Stage 4 – the day the honeymoon ended
Start: 6:30, 5 ºC, rain
End: 13:30
Distance: 23.9/89.9 Km
Stayed at: Albergue Guia Solo Peregrinos
Well. Stage 1 was quite harsh; the last few days were far more lenient in comparison. It will come to no one’s surprise that at this point I was not ready for Pain to come say hello.
The Flowers sing “Korea”
It’s dawn, and my American friend is nowhere to be found. Enter: a random Korean woman, a youthful representative of those few hundred Korean pilgrims I met in Roncisvalles. Of course, she immediately tagged along. Pamplona is not that small in the end, and she wanted some help to get back on the Camino.
It was nice to have some company. For the last few days I had systematically met the same Korean couple between 6 and 7am: we stayed in sync until Melide (Fast Forward a bit…), then I lost them.
So, at this point I had already decided I was friend of all Koreans, wherever they could be found on the Camino.
These feelings lasted less than one hour, until my new party member explained to me that “I love all the flowers, they talk to me”. I didn’t think I could walk slower, but I managed. A third of all pilgrims are in their sixties or older, and I proudly counted myself among their number.
Life is a marathon, but only if you are still alive
Plot twist: my blisters and ankle had only gotten worse. I was not limping, but close. My feet were in a really bad condition. My blisters had blisters. And worse.
This is where I started my love story with Norbert “Euro” Fen, a special coach who walked with me for the next couple of weeks.
Guru meditation
I didn’t embark on this camino with expectations of epiphanies or revelations, I just wanted to go for a walk. Well, reflections came to me, whether I liked it or not.
One in particular stuck with me:
“If you kick a stone up the road, it will only roll back to you. Keep climbing and pass it over”.
I am sure this had a deeper meaning at the time of its conception.
Or maybe it was the painkillers…
Puente la Reina
I made it to the end of this stage in serious pain. I didn’t know if I could go on.
The albergue where I stayed had a “massage service”. The albergue itself, run by Brazilians, was quite nice, and the massage did its job, reducing my pain levels from 9.9/10 to a manageable 8/10.
At least, “manageable” sounded like an acceptable lie.
Previous stage: Stage 3: Zubiri – Pamplona
Next stage: Stage 5: Puente La Reina – Estella
Camino for Closers 