A Cluster of Friends
Camino. Chapter 18
This is my serialized story of walking the Camino de Santiago across Northern Spain with my sister-in-law. If you’d like to start at the beginning, click here.
A beautiful canal, totally unexpected on the Meseta, is a clear sign to be wary of the day ahead. Still, this is how our morning is to unfold, according to our guidebooks and confirmed by Brian, the young Irish man Marlene met yesterday. Brian said he has hiked this section of the Camino several times and the canal at sunrise is a must. So, here we sit at our hostel, as there is literally nowhere else to go in the small town of Boadilla, and wait for daylight. We eat breakfast and check our cell phones - we will not have an internet connection until we reach our next hostel.
Given our normal early morning routine of getting up and packed, I feel like we are treading in place this morning, simply killing time to get started. Typically in leaving our hostels before the sun rises, we don’t see other pilgrims at all, or if we do, it’s the younger ones who are preparing to put in long miles, the thirty-mile hikers. For us, though, the objective is not the miles, but the cooler weather of the early morning and the goal of arriving at our destination mid-afternoon. Perhaps, too, if truth be told, we like avoiding the pilgrim “horde,” the masses of pilgrims who begin their day later in the morning, where a small stream of walkers coming out of the hostels quickly turns into a river of humanity on the roadsides. We, though, are long gone by then, choosing to walk with the sunrise at our back and, later, to eat a quick breakfast five or six miles along the way.
Our hostel’s eating area is replete with hikers at individual tables talking quietly among themselves, many with their daypacks and poles resting along a wall or against their tables. A fair number of pilgrims have placed their larger packs, their actual backpacks, at the entrance of the hostel for pick up by various luggage courier services to be taken to the hikers’ next destination. Moving luggage ahead, it turns out, is a booming business. Marlene and I, though, came on this journey with the intent of carrying our fifteen and twenty-pound backpacks across Spain and, even several weeks in, we continue to do so.
The breakfast area is in constant motion as pilgrims come in from the dormitory or walk through the small, laid out, buffet of toast, slices of ham and cheese, fruit and cereal. Others are checking their day packs or putting on their coats, getting ready to head out into the emerging light. The coats, jackets, and vests are colorful but, at this point in our trek on the Meseta, a bit dirty or, shall I say, well-worn. It is clear our community from the night before is dissolving, and we all leave the hostel, even in the early hours, individually, or as a couple, or a small group, just as we arrived.
An Italian couple we met at dinner, drops off their luggage for pick up, waves to us and almost immediately departs the hostel. I am surprised they haven’t stayed for breakfast, as I thought they would be taking the hike more slowly. They told Marlene last night they were on their honeymoon, but, I guess, that doesn’t necessarily mean lingering mornings, especially if they’re in a dormitory with twenty other people.
Soon the morning sky is light enough for us to get started. The three-mile walk along the canal is pretty and I relish the smooth surface of the road. I am now coping with pain in my right heel on a continual basis as I struggle with plantar fasciitis. We are nearly halfway to our goal of Santiago, and I see absolutely no way to heal my heel on this adventure with Marlene, my tough-as-nails sister-in-law, who, I am horrified to witness, has added pushups to her early morning routine.
My brother Charlie texted me a week back that we both should be doing pushups to keep our upper bodies strong. Marlene embraced his suggestion and every morning has been doing fifteen to twenty pushups after she gets dressed. However, I have focused my time on my feet, wrapping my right heel tightly and sliding over it an orthotic sock - that is, before putting on double socks (to reduce blisters) and tightening up my boots. One of the things I track daily is how much ibuprofen I have in my pack. Pharmacies are as critical as hostels out here and I will consume at least five tablets a day. Given my heel, I can’t ever afford to run out.
In walking along the canal we meet up with our Italian newly weds from the hostel and reintroduce ourselves. Simon and Alisa are a cute couple who engage with us easily. They live in a rural area of Denmark where he interns with a local farmer while she works in their town as a baker’s apprentice. Accompanying them along the canal is a young German woman who appears to be with them today but could be on her own.
Soon, the five of us are in Formosa, a significant farm town on the Meseta complete with large grain elevators (and stork nests). I can only imagine how much grain this area produced over the centuries, the canal being the source of water for the region. Simon, Alisa, and Claudia, their German friend, leave us to check out a cafe for breakfast and coffee.
Marlene and I walk on and in the next town of Pablaciones de Campos, we decide to take an alternative trail that leads us along a dried creek bed to, six miles later, a beautiful country church, which seems like a jewel on the horizon.
I love this church - where it is in the countryside, how it stands on its own, and the sense, more so than in many of the other churches we visit, that God is here with us. After studying the paintings and artwork along the nave, I sit in a pew and wait for Marlene who is kneeling in prayer before the altar. I try to focus on what I, too, might pray, given the sense that God is here with us, but I find myself dwelling instead on how much further I can go with my right heel. We are so very close to being halfway in our journey, but we still have the rest of the Meseta to cross, the city of Leon to walk, and another set of mountains to surmount - all before we reach Galicia and Santiago de Compostela, our final destination of this pilgrimage.
When I finally muster up a prayer, it is that I won’t stop, quit, leave Marlene, especially not here on the Meseta, but, so too, even in my prayer, I am having a hard time visualizing how God can help me pull this off, how, shy of a miracle, I can walk with this bum foot the rest of the way.
In truth, in this simple but elegant country church with the presence of God so pronounced, my prayer centers solely on the afternoon ahead. In fact, my prayer does not look further than the next mile. If I am supposed to be contemplating serenity, I have failed miserably, and God doesn’t need me to beg for help with my arrogant, self-induced, Camino walk of pain. I am on my own. I must learn what serenity actually means in meeting the daily hardships of this walk.
In the heat of the early afternoon getting to Carrion de los Condes, the town where we are spending the night, proves to be eye-opening as we walk another five miles across long flat fields and over undulating ridges. The distance and the unrelenting sun is taking its toll as we pass a number of pilgrims we have seen along the Way who seemed, at first, so strong and in shape when we met them, now they, too, are hobbling as we walk by or sitting along the side of the road putting bandages over blisters on their feet. We ask if we can be of help, of course, but there is nothing to be done. The road goes on and each of us must find a way to continue.
Surprisingly we catch up to Simon and Alisa, our Spanish friends, and Claudia, who did not take the longer alternative route like we did. Marlene enjoys their company and, though I push on ahead, they finish the day’s hike walking into the town of Carrion together. In the central plaza we all agree to meet for dinner and separate to our individual hostels.
Carrion, as it turns out, is bustling town with plenty of hostels, pharmacies, cafes, and restaurants - along with other stores - and, yes, we are back in the warm embrace of civilization once again, almost in spite of the Meseta. Strangely, walking into town, we see several parked tour buses and realize in passing busy cafes that the central plaza is full of nicely dressed tourists and, as dusty pilgrims arrive, we are on full display.
Later that afternoon, after showers and change of clothes, we spot a hiking store and happily buy poles - finally - for Marlene. I want her to buy sunglasses, but she announces she has found hers in a pocket in her pack she hadn’t checked. She is good and ready to leave the store, but I love hiking stores and could linger here for another hour. Still, I need to get more ibuprofen, knowing what lies ahead, and with a morning hike tomorrow that promises ten miles without water or shade, we want to buy bananas and baguettes to carry on our journey.
Before dinner Marlene decides to explore a local church but I separate off to return to the hiking store and buy a raincoat that can be crunched down into a little pouch in my backpack for the second half of our journey (the Blue Whale poncho having been thrown away days ago). So too, I buy new rubber tips for my poles, a black nylon beanie, and a thin pair gloves. Who knows when I’ll have this opportunity again, so I make the most of it in looking ahead to colder weather.
That night we eat dinner with a large group of fellow pilgrims and meet Dominique, a vivacious middle-aged man from Belgium. He knows Simon and Alisa from days earlier on the Way and, along with Claudia, is soon part of our group. I can’t help but enjoy their company and realize we have been seeing the same people for the last couple of nights. Worn out and bruised, our cluster of pilgrims, its dawns on me, appears to be making it through the Meseta together. This is a good thing, Marlene tells me, as we are better off being in a cluster of friends.
Later, back to our hostel, we discover the staff has placed pieces of chocolate on each of our pillows. In spite of it all, how could we not be inspired to do this all again.
Blessed are you, pilgrim, if you contemplate the road and discover it full of names and dawns.