We are back in Santiago.....6 days and 120ish kilometers later. Looking back, I would say that this was one of the most difficult things I've ever done and appropriately one of the most rewarding. I know many people will look at how we just spent 6 days and think that is not at all their idea of a vacation. Believe me, its not really mine either! Believe me, no one loves a pina colada next to a nice pool more than me. However, that being said, I don't think I will ever have 6 days represent such a priceless experience as I just shared with Mom and Cait. Even though I speak for them often in this blog, this particular post is my voice, my experience, my feelings. What a great gift these 6 days have been.
Mom and I began "training" for this pilgrimage months ago. Mom would take her backpack with her to the gym and walk on the treadmill. We spent a lot of hours walking the roads around home...even having Dad take us and drop us off, so that we could make our way home.....all in preparation for this trip. It is a GRAND understatement to say that we were not prepared. Had we known what to expect we might not have attempted it....and yet knowing how we feel now, we certainly wouldn't have passed it up.
I know this is going to be a long post.....but keep in mind as you are growing tired reading it, just how tired we were living it!!!!
Day One - Train trip to Sarria and 14 Kilometer walk.
Our day got off to a rocky start, as we had given ourselves plenty of time and arrived at the train station 30 minutes early. However, since Spain's version of daylight saving's time had started, we were actually 30 minutes late and missed our train. The next train would not arrive early enough for us to get started on our walk and we thought we probably needed the half day in order to finish in the time we had allotted, so I went out, flagged down a cab, and in my very bad spanish, talked him into taking us to meet our train at the next connection. He, of course, turned off his meter and drove us about 40 minutes, where we just caught the connecting train that would take us to Sarria, where we would start our walk. We were back on course.
Sarria is a moderate sized little city, built on a series of small hills. Unfortunately, when you get off the train, there are no clear directions as to how to begin the pilgrimage. We floudered around for a bit, then finally found a woman who directed us to the convent at the top of the highest peak, where we needed to go to get our "pilgrim's credentials" and officially start our walk. This not only added a few kilometers to our walk, but added several hills, which though didn't seem like such a big deal at the time, would later prove to be very important.
The pilgrim's credentials were passports of sorts, that require stamps from places you stay, eat or visit along the route in order to prove to the record keepers at the end of the walk that you completed all of the legs of the journey. Our first stamp was from the convent in Sarria....and we were off!
We had filled Caitlin's good backpack with all of her and my things....but Mom was insisting on carrying her own weight, so she had a school style backpack that she was carrying. Cait and I planned on trading the big pack every hour or so and we had some snacks in a third small little pack.
Things started pretty much like we expected....a pretty little hike down alongside a river. Passing the markers that showed us the way, we, like the travelers before us, dropped off rocks at each marker. These rocks were representative of the worries that we were leaving along the way, so that we would arrive at our destination with a clean spirit.
Very quickly, we figured out that maybe the walk wasn't going to be exactly what we had thought it was going to be. The nice riverside path turned into a goat path......rocky and hilly....up and down. When we did see a village or a house, there seemed to be only people who lived completely self sufficiently....no markets or stores.
We had read that there were some hotels along the way, but because we were doing the walk before the "season" actually started, we thought they might be few and far between. However, we knew that there would also be pilgrim's refuges called aubergues, where we could get a bunk for the night. Since we were not carrying sleeping bags, we had decided to try to make it to the hotels! Well, after seeing what the route was going to be, it became obvious that the hotel thing was NOT going to happen the first night.
About an hour into our walk, Mom picked up a stick to help her make it over some of the rocky places and through some of the water crossings. Well, the stick she chose was a little short...and as we got to the end of the day I noticed she was listing badly to the right. Just as we started to get worried that we might not even find an open aubergue as soon as we needed, we rounded a corner and there was a tiny little building...actually centuries old...and it had some wonderful smells coming from it. We were getting cold, were very tired and really hungry...so we went in....and found that there was also an aubergue at this spot, so we would have a bed for the night.
We ate what was called "the pilgrim's menu" for the day......and it was the first of what would be many great meals. They all started with a hearty soup....Caldo Galicea...everyplace in the area serves their version of this soup and it is a delicous mix of greens, white beans, potatoes and sometimes some sort of meat. Next they bring you the main course, usually a grilled fish or meat dish, always served with yummy fried potatoes. And every meal ended with an almond tart that we came to look forward to almost as much as a bed!!!!
We were joined at dinner by a German woman who was a mother of a 6 and an 8 year old....on the pilgrimage all alone. She was only trying to do about 10 kilometers a day.....but she was a fairly big girl, so often was our inspiration when things got tough down the road.
After dinner, we went to the aubergue.......where we found out they have no "ropas de camas" or bed clothes....no sheets and more importantly, NO BLANKETS!!!! Also important, this particular auberque had no heat. We spent an almost completely sleepless night. I cuddled with Cait and Mom alternately, trying to warm us all up as much as possible. Mom was shivering so at one time, that a German man who was sleeping near her, got up to try to find something to cover her with. We slept in all the clothes we had and covered with our towels.
We felt unprepared and exhausted after our first day.....but somehow just knew things would get bettter.
Day two - 18 Kilometers.
Our first lesson of Day 2 was to stock up on food when you found it! The great little spot where we had dinner the evening before was closed, so we set out...tired and hungry. Since Mom had the "standing erect" issue the day before, we found her a new bigger stick (pine cones attached) and decided despite her objections, we would not let her carry anything other than the small cloth pack any longer. We tried to distribute things a little better between the two other packs, but Cait's pack was still substantially heavier, probably weighing 35 pounds or so. We started the day trading off every hour or so, but Cait was taking longer and longer stints with the pack. This would prove to be a lifesaver for me.
The path was not quite as treacherous as on day one...but it was a fairly steady uphill climb. This suprised me, as I kind of thought that since we were heading towards the coast, we would be going mostly downhill. This would not be the first time I was wrong on this journey.
Mid morning, we reached our first decent sized city.....unfortunately to get into the city we had to climb a huge series of steps. However, our reward at the top of the steps was a supermarket where we bought fruit and chocolate....and a brand new walking stick for mom. That purchase alone was worth the walk up the steps as it made her journey so much easier.
By the time we finished our shopping, we thought we might grab some lunch since we had skipped breakfast. This is when we learned our second important lesson of the day......in Spain, places to eat open at noon....but won't serve you food until at least 1.....and then they close at about 2 for siesta. So you better be fast and timely! We were so hungry, and a bit tired...so we sat and waited nearly an hour and a half to eat. Mom read while Cait and I played cards....but this really put a damper on our progress for the day, and we had some catching up to do!
This day's walk was hard, but the scenery we saw, the medieval villages we walked through and the people we met along the way made it all worth it. And....our reward at the end of the day was an open aubergue with ....BLANKETS!!!! Though we didn't make it to a hotel, we did have a great night's sleep and Cait washed out our clothes. We ate our fruit and leftover bread from lunch for our dinner as we sat in our little "shanty town" that Cait made of our hanging clothes.
This was also our first stop to meet....."the German girls". They were two very young pilgrims who would keep pace with us throughout the rest of the trip. We would leapfrog back and forth, passing them and getting passed, along the route on the next 5 days. While our daily pace was about the same, the girls walked much faster than us but stopped often, thus becoming the battle of the tortoises and the hares. I can't believe how competitive we became even on this journey! We shared the aubergue that night with them, two girls from Mollorca Islands, a girl from France and one young man, travelling alone and staying quietly to himself.
Even though there was no food available at the aubergue, we were too tired to care....we slept so much better with our blankets.
Day three - 20 Kilometers
We started the day knowing we had to keep a pretty good pace, since we had 82 kilometers to go and only 4 left to do it in. Unfortunately the skies clouded up pretty early and by mid day we were getting wet. Now, when planning for the trip, Cait had reminded us to bring ponchos, as the weather was expected to be iffy. Well, being thrifty as Mom and I are....we decided that it was a good idea to get the great little 2 packs of rain ponchos that they sell at the dollar store. We were wrong. So very wrong. Not only were these ponchos not big enough to cover us and our packs.....but they were flimsy and didn't cover our arms at all. Abject failure seems to sum up our poncho purchase.
We tortoises started earlier than the German hares....but several times during the day the lead would change hands.
Today, in addition to the poncho failure, I would manage to leave our water bottle at a stop and then, within fifteen minutes, set the backpack down in a pile of some sort of poop. Yes, real poop. Right on the mesh part that rested against your shoulders. And unfortunately I didn't notice it until just as I was swinging it up to put on the second shoulder strap...way too late to stop the motion. So....poop all over my jacket and the backpack. Bad combination.
In addition to getting wet, we were showing signs of wear and tear. Cait was carrying the big pack almost exclusively. While the small pack was lighter, the weight was badly distributed.......but even so MUCH easier to carry than the big one. Cait was using Mom's stick some, to try to help take some of the load off...but when the trail was treacherous, Mom needed it back, so Cait had to go it alone.
As the day drew to an end, we were very wet and very tired. We got to what we thought was an aubergue, but it was closed. Trudging on.....we found another.....closed as well. Then it started to rain hard. No sign of a town or a place to stay, we were short on food, out of water, exhausted and soaked. Finally we found another aubergue...this time...open!!! Just before we were getting to the door of the aubergue, the "hares" zipped by us and checked into the place just before us.
Not only was this aubergue open, but a Godsend. It had a dryer to dry our wet clothes....and while it had no blankets, the woman running it went and found us some, and then, when she found out that we had lost our water bottle, she sent her husband to get water for us. The showers were hot and the only other two people in the aubergue were our two German girl friends.
We were so happy to be dry and to have water, we didn't even mind much when one of the girls snagged Mom's long underwear top. Well, Cait and I didn't mind much....after all it wasn't our top!!! The girls were no longer "the German girls" and now became "the shirt stealers". We figured it was only an accident, but gave us something to giggle about the rest of the trip.
continued......
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