Korean Sisters and Walking Downhill

I awoke early in Los Arcos.  Still unaccustomed to leaving on my own, it was a little unnerving to walk into the darkness with no one to make metaphorical light with conversation.  

The normal routine for most pilgrims seemed to be to stop for a drink and maybe breakfast around 8:00 or 9:00. The French way goes through so many towns that you have your choice of quiet plazas and scenic terraces.  

That morning I happened upon the Korean women I had met just past the field of dead sunflowers.  They didn’t mind at all that I joined them walking from the cafe and we moved quickly from acquaintances to friends to Korean sisters!  Ha and Kim, despite their youthful appearances, were nearing 40 and were best friends who owned a popular restaurant in Seoul.

Kim!

I am crazy about South Korea and at that point, having just left a few months before and so very in love with a South Korean man, I was starving to talk about this fantastic country.

My key to charming Koreans is to say some Korean idioms that mean, “I am a frog in a well,” and “My life is a chipmunk running on a wheel.” This was both impressive and amusing to my new friends and soon they insisted that I am secretly Korean (though I know very little Korean other than those phrases).

Ha, had also sent her bag ahead to Logrono, but to a different hostel.  We were lucky because the way that day was long and tiring. Despite the difficulty, the time went quickly with lots of talking and laughter.

Walking downhill is what really put painful pressure on my knee I discovered, thanks to the many hills that day. Even without a pack I was hurting more and more. Ha and Kim had a kind of maternal feeling toward me and Ha insisted that I use her knee brace for a while.

The effect was magical! I could continue with barely any pain going uphill or down.

In the next town we stopped in a pharmacy and I bought my own knee brace. Considering it an early birthday present for myself. 

Modeling my new knee brace in front of a church

The last kilometers into Logrono were slow and hard. While walking on the camino small towns seem to sneak up on you and then sneak past you just quickly. Yet, the larger cities such as Logrono were torture to walk through.  We only needed to reach the city center to find our hostels, but my dear Korean sisters were exhausted and we walked so slow it seemed the center got farther away instead of closer.

We were sad to part when we found tourist information and realized our hostels lay in different directions. I promptly got lost upon leaving them and just wandered until I found a helpful Spaniard who informed me I was holding my map upside down.

My backpack had made it safely to the hostel and I actually enjoyed meeting some new people, though I missed my other friends.  A gay Arab man, also from Florida, had a nice chat with me and I enjoyed a longer conversation with a German girl named Mica. She had spent 9 weeks in India recently so I picked her brain about her perception of Indian culture.

These dogs barked at every pilgrim entering Logrono.

I think she would have liked us to go to dinner together, but I had already bought some food to eat at the hostel and the introvert in me looked forward to a dinner alone.

That evening I went through my pack and separated out the things I hadn’t really used or didn’t think I would need. My pack wasn’t too much lighter, but it felt good to minimize. 

One thing I loved about the camino was the simplicity of carrying everything you need upon your back. Thinking of my boxes, drawers, and suitcases of stuff at home I realized there was nothing I missed.  The farther I walked the less importance material things possessed. If anything carrying my items as a literal burden made me wish that I could make do with even less.

The Day I Meet Marc

The next day I left the hostel with Pauline while the sky was still dark. On the way out we left our donations in a wooden box. Most hostels were 5-10 euros a night, but this one ran entirely on donations. 

A Hungarian man Pauline had spoken to the day before started out with us as well. I felt a lot of pity toward him because he didn’t seem to speak any of the languages commonly spoken by pilgrims. No French, Camille’s mother-tongue, and little to no English or Spanish. He seemed a little lonely and with good humor attempted wordless communication.

I was tired from the day before and my knee seemed to be getting worse. Generally, the other two walked ahead of me as the sun rose. We stopped for a coffee (tea for me) in a small town around 8:00. Toward the end of our break another pilgrim sat down at a table across the terrace. He was tall with black hair and a scruffy face. He wore a beret so I thought he might be French. After sitting he smiled and petted the cats that roamed outside every Spanish cafe waiting for treats. I wanted to invite him to join our table, but was distracted when a van ran into a pole near us. Pauline, the Hungarian man, and I left shortly after.

Cafe Cat

Finally, it was my turn to be left behind. I didn’t try to force myself into a faster pace to match the other two, but relaxed and enjoyed the morning. Before long they were deep in conversation ahead of me, visible only because the land was mostly flat. 

I didn’t have solitude for long though. The man I had seen earlier caught up with me and asked, “Are you ok?” I was confused because I didn’t realize I was noticeably limping, so I just responded, “Yeah! How are you?”

We started introductions then and I learned that this was Marc from Switzerland.  Marc had the same pace as me and we walked together comfortably. For a while, I worried that he was walking with me out of pity, but soon I realized our steps matched naturally. We didn’t talk about anything deep that morning, however I was interested to hear about Switzerland, having never met someone from there. 

We caught up with my two former companions for a little while and discovered that they were drawing pictures on a small pad of paper and passing it back and forth to explain their reasons for being on the camino. It was beautiful example of cross-cultural communication.  

It was embarrassing to realize that I didn’t know what language Marc spoke, having come from Switzerland, but I felt better when he informed me that Italian, French, and German are all national languages. He was a German speaker and we discovered our Hungarian friend didn’t speak any German either.  Those two walked a ridiculously fast pace even while drawing pictures and soon Marc and I fell back again.

I had already decided that I wanted to stop early that day and rest after the long day before. The morning before Bert had treated me to a tea, so to pay it forward I offered to buy Marc a coffee in Los Arcos where I would stay.  We talked easily while I waited for the hostel to open and he asked my permission to smoke a cigarette. He told me it was his plan to quit while walking the camino. He was 29 and  ten months and had read somewhere that if you quit before age 30 your lungs can completely heal. 

We said goodbye when I went to check into my hostel. Then, before I even had a chance to shower Marc walked into the same hostel, having decided to stay as well.  I was glad because Marc had a nice presence and I quiet energy that I enjoyed. He didn’t fill every moment with talking and even our silence was relaxed.

That night I had pizza and sangria as I learned from Marc about the Swiss governmental system. We ate in an open square on the edge of the camino and I saw Simon, Bert, Ha, and Kim pass through or stop to eat in the same square. A lot of my favorite people in the same town!

This pilgrim must have slept in this stone shack.

My knee and back were really bothering me that night so I decided to treat myself and send my backpack ahead. At nearly every hostel you could find information about a service which for 5 or so euros would drive your backpack to your next hostel.  The main downside is that you then have no flexibility it where you will stay. You choose the albergue without looking at it. To me it was important to walk a day without my pack to test if my knee was getting worse from the strain of the weight. The recommended weight for your pack is 10% of your body weight and mine was about 6 pounds heavier than that. 

That night I also treated one of my first blisters with some compeed Marc gave me. My shoes were only $20.00, but had comfortable insoles. Compared to most pilgrims’ they were very lightweight and were barely intended for hiking. I loved them though because I had yet to get a single blister on my heels. Two of my toenails were turning black from walking downhill, but that was comparatively painless. 

In so many ways I counted myself lucky. It was not even a week into my journey and I’d had so many unforgettable experiences. My health was good overall and I continued to look forward to every day as a new adventure.

Every Step Forward Leads to a Friend

The next morning I woke at 6 and started to pack, unsure if I would even be able to say goodbye to Kyle, Kevin, and Ally.  Kyle was up and expecting it. “So you’re going, huh?” was all he really said. 

Kevin and Ally were also awake as I left. They walked me to the door and we said goodbye and hugged. 

Leaving in the cold dark morning was depressing, but I had to go while I still had resolve. I shed a few tears as I walked away from the albergue. It felt like such a final goodbye. Camino friends are different from ‘real life’ friends. When you walk with someone on the way for even a few hours you can (though not always) have an openness and a connectedness that you might never have with someone you call a friend in the outside world.  I had walked with Ally, Kevin, and Kyle for nearly a week and imagined walking all the way with them. Saying goodbye seemed all the more tragic because I had a feeling they would not be completing the journey at all. 

(I found out later that they headed to Greece to recuperate and later Kyle went home early after having a falling out with the other two.)

One thing I was worried about before starting the camino was getting lost. I have an unimaginably horrible sense of direction. Thankfully, the way was almost always well-marked with arrows and shells. In the near perfect darkness, I spotted first a shell and then an arrow that seemed to point directly at a road. I started walk hesitantly because this road seemed built for cars and there were no other pilgrims around.  About 500 feet down the street I heard a voice call out behind me, “Are you sure this is the way?” I was absolutely unsure so I responded, “No, I have no idea.” and walked toward the voice. 

Back at the shell I saw that the arrow pointed, not toward the road, but to another arrow which lead to a hidden pilgrim’s path. So, I started along the right path with my savior companion, Bert. 

Bert proved to be a burly, Irishman, who I talked to easily from the start. Somehow the conversation turned to the night in Pamplona. I mentioned that a drunk man had interrupted the sleep of those in my hostel. To my surprise, Bert had been in that hostel as well. Not only that, the inebriated man who yelled insults and tried to start fights that night, was his brother. That morning Bert had left before even Kyle, Ally, Kevin, and I. 

“I’m so ashamed!” He cried in that early morning darkness. I patted his arm gently and tried to comfort him, “You don’t have to bear your brother’s shame.” 

“But I have,” he answered, “My whole life I have.” 

I was crying a bit too by then, so sad for this broken-down man I barely knew.

He told me about his life for most of the morning; tons of siblings raised in poverty by an alcoholic father who drank away most of their money. When we passed lush garden Bert told me as a child he would have cleaned out everything edible without a second thought.

All his brothers, not just the one I had encountered, had fallen into addiction. 

Bert’s salvation from the same fate was his beloved wife and soul-mate.

Bert and I walked together for about seven hours that day. He was pre-diabetic and had had a heart attack, so the going was slow but the conversation was worth it. We had reached such a strong point of closeness within half an hour that morning so from then on we were open about everything. We talked a lot about love. I told him about my long-distance boyfriend and he gave his advice about how to know if it was a right relationship. I trusted Bert’s advice (I still today ask his opinions over email) about love especially because of the way he talked about his wife. You could see that he believed he had the best woman in the world and he was made a better man from trying to be good enough for her.

Bert and I came to truly trust and respect each other that morning. He made me laugh, telling me I’d be a real catch in Ireland. 

When we were hungry, Bert and I stopped at a small courtyard with a fountain to eat the typical camino meal of bread and cheese.  There we met Kevin, one of the happiest people I’ve ever had a chance to meet.  He’d started walking in his home-country, Belgium and run out of money in France.  Since then he had slept in church doorways and used fountains to wash his clothes and body.  To make money for food he performed with his diablo on town streets, with his camino shell welcoming spare change.  Phil and I gave him our own donation and he rewarded us by putting on a little show just for us. 

We didn’t walk on with Kevin because his pace was far faster than Bert’s and mine, as he had been walking for several months. 

Soon, Bert and I ran into George, a British friend who would sleep late and then catch up to Bert nearly every day. We walked together along a Roman road and enjoyed each other’s company. 

I began getting a little restless as the afternoon sun baked us and I was far from where I wanted to end up for the day. Then, a French girl walked by and we struck up a conversation. Before I knew it I was matching her pace and we had left Bert and George far behind. I tried not to feel bad about leaving my knew friends. It is the way of the camino to walk together and walk apart. I had a strong feeling that I would see Bert again anyway.

Pauline, my new companion, was a very fit woman about my own age. She had walked 40-50 kilometers the previous days and didn’t seem tired at all. We had both spent long periods of time in Asia, her in China and me in South Korea so we enjoyed trading stories of our experiences. 

Eventually the conversation turned to our reasons for doing the camino. Pauline told me that a few months ago the brakes on her bicycle had failed, causing her to be hit by a car. She shattered the car windshield with her body and left it in bad condition, but when the paramedics arrived they found her injuries were nothing more than a few scrapes and bruises.  In fact, her heart rate was not even raised. By logic, she should have died. This experience led her to collect the prayer requests of her friends and family and start the camino.

Pauline and I both stayed in the town of Estella that night. Walking from the village entrance to the hostel took what seemed an infinity and it was late afternoon. We were lucky to get the last two beds in a hostel that charged only whatever donation you could give. 

While waiting for a shower, I turned my head and there was Simon, the German guru!

I was surprised to see him and happily called him over. He’d gone slow the last days due to knee problems. After making introductions I invited both Pauline and Simon to dinner that evening.

We had a lovely dinner together in the square of Estella. It was hard to believe that that same morning I’d felt so alone as I left my closest camino friends behind.  Simon, Pauline, and I spent three hours in the square, talking, joking, and laughing. We were from three different cultures and three different backgrounds. It seemed almost fantastical that by chance we would be here together on the way. 

We walked back to our hostel slowly that night, aching from our sore bodies, but also savoring the beautiful evening.

A Difficult Ending

After our day of the rest, Kyle, Kevin, Ally, and I were motivated to wake up before most of the other pilgrims and get started, even after the fiasco the night before. To our surprise, the drunk man, who we had only seen shadowed in darkness, was still awake and still completely wasted.  He was apparently past the loud and aggressive stage, but every time there was a small sound he would theatrically mime throwing a bowling ball and seemed to expect us all to laugh. We thoroughly ignored him and headed out into the deep darkness to begin our day.
The way through the city was easy to find by following the shells that were cemented into the ground every 50 feet or so. I was happy, energetic, and enthusiastic to be walking. Things weren't so bright for the others in my group. Kyle's waist buckle snapped and without it all the weight of his backpack would be dangerous for his back and shoulders. He rigged another one somehow, but felt very low. His sister and her boyfriend were also feeling negative and though I tried to encourage them, but Ally was in pain from her feet, Kevin didn't like walking in darkness, and Kyle had a whole slew of concerns I could do nothing about.
Even so, that morning was filled with promises from Kyle that he would finish this journey. He earnestly told me, "All my life when something gets hard I say 'fuck this' and quit. I need to prove to myself and everyone that I can finish."
I was rooting for him and really wanted us to walk into Santiago de Compostela together someday.

Not long after sunrise I began to walk ahead of my friends. It is very difficult to stay at a pace which isn't natural to you and I felt really great walking my own pace. It was my first time really walking alone and while I enjoyed the solitary reflection I also missed companionship. So, I waited on a bench in a field of dead sunflowers. For twenty minutes I sat and enjoyed an apple, looking anxiously for Ally, Kevin, and Kyle. Finally, I moved on again until I came to a small town with little more than a church.

Dead sunflowers

Waiting there allowed me to meet Ha and Kim, two South Korean women walking the camino together. They gave me a croissant and we talked happily about their country. After we took some pictures together they moved on and I sat alone in front of the church.
Before too long I heard a familiar, loud, American voice and soon I could see Kyle and the others coming my way. I was so relieved to be in their company again. I had been worried that something bad had happened and that maybe I would never see them again and never know what happened.
We ate happily together and then set out again at a very slow pace. Kyle was in obvious pain and though the way was easy and the weather nice it seemed like he might not make it.

An iconic camino picture spot

Around 1 PM we were still 7 kilometers from where we planned to stop, despite our early start. Kyle wanted to keep going, but Mandy insisted that we stay at the closest hostel and Kyle eventually gave in. I stayed with them as well, but there was a sinking feeling in my chest.
It was a relaxed and mellow day. I thought about the journey a lot. Kyle's ankle and knee were swollen and painful, not to mention his blisters. He had wanted to continue to the next town, but really I knew that he would only injure himself more. I wondered if I was hindering his camino. He felt like he should keep up with me, but maybe the wise thing for him to do would be to stop and get better.
Dinner that night was nice and we had light conversation, though I think we all realized it was probably our 'Last Supper' for the four of us.
Deciding to go on alone was much more difficult than it would have been just to stay with these new, yet dear friends of mine. Throughout the day, Erik's sad words of knowledge from our first night kept replaying in my head; "You'll meet people, but don't be afraid to leave them."