Good friends, good times, good camino!

El Camino de Santiago is proving to be a great time. I have met some wonderful people, walked through sites I never knew existed, and eaten some damn good food.

I have been hiking and spending time most with four Spaniards – Luis, Jamie, Josep, and Juan.

Luis is a great man. He is a paternal figure to me and has a gentle vibe about him. He is from the city of Murcia on the Mediterranean coast and as well as having a lot of wisdom, raises two kids and works as a recreation director for the Mayor’s office of Murcia.

Jaime is from Madrid and about my age, a recent university graduate in computer engineering. Soon he will be moving to Finland for work. He has been teaching me all about Spanish political structure as well as comparing Spanish culture with American. He speaks both English and German quite well and I am impressed!

Juan and Josep are from the area of the country known as Catalunia and thus might resent being called Spaniards before being called Catalans. Those two are boisterous, loud, fun, brotherly, and even a little bit crazy. To give you a picture: one night in Pamplona, for example, we went out to a tapas bar and had a good time. Juan and I were in a boisterous conversation and in mid-sentence, he pushed out his shoulder and asked me to check if anything had dropped onto it. I looked it over, and right at that moment, he went to grab my family jewels!

That same night, encountering an attractive female fellow pilgrim about my age who was needing to leave the trail due to leg pain, Juan and Josep informed her that I was a physical therapist specializing in holistic healing.

OK.

She wanted me to heal her.

While Juan and Josep had a certain type of physical therapy in mind for me to perform that did not quite involve holistic healing, I could not bring myself to act that unscrupulously. I do actually know a very small amount of holistic medicine based on my work with traditional healers in Ecuador and I used this as well as some understanding of personal development/psychology to work with her. It turned out well and while not healed completely of her physical ailment, she told me that it was a night of greater peace than she had felt in years. I was glad to be a part of that and I am proud of myself for handing the situation in an ethical way.

I am loving speaking Spanish again (Castilian in Spain given that there are four languages here) and feel really good about my abilities. I have not been trying to integrate the Spanish accent or the small difference in grammatical structure for one verb form than I am used to but rather to pick up some Spanish colloquialisms. My new Spanish friends have been a great help and I have learned the following expressions “Yo soy la leche!” (comparable to “I’m the shit!” in the US). The word “cojonudo” is a vulgar way to say that someone is fabulous, “Que maja” is to say “That’s cool!” and a “mona” is a girl who is attractive with her personality being her biggest selling point :-).

Given that I have made so many friends and have enjoyed the social aspect of el Camino so much, I have admittedly been feeling frustration about the lack of time I have to myself and to my own experience. There are always people who want to walk with me and the hostel is one big social event. I’ve had little time for introspection, and knowing myself as someone who is as introverted as I am extroverted, I need this. And if I don’t have it, well, I get rather irritable around people and tune them out to some degree.

There is lots more I could write but the library here is closing and I must be off to the albergue to share in a communal meal!

P.S. that one picture actually is an 800 year old human skeleton being excavated in Pamplona.