Thoughts from the Camino de Santiago
I cant remember thw last time I wrote but this is a crazy experience. It is both amazing and difficult and incredible and terrible and everything inbetween. Some moments I think are the best of my life, and some I think are the worst. It has been really difficult this past week because we had a lot of rain, which I was not prepared for, and it got very very very cold which I was also not prepared for. It is a terrible thing to walk 8 hours alone through the sleety rain. As a result my boots got really wet and I got a blister from hell on my right food and pulled something bad in my left foot so walking is about impossible now. A blister covered about half my foot it seemed and the hospitelero (host of the hostel) who is a nice older man who has walked the camino 7 times walked me over to the hospital where the doctor yelled at me for getting that blister. so now i have no skin on my feet and it is very infected and it hurts a lot and they said I cant walk for a few days. They also asked if I had a tetnus shot. I said yes but now I am not sure. They also said I have to go back to the hospital tomorrow. im feeling quite emotional the past couple days, and keep crying and dont know why. but I feel now like I have a´family`here, I have been adopted by a group of spanish guys who teach me spanish (including lots of bad things haha) and make sure I am always ok and cook food with me and for me, and talk with me, and bring me tea and whatever else I need when I dont feel good. and one gave me a sweater even. thats the nice thing about this trail, when you need help someone appears and you get what you need. people are really wonderful, and i feel like I have a camino. Sometimes I want to quit because my feet hurt so much and sometimes it is so cold that I think Ill freeze to death, but many many other times I am under a blue sky overlooking beautiful spanish countryside, walking through purple heather, and near friends who care about me. tis life, eh?
A few days ago I had an incredible night. We had walked all day through the sleet and I had never been so cold and miserable and wet in my life and finally got to the albergue in grañon. it was warm and dry, and inside a church. it was free and there was a fireplace and a guitar,and the hospitelero offered me a warm bowl of lentil stew and coffee. he cooked dinner for all of us there that night (14 i think) which was incredibly nice, and he made breakfast for us the next morning. he and this other woman did a ceremony for us that evening to bless us pilgrims and we all went around with candles and said what we were thinking of and hugged everyone and told everyone what we wished for them. I cant quite explain what was so good about this experience, but it was incredible and really turned one of the worst days of my life into one of the best. There was just so much love there!
It is hard to know what to say about this experience. I could say a lot or nothing but you still wouldnt really know. I hope my foot is better soon, though!! I miss people and am a bit sad I have not heard from hardly a single person in a long time, but I guess that is what happens when i havent hardly seen people in more than a year. I am not a part of peoples lives anymore in the US which I guess makes me sad because no one talks to me anymore but I am having my own life now here.
A few days ago I had an incredible night. We had walked all day through the sleet and I had never been so cold and miserable and wet in my life and finally got to the albergue in grañon. it was warm and dry, and inside a church. it was free and there was a fireplace and a guitar,and the hospitelero offered me a warm bowl of lentil stew and coffee. he cooked dinner for all of us there that night (14 i think) which was incredibly nice, and he made breakfast for us the next morning. he and this other woman did a ceremony for us that evening to bless us pilgrims and we all went around with candles and said what we were thinking of and hugged everyone and told everyone what we wished for them. I cant quite explain what was so good about this experience, but it was incredible and really turned one of the worst days of my life into one of the best. There was just so much love there!
It is hard to know what to say about this experience. I could say a lot or nothing but you still wouldnt really know. I hope my foot is better soon, though!! I miss people and am a bit sad I have not heard from hardly a single person in a long time, but I guess that is what happens when i havent hardly seen people in more than a year. I am not a part of peoples lives anymore in the US which I guess makes me sad because no one talks to me anymore but I am having my own life now here.