Whenever I face a difficult decision, I ask myself: Would you rather regret doing this or not doing this? After experimenting with different ways of self-reflection, I managed to learn how to have an honest conversation with myself. To make this happen, I first need to eliminate noise of day-to-day life, voices that do not belong to me and see my life from a wider perspective. It takes time, practice and determination. When it happens, these moments are very precious to me and give me courage for the next steps. Having my honest conversations in religious places has always been interesting and helpful, even without believing in superpowers guiding my life.
Churches, monasteries, meditation centers or cemeteries – there is something magical about being in a space meant for self-reflection. I always come with this attitude: Since I came, let’s reflect!
Day 2 of the Spiritual Camino in Galicia. I woke up very early to have ample time to reflect today. Tarta de Santiago for breakfast brought me into the right mood to start the spiritual day. At 7:40 am I was already climbing up the mountain with my head torch. One hour and one detour later, I arrived at a very old Cistercian monastery in Armenteira. Its peaceful green courtyard enclosed by arcades was very inviting and empty, apart from an occasional nun minding her (or God’s) business.
I sat down on a stone wall and took a couple of deep breaths. Yesterday I identified my emotional baggage, so the next question was to determine how to deal with it in the future. The honest question that I asked myself was: Why was the PhD burnout still bothering me after all these years? The answer came and surprised me, but I knew that it was true. I cried, then I sobbed, releasing something heavy. I blamed others for hurting me when I was vulnerable, but in reality, I blamed myself the most for not being able to protect myself. I wasn’t my own best friend in the past and I even sought dangerous situations. There, in Armenteira,
I did a little ritual to reconnect with myself again. I placed my hand on my chest, forgave myself for the past and promised to be my own best friend in the future.
I slowly picked my broken self up and followed the Camino into a beautiful forest, with little cascades, historical water mills and sounds of bubbling water. I was particularly fascinated by black slugs everywhere. Reprogramming my mind from blame to forgiveness took more energy than I expected, so I was already very tired before lunch. My foot pain returned and I didn’t know what to do about it. I met an Argentinian woman Teresa who distracted me a bit until we reached the nearest bar. There I stuffed myself with jamon and avocado toast and had a quick chat with Alessandra and Tiberio.
The following hours felt like torture. Even with frequent rest and food, I was struggling to move forward. The path was pretty and flat – I followed a river and watched people harvesting grapes. In the next pilgrim bar I met Alessandra and Tiberio again. They saw me struggling and forced me to eat their leftover chicken from lunch. I didn’t want to eat anything; I just ordered a coke for some caffeine and swallowed an Ibuprofen for pain. Alessandra lent me her Voltaren cream for the painful foot. I was petting a furry white cat with eyes of different colors, listening to Tiberio and Alessandra playfully arguing. They are old friends, not a couple, but sometimes they sounded like one. They were trying to find accommodation in Santiago, but everything seemed to be sold out. Alessandra was trying her best, calling people, worried about the situation. Tiberio’s approach was to relax, because in his experience, things always work out somehow. I would say yes, things work out for them because Alessandra does the work 😀 I can see pros and cons of both approaches. I am definitely more like Alessandra, but I wish to learn Tiberio’s method too. We all agreed to meet later in the evening for dinner.
I continued with my slow pace and eventually reached the coast again. The lunch break really helped and I was able to reach Vilanova de Arousa, my destination for the day. Unfortunately, I crossed the limits of my body because my throat started to hurt (from the cold coke?). We enjoyed a great seafood dinner and I went to bed pretty early.
I woke up at 5 am, feeling sick and exhausted. My breakfast was supplemented by Paracetamol and sore throat lozenges. It started raining and it only worsened my bad mood, so I had to find a cozy place to kill some time. I discovered a local library where I got stuck reading a comic book about the Camino in Gallego. You may be wondering now – why wasn’t I walking already?
My plan was to take a boat in the afternoon. The boat from Vilanova de Arousa to Pontecesures is an officially accepted transport on the Camino and the distance counts on your certificate.
Legends say that the body of St. James came from Palestine to Galicia by boat, and it followed the same route on rivers Arousa and Ulla. Then it was transferred more inland and buried near old Celtic ruins, only to be rediscovered few centuries later by a hermit. The man was guided to the tomb by a field stars (Campus Stellae in Latin), which gave name to a new Christian town of significant importance – Santiago de Compostela. A cathedral was built over the tomb and the new discovery attracted many pilgrims from all over the world. I came to contribute to centuries of symbolic journeys and taking this boat was simply an experience that I did want to miss. I did not assign any spiritual significance to it because, in times of sickness, spiritual ideas go from my brain straight out of my nose. My only task was to survive the day, strongly believing in modern medicine.
Alessandra and Tiberio took a different boat and I ended up spending a lot of time in the waiting room. My favorite pilgrim Ester with her husband also came to take a boat. She approached me, gave me a gentle motherly touch on the shoulder and said: “Hey Sandra, so good to see you. Glad that you made it here.” These kind words coming from her confused me and I started wondering what happened to her on this Camino. I generally didn’t hear her speaking nicely about others, and this genuine expression of care felt unreal. Did I get a wrong impression of this woman from the start?
I went to have a quick chat with a lady working in the ticket office because I was bored. I got another compliment for my Spanish, actually quite many these days. I wasn’t sure if people here were just polite or honest. In any case, they kept me motivated and I enjoyed speaking Spanish a lot. We spoke Italian with Alessandra and Tiberio and switching between languages got me a bit confused, but I still loved this opportunity to practice. Language can be compared to sport – when you do it right, you feel it in your muscles and it’s almost effortless. For brief moments out there, speaking Spanish “hit the spot.”
I boarded a small motorboat and I sincerely hoped to take a good nap. Unfortunately, this boat ride was far from calm and spiritual.
They crammed 20+ people in a tiny space; I was squeezed by two random passengers from both sides. People started chatting with excitement, trying to outshout the engines. The noise was so bad that I had to make improvized earplugs from my tissues. We passed many mussel farms feeding the entire Spain with tons of delicious food, and stone crosses on the coast. We were also given an explanation why the crosses were important, but I could barely focus on anything else but surviving this trip. People started moving to one side and frenetically taking photos of the crosses, making the boat shake in a pretty uncomfortable manner. I was getting a headache from the noise and a lack of fresh air (that part I understand, it was raining).
The boat was manned by two people – a captain dressed in black who looked very familiar. I mostly saw him from the side and he strongly reminded me of someone. It took me a good half an hour to finally associate him with his famous doppelganger – Fidel (Castro)!
Fidel was a son of a wealthy Galician emigrant, so it makes sense that I recognized some facial features. His first officer was very tanned and talkative, and his task was entertaining people on the boat. Not only he served us tea, but he also had a slightly flirty attitude towards women. He reminded me of Julio Iglesias. Our brains create stories to deal with uncomfortable situations and it totally worked in my case. The boat ride felt more entertaining watching Fidel and Julios’ interactions.
As we were moving inland on Rio Ulla, the boat suddenly got immersed in a shocking silence.
The engines stopped and nobody dared to make a sound. The captain shouted “Mierda, no puede ser! (shit, this can’t be possible)” while the boat started drifting down the stream.
Fidel exchanged a couple of words with Julio in gallego and they immediately started our rescue mission. Julio mentioned overheating of the engine to worried passengers while Fidel transmitted a message on the radio. Hm, I would guess that we were overloaded… Two men worked together like skilled professionals. Julio went to do something in the front, while Fidel moved people around and opened a lid above the engine. The next step was apparently waiting for the engine to cool down.
Julio was doing a great job of calming people down. Nervous people talked even more than before and I tried to evaluate the danger. The stream was quite slow, and as long as we stayed in the middle, everything would be fine. Rocky and muddy riverbanks could damage the boat. Swimming to the banks would be very unpleasant but doable for me, not sure about all those 60+ people. Most of the older passengers belonged to a single group. One of the old ladies sitting next to me saw the discomfort on my face and she tried to cheer me up. According to her, I looked 23 and my mother must have been worried! 😀 I refused to answer personal spiritual questions about my Camino and tried not to be rude, but I was really bothered. Then I understood why she was curious about the spiritual part of the Camino. She came from Ireland (I think) with 14 people on a trip organized by a tourist agency Exodus. They walked only the highlights of the Camino and the agency organized buses to move them along the route🤦🏻♀️I was feeling sick and grumpy, so the old lady eventually understood that it was better to leave me alone.
Five minutes later Fidel successfully started the engine and we reached our destination.
Wow, it was so good to be on solid ground again. I still had 12 km to walk to my albergue. To achieve this, the best idea I could come up with was buying a tea to go. A drizzle slowly turned into heavier rain and being alone, my mood finally improved. The Camino took me through a colorful autumn forest, where I could hear droplets on leaves and smell the rain. Apart from the Camino, I never go walking to a forest when it’s raining. Should I?
My albergue was very cozy with a hot stove and friendly people. An American nurse, Molly, offered me her leftover pasta for dinner. In exchange I helped her buy a train ticket. My Spiritual Camino was over today and there was only one day left to fully complete my pilgrimage. I didn’t reflect on my long journey yet – my brain couldn’t comprehend that it was almost over. What if my cold gets worse tomorrow? Would I get stuck so close to Santiago? I recalled my moments in the monastery and everything was clear. I needed to rest, walking could wait. Even God needed some rest after 6 days.
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