Conrad Rudolph Said It For Me

I came across this book after I returned (I do not remember now exactly when I read it) and I cried and laughed my way through it.  Rudolph so eloquently wrote the truth of some of my experiences.  I hope his words will help you understand what I could not quite capture in my blog posts while in the midst of it all.

From Pilgrimage to the End of the World by Conrad Rudolph

"How long is two and a half  months?  Long enough to trick you into the strange feeling that the even stranger journey you're on is normal, everyday life."

"I always limped now after keeping still for more than a minute or two.  It had become so bad that when I got up from dinner in a restaurant, I was always afraid the other guests would think I was drunk, having walked in steadily and stumbled out like a sailor on shore leave.  Distinct from this, I had lost feeling in most of my toes, the soles and sides of my feet, and one thigh.  My feet had been beaten into submission, to the point that the nerve endings gave up and didn't want to live anymore.  They simply turned themselves off, accompanied by four toenails that were pounded off.

I hadn't expected this.  I had begun the pilgrimage with calluses on my feet that a Marine would be proud of, the result of long, hard training in the semi-desert of southern California.  The trail, however, was as tough as my calluses, and I got blisters under the calluses, where they couldn't be pierced, an excruciating experience that would go on and on until the next full day of hiking in the rain, when the whole thing would explode into an unrecognizable mass of overlapping layers of shredded epidermis and revealed blister upon revealed blister...  But I couldn't really complain: a couple of hours' walking left me surprisingly numb to most of the pain."

"Despite the fact that I ate almost twice as much while on the pilgrimage as I do at home, I couldn't eat enough to maintain regular body weight. ... the average day on the pilgrimage is physically harder than the hardest day in the average person's life.  Even with the best planning, carrying a pack is the equivalent of lugging a four-year-old child around on your back--uphill, downhill, in the sun, in the rain, through the mud, over unbelievably rocky and uneven trails, all day long, every day, sometimes as long as eleven hours.  You get tougher, but the pack doesn't get any lighter."

"The pilgrimage is, above all, an experience, and must be experienced to be understood."

"Being a pilgrim, and especially wearing the pilgrim's shell at all times, is a different sort of experience.  You are set apart in a way that's not possible in modern Western culture. ...  There is very little of the grotesque commercialism associated with the Santiago pilgrimage that is so readily found at such once-imposing pilgrimage sites as Rocamadour or Mont-Saint-Michel.  You are, and eventually feel, very much apart from the rest of the world, a world with which you are familiar, but of which you are not at that moment an immediate part.  You are a stranger in a strange land, a pilgrim, one who seemingly has little to do with the life of the places he or she passes through.  And yet you have a purpose.  A pilgrim is not a tourist...you are not an observer in the traditional sense of the word. ...  You are part of the cultural landscape, part of the original  reason for being and the history of many of the towns through which you pass...a deeply ingrained part of the identity of the towns and people...  Yours is the experience of a fully reconciled alienation: the pilgrim at once the complete insider, the total outsider.  This is why the pilgrimage is not a tour, not a vacation, not at all a trip from point A to point B, but a journey that is both an experience and a metaphor rather than an event."

"The physical context is an important part of the pilgrimage.  Material expectations are minimal: food, water, a place to sleep.  You're never really clean, your clothes are never really clean, and you're rarely truly comfortable...

What there is is an enormous silence and solitude.  And the result of all this--not just for me but for all the other long-term pilgrims I spoke with--was a sense a timelessness, or very slowly moving time...  I completely lost sense of time and, to a certain extent of space. ...  Certainly, this had something to do with both the constant movement and its incredibly slow pace. ... I might come over a ridge and see a city that seemed to be right at my feet, only to find it still half a day off.  Or a car might speed by me...and I knew that where that car would be in one hour would take me five days of hard traveling to reach.  One of the incredible things about the pilgrimage from Le Puy to Santiago is that, when I was still a whole month of rough trails away, I was excited about how close I was--and, when I was still two weeks away (with some of the hardest trail of the road still ahead), I became almost giddy with anticipation of my imminent arrival."

"The pilgrimage can be a complex thing. ...  For most, the goal may be clear: Santiago, even for some of the very few who go on to Finisterre. ...  Arriving at Santiago, I may have felt a certain sense of accomplishment, but not completion, in any way.  The first sight of the cathedral ...was fun but not emotional."

"The pilgrimage--a tale of storm, rain, heat, cold, sunburn, windburn, hunger, thirst, snakes, rabid dogs, blisters on top of blisters, winds that can stop you dead in your tracks, and knee-grinding and ankle-breaking trails--creates in many an instant nostalgia.  Taking the express train out of Santiago with a handful of other pilgrims...it was astonishing to see how excited they became when we went by a clearly marked section of the pilgrimage trail...--and then to notice the sudden silence when a lone pilgrim, slowly walking the trail, came into sight in the distance.  On foot, the view was up close and personal.  But on the train back, it was striking how distant it had suddenly all become: there was a much broader view now, but one that was totally removed, sheltered, air conditioned.  There was no wind, no heat, no bugs, none of the tons of cow droppings, sheep droppings, and goat droppings that the pilgrim daily forges his or her way through.  In a car, you're closer, but it might as well be television, you go by at such a great speed and in such a hermetic, self-contained world.  There's something about the experience on foot that seems to sharpen or even change the perception, something that's undoubtedly induced in part by its great length and difficulty."

On Sellos

October 30
Jerri and I thoroughly enjoyed collecting sellos.  We had a hard time understanding people who didn't bother or tried to save their credencials in pristine condition for presentation at the peregrino office in Santiago.  Some either did not know or did not believe that one of the requirements to receive a compostela is a minimum of two sellos per day over the last 100 km--proof that you had actually walked the distance.  On the other hand, some people couldn't understand why we were excited about, or even had, four credencials.

My favorite sello?  Hands-down, the one I received from a bar on the way to Arca (Oct. 19).  Even though it's a very nice sello, I love it more for the story behind it.  I needed to make a pit stop so we stopped at the first likely place we came to--a bar in a building with a wide flight of stairs to the door and outdoor tables in front.  The radio was playing Dire Straits' "Walk of Life."  I'm singing along, at the top of the steps two women are singing along and dancing in place, so I dance on up the steps.  We sing together to the end, share a laugh, then I head for the aseo (bathroom).

As is my habit, I bought a snack in return for use of the aseo.  I asked the cashier if she had a sello.  However, the other woman who had been dancing gestured for me to come sit with her at the bar.  She explained that she had so enjoyed singing and dancing with me that she wanted to do something special.  She stamped my credencial, then hand-drew the sello (which she had designed) next to the stamp.  So very cool!

A Typical Day in the Life of a Peregrino

From Jerri:

October 23

We spent most of our nights in albergues (hostels) run by municipal (city) or parochial (church) groups, which probably attract a different population of pilgrims (younger, more aggressive walkers, poorer, and more international) than the private albergues and tourist and rural hotels.  We thought that would be one of the attractions (besides the typical cheap price of 5 euro per person).  However, I think it also meant spending time with some weird characters.  Like those people who feel the need to get up between 5 and 6 A.M., rustling their very loud plastic-wrapped sleeping bags and shining their annoying headlamps in people’s eyes.  Why anyone would get up at that hour is beyond me, as it is too early to eat anywhere and the sun does not rise until 8 a.m., meaning you will be walking in the dark.  And what purpose is there in that?

Most places had anywhere from 8 to 70 (and sometimes many more than that) people in a room, usually in bunk beds. We heard lots of complaints about snoring, but I never used earplugs and was never kept awake. Interestingly, I heard coughing maybe one night of the entire trip, meaning this was either a very healthy population or it was just not cold-and-flu season yet.  Otherwise, most people started to stir around 7 to 7:30 when, inevitably, some person would bravely turn on the overhead lights and everyone had to get up.  All albergues have rules about when you have to leave in the morning, typically by 8 a.m.

Getting up and ready was no big deal, as we slept in our cleanest clothes (donned the day before after showers).  All you have to do is fold up your sleeping bag liner, fold the blanket (if the albergue provided one), and throw away the fake polyester sheets provided (to prevent spread of bed bugs, not that we ever saw any or ever got bitten).  Everything stays in the backpack at all times, so there is no packing to do. Brush the teeth, take some ibuprofen, tape up the feet and gingerly shove them back into the boots or shoes, and we are off.

Some people bought food the night before and made their own breakfast in the cocina (kitchen), and a few albergues offered breakfast (typically, café con leche y tostada con mermelada--coffee with milk and toast with jelly).  We tried to eat at the albergue whenever meals were available, as that delayed putting shoes back on for as long as possible!

 

In general, our rule was never to walk in the dark, so that meant either waiting until it was light (around 8 a.m.) or walking to the nearest open café or bar to eat.  As we got nearer to Santiago, the desayuno (breakfast) offerings got better and we sometimes had zumo de naranja (orange juice made fresh by the most wonderful juicer machine) or croissants.

We liked to be out on the Camino before 8:30 if at all possible.  We often tried to select our stopping place the previous night to just before any arduous climb.  We found it much easier to tackle hard sections when cool and fresh than at the end of the day.  If we had the foresight, we would also try to scout out the beginning of the Camino path the night before.  We spent quite a number of mornings in the dawn light trying to find yellow arrows anywhere that would indicate where we were supposed to turn at the end of a small town.

Once on the path, it was a matter of getting into a rhythm.  Depending on the terrain, that was easier on some days than others.  One thing about the Camino:  it doesn’t matter what the weather, you have to get up and go out.  There is no “downtime” when you can just say you are giving up today.  And everyone else is in the same position, so the sympathy (or misery) is mutually shared.

Sometimes we were on dirt tracks leading from pueblo to pueblo (village to village) and those were fun, mostly because there was always something to see (cats, cows, chickens, sheep, all kinds of crops, churches, statues, fountains, barns, and bridges of every sort).  The towns often had introductory plaques.  It was not at all unusual to be in a place established in the year 1070 with a current population of 50 and 4 churches!  So many of these places looked exactly as they must have 400-500 years ago when pilgrims would be plodding by on exactly the same paths.  I often felt like we were on a movie set instead of in the modern world. 

There were some ugly days when we were on what our guidebook called “gently undulating terrain,” which meant that we walked for miles and miles up and down through corn or wheat fields with no shade, no water, no towns, no buildings--that is, nothing but lots and lots of highly annoying flies buzzing around your nose and mouth and eyes.  The worst (not even the heat nor the up-and-down, boring scenery) was having no landmarks at all, so you could never tell if you were making any progress.  It was like walking though Montana or South Dakota on the Oregon Trail.  All you can do is set up a pace and keep walking and walking, sometimes for 3 or 4 hours without stopping.  You would think that you could talk but it was not worth the effort.  We almost always walked alone, with no other pilgrims in sight, sometimes for several days at a time.

There were other days when we knew there would be important landmarks (the Cruz de Ferro or Iron Cross; a known seriously steep hill; the outskirts of a big city) and then we would concentrate on trying to get to where we were supposed to in reasonable condition without getting lost.  This was not always easy, as the Camino is often not well marked, especially in cities, and we sometimes would stand at a crossroads or a city corner, looking all around, trying to find any kind of yellow arrow or shell mark to indicate where to go next.

At other times, we couldn’t look at the scenery or do anything but concentrate on walking.  This was especially true on what the guidebook calls “rolling boulders,” which are fist-sized rocks that move when you walk on them, usually placed inconveniently on downhill slopes so you have to pick and choose every step at a snail’s pace so as not to kill yourself with falls.  Unfortunately, many parts of the Camino have been “improved” in this way and the only thing that made them worse was when it rained so that they were slippery, muddy, and rolling, all at the same time. There were other “improved” areas, called sendas, which are wide, flat paths, usually asphalt, that would be perfect if you were riding a bike.  Unfortunately, these are extremely hard on the feet and were invariably running with a major highway on one side and empty fields on the other side. Talk about dull and boring.

As soon as we would have a string of truly bad days, we would get a really easy one.  Maybe lots of interesting scenery, or many towns close together, or lots of open churches or museums, or meeting up with peregrinos from other days.  Then we would find ourselves at our end-of-the-day goal saying that was too easy and checking the map to make sure we really were at the right place.

On most days, though, we would walk for 3-5 hours, stopping at every fountain to fill up our water bottles, often being passed by fast walkers early in the morning and then passing by the same walkers later in the day.  We would typically stop for lunch around 12-1 at a bar, where we would have bocadillos (sandwiches of cheese and/or ham on baguette with no mustard or mayonnaise) or tortillas (Spanish omelet of potatoes, eggs, and cheese) or whatever was the specialty of the region (I had calamari, various kinds of ribs, and other unidentified meats and seafood).

 

Then we would look at where we were on the map and decide how much farther we could go.  After calorie rejuvenation, we would often look at each other and exclaim something like, look, it’s only 5 or 6 kilometers more to the next municipal albergue (instead of the private one we were aiming for).  That’s only 3-4 miles.  We can do that!  And we’d go right back to walking.  No matter what we said or felt at lunch, however, the last 5 kilometers were always the hardest, and no matter what the weather or terrain.  Before that, you are resigned; you have to walk, no matter what.  But by the end of the day, you start to worry about whether the albergue will be completo (filled) and if they will have hot water and if the town will have wee-fee (WiFi) and how bad will your feet look when you get the day’s tape off.

When we would finally get to the end of the walking day, usually between 3 and 4 p.m., we sometimes had a choice of albergues.  We would always choose the public buildings (when we could find them) but, otherwise, we would avoid the first one in town (too close to the beginning of town, too many drunks sitting out front, likely fewer spots available) and go for the second or the one closest to the end of town (always moving forward, you never want to move back).  At check-in, almost always there would be a sympathetic hospitalero (volunteer) who, after determining which languages we would all have in common, would ask how far we’d come, what was our home country, and how were our feet.  We were not the oldest by far on the Camino, but we soon learned to take advantage of our ages and ask for beds abajo (lower bunks). We’d then scout out the sleeping rooms and laundry facilities and determine if there were any electrical outlets (for Karen to charge her phone) and find the showers.  First priority, after getting the shoes off, was to shower (best possible was hot water that ran continuously, with doors or curtains and a place to hang your clean, dry stuff) and change into the cleanest possible clothes.  Some albergues would do your laundry for you for a small fee and in some you could use their machines.  Most peregrinos wash clothes every day (not me) and hang them to dry, so you always see lines of clothes flapping from the bottom of bunks and out windows and across porches and lines.

We would change into flip-flops and then venture out into the surrounds to do errands, like find a farmacia (for ampollo [blister] remedies), check out the local churches or ruins or sights.  If the streets were cobblestone, we could not go far or fast, as you can feel every stone on your tender feet.  Dinner in Spain is at 7-9 p.m. and sometimes we would wait till then to eat (especially if dinner was included at our albergue). Almost always that would be what is called menu de peregrino, which is usually 8-10 euros and includes three courses: some kind of soup or salad or fruit, followed by a main dish, which can be meat or fish with potatoes or salad, and dessert, which is usually flan, unsweetened yogurt, helado (actually sherbet) or mousse (really chocolate pudding).  All meals have wine and water and bread but you have to pay extra for coffee or tea.

If we were too hungry to wait, we would look for a bar that had an open kitchen (most were closed from 4-7 p.m.) and we would fill up on what are called raciones (rations), which are usually small single dishes of cheese or meat or tortilla.  Most days, we would try to catch up on journaling and send off blog posts, if there was WiFi, before going back to our albergue.  Several times, we went to Mass or another service for peregrinos, and every one of those experiences was fun and different.

Depending on how bad the day was (on several really cold, rainy days we went to bed at 7-8 p.m.), how many people were in the room, and what else was going on, we would usually go to bed around 8-10 p.m.  Almost all albergues close their doors at 10 p.m. and many turn out the lights at the same time.  Everyone in the building has to get sleep and get up in the morning to walk, so no one whines.  They all lie in bed, even if they aren’t sleeping.

What you don’t get from the above story is the incredible variety of experiences we had every single day.  No matter how boring the day seemed, I always had at least 3-4 pages of journaling and often 5-6 pages, not including the stuff I would invariably remember several days later that I wanted to include.  I never had time to read a book (I didn’t have one anyway) and ran out of knitting yarn in Pamplona.  But we were never bored and usually did not have enough time to do half the things we would have liked to do.  I used to wonder about the people who have done the Camino not once but multiple times, and now I can see why. Every time, it must be a completely different experience.  You can’t ever get to see or experience it all.

Notes From Jerri

October 23

We are back in body, if not in mind (or in blog entries).  There is, of course, far, far more to tell about this trip than we can ever let be publicly known.  I am sure Karen has much more to add, and I will put in a few details here and there, so don’t give up following us.  I did not read any of Karen’s blogs while we were in Spain and only now have had the chance to see what she did.  Amazingly, she managed to keep you all pretty much up-to-date on where we were and our general condition, despite terrible WiFi access and one-finger typing, often in the dark or in weird places.  And she was restricted to whatever pictures she could take on her camera phone, as we couldn’t download my camera to hers.

We’ll try to fill you in on more details, but here are a few that come to mind.  My “rental shoes” (as Beth calls them) actually lasted quite well until the last week.  I didn’t get any blisters until the inside linings started to disintegrate, and then I got one really horrible, bloody blister (the kind where you can’t walk, talk, or sleep) over the side of one foot ON THE LAST WALKING DAY.  Between the two of us, we used up all but a few tablets of the 500 mg ibuprofen I brought on the trip.

At the airport on the way home, my backpack with everything in it weighed 6.3 kg (13¾ pounds) and I can assure you that everything weighs quadruple what the scale says when you are carrying it around on your back all day, every day.  We had one day (the last) without our backpacks and poles and we both felt so off balance, we actually had difficulty walking.

Karen (being a much nicer person than I am) wrote a very benign account of our fun two weeks in Pamplona with Beth in the hospital.  I am here to tell you that medicine in Spain is just like in the USA and you don’t want to experience it if at all avoidable.  I felt like I was at work except that it was all in Spanish.  Our language skills improved dramatically, just not with the vocabulary we would have desired.  And we won’t go beyond merely mentioning our experiences with the (US) insurance company.  Just thinking about that makes the steam start to emanate from my ears.  But I finished knitting 14 baby hats through the experience, if that gives you any idea.

I wrote a journal every day and filled up three books of comments.  And that couldn’t really capture the experience; I was just able to try to write down enough hints to remember stories to tell later (and I have many).

In case you are wondering if we are transformed by this experience, I can’t speak for Karen except to say she is skinnier and a lot browner.  As for me, I look exactly the same except I am never, ever wearing those clothes again.  Lots of beer and wine kept my weight up and I already had white hair before we started. Mostly, it is hard to believe we actually did the whole thing.  We walked far more than 500 miles and, like many people we met, we were actually sort of sad to see the trip end.

Cat Count

October 23

Being Jenistas, we could not go on this trip without getting our daily cat fix. As you can see, some days were better than others.

Day/place	Cat Tally	Total Cat Count
9/11 St.Jean	2	2
9/12 Orisson	2	4
9/13 Roncesvalles	0	4
9/14 Zubiri	5	9
9/15 Pamplona	7	16
9/16 Obanos
9/17 Estella
9/18 to 9/28 Pamplona	0
9/29 Torres del Rio
9/30 Navarrete		34
10/1 Najera	4	38
10/2 Belorado	7	45
10/3 Atapuerca	4	49
10/4 Rabe	1	50
10/5 Castrojerz	8	58
10/6 Boadilla	2	60
10/7 Carrion	14	74
10/8 Mansilla	4	78
10/9 Leon	4	82
10/10 Astorga	2	84
10/11 Foncebadon	10	94
10/12 Ponferrada	10	104
10/13 Villafranca	16	120
10/14 Cebreiro	19	139
10/15 Calvor	7	146
10/16 Sarria	5	151
10/17 Portomarin	5	156
10/18 Arzua	9	164
10/19 Arca	5	169
10/20 Santiago	12	181
10/21 Finisterre	8	189

Perspective

October 22
Now that I'm home with reliable computer and Internet connection, I'll be catching up.  I just thought I'd say a word about the blog.  It obviously has gaps.  I'm sure it would be totally different if Jerri had written it.  We all differ in what strikes us as noteworthy, interesting, and worth sharing.  Our photos reflect this as well.  I did my best to relate what was going factually, but inevitably my thoughts and feelings bled into posts, too.  I guess what I'm trying to say is that, even though we shared most of the same events, how we experienced them may differ.  This blog mainly tells my side of the story.

Jerri will be sending me her photos and I will do my best to reference any post that a photo relates to.  Jerri will also be sending additional material for posts and I'll get them up as soon as possible.  These will be opportunities for you to see/read things from her point of view.

Home Again

October 22
This post will be very short.  Sure, many hours will pass before I arrive home, but most of them are of the usual travel variety.  There are only a few things I will bother to mention.

There is awful fog this morning, causing delays and some cancellations.  Fortunately, our flights leaving Santiago and then Madrid are unaffected.

My trekking poles made it all the way from Colorado Springs to Santiago, and then Iberia Airlines manages to lose the duffel bag containing them somewhere between our small regional jet and the baggage claim carousel in Madrid.  I have to fill out a claim form to have the bag delivered to the US once--I mean if--it is found. (Two days later, Jim finds it hanging from our front door knob when he goes to get the newspaper in the morning.)

Boarding the plane in Atlanta, a man behind me makes a remark about the Camino.  In the brief conversation we have walking down the jetway, I learn that he and his wife are planning to do it next fall.  We exchange e-mail addresses for future questions/answers.  What are the odds?

And what is the first thing I do when I get home?  Soak my feet and legs in epsom salts, then fill the tub up with scalding hot water to soak all of me before putting on a completely different set of clothing (flannel pajama pants and a sleeveless T-shirt) and climbing into my very own, Egyptian-cotton-sheets-and-thermal-blanket bed.

Although this concludes the journey, I do have additional photos and random thoughts to post later.  I will also check in on the blog itself to address/answer your comments/questions.  Thanks for being with us in spirit. 

¡Buen Camino!