Day 10 or White and Red Country

Notes on Day 10, March 5, Navarette to Najera (17km)

604.8 km or 375.8 miles left to Santiago.



So last night, after the meltdown in the church in Navarette, I decided I needed to slow down, take a deep breath, and then call my mom. I ate a simple dinner of sopa de ajo (garlic soup) and pescado (fish with the head again). Then I walked the snowy cobbled streets to a bar, blogged, and drank some more pacharan (calm in a bottle if ever it existed) and then climbed the winding steps to my little room in my little pension and called home to my mom and dad.

My mom has been another of those rocks in my life in the past year and a half. But unlike the rocks that supported me, mom was the rock that I crawled under when I wanted to hide, disappear, curl up against her comforting shoulder and cry like I was 33 divided by 10 and pretend the world did not exist. For a whole year she flew down to me in Atlanta whenever I needed her at a moment´s notice and I learned you are never too old for your mom. You always want your mom. I imagine that when I am 40 I will want my mom. When I am 50 I will want my mom. And when my mom has gone on to that great big Elvis concert in the sky, I will still want my mom. Even if one day the planets are so far out of alignment that the universe deems it right that I should be someone else´s mom, I will still want my mom.

She and Dad had all the practical and level headed advice I needed to be reminded of at the moment: listen to your body, take a rest if you need it, just take longer to complete the Camino if you need to, we are proud of you, etc. I talked my shoe situation over with dad and he reminded me that the right gear can make the difference between a wonderful time and a miserable time, and that´s when I realized that so much of my current anguish was caused by a gear problem, which was now fixed (since Elena and Sonjia helped me buy new hiking shoes). And since this morning I took my evil boots to the post office and shipped them (along with some expensive video equipment I wasn´t using) with a wing and a prayer to Santiago for later retrieval, I got rid of all those extra kilos that plagued me. All that remained now was to let my feet recover for a few days and presumably they would be good as new (or good as a consignment shop that only accepts gently used designer clothes).

I took my time getting ready this morning. I packed slowly, deliberately. I shopped for bread and fruit for the road, I ate breakfast, I dressed appropriately for the expected snow of the day, and set off with the hope of reaching Najera (but hey, if I only made it to Ventosa, that would be perfectly fine too). The lighter pack, the new shoes, the pacharan calmed demeanor made a difference on the trail today. The snow drove sharply in my face at times, but I didn´t mind. The mud was thick and squelched with every step, making it harder to walk, but I noticed how refreshingly and mercifully soft it was underfoot.



My guidebook says the weather in northern Spain can be unpredictable. Unpredictable? How about mutates like the mood of a crack head coming down from a high. And indeed, the landscape this winter morning was utterly transformed. The snow had dusted every mountain, vineyard, olive grove and thistle with a coating of pure down. Like powdered sugar on a Spanish pastry (mmmm pastry), it made the whole countryside look good enough to eat. And eat I did. I reached out my hand and took a bit of snow from an obliging shrub, and tasted. Pure, clean.



The earth in La Rioja (this famous wine growing region I am now walking in) is red like Georgia clay and I think 70% of it is now clinging to the bottom of my beautiful new shoes and the bottom third of my rain pants. But that´s ok.



And I made it to Najera, where I met Pok, the Korean podiatrist who looked at my outrageously purple toes and pronounced that they will heal just fine in a few days if I walk on them the way he recommends. "Walk like-eh Masai. You know Masai? In Africa?" And he demonstrated walking on the outside rims of his feet like Masai tribespeople apparently do. Skeptical of my ability to adopt a completely new manner of walking, I nodded in appreciation. I met Veronique and Andre, the French woman and German man who got drunk in a bar in Ventosa and therefore left for Najera after dark and came staggering in to the albergue laughing and whimpering at the same time. I miss Elena and Sonjia and Geunther and Eddie. They are long ahead of me now. But new faces will come down the path, with new smiles.

PS. I have read all your posts and I love you all!