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.
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