(Distance travelled 911.7km. Distance left to Santiago: 95.3km)
We arrived in Ourense determined to keep our mode of transportation a secret. Every albergue hospitalerio asks the same question, 'where did you start walking?' Sevilla. No problem.
Cold, wet, and now me struggling with the same sick stomach that plagued Stacy on the way to A Gudina, we walk in to the albergue in Ourense and see J (from Germany.) Looking for an unoccupied bed we enter the next room and there are the 3 french men. Our cover is blown, but we will still keep our secret from the hospitalerio. But then he asks where did we walk from? Sevilla I reply. No, he says, today? Not quick enough I say A Guidina. 67 km. Comprehension dawns on his face and he says 'ah, autobus!' Cover blown completely.
In Ourense there are hot pools. Traditionally, pilgrims would purify themselves at the pools, to cleanse before the last leg to Santiago. After Santiago there is a place where tradition dictates you burn your pilgrim clothes. The morning we left Padornela while we waited for morning light inside a cafe, I asked Stacy if she knew what the terrible smell was? It's us, was her reply. The purify and burning tradition of the camino makes much more sense now.
Our plans in Ourense changed once we bought warm, dry clothes. Feeling better, but with boots that were still wet, we decided to walk the 22 km from Ourense to Cea. The first leg involved a steep climb which several people had warned us about. After the walk to A Gudina, the hill felt like a breeze. You want to know hard? Try walking in pouring rain for 33km with a sick person who is also gone a little crazy and insists on walking! Try realising you have also gone a little crazy in the cold and rain and find you are planning your funeral and eulogy, not sure if death is from exposure to severe elements or because you may walk in to oncoming traffic to end the misery.
Yes, we have become real pilgrims. We have earned the title. We are as crazy as everyone else walking the Via De La Plata.
The night in Cea included a plate of sauté mushrooms, picked in the wild by T, from Poland. As Stacy and I sat at the table, I asked T's friend why he wasn't eating any of the mushrooms. 'I don't trust T' he replied. 'I don't think he's very good at choosing safe mushrooms.' Stacy then asked how we will know if they are in fact poisonous, will we throw up? No, I think we will know by morning, I told her. We'll be dead. T's friend started laughing as we both shrugged our shoulders. Oh well, and finished our plates. (Which were delicious by the way).
As we get closer to Santiago the number of pilgrims en route has increased. The albergue in Cea had about 24 people. 19 of which were snoring smelly men. Great. At 2 a.m., I thought Stacy was crying. She was laughing. So was E (Australia) on Stacy's right. We were surrounded by snoring men. We are in a snoring sandwich I told her, which set off a fit of giggles. Sleep obviously being unavailable that night I asked if she would like to start walking? We waited until 7.
We've walked only 8.8km today, stopping in Oseiras where Fr Lucas gave us a tour of the monastery. There is an albergue attached to the monastery. 40 beds and only the two of us for the night.
'Let's write ghost stories tonight!' Stacy suggests.
Of course the stories will be set in a monastery.
Sleep may elude us tonight too.
The convent in Gibraltar is haunted by a nun that was walled up alive. Today she roams the hallways outside the guest rooms. Perhaps you will hear similarly distressed souls as they linger in the night.
ReplyDeleteCongratulations on nearing your goal, Juli and Stacy. Well done. You have overcome some serious challenges!
ReplyDeleteInteresting comment re the tradition of shedding and burning your clothes at the end of the pilgrimage, This is also done by pilgrims doing the circumambulation (kora) of Mt. Kailash in Western Tibet. This mountain is considered the centre of the Universe, the footstool of the Gods and there route from heaven to visit the earth. It's sacred to Hindus, Buddhists, Jain and Bonpo believers who collectively are the largest religious group in the World. Before Pilgrims climb the final steep slopes to the Drolma La (5,900m high pass), they leave articles of clothing, hair clippings and sometime even blood on the rocks, signifying leaving their "former self" behind and becoming renewed in faith and purified of sin by the effort of walking the circuit around the holy mountain. Some will bathe in a sacred pool just beyond the pass (complete with floating ice) as a symbolic ritual of being cleansed from their sins. The practice is another evidence of the common root of religious beliefs between Christians and other major religions. Although the distance around the base of Mt. Kailash is less than 60 km, representing about a 3 1/2 day walk and 2 nights camping at this altitude – the journey begins at about 14,000 ft and climbs to about 19,500 ft at the summit of the pass. As if the elevation is not enough of a challenge, some Pilgrims travel the distance (some of it over very rocky terrain) prostrating themselves full length, reaching out as far as they can in front of them and placing a conch shell or some other marker to measure the distance. They then stand, placing their feet in line with the shell and prostrate themselves again. This action is done over and over again around the entire circumference of the circuit – measuring the distance in this posture of humility and obeyance to their Higher Power, whose name may be strange to us, but the attitude displayed by the Faithful is familiar in many forms of Worship.