when we began this pilgrimage a month ago levi told
the story of when he first heard about the camino from
someone other than me. he was in northern spain
visiting his friend when the landlord came in and
started trying to convince them to go on the camino.
after telling them about the trials and tribulations
of the trip, the blisters, the storms, the rain, he
said "but when you get to the top of that hill
overlooking santiago and see that city it`s like doing
a mountain of cocaine, needless to say we thought that
was the most ridiculous description for the feeling
you get at the end of a religious pilgrimage you could
get, so we planned on quite a few festivities for the
day of walking into santiago. finally after a few more
days in shitty galician pilgrim refuges (the only ones
where bedbugs were prevelant and where we kept
sleeping in the same room with a man who walked in all
leather and screamed in his sleep, who we later
learned was a crazy spanish special forces member, who
judging by the screaming had seen some crazy things.)
the day arrived and to say the least it was a crazy
one, i believe i was the one who jokingly mentioned
walking into santiago shirtless but levi was crazy
enough to put it in action. yep complete with magic
marker scallop shells you beloved party pilgrims
walked into santiago shirtless in the rain on december
1 2006, we may not have been the first to do it but
judging from the stares we got we might have been the
most original, people loved it, they just love to see
pilgrims having a good time and we were definitely
having a good time, spraying eachother with champagne
and beer. anyway eventually we put our shirts back on
and headed into the church knocked heads with the
saint of wisdom, hugged saint james, put our hands on
the tree of knowledge and came out the otherside
squeaky clean of sin and ready to party. we went and
got our certificates from god, got a hotel room and
went out to meet some more pilgrims, needless to say
it was a party, we met in front of the church and i
jokingly said "so off to the club then huh?" but they
were into it, just imagine the scene 15 grungy dirty
foul smelling pilgrims dressed in raingear or
sweatpants unshaved and ranging from 23to 65(mostly
towards the later end) marching into santiago's
trendiest nightclub on a saturday night jumping around
dancing and hooting and hollering all night, needless
to say the spaniards just kinda cleared away from us
and we did our own thing, mostly involved finding out
who was going to keep going the next 4 days walk to
the end of the earth fisterre, what in pilgrim times
was considered to be the westernmost point in europe
and the world (they were wrong on both counts it's
actually in portugal)
nate was heading home but levi and i spent another day
in santiago and then started walking out on monday
again in the rain, this time with no map, just going
on following the yellow arrows, yep we got lost, a
nice 5k detour to start the day, but we did roll into
the albergue that night and were back on the road.
Then the hurricane hit, i thought the roof was gonna
come off the rickety old building or the rain was
gonna break the glass, later we learned that the wind
was over 100k an hour and there was 40 litres of rain
for every 1 square meter, and this is what we woke up
to that Morning, but we were on a schedule, we had to
walk (everyone else was either staying another day or
takiçng a bus), we waited till 10 and headed out. The
camino was a river 3 seconds in and my feet were
soaked, parts were knee deep and higher and that was
with avoiding the deep part. trees were down in the
middle of the trail and then we started hearing
thunder and lightning. it took us longer to walk 8k
then i could have ever imagined possible, so we got to
the next town and took a cab, didn't want to, not
proud of it but there was no way we would have made it
before 9pm if at all, so tough luck. luckily the next
morning was beautiful and we walked our last 30k in
perfect sunlight and warm temps, we even walked the
last 3k on the beach to fisterre, so with the
exception of a few k we've walked across spain, levi
and i walked to the very tip of the peninsula drank
some wine and headed back down the road like kings,
nothing could have brought us down, not even the
incredibly sketchy road we were walking down, it was
so dangerous we actually though that a car behind us
was slowing down to give us a ride when...WHAM levi
got hit by an egg, as if we haven't had enough fucking
eggs some teenagers decided to get a couple of
pilgrims, oh well we still felt like kings, just laugh
it off, we were off to our celebratory meal. By the
time we reached town again it was already beginning to
happen, "I don't feel so good levi, i think i'm just
gonna go to bed" got back to the albergue and did the
first vomit, "ugh maybe it's just food poisoning" then
levi came back "you know i don't feel very good
either" his first vomit.
the perfect ending to the camino both of us sleeping
on some soiled mattresses in the hallway of the
albergue so we could be close to the bathroom as we
vomited for 17 straight hours.
numbers of miles walked:500
number of blisters on feet: 20
number of hotels kicked out:1
number of glasses levi broke at the club in santiago:3
number of flights of stairs fallen down:3
number of pilgrims who went home and immediately got
engaged: 1
perfect camino
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