Santillana to San Vicente de la Barquera

I mentioned that Santillana del Mar had a Museum of Torture. Bonnie thinks they should add a section on cobblestones.

Cobblestones make cool-looking streets, and apparently, they last forever. But they wreak havoc on the soles of your feet, destroy your shoes, and if you trip on them, you are pretty much roadkill. Santillana’s streets are not just made of cobblestones; they are so poorly put together that we think kindergartners on field trips put them in place.

Yesterday, Bonnie walked with me through the town to do our laundry, have lunch, and visit the church and the religious art museum. But later in the afternoon, after siesta, when the grocery store was open, she wouldn’t go with me. “No. I’m done. I’m not walking one more step on those cobblestones. If it means I go without breakfast tomorrow, I’d rather just be hungry.”

“But Bonnie, you have walked 40,000 steps today. What is another couple of hundred?”

“&^%$@”

I went to the store by myself…

This morning, we were happy to leave the cobblestones behind, but there was another cloud hanging over us. Actually, we were walking right through the middle of it, and we were grateful that we had already placed the rain shells over our backpacks. A few kilometers down the road, we stopped to put our ponchos on too. It never poured rain today; it just sort of hung in the air, and you had to walk through it. Despite the layer of vinyl around us, we were thoroughly soaked. You can’t avoid getting wet when you walk in the rainy mist for eight hours. The best you can do is protect your backpack so you will have something dry to put on at the end of the day.

Being our longest day at 35 KM, this could have been our most depressing, but it wasn’t. Not long after putting on our ponchos, Bonnie said, “Dad, remember this?” and started playing a song off of her phone. Flashback to our first Camino on the Portuguese with Jamie and Kona, and all four of us were under our ponchos looking like giant, wet turtles. We have a video of us singing B.J. Thomas’ song, “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head.” The memory brings joy, and the two of us today sang the song again. The line, “It won’t be long till Happiness steps up to greet me,” rang true. Today was a wet and happy day.

At the end of the day, our clothes are clean and dry. Our bodies are showered and warm. Our stomachs are full of pizza and shrimp linguini. Our shoes are still wet, but they are stuffed with balled-up newspaper that should soak up most of the moisture by tomorrow morning.

Today, like most rainy days, I didn't get as many photos, but there were enough that captured the moments that when viewed will bring us back to the discussion we had this afternoon, “Bonnie, I know this has been a very long day, and we are soaked through…”

“And our feet are on fire.”

“Yes, and we haven’t eaten much.”

“Not to mention heat rash and bug bites.”

“And that last coffee was one of the worst I’ve had on any Camino. Yet, I can’t help but admit I am having a wonderful time today.”

“I know, right? The views, the movement, the breathing, the air…”

“The life.”

“Ultreia, Dad! We keep moving forward!”

And this is how by moving forward, we are also moving upward.

Ultreia et Suseia!Baca selengkapnya