The Camino Provides

There’s a saying that “the Camino provides.” I’ve been a bit skeptical about it, but I’m beginning to get it. The Camino does give you just what you need. The thing is, it’s just like life, only magnified. Life gives us what we need, if we stopped to notice. But how can we? We’re moving so fast we rarely stop for anything. On the Camino we, literally, cannot move fast. We can only do one thing; walk. People have asked if I’m doing a lot of sightseeing. I always have to laugh to myself. I’ve taken off 3 days to sightsee. How can I sightsee when I’m walking 6-8 hours every day? I see the road. I see the forest. I see the mountain vistas. I see the city streets. I see the person I might be walking with that day. I’m seeing sights. I’m not sightseeing. I’m seeing inside myself and others. I’m taking a break from life. It’s been a long break and it’s not completely a break from all worries and stresses, but it’s definitely a break from life as I know it. So, yes, the Camino provides a backdrop to really see yourself and your world. Everything that happens on the Camino is magnified. It’s just you and your backpack and the path. I’ve never felt so vulnerable, but at the same time extremely strong. 

Yesterday and today the Camino was at work on me. I’m even starting to think of it as an entity.  I started out this morning from a small town in the mountains thinking I had a pretty easy day ahead. The day before had been a challenge with a lot of climbing. It was also the day I dropped my burdens at the Cruz de Ferro, the iron cross. At the crest of a 5000 ft mountain there’s a 3 foot iron cross on top of a 65ft pole where pilgrims have traditionally left a stone that they’ve carried all the way from home. The tradition goes back so far that nobody can say definitely where it started. I like the legend that it started with the worship of the god Mercury, protector of pilgrims. You see these stone mounds all over the Camino, but this one is a huge landmark. ( I’ve read that this isn’t even the original Cruz de Ferro. That one is in a museum in Astorga) I left my stone and a stone that MJ had entrusted with me. Hers came from the top of Mt. Whitney. Mine came from the hillside in Mexico where I’d gone to see the Monarch butterfly migration with Eli and Max a few years back. My stone had a butterfly painted on it to help my burdens fly away! When I laid the stones down I felt an enormous wave of gratitude for everyone and everything in my life. Maybe it’s the burdens we carry that keep us from feeling gratitude!

The rough part of the hike to the iron cross is the descent. We hike the ascent from half way up the mountain on a very nice path, but we go all the way down the whole mountain on the other side on a very steep path and the path is awful. It’s all loose rock and you have to pick your way down like a mountain goat. The rocky path stops at a small town made up entirely of pilgrim hostels. When I got there I felt completely undone. I’d been walking with two Camino friends, but they were spending the night there and I had a reservation in the next town. I called a taxi to take me the 3 miles to my Hostal. I did not want to walk another step.

So I’d started out today glad that the worst of the descent was behind me and my burdens were left on the mountain. I soon met a pilgrim from Maine who was a newly retired nurse and we totally hit it off and walked together for the 6 miles to her next Hostal. The Camino had provided me a friend. Her name is Marieta and she’s the third newly retired pilgrim I’ve connected with. Maybe it’s a thing. After leaving Marieta and regretting that I’d booked a place so much further away I started walking again. It was all flat sidewalks ahead and seemed like it would be an easy walk to my Hostal. But after 2 hours of walking straight ahead through 3 connected towns I found myself completely lost and only 2% left on my phone. A sign said this was still the Camino and my town was just ahead, but GPS could not find my Hostal. I felt slightly panicked. I asked a man in a nearby shop where my hostal might be and he looked at his GPS and couldn’t figure it out either, but he spoke English and directed me to a place to get a taxi. Whew. The taxi took me to my Hostal. It turned out to be miles from the town and from the Camino. Not only that, it appeared to be closed. It was totally deserted and locked. Nobody answered our knocks. So the driver took me to a small hostel and bar in the nearby town to try to sort this out. The hostel was completely booked and so was every Hostal in the town. Not only that, but I have been using a bag transport service and they had dropped my bag at this now-deserted Hostal. I was stranded. It was all so unbelievably bizarre that it was almost humorous. The hostel manager spoke some English and we laughed about “the Camino provides.” He got me a beer and his phone charger. I spent the next hour texting with both my bag transporters and with Booking.com. Nobody could reach the closed Hostal. They didn’t answer their phone or email. Finally, Booking.com said I needed to get a cab back to the deserted Hostal and make it official that there was nobody there. Booking.com is less than helpful. So I called a taxi and went back. This time there were 3 cars there and I was hopeful. The doors were still locked and it still looked deserted inside. The driver and I stood there for a long time ringing the bell. Finally, an elderly man came to the door. He spoke no English and my driver talked to him. The old man seemed confused, and showed us his phone doesn’t work and he didn’t hear the door. The taxi driver was hesitant to leave me there, but at least I had my bag, a bed for the night, and it did sort of look like a hotel inside, so I stayed, but not without the taxi driver insisting I keep his phone number. I was tired and starving. The old man checked me in and I asked in my best Spanish about dinner. There seemed to be what looked like a restaurant downstairs like in all hostals. He insisted there was no dinner and nowhere to get food. Then he showed me my room and disappeared. Now I was really pissed and tired and hungry. I sat in my room and had a long and pretty pointless text conversation with a guy on Booking.com who couldn’t seem to conceive of the fact that I was traveling on foot and I was in a hotel on a highway and there was nobody at all to be found downstairs or anywhere in the hotel and no restaurants in walking distance. Finally I went back downstairs, passing a dejected looking Spanish couple who seemed to be heading out to dinner. Suddenly, a woman appeared out of nowhere in the not-a-restaurant. I asked if she worked there and she got really flustered. After a lot of translator app exchanges I learned that she was sorry about her grandfather not hearing the door and that their restaurant had closed because of Covid and that the phones didn’t work and she’d drive me to a restaurant. So all issues solved, more or less, but, no, I will not a get a refund for the $25 I spent for the room. It hardly seems like enough to hassle over. If I cancel all the rest of my Booking.com reservations, a tempting thought, it only gives me hours more aggravation. So I’m calling it a day and racking it all up to “the Camino provides.” What did it provide? I just had an incredible experience of being extremely vulnerable and yet supported by everyone I met until it all worked out and I had my bag and a meal and a bed. I learned to trust. Tomorrow I will set off again. The Camino will provide. Well, actually, that’s not entirely true. I’ve scheduled a taxi for tomorrow to get to my next destination. After today I’m wanting a break! I’ll probably regret it in the morning.