Well this will be short as it is way past this girls bedtime. We are off to climb a mountain tomorrow reaching the highest peak to date. We will be leaving as early as we can since we are heading to bed late. Last night was a nightmare we shared a room with 2 men who snored really loud. To put it into perspective they sounded like a car that has lost it´s muffler and backfires every once in a while. What a nightmare. To add to that it was freezing in the arbegue.
Anyway I have managed to get a pretty bad rash on the backs of my knees so at the end of the day I hobble along with Kimberley. I can´t complain though since Kimberley is in constant pain at the end of a twenty five to twenty seven km day and never once complains.
We are having enjoying the coffees though 3 today! I am in coffee heaven though I can´t wait to get to Italy to enjoy an espresso in a piazza with no backpack to lug.
We are 11 days tomorrow from Santiago... keep praying for us!
More from Kimberley tomorrow... that is if the mountain does not get the best of us lol.
looking forward to uploading some pics for you all and really getting blogging down!
v
Saturday, May 8, 2010
Friday, May 7, 2010
Throwing the gible out the window
so yesterday kimberley was told she should rest. of course that is not an option so we have decided to take the gible we have been following and alter it to suite us without adding any days or busses.
what we are doing is taking the grey route where possible, which turns out is in part the actual way of st. james, and shorting one day and adding to another to even out the km's. it will mean we are not staying in the exact towns it mentions but hey what can you do.
today we are in Villadangos del Paramo which is off the grey route. we decided to take the grey route when we noticed it would shorten tomorrow by 5km. so instead of 30 we are going to be doing 25 or 27 can't recall.
It was an overall good day.. the route wasn't much to look at but it isn't always about the scenery here. It is more about the destination. Heather if you are reading this then try to stay in the municipal albergue in the gible in Mansilla de las Mulas and tell Laura the Canadians say hi...actually tell her Barbara 2 says HI and her friend as well :0) if she doesn't remember us like that tell her we are the ones she told to throw away our boots and put a maxi pad in our shoe instead of the orthotic. long story but will reveal later.
Tomorrow we are off to Astorga the last big town before the crazy climb. It has been a pretty amazing journey so far and I feel as though I really have changed in more ways than one.
We are contimplating not walking to Finistere now as it will shorten our time in Italy and we don't really want that to happen so we are keeping our options open. We may end up taking a bus from Santiago to the coast line and then walking just the coastal section another Canadian suggested it. This way I can also see Barcelona and spend a good amount of time there.
Anyway more soon from Kimberley I am off to do the shopping!
2 days until we part with our stones :0) yeah our bags will be lighter hee hee
what we are doing is taking the grey route where possible, which turns out is in part the actual way of st. james, and shorting one day and adding to another to even out the km's. it will mean we are not staying in the exact towns it mentions but hey what can you do.
today we are in Villadangos del Paramo which is off the grey route. we decided to take the grey route when we noticed it would shorten tomorrow by 5km. so instead of 30 we are going to be doing 25 or 27 can't recall.
It was an overall good day.. the route wasn't much to look at but it isn't always about the scenery here. It is more about the destination. Heather if you are reading this then try to stay in the municipal albergue in the gible in Mansilla de las Mulas and tell Laura the Canadians say hi...actually tell her Barbara 2 says HI and her friend as well :0) if she doesn't remember us like that tell her we are the ones she told to throw away our boots and put a maxi pad in our shoe instead of the orthotic. long story but will reveal later.
Tomorrow we are off to Astorga the last big town before the crazy climb. It has been a pretty amazing journey so far and I feel as though I really have changed in more ways than one.
We are contimplating not walking to Finistere now as it will shorten our time in Italy and we don't really want that to happen so we are keeping our options open. We may end up taking a bus from Santiago to the coast line and then walking just the coastal section another Canadian suggested it. This way I can also see Barcelona and spend a good amount of time there.
Anyway more soon from Kimberley I am off to do the shopping!
2 days until we part with our stones :0) yeah our bags will be lighter hee hee
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
Which way...?
I have realized that we really have not given you an idea of how our days go. Although one day seems to blend with the other there is a wee process to our little world right now. So the day in the life of Kimberley and Viviana, Pilgrims on a mission, not sure what mission but it just sounds good. Viviana sets her watch for 6am which annoys the rest of the people since no one seems to get up as early. Why do we get up so early...? Because it takes us so darn long to get to A to B. We have the largest bags and everyone who passes us tells us just how big they are...talk about telling us the obvious but it seems to make them happy. It gets kinda annoying to hear it every day in and out...ah well. Once up we attempt to eat a wee bit, hopefully there is a cafe open to get a coffee. If there is no cafe, we panic and try to see how far to the next town for a coffee. Coffee is our bestest friend these days. It keeps the engine going as it were and well frankly is the only thing that gets my butt going. Never in all my days have I consumed as much coffee as I have on this particular trip. We actually plan our days on pace etc. to when we can get another cup. We are supporting the Spanish economy all on our own with just coffee.
We are up before the sun is up....currently that means it is freezing outside. As the sun rises we are reminded that life keeps moving even though we are barely aware of it at that point. As we drag our butts we try to keep moving with a pace which can only be compared to our traveling partners....the snails. We barely pass them but when we do we are usually trying to save them from the other pilgrims from stepping on them....we wonder why it takes us so long to get anywhere. If we are not saving hundreds of snails we are feeding stray cats along the route. We actually carry food for them....thus the big bags...okay not just because of that but it sounds better.
As the day goes we manage to amuse each other either by complaining about the weather, the trail-how uneven it is, since it kills my various injuries and basically makes both of us tired mentally trying to watch ever step so we do not fall all over the place. Let's face it, we have time on our hands here. To be fair our bitching does not last long and we just get down to busy which is walking. Today I had a thought about technology....here goes....we have managed to make it so we have more time, yet we still manage to do so little or fill it with nothing. It takes us roughly a day to walk 20km or so, so let's say it takes us 4 days to walk 100km, it would be a one hour bus ride to travel that same distance. So now we fill our time with what? We have eliminated the time to get to places yet, we never seem to have time for friends, family, whatever...how is that? This is what fills our days. We come up with lots of questions, sometimes we have answers but overall it is just more questions that we come up.
If the weather is good we sing. We forget most of the words and recall the chorus only. We go through lots of songs as you can imagine. We might be looking up some words so we can do an entire song just once.
After we make it to our 3rd coffee we are almost finished our day. Along the way we have the same people who were at the Albergue and slept in till 9am or so and then they pass us like nothing after a few hours. Then they manage to get all the beds. We are usually rushing to get at least one lower bunk since I cannot get my arse up one with my bad feet etc. I would pity the soul below me since I pee all night long.
Viviana usually rushes ahead tries to get us a lower bunk. Then we get our beds, stamp on our wee booklet to prove we are doing the camino and pay. Once in the bed we doctor our feet for roughly an hour. We fix what we can, then others have a look and see what they can do or just give you a look like, wow sure glad that is not my feet....then we have a good laugh since that is the camino.
Viviana usually has the energy and better feet etc. so she either seeks out food at a market or we decide to get ourselves to a pilgrim menu. Then off to bed at roughly 8:30 or so. Party down for us!!! Stop me now! Then we do it all over again, give or take meds for pain, and coffee amounts vary. We scooby snack along the path as well.
Enough said....
Ciao Kimberley
ps- we are getting exceptionally cold weather here they say...oh lucky us!
We are up before the sun is up....currently that means it is freezing outside. As the sun rises we are reminded that life keeps moving even though we are barely aware of it at that point. As we drag our butts we try to keep moving with a pace which can only be compared to our traveling partners....the snails. We barely pass them but when we do we are usually trying to save them from the other pilgrims from stepping on them....we wonder why it takes us so long to get anywhere. If we are not saving hundreds of snails we are feeding stray cats along the route. We actually carry food for them....thus the big bags...okay not just because of that but it sounds better.
As the day goes we manage to amuse each other either by complaining about the weather, the trail-how uneven it is, since it kills my various injuries and basically makes both of us tired mentally trying to watch ever step so we do not fall all over the place. Let's face it, we have time on our hands here. To be fair our bitching does not last long and we just get down to busy which is walking. Today I had a thought about technology....here goes....we have managed to make it so we have more time, yet we still manage to do so little or fill it with nothing. It takes us roughly a day to walk 20km or so, so let's say it takes us 4 days to walk 100km, it would be a one hour bus ride to travel that same distance. So now we fill our time with what? We have eliminated the time to get to places yet, we never seem to have time for friends, family, whatever...how is that? This is what fills our days. We come up with lots of questions, sometimes we have answers but overall it is just more questions that we come up.
If the weather is good we sing. We forget most of the words and recall the chorus only. We go through lots of songs as you can imagine. We might be looking up some words so we can do an entire song just once.
After we make it to our 3rd coffee we are almost finished our day. Along the way we have the same people who were at the Albergue and slept in till 9am or so and then they pass us like nothing after a few hours. Then they manage to get all the beds. We are usually rushing to get at least one lower bunk since I cannot get my arse up one with my bad feet etc. I would pity the soul below me since I pee all night long.
Viviana usually rushes ahead tries to get us a lower bunk. Then we get our beds, stamp on our wee booklet to prove we are doing the camino and pay. Once in the bed we doctor our feet for roughly an hour. We fix what we can, then others have a look and see what they can do or just give you a look like, wow sure glad that is not my feet....then we have a good laugh since that is the camino.
Viviana usually has the energy and better feet etc. so she either seeks out food at a market or we decide to get ourselves to a pilgrim menu. Then off to bed at roughly 8:30 or so. Party down for us!!! Stop me now! Then we do it all over again, give or take meds for pain, and coffee amounts vary. We scooby snack along the path as well.
Enough said....
Ciao Kimberley
ps- we are getting exceptionally cold weather here they say...oh lucky us!
Day 19 and counting
Hey all,
we have reached our halfway mark and are happy to announce the weather has changed to blistering cold and SNOW. Well ok we haven't yet seen the snow just yet but we hear it has hit a few cities we shall be entering soon. It is now colder here than in Canada.
Today started out very rough however once we shortened it by taking the alternate route after hitting the cafe it turned out to be much more pleasant. Just to note the cafe came after we hit the 16km mark. The road was not the old Roman road which is quite nice in pictures but is hell to walk on.
Kimberley's foot is causing her crazy pain but each day she gets up and walks. Some would say we were crazy others would say we are determined but whatever it is we keep trucking.
Tomorrow we hit Leon which should be wonderful we are off tomorrow for a short 19kms which will be lovely. The albergue we are at today is wonderful they gave Kimberley a foot masage and the daughter is a vet so she took a look at poor kimberley´s foot.
Tomorrow should be a better day we enter into Leon hopefully at a decent hour and hopefully will have enough time to suss out a phone card to call home.
We are also hoping that in leon we can find some neat little shop that sells insoles as i had to take the orthodics out of my shoe due to the swelling. it has been crazy.
this is a quick post i have´t yet uploaded any of my others and will do so shortly. for now this is just a quick hey...
T.H. I know it is odd but i decided to cary a rock with me for you. it is supposed to signify your burdens and once I get to the spot we are to leave it I will leave all my burdens behind. after speaking to you just before i left i felt a strong urge to bring a rock here for you. my intention was to place the rock and then photograph it showing the picture for you to see. however with the unperdictableness of the interent and our abilty to find it i have instead decided to post the tale for you to read. i hope it helps you... i have one rock for you and one for myself. i hope once i place the rock for you something magical happens as it does on the camino.
Marg i want you to do this... and do it soon. so many people here and so many tales you should get on the road. it is a magically difficult journey and really once you read all about it i hope you take the time you deserve and get onto the trail.
anyway all more soon from Kimberley if I can coax her out of bed that is.
cheers,
viviana
we have reached our halfway mark and are happy to announce the weather has changed to blistering cold and SNOW. Well ok we haven't yet seen the snow just yet but we hear it has hit a few cities we shall be entering soon. It is now colder here than in Canada.
Today started out very rough however once we shortened it by taking the alternate route after hitting the cafe it turned out to be much more pleasant. Just to note the cafe came after we hit the 16km mark. The road was not the old Roman road which is quite nice in pictures but is hell to walk on.
Kimberley's foot is causing her crazy pain but each day she gets up and walks. Some would say we were crazy others would say we are determined but whatever it is we keep trucking.
Tomorrow we hit Leon which should be wonderful we are off tomorrow for a short 19kms which will be lovely. The albergue we are at today is wonderful they gave Kimberley a foot masage and the daughter is a vet so she took a look at poor kimberley´s foot.
Tomorrow should be a better day we enter into Leon hopefully at a decent hour and hopefully will have enough time to suss out a phone card to call home.
We are also hoping that in leon we can find some neat little shop that sells insoles as i had to take the orthodics out of my shoe due to the swelling. it has been crazy.
this is a quick post i have´t yet uploaded any of my others and will do so shortly. for now this is just a quick hey...
T.H. I know it is odd but i decided to cary a rock with me for you. it is supposed to signify your burdens and once I get to the spot we are to leave it I will leave all my burdens behind. after speaking to you just before i left i felt a strong urge to bring a rock here for you. my intention was to place the rock and then photograph it showing the picture for you to see. however with the unperdictableness of the interent and our abilty to find it i have instead decided to post the tale for you to read. i hope it helps you... i have one rock for you and one for myself. i hope once i place the rock for you something magical happens as it does on the camino.
Marg i want you to do this... and do it soon. so many people here and so many tales you should get on the road. it is a magically difficult journey and really once you read all about it i hope you take the time you deserve and get onto the trail.
anyway all more soon from Kimberley if I can coax her out of bed that is.
cheers,
viviana
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