Time flows quickly...

Chafe. The Climax.

Bolstered by the successful 34k frolic of yesterday and aided by the presence of a new team of pilgrim compatriots, I experienced the smug hope today that my days of vicious leg rubbing and unfathomable pain were well on the path to oblivion. It might just prove to be smooth sailing and joyous trekking from here on in. Ahh, the delusional rhetoric of an idealist.

Sleep was intermittent last night due to a grizzled Eastern European nugget who produced animal noise all afternoon and evening on the bottom bunk below Charlie’s bed. We later hypothesised that he was solely responsible for the drained red wine tap back at the Bodega, and must have sucked the old girl dry before floundering up the hill to an exigent Albergue pass-out prior to our arrival.

At crack o’clock the fabulous peregrino five hit the trail and burned at a steady 6km/h through magnificent, low-cutting vineyards of the famous Rioja wine region, past haystacks and tractors, and the sort of crossroads where Satan might hang out with ‘Hell’ brand chafe cream for the tender price of one’s knackered soul. Two days ago I would have considered the transaction. Today, however, legs, back and inner thighs all felt great. One thing I began to notice was a damp disturbance around the end of my left pinky toe. A pitstop at the following town revealed the worst - a gaping, red raw, pustulious gash of blister that from sight alone appeared to be doing my efforts very little justice. A tad disgruntled, I bit lips, joined the crew and soldiered on. A part of me had reconciled with adversity and was beginning to welcome the fresh pain. Call me a sadist.

I caught a fresh wind sometime later aibetted by some mighty conversation with Johan and Christy and sailed through the noon sun and steep gravelly inclines. Charlie, 46, fit and mad, went fully spare at one point and excused himself before bolting ahead like a lunatic into the far reaches of the distance. He made it to our main stop ‘Viana’ at least half an hour before the rest of us did. Johan foolishly kept walking a good k outside, heaving sweatily and suitably ‘pessed orf’ upon return, as any South African would be in his situation.

A drinks session was convened post-siesta with new faces to the crew were - two geezers that I would have a fair bit to do with in the coming days. Brothers from Stansted, Liam and Neil, proved to be extremely irreverent and highly entertaining sparks of English hilarity, duel-handedly fuelling the night from a few quiet cervezas into an convivial piss up. They told us about their first day of the Camino, where the two of them ended up getting wankered drunk and beating each other up in the street. I wondered how the relationship might be tested after an additional four weeks on the trail.

After copious examples of the local red, we remained late stayers until the wee hours, lapping up Thunderdome-era Tina Turner on the jukebox in the last waterhole open in town. It’s no surprise that sleep was even more destitute than the night prior, and this time I was the sole grizzled wino to blame.

A red wine sugar high managed to propel my exhausted and dishevelled carcass from bed into the Viana hinterland, smashing 10km in little over two hours. But at the town of Logrono I was hit by a wall. I hurt bad. I was hungover and in physical pain and the hideous blister on my violated pinky toe was yearning for that Luciferian crossroad in order to cut a deal. After ramming down a pastry and Spanish coffee I followed the crew’s motion and saddled up for more throbbing action. Something, though, told me I probably wouldn’t be making it much further than the outskirts of town. The left knee had shat itself; it was fed up, and it looked increasingly like Logrono was to be my bed for the night. Initial dismay from the team at their fresh casualty turned into good tidings and an invitation to rendezvous up north in Bilbao if I felt like burning some more ligament down the coastal route to Santiago. I expressed my best wishes and intent to keep it as a viable option. But my knee and subconscious knew otherwise. This tired, aching stiff was nigh on calling it a day. The knee was gone. My Pilgrim dream all but over.

Ravenous, and still very much hanging out of my ass, I took advantage of a supermercado that was actually open for business, and made a swift, robotic dietary purchase. It was a no bullshit meal bereft of nutrition. 1 x big fuckoff breadstick; 1 x tray of chorizo. I can’t deny I felt slightly ill after downing a whole 250g family lunch pack of chorizo sausage, if not a sense of colloquial pride, but I resolved that it was necessary under the exceptional circumstances.

With the reality of a subverted knee ligament, I came to a very natural conclusion that the Camino was over. It had been real - I’d learned what I needed, pushed myself well beyond anything I needed to and had nothing more to prove to myself, nor anything to prove to anyone else. I supped a snifter of the pilgrimage vintage and that was enough to whet my proclivity. Those other mad suckers could keep bloody walking. This pilgrim was cactus. No more masochistic lugging of an absurdly packed boulder on my ailing back; no more perilous bastardry of my tender thighs. I felt a new optimism. The madness was over.

After lining up at the closest Albergue with the standard array of oddballs, I noticed two familiar faces lumber in at the end of the line. It was Liam and Neil, my UK pals and Tina Turner aficionados from last night. Thrilled to see that I was still nearby and not four towns ahead with the others, we agreed to convene for another night on the town post-siesta.

It was a grande night.
The opening of the Olympics, a happening social vibe in the cobblestoned streets, and no shortage of licentious options. After a fat meal of lunch, the Spanish like to sleep in the arvo before waking up around 8pm and hitting the old quarter of town – crawling through a bevvy of assorted bars, each with their own tapas and vino specialty, and pigging out on sumptuous morsels of food and hodgepodge of piss to wash it down. It’s not a bad existence. Neil and Liam, never shy of a convivial tipple, provided solid support tonight in painting the town chafe red. Bar after bar, we ate the most amazing skewers of spiced pork, shells of scallop, black Spanish sausage, chorizo pockets, washing it all down with crisp glasses of cerveza and local vintage red.
We were pigs in shit.

Thanks to Neil and Liam’s pidgon Spanish we forged a number of new acquaintences, including budding red-painters, the Quebeqoise femininas Virginie and ‘Madamoiselle’ (can’t for the life of me remember her name), who joined us for the evening long haul. At one point a mashed old Spaniard attempted to initiate fisticuffs with Liam, mumbling something about always wanting to punch an English pigdog in the kisser. I relished in breaking it up, showering the glazy none-the-wiser Spaniard with some of my more colourful vocabulary, plum to his face, with a grin eminently disproportionate to the calibre of tidings expounded from within it. At the next bar we were informed sternly by the manager that if we didn’t promptly finish our drinks and vamoose we would be kicked out to the street. As staff members cleaning up outside confided to us that their boss was a colossal prick, Liam, manly in Virginie’s frilly sunhat, staged a monumental slapstick protest to the manager’s burly truculence. After copying the manager’s motion in kicking a disused winebox, Liam slipped plum on his ass into a large pile of swept rubbish, before trying to save face by pouring a bin full of the night's trash over it. A display as spontaneous as it was bizarre, it made the cleaning staff’s night, and at least gave the dense manager something to think about. Words give but a fleeting insight into the comic resplendence of this Abbot and Costello calibre scene. Complaints and anger have their place, but acts of sheer randomness and self-violation really get the adversary's head ticking over.

With enough shenanigans to pack into a 17-kilogram sack, a heavily inebriated Liam insisted on walking the girls 20 minutes away to their camp site. Neil and I stumbled back to the Albergue and were somewhat horrified to see that both front and back gates were locked solid. This was not good. After banging like madmen on the wooden doors and ringing the bell excessively for a solid minute, the very disgruntled old Spanish bloke running the shop opened up, sputtering gibberish and displeasure. Neil, fluent in Italian but not Spanish - also heavily inebriated, attempted to negotiate a re-entry into our accommodation. No cigar. He didn’t believe we were pilgrims at all. As the old git attempted to close the door on us, I stuck my foot in and demanded that we at least be able to get our stuff from upstairs. Now it was beginning to look like forced entry, as an aging Albergue owner jousted with an unruly Australian ex-pilgrim desperately trying to get to a bed. The police were called and the comedy of errors continued. Neil, in fine form, negotiated some leeway, claiming we were Catholic brothers from Ireland, accusing the policemen and the Albergue bigot of religious persecution. “Its enough that we deal with our hardship and persecution back home…but not in Spain, not in Spain!”. He would later berate the owner at not being of Catholic persuasion, taunting him with the impending reality of two years in purgatory. With Neil doing the talking, I was relegated to a role of desperate gesturing, and anything that might prevent us from being locked up. After threatening to abate Neil of his teeth, the officers ruled that we were allowed to re-enter the Albergue, on the proviso that we got the hell out of there by eight the next morning and never came back. Otherwise, handcuffs. Or, as it were, fisticuffs.

Morning came. In a blink, my bunk was being shaken by our mate Adolf Albergue. It was ten minutes to eight and, recalling the threat of the local constabulary, I decided it was in my best interests to get out of there and fast. I wasn’t up for a night in the local pen. Not with Neil doing the negotating. Plus I’d since booked a flight to Dublin and had to get up to Bilbao. I shook Neil a couple of times but the bastard was out cold. He wasn’t getting up for anyone. And Liam was nowhere to be seen. Shrugging my shoulders I saddled up and hobbled out of the god forsaken Albergue, giving my regards to the owner with my customary misleading grin.

It was the night to end all Caminos. I’d done what I came to do. Which, ultimately, was never completely defined. But whatever it was, I did it. So, I may not have traipsed the entire 790km of the Camino de Santiago. But I walked like the wind. I sang like the bush. I trundled like the invisible horseman. I went hard and did it in style. Nearly got arrested. My El Guapo was as good as conquered.

A valiant return to Dublin was in order. Plus, i'd scored a sweet and lucrative writing gig there, with the added fortune of free, luxurious accomodation. As Duck Dunne of the Blues Brothers band once declared, "If the shirt fits...wear it"

As the sun began to rise, I placed my hands on hips, twisted my head and thrust my crotch skyward. This amigo had done his dash, done it in style, keen to let El Sol set over yet another wild, of not ambitiously random adventure.



Prologue
Still mid-trek across the far reaches of the Camino, I would later receive word from the Stansted brothers…

From Liam
neil punched in the face by the police, am sure he´ll explain.
locked out the hostel slept in an abandoned house, awoken by a rat crawling across my face. found neil in the town plaza asleep.
oh well, was a good one. let us know if you head to london and we´ll rock it out.

good luck in dublin.

From Neil
Hey Cam,
Beaten up by the police the next day. Hope Dublin is treating you well. We have relaxed a bit since then, money has not lasted. Liam slept out, lost most of his stuff.
Let us know when you get to London.
Bye for now.

Pavareedy

As a brief intermission from the compelling 'Chafo De Santiago' Series, Doolblog brings you this short clip. Pavarotti + a shitscared looking Lou Reed. One of the more amusing collaborations i've come across.

Chafo 3 - Madness Begets Madness

They say Madness begets Madness.
This morning I arose at the comely hour of 3.30am and began walking the El Guapo well before Dawn even had the chance to whip off her jumbo undies and get her crack out. This trek was beginning to get to me, because I thought nothing of this strange behaviour at the time. Energetically I felt an inkling that today would yield a better walk – my legs were well stretched, the chafing almost completely gone and my body reasonably rested. Everything seemed to be in order. But as I began to walk further and further away from the deserted Puerte La Reina laneways and amber town lights, I moseyed further and further into darkness. It hit me that it was still a good couple of hours before the sun was going to come up. My organisational bankruptcy had once again tucked its teeth into the core of my arse – If I didn’t pack a sleeping bag then there was buckley’s chance that I’d had the foresight to pack a working torch. Light began to fade, darkness seeped in, and before I knew it I was trundling through pitch black fields with only the silhouettes of the distant hills and trees to give me any credible bearings whatsoever.

It’s funny what your mind does to itself when it’s alone in a strange foreign land, in the middle of pitch darkness in a nondescript forest. The music from my Ipod did its’ best to quell a brooding wave of fear and isolation climbing up within me, slowly gripping its way around my imagination and rationalism. I began to shit myself. Jesus. What if I got lost? What if I couldn’t see the Camino signs and ended up walking the wrong goddam trail in the middle of the desert, or down the murky pits of a Spanish cliff? Then suddenly, something startled my vision from the far reaches in the depths of the adjacent field. Strange lights. Flashing. Two of them, close together. Spine tingles rose within me. Fear gripped my heart and choked it like a deranged strangler. It poisioned my brain with outrageous thoughts. At that exact moment, all alone in the middle of a Spanish forest, I swore to St James that I was about to be preyed upon, abducted and probed by belligerent aliens from another dimension…waiting with baited martian breath for a torchless pilgrim to provide an easy target for an inter-species probing.
If it wasn’t bunionitis and red raw chafing it was fucking aliens.

Again, I pulled my logical mindset together. I breathe in deeply. ‘There are no aliens, fool’. There will be no probing. I regrouped. My mind at ease. It felt good. Positive. Back on track. And then I plunged my runner into a three foot puddle of brown water. Understandably, this really pissed me off and with temper now overriding fear, I was in the right mind to smash something in the face. With a saturated foot my spirits fell again…until another glimmer of hope - a distant thought from left field. God It would be amazing if it were true! After five minutes of blind rummaging, buried within my toothpaste stained toiletry manbag was a tiny four year old torch the size of a double A battery, planted and sitting idle for years on hand to rescue me from a future scenario of interstellar sex crime and incidental cliff diving. I was delivered from all evil. The potency of light emanating from this sorry torch was akin to an Ikea desklamp at the MCG, but it provided just enough to allow me to put one foot in front of the other and avoid any further foot saturation. The day just got better, and dawn and her crack were still nowhere to be seen.

With five solid hours of walking behind me, I’d reached the same distance as yesterday, only this morning I completed it by 9am. And the legs, well, they felt pretty good. Sore, splinty, but solid. Maybe they were getting used to this onslaught. Pleased with efforts I decided I’d treat my body to some more walking. In the town ‘Estella’ a number of locals appeared to be suiting up in customary bull running attire, for what I wasn’t sure. Sure enough, some time later a race commenced…mad bolting through the streets! Fury and fear in the whites of their eyes! And behind the hoard of brave, red and white adorned men, stomping furiously around the corner, there came burning into town a hoard….of COWS!. Forget a bullhorn to the clacker – nothing strikes more fear into the heart of a man than a swift udder to the face. Estella’s ambling of the cows leaves Pamplona’s weak lumbering event looking like a walk in the Spanish park.

Trundling by a nearby winery, I was touched by the thoughtfulness of a drinking fountain which provided one tap for water, and another tap for fresh red wine. Someone wino had drained it early, so I was bereft of free piss on this day. But this was the least of my worries. The sun began to seriously burn. I’d been walking for hours and my body clock was shot. It should be dinner time but it was only noon. Plus, after walking up a steep incline, I must have lost at least a litre and a half of my bodily fluid drooling behind the fence of a deluxe holiday park which contained the most bright blue watered swimming pool I’d ever seen. Looking back it could well have been a mirage.

A few more k down the track I bumped into a group of folks – Charlie the Perthian, Jonas the Saffir, Christy from San Diego and Alex from Brighton. They were a good mob and I offered my services to complete their team of five. Finding it instantly easier to keep up with a group pace, I burned deep thigh up the next hill and breathed an epic sigh of relief at the sight of the Albergue at the top. An incredible vista greeted our efforts and we crashed in spectacular style. Another day down, another 34k for the ailing joints. A night on this piss, good food and good wine. Plus the nice change of good conversation with some excellent people. After a potentially perilous commencement, this day turned out alright…
Would the good times last? Could I slay my El Guapo and send him on his ass?
Chafo: The Epic…continues with part 4…
Don’t you go changing’

Chafo De Santiago - Day 2

Like most chapters of this haphazard journey, my level of planning for the Camino De Santiago was virtually nonexistent. Not only had I lumbered across to rural Spain armed with an array of useless and weighty items including a denim jacket and laptop computer, I also failed to supply the core basics. Bereft of a sleeping bag, I dozed last night in my beachtowel – unwashed since the early days of Edinburgh and damp from the post-45k-chafe shower. Despite the filthy, moist consistency of my bedding I slumbered like some deprived narcoleptic who’d just fought tooth and nail to sail through fourteen straight hours of ‘Antique Roadshow’. I could have slept on a bed of nails. Or teeth, probably.

A middle aged Spaniard woman in the bunk next to me named ‘Monterossa’ stroked my ego considerably last night, gesturing to me Spanishly with a glint and affectionate squint, uttering the words ‘El Guapa…El guapa’. Initially a little down on myself thinking she meant that I bore a likeness to El Guapo, the sweater donning son of a motherless goat from seminal flick the Three Amigos - fortuitously, through the channel of a translator she was declaring that i was a very beautiful man, certainly fit to court her 24 year old, leggy Barcelonian daughter. Monterossa was part of a small crew of Spaniards, ambling their way along the Camino for the utmosth time, well planned and in style. As well as ‘Guapa’, they took to calling me ‘Wallaby’, which neither offended nor thrilled me.


All confidence gained from completing the first round yesterday arvo was shot to Spanish shit this morning as I hobbled from the dorms to the bathroom. Imagine not exercising for a good four months and then one day attempting a decathlon. You forget to stretch, you drink red wine, go to sleep in a filth towel and think everything’s fine, only to wake the next day unable to walk, for the pain in your feet, knees, back, and most instensely, hips and buttcheeks makes you feel foirty years older than you actually are. The only nice thing I had to say about this morning was that my chafing metamophosed from a deep sangria to a shade of mauve taupe. The woman at the ‘Farmacia’ last night must have thought I was an outright sex criminal as I gestured furiously around my groin region asserting the word ‘cream’.

For most, Roncevalles to Cizur Menor was a three day endeavour. I had smashed it in one, and smashed myself in the process. My body ached like it had never ached before. El Sol began to rise as I lumbered through lush fields of yellow Dandelions, grinding my hips and cheeks in order to get my weight up the inclines and alleviate the sting of my blistered-up bunions. Ginteras, the smartass, all organised with his 8kg pack, passed me not long after and overtook after a brief, monotonous Baltic chat. Gint’s conversation face sported the type of expression that suggested concern and a hint of dementia. I reached the top of the hill and sat. I was rooted. It was becoming very clear that I was a fool to have walked as far as I did yesterday. I had only another twelve kilometres to go to Puetre La Reina, but this seemed like an absolute eternity. At a snail’s pace, I hobbled along. A German old timer with scally cap and ski poles took over and burned off into the distance. I was the demoralised, Acme smashed Coyote. Everyone else, a smartass middle aged Road Runner.

I swore to St James that as soon as I got to Puerte La Reina I would pack my stuff and get the hell outta there. This walk was impossible and I couldn’t go on. I had reached the sort of ‘all-over’ pain that shifts your brain into sheer delirium. It’s not healthy. You begin laughing and talking to yourself between groans and random noises, then assume the stride of a Notre Dame huncher and a run of the mill backstreet wino.

I made it to Puetre La Reina, lining up with eighty odd pilgrims in the line for the Albergue. Arriving just before siesta, I was able to purchase some goods from the Supermercado and cooked myself a feast. The urge to leave this madness was slipping. Something was telling me to keep going. I reconciled that I’d wake up tomorrow and give it another crack. And if I still felt like sin then I’d pack it in for good.

‘In a way, each of us has an El Guapo to face. For some, shyness might be their El Guapo. For others, a lack of education might be their El Guapo. For us, El Guapo is a big, dangerous man who wants to kill us’
- Lucky Day.

My El Guapo was this whole bastard walk and bugger me if that son of a motherless goat was going to have me yet.

Chafing De Santiago - Part 1

My vertebrae pinches with piercing bouts of deep pain; my knees are adrift in a mess of ligament. Hobbit-foot bunions crunch and burn inside sweaty stained runners; they buckle together with my splinting shins beneath a 17kg pack strapped to the sweat of my back. Face skin scorches from the thirty degree Basque afternoon sun, as the hairs of my inner thigh and butt cheek grind on red raw skin, chafing wildly, like two hands warming furiously over a campfire, bolstered with the added friction of sweat and hair. Corns blister under ridges of both heels and make company with the growing pustules on my big toes and blisters on the edge of my pinkies. I stop to wipe the beads of sweat dripping across my faux aviator Ray Bans and for the first time in a long time I look up to the sun and curse the world.
‘Why in the name of Fuck am i doing this to myself?'
I mutter. I groan. I swear more and whimper. I am delirious. I feel muscles I didn’t know about. Crannies I didn’t know could produce bodily fluid. I felt like Scott of the Antarctic. Base camp too far away. Only 2km to go. I bit my lip. I ruffle the dust and mirk from my unshowered head. I tune out again and zone out into a world of meditative denial, hobbling up a hill to and from with legs wide apart like I have rickets, desperate to avert the very real possibility of developing bleeding, chafed thighs.

I blame all this on Brandon. Four days ago I was in Edinburgh, enjoying a comfortable existence at my canuck mate Pam’s apartment. Her mate Brandon rolled into town looking like a Dog’s breakfast, sporting the kinda mustache that made you instantly respect a man. His sunkissed and rugged demeanour suggested he’d been far, seen things and done stuff. We delved into conversation about his travels. He’d flown straight from Spain where he’d walked 790km across the Basque region from the French Pyrenees to the Western Coast of Spain – a famous pilgrimage called the Way of St James, or the ‘Camino De Santiago’. Back in the medieval day and beyond, it was believed that If you walked the entire length of this journey, mimicking the trail of St Jimmy, you would render your mandatory stint in purgatory void, affording your knackered soul a fast track to the great shiny staircase in order to hang with St Peter at the illuminated pearlies. Of course, this was if you happened to walk the trail on a holy year – for all other years your purgatorial quota would only be halved. It seemed like a good deal nonetheless, though I would later wonder how many pilgrims ironically fastracked the onset of their own passing as a result of thrusting their bodies through such a mammoth punishing.

Apparently this Camino was walked by 70,000 people a year, some who knock off the whole thing in one go, some who return each year to complete stages. Though it’s recommended that you take your time with the trek and allow yourself 6-odd weeks to get from one end to the other, Brandon managed to power through in just 26 days. Although the recommended maximum to carry on your back is 8kg, he did it with 24kg
I was soon to discover that Brandon was a certified lunatic and that my ailing body could not match the echelon of his madness.

I was spellbound by the glory and challenge around this mystical, enlightening journey and on a whim bought a cheap flight to Barcelona. The last time i was in Spain i received an offensive haricut that made me look like Forrest Gump. This time round i would be traipsing the better part of a country on foot like Forrest Gump. My sins would soon be forgiven forever. My body, never quite the same.

You know when you wake up after a couple of hour nap – you feel lethargic, rooted. Your body clock is smashed and the nap fails to quell your circadian basics. You feel heavy in the forehead. A little disoriented. And that might just be when you’re at home in your own bed. My head snapped foreward as a gruff, foreign voice sped through the p.a. I seemed to be on a bus. Where in God’s name was I?! Oh yeah. Spain. I’d caught a flight early that morning. Walked the streets of Barcelona like a wandering git, with a sack of personal effects unsuitable for long walks and barely vague knowledge of what the hell I was doing. I waited for hours at the Arc de Triomphe bus station. Bodies littered all over the shop, trying to catch desperate mid morning winks on concrete and plastic seats, under 1000 watt bus station lights. I watched as hours ticked on and the world of a new day slowly come to life. Excited and stimulated, tired but sparked. The excitement was severely deflated when I tried to buy a bus ticket to Pamplona. No seats left. No buses ‘til Monday night. I panicked as lethargy took over my logical mind. Foreign city, insecurity, no place to run. Shithouse grasp of the Spanish language. I worried about money, about my plans. Irrationalities and demons entered the mix and put me off track. What the hell was I going to do? My plans to get straight onto the Camino were in disarray. I regrouped stepped up to the mental plate, forcing logical thought, transforming the agitated pre-hysteria into constructive thinking. It would cost me more, but I took a punt and bought a ticket to Bilbao instead. From there I could get a bus to Pamplona, maybe even all the way to Roncevalles and start the walk the next morning.

So I woke on this goddam bus. Lunch break. I followed the heard into the bus shelter restaurante. Spanish life buzzed and screamed…marble benches lined with Spanish families, accents snipping and lisping, tanned heads sipping measures of Cerveza in front of plates of Chorizo and Tortilla Boccadillos. What a scene. What a shock to the senses! Shot all over the floor, wrappers and toothpicks and bottle tops. Jesus! But how riveting. My weary mind soon quelled it’s shock and regrouped with a Tortilla. At that moment it was clear that I was a long way from Edinburgh.

Fortune smiled on me as the day dissipated. I scored a connecting bus to Pamplona and found 20 Euro on the ground at Bilbao station. Though there were no buses from Pamplona to Roncevalles, two Spanish girls hovered at the desk desperate for a 3rd traveller to get in a taxi with them to Roncevalles. The price? 20 Euro. Something above seemed to be guiding me to my destination. Plonked randomly on a table with two Italian women and a French eccentric named Henri that evening, I dined over sparklingly bizarre conversation that was largely mime and partial primary school Italian. The four of us tucked into the free vino and everything seemed to make a lot more sense pissed despite none of us sharing a compatible native tongue.


I rose the next morning at dawn’s crack in a massive stone brick church-esque Albergue with 100 largely middle aged Spanish and Italian pilgrims. With the bunk beds clamped together, I literally did wake up at Dawn’s crack. I think she was French. Through fields and valleys I witnessed some of the most amazing scenes, the most alluring ridges and spurs coming down the end of the French Pyrenees, along through forests and clearings, hayfields and gravel tracks. Sun rose and I tuned in the Ipod. By chance, Lou Reed hit up the first tune…

“ Yes I am a nature’s son…and I’m the only one….i do what I want and I want what I see….it could only be me. Aiiiii’m so Free”

Lou’s words resonated. This was bloody amazing. was a free man! Free from the rut of my existence in comfort zones and boozy nights and debauchery. Free from sloth and breakfasts at the crack of noon. Free in the wild with nothing but my wits, my senses, my two legs to move me and my mind alight with the concoction of excitement and disbelief that I had so suddenly found myself in the deepest of Spanish countryside powering my being across the Camino De Santiago.

Morning became noon. I pushed myself through. Legs got sore. I kept walking. The back, the knees….they all began to feel it. I kept walking. I zoned out. Alone with my thoughts…alone with the thoughts of my favourite musicians. Sun began to sear and scorch. My back started to give in. When I finally arrived to Pamplona I knew I’d come a bloody long way. That’s when I looked up. I was starving. I hadn’t eaten for 8 hours. And Oh God, the chafing. Where do I sign to trade my half price Purgatory in for some thigh cream to ease the tenderness? Please Lord. Let’s make a deal. When I finally hobbled up that last hill to the Albergue hostel in Cizur Menor I realised that trundling 45km in one day is not only heavily unrecommended but might also be considered the action of a masochist. I have never relished so much in the everyday activity of sitting down. It was bliss. The most extreme elation. I’d conquered something massive. I reflected on the moments where I wanted to cry because due to pain so unbelievably intense that seemed to have truly no end in sight. I pushed myself beyond anything I’d ever done before. I sat and marvelled at my efforts. I ate dinner with a Lithuanian bloke named Ginteras. He didn’t like being called Gint.
It was the end of day one and I only just scraped by.