FOREWORD: I completed the El Camino de Santiago – an 800km spiritual pilgrimage across Spain in late Summer of 2009. I journalled and photographed my trip, and as a final completion I agreed to publish my journal and pictures a year to the day of my journey.
STATS: Walked 22.8 km (14.1 miles) Spent €23.60- (Accommodation – €6, Food – €17.60)
9:42am I have passed through Ventosa and am now sitting on the side of the road, just writing. Sometimes I am just bursting and I just need to write, and sometimes I just need to put my bag down. I am in my boots today and that is nice but they do tire me out, not as much as my sandals. If my knee gets better I am seriously thinking of shipping my boots home and just walking in my sandals. But if it does rain my feet will get wet so that is not ideal…So funny, I sit down to write profundities, and and all I write about is my feet and boot stuff. It is crazy. My feet are just hot and tired.
I woke up feeling so filled with joy and could feel *Jason* so close to me. I love him so much. I want to connect with him. I am not sure how. I trust Spirit. I am grateful for…. well, you know…..the things that I think about when I am walking suddenly seem so insignificant when I sit down and try to write them.
This morning while I walked there was about a kilometre of dead ahead straight path and I find that there is something disheartening about seeing it all laid out, and that all there is to do is keep stepping. It is so heinously boring, and I have to really motivate myself to keep going. My preference is when I am not sure in which direction, or where the path goes. It keeps it exciting. I guess that says something about me. As I sit here my feet are burning. I am not sure about these boots.
10:22am I am sitting here in this little cafe in this little town and there are a lot of pilgrims in here. For some reason or other suddenly a couple of the pilgrims whipped out their little “mascots” and presented them to me. It was really cute. I didn’t know pilgrims had mascots. (If my teddy Mr Pickles knew, he would be devastated. We have been traveling together since I was 19 years old and I decided to leave him in Sydney with my sister Amy for this trip!) I have some pictures of the mascots!
As I walk through these towns I worry that I may not remember them, and that they will blend into one, and the paths and the scenery and everything will be forgotten, and then I realised that it is not actually the place or the thing but more importantly it is the presence of me connecting into that space and time like a sum of the parts of the town, and the weather and my physical body and my spirit all intermingling in this precise moment, and whatever that brings. If it brings joy, upset, epiphanies, sadness, memories etc, whatever that is, that is it. So it may not necessarily be the bringing forward of the physical experience, perhaps it is bringing forward something else, beyond the physical description of places, rather the inner landscape.
What is there to say about that, except that in this instance I am tugged by the pedestrian physical instinctual urges of my body and at the sames time looking out at a 360 degree horizon on this cool overcast day and am sublimely touched by the peace outside and how that flows into my consciousness, and with that perceiving the multi-dimensionality of this existence.
12:06pm I am in a little bar in a town called Najera. I have already walked 17km this morning. That is awesome, and I am a little tired, but I can hardly feel it. Today has been a lot about walking and *Jason*. So much I feel like I just want to go and be with him. We don’t have to know or have it all figured out, but just to go. I miss him so much, and miss sharing all of this with him.
When I see myself here experiencing all of these different things, I see how in my regular life I have really shut myself down and out of the world. I think I needed to, in order to open myself to the inner core of myself – but ironically the pilgrimage is bringing me out of myself, and drawing me out into participating more in the world. I was thinking to go inward I needed to block the outside, but it is like the more I do outside the greater and deeper the revelations are inside. I sometimes wondered if I wanted to be involved actively creating in the world, and the truth is of course. There is so much goodness in me and the world and the energy I have has got to be used.
2:19pm (I am now writing in pencil) Oh no, I have lost my pen I think and feel feel like an idiot that I gave all my pens away to the Pamplona post office. My feet are aching and my shoulders are aching, so even though I am about 2kms out of Azorfa, I need to rest, and hey, what’s the rush anyway. I love it here. I am sprawled on the side of the road. It is so peaceful here. Not a person as far as the eye can see, just rolling hills and brooding clouds. I would love to camp out one night but i think it would be scary. It is more quiet than I can ever remember. I can hear the leaves. But I think rain is imminent. I need to move.
5:08am I am lying in my room, a double room, as in a room with only 2 beds, in this brand new shiny albergue in Azofra. I am completely in my element. I have not been indoors and alone for days, and to have this little double room to myself is the most unbelievable treat, even if someone joins me later. I am savouring my precious time now. I feel sometimes that God rewards me in small and simple ways. I have been here for 2 hours and for that I am deeply grateful. When I walked into the room I lay down on the bed and cried, in gratitude. I am not really sure why and perhaps it shows how I have been kind of toughing it out. And in the public sleeping rooms, you can’t even let your guard down at all because energetically there are just people around all of the time.Not that my guard is necessarily up, it just you carry a certain awareness that takes energy. Admittedly you are alone in the showers, but not really. You are hussleing to give others a chance to get in, and under pressure to get your clothes washed and on the washing line in time to dry for the next day, so it is pretty go-go all day. Of course I am grateful each night to have a bed to lay my head on, and take whatever I get, so to get this precious little room and a little time to myself in HUGE. Thanks be to God.
Today was not particularly hard, except for the last 6kms from Najer to Azofra, but so worth it. I am well and truly back in my boots which is great, and makes my pack a breeze to carry, but my feet are still adjusting to the boots, so it is still pretty hard going on the feet, and the pavement is also hard going on the feet.
9:42pm Went to the supermarket to get dinner, and for the first time I felt like I was ripped off.
It ended up that no one joined me in my little double room, so I have my OWN room on the Camino! What are precious gift! It is so nice and I feel really blessed. My blister is almost completely better and the pain is gone. I do have a troublesome left knee and it is kinda weighing me down a bit.
I had dinner with Emmanuel this beautiful one-handed man from France, and Susan from England. Emmanuel spoke with an immaculate English accent, but assured us he was not English and invited us to guess where he was from. He spoke and spoke and I could not pick it, although I am really good at picking accents usually. The game continued but we were not getting close, until I glanced at what the man was eating for dinner. It was the most strongest, disgustingest, smelliest cheese! And then I knew he was French….no other people can eat this cheese except the French…he was mortified that I guessed, and was amused that it was his cheese that gave him away. It was a lovely night. Both he and Susan were seasoned Camino walkers, did it annually and walked different stretches. They inspired me to walk different parts of the trail, like from France. It is just so wonderful.
All of the people I have met are just incredible. Ula from Germany, the blister lady from Arres, and I made dinner together. At first I thought she was a bit of a pain, and she is really very very precious and helpful.
You really do meet yourself on this pilgrimage. Glory Be to God.
go to the previous day: day 9 vianna-to-navarette
go to next day: day 11 azofra-to-ciruena
to view comments on the images, click on ‘full screen’ and then “show info”
S Skates
1 year ago
Once again… I love the grey skies… beautiful. I am currently still recovering from my trip with the kiddies back from Tahoe to Birmingham – although I didn’t walk, we flew, it was still a challenge! Evy decided to nap on our lay-over which meant that she was awake for the final 3.2 hour flight from Phoenix! It might be the jet-lag, but I thought you had broken things off with Jason, so then now, reading this, if I was just joining the trip, it would seem that you haven’t broken it off? Are you writing in a journal or loose pages? Are you keeping the same journal through the whole trip? In the first blog post from the first day it seems like you were running out of space…
How did you get ripped off at the supermarket? To me the story jumps a little from there to preparing dinner with friends, so it’s hard to see whether you went to the supermarket alone or planned it ahead of time with friends. Maybe that’s a part to fill in, even if you didn’t originally write in those details.
I also think you owe us a cameo of Mr. Pickles, even if he didn’t make it to the real Camino…
anyway, sometimes these little questions pop into my head, I’m just sharing them here… I love you, and I’m still on the Camino with you.
SS
tamsinpoet
1 year ago
REPLY TO S SKATES – Hmm, *Jason* – it is so deeply personal, and to be honest I actually edit out a lot of what I wrote about him. I just skim the surface with what I publish. But it is important for me to include the bits here because he was such a big part of the trip for me internally. So can I write no comment??? With the journal I did run out of space in my first journal and posted it back to London. Then yes, I just used an exercise book with no binding. I actually found the loose pages of the exercise book at the albergue in Arres. Obviously someone discarded half the book because it was too heavy, and I gratefully claimed them. It is like that though,. every 100g makes a difference. Sometimes if I was really wiped out and I was carrying a peach. I would eat the peach just to make my bag a little lighter! With the super market, I used to spend about 4 Euros, on heaps of fresh food, this particular shop cost 12 Euro for the same stuff. It sucked. And then I went back to the kitchen, and my friends were there and I cooked with them. I love you too, so glad you are here with me!
S Skates
1 year ago
Ahhhh… thanks for clarifying for me… its amazing how Spirit gives us what we need (the loose paper) – in my mind there is something magical in that – finding what you needed on the Camino and using what someone else disgarded or tossed off…
As for the boy – Jason – I know you know to take care of yourself and insert what you need to and leave off what you dont. I guess from my perspective as someone reading it, it didnt make sense or seemed to come out of nowhere, but thats just my opinion. When taking something out of context, or only including part of the story, I would just offer to keep aware of what a reader (like me) might take away from it not having the whole picture. Ultimately, if you wanted to create a through-line or a story of some kind, for publication, then things like that you might want to consider. I think sometimes, too, when we journal, we are writing for what comes up right then and now in our consciousness. Now you have an interesting opportunity, because you have that raw material and you can edit it and even add to it, if you want to, what was important or what wasnt. Sometimes what we think is important at the time, in looking back on things, and seeing the whole picture, becomes less important or vice versa.
tamsinpoet
1 year ago
RESPONSE TO S SKATES Thanks Sina, for now I am just fulfilling my agreement to myself: publishing my journals a year to the day, with as little editing or altering as possible. When and if I create and publish a book, I will completely restructure it. But for now, my objective is to share as openly and truly and honestly as I can. Xx
Kelly Sheehan-Funk
1 year ago
Tamsin,
I am absolutely awed and delighted by vicariously being part of your journey. Thank you so much for letting us see into your world. Ive been considering a camino walk for 7 or so years and even more so after reading your blog. Amazing to see all the pics. Do you have any of the refugios (is this the same as albergue?)?
LOVE you my friend. God bless you. Big hug, Kelly
tamsinpoet
1 year ago
RESPONSE TO KELLY SHEEHAN-FUNK Hello, thank you for letting me know you are enjoying it. It is nice to know and it inspires me. I am not sure what refugios are but I would guess they are similar. Albergues, are hostels that are for pilgrims only, most of them would not let “civillians’ in. Pilgrims and the pilgrimage can become like a tourist attraction.. Also the cost of the albergues are ridiculously cheap, some even operate on donation only. It is hard for me to describe, but there is like this sacred and very personal and protected energy and culture that you enter into when you are a pilgirm. The cheap albergues, are in some ways honouring the pilgirms journey. It is deeply steeped in tradition. Originally the pilgrims would sleep outside, then later in the churches on the floor, and slowly it evolved into albergues – which simply refers to the accommodation that is offered to pilgrims only. As I have written one of the albergues I stayed in was a beautiful monastery that had been housing pilgrims for 150 years. And then my night in Azofra was at a brand new albergue – which has more of a feel of a massive backpackers hostel, but it was energetically totally different to a backpackers. The albergues have a totally different energy to any other type of accommodation I have experienced. I would like to write about this more at some point, because it is such a precious part of the camino, but in some ways it is beyond description. It is the quintessential essence that makes the Camino such a sacred experience, and what inspires thousands to do it again and again. The Camino is certainly about the 800kms across Spain, but it so much more than that, it is the people, and the friendships, and the accommodation and the rests, and the pain, all of it.