FROM A HOSPITAL FOR DYING MONKS TO A BURNING ASS: THE CAMINO CLEARLY LOVES ME VERY MUCH
As I mentioned yesterday, I spent the night in some kind of hospital where monks apparently wait for their final breath.
I did have my own room, which under normal circumstances would have meant true luxury. A private room on the Camino! No snoring pilgrims, no rustling plastic bags at five in the morning, and no listening to the nighttime concerts of strangers’ digestive systems.
But this room had one small problem.
The smell.
And when I say smell, I don’t mean the pleasant scent of old books, wooden furniture, and history.
No.
I’m talking about the smell of dampness, old age, and the end of life’s journey. A smell that settles in your nostrils, unpacks its suitcases, registers a permanent address, and firmly refuses to move out.
A smell that makes your stomach start wondering whether it would be wiser to send its contents back the same way they came in.
In short, perfect aromatherapy for pilgrims.
Because I quickly realized that I wouldn’t be able to spend the rest of the day in that room, I decided to move to the park.
Not permanently, although the idea was rather tempting.
In the park, I played ball with a guy, wrote my blog in between, and enjoyed the fresh air. In fact, I had a wonderful afternoon. Sunshine, exercise, writing, and above all, air that didn’t smell like centuries-old dampness and approaching eternity.
But at ten o’clock in the evening, the moment of truth arrived.
I had to return to the accommodation.
When I opened the door, the smell hit me straight in the face.
BAM!
As if someone had hit me with a wet, hundred-year-old monastery blanket.
“Welcome back,” the air seemed to say.
“Thank you,” I thought. “I missed you too. About as much as I miss a toothache.”
I went to my room and discovered that the bedding had absorbed the smell too.
Wonderful.
So it wasn’t enough that I had to breathe it in. Now I also had to wrap myself in it.
I lay down in bed and tried to fall asleep.
Left.
Right.
On my back.
On my stomach.
With my head under the blanket.
With my head above the blanket.
Nothing.
The smell was everywhere.
And then I had a brilliant idea.
My pain-relief cream!
For several days now, I had been using a fairly strong herbal cream, which I rubbed onto my right foot in the morning before walking and in the evening before bed. And I have to admit, it worked wonderfully. The pain in my foot was almost gone.
But the cream had one special feature.
Its smell.
So strong that I could probably have used it to unclog the noses of the entire population of Almansa.
If you smell it for too long, you start wondering whether you’re still in Spain or whether you’ve just made contact with another universe.
And so I considered placing the jar right next to my nose.
On one side, the smell of an old hospital.
On the other, an herbal bomb.
The choice seemed fairly simple.
But then my inner voice of reason spoke up. The one that rarely appears, but when it does, usually has some pretty solid arguments.
“What if the cream finally puts you to sleep?”
“Excellent! That’s exactly what I want.”
“And what if your head droops straight into the jar while you’re sleeping?”
The entire scenario unfolded before my eyes.
I fall asleep.
My head drops.
My nose lands in the cream.
My airways experience a herbal nuclear attack.
And I scream so loudly that they hear me all the way to Madrid.
And because people in a very delicate state of health were staying on the upper floor, I was afraid that my scream might cause another heart attack.
It’s true that I might have shortened their suffering that way, but somehow I didn’t want my Camino to end with a headline in the local newspaper:
“Slovenian Pilgrim with Herbal Cream Causes Mass Panic in Monastery Hospital.”
So I left the cream alone.
I opted for the old-fashioned method.
Lying in bed and waiting for a miracle.
After tossing and turning for a long time, I finally managed to fall asleep.
For fifteen minutes.
A full fifteen minutes of blissful ZZZZZ.
Then I was woken by sounds from the upper floor.
This time, there was nothing funny about it.
I could hear unrest, movement, and voices that didn’t sound pleasant. They were sad.
At one point, I got the feeling that perhaps one of the souls had truly left this world.
I don’t know what happened. I can only guess.
But if someone really did pass away that night, may they rest in peace.
At that moment, all my problems with the smell, the bedding, and lack of sleep became rather insignificant.
Somewhere above me, people may have been experiencing one of the most difficult moments of their lives, while I was lying in bed thinking about how I would walk another 23 kilometers the next day.
Life really is strange.
The unrest continued almost until morning.
There was no more sleep.
At seven, I finally decided that I’d had enough.
I got up, took a cold shower, and tried to restart my organism.
The cold water was about as pleasant as a tax seizure.
But at least my circulation got going.
My heart jumped, my lungs expanded, and a sound came out of me that people usually make when someone unexpectedly throws them into an icy lake.
“AAAAAA!”
Excellent.
Now I was awake.
For at least three minutes.
I brushed my teeth, packed my backpack, and left the accommodation at the speed of someone fleeing biological warfare.
Luckily, the bar just around the corner was already open.
COFFEE!
Finally, something good in my life.
I ordered one and sat down.
First sip.
Second sip.
Third sip.
I waited for the caffeine to start working.
Nothing.
My brain was still somewhere between deep sleep and a complete power outage.
Nevertheless, I stood up, hoisted my backpack onto my shoulders, and left.
Proudly.
Determinedly.
Like a true pilgrim, ready for a new day.
After walking for about a kilometer, a thought hit me.
I DIDN’T PAY FOR THE COFFEE!
I stopped.
“No. No, no, no. That didn’t happen.”
I checked my memory.
Order? Yes.
Coffee? Yes.
Drinking? Yes.
Payment?
Silence.
Wonderful.
Now, on top of everything else, I was a criminal.
Not a particularly successful one, since I had carried out my great robbery for a few euros and discovered it myself, but still.
So I turned around and went back.
One kilometer in one direction.
One kilometer back.
Two extra kilometers.
Because of coffee.
On the Camino, where you carefully count every kilometer, this is about as sensible as voluntarily extending a marathon because you forgot to close a window at home.
When I got to the bar, I apologized to the woman at least a thousand times.
“I’m sorry, I’m really sorry! I was so sleepy that I just walked away! I didn’t mean to run off! Really!”
The woman just laughed.
She had probably seen all kinds of things, but pilgrims who return after walking a kilometer to pay for their coffee and apologize as if they had robbed a bank probably don’t show up every day.
I gave her one extra euro.
As an apology.
And so she wouldn’t think I was an internationally wanted criminal who made a living robbing Spanish cafés.
Only then could I finally continue my journey.
This time with a clear conscience.
And with two extra kilometers in my legs before the day had even properly begun.
If yesterday my main question had been whether I would make it out of the forest alive, today the question was much simpler:
Would I manage to stay awake until Alpera?
The coffee didn’t help.
The cold shower didn’t help.
The fresh air was pleasant, but my brain was still running on a backup battery.
Fortunately, Spain provided a free wake-up service.
Dogs.
Lots of dogs.
As I walked past the houses on the outskirts of Almansa, they began barking one after another.
The first one barked.
The second answered.
The third apparently decided it was time to sound the general alarm.
Within seconds, I had the feeling that the entire canine population of the town had received an urgent notification:
“ATTENTION! SUSPICIOUS WOMAN WITH A BACKPACK MOVING TOWARD ALPERA!”
My heart jumped.
Adrenaline kicked in.
My eyes opened.
Caffeine? Who needs caffeine?
Four angry dog voices and a person is more awake than after three espressos.
“Thanks, boys!” I told them. “Very kind of you. Now you can stop.”
Of course, they didn’t.
Apparently, they had a union contract requiring them to escort every pilgrim with at least five minutes of loud protesting.
And so I left Almansa.
Sleep-deprived.
Slightly nervous.
With feet that, thanks to my miraculous herbal cream, were at least somewhat willing to cooperate.
And with the thought that next time it might be wise to book accommodation where the guests were still planning their futures.
The road to Alpera lay ahead of me.
Approximately 23 kilometers of walking.
Although that wasn’t the original plan at all.
My goal for the day had actually been Alatoz, so 47 km.
Yes, Alatoz!
Because apparently 23 kilometers wasn’t enough, and yesterday, when I was still optimistic and looked slightly less like a run-over hedgehog, I had imagined that I would continue even farther today.
But plans are one thing.
Reality is that annoying woman who arrives uninvited, looks at your dark circles, and says:
“My dear, that’s not happening today.”
To reach Alatoz, I would have had to walk quite a bit farther, climb additional elevation, and cross forest sections.
Forest.
Just hearing the word made my brain remember yesterday’s adventure, when I was alone without a signal and had almost started writing a farewell letter.
“No, thank you,” I told myself.
After a sleepless night, with a tired body and nerves stretched like old rubber bands, continuing to Alatoz would have been about as sensible as running a marathon with a hangover and a sprained ankle.
So I decided that Alpera would be my goal for the day.
And for the first time in a long while, it felt as though I had made a truly adult decision.
Although in my case, an adult decision simply meant that I wouldn’t voluntarily destroy myself even further.
Meanwhile, the town slowly gave way to the countryside. Roads, houses, and fences were replaced by fields, isolated properties, and a wider landscape.
The fog accompanied me until eleven o’clock.
And I have to admit, we got along wonderfully.
The fog was like a gentle, cool blanket covering the landscape and preventing the sun from starting to roast me like a Sunday lunch.
Walking was much easier because of it.
The air was more pleasant, the world was slightly mysterious, and I almost felt like a pilgrim from some kind of art film.
Just without the dramatic music and with significantly more dark circles under my eyes.
Then the clock struck eleven.
And the sun decided the fun was over.
The fog began to retreat, and the sun peeked out from behind it like a boss returning from vacation and discovering that the employees hadn’t suffered enough.
“GOOD MORNING, MY DEAR!”
“Good morning? It’s eleven o’clock!”
“EXCELLENT! THEN LET’S START ROASTING!”
And so it began.
The sun showed its strength.
Not the pleasant autumn warmth that gently caresses your face.
No.
This was the kind of sun that looks at you and says:
“Today, you will be my personal toast.”
And the best part?
There was almost no shade on this stage.
Nothing.
Zero.
The landscape was open, and the sun had complete access to my body.
As if I were on a grill, except no one had brought any kebabs.
That was when I remembered something else.
My visor cap.
My wonderful, useful, vitally important cap, which would at least have protected my head a little from the sun.
Where was it?
In the bar.
In Almansa.
The place where I had returned that morning to pay for my coffee.
Apparently, I had been so busy apologizing for my great criminal operation that I had left my cap there too.
Wonderful.
So today I had managed to visit the same bar twice, pay for my coffee with an extra euro, walk two unnecessary kilometers, and, as a reward, lose my only protection from the sun.
If that isn’t organizational talent, then I really don’t know what is.
“Well done, girl,” I told myself. “You’re truly ready for independent survival in the wild.”
Ahead of me rose the Sierra del Mugrón, a mighty mountain mass jutting out of the landscape like the back of an enormous petrified dragon.
I have to admit, it was beautiful.
The landscape was changing. The fields gave way to low shrubs, rocky ground, and wild vegetation. The path slowly climbed, while the sun tirelessly carried out its work.
My legs began to complain.
“Excuse me, where are we going?”
“To Alpera.”
“Why uphill?”
“Because that’s where the path is.”
“Isn’t there another one?”
“Probably. But this one is the pilgrim route.”
“Ah. So we’ve chosen organized suffering.”
The climb wasn’t particularly difficult, but after a sleepless night, every hill had an opinion about my life choices.
My backpack was slowly turning into a concrete block.
My shoes were becoming less and less like footwear and more and more like medieval torture devices.
And I comforted myself with the thought that at least I had wisely abandoned the plan to go to Alatoz.
When I looked back, I could still see Almansa and its mighty castle in the distance.
Yesterday, I had dreamed that I would sleep in it like a queen.
Instead, I had spent the night in an institution where I battled smells, insomnia, and my own imagination.
Apparently, the universe has a very particular sense of humor.
The path continued along gravel and country roads. Fields, low shrubs, and a vast, almost empty landscape stretched around me.
The kind of landscape where your thoughts begin to wander even more than your feet.
And although I was tired, I found something pleasant in the silence.
No one was asking anything of me.
No one was rushing me.
No one was asking me questions.
Except my legs.
“How much farther?”
“I don’t know.”
“How can you not know?”
“Because I don’t want to look.”
“Look.”
“No.”
“LOOK!”
I looked.
Seven kilometers left.
SEVEN!
Under normal circumstances, that would be almost nothing.
Today, however, I felt as though I still had to cross the Sahara, climb Mount Everest, and attend a mandatory family lunch with relatives I didn’t like.
The sun was beating down mercilessly.
My head was bare.
The water in my bottle was becoming increasingly similar to lukewarm tea.
And then I saw it.
SHADE!
Not much.
Not particularly luxurious.
But shade!
Near some bushes was a small patch of ground the sun hadn’t reached.
To me, at that moment, it was a five-star hotel.
“Oh, thank you, universe! Finally, something good!”
I approached and carried out my usual terrain inspection.
Because I have one very important rule on the Camino.
Before I put my ass anywhere, I check whether the terrain is suitable for my ass.
This is not a joke.
My backside has standards.
I looked at the ground.
No obvious ants.
No sharp stones.
No suspicious plants.
No signs that a meeting of local scorpions was taking place there.
Everything looked perfectly normal.
I sat down.
Finally!
I took off my backpack, drank a few sips of water, and let my body cool down a little.
Five minutes of bliss.
Five minutes of peace.
Five minutes during which I believed that life was actually beautiful after all.
Then I stood up.
And that’s when it began.
First, a slight burning sensation.
“Hmm. What’s this now?”
Then a stronger one.
“Excuse me?”
And then …
AAAAAA!
My ass was on fire!
Not metaphorically.
Not in the sense that I felt I had been sitting too long.
No.
I’m talking about the sensation of someone smearing chili on my backside, dousing it with gasoline, and lighting a match.
PAIN IN THE FUCKING ASS!
Literally.
There I was, standing in the middle of the Spanish countryside, seven kilometers from Alpera, wondering how it was possible for a person to survive so many kilometers of walking, forest paranoia, flies, a sleepless night, the sun, and barking dogs …
Only to be nearly defeated by their own ass.
I tried to take a step.
Mistake.
Another one.
An even bigger mistake.
It burned so badly that I could barely walk.
“WHAT THE HELL WAS ON THE GROUND?!”
I looked back toward the bushes.
At first glance, still nothing.
No warning sign.
No notice saying, “WARNING, DANGER TO YOUR BUTTOCKS.”
Nothing.
Just an innocent patch of shade that had turned out to be the biggest traitor of the day.
“I inspected you!” I accused the ground.
The ground remained silent.
Of course.
Fiest the bed betrayed me.
Then my memory.
Then my cap.
Now the ground.
If my ass had been an independent country, it would have declared a state of emergency, closed its borders, and requested international aid.
And there I was.
Seven kilometers from the finish.
In the middle of nowhere.
Without shade.
Without a cap.
With a sleep-deprived brain.
And with a backside that had apparently just signed a contract with the devil himself.
Some pilgrims on the Camino experience spiritual enlightenment.
Others find inner peace.
Still others discover the meaning of life.
Today, I discovered that an ass can also experience hell on earth.
If the Camino wanted to teach me humility, I have to admit that it chose a very original method.
And if I had thought that morning that the worst was behind me, I now realized that this route clearly still had a few surprises left.
Because there were still seven kilometers to Alpera.
And somehow, I had to walk them.
When I finally arrived in Alpera, I treated myself to a beer. Although “treated myself” may be a bit of a strong expression, since sitting down wasn’t exactly pleasant with my burning backside. I could barely sit, so I quickly drank the beer and headed toward the accommodation.
When I arrived, no one responded to the doorbell. There was no answer to my phone call either. So I had no choice but to go to a hotel. I was so sleepy, and my butt was still burning, that I really didn’t feel like waiting outside the pilgrims’ accommodation.
Still, I can say that I felt fairly relaxed on the road today.
Small victories.
Buen Camino! 🥾🔥❤️
