Camino Maggee

Sept 30 Santiago to Finisterre

2010-10-01T09:38:00.000-07:00

Nothing surprises me now. Jette and I are walking to the bus station to get the bus to Finisterre when we are approached by a man who offers to drive us there in his van along with 5 other pilgrims that he picked up. This means a 1 hour trip instead of 3 and so we jump on into the van, trusting in his good intentions. It is a good ride to Finisterre and he is a man who just tries to make some extra money this way. We are impressed with the scenery and his good humour along the way and meet some new and interesting people in the process.
We arrive in Finisterre which is wonderful and the day is perfect.
We spend some time at the beach and with the tide all the way out, there are many shells to pick from and such a wonderful afternoon to spend lying in the sun. There are a lot of people here, some having walked all the way from Santiago which would take 3 to 4 days and others coming by bus like us. We have a lazy day and then meet to do the final ritual which is to walk up to the light house near sunset to burn our socks and watch the sun go down over the sea.
There are so many pilgrims there, burning clothes and hanging others from the tower on the rock. It is kind of weird actually, and you would have to be a pilgrim to understand the ritual. Lots of people spread all over the rocks with the sun setting over the sea and it is such a place of beauty and peace and a wonderful way to complete such a journey. It is a long walk up to this place, nearly 3 kms and so we are walking down again in the dusk and with others who are going our way.
It strikes me that many people - more than we can imagine have come this way, done these rituals and then gone home again to change their life in some small way. Surely there must be a change in the world as a result.
A post at the top of the hill near the light house says "may there be peace on earth" and perhaps this is what somme are looking for, first of all in their hearts and then in their community.
It is not surprising to me to wake to rain the following morning as it is a signal that I should get mmoving along with the rest of my journey and so we are on our way once again.
Maggee

Sept 29 Santiago

2010-10-01T09:21:00.000-07:00

And so we find each other! I am looking for Jette and Sonja all through the wonderful Pilrgims Mass in the morning at the church and when I go out to walk along with the rest of the people leaving the church, there sits Sonja on the stone wall, as if she were waiting for me. It is a warm and wonderful welcome and reunion of friends. The mass was just as important as the first time that I sat in the church after the Camino Frances was completed in 2008. This time I chose a seat in the cross of the church and so had a much better view of the mass itself and when they prepared to swing the botefumeiro, it was a spectacle worth waiting for. It goes so high up and then comes barrelling down such that you actually duck, thinking that it will surely hit you on the head. It doesn´t, but what a feeling being there in that space once again.
Sonja and I go for lunch and have a wonderful talk and a walk and then agree to meet later for a drink and hopefully find the rest of our friends. This is accomplished with Chris, the American fellow we have met many times, the Korean couple and then along comes Jette. We have a wonderful time with a drink and then a dinner together with a lot of other people that we know from our travels. So much laughter!
I am feeling ready to leave here, but will stay for one more day to tour around and see what I have missed on other occasions.
Jette and I spend a wonderful day touring around the museums which I had not noticed before. There is a lot to see in the underground of the church with the architecture and then some access to the cloister up above the main church. We are impressed with the things we get to observe and then make a reservation to tour the roof of the cathedral later in the day. This turns out to be the most impressive of all of our explorations. We are taken through the palace which dates back to the 13th century and then high up to the balcony that runs around the sanctuary of the church. This is a place where the pilgrims of the past were allowed to sleep once they arrived in Santiago.
The stairs that led to the roof are old and worn and we are soon on the very top of the cathedral roof. We are able to walk all over the area as the roof is made of cement plates that form slanted steps on the roof top. We walk around the various bell towers and over the main sanctuary and then over the dome that covers the tomb of St James. We are able to look over balcony railings to the streets below and then to listen to the bells as they chime the hour and the call to mass. We are told many stories of the past and see the Cross of Rags which is beside a cement basin in which the pilgrims uses to burn their clothes. This was moved to the roof of the catherdral many centuries ago.
After this wonderful tour, we go down to the square for a great dinner and then we remember on our way home that the church across from the cathedral holds a vespers service in the evening and we are in luck. As we enter, the nuns have just begun to sing their mass for the evening prayers and so we sit and listen to the music and the atmosphere is very special.
It is a great way to complete our visit to Santiago with all of the things that we have seen and learned about this place.
Maggee

Sept 28 Santiago

2010-09-28T07:09:00.001-07:00

It is actually very exciting to be here in Santiago and amidst the great vibe of people arriving from all over the world to this spot. It is a special feeling of happiness and accomplishment and excitement to be near the cathedral which is a place that people have been heading to through many challenges and difficulties over the past many days of walking.
I have met so many people today, that we walked with along the way, including Sonja who I found outside the church after the mass this morning. Have yet to locate Jette, but she has been spotted and we have everyone on the lookout to help us find her.
We are going to meet with several of the people that we walked with for dinner this evening which will be lovely. Quite a few are heading to Finisterre tomorrow to complete this journey. I will do that also on Thursday, either walking or by bus depending on how I feel. I will sit tight tomorrow as no one is sure about how this country wide strike will affect things locally.
Last night I spent the evening having dinner with the group that Linda and Jim have been walking with for the past 10 days, a wonderful collection of individuals who have done the camino in their own way. One thing that struck me was the vibe of good feelings in the group who did not know each other before and the other was the intention that each had to get to know the other during this trip as they seemed to have some solid friendships between them.
I thought that Kirsten and Alvina and I had a pretty complicated system for sharing costs and settling accounts at the end of the day, but this group which included 3 bankers topped the pile. All that was missing was one of those adding machines with a roll of paper trailing out the back! IN the end, the individuals bills were accurate and complete and the waiter only needed minor resuscitation before we left.
It also struck me how language has played a big part in this journey for me. In the beginning of the journey, French was the most common language and so for most of it I could understand but not really participate in the conversation. This marginalizes you in the experience of being together and I once again regret my single languge capability when some others seem to speak so many.
For the next part, Spannish predominated outside our little group, but we spoke English with the people we walked with and then struggled with Spannish when we had to interact with the local people. Always there is an awareness that communication is a challenge even to do simple things, like buy food or find your way.
Last night it was an English blast, fast talk, good humour and all Canadian which I had not experienced for some time. I realize how much we take for granted in being a generic common language group in our daily life and how little we have to think about getting our message across or understanding what is being said to us, as has been the case for the past 5 weeks on this trip. It was good for me to have a good Canadian feast of communication with others from my own country and even some who are neighbours in my new community back home.
Today, a wonderful day with the sun shining and people happy all around. My room is an attic room at the top of a little hotel, just beside the cathedral and across from the pilgrims office so lots of action all day long. At night, the dark sky is lit by the lights from the cathedral and the silence late at night broken by people happy in the streets and then the sound of the church bells ringing in the hours. It is a joyful place, overflowing with ancient history and rituals that have endured for centuries as people arrived here from walking the Camino from all over the world.

"It is not important to know where we are going, nor to find a place to go. The world is open to our appetite. It opens. It spreads perspective, widens the stems of a piece of herb until it reaches the forest, and the window entirely. We travel only when we let go" Frantz Bartlett

Maggee

September 27 Santiago

2010-09-27T08:50:00.000-07:00

What a difference arriving here by bus instead of on foot. It was beautiful ride through the mountains to Lugo and then to LaCoruna and then to Santiago. It took about 4 hours, a journey on foot of about 2 weeks. I enjoyed the new experience of travel and then of being in this city once again.
It is crowded and accomodation is tight, so tight that I am in an expensive hotel which I do not mind at all. In fact it is treat to be close to the cathedral for a few days and in a place which will be wonderful for resting and collecting my thoughts AND feeling better.
I had such a surprise!!! I did not expect to meet anyone once I got here as the city is big and full of people, tourists and pilgrims alike. But the karma of life aligned and there on a corner of the street was my friend Linda and her husband Jim, who had just completed the Camino Frances yesterday. Linda was the one who had to leave the CF in 2008 with knee injury and so to meet her here like this was just to miraculous and wonderful.
(Note to Michael - can you please sms to Kirsten and Alvina that I found Linda as I have no way to do this myself and I do not think they will have e mail for a few days)
Linda and I spent the afternoon together walking around the church and the landmark sites that we visited as an original group 2 years ago. It was such a wonderful completion for us and so good for me to find someone like this in this way. It just felt like all the gods have been aligning around me to make this trip work out in a way that is a surprise to me, yet with unexpected bonuses at every turn.
So I am here for a few days. It is crowded and accomodation is tight as there are many people as well as conferences going on in the city. I am lucky to have a room tonight
The cathedral is cordoned off so that you cannot enter by the main entrance way and must use the back entrance. Still Linda and I went to lie down and look at the spires upside down as was recommended to us 2 years ago. The only way to get to the apostle and the tomb is to line up with the tourists to go through the holy door which will not be opened again until 2021 or so. So it is all together different.
Weather continues to be great, but everyone is a bit nervous about the pending general strike across Spain on Wed. Not sure how this will affect services and travel so will sit tight and wait and see
Maggee

Sept 26 Ribadeo - still

2010-09-26T02:57:00.000-07:00

Well here we are still in Ribadeo. Kirsten has been quite sick for the past few days with a flu and not able to continue to walk, so we have had some quiet time and a lot of rest which is good for all of us.
The tempo of the Spannish way of life is addictive and we are sleeping later and enjoying the afternoon siesta when everything shuts down anyway, so there is no where to go.
We are on the town square right across from an ancient church that was commissioned by St Francis when he walked the camino so there is much history here. We have seen one funeral and two wedding while watching through the window or from the balcony that Kirsten and Alivina have in their room. The funeral was a procession with the family walking behind the hearse to the church and the weddings were smimilarly unique with the bride walking along the street with her father anf followed by her family in one of the weddings. Lot of excitement through the wedding service with people coming and going to the bar and at one point a whole band playing in the bar while people waited for the bride and groom to leave the church.
Tomorrow,I will take a bus to Santiago as I am not feeling well enough with this cough to continue the walk for the next 150 kms. Alvina and Kirsten will walk on their own through the mountains and perhaps we will meet up in Santiago later.
Life presents many unexpected options and so I am going to stop walking to rest and fell better and get rid of this cough before I do anything else.
All is as it should be and I will learn from this as well. It is just my camino going a differnt way than I thought
Maggee

Sept 25 Ribadeo

2010-09-25T02:45:00.000-07:00

Well, we are still here spending a third night in the hostel that I found a few days ago. We are tired and both Kirsten and I have been unwell, so we have stopped for a rest and it is doing us a lot of good to just spend some quiet time to ourselves and to re arrange our thoughts about how we are handling things as a group. The past few weeks have been challenging in many ways with the adventure of the walk and the interests of many people to include in how we make decisions, so we are planning to simplify things and to continue to walk tomorrow on our way to Santiago.
We have a commitment to arrive together and it seems to be such a short way to the goal that we set out so long ago.
Resting like this is something that I never allowed myself to do on the Camino Frances 2 years ago and I think it is a good thing for re establishing my balance and re directing my energy.
Ribadeo is a pretty place on the sea and the town is very typical of Spannish places with the local square being the meeting place for families and old people in the evening. Because it is not too big, the prices are very reasonable and so the food and the lodging are nice, comfortable and cheap for us.
Alvina gave me this yesterday when I was feeling a little down about the whole thing and it has helped me to just figure out what to do next.
"Any path is only a path, and there is no affront to oneself or the others in dropping it if that is what your heart tells you" Carlos Castaneda
Not sure what the next step will be and will just see how I feel and how it goes over the day and the night.
Every trip like this brings surprises and it is not what happens rather how we respond to it that matters in the end.
AND I figured out how to get into my e mail, so it is like I found myself once again too!
Maggee

Sept 24 Tapia to Ribadeo (14kms)

2010-09-24T02:46:00.000-07:00

Quite an adventure changing tactics. I was feeling so unwell last night that I just knew it would be a very bad idea to walk today so decided to take the bus to this next stop. Getting confused about directions and finding my way to the right side of the road for the bus was something. However, the bus arrived and I got on. There is quite a bit of political turmoil in Spain at the moment with the economic down turn and the unrest among the workers here. There is talk of a national strike on Sept 29 which will shut down everything for the day. We are told that the bus may be late because the miners are blocking the traffic in places and so this may hold things up.
We are now in Galicia which you can see by the hills and the change in the camino shell signs. they point in the opposite direction from what we have been following up to now.
the alberque in Ribadeo is again dissappointing, not very clean and very sparse. There have been no hospitaleros for the past 4 or 5 albeques and this makes such a difference to the places. they sit open and people come and go and you are not sure who cleans and takes care of the places. It is so different from the Camino Frances where there was always a choice between the private and the municiple alberques and the quality was much better.
I have found a nice little hostel with a small room and bathroom included for 20E and this is worth the price! When I meet up with the others, they have already given up on the alberque, having suffered through a noisy and stuffy night previously and we all end up at the hostel that I have found. We are all tired now and Sonja and Jette are preparing to depart on the bus the following day to get closer to the Camino Frances and to shorten up their journey.
I discover that someone has hijacked my e mail account along the way and I cannot access it. I have learned from this trip that there are very few and isolated places that provide internet access. WiFi or wiffy as they call it here is available everywhere for free and this seems to be the mode of choice for most people. I also think there is a greater risk of personal security begin violated by using all of these public computers so will not do this in future. Hopefully I can figure out how to get into my e mail account, but it seems that someone has changed the password and I cannot remember the secret code that I set it up with 2 years ago and in addition, the alternate e mail is not longer functional. Makes you realize that you need to be very sure about your technology before you leave on such a trip as this.
From the past few days, I have realized that I have not been paying attention to the balance of energy between my body mind and spirit as I walk. I have learned that my physicial ability is enough for the challenge of the mountains here, but I have not been able to rind te time and the space to get balanced in other ways, contemplation and quiet time to absorb the impact of what occurs each day. Hard work and walking each day are taking it toll and so I think this is why I am not feeling well again.
So I think a lot during the day and the night about why I am doing this trip and what I want to get from it. It is an adventure certainly and the beauty and the experience of walking in the north is really something. I do want to go home feeling like I have accomplished something for myself in all dimensions, and not just the physical work of doing the walk, but more the experience of being whole while doing this.
I have walked a very long way through many hardships and moments of joy and triumph. there have been times when I have never felt happier and times when I have felt discouraged and so tired. the experience of walking brings all of life´s moments together in one place and so I take this as a metaphor for how I want to continue and what I will take home with me. it has tested my limits for sure and at this point I am comtemplating what I want to get from the rest of the trip and how I want to go forward.
We are about 150 kms or so from Santiago. Ahead lie 8 days through the mountains and then 2 days on the Camino Frances. Weather still looks good though and that is something for this part of the world.
More later
Maggee

Sept 22 Navia to Tapia de Casariego (20kms)

2010-09-23T10:02:00.000-07:00

We had a wonderful picnic supper at the hostel last night and slept well in our nice rooms and were up early for a good breakfast provided by the host. this was a good start to the day. I am feeling sick again which really annoys me and I am not happy that this will slow me down. I know that it is from the long trek of 3okms from a few days ago as I find the long days of hill climbing to be quite a challenge. Still we walk through lovely countryside again and meet such friendly people who are so helpful to us at every turn. You know they will even go way out of the own way to lead us to exaclty where they are trying to direct us because we do not have the language to make sure we are clear about what they are saying. This happens time after time in each town.
the weather is great once again and we have some very special breaks in wonderful spots along the way. It is not such a long walk, but with the hot sun and the ashphalt roads that are part of the way today, it seems long. When we arrive at the alberque for Tapia, we find it along the clilff side of the ocean in a beautiful spot, but again it is crowded and not so clean. I take one look at this and know that there is no way I can sleep there feeling as ill as I do. So the others choose their beds and I head off into town to look for an alternative.
This is a new experience for me, searching my way through an unkown place and wondering what to do as I know that I need to slow down the pace and the rythm that I have been walking. Eventually I stop feeling sorry for myself and realze that this is an adventure and an opportunity to learn something about myself and my life. So as I turn a few corners, I find a nice little hotel with a cheap and clean room and am quickly settled into a place to sleep and rest.
This turns out to be the best decision for me as I can sleep much better and then catch a bus for the 13kmo Ribadeo which is the next planned stop for the group. Eventually I connect with them again and we make a plan to meet the following day and then decide what to do. I need to stop for a few nights and slow down to feel better. Sonja wants to head on a bus to the French route and Jette will also do the same. So we find ourselves at a cross roads as a group and will make a decision about how we will disburse from here
This is how it goes I think. You travel together as it works our and we have been a group of 3 for 4 weeks and a group of 4 for 3 weeks and a group of 5 for 2 weeks. this is pretty extraordinary as we spend so much time together and have so many decisions to make each day regarding simple things like directions, food, accomodation, timing etc. Well, another learning experience along the Camino is in the works I expect for me and the others. We need to be prepared for the unexpected always when you travel like this and then take the challenges as opportunities to learn something about yourself and your life. In the end, I must decide how to do this based on what will work for me and how to accomplish what I set out to do, which was to reach Santiago, with joy and satisfaction and accomplishment as well as hope for the future.
I have walked 560kms now and have about 175 or so to get to the church in Santiago. This I really want to do.
Maggee

Sept 21 Luarca to Navia 19kms

2010-09-23T09:53:00.001-07:00

Up from the harbour in Luarca it is another steep climb from our starting place. this seems to be the normal way to start the day in this route. It is awkward because it is cool and then when you start to climb, you immediately begin to sweat and are cold in the wind which blows off the sea. So it is a matter of keeping moving or being ready to grab the fleece that you have just put away. It is still sunny so it becomes hot as the morning passes. We are following provisional signs most of the way again because of the construction around us, so the guide book is way off base again. we just have to trust that the yellow arrows will take us to the same destination that we have in mind. Sometimes the yellow arrows provide a diversion around the towns and the coffee breaks we are anticipating!
In spite of all of this we are feeling strong and good and enjoying the beautiful views and the wonderful scenes that we pass through every hour. We arrive in Navia by 3 pm which is a treat and sit down at a bar for a drink to cool down and figure our where we will head to find accomnodation. this is solved quickly as we head for a great little hostel which provides us with rooms at a very reasonable cost. We are finding that the alberques in this end of the camino are not very clean or as adequate as they were at the beginning of our trek and so they are not the choice for sleeping. We are also spoiled with the wonderful clean pensions that we find for around 15E per person, sharing a room together.
I am getting tired again and find that the push to walk every day is requiring a lot of energy. We have walked more than 500kms now and are getting to the last third of the journey and the hills ahead are going to be bigger as we head towards Santiago. We do not rest much in this little group as we are here to walk and not laze around, but I can tell that the stress on me is more than I want to experience. I am lucky that my feet are great and I do not have any complaints of sore muscles or tendons as I have seen with others. It is just a matter of finding my rythm and getting the balance of the effort required each day with my energy levels.
Maggee

Canero to Luarca Sept 20 (11 kms)

2010-09-23T09:45:00.000-07:00

Well we are pretty tired after the long haul from yesterday and decide to have a rather short walk today and stay in Luarca which is a lovely town for the night. We hd a wonderful dinner last night which restored our faith in the pilgrims menu and we had a deep sleep only waking at 0800 hours this morning which was great for our tired bodies.
After a wonderful breakfast in this lovely little hotel we start off with the usual hike up a massive hill and head off to our destination. The walk is lovely as usual and we are directed pretty well by following the yellow arrows which are not the same as the books that we have because of the construction that is evident all around us for the new highways which seem to be everywhere.
We eventually make our way into Luarca and find a nice pension mentioned in the guide book which we highly recommend. It is called the Pension Moderna and is on the camino way through the city, a very old flat with large rooms and a wonderful lady who seems to run the place. We have a lovely balcony to hang clothes to dry.
We spend the day resting and wandering around and meet the Norwegian boys and Chris the American once again, which is nice to see them.
We have a lovely lunch with a bottle of wine on the sea wall at the harbour and then go for a siesta as everyone else does here in Spain at 2 pm.
We have a great seafood dinner in the harbour area and then head for bed early in our lovely rooms.
We feel lucky to be in a good place with a nice bed and clean sheets and are getting used to the idea of spending a little more on a pension to get away from the crowded and not so clean alberques that we have passed lately.
Maggee

Sept 19 Soto de Luina to Canero 31kms

2010-09-20T10:39:00.000-07:00

yes 31 long kms today and we are nearly dead at the end of it. we were up and out of the albegue as soon as the daylight was sufficient and it was a wonderful walk, although hard because for most of the day , it was along asphalt and hard pavem ent. We were advised to take the road as the camino was a very steep up and down route along the sea from Soto. We did this for about 15 km and then diverted to the newly marked route which was surely a very steep up and down way along the sea. We are getting better and better at the hills, although some of the down ward paths are tough to manage with the uneven surface and the rocks. At one point , we meet some poor guy who had tried to go up a difficult steep path with a motor scooter which of course had failed and he war trying to push it up, and then down to get himself out of this predicament. We or course struggle with our back packs on such hills and could not longer push a motor scooter than fly to the moon at this stage of the climb. So we wish him well and push on.
We arrive at our destination to find that the alberque is a very small place, black mould on the ceiling and 10 beds in a cramped quarter with capacity to expand to 5 more on the floor later. SO............... it does not take much discussion to press on for another 7 kms to find a hostel. Now when you take a decision like this, you are usually in much better shape than you are one hour later, being half way through the trek. So we are pretty drained as we approach the destination. Again we follow the guide and with its precision, we are waiting for the hostal to appear around the next corner. Imagine our panic when the village is 3 houses and no sign of any hostal and 3 kms to the next village and us in an exhausted condition.
Well, when we pressed on around the next corner of the road, there sat a wonderful little hotel all by itself in the middle of the country, including a Spannish woman we had met earlier to translate our need for 5 beds and dinner.
We wishes we could have stayed there for a week as it was so nice. We had wonderufl rooms for E15 each and a delicious dinner which we really enjoyed. We closed the shutters and slept until 8 am in the morning and felt like we had been reborn with the great rest.
we can push ourselve beyond what we think we can do, but realize that this has a price. I feel the effect of walking more than 30 kms and so the next day we decide to shorten up so that we can not stress ourselves.
We are doing fine our little group and with the great weather and the many laughs we have along the way, we are heading very strongly towards the mountains that lie between us and Santiago.
Life is lives in the moments and we realize that the way in which we choose to enjoy the wonder and to deal with the challenges is what makes our spirit strong.
Maggee

Sept 18 Muron to Soto De Luina 23kms

2010-09-20T10:20:00.001-07:00

We are up early and ready to go with a very fond farewell to our host of the night before. We are clean and and our clothes are fresh and what could we ask from this. It is all up hill from here and we are getting stronger as there are few complaints from the group as we climb the first of many hills this day. Our guide book both saves us and takes us into disaster today. we ignore the danger warnings from the first section and inspite of the fears of an overgrown jungle, we are in a wonderful forest which takes us up and around to a little village. really if tarzan were to swing from the trees behind us we were ready for him!. At one point, Kirsten stops to call her husband Michael and she sings Happy BIrthdaty to him and we all cry listening to her. We are so far away from the people that we love and sometimes it strikes me that we are choosing an adventure which is enlightening and inspiring to us each as individuals, but that life carries on without us at home.
We decide to take a diversion from the route which turns out to be magical and we decsend into a gem of a village which is build up on the mountain side near the sea. Cudillera is not to be missed on this route as it is wonderful. It is quite a tourist haven, but we are there early enough to have coffee and breakfast before the buses arrive at the top of the town. It is a long way down and then a very long way up.
Here we get into trouble as the construction along the road interfers with the markers for the camino. we follow the old road as described and then try to find our way. Eventually we end up high above the new highway. in the midst of a mightyt overpass construction site, having to scramble through tough bushes and brambles hoping that the guide book is accurate. We come to a place which requires us to slide down into a gravel road way and eventually we find the way, an old tunnel under the highway and into a small village and down to the sea. Here we take off our boots and spread out our delicious lunch which has become a standard fare of bread, cheese and tuna out of a can and sometimes baby tomatoes. You cannot imagine the tase of this as the sea rolls in front of you and the sun shines in the clear blue sky and there is no sound except for the nature that is all around. You have no idea where you will go next, except to follow the markers. You have a kind of an idea of where the next bed will be, but no certainly if there will be an empty one for you and all you have is in your back pack which has become a part of your world as you move from day to day.
We have been walking now for 24 days or so and are nearing the 500 kms mark of walked kms. We have taken buses and trains for about 60kms and will not do that again in order to feel like we have really walked this route.
So we leave our lunch spot and then head up. We learn later that the orange arrows that we follow are for the tourists and not the pilgrims and so we are led on quite a fancy route for the next 5 hours. We walk through wonderful villages and forests once again, but are directed onto a road for the last 5 kms that is quite gruelling and completely finishes us off.
We get to our destination at Soto de Luina eventually and into a pretty mediocre albergue which is not the best after such a day. We are lucky though and realize that all the pilgrims got lost this day and some even arriving after 10 pm, from walking through the forests late a night. Some of the young people do not have the funds to stay in other than the alberques so they have to walk until they find it which is a problem, when the directions are not clear.
So for anyone reading this and planning to walk this way, the route from Cudillera to Sotto de Luina should probably be taken following the road all the way and not the arrows.
It worked out for us in the end, but we learned a lesson about the albegues in they process. WE DO NOT LIKE THEM VERY MUCH. This one was not that clean and had one bathroom for each of the men and women. ALL night long we were awake with the stuffiness of the room and a poor women who coughed consistently until she fell asleep exhausted and then the snorers kicked in. It is not a great experience sleeping with 22 other people in the same room and we decide to look for cheap pensionnes as we can find them along the rest of the way.
Maggee

Sept 17 Gijon to Muros de Nalon 15kms

2010-09-20T10:02:00.000-07:00

we did not sleep well last night thanks to an erupting sink in our room and so we found ourselves laughin as Alvina stuffed a towel in the drain of the small offending sink around 2 am. We met up with everyone including our group of 5 and Sally and Thise and then Anita from Norway at 8 am and left to find our way to the bur-train station. we had decided to take a bus out of the city as there is a pretty long period of industry after Gijon and toward Aviles. Sally and Thise are heading for the Camino Frances as their time is short and they want to complet the journey to Santiago soon. So we are a trail of pilgrims in the early morning dark of the busy city and eventually figure out that we are all better off on the train. After a quick breakfast which we are beginning to enjoy very much (Cafe con lech, tostadas and zumo naharje), we say our good byes and head off.
We get lost on the train can you imagine. We get the right train and ride through some pretty bleak areas of big manufacturing places and then at the station for Salinas, we cannot open the door, so travel to the next station. It all works out with the help of our fellow travellers and we are soon deposited a few kms closer to our chosen destination. We do realize that we are cutting off our walking kms by douing this and determine that his is the last time for transportation of this kind.
From Piedros Blanco, we find food and head off to the camino once again. When you follow the arrows and the conchas (blue shells) generally the experience is wonderful and so it is today. We are walking through forest and villages and remote areas once again and quite enjoying the enviroment. It threatens to rain all day, but does not really amount to much so we are luck not to have to don our rain gear as it is so hot.
we are heading for a hostel in San Estoban. So we take our time, having lots of kms to do in lots of time, and eventually see our destination in the distance. As we round a corner off the roadway, there waits a woman with a small car. I think she has car trouble, but no, she is waiting to offer us a place in her home for a good price. Now we have been in private accomodation for 4 nights in a row, have seen no pilgrims in all that time and are anxious to be in the throngs of our fellow travellers. It is a tough decision as she offers to wash our clothes for us, imagine the luxury of a washer and dryer, it is like having your mother waiting around the corner for you. So we agree to follow her up the hill to her casa and take advantage of her offer. We are soon in a wonderful apartment of 3 bedrooms, kitchen and sitting room and she carts off our dirty clothes while we shower and go for food.
We have a wonderful time here, wine, good food and clean clothes, could life be more complete than this. We sleep like babies in the quiet of the country and the good after effects of the wine and of course so much laughter. I don´t even recall what we laugh about except for Sonja worrying about how to get into the very small shower in the bathroom and Jette telling her to just hop into the biday and then into the shower. this was only topped by Sonya yelling with the cold in the shower which had water that was very intermittently hot and cold. All the while, Jette is giving a foot massage to Alvina which she has never done before and we are amazind that Alvina trusts her to do this!
It is something to trust people we learn. We are so suspicious of the good intentions of people and with this women, as with others along the way, we are not sure if we should be going with the flow or questioning the choices that we are presented with. We decide from this experience to allow life to happen and to go with the opportunities as they occur and to trust the inherent good intentions of the people that seem to cross our path.
Maggee

Sept 16, 2010 Villavicoisa to Gijon 23 kms

2010-09-16T10:47:00.000-07:00

Today was a great day. When you are faced with a mountain to climb in the morning, it kind of takes the wind out of you before you even begin. I am worried about this even before I get up this morning. So we are 7 today as Sally and Thise are walking with us on their last day on the El Norte. We walk for quite a long way and as I have one of the two books that is our guide, I must pay close attention to the directions. I must say that I have finally figured out the way to work with the Confraternity of St James guide book for this route. First you have to tear out the pages that you want and place them in a handy pocket. Then you must cross out the routes you do not want to follow, then you must be vigilant in following the directions of the chosen route. Once you do that, the guide book is detailed and for the most part quite helpful. We have been following the yellow arrows mostly which work out quite well most of the time. There are a few times when the route is not well marked, but if you choose the upwards direction when there is a choice, you seldom go wrong.
So we walk....... We arrive pretty quickly at the demarcation between the route to the south along the Primitivo and then the Routa de la Costa which we prefer. After this, for the first time, we meet pilgrims going in the opposite direction to Santiago and it is a bit different to see this. They are mostly Spannish people at this point.
The climb is serious when we reach this point. Up for 400 m and most of it up a very steep rocky path on the mountain which is covered in mist when we arrive at the top. I am worried about keeping the group together and so warn everyone that we must keep in contact as we climb this way. It is quite an effort, but we all make it, even with Yette shouting for taxis and telling us not to talk as it is too hard to breath as well.
The way down is along a road and it is a 4 km stretch of downward walking that is enough to kill the soles of your feet and give you blisters in places that you have not experienced before. I still have no blisters and should not even mention this as it may destroy the foot karma that I have now.
We are laughing a lot and having a wonderful time, splitting into little groups to chat and just to walk slowly down towards the town we are heading for. It is a long haul into the city of Gijon, and quite a long walk along the pavement even with a good break in the afternoon.
We are all quite worn down with the walk and discouraged with the size of this large city as we walk and walk and walk into the centre of it.
Well the Camino Angels continue to appear out of no where and when we are just about to start a desperate scramble into an expensive hotel, a man approaches us and asks if we are looking for a pensionne. Then he leads us like a group of lost sheep. We are at the same time not sure of his intentions, but in the end we are taken to a pensionne where we all get a bed and the cost is E10 to each of us. So here we are, first aperatif in place and waiting for a good hot dinner together.
Sally and Thise will take a bus to the French route tomorrow and will walk for another week together there. We hear that people ar running for beds there and actually sleeping during the day and walking at night to make sure they get some sleep as the beds are scarce. Sally will SMS us to tell us how it really is.
The 5 of us will now take a bus to Aviles to avoid the cement and the industry out of Gijon that is not pleasant or necessary to walk through. We will likely take another bus out of Aviles as it is also a big city and then walk to the next alberque which is about 15 kms furthe along.
We miss the alberques as there are not a lot and so when we stay in the pensionnes, we do not see the pilgrims.
I am finding this route to be so different from the French route. We walk longer days and usually arrive after 4 pm now, Often there are no alberques and if there is a hostel, it is full when we get there. Regardless, it is now cheaper for us as a group fo 5 to stay in a small hotel or a pensionne as it is cheaper or the same price as the hostel or alberque and certainly much more pleasant.
Will go for dinner and hope we can find something hot and good now as the group is waiting for me to provide the communiçation to all who are waiting to hear from us. We did not get much to eat today as the stores were closed for the fiesta when we arrived last night and so we had to scrounge for food today along the way.
Last night Alvina wrote this for me on the paper table cloth during dinner, which is most relevant for my journey.

"My true home is where I become who I want to be" Yeng Chin
Maggee

Sept 15 La Vega to Villavicoisa (35kms)

2010-09-15T13:10:00.000-07:00

We intended only to walk about 25 kms today but because the albegue in Sebroya was so awful, (dirty beds and pillows and an overflowing toilet) we headed on the extra 6 kms to Villaviciosa. The day tomorrow is supposed to be over the mountain to Gijon which is 23 kms and 400 m and then 200 m to climb so we have prepared to make this manageable by staying here tonight.
Today was beautiful and we enjoyed such a wonderful walk along the beach to La Isla and then a great coffee. All day we have loved the walk through the hills with the sounds and the vantage points and the feeling of the earth and the energy of the ocean and the moutains which surround us at every turn. You need to stop and just listen to the ocean from time to time to feel the energy that is coming towards your very soul and to absorb the majesty of the possibilty of strength that is available if you stop to take it all in.
I am feeling better at last and hope that this flu is OVER as it is not pleasant to be sick along the camino.
We arrived in Villavicoisa around 6 pm having walked for about 35 kms or so to get here and so of course ended up in a small hotel. This is fine because of the fresh sheets on the bed and the private bathroom and the towels. Such luxury for a tired and sweaty pilgrim.
We have found Sally and Thise from Denmark from a few days ago and so we had a big reunion tonight and they will walk over the mountain with us tomnorrow and then divert to the Camino Frances to shorten up their trip as they have only a week to go before their flight home.
It is peaceful and quiet to walk with this group, except for the laughter which erupts often from the back quarters and the funny comments from our friend Yette. On the hardest hills she can be heard to yell for a taxi and she also shoutys out very ouldy CAR when one approaches so that we can junmp safely out of the way. this becomes a bot ridivulous when we are in the busier places and she is calling out the cars as they pass by. She is so free and funny with her observations, Nothing passes by her without comment, sp we are sure to observe far more with her around.
We are all tired and have had no time to write or absorb the impact of the day we have had on this wonderful journey. Today for example, we walked with Sonja, Yette and I and were munching in walnuts that she picked from the trees overhead. Then she surprised us with pulling a fruity off a large cactus tres and peeling it with my knife to give us a wonderful taste of cactus fruit.
I am tired and going to bed in clean sheets with the windows closed to shut out the noise of the fiesta that is raging here tonight. they seem to have these very large parties during the weeek and we wonder when anyone gets any work done as they are all coming home drunk and singing when we are getting up at 0630 am.
Maggee

Ribadesella to La Vega Sept 14, 2010 10 kms

2010-09-15T13:05:00.000-07:00

what was supposed to be a short hopover the mountain carrying our wine and dinner and breakfast food, turned out to be a bit longer when we followed the arrows instead of the book. By the time we realized that we had taken a wrong turn, we were 3 kms DOWN the mountain from our planned destination and had arrived at a beautiful beach village called La Vega. So we took time for a drink, summed up our options and quickly took a room in the nearest bar which overlooked the most magnificent beach so far.
Our first aperatif was on the beach with the sun shining and the waves crashing and such a wonderul environment that we realized this was where we were supposed to end up on this day.
We had a wonderful night in an empty place with no one even wanting to drink and party in the bar below.
So we wer up early and on the way to La Isla for coffee along a beach track that was worth the diversion the day before.
Such is the camino. It takes you to where you need to be
Maggee

Sept 14, 2010 Pria to San Esteban (13km)

2010-09-14T03:44:00.000-07:00

We are up early and it is wonderful again. Morning sun on the mountains and a good walk into Ribadesella where we have coffee and a break. We are leaving later in the morning now as the day does not get light until after 0730 am. We have done only 10kms today, but wiull walk a little further for 5 kms and then rest at the albeque there. There are not so many places to sleep along this way now and so we are being a little carelfu with the plan for walking each day.
We have a plan to take it easy for the next two days as we are all tired and it would otherwise mean walking 25 - 30 kms to get to the next bed. We have no problem taking a pensionne if it is availabe as it is often not much more expensive and so much nicer.
I will write more on this day later, Not sure if we will have access to internet before Villavicosa which is 2 days away now.
Maggee

We know that there are many people reading this blog and wondering about our journey. We send our love and thanks to all of you and especially to Ilana who is now home and resting in Bremen. So many people touch our hearts along the way and others who are following us in spirit and wondering what has happened to us, when you do not hear about our daily adventures through this blog. It is fun for me to be the scribe of the process and so we just want to tell you that we all appreciate that you are out there as our guardian angels.
From the
Camino Sisters

Sept 13, 2010 Llanes to Pria (20kms)

2010-09-14T03:34:00.000-07:00

What a better day with the sun shining on us from the early morning. We leave early hoping for a good coffee break as we did not have time to buy food yesterday with our late arrival. It is not long before we get to a wonderufl little bar and are happy with the first Cafe con leche. The walk is wonderful, through little villages and then what a path along the coast, It is breathtaking and we are stopping every 10 feet to take pictures and to enjoy the feeling of the sun and the sea.. We are only walking a short distance today so we take our time with more breaks and talk with th epeople we meet as we come up to them.
One stop is at an abandoned monestary which is now occupied by 2 horses. Lots of people seem to come here to visit the place and it should really be restored as it is an ancient and special place. We continue walking and eventually come to the little village that we had anticipated finding a bed. The alberque in Pria is closed and there is nothing there except for a church!
Luckily for us and perhaps this is how it goes, there is a home with a women who adversites beds for peregrinos for E10, We stop in there with two other people we have met and can you believe it, she provides us 5 wtih an apartment, 2 bedrooms, a sitting room and kitchen as well as bathroom AND the use of the washing machine. It is like heaven for us. She then offers to take us back to town for food as we did not bring any with us for dinner.
So we have a wonderful evening,. clean clothes, good pasta dinner and a wonderfu sleep in a very quiet village with a kind lady taking care of us. Turns out that there are about12 people that end up staying in the accomodation that she has there and it is very nice, clean and new and wonderful. a blessing along this way.
I am walking with an ache in my knee today and wondering if it just the effect of all of the long days of the past weekend and the pavement. I am taking my time and getting good massage from Alvina who is a master at this. I feel like I am just walking walking walking now and while I enjoy the environment and the wonderful friendships, I am wondering about purpose and intention for myself.
This morning I realize that this is how life goes, you just carry on and deal with things as they occur. You can take the time to relish the moments or you can just pulg away waiting to arrive. I am learning from myself as I walk that there is much to alter in the way that I approach each situation and each moment ie as opportunity or as just one more thing to deal wtih.
We have increased our group to include Sonja and Yette now and they bring so much fun to us. Yette, especially is such a wonderful person. She is jolly and happy and we laugh a lot with her.

Sept 12, 2010 Unquera to Llanes (32kms!!)

2010-09-14T03:23:00.000-07:00

Well, the rain all night did not bode well for us in the morning, It was dull and overcast and before we had walked 1 km, we had to put our rain gear on. It was rain and rain and rain all day long, sometimes light drizzle and sometimes more of a steady downpour. The environment was beautiful in spite of the weather and so we did enjoy more beauty and solitude. This morning we followed the bread man in his little truck, as he went his way up through the hills, honking and honking to bring the people out to buy their bread from him. The bread man delivery is a very importan part of the day here in Spain. Luckily we were able to find places both for coffee and for lunch this day and wer able to come in out of the rain to dry of a bit.
Walking in rain gear is for sure an experience,. You are wet from the sweat on the inside and wet from the rain on the outside. The only think that keeps you wark is the body heat that warms up the water proof interior of your garments which are totally soaked inside. This means that you cannot take anyting off as you are immediately chilled.
We follow a route that is not the Camino wanting to avoid the coast which we fear is slippery and hilly and so not want the danger that we had a few days ago. So we are on pavement all day - hard on the feet and joints and the day is very long. It is beautiful as we are walking the hills of Asturtia now and the mountains in the distance are wonderful.
Our big excitement comes near the end of the day when we realize a lot of activyt is setting up along the road side. Eventually comes a lot of vehicles and motorcade and sports vans and the helicopters which are following hte cyclists racint eht Tour de Spain. They are about 100 riders, all in a tight pacl and whiz past us very fast, but the entourage with them was very impressive.
We do not arrive in Llanes until 6 pm, totally drained and done in. We are wet and hungry and so exhausted. We reject the first alveque which is expensive and like a prison cell and in short order find ourselves a wonderful pensionne for 22E. We are unpakced, dried off and have the room hung like a laundry room with our wet gear all over the place in no time.
We get a few SMS messages from Ilana that she is heading to Bilbao now with Christanne to head for home in Germany.
At dinner that night, it is like a miracle, as we sit there finishing our food. All of a sudden comes Christianne with Franco and Robert who we also have met a few times. C has just returned on the bus from Bilbao after getting Ilana on the airplane to Germany and even has a picture for us to see. We have a wonderful time wiht her and it completes the worry that we had for both of them in the past two days.
Christianne is from Geneva and has been walking for months, intending to complete 4000 kms before she gets home, I don´t think we will see her again as she is walking very fast now and we are getting tired. it was intended that she find us that night just to complete the circle of care that we had around Ilana.
Maggee

Sept 11 Comillas to Unquera 31km!!!

2010-09-14T03:15:00.000-07:00

What a day. It started out beautifully with the weather being so nice. We were awake early and me not feeling so great still, but it is better to carry on walking as I finkd it easier than sitting around. And the environment is inspiring and takes my mind off myself too. Ilana is in bad shape this morning and cannot walk well at all. It looks like she has an allergic reaction to the sun and the heat of her clothes and her boots. So out friend Christianne from Geneva has taken things in order and has decided to take her back to Santander on the bus to the hospital and will be the guide and the translator as she has command of 6 languages. She is something!!, but says that this IS the Camino and what she must do for Ilana. We say a very sad good bye to her as we leave the alberque that morning.
It is a hot day and we are climbing more steeply today than we have for some time so it is a bit of an effort. I am noticing that the hills do not bother me anymore. well not that I can climb Mt Everest yet, but is is surely easier than the first few days and I feel strong inspite of feeling ill and tired. I have decided that this camino is about the people and not so much the environment which with its beauty really inspires one to think of the simplicity of the moment and what can be created as we go along. Compassion and generosity are profound and normally abundant as we walk and it is quite a special community of people that we are walking with now.
By the time we arrived at our destination in Unquera, it was about 9 hours later and I was pretty washed out. Luckily, we found a wonderful little hotel and so I have a room to myself for only 16 E. It is called the Rio Deva and I highly recommend this placeas there is not alberque in Unquera. We have a great dinner and fall to sleep easliy, listening to the rain fall heaily all night long.
Thought for the day
"As you walk, with each footstep, in the silence of the hills and the music of the natural surroundings, you come closer to knowing yourself in the deep way and it must be this that brings you close to God"
Maggee

Sept 10, 2010 Santilla del Mar to Comillas (22kms)

2010-09-10T09:30:00.000-07:00

What a day and what an evening! poor Ilana, my new German friend and I travelled mostly on the train yesterday to Santilla as I was sick with the flu and she was in bad pain from her feet. We arrived at the alberque around 11 am and spent the next 5 hours waiting for it to open. We were told that they did not expect to be full and so I thought it was OK to have a bed there as we waited for our friends to arrive. Well, the fuss that occurred as people began to arrive between 3 and 4 pm. So many had taken the train part way and then some of the late arrivals had walked all the way from Santander (44 kms). When the last 3 who were the overflow arrived, they were pretty mad about the situation, so as I looked around and thought about my own principles and values, I just decided to take action and left to go around the corner and get a bed in a pensionne for Ilana and me. When I came back, I said to the Hollander, (wouldn´t you know!) who was the most outspoken that he could have my bed as I was leaving for the pensionne. He so changed his demeanor and became almost apologetic. He wanted to buy us drinks, said he could go to the pensionne himself and then throughout the evening became our best friend!!.
It gave me a lot to think about as we spent the evening with the pilgrims, many who had taken the train to shorten the day from Santander and then some who had walked the entire way.
Rules on the camino are simple. You treat each other with kindness and fairness and try to do good and be a contribution as you go along, helping, advising and making a difference. It is such a metaphor for life.
So Ilana and I had a great night in a wonderful pensionne which cost us E15 each with a private bath and a room with a view. And it was the right thing to do for the other pilgrims, ie to make sure that the people who had really walked a long way had access to the cheaper beds.
After the horrible night in an overcrowded alberque in Santander, I did not mind at all being in a private room in a pensionne for not much more than the alberque.
So we were up early this morning, walking through wonderful conutryside again and now having expanded our little group to a total of 6. We are 2 Danes, 2 Germans and 2Canadians. It is lovely to have such good new friends and we all walk along at our own pace so it works out well. The others are all here travelling on their own and the youngest one, Ilana has a terrible problem, with her feet, boots too small, too much heat and not well prepared for the adventure. So we are helping her out, but I am not at all sure that she will be able to continue.
We are in a wonderful little town tonight which is again full of tourists and near a beautiful beach so it is quite busy. Very old buildings and of course old old streets full of coble stones (hard on the pilgrims feet) and lots to see.
We were the highlight of the group of Japanese tourists that we met this morning. They were overjoyed to meet real pilgrims and we had to pose for pictures for them on our way out of the little medieval town of Santilla del Mar.
We have travelled close to 300 kms now and today it occurred to me how wonderful it is to have a sense of belonging in my life. This has been missing in quite a few areas especially in the past 5 years and with this little group that has formed for very specific and practical reasons, I feel like I belong and have a contribution to make. In addition, there is a huge contribution to me that occurs along the way as well. Alvina hs saved the day by providng me with a packet of Fishemans Friend which has saved my coughin spells many times.
Such simple princples and premises for living we experience along this way. It is a tough walk, beautiful and rugged and but so energizing now that we are into the spirit of the thing. It had taken about 2 weeks of steady walking to come to this place of realizing that I can actually do it and that if I just keep up the pace and look after myself, I will proceed along this wonderful journey and arrive at a new destination in my life when I get to Santiago.
From Alvina I have this to share

"It is not important to know where we are going, nor to find a place to go. The world is open to our appetite. It opens. It spreads perspective, widens the stems of a piece of herb until it reaches the forest and the window we travel, only when we let go".
from Franz Bartlett

Maggee

September 9, 2010. Santander to Santilla del Mar

2010-09-09T03:16:00.000-07:00

How did I get this far you may wonder as the distance is 44kms. After much discussion, we decided to take a train to shorten up the journey between these two points as there is no accomodation available between the two. In addition, I have been feeling horrible for the past two days and during the night realized that I had better not overdo it today. So with our new friend Elana who has sore feet, I took a train and then walked only about 7kms very slowly which made a big difference.
The trains and the buses are wonderful here in Spain and it is easy to get around if you can understand the systen. It is also cheap and fast. The yellow arrows took us through a wonderful country road all the way from Barreda to Santillana del Mar.
This town is ancient and very full of tourists today with many buses in the parking lots. It is like a medieval town with old stone roadways and very old old buildings. The alberque is near the church and seems to be in what was formerly a stable. There are only 16 beds so it will be quieter than last night in Santander. The alberque there was so crowded it was nearly unbearable. People kep arriving and were placed on the floors around the bunks which were already squished together. Quite a fire hazard if you thought about it too much. As well, there was one bathroom for the women and one for the men, so imagine the problem. It made me raalize that I do not want to stay in the cities at all as the accomodation is just not that nice normally and this one seemed to be just a money making venture the way it was set up.
Oh well, everyone was getting up at 6 am to get out of the place today, so we had an early start.
Maggee

Sept 8, 2010 Guemes to Santander (15kms)

2010-09-08T08:31:00.000-07:00

We took Father Ernesto´s advice this morning and left for the next village to search for the long way around to Somos by the sea to get to the ferry to Santander. It was an extra 4 kms, but well worth it. The walk was along the cliffs above the beach and the sea. Not much climbing today so not so hard, but a good long walk none the less. I am not feeling great still and think I will be better tomorrow. Today was a wonderful walk for most of the morning and then we hopped on board a ferry for a 30 minute ride across the bay to the city of Santander which is pretty large and one we are anxious to leave tomorrow.
It is always more expensive, even for a drink and the albergues are not always as nice as the ones in the country. For example, we are in a room with 38 people tonight. Clothes were washed in the kitchen sink and hung like the Spannish people do, on a clothes line out the window,(sure hope it does not blow away, as I will never see it again). I am here in a little dive of a place using the internet which is abundant in the city and not so much in the rural areas.
People seem to live on top of each other in this country and maybe that is a fact in Europe. We take for granted out space facilities that we have in our country, seeing how so many people live in small flats which are noisy and crowded and in the midst of city traffice and all that brings with it.
Tomorrow we are negotiating a strategy that will get us out of here on the train and will shorten up the day by about 20 kms as the next albergue is 44 kms away and it is just too far to walk that distance.
Again it looks like rain tonight and if we continue with our luck we will walk in beautiful sunshine once again. I am taking seriously the advice we got yesterday and will walk with more intention, when I am not trying to just cope with breathing my way up the hills that is!!. Getting more focused on my freedom and seeing what shows up in my thoughts around creativity is my intention for the next few days.
Because we are 3 women who seem to have experience with walking the camino, we are giving out advice and taking care of some of the others who do not have the simple knowledge of how to do a walk like this, so it is a great way to make new friends. Someone today called me ´magical Maggee´as I have been helping with foot problems and sharing my socks. I brought all of them (5 pairs) and some people really get into trouble with their feet right away.
Well must catch up with the group as it is time for our aperatif.
Maggee

Sept 2, 2010 Santona to Guemes (25kms)

2010-09-08T08:08:00.000-07:00

What a relief to start the day with clearing skies. It poured with rain last night - all night - and we were thankful we had declined to stay in a tent at the youth hostel in Santona, as some of our fellow travellers did, we learned later. It was again a tough climb up and out of the city. For 4 kms we walked along a cement sidewalk and then the arrows pointed off to the right, so we followed them, which turned out to be my 3rd frigthening experience on this trek. With the rain, the clay and mud path was slippery and treacherous and daunting as we climbed higher above the beach and then the cliffs over the sea. Both Kirsten and I were not happy with this trail, but once we had started up, there was no going down. It would have been worse to do so, so we continued, hoping it would get better. Eventually we reached the crest, but I tell you it is something to make you way up a slippery slope with 10kgs on your back, trying to balance and find foot holds on clay and stones. We were pretty happy to be on the beach on the other side of the hill. thank goodness for my hiking poles. I could not climb like this without them.
As happens with all of these arrowed tracks, it leads you somewhere you cannot get to with the roads. So there we were, with about 4 kms of an expanse of beach ahead of us that was astounding. The weather was clearing and it was magical to walk this way on an isolated stretch of beach to the first coffee stop.Did I mention how great that first cup of cafe con leche is!!
The day was long as we seemed to take all of the long routes, through about 8 small villages, remarkable with their new housing developments on one side of the road and sheep grazing in pastures around falling down ancient buildings on the other side of the road. The weather, by afternoon, was glorious once again and we had a wonderful walk through the hills to an albergue that we had heard nothing but good reports about.
We arrived there around 3 pm, It is actually a very old homestead that turns out to be the home that was built originally 100 years ago by the grandfather of Pedro Ernesto, who is the local parish priest and an avid supporter of the camino. The whole place is set up to care for the pilgrims, from the moment you step into the door, you are cared for in a way like no other. We were offered fruit from a platter, fresh water and some small talk, before being shown to the showers and the dorms. The lower lever of the homestead was originally the place for the cattle and has been renovated into a charming sitting area complete with large stone fireplace. The dorms out the back are spacious and built like chalets so there is a lot of room and plenty of space for washing, showering and hanging up clothes.
The best part was the evening session with the Father who led a discussion about the trail we had passed and the one that lay ahead of us with some advice for being a pilgrim on the El Norte. This route is not a race for a bed like the Camino Frances has become. His advice was that this route is for the courageous who are there to develop their creativity, to give up the GPS style of living that we have at home and to use our intelligence to gain something through the living university that is available with the conversations between our fellow travellers along the way. It was inspiring to hear him speak.
This was followed by a communal meal that was prepared for us by a young couple who work for him. He has space for about 70 people, has taken care of 4000 this year alone and has about 50 people who volunteer in the place to make it all work. On top of that, there is a group that has formed an NGO and they provide support in Guatemala somehow, so a lot of good work is being done in this place and you get the feel of the energy of it quickly.
We were tired by the time we got to bed. The weather had shifted again at dinner time and we were treated to gale force winds and driving rain, such as I had heard about. This went on all night and then cleared in the morning so that we were greeted by a new sun rise once again. We are truly blessed with this weather along this stormy coast.
I am getting sick now and a few people have been affected by the gastro that is common along the camino. I know that my body is tired and the reaction that I have now is a sore throat and feeling of flu which will pass. The days are long and the walk is very tough so it takes a lot of energy just to keep it all going. I sometimes think that I will never make it to next week at this rate, but when I am up and walking, I am loving the feeling of freedom and the beauty of the environment. I can harldy believe that here I am walking across the north of Spain with friends that I have only known because I took the effort to create this experience this way.
We are walking with two German women now. there was such a great crowd in the albereu in Guemes, all of the people that we had met along the way, so it was quite like a large family of friends getting together with lots of laughs and fun.
Maggee

People I have met along the way

2010-09-06T07:21:00.000-07:00

In a walk like this, you meet many different people, each walking for a different purpose or reason. Remarkably, there is always a language challenge which gets worked out through sign language or smatterings of a common language. Even the people serving in the restuarants, can display the difference between chicken, beef and pork with quite vivid arm and hand signals, so communication happens despite the language barrier.
Ian is a young man who walked the Camino Frances 5 times and is on the second El Norte, He is doing a PhD in philosophy in Paris and started his walk from his home, so passed the first 1000 kms the day we met him. He walks to find his spiritual core and to enrich his thinking about his dissertation which is focused on the gravity of rape.
Pierre is an older man who started walking in May in Denmark. He walked more than 50 kms the day we met him.
Femke is a ray of sunshine from Holland and we walked with her for about 3 days. She did the CF in April and her husband is walking the CF at the moment. They had left a van full of food in St Jean and when they meet up again this week, they plan to spend a month situated along the Camino Frances providing food for the pilgrims for a donation.Then they will each continue their own camino.
Sali and her son This are from Denmark and are walking their first Camino together just to spend time with each other. It is hard for them as there are no hills in Denmark to train on so they are suffering with sore legs at the moment and we may lose them if they slow down.
Sonja left her job in July and her husband and adult children have supported her do to this walk, her first Camino, in order to settle on where she wants to direct her life now.
Ian, is a Brit, teaching english in Holland, walking the camino, because "older bald guys" don´t get rides as hitchhikers so easily these days
Andre is the saddest. He carried two sellos, one for his girlfriend who killed herself a few months ago and one for him. He walks with pictures of them that he places in churches and alberques so that she has a presence in this walk with him
Sarah and Kean are a very young couple from Ireland who have the lightest packs and seem to walk with an energy that we all envy.
Stefi is from Germany and lived in Spain for awhile so her Spannish is great. She is young and petite and we have already lost her as she is miles ahead of us by now.
Christianne started in Switzerland and has walked for 2 months. She will walk all the way back home again from Santiago.

In all of this mix of people, we also meet wonderful local residents who are kind and generous and provide us with direction or assistance at many many occasions and always with a smile and slow slow speaking of their language and lots of hand signals for us to comprehend.

"If you would do a good deed, then do it today. Do it gratis nor linger around for your pay. Let the deed be a gem that you cast overboard, not a hook that is baited to fish for reward" (courtesy of Neil)

Maggee

Liendo to Santona (13kms) Sept 6 2010

2010-09-06T07:07:00.000-07:00

I wish I had brought the connector to load pictures onto this blog as I have some wonderful shots of the scenery along the way. It was one thing that came out f my pack in order to save on weight.
Today was delicious. I did not even get up until 0730 as we promised ourselves a short day today and a slow morning. We stopped at the local bar fr breakfast which was tortilla and cafe con leche so we were much better prepared for the morning climb. Again a wonderful walk, following the yellow arrows. We find consistently that the yellow arrows take us on sometimes longer and more hilly, but definitely a stunning look at the small villages and the rural scenes around here. You can only see the country like this by walking. While it was another few tough climbs, it was fine and we were in the next town in no time.
Laredo is another tourist town with a very long beach which attracts the locals and those from far away to come and sit on the beach and bake all day. So there they are from early morning, carrying beach chairs and umbrellas and reading materials to the beach. It is hot again, although there are predictions of rain for tomorrow. We will see as we have been so lucky with the weather so far.
In Laredo, we had to walk about 4 kms along the beach wall to get to the boat across to Santona. We laughed out loud when we arrived at this place. After a very long walk, the boat which is a pretty fair size motor boat (probably seats 30 or so), comes right up onto the beach with pop music blaring, so we danced our way up the gang plank and sat down for the 5 minute ride across the harbour.
We had quite a time finding a bed here, thinking that we could get into the youth hostel, which turned out to be full. So we found a pensionne, again with the help of a gentleman who happened to come along and phoned the proprietor to come over and find us a bed. It is like a flat in a large building withg about 7 rooms and with the bathrooms acrss the hall. Two rooms with two beds for E38 each so while expensive, there is no other choice and it balances the cheaper nights we have had in the last week or so. The town is full of people, celebrating something. Hopefully it will not be too noisy tonight as sometimes happens.
Good to have a short walk today and time to rest and enjoy the environment.
Maggee

Castro-Urdiales to Liendo (29kms) Sept 5 2010

2010-09-06T06:38:00.000-07:00

We had an interesting experience last evening while we were eating a picnic dinner outside the 16 bed albergue in C-U. The police arrived and asked us if we paid 5E for the bed and we said yes. Then there was lot of fuss with the hospitalero, poor guy who is a volunteer and following directions from someone else. Turns out the beds are supposed to be gratis so we all got our money back and then spent the rest of the evening talking with the hospitaleros who are wonderful young men volunteering because they love to meet people from around the world. At this alberque, there were 4 tents set up at the back which were full by the time we went to bed. There was a revenue of E100 per night coming into the alberque supposedly to provide upgrades to the place:
The next morning we left early which is always good thing to do. The path led us up and away from the town and then over to the sea again. It was wonderful to have a rest break at a bench which was positioned over the cliffs. The weather has continued to be wonderful, warm and calm and so lovely with the colors of the blue green sea and the lush of the green landscape. This place we did not want to leave. Then, even though it was Sunday morning, we came across a wonderful little cafe which served delicious cafe con leche so the morning was complete. We are a little rolling family of people now and have made some good friends who we continue to pick up at the break times and evening meals.
The day was very hot and a good climb waited for us after La Magdelena. Once we started this climb, it was hard not to just breath in the goodness of the eucalyptus forest and the solitude of the steep gravel road that we travelled. We have a different pace, each of us, Kirsten races ahead up the hills like a deer, Alvina plods along slow but sure and I am somewhere in the middle. It means that we eventually spread out and are walking alone, until we need to use a whistle to signal Kirsten to stop for a rest. Sometimes we come around a corner and there she is waiting like a Danish princess for her followers to catch up. She is slower on the down parts because of her ankle and Alvina goes down hills like a mountain goat so we change places sometimes, always looking out for each other, yet with plenty of time for solitude.
The climb up from La Magdelena was glorious, fragrant and beautiful and only surpassed by the vistas that awaited us when we got to the top and began our descent. By this time it was very hot and so we took our time going down into the litle town of Liendo/Hazas. It was somewhat worrisome that the place seemed deserted when we got there, nothing of what we expected in the town square and I was alarmed at the thought of having to walk another 10kms. However, we decided to proceed and in a few kms more, we came into the next village, small but quaint where the key to the alberque was at the local bar and the alberque with only 10 beds was beautiful and empty. It was not long before the rest of our crew came along behind us and we filled up the place quickly. Some of these small places are incredible as to how they support the pilgrims. This was a new building specifically designed for the pilgrim and the cost was only E4 for each of us. We ate at the local bar and probably gave some good business to the owner that evening.
Being in the country is so preferred to the cities as it is deadly quiet and so beautiful to hear only the sounds of the animals at night and in the early morning. The roosters have quite a variety of sounds and seem to have been trained differently for their typical early morning sound.
During the day, I was thinking about how different this camino is from 2008 on the Camino Frances. I am stronger, my feet are good and I am comfortable with the way it goes each day. There is nothing to get used to as I have done it all before, so I can concentrate on what I am experienceing and feeling along the way.
The thought that I had yesterday was a feeling of complete freedom, freedom to experience the moment without worrying about the past or the future and freedom just to be still and breath in the environment and take in the wonderful sights and sounds all around me. This is new for me, as I usually don´t let myself calm down or slow down enough to be in the present, so I am cherishing the experience of this in order to make it a larger part of my life.
I also think about my cousin Neil who died in Feb. He was such a giver and a lover of travel or adventure, but not one to take the time to do this himself. When I told him I was doing this walk for him way back in December, he just said - good, do it well and enjoy it - so this is what I am doing and thinking about as I walk each day.
Maggee

Probena to Castro-Urdiales (2okms) September 4, 2010

2010-09-04T08:35:00.000-07:00

We are back at the sea after a few days of walking through the mountains and the pine forests. We start the day with a long climb up a few hundred steps and then a very long walk around the headland and above the sea. There are a few sail boats in the distance so it is very peaceful.
Below are the sufers already out to catch the morning waves and the sun is rising over the mountains in the distance, so the sky is a bright pink. This is a beautiful walk as we have about 5 kms along the flat walkway that follows the shore all the way around the headland. You can look out to the distance and see forever and the wind is calm so the air is fresh and the weather warm and the sounds from the waves crashing below is heavenly. It is a pretty easy walk today, shorter than normal and not so hilly. However, there are some tough hills still and even though we take a shorter route along the coastal road, we still climb.
At one point, we are advised by two old women to take a route to the left. When we get to the junction, we see the arrows going right and so being addicted to the yellow arrows, we ignore their advice and go right - bad move. We end up at a position of having to climb many many stairs to the top of the cliff and then scramble up a steep incline with our heavy packs on. At the top, we decide to always listen to the old women!
We are again in a wonderful small alberque in such a beautiful beach town. So many beautiful resort type towns along this coast. Because the weather is so warm still, the beaches are loaded with people. I cannot get over the way in which they all seem to love to lie in the sun and will crowd onto small stretches of beach, or stones or sand just to lie there and read or sunbathe. And the children do not wear hats as we are addicted to in our country!
The people are dressed beautifully and the children especially are dressed in adorabel clothing. It is a really impressive family oriented culture here.
Feet are still great and I am realy loving the way we are walking now. The hills don´t bother me at all and I experience such a strong feeling of wellness to be able to walk like this.
I have been thinking that I would like to top 1000 kms this trip. We are at 170kms now and the days are passing quickly. I have calculated that I spend on average E20 per day and this includes even the expensive days when we had to stay in pensionnes. I figure that it is cheaper to travel like this than it is to live my regular life and can see why the young people choose to do this for months at a time. Don´t worry Mom, I will come home as planned!
Anyway, so far so good and I will see how it goes from here.

Walk slowly, don´t rush. Each step brings you to the best moment of your life, the present moment.

Maggee

Lezama to Probena (bus, metro 35kms! 3 hours)

2010-09-04T08:07:00.000-07:00

We had decided a few days ago that we were not interested in walking through the big cities and the walk across Bilbao which is a major city would have taken 2 days to get to the other side. So when we arrived in Lezama, we waited at the bus stop for the next bus into the city. Here our adventure began in earnest.
We already knew that the Spannish people are warm and friendly, but along comes a very old man with a cane,also waiting for the bus. I will call him Camino Angel #1 (CA1) He chats away to us and we try to understand and ask some questions, but soon give up as he just talks so fast. He does not stop talking for the 20 minutes that it takes the bus to come. So we all get on together and ride the 13kms into the city, while he points out areas of interest to us along the way. It is quite a place, Bilbao. We came right into the centre of the city, past the magnificent Gugenheim Museum which is a splendid work of art in itself, situated on the river and visible for quite a distance all around it. At the city centre, we asked the bus driver for the directions for the bus to our next destination which was Portugaleta. A few people have a conversation and then our CA#1 steps in to tell everyone that he will take us to the Metro which is what we have to get to Portugaleta.
So we walk along for 5 minutes and meet a woman who turns out to be CA#1´s wife. Now we are a gang of 5 going to the metro. CA#1´s wife take us all the way into the metro station, shows us which train track to go on and set us up to purchase tickets, when another younger guy steps in to do this for us. So in no time we are in the metro station in the right place at the right time, in a way we never could have done on our own. Such kind people.
The metro took about 30 minutes or more to get to our stop. We had foolishly thought that we would emerge into a nice little village by the sea, but not so. We came up into another teeming city, which is actually an extension of Bilboa. So now we are trying to find our way to the Camino and the yellow arrows as we think there is an alberque here. We walk back and forth, asking people and getting a mix of directions and finally decide to take another bus to the next town, just to get out of the city again.
Well, no sooner do we have this all decided, (remember we are 3 strong personalities and have 3 different books we are using for directions), when along comes Camino Angel #2 (CA#2) BUT disguised as a very very loud, very short and wide man with a large head and a very loud voice. He has in two, a Danish woman and her son who are more lost than us and is yelling to us ámigas, amigas, peregrinos, pergrinos´and a LOT more Spannish than this. He is insisting that we follow him and being quite agressive about it and we are not so happy to be in this situation. Eventually, we all cross back to the other side of the street and with the Danish two, decide we are going to the next town on the bus, as it is the easiest way to get rid of this little man. CA#2 is not at all happy about this and is loudly talking to us and the other people on the street about something we do not understand. Eventually we realize that he is telling us the alberque in Muskiz is closed and we must go to Probena, which we agree. We feel we must get on any bus now just to get away from this little man.
The bus comes along and we all jump on and so does he!! Now we are alarmed at him. He talks to us all the way to the end of this bus line in Muskiz AND he talks to the driver and everyone else on the bus about us and we have no idea what he is saying. We get off the bus at a beach town and he is now herding us quite aggressively across the parking lot and towards the beach. We are in dissarray, not knowing what to do, but because the Danes are following, we decide we have nothing to lose to see where he takes us now.
So we all trot after him, down the sea wall and then onto the sand, through the sunbathers who are all partially dressed and lying in the sun - did I mention my observation that there seems to be no concern about skin cancer in this country as they all love to lie in the sun. Well, 5 pilgrims with heavy packs and a small man talking very loudly to us and everyone else was quite a spectacle. After 2 kms we arrive in Probena and he takes us right into a beautiful alberque, hands us over to the hospitalero and much to our chagrin, we discover that he is a member of the Alberque Assocation and does this all the time - leads the lost pilgrims to the alberque in Probena.He would take nothing from us for his effort and left shortly after he had made sure we were all settled into this wonderful little place.
We talked about this for a long time afterwards and felt that it was quite a learning in life to see how many people keep showing up to help us and even this little man, with his very different way of providing guidance, was a genuinely kind and helpful person who went way out of his way to make sure we got where we needed to be.
Many lessons to be learned along this way about the core value of goodness and kindness that can show up when it is needed and not look like what you would expect it to.
Maggee

Gernika to Lezama September 3, 2010 (22 kms)

2010-09-04T07:51:00.000-07:00

What a day this was. It started with a pretty good climb up a steep hill - which is beginning to be the normal warm up to the day for this route. We had been guided out of the town by several people who stopped their car or left what they were doing to come and point out the way to us. These people are incredibly friendly and helpful and we hear this is typical of the Basque area.
We seemed to climb and climb and climb again this day. Early in the morning we soon found ourselves above the mist that was rising from the forests in the early morning sun rise. The colors were golden through the forest, You could look down and see the clouds below and the mountains in the distance and it was a feeling of being in another world. In the distance, we could hear the chain saws occassionally as the wood cutters felled trees in the lower areas. And in the upper pastures, again we came across cows and goats and sheep with their bells ringing in the distance. The silence at these times is profound and it is actually a truly meditative and spiritual experience to walk like this, espeically in the early morning.
The weather continues to be warm and sunny, pretty hot actually, so we are drinking lots of water and stopping to rest frequently. By afternoon it is about 28C. The ground is dry and so easy to walk across the difficult area. I cannot imagine this walk in the heavy rain.
We are quite a group of pilgrims now and as usually happens, we are making friends from so many different countries. The main language seems to be French, as that is the common denominator. So when I find an english speaking person, it is quite a heady experience. It makes me realize how limited I am in speaking one language with a smattering of French here and there.
We arrived in Lezamo in good time, by 1 pm actually, and then proceeded with our next phase for the day which I will write about in another post as it was such an adventure.
We have been walking for close to one week now and the kms are piling up. I have been thinking about the walk as I go and it seems much more challenging to be pensive as I am concentrating so hard on the difficulty of the pathways for most of the time. I do feel more relaxed as a result of the simple life though and am quite into the rythm of the pilgrim life, much earlier than on the 2008 camino.
Maggee

Gernika Accomodation

2010-09-04T07:47:00.000-07:00

Just to follow up on the situation in Gernika. It is a very nice town and a wonderful place to visit. While we had a good place to stay, it was very expensive for the location. The other option we learned the following day from some Norwegian boys who did go off to the free accomodation in another part of town, was actually an open sports field with a partial roof over it. There were showers and toilets, but they spend the night on the artificial turf in the open air - no mats or anything provided. We leared the following day at another alberque that the associtation is trying to get a municipal albergue set up in Gernika, because some hostel business is making a killing from the poor pilgrims by charging 20E a night for not much more than what we pay 3 - 5 E for in the others which have volunteers supporting them.
M

Markina to Gernika (30kms) Sept 2, 2010

2010-09-02T09:17:00.000-07:00

Well, we found all of the long routes today and without even trying. We walked the first 12kms up the asphalt road to save Kirsten some hill climbing. We were warned that the hills from Markina were very steep and not necessary if you walked up the highway for about 5 kms. This turned out to be 12 kms for us which was fine as the smaller road was lovely up through the pine forests and not much traffic. Today we walked so many hills, I lost count. It is quite spectacular to walk in the forests, often climbing up pathways that are beds of pine needles and so the scent is intoxicating. We were directed along a variety of pathways, sometimes they are tractor routes, other times narrow trails through the woods. For awhile this morning we walked along a small stream for quite a long ways. It felt like a meditation experience to be in the woods with the animals´ bells sounding in the distance and the stream nearby.
We were exhausted by the time we arrived in Gernika, having followed the yellow arrows which took us up and up and around the mountain before coming down into the town. We waited with other pilgrims for the albeque to open at 4 pm and were shocked and annoyed to find that is a place that charged pilgrims a bargain price of E20 for a bed. The bonus is that the bed has sheets, but we are still in a small room with 6 others and the shower/toilet ratio is 2 to every 18 pilgrims. It feels like a real rip off! There is a place somewhere in the town in a big building where there are mats on the floor and the lodging is free. Quite frankly we were all so tired by the time we got into this place, I just could not imagine walking another 3 kms to check out the free space - so here we are in clean white sheets and an expensive night.
We are meeting very interesting people and having great conversations. Some of these pilgrims are very serious hikers, one having walked from her home in Switzerland, another from Paris and the Swiss woman walking alone, is planning to walk back again to a total of about 4 months of travel. So many people become addicted to this kind of walking and just keep on coming back for the experience of the walk and the community of international friends that is generated.
Tomorrow we will have shorte day of about 22 kms. We have covered over 125kms as of today and are getting in the swing of it now. The hills are something!! and we are actually walking over the Pyrenees, up and down all day long. But the scenery and the environments are fantastic. You can only see these things by walking and you can only meet people like this on such a pilgrimage.
I am finding this to be a much more relaxing experience than the pilgrimage that I did 2 years ago, mostly because I am confident of how to do it every day and also that I am so free of the stress that I was dealing with at that time. It is a special experience to just walk and absorb the environment, watch for the views and notice the small things along the way that are there to observe.
We are planning to take a bus right through Bilboa the day after tomorrow, not wanting to mix the experience of being a pilgrim with being a tourist and the walk through the city is tough with the industrial areas to pass.
More tomorrow
Maggee

Deba to Markina (23kms) September 1, 2010

2010-09-01T10:02:00.000-07:00

Wow what a day! we left early this morning, Alvina and I. Kirsten was planning to take the bus to our destination, which she did, but made the mistake of getting off at a town about one hour farther so she had to walk back which was not a bad thing for her to test out her ankle. It was an uphill climb for us a lot of the way. We are thankful that we walk at the same pace and most of the time the incline is at a degree of ascent that is comfortable to walk in our own pace. It was incredible, the beauty of the walk today, actually through the Pyrenees, over about 3 inclines and then a very steep downward walk for about 3 kms at the end.
We passed through isolated farms, with the symphony of the donkeys, cows, sheep and the roosters either their own unique sounds or the large bells tied around their necks.
We could look over vistas that were incredible for the height and the distance across the mountains. We saw the sea only in the beginning of the day and then were in the middle of the mountainous interior. We walked through forest of pine trees, eucalyptus and cedars which created an exquisite odor and a wonderful sound with the wind whistiling through the high branches. It was heavenly.
We are loving the experience of being in Spain. Last night in Deba, we decided to splurge on a dinner and sat in the local square and watched the families and the young children out for their evening socialization. So many people and quite a vibe of activity. It was actually lovely! It was also nice to have a hot meal.
We are in Markina at the moment and planning to walk to Gernika tomorrow which is about 25 kms away. It will not be so tough as today I think, but before that we will have our menu del dia at a local restaurant for E9 (including the wine) and then go to bed.
We are in an alberque that is below the residence of the sisters and it is warm and comfortable, with about 16 people in the room - hopefully no one snoring tonight.
We have decided that we like to get up at 0630 hours and then begin to walk eary around 0700 or so. It is so lovely to be in the mountains in the early morning.
It is still lovely weather for us - about 25C today and again warm this evening so it is wonderful not to worry about the weather effect on our ability to walk. I cannot imagine doing this tough journey with the wind and the rain that we read about in the earlier spring.
I think often about my cousin Neil who died in Feb and who I am doing this walk in memory of. He would just tell me to buckle down and use my Icelandic female energy to conquer the challenges and to enjoy the adventure of the travel experience. Walking is such a totally unique way to experience the country. It is interesting that this location is run by an African and there are very friendly people at the front desk area - all African - who have helped us to get on line today. (makes me think that Chris is at my back as well)
Well, the wine is waiting and the day is beginning to fade for me so I will sign off for now
Maggee

Zarautz to Deba (26kms ) August 30, 2010

2010-08-31T03:07:00.000-07:00

Well now it is getting more serious. This is our third day of walking more than 20 kms and my legs are sure feeling the effort. I am so thankful that I can walk up these hills which really require some courage and stamina. Compared to this walk, the Camino Frances was like a stroll in the park!!. The CF required stamina and endurance to keep going each day. It was also a lot more crowded with pilgrims everywhere and lots of places to stay. The Camino El Norte requires a lot of physical strength and is much less populated, probably because of that. We see pilgrims along the way, but maybe a total of 10 during the day. The alberques have been less than half full up until Deba. Most of the people are men and most walk in a group. There have been only 2 or 3 women that we have met walking alone and the rest in groups of 3 or 4 men and women together. The guide I am using is so confusing, it is pretty useless. It has alternate routes and so much detail, that if you are off track,you could never get back on from these directions. Alvina has a French book that we refer to, but we are following the yellow arrows which have been very reliable so far.
The walk from Zarautz started along the sea wall all the way to Getaria. We watched the sun come up behind us and it was like the heavens were opening up a shower of gold through the clouds. The colors reflected on the sea and into the distant skies were marvelous. Shortly, we were heading up and up into the hills again. This day was incredible for the climbing. At one point I said to Alvina that if we should lose our way, the option is always going to be up and not down.
Well, smart as we are, we decided to take a diversion off the yellow arrows to save some climbing and some distance. Big mistake! We were pretty soon at a junction with no signs and realized that we had missed a turn somewhere. So of course, to go back meant a climb up the highest hill. We were soon on the right track, but my God what a lot of big hills. At one point, I don´t think even the sheep go that far up. It was so steep, we just had to laugh and try to breath our way to the top - nothing wrong with this old heart I concluded!
Then on a narrow path on the other side, Kirsten slipped and badly strained her ankle. Luckily, she was able to keep on walking until we came to a small parking lot, again at the top of a hill. This never happens to us, but along came not one, but two women who both spoke English and one then offered to drive us to the next town to save the last 1 km of walking. We actually were offered a lift 2 more times by strangers who could see we were in trouble. You are never alone on this Camino really and just when you think you are in big trouble, the Camino angels step in and you are rescued from danger.
We found our way to the alberque in Deba, again with help from another pilgrim who happened along and knew just where to go. This alberque required us to take 2 elevators up the side of the mountain. We calculated that it covered 15 stories which the people of the town would otherwise have to climb each day to go back and forth to their houses. We eventually got our beds and then a number of people, including a doctor who was a pilgrim helped to solve the problem of Kirsten´s ankle. It is strained and not broken and was terrible last night. But this morning, she is so much better and able to walk. So we are resting today which is a good thing for all of us and will stay in a wonderful pensionne here in Deba. Kirsten will take the bus tomorrow and Alvina and I will walk the 22kms to Markina. this is a long stretch with nothing along the way, so better for her not to risk getting into trouble there.
I have to say that the people you meet along the way are remarkable and it is what gives me hope for the core values and potential goodness that exist in each of us no matter where we are.
We had a picnic supper in the albergue in the evening. When you do this, there are inevitably others who come along to join in. Sometimes there is no common language and you just manage in a combination of French or Spannish and a lot of sign language. It is pretty amazing how much relatedness is generated through this. There were two wonderful young men we met last night, one has walked the Camino France 5 times and is walking the El Norte for the second time (averaging 35 kms each day). Another loves walking so much that he takes young people in France who are in trouble with the law on long walks like this, as part of their rehab to a better life. These young people travel with very little money and manage to complete their camino quite well with what small resources they have and the kindness of strangers.
The alberques along this route have been basic, but clean and adequate. Most of them open only at 4 pm which makes it silly to be up and leaving at 630 am as we have been doing. As well, all of the beds that I have seen have a sheet on them and sometimes a pillow case - which makes me feel somewhat relieved that they are taking care to reduce the incidence of bed bugs which I am watching for very carefully after my Camino Frances experience.
So today here we are being tourists, staying in a lovely pensionne and having a day of rest. This is probably a good idea as the walks each day have been quite strenuous and my legs sometimes ache at night with the effect of the climbing. All I can think about as I walk now, is how strong I will be at the end.
I am also aware that this is a different mental and spiritual journey for me. Last time, I was scared of the challenge and of being on my own and searching for relief from the intense grief that I was eperiencing after Chris died. This time, I am in a team of friends that I love and trust and who have the same intention and interests as me. Because I have now walked about 80kms over the mountains and can look forward to the next climb, I am also confident that I can do this route. I am also free of all of the things that were a source of stress for me 2 years ago and so the mental wanderings that I notice are more creative now than they were 2 years ago.
Our young friend Ian told us last night that this kind of walking is where you really get the feeling of spirit or God, as you push your limits and find an inner strength that carries you along through the most wonderful scenery you can imagine.
Sea views across the cliffs, rolling hills with the sounds of the bells tied to the cows and sheep and the wonderful weather that we have had, make each day such a gift.
And the wine is cheap and very good, the company along the way, always friendly and caring and the places we find are interesting, historic and unique.
Maggee (resting on the beach in Deba)

San Sebastien to Zarautz (22 kms) August 29

2010-08-31T02:53:00.000-07:00

We were kept awake most of the night with the young people out celebrating something. Until 6 am, there were plenty of people outside the windows singing and shouting and having a great time.The alberque is in an old school and so very basic with 30 bunk beds in one room and the showers and bathrooms upstairs. Still it is cheap and only a donation so the costs are very low. I have been averaging about E15-20 per day for g
food and lodging which is pretty good I think.
The walk each day is very tough and always involves a very steep climb and then an equally steep descent. Sometimes there are 3 or 4 mountains to cross, but the scenery is wonderful. The sea is always in view and if not, then there are wonderful views of the rural countryside, which is beautiful rolling hills, with the cows and sheep grazing, bells ringing and the smell of the sea mixed with the fields and the barn yards of course. It is quiet in the hills and gives one lots of time for reflection.
My back pack feels like my friend now - I guess I am getting used to it. I emptied it out completely and got rid of everything that I really did not need when we were in Irun. This included all kinds of very light weight small stuff of course, like some lotion and a pair of flip flops, but somehow it makes a difference to be carrying only what I really want to have on board.
San Sebastien was a wonderful old town but filled with tourists. Wonderful long beaches in the centre of the city crowded with people. Those who were not on the beach were wandering around the old town, so it was not a really great place to be as a pilgrim. The walk to Zarautz was good, but we arrived into another teeming tourist area, which was loaded with people on holiday. Because the weather is so good and it is Sunday, there are even more people around here. We have had great days for walking and the heat of the afternoon has not been so bad, maybe cooler higher up.
Maggee

Irun to San Sebastien 24kms

2010-08-28T09:56:00.000-07:00

What a day! While I knew that this would be a climb, the reality of climbing was something else. There was a point earlier today that I wondered how anyone could possible do this in the rain as it would be a complete mud slide. However, we pressed on with the temp around 18 to 20C with overcast skies which made it a lot easier than the previous days of 35C or so. Walking high above the sea with the vistas being so incredible has been a wonderful experience. I had forgotten what it was like to walk in the silence of the wind and the earth with only the sounds of the bells on the animals to keep you company. We are enjoying the wonderful smells and sights along the coast. There are few women along this trek and a lot of men - plenty on bicycles even on the very high and tough paths and some guys running along. Must be the locals keeping fit!! I would not want to do this walk alone.
We arrived over the hills and into a small village beside the ocean on an inlet and took a ferry across to the other side where we sat and had lunch. It was such a wonderful experience. We have had the experience over and over again of the Spannish people offering help to us even when we do not ask for it. It is such a warm and welcoming place to walk. You could only see Spain like this if you were walking.
The trek today was a very tough climb and most of it was up - to the total of 24-26 kms depending on the book we choose. We had a long walk through San Sebastien and at the end, nearly gave up on finding the alberque. As happens on the Camino, just when we were about to get into a cab and head to the next town, a young man approached, fluent in French, and pointed the way to the albergue which was about a 3 minute walk from where we were. Once there, we were welcomed by a lovely pair of hospitaleros and were showered and settled in and drinking wine at a local bar in no time at all.
We are planning to try to walk about 22 kms each day depending on the climb, but if today was any indication, and if the weather holds up as it has, we should be OK for this. However, my legs are literally Scccreeeming with aches by the end of this day of walking 9 hours!! so we will have to take it as it comes and hope that our feet hold up.
We are so lucky to be walking together. We are miles ahead of where we were when we stared the Camino France solo two years ago. We know the ropes, have a plan and know what to expect and how to do this, so it is like starting the beginning as we were at the end of the first Camino.
The sounds, the smells and the feeling of walking, except this time high in the hills, brings one closer to God and the very special way in which you can appreciate silence, soul and the splendour of the universe around one.
We read a blessing each morning provided by our Camino Sister Linda, which situates us just where we need to be - walking with heart and soul fully engaged in the experience of just being, listening and observing what there is to appreciate about life and being fully alive.
Off to my glass of wine!

MAggee

Hendeye Aug 26 - 27

2010-08-27T01:18:00.000-07:00

After a 6 hour train ride we have arrived in Hendeye here in the south of France on the border to Spain. Every pilgrim's nightmare happened to Kirsten when her back pack did not arrive on the flight from Copenhagen. We are promised that it will come this morning and so are ready to walk to Irun which is only a short distance away. We will stay there tonight ane then try our luck walking to san Sebastien tomorrow. It is about 24 kms and so with the heat (36c) we will start early and see how it goes.
We are decidely nervous about this trek after all of the horror stories that we read from the spring walkers and are determined to just do our best and enjoy the adventure.
there are not a lot of pilrgims visible around here. It is high tourist season on the coast so it is very crowded and accomodation hard to come by. we are committed to not being in a "bed panic"ech day and will trust that we zill figure it out as we go along.
Hendeye is a very beautiful town and it is very different being on the sea coast. Wonderful sun sets and a whole different smell in the air. The mountains are all around us - a real reminder of what lies ahead;
My back pack is too heavy and I am not sure what to take out so will just see how it goes in the next few days.
Short walk today and hopefully into the albergue in Irun this evening.
Maggee

Day 1 August 24, 2010

2010-08-24T07:43:00.000-07:00

Never easy to start off on a long journey and this morning I am wondering what I was thinking of to commit to such an adventure. I am nervous about the nature of the walk and the expense which I understand is more than the Camino Frances. I am also wondering - well actually worried - because that is what I do best - about how I will be able to manage the effort required to walk over the mountains.
When you dress like a pilgrim, you need to act like on and so I put on my travel clothes early this morning to get in the mood of the adventure.
I am lucky to be able to meet up with Alvina and Kirsten, my Camino Sisters from 2008 and we are determined to have a wonderful adventure no matter what.
So let the journey begin!
Maggee

Mountains should be climbed with as little effort as possible and without desire. The reality of your own nature should determine the speed . If you become winded, slow down,. you climb the mountains in an equilibrium between restlessness and exhaustion. Then when you are no longer thinking ahead, each footstep isn't just a means to an end but a unique event in itself - R Prisig

Camino El Norte 2010

2010-08-23T19:38:00.000-07:00

We have had a interest in walking the El Norte for close to one year now. Since Kirsten, Alvina, Barb and Linda, the original Camino Sisters from our 2008 experience on the Camino Frances, met in the Gaspe in September 2009, we have been planning our trip. We are only 3, meeting together in a few days to begin this trek. We have followed the experiences of a few other brave souls who have ventured out on this route earlier this year and read about the difficulties that they encountered with the terrain, the weather and the accommodation. It is a more difficult route because it follows the mountainous coast of northern Spain and the weather along the sea is therefore more unsettled. So we will see how it goes.
We have learned from other pilgrims that this experience is different in that we have already proved ourselves on the Camino Frances and so do not need to 'do the Camino' in any particular way.
Our intention is to meet in Paris on Wednesday morning, take a train to Hendeye and then begin the walk on Thursday morning and just see how it goes.
as on previous occasions, I will write as I go.
Maggee

Rhinesteig, Germany

2010-04-21T08:26:00.000-07:00

Here we are in the midst of the most beautiful country side. I have come here to visit Anita with Christina who first introduced us 5 years ago. Anita is an avid walker and it was her Camino experience that first inspired my trip to Spain in 2008.
The Rhinesteig is a 320 km hike which follows the Rhine River. What I did not know is that steig actually means climb and this walk is certainly a lot of climbing. While I walked only a short distance along this ancient trail, I was surprised to see the Camino shell signs along the way overlapping the Rhinesteig emblems. The Camino is everywhere in Europe.
Walking the Rhinesteig with Anita and Christina was a great experience, similar yet different from the Camino Frances. We spent two solid days walking about 17 - 22 kms each day, through fantastic countryside, with outlooks at every turn to the Rhine River, watching the barges moving slowly and steadily, the small but beautiful villages along both sides of the river and in every place we walked through, ancient churches and houses and a feeling of the past all around us.
Through hillsides covered with the green of a new spring, past animals grazing on hilly pastures and up steep hills to walk right through the grounds of ancient castles which seem to be positioned high on the top of the hills with views up and down the river - we wandered along. The hike includes many portions which go through forest of tall evergreens so that the smell of the fresh pine is wonderful. Storms had caused many trees to fall in the past month so the woodcutters were our in force to salvage the wood for the homes that use wood burning stoves for heat during the colder months.
Walking in Germany is a wonderful experience, with well marked trails everywhere and signs posted for parking lots and trail access as you drive along country roads. the country side in the Eifel region is stunning with rolling hills and forests and so many little villages and historical sites.
The Rhinesteig is a walk well worth considering from beginning to end, although it is a bit of a tough walk with the many hills along the winding river.
Maggee

Pilgrims Pilgrims Pilgrims Everywhere

2010-03-14T08:31:00.000-07:00

On Saturday March 6, I attended a meeting of pilgrims and pilgrim wannabees here in Cape Town. It was a 3 hour workship with an introduction provided by two experienced camino walkers - Elmara and Andrea - each of whom had put a lot of effort into providing written notes for the 100 or so participants. It was a wonderful fact filled session which provided so much information and advice on most everything you would want to know to prepare to head off to the Camino.

It is interesting that there are so many people across the world that are enchanted by the idea of this kind of physical and spiritual adventure. Here in South Africa, the Camino pilgrim group is very much alive and well and there are workshops held here and in Johanesburg as well. As was my experience in Canada, the returning pilgrims also write about their Camino and so there is a collection of books and other literature available for people who wish to get a more detailed version of the experience.

It is also interesting how life paths cross and that there is a significant amount of synchronicity in events as they occur. At this meeting, I met many people who have walked, are planning to walk and some who have made this a real life commitment, including someone who turned out to be a former sailing friend of my family here who is renovating a house in Spain, which will eventually be open to pilgrims. You may notice this by the South African flag that hangs outside this summer.

New tips from this workshop:
- collect sheeps wool as you walk and place this between your toes or on hot spots as they develop. The softness and the oil from the wool are good for your feet
- buy a standard sink plug for the washing sinks that never have plugs
- pack everything in organized groupings and in zip lock bags for ease of organization
- sew pieces of cloth onto the end of long sleeves to protect from the sun
- sew loops onto all belongings to make it easier to hang from the back pack or the clothes line

There was lots of talk about Camino etiquette and especially cleanliness along the way, ie picking up your garbage. Someone from here has actually gone to the trouble of having green plastic bags made especially for picking up garbage as you find it along the way.

Maggee (Canuck still in Cape Town)

How the Camino Works

2010-02-27T11:37:00.000-08:00

Bo Kaap with Table Mountain in the background

Here I am in Cape Town - literally on the other side of the world from home. Today I went on a wonderful tour of a very historical area of Cape Town which is called the Boer Kaap - a community which is basically Muslim and which began in the 1800s, but which today is a colorful and unique attraction of centure old houses in this beautiful city. Can you imagine a mountain side mix of small houses all painted a wonderful collage of pastel colors and with hill side streets that no die hard skate border would dare to traverse. But the children used to put wax onto boards and slide down these streets with a lookout at the bottom to warm for oncoming cars.

A walking tour in the 35C temperature was an experience in mid February for a die hard Canadian and an introduction to the history and the background of the muslin faith by a very committed guide was very interesting. Having created a new possibility for myself in this new world of adventure - that of being 'warm and engaging' - I soon found myself in conversation with two women who seemed, in the end, to have been placed there by the 'Camino Gods'. Turns out that my new friend Elmara has done the Camino at least 4 times and is planning to walk the Northern Route in April. Not only that, we sat nearly on top of each other in an educational last week. Life hold surprises, but makes me think at times that a greater plan is in place and we are just following the road that has already been designed for us. So now I have a fresh connection not only to the Camino's Northern Route, but the whole pilgrim group here in Cape Town who are meeting next week to introduce new 'pilgrim wannabees' to the adventure. At least 100 people are expected at this event.

I have a great story to tell to Desi, my Camino Sister from 2008, when I meet her for our walk from Muizenburg Beach to Kalk Bay in the morning. She has no idea that South Africa is full of pilgrims and 'pilgrim wannabees'.

It is hot here tonight and the wind is blowing off the south Atlantic. From here you could see straight down to Antarctica (well figuratively not literally) and so the energy of the environment is stunning. This evening, I walked along the the harbour beach here in Hout Bay and as always am mesmerized by the endless roll of the surf, the gusts of the wind and the warmth of the southern hemisphere sun. The mountains which overlook you from every vantage point here are magnificent and breathtaking against the brilliant blue of the African sky. I often look up to the place at the top of the mountains where I buried my husband;s ashes more than 3 years ago and wondr to myself what he would say to me now if he could comment on the life I have created for myself.It is one of the comforts of being able to come here - this enthereal feeling of being spiritually closer to him somehow, in this country that he loved so much.

While far from home, I keep bumping into messengers who have a similar intention as me - that is, to walk in the world to gain perspective and personal peace and then to make a diffeence where it matters.Could I be any luckier??.

So much to be thankful for eh!

Maggee - gazing at the harbour lights over Hout Bay on a warm summer eveningo

A Vagabond Life

2010-02-25T00:54:00.000-08:00

Top of Table Mountain - Cape Town with my dear friend Vida from Toronto - Feb 4, 2010

So ......... I have retired at long last and now find myself with a year of adventure ahead, all of it thanks to the wonderful people that I have met along my Camino in 2008. I am here in South Africa for 2 months, spending time with family of my late husband and new friends, including Desi who I met along the Camino and who I have kept in touch with since then. We meet for a walk along the beach on weekends and then head for a wonderful place to sit and have coffee and a croissant, chatting about our lives and hopes and dreams and what the experience of walking the camino provided to us. These camino friends are unlike any others in my life and I know this to be a phenomenon from other groups of pilgrims that I have met with. There is not only a common bond because we have done something remarkable by walking the camino, there is in addition, a deeper way of relating to each other, somehow due to the spiritual nature of what a long walk provides to one. Friendships are deeper and more authentic and there is an appreciation of the simplicity that living as a pilgrim offers.

South Africa is a stunningly beautiful place and here in Cape Town where I settle myself in a rustic and lovely cottage overlooking the sea and the mountains, one could not find a happier place to be - particularly as it is mid summer here in South Africa and raging winter storms back home in Canada. I find peace in walking, which has become a passion since 2008 and am more complete within myself from the meditative practice of walking for an hour at the beginning of each day. Of course, being able to walk along the beach or along Chapman's Peak Drive which is the most stunning roadway alongside the mountains and overlooking the harbour and outlook to the sea. It was here two years ago as I walked along this beach that I committed to walking the camino, so it holds a very special place in my heart. Lots of angst and sorrow have been walked out along this shore, against the pounding surf, under the glorious sun and the mountain view. Peace of mind and heart, I have found, comes from the solitude and the repetitive energy that one puts into simply placing one foot in front of the other.

Here is where I am happiest, in this country with it's incredible beauty at every turn of the road and with each glance in any direction. Something to ponder amidst the contrasts of beauty, wealth and proverty all mixed together with a pride in what this country has stood for, particularly since Mandela's release in the early 1990s.

Well, the year holds a lot of promise. My Camino Sisters and I have set up a series of events together. From our reunion last September in the Gaspe Mountains of Quebec, we decided that our love for walking and for each othere ought to be continued with new adventures. So we are meeting in Ottawa in May to do a Canadian pilgrimage together, walking to Montreal in the way we did the Camino. Six of us, including Kirsten from Denmark will make this trip and I will write about the adventure along the way.

Before that, however, I will fly to Germany in April to visit with my friend Anita who was my inspiration for doing the Camino in the first place. Then of course, I need to go to Denmark to visit Kirsten. While I am in Europe, it seemed to make sense to hop over to Copenhagen, so I am going to do just that.

In September, we have a plan to walk the Camino again, this time doing the northern route along the north coast of Spain. We want to walk into Santiago once again and then walk to Finisterre to complete the trip. Since none of are working now, we will take our time and walk to enjoy, as well as have time to rest if we need this. On the first Camino, we were pressed to get to the end to meet air line departure reservations that we all had and so this time will be more relaxed and free for all of us.

So, here in South Africa, I enjoy the chance to train on the hills and the mountains, to reflect on what an important part of my life walking has become and to gain more confidence in this new phase of my life - free of the hassles of a hectic work life, but still passionate about finding a meaningful way to contribute to the world.

My intention for this year is to discover what that contribution might be. As a pilgrim, walking and contemplating this new direction in my life, I want to arrive at the end point with a vision of where my life path will head. It seems daunting and at the same time filled with possibility, so I waver between the two, with worry and concern intruding on the incredible freedom that I feel with this new phase of my life. Surely walking is the way to the solution.

Maggee
Cape Town, South Africa

What a Reunion

2009-11-11T07:28:00.001-08:00

We said that we would meet again when we parted from each other in Santiago on October 2, 2008. And so we did. Through many frequent e mail connections throughout the fall, we supported each other as we settled back into our lives again. We talked about planning a reunion in the fall of 2009 and by January, 2009, the date was set thanks to the perseverance of our organizer Alvina and so we committed to travelling to the Gaspe region in Quebec for a week of hiking together. As time approached, we talked more on e mail about what we would do with out time together and eventually left the program up to Alvina, who wanted to show us the beautiful mountain hiking trails near where she lives.
At the end of September, I flew from Toronto to the smallest airport in the country and there they were waiting for me. Barb and Linda had driven from near Ottawa, Kirsten, bless her heart, had flown from Denmark on her first journey to Canada and with Alvina, they had all piled into the car and driven for an hour to pick me up.
It was one of the most emotional greetings I have had in years. I can't describe what it felt like to see those faces again and to be so warmly surrounded by the love and warmth of my Camino Sisters. We cried and hugged each other with such reverance that is was not possible to be other than deeply moved by the love that oozed between us.
For 7 days, we talked and laughed and drank a lot of wine of course. We celebrated on the first evening, with a bottle of Rioja that Barb had purchased in Santiago for our reunion. We ate wonderful food together and created such a spiritual setting with candles and memories and just plain love and concern for each other.
We walked every day. We drove into the mountains of the Gaspe Provincial Park and spent 3 nights in a log cabin overlooking a lake. We were awakened each morning by beautiful music that Alvina and Kirsten had arranged in a portable tape recorder, just like in some of the best of the alberques. We cooked and ate together, wrote in our journals, talked about our lives and our hopes, challenges and dreams and relived the magic that is the Camino de Santiago.
One of the blessings of this reunion was that we all have a desire to walk again and so we are planning to walk the northern route next year, having an interest to walk into Santiago once again. So now we are investigating the options around walking the northern route.
From this wonderful time together with these very special women, I have regained once again the sense of human connectedness that was so prevalent on the Camino as we walked and talked with so many other people. There was a bond of caring based on generosity and sincerity and made me realize how great the world and life could be if this were only the way in which people operated in every day life.
I came home committed to developing new patterns in my life - waking up to my ipod playing beautiful music instead of the radio and its sensational news each morning, spending quiet time with candles and readings that are poetic and inspirational each evening and taking time to make connections with people in my life that embodies the values of care, sincerity and generosity that I find so fundamental in my life.
Life throws curve balls at us when we least expect it and so it has been with some great surprise that I find myself personally challenged in the past month, to stand up for values that are fundamental to my life and way of being as a person and as a professional. What I am learning from this is that life and the people that we encounter provide great opportunity to test out our personal boundaries and for me, at this stage, being able to take a stand for what is appropriate and what is not, has now altered the course of my life dramatically.
I think often about the Camino now, and go back in my mind to the way it felt to walk for hours on my own, through the woods and over mmountain trails, with only the sounds of the bells on the animals or the wind whistling through the trees. There is a great calming effect of being present to a higher energy and a greater way of being in the world than what an ordinary day might drag us into. I am calmed by my experience of walking the Camino, inspired my the authentic and wonderful relationships that it has brought to my life and confident about the path that I am walking.
I walk every morning now for at least an hour and as usual, the mental games in my head storm around until I have walked long enough for peace to find me. I am energised by the health of my body and the wisdom of my soul and charged with the notion that I can find my way into a new future through walking and relatedness with people who are inspired by a truly authentic way of living.
Walking the Camino gave me confidence and peace. A reunion with my Camino Sisters inspired me to relive the values that were so fundamental to a pilgrim on a long journey. Being a pilgrim in every day life is the way for me to access that which my heart longs for - which is simply love in all of its forms as is so aptly described in 1st Corinthians chapter 13.
Maggee

What to Wear and How to Pack

2009-01-07T18:13:00.000-08:00

Gosh what an adventure this was - planning my 2 outfit wardrobe. Having quite a substantial closet of clothing, the idea of narrowing my clothing to limited essentials was quite a challenge! = no kidding!! I had lots of advice though and experience from many camping and canoe trips and other adventures, so I knew my way around the outdoor stores. I also had a great amount of advice from my friend Anita who had done the Camino twice and provided me with not only a demonstration of her back pack and contents but also the detailed list of everything she recommended would be required.
I started shopping around for clothes about 6 months before I left, tried out fabrics for comfort, warmth/coolness and importantly I test washed things to see how fast they would dry from being hung overnight. One thing I learned quickly on the walk was that you needed to plan to stop early enough to wash clothes so that they could dry on the line before it got dark. Because I walked in warm and sunny weather for the most part, clothes were often dry within an hour or so. As well, many albergues had washing machines and clothes dryers which was great when I wanted to wash more than just what I was wearing. Sometimes I shared the machine with another pilgrim to make it more feasible - cost was minimal.
Not only did I test out the washability, but also just how much and what kind of laundry soap would work. After some trial and error, I chose to carry one bar of soap which I used for both shower and clothes and this worked well. I brought a bar of great smelling soap like Irish Spring as it was a wonderful and refreshing scent to shower with at the end of the day. Two things matter at the end of the day - one is the shower and the other is the snooze after everything is washed and hung!
I eventually ended up with more clothing than I needed and then had to determine what would go and what would be left behind. This is where the weight issue came into play. I chose fabrics that were especially light weight, looked for bottoms that had zip offs but could not find the fabric that would be light enough. I ended up taking one pair of capri pants and 2 pairs of shorts which worked fine, except that it was a bit awkward to change into shorts as the day warmed up around 10 am.
The goal in choosing clothing is related to the time of year for walking and I expected it to be fairly hot with some cool weather in the morning and late evenings. I was pretty much on target with this, but was able to buy a light weight fleece about half way along the walk due to cooler than normal temperatures in the early morning.
So here is what I packed and I give a lot of credit to Anita for starting this list.

REMEMBER - weight is everything!! so choose carefully!
Clothes - choose dark colors - no pastels as they just don't stay clean looking
2 pairs of bottoms - ideally pants that zip off into shorts
Anita actually bought two identical pairs of zip offs and then took only one bottom section and two shorts sections (to reduce weight)
2 short sleeve tops - light, breathable fabric
1 light weight long sleeve top
1 light weight zip up top
2 pairs of underwear (bra and pants) made of micro fibre and black so you can sleep in, use as a bathing suit and is less like underwear in co ed bathrooms and dorms
2 - 3 pairs of wool socks (smart wool)
1 pair of sandals - light weight!, comfortable and durable as you might end up wearing these during the day if your feet get sore. Don't bring crocs.
Flip flops for wearing in the shower stalls (prevents foot infections if you have open blisters)
Hiking Boots and orthotic inserts
Rain Gear - pants, jacket and cover for back pack. I got a thing called the packa which was a jacket with a large pocket at the back that went over my back pack (available at thepacka.com) It worked pretty well, but in a heavy down pour on a practice walk, I discovered that my back pack was damp so I used a cover for it under the packa. Ponchos were common, but awkward to get into and if it really rains hard you will need rain pants as the poncho will blow around. I also had everything in the back pack inside plastic bags. I would probably take a light weight regular rain jacket next time as it can be used in the early mornings against the cold wind.
Sun Hat with a good brim and air vents
Fleece hat and gloves or mitts as the mornings can be quite nippy
Bandana was handy to wear around my neck for hot and sweaty days and for warmth in the cool mornings

Back Pack - 30 litre size and fitted for your body size. Study the design and get a lesson in how to adjust and pack the thing at the store. Test it out with a hike, fully packed to make sure it is comfortable. You would not believe the troubles caused by back packs that did not fit, were not adjusted or packed very well. This will become your friend and really needs careful research and testing before departure. Do not load it heavier than 8 - 10 kgs, as you will only end up giving things away in the first 4 days of carrying it.

Toiletries
Soap (bar for shower and clothes washing) and shampoo in small container
(I tried for several weeks prior to departure testing out how much shampoo I really needed to wash my hair and how long the small container would therefore last)
Toothbrush and toothpaste (travel variety), floss
Comb/brush, razor?
Deodorant
Wax ear plugs - lots of snoring sometimes
Toilet paper - sometimes there is none
Sun block
Lotion - for your feet and dry skin
I would take a small vial of aroma therapy for my feet next time and some sheep skin to slip them into at night

Pharmaceuticals
ibuprofen, gravol, immodium, tylenol,
There are phamacias everywhere and they will be able to provide whatever you need.
First Aid - bandaids, antibiotic cream
Foot Care - white tape or duck tape, iodine, needle and white thread - lots of band aids (although you can also buy these everywhere
Emergency blanket - thin foil wrap in case of emergency (also water proof)
Any personal meds you need

Other Items
Very small camera with a case - one change of batteries - also sold everywhere. There are also places in the dorm to plug in chargers at night - you will need a plug for Europe and do something to remind yourself to pick up your charger in the morning - easy to forget things as you rush to get out on the trail each day.
Sun glasses
Wallet or money belt for valuables (I also brough along a very light weight cross shoulder bag that I used in the evening)
Travel towel - you don't need a very large one
Small cloth for wiping or drying hands during the day (could hang from the back pack)
8 - 10 clothes pins
8 - 10 safety pins to hang damp socks from your back pack
Small light weight rope in case you need to make you own clothes line (even around your bunk at night)
Light weight sleeping bag - you don't need a liner, but some people had them
Pillow case - standard size - to put over the pillows in the dormitories
Cell phone - I got this over the internet with info that came with the train tickets I had ordered on line. It was set up to use in Europe for a reasonable rate. Good to carry with me - comforting to know family could find me. Cell phone connections were fine all along the way. However, you can buy phone cards everywhere cheaply and use these as well in any pay phone. Although often there can be a line up for the phone and it is usually located in a noisy area or bar etc - so not much privacy if that matters to you.

Also:
Water bottle
Camel Pack for inside the back pack - I learned not to fill it completely (4lb) if there was water along the way. I also found this was a much more convenient way to manage hydration during the day - easy to sip on water more frequently as opposed to trying to get a water bottle out of a back pack pocket while you are walking. I think I drank more as a result, as others had to remind themselves to stop and drink. Hydration in warmer weather is very critical.
Cup, bowl and spork (combination fork and spoon), swiss army knife
Trecking poles that can collapse and you can pack inside the back pack for the flight
Head Lamp or flashlight - but head lamp preferred with adjustable focus and a very bright white light - try this out before you leave as it is very important
Whistle - for emergency and study the codes for what each whistle sound means
Watch with a light mechanism for night time
Dry Sac or Water proof bag - I took my valuables right into the shower with me sometimes to keep everything safe.

Then don't forget
Notebook and pen for your journal
Spanish phrase book (small one)
Passport
Pilgrim passport - you can get this anywhere you start
Confraternity guides - provides info on the alberques.
Other guides to provide info along the way (choose a very small and light book)
I noticed that people had either photo copied their books so they could discard pages along the way or unnecessary pages were cut out as we went along. The guide books were very helpful to plan what would be seen each day as we walked.We would study highlights of the walk for the following day each evening.this way we were able to understand and enjoy the environment with some knowledge.
Tickets
Travel insurance
Emergency contact info
Credit card
Bank card (4 digit password)

Packing Advice
Use lots of zip lock bags. I was able to find very large zip lock bags to line the inside of my back pack at Walmart. I was a bit manic about keeping things dry. Then I put almost everything into smaller versions of zip lock bags to keep them waterproof and just to organize things, for example - foot care in one bag to pull out with one effort.
Pack things you will need least in the bottom and heavier items in the middle.

And here is another tip - be very methodical with every thing. Pack your things in the same order so you know where to find them - store things that are valuable carefully and in the same place - have a routine each day with unpacking and then loading up again before you go to bed. have a mental checklist of those items that you do not want to lose track of ie camera, wallet, hiking poles etc and keep the same pattern day after day and you are less likely to forget or lose things as you go along. For example I always walked with my camera slung cross ways over my shoulder and became accustomed to feeling it there. At night I buried it deep in my back pack which I always hung over a corner of my bunk or I put it in the bottom of my sleeping bag at night. I did the same with my wallet - had a careful and consisten pattern of looking after it.
Good Luck

Maggee

Travel Planning

2009-01-07T17:52:00.000-08:00

This was the most fun - planning an excursion which was largely mental work and searching the internet for alternate ways to get to the starting point that I had chosen at St Jean Pied de Port in the south of France. I discovered a lot of information on the internet under various locations regarding train travel in Europe and most inportantly how to connect between the airports and the train routes.

As it turned out, I chose the best way to get to the south of France by flying into Paris and then taking two trains to St Jean Pied de Port. What I learned is that while St Jean appears closer to Spain on the map, the connection by train is awkward because the rail lines are dissimilar and do not run in straight north south directions across the countries. More choice seems to be available to arrive in Paris then choose a short flight to a city in the south or just get to the train station in Paris and ride through the beautiful vistas of the south of France.

It was easy to find my way through the Charles de Gaule airport as there are information stations everywhere and people are most helpful even with a little bit of French. Finding the metro into Paris was easy, getting a ticket from the machine with my visa card done with a little assistance from someone standing nearby and then following the directions and the metro stops to get to the centre of the city was not a problem at all. The train station I needed was about 3 blocks from the metro station and this was negotiated quickly with help from people on the street.

What I did not do well was to leave myself enough time between flight arrival and train departure and so with less than 2 hours - I made my train connection with literally minutes to spare. The ticket I was able to get through the internet was first class (very cheap) and was a real treat for the 5 hours it took to get to Bayonne where I transfered to the smaller older train that took us through the mountains to St Jean.

The challenge is to plan your flight to arrive at a time when you can make train connections required to get to the final destination - a real stroke of luck I discovered with limited times in between transfers.

On the return journey, I had only booked my return flight from Paris and was not sure how I would get from there Santiago. The frustration during the early part of the walk was knowing that I had a deadline of getting to Paris within 35 days and it was not until I realized in about the second week that I would complete the walk in the time alloted that I was able to settle down and stop worrying about this. I also had a bit of a challenge trying to figure out how to book a flight during my walk between Santiago and Paris and ended up getting my daughter to do this for me from Canada. All worked out and it was very easy, although because I left it so late, probably more expensive to book this flight than it could have been if I had chosen this route much earlier. I had it in my mind that I might want to take a train all the way back to Paris, but the time did not allow me to do this.

I took on the travel arrangements as kind of an adventure in exploring options and learned a lot about travel in Europe along the way, more about the geography of France and certainly gained a lot of confidence in being able to sort out how to plan this trip from start to finish for myself.

There are a variety of ways to organize the travel plan and many destinations to head for from North America and from Eurpoe as a matter of fact, so in searching out what will work for you is filled with lots of options.

Maggee

Preparing for the Camino - Foot care

2008-12-10T10:17:00.000-08:00

I never thought much about how important my feet are to me until I started to prepare myself to walk the Camino. Imagine if you will, the impact of one million footsteps on the multiple bones, joints and ligaments that make up each foot. As well, your skin surface suffers from constant irritation, heat, and the impact effect of each foot fall. I noticed right away, that my attention to good looking sandal feet was not going to be consistent with building up the calluses that would protect the high stress points of my feet. As well, I quickly learned which parts of my feet needed more attention than others.

I read a lot about hiking and foot care problems so I knew that I needed to pay immediate attention to any issues that I became aware of. This is a good and common practice - ie to stop immediately that you become aware of what is called a hot spot and called that because it feels just like that. A quick stop for a band aid over the area and readjustment of boots will prevent serious trouble which does not take long to develop if the problem is left unattended.

Here is another tip, When you put your boots on, have your foot at a 45 degree angle from the floor ie toe tipped up - which forces your heel to slide to the back of the boot. This gives more room for your toes, anchors your heel at the right place and prevents a lot of slip as you walk. I frequently stopped to adjust my boots by re tying them, untie, tip up the toe, heel slides back and then retie while the toe is tipped up. You would be surprised at how much of a difference this makes if your feet are hurting. It also makes a difference if you are starting a descent. Some people lost toe nails from the constant bumping of the toe nail against the toe of the boot - so keep your toe nails very short!!

The first thing I really studied was the hiking boot. There are many varieties, low cut, high cut, water proof, cool - air flow fabrics. The big thing is to make sure they are very comfortable, fit well with room for your toes and whatever the style selected, they need to provide the support you will need. I like the high cut style and found it helpful on the hills especially coming downhill. Lots of times you walk over rough ground and the protection for ankles is better with a higher cut. I also got water proof boots which proved to be far too hot for the time of year that I walked. I also discovered in a practice hike during a heavy rainstorm, that no boot is really water proof for long. Water proof boots fill up with water as the rain pours into the top if you do not have gaitors to prevent this. I would have been better with a light boot that had greater breathability for my walk as hot feet was a constant problem and likely added to the foot ache issue I had.

I used wool socks (Smart Wool brand) - no sock liners - although a lot of people did use these. I think that sock liners would work better if you wanted to lather your feet with vaseline as lots of people seem to do. The wool seemed to just absorb the vaseline and then make washing them out a bit more messy. I stopped using vaseline after only about a week into the walk.

I did use sport tape and wrapped my toes - sometime individually - heels and the ball of my foot each day. A lot of people used duck tape which actually slips inside your sock better if you have any kind of irritation going on. The sport tape sometimes became rolled up creating a worse problem for me. What I did was to practice with all kinds of wrapping in my training walks so that I had an idea of what would support my feet most. Also remember that you have to put the vaseline on after the tape!

Another important thing to prepare for is blisters which will arise during training. The practice of using a regular sewing needle with idodine soaked WHITE thread to poke through from one side of the blister to the other (use a double thread and ties the ends together in a knot, this will fall off in a few days)- is a very effective way to drain the fluid wihtout tearing the skin surface - which can lead to open wounds and infection.It does not hurt at all and actually provides immediate relief from the pain that the blister caused. Now remember - don't share needles with other people and don't use theirs either. I saw a lot of this and it is very dangerous - a real source of infection, hepatitis, HIV and you name it.

I saw a lot of really terrible foot problems from blisters that had gotten out of control and infected to just ugly sores - so taking care of things in an early stage and protecting feet is really important. Sometimes you might just have to stop and rest your feet for a day.

In Spain and probably the USA you can buy something called Compede which is like a medicated plaster and supposed to be applied to a blister and left on until it falls off. Essentially it creates quite a warm and wet environment - which to me just harbours more infection. I found that the clean and dry approach with a dressing over the site during the day and then exposing to sun and air when not walking worked better.

Foot massages were a great treat in the evening in my group and this was a wonderful way to settle for bed. My feet would often wake me at night, with an ache and feeling of just not being comfortable. Usually this all dissappeared by morning, but I really was worried about stress fractures in the bones and just wear and tear on my feet. I would take some aroma therapy oil next time to treat my feet and also some kind of sheep skin lined sock to put on at night just for the comfort. Wearing open sandals at the end of the day is good as well in order to expose the skin to the air after a long hot walk.

I had relatively few problems with my feet overall. My biggest concern was the short term and long term effect of the hours of constant walking. They were sore for most of the time and I think orthotics would have made a difference to this. Once I got home, it took quite a few weeks for the ache to dissappear - most notable when I got out of bed each morning.

In all, I was thankful for strong feet and legs that carried me all the way. I have always been careful with shoe purchases but now more than ever know that my feet are one of my most important assets.

Advice on Preparing for the Camino - Fitness

2008-12-01T17:52:00.000-08:00

There are many things to consider in planning to walk the Camino de Santiago. I thought I would share a few of the things that I learned through the months of preparation that might be helpful to others.

Preparation falls into several categories:
- Fitness training
- Foot care
- Travel planning
- What to wear and how to pack
- How to manage yourself along the way

Fitness training, while necessary and very important in no way really prepares one for the daily and constant wear and tear on your body. I worked for 6 months, walking outdoors, at the gym with the treadmill elevated to simulate the anticipate hills I was worried about, did weight training (especially on my legs to strengthen them for mountains) and finally just long long walks along a variety of surfaces and elevations. I started off slowly and in the beginning walked for 30 minutes briskly and then advanced to walking 8 kms at a pace of around 6 kms per hour. By the time I left, I was walking 8 kms every morning before work and then at least 20 kms or more on the weekend. I started to jog part of this morning route as a way of building up aerobic stamina thinking that it would help with my endurance and it did.

Nothing really prepared me for the extreme variation of surface that is the camino however, nor was I prepared for the elevations that seemed to be constant. There are paved roads, soft pathways, small gravel surfaces and worst of all there are roads with such large stones that you have to keep you head down to place your feet carefully with each step. Some of the down hill sections are positively dangerous with large boulders and loose gravel and at one point there is actually a dash across a major highway that includes a climb over the meridian.

In the end it really felt that the entire walk was all uphill, which by the mid and end phases was thoroughly enjoyable - but in the beginning quite daunting. In fact when I got to the top of O Cebreiro, which I had been dreading all the way along, I really felt like I wanted to go back down and climb it again as I so enjoyed the atmosphere and the effort of just being able to walk upwards. So training, by walking, running, hill climbing and building strength in your legs and aerobic capacity of heart and lungs makes a really big difference. You do increase your capacity within the first week of the Camino and it becomes much easier after the first 5 or 6 days to manage the daily effort of walking 25 - 30 kms each day. However nothing can prepare you for the daily grind of just getting up and facing 25 or so kms every morning for weeks at a time. There was a lot of pain, mostly in my feet as the bones just seemed to ache with the constant pounding of each footfall day after day.

The ache in my feet was relentless throughout the entire trip and I would suggest that orthotics be considered for such a long walk. I would not hike again without them. Many people seem to find that orthotics make a remarkable difference so I would highly recommend this to anyone thinking of such a long walk.

Of course fitness needs to be accompanied by good eating habits and I was very careful to watch my diet, eating more healthy foods for the energy required for such an exercise program, limiting alcohol and non nutritional foods - not that I ate that badly, I just paid more attention to my daily intake.

I also want to say that I did all this around the time that I turned 60. I have been healthy and always worked at my fitness so probably had a pretty good base to build my capacity from. However I was very worried about whether I could really do what I had set out to do and so was very conscientious about my training program.

I also learned that age makes little difference, as many young people were in pretty bad shape while those of us in the older category just plodded on. My favourite couple from Ireland, Frank and Kathleen were two people that always inspired us - just when we though we had left them behind, they would show up ahead of us. It was not until half was through the walk that we discovered that they were both 70!! Amazing eh!

As the months wore on, I walked with a back pack to get used to the weight I would be carrying. While this was good to know that I could carry weight and walk, I learned along the way - just how far and for how long I could walk before I needed a break. I had set out a plan to walk for 2 hours and then rest - however this was not what my body needed. I found that I had to listen to my body and stop for a rest when my feet ached or I just needed food or something to drink. Sometimes, just stopping for an energy bar and some water makes a real difference. I also found that a short rest completely stopped the ache in my feet for awhile. This is one of the greatest learning on the Camino which is to listen to what your body is saying to you and let that be your guide, not the map or someone else's agenda.

About the back pack - nothing really prepares you for carrying weight and almost everyone except for my friend Kirsten from Denmark, arrived with far too much in their pack. Kirsten carried 7 kg and most of the rest of us carried about 8 - 10 kgs. The first week is a constant complaint about how heavy it is and a search for ways to lighten it by discarding items. Most important, I found that so many people did not know the first thing about how to wear their pack, many looked too big for their build, many were positioned so that all the weight was on their shoulders and many just carried far too much in the pack. When you buy your back pack, it should be fitted to your height and should have several adjustments for the shoulders, a strong waist strap and and be balanced with how you pack it - heavier items in the middle, not at the bottom. The benefit of training with a pack was in learning how to pack it effectively and to vary the adjustments so that I could learn how to make it more comfortable. By the end of the second week, the back pack was not a problem and by the time I arrived in Santiago, my back pack was a great friend and something that just seemed to be part of me.

Bottom line about fitness is - do not get on a plane with no fitness preparation. People who did that ended up in pretty serious trouble with feet or joints or simply fatigue.

With the way that I prepared, I never felt that I should have done more. What I might have considered however was taking it more slowly throughout the walk. I did not take break days and some days were very hard. I would have planned for a longer trip to slow it down, stay over in a few interesting places and stop perhaps more often than I did with more short days. the environment is stunning and interesting all along the way - so you are very tempted to just stop and savour it while having this compulsion to press on to the next day's stop.

Maggee

And Now What?

2008-10-07T16:17:00.000-07:00

That is the question that I started this quest with and the one that I have posed to my friends who have also completed this journey, over the past few days. I know that many pilgrims continue to return to the Camino to re capture the feeling of 'escape' from reality, of being closer to a profound sense of the energy of the universe and to be part of a community of human relatedness that transcends anything we have experienced in our ordinary lives.
I have returned to work and my normal life. I drive my car along roads that I have driven for years and today I noticed myself observing the rocky path along the side and wondering what it would be like to walk this way. I can walk normally now, my limp is gone as my ankle and feet are recovering from the effort of the 800 kms that seems like a memory and not such a great feat now as it was so soon over.
I look at my life and try to put into context the experience that I had in Spain within the reality of the life I live and it is a challenge to bring that great sense of peace into the daily rituals of the way we have created our hectic lives together. I have answered the question 'now what' for myself, I know in my heart that I have. I just wonder if I have the guts to pull it off, as I once again find myself in the quandry of questioning my capability for designing a truly creative and adventurous life. Perhaps that is all there is to it really - keep on leaping into the unknown and continue to believe in what I am searching for.
What is it they say over and over again - it is already there right in front of you -just take the time and the answer is there waiting to be noticed.
I feel like I am on the brink of something and am so thankful for having pole vaulted myself into the unknown to actually start this journey on the Camino. I find myself out in the early morning darkness with a flashlight these days as I am compelled still to walk and that this time of a new day awakening will provide me with what I am looking for.
If there is any advice that I can provide it is only this - to grab life with all your might as we have only one chance to live it powerfully and with no regrets.
Maggee

Cathedral - Santiago

2008-10-04T14:52:00.000-07:00

My Camino Sisters

2008-10-04T09:55:00.000-07:00

I have been thinking throughout the long journey home in the past two days, about how much these past weeks have meant to me because of the good friendships that I was lucky enough to have along my way. Alvina quoted this to us early on in the trip and it is:
"Many people and events come into your life
This is because you have drawn them to you
What you choose to do with them
Is entirely up to you!"
I have missed the company, the laughter and the great conversations that we were so accustomed to in each of our days together. In our last evening together in Santiago, we decided to just camp out in our wonderful hotel room (the one with the bathroom, shower, toilet paper and soap!) We had a stash of wine, cheese, bread of course!, some meat and some treats that we had enjoyed so much along the way - white asparagus and olives - and then some chocolate. We had decided to spend some time simply sharing with each other what each had meant to our journey. This turned out to be a most emotional, but wonderfully authentic time for each of us to really get how we had been as a companion and friend during the days we walked together and for me it was a great insight as to how I occur for others - which is helping me to make a transition from the Camino back to my real life and to look at some choices that I want to make for my future.
I have been lucky to have found such great friends or that they found me or that we just happened through some other worldly karma to arrive at the right place at the appropriate time.
Kirsten was our Danish leader, finding the way each day, often going out in the evening to check for the yellow arrows so there would be no question when we started off in the dark the next morning. Of course she had her wonderful book that guided her in order to guide us and it was a constant joke to hear her say 'I have read it in my book' or 'my book says'. Kirsten is a fast walker and so we became very familiar with her back and for me I could tell her walking gait from hundreds of meters away if she was within sight. kirsten was also our story teller and to see her face light up as she told us stories was a wonderful experience because you could just feel the gift she has for this.
Barb was our socializer and with her wonderful expressive body language and her ability to engage everyone into conversation (whether she spoke the same language or not!) was a treat to watch. Her legs were the shortest, but she could really walk as fast as Kirsten and I do feel sorry for the group of morning walkers that she has waiting for her at home. Look out for the hills is all I can advise them. Barb provided me with such good advice and inspiration about my own life and career and has really been a model for how great and full life can be after retirement.
Alvina - what can I say about Alvina! Her wit, wisdom and joy of life was such a great source for us every day, starting with the first 'hola' and 'Buen Camino' each morning. She brought cheer to everyone, including us and if she was not making us laugh at something or other, she was providing us with insightful quotes to inspire the day. We will forever remember her for her encouragement and 'you can do it Sister Mary! story. Alvina is a former teacher, but never have I met such a passionate student of life, someone who is so interested in art and literature and is so intense about her interests. She is also a writer, and would spend many hours writing in her notebook or preparing letters and cards to her many good friends. Our schedule had to be arranged around picking up mail at various locations along the camino where she had requested that her friends send their letters - no kidding - at one town she picked up 6 letters!
Claire, we met in Leon, and then after bumping into her for a few days, she chose to travel with us for the last 7 days. Claire was a former grade 6 student of Alvina and so she became known along the way to others as 'the pupil'!. Claire had a wonderful sense of the moment and was the one who got me to just stop and stand still, often to look at something or to just listen to the silence. With Claire, I climbed O Cebreiro and I will never forget what a beautiful day that was, stopping just to take in the wonder of the views, the sounds and the feeling of all that lay around us. Claire and I walked slower than the rest and so often were at the back of the pack, distant from the others and taking our own breaks together.
For all 5 of us, there was something special about the bond that we shared and the commitment we had to being a group, while also being able to do our individual walk during the day. Often we walked alone in silence during the day and then met up for breaks, having decided each night how far we would walk the following day. At lunch we would discuss the favoured alberques in the town we were heading for and choose one. We followed a routine on arrival of choosing beds - some of us preferring upper and some preferring lower bunks, having a shower and then washing the clothes we had worn that day. After that, it was time for white wine and a snack, then writing in our journals and then later dinner, which was either a picnic or in a local restaurant, eating the menu del dia which was always good and cheap with plenty of red wine to go along with it.
It was an interesting experience for me to consider what made us such a good team as there were not others who stuck together like we did for the whole way. Even friends who came together often separated for a few days and casual acquaintances like ours did not seem to last more than 4 - 5 days or so. Each does the Camino in their own way. Ours was interesting as we each came fully prepared to be on our own, but so enjoyed what we created as a team, that we stayed with it to the very end.
This of course, made the process really fun and very meaningful for me and the others I believe. I can't imagine how it would have been to do it otherwise now that I reflect on the richness of it all. So I am thankful for my Camino Sisters, who really made my journey much more profound and special because of the access it gave me to such good friends as well as the access it gave me to myself and what I was looking for.
Again a quote from Alvina that I have mentioned before and it is
'Walk behind me, but I may not lead you
Walk in front of me, but I may not follow you
Walk beside me and be my friend'
It was my great fortune to have such great company and wonderful friendships along the way to Santiago.
Maggee

Cathedral Experience - Santiago

2008-10-01T06:01:00.000-07:00

And now here I am sitting in the cathedral. We have arrived early to get a good seat as we heard that it will be crowded and with standing room only. This is so important to us that we are here 90 minutes before the mass is to start. I am near the front in the centre facing the magnificent alter and as I look up, I can see the great high arch of the church that was built so long ago. The beautiful silver chalice that is the botefumeiro hangs suspended above the alter on thick ropes. This will be filled with incense and pulled up by 8 monks and swung as in olden times to wash the congregation with the pleasant fumes that will drown out the bad odours of travellers who had not been able to wash for all the days of their travelling.
As I look forward towards the elaborate alter that is gold plated and filled with carvings and statues, the magnificence is impressive as it rises to the ceiling. My eyes are drawn to the jewel crusted statue of the apostle that is the center of the alter area. There is an ornate stairway that takes you up behind him and you can see people hugging him from behind which is the tradition. This is a deeply sacred place and one of the most precious locations on earth with the remains of James encased and celebrated here. There are many people wandering around looking and greeting each other. Some pilgrims have come straight to the church and carry their back packs on their back so the authenticity of the journey is very present to those of us who have just arrived in Santiago.
The feeling is one of arrival and not completion for me somehow and rather like a beginning of something new in my life for me. I am touched by the warmth of friendship of so many people as we greet each other, some I cannot even share the same language with, but the warmth is deep anyways. These are people that we have shared meals with, walked together with, drank wine along the way or just shared our foot remedy solutions and sympathy when the going was tough for some.
I think to myself how can I possibly put into context what this has meant to me and what it means now to sit here in this place so far from home and my known life. The wonder of simply walking, following the yellow arrows for hundreds of kms and days on end, and the spiritual magnificence of being immersed in the energy of God and the universe, the silence of the starry nights and dawn dark mornings - the sounds of the distant church bells ringing in the hours in ancient villages and the simplicity of rural life, animals in the pastures, bells chiming their presence, vegetables ready to harvest and the glorious flowering geraniums hanging from pots everywhere - a riot of color wherever we went.
I am not Catholic, nor really religious, but I am deeply moved just to sit here and watch the ancient traditions and symbols and relics that surround me. There is something particularly poignant about the continuity of life as we see how the solidity of these thing survive over centuries.
Soon a small nun comes into the sanctuary and goes up to the microphone. She is here to teach the congregation the latin chants for the service so we all know how to sing them and so we practice for a good 15 minutes together.
At the appointed hour, the bells ring and a procession of about 50 priests come from the side and into the church and they process into the alter, seating themselves around the high table. It is very impressive. The service starts with a welcome and reading out the starting points of the pilgrims who have arrived yesterday and the countries that they are from and so we are touched to hear Canada read aloud at our turn. While the service is conducted in Spanish and latin, it is a wonderful and colorful celebration of love and life. It is filled with music from the great pipe organ and the beautiful soprano voice of the nun who sings the chants from the front of the church. The place is packed with pilgrims and some tourists, but it s mostly pilgrims who we see around us. There is a communion service, but before that the passing of the peace as we turn to greet each other and then people file slowly up for the communion. It is very moving and very emotional for some reason and many peope around us are crying by this point.
Near the end of the service , we see that they are getting ready to raise the botefumeiro and we are thrilled as they do not do this every day. It is our luck once again.
8 priests take the ropes which are carefully designed to raise this heavy chalice which has been lit withincense up into the air, not just straight up, but in a motion that is designed to have it swinging in a high arch above the people in such a fashion that we are all amazed at the magnificence of this ancient tradition and cannot do more than just stare in awe at the whole process. All suring this time, the organi mucsi is magnificent and the nun sings her heart out, so that the whole thing seems heavenly somehow. All we can do is to stare at this incredible spectacle with our arms around each other. It is truly a highlight of the whole journey. The chalice is swung for quite a few minutes so that people can really be drowned in the incense which wafts over us and to the very back of the church. Pilgrims of the past must have smelled very bad indeed.
When it is all over and the congregation is blessed, the priests file out and we too go slowly out of the church to find our friends.
I am left with a feeling of a new beginning, not really like a born again religious kind of thing - but more like the good fortune to have seen a light towards an interesting and personally meaningful future. I have found new friends in people and places I never expected to and I have found a place of peace for myself which is what I was searching for.
I cannot imagine leaving tomorrow and getting onto an airplane to come home to my life as it was when I left it. It will be different for me I know and I have much to think about as to what I have acquired and learned along the Way of St James.
I knew in my heart that this would be a very deep and soulful journey for me, however I had no idea what it would be like in reality and now I see that my future can be quite different that I had expected it to be.
There is some peace in knowing how much there is to access through the sources that I have seen along my journey and many opportunities for richness that I will continue to explore.
To those of you who have followed me along the journey for the past 5 weeks, I thank you for your encouragement and support and for those of you waiting for me at home, I look forward to seeing you soon.
With Love..................Maggee

Glory Glory Hallelujah!!

2008-10-01T05:41:00.000-07:00

I have been wondering what will be the song in my heart when I see the city and the spires of the cathedral for the first time. And so it is the one above and I cannot even remember the words excatly, but it dos not matter. It just feel like such a glorious occassion. It is day 33 and I am determined not to let the fatique and my sore feet affect the thrill of coming into the place where we have been heading for all these long days through these many adventures and challenges.
We are up early once again and for the last time and of course the first 8 kms are all up hill and some of them very steep. We walk together as my head lamp has given out at last and so we need to share the light. We are 6 as we picked up Cathy along the way. She did not have enought light for the dark forest path that is the first few kms. We are later than sooner at the cafe stop and oh how good it is to taste that Cafe con leche and the croissant with cheese.
The following few hours are pleasant and not nearly as tough as expected and in fact the way into the city is the most pleasant city walk we have had yet. It is amazing to think that we are arriving at our destination, as for some time now, it has not really been about the destination, only the journey, but this now signals that an end is near. We are so touched to walk once again through old city streets and you can feel the ancitipation of those around us who have also travelled far to reach this special place. After about a 90 minute walk from the top of the last hill, we are coming into the narrow streets of the old city and site for the first time the spires of the cathedral and we all start to cry. It is so emotional to arrive at this place, mostly because it has really taken so much to get here, but also because it just seems like a very special part of the world.
We are soon at the pilgrims office to get our certificates and are given these with our names written in latin. We find a bed for the night in a very old pension which we find is really not suitable and are moved out pretty quick the following morning. However, it is a place to leave our packs as we want to get to the cathedral to explore everything there is to see.
It is a wonderful place,the cathedral, surrounded on 4 sides by interesting squares. We do not see the main square the first time we arrive at the cathedral and so walk around to get to it. It is huge and immense and the front of the cathedral is so amazing you just have to do the pilgrim thing and lie down on the cement in front and stare up at all of the carvings and statues that grace the building with the blue sky as a back drop. It was completed in about 1211 and took about 200 years to build this place, so it is pretty amazing. There are tourist groups all around and many looking at the pilgrims lying on the pavement like we are a bit crazy but at this point, I do not care what they think. There about 3 stories worth of steps to get to the entrance to the cathedral and so eventually we climb up and enter the church. It is beautiful and austere, not like the richness of Burgos, but more authetic somehow in its simplicity. We explore all around and get to the small stairway that leads up to the statue of the apostle which is at the center of the alter. This is almost a too simple experience after the long journey to get here and even going down the well worn steps to the lower level where you can look deep into the cavern at the silver carved casket that holds the remains of the body is not as thrilling as I expected. Perhaps it is because there are so many people who have arrived on a bus and we are not in the midst of the people we have walked with -don´t know, but the best is to come the following morning.
We have had some wine and a good hamburger - Spanish style and so are quite tired. Heading off for a rest and later a light dinner, we then find ourselves in a short walk in the late evening in the midst of the Santiago night life. There are many people to greet and say hello to. We see people that we have not met for days and so it is quite a special time of frindship and good wishes.
We are awake a lot of the night with the party making out of the windows and in the morning decide to move to a better place which we find immediately. Better and cleaner. We are like children, thrilled that there is toilet paper in the bathroom and we have our own bathroom with soap and shampoo and there are cean sheets and towels in the bed. Who could ask for more!
To be in Santiago with the journey at a near completion is almost depressing and we are, although tired, a little energized by our plan for the last day.
More to come.................Maggee

O Cebreiro a tough but exhilarating climb

2008-09-29T09:50:00.000-07:00

Top of O Cebreiro - Exhilarating Day!!

2008-09-29T06:47:00.000-07:00

Ancient Storage

2008-09-29T06:31:00.000-07:00

Counting the Footsteps

2008-09-29T05:52:00.000-07:00

We are now 18 kms from Santiago and I cannot believe that this journey will come to a completion tomorrow with our arrival at the Cathedral. It is so hard for me to contemplate what has been accomplished with the long days of walking and the arduous and strenuous effort that has been required to do this every day for now 31 days. My feet are hurting with nearly every step now and it is quite an effort to encourage them to keep going as we are nearly there. We walked about 25 kms today just to get a bit closer and to get to a nice alberque for our last night on the Camino.
Last night we stayed in an ancient building that was a former hospital - must have been quite something back a few hundred hears ago! It was located near a stream and it was a truly beautiful spot deep in the country. At the coffee stops today we began to meet people that we have not seen for days and I expect that when we get to Santiago tomorrow and on Wed at the noon hour mass especially, there will be a lot more people that we have journeyed with.
I am loving the last few footsteps, as tired and sore as I am. I even love the hills now as I am so much stronger and can just keep pushing my legs up the long inclines with a feeling of accomplishment that is wonderful for this old body.
I have not thought much about actually stopping to walk as we will after tomorrow. I suppose my feet will be happy, but the routine that we have set now with early morning rising and on the path by 7 am and then a wonderful stop one hour later for cafe con leche and a tostada (toast) or croissant is simply divine - no other way to put it. It is cold in the morning, but by 11 am we are in our shorts and t shirts so are quite brown from all the days of being outside.
I am thinking that this trip has changed my whole idea of travel and that having done this so cheaply, it gives a whole new perspective on what can be gained from travelling in a simple way.
By walking, you get to see and hear and smell things that you would never do otherwise. For example, we have been walking through eucalyptus forests for the past 2 days and at times stop to beat a few leaves off the high branches so that we can rub them between our fingers for the most intense aroma you can imagine. We have also seen hedges of beautiful flowers that seem like our own florest version of a hydrangea only much much larger and the colors more intense. Such wonderful fall colors everywhere around us now.
There are a lot more people on the path now as we get closer to Santiago, but the die hard pilgrims that we started with are still all around us. They are the ones with the slower steps and the more haggard appearance. We are still stopping a few people to adjust their back packs - unbelievable how people carry their load in such an awful way as they don´t understand the adjustments that can be made to the straps. It is quite a welcoming reception when we meet each other as old friends along the way and inevitable as we meet up in the evenings at the same alberque or bar for dinner. It is quite a party atmosphere
We have promised so many people that we will meet them at the noon hour pilgrim´s mass on Wed, that there is sure to be a great crowd of people there together to celebrate our accomplishment together.
I have been thinking so much about what I am taking away from this trip and it makes me cry to think of just how powerful it has all been for me in a very profound sense. I cry because I was so afraid to come here alone and had to buck up a lot of courage to get myself on the plane and the trains and prepared to be here. Yet I have never been alone or afraid at all along the way - so many people have been around me all the time that I will actually look forward to some time on my own in the coming days! I cry because I thought I needed to still unload myself of the grief of losing Chris and yet what I have gained is an incredible freedom and appreciation for all that I gained from him through my life with him and through living with his dying and now his death. I am leaving Spain feeling that Chris has passed into a more distant spiritual place and that I have been given the gift of access to a very powerful personal life that will be filled with imagination and creativity in ways that I had only dreamed of before. I am so thankful for the friends that I have made, the conversations through those long and arduous days that have helped me to gain such perspectives and to appreciate the precious gift of each day.
I feel like I am finding my dreams once again - those that I had and set aside and those that I had forgotten about for such a long time as other "worldly" pressures became a priority. It will be a challenge for me to go back to my life at home and sort out how I bring the richness of "living in the moment" and for the gifts of each day into some of the material and hurried ways that we normally live our precious lives. So look out it is bound to be interesting for those of you who are waiting with bated breath for me to return!
Such will be the challenge and the opportunity and lucky for me that there are people around me who have done this journey and who will be a great group of contacts for me in the future. I also believe that I have more travel in my future like this and that there is much to be experienced in this way.
Well, the Dutch sisters have arrived so we begin to celebrate a 60th birthday with one of them. The mother and daughter from Austria came with them so we have a great group already here and it seems like there will be more as the afternoon progresses.
I have all of my clothes in the washing machine and I am very excited about that!! I also anticipate that we may get ourselves into a hotel of some sort tomorrow and so may get to sleep in sheets and have real towels in the bathroom. Such simple pleasures that we take for granted in every day life.
More later...........from the pilgrim

Almost at the End

2008-09-28T07:02:00.000-07:00

We are now stopped at a wonderful place in the country just a short 38 kms from Santiago. This old structure used to be a hospital and it is located near a river and has a wonderful set up for the bunk beds, showers and laundry which are the essentials for the pilgrim. We are paying 3e for the night here. We walked about 26 kms today to get here and boy it seems like the final stages of a serious marathon for me at this stage of the trip.
Yesterday and today, I am sure that Alvina has put her many books into my back pack when I was not looking and my boots feel like they have been soaked in lead. Everything is so heavy and I just keep telling myself - one foot in front of the other. However, we plod along, stopping a lot now and trying to keep up with the leaders (Kirsten and Barb). Clare stays behind with Alvina and me and so we trudge along at a more slow and steady pace arriving, but later than the hares in the lead!.
The countryside has not been as super inspiring as it was a few days ago, however when I do look around, it is still wonderful country side, full of such beauty, rolling hills, women leading the cows out to pasture in the morning and of course the early morning sky a blanket of stars with the new moon ready to show itself.
We walk and walk and it seems that our life has been nothing but that forever. Alvina feels like she has found herself now with the walking and does not want to stop so she will accompany Kirsten to Finestere after we complete our rituals in Santiago. We are too short on time to even consider this and I would need a few days of rest before my feet would toloerate the conversation I am sure. For Barb, there may be a bus trip to jump into the ocean on Thursday and for Clare, not sure yet.
However, we have only 3 days left together after today and this seems impossible. We have been bonded together on this common mission for weeks and have done nothing else but plan the day, do the day and then recover from the day with a lot of wine and laughter at the end of it.
We have been lucky to get into great accomodation every night and so have enjoyed smaller rooms and less intrusion of snoring pilgrims. we are making good friends and there is a roving community of us now that meets at the stops and in the evenings. It is like nothing else on earth this Camino experience. So many people with a common goal and similar intentions of getting something greater than the ordinary out of this journey.
We will be in Santiago by Tuesday afternoon and plan to attend the noon hour mass on Wed with some of the people we have met along the way. We are hoping that they will swing the big botefumero which is the very large container that was used to spread incense over the less than fragrant pilgrims in early days. It is used infrequently now, but you can pay for it to be done if you choose. We are hoping that the groups of pilgrim tourists that are now on the path will take care of this when we get to mass on Wed. There have not been as many pilgrim tourists as I had expected since Sarria. These are groups that do the journey with e guide, a bus that waits for them in case they are too tired to walk and also has a cold lunch on board and best of all, they stay in hotels every night. They carry day packs so they are springing ahead of us now on the trail as we are slowing down with our fatique and heavier load. However, as we say, everyone does the Camino in their own way and so we much be generous and support each person who chooses their own way.
Well, once again we have the honour of being seated in a dark corner of the bar with the TV sports channel blaring above our head and the smoke from the patrons choking our lungs, It is time for wine and a rest, to read and write in the late afternoon as is our custom. We are showered and laundered and settled in for the evening now and will look forward to shorter walks in the next two days as there will be less than 20 kms per day to walk which is a sublime treat after the past few weeks.
Stay tuned...........the apostle is waiting for us in Santiago!
Maggee

Treasuring the Moments

2008-09-26T11:18:00.000-07:00

I am getting such wonderful messages from people who read this site and it means such a lot to have this kind of relatedness even through the internet. We are now in Portomarin and a short 90 kms from Santiago. We are not counting down necessarily, but with the markers along the way notifying us of every .5 km we pass, it is hard not to be aware that time is quickly running out for us.
Today we actually slept in and did not leave until 7 am which was a treat from the usual. it is much darker for much longer so we thought we needed to be able to enjoy the wonderful environment in the day light instead of the dark. While we did leave in the dark, it was exceptionally beautiful all morning. We are cold in these mornings as the air is sharp and clear and so we need our hats and gloves. However with some of the early morning climbs that we get ourselves into, we are too soon sweating and warmed up.
We laugh a lot and stop to notice the beauty around us. I find that I am taking a lot more pictures just because I am wanting to capture the experience of these days that are quickly running out. We are quite a group, with our Danish leader Kirsten, out in front, our conversationalist Barb not far behind, even with her shorter legs, she is a powerful follower for Kirsten. Then comes our poet and philospher, Alvina, who we treasure for her wit and her commentary at every stop. We have met Clare who was a student of Alvina when she was in Grade 6 and she is a wonderful complement to our group. Clare and I have been walking together near the end of the group, as I have quite a chore to get my stiff ankle warmed up to the challenge of the day as we begin our walks. Clare and I love to stop and just absorb the atmosphere along the way and I have been giving her some tips, courtesy of my late husband Chris, on photography as we snap picture after picture.
Today we walked through many farm yards it seemed. We had to stop a few times to let the cows and their dogs go before us so that we were not trampled and Kirsten and Barb were at one point caught in the middle of the process. We also saw some beautiful views across the valleys as the sun rose and the mist hugged the trees and the hills below so that you could only see the tops of the trees poking through the clouds below us.
We are excited about actually being able to complete this incredible journey and looking forward in some ways to returning to what is familiar in our ordinary lives at home. However, there is something very poignant about stopping the walking, that we are all a bit trepidatious about, as it has become a way of life for us now as has the friendship that we so treasure in each day that we share together. I see now why people come back to do this journey over and over again. And we have met several of these people along the way. One couple we met a few days ago were on their way back from Santiago, having walked for abour 53 days, now going back to the start point in France. Many people love to walk so much that they start from home somewhere in Europe and just keep going and it becomes a way of life. The simplicity of it all is very attractive. We had a conversation at a cafe stop this morning with a few people we have met along the way and it was about all of those things that seem so important in our life as possesions that are waiting at home for us and what it will be like to once again return to the things that seemed to define who we really are - not so after an adventure like this.
We are also dealing with unexpected challenges however. A few days ago, I noticed bites on my arms and legs and after the second day when they were worse, I realized that I had better deal with this as the bed bug situation is always a fear for us pilgrims. I have never dealth with this personally, but have many times as a nurse seem such infestations. So I arrived at the next alberque (afraid that I would be aksed to leave if the hospitalero figured out whay I was doing) and put everything that was cloth into the washing machine and threw out a lot of other things from my pack. Luckily I had a plastic liner in my back pack so that went into the garbage and as I treated myself with the best antiseptic technique I could, I hoped to erradicate the invaders. It seemed to work for me but yesterday one of my companions asked me about the bites and sure enough there she was covered in the same thing, so again we were into the serious washing process. I have decided that with one more incident of this, we will purchase a giant size bug spray and go for a major decontamination process as a group. We have all decided that as soon as we get home, the clothes and the back pack will be treated like a major source of contamination and be placed in the garage or immediately the washing machine to avoid taking whatever we have picked up into our homes. Such is the trial of a traveller and we are just taking this in our stride along with the benefits of what we gather along the way.
We are healthy and strong and feeling quite powerful in being able to complete this journey without incident. We are careful along the way with the traffic along the roads we travel and are now feeling very accomplished about what we have been up to for these long 29 days and 690 kms!!
Tomorrow, Barb and Alvina will wait here for the post office to open so Alvina can collect her mail!! ( who writes letter anymore and I am learning so much from her) and then we will meet up at the end of the day. We were separated for few hours today as we went at different speeds and so for Clare and I to come into the town and find Kirsten sitting at the bottom of the steps leading into the place was such a welcome. Such is the experience of great friendship and caring friends.
As Alvina has quoted to us a few days ago:
Walk behind me, but I may not lead you
Walk in front of me, but I may not follow you
So walk beside me and be my friend.
We are learning so much in these days of travel. From Alvina to her friends who are following us along this site, we say that we are laughing together so much that our energy flows over to other people and we are knonw now as the Happy Pilgrims to other people that we meet.
Dirk, our German friend that we continue to pass along the way, stopped beside Clare and me as we were sitting on a stone wall eating sandwiches and watching the cows and he said that without the power lines and the wind mills along the way, you could almost see the people of ancient times coming out of the woods to greet us.
What a trip this is and how lucky we are to have had the courage and the interest to venture this way and how this will change out lives as we complete the journey in the coming days!!
Tomorrow we head into the Eucalytus forests and will be charged with the aromomatic flavours of what we find there.
Buen Camino..............Maggee

Oh What a Beautiful Morning!

2008-09-25T08:31:00.000-07:00

We sleep well after a wonderful dinner prepared by Carlos our host hospitalero and the person in charge of everying at the alberque in Ruitalen. It is a very authentic place which soon fills with pilgrims preparing for the next days climb to O Cebreiro which is the most documented part of the Camino. We sleep in a wonderul 5 bed room again with the bunk beds crowded closely together, but since we are all friends it is a wonderful feeling of family and togetherness. Through the night when I am awake I can hear the sounds of the bells in the far fields that are attached to the cows and it is such an other worldly exèrienc that I can harldy make sense of it from a deep sleep.
We are awakened at promtly 0630 am. We have been told not to move until then as it is against the rules, which is fine with us. We soon hear the pretty loud sounds of an operatic version of Ave Maria and Alvina comments that we are surely in Paradise. Opera accompanies us through the morning rituals of prepaing to leave and prior to that we share breakfast at a common table. We are uplifted to say the least.
Last evening this common meal was a wonderful experience as all of the pilgrims shared the meal together which was garlic soup, a very interesting salad and then spagetti carbonara accompanied by copious amounts of vino tinto which we are getting accustomed to. Following this wonderful meal, we were entertained by the host and cook and an older pilgrim who sang to us in Spanish and it was a very fun and lively evening.
Now this morning we are all a little nervous. Much has been written about the day ahead and the climb from where we are up to O Cebreiro. It is a steep path which goes about 700 meters and projected to be straight up over about 8 kms. We leave by 0730 which is late for us and wander through the cold clear morning to little villages and the sleeping homes that lay before us. It is a surreal experience once again as we walk and prepare to ascend this hill, looking for the turn off into the woods. Soon it is there and we walk along a wooded path down into the valley and then gradually up and onto a steep stone pathway. It is pretty steep and takes some adjustment until I find my breath and rythym and even then it take something to carry on as if this is normal walking for me. We climb like this for about an hour and eventualy, the tough walks that have been the history of the past few weeks, begin to pay off and the climb becomes very enjoyable. Soon we are leaving the forest and the stone path and to my surprise there are villages along the way.
We are walking into the high mountain meadows now. Since the gods of weather have smiled on us today, it is a most magnificent morning and with the brilliant blue sky and the morning sun. It is hard not to stop at every turn to just gaze off into the surrounding hills and views across the valleys. We are walking and stopping and so enjoying the whole experience - not at all what I thought it would be for sure and because I am feeling so strong it is a joy to be just walking like this. The silence and the smells and the views are undescribable and we just continue to walk in silence knowing that we will at some point reach the top, but that we are fully capable of achieving this day which has been written about so many times as the most difficult day of the Camino. I think it very often rains along this way, so we are blessed with the fine weather and the clear views.
We eventually come out at the town of Cebreiro just in front of the church and the cross at the top of the path. I am so surprised and as well, dissappointed that the climb is over that I actually suggest that we go down and do it again - can you believe it!
I feel exhilarated in a way I have not felt before, for the achievement, for the wellness I feel and for the simple joy of being in such a beautiful place. We spend some time in the little pilgrim church, lighting candles and wandering around to enjoy the peace and then into the bar for cafe con leche and a treat of pastry.
The rest of the day passes with the same pleasure as we walk along roads and pathways that cause you to stop and hold your breath at every turn as the views and the feeling of silence and reverence is so special in this place.
We arrive at an alberque in a little place that seems to be in the middle of the barn yard. While it is a wonderful place to stay, we are tired and as is our custom now, drink wine in the afternoon after the chores are done and wait for dinner.
There is another wonderful surprise waiting for us at dinner. We have been at common tables in the past few weeks, with maybe 20 people, but this one holds at least 45 and of every language. the meal is simple. but so tasty and nutritious. Actually through the dinner and after wards, people just begin to sing and soon we have a concert. the French fellows get up and sing wonderful songs, an Italian sings like a super star and an Irish fellow sings so beautifully it makes you want to fall in love again.
too soon it is over and we are once again heading for bed - into the top bunk for me and preparing for an early departure once again.
We are now in Sarria which is only 113 kms from Santiago and it is so hard to believe that we are less than 5 days away from completing this awesome journey. We have walked a total of 675 kms to date!! My feet will carry me there I know that now, I just need to take care to stop and rest some. My right ankle which is simply tired from the constant exercise it gets, is slow to get going in the morning and so I hobble along for the first few kms and then I am find. The ibuprofen continues to provide relief and the wine at the end of the day of course is also a boost to the system.
This morning as we departed our small village, actually hardly that really, just a cluster of houses, it was very dark as it was only 0620. This is a good time as there are few others on the path and it is a special time for meditation and reflection. I have to tell you that as I write this I am still affected by the experience of this morning.
I was walking with Clare who is a new companion and as we went along, the others had gone ahead. We stopped for a few minutes and turned off our head lamps and just stood, looking up and listening. It was completely dark and the sky was a blanket of stars and the silence was like nothing I have heard before - not even a bird sound or a breath of wind, only the dark shadows of the trees and the outline of the distant hills. As we stood there in this complete cathedral of silence and powerful energy, this came to my mind
I am in the presence of God and it is around me all the time and if I only stop and listen, it is right there for me to feel, appreciate and be energized by.
Now I am not turning into some ritualistic mystic or a religious fanatic, only becoming deelpy aware of all that I do not take time to notice that is right there in front of me, if only I take the moment to see, taste and hear it.
Later, Clare gave me this quote that she had from a friend and here it is.
--------Be still and know that I am God.-----------
a new and profound experience that will always be a part of my life, but more so because of this Camino and my days of walking and reflecting along the way.
Well, I do not know what lies ahead in my life for me as a result of all that I have experienced along my way of the camino de santiago. I do know that is changing me deeply and I cannot even imagine what it will be like to board an airplane in one weeks time to begin my journey home again.
Until then, we have 5 days of walking through the beauty of what is know as Galacia and the weather promises to be sunny. It is raining everywhere else in Spain at the moment, so we are truly blessed.
My wish to you who read and walk with me is peace and a light and loving heart.
Maggee

The Hills are Alive

2008-09-23T08:03:00.000-07:00

We walk in the early morning darkness once more only this time are thankful that the rain of yesterday has stopped and while the sky is clouded over, it is dry and peaceful and damp in the woods that we walk into. Last night two people arrived quite late at the alberque and there was no place for them. I think they were accomodated somewhere, but it was not nice to see young people with no where to go so late at night and in the rain. this morning we passed a bus shelter on the side of the road and could see the outline of someone sleeping on the bench there. It pays to be early at the alberque I think.
We are walking up and down the hills in the dark, with our lights flashing to find the yellow arrows that guide us all along these many kms. We are careful with the footsteps as the rain has left puddles, but still the walk is dark, quiet and beautiful. It takes 2 hours to come to the first ancient town and our well earned cafe con leche. this is Villafranca which is a wonderful place and so historical. We have a lovely cafe and some toast with jam and sit for awhile before heading off.
It is hard to find the recommended route out of town as we want to trek high up into the hills this morning as the alternate way to the next town. We are directed by the locals who are very helpful and quite friendly and find ourselve on a steep incline that is more like a never ending stair case to heaven or so it seems. the climb lasts a long time and as we get higher we realize that we are alone and into the hills and green surroundings. We also see that we are soon at eye level with the clouds above the nearby hills. Soon the sun comes out and we are blessed with warmth and a wonderful view across the rolling mountains and the towns below. We walk for about 3 hours up and down the hills seeing no one and hearing only the sounds of nature as we walk. We are solitary and do not talk to each other and eventually separate so that we are not even in sight of each other. This is quite an experience to be walking in solitude in wsuch beauty and only one,s thoughts for company and yet feeling totally safe and in the right place.
My feet seem better today. I thought last night as I lay in bed that I am giving the impression of an ibuprofen high pilgrim wandering the hills of Spain and singing psalms long forgotten by the younger generation. Not so actually and it is something that I also see in the people around me - that is the singing and the chanting of prayers especially in the early morning. It is a very sacred experience to walk like this.
We have a wonderful day today, walking 26 km to arrive at the recommended alberque which is pretty close to the start of tomorrow.s climb. We wanted to be here as we are not sure what it will be like to get a bed for tomorrow and how far we will have to walk. In the morning we face the last of the mountain climbs and while it is about 1200 meters I believe, it is steep and will take about 3 hours to complete. At the top we will walk on and see how far we feel like travelling and stop when it seems right. this is the climb to OCebreiro which is well written about and so we are looking forward to the views and the experience.
We are deep in the country now and as we sit on the stoop to drink our wine a guy on a horse passes by which breaks the background music of bells ringing on the animals. It is quite wonderful to be so removed from the rest of the world I can tell you.
I am feeling as though this has been the never ending journey. Although I know it will end at some point, the effect and the experience of what I have had will have a profound effect on my life.
We continue to meet new people each day and to connect with people that are travelling along with us but a day ahead or behind and then catch up.
We are staying in a small place this evening where two men who run the place are cooking dinner for us. We will eat at a common table as is the norm and drink a lot of wine which is also the norm.
I just hope the clothes on the line dry before I have to pack them away again. Such are the worries of a pilgrim.
From deep in the heart of Spain.........Maggee

Camino Sisters on a Camino Bench near Boadilla

2008-09-22T07:27:00.000-07:00

The Sounds of Silence

2008-09-22T05:18:00.000-07:00

There is something a little nerve wracking as well as exhilarating about heading off into the moonlight each morning and not knowing what will lie ahead of us. Yesterday we knew that we would be climbing into the mountains above Rabanal del Camino and so it was an eerie feeling to set off into the hills with some moonlight but with a cloud cover that kept it quite dark. It is silent in the hills in the early morning and we walk in a single file with our lamps lighting the rough stone path so that we do not fall, There is not a lot of time for thinking as it is important to concentrate on the foot path, yet the sounds and the silence capture your attention. After some time I notice we have climbed quite high up into the hills and as I look back I can see the lights of pilgrims coming across the valley below.
We arrive at an abandoned village called Foncebadon near day break and while there are currently 5 residents living here, there are already 3 alberques, so we meet up with friends that we see from time to time along the way.
We are now heading for the great iron cross that is a legend on the Camino. People bring stones from their home countries and leave them here and we have been looking forward to arriving at this cross for a few days now. At last we are there and have climbed some 300 meters since we left earlier in the morning. It is a bit disappointing as there are not a lot of people but still a few and they are taking pictures of each other in heroic poses at the top of the pile of stones.
We take turns climbing up to the base of the cross and when it is my turn, I am surprised at the emotion I feel. I have been carrying stones and things for some friends and also have with me, 2 heart shaped rose quartz stones that I brought from South Africa, Not sure that I wanted to leave them along the way as they have been sitting beide my bed on the table for many months and so are treasures to me, but I had decided the day before to say a prayer for Chris and then leave them in a little crevace there for him. At the base of the cross when I get there, I am deeply touched by the mementos and simple offerings that people have left. All of a sudden the place seems deeply sacred with the energy of so much effort from around the world to leave something special here. As I place the 2 hearts at the base of the cross, I am once again sobbing in such deep sorrow about Chris and have to descend to the other side of the cross to have a good cry on my own. It continues to surprise me how this sadness creeps up and knocks me sideways at unexpected times. It passes as it always does and later in the morning I light a candle in an ancient church for Chris, counting my blessings for the good life I had with him and the life that lies before me.
We are walking now into the beauty of the mountains and we are actually quite blown away with the magnificence of it all, Actually, I have to stop and just sit with the stillness at times. I hear again the bells that are attached to the cows in the mountain meadows and it is a wonderful clear sound to hear across the hills as they move in and out of their feeding places. We walk up and down over rough stone paths but in the most beautiful places yet on this entire journey.
At one point we are comig down and I hear what sounds like a medley of wind chimes. As I turn the corner, there stands a shepherd and it is his flock of sheep, many of whom are wearing bells that I hear, a symphony of music that is so natural and unheard before that it is hard to take it all in in such a beautiful setting.
I am tired from the climb and moved by the many lovely things that I have seen along the way. We walk through many wonderful ancient villages again on our way down which takes quite some time as we are walking 25 kms today. There is so much to stop and look at in each place that it is impossible to see it all so I make mental notes to myself about what I would come back to see some time in the future.
I am getting the feeling that we are nearing the end of the journey. We are counting down the kms now and are less than 200 at this point. I cannot believe the way this has transpired for me and I am so thankful for all of the wonderful people that I have met, especially my 3 Camino sisters, as well the people that I continue to meet each day. Today we walked once again through vineyards and we expect to see people harvesting the grapes soon. We sampled a few grapes on the way this time and they are delicious. We walked along a red dirt road that was soft from the morning rain and it was like walking on a cloud for our tired feet.
When you walk - you see, hear and smell things that you do not notice any other way and it is like this is a first time experience of life in a way. so much to notice, even the color of a beutiful rose in the morning light after the rain, the colors of the rainbow and the shape of the clouds as the sun breaks through. Yesterday morning as the sub began to rise shortly afte we reached the abandoned village, it seemed like God was painting a beautiful picture just for us, but only if you took the time to turn around and notice.
My mother has found the words of the 23rd Psalm which is the hymn Crimond and so the hill will resound with the correct words to this beautiful song in the coming days. I just wish I could really sing well!
So much surrounds us so much of the time and so much of it unnoticed and un appreciated.
Seeing life in a new way is such a gift at this stage of the game.
More later...............Maggee

Into the Mountains

2008-09-20T12:02:00.000-07:00

We have had a wonderful two days and I am feeling much stronger now that we have left the ill people behind us. I am sitting in a bar in the evening and the Spanish foot ball game is blaring above me with smoke from the patrons coloring the air. And to boot it is dark on the keyboard so forgive the spelling mistakes.
I have loved the past two days, particularly because I have discovered Spanish ibuprofen which is 3 times stronger than ours and cheap as dirt. It has made quite a difference to my feet if I take one in the morning before we leave.
We have walked in the moonlight each morning and yesterday for about 2 hours on a straignt road lit by the full moon. You forget the sound of silence in normal life and this was a specatular experience of just walking. I was trying to remember the word to the Psalm 23 which I memorized in Sunday School years ago. Do not ask me why this came to mind then, however for the past two days, I have been singing Crimond and the words to the psalm as I remember them and it is very calming and meditative.
We are in Rabinal del Camino this evening and in the mountains. We had a wonderful walk yesterday and a great evening in Astorga yesterday. Now we walked steadily up hill all day to get here and are once again in a room for 4 which is so great,
We are in the mountains and I love the walking up the hills, who would have thought eh, I am feeling fine, fit and healthty and very happy.
We realized that we are now 10 days from Santiago and so can actually see the end of the journey. We have walked 540 kms so less than 240 to go and it is possible to actually see the end to this trip now.
We are in the most beautiful part of the Camino and will pass by the large iron cross where we will leave all of our trinkets and stones from Canada tomorrow. We will be up early as there are more people travelling now and we really like the solutide in the early morning and the darkness.
I will write more tomorrow but just have to conclude with this as the smoke and the noise are a bit much.
This evening we attended a prayer service in the little church here and the whole thing was sung as Gregorian chants which was beautiful. I am touched by the great evidence of people´s commitment to something greater than themselves now and really ejoy the deep conversations we are begining to have.
Love from the Camino

Maggee

And so it goes

2008-09-18T04:46:00.000-07:00

It has been a hard few days. I don´t know if this is because of the terrain that I have had to deal with and my sore feet, the fact that we have convered close to 500 kms and have not really had a break day in 21 days now or just the fact that the constant walking has brought me to a place of wondering what I am doing here anyway! So many people are sick or injured or just cannot walk with the problems with feet or tendons. It is not surprising to see people with quite difficult walking gaits as a result of their infected blisters or strains and sprains. The GI flu is also rampant in the group and last night there were at least 5 people quite ill in the dormitory. This has caused me to think carefully about potential causes and I have concluded that we are exhausted probably and thus more susceptible to viruses. As well, we live together in very close quarters and so the germs spread easily. The hygiene factor on the camino is not normal either. Many bathrooms do not have soap so the hand washing is not as good as it should be and the communal kitchens have dishes that may not be washed with more than a rinse under the tap. So there are lessons in all of this that we have taken on as new practices. We buy water and do not drink from the taps. We wash our hands frequently and carry hand disinfectant and are careful not to share things that could get contaminated. Can you believe that with such generosity, I witnessed a woman helping another one out with her bad blister by using her own needle. This is the needle and thread technique which is common to drain the fluid in the blister. People who are not in health care would not realize the seriousness of such a practice and so infection as well as other things like HIV and hepatitis can be spread.
Not to belabour this issue, but we found a young couple being disinfected for bed bugs yesterday when we arrived at the monastery where we wanted to stay. they had picked them up in the same albeque that we had stayed in a few days prior, however they were in a different room from ours there, thanks goodness. The good sisters were helping them to spray and kill off the offending bugs and then wash everything for them before providing them with special accomodation. they were from Australia and had been travelling for 6 months with no previous problem. Such are the hazards of communal travel. However the attitude that we all have is just to deal with it.
We spent yeterday in Leon which is simply a wonderful old city. Better than Burgos in my opnion, as the ancient part of the city is much larger and more full of character. the monastery was great and clean and the people so kind to us. Last night we went to a prayer service before bed time and were really touched by the simplicity and the beauty of listening to the 15 nuns in traditional garb, singing gregorian chants through the short service. Leaves you feeling the awe of this journey as so many people are following in the footsteps of the ancients as we trek along each day.
This morning as with a few other mornings, I awoke to the view of 16 sleeping bodies - all of them curled up in their sleeping bags in the top bunks, which I prefer even though it is a bit of a struggle to get in and out as there is often no ladder. Below were the dark forms of 16 more forms on the lower bunks. Not having had a summer camp experience in my youth, this continues to be a really interesting experience, sharing such close quarters with so many people. Since the nuns had separated the men and the women into different dormitories we had the pleasure of limited snoring which can be a problem with a lot of men in the room.
Well this morning´s walk was 2 hours getting out of Leon and then into the beauty and peace of the country side. I was thrilled to see hills once again - imagine!! But they really change the dynamic of the foot falls and are such a great thing to be able to enjoy powering up and down as my fitness level is so good at the moment. As I walked I realzed that I have been looking down for 4 days, trying to find the best place to put my foot on each step over the rough roads and have been missing a lot of the environment. I also realized that I have been carrying worry with me everywhere and have been questioning in my normal way whether I am doing this journey right!! Am I getting what I am supposed to, Am I thinking properly and meditating well, Am I just walking to get to the next bed (yes definitely sometimes I sure am!) And so I began to then contemplate what it is that I really am storing up from my experiences along this way.
Some of it is very trivial and our poet has provided a wonderful saying that goes something like - it is the insignificant in each day that provides meaning for the vagabond - and so with my list of the insignificant, I realized just how much richness there is in each day. So many wonderful interactions with so many wonderful people as well as the little things that largely go unnoticed in normal life. A few days ago I just stopped for awhile and watched an old man bent over, with his dog and flock of sheep slowly making his way across the fields as the sheep grazed on the grasses growing out of the red earth.
As well, I also know that I have arrived at some good conclusions about the direction of my life and am interested in the things that I have decided to focus on in the future around purpose, intention and adventure. I feel so strongly confident about being on my own to follow my dreams as well and know that what I need and desire will be provided for me as I am ready for it. There is an abundant energy that is available to make things happen and as well, there are so many interesting people with fascinating lives and interests. Some of my travel companions have been nothing but inspirational in sharing what they do and how they create interests and circles of friends. We conclued that it is about imagination, meaningful life that is, and the side of the brain that we do not give ourselves permission to dwell in because it does not appear to the visual world as productive and much of a contribution. And here is another realization in that I do not need to make everything I do a contribution to others of to the broader world as I have so routinely made my actions focused on in the past few decades.
Well, as this is day 21 and we have travelled close to 500 kms, perhaps the richness of the travelling will just be starting to show up now that we are entering the most beautiful part of the Camino. As I track my way along each day now, I promise myself to look up and not down - a good metaphor for my life as well- and to write down my reflections as they come which is often in the morning and not at night when I often wait to write.
Well the vino tinto is waiting for us and I must scoot off (well as fast as one can scoot with stiff feet!!).
More later..................Maggee

Walking in the Moonlight

2008-09-16T08:43:00.000-07:00

We leave early in the morning and for the past few mornings have been walking in the light of the full moon for an hour or more. This is a wonderful time for solitude and reflection, It is also very cold and I am wearing my fleece hat and gloves and once even my rain jacket which was a bit big and bulky but did cut the wind and make a difference. It is good to start early as it means that you finish the day a bit earlier as well. We like to get to the next place in the early afternoon. It is a bit more crowded we notice since leaving Burgos and so there are many people looking for beds. There are always enough and so we do not worry about this, only having enough time to rest and do the washing before dinner time.
We have met many nice people lately including one woman from Cape Town who I will get in touch with when I am there in Feb. She lives in Muizenberg and is a wonderful lady who I have had some good converstions with so look forward to meeting up with her along the way.
We have also noticed that there are a lot of people getting sick since Burgos. I was told that ths happens and to avoid this, we had been drinking bottled water and being very careful with the food we eat, but still there are 2 of my group who got quite ill with a GI problem, They are better now, but I find that I am very tired these past 2 days. We are walking now about 26 or more kms per day. Today is day 18 and so the fatique is likely due to the large number of kms I have walked with these poor feet. We are now at a total of 449 kms and the total distance is 778 to Santiago. I think when we get to 500, I will start to count down instead of up.
As we walk along, there are many thoughts that pass through my head, sometimes though it is all I can do to just focus on keeping one foot in front of the other as the pain in my feet is so bad. I have started to walk more slowly and to stop and rest about each hour as that helps. I think that my feet suffer from being hot so I take my boot off and change my socks as well, haning the spare pair with a pin from the back of my pack to dry out. I just think the bones are tired from the constant pounding and the movement for 6 - 7 hours each day. I am proud of myself for getting this far though and am thankful for my good health in managing it.
We sleep in these crowded rooms each night. The other night in the convent, as I was falling asleep with 8 other people in close quarters, I realized that the room was about 60% of the size of my bedroom at home and that I could easily fit bunk beds for 10 people in my own bedroom with another in the walk in closet. I am so thankful for a small space to put my things and to lay my head at the end of each day that I know I will appreciate the luxury of my home once I get there in a few weeks.
As I walk I have been wonderng what to think about and so just let the thoughts come as they will. I do concentrate hard on the pain in my feet to try to make it less and at other times thank my feet for the great power that they give me. There is much focus on the feet on this journey and many people who seem to walk well during the day are seen to hobble in the evening. It is interesting how my feet recover during the night. They ache in the beginning of the night, getiing less as the night progresses and in the mornng are fine once more. We have a wonderful power of healing with rest is what I am learning and as well, need to respect this function that is so simple in each day of life.
During the day, I pass many people who are residents of the small villages and as we pass by, there is so much friendliness from them. In the community of pilgrims at the end of each day, there is also a great feeling of togetherness as we are all on the same kind of mission with some similar intention, I believe.
I meet interesting people every day and am reminded of how easy it is to create relatedness with people I do not know. I guess that is the magic of the Camino that people are open to conversation even though there is a language barrier. They still respond.
I am now about 18 kms away from Leon and tomorrow we will have a short hike to the city where we will spend the day. We may even stay in a hostel for a change with our own bathroom and bedroom which will be a luxury.
Well I must head out to the shop and buy something for breakfast as I am running out of food. Whatever I buy is now weighed very carefully so that I do not have to carry too much. The back pack is much lighter these days or perhaps I am accustomed to its weight and it feels like a friend to me in some ways as it contains all of the essentials that I need for life at the moment. When I remember the manic way I carried it in the beginning and the pain in my shoulders that I had it seems like a different pack now. Anyway, everything changes as you walk along and think of mostly things that are not really relevant.
I recognize that a lot of my thoughts are worries and worries about things that may happen in the future and what a waste of energy this is thinking up things that may never happen. I wonder to myself how much of this is a practice in my real life and how much time and energy I spend thinking up potential problems and then fretting over them as if they were real. Interesting to contemplate.
Today the hospitalero gave each of us a card to pick from a deck as we paid for our bed and here is mine which I think is very relevant
"In any second you can change your life. To really live, you need only courage to do it".
Buen Camino............Maggee

Half Way There!

2008-09-14T06:30:00.000-07:00

It is day 17 today and we have walked a total of 396 kms. We have picked up the pace a bit as we are walking through the Meseta which although it is flat, still poses challenges. The daily rate is now between 25 and 30 kms and we can see the difference this makes to our level of fatique and our poor feet. While the land is pretty flat, today was a very hard morning with 17 kms on rough gravel roads which was quite taxing. As well, there was nothing along the way for diversion, like a coffee stop or other interesting sites. With a few rest breaks, we managed to get to the first town after about 4 hours. The kms seem to take longer here, than when I was training and I think that carrying the back pack and the different terrain makes a difference in just how fast we can go. I clocked my rate at 5 kms per hour yesterday, but this is not always so steady.
We are enjoying the food along the way. There is a variety of shops to buy food for breakfast and lunch and often breakfast is a simple yogurt or juice and fruit until the first bar for cafe con leche. This is accompanied by a cheese bocadillo which is fresh bread sandwich with cheese or ham. We need this kind of nourishment as the effort of walking all morning takes something. We often have wine in the afternoon with snacks, following the arrival, showers and washing our clothes. Dinner is usuall very fine and we have been enjoying wonderful cooking and special soups like lentil and garlic soups. The main courses can be a stew or fish or chicken of some kind and usually fruit or ice cream for desert. All of this costs about 9 euros for the dinner each day and of course the jug or bottle of wine is always included.
Food, water and foot care become the priority once we have found accomodation for the night. Last night we stayed in a convent or beside the convent actually, anticipating that it would be a serene place of beauty and calm and instead was a rather austere and crowded location which was not entirely restful. Today we have lucked out and stopped a bit earlier than planned and we have 2 rooms, each with 2 beds, so we can close the doors and get some uninterupted sleep tonight.
In every little town or village that we pass through, we see wonderful churches and also statues of pilgrims of the past. The Camino has become quite an attraction and also a way for these little towns to prosper with the many people that travel through each day. There can be literally hundreds of pilgrims walking through a small village daily, each of them stopping for a drink or something at the local bar and so the residents, while you wonder how they stand the constant stream of people, seem to take it all in their stride.
Today as I was walking or hobbling rather along the gravel, it occurred to me that it was a simile for my life, in that I really don't like the hardship of how things have gone at times in the past and will be choosing differently the kinds of direction that I take from here for myself. We also talk a lot about the lessons on the Camino for our life and after this walk is over. We come back to the same few things which are related to being kind and generous to others.
Living like this with so many other people, you are seldom alone, except when walking, and you are usually surrounded by opportunities to relate to new people in ways that are new because of the language and the culture differences. Does not matter that the ages variation of everyone here is great, people just seem to engage with each other in a way that does not normally occur in real life and so it makes you think about how it could be if we were to put a more humane touch into our perspective with each other in our real life.
Tomorrow we will be travelling again on the flat roads and hopefully not too rough as my poor feet ache with the walking over stones. Since we are now a bit more than half way, I can see that there will be an end to this journey eventually, which was hard to really see at the beginning.
Until next time...............Maggee

Walking Away from Grief

2008-09-12T10:58:00.000-07:00

It is an interesting experience to look around at who travels this road with me. Many people are here because of a life event that is a source of trauma or loss and others simply becuase it is a life time goal to do this kind of journey. For me I have realized that each step takes me farther from the knee buckling feeling of loss and despair since Chris died almost 2 years ago, farther from the feeling that he is still around in a spiritual presence sence and more like I am walking towards a future that becomes defined as I comtemplate and listen to my own breathing in the sound of the wind and the birds as they awaken in the early morning. I have the feeling the most people are here because of grief over a loss, could be a death of someone close to them, could be a job they loved and could be recovery from a life threatning illness. Whatever it is, there is a compelling feeling that the process of day after day of simply walking is a therapy like no other.
Today I picked up a stone from one of the many cairns that we pass each day. The idea is that each person ought to pick up such a stone and carry it for a day and leave it at the next cairn, thus transporting the stones to Santiago. Today the stone I carried was a symbol of all of those things that I am grateful for from the life that I had with Chris before he died. It made me realize how many moments there were and memories that were full of laughter and surprise and most of all adventure. With the ending of the afternoon, there were little blue butterlfies all around me as if this was a sign of acknowledgement to me from him. I decided that by the end of the day that I would summarize these memories into 3 basic things that I am most grateful to him for and with that I deposted the stone that I had carried at the cross just outside the place we are staying tonight.
This alberque I had heard about and it is as they say, like an oasis in the desert. through old old wooden doors you enter a most beautiful garden with wonderful flowers and a swimming pool. You are greeted by a wonderful host who leads you to a place to sleep for the night and tells you to rest and get settled and then come and pay him. Boy our hotels could learn something from this approach. There are many people here and it is really a bit crowded, but the atmosphere is very international and many people talking and sharing their stories together in many languages.
We sleep in a loft, having to climb a ladder above the 14 bunks that are in the dorm below, This arrangement would never pass the safety standards at home and we are certain to not want to use the toilet during the night. We sleep on single beds and must walk along plank floors hanging onto a kind of rope affair at the edge of the loft. It is like nothing I have seen before.
It is much colder than I anticipated and this morning it was maybe about 5C or less so the fleece hat and gloves were handy. I do not think I have enough warm clothes for the next few weeks and may have to buy somethng somewhere. I had anticipated much warmer weather. We hear that there is snow prediceted for the Pyrenees this evening! Imagine!
We are walking through the most wonderful scenery now and the rolling hills and the farm lands are so beautiful against the cloud filled sky. the sun is warm in the afternoon and so the days are very pleasant once the sun comes to provide some warmth.
Tomorrow we will be walking through the very flat area of the meseta and this is said to be the most boring, although I have not been at all bored with this walking yet. Each day provides something no matter what the atmosphere and so I look forward to having the surprise be in the present, cherishing my good health and my fitness that seems to improve with each day.
How blessed I am!!
Maggee

Today is a Gift

2008-09-11T06:57:00.000-07:00

We walk each day with thoughts that are generated by our conversations and our experiences. kirsten provided us with a reminder of the following yesterday and we have taken this on as our mantra for each day.
Yesterday is history, Tomorrow is a mystery and today is a gift which is why it is called the present
We have enjoyed the beautiful city of Burgos and as soon as I can find a computer compatible for my camera attachment I will post some of the pictures that I took. The cathedral is simply breath taking and it takes quite some time to just walk through it all. It is very very old and has taken hundreds of years to actually build it and you cannot imagine the work and the effort that would have been required to do this type of construction in those days. As well, the power of the church is overwhelming when you see the opulence and richness that is contained in each church that we pass. This one is the most beautiful in Europe and you can certianly see why. Burgos is a wonderful city with so much interest and lots of wonderful sites to see in every corner. I mostly enjoy the late afternoons when everyone comes out into the squares to visit. The children are dressed in their best and the older peoploe come and sit on the benches or in the cafes together and the family environment is simply remarkable when you compare it to our own country. The older people are everywhere and included with the younger people, yet have their own place in the square for being together as well. As the bells ring and as the light fades, there is such a festive atmosphere everywhere that it is wonderful to just sit and watch.
It was a joy to leave the city this morning,. While the alberque in Burgos is beautiful and only 3 euros, newly opened this year, the crowd of more than 100 gave it a different feel from the smaller places that have been more familiar to us. Today we have walked for 31 kms and are now in Hontanas in such a beautiful place 5 euros, and will enjoy a lovely meal here this evening.´
We walked through a few small villages this morning and then arrived after walking up a hill on the renowned meseta. I have heard so much about this place which extends from Burgos to Leon over a few hundred kms and is really like the prairies. It is wonderful, rolling hills, silent except for the wind which sweeps across the fields and except for a few sheep and some shepards, there was really no one except for pilgrims walking along the dirt roads.
I have a few thoughts about wind and notice the difference in various places. the prairie wind is something, as it envelopes your entire body and blows hard enough even when gentle that your ears resound with the feel and the sound. You are washed in wind when you cross such a broad expanse of plains and there is not much to think about as you wend your way along the road. This is different from the whispering effect of wind that I felt in the vineyards and different again from the whistle of wind that I sat and enjoyed in the pine forests some days ago. You have time to ponder such things on this camino as there is a lot of time for being present to the simple things that we ordinarily would not even notice.
We passed the 300 km mark this morning and with our monumental walk of 31 kms today, we will have achieved around 325 kms total so far. I felt that we had to pick up the pace a little today since the walk was flat and so that we could meet our target of being in Santiago by Oct 1, as we have planes to catch, otherwise it would be better just to walk and to stop as you felt it appropriate.
Well, there are people reading this blog from around the world and I am getting such wonderful mesages on the postings that it is heartening to see how much interest there is in this experience of mine.
My good friends and I are about to sit down with our daily bottles of wine now so I must sign off and join them.
We fight over who pays and it is such a laugh as it is all so darn cheap.
The wonder of people just being able to be together in such an authentic and caring manner continues to be a joy in this process of walking, talking, reflecting and growing in my very soul.
Buen Camino..........Maggee

Rain at Last

2008-09-09T08:57:00.000-07:00

We have walked for 12 days in beautiful sun shine and pretty warm weather so far. the mornings are much cooler as there have been 2 occassions when I really benefitted from myt fleece hat and gloves. We have walked more kms lately each day and certainly felt the effect of that with greater fatique and also sore feet. With 26 kms and then 24 the following day, we have today only walked 18 kms which was pretty much a cake walk. We have now covered 268 kms in total!!
We have been walking through farm land for the past 3 days although still close enough to the wine country that we get a jug of vino tinto with each meal along with the jug of water. Today for the first time we had a good rainy day and were able to test out our rain gear which worked quite well. By noon, the sun was out and so everything was able to dry out before clouds returned once again.
We are now a group of 4 with a plan to follow the Danish schedule to get us to Santiago by Oct 1. Kirsten is our leader and because she is the youngest she scouts out the way out of town while we have our afternoon siesta. She is also the story teller and relates wonderful mythological stories to us in her beautiful accent, as we walk and when we stop for a break. Alvina is our French Canadian poet and each day has a special quote for us. She is very well read and can tell us many things as we walk and talk and has such wonderful travel experiences and profound interests in art and literature and music. I find her quite an inspiration. Barb is a traveller and very down to earth and talks to everyone whether they understand her or not! They have decided that I am Maggee the practical, providing food, medicines and good advice when needed. We have also picked up a Dutch woman walking on her own so we are quite a group and already have the reputation of being the ones with laughter and good wishes for everyone along the way.
We have become expert at fixing the problems of the feet and you would laugh to see the surgery that gets performed on our blisters. First you take a needle and white thread and run it through some iodine and then you push the needle and the thread right through the blister to the other side, pulling the thread through so that you can tie it in a knot. this allows the blister to drain and thus heal itself. We will all have funny looking black bits of thread hanging from various locations on our feet when this is done. Blisters appear in new places when the terrain changes or if it gets wet or if you do anything to change your foot wear. For me I have a new blister which comes from a piece of tape that I put on one toe to protect it!
This is quite a journey and I am so enjoying just the reflective time along the way especially in the early morning when it is very dark and quiet and we walk with our various flashlights, and as the sun comes up and the day light appears, there are sounds of birds and the early morning awakening to the day.
We are able to cover at least 12 - 15 kms by 9 am each day which is the first stop for cafe con leche and a pastry. We are able to arrive at our albeque by 1 or 2 pm each day and have usually covered about 22 - 24 kms by then which is enough for now. Each accommodation has been wonderful, clean and very adequate and the people we travel with are polite, friendly and very nice to be with. No problems with any thing like I had read about on the on line forums I had been reading.
Tomorrow we will reach Burgos which is one of the largest cities we will cross and look forward to the cathedral there which is supposed to be the most beautiful one in Europe. We plan to start to pick up our pace so that we can walk longer distances once we pass Burgos as the meseta (prairie I think) is flatter and easier to walk. there have been plenty of hills each day and so we are getting quite fit with the effort required to do this each day, sometimes the most difficult are first thing in the morning which gets you going pretty good!
I am finding that the experience of travelling like this is both cheap in dollars and so rich in experience and with each morning, you never know what wonderful thing will transpire through the day. We meet a lot of very wonderful people and sometimes we are talking different languages _ for example_ the directions for fixing our feet were entirely in Portugese from a man who had acted as a voluntter hospitalero in Leon and had seen many messy feet in his experience. We also communicate with the Italian couple every day in abundance and between theri limited French and ours, we have a great friendship developing. So many things to learn from the simple experiences of life. We share dormitories with sometimes more than 20 beds, I am getting good arm muscles from swinging like a monkey from the top bunk which I prefer. We have common showers and toilet areas so that there is modesty, but practicality as well and we all seem to get along just fine and there are no problems that I have noticed at all with these arrangements.
I am travelling as I had imagined except it is richer becuase of the friendships that are forming and these are inspiring me to think about how I will enrich my life when I get home. There is generosity and wisdom from each person and such wonderful converstions each day. Such a cheap and abundant experience I could not have imagined for my life and I see how people become addicted to this Camino. It is not so much the journey itself, although it is magical walking through these ancient villages, it is rather the raw human experience of just being together with others on a common mission, ie to explore our purpose in life and to get to a simpler place of living.
Rain tomorrow and even that is not a problem as we are well equipped and this just adds to the interest of this experience.
Buen Camino..........Maggee

Courage along the way - 199 kms today

2008-09-06T05:05:00.000-07:00

There is much to say about the journey and abut the experience. I have discovered the greatest insights come to me in the early morning just as the sun comes up over the horizon and it is still quite dark. We walk in stillness and quiet reflection and there is only the sound of foot steps crunching in the gravel as the time passes and the dark grows into light. I have learned that courage comes from being able to face what happens along the way and that everything does not always go according to expectation. I have learned that each step is one more towards a feeling of great peace within and that there is much to be noticed along the way if you only take the time to look up and around at the beauty and the stillness.
There are many interesting companions along this way. there is a very old looking woman who walks the camino with a walker, hunched over and looking like she really should be in a rocking chair somewhere. There is another who is quite overweight and struggles to complete 16 kms each day. She is very brave and does what she can sleeping under bridges to rest as she needs to. There is a man who is 81 and just keeps on walking, arriving later than the rest of us, but still cheerful and a good compaion. There is a single woman from Japan, a young man and his mother from South Africa and many people from other parts of the world. All of us bent on one thing and that is to make our way along the camino to Santiago.
We are now 4 as one of my Canadian companions was told yesterday to stop walking and head for home as her knee is too bad to continue. We see different kinds of injuries now, A very healthy looking man we met yesterday has had to stop for awhile with tendonitis and this we learn is from not drinking enough. So now we drink plenty all along the way and hjave to stop in fields when there is not a bathroon conveniently located.
We have walked for the past 2 days on red dirt roads through the beautiful vine yards of the Rioja region and of course the wine in the afternoon and at the end of the day is wonderful and very cheap. Yesterday was a long and hot walk along mostly paved roads and so by the end of the walk, me feet were very sore and tired. After a nap and some rest, it is much better. Today we have walked another 22 kms and have arrived at a gold mine of an alberque. A small village with a place which has 60 beds, all of then in 2 bed room which is a wonderful change from the large dormitories that have been the experience up to now. Today is a festival day and so there is music in the square and the church bells ringing wildly adding to the general flavour of the area.
We have been offered a bottle of wine from the hostess here and are thankful that they are do warm and caring to the pilgrims each day. Yesterday the hospitalero of the alberque who is called Michelle from Germany. spent an hour making crepes for all of us. The cost each day is very low. yesterday was 3 E for the night and today 6 E for the 2 bed room for each of us.
I am conscious of my thoughts each day and pay special attenton to what I notice along the way as we walk through these wonderful little villages with all of their ancient history. building decorated by flowering plants in basket on the balconies and the people who seem to disappear and then come out in full force at 5 or 6 pm to the local square to socialize.
I am happy each day to just get up a walk and to contemplate what occurs to me in the moment. I enjoy the feeling of power and fitness that I experience in my legs and lungs as we climb hills and power along, particularly after we have found a cafe con leche and a chocolate filled croisant. The simple pleasure of these little things and patterns of living have slowed down my head and I enjoy the feeling of what the Sweedish sugges for pilgrims which is silence, no worries, charity to others, spirituality and 4 others which I cannot remember at the moment.
I think of my good fortune in being able to do this. I had thought it to be a challenge of courage for me and now I see that the challenge is to melt into it. I thought to be alone and I am not and I realize that that is also a creation as we are not alone except by choice.
No one who does this journey is every much alone as there is such a strong sense of community at every step of the way, as people take care of each other in simple and more profound ways and the experience is such that this is what our real life ought to be like.
"We have many people and events in our life and we draw these to us. The opportunity exists in what we choose to do with all of this"................Maggee

On the way to Vania

2008-09-04T08:04:00.000-07:00

2 things matter - boots or bed - because you are either in one or the other

2008-09-04T07:59:00.000-07:00

From Estella to Los Arcos

2008-09-04T05:25:00.000-07:00

Melting into the Moments

2008-09-04T04:46:00.000-07:00

Two days have passed since I entered something into this jounery log. We are still travelling togather, the 4 Canadians and yesterday we picked up Kirsten again, the Danish woman I had met some days earlier, so now we are 4. the French Canadian is very witty and we call her our poet philosopher, Everything she has, has been wieghed carefully, and so she carries 20 gms of poetry amongst other items. She threatens to place her extra weight into our bags while we sleep at night as the maseus yesterday told her to take out 2 kgs. We laugh all the time about what we can get rid of and even the hair conditioner and dental floss counts for something. We only buy food that we will eat for the day and nothing extra so we are getting smarter about the bulk and the wieght as it really makes a difference as the day goes.
The past two days have been easier. less climbing although nothing is flat here in Spain only hilly by degrees, with some quite steep. We have arrived at the auberg by 12 = 1 pm these past 2 days and have enjoyed the afternoon siesta time and the rest on our aching feet and legs.
Today marks 156 kms for the journey and we are about 20% complete. I would never have imagined that I could walk this far with such consistency when I left Canada. I am feeling fine and have learned that it is vital to drink and to stop to rest and to keep eating (yes Mom I eat well). We notice the wieght loss now and although not significant, my clothes are loose (good eh!) but what a way to lose weight!!
I am melting into the moments as my friend Cathy has suggested and find that the walking = one step at a time = is very contemplative. I have experienced some interesting insights about how simple life really is and how we complicate it with our human issues of letting the mind over rule the real substance of what is really important. So much of what I have focused on is material and in the end will not be how my life makes a difference for the world or even for my onw happiness.
I am getting tired each day just from the constant effort to walk. this comes and goes however, and there are moments of extreme happiness as well and a feeling of being fulfilled in simple ways. There are beautiful surprises around each corner and everything is unexpected as even the map cannot tell us what really lies ahead.
We are walking through the vineyards of Rioja now and today passed olive groves and apple orchards as well. The smell, the color and the full beauty of the morning sky is something to behold. The camraderie along the way is precious as each of us takes time to greet and wish each other well as we pass and re pass each other. There are great times of conversation over the vino tinto and fabulous meals, once the manu has been tranalated with the very patient waiters in the bars and restaurants.
Wherever there is a maseus, we take advantage of the treatment as the only splurge in an otherwise very cheap adventure. Each night costs at most 6 E and last night it was 4E with the most cost being the pilgrims meal each day at 9 or 10 E which is worth while as it always includes a few bottles of wine.
So what am I getting from this so far. Well one thing is that there is a lot to be learned from simplicity and that I do not need as much in my life as far a material things than I have been accustomed to. This does not mean that I will give it all up when I return home, but will certainly think about this in future. The other thing is that there is such a big world to explore and that each person I meet along the way is ready and open to being in communication even in a simple way so that conversation with so many people, even those that cannot share the same language is wonderfully warm and friendly. There is an Italian couple who we have been seeing for the past 4 days, since Pamplona, and we can only greet them as they have now taught us how = so when we see them it is like old friends even though I have no idea what they are saying in words, the non verbal works wonderfully.
We are now a group the 5 of us and will travel together for awhile and until we need to change pace or something else. It is good to have companions and good to have time alone to contemplate as well and it all works out.
Spain is a wonderful place and I cherish the opportuniy to be able to see so much of this simple rural life in these ancient places. So much history is evidnet all around us all the time. People continue to be warm and friendly and we are well taken care of in these beautiful refugios.
Buen Camino........... Maggee

Everyone Has a Story

2008-09-02T08:03:00.000-07:00

We travel together and sometimes talk and sometimes not. There is an interesting mix of ages and stages of life and in the afternoons when we have found our refuggio for the night, most people are settled somewhere writing in journals. For most this is a reflective and very personal process. Some are recovering from life challenges, others just looking for an answer as to where to go next - like me.
There is a cancer survivor from BC, a woman trying to come to terms with the outcome of an accident several years ago that has made it impossible for her to continue with her life passion of teaching children. One young man lost his mother a year ago, two young women search for the next stage of life now that unuversity is completed. Some older men appear contemplative and prayerful as they walk along.
Some walk fast and with purpose, others look like they will not reach the next town, Cyclists are very energetic and you wonder how they find the way as they travel so fast. A pair past me jogging this morning - what is that all about I ask myself!! There are a few couples, but they have their challenges as their relationship and the experience of the Camino affects them differently. Most people are on their own believe it or not and a lot are in the category of older women from everywhere across the globe including Asia, S America and Europe. In spite of cultural differences we seem to have a common bond of searching for meaning.
I myself have found the days are flying by now that I am getting into a rythym of it all. Up early in the morning to walk before the sun gets too hot and it really does climb to over 32 C each afternoon. Stopping for rest and food every hour or so and then finding the refuggio for the night - shower first, wash clothes and then lie down for awhile to rest aching joints, muscles and feet.
It is a wonderful thing to just concentrate on putting one foot in front of the other and noticing all of the unusual and beautiful things that appear close up or on the horizon. I have never seen such ancient and beautiful villages, remnants of Roman architecture in the roads and bridges here and lots of Basque architecture. I am intrigued now by the process and wonder how this will really go for me.
Some say that you can hit a wall about now with the fatigue and the bone weary aches that you experience. I have felt some of this, but once I rest, I feel truly happy to just be focusing on the ordinary things that are required to just manage each day as simply as it is. I am also finding the accommodation just fine and am not bothered by the numbers of people that need to share close quarters with each other. They are polite and respectful and very friendly - nothing has bothered me yet as I had heard some stories in books I read.
Today we passed the place that marks the spot where a Canadian woman was killed in an accident in 2002. Her husband returned later to build a small monument to her memory and so we all stopped to pay respects. It makes you realize that anything could happen along this journey and more importantly, it is a reminder of how much each moment and each step matter in the course of life.
Well perhaps I am getting more reflective as the days go and will see what turns up out of that........Maggee

And is it goes!

2008-09-01T11:46:00.000-07:00

Pamplona was wonderful last night. We went down to the square at around 5 pm and drank some beer and wine and watched the families sitting around. The older women gather in small groups to drink coffee and eat ice cream or pastries and the men sit on the benches talking with each other. Later the younger families come out with the strollers and sleepy children and by 8 pm the narrow street are filled with people looking for dinner as the bars do not re open until 7 pm.
We took the time to go to the Cathedral de Santa Maria for another special blessing. The priest again read out the countries that we are all from and then led us through a prayer and a blessing service. This ended with being led into the locked off alter area to sing something in Spanish which was a wonderful end to the day. There are many of us, although not so many as there would be in summer.
Everywhere we go, people wish us well and are helpful even though they must be overwhelmed with the increasing numbers of pilgrims every year. The accommodation last night was good, a renovated seminary built in the mid 1700s. The place was clean and new and immaculate and the bunks very comfortable. I am finding if costs less than $35 per day for everything.
Today we left early and walked in the dark through the city to the outskirts to find cofe con leche and some pastries after the firtst 5 kms which was better than yesterday. It was so hot and so tiring with not much of a hill, only 400 m or so, but sill in the direct sun and wind to boot, it was an exhausting day. We crept along doing about 24 kms today and stopping often to rest feet and to drink and eat. We arrived at a wonderful auberge in Puenta de la Riena and collapsed into the shower and the comfy bunk beds. Dinner was great and again very cheap.
Today, we passed wind mills and wonderful fields where the crops have been harvested. The vistas are stunning in the hot sun and the path seems to wander through fields and ancient towns with all sort of wonderful architecture. The people continue to be friendly and so helpful. I was even able to get a wonderful massage and treatment here this evening which has readied me for another day.
94 kms so far........ whoc would have though this possible as I worried my way through the training over the past monhts. My feet are fine and while achy at times, easily cured with a stop and a cool down.
Some people are now in serious troulbe, walking in flip flops to avoid more traumo to bad blisters and others simply not able to continue for a few days. I do not hobble like some and while quite heat exhausted by the afternoon and 7 hours of walking, feel that I am doing fine. Tips along the way include duck tape for the feet, vaseline seems to be favoured and of course good boots. Eating and drinking through the day make a difference and watching your foot steps especially at the end of the day when I am more tired and likely to trip and fall over my own boots is important. I made the mistake of looking at just how far it is to Santiago and wondered wht in hell i was thinking in planning this trip. However, as they say often, it is one step at a time and each one counts and the time and space to withdraw from life provides for something more profund than could be gained in any other way.
So it continues - tomorrow we head for Estella and the 4 of us will comtinue to walk as a group until it no longer seems right. I have enough time to meditate on my own and also really enjoy the company of the others.
Maggee

Footsteps in the Dark

2008-08-31T05:14:00.000-07:00

It is 6:20 am and we head off - 2 Danish women and me, one flashlight and one head lamp - into the woods and the dark of the early morning. We walk for at least one hour in pitch dark and I think to myself - who would have ever anticipated this adventure. However here we are and it is just a head start to the day to avoid the heat of the noon day sun and to get a bit ahead of the pack in the bathrooms. With only 26 people in the room last night, I slept much better and actually feel rested today. I plugged along as a better trooper today, after feeling like I was dragging all of yesterday.

It was a long way to the first cup of coffee however, at least 10 kms. We thought there would be a place for cafe con leche and some chocolate croissants at about the 5km mark - but not so as it is Sunday in a very catholic country.

When we did arrive at a beautiful little Spanish town, the cafe con leche and the tortilla - an egg like pie with lots of salad and ham in the mix was delicious. Sonce we had put in such a good walk already, it was only another hour to Pamplona and here I am showered and clothes washed and ready for a nap and it is only 2 pm.

I walked about 7 hours today and have covered close to 75 kms now. We passed a sign to Santiago early this morning that said a mere 751 kms to go - will ignore those ones for awhile. I am impressed with my fitness though, I have few aches and pains and only my feet get sore which may just be the constant pounding for hours at a time. I have taken the good advice of friends back home and stopped to sink my feet into a stream for awhile this am and it made a real difference.

I found myself singing along this morning and it made me happy. It was an interesting way to express what was rolling around in my head and as I went along, I made up the tunes from a combination of hymns and different melodies that I liked. I sang about thoughts and hopes and questions and actually got the junk of worry out of my head which was a good thing.

The country side is so beautiful and the sounds of church bells everywhere are something. The cows continue to signal their presence with the bells around their neck. Music is everywhere in the natural sounds and in the music that people make themselves by whistling and singing. When we arrived in the square for cafe this morning, a few of the French Canadians were singing acapala - the Sounds of Silence - From Simon and Garfunkle, with the church bells for morning mass ringing in the background. I tell you there is something about letting go of everything and just being with the moment and the beauty of the simplicity of it all.

I am in a refugio in Pamplona at the moment, wonderful place - cold showers and a very rule oriented hostess at the door. Only 5 euros though for all this cleanliness. There is a mass for the pilgrims in the cathedral tonight which I will rush over to as it makes a difference to feel that you have the blessings of the "almighty" travelling along with you.

Tomorrow is a harder day as there is a tough climb so I will rest well tonight and eat a good dinner and pack more food to take along. Am trying to figure out what to unload from my pack as the darn thing is just too heavy to carry as it is (and that is less than 10kg) Am giving away stuff like mad to lighten things up. I think the post office is a very busy place here.

More later - and don´t worry Wilf, I enjoy sharing my journey like this. It gives me pleasure to know that people are reading this, across the world actually, and that my lowly pilgrimage is something that I can share with others.

Until then

Bueno Camino.......... Maggee

Thank you God - I have crossed the Pyrenees

2008-08-30T08:50:00.000-07:00

Left SJPdP with 2 other Canadians 2 days ago and we joined the slow but steady line of pilgrims heading up the road. There was an obvious variation in the levels of readiness for this trek and it became more so along the way. The way was steady and steep in places and at times levelled off just for long enough to tease you that it was going to be ok. At one point, 2 women behind me flagged a car down and then jumped in the back seat! While others carried hardly anything as they had chosen to send their bags off by van for a cheap 8 E. Not me I carried my ful pack and slugged my way to the top with rest periods and slow walking over the tough bits thinking that this was a bit of a test to see how well prepared I was. It was just fine and the views across the mountains made the whole trip worth it all.

Along the way, you could turn back and see the mist covering the lower meadows and with the sun rising higher, it became an ever changing vista of incredible beauty. The colors and the smell and the absolute quiet were worth every step of the way. People chatted along the path, shared lunch with each other, were concerned if someone looked more than a little fatigued and generally we became a small community heading off on this momentous journey. There were the fast and tough walkers who headed off and led the way through the places where it was not obvious where to go next and there were others who stopped every 5 minutes gasping for new energy to continue. I found that stopping at least every hour and making myself eat something made a huge difference and drinking loads of water was a life saver.

Now the real experience of this day was something else. Along the way there are sheep and at the top plenty of horses which are apparently wild and number about 5000. There are no fences and a lot of the sheep and some horses have the honour of wearing large bells so with the beauty, the background music is the stillness and the clanging of the bells on the animals. Simply other worldy.

When I thought I could go no longer, we reached a ridge and there was the Abbey at Roncesvalles lying in the valley below. The 4kms down were not easy, but the refuggio was wonderful - 100 beds and everyone exhausted from the effort of the day. Showers were good and across the street a wonderful pilgrims meal that we all ate together complete with wine. Sleeping in a room full of 100 other people was a new experience and while it was peaceful, just not the easiest thing to fall asleep into even though they played beautifu church music for us.

The highlight of the entire experience so far has been the service in the cathedral in Roncesvalles which is held every evening at 8 pm. The priests chanting was so moving and the organ a full booming sound. the priest invited all the pilgrims up to the alter at the end of the service to bless us and it was really hard not to burst in to sobs as I was so tired and so affected by the experience of standing in this church realizing that this was a service that had been conductd for centuries. As he read out the countries of where we all came from - it was incredible to see that people come from he entire world to do this trip - Asia, S America and all over Europe of course as well as Canada and the US.

By 5 am people were rustling to get up and get going. The lights were on by 6 and everyone out the door by 7 am - in the dark. We fully expected to walk along flat ground today. What a surprise and today was as tiring as yesterday. temp is about 30 - 34 C and clear skies so it is important to start early. The route is very well marked and if you turn the wrong way, there is sure to be a local shouting at you and pointing in the right direction. You would think they would get tired of all of this activity. In the summer they say that 400 people leave St Jean every day and it has slowed down this week so that we are about 200 each day.

There is a steady stream of people, sometimes it bunches up and we commiserate with each other about fatigue and sore feet and at other times I was completely alone. I walked throught beautiful Spanish towns today and in cathedral like forests where the wind blew a steady whislte which was also thankfully cooling. At times I wonderd to myself if I will ever be able to stop worrying about my sore feet and how far the next town is to just settle down into one step at a time. Sometimes it feels like just th slowing of my heart beat and that is all I can hear - at first I thought it was someone coming up behind my, but no only the sound of my onw self as I trudged along. I made a promise to stop at every beautiful spot and rest or just let it sink in so that the experience of this incredible journey would build in its meaning for me.

I am in Zubiri tonight in a refuggio with only 26 others in the room and mostly women which sure beats being surrounded by men as I was last night. We got here early ie at 130pm so had time to shower, wash clothes and then snooze. It is so hot that the clothes are dry within a few hours.

Well tomorrow we head for Pamplona where the bulls run in July. There are moments that I wonder what in hell possessed me to consider such a journey and other times when the entire substance of what gave me juice in my life dissappears from thought and I am left with just a few moments of incredible peace and wonder at how lucky I am to have a body strong enough to do this. I am blessed to have the support of so many out there who I know are following along with me and it is with this kind of spiritual power that I believe I will find my way when the going gets tough.

Until then I will struggle on with my very minimal Spanish skills and take good care of my feet so they can carry me to the end of the journey.

thanks for reading and for creating such a receptive space for me to fulfill this incredible journey of the heart and soul.

Beuo Maggee

Day One St Jean Pied de Port

2008-08-28T02:09:00.000-07:00

After a pretty straight forward journey,although somewhat long and tiring, I am here at the start of a trip that I have been building up to for more than a year. Everything has worked out just fine so far. In spite of a hectic rush on the Paris metro to catch the train south, which I made within 2 minutes of departure, the travel was uneventful. The train ride through France was beautiful and the country side very pretty. The second train through the mouuntains and into St Jean Pied de Port was very beautiful and this little town is very historic and quaint. I only wish I could speak better French as people here do not speak much english.

I was surprised at the number of pilgrims that are everwhere. Once we got on to the second train, I felt like I had joined cult as there was a full load of back packing people, all heading for the start of this camino. People are very friendly and I spend the whole trip through the mountains talking to a nurse from Denmark.

I will start tomorrow and even though the pilgrim's office recommends staying at a place 8 kms up the mountain, I will plan to go all the way to Roncesvalles which is 25 kms across to Spain. I walked up the first few kms this morning and it seems much less intimidating than the rocky mountain hikes I did in July.

My thoughts are that this is a stunning place, the air smells wonderful and it is quiet and very peaceful, a very rural environment with loads of history and fabulous architecture. It is true that the walk itself is meant to be a journey and the challenge for me will be to be able to let go of my targets, stop worrying about the deadlines and just follow the path to experience the process along the way.

All for now..............Maggee

What am I carrying!

2008-08-20T19:23:00.000-07:00

I have taken time to think about what I will carry that I really really need and I have looked for what I want to carry for my soul journey. I also carry the prayers of people who are important to me. I carry with me the good wishes of my family and friends, the concerns of people who worry that I am travelling on my own, the excitement of people who have done this, wish they could do this or are thinking of doing this themselves. I carry the excitement of my little grandson who looked at me in wonder when I said I would be going on a very long trip and walking for 30 days. I carry my own pain and the pain of others who too have suffered or anticipate the loss that I have experienced. I take with me an assortment of things - rose quartz from South Africa symbolizing universal love, small stones from Killarney Park where Chris and I loved to canoe, a piece of coral from Jamaica, a stone from my wonderful counsellor Patricia that aligns with my mission on this journey, a poem from my wonderful cousin in Cape Town - Meike and a quote from my coach Penny. I carry the concern of my Dad who worries that I will be forever lost in the wilds of Spain, the love of my Mom who is as excited as I about this journey - she mostly feeling glad to see me so happy once again. I carry with me a special treasure from Cathy and most of all I carry from Susan, some sand in a small glass vial from an artistic project that has been blessed by the Dali Lama himself.
How lucky I am to have the good fortune to carry both the grief and the love of people around me - knowing that the contemplation and the opportunity for reflection that I have along my way will be a gift to me and to them. I am blessed with the time for social isolation and for leaping into the unknown and the daunting. I am blessed with the wonder of daring to do something quite out of the ordinary for me and for what people might expect of me. I am really just blessed - to be able to do this at all - don't you think! M

"When one leaves certain social situations and moves into temporary loneliness and then finds jewels, everything changes" Joseph Campbell

Packed and ready to go!

2008-08-19T19:32:00.000-07:00

Seems hard to believe that I can pack all that I will need into this back pack and even carry the thing for as long as I will have to over the coming weeks. I have had great tips for packing from friends and so have streamlined the contents down to the very basics. I have packed and re packed and carried it on long hikes a few times to get used to the weight which is about 18lb and also to figure out all of the options that this little baby provides - a whole new experience in travel for this old babe. Who would have thought that this would be my new look! - M

Into the woods

2008-08-18T14:54:00.000-07:00

Changing Lanes

2008-08-17T17:00:00.000-07:00

While I realize that the plan of attack that has prevailed in the past few months has been rightly geared to fitness and endurance, I am now entering a new phase of preparation. At some point last week, I decided that my physical strength is about as good as it can be and in fact, better than I have felt for such a long time. I am now focusing on the journey - both the geographical/historical process and more importantly the spiritual process that I am searching for as I embark on this adventure.
I have read a long list of books in the past few months, being at first curious about the travel challenges of this pilgrimage and then later learning about people's experience and personal outcomes (being the goal oriented person that I am). I started with Sue Kenney's two books and then Shirley MacLaine, later Paul Coelho and a hilarious book by Elizabeth Christmas who headed off for the Camino with a group of women which quickly became a real problem.
The most recent book is called 'The Way is Made by Walking' (Arthur Paul Boers) given to my by a new friend and caminoholic Tom. This book has gripped me in a new way and caused my focus to shift somewhat as I count down the remaining 8 days to my departure. There is a deeply religious and for me a spiritual journey unfolding in preparing for and contemplating this trip. The idea of a pilgrimage is such an ancient thought and in modern day - equates to something foreign and impossible to consider. It takes time for one thing, endurance and perseverance and is not easy however, that is part of the process. The pilgrimage - made through walking one step at a time - is transformative, simply due to the fact that life slows down the mind and one is compelled to focus on the ordinary simple things of living each day, noticing what transpires and being clearly in the moments as they occur (challenges and all)
Today I walked for 4 hours with my fully loaded pack and while it seemed not too arduous, I was exhausted by the end. The sun was hot and I did not take enough to eat with me, nor did I allow myself proper breaks ( I am always focused on getting to the goal you see). I learned a few things, one to make sure that I stop when I need to, second - to bring food with me that will provide energy and lastly to tie things on (I lost my new hat out of my pocket somewhere along the way and could not even consider going back to look for it!). More importantly, this pilgrimage is about the process and not the end, so savouring the steps along the way will make the difference for me in the long run.
I am 'on my way' already, as it occurred to me today that if something were to cause the cancellation of this trip, I would be devastated. Planning and preparing has provided such a great focus both materially as well as emotionally and I know that the next 8 days will fly by. My lists are complete and there are only a few things to put together now - learning more about my new lightwieght camera for one and remembering the details of all that has been in my mind over the past weeks.
I keep in my mind, something I told by husband Chris before he died and that was that I wanted to do interesting things and travel to different places when I was on my own and here I am - doing just that! M

Time Running Out

2008-08-11T14:36:00.000-07:00

Lots of walking, added some running and love the new boots I purchased last week. Scary, getting squished feet so close to departure, however, problem corrected with better and bigger boots!. tested them out in a down pour and long hike on Saturday and aside from cramped toes, all is well.
Ready to go except for the wait now - 2 more weeks. I am thinking about all sorts of things these days. Taking off on a adventure like this is such a new experience for me. I am both excited by the prospect of such an unusual thing to do and as well, sort of conflicted by a fear of the unknown. Everyone tells me 'just do it' and the Camino will provide, so I believe them and trust in my instict which has served me well over my life.
Never been so organized about anything before, in fact, I could be ready to leave in 10 minutes if I had to. Have sorted out so many little issues that were a struggle for me - how much shampoo, what about laundry soap, which top, which pants, where do I find a whistle etc etc. All solved by my very methodical lists and adventures into the stores in the past months.
Now, I think about what it will be like to get on the road and board the plane and enter into that strange place of being a solo traveller - and not just to the destination as I have done so many times before. This is where the courage is required - trusting that I have made a good decision and the process will unfold as intended.
This is when I think about Tom (my son) who has taken off for Korea 3 time now and done well diving into the unknown - culture, language, territory and people - and has set a remarkable example for me - good for you Tom Tom to be such an inspiration for your Mom.
More later - M

And she waits!

2008-08-07T17:24:00.000-07:00

What is it that makes me take on such tremendous and daunting challenges - who knows - but what would I have been without them. Here I am now close to 2 weeks from departing on this major adventure. On my own, travelling about as far away as I can imagine, to be mobile, on foot and unreachable - pretty much. Maybe just what I need - or people around me need maybe! - who knows! Time will tell!
My feet hurt already and my new boots sit here waiting to be broken in - how can feet change size just like that. Here I was thinking that I had it made, with my comfy boots, hiking my merry little walks. Little did I know that lengthening my hikes would lead me to such grief and pathetic hobbling after only one 23 km hike. So now I am on the serious quest for comfy footwear and pain free footsteps.
Have calculated that I have completed about, maybe 50kms per week, over the last few months and so the build up takes shape, preparing for the great Camino de Santiago, which will require at least 25 kms per day for about 30 - 32 days - yikes!
Did you know that the actual bones of one of the 12 apostles lies in a burial place in a cathedral in Santiago, Spain and that for thousands of years pilgrims have walked all across Europe to arrive at this sacred place. And in 2008, I will be one of them - who would have thought eh - not my Mom or my kids that's for sure!
Practice packing, creative shopping for ultra light weght clothing, narrowing my choices to one change for everything (and lots of soap), has not been easy let me tell you! I am however, more cognizant of the outcome of the last few years of pity shopping during Chris's (late husband) illness and death. I could clothe an army here and am determined to focus energy on less worldy endeavours = hence this pilgrimage. Actually it is a way to find myself once again and to find peace and joy from this altered life plan.
So the plan is to travel to Paris on August 26, find the train station (with my limited vocabulary) and after 2 trains and about 6 hours arrive in the foot of the French Pyrenees ready to start an 800 km pilrgimage to Santiago de Compostela. I will be walking in the fooststeps of literally thousands that have gone before and hopefully less travelling at the same time as me this year! Accommodation is provided in hostel like places along the way and of course communities of like minded travellers form as the journey unfolds. An entirely new experience for this 'traveller' and hence part of the personal challenge - can I really do this? Only took about a year to build up the courage to actually book the flight. But here goes - what have I got to lose anyway.

'One can access the heart and the mind through the feet' - (even if they hurt - hopefully??)

That's it for now! - Maggee! (my new handle which only my dear old Dad ever called me when I was little - seems appropriate to redesign myself a little for this new adventure, don't you think?)