Frustrations, Friendships, Funerals and ‘The Way’

Pamplona-Puerte La Reina-Estrella-Los Arcos-Viana and everything in between.

Long blog warning – there may be some digression and rambling.

I have struggle to write for the last 4 days – thinking I didn’t have anything of interest to say. I am not sure I do now, but what I have now is time and you my readers, get the delight of my 4 days of thinking. Brace yourselves it may be a wild ride for some of you.

There are no small days on the Camino. Days become a culmination of small but significant moments. A string of various emotions threaded together with old and new experiences, past and present. Sharing of ideas, the challenge of ideas. A constant paradox, lots of grey and not so much black or white.

The days unfold with a deep connection to land, nature, people. The observation of detail, the letting go of the superfluous. All of it deeply moving. Ebbing a flowing through the course of the day.

I left Pamplona after recouping and having you’ve to myself to digest my journey to date.

Pamplona-conflicting emotions the commencing of blisters

By the time I reached Pamplona, I was full of nourishing interactions, stimulation of taking in new experiences and genuinely proud of myself for the physical feat I have faced over the first three days.

There are not many things I am proud of; however this is one of them.

I was ready for some time out and to myself. I needed time to reflect, digest, recover, retreat from the biggness of it all for a beat.

I wanted not to talk, to switch off and to just to sit/lay to think through my conversations for the day, my experiences, turn them over in my head. Explore them from different angles.

I can talk a lot, communicate and am social. Often people mistake this as being extroverted. I love learning from people, hearing people stories, connecting and listening but I terrible at small talk and awkward with superficial interaction.

The double edge sword of gaining some wisdom as you get older is you learn to have more meaningful conversations and interactions, taking the time to ask the right questions and listen with greater awareness and authenticity, but bloody hell I am finding these tire me out and the concentric this takes.

Anyway back to the Journey – I am currently writing to you from Viana ( I will come back to why shortly) - early in the morning, hence probably why my blog seems slightly more polished that normal.

The rule of the blog writing in to draft once, no editing and no regrets. It’s about challenging myself to write as I feel it, honestly ,about how I am feeling and experiencing the Camino. Its confronting as saying how I feel about things is not something I do well. It about not worrying about what other people think of my writing.

I realise I could use a good editor.

It’s also probably Neale’s safeguard that I don’t have a complete overload of thoughts that I can’t express to anyone and then up vomiting all the words out at once when I talk to him on the phone. He is one of the few that can decipher what I am saying when I produce a torrent of thoughts and reflections with no filter. I love him deeply. And it just grows each day.

Again – I digress..back to Pamplona.

I arrived in Pamplona in tacked physically. I felt good, was feeling less tired after each day’s walk and while I had some blisters, they had not made walking unbearable (yet) .

It was a shock after the solitude of walking in the bush along a river for days and through the Pyrenees to be in a big city. The noise of the traffic, the bustle of people, the taste of car fumes, dust and populated city was like an assault on the senses when some teenage kid forgets to put their phone on silent and their insta reels explodes through your quiet thoughts on a silent bus. Clearly I have let this go…

I wasn’t ready for the pace of the city. And was slightly resentful at first for the intrusion to my stillness.

For context not 10 minutes before I had been dangling my feet in the icy river, giving them some much needed respite for the last 3kms of my walk for that day. I was talking to my new friends from Beijing who were this lovely family of three, who I had just witnessed walk down this very steep hill backwards (as a way of maintaining their muscle strength evenly). I believe I may have been sitting on the edge of this river thinking ‘ Ahhhh the serenity’ – the Castle never fails to disappoint with one liners!

So the onslaught of all my senses from food smells, vendors offering today’s special, workers hurrying to and from work, mobile phones shrilling, languages from all over the world being spoken, car horns, sirens, bells, kids screaming, people moving very fast.

No birds, no gentle flowing river, no pathways that look like Robin of Loxley and his band of merry men will pop out at any minute or where you feel it are on a quest walking with Froddo Baggins to destroy the One Ring ,the precious.

The tranquility and solitude I had had for the previous two days was gone and I was tired, sore and resentful. I wanted the quite back.

Then I walked over the Mary Madaline Bridge – I was humbled by the age and construction,

the backdrop of this beautiful river and cathedral. Maybe I am not so tired now. Maybe my interest is peaked. Maybe the energy for a selfie can be taken …because it was stunning!

I didn’t walk the traditional CAmino route in , but took the quickest way to the Hotel which I was worried I would regret later but I was too tired at that point to care.

I needed a shower, power-aide, some horse cream for my legs and clean dry clothes free of sweat.

I was rewarded with walking through this beautiful park and walking past the outside of the Bull Ring (this I was less excited about). I was supper happy to get to my accommodation that night, my own bed a clean shower and the opportunity for clean clothes again.I still needed to get my Pilgrim stamp which would be a hike to the church – up another hill. But after a shower you feel like different person and anything is possible again.

Pamplona was conflicting for me. I loved that Ernest Hemingway spent so much time watching people in the town square its easy to do, great insight to human nature – I spent a lot of time doing this over the two days I was there. Finding the stillness in the morning and after lunch. I had dinner with new friends and great covernsation.

Dinner with some now life long Friends - Left to Right Geoff Smith, Greg and Karen Jenner , me and David Guitierre oh and of course Ernest.

It was rich in culture particularly around the running of the bulls.But I couldn’t bring myself to take photos of it and walking the bull ring. I couldnt justify it, even for its historic significant. I didn’t want to celebrate that for sport that we could as humans beings, maim beat and distress another living creature for our pleasure and then kill it and consider it sport and fun. Bull fighting or being a Matador is sport I understand that and respect the skill of it but that doesn’t mean I need to support the tourism of it. I like to think globally we have evolved from those traditons.

Bulls often have hot wax poured in their ears, then sand and in other places on their bodies to make them so distress they run for the lives so human can chase them and then kill them. That is not sport that is not skill that is cruelty.

It sickens me and shows me the very worst of human nature that we need to be cruel for pleasure.  So no photos of this from me I am sorry. I am too old now to support things I don’t believe in purely for their historical significant.

When I passed the bull ring each time I said a little apology to all the animals that had died for the pleasure of our entertainment – I know it doesn’t change things but it made me feel slightly better that I could at least take the time to acknowledge our flaws as humans.

I got up super early (like 5am) and walked the city walls of Pamplona – it was crazy the streets were alive with party goes coming back for the night I had some great conversations-with locals and mid street dance with drunk guy – all harmless, all loving life. Then as I walked, I realised how quiet the streets had become and realised I am no longer 20 and not a bloke I am a middle aged white women in a foreign country with her iPad and phone stuffed down the front of her pants and decided that perhaps I should move to safer ground. Although I would like to think I would give any potential mugger a run for the money – I wasn’t willing to put that to test.

I was out catching up on the part of the Camino I didn’t walk on the way in – I was rewarded with a real moat and draw bridge – it was significant, magnificent and worth the early morning walk. I FaceTime Neale – I wanted to share the beauty of the morning and the draw bridge with him. I was missing him immensely.

I spent a lot of time on my own in Pamplona and got some respite and found pleasure in just resting and recovering.

I left Pamplona in the early morning – I was ready to move back out into the quieter spaces.

I wanted to experience what it was like walking in the dark in the morning – its my favourite time of the day. I was on my way to Puerta de la Reina.

There are no small days on the Camino, but a string of small yet significant moments!

PUERTA DE LA REINA- the slow burn of pain

The early morning walk from Pamplona through the university of Navarre and back into the bush was simply stunning – I have no words for the vastness of the land and sky here- we think its big in Australia’s but the beauty here is so different.

Leaving early also mean I met a whole new group of walkers. It was surprisingly busy that day with lots of people in front and behind on exposed land. Which made it a tricky day to have an upset bellie. This was impart, due to rich food I had been eating, getting adventurous with my water sources, and taking lots of anti inflammatories to manage the veins in my feet.

However, the discretion and grace of strangers on the trail meant my dignity is largely still intact but the burning shame of having to go at once, where you are, will be with me for life.

In Puerte de la Reina it was a beautiful 3 star stay at the Jaku its was wonderful experience of connecting with new people and eating together in a really relaxed environment and again stunning views – see below. It had a mix of Glamping (inside) and hotel rooms and I got to meet a lot of the people on the Way that would normally stay in an Alberca.

`View from room -Jaku

My new Canadian friends Karen and Greg Jenner invited Smithy and myslef to share a meal. It’s the Camino way. They introduced me to their friend from Switzerland who had hurt his foot on the walk and was recovering in Puerta de la Reina. Like each meal we had had with others, it gets deeply quickly, learning about each other countries, ways of doing things, the sharing of knowledge from renewable energy to farming practices, vertical growing, probing what motivated us to each decide to walk the camino, where our expectations are now three or four days in and swapping our insights on what we have observed throughout the days trails. Lamenting together on where there were tough bits, dull bits confusing bits and moving bits.

I went to the Pilgrim mass that night – most people had been going in each town but this was my first - its just part of walking the camino they you are welcomed by the community, you get blessed by the local priest and you can get your stamp for your passport.

This particular sermon didn’t really resonate with me in English let alone Spanish – something about John chapter 10 and wolf in sheep’s clothing lots of sheep through gate and the lack of faith in Jesus and some very weird parable relating to local community. Which left me feeling frustrated and my need to understand unabated.

But I was grateful for the time the priest took to ask us where we were from and gave us a beautiful necklace with a heart set into a cross that looks a little like a clover. It resonated with me and the pride I felt in wearing if only for the physical exertion I had given to the trail until-that point – I had walked around 100 kms. Not to mention the beauty of the church the craftmanship of the stone.

The walk from Puerta De La Reina to Estrella deepens my friendship with Karen and Greg and was privileged for both of them to share their story with me. These amazing humans have over come incredible hardships and health issues and to walk pace, care and thoughtfulness, always of others and each other.

Thank you both for befriending me, sharing your journey with me and and allowing me the space to be myself with you. Thank you for the photos, for sharing the knowledge of the black bubble bees on the Poppy’s, the marvelling at crops and fauna and general beauty – thank you for the silence.

ESTRELLA – the inevitable reckoning of pride and reality

By the time I arrived in Estrella I knew I was in trouble with my feet. For two days I had watch three enormous blisters grow and was worried they would pop. While they were in tact and I could still push through the pain – at times it was a hobbled painful walk but I could still walk.  

At this stage I was still a puriest (and somewhat delusional) enough to think I was going to walk every single step of the camino or maybe that was pride , difficult to tell the difference– Smithy and I had made an agreement at the start that we are not here to kill ourselves but enjoy the journey we will take rest days and use transport when needed. While both quietly vowing this will never be required.

Pride has always been my biggest down fall. It stops me from asking for help, both in my work and personal life. It means I work myself into the ground unecessarily striving for perfection in isolation. It’s diffucult for me. I should be able to do this on my own – I shouldn’t have go blisters I spent so much time researching and talking to people on how to avoid them.

But as I am learning the Camino provides you with constant reminders to keep your pride in check – you go too fast and you miss the stag running through the forrest, you don’t look up you missed the encouraging ‘Effort’ sign on the bird box in the tree’, you go through the day alone you because your pride doesn’t want people to see you hurt becomes a missed opportunity to be be cared for or simply to learn from someone else for the day, you push your body to far and instead of  listening to the warning signs until it you end up having days off and shares in a pharmaceutical  companies to fix it.

You wallow in your own self pity and shed a few tears of regret and then take a breath and lean on your Camino buddies who say it’s ok we will carry you with us. You are with us! as you sit on bus feeling like you have failed. Which brings fresh tears your eyes at the care and thoughtfulness of others on this trip.

I couldn’t walk any more with or without shoes. My Blisters had pooped. I knew I needed to see a podiatrist just as I was finding my rythem. So I was lucky enough I to get an appointment at 11 that day in Estella which meant I had time to slowly explore the city. Its been my favourite city to date.

Lots of old historic buildings and wonderfully crafted stores with Juliette balcony’s. A huge community  of Palestinian women, who run butcher shops, chemists and general stores. A German bakery with hand made pastries and beautiful coffee. I fell in love with Estrella. Maybe that was the trade off with not walking that day was that I learnt to appreciate the town better.

I got to stop. Slow down re-group. A lesson I keep learning over and over in my life. To Accept that I coudnt do something and its ok to take care of myself. I still thought I would be walking red next day…(today).

LOS ARCOS

The night spent in Los Arcos after a teary bus journey as my pride took a hit was a turning point for Smithy and me. We connected, we relaxed with each other we showed each other compassion and shared an hilarious yet beautiful moment where we we thought we were attending Pilgrims mass but it turned out to be a funeral.

It was a shock to see the coffin of Alfredo follow the priest down the aisle. We stayed. I am glad we did. the Service was moving in the reflection of Alfredo a nd his life and in the music sung by the choir. I didn’t know Alfredo but felt like I did at the end of the service. I couldn’t help but continue to look at the Choir as they sang and found tears rolling down my face at the beauty of their voices, The man standing behind me wasn’t singing at that point. But saw my tears , caught my eye and made a point of singing for me. It was jarring and beautiful and moving. I wasn’t crying because I was sad I was crying because the sheer Beauty of the voices was too much. To sing like that is a gift and bridges universal divides of language.

After the service we spent time in the square, my camino friends sent me their well wishes thoughts and support knowing how hard it was for me to not walk hoping I would have a speedy recovery.

There are no small days on the Camino, only small yet significant moments.

Thank my friends for carrying me with you.

Buen Camino

Brooke