Santillana del Mar

…. Caminante, son tus huellas el camino y nada más …

This morning, I took the train from Santander to Boo de Piélagos. There were a few friendly faces waiting at the train station when I arrived. 😀 My friend Vicent from Alicante was there. He is very kind and sweet, and was telling me about the different pilgrims' plans. Mostly, he was anxious about getting a bed in Comillas, tomorrow night's stop.

Vicent only speaks Spanish, and for some reason, it’s really difficult for me to understand/hear him. I was not in a very good mood this morning. I had hardly slept, and I had heard that this part of the Camino, walking out of Santander, was particularly terrible because of the highway walking. 😑 I was pretty grumpy and just didn’t feel particularly sparkly. Vicent thought I was angry with him because I wasn’t very talkative. But in reality, I was just so tired, unmotivated, and had very low energy. In the end, I said I was going to walk with Vicent for the day, and wherever he was exiting, I would too.

We got off the train at Boo de Piélagos and began the walk. It was okay at first, nothing special but also not horrible. After about 2.5 hours, we started to enter a very industrial area. It was so ugly and awful. Tire shops, car repair places, and ugly abandoned storefronts for about six miles. This special Camino ended with a giant salt factory and loads of semi-trucks whizzing by under the piercing midday Spanish sun. I felt like a zombie. I was also thinking, why am I here? Do I need to do this? Am I only continuing to do this because I don’t want the shame of having given up? What if I went to meet Marissa and only walked the Camino Primitivo? Then I could finish early and have extra time to do other things in Spain, like visit all my friends and the cool towns they live in. Then I thought about that phrase: “Caminante, son tus huellas el camino y nada más”. And although I will give myself the permission to make a different choice that works better for me at any moment that I need to, for now, I am going to walk this HDP Camino. “Al andar se hace camino”. By walking the path is made. 🥹

Walking with Vincent was really hard. He walked really fast! Today’s statistics: 15.30 miles in 5.5 hours. 🚀 It was hard because the walk was hard, but it’s also hard because speaking Spanish is very difficult. ¡Me cuesta muchísimo hablar en español! 😩 Even when I am at home, with my cup of tea and comfortable chair, chatting with my language exchange friends over a Google Meet call, Spanish is hard. It’s even more difficult when you’re hungry, sleep-deprived, and carrying a 25 lb backpack for 25 km! 😑 Under these conditions, I start to have so much trouble expressing myself or conjugating the verbs correctly. I start to make really silly mistakes or I don’t make sense at all. And then I start to criticize myself, silently berating myself for not knowing better, and continuing to make the same errors. This kind of negativity is also not helpful. 😮‍💨 But after reflecting on this today, I started to think that this is like a little test. I’m under so much stress and this Camino is teaching me how to show up as my best self under stress. Sometimes, showing up as my best self means excusing myself to take care of my own energy needs, and other times, it means digging a little deeper to find the reserves of my sparkle.

I also know I need to do better at stating my needs. Some days I don’t want to walk with anyone else, but I feel guilty saying that. Some days when I am walking with someone else, I want to stop and take a break or go slower, but I feel so anxious saying that’s what I need. Then, at the end of the day, I am wrecked because I walked someone else’s Camino and not my own. Everyone (me) has to walk their own Camino. And everyone (me) has to give themselves permission to walk their own Camino. Sometimes I feel so guilty telling people I want to do my own thing, that I allow myself to get swept up in THEIR Camino. The people who make me feel the most comfortable and at ease always allow me and want me to state my needs. They do not pressure or guilt me (even unintentionally) into doing what they want to do.

Today, I am staying in Santillana del Mar. It’s actually an incredible place. It’s known for its medieval towers, Renaissance palaces, and the Romanesque Santa Juliana Collegiate Church. It looks like something out of a medieval movie! I love the way these old structures have been maintained for so many centuries. Walking through the streets, you can imagine what it might have been like in the 1500s here. Spain has a remarkable beauty that I keep discovering. The landscape is, of course, breathtaking, especially along the coast, but the architecture of the communities and especially the historic areas is magical. I feel like a princess in a horse-drawn carriage could pull up at any moment!

It is fortunate that there is an extremely nice pilgrims-only albergue here. The albergue is located inside of an old convent, and it is called El Convento. The space is magnificent! There is a giant garden area for the pilgrims to sit under a few green trees. Just as usual, when I arrived from the window of my room, I could see a few familiar pilgrims already enjoying the garden. It’s one of my favorite albergues yet. I am only sharing a room with one other girl, who doesn’t snore. 🙏🏻 Thank you, all the angels in the heavens!

Tonight we will have a community dinner at 8:00. 🍽️ I made it through today without bread! 🥖 Feeling like it’s a win!Lue lisää