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 28kms (17.3 miles)

9:54pm Today was another blessing. I left mum in the hostel at 7am and walked in the mist. It was misty until about 11am and I was walking hard, sweating a lot and the air was icy. It was exhilirating and I was on a high. When the mist finally cleared it was a cloudy day and as close to rain as I have come, though it did not rain. It was so beautiful and the day flew by. I got in at 1:30pm and and had planned to meet mum in the town square at 3pm. She had cabbed it and we planned that she would come in and find a place for us to stay. So I was early. I got a little lunch, and shared a park bench with a cool guy from Arizona, til mum found me. It was cool hearing about his Camino, and how different it was to mine. It had the makings of a teen flick entitled on “road trip on foot”.. with many adventures of lost bags, stolen wallets, begging wire transfers of money from parents, and 55 minute relationships and broken hearts.

The accomodation that mum found us was beautiful. It was above a bar. I came in and had a lovely bath, which eased my bed bug itches immensely. I then had a disturbed nap. I feel really exhausted, like I have just walked 750km.

We had dinner with our Aussie friends, Judy and the 2 Bobs, it was really lovely. Mum and I tried this Galicia specialty of octopus, which was so slimely and disgusting we couldn’t eat it. When we were leaving, we met this really sweet pair. It was a father and son, who were walking together. It was nice to share with them, because of us being a mother and daughter. They were mostly camping and only every couple of days would they stay in a town. Mainly when they needed a shower. It was amazing. They carried all their cooking gear, and were really roughing it.

We got back to the room, and got into our Pj’s then mum remembered that she had left her charger in the other hotel. What had happened was, when she came into the town, she found accomodation and had settled nicely in there, until she pulled back the sheets on the bed and discovered odd black hairs all over the pillow. GROSS!!! So she hastily packed up her things got a refund and found the place that we are in now. As we were about to get into bed she realised the charger had been left behind. I was in my pj’s but we decided it would be OK just to slip out. So we rugged up in our jackets and caught the elevator to the Ground Floor. The elevator opened directly into the bar below. As the doors opened about 12 men standing around the bar turned to look at us. We just burst out laughing and shuffled past in our pajamas. By the looks on their faces they had never seen anything like it. We scurried along two side streets until we got to the previous place. They were just closing up, but they let us in and we ran up, got the charger and dashed back home. Waiting for the lift was an eternity as all the men in the bar bore holes into our backs, while we did our best to stifle our giggles.

Again I am filled with much gratitude for my life and everything in it. Thanks Be to God.

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