Day 21 To El Burgo Ranero

Day 21 Sept 29 Destination = El Burgo Ranero / 365 km to go. Approximately 60 more kliks to Leon-the trick is how to get there in 2 1/2 days without having excessive daily mileage - that is the question. Booking.com indicted a paucity of rooms. Like none in convenient -on the trail- locations. Hmm, I will have to trust that ‘the Camino will provide’. It is 45F outside so I’ll have to wear all the clothing I have and now have planned on buying a long sleeve wool or synthetic top in Leon. My go-to walking shorts were too baggy when I came over here now they absolutely don’t fit in any way shape or form - they will soon be history as well. I can’t wait to get rid of them

”Of all the paths you take in life, make sure a few of them are dirt”
-John Muir

Woke up (dog barking right outside my open window) -short nite sleep. Still really dark out. Bed 1.85m long. Me 2m long. Body not on bed = 0.15m. Not good. First thought of the day: still a really long way to go 😳. Last night after siesta I crunched the numbers on how to get to Santiago on Saturday the 16th. Tight but (rationally) doable. This still allows for my walk to Finsterre. Aye Carumba! Yay!

Thinking I need to refocus on a new balanced high calorie diet and not catching a bug from someone (now that the density of walkers is steadily increasing. I also need to up the intake of fruit and vegetables.

Dog is still barking and unlike my iPhone I can’t hit the snooze button. Throwing one of my shoes at the dog from the second story window crossed my mind -probably not a good idea but throwing one of my flip-flops at the dog is a good idea but wouldn’t do any damage so what’s the point. Dog now barking from within the building in the hallway providing significant amplification of the echo - I guess it’s time to get up

“libre te quiero como arroyo que brinca de pena en pena peri no mia”. Freely I love you like a stream that jumps with sorrow to sorrow but not mine”. Hmmm, struggling with the metaphor - I still like the painting.

… like I said yesterday…. this led to a passing thought on whether or not I will ‘go out’ on a ‘high note’ living in the moment doing what I want one day (I hope a long time from now) Sobering thought, when I see these. Yikes!
R.I.P. Manfred

Beautiful row of trees -Maple like - solid row entire way between two towns. Goal is clearly to provide summer shade to walkers. In fact, it was 2 1/2 hours of these shade trees that must’ve been planted approximately 20 years ago! It took me nine seconds to walk between two trees = approximately 10 m. Doing the math backward as I walked it seems somebody sprung for 1000 trees along approximately 10 km. A lot of time today to do arithmetic and simple calculations. Like my walking pulse today was 81 BPM and my wake up pulse has decreased somewhere in the 40s. Or mentally counting the number of things that I am carrying or wearing- 17. Attempting to count by memory the total number of things inside my pack - 83. Actual number is 71 so I missed something or over counted something

Stats & Numbers:

2.5 million people visit Santiago de Compostela a year (pre-pandemic level)

• 51% of pilgrims are men – 28% are less than 30 years old – 17% are over 60 years old (i’ve met multiple in their 70s and one young lady, Anita, just turned 80)

• 92% of all pilgrims walk the Camino

• 7% cycle the Camino

• 400 a year ride the Camino on a horse

• 40 a year complete the Camino on a wheel chair

• The most popular route by far, chosen by 70%, is the French Way, which begins in Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port in France (me) and passes through Pamplona, Logroño, Burgos, Leon, and Astoria

• 11% start in Saint-Jean-Pied de Port (I did ) on the French side of the Pyrenees and walk 775 km in over 4 weeks towards Santiago

• The 2nd most popular route is the Portuguese Way chosen by 22% of all pilgrims. This round can be completed in 3 to 4 weeks depending on starting point / route chosen (in our future, Carole?!). Longest ruta is from Lisboa is 650km (vs. 800km Frances)

• The combined number of pilgrims who walked all stretches of the Camino fell from about 300,000 annually to below 50,000 during the current pandemic situation

• Currently, last time I checked, over 1000 people (all routes), on average, are arriving in Santiago daily to receive their Compostela (letter of completion). Interestingly, I am not seeing very many people on any given day as I walk, maybe a dozen or two, and I am walking alone for a couple of hours most days. Must be due to those starting at the minimum distance (100km) required to receive their Compostela.

Side 1 of my credential is filled.. kind of cool, like really cool. I will always treasure this document and frame in between 2-sided glass frame

Sharing Lives

When we are together at the start of the day or a rest stop or at the end of the day dinner, talk often about what our lives are like back home which is very fun and interesting, obviously.
Families, joys, work, dreams, when to retire, etc …. and sometimes sorrow.
Example; One of our group whom I’ve essentially known from day 2 (who started his walk from 100 miles inside France) shared with much sadness; “I just learned one my uncle - age 50 - is in a medically induced coma due to being infected by a non-vaccinated sick person (thru contact tracing). While he has both vaccination doses he still contracted the disease and is hanging on by a thread to life”. 
Hey, to you anti-vax-ers Really?! Think!  Its not illegal yet !

This obviously greatly saddens my walking friend, all of us here, and now preoccupies his thoughts for much of the day. We obviously have somebody additional to pray for during our ample time during the day

The Physical & The Mental of the Camino

This excerpt, now apropos, comes from a booklet one of my friends picked up a few days ago when he stayed behind in Castrojeriz, a town that moved him to tarry there:

“The “Camino de Santiago” is a physical and mental challenge. In it, the pilgrim learns to push his limits beyond what he had imagined and to move forward, achieving objectives over and above the difficulties or obstacles he encounters.

All this will make him discover a growing feeling of optimism and desire to excel through his / her walk.

The Camino is a journey that leads us to build an internal commitment and commitment with others, which results in overcoming our own challenges, and becoming aware of the skills we own to press on. One of the most difficult points of the pilgrimage is not to physically face the hardness of the stages, but to find our own reason to continue walking kilometers and kilometers for no apparent reason.  (Bonhoeffer quote)

And, even if this reason is not found to continue, it is discovered that what really matters is each step that is taken. 

The Camino is now and not what will be. 

This force makes the path spontaneously become the natural space to review incomplete aspects of our life and start to:  repair, accept, forget, overcome, detach, heal, change, continue, meet again or surrender.

Yes, also surrender.

Surrender is another form of force; acceptance of the facts; of my circumstances; of the things that I cannot control or that do not depend solely on me ... Like when you have to leave the Camino due to severe physical conditions. (several I know of have including one who went to the doctor and discovered she had a blood clot that moved to another part of her body immediately ending her Camino ) Surrendering to the evidence on the Camino, in our lives, is a way to transform suffering or frustration into healthy realism - of who we are, where we come from, and where we are going.”

I don’t think the mental aspect can be underestimated - especially what the Meseta appears to do to one mentally. I recall as I entered this town the tractor laboring to pull the plow through the field of rocks turning over the soil only to expose even more rocks but not really getting to good or better soil. Allegorically, kind of like attempting to strip all of the layers of paint and never getting down to the original blank canvas it was clear from a couple I’ve listened to that the Meseta has wrought some mental havoc as they consider taking a train or bus to a further destination and skipping the rest of this section. Or packing it up all together.

I like some aspects of ‘What is the Camino?’ as excerpted here in a unique way. Not exactly stuff I’d come up with on my own.
I’m still chewing on it.

I too want to get through the unease of the next 80 km and successfully complete this section and start the final third; “A Santiago”. (To Santiago)