In A Roxica

I don't want to alarm my family and friends (I am FINE and unharmed) but it was not a pleasant morning.

This morning I left the Albergue around 7, about ten minutes after a single Spanish peregrina left. The camino goes along the national highway N-6 for about two km and then turns left into a wooded area where there is an old church. I was about 5 minutes before that turn-off when I saw the Spanish woman running back towards me. She was crying hysterically. A masked man had pointed a gun at her and told her to get down on the ground. She offered him all her money but he repeated the threat. She took off her mochila and threw it on the ground and took off running. She runs marathons so she knew she could outrun him, and she thought to herself-- he's not going to shoot me in the back. Luckily she was right.

I was with her and the police for a while. The Guardia Civil is involved and she will file a denuncia. When we got back to the point where it happened, her backpack was right where she dropped it and untouched. She is lucky but I'm sure it will take a while to get over.

I walked for the next few hours with several pilgrims who came up while we were with the police. But they stopped for the day way too early for me, so I went on by myself. I think it's like what people say about falling off a horse, you just have to get up and do it again. I did feel a little nervous but realize that's not rational. By the end of the walk I was feeling more confident and able to focus again on my aching tired feet. Though it's easy to fall into panic or fear, I keep telling myself that the rational response is that this is one of a miniscule number of bad incidents on the Camino, and that I am surely safer walking alone in Spain than I am walking alone in many places I frequent. Hopefully, I will get back into the swing of walking alone and loving it.Read more