flecha amarillo nada mas

for those of you that haven´t been brushing up on your Spanish the title means 'yellow arrows no more'.

I did it, I reached Santiago in one piece, no falls, no blisters (well a tiny one and a couple of callouses), a few tears, a lot of laughter, rain, mud, beer, wine, friends, touragrinos, snorers, bunk beds, cold showers, hot showers, grumpy hospitalerios, friendly locals and, lets not forget, wise cows.

I reached Santiago yesterday morning at 9am, an easy stroll down the hill and through the city - 5km...pfft. It was raining but pretty damn good to walk anyway. My knees and feet were a bit creaky due to the day from hell the day before. I managed to miss a turn off to the town that I wanted to stay in and ended up walking 35km before I found a bed at Monte del Gozo - and I have to say that after 9 hours of (almost) solid walking I it was indeed a 'mount of joy' for me to find a bed there. The phrase most feared by a pilgrim is 'completo' when you are looking for a bed, and that´s a phrase I heard at about 4pm with feet so sore the pain became my walking rhythm. But find a bed I did and the showers were hot, the beer was cold and the food was...well it was food.

Yesterday morning I cried tears of happiness in front of the cathederal before heading up to the pilgrim office for my compostela, seeing a few familiar faces, hugs of congratulations then off to find a bed. I attended the pilgrim mass at midday - you gotta do it then the afternoon was spent buying clothes, picking up my packages from the post office, talking to my girlfriend, having (another) hot shower then off to get drunk with a bunch of tired but happy pilgrims.

I am in Finisterre today and tonight - the old pilgrims thought this was the end of the world - its a beautiful fishing town, scenic and special. I´m staying in a fantastic hotel overlooking the water, I´ve had a bath - what luxury.

So the question is would I do this again? and the answer is most definitely yes, but another, less crowded path. I had come to walk the camino to 'find myself' but on reflection I don´t really think I was lost. What I did find, though, was happiness...it was down the back of the couch the whole time!!!

Buen camino and adios

its the end of the world as we know it

ok so its nearly the end of my world as I´ve known it for the last four weeks.

I am officially 42km from Santiago de Compostela and having this strange feeling of wanting to keep walking...that only lasted half a day until I got cranky and tired and hungover, now I think I´ll be happy to hang my boots up and chill out for a bit.

I am in...in...hang on...Arzua - towns, days, weeks they all blur into one, can´t remember where I was last night - its the same for all pilgrims, funny, but we all know where we are going. Hmm...maybe that´s a lesson to learn, it really doesn´t matter where you´ve come from, its where you are going that counts...cool!

I´ve spent the last three days feeling everything but peregrino-like. Caught up with an Aussie I know and we´ve spent our siesta´s bar hopping in whatever town we were in. Fantastic! Yesterday we found this great dodgey bar upstairs from the main road (they´re usually on the main drag to get the custom), full of pool tables. Now to an Australian or New Zealander that probably doesn´t sound too unusual but for Spain it is - scarcer than a supermercado open between 2 and 5pm! So what could a couple of Aussie peregrinas do but sink piss and pool balls all afternoon. The bar chick was great, young and welcoming, turned up the music for us in the back so we rocked on to a plethora of classic hits (most of which are so memorable their names escape me!).

Melide (yesterday´s town) is famous for its pulpus - octopus - which is weird because its not near the sea. What you get is a wooden plate of boiled then spiced tenticles all chopped up. I´m not a fan of occy so opted for a sample of other people´s...nyeh...I think we do it better in Oz.

The scenery round these parts is interesting - lots of imported eucalypts, so weird to see them growing beside the mud (I haven´t mentioned the mud have I...let´s just say there´s a shit-load of it...we are in farming country!) - such a reminder of home.

So a couple of days walking now and I will be staying in a place called Monte del Gozo...Mount of Joy...the first place you clap eyes on the cathederal in Santiago. Going to Santiago, even as a touragrino or weekender, has become so popular they have built a special albergue which has 800+ beds all in barrack style buildings. People I´ve met are starting to call it the concentration camp - as you can imagine that gives rise to some rather poor taste comments...but enough of that.

There won´t be much more to report until I get there - my feet are still giving me grief but not as bad as they have been - yeah great, now that I´m nearly finished...thanks feet.

say cheese

yesterday I was walking from somewhere to somewhere...Fonfria to Samos (phew, grabbed on to that zephyr of a memory) and I came across a paddock of cows - not unusual at all, they are everywhere here in Galacia.

I´d had a fucker of a day getting to Fonfria, long, sore feet, rain, got the last bed in the albergue. I was so tired I went to bed at 7.30pm and didn´t bother with dinner. My bunk was right next to the door so everyone was coming in and slamming the door...oh how I love touragrinos (peregrino = pilgrim, touragrino = tourist pilgrim). I managed to get quite a bit of sleep despite the Italian downstairs slamming my bunk ladder then just looking at me...freak! but I was still pretty tired, I´m always tired here!

So, I came across this paddock of cows and there was this one cow right at the edge, right near the path, looking at me...as cows do. I just had to take a photo. She posed beautifully for me and after I´d taken the picture I started giggling, then I started crying, then I may well have started talking to myself (I´ve developed a habit of doing that) and I realised that´s the happiest I´d been on the Camino for a couple of days. And looking at the photo now I swear she has an expression on her face asking me 'why are you on the Camino?'.

Can the Camino make you go mad? yes, I think so. The British nurses were telling me about a guy who runs the Camino backwards laughing - I think that´s proof if crying at cows wasn´t already enough proof!

For those of you who want an update of where I am physically - I´m in Sarria, only 6 or 7 days to go now till I can sleep without earplugs and not hand wash my socks and undies every day!

vino tinto gives you power

as does a lunch of bocadillo con chorizo y tomata from Señor Gabon in the little besa-brick hut next to his vineyard just outside of Valtuille de Arriba.

Señor Gabon gave me a sample of the preservative free wine he makes to have with my bocadillo, I must point out that the Señor gave me a sample from the bottle I just bought - sharp businessman! He´s set up a good little sideline in food and drinks on the way out of town, there´s no bar in the town and you´re about ready for a sit down being 3.5km from Villafranca. the wine is great, the view over the vines is typical and the service, fantastic, you get a nice little chat in Spanish, but slow enough to get the gist of most of it.

today´s leg of the Amazing Race - lo siento...I mean, my Camino - was largely through the outskirts of Ponferrada and along main roads through a variety of towns then ending up winding through vineyards...as I´ve said before - its a tough gig ;) . The track ran under massive power lines most of the time and its was crazy spooky hearing the electricity crackle with the intermittent rain.

My feet, well, they´re sore again, 23km today - still a bit phlegmy from the flu but feeling well enough to plod along. If only I could get over the foot thing, I tend to really get into the walking after about 15km, and that´s just the point that the grimace creeps across my face. I was having tea in a small village and massaging my feet - an old guy leaving the bar said something to me in Spanish and laughed sympathetically, I just laughed right along with him - what can you do eh?

this internet cafe is very expensive so I´m going to spare you the insights I had last night in Ponferrada...

hasta luego

peaks and valleys

every day is different on the Camino, not just the scenery or the people or the food but the emotions...oh the emotions!

I had a shocker of a day yesterday. It was wet and cold and dismal walking from Santa Catalina to Rabanal the day before that, but I finally got there and booked into a small hotel - nice, hot shower etc. So I wasn´t expecting to have a bad day the next, the Cruz de Ferro day but I did in the end.

I reached the top of the mountain - well not quite the top but something of a symbolic point - and was looking forward to my ritual and some quiet reflection time. But when I got there a lot of pilgrims felt the need to scale the mound of stones and hold their walking poles akimbo as if they had conquered some kind of Mt Everest. I didn´t get the feeling that they had any kind of spirituality of respect going on.

Now, I know I sound harsh and I probably am being overly harsh. I need to look at this a bit differently - for some I guess getting to the top of that mountain (lets not get any ideas of steep ascents, its quite a well marked path and relatively gentle) is something of an achievement and something to be proud of, a conquering of sorts I suppose.

Hmm, is cranky Megan back? well, yes she is - pmt, post-flu, sleep deprivation...its enough to test the patience of St James himself!

Where was I going with this - oh yeah - CdF, I did my thing and had my quiet moment. The experience was saved by a couple of things 1) the frank-talking down to earth British nurses I met up there and 2) only a few km down the road the real peak of the trip - I stopped and realised I was in the alps, level with the snow covered peaks, I cried tears of happiness and appreciation. I then put on some excellent music and tottered off down the hill.

I reached Acebo, a nice little hill town in time to get a bed and a chat to my girlfriend on dodgey Spanish phone lines. After that was a walk around town (10 mins) then hanging out for dinner. I had a cider and a beer or two and couldn´t believe it was still 2 hours till dinner. The day had been long, the walk 17km - a lot of it downhill which is always tiring. So by the time dinner came around I hadn´t eaten for 8 hours (I don´t count the patatas fritas con el cerveza) - I was cranky, hungry and totally over pilgrims...and I was so so homesick it wasn´t funny! Bed came early - 9pm, sound asleep not long after (I love industrial strength ear plugs).

But today, well, today is another day - and a good day - lots of encouraging emails and texts from my gorgeous girlfriend - the sun is shining, I´m off the mountain for a few more kms. I´m off now to check out the museum of the radio then dinner then bed...ah...

I wonder what tomorrow will bring?

a little warmth goes a long way

like a hot shower after a bitter, wet and cold morning.

Can´t say that I´ve been roughing it in the last few days - I blame that on the flu which is travelling faster to my chest than I am to Santiago. Woke up this morning in the albergue, my only other room-mate, Manfred (from Germany, what a surprise ;) ) said good morning and I sounded like Lauren Bacall...after about 30 fags! Maybe I´ll lose my voice soon, won´t that be interesting, trying to order cafe con leche in sign language...actually, that´s be pretty much how I order most things, by pointing.

So today was my first day of walking in the rain and I´m happy to report that my wet weather system, aka a poncho, did the trick - though it wasn´t raining all that hard. I did realise that my hasty decision to post back my fleece, hat and gloves might have been a mistake - its cold here in the mountains! But I rugged up with all the warm clothing I could find, my other rain jacket and the new silk scarf I bought in Astorga (ah, Astorga, what a great place) and marched on through the mud.

It was an interesting day, well morning really - my plan to walk shorter distances has meant that I walk no more than three hours at a time. The weather did start to clear a little and the sun tried to shine through the overcast sky. I found myself lost in thought to the point that I couldn´t remember the terrain I had walked through.

I was thinking about why I´m here on the Camino - I think about that often as you would expect - but today my thoughts also ran to the 'why am I here' bigger picture stuff also. I haven´t really come to any conclusions but I´m glad that was something I could meditate on today given that its a big subject and maybe not something to tackle when you are feeling less than physically able and the day is bleak. I feel like I have grown quite a bit already on this adventure.

I´m in Rabanal, up in the hills and about to climb the mountain tomorrow. I´ve got a private room in a one star hotel. I´ve had a long hot shower, wandered about the town, I´m sipping a cider and contemplating what to do until dinner - probably some more writing, perhaps a little reading of my journal (though not nearly as interesting as Oscar Wilde´s) having posted my book on to Santiago for the return trip home.

Despite the dismal weather there is sunshine all around, I feel warm and certain...and I know who to thank for that.

you have to stop and smell the lavender

woke up this morning, snotty but ready to go.

pottered around like someone on holiday - had brekkie, went to the post office and posted back the most excellent souvenir I bought yesterday, an original etching of Cruz de Ferro - that´s the place I mentioned earlier, the one where you place your stone or memento from home.

I´d been feeling a bit odd about putting my stone there - it has a lot of emotion and energy attached to it. For a stone that had been sitting on my mantle-piece for a long time without any notice being paid to it, it has now taken on a significance far greater than I am able to explain or even comprehend myself. In short though, I picked up the stone from Waikanae beach around the same place that my mum´s ashes are scattered, so it holds special value for that alone. But there´s more to this stone. The day before I was leaving to come here I was in a bit of a quandry about which stone to take, I´d selected two quite similar stones from the mantle-piece - one black, one white. I was stressing about the trip and doing final preparations. My gorgeous gf was right there with me giving me lots of encouragement and support and doing all those last minute things that, in my state, I wouldn´t have gotten around to. We were workshopping which stone to take, thought about both, but decided on the black one. Once I´d made that decision I left the white one behind, at home, and sub-consciously it became the counter-point (or is that counter-stone) to the other.

The theory behind the stone placing is that you´ve rubbed all your cares and woes into it and can release them at the peak of this walk - 1505m above sea level. I confess to forgetting most of the time that I have it in my pocket and until now I´ve been obsessing a bit about why I´m on this walk and not really meditating on other things in my life. But honestly, sometimes there´s just no time to think - sounds odd but that´s been my experience so far.

So, as I said, I was feeling a bit odd about leaving behind a stone that I hadn´t been rubbing and that I somehow thought I would be losing something by leaving it here in Spain. But last night I was on my way to do the museum rounds in Astorga and stopped to look in the window of an art shop. A beautiful etching caught my eye - the scene was of Cruz de Ferro. I knew immediately that I had to buy it, no matter how much it cost, and that this would be the link back to my Camino and somehow serve as not only a reminder but as a focus for working out problems in my life as they arise.

Perhaps this is a lot of importance to put on a picture but I will look at it and know that my little black stone, with all it´s shape and history, will form part of a bigger picture and will forever be linked back to wonderful memories of the most important people in my life. I can look at its little white sister stone and feel a sense of connection to other lands, other times and my own journey.

My journey has begun again, as always in life, there have been some set backs, but I am on the road again, walking through interesting villages, looking at the scenery and flowers and taking my time now - what a great lesson to have learnt.

So why do you have to stop and smell the lavender? because its beautiful and if you walk too far or too fast you´ll miss it.

the kindness of strangers

ah Astorga, what a lovely place - the people here are very friendly, the albergue staff are letting me stay an extra night, they could see how sick I am (sneezing and snorting on them probably gave the game away).

I´m going to head off to the Museum of Chocolate...mmm...may have to visit the correos and post some stuff back - I´m becoming quite an expert on that subject! It´s amazing how little you really need in life when all you´re doing is pottering about in a foreign land, walking, washing, eating, writing - I guess you could translate that back to your life at home too - that´ll be my post Camino challenge.

Well, I am well and truly itching to get back on the track now - my 4 days off has done wonders for my mood and attitude to the Camino. Being here in Astorga has helped immensely - it´s as if the first part of my trip was an education, the lesson learnt being to leave your expectations at the border and just go with whatever this experience throws up at you. I think the second part of my trip will be much more relaxed, shorter days and wiser about how to cope with the Camino crowds and perhaps some more insight as to what this is all going to be about.

I had a lovely experience in a small 'pilgrim shop' (one of those many shops selling souviners, inner soles, walking poles etc) - I bought some postcards and inner-soles and chatted to the guy. He was telling me he´d done the pilgrimage 3 times now and after the 3rd he moved from Barcelona to Astorga. He was telling me how it will change me, I may not realise it immediately but it will change me and you will see it in my eyes...better take a before and after shot then!

Dripping

and no, that´s not a reference to the weather ;)

I have succumbed to the cold, well I think its more like flu. But I´ve made it to Astorga (gotta love the Spanish rail system) and now in a very nice old albergue with a lovely courtyard, big wooden beams, stone walls and friendly staff.

I will venture out soon for a beer (that´s always good for the flu) and maybe sketch the cathederal - haven´t done any drawing since France! it´s hard when your day revolves around packing, walking, washing, eating, sleeping...I have to say it does get a little monotonous sometimes.

But I´m itching to get back on the path, hopefully this flu will have calmed down a little, my feet are feeling better and if I walk shorter distances it should all be good.

I´m heading into the mountains again, should be wonderful scenery - the highest point is 1500m and that´s where you place the stone - Cruz de Ferro - that you brought from home - the one I´ve meant to have been rubbing all my cares and woes into...oops, guess there´s still time

a picture is worth a thousand words

ok, some of you requested photos.
thanks to the amazing Fiona you can now see pics of my interpretation of a German backpacker

http://www.flickr.com/photos/25815190@N06/sets/72157604909487124/

I would add captions but can´t seem to see on Flickr how to change the language from Espanol to Inglese

so you´ll have to wait for another time - but most of these were London, St Jean Pied de Port, Orrison and the pass over the Pyrenees.

more to come when the Spanish post gets the next installment to Fiona

The best laid plans...

Well, my first night in Burgos was pleasant enough though marred by a restless night´s sleep - it would appear I´m not used to a good bed anymore! - a sore throat and the makings of a cold...curses.

So, as I expected, the trip/pilgrimage/backpacker holiday has required some contingency planning, lucky I like to plan :)

I´m now thinking of catching a train to Astorga and walking short days from there. Astorga is still 230 odd km from Santiago so combine that with the 200 or so I´ve already walked and I think that´s a pretty fair whack. Of course, I am battling with myself about 'cheating' but really, this is a modern day pilgrimage and it has certainly thrown up many a challenge already and made me think about a lot of things.

I´ve probably already said this but Burgos is beautiful, sits on a river and has a lovely old part of town, there´s sculpture in the street, people out and about - and the best thing about being in a hotel is that I don´t have to run back to the albergue before they close the doors at 10pm....oh, and I didn´t have to pack my backpack for one day...pure luxury.

I think its about lunchtime, off to get something scrummy, have a look at the gothic cathederal and then a siesta I think.

A pilgrim´s life is very very hard!

adios muchachos
M

A little lame in one leg on a Sunday

So here I am laid up in Burgos for a couple of days...can´t say I´m all that unhappy about it either.

I´ve had 10 days on the Camino now and it´s feeling a little bit like the Camino autobarn, there are hundreds, yes - I mean hundreds, of German´s on this. My German is coming along nicely, as for my Spanish all I can confidently say is 'cafe con leche y tortilla por favor' and 'una cerveza por favor', oh, and 'gracias' comes in handy too. Ok that might be stretching it a bit, I guess I´ve got more Spanish than that, actually I´ve been surprising myself at how my lessons have paid off, can´t string together a sentence and I still get flustered when people talk to me but its a start.

Don´t get me wrong, I like the Germans, most of them are great and I´ve made a couple of friends - actually some of them are Austrian and its very funny the rivalry there, kinda like Australia and New Zealand - I explained very carefully to them how Australia likes to claim any achievement by any New Zealander as their own - just look at Russell Crowe ;)

Well, the title of this blog, what does it mean...for those of you who have followed my Facebook blogs to date (all 2 of them!) you may recall I have been complaining about my feet being sore. Well, I´ve finally pushed myself into a rest day or two, they are aching like I never knew feet and lower legs could, I´ve been limping along - I´m not alone there, quite a common sight on the Camino - but it´s now at the stage that I really have to rest.

I caught the bus from Santo Domingo, an odd little place, I´m coming down with a cold and couldn´t wait to book into a nice place here in Burgos and put my feet up, have a HOT shower and some decent food and a chance to rest. I felt like a bit of a cheater until I saw all the other Camino cripples limping onto the bus too!

that´s it for now - I´m going to post the old blogs up here too so others (not on facebook - ludites) can see them.

adios and will no doubt blog a bit more tomorrow

Pain in Puente la Reina

who knows what day it is, that´s a rhetorical question...I´m finding the only numbers that mean anything are kilometers (but even they are a bit dodgey as no two sources of the number of km to the next town are the same) and Euros (nothing ambiguous about those!)

Pamplona seems like a long way away, but I only left this morning, feels like the Camino proper has begun. Climbed to the top of Alto something or other and saw all the wind turbines, they´re so beautiful and the pelegrino sculptures, lots of photos opps there.

The race out of Pamplona to Puenta la Reina began just before 7am and ended for me today at 3.30pm - something between 24-28km depending on who you trust. My mental state was better this morning, I was singing, swinging my walking poles like some pilgrim marching girl...now there´s a thought. But by the time I´d scaled Alto? (can´t bend to pick up my guide book, sorry) - my feet were so sore I was hobbling and grimmacing. I didn´t think it could get any worse. I´ve discovered 2 small blisters on my little toes, they tuck under the next toe, but they´re not nearly as bad as the internal bruising (or is that compound fractures) on the balls of my feet...and to make matters worse i have to stand up to type this!

Still, its a great experience, even better if you can limit the number of Germans you hang out with, I have made some very nice German friends but it does seem like half the people on the camino are German!

But here I am, it must be cerveza time.

adios...I need to sit down
Megan

Waiting for the great leap forward

There’s been a lot of waiting going on...no jet-lag, there was no need to factor in a few rest days before I start...cooling my heels in StJPdP waiting for the first step up the very steep looking Pyrenees!

The journey so far has been good, people have been helpful, only one mishap - a spilt bottle of water (stupid European bottle lids!) in my backpack, I was forced to sip a cafe au lait in the sun and dry out my guide book.

Tomorrow is d-day, only 3 hours walk to get to 780m and my first real day on the Camino. Tonight will be my first experience of an albergue, from the looks of my bunk mates I think there will be some snoring.

I’ve been contemplating, waiting, eating, walking, preparing...ok ready now…