My Spanish Adventure

May 15

I’ve contemplated sharing every second of every day with you. I’ve cursed over and over again, as I’ve tried to put together the words that would indicate the sensations that swarmed my body as I walked. Seeking out a thesaurus on multiple occasions, trying to find the right words to describe the sights, emotions, or vibrations my body experienced, so that you could share an inkling of what it means to walk, even the smallest portion, of the Camino, as we did. I haven’t found it, them, anything. I can’t tell you what this trip meant to me, nor how it’s changed me. I can’t share it all. That 15-day adventure would be a book series. I spent a very short time on the walk, compared to many, but the everlasting impression is tangible in my day to day life. It’s left a physical fingerprint that will forever alter not just how I view the world, but how I live and interact with it. Since, exactly one year later, I still can’t put my finger on what to share or write, I will give you the “cliff note” version of the trip.

Let me begin with the vital details:

I left May 15, 2017 and returned May 31, 2017.

In Orlando I left, my husband and two children. My two dogs. My parents, grandmothers, and brothers. I left my friends. My business. I left everything I knew. All of my comforts.

8 Women in total left for Sarria as part of my group, I only knew 2 of them.

The plan was to walk Sarria to Santiago de Compostela. 118 KM.

New Moon to Full Moon

Magick

Let me begin with the vital details:

I left May 15, 2017 and returned May 31, 2017.

In Orlando I left, my husband and two children. My two dogs. My parents, grandmothers, and brothers. I left my friends. My business. I left everything I knew. All of my comforts.

8 Women in total left for Sarria as part of my group, I only knew 2 of them.

The plan was to walk Sarria to Santiago de Compostela. 118 KM.

New Moon to Full Moon

Magick

Our trip began in Sarria. We were to stay in a hostel in a small village that slept on the outskirt of Sarria, called Barbadelo. It was here, that after our preliminary hike to where we’d sleep, and parting ways into two smaller groups for dinner, while we prepared for the next day’s hike, that I nearly caused the two women I did know to have a heart attack. Our trip almost ended before it began! Ivette and Ana are like Aunts to me. Not only, pivotal and strong women in my life whom I look up to, but close friends to my parents since before I was born. Whom happened to be put in charge of my safety (as if I wasn’t 35yrs old.) I had decided to go with two other women to walk around and have dinner, after the rest had decided to return to the hostel and rest. The restaurant we found was also a hostel, who served their patrons first and then guests, so our wait was quite long. We had no way of communicating with the rest of the group and time simply passed. It was nearly nightfall when we made it back to our hostel and found Ivette and Ana going crazy and on the verge of calling 112 (their version of 911), because they didn’t know where I was. They were relieved I wasn’t dead, but I’m sure that the only reason I survived was because now everyone would know it was them that killed me if I disappeared again.

We rose early every morning with the desire to arrive at our next hostel while it was still light out. The paths we walked were always so different, not because the views were so drastically different, but because each day we awoke a different person, molded from the experiences of the day before. We walked through small villages that smelled of roosters and cows. We were led by the yellow arrows that marked the way, the cow/horse paddies in the street and the hopes of a place to set our packs down and rest for the night. From faint breezes that brought us dandelion hugs from across the ocean, to experiences of de-ja-vu with actual answers, to meeting strangers from both home and faraway lands. The Camino would bring so many adventures in just a few short hours each day.

In Portomarin, we got to share a group experience. Unlike, previously, where we stayed in a hostel with just the 8 of us women. We shared a room with 12 other people. Bunk beds lined each side of a large room. Each bed with a new stranger, on their own journey, with their own experiences, it was wonderful! I met a wonderful writer named Donna who was, ironically, also from Florida! She was funny, intelligent, curious, and a joy to be with. As a matter of fact, we became friends on Facebook and talk often! I met an elderly Frenchman named Robert, 84 years young! We also met a very funny man from New Zealand, sadly, I did not get his name, so we’ll call him New Zealand. While this may have been a dream experience to me, sometimes… well, sometimes people snore, and other people can’t handle it. That was the case with New Zealand. Amidst our bunk mates was a heavy-duty snorer. Sadly, New Zealand was bunked right across from him. We spent the entire night listening to New Zealand, clap trying to wake the snoring man, and yelling Aye-yai-yai! I think we all would have slept something if it hadn’t been for New Zealand’s yelling, but I hadn’t laughed that much in a long time, and it felt great.

The strangers we met added a flavor to the trip that otherwise wouldn’t have been there, but so did the ones we didn’t get a chance to know better, and the ones we didn’t meet at all. We came across a young lady racing to the finish line of Santiago to meet her friend. As it turned out, her best friends’ girlfriend was making the hike from France to Santiago and had no idea that the two of them were there also. They wanted to walk, her same walk, but beat her to the end so that when the girlfriend arrived, this he could propose in the square in front of Santiago de Compostela. In Palas De Rei we met a sweet singing Brazilian man and his beautiful, crying, Polish porcelain doll. Our group of strangers grab a guitar and some bongos and sing in a coffee shop. On the way to Pedruozo we came across a group of Brazilian men who refused to leave their disabled friend behind, so they built a sort of wheelchair that had ropes tied to it, so that they could all take turns pulling, over the rocky terrain, to help their friend reach Santiago with them. On another occasion, I walked slightly behind a man accompanying an elderly lady. It became obvious listening to their questions that they were not together, but only keeping each other company for a short time in passing. The gentleman asked her what her reason for walking was. (There is always a “reason”, even if you don’t know it yet.) She replied, “My mother.” They (she and her family) used to call her ‘The General’. The kids would ask the father for things and he would say, ask your mother. She says her mother was strong. She envied her strength and that she’d never been that strong, but that she thought her mom would say that this walk was something a strong person would do and that she felt her mom would be proud of her. She could feel her. The man simply said, “Of course you can. She is a part of you.” Then they simply walked on in silence until one outpaced the other.

“Va Verso Te Stesso”

When you start the Camino, you have this list of “reasons”, why you’re going to walk it. It might be something as simple as losing weight, in memory of a friend, to get away from life, on sabbatical, etc. As your walk progresses, those reasons fade away. You have so much time to process so much more than was just on the forefront of your mind. The magick that happens on the Camino produces this automatic acknowledgement that there are no accidents, yet you are not predestined, there just is, and you just are, and life is beautifully mysterious. The trip began as a gift, that transformed into my way of reconnecting with my surroundings and my faith, “my reason”. I walked with 7 women whom I thought I had nothing in common with. Our lives divided by not just our age difference, but by our life experiences, upbringing, faiths, cultures, jobs, etc. I recalled dreading the idea of being with a group of strangers for so long. My personal experience with so many different people, never ended well, and I feared the worst for this trip. I walked and I thought. I thought about everything I thought I was supposed to be. I thought about my regrets, my fears, my lack of success in life. I thought about my constant struggles and why it was so much easier for those around me. My greatest success in life was failing to succeed, due to my paralyzing fear of failure. I thought about the snowball that those thoughts created within me. My inability to trust myself, to believe in myself… to love myself. It was May 24th and I had grown to love each of these individual, distinct, women. I grew to cherish their company, almost overnight, even when I complained about them, I wanted them there. And 7km from Santiago, it hit me like a ton of bricks; my reason. Va Verso Te Stesso = Go towards yourself. Each of these women was an aspect of who I was. They were my mirrors and I loved them. I needed to love myself as I loved them. I needed to love every part of who I was, not just say I did. I needed to honor every piece of who I was, as I did them.

Astrid – The Sweet Mystic Olga – Miss. Independent

Elizabeth – The Party Ivette – Free Spirited Intuitive

Lelo – The Overcomer Ana – Confident Dreamer

Jill – The Optimist

I needed to accept that it is okay, to be all of these things, that I NEED all of these things. I had become a stranger to myself and I needed to meet myself again. For that I am forever grateful.

There is so much to this story that I left out. I hope you will ask, one day when we meet, and I’ll be happy to share. However, these are the moments that taught the most important lessons. These are the moments that created ripples and brought forth change. I laughed as much as I cried. I transformed from a person that was content as the wallflower, to the person that wants to push further than the walls her mind previously said she couldn’t climb. I love me a little more every day. My goal is to laugh more than I cry, to smile more than I frown and to share a happy and fulfilling life with those I meet as we walk together, until we outpace each other.

With Appreciation Always,

Ivy

P.S. I’ve included some additional photos from my adventure if you’d like to take a look. :)