Jim joins the blister bunch, part deux

Hello to all from Leon
Well, the last letter was certainly a bust. My daughter informed me that it came through blank, and that was a real drag after writing for an hour and a half. The biggest bummer was that as I write, ideas percolate from brain to consciousness, and don´t often reappear when writing later. They´re still inside but just not on the surface as I write. But since I’ve been not able to find a computer for such a long time, I´ll just have to do the best I can.
So to recap, sort of, after being so pleased that I didn´t have any blisters I managed to get five in three days, and am now walking as crippled as the rest of us. One of Carol´s got so bad that she lost the nail on her little toe and is definitely hurting, but she trudges on, no surprise. Blister remedies vary with the person, but some people leave them be and just hobble (the least preferred method), some break them and bandage them, others take a needle with a cotton string threaded through the eye and run the needle through both ends of the blister leaving the thread to act as a wick, drying out the blister. Others use iodine to dry and disinfect, while Compeed, a cushioning bandage is very popular. What ever works for the individual is okay with everybody, and nobody claims to have the true answer.
We stayed in a hotel in Burgos so that we had hot water when we wanted it, our own bathroom, and no snorers. Quite a nice treat for ourselves. It´s has been the only one so far. We´re not opposed to hoteling it, but the "Camino crowd" stays in the refugios and since Carol and I generally walk most of the day by ourselves, it´s always fun to interact with them at the end of the day. It is very encouraging and motivating to share our day’s experiences with people who did the same thing during the day.
We’ve been blessed with good weather, 17 days on the road, and not a single day of rain. When it has rained, it´s come after we´ve completed our day and is no problem. The one day that it could have, we plodded on an extra few miles and were glad we did, when those who stopped short had to come about 4 miles through a clay mud field. They had mud about 2-3 inches thick on their shoes which made each step a real chore. They were exhausted by the end of the day. We´ve had three days of strong wind on the trail, but fortunately, it´s been at our backs which makes our going just a little easier as opposed to having it in our face. So we have much for which to be thankful.
A discussion the other night centered on the Camino as a metaphor for life. Some Things are easy and some things are hard, both physically and mentally, overcoming the mental aspect makes the physical part much easier; people come into your life and leave it, so we rejoice in the new encounters and understand when they don´t last; although keeping the long range goal in mind, concentrating on the immediate makes the goal much easier to attain, and, well you get the picture.
We´ve met literally hundreds of people on the Camino and I can honestly say there is only one dud, but more about him at another time. Again, concentrating on the positive is so much healthier for the spirit. Everybody works hard to see that everybody succeeds. Help is never far away, from going back to carrying packs, to sharing supplies, medicine, and advice, to just giving encouraging words
We´ve now completed 17 of our 30 days, and the miles keep melting away. We´ve stopped looking at the end result, however, and now just look at each day as a mini-Camino, and completion of that days trek is all we look for. Santiago is still far off but it´s much more satisfying to see the end of our day as a goal unto itself. Even beyond that, breaking the day´s task into parts helps with that goal. For example, yesterday was a long 20 mile stretch, and instead of saying we had 18 miles left to go, we just said that there was a village 5 miles away, and we could get a break there with some coffee and a juice. Then 4 miles beyond that was a town where we could get food for our lunch, and there was a picnic area just two miles beyond that when we finished up with small pueblos about two miles apart for the last part of the stage. Each town became an accomplishment in itself and because it was mini-sized, easy to reach, and before we knew it, we had walked the entire route in nine hours including all stops.
Bodies rebel but the mind can overcome. My knees creak, my Achilles groan, and, as I shove my shoe on and pinch my little toe, it says very quietly but determinedly: "Boy, you´re gonna pay for this." We start out looking like we´ll never make two miles, but things warm up and we get on a roll. Stopping is hard, because it takes the body time to retool and get back up to speed. So the small aches and pains all reoccur again and again, but still we make it to the end.
Looking at the long rang picture we´re over half way there. We have less than 200 miles to complete the 500 miles.
We´ve made some excellent friends. Carla, a 45 year old Italian, has adopted us as her Camino parents and we´ve all become quite close. Pablo, from Madrid, and I really enjoy seeing each other as we leap frog past each other time and again, only to meet up some days later. Pepe, a rolly polly Spaniard, loves to give Carol a bad time and tease her. But he´s a genuinely caring individual. Then there´s the gang of four. The drinkers I wrote about (hopefully, not in the letter lost). Last night as it appeared that we´d be ahead of them for the rest of the trek, Herman did a really nice thing. We were having some wine before dinner and he had to tell the story about how he first saw this couple walking the Camino holding hands carrying these ridiculous orange sleeping bags. He caught up with us just so he could find out who these people were. Then on their big (one of them at least) drinking day, Carol and I must have passed them a dozen times, and he thought we were being very disapproving of them. But he later learned that we were just amazed that they could do this and get back up the next morning and walk the Camino. Anyway, Herman, Patsy, Tanya, and Kevin each day looked forward to overtaking us and talking with us. They always got a late start, surprise, surprise, and they got so excited when they saw us coming into view. Those ridiculous bags became our recognizable signature up in the distant road ahead. We´ve had so much fun with them, we´ll be sad to lose the daily contact with them. Actually, Kevin, the Scot, has serious tendon problems, and nobody knows whether he´ll be able to catch up. But they adopted Paris, from London, Ontario, (yeah, I know) who was on the verge of abandoning the Camino because she was having such a hard time (partly because of the one unpleasant person), but the gang of four took her in, and she has just blossomed. She is a massage therapist, and gives of her time and energy willingly to any and all who need it. Just another example of peregrinos helping other peregrinos. Last night they dug out two of their tents to help Carla and her friends who got in to the refugio late and all the beds were taken. We´re like wolves, nobody is ever left to themselves, everybody is taken into the fold.
Two nights ago at dinner, I told Paris the story about Carol finding her stick on the Camino just when she needed it, and how we had read that the Camino will supply whatever is needed if a person is just open to it. And that she is another example of that because what she needed was the gang of four, and it was there for her. Everybody appreciated the example.
At the end of each stage it is so fulfilling as we arrive at the refugio. Pepe and his two mates are always there ahead of us (he has bad blisters and they bus half the day´s route). We can always expect to find them sitting in an outside bar drinking a beer, cheering us on as we come in for the final stretch. We can always tell who´s there first by the clothes on the line. Daily washing is a must for the Camino, and when we see certain shirts we know who´s there. Still later others straggle in after taking long breaks along the way, and we´re just as positive to them as others are to us.
After three days of REALLY flat treks, we start to climb again. Today was the longest yet, a 24 mile toe breaker, and we´ve done over 60 miles in the last three days, just one step at a time. Tomorrow is to be a short 14 miler, and we´re all looking forward to that.
Hopefully, it won´t be so long before I can write again, I´ve much to say, but I´m tired!!! and I´m gonna rest. Tomorrow is another day, and, oh yeah, I-m saving this letter so that if it screws up, I´ve got it. Just staying positive:-)