A last !Hola! from a pilgrim

A last hola from a pilgrim

I am back home --- the river is in full flood, the skies are grey and heavy with rain---- and only the rain is stopping it from snowing, for the temperatures apparently have not been above 5' for the last few weeks --- but I spent a heavenly two hours floating in a hot hot bath Monday afternoon when I got back and I am wearing different clothes to those I have been wearing for 40 days -- albeit that I had some difficulty finding something that did not fall off the moment I put it on ----

(no! I exaggerate -- of course not something I usually do, but it was tempting for a minute there........)

---I don't quite look like a toothpick, Nix -- nor like Forest Gump --(mmmmmm --- at least, I don't think I do!) but the scale does show that I have lost 6 kilos -- which I think is pretty mean, considering that I burnt 260,890 calories for each 4 calories that I consumed over a period of forty days (and I only consumed 16 calories per day!), and by my rough calculations that should not cause the scale dial to go one little line further than about 54kg --- but I suppose you will all say my mathematical calculative capabilities have never been my prime asset, (and in fact, if you remember, by last count, we never did confirm what those prime assets actually were!) so perhaps I was a little over zealous in my expectations of weight loss on the camino --- However, what it does tell me categorically is that that programme you all so love watching, The Biggest Loser, is a scam! Lots of exercise and little healthy food does not result in weight loss. I am now quite convinced those contestants all went for surgery! Believe me. I have a nose for these things!

and it feels very strange to be back.

Except...........(Akira! Help! I do not see any yellow arrows showing me which way to go...............)

As mentioned ---
Terence flew into Spain -- and called me from Asturia. -- The nearest airport (apart from Santiago which is just too big and busy and difficult to get time slots that suit) was O Coruna - about 80 km from Santiago, but the airport would not let him park his plane there for more than one day. (don't ask --- no one could figure out that rule). So they sent him on to Asturia -- which is roughly 6 hours' drive --- or more importantly, about twenty days' hard walking from Santiago.

So I said he had to go explain nicely to them that he needed to get to Santiago and their reasoning was no good. He explained that he had come to fetch me -- who had just completed the camino -- -- the result of which was that he got to stay one night, but had to go fetch the plane on Saturday. ---- well, to cut a loooooong story a little shorter (for those of you who do not speed read) I practised my non-Spanish sweet talking, the receptionist at the hotel then practised her Spanish sweet talking --- all about me having walked for 40 days to get to Santiago for Easter and the Pilgrims' mass on Easter Sunday and him having flown all the way from England to be there as well to spend Easter with me and take me home and prevent me from keeping on walking and the end of the story was that the man relented and allowed the plane to stay until Monday morning. So Terence got back into the plane in Asturia and flew to O Coruna from where he took a taxi and arrived in Santiago late on Friday afternoon.

Just before he arrived I was walking through the town looking for a place to eat something when I bumped into David and Marilyn --- the delightful Canadian couple I had met much earlier on the Way and not seen for almost two weeks. It was a wonderful reunion and in no time we were sipping wine and exchanging stories of the last two weeks' walk.

Next thing Nakkie arrived -- the South African merino sheep farmer from Volksrust -- and heard all her stories as well. Chrissie, the young German graphic artist with whom sh had walked most of the way after meeting somewhere near the start, was frantically trying to find a hairdresser as she wanted to change her look before going back on Saturday morning --- her long blond tresses had to go and she wanted a short black head of hair (reminded me of someone I know....) -- and the poor girl was so disappointed when she could not find a hairdresser open.

So we sat there, like four old Camino veterans, shaking our heads at the millions of pilgrims streaming past us into the city and up the steps towards the cathedral -- half of Spain don their backpacks and walking shoes and poncho's and grab a stick - or a bicycle and walk or ride during the Semana Santa -- Holy Week to be in Santiago for Easter -- some walk 100km, some walk 10km, some walk for one day only or two days and some walk for the whole week, but from Friday and over the weekend they flooded into the city, all heading straight for the cathedral, and to give St Iago or St James his hug. (If he weren't a saint before, he would have to be one by now -- anyone who gets hugged by so many wet, bedraggled smelly pilgrims deserves some special recognition!).

When Terence finally arrived we headed for the 6 0' clock mass which turned out to be vespers (so I am told) when all the priests chant their offices for the day (not in Georgian chant, as I heard in the mountains in the monastery in Rabenal el Camino --- just before that horrendous climb over Al Acebo mountain in the middle of the hurricane -- but rather a spot of [b]ecclesiastical karaoke[/b][i], as David termed it, more like!)

I was so excited to have him then experience one of the Easter processions -- something that will get its own chapter --- but then it had started to rain again as it can only do in Galicia!!! So all three processions of Friday night were cancelled -- 6pm, 8:30 and 11:30pm. That was the biggest disappointment for me -- on Saturday there was only one procession programmed -- for 9:30pm and it poured with rain all day and night. So he never got to experience one of those spine chilling medieval processions -- he will have to go back........ But it was fabulous having Terence come to Santiago and see the arriving pilgrims, meet some of the characters and good friends I had made along the way and hear the many stories from everyone about their experiences. He was in awe. Had he not heard it from the others, I think he would still not believe that I had actually done it!! -- but now he understands so much better what the walk entailed, what it demanded, who the people are who do it, what it means to those who completed it. On the first day I commented on someone coming past -- pointed out to him that is probably someone who has only done the last 30km or so, and at least 20 of those 30 by bus, and then pointing to another pilgrim coming in who had clearly walked the entire camino; but explaining that each person's camino is their personal achievement -- no two people have had the same experience. Very soon he became the expert in judging the duration and distance the different pilgrims had done -- by their shoes, their clothes, their backpacks, their sticks, the lines on their faces, their bodyweight and mostly by their gait. He even became a good judge of limps -- if they were old limps, recent limps, blister limps or damaged feet or knee limps!

The best was on Sunday morning when we went to the cathedral early for Easter mass and the swinging of the giant butefumeiro -- incense burner -- which they have been doing since the beginning of time -- in an attempt to lessen the smell of the pilgrims in the cathedral --- another bit of showmanship where 8 people swing on a rope on the one end and a giant -- and I mean GIANT incense burner swings on the other end of the rope the entire width of the cathedral. How people do not get decapitated -- well, perhaps they do, but none on this occasion --- is a mystery. But -- because it was Easter Sunday and the first mass of the day, I then met almost all the fellow pilgrims I had not seen before and who were just arriving in Santiago then in time for Easter mass! Oh joy! there was Stephan (who was in Astorga for two days with a messed up knee the same time I was there with my messed up feet -- he then took a bus to Sarria and walked the last 100km only) and his girlfriend Helen, lovely Florian, and Luis and Sergei (the two that talked me the last 10km into Leon when my feet were almost at their worst) and Uwe who walked the camino as a promise when his daughter went into remission with Hodgkins, and Terence -- the young Sydneysider who brought sunshine wherever he walked on the Way --- and C! ---the man I got to know way back in Belorado who was in a wheel chair all his life and forced himself to start walking five years ago --- he finished on Easter Sunday and I was there to welcome him! We cried on each other's shoulders and laughed and totally misbehaved, considering we were in church --- but --- One of those many unique moments that one cannot describe in words.............

On Monday morning David and Marilyn joined Terence and myself and we drove to O Coruna and Terence kindly flew us back -- in 3 and half hours we completed the distance that had taken us seven weeks to walk -- no blisters, no aching joints, no backpacks weighing us down, no mountains to climb, no rivers to forge, no mud to slip and slide in, no wind to fight against, no 50 bed dormitories to sleep in and listen to night symphonies in Snoring in B#, no stones, no stopping along the way to picnic on bread and cheese and sausage and lemons and sugar, no curfews, no ice cold showers, no voltaren cream and Ibrupofen tablets to swallow, no stones, no stamps to be collected in the pilgrims' passport, no closed refugio doors, no pilgrims' menus, no plastic raingear to put on in a hurry and in a gale force wind, no dogs on chains, no biting horses, no eucalyptus forests, no stones (did I ever mention the stones on the way?), no friendly Hola! or Buen Camio! or Buen Viaje! along the way, no packing sleeping bags or washing socks or typing on Sanish keyboards, no wending your way through a conversation in 9 different languages, ----and no looking for the little yeallow arrow pointing the way!!

Getting used to 'real life' again is not going to be too easy --- perhaps just as well that David and Marilyn joined me -- for the last two and half days we could talk at will about our exepriences, our thoughts, our memories, the people we encountered, the places we walked through -- we could start every sentence every moment of the day with something that referred to the Camino. What bliss!

(As Terence pointed out when I said to him the hardest is going to be not to talk about it all the time and everywhere, non-stop, relating everything that happens or is said to the Camino --- he said, rather than the first thing you say, always make it the third thing you say..... -- Good advice! I most certainly will try!)

You have all been wonderful reading and responding to my e-mails over the last 7 weeks. I have often mentioned how heartening it was to get your messages and your msm's--- I so looked forward to finding a refugio with an internet/computer stuck somewhere in a back corner and really felt bereft when, sometimes, for days on end, there was no internet available anywhere --- not to check the internet, not to be in contact with the 'real' world, not to do anything other than read the little messages from all of you! --- and every morning, roughly ten minutes before my alarm buzzer on my mobile phone went off at 06:15am under my pillow, the buzzer gave three short buzzes -- a text message from Terrie! -- I loved those little buzzes -- knowing it is my dear friend with a short little message of encouragement and praise and lots of love. After that I was ready to climb the Pyrenees or Al Acebo or O Cebrero every day! And then, usually just as I was on the top of a mountain and stopping to look back over the magnificent landscape I had had just spent 4-5 hours crossing, another three short buzzes and a little text from Pierre or Nici to say -- Well done! You are great! SO proud of you! xxxx -- almost as if they knew exactly where I was finding myself.

And, although I keep repeating myself, I specifically wanted to thank you all again for that. I know one of you commented that the whole thing seemed a bit like bashing my wall against a brick wall, and then Marc made a very interesting and thought provoking observation. He said that no one really understood -- had an inkling of a notion, could even begin to imagine, or appreciate, let alone envisage what I was doing.

You read the messages, he said, and all the way through you say "Wow!!" "This is amazing!!" "How does she do it? I could never do that!" -- but ten minutes later you have stopped thinking about it and you continue what you were doing and do not even wonder about me busy walking -- and still walking hours later, and then still walking more hours later, because it is just something you cannot even begin to relate to.

Nothing in your own frame of reference can even remotely be compared to someone getting up every morning before dawn, getting dressed in the same clothes you have been wearing for 7 weeks (hoping they dried on the heater before the heating was switched off during the night), putting an 8 kilo back pack on your back, setting off in the dark, alone, in the mist or rain or snow, and walking over mountainous landscapes on stony ancient pathways for the next 8 to 11 hours or until sunset, day after day after day, for 36 days.

Marc so rightly observed that when he, Nici and Pierre and Sacha and Mat crossed the African continent and travelled in a truck through 23+ countries, swept the flies off little mounds on a wooden trestle table in the markets to see if it was rotten meat or fish underneath that could be cooked for their meal, slept under the stars, passed baby elephants along the main road that had been killed by vehicles, washed in a bucket of water, had to pay soldiers to accompany them and drive through the bush to evade wars going on ---( and yes, you are so right March -- -- even I, who 'lived' every moment of those months with you and met you on the way twice for a brief spell, cannot begin to list what you experienced during those ten months) -- no one they have told these experiences to have been able to grasp what it is they lived during those months -- because nobody they know have ever done anything similar, so it is beyond their ken.

I appreciate that what he says is true. One can only imagine something that is within your frame of reference.

So yes, Marc --- I realise when I see some of the reactions of people that hear about the Camino, that unless someone has done the same thing themselves, they cannot relate to what I am writing as I sit here -- and therefore cannot really appreciate or for that matter, be very interested in my story. You are correct -- and I agree with you completely. It will be my next challenge now to tell the story in such a way that people will understand a little of what the Camino is about and will, even if just in the reading, find it -- not like head bashing -- on the contrary!, nor alien and incomprehensible, but rather interesting and hopefully also inspiring. Thank you my angel for pointing that out to me --- before I put my head down and start writing my story, that was probably the best and most practical advice anyone could give have given me.

It is so true. You may well have walked or run a marathon and done three times what I did in a day, but did you do that with a backpack on your back and did you do that for 36 consecutive days? We often talked in the evenings about different reactions from people we knew, and many pilgrims commented on friends saying that the Camino is not a difficult hike for a seasoned or avid hiker. There are much more demanding and gruelling walks or climbs or treks or hikes. The 42km Otter trail, for instance, was mentioned by a South African, as being far more demanding than the 800km Camino.

That may be so, and I grant that you are talking of a gruelling and difficult six days' trekking and I do not think that I would be able to complete it.. But has anyone ever done the otter trail non stop 19 times in a row? -- for that is what we are talking about. It is not so much the physical demand the Camino makes on one -- it is the mental demand that is the test -- and a mental demand, at that, that is made unrelentingly hour after hour, day after day, week after week....

The first night I arrived in St Jean Pied de Port and I had the wonderful good fortune to meet my wonderful fellow pilgrim, Thorsten, before starting the climb over the Pyrenees the following day and setting off on the pilgrimage, we talked about what lay ahead and I mentioned the fact that the furthest I had ever walked, without a backpack, and on smooth tarred roads, was ten kilometers. Thorsten, who had walked the Camino before, then told me --

"It is not a physical challenge. It is a mental challenge. Your body can do anything your mind tells it to do. If you are strong in your mind, you will finish the Camino."

He was telling me what I have been preaching for years! All these years, all over the world, I have been giving motivational talks saying exactly that. Mind over Matter. The Power of the Mind. Of course I knew what he was talking about. In fact, this was the main reason why I was walking the Camino I wanted to do something that would not be easy for me,, that would be a true challenge, that would be very demanding, that would be way out of my comfort zone, that would test my own tenets that I have been pontificating for years. I wanted to do something that would really test my belief that the mind is in fact the most powerful tool known to man. So yes! of course I knew what Thorsten was talking about!

Wrong! I was half way up the 3000 metre Pyrenees mountain when I found that all that jargon is much easier said than done. I had to talk very hard to myself. I had to dig very deep to find the resolve, the courage, the energy and the strength to push myself to go on. Every single day thereafter there was at least one moment when I found a new proof of the power of the mind -- when it was my mind and only my mind that got me through that moment ------ I shall be writing more about that --- about how, all along the Camino -- a pathway which never gets easy, never lets up, never gives an inch, never shows mercy -- and importantly a pathway where one can in fact 'get off' at any moment, at any stage, where one can send your backpack ahead by vehicle, or hop onto a taxi or a bus or a train when the going gets a bit hard -- and still get to the end and claim victory, so where one is constantly given a too-easy choice of continuing or not, how this is surely the greatest test of Mind over Matter, the greatest proof of the Power of the Mind.

And there, my dear friends, supporters and encouragers, is where my little accounts have to end. I have to get back into the real world now -- a little chateau is awaiting my spit and polish -- my first guests start arriving next week -- and much is to be done, after the long winter hibernation, to get it back to a warm welcoming gleaming and sparkling place for people to come enjoy. I shall also start working immediately on completing my book -- and I hope these little weekly messages have whetted your appetite to read it when it is finally published! I have also already had the little local gallery owner knocking on my door and wanting a date for the exhibition of my paintings and photographs of the Camino (Yikes!), so the next few months will be wonderfully busy and exciting!

(Remember -- I dedicated my pilgrimage, my Camino, to my dear friend, Terrie Baxter, and any and all proceeds from the book, the exhibition and speaking will go to the charity of her choice -- which is the Australian Cancer Research Foundation).

Thank you All, for being there for me!

I wish you all a Buen Camino -- a most wonderful journey through life!