Silly girls

Just Keep on Walking

June 30, 2014

We thought we would walk about 4 miles today. I woke up very rested. I slept through the whole night and didn’t wake until 7 am. We are usually out the door by this time. Guess my body had another idea. I blame it on having a shot of the Irishman’s golden elixir. Worked better and tasted a lot smoother than the nasty NyQuil. Abby is still teasing me about having shots with the Irish.

Poor Abby. She spent the night in the bathroom with the porcelain throne goddess. Not quite as bad as what I had, but anytime you have to spend with a gassy, turbulent stomach that will not allow you to leave is not fun at all.

So we got up this morning not sure as to how far we would make it. Our legs, knee joints, hip joints were protesting. My stomach and back muscles hurt from all the heaving. Neither of us could think of food, let alone stand the smell of food wafting through the air. We just kept drinking…water, Aquarius…no more shots.

And we kept walking and walking. Slowly. But we saw friends we had met over the time we have been on the Camino. They would stop us to say hi, catch up with what has gone on and then they too, would walk ahead. It is never, “Good- bye” here on the trail, it is a ” See ya later Alligator” way.

We came to the one little place to stay, and it looked ratty. We decided to press on. Half- way to the next place, our bodies decided that they had, had enough. Tummy rumbling. Hips hurting. Feet growing tired. We were done. But we had to go on. No choice. As we walked by a bar, a group of women on the opposite side of the street at another bar saw us. A couple of them jumped up and took our picture. In fact one woman video taped us! Who were they and why were we singled out to be photographed? No idea.

We finally made it to Santa Irena or is it Ileana?. If we were in better condition we could have gone just 3Km more to the large town, but Abby was done. We stopped at the Xuntra (a government ran hostel with the basics- washer/dryer, hot shower, bunkbeds, a kitchen with no pots or pans) for 6€ each.

When we headed out this morning our goal was to walk 4 miles. We walked 17Km. Quite a distance. Way more than 4 miles. So we will rest up. Go to the bar next door for dinner (scrambled eggs and toast…if we can figure out how to say it in Spanish). Tomorrow, July 1, we will walk to the outskirts of Santiago and on July 2, we will descend to the end of the line.

Pictures are of us laying in our double bunkbed. I am hating bunkbeds. Can’t sit up straight. Waiting for the top one to collapse on us due to the two people above us doing things…ya…no manners here.