Whoo hoooo I have weefee

Sitting in a “plaza” in Burgos (pop180,000) chilling while I wait for Troy.

so, it’s really difficult to post for a bunch of reasons, the main one being that we are too busy either walking 18 miles Or drinking beer with our other comrades who have also just finished walking 18 miles (some people do even more!).  The second reason is that we rarely have decent weefee (as it is called here) and it’s really hard to figure out a blog system when your weefee is really weak.

so here are some notes that I made over the past few days:

DAY 10:

Last night I had my feet tended to by the volunteers at the church Albergue in BalaRoma. Upon my entering the Albergue one of the volunteers brought me a cold pail of water to soak my feet in, OMG that was heaven!!!!!! This is typical of how it goes for pilgrims. We are revered everywhere we go, like rock stars. People in cars go by honking, waving and calling “buen Camino;” others rush over to us to ensure we know the right way to go; there are special, inexpensive, pilgrim menus in most restaurants; there are public fountains all along the route that say “water for pilgrims”; there are dormitories in every town for us to sleep in and if you don’t feel the dormitory life, you can get a hotel room at pilgrim prices (typically 30E). It is amazing!!!!  All along the route there are way markers, either embedded in the sidewalks/road or big yellow arrows in trees, rocks, everywhere. We are so well taken care of on The Road!

I still can’t figure out how to post pictures. If you know how to do it send me a text or email. I can’t figure out which icon is for pictures.

adios for now

First spiritual experience

Day 5: ok, so it’s just really hard to blog everyday; wifi is sporatic, typing on the phone is cumbersome, plus we are just exhausted by the time we actually get to an evening rest stop it’s too late. So enough of the wine, let’s get to good stuff.

so, wow!! This is like one big traveling party where the price of the admission is hiking 15 miles uphill everyday. Not really ALL uphill, but that’s what it feels like and, plus, that makes a better story.  Great people of all ages and nationality, great conversation of all types ranging from the most mundane (what it’s like to run a car wash in Romania, to the deepest personal pain, and the most spirituality). And for those who know the significance of this, with spirituality comes those who know of, and revere, my brother Melvin. I didn’t want to burst their bubble but ….

i have started going into every church we pass which is A LOT ( although less than the number of Hindu temples we had to go into in India) which is particularly arduous since most of them are in top of hills.  Most of the time this is very mundane for me (Troy seems to get waaaaay more out of them than I do) but today when I entered the old (1020 AD) abandoned church I got chills and the hairs in my neck stood up.  It was a wild feeling.  There were two alters with many letters and pictures AND ….. FIRST DIMES, two, heads up.  I “prayed” for all the people I am praying for (you know who, if you asked me to) and I felt compelled to leave one of the pictures (JM) and leave a letter of prayer.

THEN… at the next town I continued going to every church but the first FIVE (all up many stairs) were closed, however as I entered the 6th, again I got chills. This was a full operational church with parishioners, so I took my seat and again proceeded to “pray.” Within moments I was sobbing. I felt as though I had tapped into a deep sorrow of the collective contiousness.  I did not know what I was sobbing about, I just knew it was very sad.

BTW: when praying for those souls who have passed, I have consistently become very happy which I interpret to mean that those souls are defiantly at peace and in a very happy place.

Now troy is urging me to go, which never happens, it always me urging him. But today our first stop is the wine fountain open only to pilgrims. Yes, that’s right, an outdoor fountain bubbling wine at the local monestary. Buen Camino indeed!!!!

Um Whose Idea was this anyways?

OF COURSE it’s “it’s all good” I mean how could it not be but . , ,

Short Story (for those with low attention spans):

Day 1: up at 6, arrive by train in ,Saint Jean Pied du Pont by 9am, start The Road (yes, I am  being precise with my capital letters) by 11 and then walk 10,5 HOURS , 9 hours UP A MIUNTAIN , 1,5 down a VERY STEEP treacherous path (which was worse) to arrive at minestary in Roncesvalles with barely enough time to eat a sandwich (and drink beer) before lights out in the dormitory of 40 snoring pilgrims (ok, only 10 were snoring loudly). Did I mention that I am carrying 20 extra pounds and I am not talking about my backpack which weighed 20 pounds before I added 5 pounds of books that I “just gotta read.”

day 2: started the day at 745, leaving the dorm just before it closed, with 45 minutes of yoga on a picnic table (ground muddy) trying  to get my knees , and generally entire body, operable and ready to walk another 12 miles, although this time only 25% up steep hills. It turns out that The Walk starts in the Pyennies, which dispite looking like hills from the train are actually mountains.  Finished the day with half hour “ice bath” in local stream in hopes that I will be able to move in the morning.

The longer story:

Day 1:  its all very cool, we started in the Pilgrim Office where  we get our official Pilgrim Passport and the  head onto Orisson, Andre 2.5 hours of climbing 1400 meters. When we arrived at Orisson , we decided we felt so awesome that we would keep going all the way to Roncesvalles disputes the pleas from random strangers (“have you done this before? Do you realize its all up hill beside a rather dangerous downhill? This is how people get injured! Etc).  It actually turned out fine, but it was touch and go. There was this amzing fog which gave the whole environment a rather mystical feel, but also meant we couldn’t see more than 15 feet in front of us. It was wild! We would be walking along and then all the sudden a whole beard of cows would appear in the road running straight at us. They stipples on a dime when they saw us and very considerately moved to the side so we could pass.

Anither time we left the road I search of an angle statue and the  suddenly realized we didn’t know where the road was. Wild!! apparenly the fog must be common since animals wore bells, so the whole time we were serenaded by the ringing of  Epps that were on animals that we knew were there but could not see except for the fandoms times they would appear on our path. My favorite was the beard of horses (with bells) who RAN toward us and then drop just to stare at us as though we were the attractions (come quick, there are some humans). Then they simply followed us. Awesome!

crossing the border from France to Spain was cool also. No passport control, no people at all just a gaggle of rams staring at us.

So when we finally made it to the summit, we were so excited “all down hill now, whoot whoot!” OMG! It was the most brutal down hill! I had to walk backwards just to protect my knees, it took FOREVER!! Falling rock, treacherous roots, slip sliding slope, etc. and it went on for just about an hour too long. I was seriously worried that I was going to hurt myself. And theeeeen we arrive at “town” only to discover there is no town, no cafe, nothing but a monastery (that has been supporting pilgrims for 1300 years. F@&! history I wanted a beer! Fortunately it turns out the monks believe that pilgrims need beer so all was well that ended well, we managed to get the beer and a sandwich before the strict  10 pm curfew.

So I wanted to write about day 2 and post pictures but this is cumbersome on the iPhone and taking forever, so it will just have to waIt until tomorrow or when I have more time and Bette wifi

i am fining to try to attach a bunch of picture some before fog an others after.