Firstly, thank you to everyone who’s following my posts, and for those that are leaving messages or sending emails. I’m sorry that I can’t get back to you all straight away. My time each day is very short.

Let me run you through a typical daily schedule:

I wake usually at 5:30am, and it takes me about an hour to pack up everything, and get out the door. I sleep in the clothes that I’ll wear that day. Lately it’s taken a little while each morning to deal with my medical issues – reapplying Bentadine and antibiotic cream onto my heel blister, then applying surgical dressings and crepe bandage.

I spray my shin with ice-pack spray. And put Voltaren and a support bandage on my knee. All this in the dark takes a while. I say in the dark because when you’re in an alburgue, and you want to get going before 7:30, you have to make allowances for those that want to keep sleeping.

The albergues usually require the pilgrims out though by no later than 8am.

I then start walking, and will stop at the first cafe to get 3 Cafe Contardos, which are like piccolo lattes. If there’s no cafe open, then I just walk. I usually like to put in between 2-3 hrs walk before I take my first stop. Depending on how my pain threshold is, that’s somewhere around 8-10kms.

I stop a lot and take photos though, because the light at that time of the day is wonderful. After the break at about 10:30am, I then walk through to 1pm. I’ve made it mandatory that I stop at 1pm, no matter where I am, and have some lunch.

Usually that lunch constitutes a pear, maybe some cheese, an orange sometimes, sometimes some bread. If I’m feeling depleted of energy before lunch while I’m walking, I’ll have a muesli bar.

If there’s a town nearby, I’ll sometime stop and have a sit down meal – a pilgrims lunch. I’ll do a separate post on the pilgrims meals, but basically I usually have lentil soup, grilled chicken, and some ice cream. Walking these kms means you don’t have to worry about calories!

What I do after lunch depends on how I feel. I usually like to put in a few more hours, and walk through till about 3pm or 3:30pm. Then I find a place to stay, I have a shower, I do my laundry, hang it out to dry, download my photos that I’ve taken during the day, and then start my blog.

By then it’s dinner time, and then sleep. I’m usually out to it by 9:30pm latest, then up again at about 5:30am the next day. At home I don’t usually sleep 8hrs – normally it’s about 5-6hrs; but when you’re walking between 24-30 kms each day with a backpack, sometimes over mountains, it makes you tired!

Today was another wonderful day of walking. I’d made a mistake yesterday – the Meseta started today. Yesterday’s country was a precursor.

I bumped into Ivan the Terrible and his wife Giovanna today. They’re the lovely Italian couple who’d guided me beautifully into Burgos. As we approached a huge hill that would take us up onto the plateau that was the Meseta proper, Ivan the Terrible told me something an Italian priest had said about the Camino.

The priest had said that the Camino is like your soul journey. The first third is full of mountains and valleys, full of highs and lows, deep emotions. That’s your life.

In the second stage, you ascend to the Meseta, where it’s calm, quiet, transcendent. That’s death.

And the third stage, after the Meseta and from Leon on heading to Santiago, that’s your rebirth.

I looked at Ivan the Terrible in horror, then I looked at the track leading up to the start of the Meseta. Bloody hell mate, i said, does that mean I’m climbing up to my death?

He smiled and shrugged, as Italians do, and I stepped aside and let him go first.

(28kms today to Boadilla del Camino. Got the last bed in one of the most perfect albergues on the Camino. When I walked in, at about 5:30pm after walking for nearly 10 hrs today, about a dozen pilgrims clapped me. I felt very embarrassed. They know I’m in pain, and going slowly. They were very sweet. A shorter day tomorrow.)

Firstly, thank you to everyone who's following my posts, and for those that are leaving messages or sending emails. I'm sorry that I can't get back to ou all straight away. My time each day is very short.

Let me run you through a typical daily schedule:

I wake usually at 5:30am, and it takes me about an hour to pack up everything, and get out the door. I sleep in the clothes that I'll wear that day. Lateslyots taken a little while each morning to deal with my medical issues – reapplying Bentadine and antibiotic cream onto my heel blister, then applying surgical dressings and crepe bandage.

I spray my shin with ice-pack spray. And put Voltaren and a support bandage on my knee. All this in the dark takes a while. I say in the dark because when you're in an alburgue, and you want to get going before 7:30, you have to make allowances for those that want to keep sleeping.

The albergues usually require the pilgrims out though by no later than 8am.

I then start walking, and will stop at the first cafe to get 3 Cafe Contardos, which are like piccolo lattes. If there's no cafe open, then I just walk. I usually like to put in between 2-3 hrs walk before I take my first stop. Depending on how my pain threshold is, that's somewhere around 8-10kms.

I stop a lot and take photos though, because the light at that time of the day is wonderful. After the break at about 10:30am, I then walk through to 1pm. I've made it mandatory that I stop at 1pm, no matter where I am, and have some lunch.

Usually that lunch constitutes a pear, maybe some cheese, an orange sometimes, sometimes some bread. If I'm feeling depleted of energy before lunch while I'm walking, I'll have a muesli bar.

If there's a town nearby, I'll sometime stop and have a sit down meal – a pilgrims lunch. I'll do a separate post on the pilgrims meals, but basically I usually have lentil soup, grilled chicken, and some ice cream. Walking these kms means you don't have to worry about calories!

What I do after lunch depends on how I feel. I usually like to put in a few more hours, and walk through till about 3pm or 3:30pm. Then I find a place to stay, I have a shower, I do my laundry, hang it out to dry, download my photos that I've taken during the day, and then start my blog.

By then it's dinner time, and then sleep. I'm usually out to it by 9:30pm latest, then up again at about 5:30am the next day. At home I don't usually sleep 8hrs – normally it's about 5-6hrs; but when you're walking between 24-30 kms each day with a backpack, sometimes over mountains, it makes you tired!

Today was another wonderful day of walking. I'd made a mistake yesterday – the Meseta started today. Yesterday's country was a precursor.

I bumped into Ivan the Terrible and his wife Giovanna today. They're the lovely Italian couple who'd guided me beautifully into Burgos. As we approached a huge hill that would take us up onto the plateau that was the Meseta proper, Ivan the Terrible told me something an Italian priest had said about the Camino.

The priest had said that the Camino is like your soul journey. The first third is full of mountains and valleys, full of highs and lows, deep emotions. That's your life. The second stage, you ascend to the Meseta, where it's calm, quiet, transcendent. That's death. And the third stage, after the Meseta and from Leon on heading to Santiago, that's your rebirth.

I looked at Ivan the Terrible in horror, then I looked at the track leading up to the start of the Meseta. Bloody hell mate, i said, does that mean I'm climbing up to my death?

He smiled and shrugged, as Italians do, and I stepped aside and let him go first.

(28kms today to Boadilla del Camino. Got the last bed in one of the most perfect albergues on the Camino. When I walked in, at about 5:30pm after walking for nearly 10 hrs today, about a dozen pilgrims clapped me. I felt very embarrassed. They know I'm in pain, and going slowly. They were very sweet. A shorter day tomorrow.)

Today I learnt some big lessons. Let me explain:

I’ve written before about not planning anything, just intuitively letting The Way guide me to where I should be, where I should stay. Today as it turned out,I really put this to the test.

The municipal albergue at Burgos was packed overnight, and I was woken early by pilgrims packing up and hitting the road before daylight. It seemed that everyone was scared about not getting accommodation tonight. There are only a couple of small towns in this first section of the Meseta, and not many beds.

I was very relaxed about it all. I got up about 6:30am, took my time packing up, and left about 7:30am. It was a beautiful walk out of Burgos, following parkland, but I got a work call which distracted me, and I missed a crucial way marker. Consequently I walked about 1.5kms before I realised I was lost. I walked back, found the track, but noted that I’d put an extra 3 kms on my mileage today because of my inattentiveness.

It took about 10kms before I started to get into the start of the Meseta – but immediately the county changed and it was sublime. Long rolling hills, clumps of white rocks, long winding tracks. It was beautiful weather for walking too – not one single cloud in the sky, a cooling breeze, and the sky blue as blue.

My shin soreness had been problematic – I was in a fair amount of pain for most of the morning, but then either the drugs kicked in, or my body simply got used to the pain, and I began to get a rhythm going. I was going slowly, stopping and taking photos, and averaging only about 3kms per hour.

At about 2:30pm, after walking about 23 kms, I got to where I intended to stay he night – a village called Hornillos del Camino. I realised that I’d been walking since 7:30am and hadn’t stopped for a break. I’d stopped to take photos, but hadn’t actually stopped, taken off my backpack, and taken a breather. That meant I’d been walking 7hrs straigh

I was tired and hungry, so I went into the pub and had a meal, figuring I’d check into the alburgue after that. But a lovely couple from Berkley who I’d met earlier walked in, sat at adjacent table, and told me the town was fully booked. There was not a bed to be had anywhere.

During the walk, I’d been thinking about fear. About the pilgrims who’d left early that morning, scared that they wouldn’t have anywhere to sleep. And I started to think: that must affect their whole day. They would be walking in fear the whole day, and would consider anyone overtaking them as being someone who could be depriving them of a bed. How could they see the beauty around them, how could them stop and look at a church, or an old building? They’d be so intent on getting to their town so they could grab a bed.

And I started to think of how fear rules so much of our lives, every day. Fear of lack. Fear of deprivation. Fear of difference. Fear of change.

Anyway, that’s all well and good, but here I was in this pub, it was 3pm now, and I had nowhere to sleep. The next town was 12 kms away. With the way I was walking, that was about 4 hrs, which without stopping would put me into the next town at 7pm. That’s almost 12 hours walking for the day.

But, I’d just had a good meal, and the way I figured it, the worst that could happen is that I’d to to sleep in a field somewhere. Pull out my sleeping bag and sleep under a tree. In Spain it’s not like Australia – there’s no deadly snakes, spiders, crocodiles or sharks. What could harm me?

So I set off at 3:30pm.

The path was incredible – through some truly glorious country. And strangely, my pain left me. I started to walk with an ease, and a speed, that I’d not experienced before on the camino. And it occurred to me that pain exists within tension. I’d lost my tension. I didn’t care where I ended up for the night. I’d figured out the worst – I’d sleep under a tree. So being relaxed dissipated the pain. It was incredible.

I found that I was walking 5 kms an hour. And surging up hills.

I made it to the village in under 3 hrs. 12 kms. I couldn’t believe it. Not only that, but the village was one of those picture postcard villages. I checked into a Casa rural – for €30 for the night I got a huge room, a luxurious bathroom, and a view out my skylight of the medieval church across the road. I’d done 34 kms for the day.

It couldn’t have worked out better. Because I’d been relaxed about it. Because I’d refused to walk with fear.

The Camino will always provide.

This is an additional post to the previous Day 13 – it’s about my visiting the Burgos Cathedral.

Having previously visited the Cathedrals in Leon, Santiago and Burgos, for me Burgos is the most magnificent. It’s up there with Chatres, The Notre Dame, and St. Paul’s. Celebrated company, I know, but as Cathedrals go, it’s a cracker.

My wife and I had been there two years earlier, and happened to visit during the induction of a bishop or something. It was morning, and i remember the light was shafting down in golden beams, and the cathedral was full of beautiful organ music and the colour and pageantry of religious ritual.

Something to remember.

When I went in yesterday, it was quite late in the day – it was dark, there were tour groups clumping everywhere, and it seemed like a different place. Also, when I’d bought my ticket I was told I only had about 45 minutes before they closed. So I felt rushed. The Burgos Cathedral is the kind of place where you need to take your time.

I wandered around, avoiding the tour groups, and walked into a large alcove off the main chamber. A kind of chapel. Immediately I stepped into that space, I sensed there was something going on in there that I didn’t quite understand, but that it would be my reason for visiting the cathedral.

I was the only person in there, and I was facing a huge and high wall of religious iconography and imagery – sculptures and paintings. In front were two large marble tombs.

But at the base of the tombs was a star, on the floor. It was patterned out of white and black paving stones, and looked like it was centuries old.

I’m always fascinated by what’s on the floors of major religious buildings. I remember a particular stone in the floor of the Angkor Wat temple, in Cambodia. The stone was the spiritual centre of the whole extraordinary temple, and when you stood on it, you felt the energy of the place course through you.

So I stood on this star.

And I felt a similar thing happen.

I looked up, and right above me, directly above me, way way up, was another star, and it was letting in light from the very top of the cathedral. It was focusing energies down from the cosmos through to that star on the floor.

I felt it enter my crown chakra and go straight through me. And then I knew why I’d come to that Cathedral. It was extraordinary. I just stood there, eyes closed, and let that energy swirl through me.

And then I turned away and left. Because that was why I’d come. To stand on that star.

Here’s the thing – we can step on that star whenever we want, in our day to day lives, if we know how. I don’t. I have to walk 300 kms with blisters and sore knees to get there.

A side note – and personal –

Two years ago, when my wife and I were visiting Burgos, we had dinner in a beautiful little restaurant overlooking the Cathedral. Last night I went to that same restaurant, went to the same table, ordered the same meal, then got the waitress to take a picture which I then emailed back to my wife.

My wife was suitably unimpressed, of course.

Why didn’t you go to some place cheaper, she said.

(The view from “our” table.)

Here’s where I slept last night – a beautiful little albergue in Ages, about 25kms from Burgos.

The way I approach where I’m going to spend the night is totally intuitive. I don’t check out the reviews online, or the blogs or forums. I lob into a town, figure this is where I’m going to stop, then I look around for the right place.

And it calls to me.

For instance, yesterday I was going to stay at San Juan de Ortega, which would have represented 24 kms walking for the day. I got there though, and I was pretty knackered, and I saw this big beautiful old stone building, but it didn’t call.

Everyone else I knew who’d set off from Belorado, where I spent the previous night, was going to stay there. And believe me, I was tempted, because I was aching all over, but the place didn’t feel right.

So I kept walking.

The next town was Ages, only 3.5kms away, but at the pace I was walking, that was another hour, and part of it was down a very steep hill. But when I arrived in Ages, I immediately felt I’d got to the right place.

The first albergue I saw looked good, so I walked in and was greeted warmly by this gorgeous Spanish lady. She had kind twinkling eyes, and she immediately made me feel like I’d landed in the right place.

And I had. My room was beautiful, she took care of all my laundry, and I had a great dinner that night, and a good breakfast the following morning.

I later ran into some people who’d stayed at San Juan, and they said it was the the worst night of their journey.

I can’t explain it. So far I’ve only ever had magnificent accommodation, and with wonderful caring people. But I’m not structuring it. I’m doing no planning. I’m approaching this absolutely intuitively.

Now, this is a huge change for me, because usually when I travel I pre plan everything way ahead. I check out all the reviews, I make sure I get the best place for the best price, and I leave nothing to chance.

On the Camino though, I’m letting The Way guide me.

Interestingly, at the dinner table last night was a bloke from Canada who I’d met very briefly at a little eatery in Valcarlos on the very first day. Valcarlos was a small village part way up the Pyrenees, on the way to Roncesvalles. As it turned out, it was from Valcarlos on that it got seriously gnarly.

Anyway, he made the observation that I was a completely different person last night to the person he’d spoken to nearly a fortnight earlier. He said at Valcarlos, I was tense and agitated. Last night I was calm and relaxed.

I told him that at Valcarlos, I was probably tense because I was anxious about what was coming up. I had built up in my mind that haul up the Pyrenees into something quite terrifying. Plus I was jet lagged. I’d flown in from Australia the previous day, and had been awake since 2:30am.

But that aside, I took on board what he said, and wondered if the Camino had been doing some genetic re-engineering in the past fortnight. I feel as though it has.

Today was one of the great days to walk.

Cloud, cool breeze, beautiful country, and at the end of the days walk, one of the great cities of Spain – Burgos.

I went very slowly today. Stopped and took photos regularly. I love the way they stack the hay bales here. I love the textures, and the farmers’ valiant attempts at structure and order, which are forever compromised by the exigencies of nature.

I was passed by two blokes who’d been in my albergue in Pamplona, when I was having real problems with my knee. They were surprised that I’d got so far. They asked if I was going through to Santiago, and I said they’d have to carry me off the Camino in an ambulance before I gave up on Santiago.

Later, I regretted saying this.

Whilst it was a joke, words are powerful. They carry intentions. Powerful intentions. The Universe doesn’t know if you’re joking. It can’t tell. All it gets is that Bill Bennett wants to be carried off the Camino in an ambulance. And, given that the Universe ultimately wants you to get what you want, it might well work towards me being carried off the Camino in an ambulance!

So I had to do some affirmations to tell the Universe that this in fact wasn’t what I wanted – what I wanted was to have an easy and pain free journey through to the end.

You may not believe this stuff, but I do.

The rest of the walk into Burgos was glorious. I met a wonderful Italian couple who guided me along an alternative route, avoiding all the industrial outskirts and traffic and noise. Instead, they took me through a series of parks, which were beautiful and tranquil.

Ivan, his name was (his father named him after the movie, Ivan the Terrible, which was evidently a very big movie in Italy when he was born!) had done the walk into Burgos the previous year, and knew all the shortcuts.

Here’s the thing, I’d been anxious about the last 10kms into Burgos, because I’d read that the traffic was horrible, it was all on main roads, and it was unpleasant. Even the main guide book suggested that pilgrims take a bus to avoid all the chaos.

Yet this bloke, Ivan the Terrible (and his wife Giovanna,) guided me effortlessly into Burgos. They were even prepared to go at my slow limping pace.

I’d said to a couple of people that if a bus pulled up beside me with BURGOS on the front, and the door swished opened and the driver asked me if wanted to hop aboard, I’d do it. But I also said that I’d let The Way guide me.

And it did.

I’m now staying in the Municipal albergue for €5 for the night, (it’s just around the corner from the magnificent Burgos Cathedral), and tomorrow I step out onto the dreaded Meseta. The Messta is a stretch of about 200 kms between Burgos and Leon – and it’s dreaded by some because it’s a long flat largely featureless plain with few villages, hardly any vegetation and shade, and it can have ripping winds and bitter weather.

Some people say it’s mind numbingly boring. Many pilgrims I’ve spoken to have said that they’re going to skip the Meseta altogether and get a bus from Burgos to Leon.

Not me.

For me, this is where the Camino really kicks in. This is where I’ll have the time and the space for real contemplation.They’d have to carry me off in an ambulance for me to miss the Meseta.

Ooooopppps.

This is where I stayed last night, in the Municipal church albergue in Belorado. The price was by donation – I donated €10.

I left early this morning – by 6:30am, after having a wonderful breakfast of coffee and toast and marmalade, made by one of the hospitaleros who was helping run the place.

Truly wonderful people.

This morning was the coldest I’ve experienced so far. There was frost everywhere, and without gloves it was bitterly cold. Clear skies though, and soon the light was soft and golden.

The first section of the walk today was through green cultivated fields, and through a series of small villages. After about 2 hrs, and 8 kms, I stopped for my usual two coffees. There I met up with a young aspiring filmmaker from Austria – Emanuel – whom I’d met briefly yesterday.

We set off together and talked movies – he asked me what was my favourite film of all time, and I told him The Tenant, by Roman Polanski. He’d not heard of Polanski, and then I told him he should look at The Godfather Pts 1 & 2, 2001 A Space Odyssey and Paths of Glory, Blood Simple, Jean Luc Godard’s Breathless, Vertigo, Lawrence of Arabia, and anything that Billy Wilder has made.

I bought lunch today from a supermercado. Big mistake. Yesterday I was caught without anything to eat. I’d walked to a town expecting to either pick up a meal at a pub, or buy something from a store. But there was nothing. No stores – and the only restaurant refused entry to pilgrims. It’s the first negativity I’ve struck on the camino. The owner of the restaurant got quite aggressive when I walked in with my backpack and sticks.

I smiled, wished him Buen Camino, and left.

The reason it was a mistake buying the food for lunch was that I then had to haul it up a series of huge hills. One pear, one orange, one banana, one baguette, one packet of sliced ham, one quadrant of cheese, and a bottle of Gatorade. Doesn’t sound much, but when every gram counts, it was damn heavy.

It was then a long 12 km walk to the next town, and by this stage the sun was high but the wind still had a bite to it. My knee has now settled down – it’s still sore from time to time, but the swelling has reduced back almost to normal. The heel blister is still painful, but it’s on the mend. And the shin soreness has refused to let up. But the best thing for me to do was to walk – and on these long stretches that’s when your mind begins to really kick in on things that have been percolating on the Camino.

What I began to think about was a lovely elderly couple I’d met at the buffet breakfast in the hotel at Santo Domingo. They were doing the Camino in stages – meaning they’d done some of it last year, and they were doing some this year. They always stayed in the best available hotels – never the pilgrim albergues – and they got a transport service to carry their bags ahead.

The woman, when explaining this to me, looked up at me guiltily and said: “We’re not true pilgrims.”

And it got me thinking – what is a true pilgrim?

I noticed that someone had posted on a Camino forum a couple of days ago a comment about my progress, excoriating me for doing a couple of 30km+ days, and saying a “true” pilgrim does about 20-24kms a day.

That too got me thinking.

So I looked up the definition of a pilgrim. It’s a traveler from afar who is on a journey to a holy place. By that definition, the couple from Britain, at the buffet breakfast, were definitely pilgrims. I’m probably more of a pilgrim because I’ve come from Australia, which is further “afar.” Ha ha.

But it’s funny how we like to categorise and judge.

For instance, the bloke who had a go at me for doing a couple of long days – implicit in his criticism of me was that I was somehow less of a pilgrim for going so far each day, and perhaps missing spiritual meaning along the way.

As I did this long hard 12 km stretch, I started to muse –

• What about the person who crawls on his knees carrying a heavy cross on his back, all the way from his front door in Brittany to Santiago – is he more or less a pilgrim than the person who gets off a bus in Sarria and walks with a tourist group the last 100 kms to the Cathedral?
• What about the person who rides a mule, as against the person who rides a mountain bike?
• Way about the person who carries his or her own backpack as against someone who gets it taxied ahead each day?
• What about someone who walks the whole way listening to rap music on their iPod, as against someone who walks with a vow of silence? Or saying their rosary the whole way?
• What about someone who takes a bus for some of the way?
• What about someone who walks with an umbrella instead of a staff, which is what I saw today!

Which are the true pilgrims?

We’re very quick to judge, and to categorise. Making judgements about people, based on the external.

Judgement of others is at the heart of racism, hate crimes, discrimination of all kinds. Judgement makes us feel good, because implicit in judgement is that we’re better than the person we’re judging.

We’re better informed, we’re smarter, we’re more cultured or more sophisticated, we have perspectives or wealth or status that the person we’re judging doesn’t have.

But really, aren’t we all just soul energies swaddled in transient corporeal bodies that soon will decay and die?

What is a true pilgrim? Anyone who takes the pilgrim trail to Santiago. No matter how, or why. It’s what’s in their heart that defines them as a pilgrim, and who are we to know what that is, far less to judge it…

Before I explain the provocative title of today’s post, let me go back to yesterday, and my rest day in Santo Domingo. Man o man, I didn’t realise how much I needed it.

As soon as the Farmacia opened, I hobbled in and asked for some Compeed for my heel blister, which by this stage was humongous. I had already Compeed it, if I can use it as a verb, however I wanted a larger patch. (Compeed is like a second skin that covers the blister and takes out the fluid. Usually it’s very effective.)

Anyway, the Farmacia bloke wanted to see my blister, so I delicately took off my shoe, then my sock, and showed him. His eyes widened in horror, he put his hand to his mouth, stepped back a few paces, then he looked at me gravely and said: Muchos problemo.

Now, I don’t know Spanish but I got the drift.

He wouldn’t sell me the Compeed. He said I had to go to the Municipal Pilgrims’ albergue and see someone there who would advise me what to do.

I had decided not to stay at the albergue – I wanted a private room so had booked into a hotel around the corner, but as it was apparent that the Farmacia would not only not serve me, but he regarded me as toxic goods, so I went around to the albergue.

It turned out that the lady who was at the reception desk was a nurse. I told her the Farmacia bloke had insisted I see her, so she too asked to see my blister.

Muchos problemo, she said, then nearly gagged.

(I’m not posting a photo of the blister out of common decency.)

She then proceeded to tear off the Compeed that was vainly clinging to my heel and the incumbent blister, then she dressed it with Bentadine, then some kind of antibiotic cream, and put a dressing on it.

She didn’t want any payment – this was something that she did for the pilgrims. I pointed out that I wasn’t even staying at the albergue, but that didn’t matter to her. I gave her a big hug, then went back to the Farmacia and bought all the stuff that I needed to carry on the treatment myself.

What an angel she was.

A side note to pilgrims staying in hotels: in the bathroom, the disposable plastic bags for feminine hygiene products are fantastic for holding your toothpaste, or anything else that tends to leak.

I slept in – determined that I would start my new “easy” Camino with the right spirit. Sleeping in for me was 7am. By 8am I’d had my buffet breakfast, and raided it with the same clinical efficiency I’d applied to the bathroom, then I was on my way.

Oh, I forgot about the cock.

Yesterday on the day off, I went to the Santo Domingo Cathedral. It’s very famous, but I didn’t know why when I entered. I was wandering around, and noticed that a young couple had entered too.

Suddenly I heard loud screech, and I turned and saw the girl laughing.

Keep it down guys, I thought. You’re in a church.

I wandered around a bit more, and heard a second screech. Louder this time. I looked around for the young couple, and again they were laughing.

The young have no respect, I thought. If you want to skylark, why don’t you go outside. I’m a pilgrim, after all. Can’t you tell? I’m limping.

And then I saw the girl pointing to something up on one of the walls. I walked over and saw it was a medieval hutch, and inside were a live rooster and a hen. It was the rooster, or cock, that had been making all the noise.

The Cathedral has a wonderful miracle story that goes back centuries, that involves a cock and a hen. And for centuries, there’s been a cock and a hen in a hutch in the church.

I was so quick to judge the young couple. When it was just a cock.

So, this morning I headed off, feeling not so much rejuvenated but a bit stiff and sore. But there were clouds, and it was cool, and great weather for walking, and I soon found my rhythm.

I crossed over the old bridge leaving Santo Domingo and headed into some of the most beautiful country I’ve seen so far.

I took it easy, stopping to take photos regularly. It’s interesting – by the time I actually left the town, it was 8:30am. Normally I’m on the road by 6am or 6:30am latest. And what I found is that a different kind of pilgrim leaves after 8am. The social pilgrim. The casual pilgrim. The pilgrim who is doing the camino in stages and often sends their backpack on ahead in a taxi.

This is something I would never countenance, however I’m not one to judge.

(Witness my judgment of the young couple in the church!)

This morning, there was a group of French pilgrims sauntering along ahead of me, having a great time. They asked me to take their photograph beside a cross by the track – and this I did.

The thing I’ve noticed with French pilgrims – they like to picnic, and they like to pee. Probably because they have wine with their picnics. They’re always picnicking, and always peeing. I saw a French pilgrim today walk past with two Perrier bottles strapped to his chest. No doubt he pees often too.

I was walking into Granon, a beautiful little village, and I saw the Grim Reaper walking towards me. A long way off, on the road up ahead, but wearing a black cloak, a black hood, and holding a silver scythe.

It freaked me out. Surely it couldn’t be the Grim Reaper. But it looked exactly like the Grim Reaper looked in that Bergman film.

I started to wonder, what if it IS the Grim Reaper walking the Camino, walking up to me. What would I do? What would I say? I mean, I know I’ve had my physical difficulties lately, but jeees – it’s just a blister.

I know – Muchos problemo.

Anyway, I figured I’d tell the Grim Reaper that there was a fat bloke behind me who had red blotchy cheeks and was having a hard time on the hills, and he really should go have a chat to him instead.

As it turned out, it wasn’t the Grim Reaper, of course. It was an American lady wearing a poncho with a silver coloured bag slung over her shoulder. She had a radio, or a some kind of tape recorder, because she was blasting out Country & Western tunes as she wandered through the streets of the beautiful village.

I got through to Belorado today – 23 kms. It was a glorious walk. My knee is almost back to normal, the heel blister is on the mend, and the shin soreness is calming down.

Not time for the Grim Reaper yet.

I’ve now walked nearly 250 kms and I’m nearly 30% of the way to Santiago. It’s a good time for me to stop, rest, and reflect on the past 9 days.

I started off this blog with the opening line: “In April I will attempt to walk the Camino.” I didn’t say I would definitely walk it, or complete it, because I figured that was the wrong way to approach this. It would have shown an arrogance and lack of respect for The Way, as they call it. I had no idea, setting out, what obstacles would confront me. That’s why I said I’d attempt it.

I’d prepared meticulously. I’d done my research, I’d trained sufficiently, but I hadn’t over-trained. I’d walked with my backpack loaded, and my boots and socks, trying to simulate as much as possible what I would experience on the Camino. I had good aerobic fitness, I had good core strength, my boots were properly worn in, I had my backpack down to 8.8kgs. I thought I was prepared.

The fact is, nothing can properly prepare you for the Camino.

The Camino is many different things to many people. I’ve now met a lot of folk – some are doing it as a goal oriented exercise. They’ve done the Pacific Crest, or the Appalachain Trail, now they’re doing the Camino. Some seem fixated on getting to the end, and they rush by some extraordinary towns or villages. They don’t stop and visit the churches. Instead they get to the albergue early in the afternoon and they take pride in being the first to do their laundry, get the best bunk, and then they have a beer and watch the other pilgrims stumble in, while they plan the next day’s onslaught.

Others saunter along, have picnics, canoodle with their sweetheart or simply sit in the shade and take a breather, and you sense that they’re not really sure why they’re doing the walk.

Others have obviously very deep personal needs. Perhaps a loved one has died, or they are very sick, and whilst they engage with others on a superficial level, you sense that there is something much deeper going on underneath. I visit churches and I see one or two pilgrims sitting in the front pews, either contemplating or praying.

I am not a Catholic, and I’m not religious as such. On the last census I put down as my religion Buddhist, more because I figured they’ve had a hard time in Tibet and they needed statistical support.

However, I’m conscious that this is a pilgrimage. This isn’t the Appalachian Trail, or the Coast to Coast walk in Britain. This is an ancient pilgrimage route to a Cathedral where the bones of a Saint are supposedly buried. Each day, we walk along a route that Charlemagne and other great men and women of history have walked. We pass by monuments and churches that are over a thousand years old. Literally, millions of pilgrims have done this walk over the last 1400 years.

I believe there is a soul imprint along this route that is the sum residue of all those who have been before. You can feel the energy coming up from the ground. And that soul imprint asks you questions, every step of the way.

Who am I?

What am I doing here?

What matters?

The Camino is ruthlessly and sublimly reductive. It reduces everything down to elemental needs. Each day you walk. You walk sometimes on even steady paths, sometimes up impossibly steep hills, sometimes down rock strewn tracks that a goat would find difficult. You carry on your back everything you need to live. You walk long distances in the heat, the cold, the rain, and sometimes the snow.

This reduces down to: You need to eat and drink. At night you need shelter. You need to stay fit and healthy. And the next day, you need to walk again. And sometimes, the next day you need to rest.

What this reductive process does is it forces you to ask those soul imprint questions. At some point, you can’t avoid it. And it might be months later, after you’ve returned home, that these questions bubble up.

For me, I had a very strong need to do this Camino, and only now am I starting to understand why. But first, let me explain some of my beliefs: I believe we are comprised of three entities; our physical body, our emotional body, and our spiritual body.

It was my spiritual body that compelled me to do this Camino.

It’s been my emotional body that has caused me such pain.

And that pain has manifested in my physical body.

Okay – when I really asked myself what did I want from the Camino, before I left home, the answer came back: humility. I wanted to be humbled. And to learn what humility really is.

Believe me, I’m learning that.

You have to understand that I am intensely competitive, I am dogged and unrelenting in the pursuit of a goal, and I try to be a perfectionist. In saying that I try to be a perfectionist, that means that of course every day I’m disappointed, because perfection is both elusive and illusory. And also, sadly, I’m not a genius. I blame my parents for that.

That aside, every day, I’ve been in pain. Pain from my knee, then pain from my shin, now pain from my blister. And I have to ask myself, why have I brought this on? Why have I made this section of the Camino all about pain? Because I have brought it on myself. I’ve done this to learn some lessons about myself.

I am the kind of person who can push through pain. It becomes meaningless if there is a greater goal to be achieved. But on this Camino, I’ve come to realise that I have 570 kms to go if I want to get to Santiago, and pushing through pain just ain’t gonna work. I’ve got to be smarter than just using my willforce.

In other words, I have to change.

Yesterday I did 35kms. About 20kms in I passed through a small village, and there was a Farmacia open. Under other circumstances, I would have walked right past, doggedly determined to get to Santo Domingo. But yesterday I stopped. And I had to wait for about 20 minutes while an old bloke in front of me had 10 prescriptions filled. Again, under other circustances, I would have harrumphed and impatiently stormed out. But I waited. And finally I was served, and the two chemists treated my shin soreness. The last 15 kms were relatively pain free.

Now, that for me represented change. I know it sounds dumb – that of course I should have sought treatment – but normally I wouldn’t have.

Another thing happened yesterday. I got lost. It was dark, I missed a way marker, and I got well and truly lost in the dark. I finally made my way back, found what I thought was the right track, and headed off. But again, a few kms along and not having seen any of the arrows, I began to believe I was lost again. I’d seen a couple of the blokes from the previous night’s albergue heading down this path, but they’d disappeared. Then I saw them on another track, running parallel to mine.

I yelled out to them and they said that yes, they were on the right track. So I managed to cross over. They were now about a km ahead of me, and because of my injuries, I was going slow. But then they stopped for a break, and I began to approach. These were the blokes I’d been hanging out with, loosely, for the past couple of days.

As I got closer, within about 100m or so, they put their backpacks on and headed off. They didn’t wait for me.

I was upset. Why wouldn’t they wait, just for a minute or two? Even just to say hello? Did they think that because I was going slowly, that they might feel obligated to go at my pace? That I might slow them down?

I felt rejected. Which is stupid really because I didn’t need their companionship. I’ve been walking alone the whole time, and I love walking alone. But even so, I felt this was a personal snub.

So then of course I started to think about all the times I’ve been rejected in my life. I work in an industry where rejection is the norm. After 30 years in the film industry, believe me you know how to emotionally deal with rejection. Those that don’t become teachers.

But with the exhaustion, and the pain, I started to wonder – had I offended them in some way? Had I been too assertive, or not assertive enough? Did they simply not like me? And if so, then why?

And then I checked myself. My emotional body was controlling me. It was manipulating me. It was taking me into dark places. Unnecessary places. It was messing with me. The simple fact is that these blokes were the goal oriented type, and they wanted to get to Santo Domingo fast, and they didn’t want to wait a couple of minutes for a spurious conversation with someone they hardly knew.

It had nothing to do with a personal snub, or whether they liked me or not. It had nothing to do with rejection. That was where my emotional body took me. And that’s what the Camino does – sometimes in the most subtle of ways. It makes you ask questions of yourself.

I’ve always had a hard time dealing with rejection. What I do is personal – making films – and so a lack of critical or box office response can be deemed a personal rejection. You have to put in place very strong psychological scaffolding to prop yourself up sometimes. That’s ok. That’s the life I’ve chosen to live. But yesterday’s little episode brought it all back. The Camino had asked me a question – my emotional body had responded. I then had to put my emotional body back in its box. Or skin.

The other big question the Camino has put to me is this:

Why do I believe that anything worth achieving has to be a struggle?

I’ve brought on this daily pain to make the Camino a hardship. Why? I do truly believe that anything worth achieving has to be hard. I don’t believe that success comes easy. I’m suspicious of easy achievements. So this is what I’ve created for myself on the Camino. I’ve made it hurtful and hard for myself! Well done, Bill! Good work. When you limp into Santiago with permanent physical damage, won’t you feel great! Won’t ypu feel like you’ve actually achieved something!

What total crap.

This is a habit, and a way of thinking, that I have to change. And maybe that’s why I’m doing the Camino. To break that mindset that in fact has been limiting me all my life.

Why can’t worthwhile things come easy? Why can’t I have a pain free Camino? Why can’t this be a magnificent joyful experience?

You know what I did yesterday? I brought a big block of chocolate. I put it in my jacket pocket, and as I walked, whenever I felt miserable or sore, I had some. It was great. And today, having a rest day, I feel my energies recharging, the soreness leaving my body, and soon I’ll wander around this ancient town and tonight I’ll have a good meal, and I won’t in any way feel guilty for not continuing on today, or feel as though I’ve under-achieved.

Having a rest day isn’t only about giving your body a break. It’s also about reflecting on what you’ve learnt, or the questions the Camino has asked of you. That to me is the real benefit of taking time out. Because this is more than just a walk through Spain. This really is a spiritual journey. This is a journey that asks you to change your fundamental thought patterning. To break old well worn habits.

So tomorrow I’ll walk The Way again, and I’ll try and make it easy. Because why should it be hard?

Bill

The albergue I was in last night was beautiful – the San Saturnina in Ventosa. Two German blokes run it, and when I appeared in the door, one helped me off with my backpack, and the other handed me a glass of col water with a sprig of mint in it. They couldn’t have been kinder.

My room, (€9 for the night) was a small dorm of about 8 beds. Each was full, and in fact the whole albergue seemed to be full – about 20 beds – but even so, that represents a fairly empty Camino. What happened to the hundred odd pilgrims that started off from St. Jean my morning? And more started their Camino from Roncesvalles. Most of the Spanish pilgrims start there, and others who don’t want to do that brutal first day’s climb from St.Jean.

I’ve personally been aware of several who have dropped out already because of injury – back, leg pain, blisters. Then there have been others who only intended to do a week, because of work commitments. Each day, I walk and I hardly see anyone.

Today was glorious. A perfect day for walking, with cool temperatures and cloud. It wasn’t the best for my photography, but it was great for walking.

I woke up early, and was out of the albergue by 6am. I had a notion of getting to Santo Domingo de la Calzada, a beautiful medieval town, but it was 32 kms away, and I didn’t want to push it. I’d already done two 30km+ days the previous two days.

About an hour into the walk I realised I was lost. This Camino is very well marked, with the yellow arrows everywhere, and signs too, often. But in the dark, and way out in the countryside, I must have missed a marker because I walked probably a kilometre and a half before I discovered I was going the wrong way.

I backtracked, and saw some pilgrims who’d stayed at the albergue, and they’d picked up the marker, because it was lighter by then. So I followed them, and walked 12 kms into the small town of Najera. So by 9 am I’d walked about 15kms!

I stopped and had brekkie – three meatballs and three coffees. I’d also picked up a big juicy apple from a market, and had that too. Then I set off again.

I went slowly – everyone passed me! – but I stopped regularly to take photos. By the time I’d done about 20 kms though, my shin soreness was starting to be very bothersome, so in the next village I stopped into a Farmacia and two lovely ladies applied some magic cream that took the pain away almost immediately, then they strapped my lower tibia with crepe bandage.

If there are angels on this Camino, then those two ladies in the Farmacia were angels.

Then I shifted into a truly magnificent walk, through open fields with cultivated vineyards, and splashes of yellow flowers. The road surface was good, and the kms just seemed to whizz by.

A lovely middle-aged French couple from Lyon stopped and we had a chat, then the bloke asked if I wanted my picture taken, so I said ok. Then off they went at a good clip.

At about the 25km mark I stopped at a town that I was thinking I’d hole up in, but it was soulless, with a lot,of new subdivisions around a swanky golf course. So I kept going to Santo Domingo, which is where I am now.

Including the kms getting lost, I did about 35kms today. And you know what? I’m staying here two days. I’ve booked into a nice hotel just opposite the magnificent cathedral, and I’m going to rest and take it easy.

There’s plenty to look at in this town, plus I just need to recharge. Let my legs and my feet recover. The blister on my heel has taken on a life of its own, and I want to see if rest, along the magic cream and the crepe bandage, cures the shin soreness. My knee has been pretty good the last couple of days. I think the combination of the Voltaren cream, the Nurofen, and in particular the walking sticks, have helped a lot.

The sticks have been revelatory. What was I thinking poo-pooing them? I can’t imagine doing the Camino now without them.

So tomorrow I sleep in, have breakfast at the hotel buffet, wander around town, and basically let my soul catch up with my body. Also tomorrow I’m going to write a post about what I’ve learnt so far on the Camino. Already I’ve learnt a lot!

Outside cemetery in Los Arcos.

Think about that – You are who I was, and I am who you will be.

Today I walked 30 kms. The last eight were SO DAMN HARD. My pain du jour was my shin soreness. Oh yes, and now my blister on my heel. I have a triumvirate of pain – a Triumvirate of Pain – that shifts allegiance between my knee, my shin, and my blister. It does this with exquisite timing, and calculated indifference.

My knee has quietened down somewhat, probably because it is bathed in a Nurofen glow. It could also be that my knee realises that I'm not going stop, no matter what kind of fuss it kicks up, so it's retreated to sulk. But every now and then it slams doors and spits the dummy, just to remind me that it has some relevance in my pathetic life, that's been reduced to getting up, walking, eating, drinking, doing my laundry, eating, drinking, applying Voltaren, having my Nurofen, and going to sleep.

The walk out of Viana was beautiful, coming into the big town of Logrono. I had breakfast by the cathedral – two coffees and a bread roll with beautiful Spanish cured ham. Total cost? €3.60. In Australia, one coffee alone costs $3.60 to $4.

It took hours to walk through the outer suburbs of Logrona. There was an exercise path that a lot of locals were using – I was constantly passed by old men out on their constitutional, or walking their dog. They left me in their dust.

I thought – hey mate, I'm going to Santiago. I'm not walking the dog. Fuck you. Well, actually i'm a pilgrim and pilgrims don't think curse words. But I am going slowly, because of my Triumvirate of Pain.

Today I thought, okay I'm going slow, but I'm like an ocean liner. I just keep going. Nothing will stop me.

Then I thought of the Titanic.

I got to a beautiful little town called Navarette by lunch time. I went into the church and saw a painting of Jesus wearing a skirt. Jesus cross dressing? That was weird. I quickly left, and didn't leave a donation.

It was meant to be only 8 kms to the next town, Ventosa, but by his stage it was hot and there was no shade and the road was interminable. It just didn't seem to end. An Italian lass from Lake Como sauntered by dressed in caravanseri pants and a silk shawl, as only an Italian lass from Lake Como could do walking the Camino. She didn't seem to be walking at all fast but soon she was just a mirage.

That's how slow I'm going.

But I got there. I got to the albergue, pulled off my sock and I got squirted by a jet of fluid from my blister. Thanks for the 30 kms today, it seemed to be saying.

(I've spared you the photo. That will be in the Director's cut of this blog.)