A Camino Love Story: Meet Rene and Nao

I met a couple on the Norte in a donativo albergue tucked away in the hills. They made too much spaghetti that night and invited me to share dinner. We drank a bottle of wine and talked over a cigarette. Rene is from the Czech Republic and Nao is from Japan. They are a laughing, massaging, chain-smoking duo from different sides of the world. I ran into them everyday for about a week and a half straight. We became friends.

We arrived in Priesca some days later after a sunny walk uphill. I watched them run off into the shade of the woods to be alone. Pushing each other up against the trees, their hands running everywhere.. the next moment, they were rolling around in the grass. They were in love. It was written on their faces. Eating at the picnic table and then ending up spread out on top of it. No one else exists.

One bright day at La Naranja Peregrina, after a couple of beers, I asked them for an interview.

“Where did you start the Camino?”

Nao- “Arun.”
Rene- “Gerneca.”

“When did you start walking together?”

Nao- “Well, we saw each other for the first time in Bilbao, but we didn’t start walking together then.”

Rene- “I continued alone after seeing her in the albergue..

(Nao interjects..)

Nao- “Yes, well, me too (laughing).”

Rene- “Yes, okay, you too. And after we are alone for two days, we meet again and started talking. Now we are walking ever since.”

“How long has it been?”

Nao- “About 10 days, I think.”

Rene- “I had plans to walk alone, but then I went outside for a cigarette and somehow, now I am not walking alone anymore.”

“When did you start to feel that you were more than Walking partners?”

Rene- “Wow, okay, um, where were we? On the beach?”

Nao- “Yes, but I don’t remember the name of this place. But we were on the beach. Sunny day. And then, I don’t know.”

Rene- “Its hard to remember because we are not so many days together but so much happens in so short time that we are together.”

Nao- “Noja! On the beach in Noja, I remember now.”

“Have you made any plans?”

Nao- “We have plans to drink Captain Morgan in Japan with cola and lemon.”

Rene- “Yes, with cola and lemon.”

Nao- “I prefer Captain to Jack Daniels, yes. And better with cola!”

…

Nao- “But who knows?”

Rene- “It’s complicated now, in these next days.”

Nao- “Yes, tomorrow is our last day walking together.”

I protest, “What?! Why?!”

Rene- “My life is now complicated.. because I am meeting a friend from Czech Republic tomorrow. She is the reason I come on Camino.. there were a lot of problems. And now they are coming here and I’m confused.” He continues.. “I was really in love with this girl and we’re together for one year and she was in love with her ex-boyfriend.”

“But why was it so bad? Why did you have problems?”

Nao- “Give more examples, I don’t understand either.”

Rene- “Okay, well, she was in love with her ex-boyfriend and said that she likes her ex-boyfriend more than me. She is basically obsessed with ex-boyfriend.” He continues.. “and after one horrible year things are still complicated and she writes to tell me that she’s coming here.”

Nao- “Maybe because she was really into her ex-boyfriend, now she’s really into you because you are also ex-boyfriend.”

We all laughed.

“I like Nao better,” I said after she went to grab another round of beer.

Rene- “Me too. She is a special girl.”

A couple days later, when they weren’t walking together anymore.. Nao was gone and so was Rene’s smile.

The Painter that Doesn’t Paint

Misery. The pain of being without my oils and brushes is a pain that I wouldn’t wish on anyone. My thoughts are consumed by violets, cobalt blues, crimson reds and mustard yellows. I dream of mixing olive greens from the blues and reds and forming them into the shape of the trees that haunt me. The pain begins early in the morning, from the moment I step out of the door. I look for the mud to soil my feet. This is where I’ll find the trees.

I take the way without cars, the way only herds of cattle and weary pilgrims cross. Here, the sight of the first Eucalyptus tree brings tears to my eyes. Not even the rain can keep up. The tears tread past my cheeks and roll off my chin into the dirt. They look like the river I’ve been waiting to cross.

“I’m lost,” I cry. “Who the fuck is a painter that doesn’t paint?”

I walk off the path and sit under an oak tree, knees curled into my chest, head resting between my legs. The birds sing as I sob beneath the shaded shelter of the tree’s branches. We’ve created quite the song, the birds and I. And I wish I could paint them too. The sitting only lasts so long before I turn around to face the tree. I give it a hug. The bark scratching my face until the tears stop. A moment of rest.

“I’m sorry,” I tell the tree. “All I want is to show other people how beautiful you are.” I kiss the tree and say goodbye.. I’ll never see it again.

The way separates the traffic lights and the city’s noise from the green of the forest. And I dream of paint in every step. Dreaming, dreaming, dreaming of thickened paste to squeeze on my palate. I don’t think of food, I think of paint. And the memory of the colors keeps me full. The colors are enough satisfy my hunger for a hot meal. I ask the spring to plant me a tree and let it grow. I want nothing but my oils. Nothing else besides the medium to make the colors last and the solvent to make the colors disappear again. I will use my fingers and my toes to work, mixing the paint with my hands.

Wind, make the leaves shake. I’ll watch them dance. Give me paints to study every flurry of wind. “God, can you hear me? I’d treat a grease-stained pizza box if it meant that I could work. I’ll receive whatever you can muster up with open arms.”

The pain and misery of painting is a longing so deep. I live for work that I can’t make.. paintings that only live in my mind. The greatest pain of painting is not painting at all. It is a pain that I refuse to indulge any longer.

Dear Mom and Dad

A postcard home..

I have made it to Logroño, Spain, the place where Rosie and I visited Sergio last summer. Don’t worry about my feet. They are getting better all the time. In a little over 500 kilometers, I will be in Santiago, Spain. I wish you could see for yourselves how beautiful these countryside walks have been. And ye wine isn’t bad either! If you can, make sure you try some of the wine from La Rioja, I think you will like it as much as I do. Give the family kisses from me, Moose (for those of you who don’t know me, he’s my dog) too!

Love,
Caroline

A Camino Myth

“What the hell happened to your feet?”

I heard it in many different ways, in varying degrees of disgust and revulsion, in multiple languages, with an array of accents and all kinds of “surprise.” My fellow peregrinos stick their noses where they don’t belong, playing doctors when I’ve seen no credentials of the sort. I’ve noticed a trend. Middle-aged men questioning my ability to care for myself.. sound familiar? Pretending to take an interest in a young girl with fucked up feet only to mark their territory as they frequently do.. like taking a piss on every tree in the park. At least these douchebags aren’t staring at my breasts, right?

Even a few stylish women sipping wine in the early afternoon join in on the fun. Gripping the stems of their lip-stick-wine glasses with white knuckles only to slam them onto the table with a thud.

They gap at the floor, wide-eyed. “Well, shit, don’t break the glass now,” I think to myself, “that would be a waste.” For a moment, I hope that it’s my whole ascetic that raises alarm. Unfortunately, it’s just my ugly feet. The gaggle of grey haired women, groomed and combed, each take a turn to reveal their shocked faces and pearl earrings.

With good intentions, I’m sure, they remind me of how vile my feet are, even after I’ve assured them that I feel no pain and after they’ve covered their gasping mouths with manicured nails. And I’m left wondering why the hell anyone cares. If they cared, maybe they’d make an appointment for me to get a pedicure.

“Are those the only shoes you have..?” I reply, “Yes.”
I can’t help but crack a smile.

(I know some of you peregrines have some gnarly blisters hiding in those boots. It must be easy to take the piss on someone with bare feet. Although, for your sake, I hope your feet are smooth as a baby’s bottom, fresh-out-of-the-oven. In short, I hope they aren’t as ugly as mine.)

To be fair, they are as bad as they look. Heads turn when I’m caught clipping skin as thick as toenails with a pair of cuticle scissors and scraping away at the mud under the surface with my bare hands. Maybe I should become an archeologist, or a brain surgeon.

My sandals make it difficult to hide the distress of my feet, collaged in bandaids and stained by la tierra of the Rioja hills. They have become unrecognizable. Only pink scars remain, thicker than the Dove-smooth skin that has been caressed many times before. But don’t be fooled by their distress, I imagine myself dancing to Santiago during the remaining stretches without any need to dress my bare feet. Calloused and tanned, they will be liberated from their bandages, tasting the sunshine for the very first time. My only worry is that no soul will dare to suck on my toes in the meantime.

As for the shoes themselves, I suppose that they’ve seen brighter days. And still, I love them to pieces. Their once Starry Starry Night violet muted by the leftover dirt from the South of France. The dirt reminds me of our days together. We are a team. But seeing as though they can’t wrap my feet for me, I acknowledge my responsibility to care for them. And I will admit that my half-assed care on occasion has left me with blisters ranging from quarter to dime-sized wounds in decedent shades of new flesh. They’re tough, but they deserve better.

Feet, I will do right by you.

Sandals, you sparkle with the promise of a new day of walking, the mud, the blood, the beer and tears. And despite the recent downpours and flooded pathways, my little treasures, you cannot be cleaned. I fear that holy water can’t even help you. I like you this way.

—

It pours. The walk to Estella is an overcast sky. Water slips inside my raincoat and my skin dampens with dew. It’s fucking cold. The bitter drops laugh at me, and I decide to laugh with them. Even on the rainiest day, I can’t imagine doing anything but cussing in the cold. “One foot in front of the other,” I tell myself. “Jacquelyn is here. And there will be wine, god dammit.” My soiled toes kiss the rain and press on, enlivened by the promise of a drink. “Oh, the silly things I do for a glass of wine.”

We seek refuge in a cafe. Rain pelting the roof. It grows more ferocious by the second. Fuck, it’s cold. The last 20 minutes of the walk was spent taking about wine, mostly about how badly I wanted it.
Now that I have finally have it in my hands, I can hardly enjoy it without shivering. “Fuck it,” I say, and upstairs to the bathroom I went, where I stood underneath the hair-dryer despite the Swedish woman’s persistent knocking on the door. “She’ll get her turn,” I assure myself. “And if I freeze to death, she never will.”

I was confronted by an English man once I slumped downstairs after spending a selfish amount of time and electricity under the hairdryer. He appeared, with a large, wooden staff and camouflage raincoat. Military-strong, the army ranger/backpacker, I call him, told me that my feet were the ugliest damn creatures on earth, as they all do. He’s not special.

I told him my famous short-story.. “Yes, these are the only shoes I have. No, they don’t hurt. Yes, I’ve been told how to treat my blisters, so long and thanks for all the fish.” And then, his eyes grew two sizes larger as he said, “Oh my god. You’re a Camino Myth.” And I asked, “I am?” He told me that he’s already heard of me. “You’re the young-ish, American girl who’s walking the whole Camino in a pair of sandals.” He looked at my feet again before speaking, like he had just found something that he’d lost, “This older guy named Syd told me that he met a girl with dead skin flapping off the side of her sandals and walking in a great deal of pain.”

“Yeah, well, fuck Syd,” I wanted to tell him. I wanted to tell him that this character, Syd, is a god damn liar. I wanted to tell him that he’s found the wrong girl. This girl feels no pain at all. If I ever meet Syd, I’ll tell him, “Hey, Syd, this girl walked 45 kilometers with her bloody feet from hell and water-logged sandals without uttering a single complaint.” Instead, I told the army ranger, “Well, the next time you hear someone talking about my feet, you can tell them that I was attacked by a pack of ravenous wolves, buen Camino!” And then Jacquelyn and I headed out for our final march in the rain to Estella.

(Later, this same guy pretends he’s my dad. “You know, I have two daughters about your age. Smoking cigarettes is bad.” No shit, asshole.)

What I didn’t have to explain is that I am a warrior. (And I smoke on occasion.) All who travel the Camino beware. I am a Camino Myth. And everything you hear is true.

My feet are fucked up, and who the hell cares?

Also, keep your eyes pealed for the funny, German guy who sleeps in the woods every night, rain or shine. I haven’t met him yet, but I hear that he is a Camino Myth too.

Postcard to England

I think I have finally found the perfect postcard to send you. I write to you from a small cafe in Logroño, Spain. I think about how much I would like to play a game of chess with you. I’ve been practicing a little since the last time we’ve played. I can’t say that I’ve improved, but I can say that I haven’t gotten any worse. Also, do you recognize this ink? I have to thank you because you’ve left behind a nice pen for me to write stories with. You’ll hear more about them in the coming days. Until then, I think of you in England. The butterflies look like you. Bisou.

Love, your Caroline

An Introduction-

The mountains have eyes.. and so much more. Underneath their grass covered skin, appearing and disappearing, jagged, stone bones, each hole and crack in la tierra, I imagine as a sponge. It’s pores like telescopes: sensorial passageways anticipating my every step. Before the climb, before my descent through the muddy foothills, through the shit and rocky streams, the mountains wait quietly and patiently.

My sandals prevent my feet from dishonesty. Left. Right. Left. Right. The Way is made through saturated mud, thorns and spring currents. And they are experienced in their totality. All ten toes soaking wet and awake. Many times, often without warning, my whole foot is soaked in thick, brown paste or merging puddles. And after my missteps, I try to reconnect with them, my feet, I mean. I aim to plant each step thoughtfully, but sometimes, I swear that these feet have a mind of their own. Who can blame ’em?

The mountains are patient, I have learned this many times. They wait as I waste time by pondering silly things like, “I wonder if that was mud or shit..” followed by even more silly moments of clarity like, “Who the fuck cares?” They even wait as I stop to greet every donkey with big, round help-me-I-need-to-eat-all-the-time eyes, feeding them with the only baguette in sight for the next 20 kilometers, my baguette. I can’t resist. I stick my hands through the barded-wired fence, one full of bread crumbs and the other with a handful of tall grass to supplement the grains. Hey, look, I never said I was rational. I’m trying to give these creatures a 3-star dining experience. The smaller, more curious donkey, perhaps with the hungriest looking eyes of all, follows me as I begin to walk away. Sadly, for the donkey, I decided that I needed to eat a 3-star lunch, too.

I wander in the direction of the red and white dashes displayed on the lamp-post and head towards the mountains, whom already know that I am coming. And as I scream, “Fuuuuuck!” at the top of my lungs while scrambling up their slippery slopes, they know, despite my diversions, that I have finally arrived. They wait as witness to my pounding breath and rapidly piling mounds of moans and groans, “oo’s and ah’s,” followed by fatigued curse words and sighs of relief, all of which seem to be lost in the wind. The mountains wait, watch, listen to make damn sure that I experience the “awe.” And I always do. The “awe” first strikes me on the climb, not at the top. When I tell myself that it can’t get any steeper, the wind and rocky scales any rougher, they do. And once I reach the peak, it becomes clear that it is all perfectly designed. Every centimeter is accounted for, necessary to see beyond the valleys and ranges which cannot be done from down below.

I am thankful.

To be continued..