The night was coming in and I was who knows where, somewhere in
the Basque Country bush. At this point I had started walking
alternative paths in order to avoid some of the mountains, and
also to find some of those beautiful hidden beaches along the
way. Well, a local woman comes along and tells me there is no
way I will make it to the next town before nightfall. My best
option is to walk up to a campsite close by. This sounded good
to me and I agreed that it was actually dangerous to walk the
seriously roughed up path in the dark. The campsite turned out
to be just some picnic tables and a toilet. I thought it's fine,
I'll just put all my clothes on and sleep on the bench of the
picnic table. I didn't sleep, it was simply too cold. It felt
like the night went on forever. The flu came back. Next city
I bought a sleeping bag and a pad. Even before this I had
invested into walking poles, which are essential going up, but
even more coming down. The coming down seems the worst for the
feet.
Speaking of which, I developed horrible blisters all over my
smallest three toes. In this part of the journey it seem that
the state of your feet was the most favourite topic of the
Walkers. The first two weeks I basically had open sores on
more than one toe all the time. I was spraying disinfectant on
them several times a day, worrying about getting anything more
serious going on there. Now, after the fact, I conclude that one
of the reasons for all this was that sweet ocean that I could
not keep myself out of. It is just very hard to have the sort
of dicipline to always properly treat your feet when you get
back into you shoes. Basically you should wash your feet with
fresh water, put vaseline between the toes, apply a lot of
baby powder around the whole foot, wear a thin sock covered with
baby powder and on top of that another sock to reduce the friction
between the skin and the shoe. Well, this is the method that I
eventually concluded works for me. This and changing the socks
every three hours as they get sweaty.
The three hour rule made me realise that there is actually no
limit to the amount you can walk if you have a good break
every three hours and let the feet breathe. At one point early
in the game I ended up missing a boat that would have gotten me
across a river, so I decided to walk through the night up the
river, rather than freezing there on a bench again. I had already
walked around the clock at that point, and I ended up walking
even more than 'merely' through the night, since I didn't find
accomodation in the city I got to. It was painful, for sure, but
it was not like there is a hard limit anywhere. After this
misadventure I bought a tent. The kilos I was carrying had got up
from seven to eleven by now, but it turned out that this was the
gear that fit my style of walking.
After my gear was finally up to the task and I had some of these
basic lessons about the Walk, I got to a very smooth period.
This was still during the first three weeks, maybe the last
one and a half weeks of that time. I was just walking, very
long days, not staying with the other Walkers. I would just
walk until nightfall and camp in some random spot, using water
fountains as showers. There were some very magical camping spots
I found during this time, but also some real setbacks, like
a thunderstorm that came from nowhere when I had failed to find
a place to sleep. I could only set the tent on some random
parking spot with all my gear getting wet in the process.
I didn't dare to put the camera battery back in for two days
in fear of short circuiting it.
This may be a good spot to add some words about serendipity.
I think that my 'method' for the Camino centers around the
creation of a space where serendipity is possible. It's something
I have somehow learned on my previous journeys, even though
those trips were not consciously aiming at it. But even then,
sometimes there were these magical moments of coincidences
that somehow were perfect for the psychological state I was in
and created some of those moments that will be on my montage
film reel at death. Moments like, a family of white wild horses
riding to check out our camp site in Kazakstan desert, a black
woman dancing in a wheelchair at a festival, talking to an
ex gang member about his speed addicted paranoid youth,
walking over a frozen lake to catch the northern lights.
It's a skill to create the conditions for these moments, and
I think the original Camino was about creating the conditions.
Nowdays it needs a bit more than it did before, since the
connectedness is part of the problem. Another problem is the
planning mindset. I would say that most people on the Camino
were planning each morning where they would sleep tonight.
They would book the place online or call ahead to make sure
they had a place. From the serendipity angle, this is way
too strict, and I would say will remove at least 50% of your
serendipity potential.
In some cases you had people who were travelling with a
planner type person and in those cases it sometimes might be
that the non-planner can have their serendipity points
while the planner suffers the consequences. But even in these
groups or couples, the planner would usually ruin everyone's
chances by making sure that everyone understands what a big
task it is for them to do this service to the team.
I guess the key to serendipity is to get rid of the future and
the past to as high degree as possible. But to do this you do
need to have your worst fears at least somewhat calmed down.
That is why I needed the gear. As I had a tent I would at
least know that whatever happens, I will not have to freeze
out on a bench. As for other fears, I don't fear hunger due to
my experience with fasting. I had been told by many that there
are no dangerous animals in those parts, so that is not an active
fear. Although, while walking the night, I saw a family of wild
boar, which made me start always using the walking poles to
scare off any wild animals with the tapping sound. What else is
there to fear? Thirst, running out of money, being injured.
All of the fears could be alleviated somewhat by taking
preventive measures.
After I got my fears under control, I finally hung the sea shell
on my backpack. The shell is the symbol of the Camino, and most
people buy theirs as some tourist shop but I had picked the
shell off a beach and combined it with all kinds of crap I picked
up off the street, mostly earrings fallen from fellow Walkers.
I had 'not had time' to craft it before this, but I think that
it was more that I didn't know if I would be able to walk all the
way, so I didn't want to put that symbol on my pack.
The reasons for thinking this way were all these troubles I had
in the beginning, with my healh, my feet, my gear, my
unpreparedness. Also, most people who were doing the Norte were
a lot more experienced hikers. I had basically not done any
hikes for more than a few days in my life. Many seemed surprised
that I would take that route and some would ask me how come I
didn't know. Did I not do my research?
After those three weeks of struggling and finding my solutions
I finally did feel like I will be able to get to Santiago. Maybe
the last straw was when I got my worst blister and had to tear
my shoes up. I had walked on a beach with the shoes and the mesh
on the top of the shoe had let sand in. This sand worked it's
way between the layers of fabric and went under the sole of shoe.
As I walked, it concentrated under the joint of my pinkie toe
and warped the bottom of the shoe in a devilish way, resulting
in the shoe pinching the toe with each step up a mountain.
This mountain, it turned out, was also a complete waste of time:
After the hardest and most dangerous looking climb I did on the
Walk, the path just ended on a spectacular view to a vulture's
nest overlooking the ocean, but with no way forward. I climbed
back down and in the evening was trying to tend a blister that
reached around the whole toe, excluding the outermost side, which
was uneffected. The next day I walked 15 km with flipflops as
I could not put the shoes back on.
After that incident, being in serious pain, I considered my
budget. If I bought new shoes, proper shoes, I would not have
enough money to reach Santiago. It was also a question of where
to find them. The next big city was days away and I could not
walk with the shoe. I decided to 'operate'. I cut the shoe open
on the top so that the shoe laces would hold it together. The
operation was successful and the foreign objects were removed.
Later on I would do the same to the other shoe, and would not
only walk to Santiago with these shoes, but all the way to
Fisterra, the End of the Old World.
So, after that Shoe and the Mother of Blisters I crafted my
Talisman and carried on.
