The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change, but the realist adjusts the sails – El pesimista se queja del viento, el optimista espera que este cambie, pero el realista ajusta las velas.

Date: 2nd July, 2023

Section: Santander to Boo de Piélagos

Region: Cantabria

Staying: Boo de Piélagos

Albergue Piedad Villa Salva – Private Albergue, private room €50 per night breakfast. Community dinner €10. Dorm would have been €25.

Recommend, yes … absolutely! Big ✔️. Clean, friendly, bed, restaurant and bar on site. Healthy and tasty evening meal.

Instagram: Link to extra photos and daily caption.

Today:

Hola, I’m back! Picking up where I left off last year in Santander. It really is amazing that yet another year has passed. One thing I enjoy about walking this camino in stages is that walking each year puts some space between each walk, and thus allows what has unfolded for me on the trail to come into my life at home. Or not. Sometimes I read my journal or posts from the year before and I think ‘oh, yeah I still haven’t gotten a grip on that’! A bit like this past year. I still haven’t managed to get consistency in my fitness.

As you have probably come to understand about me one of the things I love about the camino are the people you meet, despite often shying away from the masses and enjoying solo walks and rooms. In fact, I would say the characters of my camino stories it is one of the big reasons I come back. If it was simply the landscape I could go on many beautiful hikes in Europe (of which I do hope to do more of when the time is right). So, in light of this I am going to do this trip a little differently and choose mostly shared accommodation.

After reading a few camino blogs I have pre booked the first three nights and have planned my route based on the recommendation of these. I am also going to self cater a little more. In the past year I have made some dietary changes and hope to not lose my rhythm while being away from home. Travel can seriously interfere with habit forming when they aren’t yet solid. Living in Europe for 5 years has meant a lot of travel, which is of course a wonderful privilege, but it also made growing roots in one place and setting into habits a little more challenging.

In Santander I stayed at a private hotel type accommodation. I enjoyed chatting with one of the guests. She was here for a surf camp and after was going to hike in the pyrenees with a backpack and tent. She was 21, full of beautiful big world optimistic views and was off hiking to test her limits. I thought this might an interesting way to think along this camino. While I don’t have an issue with testing my physical limits I do have other limits I allow to get in my way. Maybe I could start to notice these little triggers a little more and become curious about them.

Today I was planning to hike in to Boo de Piélagos, a casual 14 kms from where I was and a shorter day to ease into my camino. My guidebook rated this as one of the dreariest walks of this camino. ‘Flat, paved and little to see’ it says. As mentioned, I haven’t improved my fitness this past year, if anything it has deteriorated. I am in full peri menopause. I hurt in ways I have never experienced. Sometimes if feels like I go from one injury to the next and it feels most days like my motivation and brain power is on some sort of hiatus. When I read over my first stage of this camino two years ago – I wonder where that mountain goat is. Is she still in me? I still feel her.

The guidebook says a there is a much more scenic coastal variant, but it’s long and it’s completely without waymark. The host at the hostel is adamant I should take this variant. How hard can it be I thought. Just stick to the coast line. My soul is still of a mountain goat. Just stick to the coastline … that thought would bite me. The coastal variant was 100% one of the most beautiful scenic walks that I have walked, but OMG it was the extreme of everything: weather, emotions, language, difficulty! Limits were tested. There was a point when I stopped for some lunch (delicious lunch) at which I considered getting in a taxi. A taxi – me, the must walk every step purist. If there were rooms close by I think I would have stopped.

I did at one point need to rely on the tech freak (husband) at home to map me a path to get though and out of some overgrown scrub paths. This image of a shipwreck above that I captured along the way … well it was how I felt when I arrived. Dilapidated. I couldn’t face a dorm room and was so thrilled that I cold upgrade myself for an extra €25 to a private double room with my own bathroom. Relief. Sometimes you just need to be able to spread yourself out. Well I do. My limits had been pushed enough today and this is also a time I want to enjoy. No doubt there are a whole lot of life lessons for me in today, the road less travelled, don’t quit the best was around the corner and all that and that limits when in balance are healthy, but that is for another day to think about.

After showering and composing myself I ventured down to the community dinner. It was perfect and just what I needed. Most of the hikers/pilgrims have been walking for sometime but I felt like I could get in the flow quite easily. I spent most of the dinner chatting with Meghan, an American living in Portugal. She is a very strong, solid character who seems to know herself well and still open to listen to others. I admire that. I didn’t stay long beyond dinner as I wanted to get off my feet and get an early night. I had plans of blogging this camino live on this new camino blog but I was too tried to consider this. An instagram update and some journal notes were all I could muster. Tomorrow I will just the paths with the yellow arrows.

Buen camino friends – I’m tired, but I’m back and glad to be.

Highlight:

Aside from the rain, the getting lost and the need to dig in to grit – there were so many moments of feeling amazing and glad to be here, feeling this, seeing this, experiencing this.

Ho hum:

Sometimes we need to change the plan, change the course we are on. Maybe this will be one of my lessons along this walk. And limits, it is ok to have them. Day 1 and already camino deep.