I’m back in Fredericksburg for just under two weeks. Enough time to host Tell, catch up with friends, eat ice cream, and let my blisters heal before I ship off to Buckingham, Virginia to live at the Satchidananda Ashram (Yogaville) for a month.
There is still about half the summer left, but I booked the heck out of these two months and in some ways it already feels like it’s over. Not that I am complaining…this year was a zinger and I was tempted beyond measure to spend as many of my waking hours as possible prostrate on my couch with an adult beverage in my drinking hand. But Matt planned this phenomenal adventure vacation and I finally got around to going for the yoga instructor certification I’ve wondered out load about for years. This is the summer of doing.
I’m getting mighty nervous about the intensity that awaits meet at Yogaville next week – 5:30 wake-up calls and a scant hour or so of free time between then and lights out at 10 pm. I know I can handle it though because I hiked the effing Camino. (Do you think I’ll get my indulgence revoked for placing “effing” before “Camino”?)
While we walked I authored dozens of essays on the experience in my head that I intended to post here, but for now I’ll just give an overview.
We started walking on June 28 and the whole world opened up. A world of how incredibly powerful my body is – how strong we are to keep putting those feet to the ground, one in front of the other no matter how sore or exhausted or defeated we may feel. And that each small foot fall added up, finally to 200 miles across part of Northern Spain. No matter how high the day’s elevation was or how terrible my busted knee felt, or how everyday seemed like the hardest part of the journey – we kept moving.
We made it to Santiago and literally hobbled up to the cathedral. I found the end of that leg of our journey pretty disappointing. On the Camino (especially on the Primitive Way) you are relatively along save for this community of fellow pilgrims struggling and celebrating with you each day. Then suddenly you’re in a city, with mobs of tourists circling around the cathedral in matching t-shirts, passing residents who see pilgrims like you limp down their streets every single day. It’s not as though Santiago isn’t a warm and welcoming city, it was just terribly jarring.
We did reconnect with many of the friends we’d collected along the way – except for our oldest and favorites – a group from Valencia who shared our first isolated, moldy Camino digs with us. Our affection for them is proof that shared language is not essential in creating a meaningful connection. They were so patient with our terrible Spanish and so generous with their food.
After a day of rest, we started walking again…the last 90 km to the Atlanic ocean. We hiked with our friend, Robin, a Camino acquisition, then with a JMU sophomore we met over lunch at a bar. We parted with him a few towns before our Fisterra (end of earth” and our final destination) so were able to end out journey as we started it: just the two of us.
In Fisterra, we found a quite beach and let the freezing waves of the Atlantic wash over our bare, blistered feet. There in the sand, holding Matt’s hand I found the end I wanted. The trip played through my mind like this slideshow, set, of course, to the song Waka Waka – so I naturally when I got home, I made a slideshow, set to Waka Waka. Click the image below to view.
