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The Last, Perfect Camino Day; Day 9 on the Camino del Norte (Miraz to Sobrado dos Monxes, 25km)

August 31, 2016

Warning: this is a long post. I think this is what happens when I write after the Camino ends, when I’ve had time to think about my days and reflect on all that happened. So maybe grab a cup of coffee or a glass of good Spanish wine and read about my last day on the Camino.

It seems like each time I do a Camino, I have one perfect day. Or, a day that’s just all-around so good and I feel so happy that I don’t want to even think about it too much- I just want to be in the day, in each moment of it, soaking it all up. On the Camino Frances it was the day I walked into Burgos; last year, it was the day on the Primitivo when my friends and I cobbled together some food and ate in the garden of the albergue under a setting sun.

And this year, it was my very last day on the Camino. How beautiful is that? It seemed like good Camino symmetry, that I’d had a rather difficult and isolated time overall, until the very end. And the very end felt magical.

All three of these ‘perfect days’ have something in common: I spent them with people whose company I truly enjoyed, people who I felt connected to. This makes me laugh, because I spend so much time alone on these Camino journeys; walking alone is important to me, facing challenges alone makes me grow, being happy and content with my own company is something I admire about myself.

But in the end, I need people. I think we all do.

My last post left off in the albergue of Miraz, where I’d eaten a hearty pasta dinner cooked by an Italian woman and eaten with a table full of new friends. I woke in the morning knowing I wouldn’t get an early start- the hospitaleros prepared a simple breakfast for us that they began to serve at 7am, so after a couple cups of strong coffee and a large stack of jellied toast, I didn’t set off until well after 7:30.

From my seat at the table in the albergue kitchen, I had watched the light change out the window. At first a dark, almost navy blue that slowly shifted and thinned, turning pale and then pink and orange tinged at the horizon and it was a perfectly clear, pastel colored sky.

I sat watching this sky in the albergue, wanting to be out there, walking, but at the same time content to sip my coffee and crunch into another piece of toast and make groggy conversation with the pilgrim sitting across from me. I almost felt like I was beginning to master something on this Camino (though in reality I’ve probably still got lots of work to do): I was able to just be in the moment, letting go of expectation and control of how I thought things should go or how I wanted them to go. I had learned to let go of worry or stress, and to just sort of take each day for what it was going to give me. I’m still frustrated that I got sick on my Camino, but if there was one take away, it was that everything felt so much easier once I started to feel better. And that I was reminded that feeling and being healthy is maybe the thing I’m most grateful for; if I have my health then I’m able to walk, I’m able to enjoy the food on the table in front of me, I’m able to smile and talk to a stranger. I’m able to be alive in the world.

So for the end of my Camino, I felt so settled into my days, accepting of whatever they would look like: if I would be alone, if I would make a new friend, if I would fly through the walk or if I would feel the burn in my legs. I had no need to make my last day into anything- to frantically fill it with all my favorite things, to make sure I drank Rioja wine or to have a cafe con leche break, to ensure that I would walk alone, to walk to a beautiful sunrise, to arrive at an albergue at any given time. Maybe I’d have these things and maybe I wouldn’t; it was okay.

This is a long way to open a post about my last day, but I’m reflecting on it now because I think my attitude probably contributed to how beautiful this day turned out to be (and it’s a reminder of how I try to keep living, back at home… it’s awfully hard but I’m trying).

When I did finally leave the albergue, full of coffee and bread and the warmth of the hopsitaleros and my new friends, the walk was beautiful. The day was beautiful: it was barely 60 degrees and a strong wind was blowing and the world around me felt a little wild, and free. And by extension, I felt a little wild, and free. I was alone for most of my walk, facing forward but also turning around to catch the sun reaching over the peaks of distance hills. The light was golden and cast long, deep shadows across the reddish dirt and rough stone. I walked, sometimes feeling like I was gliding, being pushed along by the wind.

And as I approached my destination, Sobrado dos Monxes (after a 25km walk), I didn’t feel sad or anxious to try to capture the last steps of this year’s Camino, to savor each one. I just felt… good.

Just before the small town of Sobrado is a small lake, and sitting off to the side along a stone wall was a big group of Spanish teenagers and a few young adults. One of them flagged me down, and began speaking quickly. When I told them I spoke English, another came over to translate. “Do you know where we are?” he asked. They wanted to know where I had come from- they were walking in the opposite direction, not on the Camino exactly, but maybe on a scouting/camping trip. I mentioned the names of towns I’d seen as I walked, and pulled out my guidebook and pointed at a map, to help them orient themselves.

I walked away feeling satisfied that someone had asked me for direction, knowing that I felt sure about where I was, what was behind me, where I was going. I walked a few more steps and saw two pilgrims sitting on a small dock at the water’s edge. They were two English guys who I’d seen a couple times the day before; we chatted for a few minutes- they were killing time because apparently the albergue in Sobrado didn’t open until 4pm. It was almost 1:30 at this point but I didn’t want to linger too long, I wanted to get into the town and find a restaurant where I could get a good meal. One of the guys nodded and said, “Natalie passed by about 15 minutes ago, so she’s just ahead of you.”

I grinned as I walked away, pleased that this pilgrim had linked me together with Natalie, even though I’d only met her yesterday. And I was pleased that she wasn’t far ahead of me. I’d known that just about everyone I’d been in the albergue with the night before was planning to stay in Sobrado- the albergue is in an old monastery and there were over 100 beds available for pilgrims. So I continued walking and I arrived at the monastery to read a sign posted on the door: the albergue had been open until 1:30, and would reopen at 4:00. I checked my phone for the time- it was 1:38. I had just missed a chance to drop off my pack and claim a bed, but in keeping with the theme of the day, I wasn’t bothered by it. I noticed a German man who I’d met briefly the morning before, and for some reason- even though he hadn’t stayed in the Miraz albergue with us and I didn’t even know his name- I considered him part of our group of solo walkers. I grinned and shrugged at our bad luck and said, “Lets go find some lunch.”

We went back to the main square of the town, looked around, and I picked a bar that had a large black board propped against the wall, listing some items from the day’s menu. After using translators on our phones to decipher the food choices, we ordered and took glasses of wine to a table outside. No sooner had we settled in than Natalie, Silvia, Michael and Matthias walked up (they had made it into the albergue before 1:30). They laughed and cheered when they saw us, and we all crowded around the table, then moved inside when the wind started blowing over chairs and knocking over glasses.

My food came out first, and it was then that we realized we had stumbled onto something great. This wasn’t just another Spanish bar with bland lettuce and watery tomatoes, fried slabs of meat, hunks of white bread. I’m sure there are restaurants like this in larger cities on the Camino (I’ve even been to a few good ones), but this was a hidden gem in a small, dusty town. On the outside and on the inside, it looked like any other bar, maybe a touch more modern, a touch more clean. But the food! The guy bringing out our dishes was the chef, and he owned this restaurant. He was young and full of energy and ideas. He could speak some English (which I hadn’t encountered much), and explained that his menu evolved; he aimed to use the freshest, most local ingredients, and so he cooked with whatever was available and in season.

And it was evident in the food that we ordered. My salad wasn’t a normal ‘ensalada mixta’: the lettuce looked like it had been picked sometime in the last hour (and maybe it had; it took awhile for the food to get to us). The tomatoes were the right color of red, there were thin slices of radish and a broiled cheese that I couldn’t identify but the flavors burst on my tongue and I scraped up every last bit. My next dish was mounds of smoked salmon piled on top of an avocado mousse and layered on thick toast and there was so much I could only finish it because it was so good.

I’m not totally sure of what everyone else was eating because I was so absorbed in own meal, all I know is that everyone was raving over the quality of the food. I saw some sort of pulled pork, and long plates of deep green padron peppers. We drank glasses of wine, and then more glasses of wine. When the chef came to ask us if we wanted dessert, we rubbed our stomachs, looked at each other, and asked what he was making.

I ordered his personal recommendation, in English he called it “cream cheese with jelly”, but even he knew that this description didn’t do the dish justice. “Just try it,” he said. “It’s made with ingredients unique to Galicia, and it is the very best.”

And it was. After dessert we ordered coffee, because there’s nothing like a strong shot of espresso to end a really long and really good meal. We thanked the chef countless times and raved over his food and he urged us to come back later that night. (I’m kicking myself for not noting the name of this restaurant; my google searches are bringing up nothing).

Just as we were leaving, I noticed the two English guys I had passed on my way into Sobrado. One of them- the handsome, blond one with long hair pulled back into a knot at the back of his head- was paying at the bar and I decided to walk over and talk to him. I did it without giving it much thought; he had caught my eye and I wanted to say hi. I was feeling good from the weight of the wine and the fullness of my meal, from the soft morning sunlight and the wild wind, from the freedom I’d felt as I walked and the confidence I had at the end of this journey through Spain.

We stood at the bar, talking, then moved outside to where his friend was sitting, then all walked together back to the monastery. We stood in line together and waited to check in, talking about the day’s walk, about where we lived, about our ideas for the future. I was so distracted by the conversation, by the English guy’s light blue eyes and his nice smile that it wasn’t until we were almost at the front of the line that I realized I had left my walking stick behind.

My stick! You guys know how much my walking sticks mean to me on these Caminos, and this year was no exception. I’d found the stick on my second day of the San Salvador and it was different than the sticks I’d carried on my other Caminos but I’d learned how to carry it so that it fit into my hand perfectly, I learned to love it. I couldn’t believe that I had gotten distracted by a guy and left it behind. I was about to turn around and go retrieve it, but then I realized that I didn’t need it anymore. My walking was done, the stick had fulfilled its purpose, I was going to leave it behind that day anyway. (I did go back later to look for the stick, but it was gone. And that, despite knowing I was going to leave it behind anyway, made me a little sad).

I’m amazed that I don’t have a good photo of this year’s walking stick. So here’s another shadow photo.

We got our beds and I showered and a French woman I’d never met before asked if I wanted to share the washing machine with her so I didn’t have to hand wash my clothes. While my clothes were washing I walked around, exploring the monastery. I couldn’t quite believe that I was staying here on my last day of Camino walking. It was my kind of place. Old and nearly abandoned, crumbling and decaying, vines growing through empty windowpanes, the flap of pigeon wings echoing around the vacant spaces. In many ways it was sad to see this beautiful, imposing building left to rot, left behind. But it was also quietly beautiful, more beautiful to me than so many of the gilded and ornate churches that dot the path of the Camino.

The rest of the afternoon and evening went by too fast, and I wanted more time. Time to run my errands and wander through the town. Time to write postcards to my friends and family, time to explore more of the monastery, time to talk to my new friends. I was able to do some of this, all of this, but I wanted just a bit more. More, and yet, what I had was enough. A big group of us did go back to the same restaurant where we’d had lunch, we ordered several bottles of wine and plates of tapas and stayed until just before 10:00, and then we had to rush back to the albergue before we got locked out.

At some point in the evening, Natalie asked me if I was sad that my Camino was over, that I couldn’t continue on to Santiago. And you know, I surprised myself a little that my answer was ‘no’. It would have been wonderful to continue on for two or three more days to Santiago, to try to stick with the group I’d found, and with the people I was continuing to meet. But a few days into the San Salvador I’d known that I couldn’t walk all the way to Santiago this year, and despite my recent connections, I was okay to say goodbye that night. The entire day had felt surrounded by a haze of that ol’ Camino magic- and I was happy. Content with the way I’d walked, excited about a new adventure to come, but mostly just focused on the beautiful place I was in at the moment, the beautiful people surrounding me.

Walking back to the albergue under a half moon and the fading light of the sky, my friends before me, I thought to myself, “This is the perfect end to a Camino. I don’t need anything else.”

But I would walk 500 miles, and I would walk 500 more…

June 17, 2015

In about an hour, I leave for my second Camino. A few weeks ago, even a few days ago, I figured that this blog post wouldn’t be written until I arrived at the airport and settled in to wait for my flight. Or maybe it would be written on the flight, or else on the train ride from Paris down to Hendaye.

But instead, I’m ahead of schedule. I’ve been ahead of schedule these last few days, and it’s throwing me off a bit. Where is the scrambling, the rushing, the panicked feeling that I don’t have everything done and I’m not prepared and that I’m going to forget something?

A small part of me worries that there’s something I’m not remembering to do, but mostly, I’m on top of stuff. It’s strange. I know I’m still going to have that feeling of “what am I doing??” when the plane takes off and, better yet, when I arrive at the train station in Hendaye and set off to cross the bridge from France to Spain and into Irun, my first official steps of the Camino del Norte.

But right now, this sort of feels ‘old hat’. I did a small training hike the other day with my pack ‘Camino loaded’, and as I was stuffing things into compartments, it all came back to me: how the sleeping bag fills out the bottom, how my soap and toiletries come next, topped with my rain jacket and ziplocs filled with clothes, how my bag with electronics and cords settles in at the top. Without having to think, my hands just moved along, filling my pack in the way that I used to last summer.

I’m at my parents house right now, where I’m leaving my car for the next month. I only arrived here yesterday, having spent most of the day finishing up work for the year. I imagined that I would spend my evening with maps spread out in front of me, jotting down notes, sending off emails, doing all of those last minute, pre-trip things. But instead, I went for a stroll around my neighborhood and saw lightening bugs blinking across the corn fields. I sipped a coke slushey and watched Apollo 13. I had one of the most relaxing summer evenings that I could imagine.

And now I’m sitting in my old bedroom with my Camino things spread out before me, not quite fully packed. My outfit is arranged on my bed, I’ll change into it shortly: a long pair of hiking pants, a deep blue t-shirt, underwear, socks. I remember this moment so vividly last year, how I was struggling to take a deep breath, panicked about what I was about to get myself into.

This year I feel so calm, and I love it. I think I’ve been ready to get back on the Camino for months, and now it’s here. Round two. The weather is supposed to be beautiful for my first day’s walk on Friday, so stay tuned for some gorgeous photos of the northern coast of Spain. Here’s a photo of a map of the route, taken from my guidebook (so pardon the poor quality of the map… but you’ll be able to see the route, which is the most important thing).

The solid red line is the route I’m walking this year, the Camino del Norte which branches off to the Camino Primitivo; the dotted red line is the Camino Frances, which I walked last year.

So here we go, 31-days on the Camino del Norte and Camino Primitivo… 500 more beautiful and strenuous and magical miles through Spain. Stay tuned!

Next Post: Day 1 on the Camino del Norte

Returning to Paris, Returning to the Camino; (‘You Can’t Go Home Again’)

March 5, 2015

Have you ever gone back to a place that you loved and found that it had changed? Or that your experience of it was very different?

Two years ago I was planning my first return to France in over 10 years, and I was nervous about seeing Paris again. Paris had defined travel when I was in my early 20’s; it was the place I’d always wanted to go to, and the place I traveled to the most during my year abroad in college. I’d imagined that it was a beautiful, magical place, and my actual experience of it didn’t let me down: Paris did feel magical. Being there made me feel alive and so full of hope and possibility.

I was young, and I hadn’t traveled overseas before. I learned- in small doses- how to be brave in Paris, and it was something I didn’t even really think about because I was desperate to see as much of the city as I could. So I would set my alarm for 6am and wake up before the other students in my program. I’d wander through the streets with my camera in hand, then return to the hostel and join my friends for breakfast. I learned how to ride the metro, I learned how to find my way around cemeteries and museums, I learned how to drink coffee.

When I returned to Paris, on the eve of my 33rd birthday, the city felt different. The buildings still seemed to glow, Notre Dame was just as majestic as I’d always remembered, but something was off.

I still wandered through the streets, taking photos and drinking cafe cremes. Weaving through the tombstones of Pere Lachaise, I tracked down Oscar Wilde and Jim Morrison. I slept in the same hostel that I had when I was 20, I ate the same baguette breakfast. Climbing up the 400-odd stairs to the top of Notre Dame, I put my face up to the wire fence and looked out over the city.

This was still Paris: beautiful and enchanting and foreign.

The changes that I noticed? It wasn’t Paris that had changed, not really.

It was me.

Drinking my first cafe creme was probably the biggest tip-off. It’s difficult to explain how important cafe cremes were to my year in France, when I was a college student: I’d never really drank coffee regularly before, and I’d never made ‘sitting in a cafe and watching people and spending hours talking about life with my friends’ an everyday thing. As I moved through my twenties and looked back on my time in France, the cafe creme became symbolic. It was France, and it was travel, and it was me, at that time.

So when I returned to Paris and sat in the basement room of my hostel with my red breakfast tray spread out before me, a cup of creamy, hot coffee in my hands, I smiled before taking my first sip.

I took the first sip, and then I frowned. This was what I had been waiting for, all of these years? This was a cafe creme?

From 20 to 33, I’d changed. It wasn’t just about the coffee, although that was part of it. Back when I was 20, I didn’t know what a really good cup of coffee tasted like. And I suppose I didn’t know what the world tasted like, yet. I still haven’t traveled all that much, and there’s still so much more life I need to experience. But I’d grown in 13 years. I still have a somewhat childlike sense of wonder and innocence, but it’s very different than what I had at 20, when it defined so much of my life and how I saw the world.

Recognizing these changes, as I wandered through Paris, was a little unsettling. I walked through the city and wondered what I was looking for. I knew I wouldn’t be able to find the 20-year old girl who had been here that first time.

As the days passed I realized that these changes were okay. On my 33rd birthday I walked into a cafe that I’d remembered being in with my friends on that first trip to Paris. On that night, years ago, we’d crammed around a table on the terrace of the cafe, drinking hot chocolate and giggling about life.

On this night, I walked into the cafe and I asked for a table. I was seated outside, with a view of the Seine and the spires of Notre Dame. After ordering a glass of wine, the waiter complimented my French. I’d made several mistakes- fumbling over the word ‘boisson’ (which means ‘drink’)- and we laughed. I wasn’t self-conscious in the way that I used to be; my French was more rusty than ever, and yet, I was more confident about speaking than when I was 20.

I’m thinking about changes and how we experience the same place in different ways because of my upcoming Camino. I’m nervous about returning for a 2nd time, even though only a year separates my two pilgrimages, whereas over 10 years separated my visits to Paris. I haven’t changed all that much in the past year, and yet, I know that my second Camino will be very different from my first. Will my return to the Camino be like my return to Paris?

Will I be more confident? Will I relax a bit about my fears? Will I use the knowledge that I gained on my first trip and hit the ground running on my second? Will I be able to work on the lessons that I feel I was just beginning to learn as I ended my first pilgrimage?

Will I still love the walking? Will I still avoid blisters and still make some friends? Will I still love the cafe con leches??

I’d love to hear about your experiences of a place or an experience that you returned to- whether it was the Camino or something (somewhere) else. Were you disappointed? Did the return exceed your expectations? Will you continue to return again and again?

Paris at 20

Paris at 33

The toughest, the prettiest, the luckiest.

September 15, 2014

I’ve been thinking about this blog post- the one I’m about to write- for weeks. It started to form in my mind as I was doing all of my post-Camino processing: thinking about the things I experienced, the people I met, the lessons I learned. Some of what kept coming back to me were the things people said to me while I was on the Camino, things they said at the end. And things that I told myself on the Camino, things I told myself at the end.

This could be a long post.

I was called, several times, three different things on the Camino: tough, pretty, and lucky. Someone called me the prettiest. Someone called me the luckiest. No one called me the toughest but sometimes it was implied that I was one of the toughest.

And I was a bit uncomfortable each time I heard these words.

And I often denied it. “No no,” I’d protest. “I’m not that tough. Really. I’m not sure why I’m handling this walk so well, but it’s not because I’m tough.” I didn’t even know what to say about being called pretty. And lucky? Well, maybe I agreed with that one a bit. But it was always about more than just luck.

You’ve probably gathered, through reading my posts while on the Camino, that I didn’t struggle with this walk in the physical sense. I had some aches and pains, but they were minor. I sailed through the majority of the walking, not feeling the pain in my body like the majority of pilgrims do. I was always, from day one, a fast walker. I must have sometimes been an amusing sight- this somewhat petite, compact girl swooshing up the hills, her socks swinging wildly on the back of her pack. I would often get into a rhythm and just go, my mind far off, zoned out, in some sort of semi-flow state. It became a bit of a joke by the end that I somehow always missed stuff. At the end of the day people would talk about the things they’d seen on the day’s walk, and I had no idea what they were talking about. Sometimes it was just about a grove of trees, or things growing in a garden, but later it was the bigger stuff. Did you see that cathedral? they’d ask. What cathedral? I’d say. Somehow I missed the official 100 kilometer marker- I have a photo with a 100 kilometer marker but it’s not the “real” one, as I later found out. I missed the ‘Santiago de Compostela’ sign as I entered into the city (don’t ask me how, I walked right past it). I missed the first glimpse of the ocean as I walked to Finisterre.

People- myself included- thought this was hilarious. It’s not like I wasn’t taking in the space that I was walking through, because I was. In a big way. But sometimes I would just get into a zone and I could only see right in front of me. Or I could only see what was far beyond. In any case, when I got in these zones I was a walking machine. I could plow through kilometer after kilometer and even at the end of the day, I’d felt like I could just keep going and going. I loved the walking.

But does that make me tough? I think some people thought so. The Korean boys all joked that it was impossible to catch me, and sometimes they tried. I walked the Dragonte route- three big mountains- and every time someone heard that I did this they had a big reaction. “Wow, you’re tough,” they’d say. Is it because I’m a woman? Is it because I’m not that big? Is it because I was out there alone? Is it because I never fully attached myself to anyone, and insisted on doing this by myself?

And isn’t this tough, in some ways? Shouldn’t I be able to say that traveling alone to a foreign place to walk 500 miles across the country is tough? That, at least in some part, it requires a bit of toughness?

Because it does. It does for everyone that completed this walk, everyone who attempted this walk, everyone who walked even just one little portion of this walk. It takes some toughness.

But I’m not the toughest. People were battling out there. You can’t call me tougher than that 75 year old Frenchwoman I met. Or tougher than the mothers and fathers out there with their children. Or, for that matter, tougher than the children. In fact, I think I could probably go through just about every single person I met on the Camino and find a reason that they were tougher than I was.

And yet, that’s not what this is about. I wasn’t the toughest person on the Camino, but the truth is, I was tough to do that. I’m tough. It’s a hard thing for me to say, but there it is: I’m tough.

And here’s the next one: I’m pretty. This one is also so hard for me to say. Always- growing up, in my regular life, on the Camino- I see so much beauty in people. So many pretty girls and women all around me. Women who have it all together: the hair and the makeup and the clothing and the demeanor. All of it.

I’ve never had that. I make sure that I’m at least satisfied with my appearance, that I can appear in public and not be embarrassed (although, quite frankly, there have been a few close calls), but that’s about it. I don’t often try to make myself look very pretty, and I prefer to just blend into the background. Not to be noticed.

But on the Camino, people noticed. I was walking- fast- down a rocky hill one day and came upon two Frenchmen. The older one turned around when he heard me approaching and called out to his friend: “Attention! La jolie fille nous passe.” The pretty girl is passing us. It made me smile (and I think I startled them by responding with, “Ah, merci beaucoup!”), but it also caught me by surprise. I was just referred to as ‘the pretty girl’? Really?

The day after I arrived in Santiago I ran into two people I’d seen time and time again on the Camino, a Spanish girl and her brother. They were probably both around my age, and neither spoke much English. On the Camino I always gave them a big wave and a bright smile, and they always smiled back. That was the extent of our interactions, until we saw each other in Santiago. On that day, in Santiago, I spoke for a few minutes with the girl- saying hello, saying goodbye. I was about to walk away when she said to me, “There is one thing I must tell you. We think,” and here she pointed to her brother, “that you are the prettiest girl on the whole Camino.”

I had no idea what to say, and I think I just stared at her, mutely shaking my head. “Yes,” she continued, “you are! Even my brother thinks so, so it is true.” Her brother was staring off into space, probably not understanding a word of the conversation but most likely would have been mortified if he knew what we were saying. “We refer to you as the pretty American, with the pretty smile and the pretty eyes.”

I still didn’t know what to say, and probably just protested for awhile and then said goodbye. But this, too, surprised me. The prettiest? Not by a long shot. There were some very, very pretty girls on the Camino.

But this was another Camino lesson for me, just like needing to be able to admit to being tough. I am pretty. I’m not the prettiest, just like I’m not the toughest. But I am pretty. On the Camino, my hair wasn’t always clean, I had an extremely uneven tan, I wore the same dirty clothing every day… but I was pretty. I almost always wore a smile, my face was usually bright and shining. And I think there was probably some beauty in that.

I’ve already written about being lucky, maybe the luckiest. I don’t know. Once, on the Dragonte route where it had been raining off and on, I said aloud that I just wished the sun would appear. Less than a minute later there was a small break in the clouds and warm sunshine poured down on us. Vicool turned around, gave me a look and said, “Angel asks for sunshine, Angel gets sunshine.”

Luck? Coincidence? Maybe. But I think it goes a bit beyond luck. I already talked about the Camino providing and I still believe that’s true, but it’s also more than that. I prayed to God while I was on the Camino, and as I moved closer to Santiago I had more and more conversations. I was provided with what I needed- by the Camino, by God, by a few guardian angels I suspect I have working for me. I was lucky, and I’ve asked myself time and time again why, but really it doesn’t matter. I tried to never take my luck or my walk or each day or any of the trip for granted. I tried to appreciate as many moments as I could while I was on the Camino, I tried to practice gratitude. And maybe that’s why I sailed through the kilometers, or had a shining, happy face. Maybe that’s why I felt like so much good was coming to me. Maybe.

So, the toughest, the prettiest, the luckiest? No, not really. But I am tough, and I am pretty. And I was so, so lucky.

Out of Iceland and down to St Jean Pied de Port

June 26, 2014

After an extra 24 hours in Iceland, I’m on my way to St Jean Pied de Port. It’s close now: I’m on a train in Bordeaux, about to depart for Bayonne, where I’ll switch again for SJPP.

Iceland was sort of like a twilight zone- which is not to say that it was undesirable or strange- but that it felt like it was existing in some sort of separate space and time. I mean, it never got dark! Was it 10am or 5pm or 11pm or 4am? And for that matter, what day was it? When did I leave JFK, how long had I been traveling, what was the time difference, when should I be eating, how long have I been wearing these clothes? I’ve had two hours of sleep in the past… I don’t even know how many days. It’s felt like I’ve been traveling for weeks, but I think it’s under two days. Or just over two days. I’m not sure.

Choosing to take the later flight out of Iceland- despite the Twilight-zone-ness of it all- was a good choice. I flew “overnight” to Paris, and on the way to the airport hung out with Luke, the last of flight #612. I felt like I had a friend with me, someone I’d known a lot longer than a day and a half. Once we got to Paris we hugged goodbye, and I thought that this was a great way to begin my trip. I’ve been very focused- and worried- about the connections I’ll make with others while I’m away, and traveling to Paris with Luke felt like a good omen.

I effortlessly found the RER and made my way to Montparnasse. I just did a very similar trip last year (catching a train in Montparnasse for the south of France), but that time it felt difficult. Not really knowing where to go, lugging around a huge suitcase, experiencing Europe after being away for so many years.

This time? Carrying a bag on my back is a great way to go. I made all of my connections so quickly that when I showed up at the ticket booth to find a way to SJPP, I ended up on a much earlier train than I expected. In fact, the whole thing was so simple, and I was even speaking French! Last year I forgot to get my ticket ‘composter’, I was on the wrong car and in someone’s seat, and trying to explain myself in French was a disaster. I don’t know exactly what happened between last year and this year, but in terms of traveling, I’ll call it confidence. And experience.

In any case, I’ll be arriving in SJPP around 4:30 this afternoon, giving me about 3 hours more time than I thought I would have. It’s perfect. Enough time to buy a credential (the passport I’ll need to present in albergues and cafes to prove that I’m a pilgrim), track down a walking stick and scallop shell, and take a look at the town. And take a shower. At this stage, that’s important.

And tomorrow, it will be time to begin this walk, and time to tackle the Pyrenees. Because of the travel delays, I lost my reservation at Orisson, the alberge in the Pyrenees that would have split up a long and difficult first day’s walk. So now it will be straight on to Roncesvalles, and I will have to do what just about everyone considers to be the most challenging day of the entire Camino. (Partly because of the steep ascents and descents, and partly because this is the very first day).

As I was getting on this train I thought I saw a small group of Pilgrims: 3 or 4 guys, all young and fit, with big packs and European accents, laughing and shoving each other. I chickened out and didn’t say anything, but finally, this pilgrimage feels close. I’m moving towards my starting point and others are, too. A whole bunch of people from all over the world are congregating in a small French town to begin a long walk, and this will be the group I start with. I have some nerves, and I may have a lot more when the train pulls into SJPP, but right now it’s mostly excitement. Time to walk!