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| What do you say when your friend invites you to go on a pilgrimage with them? If you're Jes, you say "yes"! .....Then figure out the logistics. |
If you ever get the change to o on a pilgrimage, do it! There[s just something about being brought even just sightly our of you comfort zone and brought to a place where you have to rely on God in a whole new way. I learned a whole new meaning of thankfulness. Just basic everyday things, like shelter at night. Or a bed. Radiators (nights were cold!). Hot showers. The sleeping bag my parents bought me 9 years ago when I went to Peru! And that of course leads me to be thankful for my parents... but that's a whole other topic! Thankful for a rain jacket that kept me dry on the rainy days (again, my parents!). The little cafe's along the way, and their hot chocolate (the Spanish know how to do hot chocolate!) Thankful for every time we got a stamp in our passports. (As part of the Camino, you have to have a special pilgrim passport that allows you to stay in the pilgrim hostels. In it you can collect stamps along the way from any hostile you stay at or cafe or shop you go to or simply pass along the way). My list of "thankful's" could go on, but I'm sure you get the point.
We would average about 12 to 15 miles a day, spending each each night in a different hostel. Typically after cleaning up, we'd go in search of dinner. This started with checking out the kitchen in the hostel and seeing if there was any food that another pilgrim had previously left. Then we'd head out for the nearest shop. What became the normal dinner for us was noodles. Sometimes we'd have oil, other times there'd be seasonings, sometimes it would just be noodles, just depending on what was already in the hostel kitchen.
One evening on our "cool down" walk to a shop we discovered that we could really go for some burgers. Surely the shop would have some mince and we'd be sorted, maybe even for lunch the next day too! As it turned out we found a 4-pack of ready made burgers. Then there was the dilemma that we had to have something to put on our burgers.... If we could find some chutney, we could use it later on toast. But chutney's a very British food, so we discovered tomato jam instead. We feasted like kings that night on our burgers with toast buns and tomato jam.
At about 6 every evening the sun would set, and with it any warmth that might have been in a hostel. (They were brilliantly designed for the heat in summer, and they were equally effective in winter!) In response to that you could find Rebecca and I in our sleeping bags trying to stay warm. The natural progression of this was that we'd be asleep by 8 every night!
This tradition started New Years Eve.
It was our first day of walking. We'd done about 14 miles, barely getting out of Porto (the city we started in). We actually had no idea where we were. But we'd followed the arrows (literally there are yellow arrows that mark the way to Santiago!) and the signs to a hostel. Actually, in fairness, it was a monastery. Run by this cute, older couple, that couldn't speak a word of English. Thankfully there was no doubt we were pilgrims and charades for sleeping are universally understood.
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| Literally, yellow arrows marked the way. (If only everything in life was that straight forward.) |
Regardless of the fact that it was New Years Eve, Rebecca and I were in bed by 6. Having showered and eaten, the only thing left to do was sleep. If only because the warmest place in the monastery was our beds! At 6 o'clock we got a knock on our door. (Thankfully, we hadn't turned the light out yet!) The little old man that had gotten us settled into our room now entered with tray of freshly baked goodies, sent over by his wife.
Either out of guilt that we really weren't ready to call it a night yet or because the couple had been so sweet to send food over, we hopped over in our sleeping bags to the baked goodies.
After this we remembered that we'd seen a bottle of red in the kitchen. As it was new years, we decided to partake in an early toast (it was probably only just 7 at this point!). As Rebecca was pouring the wine into little juice classes, I commented that it looked like communion wine, (it was a monastery after all). After one sip, my suspicions were confirmed. Definitely communion wine. No seconds for me!
All in all we were in bed with the lights out by 8 that night.
Before we ever left Ireland on this adventure we decided that we'd have a couple of solitary days. Day's where we'd start at a different time and walk separately. We did the first of these day number 5. Also known as "hill day".
Honestly one of my favorite days. Just me and Jesus, on a hill. It was a warm, rainy day. The higher I went up the hill there was a mist that became thicker and thicker. Hindsight, we did the two things you're never supposed to do. 1) Hiking a mountain by yourself (buddy system). 2) hiking up into a mist. Thankfully, we both made it and decided that before we got to Santiago, we wanted to do another day like that.
That second day came 2 days before we got to Santiago. By this point in the journey, I wasn't sleeping well at all (suffering from too much sleep?) and tended to be on the grumpy side of things... Rebecca however was thriving on 12 hours of sleep, and seemed to always be chipper in the morning.
So what is this? Day 8? She asks if I'm ready to do another solitary day? As we only have to days left, it's either today or tomorrow. I want to do it today, because I want to experience Santiago with Rebecca. But doing a solitary day means me leaving before Rebecca (as I'm a faster walker than her). But I'm already feeling rushed. Again. Because again, Rebecca's gotten a good night sleep and I don't remember sleeping. Really it's an ideal day to do alone. Need some space! (Before someone dies!) So I agree to it and Rebecca agrees to wait to give me a head start.
I leave at 8, in total darkness, in freezing temps. I don't know if you know this, but arrows are hard to see in total darkness. Somehow, I manage to find them and not get lost! As the sun rises, I realize I'm in a valley. My early morning grumpiness doesn't dissipate as I feel like I am literally freezing. Angry at the world, because of the valley which just teases me with the sun that I can see but can't feel. I'm done with walking. Why on earth did I ever agree to do this?!
All I want is a coffee... and a toilet. But it's a Sunday and cafe's are closed. And there are so many bikers out, I can't even use a tree to pee, with fear that a biker will pass me before I'm done.
Just then I come upon a literal oases in the desert.
It's a building with vending machines of fizzy drinks, snacks and coffee, as well as toilets. Along with an area to sit and a place you can stamp your passport.
Like magic, I feel like a new person after this oasis. I feel like I'm walking on air. Every mile marker I pass with the kilometer getting smaller I realize is one less that I have to walk the next day. I'd been saying it all week, but the more I walked today, the less I had to walk tomorrow.
My only concern at this point was that I hadn't agreed with Rebecca on how far, or what village we were stopping in. So in my mind I was like, get to the 25K marker and wait for her there. As it turned out there were benches and sunshine at the 25K mark. And for the next hour and a half, I soaked up sun.
That day we got to the 20K to Santiago mark before we found a hostile.
The anticipation that night over our dinner of noodles was at an all time high. Tomorrow was the day!
Tomorrow was probably the second to worse day of the whole experience. Almost from the beginning of the day, we could see the Cathedral. But the more we walked, the further away it seemed to be. The arrows, which had alway so faithfully pointed the way up to now, became fewer and fewer.
Eventually, we found ourselves in front of the Cathedral.
There were no arrows. There were no signs.
I don't know what I'd hoped for, but the anticlimax that met us at the end was enough to make a girl cry!
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| We did it! All 250+ Kilometers. |
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