Searching for the right DNA

I´m in Burgos. To be more precise I´m taking a rest in Burgos as I have a faringitis infection due to the ridiculous changes in temperature we have been having.

As I am on a journey with religious undertones I have been giving a lot of thought to the subject of God. But about two days ago I realized that God or the delegates of the weather must be women. They couldn´t make up their damn minds about the weather! Within a period of 90 minutes we had blistering sun, pouring rain, hail, torrential winds, sun again, more rain, wind... It was awful! I was trying to b so careful as well, I´m sure that and the albergue we stayed in a couple of days ago are what seriously did me in!

I left you last in Najera. I met loads of people there while feeling miserable. I got my period that day and was simply a complete disaster. I burst into tears mid meal and whined about missing my mother and boyfriend and I think poor David didn´t know what to do with himself.

More than recounting a series of events, let me talk to you a little about all the things that you don´t read about on the internet or in the giude books.

1. EVERY PLACE YOU WALK THROUGH IS HISTORICAL: No matter where you go, whether it´s a cross in the middle of the road or a person of interest, everything that you encounter matters. Now, depending upon how you are doing physically will equal the amount of care that goes into it. Most of the time, if you are so tired that you can´t go on but still have 3km to your next albergue and you have blisters and you have tendonitis you don´t give a crap what you are walking by on the road. And forget the times where there is a sign that is indicating a 5k diversion just so you can see a church that no one has been to in 200 years! Trust me only the repeat Camino takers go there (I will get to those later).

2. THE SMALLER THE TOWN THE BIGGER THE CHURCH: You know the Notre Dame cathedral in Paris? It´s got nothing on the one in Los Arcos, Navarra, population: 1277 (real number). There is seating there for everyone in town, all the pilgrims and everyone they´ve ever met! And that´s assuming all the people on question are catholic. Well even if they´re not they are forced to go as curch goers are in need of the body warmth.

3. JUST BECAUSE THERE ARE SHOWERS, DOES NOT MEAN PEOPLE WILL USE THEM. Most pilgrims ask a very simple and obvious question when they first enter an albergue: "¿Hay agua caliente?" more often than not, the answer is yes. We had been forewarned about the albergue in San Juan de Ortega. It is an old monastery that had been converted into a hostel for pilgrims. They have the tradition of serving sopa castellana (garlic soup) to the pilgrims every night t 6:30pm. It would serve them better to allow the pilgrims to bathe in the soup as it would be warmer and smell better than the showers. The water was freezing, but it was a walk in the park compared to the 50- it seemed to be in the bedroom. I put on three blankets plus my sleeping bag and was still trmbling form the cold! I was at this point already getting sick and this just made it much, much worse. I was instructed to go to the bar and have a cognac. I did, and seeing that I am a lightweight, by the time I was finished I was almost dancing. A little while later, an older gentleman said that I needed to have another before bed so that I could sweat out whatever I had. WOW. I am a light weight and two glasses of Cognac almost put me in a coma! I was seeing like 100 pilgrims in the bar when there were only 50. The albergue was so cold and drafty that I didn´t sweat and coupldn´t smell a thing (that´s the plus side).

But forget it! The night before, we had spent the night in Belorado in a very small albergue. It had rained that day. Have you ever smelled wet dog? You know how gross that is? Well imagine wet pilgrim! Everyone´s feet had had a chance to macerate in their wet boots and get all gungy and the albergue was about the size of my bedroom at home so the aroma was concentrated. My friend David actually asked me if getting wet on the road counted as his shower for the day!

4. NO MATTER HOW MANY BLISTER CURES YOU TRY AND REGARDLESS OF THE ORDER, ONLY THE 7TH WILL WORK. I am now the utmost expert on the subject of blisters, well and feet in general. About 45% of our conversations on a daily basis consist of feet, footwear, leg pain, tendonitis, athlete´s foot and a number of other darling subjects. First I was told that blisters should be punctured. Then I found out that they close on their own and fill up again if you keep walking.

Then they told me that I should use the Band-Aid Blister equivalent called Compeed. Compeeds work great! if you are not a pilgrim. They stick to your skin and provide comfor for your already-made blister. But, if you keep walking, all they do is melt and create this gooey muck that sticks to the kin on your blister and consequently makes your sock stick to your foot, so now you have to tear your sock off of your foot and usually rip some skin off along with it.

They also recommend that you run thread through the blister so that it won´t close. Well, depending upon the size and shape of the blister this might work or not.

There is also the option of cutting the skin, which I did which is strictly orbidden by all those of the Blister brigade as the skin underneath stands a bigger chance of getting infected (my pinkies dried just fine thank you!)

There are two gangs in the blister curing world: the Betadine Bandits and the Mercurochrome Mafia. One is completely opposed to the methods of the other and they duke it out whenever they come in contact, though all they do is end up red in the face.

FINALLY, what worked for me is the most awful, terrible cure of all! The massage therapist at Los Arcos gave me a syringe and told me to drain the liquid from my blisters as they appeared and then inject BEtadine into the blister. IT HURTS LIKE A BITCH! There is no blowing, rubbing, kissing or shaking to be done as the fire is inside your skin and will only go away when the intense throbbing takes over. Not to mention that you feel like a complete crack addict as you are sitting on a bunk bed or in a bathroom injecting the spaces between and on your toes. But let me tell you... it works! By the net morning or if you have to do it twice, following evening, the blister is completely dry on the inside and out and it not longer hurts!!!!!!!!!!!!

5. YOU MUST PAY TO SEE CHURCHES NOW. Gone are the days of sanctuary at a church. You must pay to pray! Well not quite. If you are there to see the church then you must pay to walk into the church, as you would a museum. If you are there to pray, you are allowed to walk through a side door where you are incased behind bars or plexi glass, and there you may sit to pray and reflect, usually next to a leper or two. The historical relics and livestock are for paying non-believers damn it!

In Santo Domingo de la Calzada there is a legend:

QUOTE: "SANTO DOMINGO DE LA CALZADA
WHERE THE HEN SANG AFTER BEING ROASTED"

A German family-father, mother and son-on pilgrimage to St. James´ tomb stopped to spend the night at an inn in Santo Domingo. The innkeeper´s daughter fancied the son and propositioned him, but he rejected her advances. Furious at the refusal, she hid some silver vessels in the young man´s bag and notified the authorities of the theft the next morning after the family had left the inn. The boy was promptly arrested, hanged and, as was the custom in the Middle Ages, his body left hanging on the gibbet as warning to others who would commit similar crimes. His parents, meanwhile, continued their sorrowful journey to Santiago.

On their way home again, they once more arrived at Santo Domingo. Approaching the square where their son´s body still hung, they were startled to discover that he was still alive! Their son, calling out from gibbet, hailed them and told them that his life had been spared by Santiago (in some versions it is Santo Domingo who saves the boy), who had kept him alive by supporting his weight the entire time. The astonished parents ran to report the news to the city official, who was just sitting down to eat his lunch when they arrived. Scoffing at their story and unwilling to abandon the table, he replied that their son was as alive as the roasted chickens on his plate. No sooner had he said this than the chickens leapt up, sprouted feathers and flew away cackling! Needless to say, their son was quickly cut down from the gibbet and pardoned of the crime.

Part of the wooden gibbet on which the young man was hanged is preserved in the cathedral, displayed in the transept over Santo Domingo´s tomb. Even more astonishing to visitors unfamiliar with the legend, a live rooster and hen are kept in a pen in a wall in the west transept. Popular legend has it that the rooster and chickens you see in the cage, replaced each month by new birds, are descendants of the original, miraculous pair.

6. THE CAMINO IS MORE ADDICTING THAN CRACK. There are people on the Camino that have done it seven, eight and 10 times! They say that the Camino calls them and they use somethimes all their vacation time in a year simply to do the Camino. I met a 75-year old doctor who had done the Camino 10 times! He said his wife threatened to divorce him, but that Santiago called. And that no matter when he planned to go, that he would end up being called before then to go. He has also saved 3 lived on the Cmaino, one from heat exhaustion, another was a cyclist who had a terrible falla nd was bleeding out, and the last was a man who had a heart attack 10 feet in front of him. I´m sort of glad he´s no longer around me, means he doesn´t need to be so close!

7. YUO DON´T HAVE TO BE CRIME FREE TO BE A PILGRIM. We have spent the last week doing the Camino with a group of convicts who were doing a piece of the Cmaino as a rehabilitation exercise. The arrived in Burgos today and have gone back to the detention center in Palencia. Apparently, it was a very international group as they had a Colombian cook, a Mexican Santero, an Argentinian journalist and a Venezuelan boy toy in the bunch. At first, several people commented that they had read an article about a group of convicts that were doing a piece of el Camino. Then we crossed this group of tourists coming out of Logroño and thought nothing of it. Soon, rumors started to fly and later, David asked one point blank who told him that they were in fact that group. I have to tell you, I have never met a nicer bunch of guys. I asked one point blank if they were the group and he said they weren´t. I then asked him where he was living, he said Palencia (though he was from Venezuela), then I asked about 7 other guys from the group where they lived and they all said Palencia. Can´t keep a good journalist down eh?

8. SPAIN IS GENETICALLY ENGINEERING PILGRIMS. OK seriously! What is it with these men in their 60s who all fly by the 20 and 30-somethings throughout the day. And then when the younger kids get to the hostels we are all hurt and crap and they are pretty much planning a party? I am convinced that Spain genetically engineers these men to come out of pods already int heir 60s and they make them out to be pilgrims! You see, they look like they are wearing boots but in fact they are calluses that are made in the shape of hiking boots. Instead of hair they are actually magnetic compass arrows so they never get lost and their skin is not porous so that they don´t sweat and lose water. I mean seriously! These men look at you and say "you´re tired already? I´ve done 30kms today, and I plan to do 40 after lunch!" I mean seriously!

9. GOD IS THE MOST MAGNIFICENT ARTIST. YEsterday I had a fever, I was tired and all my muscles hurt. But I was surrounded by the most amazingly beautiful nature I could never have imagined existed. My uncle Mark once told me that going to see the Seqoias was the closest thing he had ever witnessed where he felt the presence of God. I now know what he feels like. How ballsy of artists that try to mimic this beauty, because it´s simply impossible., I keep trying to take picture after picture so that, when I arrive home I might be able to share with my friends and family some of what I have seen. I´m afraid I will do it all a disservice as it´s impossible to capture with any lense that is not attached to a retina. I guess even in that, man will always try to mimic God but fall short. Nothing, we could ever build will be so beautiful and perfect.

The beauty of the camino is a drug. I can´t be thankful enough for being surrounded by so much beauty. I thought yesterday that I couldn´t wait to do this again... and I haven´t even finished this time around! I have always said I am a city girl and I am, but nature is too beautiful to pass up forever.

Love,

V