In two days we will be en route to Spain to walk the last leg of the Camino.
It's incredible. Something awaited for so long, something that even though, for the fourth time and therefore is more familiar, demands such preparation, and now it is almost here.
By Tuesday, we will once again be looking for yellow shells on a blue background or something to that effect to guide us through towns.
Unlike last year, we will not walk our first day abroad; we'll end up arriving in Pamplona and then have the afternoon to explore the city. The next day we will get on a bus, our last conveyance until 16 days later, and walk 20 kms.
My mind knows what the rhythm of the day is: get up, get into the same clothes that have dried overnight, go have breakfast (in Spain, un cafe doble), come back to the room, fill up the water bottle first (camelback), stuff it into the pack and THEN pack the pack making sure I don't step on the bite valve (it's so easy to do and such a pain to clean up the water puddle that has formed, plus have to empty the pack out again). Go through everyone's prayers (I carry with me handwritten prayers on little slips of paper), so they will float with me for the day, read the daily office readings, and then... start walking.
On the way out of town, if necessary, we stop to get food (bread, cheese, fruit). And, sometimes, yes, we have to hit an ATM.
Usually we stop for a snack (banana and perhaps some form of pastry, in France, it was a croissant, of course) around 10.30 or 11.00, if we've been walking since 8.00. Then we walk until 1.00 or 2.00, sometimes waiting until we can find a place in the shade to sit. We settle down, take off our boots and socks, let our feet get some sun and air. Lunch can be half an hour, and then it's back to walking. The afternoon drags on more than the morning and we take more breaks, albeit short, about 10 minutes. Of course, the schedule can be completely thrown out of whack if there's a church to visit. The last hour always drags on and it seems as though we are never going to get to our destination.
We try to arrive at the next night's lodging by 5.00 or 6.00, though in Spain, dinner is later so it's not quite as much of a crunch as in France where dinner starts at 6.00 or 7.00. Once at the place, it's take off the boots, get out of the day's walking clothes, wash them and whatever other accrued laundry there is (though there isn't much) so that they can have a night to dry on the parachute cord we string in the room. We're not into having our smalls air on the back of our packs as we walk :) (There are some folks whose packs are such a mess you wonder how they stay balanced on the person's back!)
Then there's dinner and then back to our room. I write up the day in my small journal. And then, it's to bed... sometimes with aching limbs that impede a good sleep, sometimes just out like a light.
Then, it's up to start all over again. We'll do this for 16 days straight. I am ready.
Photo: shell in Ciraqui, Spain, 2004
