Woken up and take a trip to the toilets past two Germans noisily talking right outside the bedrooms with the light on, for no apparent reason. Getting a little bit pissed off with people taking liberties or just being so thoughtless. Try not to be too friendly and a bit annoyed with them but end up giving away chocolate chip mini muffins for everybody’s breakfast, my excuse when there aren’t any takers at first is that they’ll be helping to lighten my load, whilst I pack in the lounge. Maybe other people are also having difficulty dropping their guard and going with the flow too. I was an idiot to let pride get in the way of being helped earlier on and looking for my own solutions to problems, but I’m used to doing that and whenever a similar situation arose I felt like I was a kid again, too stubborn to accept help. They don’t seem too bad after all but I keep getting ready and the Dutch girls aren’t showing any signs of leaving, so I said I’d probably see them at the earliest place to stop for the day as my knee was only just getting better, no point in pushing it.
Getting into town I catch up with three girls, sporting natty looking new red raincoats. Cheap but shower proof by the look of it. Cross the river and end up walking with them for a little
bit, one is Cathy, one is Jess and one is Astrid. Blind them with science and nature, revealing the hidden treasures in the verges, the wild thyme and other herbs for keeping your boots smelling fresh and eating young Beech leaves for their nutty flavour. I’ve got a lot to thank Ray Mears for and reading up on the Camino beforehand helped too.
It’s my adventure, I’ve found myself already, now I want to lose myself and need to find my way on my own… For finding the courage within myself is the most natural way to boost my self esteem and confidence but more importantly through the application of stress and other outside stimuli I hope to be tested. When there’s just me roaming gradually forward in this landscape and a whole country of strangers around me do I feel alone or more connected to everyone else in the world than ever before?
When there’s an absence of something within you, in your life and in the lives of those around you, wouldn’t you want everyone to share in the greatest feeling? How do you put down in words something that was so easy to experience but more and more difficult to remember? You can’t, it has to be been and done, sod the t-shirt!
Find after a struggle the Refugio Donativo of the Parochial Church of Saint Michael the Archangel. Linked to the Parish church, this Refugio had a very different feel, run by volunteers who made us feel welcome but also just let us dump our stuff, thank you. I’d spotted notices in the previous villages about a beer festival in Estella / Lizarra this very Saturday night and was tempted to check it out later. Mass was on the cards in the church of the Same name so we all traipsed over, some in a more ragged state than others, the Mass was full of fire and brimstone with a rant against Abortion at the end and for me a feeling that it was going through the motions rather than meaning all that much to the priest.
Back to the Refugio and sharing a meal communally and then sharing the washing up. I’m sidetracked by experiencing something profound the previous evening. I’d had the Pilgrim’s menu in the Hotel restaurant and met by sight the German pilgrims and some other guys on another table. Other pilgrims were still being spied slightly nervously at this point and with a slight air of suspicion about their motives. I chose wine with the meal and managed to quaff half a bottle on top of a few glasses in the afternoon for my knee of course only, so was quite well oiled when I went to bed, sneaking the rest out with me back to the room, I’ll add it to my water bottle, well seems a shame to waste it. I woke up at 2:00 AM, wide awake consciously if still tired physically. I had experienced a moment of Clarity, (although I joked it was Clarety because of the half bottle of Red) I was in no doubt as to my place in the world, what my future roll should entail and the clear knowledge that I was special, unique but at the same time nothing. In other words, nothing more than a ripple on a pond and yet different from all the rest whilst remaining a part of the water like any other. Part of something greater than myself, integral but without every other one, unimportant.
So now I’m set a dastardly choice. Do I continue to walk alone during the day and meditate and chant, as I have been up until now which is obviously working? Or do I find a balance between getting to know people who I constantly see regularly on and off during the day and enjoy spending time with in the evenings? It’s hard to know what I was thinking because all I knew was that eating alone every night was already getting boring but that as I find it so difficult to say what I really want, I didn’t know how to explain my reasons for walking alone during the day. When setting off I tried to leave before others, but I walk slowly at a steady pace and have few breaks, so I get overtaken at first and end up reaching places at a similar time like a tortoise and a hare with me as the tortoise.
I can honestly say that my most enjoyable day of the entire Camino was spent talking to someone about all sorts of things and different issues related to Politics, Religion, Travel. It didn’t involve too much thought, just an exchange of opinions and the time flew by, I don’t remember an ache or pain the whole day although at the end of it I was ruined, walking at someone else’s pace is just not good for you. Then there’s the second wind that you get when you see the place you’re planning to stop at for the night. The painful hips don’t seem so bad, muscles feel less taught, shoulders seem to have less weighing them down, suddenly it feels as though you could walk for another hour or two. However, note of warning, get there before this period wears off! I was experiencing confusion because I was feeling so great in someone’s company and yet annoyed at myself for getting sidetracked and wondering if this was a test of my resolve, a temptation to forget one of my reasons for coming on the Camino in the first place, to avoid becoming too close to people who ultimately don’t feel the same way about me. Along comes someone I felt as though I’d known all my life. I took the cowards way out as usual and just tried to avoid the situation if possible.
So without a decision made as to how to proceed and several nights without a decent sleep under my belt, things got progressively worse. I was hoping that two or three days like this would result in zonking out for a good eight hours at some point. This didn’t happen, I just kept waking up early and when I wake up, I know whether I’m going to get back to sleep or not like an instinct. If I don’t think I am then I might as well getup, which means I might as well pack up, so I may as well get on the road, I’ll be so tired tonight, I’m bound to get a good nights sleep?
Rest is the only thing that can resolve the physical issues that arise from walking day after day, carrying the equivalent of 10% to 15% of your bodyweight on your back. At home I would work as a gardener five and a half days a week, playing football on a Saturday afternoon and probably be involved in something vaguely active on a Sunday too, so it never occurred to me that eventually something would likely give out even though my knee already had and needed constant coaxing in the mornings. Without rest thing’s were only going to get worse before getting gradually better as the body gets used to the punishment and conditioned to the demands of continual hiking for weeks on end, I should have started more slowly and built up to long days like I planned to. I was meditating continuously during the day and my mind wasn’t tired just my body so maybe that was making sleeping more difficult or the fact that my thoughts were constantly being hijacked by self doubt and recrimination over my inability to get someone out of my head in a vicious cycle.
Woken up and take a trip to the toilets past two Germans noisily talking right outside the bedrooms with the light on, for no apparent reason. Getting a little bit pissed off with people taking liberties or just being so thoughtless. Try not to be too friendly and a bit annoyed with them but end up giving away chocolate chip mini muffins for everybody’s breakfast, my excuse when there aren’t any takers at first is that they’ll be helping to lighten my load, whilst I pack in the lounge. Maybe other people are also having difficulty dropping their guard and going with the flow too. I was an idiot to let pride get in the way of being helped earlier on and looking for my own solutions to problems, but I’m used to doing that and whenever a similar situation arose I felt like I was a kid again, too stubborn to accept help. They don’t seem too bad after all but I keep getting ready and the Dutch girls aren’t showing any signs of leaving, so I said I’d probably see them at the earliest place to stop for the day as my knee was only just getting better, no point in pushing it.
Getting into town I catch up with three girls, sporting natty looking new red raincoats. Cheap but shower proof by the look of it. Cross the river and end up walking with them for a little 
bit, one is Cathy, one is Jess and one is Astrid. Blind them with science and nature, revealing the hidden treasures in the verges, the wild thyme and other herbs for keeping your boots smelling fresh and eating young Beech leaves for their nutty flavour. I’ve got a lot to thank Ray Mears for and reading up on the Camino beforehand helped too.
It’s my adventure, I’ve found myself already, now I want to lose myself and need to find my way on my own… For finding the courage within myself is the most natural way to boost my self esteem and confidence but more importantly through the application of stress and other outside stimuli I hope to be tested. When there’s just me roaming gradually forward in this landscape and a whole country of strangers around me do I feel alone or more connected to everyone else in the world than ever before?
When there’s an absence of something within you, in your life and in the lives of those around you, wouldn’t you want everyone to share in the greatest feeling? How do you put down in words something that was so easy to experience but more and more difficult to remember? You can’t, it has to be been and done, sod the t-shirt!
Find after a struggle the Refugio Donativo of the Parochial Church of Saint Michael the Archangel. Linked to the Parish church, this Refugio had a very different feel, run by volunteers who made us feel welcome but also just let us dump our stuff, thank you. I’d spotted notices in the previous villages about a beer festival in Estella / Lizarra this very Saturday night and was tempted to check it out later. Mass was on the cards in the church of the Same name so we all traipsed over, some in a more ragged state than others, the Mass was full of fire and brimstone with a rant against Abortion at the end and for me a feeling that it was going through the motions rather than meaning all that much to the priest.
Back to the Refugio and sharing a meal communally and then sharing the washing up. I’m sidetracked by experiencing something profound the previous evening. I’d had the Pilgrim’s menu in the Hotel restaurant and met by sight the German pilgrims and some other guys on another table. Other pilgrims were still being spied slightly nervously at this point and with a slight air of suspicion about their motives. I chose wine with the meal and managed to quaff half a bottle on top of a few glasses in the afternoon for my knee of course only, so was quite well oiled when I went to bed, sneaking the rest out with me back to the room, I’ll add it to my water bottle, well seems a shame to waste it. I woke up at 2:00 AM, wide awake consciously if still tired physically. I had experienced a moment of Clarity, (although I joked it was Clarety because of the half bottle of Red) I was in no doubt as to my place in the world, what my future roll should entail and the clear knowledge that I was special, unique but at the same time nothing. In other words, nothing more than a ripple on a pond and yet different from all the rest whilst remaining a part of the water like any other. Part of something greater than myself, integral but without every other one, unimportant.
So now I’m set a dastardly choice. Do I continue to walk alone during the day and meditate and chant, as I have been up until now which is obviously working? Or do I find a balance between getting to know people who I constantly see regularly on and off during the day and enjoy spending time with in the evenings? It’s hard to know what I was thinking because all I knew was that eating alone every night was already getting boring but that as I find it so difficult to say what I really want, I didn’t know how to explain my reasons for walking alone during the day. When setting off I tried to leave before others, but I walk slowly at a steady pace and have few breaks, so I get overtaken at first and end up reaching places at a similar time like a tortoise and a hare with me as the tortoise.
I can honestly say that my most enjoyable day of the entire Camino was spent talking to someone about all sorts of things and different issues related to Politics, Religion, Travel. It didn’t involve too much thought, just an exchange of opinions and the time flew by, I don’t remember an ache or pain the whole day although at the end of it I was ruined, walking at someone else’s pace is just not good for you. Then there’s the second wind that you get when you see the place you’re planning to stop at for the night. The painful hips don’t seem so bad, muscles feel less taught, shoulders seem to have less weighing them down, suddenly it feels as though you could walk for another hour or two. However, note of warning, get there before this period wears off! I was experiencing confusion because I was feeling so great in someone’s company and yet annoyed at myself for getting sidetracked and wondering if this was a test of my resolve, a temptation to forget one of my reasons for coming on the Camino in the first place, to avoid becoming too close to people who ultimately don’t feel the same way about me. Along comes someone I felt as though I’d known all my life. I took the cowards way out as usual and just tried to avoid the situation if possible.
So without a decision made as to how to proceed and several nights without a decent sleep under my belt, things got progressively worse. I was hoping that two or three days like this would result in zonking out for a good eight hours at some point. This didn’t happen, I just kept waking up early and when I wake up, I know whether I’m going to get back to sleep or not like an instinct. If I don’t think I am then I might as well getup, which means I might as well pack up, so I may as well get on the road, I’ll be so tired tonight, I’m bound to get a good nights sleep?
Rest is the only thing that can resolve the physical issues that arise from walking day after day, carrying the equivalent of 10% to 15% of your bodyweight on your back. At home I would work as a gardener five and a half days a week, playing football on a Saturday afternoon and probably be involved in something vaguely active on a Sunday too, so it never occurred to me that eventually something would likely give out even though my knee already had and needed constant coaxing in the mornings. Without rest thing’s were only going to get worse before getting gradually better as the body gets used to the punishment and conditioned to the demands of continual hiking for weeks on end, I should have started more slowly and built up to long days like I planned to. I was meditating continuously during the day and my mind wasn’t tired just my body so maybe that was making sleeping more difficult or the fact that my thoughts were constantly being hijacked by self doubt and recrimination over my inability to get someone out of my head in a vicious cycle.
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