kaybee travels

2009-04-24T17:12:00.000-07:00

added: "day ?....moratinos...sahagun.....caza de coto....leon...villa de mazarife...astorga" post
added: "camino graffiti" post

2009-04-17T17:30:00.000-07:00

Added/edited posts: feb 15th villafranca post added pics etc. march 11th "almost next to last blog entry" post edited, added pics. etc

camino graffiti....

2009-04-03T15:52:00.000-07:00

Along the way, amongst the numerous camino graffiti, mostly scribbles and initials, but a few treasures... I found a few things here and there that really resonated with me....

This one here was one of my favs. my JPII friends in particular will appreciate and find resonance with this one (esp MissM)

This was the tree that the above was written on. way cool! absolutely beautiful!

Seeing some of the graffiti made me wish I had a marker to graffiti too (yeah i know its probly illegal and whatever, but there are some quotes and things that i think can really encourage people along the way, and/or give people something to think about....)...but i didnt have one :( . attempts to find a marker failed :( anyway, there were alot of things that came to mind that I would have liked to have graffitied.... Here are some other things that I would like to see/have seen grafittied on the camino path ;)

(andrew linzey)
(fr. william mcnamara)
(matthew scully)

Also,
"Even for the most hardened cynic,
an aching longing remains for something
true, good, or beautiful..." (brennan manning)

"All religious experience at its roots is an
experience of an unconditional and unrestricted
being in love..." (brennan manning)

"Children drift about on the tides of their
soul like pilotless skiffs. When a child weeps,
it weeps totally. It abandons itself freely to
its own tears and cannot dam up its sadness.
It possesses no refuge in a tower to which it
can flee to escape this flood. It weeps as long as
it must, just as the heavens rain until the clouds
are empty. And when a child rejoices it transforms
itself wholly into joy. It lives its joy through and through,
without bounds or reflections. And when it is afraid,
it becomes unalloyed fear. It is not "clever" enough to
erect a glass wall between the horror and its own soul..." (Balthasar)

"Our hearts of stone become hearts of
flesh when we discover where the outcast
weeps..." (manning)

"This is the first character of compassion:
its indiscriminate character." (manning)

**These are probably too long to be camino graffiti, but i cant help mentioning the following...:

The question "Where have I come from? "
rises up and haunts me;
lingering, it floats like a flower
in the backwaters of my mind.

From Somewhere deeper than I know,
in the place where I am held to the divine breast,
the voice of God echoes in reply":
"You, my beloved little one,
were hidden in my heart
before your sun burned bright.

You were the dream of my delight
before the earth was born
of the dust of long-dead stars

Before I shaped a single star,
I nursed you for endless ages,
feeding you with the essence of my life.

"In my great lap I played with your infinite childlike form
and gazed with love upon your original face,
the mirror form of my own image.
I laughed with delight at the marvel of your being,
the flesh of my flesh and bone of my bone.

"And you laughed with glee as I winked,
as the four winds sprang to life
and suns like dandelions
lit up the dark lawn of space.

"Where did you come from? o my child,
you in whom live all my hopes and loves,
you came from me" (edward hays)

"My Son, between midnight and the morning frost, when they dragged me to the second trial, i sojourned in your prison. I sat fettered to a tent-peg--lonely, beaten, disgraced--and i thought of you and of the rising day. I have tasted your prison; nothing of its bittersweet smell of decay was spared me. I have wandered through even the deepest chamber of all the prisons of all those who, in despair, have struggled against God's freedom. Down below in the lowest part of you, in the lightless disgrace of your impotence and your refusal, there have I chosen my abode. As a small root cracks the heaviest stones apart, so have I softly caused your prison walls to waver. You are still holding out against my love with the strength of your despair; but your arm is already beginning to flinch. Little by little you are yielding to my pressure.
I will not betray to you the secret by virtue of which I overcame your despair. Fatigued from his spiteful tears, the child finally falls asleep. By the following morning he has already forgotten his resistance and his disconsolate anguish. There is great magic in such extinguished memory: a new leaf is turned, a new chapter begins. Whether or not you are able is not the question at the moment. The whole point is that I have been able. When alone and locked up in yourself you brooded over your profound failure, you were strangely at variance within yourself: you were divided within yourself. Your unity--in that melancholy embrace of desire and regret--was mere illusion. Quietly, without your noticing it, I have cleaved you open and thus given you unity. ....
...... And what you have said about yourself is folly. You would not be my creature if you had not been created open. All love strives to go out of itself into the immeasurable spaces of freedom, it seeks adventure, and, in so doing, forgets itself. I do not say that you were able to free yourself, for it was for this that I have come. Nor am i saying that love's freedom lay contained within yourself, for i have given it to you. The Father has drawn you to me. ...." (Balthasar)

"Noone saw the hour of your victory. No one is witness to the birth of a world. No one knows how the night of that Saturday's hell was transformed into the light of the Easter dawn. Asleep it was that we were all carried on wings over the abyss, and asleep did we receive the grace of Easter. And noone knows how it happened to him. No one knows which hand it was caressed his cheek so that suddenly the wan world beamed with a thousand colors, and he had to smile involuntarily over the miracle that was realized in him...." (Balthasar)

day...? ..moratinos....sahagun...caza de coto....leon...villa de mazarife...astorga...to rabbanal PICS

2009-04-03T15:35:00.000-07:00

ack. so i realized that im probably going to end up repeating some of the details here, because i dont remember exactly what i wrote in the post regarding these days... but its too complicated to transfer these photos to the post for that day, wherever it is in the blog...so... yeah. theres gonna be repeats....

Below is moratinos....the hobbit hole houses struck me as interesting... (anyone know--are these
REALLY houses?...seem like they would be awfully dark! but they seemed to be houses as they had TV antennaes and stuff coming out of them...)

Moratinos cemetery--so tiny!

below: I remember being SO glad to finally be approaching Sahagun...saw this marker which i thought meant we were close but turned out that we really had a couple more K left... This day was sort of the breaking point for my feet, just too much weight for too far and too long.. I really stumbled into Sahagun (only to find there was not a single open albergue there. Two ladies carried (more like just about dragged, actually!) my bag the last couple k into town for me, and even with them having hte bag i was still stumbling and limping on my poor feet It was beginning this day that i remember having constant and continuous problems with my feet for the rest of the camino.

after finding everything closed in sahagun, and feeling like an orphan, being passed from one helpful person to another, but with noone being able to find anything open, we finally ended up in the tiny albergue at caza de coto (see blog post from this day for more details). while i was thankful to have somewhere inside to be for the night, this albergue is definitely on my "avoid" list--no heat, no kitchen, and i managed to put grainnes sleeping bag down in a spot that had apparently recently been sprayed with roach killer, as her sleeping bag smelled like RAID for the rest of the trip. ICCCK. though this albergue had hot water, i didnt use the showers because the air and building itself was so freezing. anyway, with no kitchen, i scrounged in the tiny tiny little shop for something suitable for dinner. i was dying for fresh food (i.e. fruits and veggies) after having not had a proper dinner the night before,no shop in the town the night before, then having come across no shops all day except, if i remember correctly, a tiny one at an albergue in ledigos(sp?) where i managed to get a pack of cookies and some more chocolate (i think this was this day, anyway)... i was really hungry this day and feeling really run down because i needed more food :( was looking forward to getting to sahagun to a proper supermarket....but we ended up loading into a truck and being driven around to every possible albergue until ending up in caza de coto because it was the only one nearby open...so i missed the supermarket. so hungry and kitchenless on a cold rainy evening in an unheated hostel..., this sandwich was my improvised dinner... it wasnt good, but at least it was SOME fresh stuff, and better than alot of the junk i'd been eating. beginning the past few days before this, and continuing for the rest of the camino was when i started to depend on chocolate for getting me through the days...which wasnt what i really wanted to do, because despite the ideas we have about sugar and caffeine giving us energy, it would always make me "crash" later...

because we were often on our own, most of the pics i took had to be either taken by me at arms' width, or i also sought out mirrors or shiny shop windows to take our pic in :)

this one came out better since we asked a man washing windows to please take our pic ;) hahaha--i notice now, only after remembering who took the pic--that his window washing tool is actually in the forefront of the picture, lol!

baby G messing with the fountains in leon. we trudged and trampled through leon, and it was very poorly marked. i never knew if we were still on the camino path, and kept asking people. some were helpful, some hadnt a clue what i was talking about, and another tried to direct us to some important church or cathedral that they really thought we should see, but all i was interested in was getting out of leon. it was a big city and i bet it would have been interesting to spend more time there, but we couldnt. shortly after the below picture, grainne launched herself at a dog, and threw me off balance and me and my billion pound pack went crashing to the ground... i was ok, but touched that someone stopped to help me up. couldnt WAIT to get out of the city, too many dogs, too much congestion, not very pretty on the outskirts, and very poorly marked. a bit out of of the center of leon, but in the ugly industrial district, we met up with a couple more pilgrims. i guess they went the other way when i went to mazarife as we never saw them again.

more hobbit hole houses leaving leon. one of the guys i was walking with for a short distance said that he heard they used to be wine cellars, but didnt know what they were now.

below: several days before this was the beginning of me napping alongside the path. here, i believe it was going from leon to villa de mazarife. i was wrecked, i felt like we were on a plateau, and it was cold and windy. i think this was the first of the two times i stopped on this path to nap. it became an increasingly common occurence as the camino progressed because i often felt just WIPED OUT. at this point of the camino, it was still very cold weather and i couldnt stop for very long because G would start shivering. later on, when it was warmer, my naps and breaks got longer and longer, which is part of why we ended up arriving places so late. but it just got to the point where i was so wrecked i had no energy left and would have to lay down and have a "napper." oftentimes i felt like i got more beneficial sleep during these quick naps than i did at night. seldom was there a night that i actually slept well on the camino. this surprised me because i would have thought that with all that walking and being so tired i would have slept like a rock. but i seldom slept soundly, no matter if i was in my tent, an albergue on the floor, or even an albergue in a bed. bad sleep was probably in part due to TOO MUCH CAFFEINE!...

below: the road leaving villa de mazarife. this day started out well, and we were walking with another pilgrim who had just started. unfortunately we BOTH managed to go off track because an albergue had posted a yellow arrow going off to the village that the albergue was in, but that village wasnt actually on the camino. VERY frustrating, and added about 4 k to our day. this was the day we were supposed to have an easy 8 or 10 k to hospital de orbigo, but ended up getting sent on to santibanez, because of grainne, and then turned away at santibanez, only to almost end up walking another 8k in the dark but saved at the last minute by an SUV and went joyriding on the camino path the last 8 k to astorga... (p.s. if anyone knows where to report things like where the path isnt clear, such as this place after villa de mazarife, and a few others too, so that the markers can be improved, pls email me or post in the comments section--thanks!)

below: road towards santibanez. lovely beautiful evening. arriving in santibanez and getting turned away and anticipating another 10 k in the dark was ANYTHING BUT LOVELY THOUGH..but then we got to barrel down the path in the SUV so that was cool. gave us more stories anyway.

below: the path from astorga to rabbanal. there was supposed to be some famous cross or tree or something towards the end of this path approaching rabbanal, but we missed it somehow. approaching rabbanal, we JUST missed the brunt of the very bad snow/rainstorm that moved in that evening. i think this day was weird/mixed weather, because i think i also remember taking off my jacket and some layers at some point because it was pretty warm earlier, especially with the pack. but then it got cold and very windy later, if i remember correctly. though maybe im mixing up my days. this path to rabbanal, at the beginning, had a lot of flatness to it, then later on it climbed considerably. we stopped alot this day too (surprise, surprise.... seems to be becoming a theme here... ) i remember stopping for a long lunch on the flat straight path towards the beginning, just sitting down on the pathway, then again to try to nap near (??)st catherine or something, if there is a town with such name, then facing alot of strong winds later in the day and stopping at a rest stop but not being able to stop for long because of hte cold and the wind and the lateness of the day... and then finally stopping again in a forest grove of pine trees to look at my map again and gro being really tired and curling up and it being so so windy and me just wanting to curl up and sleep but we couldnt cuz we werent there yet..then getting to rabbanal and going through the village and nothing was open except the one hostel which was at the far end of the village. before entering the village i passed a stables, which i made note of, because previously some walkers had told me that they had met the people from the stables in a previous town in a bar or albergue or something and that if gro and i couldnt find anywhere to sleep in rabbanal, then maybe to try the stables. fortunately, we didnt have to. there wasnt anywhere to get food in rabbanal though, except for a bar, which i didnt want to pay the money for, so i made soup out of the remaining stuff i had in my bag--sprouted lentils, seaweed, salt, oil, bread...not spectacular but was ok and apparently my body liked it as it was enough fuel to help me through the next day which was REALLY strenous with the blowing howling knock you down wind. i didnt know if we were actually going to be able to leave rabbanal the next morning, we had a mountain to go up, and the weather was atrocious during the night, snow, etc, and still raining when we got up. i was kind of hoping other people would decide to stay another night, so we could ask as well, but when everyone else decided to push on, i decided we had better as well. it was SO windy though. and we couldnt take the camino path because it was covered in snow; we had to stay along the roadsides.

i forget what this is...something on the path to rabbanal...but dont remember which village :(

below: sitting in the kitchen at the albergue at rabbanal. over the next few days i "lost" most of these people i had been walking with on and off for a few days..they all outwalked us and i never saw them again. i was glad to be outwalked by the guy who had intentionally and cruelly shown me the slain pig, as i didnt care to ever see him again, but there were others that were enjoyable to be with.

finishing my camino blog...the almost-next-to-last installment...

2009-03-11T11:24:00.000-07:00

So...weve been back for way over a month now...and i keep INTENDING to finish the story of our travels--although the post is dated march 11th..so i guess i started it over a month ago, and just finishing it now!...Dont know if anyones still reading, but want to have it for my own reasons anyway, so im continuing....theres alot that got left out in the short, rushed, limited albergue internet sessions. mostly i havent done the final posts because i was trying to find somewhere to upload my photos, which i cant do at home because the internet connection works off the cell phone towers....so tonite im in town and will try to finish uploading at least some of the pics...then i can finish the blog from home.

These are our "leaving" photos, beginning monday morning, after having arrived in santiago on saturday afternoon. Baby G was more than happy to jump in the rental car, and in fact towards the end of the camino, she had started "watching" whenever a car passed, sometimes trying to leap towards them as if she wanted to jump in... probably because she was imitating my behavior, lol...there were some days when we were really wrecked that i would watch all the cars that passed, hoping someone would see how wrecked we were and offer us a ride ;p... but the thing about the camino is that people driving by usually assume you want to do it on your own, so unless youre actively hitchhiking, youre unlikely to get a lift...

we got pretty lost on the way back to pamplona. part of it was because i decided i needed to make a detour back by somewhere, and the rest is because the major roads i found to be very poorly marked....plus we only had a really basic map off google. we left late in the day, way later than i planned. but i got to see the sunset from near cebreiro, above tricastela. i saw the sunset from here when we were walking the camino, but was in such a rush because we were so far from tricastela and had already done like 30 k and it was getting dark etc, that i didnt really have time to appreciate it. and i KNEW i wasnt doing it justice by really appreciating it at the time, but we had more important things.. so these few sunset photos here are from up above tricastela. the small photos dont do it justice--as is always the case with cameras ;) -- anyway, the purples etc in the east were amazing. cant figure out how to use this program to caption by the photos, so anyway, further below is "YAY ETAP!!!" etap hotel was such a Godsend when we FINALLY arrived in Le Havre, on time to get grainnes vetwork done and in time to catch the ferry. ETAP lets pets in rooms for only three euro extra. we went in to get the room, and as i went back out to the car to get our stuff, the guy flipped the sign on the door to "no vacancies"!! we were SO lucky we got the last room. proceded to watch american movies that had been dubbed into spanish for the evening and sleep in a real bed, with a shower, and a blasting heater. :) Le Havre, by the way, was not very nice, im actually glad we didnt have to spend any more days there...though i still could have done without the billion dollar car break down... further down is us waiting for the ferry.

above is gro at le havre port while we were killing time waiting for the ferry, and below, again killing time... was SO glad to have the car back :) almost all of my photos of me/us on this trip have been self-portraits taken by me because there was seldom anyone else around to take them ;)

arrived ireland

2009-03-04T11:25:00.000-08:00

hey all. after 2 mechanics, 2 tow trucks, 2 days sitting at the mechanics in pamplona, and a repair bill that cost more than the value of the car.... (ugh), i was able to drive through the night and arrive at the ferry port by the required time. we have finally arrived home (a few days ago. i meant to post sooner but havent had internet access. so sorry for leaving you all hanging :) ) future pics and camino "fill-in" posts coming when i get internet back at my caravan. thx. :) kaybee

AAAARRGH!!! the camino "continues" with all of the "bad" elements and none of the good...

2009-02-24T13:06:00.000-08:00

i thought i was finished.... but... well...i AM finished with the fun part, but.... im reliving the camino... minus the good stuff.... i arrived in my rental car back in pamplona at 430 am this morning after fighting through the messiness of what i considered poorly-marked (and sometimes incredibly expensive-tolled) spanish roads for hours.... when i arrived back at my own car, it wouldnt start. i had half expected this so i wasnt really surprised or worried...i thought it would just need a jump start...well, a jump start and a trip to the store for a new battery and a kind neighbor installing the battery later, we had to call a tow truck cuz it still wouldnt start...i spent the day sitting in the rental car outside the mechanics hoping they would be able to make time to fix it today....but by the end of the day he had replaced several parts and still couldnt find anything wrong..... so...im back in "camino living" but only the bad parts--i thought i was done with this stuff for now--sleeping in an albergue, worrying about the dog all night because shes outside and its freezing--although in this case worrying about her not only getting cold but deciding to eat the rental car if she gets lonely, wearing the same yuck clothes AGAIN, loading and unloading my backpack, etc etc ICK. i loved the camino but i dont want the camino without the good stuff ;p i really hope that my car is fix-able tomorrow or we might never get home! the ferry leaves on friday from northern france and we actually need to be there (or to a vet SOMEWHERE, if not there,) on THURSDAY!!.... ARGH. and if he cant fix it i dont know WHAT we will do as i need the car too much to junk it...nor can i get me, grainne, and all my stuff home without it! i think ill take any bad day of the camino over the current situation! argh. and the physical exhaustion over the current mental frustration anyday! so y'all please pray i can end up with a fixed car and get HOME!!! thanks ;) kaybee

i want to further update my blog and fill in the gaps but i guess it will have to wait till i get back to ireland....

grainne in the cathedral....

2009-02-22T09:20:00.000-08:00

for my friends who understand the reference....yesterday, i felt like i was
"pulling a Margaret" hehehe (refers to a friend who has been know to do things like the following ;P ) anyway, we busted to get to the cathedral for the 12 o clock pilgrims mass in santiago, as a suitable ending.... on arrival at the side entrance, right before 12, i marched right through the door with grainne, entered the cathedral, and plunked down my backpack, my stick next to me, and me, right inside the door on the top of the steps, with grainne curling up and sleeping in my lap. now i know well that in spain they think dogs are outside animals but darn it we just walked from pamplona, and i felt like we were ENTITLED to sit in the cathedral for an hour while they said mass (never mind that i didnt understand a word of it as it was in spanish, hahahaha), and i was NOT abandoning my dog to sit outside and bark and be miserable and possibly get stolen after she had just trudged 3 or 400 miles as well. as far as i was concerned, we both had as much or more right to be in that cathedral as anyone else. plus there was noone to stop us and no sign saying no dogs. i got a lot of looks from people as we sat there but i was partly amused, partly aware i was callign attention to myself and partly didnt care cuz we had just walked a billion miles and we were entitled to be there. she was silent and curled up in my lap. i was enjoying not having to be anywhere do anythign and jsut being able to sit there. maybe we shoudl have gone somewhere less obvious but i was afraid to go much further than jsut inside the door, i figured i was being as "respectful" of their rules as possible by staying just inside the door. anyway, my peace and quiet only lasted about 1o minutes until we got kicked out by a security guard.....to whom i insisted we had just walked from pamplona we required to go to mass etc etc et c in my awful spanish. he made us leave. i was so pissed at the time and he ended up letting us stay in the entryway later with her covered with my sleeping bag, but now im more amused than pissed at the fact that i even so nonchalantly tried to pull this off. but why the heck not. i am SO sick of rules about animals in this country! must go, computer time up. but at least gro made it into the cathedral too. hahahah. take that, spain!!! hehehe. my dog was in your famous cathedral. ;p

how do you limp on both feet?...WHAT THE HECK HAPPENED TO KILOMETER MARKER 12???¿¿¿¿¿¿...and...I AM NOT SLEEPING IN A CEMETERY!!

2009-02-22T08:47:00.000-08:00

arrived santiago yesterday. would like to fill in the gaps. but going to start with most recent and fill in gaps later. internet time is limited as gro is tied back up at albergue, probably barking, and im down at the cafeteria at monte do gozo using internet. so ill probably have to do this in stages..a.nd finish it in a week when i get back to ireland. yes, it will take me a WEEK to get back :)

Lets begin with Friday, the 20th.... i forget where to i dont know where.... hmmm.. lemme look at my shirt i just got a shirt with all the places on it and im wearing it so i can wash all my other clothes....... um.... yeah ok ribadiso. ribadiso to ....well....you´ll see...
started off in ribadiso frustrated from the night before (see in later postfor previous day in post i havent written yet...) but motivated. I wanted to try to do 35-37 k. ok not that i WANTED to but i didnt want to stop at arca after 22 and then have to do 20 to santiago the next day. i was having major feets problems and would rather just trash it through one really long day then stumble into santiago from mounto de gozo the next and make it for the pilgrims mass than have two long days and/or be trying to do 20k to santiago in the morning and make it by noon which i knew we absolutely couldnt. so i decided to see how much mileage we could put on even though id only done 15 the 2 previous days and even the 15 felt like it was gonna kill me. my feet have been reaching their last... and i didnt know how many more days i could work through the pain. the walk from ribadiso was nice once we got through arzua. we went a km or so out of the way though getting lost which was frustrating because we were already on a sort of tight schedule. we went through alot of eucalyptus groves which were really pleasant, but my feet and tendons were really killing me. we were going quite a pace nonetheless but after retying my shoes 15 different ways, i realized i actually had one last weapon to break out for the last few days... ALEVE painkiller. 4 left. and i tried to use it only sporadically when absolutely necessary. now was the time. i ate the most dense stuff i could find in my bag for lunch so as to not have the aleve burn a hole on an empty stomach, had a nice lunch in a eucalyptus grove, and we kept on trucking. we passed the last albergue around 6 pm..the next being 14 k away... i was still hoping maybe we could make it, even if it meant making it in the dark, or at least make it to the churchyard at labacolla, which would leave us only about 8 k the following day. we kept busting through the kilometers, and i felt like the last few kilometers were just melting away easily.....except at that poin t i thought the km markers were a countdown to santiago, which now im not so sure they were.... i think they were to monte do gozo or something...anyway, the markers and my book didnt match but i decided to trust the markers at that point which i think ended up being shorter.... right at dusk, when we couldnt possibly go any further on treed paths, we were supposed to be arriving at km 12 marker and then crossing some stream, the highway, then following the path to labacolla. i could see the lights of santiago in the distance, and i was still trying to judge whetehr we could make it to MDG with my tiny flashlight in the dark. i SO wanted to get there that night.... WELL.... the markers ceased to exist. i was doing my best to follow instructions in the book, but apparently failed.... i went over a stream then through a tunnel under the highway, headed for some lights which i imagined to be san paio, where i thought i would set up my tent cuz i was wrecked and it was dark. i had toyed with taking the road routes but didnt think that would make an authentic pilgrimage and my book made it look like MDG wasnt on a road runnign through it anyway... so we trudged in the last glimmers of dusk down this dirt road after the scary tunnel to this "village" which turned out to not be a village anyway but a farmer with a bunch of tall lights for a garage for fixing tractors or something..... we hadnt been follwoing a yelllow arrow but i hadnt been able to find ANY yellow arrows or markers or anything at all after the camino path started alongside the roadside. so i was going with my best judgment--which ended up being wrong. so now i saw only this farm had no idea where i was it was dark i didnt want to go back the way i came and i couldnt even ask at the farm cuz there were big dogs barking at us. so when i saw a guy at the farm barn i started hollering hola hola and finally he came over but im still unconvinced that he properly showed me wehre we were on my map as we remained lost for about the next hour or so.... we went back the direction we came but he told us we had already passed san paio or at least i thought he did and told me stay in labacolla. he said go back through the tunnel and along the road but i didnt want to go back through the tunnel and couldnt see a road to follow on my map anyway so we ended up trudging down the scary dirt road down alongside the raised highway becasue i had seen a highway sign for labacolla. but we couldnt get onto the highway because of fencing. so i was hopin g we could at the exit. problem was that there were TWO highways on my map and there was no way for me to figure out which one i was following. we finally came to another tunnel and got to the other side of the highway but then it was still jsut highway and no helpful signs. at least it was higher up and lit though and not quite as scary but still no civilization in sightn. eventually i saw another tunnel goign off under the highway again and it was marked with shells...but it was dark, AND no yellow arrows (NOT LIKE YOU CAN SEE YELLOW ARROWS IN THE DARK ANYWAY, EVEN WITH A FLASHLIGHT)...so we kept walking and finally saw houses, flagged down a car, and learned we were in san paio and that that WAS the camino path with the shells. the lady told me to just follow the road to labacolla though and it woudl be lit. i told her that we just needed a church we would camp in the churchyard and she said yeah there was a church there. it was really late like probly 930. plus we had passed no supermarkets all day even though i expected to so all i had was the food on me. i was glad at that point i had dragged extra food around that day. still not enuff though but by the time we finished grainne wanted sleep not food anyway. anyway, we finally got to labacolla and crossed the camino path and headed for the church, thinking we were home free... except i didnt count on the churchyard being a graveyard...one of those with the box-crypt type graves that you see so often around this part of spain. and there was NO WAY i was sleeping there. i was totally creeped out. so we looked for a spot of grass not on the main road or camino path cuz that didnt feel totally safe, but for something still in the town. i finally found something half suitable though if a car had been a drunk driver he would have gone off the road into us as we were only a few feet from the edge but it was a quiet road and the best i could find. there were 2 small dogs accosting us froma distance barking barking barking. grainne curled up on the ground and went to sleep while i pulled up branch stumps to put down the tent. those darn dogs barked at us for a good hour from a distance even when i threw sticks at them. then they stopped being as loud for a little while as if they had been put inside, then got let out again a little later. then at 7 am on a saturday they were at it again ..... we had a not very restful night but at leasxt we were not walking. i hung my shell on the outside of my tent, hoping noone would bother us when they saw it. noone did. except the dogs. i meant to take picture of the road littered with all teh sticks i had thrown at them but forgot ;) anyway that night my feet were killing and i didnt know how i could even walk the next day but suprisingly i was able to. . ok i want to finish this post about our day of our arrival into santiago but i want to put something on the next post too and im almost out of tim e so will have to finish later..... a nice lady gave us breakfast the next day..d.etails later...and also the end of the path the last few km into monte do goza is VERY POORLY MARKED...

PICS: GALICIA today Sunday Feb 15th

2009-02-15T14:05:00.000-08:00

in brief, these are galicia this morning. except i forgot i was supposed to upload backwards. so morning is at the bottom and top is later this afternoon pics are self explanatory i guess...except the one with the door. go figure:there was this building...and there was all this water running out in a waterfall under the door. like a stream had decided to make its way through the building or something. anyway looked funny.

pics of gro...

2009-02-15T13:39:00.000-08:00

i realized that in most of the previous pics i had published of grainne, she looks bewildered. so i wanted to show she isnt...or at least not all of the time :) though i think she will be happy to be sleeping in one place when we get back to ireland, instead of a different place every night. but she will miss the exercise/adventure and attention

Sunday Feb 15th Tricastela to Sarria

2009-02-15T13:35:00.000-08:00

very beautiful. we started off the morning in cold and fog, practically wading through streams of water running downhill on what is supposed to be the path. dont know if it was from melting snow up higher or if galicia is just wet or what.

villafranca de bierzo to vega and vega to o cebreiro to tricastela and tricastela to sarria.

2009-02-15T12:14:00.000-08:00

original post is older, but edited April 17th to add pics and comments at bottom

wow, i am SO tired. almost too tired to blog this. but i have to stay up till 11 pm anyway cuz gro has to sleep in the entryway of this albergue so i need to make sure shes settled after they shut the door.

a few random comments. we did almost 35 k yesterday. we had to hitchhike the last 5 k or so into tricastela becasue it was getting dark. we were lucky to finally get a lift. the bigger problem was that yesterday was saturday, there had been no shops all day, except in the village friday night, and i was NOT lugging 2 days food up o cebreiro, so i was trying to get into tricastela to get us food before the shops closed cuz we had little stored food for dinner and nothing for today sunday when alllllllll shops are closed.... we got there and the shop was already closed anyway;thankfully it was open today unlike most shops so we sat outside it for an hour till it was open with gro in my lap, on one of those silver blankets, and a sleeping bag over both of us until the shop opened. it actually worked out better that we left later because it was so foggy this morning we couldnt have seen ANYTHING on the tricastela-sarria path. and the views turned out beautiful. it was foggy in the beginning but it was still beautiful.

the galicia region is BEAUTIFUL. its what ireland would look like if ireland had more trees, more mountains, and less rocks and sheep. but it is the same green, wet, foggy, fairy-tale-ish kind of place, or at least it was walking through the woods this morning. the woods were deserted enough that i felt safe enough to let gro off-leash for a few minutes to play fetch. she was delighted. she hasnt had a chance to be off-leash outside in over a month. so wrong, but so necessary given her propensity for trying to eat any dog that she can sense within a mile....

this post is discombobulated...seems like blog is getting less and less organized as i go, but seems like internet time is so sparse unless i have a rest day somewhere.

a few more (positive) comments i must make about Ave Fenix, the albergue i raved about in the last post: some albergues are in a rush to get you out the door and make u leave by 8am, even though its barely light. here, they encouraged me to relax, take my time, and one of the hospitaleras visiting from another place told me the best time to go was around 11 at this time of year because it wasnt so cold :) before i left we TRIED to paint a yellow arrow on grainnes grey raincoat cuz i thought that would be cool...but the yellow spraypaint didnt work and he only had orange besides that so her raincoat now looks like that of a construction man or something...lol.. i still want to get some yellow spraypaint or even better yellow ductape...anyway Jesus (HAY-SUS, not jesus), the man who runs the hostel, was delighted to search for paint and put the arrow on for me, and i also got a shell to put on my bag, so i started feeling more like i was part of the camino "in-crowd". lol. while i was waiting for the paint to dry, jesus and a bunch of the other hospitaleros had to leave. he came up and gave me this big hug, like a grandpa or something. i really liked that place. also, they have a community meal every evening, and that was really nice to eat with all the other people there. the others there were all hospitaleros and they were working on the place, renovating. we had a good laugh earlier in the day when they were painting the bedframes blue and one of the guys had totally blue hands and i tried to tell him he looked like a smurf...but he didnt speak english and me no spanish and it just didnt translate. he thought i was telling him he looked like a desert nomad with blue skin. then one of the women there suddenly realized what i was talking about and said whatever the name for the smurfs is in spanish, and they all busted out laughing cuz they DID in fact know who the smurfs were.

the day i left villafranca bierzo we took it easy and i was still feeling kind of tired. it took us the whole day to go 17 k or something.... that night i stayed at the albergue with a cool german guy who spoke english, which was cool, and also a swedish man who was just starting, and a spanish guy who insists on leaving the albergues before 8am... he goes out with his headlamp...apparently he likes to start early. the next day which was yesterday, we had to get up o cebreiro. i had been concerned about this climb cuz my book made it look impossible, and i had been worried about the weather getting up it, but the climb was BEAUTIFUL, and the weather too. weather was so warm you could go without a jacket and gro and i stopped partway up and took a nap. it was that warm. if a tshirt had made it into my bag i probly would have had it on but one didnt. so weird to be HOT IN THE SNOW!! i mean there was snow on the ground, and 2 feet on the edges of the road in some places, but we were very warm. it was very warm beautiful. the climb up wasnt like a climb up a mountainside cliff face either, it was first a steep climb through beaufiful old forest, then tracks through fields and stuff. at the top there was loads of snow in the village but it was warm. this guy started snapping pics of me as we emerged from teh path. also there was all sorts of irish music stuff going on and stuff up top. we had entered galicia and i guess galicia has alot of irish influence. plus it was saturday. it was busy up there. tourbuses and stuff. i stopped at the albergue to ask what other hostels were open past there, filled my waterbottle and set off. it was only 230, too early to stop for the day, beautiful weather, and plus we needed to get down to lower warmer altitude in case we had to sleep in my tent. PLUS i THOUGHT it was all downhill from there...it wasnt. we spent the next few hours trekking MORE UPWARDS along the road, and the worst part being that because we were in the shadow of the north side of the mountain, it was freezing and no sun reaching us cuz we were in the shadow of the mountain. we needed to rest as we hadnt really rested since our nappie nap part way up cebreiro, but everywhere was freezing. i kept thinking that around the next bend we would finally get out of the shadow, but it took AGES and i didnt want us to stop in the shade. when we finally got to sun, near paio de alto, we just sat down on the side of the road. gro was out cold for about 15 minutes then i had to start us busting @** again to try to hoof it to tricastela before dark. we had really taken our time and enjoyed the morning, but our enjoyable day turned into a long haul of just trying to get there in the evening. the views were gorgeous, but all i really cared about was getting the heck to tricastela, which took FOREVER. i had expected that the downhill was going to be really downhill down down steep, like coming down to ponferrada a few days earlier, where i was literally running down the path and we were covering tons of distance and getting lower altitude fast. here, the descent was SO gradual it felt like we were getting nowhere. so glad to finally get to tricastela, and so thankful that someone finally picked us up and that it was someone "ok." (A young couple). i have quite a bit of experience hitchhiking in ireland, but hitchhiking in a country where you dont speak the language feels quite a bit riskier. i was hoping that someone would finally pick us up because it was getting dark, there were so so few cars though, but finally someone did.

the changed weather has made ALL THE DIFFERENCE IN THE WORLD. seriously, i dont see how we could still be doing this if we were struggling through cold, rain and snow every day. that climb to cebreiro was beautiful in the nice weather but seeing the 2 ft of snow on the roadsides really made me think about how impossible it would have been 2 weeks ago when that snow was falling. the timing for us to go up it, which was in part determined by all the rest days we took, etc etc etc, in the end made it possible for us to get up and down it, which is really cool. but seriously, the weather makes SO much difference;it means we can sort of stroll and meander, rather than feeling under pressure to just get through it. it doesnt make everything perfect as i still feel quite wrecked and with hurting feet alot of the time, but the fact that you can stop for a rest or a nap and the sun is warm etc really does make all the difference. yes i still have hurting feet. i mailed more stuff to myself, bringing the total of stuff mailed to self to about 10 pounds out of my pack, but when im carrying food, the bag is still heavy, but manageable now to me. my feet keep hurting, but in different places each day so im not so worried about them. if it was the same spot all the time then i would be more worried. different spots i can handle. the awful trying day after sleeping outside ponferrada shelter, i bought some silicone insoles for my boots, as my boots dont seem to have as good shock absorption as desired...but unfortunately the insoles seem to be disintegrating from my wet boots....

hmmm. i feel like i am just talking stream of consiousness here but i feel like i should take advantage of internet time on the scattered occasions that i get it. my thoughts are so organized during the day about what i would write about if i was writing at those moments...but then when it gets to this time of night... scattered. going to try to upload some pics.

EDIT: ADDED LATER: the following pics and comments :)

Ok, these are my fav pics from this sections, so even though it puts them out of order in this post, as they shoudl be at the BOTTOM after arriving cebreiro, they are at the top :) these were at the top of cebreiro. sun was warm but still snow on the ground. some guy was taking photos with a big camera, "asked" (in another language, if i remember correctly) if he could take ours, then took some of us with mine. cebreiro was hopping like an irish pub up there on a saturday, but we didnt stick around for long. there were too many dogs around, and also we needed to get going. good thing we did because the rest of the day was tough, not interesting, cold, along the road, some of it not very scenic, and in the shade of the mountain where the snow never melted, and we still ended up having to hitch into tricastela because it was getting dark.

Luisa, one of the visiting hospitaleras at Ave Fenix. we expected to run into her later in our travels, and when i had realized i lost grainnes muzzle off my bag somewhere between Villafranca de Bierzo and Vega, I called her to see if she could keep an eye out for it as she was walking starting the next day... i dont know if she ever found it, but we never ran into her again,and had no way to get in touch with one another, though we ran into other people who had been walking with her. anyway, i guess she got stuck with a useless (and pricey...oops.) dog muzzle if she did find it... below is grainne with her flashy new "yellow" arrow on her jacket. hahaha. she remeinds me of a construction worker with the bright orange that was supposed to be yelllow... and my bag with the shell on it. I definitely felt more like i was part of the camino after I got myself a shell for my bag.

There were vegetable gardens on the edge of the river all on the edges of Villafranca. huge gardens (below)

We stopped for lunch under these big beautiful ?chestnut? trees only a few km outside of villafranca. it seemed like we had been walking FOREVER but we had only gone a few k. anyway the leaves were soft and the sun was warm. good nap. we took a LONG lunch. i didnt want to leave. was really tired and just wanted to keep eating and sleeping ;) i remember thinking how we still had AGES to go... anyway, the village we stopped at these trees for lunch near was the next village from villafranca, where we could have hiked to instead of stopping in villafranca. im so glad we stayed in villafranca, as the albergue was awesome and in this village there was no shop, no nothing. .anyway, at these trees i think this is where we left behind grainnes muzzle though, and it would have come in handy later, especially in santiago. by the time i realized it was missing though, i was NOT going back the 4 k or so to these trees to check... I think the path was fairly flat this day and alot of it was along the roadways. I didnt know if there would be a shop in the village where we were staying and i was afraid of getting stuck again without food, so i went hunting for a shop in one of the previous villages. took a detour to the gas station but they hadnt fruit, finally found a tiny shop where we paid four billion dollars for some oranges..but at least i felt better that i had some more food in case there was no shop.

kwwalking from villafranca, we then spent the night in vega. these pics above and below are of the moon, when we were leaving vega the next morning to go up o cebreiro. The night in vega was OK, i didnt sleep well though, like most places. at least i had a bed, but it was chilly. showers were a bit on the chilly side :( --the kind where its "borderline"...ie. you keep staying in, HOPING its gonna get just that little bit warmer, but it doesnt, so it leaves you borderline shivering the whole time. hate those. the company was good though, especially after many nights as the only pilgrim in an albergue. because there was a shop in that village after all i ended up making way more food than me and grainne could eat, and so shared with a german guy who was just arriving in very late. he offered some of his wine that he had gotten in cacabellos (sp?). cacabellos is well known for its wine, and apparently if pilgrims go to a certain place, they give you a free small bottle, but you have to know where to go. apparently he had known where to go :) . Also, at least the albergue was open in vega...when we first arrived, everything was locked up except the bathrooms. i could see the dorm rooms but not get to them, and i think i tried the phone number and it didnt work. so i was just about to set off to try to ask at the bars where to get a key, when it occurred to me to go upstairs. sure enough the upstairs dorms were fortunately open.
Anyway, back to the pics. it was lovely seeing the moon as we were headed out in the morning.

below is the path near la faba. i feel like i posted alot of these pics in another post already, and that someone even commented on one of them (the dog shadow one..)..but they are nowhere to be found anymroe so i dont know what happened to that blog posts. .... anyway, the hike from vega all the way up was AMAZINg. alot of it was through woods, and i really appreciated being on our own and having it to ourselves. nice weather too, and paths overlaid by leaves crunching under your feet. further along, after passing through almost all the other villages, i could look back and see the view, which is like the picture below right. we stopped to nap again somewhere along that path. LOTS OF NAPS FOR ME ON THIS CAMINO!! ;P i think i first took a nap the day i left leon. it was a long, straight, 12k with nothing out there, and i was so tired and bored and the sun was out a bit so it wasnt totally freezingt--though you had to watch out for wet ground, uch. anyway, i just lay down on the side of the path. that was the beginning of my "chronic napping on the camino", lol. later on i found myself napping frequently because i was wrecked and tired and the sun looked so nice to sleep in... but then we would end up getting places so late because i had stopped to nap, but i just wasnt sleeping well in ANY of the albergues basically, so i would wake up tired every morning and sometimes feel like i got more rest during a nap than i had all night long at the albergues!!

These two pics here I think were from the top of cebreiro, looking out over the valley/path we had just come from.

oops here it is i found it elsewhere :)

every so often we hit a jackpot....

2009-02-12T07:45:00.000-08:00

last night we hit a jackpot for a place to stay. we deserved it, as far as im concerned, after having to sleep out on the stone in the tent the previous night in front of the albergue in ponferrada...i asked if we could please sleep in the covered but unheated entryway and they even refused me that. apparently i was lucky to be able to even sleep inside the gates...they were going to send me to the ghetto field behind the albergue,hmmm...lets see, the albergue grounds are gated and have BARS on the windows but somehow they didnt think it would be unsafe for me to go sleep by myself in an abandoned field on the edge of the city??? anyway but some of the hospitaleros talked them nto letting me put the tent by the doorway, at least with a roof, and i jury rigged it with rocks secureing it since again, as learned previously, YOU CANT PEG A TENT INTO STONE... so at least we were under a roofish thing. and it wasnt that cold. and a hospitalero got me some wood to put under my mat... but i slept HORRIBLY. we had done 27k up and down mountains the previous day and were exhausted and hurting. my body needed rest and didnt get it. yeah, im aware of alot of albergues not liking dogs, but this was seriously annoying. they had this huge building and we couldnt even sleep on the floor in the kitchen or whatever. and sorry but these places are supposed to be christian and jesus wouldnt have turned me and the pup away from sleeping inside to sleep on stones in the cold... so i had an awfulnight, knew i was going to, but my functioning the next day (yesterday) was way worse than i ever could have imagined. i was literally stumbling my way through ponferrada, couldnt focus my eyes on anything except the ground cuz it was too much energy--saw at least one woman on the street look at me with concern--, was pulling out all the stops--chocolate (caffeine), dates(sugar). oranges, bananas, olives, nuts, dried fruit...anything to get my body to function. nothing was working. i was so so tired and my feet hurt hurt hurt. i hated the fact that my body needed sleep and instead i was giving it caffeine..and even that wasnt working. i didnt know HOW i was going to make it the 23 k to the next open albergue, and obviously we couldnt stay in ponferrada and sleep on the sidewalk again... the ponferrada area is a beautiful town and i wish i could have enjoyed it more but i was just struggling to stay awake. the walk was supposed to be easy--fairly flat compared to the mountains of the day before, but it was so so hard for us/me. several km into it i found a bench outside a church and had a 20 mn nap. but it was cold and i was still tired. we were making VERY slow progress. the weather had turned beautiful, warm and sunny. but i was too wrecked to enjoy it. by the time we got to cacabelos, the big village nextdoor to the one we had to get to, i thought my feet were going to fall off. it was 5 pm, my tendons hurt
so bad i couldnt walk, and i stopped to sleep again on another bench. i set off again, after retying/readjusting my boots, and almost hitched a lift off this guy at a stopsign who looked at me. wish i had cuz it was a LONG 7k. we stumbled into the village around 8pm. i had this albergue flagged in my book anyway as they were supposed to allow dogs. and theywere the only ones open all year anyway. as i approached the albergue in the dark, there was this huge huge black mastiff looking dog outside the albergue barking at us and all i could think was OH NO. i grabbed my stick to put it between the soon-to-be-growling grainne and the other dog, and this man in a jeep started shoutnng at us in spanish. all i could make out was "no", and so standing there, bewildered, i thought he was saying no dogs at the albergue, etc... as i stood there, he got out of his jeep and then i understood he was trying to tell me not to hit the dog with my stick. i tried to explain that i wouldnt have hit her i was just trying to use it as a barrier, and he led me into th ehostel, which i have to say is my FAVORITE on the camino. grainne being her was no problem, and the hostel is all built of wood and stone, with a warm stove going. they asked me did i want dinner and i explained i was vegetarian and was that possible. i went to the town searching for a grocery store for food for grainne, and when we came back he told me the dinner was vegetarian and did i wan to eat with them. this is probably the best meal i had on the camino too... the man here had thrown together and baked potatoes, collards, and garlic, then gave us salad and bread etc (and plunked down a big plate of sausage on the table too for everyone else, that he declared was NOT VEGETARIAN. lol. the food was really good and simple and he told me how he grew it all himself and that it was "ecological" no supermercado. i was also really touched that he had made it vegetarian.

ok have to get off computer now cuz been using it way more than teh alloted time. anyway, stayed here another day, beds are so comfy, oom is warm, grainne is welcome, etc etc etc. best albergue on the camino in my vote. and i got to wash my clothes.

half way to the mountain tomorrow then over the top and down the next day. if weather stays good.

later edit: we sat in the sun for part of the day and i slept for the rest of it. the dormitory here is awesome its in the attic floor and the top bunks are in the wooden rafters practically. it has skylights in the shape of stars and it is so cosy. i went for a nap and slept on the top bunk..i really like sleeping practically IN the ceiling like that and i love napping during the day with the sun coming in the skylights. had dinner with everyone again and there is another hospitalera here from somewhere else that is continuing the camino tomorrow. she speaks english which is cool and i think we will walk part of the time together tomorrow or at least look out for one another tomorrow night. feet and legs still hurting but better. i think my legs hurt cuz i was literally running down the mountain yesterday... anyway i love that this hospitalera speaks english becasue i asked her to translate to the main hospitalero here how much i appreciate the welcome i received here etc. we had dinner mostly from his garden again. so good. i need to maybe go sew my backpack back together and go to bed.

feb 8th...joyriding on the camino path..in an SUV

2009-02-12T07:44:00.000-08:00

villar de mazarife to what was SUPPOSED to be hospital d'orbigo or santibanez but ended up being astorga....

in brief, becasue im short on internet time, ill explain this because it was so amusing.

we left villar de mazarife, intending to have a short day of it and stop in hospital d'orbigo. weather was better than it had been but still very cold but at least sunny. really hurting feet by time got to hospital orbigo. hospitalero there was really sweet but gro would have to sleep outside and i said she might bark so he said to go to santibanez. he said he didnt know about the dog there but that the hospitalero there was an italian guy and would feed me dinner since it was sunday and shops closed. so i set off for santibanez with hurting feet but not really a bit tired because the weather had turned nice and sunny and it was enough evening. i was though expecting a great meal and welcomng place to stay. santi was only about 4 k, but i was tired by the time we got there, despite the nice evening. i got there about 615. it gets dark around 715. the hospitalero was standing in the doorway and regretfully told me there was no way for me to stay there because the dog and he didnt have a problem wtih it but whoever in charge of teh albergue made the rules and h had to go by it. so so much for my dinner. and now our only option was ASTORGA, a further 10k....and we travel at a rate of 5 k an hour or so...so i was looking at 4 more hours of walking....mostly in the DARK, which i had sworn i wouldnt do again. i asked him which was shorter the path or the road and he said the path so i took it. about 10 minutes up the path i realized this was stupid becasue at least on the road there would be lights in the dark... i was hoping the path would cross the road again but i asked some people walking their dogs and they said it didnt. various people walking their dogs kept telling me i couldnt go to astorga it was too far cuz it was getting dark, but i kept explaining i really had no other choice. i didnt want to turn back and take the road cuz we had already come a bit of a distance. OF COURSE this couldnt be a flat treeless path but had to be one that went mostly through WOODS... ARGH. all i could think was how stupid i was for not taking the road. we did know that at least in astorga we would be welcome as a previous hospitalera had arranged for it to be ok for us to sleep there me and dog. i dont know how but somehow i at least felt energized to keep going. its amazing how you can suck it up and find more energy when you have to sometimes. anyway, along the path i saw a car on a parallel path. a big silver SUV actually, going up a mountain. i thought it was strange. then i saw it again later...i was thinking maybe it was going our way but then it disappeared. then i saw it again. this time i decided to try to flag it down. it seemed to hesitate a couple times, then off again, and then off on not the path i was going. i was like "dammit" and i was SO frustrated because i felt like i had just lost my only chance. there were gonna be no other cars out there and i still didnt know what this one was doing out there, thrashing through mud puddles, joyriding, "messing" basically, and i had no idea who was in it or if they were even safe. now i was further scared that they knew i was out there and noone else did.... i felt a little better that at least they had gone down the other path since i didnt know who they were. a little while on, as it was getting dark, i stopped to get my flashlight out of my pack and check the guidebook, and because i really had to pee and didnt want to deal with trying to in the dark. of course, at the moment i chose to pee, i saw the SUV rumbling towards me again, from the distance at least though. was i EVER relieved when it was a woman about my age driving, and her husband in the passenger seat. they didnt really speak english and me no spanish but somehow i communicated to them please was it possible to take me even a little way towards astorga if possible cuz it was getting dark we were very tired etc. they said no problem, loaded me in, and we proceeded to totally joyride down the path, branches scraping the sides of the car every inch, through rocks, deep mud puddles, etc. it was NOT a path meant for cars but they didnt care. they told me they were going to get gas, then to astorga. i mentioned to them how the car was getting scratched. the guy just laughed, they didnt care and thought it was fun, like thats what the car was meant for. i dont know what they were doing out there still...and we arrived at the gas station via the camino path. they said they had seen me wave them down earlier but werent going that way earlier or something. i told them they had a fun car. i was profusely grateful for this ride they gave me, dropping me off at the albergue in astorga. where we got to sleep inside in a hallway. we were SO lucky. or so "looked out for" or whatever.

2009-02-07T11:45:00.000-08:00

This started out as an exhilirating fun adventure but right now it is really feeling like a drag.--Thing is, I REALLY dont want to stop right now because I want to force it back into becoming the fun adventure again like it was at the beginning, before I stop. But I cant see it turning back into fun without the weather changing...and it sounds like the weather is only getting worse...so good luck to me on this one... im so tired of being cold cold cold, and i think i have run out of the initial backup energy stores that our bodies generally keep. im definitely feeling better after a few days of rest, but it doesnt look like the weather is going to get any easier. This guy told me last night i shoudnt let my happiness depend on the weather....sure, point taken, but when you are racing through the days just to try to get somewhere warm and its so cold all the time and ice rain snow hail wind along with it a lot of times, its pretty hard to "not let your happiness depend on the weather" when youre absolutely freezing and all you can think about is how cold it is, how windy it is, and how far you still have to go that day, and how there may or may not be a warm albergue waiting--there may be a warm one or you might be looking at 24 more hours of cold. this situation sucks. i guess we got spoiled by the first week. it was sunny, still, and relatively warm. i was pushing to get through the miles if we had alot that day, but despite the awful blisters, etc, it felt manageable. i didnt feel like i had to bust ass all day and fight the wind and the weather, i could just sort of stroll along and soak up the sun that i hadnt seen in like a year, given two cloudy rainy summers in ireland and the winter in between in seattle.... so yeah, it just felt GOOD. i was tired at the end of the days but i felt like i was challenging my body in a way that it could handle. but NOW, now its so so hard to stay positive and i feel like i sound so negative when i talk to other pilgrims. but its just so darned cold. and one of the guys here said that the temperature here is like summer, compared to what it will be in the mountains. im not sure how we´re going to do the mountains.... basically though if we stop, we have had only a couple opportunities for stopping points along the way because there are only certain places that i can rent a car to drive back to pamplona. the next and last i think is ponferrada...if we go past there we have to go all the way to santiago... i was talking to someone here last night who said that several times he has almost quit along the way and i was realizing that this hasnt really even been in my head because its not an option for me and gro to just hop a bus or the train cuz gro´s not allowed on them. its also surprised me when this guy as well as some other people have said how they thought it was really brave of me to come by myself, with the dog, in the winter, etc and have made it even this far with the weather the way it is.... but i never had thought of it that way, i had just thought of it as an opportunity that presented itself when i really needed to clear my head after having finally finished my thesis defense, and that i took advantage of the opportunity, despite the fact that a friend and i had planned on going together sometime and she was unable to go now. it was just what i felt i needed so i came. after 5?7? 8? 9? years of academics and 3?4?5?6? years of strugging through my thesis, i really needed something physical, rather than mental, to sort of clear my head. it is true, your head does get clear in the sense that you have different worries out here, as previous camino-walkers know... its all about basics. not really basic survival in the sense that you are probably going to somehow in the end have it work out to get your basic needs met, but really it is about basics like "where am i going to sleep tonite?" is the albergue going to be open?is it going to have heat? is there going to be a shop? wheres the next village coming up? im so hungry. im so tired. whens there going to be a village with a shop in it? can i find anywhere in this village up ahead to get under-cover and out of the snow?---an overhang, a pavillion, a church entryway? (answer=probably not, most of the time....) or "shoot, is the next village gonna be big enough to have an atm? ;p it looks big enough in my guidebook but what if its not? what about my laundry...is there going to be a dryer at any of the next few albergues?cuz if not, i guess im wearing dirty clothes....better dirty clothes than wet clothes.... a huge problem in teh winter is that if you wash your stuff its usually not dry by the morning, --and if there no heaters then dont even ATTEMPT it or you will end up wearing wet clothes out in the cold the next day like what happened to one guy my first night...he washed all his clothes cuz there was a dryer and a fire there...then it turned out that the dryer was broken so he ended up with wet clothes the next day. ouch. .... actually i guess alot of these mind-occupying questions are alot more prevalent in the winter than in the spring/summer/fall, but they are def what occupies my mind frequently now when the weather has been so yuck. i seem to be always 1. looking for food (seems like i am SO hungry all the time but i think i got well supplied with good stuff in this village...spent another hour cracking walnuts tonite but only a handful ended up in the bag, the rest in my tummy... ), 2. hoping the next village will come up soon, 3. wishing it would freaking warm up, 4. wishing it was warm enough to take a nap on the side of the path...one day i just did anyway. i also think these things are probably more preoccupying when you are travelling alone like i am. there really arent many others out here. we might share the albergues with a person or two, but the first day was the only day we have really walked with anyone. solitude is good of course but NOT ALL THE TIME!! i was hoping my friend who i had originally made camino plans with--and who's idea it was to go originally anyway but then wasnt able to go now was going to join us for the last few weeks but it doesnt look like thats going to happen now. :( in any case, i think my biggest problem right now is the weather. uch. well, off to go repack the bag again. i was so excited that i had about three pounds of stuff that i was going to mail to myself and "get rid of" for now... the hospitalero was going to weight it for me and then mail it... but they intended for me to mail a whole BOX of stuff to lighten my pack, and i jsut CANT. i need the stuff thats in there unfortunately. every time i go to get rid of stuff i find i am using it and need it. so anyway theyre not going to mai it for me becaues they said it wont make much difference in my bag. i think it will and at least it will give me a bit more space so my bag wont be so crammed, so i guess ill have to mail it in astorga. i wish we could go all the way to astorga tomorrow because it sounds like both the albergues open on the way are cold and unheated, but i dont think we can do 30 k in the cold and wind. gro is def ready to get going again though,she was bouncing all over and wanted to play yesterday and today. i wish i could get me someof that energy :)

all i can say is that this is def not the kind of weather i would be out in if given the choice. if i was in massachusetts, one would be hard-pressed to drag me off the couch away from the law and order/csi reruns to even get me to look out the window when it was this cold. if i was in ireland, you wouldnt get me out of my tiny room with the space heater blasting... and the dog probably wouldnt even be GETTING a walk in weather like this! and this is "summer" compared to the upcoming mountains? uh-oh.....

and to finish up for the evening... an equipment evaluation: most (sometimes unexpectedly) useful items:
windup flashlight.
eyeglass cleaning cloth that came attached to the inside pocket of my raincoat.
piece of rope. used to tie dog, jury-rig tent, thread through laundry to dry, etc.
most useless item in my pack: eyeliner, without question. ....although both my pens died, so in an emergency....
item i most wish i had but dont: some kind of facewarmer/neckwarmer....and truly waterproof gloves. mine are going back to REI when this trip is over cuz they are sposed to be but most definitely ARENT. REI also needs to temperature-rate their sleeping bags using "normal" people as testers. i dont know who they use but it must be the same people who walk around in shorts and tank tops in the winter. there is NO WAY that my sleeping bag is truly a 15 degree Farenheight bag. it doesnt feel warm even at like 40 degrees. :/

ALSO: i captioned my pics tonite. im not counting on having internet again for a while....looks like rough days ahead.

Leon to Villar de Mazarife...

2009-02-07T04:52:00.000-08:00

I have found the camino to be very well marked, much to my surprise. leon, however, i found to be not so well marked and i kept wondering if i was on the right path. i dont really like traveling through the cities as i feel like it takes a long time, hours sometimes, and im under the impression that the innercity mileage/cross city mileage isnt included in the mileage in my book, so it feels like "getting no miles walked" time.... leon didnt take near as much time to pass through as burgos though. a lady on the street pointed out to me as i was passing the pilgrims church of santiago, dedicated to pilgrims, i think or something, and indicated that i should go there. i stuck my head in, and it was warm and dark and quiet inside, and i would have liked to have gone in for a while, but there was a lady who had just gone in, and i didnt think i could take the dog in, so we kept walking. the urban area of leon doesnt end very quickly, it turns into another area, then another, then another before you are finally out of the citified area. i met up with 2 guys as i was leaving leon, a german who had just started that day from leon, and a spanish guy. i was busy trying to follow arrows that didnt exist when i saw them coming, so i just waited for them and figured i would follow them. we saw some funny hobbit-hole houses on our way out of leon; i had previously seen some in moratinos, i think they must be quite dark inside though i guess they are supposed to be warmer because built into the earth?i thought those were only from lord of the rings i didnt know they actually existed and people living in them! 2 guys at the albergue i am at now told me they actually broke into one cuz they were curious. they said it was dark and dingy and rundown inside, but i guess noone was living in that one. the spanish guy i met on the way out of leon said they were actually once wine cellars. they look funny with tv antennaes sprouting out of the dirt on the hillsides, and the entrances below ground level. I told the german guy that he certainly didnt pick the prettiest part of the camino to start at... the path out of leon is dirty, litter-strewn, industrial, not pretty. again, A MILLION TIMES A DAY I HAVE TO KEEP REMINDING MYSELF THAT THE CAMINO PATH WAS NOT BUILT/DESIGNED/MADE FOR BEAUTY OR NECESSARILY FOR COMFORT; IT WAS NOT MADE AS A HIKING PATH FOR SIGHTSEEING. i think it was probably made for directness as much as possible, and there are some very beautiful sections of it, but when it runs along dirty busy roadsides or through dumps or yukky industrial areas or whatever, i have to keep reminding myself over and over that the purpose of this path was not for sightseeing or beauty.

finally, outside of virgen del camino, we were out of the industrial area. the path splits there and then joins up about 35 k later, i opted the villar de mazarife path. i didnt know it at teh time, but i guess the other path runs along the roadside so im glad i took this path. i was windy and cold, but at least the sun came out. i left the 2 guys in virgen del camino when they stopped for lunch. they didnt know what path they were taking but i guess they either must have taken the other one or stayed at another albergue cuz i havent seen them again. the landscape was more gentle hills etc then the past days from burgos to leon had been, and i much preferred this landscape to the flatness. there were also some trees, and i felt like there was more character and variety to the landscape. we arrived at chozo and i was glad to find we only had 4 k left. the last 4 k was really hard though as my feet really hurt and you were hiking against the strong wind in your face. nice the sun was out at least it wasnt raining, but the wind, aaarrrgh. and no trees to windbreak it either. when i got here i asked if we could stay an extra day to rest, then yesterday asked if there was any way we could stay tonite too. i was just SO SO rundown, i feel like we have been racing the weather all the time and just racing to get from one albergue to the next to get out of the cold--except sometimes you arrive and then you are just as cold cuz the albergue is unheated and then its so discouraging to know that you have to wait another 24 hrs until you get to the next albergue until you have the possibility of being warm anywhere but in your sleeping bag. so we have arrived here on i guess... thursday. its so easy to lose track of the days. we will leave tomorow. in the meantime we have had a kitchen and there are 2 shops in town. we werent able to stay in the actual part of the albergue being used now becasue of gro, so we have an unheated room in the old part, but at least it has beds, and blankets, and the kitchen and sitting room are heated and i can leave her in my room and go warm up in the other places. we have to take advantage of rest days when we can get them because often either the albergues are unheated so we wouldnt want to stay longer, or we are just getting by by the skin of our teeth staying there in the first place, sleeping in some back hallway or whatever, becasue of gro. it seems rare and difficult to find everything i need in one place--a heated albergue, with a kitchen, and a shop in that town, where i am able to stay with the dog. often you get one or two of these things but not all at once, partly because alot of albergues are closed. even without the dog, i would still be faced with many of the same circumstances. this village has 2 shops, and i was able to get some of what i feel like my body needs--dried fruit and some nuts...i spent 2 hours last night cracking walnuts out of their shells with a knife. might sound crazy but i am craving that kind of fuel. so now i have a small stash for the road.

the hospitalero here and other guys couldnt believe the weight of my pack. i have no idea how much it weighs but one of them says 30 kilo. i think thats exaggerating but he says its def more than 20. he says he wouldnt even last a day with that pack.... and that no wonder my feet hurt. i did a ruthless evaluation of the contents of my pack this mornign and found about maybe one and a half kilo worth of clothes to ship home and a few other things to get rid of. most things in plastic bottles got relegated to plastic bags, the maps from my book (jessica) are getting left behind here, and i tried to see anything else not being used....the bag of alfalfa seed thats supposed to be sprouted and mixed into gro's food for enzymes is getting dumped in the grass tomorrow morning, etc. i would like to ditch the tent but i cannot do so. everything else i think of mailing i keep using...hoodie sweatshirt is heavy but i have been wearing it nonstop for 3 days... etc. i ran out of the baking soda i was using as toothpaste and am not buying more cuz i dont want to accumulate anything else... ..im using the dr. bronners magic soap that is supposed to have a million uses.... i know other people who brush their teeth with it...but i do wish i had peppermint or orange or almond scent rather than LAVENDAR. ICK... people are warning me that there is snow in the mountains and it is really important to have your pack as light as poss for the mountains too... so hopefully i can get this stuff mailed back to pamplona or something. i dont know if we can actually make it to santiago...we are being warned about snow in the mountains and ive also been told that the dog will be a huge problem in the gallicia region... i.e. no dogs, no exceptions... so i dont know. id really like to go through til the end and we cannot rent a car anywhere between ponferrada and santiago...so i dunno.

Feeling much better today after 2 days of rest. yesterday i was still feeling like crap. i slept most of the day, had a headache, didnt feel like the sleep was restful, etc. today, much better. but ive also had a kitchen to use and feel like i have more nourishing food for a few days, so that has made alot of difference. also, ive had opportunity to regroup, and reorganize my pack, and not feel like we're on the run for a change so that makes alot of difference. still feet hurting though... ;the bone in my right leg feels like its going to go through my heel through the bottom of my foot... ive had this problem before, i think when i was doing bike courier work and was always carrying too much weight. i think its just from too much weight. im going to try to buy insoles next time we go through a town where i can get them and maybe that will help too. so, more rest today, santibanez tomorrow probably, and astorga the next day. a hospitalero told me his friend runs an albergue in hospital orbigo a ARRRRGH. i was working on this post and another peregrino just came and took me by the hand to go show me something, saying he was taking me TO EAT... he led me over to a bulldozer...that had a dead pig with its throat slit hanging upside down. he thought it was really funny that he took me there. i am so traumatized. im vegan because i hate animals getting killed. it totally kills me to see stuff like that. argh. ARGH..... which means that the reason the guy next door was pulling his bulldozer out this morning was to go do that and the ruckus ive been hearing outside was probably from/for killing the pig as well. or maybe they killed it before and its just been hanging there, but i dont think so. ARGH. ok i SO want to leave this village right now. ack. my warm fuzzy feelings about rest days here are quickly dissipating at the moment. argh. im glad i wasnt aware of what was happening as it as it was going on at least....except i think i can hear another pig squealing. gosh i hope they are done for the day. oh my god i wish i had earplugs right now to at least block out the potential screams, if there are any. makes me feel SO sick. there is a herd of sheep just brought in next door, i hope to god they dont start in on those too...so so cruel. so cruel. grab a living creature by its back leg with a chain and bulldozer, turn it upside down, and slit its throat. SO CRUEL. i just dont get how people can do this, and be so unaware and disregarding of the beauty of the life of the creature for itself, in its own being, as a being worthy of being allowed to live, and the worth of the life of that creature to that creature itself. Every creature in the world struggles and fights to preserve its life, perhaps as much as we do. Let it live.

ok ill try and get back to what i was just writing about. we might try to stop in hospital orbigo because a hospitalero told me that his friend ran an albergue there and that dogs were ok there and that it was open. but he also thought alot of others were open that havent been.

grainne is spending the day outside today, she seems to be content enuff if she is tied in the sun and if she doesnt see me. she has gotten alot better on this trip about being left alone in rooms and stuff, as long as my stuff is there and she knows i am "settled" there and coming back, then she feels safe to go sleep and i can go take a shower or whatever. so she is much better than she was at the beginning of our trip.

im just "resting" for the day. id like to work more on this blog, but the room the computers are in is open to the outside, and its below freezing, so my fingers are freezing. maybe i will try to add explanations of some of the pictures later. gonna go make some soup. i sprouted lentils last night (hahah hope remember rome when even nicole was making and eating sprouted lentil salad?) and i have a sprouting bag so i guess ihave to just be more resourceful about ways to get in the fresh stuff that i feel like my body is craving. so im gonna go put them in soup. i really wish i could get some untoasted unadulterated sunflower seeds to sprout with them though...

ok this relates to a previous post, but i keep thinking abuot how i meant to write it so ill just include it here: i wrote about my "worstest" night that we spent in the tool shed with the mice running around... the thing about that night that topped it all off was that not only were we in the middle of nowhere, in the cold and dark, not knowing the lay of the land or if there was anyone scary out to get us, and with literally nooone in the world knowing where i was, in the case that i just dropped off the face of the earth-- except maybe those workmen at the albergue in the previous village who had sent me there, but to top it all off, i thought at least i would call my mom and tell her the situation and the name of where i was , and ask her to call me the next morning to make sure i was ok, just so SOMEONEwould know where i was...to top it all off my phone got no service out there. so we were literally totally completely alone and could have dropped off teh face of the earth and noone would have known what had happened to us. so scary. and the next morning i foudn a tent out back up against the building that looked like someone might have been living in it. so who knows. but it was so scary.

ok going now. fingers frozen.dodgey keyboard to start with and frozxen fingers =no more posting now. oh yeah and today i have to remember to make sure we have enough food for tomorrow. its really troublesome with NOTHING being open on sundays. no shops, no nothing. i mean i think its great that everyone gets a day off, but its so hard when you want food and theres none to be found. i keep losing track of the days of the week but trying to keep track of saturday at least cuz last sunday we got caught with not enough to eat...first no shops then no open shops etc. at least we finally found somewhere with bread, but i have to be more prepared.

argh.im so mad at that guy. that was such a shock. and him making it sound like he was taking me somewhere to have food. and he KNEW i didnt eat meat. not that i had made a big deal of my not eating meat to make him feel defensive and want to scandalize me or whatever, so i just dont get why people insist on doing crap like that. i told him it was really cruel of him to show me that but i hate how people think its funny and dont think its a big deal.

rain...snow...kind strangers.... and rest.

2009-02-07T04:06:00.000-08:00

hmmm. i was thinking i could upload some more pics but it seems like this computer is too old to recognize the zipdrive....

We are in villar de mazarife now....finally feeling better after a few days of rest, a heated albergue, access to a shop, and use of a kitchen... we got here a few days earlier than expected, due to closed albergues, bad weather conditions, and a really nice guy who gave us a ride from bercianos to el burgo ranero, then later from el burgo ranero--where the albergue was closed--to leon later that day. since the last time i posted, we stayed in the great warm place we were staying in last time i posted, with heat that was blasting all night...which was preparation/pre-"payback" for the next night which we spent in a FREEZING albergue with no heat, no kitchen, etc, and cold air seeping in under the door while it was raining outside.... by the time we got there i was pretty happy just to have a place to stay, as we had trudged from the previous albergue to sahagun--hungry i might add as there had been no shop in that town and no shops along the way--i have never been gladder to see a pack of cookies and a chocolate bar in my life than when we went through terradillos and, searching the town for a shop, i saw a sign at the albergue there that they had a small shop...cookies and chocolate definitely not ideal fuel, but provided enough energy to get us into sahagun... i was really dragging approaching sahagun. my feet were really starting to hurt--tendons in back of heels actually--, we needed good, warm food, i was tired etc etc etc bag was heavy... about a km from sahagun two women out for a walk on the path offered, then insisted, on carrying my bag to sahagun. it took the two of them, one strap each, to carry it :) it felt so much better for me to be walking with no weight for a little while! close to sahagun, they flagged down a delivery truck that was stopped somewhere, i dont know if they knew the driver or not but they got him to take my bag and drop it at the albergue...the albergue which, when we arrived, was CLOSED..... even though i had been told by a previous albergue that it was open, and my good old by-now-deemed-untrustworthy guidebook said it was open.... i called the numbers for the albergues in the book, asked if i could please please stay there, they said nope, it was closed for renovations. i handed the phone to the women who had carried my bag but they had no luck either. they left me in the hands of a city worker who was kind enough to try to figure out what to do with me... he drove me to the monastery that takes in pilgrims in the summer but they said no they were closed....then he drove me to calzada de coto, which is slightly off the camino path, but was the next "open" one. we retrieved the key from the nearby bar, and at least the village had a shop, but the albergue was FREEZING. at least there were blankets. but still, it was so cold that despite the fact there was hot water, i didnt bother with a shower because i was afraid it would make me colder in the end. i ate a quick dinner and then got into my sleeping bag as quickly as possible. actually, i ate dnner in my sleeping bag.... had a really cold night and couldnt wait to leave the next morning. it was misting the next morning, and cold, it seemed like it was going to clear off...it seems like its always a battle between the rising sun trying to push away the fog and mist and dark sky and snow, and you think the sun is maybe going to win....and then it doesnt... it started raining and wind came up, some hail, etc, and this part of the camino is pretty exposed, no trees to shelter you or break the wind. we were planning to stay in el burgo ranero. coming up to bercianos, when we still would have had quite a few miles to go, a man who had driven by previously in what looked like a contractors truck was now stopped, going the other direction, apparently surveying or something. as he got back in his truck, he asked did we want a ride to the village, and he spoke english. when he found we were going to el burgo to stay for the night, he drove us to el burgo, said it wasnt that far and it was cold and snowy and rainy.... when we got to el burgo, they were renovating and the workman said it was closed.... apparently the albergue at religios, which was supposed to be open, was also closed... the man told us that if i could find somewhere to hang out for the day, he lived in leon and would be going there at 7pm and would be happy to take us to leon where there would be an open albergue. that sounded good to me because it was freezing walking in the snow-rain-wind....but we needed to find somewhere to sit for 9 hrs.... i tried to find a sheltered doorway or pavillion or something but no luck. the best i could find was the overhang of the church. the church had a covered entryway, but it was locked. so annoying. we were maybe going to walk the 6 k to religios and the man pick us up there, just so we would be moving and doing something... but the weather just wasnt clearing. i ended up curling up with the dog, who was shivering, under the small overhang of the church, then decided if we were going to be there for 7 hours, i might as well make us warmer, so i pulled out a sleeping bag, a waterproof silver emergency cover, and proceeded to make us a little den. gro was still shivering shivering shivering though... i got my whole body covered by the blankets, and ducked down inside so i was this shimmering silver lump parked in front of the church gate. a little while later a lady said buenos dias...and invited me inside to warm up...but she didnt realize i had the dog i was trying to keep warm. she said i could come but not the dog. i said no, its ok ill stay, the dog is cold. i couldnt see leaving her out shivering in the rain when she was already cold, plus my lap was pretty warm from the dog and me breathing under the blankets... the lady brought me tea and cookies and told me if i needed to warm up or use the bathroom, to tie the dog and come in. i explained to her the best i could that a man was going to take us to leon that evening. a little while later the man called and said he actually had to go to leon that morning. so he picked us up and we got to sit in the nice warm car to leon. it was really nice that he spoke enough english to help us and he told me that his sister was a teacher and he learns from her but she says his english is rotten,but really it was quite fine. he dropped us near the albergue, and we werent to be allowed to sleep inside becasue of gro, but in the closed entryway, which was somehow somewhat heated, and was actually much warmer than the albergue from the previous night! the hospitalera there loved loved grainne. because we were going to sleep in the entryway where cars had to drive through though, there wasnt really anywhere for us to go for the day, we had arrived so early, like 1 pm...so we wandered around the city trying to get phone credit, and some healthy food--ie dried fruit, almonds, etc. we sat in the sun in the park for a while but it was freezing even in the sun. then had to wait till 430 for the shops to open back up. the only thing i was successful in getting was phone credit...i waited in the cold till 5 for the health food shop to open, only to be told that they didnt have things like almonds, raisins, dates, sunflower seeds etc, and that i had to go to a dried fruit shop.... on the way another supplement shop`offered to sell me sunflower seed butter...but had no idea where i could get the actual raw, untoasted seeds. argh. the dried fruit shop only had candy and trinkets in the window and was closed anyway... back at the albergue gro stayed quiet for a little while outside while i was able to warm up and eat cookies inside. we went to evening prayer with the sisters (benedictines) and there were 4 othere pilgrims at the albergue, 2 of whom i had met in pamplona, then in los arcos, and didnt think i would run into again cuz they were faster, but i guess my car ride to leon caught me up`. evening prayer reminded me of when i used to go sometimes at domincan house when i was at Catholic U. even though it was in a different language, the familiarlity of the ritual was a bit comforting. the albergue gave us breakfast the next morning, which was really nice, and they werent in any rush to get us out exactly at 8 am which also was nice.

my freckles came back because of the sun...and other random thoughts...

2009-02-02T12:03:00.000-08:00

OK i just spent a billion years uploading the photos so ive only a few minutes, but before i forget, a few random thoughts:HOPE--what section of the camino did you guys rent the horses for? i remember you telling me about you and the other girl renting horses and i keep wondering which section it was..... and hope and jessica--are my feet ever going to stop hurting? every day i think im done getting blisters and then i get some more....

so a few comments about the last few days. i wish i had time to label all the pics but idont tonite. we got very lucky with a warm place to stay and internet and washer dryer etc tonite. YESTERDAY was yuck. by far the worst was the night 2 nights before when we ended up in a tool shed... (see previous post) but yesterday was tough. first 10k was ok but it was snowing rain on and off. we stopped to go to church thinking the church would be warm but it was unheated and you could see your breath. gro was shivering and i sat on the floor trying to warm her up. after mass this man came up to me and said his sister would like to invite me for breakfast. really sweet. we ended up staying at her house for a few hours to see if the rain would let up, then she insisted on giving us a car ride to fromista.... albergue at fromista was closed even though my book said it would be open. it was still rainy, and so we trekked 13 more k to some village that starts with a v. albergue there was also supposed to be open, according to my guidebook. im starting to think my guidebook SUCKS :p ....other problem is that shops arent open on sunday so there was nowhere to buy food since the previous afternoon, even bread. this village had an open bakery but all they had were these awful expensive cookies which we ended up inhaling a bag of and using the rest as "bait" to get gro to walk another 5 k to the next town which was supposed to have an open albergue. 5k might not sound like much but its ALOT when your cold, tired, its been rainiong all day and youre carrying like 35 lbs on your back. i limped, trudged and stumbled to the next village, at dark. i almost hitched but there wasnt enuff traffic and i dont speak the langugage. the albergue there was closed as well but they told us where we could stay. at least we were inside and the people were really sweet, but there was NO heat. there were alot of extra blankets but it was as cold inside as outside and the hot showers lasted only about 3 minutes. i spent the night trying to decide whether to put my head inside my sleeping bag and not be able to breathe...or to not put my head inside my sleeping bag and STILL not be able to breathe because the air was so cold.... oh yeah and though it sounds crazy, when we were in burgos, i bought grainne a sleeping bag cuz mines not big enuff for both of us and she gets cold easily. good thing cuz that night was when we ended up in the tool shed. so now im carrying 2 sleeping bags. sucks cuz extra weight but at least im not fighting her for sleeping bag at night....
anyway, usually once we have a couple rough nights we seem to have a good night..and tonight we hit a great place, so it sort of makes up for it. today was really tough though; it was the toughest 16k i have felt. it shouldnt have been cuz it was all flat, but my bag had added weight cuz i was carrying extra food cuz alot of villages seem to not have shops, and also my body seems to be not functioning as well on the sub-optimal food i am giving it. i HATE that. im out of the healthy stuff i brought, except for supplements, and havent found anywhere to replenish them. i could do this whole hike, and well, on dried fruit, dates, nuts, greens and fruit, but most of these thigns are not easily gotten here, so i feel like im asking my body to function on a sub-optimal diet of bread, oranges, olive oil, chocolate, etc and i HATE that..... also, we havent had access to a kitchen in about a week, alot of the albergues dont have them, and im finding this a bit difficult. i was so tired today i lay down in the sun on the side of the path and took a nap even though it was cold. just really tired. and weve having to be doing more mileage than expectedbecasue of closed albergues and also not sleeping the best becasue of cold, etc.

ok off for the night. we decided not to rent car in burgos, might rent one in leon to ponferrada if absolutely necessary to be back in ireland for beg of march, but we ll just see how our progress is. we shoudl be in leon within the next few days. gro is really happy when we see people, and also on the days that are sunny and warm, not so much on windy, cold, rainy, etc.

PICS....bad nights, cold, and... im tired.

2009-02-02T11:26:00.000-08:00

OK SO i finally got some pics uploaded...but it seems they upload from last to first...which means you really need to start at the bottom of this post and scroll upwards....oops. just realized this is the SECOND set of pics... to the left is view of castrojeriz(sp i think) and then below is when you get to the top of the mountain outside it.

c
to left is coming into castrojeriz. below is coming into i forget where but its where the hostel was closed and i got sent on to spend my WORST night....i was approaching the town near dark, had to wait for a guy to bring his sheep in with a donkey with bells on it; didnt really care cuz i was gonna spend the night there. approached the hostel which was supposed to be open, and there were construction guys working on it. they told me i couldnt stay there and that i had to go another 5 kilometers IN THE DARK. to some place that was "open". i asked them TWICE were they sure it was open...my book said it was only open "in season"...they assured me it "was". they drew me a map and we proceeded to trudge 5 more km in the dark. i remember thinking that it could have been worse;that at least the weather was fairly warm, we still had enuff energy to go further, etc etc etc.... but as it darkened it got really really frightening. there was nothing anywhere. no houses, no lights, a clouded moon. i had my tiny wind up flashlight and that was it. probably fairly safe actually in terms of that there was LITERALLY nothing out there. no people no animals no nothing. but it was really scary. i felt a bit better when we got up on a plateau and could see lights far off in all directions... i kept focused on the radiotower lights miles in front of us. and i started keeping an eye out for the light that would be on at this hostel....when we got to the turn off sign...there was no light. no nothing. no village. only some ruins on a hill. we found the place we were supposed to find and of course it was closed and shut up tight. i was terrified, totally alone and at least 5 k in any direction to get anywhere, and it was way dark and getting late... i wished at that point that i had had a lesson in lock-picking...specifically that i had been at the hostel that my cousin megan stayed at in ireland where the other guy staying there taught them how to pick locks.....i tried to find a way in, hoping there was a key hidden somewhere for stranded pilgrims or whatever, but failed. we ended up spending the night in the tool shed, which had a roof but the roof wasnt connected in to the walls, and spent the night listening to the mice chew stuff up..i kept kicking my bag to try to make sure they werent chewing stuff in my bag up... yeah, that was by far our worst night... if we had ONLY been able to get inside. argh. if i had arrived in daylight at least i could have gotten the lay of the place but in the dark it was terrifying.

to the left, vineyards. i think this was between najera and azofra but not sure. pamplona to somewhere around ? santo domingo? was alot of olive trees and vineyards and the first day we passed some almond trees too. but later on, no vineyards or olive groves.

to left is path on the way to the 12 k of forest on the way to i forget the name of the own but it was the day i reached the village of Ages in the evening.

najera. noone around to take our pic so i used a mirror-doorway. the walk from najera to azofra was pretty nice. through forest then vineyards. it got long though. what i remember most is it seemed to be starting to rain, and i was again having my eye out for places i could put my tent. this was so crazy because i was always headed to an albergue and never wanted to actually have to pitch my tent in between villages, but i nonetheless frequently found myself looking for rock overhangs, sheltered places, etc that would be good for pitching a tent. the most tempting, were i to get caught out in the middle of nowhere,was the gaps in the huge stacks of haybales outin the fields. more than once i thought that these would makea good, well-insulated sleeping spot. except the thought kept occurring to me thatthere probably would be rats. ACK. any of you who know of my previous bad experiences with rodents in living spaces will understand why im so opposed to sleeping--or even being--anywhere there are rodents and thus also why the night spent in the toolshed was made so much further awful by these critters.

This was my first "bad night" on the church steps in vendosa, after arriving so tired and with feet so aching that i literally felt sick to my stomach, only to find the albergue closed and the town shut up tight. putting the tent in the covered entryway of the church seemed most advantageous, as at least it had a roof...but trying to pitch it on concrete was a nightmare. i ended up tying it to the railing and the doorway but couldnt get it to keep proper shape; it really needed all the peggings. i hate how it ended up looking like a body bag.and it was so uncomfortable to sleep in, not properly pitched, because the whole thing kept collapsing on us. im not a huge fan of this tent its so tiny. BUT it is lightweight. i just remember it took AGES to try to jury-rig the blasted thing and my hands were freezing, and in the end i kept wondering if i should have just given up and pitched it in the grass, we probably would have slept better. but when it was raining the next morning i was glad to not have to pack up in the rain.

more pics

2009-02-02T10:43:00.000-08:00

vitamineral green goes bye bye...well, the jar anyway. about 4 days in, in lorca VMG went into plastic bags and the lovely amber jar got donated to the guy at the coffee bar. at least i didnt have to pitch the jar. i liked the vmg better in the jar cuz it kept it fresher, but this baby just had to go.

below and to the left is churchyard in lorca where we spent our 4th? or 5th night. turns out if i had gone up to the bar, we could have unofficially stayed inside at a closed albergue. ah well. the spot wasnt too bad. but i DO hate sleeping in the tent. i really actually hate camping. i love outdoor "stuff" but i hate and generally have hated for a while, sleeping in tents. i hate how everything is damp when you wake up. hate that. i dont mind roughing it a bit but i really need a real bed, a hot shower, and to be inside....and, as i have learned on this trip, preferably in a HEATED structure if it is winter/cold! i dont need lectricity but gosh i hate sleeping on the ground in a tent. ... anyway, it was a nice churchyard and it felt safe. generally if i have had to pitch the tent in villages where there is no albergue, i aim for churchyards. they usually feel safe. vendosa did feel dodgey though it was so isolated. but this one was nice and with beautifulviews and the sun was out though chilly.

left and left below drinking from the free wine faucets that are there particularly for peop.le on the camino. i guess most people fill their waterbottles but i knew that amount of alcohol wouldnt do me any good. but i had to at least have a sip. interestingly enough though, i have foudn that while i usually cant drink anything at all, even a half of glass of anything, without a hangover the next day, on the camino i seem to be able to handle some alcohol without a problem. must be that its all getting burned off or used up or something with all the hiking.

where i pitched my tent after the second day. yep these pics uploaded backwards in order. it was easy enough to peg the tent here despite the cement cuz the cement had cracks and the mortar in the walls was crumbling. my tent was invisible from the road. pretty cool. but i STILL prefer INSIDE, in a REAL BED

gro was totally ready for bed at the end of our first few days. now, not so much. although if its a windy day she tries to hunker down in the tall grass and make "beds" on the side of the road...she thinks she will sleep there till the weather gets better....

below. first night.puente la reina we had to sleep outside cuz no dogs. i had nevr even put the tentup before. it was suprisingly easy but i couldnt believe i was going to sleep in this tiny thing!

below. this mud-thing began first day but continued through much of first week and i still encounter it on occassion. sticky mud that resticks with the next step when you knock it off and LITERALLY adds 1-2 pounds of weight to each boot. makes you stronger i guess and ive pretty much given up on trying to knock it off now when i do encounter it, but it made the first few days VERYdifficult. the second day i trudged through several km of the stuff and it took hours. i couldnt believe when i had been walking for like 5 hours and thought i was near our destination and i came across a marker that said we still had 15k left....we´'d only gone 5 k in 5 hours...all through the sticky mud. i knew we could no way make it to the next albergue so we had to pitch the tent along the way.

Below:SUN!! near pamplona and companion for first week or so, ALONG with WARMTH. now we get sun some days but no warmth. i was SO craving the sun when i took this pic. think i was vit D deficient from being in ireland, seattle, ireland. no sun in either when we had the bad summers in ire.

to left path out of pamplona. first day.

me and gro at end of firstday. feeling good but tired.

hmmm therewas a LOVELY pick here of the path through a stone bridge or something, one of best pics. but i just deleted it by accident and cant seem to get it back. will have totry next time i have access to upload again. darn.

OK im finally at a computer that is recent enough to upload photos. i wanted to try to edit previous posts to put photos where they belong, but the hospitalero is being kind enuff to let me use his computer and i dont want to stay on it all night. so i guess theyll all go here for now.

saturday...the ?17th

2009-01-28T11:44:00.000-08:00

i dont remember much about this walk except that we got to estrella and got the neighbors mad and calling the cops because grainne was barking. but she just wanted to be inside. she is such a pain cuz she has NO patience for not getting what she wants. even now, every time i tie her outside to go in a shop she barks CONSTANTLY. shes like a bad, evil teenage girl. anyway, we were so glad to be allowed to be inside this night , and there were just 2 other spanish guys staying there. after i got in trouble for her barking with the guy in charge he asked if she came in would she be silencio. i said yeah yeah of course. thats all she wanted. i dragged her into bed and kept an arm on her all night so she wouldnt cause anyh more trouble. she was snoring though.... :p lol the next morning we wanted to go to mass but i didtn think they would let me in with a dog so we didnt get to go. we PLANNED to camp this next night in lorca becasue the albergues there were closed and after lorca there was a stretch of 12 k or something with no villages. i knew we couldnt do the 20 k so we just planned to do the 7. when we got to lorca i asked the priest as mass was coming out could we put our tent there. he said yeah, but its gonna be cold. again, wish i had pics. we chilled for the afternoon, the sun was kind of warm, and i let my clothes dry. the priest had told me there was a bar if i wanted something to eat... and i meant to go up there and get water before it closed at 3 but when i went up at 245 it looked closing up so i didnt bother. i should have. the next morning as i was brushing my teeth at the public fountain this guy came out of the bar saying to me "peregrino?" i.e. pilgrim in spanish. i said yeah, no hablo espanol. and he started speaking english. he said we could have stayed there the night befofe. ok i was hoping to finish this but this little kid whos parents own the bar im in just asked me in spanish to use the comptuer soi i gotta go. who can resist a 3 year old little kid?

Friday the 16th....albergue closed, camp in churchyard

2009-01-28T11:28:00.001-08:00

this was our second day. we were trying to get to estrella....i thought we must be almost there when i saw a sign that said estrella:15k. this was at like 2 in the afternoon. we had been hiking or like 5 hours...all through mud and clay and hilly terrain..and apparently had only gone 5k..i knew at this point that there was NO WAY we could make it to the next place there was an albergue and that we would have to camp. we kept going but finally i knew we werent going any further than the next village or so... i thought probably we could just ask to sleep in a church or something. no such luck. we got to whatever this village was i forget, and the albergue said closed except to groups. an old man indicated to me to ring the bell across the street since they were the ones who ran it but they didnt answer. so i thought maybe i could sleep in the church. i had been figuring hey, im a pilgrim right, so they should let me sleep in churches, right ? i somehow communicated to a guy washing his motorcycle at the public fountain that was there anywhere for me to put my tent and/or was there a priest i could ask if i could sleep in the church. he said there was no priest in the village but that noone would really care if i put my tent there. darn. i wish i could upload my pictures... anyway i managed to peg the tent in the mostly-stone courtyard, since the mortar was crumbling enuff that i could peg it into the stonewalls and benches. lol. and jury-rig it. gro was not real thrilled with the tent because it is so so tiny she cant stand up in it. also, there was no shop in this village so we had very little food. i had a little of her dogfood left...which she had to eat out of my shoe for lack of a bowl. lol. anyway, I felt pretty safe in the chruchyard in this little village and my tent was hidden by the stonewall anyway. i heard someone go into teh church and banged on the door to ask if i could stay in it but they didnt answer. later, a nun came out and i asked her was my tent ok there. she indicated it was fine. but really i was hoping she woudl feel bad for me and offer me somewhere better to stay. but no luck. we crawled in for a long night. the tent isnt really big enuff for me and gro and my stuff... she cant stand up in teh bottom end of it and i cant sit up in it even in the top end of it. but it only weighs less than a kilo. but jeez they could have made it a foot by a foot bigger so you could at least sit up in it. anyway, we went "to bed" and it was actually pretty warm in the tent. then a barking dog came outside it and gro started growling etc... then i heard a womans voice and later realized she was probably looking in the tent "window" above me but i didnt realize it at the time.... i thought it was someone mad at me for being there but i told her i didnt speak spanish and she got me to come out and went and got her son and they told me how cold it was and they were going to show me somewhere better to stay...and they showed me this entryway to a building that was enclosed on three sides with a roof...but i tried to explain that i couldnt peg my tent there. then she asked did i want milk or coffee or anythign and said how cold out it would be...i asked her could i use her bathroom. adn she gave gro some water and me some bread for her. she was really sweet and it was her dog that had been barking at us...but i really wanted to ask her if i could sleep in her garage or something... when they told me they were showing me a better place to sleep i was hoping they were taking me inside somewhere... so as sweet as she was, i was a little disappointed.... anyway, we had an ok night but even with a sleeping mat the stones were HARD.

INTERNET!!

2009-01-28T10:48:00.000-08:00

ok this is going to be way more abbreviated than i would like... its been 2 weeks since ive had internet opportunity and ive a couple pages handwritten that i want to put in but now that stuff is days old and it would take all night for me to inscribe it all...and i dont think i can hog this computer at this little bar all night.... hmmmm... so where to start....ill try to think of the hilights... we are in a little village just east of burgos. we should get to burgos tomorrow, after a LONG hike. we are so lucky tonite as we were able to get a room somewhere and there is internet downstairs. gro is upstairs sleeping and her cuteness got us in. today we did about 16k. thats about our limit. there are people passing us by doing 30 plus k a day but they dont have heavy packs with tents or pups with sore feet. 15 or 16 is about the limit for both of us i think. today we did 12k through a pine forest. in the rain and then fog. i realized i dont mind the rain and mist as long as its not cold or windy. the few days previous to this were horrid, we got stuck in a hailstorm one day and then got rain snow wind ice etc and tons of wind the next, and i really didnt know how we were going to make it through... turns out i guess that it was part of a hurricane. anyway, the forest was a really nice change from walking along roadsides..i have mixed feelings about when the path goes along roadsides...its nice to know im not totally alone, but frankly im sick of the traffic. there is so much BIG TRUCK traffic all of the time on the national road that runs near the path. one day we actually tried walking on the road instead of the path becasue it cut 4 or 5 k off. it was SO unpleasant. never again. anyway, the pine forest was nice, but not 12k of it.... it got kind of boring and it was so foggy you couldnt see ahead of you very far. there was nothing but forest, it was like a logging road. no villages, etc nothing. saw some logger, thats it. i had been told the first part was the hardest cuz it was through the ocs (sp?) mountains, and i thought we handled it ok and were done with the uphill, then i saw a straight up path ahead. it wasnt actually as bad as it looked but it looked awfully steep. i have a pick but this computer is old ibm too old to download. no place for flashdrive. grainne ended up on my major bad list for not only going after another dog coming towards us but for managing to pull me down face first in the mud with my 30 pound pack. the poor guy with the other dog didnt know what to do because obviously he couldnt grab grainne who was after his dog, but wanted to make sure i was ok and i was just like "dog you are SO dead" and then burst out laughing, as i was lying face down in the mud.... hmmm. not to much else interesting from today except that we got SO lucky with where we are staying tonite. tomorrow we try to get to burgos and then id like to take train to leon and then get to santiago walking from there. i dont think we can actually walk the whole thing, it would take another 6 weeks cuz we seem to only be able to do 15 k a day and would need to do 20 every day and thats just pushing us too much. the uncertainty of not knowing if we are going to have a place to stay at night is what really gets me, particulary since its turned so cold. the first week was beautiful sunny weather, still cold at night, but feasible to think about sleeping in the tent. now its crap weather and cold. i need to see if i can get another sleeping bag in burgos for grainne becasue she is cold and shivering every night even inside unless she is under blankets. i specifically got a LONG size sleeping bag with a bottom zipper thinking i could stuff her in the bottom every night but shes just too big and wants to stretch out. i also got a zero degree farenheight rated sleeping bag but its gonna get returned when i go home because im cold in it at 40 degrees... i dont know who the heck they get to be the testers for these temperature ratings on sleeping bags, but they are always SO wrong...

aside from today, grainne has usually been a delight to have as company. although at the moment i am worried about her hurting feet. although they dont seem to hurt any more when she sees another dog to try to attack, or a boy to try to run after and get attention from...she loves men SO Much, her whole body starts wiggling, tail wagging, and so excited when she sees a guy. shes SUCH a girl. she was in love with this tall italian guy at the albergue last night and the ONLY thing that kept her going through the snow and ice and rain on ?tuesday? was that there was a french guy about a quarter of a mile ahead of us that she had her sights set on. anyway, her whole life her problem is always that she wants more movement. here she gets it. i think she is getting a bit too much exercise actually though, as she'd be happiest with about 6 or 7 k a day.... so we´ll see.
OK i guess ill work backwards here..... but i guess taht will make this post particulary long... hmmmm.

in brief, we spent...lets see if i can remember.... a night outside pamplona, where i left my car, the next in puenta, which is the last time i had email access. the next in a church courtyard in ? i forget.... the next in estella where we got in trouble with the cops cuz the place was kind enuff to say g could come inside but only at 11 pm...so she proceeded to sit outside barking at every dog that went by until then and they called guy in charge of the place and he came back and got mad at me... all he would have had to do was let her sit inside the door and she would have shut up but we werent sposed to have dogs in there anyway so he was already doing me a favor....the next night we spent in lorca in a churchyard because i was afraid of the 12k with no villages that came after this. i didnt think we could do 20 whatever k. the next at an albergue with a bunch of people in...some town... i forget... the next night we tried to spend in vianna and ended up in tears at the albergue becasue they wouldnt let me even talk to the hospitalero..the cops actually followed me into the albergue and said no dogs and wanted me to leave her with some guy that wasnt home. i sobbingly told them forget it as i prepared us to go another 10k for a total of TWENTY EIGHT K.. to the next town, where we arrived after dark in the rain and were turned away from the albergue there and there wasnt even a place to put our tent..they tried to send us to the camping place but then it was closed for water damage... .... we got so lucky after me finally breaking down in tears after being forced out of a church entry way so they could lock up, and sent to another church, where they gave us our own meeting room, mattress, kitchen and shower for the night :) the next we had to pass on a town cuz they said no dogs so i thought we could stay at the next--vendosa--but after arriving in the dark, unable to go any further, and with nowhere else to go, we found the albergue closed for renovations, it freezing cold, windy, hurting feet, the village dark, no shop, no cafe open, nothing, and an old lady gave us bread and apples and went out of her way to take us to the top of the town where the church had a covered entryway...but ever try to peg a tent into mortar? it only works when the mortar is crumbing. this wasnt. that was probably our worst night. we spent the next 3 nights in azofra for a rest. then onto i forget where.... oh yeah, belorado, where there were NO albergues open and we had to get a guy to open one.. even though it was a big town. i bet i added on 3 k at least just walking around and around the town... then last night in villafranca where we slept on the freezing cold floor by a back doorway--preferable to being outside at least, where they wanted to put gro.... many people here think dogs belong outside but seriously gro would DIE. she would have died the first night. she cant handle the cold like these dogs can. and tonite here...

pamplona to ?puente de la rienta?...vitamineral green..and what can i send to myself in santiago...

2009-01-15T11:20:00.000-08:00

ABSOLUTELY BEAUTIFUL SUNSHINE TODAY. so nice to have sun for more than a few minutes, unlike in ireland. and way longer days too. about 8 am to 6 pm. in ireland we were dealing with 9am to 430 pm. what a drag. cold, but 45 or 50 in the sun.

made it the 20 km to puenta today. basically had to because looks like most of the albuergues in between the 20 km marks are closed for winter. i wasnt actually tired, but my feet are killing me... i spent a good part of the trek trying to decide what items i will mail to myself from here to pick up addressed to me at santiago... which brings me to : whats in my pack... : i dont think i have a normal pilgrims pack...here are some of the things that made it in.... --some of which will soon be going out in the mail to myself :p....
portable dog crate...yes. a pop up dog crate. was hoping this would enable me to get into hostels with dog but its just too much weight and seems like its going to be ineffective anyway... at the albergues tonite she was like ¨"no dogs. dog in garden. you inside. i initially had told her i had a tent and could i set it up in the yard and pay to use showers and kitchen. i kept insisting dog would not sleep quietly outside so i would sleep with her. she thought i was NUTS... well, we´lll see tomorrow morning if we totally Freeze tonite.. shes actually quiet at the moment after barking for a while she finally gives up but i will have to go back out for the night. i wish she wouldnt bark
various food-snob items: a small bottle of olive oil made it in, as did himalayan crystal sea salt with herbs, a bunch of nuts and raw chocolate, a pound of seaweed, some chia seeds, herb tea bags, and a few random other things. worried about nutrition so i packed the stuff...im not sure how people survive on the camino on just rice, bread, pasta etc, but others seem to be doing it.. oh yeah and VITAMINERAL GREEN.... the jar weighs about TWO POUNDS. my whole pack is only supposed to be 10 kilo.... but im not ditching that stuff... at the last minute i ditched a bunch of coconut oil vaccuum packs in the car. regret that one though. quick energy.. .
also in kristen´s pack... too much clothing,, namely a pair of huge, lined snow pants, ALSO getting mailed to self... i think id rather suffer in the rain or snow for a day or two than drag these pants all over "just in case". tent. sleeping bag. a bunch of those silver ¨emergency blankets" and yeah we are using them, both over and under the sleeping bag... also a small amount of dog food...yeah, that adds weight too. almost gone at least. i forget what else but i feel like i have some other unusual things in there too.. anyway...

todays trek was rather hard... much uphill, and through this clay-like mud that LITERALLY doubled the weight of your boots. and everytime you scraped it off it just stuck on more as soon as you walked... lovely scenery, lots of paths, rather than roadway...
and, BONUS: my dog still doesnt know how to heel properly most of the time. this actually totally came in handy today :p she acutually helped pull me up hills :) i spent most of the day with a spanish couple (thank goodness im not the only girl now like last night), and the guy asked to borrow grainne to help him get up hils :p id say grainne weathered the day better than i did...she was still bouncing by the end of it...of course she wasnt carrying anything.

ok have to go. time almost out. have to store up those one euro coins. only had one tonite. hope i can find somewhere to mail stuff to self tomorrow. bet i wont even be able to walk tomorrow but they only let u stay one night in each place so they basically kick you out and force you to go. sort of wish some of the in-between ones were open so not forced to do 20 k a day but doesnt look like a choice. on teh other hand, you might as well be walking. just easier if feet didnt hurt!

nite all

k

Eire to France to spain to pamplona to.....

2009-01-14T14:11:00.000-08:00

OK, gonna be a quickie, since theres only 14 mn left on the internet time and noone else at the albuergue (hostel) can find any more one-euro coins to feed the machine... Im leaving pamplona tomorrow....doggie got left in the car tonite for the night so i could sleep inside'--havent slept in a bed since last friday night and dont know when i might be lucky enough to find another one...seems alot of the hostels are closed for the winter, which lessens our chances at staying at in-between places and hopefully talking our way in... the lady where i stayed tonite was adamant that the albergues dont allow dogs. i have a tent but would prefer not to sleep in it, at least not every night... ..alot of posts on the internet make it sound like you can get the key to the albuergues even if theyre closed but that doesnt seem to be necessarily the case... which means you HAVE to walk 20 km a day or else get a hotel. the worst part of my trip was actually the drive to the ferry in ireland. the ferry itself was fine, although i was amused to find out the next morning that the ferry was NOT supposed to be rolling around so much on the waves that you literally felt like you were drunk trying to walk around on it... i didnt know cuz id never been on a ferry that long distance before, but i wondered how people managed to eat anything at all when you could literally watch your whole body moving up and down with the waves. apparently there was alot of wind that day...next morning when we woke up (after sleeping on the floor of the lounge lol), it was calm. trip down through france was LONG. one thing i learned that i could have gone without knowing, though at least i know now, is that my car can go at least 45 kilometers AFTER the gas light goes on.... the gas stations in france are NOT spaced regularly...i wont get caught that short again. came through the pyrenees at night. absolutely beautiful, clear night, clear moon, etc. but made me really glad that i chose to start in pamplona not on the french side of the pyrenees. the guys at this hostel who started on the french side said they walked through blizzard the other day. the drive from france into spain though...well... DARN. i just lost the end of my post... computer shut off cuz no more money...then i discovered one last coin in my bag... so im on to finish it again, BEFORE the money is gone :) anyway.. the drive from france into spain though, it was like first i was somewhere i could communicate (or at least find a way to get what i needed by stringing words together ;p and i knew what words to string together...), then i crossed an "imaginary" line (well... actually a BORDER, but anyway, seemed imaginary to me; didnt even see a sign that said "entering spain"), and suddenly, i could no longer communicate. basically AT ALL. the best i could do was walk in somewhere, say ¨no hablo espangnol," and then start mime-ing (as in the case of trying to get boot water-proofer spray...i.e. say "impermeable" then make spraying motions and sounds towards shoes....) or walking around with my dictionary and pointing to words... or using a combination of french spanish english and oops i caught myself saying ¨"grazie" (italian) as i was leaving places sometimes too... it was really nice when someone would all of a sudden say ¨do you speak english¨ as i was struggling to explain, though as often as not i got more like blank stares when i said "usted habla anglais" "or francais?"
So my first night i spent sleeping on the floor of the lounge of the ferry in my sleeping bag. the second i spent in some little town in france, in a residential area in my car.... thing is that in both france and spain its difficult to judge the safety or lack thereof of the neighborhoods, unlike dc or seattle or whereever. in US cities you get a sort of vibe. here, it seems like everyone just shuts their shutters and goes inside fairly early, so driving around at midnight or after, its like driving through ghost towns.... especially the one i spent 2 nights in in spain..i HAD to get out of pamplona to sleep... i saw only one area that looked safe for parking car and sleeping in and then despite driving around and around for 45 minutes (after midnight)..., i still couldnt manage to find it again...yeah, it would have helped to have had a map of pamplona when i got here... so i ended up just driving out of the city to try to find a village or something that seemed safer. where i ended up ended up ok but was SO quiet it was spooky, and it had all these funny looking trees. so funny how everything just sort of shuts up and shutters up at night...

ok off to publish this before computer eats it again due to lack of sufficient funds. guess we are trying to go to puerte de la reinte (sp?) tomorrow but 20 k a day seems like alot. but seems like theres no hostels open in between during the winter. ah well, tomorrow night will be the real test, travelling with the dog. looking forward to teh walking but not to the looking for places to stay at night.