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After resting in Longroño and Burgos, we rallied. We wanted the camino to work and we had come all this way. We took time and planned out the rest of our journey. We knew each day what to do and where to go. We were good at planning. At toughing things out. At keeping each other motivated. At saving the best for last. Earning things.

In hindsight, it was this very pattern that was being confronted on the camino. The pattern of pushing through things just to push through. A pattern of always toughing things out and never receiving a “no” or a rejection as a change in course but as a barrier to overcome….. but that is all in hindsight.

We pushed on.

We walked on to Castrojeriz. It was a beautiful clear day. I was surprised by the beauty of the desert and its vastness.

We had already picked out a hotel to stay at and made reservations. It was a fun day and the camino felt for a moment, like it was at our own pace. That night I also finally got the big bowl of spaghetti that I had been craving for weeks! It felt like a success.

It was also a special night because the hotel had pretty great wifi and I was able to receive a text from my best friend letting me know she had gone into labor. I was so excited for her, and even more excited that I was able to stay connected!

The next morning was very special. As my friend was welcoming her new child into the world, we set out on the camino and witnessed the most beautiful sunrise. I will let the pictures describe it themselves.

After leaving Estrella via the most beautiful and scenic path,  we arrived in Los Arcos. A small town off of northern Spain’s main highway. We were pleased we arrived early despite taking the longer route. I thought we could pick just about anywhere to stay. But much to my dismay, everywhere was booked. And let me say, I always thought I would just remain flexible, ya know, see what the camino brings, yada yada yada. But after 20+ miles in 80 degree weather, the last thing you want to do is continue walking around a stone city looking for a place to sleep. After a few hours, we arrived just outside of town to find a hostel with only two beds left. We felt so lucky. Later on that day we heard (at the only restaurant in town) that everywhere really was full and they were busing pilgrims outside of the city to a public pool to sleep. We sat that night watching as two waiters served a crowd of nearly 200 tired, oblivious, pilgrims, and couldn’t help but wonder. What is it like for the locals? Obviously the money must be great. But what about their town? Their way of life? What about the whole idea of meeting people from these small towns? Its started to seem like everyone was just there to meet other pilgrims that spoke their language. Like some kind of large super expensive meetup group.

It’s not that I had a horrible time on the whole camino. It just seems that its popularity, funding by the European Union, and efforts to make it a commodity ruin its wild beauty. From what we were learning, over the past ten years walking on a perfectly sculpted dirt path with a tree every 25 feet had become the standard set by the EU. The days of letting people route find and truly see northern Spain were dead. We also learned there are really only a few parts of the actual camino left. Most of it had been paved over or built upon. So while there were some really cool Roman roads, a majority of the way had literally been shaped for tourism. We ran into this directly later on when we spent an hour wandering through a city following the yellow arrows only to find ourselves back at the entrance of the city. The camino was literally weaved into a city that was next to the camino, not on it.

Anyway, back to Los Arcos. That was the night that it really hit Michael too. We were laying in bunk beds when a drunk guy in a suit busted into the room stumbled around and left. Michael and I met outside the room and discussed. Michael was just fed up. However, I felt a little threatened. How could I drunk dude just walk off the streets and come in? We both tried to head off to bed again. Then at 1:45 and 4am the dude returned. The last time he came in he had brought a friend. His friends guided him to the next room where they were apparently staying. Then, at 4 am, the party started. People were drinking, yelling, fighting, just all around drunkin’ assery. The one benefit was everyone in our room left and started walking, but my ankle was swollen so we just waited out the party and then slept in.

It was at this point that we began to take more ownership. We quit wishing and dreaming of all the romantic ideas of the camino and looked at it for what it was.

From Los Arcos, we headed into Logroño via taxi with my swollen ankle and then onto Burgos via train. It was great to have let go of the constraint of having to walk every individual kilometer, and just have fun. Also, that 80 degree weather and sunshine…. so much more delightful not walking with a huge pack 🙂

While we had a blast in Logroño, I am realizing there isn’t many pictures. Logroño is also where we found some of the liveliest tapas culture and some kick ass Potatas Bravas!

So below are pictures from Burgos. Burgos was an incredible city! I couldn’t believe it but we found an amazing vegan restaurant! It was such a nice break.

At this point Michael and I were using all the coping strategies we had. Beer, NyQuil, 8 hour conversations about the meaning of life, sleeping more, sleeping less, eating less, then eating tons of chocolate, I mean everything. We were beginning to realize we were two introverts on an extroverts vacation. We love our side by side time. Our happiest memories are hiking, building, or gardening next to each other with hardly a word said. So at this point the whole, “Hello”, “where are you from?”, “what brought you to the camino?” “Oh sorry to hear (someone died, left you or you have been laid off)” was getting very old! I do admit it at some points, it was hilarious. Here are two introverted therapists that spend most of their time getting paid to make uncomfortable conversation, surrounded by people hauling more emotional baggage than your weird uncle. How did this happen? And why am I not getting paid for it?

I think this was also about the time that we began cursing Martin Sheen for making the Camino look like such a meaningful and reflective journey. I see how it could be meaningful. As my earlier post suggested, I think its therapeutic to some to be able to connect with others and have time to talk about life. But I feel it can have an equal and opposite effect. One can get caught up on just doing the work of a meaningful journey, being far away, walking each day, meeting new people, without truly looking at themselves.

It made me think, what part of me felt I needed some reflective journey? I have made an educational and career journey to spend time developing my ability to reflect and communicate. And I couldn’t seem to shake these feelings of being mislead. Being drawn in by the images and tales of the Camino only to find overwhelming amounts of people trampling the very culture they seek to assimilate and adapt to.

But that day, leaving Estrella, we felt we had found yet another coping skill. The scenic route. In our guide-book it highlighted a slightly longer route with a more elevation gain. We jumped at the chance to take it. And I am so grateful we did. It was the peaceful deserted trail of our dreams. And it opened up the doors to a very important conversation, “why are we on the camino?”

We left Puenta La Reina feeling well rested and hopeful. It was a beautiful crisp morning. The crisp fall air and warming sun rising reminded me of being young waiting at the bus stop. Dressed a little cooler than one would want to, full of anticipation for a late summer day.

The route was beginning to feel more and more crowded. We kept hoping things would shake out a bit and we would have some moments alone. But instead, as the day progressed we began to feel a bit like cattle being herded from one pasture to the next.

Luckily for us, the next pasture, or town Estrella was a beautiful one with a nice grocery store. At this point we had discovered it was much easier to buy food at a grocery store and prepare with our pocket knife than to try to compete with other pilgrims. I found this awesome fig balsamic glaze in Pamplona and we got really good at making different sandwich variations with it. I have long been a vegetarian and though I tried my best to remain flexible, turns out people in Spain pretty much survive on pigs and cigarettes…. hahah! Oh wait, that’s not true…. and anchovies!

The picture below was Michael walking on an old Roman bridge. It was pretty incredible to walk on some of the old Roman roads scattered throughout the Camino.

We arrived in Puente La Reina ahead of schedule and we were so grateful to find a hotel. We ended up meeting great people that evening. It was nice to talk with others about the Camino. We were not the only ones growing tired of food with hair in it, over priced food or drink compared to locals sitting right next to us, and the overwhelming crowd that seemed to engulf these small Spanish towns. We met a wonderful couple from Australia. We were grateful to finally meet some people who were doing the Camino to spend time together like we were, not because someone died or because of a divorce. Just for the joy of it.

The next day we continued on to Estrella. It was another beautiful walk and we felt blessed that we were about to find some free wifi and book another hotel. It started to feel like despite a cold and feeling a little ripped off, we were finding a rhythm.

We were eager to walk to Pamplona and even though all the mystical guides in the world will tell you that it is “overwhelming” compared to the past few days of walking, we were stoked to get some good food and stay in a four star hotel!

We loved our time in Pamplona. There was good food and a real sense of Spain. We also loved our affordable four star hotel. After a couple of nights we decided to head out on the camino again.

I can feel it like it was yesterday. For some reason, leaving Pamplona was so emotionally heavy. I nearly cried for the first five miles. It felt so terrible to leave such a nice place. It seemed to symbolized the day we came home to our beautiful, comfortable, fully set up house on fire in April of 2013. It felt just like being told that our home was no longer inhabitable and we were sent out into the world that sunday afternoon with nothing but our camper and some clothes that smelled of a giant bonfire.  It was hard to confront that feeling. To be reminded that nothing is truly ours and that the world we live in is not comfortable. However, it was the fire that sent us out on this journey. After loosing our possessions it seemed so easy to leave for a month and even easier to move to Bend and begin the life we have always dreamed of. I wish I had more words or perhaps wisdom to offer about that day, but I will never forget how that sadness was greeted with gratefulness to be there that day processing those emotions with my husband and not in the hamster wheel of life ignoring the gravity of that experience.

We were delighted to leave France and begin a beautiful climb the 15.6 miles over the French Pyrenees. I don’t know if it was the familiarity of hiking uphill for hours, or just the beauty of those mountains but it was a spectacular day.

We stayed the night in the new part of the Roncesvalles Albergue which was really nice! The next morning we headed out for Zubiri. We had planned on waking up at 6am to start walking but were woken up at 5 by everyone packing and getting ready to walk. It was a crisp morning like the one before and I think the second most beautiful day of the Camino.

 Michael was pretty disappointed to find that the Paso de Roldan was just a small boulder off the side of the trail. It was pretty hilarious. All morning I kept hearing “watch for these cool boulders I read about” only to find one sad rock 🙂 It wasn’t disappointing to see the infamous “Don’t Stop Walking” stop sign though. There were many long days that I would be googling “Camino de Santiago” and find other’s photos of this sign. It was wonderful to be standing there on such a beautiful fall day.  That night we found a wonderful little pension (like a b&b) and ended up having lunch and dinner at the same little resturaunt. Once we found the resturaunt we never left, it was a great atmosphere of people from all over the world that we had talked to at different points over the past two days. So we just stayed and chatted (not to mention by this point I was too sore to look for another place to eat).

The next day we headed for Pamplona! To be continued…..

The trip doesn’t fit in a nutshell. I have tried to blog about it, honestly. I have like four saved drafts. But I don’t know how to begin to share our adventure. So I am doing it digital slide show style!

So here we are:

Ahh… look at us so excited for our trip. We hadn’t slept in 36 hours as moving before leaving the country turned out to be a horrible idea. I guess maybe it was some foreshadowing of the many ridiculous expectations I had for myself and the trip…

Madrid was beautiful! We were only there for two days before we headed out on the camino but it was a magical two days! The weather was perfect and it was easy for me to adapt to the siesta culture. Afternoon naps rock.

Oh look, a deceptively cute picture of St. Jean Pied de Port. We arrived in France via a bus ride from hell (it was more of a roller coaster than bus ride and at about 30 minutes in it began to smell of vomit…. don’t take the bus). It was a picturesque town and of course iconic to the start of the camino Frances. It just is unfortunately located in France hahahah sorry, I can’t resist the jokes….

Here is the only highlight of France. Delicious sandwiches delivered by hot hubby. Oh yeah and the photoshoot we did out of boredom was pretty good…

Then on a humid, early morning, August 31st, we set out on our camino.

I set out to find this place. To journey an arduous path to find a place of reflection and feel accomplished with my lover by my side. Instead I have found so much more. And I find myself not on the edge of Spain looking into the Atlantic. But looking off the cliffs of Moher into the Atlantic. It’s not at all what I had pictured for this journey. But it fits.

As I write this, I know it will not begin to encapsulate all that I have learned along the way. This moment though deserves to be captured.

Along the way to Santiago I gained an incredible gift. The ability to say, “it’s not for me.” My young adult life has been spent pushing hard through every obstacle. Plowing over barriers in search of this magical feeling of “success.” For a along time I thought maybe it had to do with my parents recognizing my success or maybe my husband or as pop psychology would like us to believe, I would suddenly recognize it. But 20 days into the camino it occurred to me that anyone can claim the success of doing the camino. You just walk it. And if I wanted to, I could just push through and finish it. But I wasn’t enjoying any part of the journey. The culture did’t fit, it was super competitive, and it just wasn’t feeling meaningful. I woke up with the question on my mind, “if this was my last trip with my partner, would I be here in Spain?” My answer to myself was a resounding “no.” So, I learned to say no. I gained the gift of true self acceptance. I recognized what didn’t fit me and threw out the idea of reaching a point of “success.”

There is a secondary gift that occurs when we are able to be true to ourselves. We give permission to others to do the same. So when I posed the same question to Michael it gave him the opportunity to reflect as well.

As for success. I’ve found that the real success in life is not what you strive for or earn for your hardship. True “success” is found along the journey and is an added benefit, not the finish line. Dave Ramsey taught me years ago to look at successful people and learn from them. And a theme I have noticed is that all of them reach “success” and don’t stop. Millionaires, Dave Ramsey himself, or therapists that have contributed to our field in great ways. They don’t just stop. Success is not the end point.

I feel a renewed vigor to return home to being a therapist, business owner, and entrepreneur now that I have more options and outcomes instead of some magical point of “success.” It’s become about the process of the business and helping people instead of making my practice successful in the eyes of other therapists. I have a calling again. One that I think school had beat out of me. School made it all about earning something and gaining recognition but those were never the driving forces behind my decision to become a therapist.

I hope that being true to myself on this journey has offered others permission to be true in their lives. It’s not easy. But neither is staying on an arduous path that doesn’t fit.