I woke up thinking I was good. Always optimistic.
We decided to have a shortish day. Soon I wasn’t going so well. Fever gone but the second half (read lower-half) of the experience was about to play out. It was a delicate walk. Looking back now, it really was funny. One minute I’m fine, next minute I’m in the bushes swearing and cursing, horrified at my situation and nothing to do but live through it. My ex-Gatorade vessel was useless. Trucked out the loo paper😃.
We got to this kinda hippy village , Foncebadon, and I had had it. Ever patient Tony helped as much as he could. But my problems were all deeply internal. I was slumped over my arms on the cafe table, coming to the realization that this was my challenge on the Camino – how to prevent pooing my pants. My Camino was only ever going stay at the physical stage. No mental, no spiritual! ET stripped bare.
And then … they played the most moving Xavier Rudd song EVER. That did it. I crumbled. A rush of tears, tears of emotion. The pressure valve had activated. It was such a relief. I started to feel better.
Enough drama. It was time to plod on. But I think it was my lowest ebb.
In my sick fog, I didn’t realize that we were approaching the Cruz de Ferro (The Metal Cross) at the highest point on the Camino. The place where you are supposed to leave a rock from home and say a prayer, make a wish, be spiritual…. and I forgot it.
We plodded towards the cross.
As we approached we ran into two gorgeous young women who were up for a chat. Steph was from Melbourne and Grace from the States. Steph was a great story teller and we were soon laughing about Crazy men on the Camino (not Tony 😉). One woman she met left her albergue at 2.30 am to shake the guy that didn’t take No for an answer! And this other guy’s come-on to Steph was, ‘Hi, Can I massage your feet’. So we laughed, and then we settled down so that each of us could do our little moment at the Cross … tony and I threw his rock together. What a champ. I love him.
But we were all up for more laughs, so sat and ate our lunch on the picnic table… and wait for it, a tour group gave us their left over gourmet lunch before they left so we had Goats cheese, pie, capresse salad and Gazpacho.
I was so happy.
After about an hour Steph and Grace headed back to hippy town and we continued on but not before we exchanged contacts and found out that we shared a whole bunch of friends along the Camino … the Camino sisters, Deb and Al… they’d even been told to look out for us. We felt like family. And Emily, Steph is on her way to NYC. She is hoot. Look out.
Needless to say, I had a new bounce in my step and knew I could do the next 12kms😜.
We made our destination, Acebo butnot before a steep, unstable decent.
Ps. Note to self. Find out the name of the Xavier Rudd song.
eathomson.com 