Traveling with Joe

Nobody is exactly sure how many Kilometers it is from our starting point in Ronscavales to our ending point in Santiago de Composteles.  Everybody takes the photograph of the 790km sign where we started on the trail but that is the distance on the highway.  The Camino does a bit more wandering than a modern highway.  I do know that on the trail today somebody has painted 400km on a concrete drain cover.  It’s as close to the mid-point as you need to know anyway.

When I did the Camino in October the piece we did today was one of the hardest.  It wasn’t the longest day and certainly not the most hilly but it has a 17km (about 10 mile) stretch of absolutely nothing.  In October the fields were brown with sad little stubs of shorn off corn & wheat and, like today, there were a lot of Pilgrims on the trail.  This meant that if you needed some privacy you just had to hold it – for ten miles.

Today could not have been any different.  Everything is vibrant and green and even though there were people in front of us and behind us, the spacing was much further apart so if you needed a quick break it was no problem.  At 6km away from the end of the long stretch there was a beautiful shady spot with a creek running underneath a bridge and the concrete railing was the perfect height to sit on and take a breather.  I decided to take advantage of the only shade I knew we’d have for another hour or so and Marji continued on.  I’d been there for 15 or 20 minutes when another member of our group passed by.  Margharita had her headset on and was just bopping down the trail.  Marji had been listening to music when she left as well and I had been earlier but had taken my earbuds out when we had stopped the last time.  I put my headset back in, hunted for some really fun music and made a discover.

Don’t walk to dance music.

I literally danced/half-ran for the last 6km into town with music blasting in my ear.  Tim had made a music mix late last night just for today and I had been listening to it but I wanted something with a faster beat – and I found it.  The phenomenon of being out in the middle of nowhere with bright green fields and blue-blue skies a warm breeze and bright sun and fast-beat music was experienced by a few of us today and was a talking point in the bar we all stopped at, exhausted, soaked in sweat, and breathing hard.  The experience was strangely exhilarating, and those of us with rocking music on had all pushed hard to this stopping point.  I kept looking around to make sure there were no bicycles overtaking me because, God forbid they heard me singing. I wasn’t worried about any Pilgrims catching up as I flew past anyone that was in front of me.  Something about the right music and this environment kicks you into overdrive that felt strangely like being high.  Of course I’m basing that last comment on other people telling me what it’s like to be “high”; how would I know?.  LOL.

After the break we walked around the corner to where our Guide had a Picnic set up.  We had a leisurely lunch and then most of us took the van to look at some Roman ruins nearby.  Then two of us continued on in the van cutting off about 10km of todays walk and got to the hotel in time to take a nap, get showered, gather up our laundry (we are at a hotel that actually will wash your clothes for you for 10 euros), get a beer and make it to the 6pm briefing all without a hurry.  At 7:15pm we are wandering into this bleak little town to try and find someplace that serves dinner before 9pm.

Tomorrow the Guide is going to shuttle us 10km back to where todays scheduled end-point was.  The Camino goes right past our hotel so after a few hours tomorrow we have the option of continuing on for another 10+ kilometers or just walking into the hotel and taking a short day.  I am opting for the short day.  This is one time when my previous experience on the Camino is worth its weight in Gold.  I had a short distance day today, another one tomorrow, a reasonable one on Thursday and then I am spending two days and 3 nights in Leon, a decent sized city, without walking.  The group will walk one normal day and then on Saturday they are only going to walk 7km.  The more I thought about it the more I realized that to get up early just to walk 7km was beyond dumb.  Then I realized that since we are pretty much dead-center in the Camino, if I had the opportunity to take two glorious days off in a real city while we are staying in a fantastic hotel (I also remember the place in Leon – a 1,000 year old Monastery), I was going to do it.  Having walked the Camino before I don’t feel the need to take every last step and I also know we have some grueling days ahead including two mountain ranges and some 30km+ days.  Right now we are having fantastic weather and for as far as they can predict it will continue into the future but the weather in Western Spain in April is notoriously wet so I’m going to REST while the conditions are good.  Just having this to look forward to is a gift.

Sooooo, while I’ve got some days off at the end of this week I will post pics.  I know I keep saying I’m going to do this but not only have I not been taking enough with my camera, my Samsung phone is crap so I need to transfer pics from Marji and possibly Margharita so I have decent content.  Anyway, sometime between now and Easter I will post a photo-rich page or two.  In the meantime, I’m going to be sort of lazy until we hit the trail after Leon which takes us directly into the hills.

Here are the last two days of FitBit data.  At least I am remembering to turn it on every morning, recharge it at lunch, then upload it at night.  I hope to have the vast majority of the Camino mapped when I’m done.

March 31, 2015

Joe Jeter

Stats from March 30, 2015

March 31, 2015