Day 14: Guemes – Santander (18,5k)

Day 14’s walk is epic. It starts along the same paved country roads as the day before, but soon turns into dramatic coastline exposing the clearest water you can imagine. I keep stopping to take photos and it keeps getting better. I walk through an entire field of Uruguayan Pampas Grass.

Eventually the cliffs break down into a long, sandy beach, and in the crossover the water ripples clear and turquoise over rocks and shells. I stop for a paradisiacal solo swim, and then walk the rest of the beach barefoot in my bikini and towel with my shoes hooked to my backpack. The water is cool. The sun is hot.

Waves gradually build up and the beach ends in Somo, a small beachside town full of surf schools. I have some prawns and beer with a Spanish woman in her fifties who’s walking with her two sisters to honour the passing of both their parents. Around us, locals drink Sangria and throw shells on the floor. The waves crash against the sandy white banks below.

Afterwards I get the ferry to Santander with a French girl who used to sell her home-cooked apple empanadas on the streets of Valparaiso, Chile, and we meet a cycling pilgrim from Chicago who likes to start his 60k days at noon. It’s hot, but on the boat we have to put on our jackets for the wind. Masks are obligatory.

We finally find the Santander albergue and it’s dark and dinky, though no darker and dinkier than its 2.3-star Google rating would indicate. I vow to check ahead from now on, then lie down in my tiny bunk for a nap as a French girl shouts at the purse-lipped receptionist for not preventing her bag from getting stolen while she was in the shower.

I don’t really sleep. It’s very loud. I get my period and all I want to do is smoke weed and be touched and lie down in soft spaces. I miss my ex. I miss having a real life. A home.

These days are needed, too.

#soulsearching #PMSBlues #bleed #CaminodelNorte #travel #hiking #CaminodeSantiago

Day 13 (?) Guemes – Guemes, via All the Emotions (3,5k)

Oh wow. Where to start. It’s 09:40 on Day 13, or is it 14, I don’t know anymore. But I thought it was 14, which is supposed to be a restart, and what a restart it’s been. I have too much to write already. I have content that will take weeks to present with the attention it deserves.

Pero bueno. My promise to myself is to write every day, so we will do what we can.

The first thing that strikes me when I wake up is anxiety. Of the kind I had before going. I have been having such a good time on the Camino that I forget, but before coming down here, I was really in a state. I woke up every morning in acute spiritual pain. It sounds so dramatic, and especially when you do manage to leave your bed and see the world and you realise how insignificant you are. Depression is really a very narcissistic thing. Understanding that you are one with all is the cure, but man, is it easy to forget. We can blame our consumerist society, we can blame our parents, our looks, the hands we were dealt in any way. But really, what I found most helpful in my darkest moments, was to rephrase that hackneyed, worn-out, favourite slogan of depression that whines, “Why me?”

Instead, really, we should ask ourselves – “Why not me?”

There is so much suffering in the world. It is a completely natural part of existence. And yet, one of the vilest, strongest and most power-trippiest guardians of my particular depressive prison is shame. Like, C.O. Piscatella would run away and hide if he saw C.O. Shame. C.O. Shame keeps me in separation by taunting me for not managing to be happier than I am. For not just getting on with it. For not being one of those people who can figure out life, and live it.

But anyway! The day. This preamble matters, though, because I’m starting to realise that my sad, scared and neurotic little self might not be going away. So instead of decrying its existence, I suppose I best learn to handle her. Like Buddha inviting Mara – the physical manifestation of lust, greed, anger, doubt and all things nice – to tea, listening to him, and therefore calming him down instead of forcing him to shout louder by trying to ignore him.

Well, I am Mara. I guess we all are. But the good news is that if I can have tea with myself, and better yet, act in ways that do not cause Mara-Me to throw a hissy fit, then so can others. Hence, maybe this narrative of acknowledging our fears and then not acting on them may help others. Quien sabe. If not, please go follow Tara Brach cause she doth know her stuff.

So. Woke up in fear. Just like before Camino. But hey, I’ve done a guided meditation or two in my life, so I accept it. I even think, well well well, if it isn’t Fortnight Two of the Camino: Less Sparkly Newness, More Reunion with Same Old Anxious Pre-Camino Self! Howdy, let’s go!

So I get up. Go to breakfast. Sit down at a table of friendly-enough looking people. Turns out they all speak a language I can’t figure out at all. Aaah. They are the youth group that intercepted my yoga yesterday! A pattern here. Well, I guess I’ll just eat my bread and jam and get out. This is supposed to be the morning I recommence my Questioning of Existence as We Know It, after all.

But. A little seed of Choosing Life in me has other ideas. So I ask if they’re speaking Flemish, and the one older guy of the group says yes, sorry, and explains that he is there with this youth group as part of a documentary about his organisation which provides shelter and coaching to young homeless adults. Jesus Christ. The kids I felt mad with for smoking and making fun of my yoga are fighting fucking homelessness. They’re on a pilgrimage to learn life skills, build self-esteem, prove to themselves what they can do.

Just like me, except I’m pretty sure none of my problems have anything on theirs. Yet again, the Camino reminds me to be open, to observe before judging, to take nothing personally, and to grow the fuck up.

The guy’s name turns out to be Musti Önlen. His non-profit is called Homie. He himself came from foster homes, spent time on the street, did a few Caminos. There’s a special place in whatever heaven you believe in for people like him. Support his project.

So that was breakfast. Okay. Everyone starts packing up. Me too, but I am slow. Even Gertrude leaves before me! Today is barely 15k, though, so I’m not in a rush. I ask a volunteer if I can sit down for half an hour to charge my phone and do some writing.

Father Ernesto overhears, and comes ambling over. “You are allowed to stay just as long as you need,” he says and puts the warmest, kindest, most grandfatherly hand you can imagine on my shoulder. “What is your name?”

So before I know it, we are talking about life, travel, what we leave behind in this world. As we discuss the spirit of the albergue, I comment on the many similarities between his philosophy and that of the Belgian youth group, who have just left – oh, and one of them took my shorts! He nods, asserting, that even though he is a priest he does not view the Camino as a religious endeavour. “Es una busqueda,” he offers. It’s a search. I could not agree more.

Where am I going today, he asks. Santander? I have no plan, as usual, but nod somewhat.

“Well, that’s not far. I am giving mass (is this how you say it?) at eleven. You can come, eat with us, and then walk to Santander. What do you say?”

Once, in Sweden, I met a woman who had grown up near Astrid Lindgren, the author of Pippi Långstrump. They were not particularly close, but she said, that every time she met Astrid, she would give her a special look. A look that said, ”I see you.” This woman had a very tough childhood, and I imagine she did not often feel seen. But some people have the gift for seeing. And in this moment, I realise Father Ernesto is one of them.

So I stay. He sends me on a tour of the property with long-time volunteer Marga, which entirely blows my mind, and then I sit down in a corner to try and communicate even a morsel of the experience in writing. Which is where I am now. It’s almost time for mass so I will have to return to complete this later. But wow. What a start to the second fortnight. I think maybe tomorrow I’ll need to spend a day writing, because I’ve only posted up to Day 8, and I want to start getting things out as they happen. I haven’t given the blog address to anyone yet. If you’re reading this, I guess things changed. Good. I want them to change. Being happy is fucking hard, and I’m tired of pretending otherwise.

As it’s been a whole 12 posts and I haven’t even quoted a word of my hero Simon Amstell, here he is on how shame formed the basis of his standup comedy show Set Free:

“What tends to happen is I feel deeply ashamed of myself, I feel really embarrassed, I feel really awkward, I think I can’t ever say this particular thing out loud to anyone, because if I say it out loud, that’ll be it for me. I’ll have to leave the country. My life will be over. And then I will allow myself to say the thing that I’m embarrassed about out loud, and it turns out it’s not such a big deal.”

Of course I want to be set free, too. But also, Simon Amstell has helped me a lot with self-acceptance. It looks easy but it’s not. Not for everybody. So I think I should pay it forward by writing about my own shit, too, and if I can be less shit by doing it, so much the better.

Today feels like a shift. A start of something new. Something inside has been dislodged. I’ve even cried a bit. But that is all good, all part of serving up Mara’s tea. I even messaged a thanks to GIB for being part of my life and wished him well on his journey. Pure Little Miss Enlightenment ovah here.

Right. Time for mass.

We go to church by car. It’s a different one to the church the night before; older, of stone, and that’s about as far as my understanding of religious architecture goes. But it’s a church I passed on the way, and almost entered because of its beauty, but didn’t, because bed race. Now I get a second chance.

There are lots of people waiting outside the church, dressed in their Sunday best. Father Ernesto arrives in a checkered fleece shirt and grey sweat pants. I love the man. However, a few minutes later he emerges from the sidelines (church backstage) in full priest gear, and I realise my assumption that he’d deliver Sunday mass dressed as an off-duty lumberjack may have been taking his dedication to equality a little far.

Although, not that far – last night, he spoke after the choir finished singing about the importance of fighting the impulses instilled in us by the consumerist society we live in. Sure I haven’t been to church in a while, but I don’t remember the Catholics as exactly leading the anti-capitalist vanguard.

Then again, the next hour will have me questioning what I do associate with the Catholic Church. Of course we have all read the history books and know that horrors have been committed in its name, but nothing said during mass is that different from what I heard during my months of praying with the ayahuasca shamans of South America. Focus is on forgiveness and service. There, in the name of Mother Earth and The Great Spirit. Here, Jesus.

I suppose all roads lead to Santiago.

Afterwards, some of the volunteers invite me to beers and calamari as Father Ernesto delivers the same mass in the church we went to last night. Then we return to the albergue for lunch, which is just as amazing as dinner the night before.

And then. Oh, and then. Then my little emotions I suppose get idle, and as we all know, idle emotions are the devil’s workshop.

Basically, I start feeling that I’ve overstayed my welcome. For no reason whatsoever, except, of course, I imagine it’s what everybody’s thinking about me. Over beers a volunteer thought I was staying another night, which had not occurred to me until then, but she comes up to say she had me confused with someone else. No matter. I have reserved a room with two friends in Santander that night. It’s all good.

And yet. As I sit outside, braiding my hair, another volunteer comes up. She’s a lovely softspoken Canarian woman, who was also at mass and beers. She asks if I’m going. I nod, mumbling that I think it’s best. This could mean anything. That I need to get going. That I want to go. A polite way of turning down an offer without taking ownership of not wanting it.

I don’t even know what it means myself.

Well, Lovely Canarian is not so emotionally illiterate. “Why?” she prompts.

“Oh, it’s just best.”

She frowns. “Do you want to go?”

“Well, I think I should.”

“Why?”

Jesus. I have no more hedging in Spanish. But truth is I don’t exactly want to go, so I can’t say that. But I don’t want to stay unless I’m asked, either, and Father Ernesto hasn’t.

Lovely Canarian seems to clock this. “Let me go see what Father Ernesto thinks you should do,” she says.

Within one moment they are back. Of course I can stay, Father Ernesto says. I’m more than welcome.

I hope you’ve got your cringe belts on, because I start CRYING. Is this what happens at the Welcome in the World Graduation Ceremony? Thankfully, I have the wherewithal to go for a walk until I’ve calmed down, after which I can return and graciously accept the offer.

Mamma mia alltså.

So I stay for another night, spending the afternoon writing in the garden with a cute cat and then being roped in as E-Daddy’s translator during the evening’s meeting. Do not think the irony is lost on me of arriving suspicious of this cult-seeming place, and not even twenty-four hours later feeling inexplicably SEEN. These God-heads know what they’re doing.

Papa E

Anyhoo. That was Day 13, or maybe 14, who knows. Now for the second fortnight. I am up to date with posts but I’m thinking I might make the second fortnight a bit more introspective. A bit more sit-in-the-garden-and-write-in-your-paper-diary-y. We’ll see. Either way, these two weeks of writing every day have definitely started something in me, and I have ideas for creative projects again, which means I see a point to living again. So gracias, el blog-o. See you when I see you.

#writing #FatherErnesto #PippiLongstocking #soulsearching #depressiontheycallit #Christianity #thegreatCaminobedrace #TaraBrach #anticonsumerism #selfacceptance #faith #CaminodelNorte #ayahuasca #spirituality #cults #travel #SimonAmstell #AstridLindgren #anxiety #shame #Cantabria #anticapitalism #Catholicism #beginnings #hiking #CaminodeSantiago

Bonus Post: First Fortnight Review

Alright! I’m doing it!

Let’s go list cause who doesn’t like to know when they’re getting out.

First Fortnight Top 10

1. The people. I know, I pretend to hate them, and it is true that I need regular breaks. Such as right now, when my new fav walking gang have gone ahead because I pretended like I needed to pee so I could sit alone on a cliff and write about how much I love company. But I do. I have. Walking alone and then hanging in the eve is the best.

2. Wild nature. The first bit of the walk has gone through some truly breathtaking places. The coast of the Basque Country, the mountains, the cliffs, the woods. I had no idea Spain could be this wild. I love wild. Wild me up, España.

3. Getting stronger. The first few days I was knackered at the end of the day, and had to do yoga or I’d wake up in the night from my legs cramping. Now I can feel my body getting used to the exertion. Especially my back and shoulders. The backpack used to feel impossible to carry at times, and now I occasionally forget I’ve got it on.

4. Thick drinking chocolate. Oh boy. One of the top reasons to visit Spain.

5. The movement in my head. Walking the Camino because you don’t know what to do with your life turns out to work. I’ve done more thinking in the last fortnight than I had in the previous year. Physical movement really helps, as do grand, uninterrupted vistas, and telling your life story in two minutes to five different people every day.

6. Not feeling depressed. I mean this is all a bit too good to be true, probably, but even though I’ve had some anxiety on the road I have not felt anything close to the pit-deep despair that permeated August.

7. WEED, obvs. I mean I hope I can’t get arrested for writing this? But it’s a medicine. Welcome her into your life with accountability and respect, and Santa Maria will reward you.

8. Welcome-in-the-world experiment. Highly recommend this to all the avoidants out there. People rarely hate you as much as you think they do. Oh and, a Ukrainian girl told me last night at dinner that they have a saying: “People treat you the way you think about them.” So fake it til you make it. Everyone seeks a leader.

9. Writing again. Writing this on a note and eating it: You are much happier writing crap than writing nothing at all.

10. Figuring stuff out as I go along. Accommodation is an issue, there are lots of options for routes, many ways of eating lunch. But I can’t plan it all. Walk, and the road will show you. It works.

First Fortnight Bottom 10

Alright, so what isn’t part of my manic happy spiral?

1. No hand-soap in albergues. Come on, guys. No one carries their shower gel with them all the time. This just means you’ve got germs everywhere.

2. Snorers. I know you can’t help it. But part of me can’t help but feel like you should be banned from sleeping in dorms, either.

3. But also people who smack snorers with their fast-drying towels in the night. Just get earplugs.

4. Ummm I guess I didn’t like that expensive chain breakfast.

5. Or the rude owner at the albergue that wasn’t Pozada –

6. OH GOD THAT I DIDN’T STAY AT POZADA.

7. Secret pork in mushroom crepes and other vegetarian-sounding dishes.

But seriously that’s about it. It’s been an absolute blast. I’m prepared for things to get a little worse though. Turn a little duller as the shine of newness wears off. Feet start hurting just the little bit more. Clothes get smellier. Ear plugs ear waxier.

But all that is good, too. I came here to think, after all. Not much thinking being done if I’m in having a ball all of the time. (OR IS IT!? Mad new opportunity, add to experiment list.)

The welcome in the world experiment really was a fine idea. I’ve got lots of new friends. Next I might give up assuming it’s always me who’s done something wrong.

#soulsearching #depressiontheycallit #CaminodelNorte #travel #standaloneposts #anxiety #Cantabria #selfCBT #BasqueCountry #hiking #CaminodeSantiago