Sep 12, 20175 min read

Day 11 – into the dark

Day 11- Villamayor del Río to San Juan. 30km 7.5hrs

Today was the worst. Im not even going to sugar coat it. It sucked. My feet were killing, the walk was boring, i walked 12km through a never ending pine forest service road, i had a tantrun, i screamed in a forest and i nearly so very nearly threw my pack in disgust. It well and truly sucked.

After yesterday mornings debarcle, you would think maybe we would sleep in and start out in daylight. But wheres the fun in that?! We set off earlier. 5:20am. Just jess and i and our torch into the spanish darkness in the middle of who knows where just walking along a highway.

Maybe because nothings happened to us travelling that we just arent afraid (actually thats not true, there was the granade atrack we narrowly misssed and also a car chase in the early hours of the morning in down town nairobi back in 2011 – some things you dont tell your parents, so guess theyll read about it now. Hi Ma!).

The first 2 hours in the dark was bliss, had music on, looked at all the stars, saw shooting stars, saw a fox with a beautiful thick coat, ate a loaf of bread i pocketed in my handbag at yesterdays restaurant. Perfect. After the first 6kms we were then to walk through villages every 3kms or so, so we thought something would be open for breakfast or at least a coffee. But no. We walked 14kms until something was open (how many protein bars can you eat in an hour?) We stop and thats when the feet pain starts. I have blisters which are all compeded up thanks to the lovely Helmut and Raph. But today was excrutiating! But we carry on.

We knew we had a big hill to climb nearish the end and so we started climbing and it was exactly like our bush at home, dry, dead ferns, and kinda dense trees similar to a eucalyptm Everyone was taking photos but we’re just like we can see this at home.. we knew we needed inspiration to get up the hill. Jess had just the song. ‘My island home’. We absolutely butchered Christine Anu climbing a mountain. As we passed other pilgrims, they smiled and gave the thumbs up but im pretty sure the smile was ‘yes hurry the hell up and get in front of me and out of hearing range’.

We reached the top and that was pretty much as good as the day got. Im getting angry now just thinking about the next 3 hours of walking through that forest. It was never ending. It well and truly broke me. It said 9kms but come on it took 3 hours – 9kms. Not likely.

I stopped, threw my arms down, fists clenched and screamed ‘AAARRRRRRRGGHHHH I AM SOOOOO BORED!’. Jess also whinging and moaning as much as me. We wanted out. Damn near crying, starving, tired, sore, then jess goes ‘hey! We got jamon n queso sanbo’s in our bags!’ Wed forgotten about them, and devoured them in 1 min flat. That lifted our spirits for a good 5mins.

Jess’s blister has started swallowing her whole foot and just for fun got one on the other foot. My feet were that sore that i was scared to even take my shoe off. Jess stopped to drain hers.

Eventually made it into this tiny village of San Juan and we are staying in a stunning old stone monestry (10 euros). There were beer in the vending machines for 1 euro and the others were telling me its wrong to drink in a church. Just try and stop me!

The best part. All of the above was the better part of the day.

My blisters had grown. I had six around the base of my heels. I went and saw raph and helmut. ‘Ahh shit girl, its surgery time’.

So there i sat wrapped in a sleeping bag, bawling my eyes out, while Nils hugged me. Amanda bringing me tissues. My beautiful soul of a german mother Maria held my leg up, while Raph uses a cigarette lighter to disenfect scissors. I panic and tell him to just use a needle to drain them. So he does that first to all of them. Bloody Nils is now playing ‘dont worry be happy’ on his phone to cheer me up. Not working buddy.

Helmut comes over to inspect and when those 2 talk in german, i know they dont want me to understand. They both look at me and are like ‘sorry girl thats doing nothing, theyve got to be cut open’.

So i cry more as the lighter and scissors reappear, and raph takes to my blisters yet again. At this point, Nils has changed the song to the Titanic, ‘my heart will go on’ and i nearly choke on my tears and snot laughing and crying as the song climaxes in time with the pain raphs inflicting.

Ive been advised to take the bus to Burgos tomorrow and get off my feet for a few days and see a doctor. So thats what im doing. Im not even mad. Im looking forward to some proper rest days and to catch up with some of my friends who are already there.

I was there for an hour being fixed up. I am so so so grateful that i met those 2 and the love that they show towards me is just amazing. They dont complain that they have to fix me up, theyre never in a rush. Theyre just so compassionate.

I went to mass tonight. I needed to. It was all in Spanish obviously so i had no idea what was going on, or which hand to place over the other when going up to take communion (panic!) but i knew when to say amen so that was the important part.

The thing is, im not even upset that i am having a bad day. You have them. Im not alone, ive got a plan and sometimes you just need a damn good scream and a cry. We ran into Megan and Dennis along the way today and we told them how much we were hurting. Their reply ‘you girls are always smiling, you would never know.’

R. X