Miles today: 16.2
Miles total: 422.7
It is not bad walking. It is actually quite fun! The people are amazing and unbelievably funny. We met a man named Ben who is from Chicago but grew up in Portugal so he knows Spanish. He has some friends who are from Madrid, and a couple from the Valencia (south-east region) of Spain.
People are great during the day! So nice, caring and always there. At home in Springfield, I may make eye contact with a stranger and look away quickly. I may make eyecontact and give a half-hearted smirk, or even a smile with a small wave. But I want to emphasize the number of "Buen Camino's" and "Buenos Dias" I have said in a given with my whole heart. I can let you know it was definitely more than I could have imagined. Honestly, most of the people here, I could give a big bear hug because we have indeed become brothers and sisters.
This brings back a memory of a man who spoke only Spanish but wanted so bad to share his wisdom to us three girls. He stopped us, gave us a candy and wrote in our credential (stamp card that shows where we walked from and to) a special quote. I remember one quote real clearly that says, "Everyone on the Camino are brothers and sisters.". This definitely shines through. Today and every other day, as Emily pointed out in yesterday's blog.
Today nothing important happened while walking because it was a time of reflection, memories, and peace. More and more have I found myself silent and looking at the trees and the people. So instead, I will bring more of a picture to you about the atmosphere of the Camino.
Imagine a dark room with eight to ten bunk beds lined up in a row, then facing across from the row is an identical row of the same bunk beds, giving a total of 16-20 beds in one room. This can then be multiplied by two because two people go to one bunk bed. We now come up to a total of 30-40 people in one dormitory.
Every morning we have to try get out of a squeaky, creaky, bed and try to tiptoe around. In the rush to get out before anyone else we try to gather our clothes, metal water bottles, get food from crinkly wrappers and stuff our backpack, in the dark. Often people will start preparing for their day from 5am to 6:30 am. We attempt to be up by 5:30am at the latest so we can be walking by 6am.
The walking begins and you walk. Put one foot in front of the other. Get bored, space out, trip a few times and get distracted by the smelly or adorable animals we pass. And walk.
After the walk the pilgrims line up. Thirty, forty, maybe sixty people stand in line for their bed after walking 15-20 miles. In line many things occur. You may see people sitting next to their bag, leaning on it for support. You will definitely experience people yelling and laughing passionately about something. People are also either smiling at you or glaring at you, or too tired to even notice you are there.
The line finally ends after what seems like an hour, but it ends up being ten minute. Yes, only ten minutes. You give the person at the reception desk three things. Three critical things you must have in the respectful order of importance: credential, money, and your passport. Then you find yourself in another room with more people.
From here you have a series of choices. You quickly find out your priorities. You can either: try to get a warm shower or clean up in any way (shower, brush teeth, wash face, wash feet, and pop blisters), try to take a nap, find the motivation to wash your clothes, try to find and obtain food that is still available, cheap and healthy, and of course sleep.
This is a usual day in the life of a pilgrim. Now, today after we got to the hostal we simply washed up in a freezing shower with a near see through shower curtain. We used our athleticism and teamwork to take the world's fastest showers, guard the shower taker, and stay warm. After that we washed clothes and put them out to dry. For dinner, we didn't make anything. From past dinners that we have gone out to eat, we seem to go to the same venues. I hope you can guess our meal correctly! Yup. Hamburgers, fries with mayonnaise and ketchup, with a Coca-Cola! It is the food that calls our names.
Then we went grocery shopping for snacks and meals for tomorrow, grabbed any other items we seemed deprived of, checked our messages from family, journaling, and getting this blog done. I can give you one last picture before I head to bed.
Imagine yourself in Spain, in a dark room with two windows. One window is open so you can attempt to breathe through the humid air from sweat, and maybe see a hint of light. The other window is open so that you may hear every little word people say outside. You can enjoy the shouts of anger and cheers of laughter as you lay in bed. As you stare into space, hoping they would be quiet, you realize the man in the bunk next to you has a death bringing snore. This is a typical night. Laying in a hot, humid room with ten others beside yourself, each person trying to get enough sleep to survive the next day of walking.
I hope I can give you a little bit of a more specific picture of what we do before and after our walk everyday!
Goodnight and Buen Camino!
Mims
Special thanks for the day go to:
Todd Weise, Patrick March, Bob, Linda, and Sarah Trefny
Many thanks to our mile sponsors as well!
Grandpa Joe Anderson, Sandy and Daren Harmon, Patrick March, and Matt and Nikki Danner.
No comments:
Post a Comment