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When we woke up, it was raining. We were having to walk today in the rain. It would be a true water tight test of our gear. It rained all morning and we plodded through. It was nice.

It was a long day through lots of market gardens. My feet were sore and I was hanging out for finding this Aussie albergue. We weren’t disappointed when we got there.

Susi is so special. She has done five Caminos, and then decided to run her own hostel. She bought a 300 yr old farm house, renovated it by herself, grew her own garden and now offers Aussie hospitality to exhausted pilgrims. A home cooked vegetarian meal.

I woke up feeling like my old self – chirpy, energetic and ready to go. The temperatures have dropped now so we don’t have to leave early to avoid the heat of the day. So it was a leisurely breakfast and then a brisk walk downhill into Ponferrada, we hoped.

As I walked I thanked all the kind people who helped me over the last three days. Mary for electrolytes, Oxanna for nausea pills, and Alison P for Gastro Stop.👍

And then as we progressed, we rounded the trail and ran into Mary, struggling with a sore shin, sitting underneath a wasps’ nest.

So we exited the location with her planted between us and meandered slowly single-file down steep rubble to the next town, Monlinaseca, where she decided to stay and rest. They say, ‘the Camino provides’ which indeed it does, for all of us when we need it.

So after a coffee stop with Mary we then headed off to Ponferrada, a town known for its huge Knights Templar castle on the top of the hill. Sounds so romantic and exciting but all I wanted was a toilet. Amazing how quickly one’s curiosity fanishes when dignity is at stake. Never found the toilet but did do a rushed tour of the castle. 

… And never did find the …. toilet but numerous trees sufficed (sorry trees) and a sneaky rose bush. It won.

We have now done 74%, 575kms in total, leaving only 197kms to go. What clever little vegemites. 

We didn’t stop in Ponferrada. We pushed through to Camponaraya. This positioned us well to walk tomorrow to the albergue,  Casa Susi which is owned by an Aussie. Looking forward to aussie-flavoured, Spanish hospitality.

 

 

 

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.

Ok. Not much to report today. Left at 8am, got sicker and slower.

We didn’t make our destination but stopped short at a beautiful albergue run by a young man called Aron in a tiny, ancient town called El Ganso. Forever etched in my memory as El Gastro. I was very unwell. I slept all afternoon and then all night. His mother cooked dinner for us. I couldn’t eat any of it. Our room mates were very understanding and shared their medicines with me. I felt safe and nurtured.

The Camino provides.

 

This was a big day. Over 30 kms. We left the albergue very early and walked in the dark and met only one other pilgrim – Stig, from Sweden. We talk with him for the first half of the day which ate up the kms. We talked about children, grandchildren, jobs and doing what feels right rather than what others expect. He was unhappy in his job and was about to leave when they restructured and gave him what he wanted rather than lose him. He is now 67 and still working and very happy. We parted ways after lunch and continued to walk.

I was looking forward to getting to Astorga because it is the location for the other Gaudi building outside of Barcelona – the Bishop’s Palace. I wanted to get there in time to take a tour before leaving the next day. 

As the afternoon stretched on I started to feel nauseous. Thought nothing of it. We got to a parish albergue – old original – and got given our own room! I dragged myself off to the cathedral and waited in line for the Gaudi tour all the time feeling worse. The building was very special – so much light, clever uses of space and combinations of Christian and moslem styles. It had it own set of strange religious artifacts, such as this woman, an Intercessor. You pray to her for something … in this case perhaps fecundity, bigger boobs or gender reassignment. 

By the time we got back to the albergue, I had a fever and was a mess. Straight to bed. Slept from 6.30pm to 7 am.  I wondered how I would feel the next day. Could I walk?