You won´t believe the things I´ve seen

Mood: accomplished

Music: The rythmic sound of the Spanish language and El Chef en el cochina

Things I´ve learnt so far on El Camino

Heinrich taught me that there´s always another pretty church to look at so don´t get hung up on one…

My eyes have always been too big for my stomach, hey no wise cracks but you´re right… I cooked a meal fit for a king and ended up with enough for at least two, offering it around the refuge to all and sundry, I hope it goes. At least the spanish guy has made use of the spare patatas (potatoes)...(Pan fried chicken fillets, mixed salad (lettuce and onion, that´s only missing the tomato to be the definition of a salad in Spain), some kind of beans and a carton of tomato puree so that I could make homemade baked beans, I think it was breakfast in a can as there was a chunk of bacon and two of sausage in there too…

Going without sleep isn´t necessarily a recipe for a short fuse, I was fine once I accepted that the refuge I wanted to actually grab some kip in was closed, forcing me to take s5tock and continue onto the next one 9k away, only to find that the swimming pool I had set my heart on was closed too darn it…




My massage skills have not been depleted by lack of practise, I had this german woman eating out of my hand, literally as we had a watermelon, strawberries, cheese and wine party ending in swapping shoulder neck and back rubs, I drew the line at feet… Plus she heard how disgusted I was at the other german woman of a certain age who insisted on scaring Stephen from Kentucky by being stark naked in the shared shower room, then coming back into the dorm, bent over right next to me in cycling shorts. Two bottles of the cheapest Rioja, and my massage pal wanted to show me her arse and said how much better it would be…







I politely declined of course, blushed and quickly got ready for bed as she´s old enough to be my mother, the other one old enough to be me granny…

I´ve learnt that other people are just as bad as I am at accepting help from a stranger, or even someone you know slightly well, I regailed Stephen with the tale of my trip to casualty to try to have that Tic removed, as my finest example of destruction of the Ego so far, I´m still trying to finish it off once and for all

I´ve leant that I CAN have a meal without having a cigarette afterwards, it´s stil hard after an ice cold beer… 11 days down, the first three are the hardest apparently, then the first three weeks, then the first three months, so still a while to go and you never forget how nice it is. The worst temptation was when on the night bus only hours after leaving home on the saturday, heading towards Bordeaux, I found a ouch of 50 grammes of tobacco, all I needed to get was a lighter and papers and I would have been set, but I was strong for once and left it on the side, if I´d given up on giving up then it would have been curtains, plus a lot of money would have been wasted on fags, my circulation wouldn´t have improved, my complexion, my smell and all sorts of other things like the breath to climb over the pyrenees…

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I had a spiritual experience last week, a full on moment of clarity, an epiphany. I was calm and yet surrendered to a higher power (call it what you will, I prefer to refer to it as the collective unconcious or the Tao / Dao). Perhaps it´s because I have been reciting the Maha Mantra continuously during the day, that´s a lot of Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Hare Rama, Hare Rama´s in eight hours, plus the repetitive banging of my stick and or sticks sending me into a trance like the drum beat of a tribal ceremony and the neverending horizon of mountains, hills and plains emptying everything apart from that from my own piece of the collective, allowing ´whatever´ to take all the rubbishes´ place… I knew without a shadow of a doubt that I would give my life to the service of my fellow man (currently thinking that may involve massage somewhere along the line). I also knew without knowing the context, just the fact, that I was here for a reason, so I have tried to ignore any temptation to become attached to things I used to spend my time on.

I´ve read a few accounts of people falling in love and giving up on the Camino, or finding all sorts of other excuses to quit or get sidetracked, I won´t let anything or anyone do that to me, not until I´ve gotten to Santiago anyway lol…

Jon / Juan Paul / Pablo Walker / Andador

Light n Love

xXx

Day Ten - Leaving Logrono - 29k

Awoke at a ridiculous time again and got ready by 4:00. Left the Albergue after donating some money for a sleeveless t shirt I’d found in the lost property, I made my way through the streets Of Logrono. The town proper once you left the Historic bit was very modern in deed but lit up like a Christmas tree. I had no difficulty finding my way and crossed the entire town leaving the outskirts behind before 5:30 and having seen only three people, two immigrants who looked like cleaners and one other and three Police cars. I felt very safe and I doubt I would have made the same journey through a British city so easily or in a such a relaxed frame of mind. The Pick n Mix was my walking fuel so it’s probably no surprise that everything was cramped up and sore even after a good warm-up. I reached the edge of town, following a tarmac bike trail and coming into an area specifically built to provide residents of the town with a beautiful place to exercise and spend time with the family. As it is I was disgruntled and already felt like collapse but made my way to a shed whose windows and doors were never fitted or had been removed by whoever had covered the outside with graffiti. It looked like a hangout for youths but was spotlessly clean inside, so I got my sleeping bag out and cursed my decision not to donativo a few Euros for one of the camping mats back at the Refugio’s lost property. That didn’t work, because the floor was too cold and I couldn’t get comfortable so I moved on through the early morning, still dark.

Walked around the edge of a huge lake which I am sure would have looked a lot nicer, later in the day. Made my way along the fence line where former pilgrims have created a spectacle, hundreds of feet of fence with makeshift crosses filling every square inch, I tried to find some twigs to add my own, it was quite an eerie sight. Walked past the huge Toro on the hill overlooking Navarette as the sun started to come out. Kept walking straight through until I reached Ventosa. The Refugio there was 24 hours a day, my plan was simple-ish. Sleep there from 11 until 3 or 4 then carry on to Najera where the local Municipal Swimming Pool was across the river from the Albergue and gave free entry to Pilgrims. The Refugio at Ventosa was closed so it was a three hour wait there, my book now almost thoroughly being ignored and hated by me I carried on after a short break at a bar to Najera.

I hadn’t used my mobile phone as anything other than a camera and a means of keeping everyone updated on my progress. I broke out the headphones, set-up my Jamiroquai albums and danced my way to Najera, probably on instinct and Adrenalin by now, where I found the Scandinavian madman and the old Italian guy. Made my way after lunch/evening meal depending on how many hours there should be between waking and having your supper, to the Refugio which was closed. Thought about burning my guide book but decided to make the most of it instead and chatted in my gradually improving Spanish with a fellow pilgrim who had been at Logrono the night before. Finally allowed to enter the Albergue only to find that the Swimming Pool wasn’t open yet, this year! Ok so nothing has worked out right and I’m exhausted, perhaps this is my lesson!!! Forcing the issue isn’t working, you need to go with the flow because continually pushing yourself is going to end in tears…

As it is Stephen from Kentucky arrived as they were opening, so we explored the old town looking for shopping possibilities, found caves in the hillside, experienced Chocolate (the end bit pronounced like pate, over there, this is seriously thick hot chocolate which you need to eat with a spoon at times) but no Churros oh well, there’s still time. I went to the supermarket and got enough food for four people, luckily there was a hunger in me for two and several other pilgrims with no pride to get in the way of it being used up. Cooked for the first time, chicken with random cupboard spices pan fried slowly with Boiled potatoes and salad. Stephen introduced me to a grilled cheese sandwich. I’d heard of them before as I am a massive fan of Americana but had never managed to work out what they entailed. Now I know, and so simple too. Bread, cheese, pan nuff said.

Tried in vain to share the wealth, with ‘American guy who speaks good Spanish’ and others, although they did share the chicken amongst themselves I had a lot of potato salad to carry around until the next night and the rest of my home-made baked beans in tomato sauce had to be eaten for breakfast the next day.

Location Spain

Mood: cowardly cheerful as fuck buzzing on a natural high

Music: The sound of birdsong in the morning and church bells at night argh!!!!!

First things first I really dislike these darned internet machines in the refuges, I´ve lost a blog entry because the time ran out and now another version because I pressed the wrong button…

Everything happens for a reason I like to think, so maybe it was insulting or just too wordy, so here goes with the third go.

- Cowardice

I´ve been a coward in that I´ve protected myself from being hurt and happy at the same time, by not letting anyone get close I´ve denied them and me the chance of any joy and misery too…











Astrid from Austria is a case in point, we struck up a conversation on the road the other morning and spent the whole day swapping stories and getting on like a house on fire (strange analogy but it fits). I really enjoyed the day and it flew by, not even noticing any pain in the joints or soreness from the previous days exertions. She has a boyfriend who funnily enough is from Thornbury in Gloucestershire (small world innit).

They say the grass looks greener on the other side, but that´s just an excuse not to try harder with your current situation, it only looks greener because when you get over there it´s got just as many weeds and brown patches… Like the dog with a bone in his mouth, who looked into the water and saw a dog with a bigger bone, tried to grab it and lost the one he had…

Everyone seems to think the grass is greener rather than tend to their own patch these days, I don´t recommend it, feed and water the bit you´ve got.

The intimacy, trust and empathy that you´ve built for one another means much more than anything you think you might have with someone else, no matter how appealing they look, how well you click.

Although all that said, lust is the quick and easily available alternative to trust in the modern world, where everything is expected right away, with our short attention spans and need for quick fixes.

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My days, in my mind, are meant to be spent meditating and being awash in the sights and sounds of the countryside not flirting with a pretty girl from Austria, but it´s very tempting nonetheless to become sidetracked from the reason I came out here.

So many beautiful, exotic (Austria?) women, all the beer and wine and food, so many temptations. Just another reason why the Camino means different things to different people and why there are so many reasons for doing it depending on who you are, where you´re from and why you came out here in the first place…

Sort it out with him or her don´t go looking elsewhere, otherwise why did you get together originally? As for me I´ll stick to my cowardice I find it comforting to know that I´m safe in my little cocoon of nothingness for the moment, until I'm ready not to be such a sad and lonely old git. Claudia nearly tempted me earlier on in the Camino, but her large nose meant that I had mental images of our kids with massive snozzes, given the walker tendency to have large ones coming from the Welsh side of the family.

My heart goes out to anyone with relationship difficulties, the credit crunch can´t be helping neither because don´t they say (yes THEM again!) that money worries are the main cause for breakups?

Soy Ingles y un poco gales - I'm English and a little bit Welsh

xXx
Light and Love
Juan Pablo Andador

Day nine - Capital of Rioja Region / Well it would be rude not to - 20k

No sleep or at least that’s how it feels, awake and unable to get back to sleep again and it’s early like 4:00 AM. Getup and remove myself to the kitchen. Heinrich is there, the German guy from the bar. We chat a bit and I let him use the internet as he wants to make sure he gets a message to his wife, and leave early today to do a two stage walk direct to Logrono to buy her a Birthday Present and onto somewhere else to stay for the night. Comparing your rate of walking is not good, others will be walking further and quicker, some will be walking less far and slower and combinations of both. Get used to it. Decide to right some blog and end up failing three times for different reasons and as usual realising that there’s a good reason for all three failures as my frustration at losing what I’ve written through computer and user error is replaced by the sure and certain knowledge that I lost those entries because I needed to keep thinking about it before I put it down, because the first versions were insulting or ill considered, the lack of sleep was making me crazy and bad tempered and I don’t want to take that out on anyone.

Decide to do a shorter day in the hope of seeing people I know again and resting up of course ahem, although it’s becoming clear that it’s easy to miss people terribly that you barely know when they aren’t around but I feel conflicted when they are because it’s hard for me to tell them why I’m here, it’s the one thing that I didn’t see as a problem because I was going to keep myself to myself, my reasons my own, my quest highly personal, my mission to walk alone and give my Spirituality and my connection to nature a proper prolonged chance to re-emerge and rebuild. It felt right to want to see someone again because you enjoy their company, when you’re trying to find your way on a quest that is already one fifth completed and unsure of whether they represent a challenge to overcome or sidestep, are they another opportunity to learn a lesson from the past or just someone whose company you enjoy who happens to be on the same journey?

Stephen arrives in Logrono after I’ve already surveyed the area and possible Pilgrim Hostels, visited the Santiago Church, eaten pastries and sweets and bought strawberry’s as well as all provisions for the following day and also managed to arrive outside a Mobile Phone shop as they shut for Siesta, no charger for me yet. Start queueing outside the Refugio to wait for them to open when I hear that Astrid and Inna (not sure how you spell it) are round the corner. Popping round to offer a cheery if slightly awkward smile as I’d left them in Los Arcos yesterday and a fresh Strawberry, I get the nod that the Refugio is open at last and we all pile in.





Find the people running it miserable gits, the Municipal refuges seem to attract job worths and people who aren’t overly enthusiastic at
times, the smaller places are definitely more atmospheric, cosier plus I don’t really like the towns anyway, although Logrono is better than most. Historic but with a great vibe and energy, the square is full of kids playing after school, everyone’s bustling to the shops or somewhere. Getting bored of attaching my solar charger to my rucksack and hoping for three consecutive days of unbroken sunshine, I buy a Spanish phone charger, the girl in the shop not only opens the package to ensure it fits my phone, she even plugs it into the wall to check that it’s working for me, now that’s what I call customer service. The Pick and Mix shop beckons and I’m starting to realise that the Spanish have a certain flair, whatever they are doing, even here there is an air of professionalism that doesn’t apply very often where I shop anymore.
Getting back to the Refugio I try to make the most of the kitchen, although I end up with ham and cheese sandwiches, peanuts and fruit for afters. The guys on the table next are awaiting a sumptuous looking Paella which has my nostrils aching and my lips wet, I get on with cutting the watermelon up, the strawberry’s cleaned and cut and red wine shared out, cheese is portioned out as is bread when others arrive for an impromptu party. We end up slightly sloshed on two bottles of the cheapest nicest wine I’ve ever had. Bought from what looked like a very smart wine shop, the cheapest bottles were two Euros a piece but I wasn’t counting, here in the Capital of the Rioja region. Inna won’t stop giggling, perhaps it was the wine, I assumed after she said “I’ll have the bottle” that she drank it regularly which is the only reason why I didn’t offer her any, just topped the glass up when empty. If it wasn’t the wine I can only assume that my powers of massage had loosened her up, giving her shoulders and neck a good workout was my good deed for the day, it set a trend for my Camino.