St Jean Pied de Port

St Jean Pied de Port

The Route

The Route

Friday, May 14, 2010

not yet swept away..almost

Terribly sorry for the delay but we have been fighting the floods and freezing our butts off, therefore no internet. We are on Day 28, which means we have 4 days left. We have seen two days of snow...that is right i said snow!!!!! not happy bunnies to say the least with that one. Viviana was cursing me for a bit but her reward is coming soon enough.

Our bodies are slowing down these days. it takes everything to get up in the cold mornings. It has been wet for days now. Putting your sore feet into soaking wet boots is one of the worst feelings ever. Add below 0 temperattures and the squeals can be heard about the Albergues.

I will attempt to relay a bit about our days for the past bit. Besides having moments of yelling out to whoever will listen when we curse the weather, we have spent more time than i care to reveal on the reproductive life of snails...yes snails. Given the weather, wet, we see lots, and lots of snails and slugs. Big black thick slugs. When i am not saving the snails from a terrible death, apparently the formation of their shells, how they reproduce has filled way too many hours. Once realized what we were doing we stopped it immediately, since it is just strange. Although i will google it when i get home since the damage is done. I have bonded with the snails, they are like family since i seem to move at the same pace as them as the day wares on.

Another past time seems to be the curing of our smelly clothes. Given the wet weather we are unable to wash our clothes, since once wet they need to be hung dry. Most of our clothes is dry fit so they cannot go in the drier. Thus the curing effect. I kinda see it like a fine wine, better with age, but can be rather strong. Like a nice wine or olives our clothes are basically taking on a Meditarrean existance.

Not quite sure how many nights back....i was forced to leave the room because this sub-human snorer drove me to near madness with sounds unrecognizeable. I ventured out to "no go zones" to find a bed. I freezing but no noise till the morning. We avoid this fellow like the plague. If we see him going to an Albergue we go to another one. It is doggy, dog and we need our rest more than anything else. Or the conversations might get even weirder than snail sex. I know that is difficult to imagine.

It has been ages now and we have grown to dislike the cyclists we see every day. It came to a head the other day when I was limping along a single narrow pathway through the bushes roughly 5 feet from the road side, which had a huge shoulder, only to be forced off the path by these rocket like cyclists! I lost it. I went off on a huge torent about how this a "camino", which means "walk", not a speed way etc. etc. They were long gone and I was just letting off steam because I had had it. I still do not get why people insist on cycling this as a "sporting" path. It is so much more than that and there are so many other places they can cycle...so why on a spiritual pilgrimage? I just had to let it out....sorry.

We are not the only ones struggling. We have an Italian woman we have met from the beginning and she was suffering with stomach trouble for the past few days. She had a wee melt down. We tried to comfort her and gave her stuff to help her out. We talked to her and tried to be there. She has walked with us and has asked us to contact her when we are in Rome. Her stomach is better, looks like what we gave helped. She was so afraid she would not make it to Santiago and she is so close. It is hard to explain what drives us and even more when we see each other in pain, and yet we push through it and keep putting one foot in front of the other.

Coming into Astorga, famous for chocolate, I was not doing so well. Once in we went out to get some food. We were passed by this young woman in a wheel chair, as we went by her she said hello, as many people here do since they know we are on the camino, if nothing else, I felt blessed I had pain because that meant I could walk on my own....enough said.

As we get closer to the arrival day we wonder what it will be like...? How will it feel, will we see others who we saw along the way? We have decided to not walk the whole way to Finistere. We want to enjoy the rest of the time be able to take in the Ocean etc. Santiago is the goal, Finistere was an add on. We both feel this is the best for us. We will walk the coast going into Finistere. There are plenty of hikes around that area that we can take in at our leisure, if our feet allow us.

Ciao, ciao,
K