Day 4 - 24 kilometers
The first sound we heard when we woke was rain. UGH! But at least we were starting with dry, not poopy smelling, clothes.
Our great discovery of the day was BREAKFAST. Bacon and Eggs. Albeit bacon greatly undercooked by our standards.....the eggs were so amazingly terrific that they made up for it. Cait hadn't had breakfast for 2.5 months and Mom and I since we had gotten to Spain, so we were all happy to find out that even if eggs weren't on the menu, most little places (if you could find them open in the mornings) would be happy to make you huevos frito. We had a glorious start to the day.
That quickly changed. It rained.....and rained....and rained. Soon our feet were soaked, our clothes were soaked....we were wet and cold. Mostly it was a slow steady rain, but at times driving rain so hard we had to wear our sun glasses to keep the rain out of our faces. We had no choice but to go on.
Wet feet made the going tougher. Our feet began to slip in our shoes and that made our feet sore. Sometime after mid day, we got to a small town and bought Cait and I walking sticks. This helped a lot as the roads and trails had become so slippery that keeping upright was becoming more and more difficult of us.....especially me, for those of you who know me well!!! I only fell once on the trip....well, twice if you count the time I was trying to go to the bathroom on a steep hill...but that is a better story told in person!. The one fall I had was on a hill, and I managed to catch myself after only one roll. I consider that a complete success!
Besides the stop for eggs and bacon and the stop for the sticks....we trudged on. Our pace became pretty slow, but we did manage to pass the German shirt stealers when they took refuge in a bus stop during a particularly bad rain storm.
As the day started coming to an end we found an aubergue. However, we were a few kilometers short of our goal for the day, so Cait and Mom thought we should move on. I relunctantly agreed......
We walked.....and looked for a place to stay....and walked....and walked.... Soon we had not only met our goal, but gone past it! We were miserable. So tired and cold and wet. No place to stay in sight, we just kept on walking. Finally we saw a little village at the bottom of a really steep hill, about a kilometer away. We were hopeful that there would be someplace to stay there, because the only way out of the village was up an equally steep hill on the other side. Mom even commented that there better be someplace to stay there, because she could never make it up that other hill. She was wrong.
There was no place to stay....and she made it up the next hill....and the next. We went on for nearly 4 kilometers more than we planned, when we got to a highway. Nothing seemed near...and we were becoming pretty worried about what we were going to do....when we followed the highway around a corner and there was a Pension.....A REAL HOTEL!!!!!! With beds....and sheets...and a bathtub!!! We were like school girls. We ran into the room, jumped into the beds and giggled. We each took about a 30 minute bath and Cait and I watched MTV reruns until I fell asleep mumbling something about the sheets....I've never been so happy to sleep on such low thread count sheets!
This had been a really tough day...with a really happy ending. We just new this would be our hardest day yet.
Day five - 18 kilometers
When we went down to check out of the hotel (after sleeping in until 9!! we made our second great purchase of the walk. Real ponchos!!!!! I spied them in a case near the front and we each got one. Thank goodness! Today was going to be our rainiest day yet!
At breakfast, we saw a group of Asian people.....they were chattering happily, but didn't speak to us. We would also meet the first of whom we refer to as "a cheater". A British woman was at the hotel waiting for a cab to take her down the road a bit to start her walk. The cab was then going to take her luggage on to her next hotel. She was doing bits and pieces of the walk.
Later that day we would run into two Irish men doing something similar. They walked a bit every day, then called a cab to come find them and take them back to their rented car. They then would drive to the next easy walk and walk a bit more the next day. When we first found out what they were doing we were almost resentful, but after mulling it over the next few days, we decided we shouldn't be so judgemental. We weren't sure what their circumstances were, healthwise or otherwise, and they might not be as fortunate as we were to be able to make this great trip. Still.....it was tough to see them along the trip looking fresh and rested as we plodded along!
Every day, we just kept thinking that the road would get easier soon. We were wrong. Day five was proving to be one of the toughest. We stopped for a bite to eat at a little spot and had two great treats.
First, the asian group we had seen earlier in the morning was there finishing up their tea. We found they were from Japan and expressed our sorrow and prayers for their country. They were so happy to meet us and to practice their english. They were so cute....all between 50 and 70, except for their young guide. They took photos with us and laughed and even gave Cait a massage because she was carrying the big pack. They stayed much longer than they had planned, talking to us...hugging us....and when we gave them each one of the crosses that we had brought to share, they were thrilled. We could not have made them any happier and they could not have made our day any better!
After they left the man running the little cafe asked where we were from. When we told him Texas, he excitedly told us that the Bush girls had stopped there at his place when they did the Camino. He said they bought lots of chocolate and one security guard came in with them while the others stayed outside. We laughed at how miserable the secret service guys must have been going on this walk! Still it was an interesting side story for our day.
That night we were right back on course, thanks to our long day the day before....and stopped at what we thought was a very nice aubergue. It was.....sort of. It was nice...but filled with 50 fifteen year old Spanish kids!!!! They laughed and talked until the wee hours of the morning....though we were so tired it only bothered us occasionally. Mostly we just snoozed away.
We had decided to try to get an early start the next day and maybe we could finish enough to make the pilgrim's Mass in Santiago the next day at noon. We were......again.....wrong.
Day 6 - 18 Kilometers
We got up at 6....only to find it was completely dark. Even after a leisurely breakfast, the skies were so dark at 7:45 that we couldn't really see the path. But we decided to go on anyway. This particular part of the journey was through a forested area....so it was sort of creepy...but added another dimension to our trip.
We started out great. Excited it was our last day...and as always, I was sure this day was going to be mostly down hill. Once again...I was wrong.
The first 5 kilometers flew by. Then the rain started again. And the road became tough. We went by the airport....we knew we were close...but not sure how far out of town we still were. At 13.5 we saw a marker......the sort of marker that had be along the road regularly since the onset. Almost every half of a kilometer there had been one.
We walked...and climbed....and walked. The wind picked up and was blowing the rain at us as it had a couple of days earlier. We worried that we were off the path....we hadn't seen a marker for several hours. Then....on a fence....there were literally thousands of hand made crosses.....we knew we were going the right way.
Every day seemed hard, but for some reason today seemed hardest. Our feet hurt...our pace had slowed.....we hadn't seen the German "hares" since the evening before...as a matter of fact we weren't seeing anyone else. We just kept walking. Because we were nearing Santiago, the path was now pavement....hurting our feet even more. Again we went a hour or more with now sign. Cait decided there weren't markers at this point because you had to move forward on sheer faith. We think she might have been right.
Everytime we became discouraged we would see something to move us forward. Another handmade cross....a glimpse of the city on the horizon.....a woman continueing the walk in one walking shoe and one bloody sock where the blisters on her toes prohibited her from wearing both shoes.....all of these things kept us going.
Finally....after 6 days.....
- 42 hours of walking
- 112 official kilometers
- 29 roadside potty stops (3 of which were mine and all the others belonging to an unnamed person)
- 6 German, 8 Japanese, 2 Mallorcan, 1 French, 2 Irish, 1 Brit, Countless Spanish and some unidentified other travellers
- 2 herds of cattle
- 1 sleepless night
- thousands of laughs
- a few tears
I learned so much on this trip...about history, about Spain, about myself. I was reminded how strong my Mother is. While she amazed everyone we met, Cait and I never doubted her. I was shown something about Cait I never knew. She was kind and helpful and loving.....soaking up this very special time with her Grandmother. She took the burden of the heavy load and never once second guessed her decision or whined about it. The trip was almost perfect......although Alexa was with us often in our thoughts and conversations, we all wished she had been old enough to come with us. That would have been the icing on the cake. Still.....Cait has promised to bring her sometime...and share with her the legacy that her Grandmother has left.
Now.....as the bagpiper is again playing on the streets below...and the rain is still coming down....I'm in bed. Mom is sleeping beisde me, Cait reading across the room......and I know I am blessed.
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