Skip to main content

Who Is Winning? We Are.

Day Three, Kirsten conquered blisters the size of Madrid. I did not flake out on the way up the mountain, and we were rewarded with an incredible view of the valley and the last two beds at the albergue below. We befriended some Germans. And a Korean who lives in Germany. Kirsten led us in yoga on the front yard, and many others watched. And applauded.


Day Four got tougher. After a strong morning, the blisters rallied their troops. Ten kilometres later, an attempt to catch the bus to the next albergue almost ended in disaster. Then a stranger pulled over at the bus stop where we waited.

"There is no bus to Guemes," he told us. Hearts fell.

Then, through much effort, we finally discerned that he was going to the albergue himself, to treat peregrinos (pilgrims), and HE WOULD DRIVE US. So the local physiotherapist took us to a place where hot lunch was waiting...and rest was ours.


Day Five has been deemed "Jump Ahead Day." A short car ride, a quick ferry, lunch and goodbye to our German-speaking friends, and a 4-hour train to Oviedo.


Tomorrow, Day Six, is Rest & Prep Day. We have branched off the northern coastal route to "El Camino Primitivo." Interestingly, this is translated "The Original Route" in one guide, rather than "The Primitive Route," which seems more accurate. Maybe we anglophones would be intimidated?

Mountains and thousand year-old churches are ahead of us. The coast, and hopefully blisters, are behind us.

We will keep rolling with the punches and making this trip our own.

(I wrote this on the train. After arriving in Oviedo, we walked through the rain in our flip flops to discover one bed and one kitchen bench available at the albergue. No one wanted the kitchen bench, so we left. On our way into an open grocery store (at 9:30pm on Sunday!), I did the splits on wet granite and smashed my toe... Hostel #1 was full. So was Hostel #2. So we are at a hotel. My toe is swollen and bruising. BUT WHO NEEDS THEIR FOURTH TOE? Tomorrow, we nurse our toes. Tuesday... We hope to go.

Comments

  1. Thanks so much for this post. Good to hear/see the positive attitude and the glimpses of the awesomeness of your trip. Sorry to hear of your foot problems. As I read of your toe injury, I thought, not again! Will be praying for healing and for God's strength and wisdom as you "roll with the punches".

    ReplyDelete
  2. you, your in my comments is plural.

    ReplyDelete
  3. y'all are troopers! prayin' for yous. (yous is plural)

    ReplyDelete
  4. Haha! Came to post almost Thom's exact comment--really, you are troopers. Praying that each turn in the road and each crest of a hill rewards you with satisfying adventure and fresh inspiration... Is it that too cheesy? Never mind, you rock, and can't wait to celebrate your success in September!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Simone Weil: On "Forms of the Implicit Love of God"

Simone Weil time again! One of the essays in Waiting for God  is entitled "Forms of the Implicit Love of God." Her main argument is that before a soul has "direct contact" with God, there are three types of love that are implicitly  the love of God, though they seem to have a different explicit  object. That is, in loving X, you are really loving Y. (in this case, Y = God). As for the X of the equation, she lists: Love of neighbor  Love of the beauty of the world  Love of religious practices  and a special sidebar to Friendship “Each has the virtue of a sacrament,” she writes. Each of these loves is something to be respected, honoured, and understood both symbolically and concretely. On each page of this essay, I found myself underlining profound, challenging, and thought-provoking words. There's so much to consider that I've gone back several times, mulling it over and wondering how my life would look if I truly believed even half of these thin

Esse - Czeslaw Milosz

I'm on a bit of a poetry binge this week, and Monday afternoon found me lying on the luxurious shag rug of a friend's tiny apartment, re-reading some of my favourite poets (ee cummings, William Carlos Williams, Czeslaw Milosz). It is an adventure to re-open a collection and wonder what will pop out, knowing something you've read before will strike you afresh, or you will be reminded of a particularly moving line that you had somehow forgotten. Like this piece from Milosz, which floors me. Every. damn.* time. The first time I read it, I lay in a park with a friend (this same friend who offered me her rug as my reading burrow) and demanded that I share it with her. I spoke it carefully, and then, into the post-reading silence, I slammed the book shut, and dropped it as loudly as I could onto the grass. "I'm never reading anything again," I declared, "What else is there to say?" Esse I looked at that face, dumbfounded. The lights of métro st

I Like to Keep My Issues Drawn

It's Sunday night and I am multi-tasking. Paid some bills, catching up on free musical downloads from the past month, thinking about the mix-tape I need to make and planning my last assignment for writing class. Shortly, I will abandon the laptop to write my first draft by hand. But until then, I am thinking about music. This song played for me earlier this afternoon, as I attempted to nap. I woke up somewhere between 5 and 5:30 this morning, then lay in bed until 8 o'clock flipping sides and thinking about every part of my life that exists. It wasn't stressful, but it wasn't quite restful either...This past month, I have spent a lot of time rebuffing lies and refusing to believe that the inside of my heart and mind can never change. I feel like Florence + The Machine 's song "Shake it Out" captures many of these feelings & thoughts. (addendum: is the line "I like to keep my issues strong or drawn ?" Lyrics sites have it as "stro