Today started off very tough. I was moving so slowly because my feet hurt so badly. Thank God Emily is so patient with me. We both know she would be at our destination an hour faster each day if it weren't for my feet! At the point when I thought I was walking normally two older woman from England and Ireland passed us and one said, are you hurt?" Shucks. It seems I was still limping and didn't even realize it; I thought I was doing well! Everyone says after 10 days or a two weeks your body is adjusted and things are much easier. I'm at day 10 so I'm expecting this miracle to happen any moment! But... Since I got a new blister today I'm not holding my breath. One of the sayings on the camino is "the number of your blisters is the number of your sins"!
The cross is the cross is the cross, we can do things to try to make it lighter, but ultimately God gives us what we need when we need it. I can wonder why Emily's feet don't hurt as bad and don't blister, I can try threading, moleskin, Vaseline, better socks, different shoes, peeing on the blisters (no, I didn't do that, but it was suggested). But in the end I've got to embrace the pain and keep going. Anyone who wishes to be my disciple must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me, right?
Emily and have a good balance if talking and quiet time while we're walking. Today we scarcely said two words before lunch. During this time I have a lot of time to think. I've also been singing in my head. I didnt bring any music to listen to. The first day I had some stupid song in my head so I tried singing Ave Maria... In about 5 minutes I realized Ave Maria had changed to Red Solo Cup, haha. I've been signing the 80s song Ain't Nothing Gonna Break My Stride in the mornings when there's no way you could consider how I'm walking a "stride". Later today we started changing the lyrics to If I Had A Million Dollars, here are some of my favorite new lines: "if I had a million dollars, I'd buy myself new feet, the prosthetic kind that don't feel pain. If I had a million dollars, I'd have personal masseuse, and he'd walk the camino with me. If I had a million dollars, I'd build a bathroom right here in the vineyard because we both gotta go real bad." And lastly, These Boots Were Made For Walking has become "these boots were made for blisters" for me :)
So here's what today looked like
A pretty neat cemetery we passed.
Camino marker someone built in the middle if nowhere.
Grapes, grapes, and more grapes. The vines were full and there were workers out all day harvesting.
Look what we passed! I thought they were only in Austria!
We stopped in Najera (16km) for our peanut butter and bread lunch. Emily said we could stay there if my feet were really bad. She's so good to me! But, the next town, Azofra, was only 6km so we pressed on. I'm glad we did because Najera was kind of an ugly city; Azofra is much more quaint :)
Harvesting the grapes. I feel like all we saw today were vineyards. No wonder why the wine is so cheap!
Approaching Azofra.
These are the markers we started seeing today. Each town/area has a different kind of marker. These are the first ones that say the distance to Santiago. I really like them, but they're every kilometer... I wonder if later on every km will be a reminder of how slow we're moving and how far we have to go.
When we signed in at the albergue we were pleasantly surprised to find it's only two people to a room! And, they have nice plywood walls, haha.
Since Azofra is a really small town they don't have a daily Mass. Emily and I decided to go for a "pilgrims' meal" instead of cooking. Usually the pilgrims meals are around the same time as Mass, do we've been cooking our own meals and eating early... Well, early by Spanish standards since the usually eat dinner between 7:30 and 9:00.
We had salad, grilled chicken breast, ice cream, wine, and bread, all for 10e! Quite a steal around these parts.
I'm thankful for Emily's patience and Beth's sleeping bag (keeps me walking just looking forward to curling up all cozy in it at night! Also I will definitely wash it for you because it's getting blister juice on it- yuck)
I'm learning to be humble... Never an easy lesson.