Camino Day 3: Grado to Cornellana

We were awoken by multiple slamming doors at 7am... just in time for the pilgrim's breakfast downstairs in the bar. While the doors couldn't be helped, since they were not well aligned, there was a lot of loud talking in the hallway, which we found very inconsiderate. While Cathleen tried to catch a few more winks, I went down to hotel bar to get breakfast myself. I was surprised to find it full of police. I ordered the 2,5€ house breakfast and was rewarded with a truly great coffee and the biggest croissant ever.

I caught Sophie just as she was leaving. She had tried to get a room at the hotel last night, but it seemed that the Danes had scored the last room when they phoned from the bar at lunch. So Sophie ended up in a multi-bedroom apartment with about 5 other pilgrims. It was nice to know that even when the hotel was full, they tried to find something for pilgrims.

While noshing, I eavesdropped on what was going on. It seemed that two pilgrims had their cell phones stolen from their room. I gathered that the police didn't believe them. By that time Cathleen had come down, and I caught her up to speed. She said she heard someone trying the doors to various rooms last night, including ours, but because we had the deadbolt engaged, the man could not enter. She went to tell the police, dragging along a German to translate. (We had joked that when in doubt, find a German, as they can usually speak several languages, including English!) After speaking with the couple, we discovered that they had not engaged the deadbolt on their door.

Afterwards, the couple came over to chat with us. The man, Christian from Quebec, asked the host for the biggest coffee they offered. He laughed when he got a small cup like mine. The woman, Sam from Florida, wondered if they were targeted because of her brand new iPhone 6. Her locate-me app showed her phone at the airport (also available for android, FYI).

Feeling very proud of our safety precautions, we finished our breakfasts and headed out on our Camino.

The day's goal was Cornellana: about 11km over a mountain. As you will discover, I added an accidental 3.5km onto that, while Cathleen went along our planned route.

It was tough to see the path out of Grado. The path left the highway not far after our hotel, but the marker was not obvious. As we stood there, more confident pilgrims passed us and basically showed us the way (the little alley in the centre of the photo below).

The sun beat down on us as we headed up the first of many hills that day. Where blue hydrangeas lined the path, we stopped and put on suntan lotion. Sophie waved and passed us. Eyeing the mountains ahead, we wondered whether the part would take us over the top or through the valley (spoiler: over the top).

Near San Juan de Villapañada, I decided to detour to the parish church. Cathleen wanted to find a shady resting spot to change her bandage wraps on her toes, which would give me time to bop over to the church and back again. It was supposed to be a 1.5km detour, but I took the wrong turn. When I got to where I thought it should be, I looked up and it was on the hill above me. I almost just went back to Cathleen, but something called me up to the church anyway. As I approached the albergue, a man and woman were outside doing yard work, and said "Hola" as I passed. Just past them, I found a lovely brown and black raptor feather. It had a tiny bit of green iridescence at the tip. I decided that it was probably the main reason I was called to the church, as the church itself was closed.

Right after the church I noticed a Camino way marker pointing onward to Cornellana. I groaned upon realizing I could have just kept going instead retracing my steps back down the hill then back up the other hill to meet up with Cathleen. I almost continued onward, thinking we'd meet up at the next bar, but then thought better of it. She would be concerned if I didn't appear behind her as we planned.

After my extra 3.5km, I was moving pretty slowly up the hill to Cathleen. I worried that I had spent too long on my detour, but then reassured myself that if I was slow on the hill, that Cathleen would have also been slow on the hill. As it happened, she was shocked that I caught up with her just minutes after she had arrived at the pilgrim's fountain. Sophie was there too, taking advantage of the cold water and nice shade. I soaked my face, arms, and decolletage, and drank several bottles of water. They point out an albino tadpole among the others in the pool. I loved the yellow flowers on the side of the road.

We parted ways with Sophie. Cathleen and I collect crystals from the road. Quartz and what looks like celestite. Most of the crystals are too large for us to carry, but we manage to find a few small ones. Looking up, I could only articulate, "Hey!! Hey!!" as a brown and black raptor slowly floated low overhead. I couldn't get my camera up in time, but I was positive the coloring matches my feather.

There was another church on a small detour, but I just couldn't face another hill in the heat. So I took a photo and kept going.  This section had some really great unique handmade Camino signs.

We saw a trail elevation sign with a snail crawling its way across. Cathleen joked that it was her. We talked a little about our walking styles mirroring our habitual lifestyles: her slow and steady, me alternating speediness with stops. We really did appear to be the tortoise and the hare. ;)  We wondered whether that was a pattern we wanted to continue, in walking or in life.

We passed many fountains, which was really good because the sun was hot and we had walked over LOTS of hills. Some fountains were quite old (eg 17thC), while others looked very modern.

The trail went on the highway a bit, then along a trail beside a creek. The turn in Sprigs was not well marked, so I waited for Cathleen to catch up, and we walked through the church to Bar La Capacita. The gang was all there for lunch.

I let Christian use my phone to call his friend in Oviedo for a ride and a cheap replacement phone. Sophie told us how she fell in the mud right before town, where the path followed the creek.

Sophie and I got the biggest chorizo sandwiches in the world. I saved half for later, as I was almost out of cheese and bread.

After lunch, we walked following Christian and Sam. They taught us a Camino song that another pilgrim had made up, and shared their favorite Camino moment so far: walking in a queue with a half a dozen other pilgrims, singing.  Such different preferences from me. To each their own Camino!

The path alternated between highway and small rough rocky trails. The footpaths ran steeply downhill, then again ran alongside a creek.

Due to our natural walking paces, it was hard for me not to catch up to Christian and Sam. They were chatting, and I wanted to walk in silence. I could have passed them, but then I would have had to leave Cathleen too far behind. We had been spacing ourselves really well so far, and I wanted to stay within sight range.  So I felt a little stuck behind Sam and Christian, unable to walk at my natural pace. When I tried to walk more slowly, my joints hurt from the awkward positions. So I would walk until I nearly caught up to them, then found "something to do" that would let them pull ahead again. I took photos, added pins to my map, admired the view of the river, smelled the flowers... Sometimes I simply stopped walking and stood still on the trail, waiting until I could not hear Sam's voice any longer, before resuming my pace.

I thought back to the conversation Cathleen and I had about walking styles. I wondered how much I did this pattern of making-myself-"busy"-in-order-to-slow-myself-down in regular life. Maybe, despite appearances, I was actually *not* so naturally busy in my life, that is, maybe I didn't really have "so much I needed to do" -- maybe I continually made myself "busy" in order to slow myself down as I sped through life at a naturally high pace? Was I uncomfortable with that fast pace? And if so, why? And where would I go if I did just threw out the throttle and let 'er rip?

As I caught up to Sam and Christian again, I noted how well they were coping with their hardship by sticking together: they were holding hands as they walked their Way.

After crossing a bridge over a river reminiscent of the Similkameen, the path wound down the river to the albergue. We arrived at the Monastery of Cornellana just in time, it seemed, as the dorms were empty as we arrived, but full just minutes later.

We really should have done laundry when we arrived and saw others using the machines and hanging clothes pegged to Sun drenched lines. Our clothes were all stinky. However, the river had called to me, and as it turned out, to both Sophie and Cathleen, and we decided to lock our packs in the lockers provided, and head back to the river.

We ended up having to walk all the way back to the park before the bridge before we could find an entrance to the river. It was worth it!! Cool and clear, we waded in up to our hips. We saw others swimming into the centre. In the water were tadpoles, little and big fish, and Sophie worried about snakes. Cathleen thought there would more likely be leeches than snakes. But the water was so clear, and we were on a debris-free bottom, so I didn't worry.

I stayed in as Cathleen and Sophie retired to a log on the riverbank, dangling their feet. Soon, Sophie was screeching and leaping up out of the water: "A leech on my leg!!" We peered into the water where she was sitting, and sure enough, there was the biggest leech any of us had ever seen. She had felt it start to clamp on, and managed to brush it off in time. While that marked the end of Sophie's swim, Cathleen and I went back in for another dip. We just made sure to stay clear of the log!!

While standing in the river taking photos, my phone started ringing. I panicked. It was probably Christian's friend calling back. I let it ring until I realized that she probably spoke French, not Spanish, and answered. She asked if Christian was there and I explained that he was still at the albergue, whereas I was in the river!  She asked me to tell him that she was leaving Oviedo and on her way, if I saw him.

After our dip, we sat in the park and had a beer. We shared our stories of why we were doing the Camino. Sophie's was strikingly similar to ours!!  We saw many parallels: Cathleens husband's illness; Sophie and my dad's illnesses.  Plus, both of our grandmas had just died right before we left. Sophie had passed up the chance to do her Master's degree in Switzerland to stay home and care for her ailing grandmother.

We talked about the stress of an illness dragging on for years without resolution, the daily uncertainty of "is today the day?", the way people feel uncomfortable about it and around you, acting like it's a special time, when it can be your daily existence for years, the pain of being unable to solve a loved one's problems, despite all efforts.

We each shed tears. We could have each benefited from shedding many more. I realized that this was probably why we kept running into Sophie over and over again, when she was supposed to on a different walking schedule.

I used energy work the whole time to destress and integrate all our stories. I was happy that we could shift some of these issues together.

Back at the albergue, Christian's friend had arrived. They were going to get a ride back to Oviedo, and then take a bus back later to resume their Camino. Apparently, Sam had run into many more issues on her Camino than we knew: her luggage was sent to her home instead of Spain, she lost her credit card, and then her iPhone was stolen. She needed to go deal with all that before restarting, and Christian would go with her. Cathleen and I decided to do more clearing and grounding.  ;)

For supper, I went to the kitchen to make more couscous and ratatouille. With an actual stove to boil water, it works perfectly. Lol.  (cf. yesterday's couscous fiasco.)

Looks pretty fancy, eh? I was impressed. It was delicious. :D

A pilgrim tried to convince me to use the microwave, "like she always does," while simultaneously telling me how she didn't have one at home and didn't believe in them. Um, something in there just didn't add up.  I noticed I've been very sensitive to BS today. As usual, I automatically asked myself if I'm currently BSing myself. When I mentioned it to Cathleen later, she said I was unusually social at lunch. She also mentioned that the same pilgrim was yelling (non-applicable) albergue rules at Sophie, as if she owned the albergue.

While the pilgrims we have been encountering have been all pretty nice people, there were some pretty grumpy pilgrims there at the monastery. I thought that they were probably walking too far and carrying much. That is, without proper training. They were saying things like, "Yeah, of course all this sucks, but you push through it and find out how much you can bear..."  Um no... I offer the idea that a person could alternatively prepare and practice, and then know exactly how much they could bear and avoid injury! They seemed grumpy at my response. Lol. I guessed our goals were different. Many people must walk the Camino for the express purpose of challenging themselves. I had been challenging myself beyond my limits for years. I did not need to push myself  any further.

I took the couscous back to our dorm and asked Cathleen if she wanted to share any of my supper stuff.

I found her in her bunk. She seemed to be melting down. Cathleen was tired and sore, with blisters, pushing too hard, with no sleep. She cried that everything was the same as her life back home. But she also didn't seem to be doing anything to fix that. She kept saying she's a writer and needs to write, but she wasn't writing. She kept saying she needed more sleep, but then continued to do other things besides nap, and stayed up late instead of going to bed early. She kept saying she needed to do things off our wellness list, but I wasn't sure that she was doing much of that either, besides crying each day, which she might have done at home anyway. I had definitely heard her muttering, "it's OK to be upset... It's OK to be grumpy..." on the trail.

I was worried that she had only had a pastry, a beer, and a power bar that day. She refused to go out to eat supper in town with Sophie, then refused to share my food. But she had nothing but power bars in her pack, which is what she also ate for lunch. Then I told her that there was free pasta in the kitchen cupboard (leftovers from other pilgrims), and she looked doubtful about that too. I had gone back to the kitchen to eat my meal, when she finally showed up at the kitchen to make pasta.  Yay! She made stars pasta. I got to tell my joke:

¿Cuántas estrellas hay en el cielo? (How many stars are in the sky?)

Cincuenta. (Fifty. It's a pun: "sin cuenta" means “countless.”)

I got a laugh out of Sophie. Sophie was concerned that her book had gone missing. It was a really great book-- the only one I've seen that is only about the Primitvo, which also means it's short and light. I remembered seeing a book and map in the albergue office, and with 10 mins before closing, she grabbed them for insurance. I told her to grab a map for Cathleen, because she came without any maps, despite me sending her my HERE maps login and several PDFs she could have printed out. It seems that many pilgrims travel without maps, but I don't have that kind trust!!

(But maybe I should, since later, we learned that Sophie had dropped her book on the way back from from the river, and someone had tied it to a tree, where another pilgrim had seen it and told Sophie where to look. A Camino miracle!!)

I headed to bed. I had learned in albergues to get to sleep while everyone was at supper. Then it was possible to get a few hours in before they came back, make a racket, and started snoring. ;)