On the Camino, With Blisters and Bug Bites

In this post, I do a fair amount of self-indulgent ranting.  If you’re here looking for a more balanced narrative of walking the Camino, click here.  If you want some historical info on the Camino, click here.  And if you want practical info on Camino preparation, scroll to the bottom of this post.  Apologies in advance for those who continue reading.

When we decided to walk the Camino de Santiago, Bruno and I were vague about how long the journey would last.  We purposely left the particulars open because we didn’t know how Bruno’s knee would handle the walk.  Yes, we’d tested his knee out on a day-walk in the Pyrenees, but three months after surgery, you can never be sure how it will manage on a long-distance hike.

So it’s ironic that it’s my foot blisters – and not Bruno’s knee, which is holding up great – initiating discussions of ending our Camino.

I take a day to relax my feet in Santillana del Mar.  We even reward ourselves with a night in a fancy hospedaje, a charming old guesthouse just off Plaza Mayor.  We wander around the museum-like medieval town and sit in the sun in the courtyard of Collegiata de Santa Julia, Santillana’s iconic church.

My feet are feeling better.  I’m convinced my day-off will work wonders, that I’ll be back to normal the following morning for our 24km walk to Comillas.

And that’s why my spirit positively drops as I walk up and out of Santillana.  I walk like I have jagged rocks in my socks.

Despite good intentions, my blisters are back with a vengeance.  The route we pass is so charming – rolling hills, tiny churches and hermitages, glimpses of the sea and the Picos de Europa mountains – but I can’t enjoy any of it.  I’m too busy relearning how to walk in any way that provides relief, and changing shoes like Kim Kardashian changes outfits.  Maybe I can be the first, I contemplate, to walk all the way to Santiago in flip flops.

I make it through those 24km with six blisters, and I feel proud of my determination.  I even manage a bit of sight-seeing – you can’t come to Comillas and not visit El Capricho de Gaudì (yes, that Gaudì).  I’m resolved not to let these blisters get to me.

They do take up a lot of my head-space, however. As I walk, I can think of little else.  I philosophize on the root cause of the original blisters – my crooked toes from being in ice skating boots so many years? my new shoes not properly broken in? too small? an incorrect natural walk?  I think about how bored Bruno must be to be walking at 3km/hour.

And I realize that I’m not going to make it to Santiago.  Not this time.

I’m ok with that.  Santiago had never been the goal, anyway.  But I promise myself that blisters won’t be the cause of our stopping.  That would be a defeat – it would mean that I can’t handle long-distance walking.  We’ll stop the Camino when we want to stop, I determine, not because we have to stop.

With that decision, a weight is lifted off my shoulders and I begin to experience my surroundings again.  I enjoy walking across the 28-arch 15^th century bridge that leads to St. Vicente de la Barquera.  I admire the South American architecture in Colombres.  And I positively giggle at the blow holes and wind tunnels along the amazing coastal views on the Senda Costera route.  The variety of landscapes we’ve experienced along the Camino – forests, hills, coastline, mountains, wetlands, countryside, villages, towns, and cities – in less than a week is astounding.  I’d expected the scenery to be mundane; it’s anything but.

In Pendueles, a tiny town at the edge of the province of Asturias – yes, we walked from one province to another! – we meet an American couple who’ve been walking the Camino for almost two months.  They’ve been plagued by problems – sprained ankles that kept them off the trail for weeks and, yes, blisters on their baby toes.

They teach me how to tape my two smallest toes to protect them from more blisters.  The tape will prevent the baby toe from falling under the next toe and taking all my weight.

Were the Americans little angels I met on the Way of St. James?  I’m not sure, but I do know their taping tactics worked.  By the end of my walk the next day I am feeling better – and walking faster – than I have in almost a week!  At a viewpoint overlooking a massive beach, the blue sky and summer-like heat of the day make me want to shout out James Cameron-style comments about being the king of the world.

It’s too bad the high of conquering my blisters cannot last.  The day I met the Americans, I also noticed some tiny bites on my shoulder and neck.  At first, I think they are mosquitoes, but by the time we arrive in Llanes, my bites have multiplied.  I conclude, horrified, that they must be bed bugs and order all of our belongings – including our backpacks and shoes – to be washed and dried at high heat.

When I wake up the next morning with new bites on my chest and face, my heart plummets even deeper than it had the morning I walked out of Santillana with rocks in my socks.

I hop on Google and freak myself out with pictures of various biting creatures and methods of extermination.  I force Bruno to help me scrutinize every inch of our belongings for evidence of bed bugs, which are big enough to see with the naked eye.  We spot nothing and so walk on that day to Cuerres and Casa Belen, another albergue de donativo.

Run by a German couple, Manfred and Birgitta, Casa Belen is the most cozy-feeling and welcoming albergue we’ve stayed in on our Camino.  Manfred shows us to the pilgrim quarters upstairs, which include a lounge area and kitchen which we can treat like our own.  Birgitta cooks us a delicious vegetarian meal with produce from their garden.  They both take a genuine interest in our life and show us a hospitality that I truly thought was dead in the West.

Yet, something doesn’t feel right.  I still haven’t gotten to the bottom of my strange bug bites.  I feel good that I’m not bringing bed bugs into Manfred and Birgitta’s home, but what am I bringing in?  The idea of some unknown creature going to town on me every night is beginning to make me crazy.  My sleeping bag – brought along to protect me from the potential filth of albergue beds – has become my enemy.

The albergues have gotten the best of me after all.  My initial assessment of the challenges along the Camino was correct – not being able to sleep in my own bed is rightfully at the top of the list.

In Ribadesella, I head straight for the Centro de Salud, where a doctor tells me something I’m surprised to hear: fleas.  I got fleas from one of the albergues, and I’m experiencing an allergic reaction.

I thought fleas only liked dogs.  Has my hygiene really gone that much downhill since becoming a pilgrim?

My new mission in life becomes to find another washer and dryer.  I become obsessed with it, searching for it in each town and refusing to sleep again until we’ve solved our problem.  My one-track mind proves impossible for Bruno to deal with, and even though we pass more gorgeous coastal views and interesting villages with orios – wooden houses built on stilts for preventing rodents from getting to stored grain – we both know we’ve reached the end of our Camino road.

When we wake up to rain the following morning in La Isla, I’m almost happy.  Weather – one of my initial concerns – has been excellent throughout most of our walk (we learn afterwards that we’ve been incredibly fortunate in this respect, because the Camino del Norte is renowned for its rainy weather).  Bruno has been saying for days that we’ll walk until it rains.  Neither of us likes walking in the rain, and it requires a re-organization of belongings we’re not prepared for.

When the rain forces me to wear my Goretex Merrels (which are too small for my taped toes) and my healing blisters start to feel aggravated, we decide to call it quits.  It’s actually not as simple of a decision as that, and we hum and haw in the rain for an hour – me despondent, scratching, and raving about a washing machine.  The idea of our Camino being over at such a low moment doesn’t feel right.

But a bus shows up, and we hop on it, not caring where it’s going.  The moment I step onto the bus, the spell of the Camino is broken.  I’m no longer a pilgrim.  Just like that, I’ve snapped myself back into regular reality and am no longer privy to the secrets of the Camino.

As we bus ourselves back to the starting point of our Camino, I watch the familiar scenery go by.  Backtracking, kilometer by kilometer, feels as though we’re erasing our walk.  Was our Camino so futile as five hours on three busses?

As I write these words and sort through photos and journal entries of the experience, I know for sure that the answer is an unequivocal no.  I haven’t written this much in my journal since I met Bruno and began living in a camper van.  I haven’t had so many challenges and stories and encounters to share on my blog in months.  If travel is about experience –good or bad – then I hit a goal-mine on the Camino.

It was interesting for a couple of overlanders to experience a region by foot.  I wouldn’t say that it slowed our tourism down, because we generally travel very slowly.  But it did slow down our transits, allowing us to experience details of the places in between our destinations.  And it gave us a more “on-the-ground” glimpse of the places we passed by removing a barrier (our vehicle) between us and the landscape and its people.  It felt like we could reach out and touch Spain.

Walking the Camino also reminded me to appreciate the luxury of my overland style of travel.  When we set back out of the road from France in early October, I expressed some difficulties in readjusting to such a small space after several months living in houses.  Well, that feeling is definitely gone now!  When we finally returned to Totoyaya, I slept better than I had in months.  If I had any residual feelings of discomfort in Totoyaya before setting out on the Camino, they are gone now for sure!

And last but not least, walking the Camino gifted me the experience of a long-distance hike, at last.  In ten days, Bruno and I walked roughly 225km, from Laredo to Colunga, more than I ever imagined I could walk.  We may have been able to cover those kilometers in a single day’s drive in Totoyaya, and that number may not be impressive to experienced pilgrims and hikers, but that’s beside the point.  After years of curiosity and obsession, I now know not only that I can do a long-distance hike, but that, despite all the challenges, I like it.

So would I recommend the Camino de Santiago to others?  Most definitely!  Though it may come as a surprise to those who have just followed the narrative of these last two blog posts, Bruno and I are already talking about either finishing the Norte route or trying another route to Santiago someday.  You’ll have to stay tuned to Wandering Footsteps to find out when that someday happens!

A Few Tips and Recommendations for Those Planning their Camino

1. You don’t need to bring a guide book on your Camino because the sign-posts are excellent.  However, a guide book that offers more than one route, as well as a few scenic detours, can add to the experience.  We quickly learned that there is more than one way to Santiago!

2. We used two websites to plan our day’s destination and research sleeping options: Gronze and Eroski Consumer.  Both are in Spanish but they key information was easily decipherable without needing Spanish-language skills.

3. In summer – high season – we would recommend purchasing a local SIM card and bringing a phone along to call ahead and reserve a bed in the albergues (you can do that at most private ones).  Though we didn’t personally have that worry because we walked in late-October, I know that there aren’t always enough beds for all the pilgrims in high season, even on the Camino del Norte.  A tent is a great alternative, and something Bruno and I are definitely planning to bring next time (if only to avoid fleas!).

4. Design realistic daily steps.  The kilometer guides on the websites and books don’t take into account the detours you will make or the extra footsteps it will take to find your accommodation.  Also, I was quite surprised at how many hours it took us to walk our day’s 20-25km – usually about 7-8 hours.  Sure, this was partially due to my blisters, but all the little stops – water breaks, food shopping, picnics, gear reorganization, pee breaks, blister surgery, map consultations, photo opportunities – add up.  Keep all this in mind when determining how many days you’ll need to walk your Camino.  Give yourself a few cushion days or plan to do less.

5. Pack lightly.  Try to fit everything in a day backpack if you can.  You can find almost any necessity on each day’s walk, as you always pass through at least one big town.  Do, however, bring at least two pairs of walking shoes and lots of extra socks.  Most of the Camino takes place on tarred road, which is a lot more damaging to your feet, and so you need to take care of them from the get-go!

Buen Camino!