You choose your own path

Day 11:  Tui to Porriño, Spain

We have passed the half way point and our feet are feeling it.  The moleskin has come out, blisters and a few hotspots are found, which we attribute to the wet feet and not the 120 miles +/- that we have gone so far in the past nine days.  We are averaging between 10-15 miles per day with day packs, and we are humbled by those who are carrying full packs the whole way…

We start of this second week our Camino with a short mass at the convent chapel.  Good thing about being Catholic is that the rituals are the same around the world.  We meet Pedro and Sylvia from Brazil the night before and they join us for the 9 am service.  To celebrate their 30th anniversary they have decided to walk the Camino starting in Tui. This is actually more common that we would have expected, but we are within the last 100 km for a Pilgrim to get their true certificate (compestella).  We feel a bit inundated with these ‘new’ pilgrims.  This morning we are a bit rushed since we leave a bit too late and need to hurry to go back to town for what we believe (but not quite sure) will be a full mass.  We are rewarded with our perseverance with a short but traditional full Catholic mass.  It is the first time I have experienced seeing the few cloistered nuns literally behind a metal separation from the congregation (think of Sound of Music).  The reader reminds me of my dad and the elderly lady taking up the collection could have been my mom. Both would have been comfortable in this chapel.

After mass, we say goodbye to our Brazilian friends and head back to our albergue for tea and to finish off the yummy fish cookies (thank you nuns), and to wait out the torrential downpour.  I agree with Siri, that it is OK to be caught up in a rainstorm, but to purposely choose to start walking in one is madness.

It is a wonderful hike though a few woodlands, protected paths and what seems to be an improved wide walking path just built for us.  We stop to eat some biscuits we have carried.  Some new found Texan friends decide to partake in the Camino treats after being reluctant at first. I think this is a great way for them to start what is their first day of their Camino.

Due to the heavy rains it seems we have been detoured around (thankfully) some of the now very muddy paths.  We have to stop a few times to consult our Camino apps (of course that is a thing) of which is the TRUE route. As is the case in many things, and what people have heard me say, there is more than one way way up the mountaintop (whatever symbolism you choose to add to that) and we find that all roads lead (finally) to Santiago.

For example, our last stretch into our final destination Porriño, we start over a very steep bridge and into a busy street.  As we pass the gas station, we consult our Camino apps and realize there is a nicer trail along the river.. we decide to go backward to this turnoff we missed and feel like salmon swimming in the wrong direction against Pilgrims we have recently passed.  I try to tell them there is a better way.  Siri finally reminds me that I don’t know that is true since I haven’t been here before. Of course that is after I have already convinced a few others to join me on this new quest.

I even convinced an elderly woman NOT to go up that steep bridge and follow us backward to the promised land of milk of honey…okay, it was just a ‘river trail’ per our app, and she agreed to join us, so I make sure she starts on the right path and then… I take off..

Fortunately, I married better, so after a few hundred feet of this muddy river trail, Siri tells me the truth. which is why I do love her and why we are celebrating our 31st anniversary one week after this trip.

What the hell were you thinking to convince others to join us on this possible fool’s errand?  She sort of says to me.  And why did you convince others to join us, now I feel responsible, especially the old lady..  you don’t really know if this is a better path.

I stop. I agree with Siri and we stop to wait for the old lady who walks at half the speed of us and has pink plastic crocs on her pack.  Our feet are wet, we are tired and I know we could push through and be at our hotel in about 20 minutes.  But because my better, more amazing half has just spoke the truth,  I wait…

Around the corner, finally Terry arrives.  For the next hour we meander along this muddy river path and I decide to be present with her at this time.  When she tells me her name, “it really is a Therese, but everyone calls me Terry,” I have to hold back the tears a bit since that is also my oldest sister, on hospice, that Siri and I have been lighting candles at chapels and churches for along this Camino.  And who I plan to travel to after our travel in Spain.  Later on the trail, I share my story about meeting my Bolivian friend I found on this Camino and she tells me there is no such thing as chance.  It is all for a purpose. I agree as I walk along with my sister’s namesake, who happens to be the same age as my sister, who came from a big Catholic family (only seven siblings). I realize I am here to listen and be present.

She tells me about her life, her amazing six kids, her divorce after 20 years to a Moroccan man she had the last five or her six and who came from a strong family, how she walks slow, but she has amazing perseverance in spite of incredible adversity.  She has been to the Fatima shrine recently and wonders why we must make life harder than it needs to be, with the extra devotion shown at this shrine (people on knees walking up to the alter) and I agree relating my Bolivian Caporales experience walking on our knees into the cathedral after six hours of dancing.  Terry is impressed by six hours of dancing, while I am thinking she has just walked the same last nine days over the same muddy, rainy paths, sometimes wearing her pink plastic crocs, because her boots were too tight and she is impressed by my dancing six hours? Really?

We keep walking and she tells us thank you for guiding us on this sometimes muddy path since it is better on her joints than the hard urban sidewalk alternative.  We also get to hear the birds and the running stream.  I am glad I have not led her astray. Siri has found the closest albergue (hostel) that meets her needs and it is actually at the of this river trail.  It is grand and in a beautiful setting and in some way we have given her a shortcut to her final destination.

We all say our goodbyes and just before she enters the new building, she stops and blows us a kiss. We both send her a kiss back.