I had to pay close attention today. Yesterday, just before the turn toward Logroño, I missed the yellow Camino arrow and wandered three kilometers in the wrong direction. That meant walking an extra three kilometers back to get on track. Fortunately, a farmer saw me and told me to turn around as I wandered through his field. Had that not happened, who knows where I might have ended up. And, of course, this took place just when I was almost at the end of the day. AARRGGHH! It was torture. By the time I arrived at the hostel, I was nearly in tears from exhaustion and pain.
Today I faced another 30 kilometers. I couldn’t allow myself to think about it too much because it caused me to worry before I even began. The only saving grace was that I hadn’t had a single blister since I started. Thank goodness for the protection of double socks. A pilgrim I met at the hostel restaurant last night had to quit the Camino because he had developed such huge blisters that he couldn’t walk at all. Suddenly my trashed toes seemed minor. At least I kept on moving ahead. The only other problem I was experiencing was with my ankles, as I had not been able to put my hiking boots back on because they were far too painful to walk in for long distances. Even with my “surgery,” my toes still hurt to the touch and didn’t like to be smashed into my boots. My other shoes offered no ankle support whatsoever.
The hostel in Logroño was basic. My bed was not much more than a simple cot, and once again heat was not available, not even in the shower. I didn’t mind. I passed up the shower and curled up in my sleeping bag, wearing my long underwear and hat, and passed out.
The next morning I woke up starving, and couldn’t wait to get to breakfast. Pilgrims’ breakfasts varied quite a bit on the Camino. They were either extremely delicious and satisfying, or ran from various degrees of bleak to bleaker. This morning was the bleakest. One dried-out piece of bread, instant coffee, and butter if you asked for it three times. That was it.
At least I had the pleasure of commiserating with several other pilgrims instead of suffering alone. They were Anya and Martin from Germany, as well as Thomas from South Africa and Juan from Argentina. Both Juan and Thomas were biking the Camino rather than walking it. I asked them if they found it difficult. There were times when the path was so steep and slick from the wet rocks and gravel that I couldn’t imagine biking on those trails. The thought itself made me weak.
They said no, but they didn’t bike the trails. They mostly biked along the national highway and covered up to 65 kilometers a day, easily. They planned to complete the entire 840 kilometers from St. Jean to Santiago in less than two weeks. Wow! They were having an entirely different Camino experience than the one I was having. I asked them if they had time to contemplate the Camino and tune inward. They both said not really, but that wasn’t why they were doing it. For them it was purely sport.
Interesting. The entire world is here and yet we are we all in our own world, I thought. They were off in a flash, with me wishing them a “Buen Camino” as they hurried out the door. Anya and Martin were exactly the opposite. They chose to walk half the distance at most that I was covering each day, and only planned to walk for two weeks before they would take the train to Madrid and go home. They said they would return next year and do two more weeks. With their pace and plan, they thought they would finish the Camino in six years. We all laughed about that.
Giving up on the breakfast, I dropped off Cheater, checked out, and decided to stop at the next real café and order an egg bocadillo, or sandwich, like the one I had a few days ago. My second breakfast was far more satisfying than the first, and I ate slowly and enjoyed it, taking my cue from Anya and Martin. While I had managed to slow down at times on the Camino, I still was intensely aware of how much I pushed myself onward all the time, so it felt good to sit back and decide not do that today.
Besides, even though I had an extra-long walk ahead of me, I had been arriving in the towns each day around 4 (with the exception of yesterday, of course, because I got lost), so another hour or two more wouldn’t make much of a difference. The sun was still up and dinner wasn’t served until 8 anyway, so what was the rush?
When I paid my bill, I also got my pilgrim’s passport stamped, as I had forgotten to get it stamped at the hostel. I was so happy that I remembered; I loved my daily pilgrim’s stamps. They were victory badges, each one saying, “Yes! I made it!” Each stamp reminded me of where I had just been and what it took to get there. I didn’t want to miss any of them. Some were intricate. Some were religious. Some were nondescript. But having them in my passport recognized me as a true pilgrim. And I liked that.
Once on my way, I inched out of town, following the yellow arrows through what seemed like the longest, dullest, grayest, endless concrete suburb for hours.
Perhaps the only good thing about winding through this concrete misery was that I became acutely aware of just how important and healing it is to be in nature. Living in Chicago, I so easily got disconnected from nature. Now, I not only wanted to get away from the cement and back to nature, I realized how much I needed it. In spite of all the workshops and trainings I had attended, and the fantastic teachers I had studied with, nothing calmed my spirit more than walking alone for eight to nine hours a day in nature, with no distraction, no technology, no telephone, and listening only to my inner voice as I had been doing this past week.
By the time I finally managed to get back to a natural path, it felt so good that I was willing to walk it for as long as it would take me to arrive at the next town without a word of complaint.
My enthusiasm for the trail was short-lived, however. The rain from yesterday had turned the path into an ankle-deep swamp of sticky muck that threatened to suction my shoes right off my feet with every step.
“Aw, come on!” I complained to the Camino. “I was so happy to see you, and you treat me like this? No fair!” Each step took a considerable effort, as the ground was like glue, and I had to stop and retie my shoes again and again before I admitted defeat and just allowed them to be sucked off of my feet. This was ridiculous!
Eventually I found a dry spot in which to sit down and change back into my hiking boots, which I had tied to the outside of my backpack, as my lightweight trail shoes were no match for the muck.
When I slipped back into my boots, I nearly passed out in pain. But I had to wear them. They allowed me to be more sure-footed. The sticky mud didn’t have the same suction-cup effect on my boots that it had on my shoes. I took three ibuprofen and wore only one pair of socks to ease the pain. It helped. While I still had to stomp as I walked, at least I didn’t have to fight every step of the way.
“What the muck!” I swore to myself, not knowing whether to laugh or be incredibly annoyed at this new challenge. “Just when I think I’m prepared for what’s next, I’m thrown another curveball. What a metaphor for my life right now.”
Stay focused, Sonia. Just kept putting one foot in front of the other, and keep on walking, I urged myself, gently. At least the sun was out and it was warming up a little. The path was still fairly hilly, but it wasn’t nearly as challenging as it had been yesterday.
As I walked, I began to notice mounds of stacked rocks, mini shrines created by pilgrims gone before, marking their prayers, their intentions, and the sacred nature of this pilgrimage. All of a sudden it occurred to me that I had forgotten to pray before I set out this morning, and I felt the need to do that right away, so I began to collect small gray stones to create a shrine of my own. Eventually I found myself by a lake and sat on the ground to set up my shrine and pray.
Holy Mother God,
I am so grateful for this journey and those who have gone before me, marking the path and guiding me along the way. Thank you, guardians in the spirit world. Thank you for guiding my thoughts as well as my feet so that where I have been lost, I return, and where I might become lost, I catch myself. I feel your presence and again, I am grateful.
Amen.
I sat for a long while and listened to the birds singing in full force, thinking about my intentions for this pilgrimage. My prayer said it all. I wanted to return to my spirit and no longer be lost in the pain of my past mistakes. I wanted to be present and let the past go. I took a breath and looked at the beauty around me as I ate my PowerBar. Maybe because I had been unplugged from any technological distraction for over ten days, I found listening to nature deeply soothing to my heart. I didn’t move for over 30 minutes. Then I remembered it was a long trek to the next stop, so I got up.
Every time I stopped to rest it took a few minutes to get going once again, as my feet and muscles still ached so much that with even a short rest, they stiffened up and didn’t want to move. That’s where my poles came in handy. I used them to pull me forward when my mind and body tried to hold me back.
As I walked I thought about praying. “God knows, there is always a prayer in my heart,” I said out loud, again talking to myself. “It’s not like I ever stop praying. So I wonder why, when I actually pray with intention, like when I set up that shrine, or an altar, it feels so powerful? I know God doesn’t need my prayer. I guess that I’m the one who needs it.
“Isn’t this pilgrimage a continuous walking prayer?” I asked, still talking to myself. “Aren’t I praying just by being here?”
True, I thought. But when I add my voice to that walking prayer, I feel even more available to God’s grace. I listened to the birds. I see you pray by singing, so today I’ll continue praying by singing, too.
And with that I started singing one song after another, sloshing along in the muck. I sang songs I knew. I made up songs. I sang melodies I knew and made up the words. I sang hymns like “Amazing Grace” and “Hallelujah,” and Rolling Stones songs like “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” and “Angie.” I sang Christmas carols and nursery rhymes. I used the rhythm of my boots, one foot in front other, as my percussion, and kept time with each step. The path had very few pilgrims on it today, so I was free to sing my heart out, and for that I was grateful. I am much too shy to sing in front of others. Before I knew it, I had sung all the way to Nájera. And then, like an oasis in the desert, right before entering the town square, I saw a store filled with all kinds of hiking gear, including shoes that would give my toes a break.
I was so grateful I almost fell down on my knees in gratitude. “Yes! My prayers have been answered. Hallelujah! Thank you, Jesus!”
I walked into heaven’s door, sat down, and nearly begged to the guy behind the counter to please help me.
He looked at me with pity. I was clearly another tortured ill-prepared pilgrim looking for relief. I pulled off my muddy boots, and socks, and showed him my toes, no longer concerned in the least with how ugly they looked.
He approached, and then, with only one glance, cringed, stepped back, and in broken English said, “Oh!” and then, “I am so sorry.”
An hour and $250 later, I exited with not one but two pairs of brand-new hiking shoes to replace the miserable ones that trashed my feet. One was a pair of Keen’s, a shoe with such a wide toe box that they looked oddly similar to clown shoes. Mine were bright orange to add to the circus effect. The other was a pair of Teva sandals, complete with two more pairs of gray wool hiking socks to cushion against the Velcro straps. My prayers had been answered.
I shook my head as I continued to walk down the main street, marveling at my good fortune. Then I had to laugh. Here I was, me, prima donna, Prada-wearing, city-slicker Sonia, wearing ugly rubber sandals, with even uglier socks, looking as though I just escaped from an Oregon crunchy-granola hippie farm. Even better, I was delighted with my Tevas and new socks! Overjoyed, in fact. Yes, a true spiritual transformation was taking place in me. I now even looked like a true pilgrim. And felt like one.
I hobbled onward with my now four pairs of shoes—one inside my backpack, two tied to it, one on my feet—and found my way to the hostel, which thankfully was not far away. What a day!