It rained. And we walked. And talked. And as it rained some more we kept walking. Until we got to our hostel for the night. Where we ate huge dinners. And we talked until the wee hours of the morning, until finally closing our eyes, exhaustion enveloping us.
That's what everyday of this trip would look like on paper. 46 kids from all over the world in Spain, who joined together to make this crazy journey. Over 70 miles, and every inch of ground covered on foot. It might not seem like a lot, but trust me it was.
But those were some of the most incredible days of my life. 5 days filled with every emotion imaginable. Exhaustion, Hunger, Determination, Pain, Joy, Happiness, Relief, Pride...just to name a few. And being endlessly wet. We forgot what it was like to not have water falling from the sky.
Wanting the Difficulty and Pain to end... and Sadness when it was finally all over. Those people mean so much to me. I was in the best company that whole Camino.
Lemme tell you about my journey:
I left early in the morning on March 19th, from Huelva, Spain. I took a bus (on my own!) to Madrid. Madrid for three days was where I began my trip, and it deserves a post entirely in itself. So stay tuned for that!
This entry I want to dedicate entirely to El Camino de Santiago.
El Camino de Santiago or St. James' Way as it's called in English has quite a bit of history. From what I understand, it's typically a spiritual journey. And if you want to know all the information about that, I would lead you to Wikipedia. But this post isn't about history and theory, but about friendship and emotions.
So, we begin in the Madrid Airport. Autumn, Erik, and I arrive at 1 am to try to get a few hours of sleep on the cold, hard airport floor and then catch a flight that leaves at 6 am. I don't remember whose idea it was, but we decide to put some music on and dance in the middle of the airport. There's almost no one there, except the cleaning lady driving back and forth on her floor-mopping machine. (The looks she gave us were hilarious!)
Dancing in the Madrid Airport
We get on the flight and everything without too many issues (except my maybe-slightly-oversized-and-overweight backpack may have caused some problems, but that's another story), and arrive in Santiago at 7 am in the morning. We spent almost all day there, just walking around the city and discovering an amazing cheap sandwich place; until getting on the bus to Sarria where we were to begin the walk the next day. I saw so many wonderful fellow AFSers again after 7 months, we were reunited.
And at 7 am the next morning, we were ready to begin the journey. Here's a random vlog from the end of the first day:
End of 1st Day- Camino de Santiago
And this is the video that I made to describe the entire journey. Enjoy!
El Camino de Santiago
A really cool part of the trip that I wanted to mention was that people from all over the world come together to make the journey. And everyone talks to each other. There weren't a ton of people on the Camino since it's really not the prime season, (people usually do it in summer) but we still met a lot of other foreigners. There were Spanish, lots of Germans, Irish, English, more Americans, Turkish, and so many more...
I'm not going to include too many photos since there's already millions in the video, but here are some of my favorites:
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| Soaked. |
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| My friend Marianne from Norway with this Spanish woman- I just think this is adorable. |
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| Love this. |
After finishing:
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| Shannon, one of my best friends. |
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| Love this kid. Plus we are about as happy as can be. :) |
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| From Germany |
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| Siobhan <3 |
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| I made it. |
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| No, WE made it. :D |
One of the best weeks of my life. Thanks for reading about it.
Besos, Lani.
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