Walking The Way

Sept 12-Woke up early today, had a great big breakfast to prepare myself for the day, and hit the trail. Feeling tired from the extreme walk and the heat of yesterday, certainly was catching up with me. But pushing on!! Today my plan was to just to walk until I felt ready to stop, and let the day unfold. I ended up walking 17 KM to Lorca. I had zero energy by the time I hit the town, and with the 96 degree sun beating on me all day. I was done.

The landscape today was beautiful, and it’s starting to change. I am entering the wine region of Spain now. Like usual, I walked with a few people, would get to know them, then we would split off for various reasons, I’d walk alone, and then might meet up with someone else and walk for a while.

Just as I was hitting a wall, I saw this amazing bridge with rushing water underneath it and knew that I had to take my shoes off and cool off! It called my name! 🙂 It was a great choice, and the water was ice cold and felt amazing on my feet and also cooled me off!! I sat there for about 20 minutes just enjoying the coolness of the water and the beauty of where I was. This then gave me enough pep in my step to make it to Lorca.

Lorca is a small village established in the 13th century. There are two pilgrims hostels of which to stay. As luck would have it, they had a bed available and coincidentally, several of my buddies I had walked with happened have the same idea and decided to stay in Lorca too.

The in-keepers at these places are amazing. They do everything, including cooking dinner for however many pilgrims happened to be eating that night. We all ate family-style and talked about our day, etc. Dinner consisted of a huge salad with fresh grown tomatoes right on the property, linguini bolognese, and fresh pineapple for dessert. Of course, paired with Vino Tinto (red wine). It was a great evening. About 8pm, the sun was down and cloud covering came over and we had a huge thunder storm with a downpour of rain. It was amazing to watch it sheltered from the storm.

My thoughts: taking the time to do things like sticking your feet in the water, or stopping into a cathedral you’ve never seen before, are the things that make this journey even that more special. Like life, this is not a race, it’s a journey and taking your time to soak it in is equally as important as where you’re final destination is.