Walked another 45 kilometres today, from Castrjeriz to Carrion de los Condes. Making a total of 1030 kilometres. Stretched myself again today. A little farther than intended, because my guide said it was only 42 kilometres. After two hours of walking I would only have made 7 kilometres. I saw Richie, whose real name is Richard of course, at about that point. He told me we had walked 10 kilometres, which made more sense.
It was difficult enough the way it was. The morning brought cold rain and a steep hill, steeper than anything after the Pyrenees. The rain made the path into a mudslide, which made walking difficult.
And then there was the time change. Rather early in the year, if you ask me. It was dark again, when I woke up at about 7AM. What’s the use of that.
The afternoon brought some sunshine and higher temperatures. The path in these Spanish plains is just dreadful. It could be Holland if it was not for the mountain ranges in the distance. It’s almost flat and you can see the next village from an hour ahead. And then it gets closer teasingly slow. With legs that are getting more and more tired these towns at some points seem like fata morgana’s. What’s truth and what’s wishful thinking, seems to be the question. Like it so often is in real life, I suppose.
The last stretch of 20 kilometres followed a not very busy road. There were hundreds of concrete signs with a painted Santiago shell on it. I was wondering why they had made these ugly signs. Till I passed one of these signs with an, what seemed to be, original tile shell on it. Greedy Peregrino’s must have been trying to chisel off these tiles in the past. It must be a consequence of the massive tourism trap that the Camino has become. I would also like to get some touchable memories from the this trip, but it’s beyond me to ruin these lovely signs.
Quite right that they have made these signs quite ugly now.
This greediness is not overwhelming. Richard (Richie), 20 years old, told me he had not met one person on this journey to whom he would not have happily given his passport to look after for some time. And that’s true. Everybody shares and respects each others efforts. It makes us all companions. We know this journey is gratifying and gives us all a way to deal with the rest of our lives.
But we also know it’s about hardship. It’s about suffering and no one can fool you about it. Julie has been analyzing my feet for the past weeks, and the diagnosis is: ‘traumatized’ in an increasing level of seriousness. It might be, but it doesn’t feel that way.
I am feeling that there’s a natural shoe growing under my feet. It’s less and less sensitive, and the bottom of my feet are becoming like a distant organism. Ah well, I’m almost half way the Spanish part of the Camino. My feet have another 402 kilometres to estrange themselves from me. But after that I want my own feet back.
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