Day 32 & 33 - Camino Camaraderie

If you are on the camino you are either over 50 or under 30. The younger set has inspired me by their wanderlust and the breath of ideas they have for adventure. They also crack me up. Timo and I met days earlier when he rediscovered me in an aubergue napping after a long day’s hike.
After greeting me he got back to his conversation with Carrie…

Carrie: A bunch of us are renting a house when we get to Santiago and having a toga party.
Timo: What’s a toga party?
Carrie: It is from some movie. You dress in togas.
Timo: What’s toga?
Carrie: I’m not sure but it is like the Greeks use to wear. You wear sheets.
Timo: (scratching his head)

I was burying my head in my pillow to refrain from laughing out loud. Was I that old that Animal House had slipped by an entire generation?

I’ve loved my conversations with Drennan, a fifteen year old traveling with his mom. He had girlfriend issues, and after days of hearing the stories I came up with a mantra for him which I repeat whenever I run into him: “DTC” is my subtle way of telling him to ditch the chick.

Hernandez walked pass me in one town and laughed at something he overheard me saying. I then challenged him to cancel his planned 24 mile hike that day and hang with us and he’d laugh for 24 hours. He did and he did. We had to change his name to Hernandez because he was worried he might do something that would end up in my blog and it would ruin his opportunity to become a priest which he is contemplating on the Camino.

I could write an entire essay on Dorothy and the traveling underpants. She lost them and her Lululemon bag after racing from an aubergue that was infested with bed bugs. But they were found by Timo who kept them and the bag safely in his backpack until he tracked her down again. Oh, the things we do for others on the Camino.

There is a camaraderie throughout the Camino. I’ve learned a lot from thoughtful and impressive kids. I’ve taught them too..like how to make fish faces for pictures. But I’m still an adult… I wasn’t invited to the toga party (although I bet I could have taught them some great dance moves in those sheets.

Day 30 & 31 - Begin Again

I did something people don’t do on the Camino (a consistent pattern for me) and was rewarded in spades. It started last Sunday when I hit Sarria which is the starting point in order to walk 100km to Santiago. I don’t know if it was because it was Sunday or the first weekend of summer or the first weekend that school in Spain let out.

No less than 2000 pilgrims joined me just outside the town. After 460+ miles of solitude and contemplation on daily walks I was dodging busloads of chattering children and iphone speakers blaring and giggles galore. Was I at Disneyland? I managed three days of walking as if I was in Times Square before I finally said, “Enough” I caught the bus BACKWARDS 70 miles. I had to get back to the peace and serenity that was the Camino for me. And I began again the trek from Cebreiro to Sarria. I fell into a group at dinner who were celebrating Olga’s birthday.

After dinner this group decided we would each write what we wanted to let go of on a torn piece of the paper tablecloth. Then we went into the foggy night at the top of this mountain town and formed a circle and burned our paper. It was magical and mystical and serene and I was back on My Camino. Since I was merely following their lead  when they took turns jumping over our fire, I simply smiled to myself and jumped as well, not having a clue what the significance of this ritual meant. I just knew I wasn’t at Disneyland anymore.

Day 28 & 29 - Old Home Week

“JENE!!!!!” Oh, there is no sweeter sound when I enter a town, or a cafe, or a resting spot after a long journey up a mountain.  It means I’m reconnecting with someone whom I’ve shared time with on this long journey.  It’s as if I’m seeing long lost relatives. The ones who yell “Jene!” started the Camino around May 17 from St Jean Pied de Port and they probably stayed in Orrison that very same evening.  There were 60 of us who converged on that wonderful auberge that night and 60 of us who experienced the most glorious day on earth crossing the Pyrenees the next day. We met over vegetable soup and Basque cake and passed each other over hills too steep to ever explain. The point is we bonded over something only those who have experienced the Camino can understand. It’s as if we own a special secret.  A secret of blisters and aches and afternoon naps and early morning crinkling of plastic bags by others in the dorm rooms that get up in the dark and wake everyone else up.

This last week I’ve received multiple Facebook and Whatsapp updates from friends who have reached Santiago. These are the ones I’ve traveled with in various spurts.  They are my family.


I am just  a few days out from the final goal and I’m going at a snail’s pace because I don’t want this journey to end. I’m also finding the conversations are getting deeper with the new people I’m meeting…the ones who will be long lost relatives when we reach Santiago and they yell, “Jene!” On the Camino the joy is in the journey.  I relish what has become the perfect existence for me for the past six weeks. I. Don’t. Want. This. Experience. To. End.

The Camino is a home. Does it change you? Yes. Does it offer you the answer you are looking for? Yes. The answer is that there is no answer.

You just have to let go.  You have no control and so you can’t control the outcomes.  You’ve just got to let things BE.   And that is the answer. That, and making peace with the ones who crinkle the bags.

Day 26 & 27 - Completo

It happens to us all at some point on the Camino. That point when you hit the wall and you just don’t have any more to give. When you’ve covered more miles than you should have and your body is breaking down. I had covered two back to back 20 mile days starting at 6:30am with very short breaks (by my standards) I ditched my very fun Camino Family #3 and decided to book a room. I could barely put one foot in front of the other. The fatigue was overwhelming.

When I arrived at the auberge the lobby was maybe 8′ x 2′ with a big monster size dog taking up most of the room. A 20 something walker squeezed into the lobby with me to announced she wasn’t staying there, she just wanted to see the dog. She kept repeating to the dog in a high pitched voice, “You are so stinky” Why, I thought, are you hanging here then? I waited patiently for the manager to finish with the pilgrim sitting in the folding chair so there would be enough room to place my backpack down. Finally the manager turned to me to say that he had called me and had decided to give my room to another. They were now completo (no more space). I just stared into space. Meanwhile, the girl asked the manager to take her picture with the stinky dog while I digested the fact I had no where to stay that night. I couldn’t move and I tried to control it but two huge crocodile tears welled up over my lids and poured onto my cheeks with a flood of tears close behind. The manager panicked and moved me into the corner with my back to the door. He felt so bad that he offered to put a cot in the lobby with the stinky dog. My tears wouldn’t stop and my shoulders simply bobbed as my silent crying continued. My hands were covering my eyes but I pulled them down to turn and look at the hippie couple who were arriving and whose room he hadn’t given away. But I didn’t see the couple. I only saw the donkey they were traveling with poking his head into the lobby and taking up the entire doorway. And then it hit me. I wasn’t on the Camino after all. I was staring in a Fellini movie.

Today’s post is dedicated to Nina who is in architectural college in Kenya. She is creative and determined and a natural leader and so very much fun to spend time with.

Day 22 to 25 - My Burden is Light

There is a special place on the Camino where you leave your burdens behind.  Most people carry a rock from home with them and then leave it behind on the hill below the cross that seems to stretch towards the sky.

My friend Diane was a step ahead of me (a trait of 100% of my friends).  She gave me a heart shaped stone to take on my journey. It remained in my backpack until it was time to let go of my burdens at Cruz de Ferro. The irony was the  lightness of the porous rock that was her gift. The metaphor made an impact on me.  Over the last two years my world turned upside down and there was a lot of pain to work through. But it was the people who surrounded me that lightened those burdens for me along the way…so I didn’t have to carry them all the way to Cruz de Ferro.   My own pain was lifted along the way by so many people. My college best friends,  my tennis lunch buddies, my Port Street momma friends, my Friday night hiking picnickers, my Sunday night barbecue pals, my Atlanta bffs, my extended family, my Kenyan girls, my biking buddies, my pals who always had a meal waiting for me, my Tuesday night group who kept me grounded in faith and red wine, my new Camino family.  All these people lifted my burdens along the way. My rock at Cruz de Ferro symbolized the lightness that I carry because so many people surrounded me and absorbed my burdens. And for that I thank each and every one of you.

Today’s post is dedicated to the children supported by C2CKenya who attend Mt. Olive Academy in Kenya.  The young girls playing volleyball during recess is such a joy to watch when you consider what they could be doing if they weren’t in school.

Day 19 to 21 - The Good and the Bad

 There have been three deaths on the Camino since I began my journey. A gentleman had a heart attack crossing the Pyrenees on my third day, a young man drowned in the Atlantic after completing the walk past Santiago to Finisterre, and a woman was stuck by a car 27 kilometers from Santiago just two weeks ago. Also, no new leads are emerging about Denise, a young woman who hasn’t been seen on the Camino since April 4.

Denise disappeared from an area I’ve just walked through. The police have warned women not to walk alone through this 20-30 kilometer stretch. As I walked this section with friends always in sight I had an ominous feeling of dread. The landscape is desolate, there is a single lane road that parallels it and shrub that rises high to each side. I wanted to get away as quickly as possible.

I overheard Sherry say the Camino is a metaphor to what we will experience when we complete this journey. There are ugly sections along with the beauty. There are towns where the only sign of life is poverty and others teeming with wealth. There are desolate sections and then in a blink of the eye you feel you are being crowded out by a wave of people pushing you aside.

I think I began the Camino assuming I would see good everywhere. And I have. But I’ve also seen so much sadness. I’ve followed a man who had a teddy bear tied to the back of his backpack. Two days ago that little teddy bear had been left behind at a cross on a hill. I’ve seen a beautiful picture of a little boy going through cancer treatment at a church and then run into that same picture 100 kilometers later at another church. I can’t imagine what those carrying their mementoes are going through.

Today’s post is dedicated to my cousin, Mary Stewart Fortune. There is a beauty gene that runs through my family and Mary Stewart was awarded it in her looks and in her heart. She joined the angels two days ago and is no longer in pain from the brain tumor or the treatments she was subjected to in the hopes of saving her. Mary Stewart is happy now. My sadness is for the three children she left behind. A seven year old boy, a middle schooler and one graduating from high school are going to have to find the beauty in life at a time when the world seems surrounded by sadness.

Days 18 & 19 - The Town of the Walking Wounded

There are three cities you pass through on the Camino. In Pamplona everyone is still high over the fact she/he made it over the Pyrenees. In Burgos you are high on life because you have a big chunk behind you and your accomplishments are many.

It is an entirely different story in Leon. Days and days on the meseta may have done a number on your head, or the blisters may have become infected, or you are facing tears in your meniscus,  or a stress fracture, or the stomach bug that is going around hit you or a bronchial infection has kicked in.  I have heard every one of these stories in the last 24 hours.  My favorite was from a couple from San Diego.  They have had it with this adventure and they are taking the train to Barcelona and hanging on the beach for a week. They are young and simply want to get home to a Chipotle burrito.

The Camino is different things to different people. Some came for the challenge, many came to run from something, some are awaiting a spiritual awakening. Some for all of these things.

It was overheard the first night at Orisson in the Pyrenees that the first third of the way is about the physical, the second third is about the mind, and the final third is about the spiritual.  I believe that is true.  By now my blisters have healed and I am no longer popping Advil like candy. I have completed the meseta, and the laughter kept me sane. I now find myself going inward and wanting to seek what it is that is so special about this pathway. What draws us to it and what drew the  millions before us who traveled it over the past centuries.  It is becoming a very personal time and one more challenging to share.

It is pouring rain today.  I call this cozy time.  A day to pull the covers up over my head and sleep the morning away. But when you stay in a 5 Euro a night hostel, you are up and thrown out at 7.  Let the new day  begin!

This post is dedicated to Clinton at Fanaka Primary School who always seems to start the new day with a smile on his face. He wears his heart on his sleeve and so when he is down you share the pain with him. But when he is ready for a new day the whole world smiles with him. Thank you Randy Siegel for sponsoring him.

Days 16 & 17 - The Connections Get You Through This

The Camino is a solo journey, but the need to connect aches within you as your travel step by step.  Connections occur when you find those who share your pace and your sense of humor.

All over the Camino you are greeted with “buen camino”.  It is polite and courteous and gentle and respectful. But after six hours of hot sun Ginger, her son, and I moved towards that phase when the hum-drum is getting to us all. Today she decided to yell in her quintessential southern twang “where ya headin’?”.  Now everyone is heading to Santiago…right?  But the question can really throw you.  I almost fell out of my backpack when a Spanish bike rider paused mid-pedal, looked at her like she was crazy, threw his head back and laughed heartily.

Yea, we are all going to Santiago but this meseta portion will make mere fools of men.  She is the one who started directing traffic on the camino as if a 747 was right in front of her. She is the one who said the flower was forsythia which started a battle on a camino forum that it was broom, not forsythia…who cares, it smells like heaven.  She is the one who surreptitiously  takes a picture of the women two hundred pounds overweight walking into our mid-morning cafe wearing only a bra. And the one who doubles over with me as I tell her about the guy who fell out of the bunk bed at 4am…and again at 4:10am!

We are all going to get to Santiago. But it is the connections we make along the way that keep that hope alive and that keep us all laughing with pure abandon.

This post is dedicated to the teachers at Fanaka Primary School who keep the hopes alive for the beautiful children C2CKenya supports and who instill in the children whatever is necessary to keep them going in much tougher situations than any of us would ever encounter.

Day 15 - Hallucinating

I can talk about it because I heard Ginger and Drennan (best mother son team to travel with) confess to it as well. I’m not kidding, it happens. To put into perspective what I’m going through, pretend you are in Palm Desert in July and you wake up and decide to walk to Palm Springs in the middle of the day via the expressway. No amount of preparation can prepare you for the heat and flatness and the drab scenery as you march your way to your next destination.



I didn’t read Don Quixote but I can totally understand the fact that he fought windmills thinking they were dragons. I saw the windmills in the distance today and actually thought I saw Don in mid-flight. The drudgery of this part of the Camino is intense. And on a hot day it is next to impossible not to have every ounce drained from you.

My music kept me going and I thought of taking a selfie when Jim Morrison sat on my shoulder and personally sang “Crystal Ship” to me but I decided no one would believe it even if I had proof. This section of the Camino we are on is called Meseta and the potential for losing your mind is very real.

The good news is I passed the half way mark today! 250 miles!

Today’s post is dedicated to Rose who is graduation from university in June. She’s the quiet one with such a happy smile when she finally opens up. And a big thank you to the Gamboa family for sponsoring most of her education through university.

Day 14 - Another Fall from Prestige

Ok, here’s the deal. People have been walking the Camino for over a thousand years. And there is a hierarchy of pilgrims along the way. Those held in highest awe are the ones who begin in a village in Britain or in Paris or somewhere in Northern Germany. Lower down the hierarchy are the ones who start where I did in St. Jean but who carry their pack every step of the way and refuse to book ahead to the next hostel because that would be cheating.

Then there is me. Walking and walking and walking and walking is wonderful. But sometimes one (read me, here) needs to shake it up a bit. I fell to the lowest ring of the hierarchy today because I rented a bicycle and had my pack shipped ahead (again). Last week I was rolling my eyes at the bicyclists charging down the paths. Today I was slowing way down if I passed a pilgrim so as not to startle them but really so they wouldn’t judge me…haha

For eight hours I rode with abandon. I love being on a bicycle. For the last three hours I was totally alone with my head phones blaring. When did I learn every lyric to every song by the Animals? Their two album set of greatest hits starting with “House of the Rising Sun” lasted for over 90 minutes. Anyone with a five mile radius of me could concur that I did know every lyric (luckily for everyone no one was within a five mile radius).

I arrived in Fromista at 7:20 p.m. totally wiped out. The sun took whatever was left out of me that hadn’t already been taken out of me by a killer hill I met at 4:15 p.m.

I know I’m doing the Camino all wrong according to the rules of the real pilgrim. But the route I’m taking is my camino and it is offering me peace each stop of the way.

Today’s post is dedicated to Janet who graduated from law school this past October and from what I know of her drive, she is willing to break a few rules along the way to reach the destination best suited for her.

Day 11 to 13 - The Magic of the Camino

Once in a blue moon the stars align and magic occurs.  Maybe is happens on the Camino often. It happened for me over a four day period. You walk into hundreds of churches but you walk into one in a tiny village and the energy surrounding you transports somewhere you can’t explain. You pass thousands of trees but the one you are laying under becomes the most beautiful tree you’ve every seen.

Four of us converged on a hill by chance. The laughter began immediately. We were kindred spirits already hours behind the other pilgrims who march to the next destination with determination and grit. We would walk an hour and then stop at the cafe for two hours. We’d make it to our final destination just in time for dinner. We’d leave the next day when pilgrims from the previous town were arriving for lunch. We laughed at new words like habibi and rocknstella (don’t look that one up) We didn’t know each other’s past and we didn’t focus on the future. We were suspended in the present and it was glorious.

Maybe what helped make it magical is that it ended as quickly as it began…before it could peter out. One left for a plane back home, one hopped on a bike for the next adventure, one headed back to the camino as the pounds melted away and one continued on looking for his countess.

Tarja told us that in Finland rarely (even in marriage) do people say I love you. It is just not done.. Of course, the laughter kicked in again as we created scenarios to express your love in Finland like killing a reindeer and bringing it home with a smile.

She woke me up at 6am this morning to say goodbye as her taxi had arrived.  After two hugs she turned to leave. I said “Love you” without thinking. It is what I say when filled with emotion. She didn’t turn around, just kept walking. But I knew she held the same feeling that we all felt from our four day journey even if she would never verbalize it.

Today’s post is dedicated to Elijah and Derrick at Fanaka 1. It was a magical moment for me a year ago when I was in Kenya. They tugged at my sleeve and shyly gave me a shell with a hole in it. I felt then that it was their way of thanking me for making a difference in their little lives. Enough of a difference that they wanted to share their secret gift with me.