“Courage does not always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, ‘I will try again tomorrow.” – Mary Anne Radmacher
Wow. What a day. I’ve had a similar day on each of my Camino’s. It was that day where I asked myself, “why am I doing this?”
It started off fairly good. We had a nice breakfast (coffee, toast with homemade jam, and yogurt with nuts and honey) at the hostel with all the pilgrims. We left about 7:45am (which feels really late to me. I like to leave no later than 6:30am but the Norte hikers are a later starting group compared to the Frances walkers) and since we were half way up the mountain…we started uphill. Ugh. It was tough. Several of us hiked together…Germans…Anette, Kerstin, Michael, Dani, and her friend Justina and another guy Julen who is traveling alone but hanging out with the young girls and of course Stephen…my hiking pal.
It was really hard but we did it and made it to the first town where we all sat down for a coca-cola and a tortilla (egg with potato) and to relax our feet. The weather was fairly good. Cloudy and not too hot.
Then it all went South, real quick. The second half of the hike was miserable. The sun came out and since it has rained the last two nights, it became a steam bath. Walking on the road was like being cooked from the bottom up and then hiking in the vegetation was a sauna. The final hill just about killed me. I was so hot and the hill was just about straight up. I broke. I literally had a moment like Chevy Chase in Christmas Vacation. I started cursing every terrible word I knew. I’ll spare you the dirty language. I was beyond frustrated and wanted to stop. Throw in the towel. Jump on a plane and go to the beach. Stephen was dying laughing at my temper tantrum but was also sympathetic. I apologized for not being very ladylike but dang it, it was terrible. The sweat marks on my shirt were epic.
I had to change my mindset so I took two minutes to breathe, refocus and think about the bigger picture. People are suffering all over the world right now…more than usual. The war, Covid, political and civil unrest, freedoms to choose what’s best for our lives hanging in the balance, etc. the list goes on and on. It’s a mess out there. So this little hill is nothing compared to the many mountains we are climbing as a collective. After my “adult time out” I was able to push myself up and over. I was beyond thrilled to make it to our destination.
Camino – 5
Em – 1
Once we got to the hostel (which is super duper nice for 15€) the owner told us to take our shoes off and handed us all a beer (a brand from Portugal) and chips. Perfect. Then I remembered I hadn’t taken my vitamins that were in my pocket so I shot those down with the beer…you don’t think that will kill me, do you?
Tonight everyone at the hostel cooked together. I was in charge of the noodles again since I learned how to make it like the Italians last year in Italy when I was visiting Luca. The Germans (Michael, Kersten, Dani & Justine) were in charge of the sauce. The Canadians (Judy & Tina) and the Aussie (Stephen) had to do the dishes. We are going to open an Italian restaurant called “Four Germans and an American”.
I love walking in the woods and smelling all the flowers and trees but man, when you walk through a city and catch a whiff of a woman’s perfume or man’s cologne, you realize just how awful you smell.
Word of the day: bocadillos = sandwiches – we’ve eaten many of these along the way.
Nature moments: We saw a cherry tree with fruit (yum!) and the start of some pears.
Tips for the city folk who want to walk this…actually this applies to any walk or rural experience. 1. Don’t touch the fences…some of them are electric. 2. Don’t eat the fruit from the roadside…go into the field a little bit. The odds of an animal (dog) peeing on the plant is much less.
I met another American! Sam from Rochester, NY. He told me that there is an American couple, newlyweds, who are hiking this for their honeymoon (God bless them). They are a little ways behind us and probably won’t catch up he said. Their bags weigh 30 lbs each (mine is 20 lbs) and they both are carrying three books. He said they mentioned that they are out of their depth. Hopefully, this hike doesn’t cause a divorce.
Quote of the day: Seven days of hiking together and Stephen called me Melanie. MELANIE. I’m making the quite the impression.
Highlight of the day: the freezing cold shower.
I’m exhausted again. I just reread a couple of these posts…good gravy. I apologize for all the typos. After trying to communicate in multiple languages, convert euros to dollars, metric to imperial and Celsius to Fahrenheit, my brain is fried.
Mendata – Eskerica – 17.6km
Goodnight and much love from Spain.
