Live your dream; day 7

Last night we stayed in an albergue with the sweetest vibe. All over the walls pilgrims had written motos and painted camino scenes. It was so chilled. We slept in the attic with it's rustic ceiling under the thick wooden beams. There were only five of us up there and after Liz woke the snorer up by lightly kicking his foot he made a concerted effort to keep schtum. The silence, the mattress and the chance to spend an hour treating my feet made all the difference. So... my feet. Well they aren't good but they aren't bad in the scheme of things. I have two blisters on each heel and two on the side of the ball, the size of chocolate minstrels but not as appetising. The are bulbous and were packed with fluid. I was hesitant to pop them as they were covered in compeed (a pilgrim essential). It's like another layer of plastic skin, preventative in theory. Once you have it on, you leave it on, and it doesn't come off. If you blister underneath it I think you have two options... Rip the compeed off, along with the offending blister (not for me), or push needle through compeed and skin, make a little hole and drain. I did the later and prayed. By morning my four main blisters had gone down dramatically and the rest of my feet were swollen. But I had the best walk of my camino so far. Yes, I now have a blister on a blister but my feet overall are feeling the best yet and I no longer feel like someone has taken a hammer to every bone in them. Yes. I am now obsessed with feet and chemists in a way that only a fellow pilgrim can understand. We talk about our feet the way football fanatics talk about the last game.

The foot contains 26 bones, 33 joints, 107 ligaments and 19 muscles; all of which were screaming in agony over the last six days. 1/4 of all the bones in the human body are in your feet. These poor sods didnt ask to carry me the last 180km in just 7 days but they have. As i now know more than ever when these bones are out of alignment, so is the rest of the body. You try to compensate and you put your knee or your hip out.

One last thing about feet and them I promise to go easy on the foot situation: Leona was advised by her sporty brothers that one way to treat blisters was to cut the skin off and then superglue it back on again. This is what footballers do apparently!!!
Aaaaaagggghhhhh!!!!!

OK, now I've got all of that out of my system.

Today's walk was amazing! Now that most of the pain has gone I could really enjoy the walk today. The storm clouds were brewing and we were rained on in the morning which gave Liz, Leona and I the opportunity to have a long chat in a quiet bar. We have laughed so much since we started this camino. I don't actually know how Leona has been able to with her feet but it is a testament to her spirit. It seems to be the best way to deal with suffering.

The rain changed the colours of the scenery dramatically. Dark purple skies, emerald green trees contrasting against yellow fields and towns of eulithic limestone. It was beautiful. The rain was purifying and changed everyone's energy. I drank in the colours, the smells, the feel of the rain on my skin. All was more intense today.

This camino is so real. It makes you realise that god is in the stones, in the sky, in the fields and in turn all of that is a part of you and me. It is so simple, down to earth so mundane so unpretentious.

Today Leona met a mother and her 14 year old son on the last day of their camino. She told me he looked like a man today. She asked him what he had learned on the camino and he replied; how to talk to people. Magical.

I write this as I sit on the floor of our auberge with Spanish and Germans milling around us about to sleep in tri-tiered bunk beds. Outside the stunning viana with it's open, vibrant, laid-back atmosphere, magnificent buildings and numerous portals. As I read on the Walls of the last albergue:
No suenes tu vida, vive tu sueno.


This road is making me so real

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Location:Los Arcos - Viana