One of the things that has surprised me abut walking the Camino is the way it forces pilgrims to be in tune with their bodies and their physical surroundings.
Back home in the suburbs, a blister would be a small thing. You keep walking until you get home, then wrap it with a moleskin or drain it and wrap it with a BandAid. (There are some definite schools of thought here as to which approach is the correct one, so I won’t say exactly what I do.) You only do that once here. If you want to keep walking, you learn to treat hot spots as soon as you notice them on your foot or toes — not at the end of the day, but at the next spot where you can sit down, remove your socks and shoes, and take care of business.
Likewise, when the mercury soars at home, we stay indoors and turn down the air conditioning. Indoors isn’t an option here until the end of the day, so we soak our Buff in cold water and wrap it around our necks, put on more sunscreen, and stop to cool off in every shady spot we find.
Pilgrims become experts on road surfaces: blacktop is the best, gravel is fine. Pavement, particularly long stretches in cities, is hard on the knees, and rocky roads are the worst.
You learn to stop when you’re tired, eat when you’re hungry and care for yourself when you’re hurt.
That learned response to physical stimuli is something that I’d lost touch with somewhere along the way, but I’m glad I’ve found it again.
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When we were packing for this trip, we were told that there was no need for insect repellent, and so we left the DEET-based products at home.
However, that doesn’t mean the Camino is insect-free. There are flies everywhere, indoors and out, and we never eat a meal without shooing flies away. I’m not as finicky about the flies as I was when we started, but I still fall short of living a peaceful coexistence with them.
Here on the Meseta, we’re seeing lots of annoying gnat-like insects as well. They fly into your eyes and nose and sometimes your mouth. We haven’t yet put a bandana over our mouths, bandit-style, to keep them away, but I think that day is coming.
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Two amazing moments from last night’s Pilgrim Mass at the Iglesia de Santa Maria la Blanca in Carrion de Los Condes. The Mass ended with a pilgrim blessing, that included the priest asking where we were from. He named the nations of the world, by continent, starting with Australia from memory. Maybe he does it every night and so it comes easily to him; but I was blown away.
The Augustinian sisters from the Monastery of Santa Maria offered a blessing, as well, and gave us a gift of a small paper star. But, they said, they hoped we would carry their blessing with us in the backpack of our hearts.
What a beautiful sentiment to end the evening.