Past halfway

Hi everyone!

Finally, I am in a "big city" again: Leon. On the Camino, anything with more than 3000 inhabitants could pass for a "big city", but as this would seem a bit ridiculous in the real world, I´ll only call places "big" when they count up to 200 000 inhabitants, such as Leon. If we regard the big city-category in these terms, this is the third we have passed so far on the Camino. The next big city stop will also be the last; Santiago de Compostella. I have walked approximately 400 kilometers the past 19 days, and it´s been...intense. I did not really know what to expect when I landed in France 20 days ago. I found it hard to imagine what it would be like to hike 20+ km every day. Hell, I couldn´t even imagine how I would feel after walking 10 km, let alone how I would feel doing this day, after day, after day, for a month. But well, this was one of the reasons to go on this trip; explore, experience, challenge and discover. A poem of Johnny just comes to mind, let me copy it here (´Johnny´, or ´Johnnyboy´ is what we lovingly call the dude that wrote my guidebook, John Brierly. He seems to be the authority here amongst the Camino guides):

To laugh is to risk appearing a fool

To weep is to risk being called sentimental

To reach out to another is to risk involvement

To expose feelings is to risk exposing your true self

To place ideas and dreams before a crowd is to risk their loss

To love is to risk not being loved in return

To live is to risk dying

To try is to risk failure.

But risks must be taken

Because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing.

The people who risk nothing may avoid suffering and sorrow,

But they cannot learn, feel, change, grow, or really live.

Chained by their servitude they are slaves who have forfeited all freedom.

Only a person who risks is truly free.

Yes, Johnnyboy is a deep fellow alright. His guidebook includes his own personal, spiritual reflections after each day of hiking, and it can be said Johnny isn´t afraid to take risks. He even left space open in the guidebook for the peregrino (pilgrim) to write his/her personal reflections after each day of walking. In my book these spaces are very much empty. I wish I had any deep spiritual, personal revelations and reflections to write down, but what should I write if all I hear in my head each day is ´humtydumtydummdum, ouch, humtydoodledoo, food¨ etc.? Many people I speak to do give this spiritual aspect of the Camino more thought, and use the generous amount of time available each day for hiking to go over personal struggles and meditate. For me, well, I vaguely had plans to get a bit more clarity on what kind of job I want in the future (that is, 20th Octobre, when I am back in Glasgow), but the first two weeks I was, like everyone else by the way, much too busy with experiencing pain in my feet, hips, legs, my urges to axe-murder snorers, getting to know new people, and all the other daily mental and physical occupations that come with the Camino. Whatever vague expectations I had, I had not foreseen it would take about twelve days for my body to get into the rythm. I had imagined that the first three days or so would be quite painful but after the first week, certainly I would speed up those mountains like Bugs Bunny, entering every albergue with ´What´s up, dawgs?´.

However, the Camino has proven to be a much tougher than expected enterprise. Because it´s not just the 20-30 km ahead each day, its the fact that you do this every day, pain or no pain (99% pain), arrive at a primitive albergue in the afternoon, manage to keep standing untill you have taken a shower, done your handwashing, arranged your bed a bit, and explore the options for dinner. Then you might stumble about the town a little, have a wee chat with fellow pilgrims, read your book, have that dinner, and collapse on your bug infested bunk bed around 9 pm, only to be waken up every hour by your ($·)$"==?=·"(!!/$·) neighbour that could destroy forests with their snoring (either all the leaves would vibrate off the branches, or the whole tree would simply be uprooted by the shaking of the earth). More about the snorers later (sorry, but I need to write off my frustration a bit). Let´s just say this daily routine is quite a tough one, if you do this days, weeks on end, you become a battered, bruised and hardened peregrino. But this is certainly what makes the Camino special! It is exactly these hardships that make the experience. Honestly, it is a rather cool experience. This very different from normal, rather tough daily routine, creates this sort of parallel, strange, peregrino universe. As a peregrino, you live detached from the "real" world, where everyone is busy going to work, doing groceries, using their heads, party, and all those things we normally do. The pilgrim gets up early in the morning, stuff his few belongings in his backpack, clenches his teeth as he pulls the boots on his blistered heels and tired footsoles, and sets off into the darkness and the cold morning air to slowly see the sky brighten with faint dailight and the red sun rise steadily behind the hills. He does not need to think about where to go, what to do, or worry about where to sleep: the way is marked clearly by yellow arrows and golden shells, the road going in one direction with one clear final destination, and villages with albergues will be on his path every 10 km or so. He also does not need to worry about being alone. Soon he will catch up with other pilgrims ahead on the road, or bypassed by fast paced ones, that may be in for a wee chat, and if not, turn their head with a smile to wish each other a ´Buen Camino´.

Many pilgrims travel alone. Mostly because the majority of people is not in a position to be able to take (or willing to) a few weeks offs just to...hike. You can ofcourse do just a few days or one or two weeks of the Camino, and many people also do this, but it is definitly a more intense and special experience if you try to do the whole way. The fact that the Camino (that is, the Camino Frances; there are many other Caminos) takes 4-6 weeks to complete, attracts certain categories of people. What I have noticed so far about my fellow peregrinos, is that far out the majority of them is higher educated. Also, a lot of people I´ve met had flexible jobs, such as in the filmindustry, freelance journalist, own businesses, or are in between jobs, quit their job, or are retired, but don´t tend to hang out much with the latter category. I found it also surprising how little age matters here. The first two weeks I travelled with the chica gang, who were aged 32 to 41.

I get the feeling people never really grow up; they just cover themselves in an extra layer of seriousness. I also had fun with a Swedish nurse of 36, an interesting conversation with a german woman of 40-something, a dinner and drinking session with two german lads of 30-something, and two days ago i had a long, curious but interesting talk (although it was more like a lecture from his side) with a wacky, but clearly well read, Belgium guy of 50-something that looked like a proper bushman, but certainly didn´t talk like one. Just to name a few examples. I also find it surprising to meet so many women that look so much younger than they really are. (I like guessing ages, as well as temperatures and the amount of inhabitants in a town for that matter, so usually I try to find out my conversations partner´s age, only if it wouldn´t sound like I would be offending them by asking). For example, (I am usually not too bad in guessing ages), a woman of 39 looked like 31, a woman of 32 looked like 23, and another that looked like 22 was actually 29. Usually they are quite boney and vegetarian. If I want to look like them I should probably stop smoking, drink less alcohol and coffee, and practice yoga or some other awful sport (I already feel pain bending over from a chair to tie my shoelaces). So no thanks, I´d rather be the worn out, chubby carnivore when I´m fifty than be able to touch my ass with my nose and look like a 30 year old that lives on a mix of leaves. It seems I am on the right track since I was guessed 30 lately. But to be honest, I would be offended if people guessed me 21. My god, I really hope I seem more developed than a spotty freshman! ANYWAY, this is probably all very interesting for you to read so let´s move on.

I know I´m hopping from story to story a bit, but hey, that´s the beauty about a blog: it is not an essay. So, another important change in the last week was that about a week (? I forget the days here) ago, the group I had been travelling with from the beginning split up and we all went our own way. We had been walking together for 12 days straight, and because it is all pretty intense, I think the time was just ripe for us to go and do our own thing. I certainly felt that way. The last couple of days with the group I began to feel a bit suffocated by the close-knittedness between us that had started to develop. I had come to the Camino to experience complete freedom and meet many interesting people, and I felt like the group was a stagnating factor on experiencing this. We also had a bit of a crisis two days before we decided to split. One of us (not me; whenever I get annoyed or feel agitated I just plug in my Poddy and trail behind) had a break down and cry session on the way. One of us had stayed behind in a village and the other didn´t understand this and wanted to talk about it. But because we had already walked 25 k or so, were tired and in pain, the group member she started to talk to told her she couldn´t listen right now and that she wanted to walk and suffer alone until we got to the friggin albergue. Thus, the one that wanted to talk broke down and cried (I´m not using names because, after all, this blog is far from private). I saw the thing happen from a distance (I had already plugged my Poddy in), and thought: ´...What the..?...ohh Gsus´. The crier sat down on her backpack while the other after some short attempts to better the situation walked of agited, obviously thinking the same: ´F** Gsus **´. So, tired myself, but obviously in much less distress then the poor girl (woman, actually) crying loudly and uncontrollably. So after checking whether she wanted company, I sat down with her, did some petting and shushing, and she said all she needed to get of her chest, and I tried to be understanding and supportive. It seemed to work because soon the tears stopped and recovery set in. We walked the last few k´s to the albergue (estimated inhabitants of the town: 150), and the two kissed and made up and all was fine. But this little drama was one more thing I hadn´t dreamt about before coming on the Camino. Too much oestrogen in the room for sure. So in Burgos I did take a room in a proper hotel with M for one night (ahhh, the luxury, the luxury!) but still felt caged in and restrained by the lack of diversity in company so I told her it had been fun but I would like to travel alone for the rest of the Camino. She understood and all was fine. I met her a couple of times on the road again, this time in more relaxed circumstances, and yesterday I also met the other remaining member of the group here in Leon and we had some lunch which was fun. But travelling alone has certainly added quality and depth to my camino experience and I am really happy I took the decicion to go alone.

I understand the breakdown of one of the chicas well though. I almost had my own break down and cry session two days ago. It started with another bed bug attack a few days before. I arrived in the town Fromista where the dorm seemed fine: only 12 beds or so, even with a semi-wall between them. When I went to bed however, when almost everyone had already shut their eyes, I noticed that  I was surrounded by snorers. A snorer under me, two snorers opposite me. I thought; no fucking way I will wake up the next morning with my sanity (whatever of that i have) intact, so instead i snuk (past tense of sneak) to one of the beds placed as reserve in the hallway. It would obviously be noisy there aswell but at least not the gross sound of snoring. But about two hours after I had fallen asleep, I woke up scratching my arm. I thought an old bite had started itching, but as the night progressed and all I did was turn over and scratch an increasing amount of body parts, it started to dawn on me I was probably under attack. This became very evident when I actually felt one crwaling on my neck. The whole night I felt hot, itchy, my skin burning on the freshly scratched patches, imagining small tick-like animals crawling over my body (an image partly true). Yet, I was too tired to think of a solution, of which there was none actually, so instead i just hope it was only one or two who would be satisfied soon and I tried to sleep. In the moring though, the damage became evident. They had got me bad. On my upper left arm I could count more than 20 bites alone, and this time they hadn´t shown mercy for my face either. About 7 on the cheeck and 6 on the neck and chin. The damage on my face paled however compared to the damage done to the area around the shoulder blades and both my arms and hands. Fuck, my skin there felt like the Andes mountains! I felt violated and abused: the fuckers had raped my skin, taking adavantage of me in my sleep. I really felt a bit gross, having been feasted on by disgusting little animals.

And itchy, itchy, itchy, oh man, they itch so much. My left arm was so bad that it never stopped itching: every minute of every hour my upper left arm felt itchy and hot. I think my whole system was a bit affected by the attack and I didn´t feel great, obviously. The only thing that seemed to work a bit was cold water or cold temperatures. So I took some gaze and bandaided my upper arms, which I then held under the cold tab, hoping to create a cold compress. I really did look a bit like Rambo with these arm-bandanas. But I didn´t like the dramatic look of them and the attention it called for, and also they dried up pretty quick, so I took them off halfway during the hike to the next town. In the next town I met the cool swedish woman I had had dinner with the night before, and I told her about the bedbugs and the only remedy that had seemed to work so far: numbing my senses with alcohol. So we sat at a cafe in the sun, ordering vodka and wine, and soon we (especially I) became jolly and happy. A German guy joined us, we talked to some Scottish peregrinos, and the evening ended with a meal in the town (of which I don´t remember much) and a hangover the next morning. Still, I knew what I had to do: pack my bag and hit the road and so I did. The cold wind (it later on started storming properly, plastic chairs being blown across the albergues lawn) and a 17 km strecth through farmland without coming across even one (!) house or anything belonging to civilization, my hangover was cured pretty quickly.

But really, these bedbugs are a huge problem on the Camino (still getting to my almost-break-down-point). The strange thing is, the gravity of the problem seems to be dawning on the people (the peregrinos as well as the people running the albergues) only recently. There are no warning signs, no information, no questions, no measures to do anything about the problem. I got my first bites on day two or three or so, as well as M, but it took us like 3 days to discover it was bedbugs. How often do you think of bedbugs? Of all the possible dangers on the Camino, bedbugs were the last thing on my mind. However, it is truning into a true epidemic, and the closer you get to Santiago, the more people are affected by it. Yesterday, here in Leon, I spoke to some people that even went to the hospital after having an alergic reaction, or got an injection. I bought new anti-hestamine tablets, the effectiveness of which I was very skeptical about after taking them after my first attack. Actually, I gave my cream and tablets away to V a week before because I found them having close to zero effect on reducing the itchyness so I was convinced the medication is shit and all there is is vodka and a cold shower. But some people told me they actually work to reduce the swelling a bit and make them go over quicker so in my desperation I bought some new tablets. Whether they worked, I don´t know, but I´m OK now.

Anyway, my point of break-down and cry was a few days ago, having just physically and mentally recovered a bit from my second bedbug attack, the monthly female drama had started and I just felt tired and weak with backpain, with a long walk ahead. Walking like an 80 year old man for the last 2 hours I literally stumbled into the (some villages are very charming and romantic, some are not) spiritless, abandoned ****hole (estimated inhabitants: 300), dragging myself to the albergue, hoping for a bed, shower and a welcoming atmosphere. A lot of pilgrims arrived at the same time as me, so there was a bit of a line for registration, and this made the two ladies (volunteers from Canada and Italy) a bit nervous. Surprisingly, they asked everyone whether they had suffered from bedbugs, as they were determined to tackle the problem and prevent their beds from becoming infected. Now, this was a very noble aim, really, I support their initiative fully, but the way they went about it was just purely ineffective and time consuming, that the task they had put upon themselves was much to big for them to handle. The task involves desinfecting all the clothes and backpacks of "effected" pilgrims, giving them spare clothes for the meanwhile. Anyway, two people is just not enough register everyone, instruct, cook, desinfect people, and what not. So they became stressed and cranky and when i said I had had bedbugs (and was traumatized from this) they treated me (or I felt like I was treated) like some pariah, and I wasn´t allowed in and was just put to wait...for some time, and wait, and treated more like a priah. And all I could think of in my not so awesome physical state, was whether they were thinking I LIKED having bedbugs or something, and in the end I couldn´t take it anymore so i left me backpack in the hallway and run-stumbled to the only bar in town to almost-cry and eat a bocadillo and drink coffee, which made jme feel a little bit better. Stupid people, stupid bedbugs, booohoooo.

Anywhow, I ended rather well for me actually, being put in a private room with another "victim", a fun, non-snoring woman, and I slept like a baby.

Man, i think I could write a book; I have so much more to say, also on non-bedbug related topics, things that make the Camino a special and unique, cool experience, but i have already been sitting here for four (!!) hours, also having tried to put on more photos, but failing, so i really need to start hiking or decide to stay another day here in Leon. It was raining this morning and Leon was great, so it wouldn´t be a bad idea to stay, but in fact I also do want to hike again....will see. Lunch first, I´m starving.

So, be prepared, I am far from all out of stories, I really just never find the time to write anything. I could only write so much now because I am actually in a proper internet cafe where I can sit in peace for a reasonable price and not feel bothered by anything or anyone. I will probably write again properly in Santiago, where I will arrive in a week or so (can´believe it).

Kissy kissy (and a bedbug)!!

And think about Johnny´s poem. It certainly is my motto.