A lesson in humility, faith and heat

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I have been crossing the mesita for a couple days now. The heat becomes more intense every day. The only way to escape it is to get up earlier and earlier. I would not saw the mesita is an ugly place. It is for the most part - it only gets ugly when you have been walking it for hours seeing the same scenery for miles with no end in sight and the lovely Spanish wind deserts you and now blows warm with only hits of its former coolness, which is meant to torment you. By 3pm if you are unlucky enought to still be walking you hate the Mesita - shoot you hate Spain and the Camino even more!!! Today I left early and was done (well you are never done - another story - but done walking) by 11:30 and still I hated Spain and the Camino. Today was the day I was done - I don't want to walk another step, I don't want to go to another albergue, I don't want to sleep in another bunk bed, I don't want toshare my bedroom with 5, 10, 20 other people, and I don't want to walk The Camino anymore! I just want to go home!!



So let me back track. Yesterday started out as a wonderful day. I was going to make it a short one, and I left a little late. Needless to say plans changed because I wanted to take the alternative route because I don't like walking near the road. So I split off from most everyone else - following Hugo, my 18 year old friend from Sweden (a great young man, a Christian in a country that is only now beginning to embrace religion again, he has a great mind and a great heart), because he had the guidebook that showed the alternative route!



The whole thing started out well enough, but the sun kept rising in the sky and getting hotter. And the miles and miles of wheat fields gave way to miles and miles of fields of most ugly red dirt that had been tilled and now looked like rock having been hardened by the sun! Initially the walk really reminded me of the area where my parents had lived in Arkansas when I was a teen. I could remember walking similar roads on a hot summer day which the stark landscape. The only difference was that back then I could go home and get a COLD glass of something to drink or run down to cthe lake and jump in and cool off. Here you just keep walking and walking and walking ......... and walking. When you finally see the town in the distance its almost disheartening because you know it will take you at least another HOT hour or two to get there.



Myself and a couple who was walking ahead of me just a bit (they were originally behind me but I had been gradually losing my forward motion, arrived at Calizadilla de las Hermanillos aroun d 3:00. I think Hugo arrived there about 3:30 and his face was beet red and he looked like he was well done!



The rest of the evening was fairly nice though. There were only 6 of as the very nice municipal albergue and I had my own private little cubical because of it! I cooked dinner (pasta again - I am getting pretty good at homemade sauce with chorizo in it) for Hugo and I. We then invited Dave, the nice Englishman who was really Scottish and about my age, and Luis, the man who ran the albergue, to join us. We had a great dinner, drank a bunch of wine,had good cheese and bread and Dave provided us with good music from his laptop.



Sadly I didn't sleep well that night. I was awake at 4am which is about when the other American woman got up an prepared tto go. She had sushed us the night before even though it wasn't quiet time yet. She took an hour getting ready and was sooo loud and even took a shower! I had, had thoughts of trying to go back to sleep, but not after that! I waited until she was leaving to get up cause I was so pissed at her for being so noisy. How dare she shoosh us and then do that in the morning! So that set me in a grouchy mood - plus it was night 3 of poor sleep. So I just off in my slightly pissy mood about 6am. It was beautiful and cool and wonderful to walk. I walked out of town and followed the road - careful to pay attention for markings since it was still a bit dark. After about 30 minutes of walking down the road and seeing no more yellow arrows I began doubting myself. Had I, in a moment of daydream, missed an arrow and a turn off. Finally after praying for a sign and getting none I turned around. I didn't want to be lost in the middle of nowhere alone. I walked about 15 minutes back when I heard what I knew must be Hugo's walking sticks clacking on the pavement. Noooooooooo I had been walking the correct way all along. Pay backs for all those ugly thoughts about the women that left early this morning, but even more so a lesson in trusting myself and having faith. I had been careful and had watched the signs, and I needed to trust that and have faith that one would show up again, which it did, pointing The Way.



So thus started my morning. I arrived in Mansilla de las Mulas at 11:30 instead of 11:00. No longer grouchy or mad at myself as I had had a long hot walk to think about - more of the vast "desert" of fields and road that seemed to on to infinity! But I had made the way much harder today with my bad attitude and lack of faith. Lesson learned I hope.



So tomorrow I will arise again and walk again. It will be aa short day. It is only 19K to Leon! Thank goodness. At Leon I will have made it 2 thirds of the way! I will have walked 285.83 miles and have 186.4 more to go! For now I need to eat and soak my feet. I am so tired, but I dare not go to bed as I will only wake up at 2or 3am then. I have good internet here, so I want to try to blog some about the community on The Camino.

BUEN CAMINO!

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Comments

[Karen]

Faith
I have so much enjoyed your blog and the feelings, thoughts, that you are experiencing along the way. What faith you have. I so very impressed that you are doing this. What a long "walk" with God you are doing. So nice to meet people along the way that I am sure will become life long friends. God puts those people in our lives for a reason. You are also touching their lives. Be safe my friend and don't doubt what you are doing is awesome!! Look forward to the next blog entry. Gods blessings, Karen, a person whose life you touched in China!