As I had been up for most of the night because my body didn’t cope with dinner very successfully, standing up this morning was very hard. Johanna and Ben had gone to bed at 3 so at least they were tired too.
It is normal that Johanna and I don’t talk in the morning until the third kilometre or so, but today we just exchanged one grumpy look without even saying good morning.
We finally left at 8 and it was raining outside. The rain got harder during the first half hour and we were soaking wet after about 20 minutes.
Without actively planning to do so, we started a kind of “review-conversation” about our experiences of the last 30 days, the things that have changed within us, the people we have met…
Although this is not being as life-changing as it is for other people or as people might think, things have actually changed inside of me, which was what I had hoped.
This huge Camino “bubble” has been built up over the last weeks; a bubble in which you forget all about your “normal life”, in which you don’t have any time to prepare any future actions because you’re entirely caught up in a present that is filled up with walking, eating, showering, washing and sleeping. This bubble is like a wonderful parallel universe and a safe space which is now threatened by that needle Santiago which is going to hit us tomorrow and pop the bubble, throwing us back into a different life. I think we all fear this moment. The others have a little more time than we do because they don’t finish in Santiago, but we will be on a plane home in less than two days!
Having Santiago as a destination is a somehow depressing thought. A large city with lots of people and a church is not really something that can attract me at all. Finisterre and the seaside would have been the perfect destination if we had just had a little more time.
The vibe of Santiago and the Camino Frances already hit us today with full strength. Walking on the Camino today was like walking on a pilgrims highway. Tom counted over 120 pilgrims in one hour of walking. Sitting down and counting the people that pass by was even worse. This is about the amount of people we have met in total during one entire month of Camino del Norte and Primitivo. Even the nice practice of saying “buen camino” to other pilgrims is nothing more than annoying here.
Especially when it’s coming from nicely dressed, clean, non-smelly, happy people with nice and new shoes and backpacks who have clearly just begun to walk and make the last 100 km to Santiago.
We reassured ourselves of different conclusions today: It was the best decision ever to change to the Primitivo, which was by far the most beautiful stretch. And we will never walk the Camino Frances!
Besides feeling a little weak today and the rain and the people, we enjoyed our last real walking day which took us mostly through beautiful old eucalyptus forests. We had a long breakfast break but skipped lunch and arrived at the albergue at 2:30. Funnily enough, we were much more tired than normally although we had only walked about 24-25 km. I think we somehow have accumulated tiredness over the last days and it’s getting worse and worse.
After at least half an hour of sitting on the bed and not being able to move, I proceeded to eating my rice with Tom. Johanna fell asleep. We didn’t even wash our stuff after the shower anymore, nor do we care so much about properly packing our backpacks. There are only 2 days left before everything will go into a real washing machine. Also, it seems like it doesn’t make that big of a difference anymore. The hand-washed clothes, even if they are “clean” are still really gross and smelly by now.
After some shopping, I fell asleep as well but we woke up at 6 and everyone made themselves some dinner.
We were all completely falling apart today, just destroyed and super tired. No one knew exactly why, but if we weren’t there tomorrow, it would definitely be time for a break day.
Nevertheless, our mood was at it’s maximum of stupidity and hilarity and we couldn’t stop laughing. The very well translated sign in the kitchen or the fact that Johanna didn’t find the exit door and walked straight into the men’s showers didn’t help.
Dinner was the most unspectacular and boring thing we had had in a month and we were done by 8:30, desiring to go to bed. Especially Mitch and I really wanted to sleep but in the end we started a game of “Toad on the road” and we couldn’t go to sleep in order not to miss anything. It was terrible.
After only one single game, at 9:15, however, everyone was convinced that it was bedtime now. It took us a while to calm down and finally give our bodies the desired rest.
