledge. Amazing balance. 

As we got closer to Portomarin, I noticed a beautiful lake (actually a huge dam I think, but beautiful), and a town that looked strangely odd and 60’s like.  It turns out that this entire town was flooded to make way for the new Dam in the 60’s, and the Church/Fortress was moved stone for stone. From far it’s really bizarre looking, beautiful but bizarre.

(Portomarin above and below with views of the lake – can you believe that these are the paths we walk everyday. It is simply amazing)

I was intrigued by the farm gates today, never saw many doors, but many gates or makeshift gates. The pathways we followed were just so lovely and the gates just added a lovely sense of mystery and there’s so much behind them, near and far (why do they need gates here?).

TUESDAY

I started my day at 6h45 as I knew it was far and I wanted to get ahead of the heat and the hordes.  The 112 Km’s from Sarria to Santiago is completely overrun by “non Pilgrims”.  Groups of school kids, church and tour groups.  It is all somewhat disconcerting after 34 days of quiet and bliss. These groups walk at break neck speed and walk on your heels until you move, no one attempts to say “excuse me”, they just walk and walk,and talk at the top of their voices. It is all a little overwhelming. So, today as I get moving I meet a lovely young woman called, Isabella from New Orleans.  She was clearly a bit sore and a bit down. We were both feeling a bit shell shocked by the hordes of people.  We walked together for awhile, moaning a bit about the numbers of people.  We both almost started hyperventilating when we looked back to see hundreds of people.  We were both spiraling into negativity.  Suddenly I said to Isabella, “Breathe, keep walking and tell me about your Camino highlights so far!” We spent a delightful two hours completely distracted by one another’s Camino stories and suddenly the hordes did not matter. We walked together until Portomarin and both declared that we had a beautiful walk because of one another. We forgot all about the hordes and made our Camino as special as every other day we were on it. Making our own weather!  What’s that song …. “Everywhere you go, always take the weather with you …..!” Warwick will know it. 

(Beauty everywhere, hydrangeas (Christmas flowers for us South Africans) everywhere )

Isabella (Above) is a lovely, together young women that is going to study Law at Yale in September.  She is bright, wise, and emotionally intelligent and only 25 years old.   A lovely energizing Camino companion for the day. We had two lovely moments, one where we both instinctively started running to get ahead of all the school groups after a break, and the first time we looked back and saw the people behind us, like a station! We just laughed and laughed.

I mentioned to Isabella, that I thought these hordes were here to remind us that the real world is coming soon and to think about how we take all the learning and love from the last 36 or so days into the next phase of our lives. Something to ponder as I get closer and closer to Santiago and the clock ticks………!

(The masses of people who do the last 112 Km’s to earn the Compostela, some for religious reasons, some for CV’s (important in Spain apparently), some to say ‘I’ve done the Camino’, and some to finish what they started a long time ago. Many people can only do it in stages)

I loved walking with Isabella, and I really missed Jennie.

Just for info, the chickens and roosters here are huge! Can’t stop taking pics of them.

My walking Camino is coming to an end.  I now need to start thinking about my Inner Camino and how I work on that going forward. Just by the way, I think I was pretty ok coming into this Camino.  I came essentially to give thanks and to show gratitude and have an adventure and of course raise money for Little Libraries.  I have been Mande even more aware of how lucky I am and how much personal work I have done over the years, and I am happy. I love my life, I love my us and, li ove my son and family, I am passionate about my job, and I actually quite like who I am. So don’t expect any BIG HUGE changes in me if you did. I won’t be opening any churches, or converting to Buddhism etc. I will however be focusing on how we make sure we live our lives in the moment and in the present and love it every day. I will chat in another post about some of my lessons and dreams going forward. 

CAMINO GIFTS: a very strong message to keep slowing down; An old man that gives me flowers with a beautiful smile; Billy goats being naughty and entertaining me just at the right time; Overcast weather on a 25km day; Isabella on a day when the hordes could have won; again the reminder of how amazing my journey has been (the masses of people make you realize that you do carry your own weather around, if you choose to).