I'm finally "inspired" to write about the two longest/hardest/most rewarding weeks of my life so far. August 8-24, 2009 will sure be remembered.
18 people and I went on a pilgrimage to tackle the so called Camino de Santiago (Way of St. James) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camino_de_santiago. There are numerous places to start, numerous ways to do it (foot, bike, horse), and no definite time frame to do it. The minimum requirement (by foot) is to do at least the last 100km or 200km if you're doing it on bike to obtain your compostela (certificate of completion for the pilgrim). But how do they know you didn't CHEAT? You can cheat, just not the last 100kms. You have this thing called the "pilgrim's passport/credential" which is a passport type piece of card-stock paper, where you get stamps along the way, and that tracks the cities you've walked through so yea, no cheating, and if you do cheat, GOD'S WATCHING YOU. So if you have some time in your hands, and want to go on a journey where you will be challenged physically/mentally/emotionally/spiritually then I say go for it.
We were given 2 weeks in the month of August to begin this pilgrimage. With the time frame that we had, we managed to go for a distance of 300km (186.4 miles) on foot. If you think about it, that's quite lengthy, and to do it by foot, it sounds crazy. Believe me though, when you think about going along the north of Spain with friends and not having to do any type of work for two weeks, anything will override such crazy idea. However that excitement did not last long. Here I was, about to leave the comforts of this world (my bed, my pillow, hot showers, real food, waking up whenever I want, etc.) and trek along with my 7kg (15.4lbs) backpack that contained a few things that I'd have to survive with for the next 2 weeks. I thought to myself, that it wasn't too late to turn back and go home but hey, I was still in that excited stage.
But is there a set path on this Camino? Well, there is no set sidewalk with green pastures on the Camino, but there sure is a path that millions of people have walked on for hundreds of years. How do we know where to walk? Actually, you don't. All you have to do is trust in the yellow arrows and shells and trust that God will guide you on the right way. Sometimes, you won't see a yellow arrow for a couple of kilometers and sometimes there are multiple arrows, so you need to know which way is the short or long way. There were also distance markers along the way, telling you how many more kilometers to Santiago, so to me, it was a constant reminder of why the heck I was doing this to myself.
So with our trust in God and the yellow arrows alone, we started our journey.
Day 0. We arrived to our starting point. Leon, Spain. We took the train from Madrid to Leon and the ride there was pretty nice, mostly because I was asleep pretty much the whole time. However, the beginning of the train ride was quite difficult only because this old lady who was traveling with a gazillion bags/plastic bags/brooms did not want anything on her stuff so me and her kept on battling over our bags, but then I just didn't care anymore and went to sleep. Funny thing was, anytime I made a sudden move she would be on the look-out. And to that lady, though I pretty much wanted to kick your butt, I thank you for making me become a much more patient person and making me tired in the beginning of the train ride, so I could just knock out for the rest of the ride to Leon. Upon arrival in Leon, we had to find a place to stay, so we began our small journey around Leon to find a hostel/albergue that was affordable--which we did! It wasn't even a long walk around town but I wanted to die already. A backpack of 7kg is no fun yo. I could only imagine how the next couple of days were going to be... walking 20-30kms a day. Oh boy--there sure is no turning back now (I'm still in Spain, so I could just take the train back to Madrid get my stuff and go home, but why go, that's right, I was still in that excited stage).
Ok, so this was a bit of introduction of the Camino and to the rest of the journey. Stay tuned... it only gets better, or does it? You'll have to wait to read.
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