career break

From Cizur Menor to Cirauqui (24.4 km)

Solitude is my companion on the Camino today.  I begin my day again at 6:45, seems to be a pattern now.  I start out alone and after walking for half an hour I pause to take a brief video to introduce my day – something I am doing each morning.  I am feeling really good today physically.  My feet are healing nicely and my hip has no pain.  But as I introduce my day on video, I get all choked up with emotion, out of nowhere.  I am so surprised. Before I know it, I am sobbing and I cannot stop and I don´t know why I am crying.  I cry for a good half hour as I continue to walk, thankful I have the path to myself just when I need my privacy the most.  I realize this emotion stems from a feeling of intense gratitude that I am on the Camino alone. For the first time in my life since childhood, I have no one to take care of but myself.  No husband, no children, nobody.  And even more, now others, like Pablo at the Albergue yesterday are reaching out and extending kindnesses to me, which I accept humbly and with gratitude. Receiving and accepting care from others is foreign to me – I am usually the caregiver. Being on the receiving end has touched me profoundly.  What power a simple act of kindess can have!

After such a good, cleansing cry I feel myself in a rather contrite mood, and ready for a confession.  I will not beat around the bush but will get right to the point.  On day 1 of the Camino, I stole a knife from the Albergue in Orisson.  At the time I rationalized my act.  First, I needed a knife to cut my cheese for the day and did not think there would be a place to buy one.  It was a necessity for me.  Second, it was a cheap knife, one of many, it would not be missed.  Third, I felt the Albergue was overcharging and therefore taking advantage of the pilgrims.  Two euro for a small 400 ml bottle of water!  That is thievery!  Regardless, I stole the knife.  I am now a Pilgrim and a thief.  And I didn´t even feel bad about it.  Even when I confessed my sin to Pauline the next day, I felt no remorse.  But today, all of a sudden, I feel regret.  I wish I had not done it.  I do not feel guilt, just regret like I have a blemish on me that I would like to remove, but I cannot.  Nothing can be done about it now.  And so begins another stream of philosophical thinking for the day which I will share with you.  The idea of being a good person which I like to think I am.  In fact, my personal motto in life is ¨do good for goodness sake alone¨.  Yes I know, this is a far cry from my thieving ways on day 1.  Still I think I am a good person.  Doesn´t everybody want to think of themselves as a good person?  But aren´t we all equally capable to doing bad things?  All of a sudden the whole notion of being a good person seems ridiculous.  Are we not all simply human, struggling each day to do good but sometimes we end up doing bad things too.  Perhaps this is the definition of being human.  Anyways, that´s as far as I got on that thinking.  But at least I got that off my chest. I hope you don´t hold it against me.

I saw lots of windmills today perched in elegant rows
on top of the hills.

I think windmills are beautiful in their simple,
streamlined design.  I love what they represent too:
creating energy from a renewable resource. 

During this time of deep thought, I was aware of the changing landscape.  The Pyrennees (I don´t know how to spell this correctly and it is bugging me!) foothills are giving way to gentler hills and the grazing livestock are being replaced by cultivated fields.  Fields of poppies remind me of Tuscany.  A windmill farm graces the distant horizon. I see an autoroute in the distance and I hear the sound of traffic, something new on the Camino. I observe how the people on the autoroute may be going to the same place as me but they are missing out on so much along the way – the smells, the sounds, the landscape.  Time even moves more slowly on the Camino.  I keep saying in my life:  time keeps marching on and I want it to stop or just slow down for a while.  Perhaps I have stumbled upon the secret to receive my wish.  Should I pattern my life after the Camino, to slow down, give myself more time to think, more time to socially interact with others, to be more in tune with myself?  Maybe then time will slow down to a more acceptable pace.  I don´t know but this is what I am thinking on the Camino this morning.

Fields of poppies rival the Tuscan countryside!

Taking a break along the way.

Another Camino marker embedded in the sidewalk
in a town so we don’t lose our way. 

On the way to Puente la Reina; there is a church in every town.

It’s hard to get lost if you pay attention.
Can you see which way I should go?

By lunch time, I arrive in Puente la Reine feeling really good.  No pain in my hips today and my legs feel really strong.  My feet are still a little tender but nothing I can´t ignore. I rest inside an empty church to escape the searing midday heat and sun.  It´s so stinking hot outside, it is almost unbearable.  A little old lady comes into the church and says her prayers.  She gets up to leave as I am heading to the door.  She insists on opening the door for me and as I pass her, she grabs my arm with purpose and wishes me a ´Buen Camino´.  I am touched.

Making my way through Puente la Reina towards the church.

I seek refuge from the heat in the cool, peaceful church and
meet the old lady on my way out. 

I love the neat and tidy gardens along the way.

This is the first time I have seen artichoke growing in a garden
I see a lot more throughout the day.

Leaving Puente la Reina.  After I took this photo, I realize
I have left my walking sticks at the fountain on
the other side of the bridge.  I run back and am relieved
they are still there. 

The Camino is desserted as I continue to walk in the afternoon.  I guess everyone has stopped early because of the heat.  But I am feeling good and think I can keep going. There is no one in sight ahead of me or behind me for many kilometres.  I am completely alone.  I hope to reach Lorca today but it is a long way off.  There is no shade, no wind, no relief.  But I continue, my spirits high.  I am enjoying my solitude today.

And then I reach a hill that just about does me in.  I call it the killer hill.  It seems to go on forever and ever.  It is so steep in places.  I am feeling light headed and I don´t think I can take another step.  But I have no choice but to put one foot in front of the other.  I feel desperate.  I start to count my steps and allow myself a rest after 100 steps.  I stop, lean my head on my walking sticks and catch my breath.  Then I begin again, 1, 2, 3, 4 and so on.  Out of nowhere, three people approach and then they pass me.  How can this be?  I am ready to pass out and they are walking by like this is nothing to them.  I realize I must be dehydrated but there is still nothing I can do but put one foot in front of the other.  At the top of the hill, there is a large flat stone under a single tree offering some shade and a little breeze too.  I drop my pack to the ground and collapse on the rock, and lie there for quite some time.  Finally I get up and continue on to the next village, now just a kilometre or so away, but I do not know this.  When I arrive in Cirauqui, I must climb up a hill to the middle of the village to find the only Albergue in town.  Thankfully, they have a bed for me.

Just after the killer hill, I see this town in the distance.
I zoom in for a closer look….. 

…bit the town is still a long way off.  I decide this is where I will stay tonight.
Why is the Albergue at the top of the hill in the middle of town?

After a shower, and doing my laundry by hand (the usual routine now), I actually lie down to rest.  I even fall asleep for awhile. Later I get some groceries to replenish my provisions and then eat the Pilgrim´s menu at the Albergue.  I share my table with an Irish couple and a woman from Switzerland.  She has been walking from Geneva since early April and is going all the way to Santiago when she will meet her daughter and continue to Finisterre at the coast.  I begin to tell them my story about dinner the night before and she stops me.  She has already heard the story.  She met Daniel at lunch time who told her the story about meeting four women in a grocery story and lucking out on the best dinner he has had in a long time (and the cheapest too).  It is a small world on the Camino.  I talk about the killer hill coming into town and I am met with blank stares.  No one but me found it so difficult.  So strange.  I also see my Hungarian friend, Agnes at this Albergue.  She has met up with another Hungarian girl, Zsuzsa (Susan in Hungarian).  I talk with them for a while before going to bed.  They tell me their stories and I share a little bit of mine.  Such is the Camino way.

Home for the night.  You can see my laundry in front of my green towel.

Lots of bunks – mine is the lower bunk on the left.

Our pilgrim’s dinner was served in what was once a wine cellar.
Elizabeth is to my right, and the Irish lady is across from me. 

It has been a challenging day – emotionally and physically and I crawl into my bed still feeling gratitude for being on this journey.

From Zubiri to Cizur Menor (25.2 km)

It is day 6 and I finally have Internet access again and time to write, but the internet is expensive (one euro for twenty minutes) and I have so much to share.  The keyboard is strange too so please forgive all my typos as I am typing fast.

On day 3, advil and tylenol are my friends on the Camino.  I didn´t have a very good sleep again and I awake feeling physically tired.  My leg muscles are a little sore but not too bad.  I decide to wear my hiking sandals today to give my feet a chance to breathe.  It has been so hot!  It was a good decision as I have no problems with my feet today. The blisters from yesterday filled up again with water so I resort to a trick I read about on a Camino forum, to pass a needle through with some thread and leave the thread in to allow the blister to drain.  I hope it works.

I head out around 6:45 am, a few minutes ahead of Pauline, my Irish friend.  We both decide to walk alone today.  I need to channel my low energy into walking and not so much talking.  I also feel the need to think about some of the things I have been talking about these past two days.  I spend the entire day walking alone except for the occasional greeting and a few minutes of friendly banter here and there.

Since nothing was open when I leave so early in the morning, I resort to my provisions in my bag: a banana, some stale bread, and a few pieces of salami.  It is enough to get me started.  I reach the first open restaurant at 10:30 am.  By now I am quite hungry even though I have also eaten an apple and some nuts along the way.  My breakfast costs five euros which buys me a large coffee, a toasted ham and cheese sandwich and yogurt.  It is enough.

My breakfast stop.  Yes, that is Pauline in the background.
Although we walked alone, we both ended up here
for coffee at around the same time.

The scenery this morning is changing.  We are still in the foothills of the Pyrennees but today I have passed factories and noisy highways.  The vistas are still breathtaking even with the human intrusions.  Today there are two accidents along the camino, within a few minutes of each other.  First, a guy wipes out on his mountain bike going down a steep hill and really does a number on his knee.  It is full of gravel and very bloody.  Several pilgrims stop, including my friend Pauline, to help him get cleaned up and bandaged.  Less than five minutes later, I see an older gentleman sitting on the side of the Camino with a bloody forehead.  Just before, there was a large, low hanging tree that we had to bend under to pass.  He was reading his book and walked right into it.  His wife and another Pilgrim had the situation under control and he was clearly embarassed and did not want a fuss to be made over him.

The scenery isn’t all beautiful today;
the sight of this large factory rudely intruded on the
picturesque landscape I’ve been enjoying.

This morning I am thinking about what I want to do next with my life.  I have an idea of something I want to do, and it is not a new idea either.  It would take me many years of study, perhaps 7 – 10, to realize this dream.  Today I grapple with the philosophical question: at 50 (almost), am I too old to start something new, to pursue new dreams and aspirations?  Aside from the practical logistics like funding the whole venture, is it sensible to embark on a new path at this point in my life?  Should I even care if it is sensible and just do it because it is my passion?  Pauline mentioned an accelerated program in England that could help me reach my dream within just three years and this has my mind spinning with possibilities.  I come to no resolution, but notice how excited I am just imagining what my life could be like.

This is the first memorial I see to remember
a pilgrim who died here on the Camino.
It is sobering to see this and I wonder
about the circumstances that lead to this.

There is a wonderful sense of comaraderie on the Camino.  Everybody says hello to each other as they walk by.  In the evenings, it is quite a lot of fun in the Albergues.  Last night, 4 of the 8 people in my room were Irish and I went to sleep listening to the Irish lilt of their banter as they were clearly not ready for bed at 10:00 pm.  I thought I would find communal living in dormitories to be annoying but I am quite enjoying myself.  But I must admit that getting woken up at 3:00 am by loud snoring is quite irritating especially when I have such a hard time getting back to sleep (damn my insomnia).  For now, I enjoy the novelty of it all.

An example of a water fountain from which to fill my water bottles.
Water is plentiful on the Camino so far. 

Today I walked through my first large city, Pamplona.  It was strange to walk from one end to the other.  The Camino was beautifully marked with a silver disc carrying the Camino symbol (a shell) embedded in the sidewalk every fifteen feet or so – impossible to get lost.  I am treated with respect wherever I go. I am a Pilgrim afterall. People wish me ´Buen Camino´.  I am touched.  Pamplona has a beautiful historic centre which attracts plenty of tourists. It was just buzzing with commotion when I arrived.  Other than peaking into the Cathedral, I simply pass through the town, determined to reach the next little town about 5 km away.  I find being in the bustling city to be rather disruptive to my Camino pace.  I do, however, take advantage of the amenities and stock up on bandages and a notebook to write a journal when I don´t have internet connection.  I eat my lunch on a park bench on the way out of town – I eat a little every hour or so.  It is too hot to eat a big meal at lunch.  I look forward to the Pilgrim menu tonight for supper when I know I will be starving.

The Camino marker on the sidewalk lead me through Pamplona.

A glimpse of the cathedral in Pamplona.

Another beautiful building in Pamplona; maybe I’ll come 
back another time to explore this historic town. 

The Camino passes through pretty city parks as I leave Pamplona.

I find the Camino to be physically challenging today, not because the terrain is particularly difficult, rather my old body is tired and quite frankly resents another day of walking.  My right hip started to hurt early in the day and by mid-morning I started popping pain killers to cope.  I think it is just inflamed, not injured, so I am not too worried about it.

I reach the Albergue in Cizur Menor around 3:30, tired and sore.  This Albergue is associated in some way with the Order of Malta and is run by a volunteer, Pablo.  I am greeted warmly and told to take my pack off, sit down.  Pablo offers me, and every other Pilgrim who arrives, a cold glass of orange juice and a cherry.  I am touched to the core by his kindness and almost burst into tears.

I find myself in a dorm with many beds, about 25, but spread out over several rooms.  I choose a bed next to a girl who I learn is from Denmark, Layla.  She asks me if my husband is on the Camino. Apparently she walked with Chris for alittle while the day before.  I haven´t seen Chris since Roncesvalles and I am glad to hear he is doing well. Remember the mother – daughter pair we met when waiting for our train to St. Jean Pied de Port?  Well I ran into them at the church in Pamplona and they had just seen Chris settled into an albergue closeby.  So I know he is staying in Pamplona tonight.   I am just a few kilometres away.

My bed for the night.  I was lucky tonight, no one took the top bunk.

I am so happy I pushed on to Cizur Menor as it is quite peaceful here with lovely views of Pamplona and the countryside and best of all I learn that Pablo offers breakfast to Pilgrims in the morning, for free.  It´s been another wonderful day on the Camino and in my journal I think I am ending my entry for the day, but it is not over yet.  By the way, I wrote this journal entry from the comfort of a lounge chair in the church across the courtyard from the Albergue, also the Order of Malta.  Imagine, someone has put a row of comfy chairs behind the stiff pews – it was wonderful.

And so let me continue my story of my evening on Day 3.  I hope I haven´t bored you so far with too many details but I want you to share in my happiness from the day.  I meet another girl, Agnes from Hungary, who says she does not have very much money and would like to cook dinner tonight in the Albergue, which has a very good kitchen. Would I like to join her, and Layla too?  We agree to check out the grocery store to see if we can conjure something up.  At the store, we meet Daniel a young student from England and Rihoko from Japan who listen to us talk about our dinner possibilities.  They both ask if they can join our dinner.  So now we have a dinner party of five.  We make our purchases and it costs only 3.60 each, including two bottles of wine.  Very good for the budget which I seem to be blowing each day.  Bandaids are very expensive here!

We prepare dinner together: pasta with tomato sauce with pork sausage, a large garden salad full of fresh vegetables, bread and wine.  There is so much food that we eat until we cannot possible take another bite and there are still leftovers.  Daniel packs a lunch for tomorrow and Layla and I pack some salad.  We all share the left over bread.  What a grand (the Irish are rubbing off on me!) way to end my third day on the Camino.  In case you haven´t noticed, I am having the time of my life.

We all pitch in to prepare our feast.

We’re ready to eat (and w’ere all starving)
but we pause to capture the moment.

The view from the kitchen window: Pamplona in the distance.

From Roncesvalles to Zubiri (21.5 km)

I got an early start today, on the road walking at 6:30 am. I didn´t have the best sleep last night even though my bed was super comfortable and it was  quiet in my little area.  The Roncesvalles alburgue has been recently renovated and offers all the comforts and necessities a pilgrim could want.  The beds are configured in pairs of bunk beds with walls between each pair giving you a sense of privacy aside from there being a stranger in the bunk across from you.  At least you don´t feel exposed to the hundreds of pilgrims who are sleeping there. Still, I had some difficulty sleeping, but I have difficulty sleeping most nights so I wasn´t too worried about it.  I felt pretty good physically – my quads were a little sore but otherwise no complaints.

The temperature was quite cool when I headed out and I was glad to have my base layer top to wear over my t-shirt. There was no food on hand that I could see so I munched on my cheese that I had bought in St. Jean Pied de Port and had a few bites of what was left of my day old baguette. It was enough to get me going but I knew I needed to get some provisions for the trail as soon as I came across a grocery store.

I was still in the Pyrennes foothills and the scenery was beautiful in the early morning light – rolling hills of lush pastures with forests in the distance.  The trail today was still quite hilly and rocky and got the heart rate going in a few spots.  I didn´t mind carrying my pack, although I was feeling some strain in my hips by mid morning (damn those weak hips of mine).

Pauline and I had planned to walk together again today.  By chance we ran into Monique and we started out with her as well but she wanted to go at a slower pace so we got ahead for awhile.  About 2 km in we came across a little town where we enjoyed our breakfast, European style which meant a coffee and croissant and orange juice – not exactly a hearty breakfast for a day of hiking!

We stopped again a few kilometres later for another coffee – actually we really needed to use the bathroom (probably because of all the coffee) and it was only available to paying guests.  We didn´t mind getting off our feet and enjoying another cup of java.  I learned how to order my coffee in Spanish: cafe grande americano con leche.  Pauline speaks Spanish quite well so she handles the Spanish and I handle the French as necessary – good teamwork.

We found a grocery store at around 10:30 and by then I was starving.  I bought some fruit, a stick of salami and some snacks like nuts, sunflower seeds and candy for a total of 9 euros.  I think I may have some trouble sticking to the 30 euro a day budget!  After another snack, we kept going.  By now it was getting really hot and we had some pretty tough hills to deal with.

Conversation flowed freely between Pauline and I.  I learned her life story today which was only fair as I had bored her with mine yesterday.  But seriously, there seemed to be no end of things to talk about.  It really helped to pass the time.

I was happy that the Camino was not crowded.  There were people along the way but we enjoyed long stretches where there was nobody but us causing us to wonder sometimes if we had taken a wrong turn.  But we followed the trail with no problem.  The camino symbol is posted regularly so it really is quite impossible to get lost.

Our walking day ended at 1:30 when we arrived in the little town of Zubiri where we found a private albergue that had beds available for 10 euro each per night.  The room is dormitory style with 4 pairs of bunkbeds.  There are 7 girls in the room and 1 guy.  A group had just arrived before us and were using the showers so we headed out for some lunch: tapas and beer – delicious!  Back at the albergue I had a great shower (this is luxury compared to South American hostels) and I washed my clothes.

I saw Chris this morning before I left.  I think he headed out before me but I haven´t seen him all day.  I suspect he has gone on to the town ahead which is just half a kilometre away.  But who knows, maybe I´ll run into him at dinner like I did last night.  I could have walked further today, but the next town with accommodations is 20 km away – too far for me.

All in all, it´s been another great day on the Camino – good weather, beautiful scenery, lovely trail and good company.

Update at 9:30 pm:  I have just discovered I have two very small blisters in the same place I get them when I run a marathon.  Also my toes feel bruised from hitting to toe box in my shoe with all the down hill.  I will switch to my hiking sandals tomorrow to give my feet a change.  Hopefully that will help them heal.  This is tough on the body!