Not Every Day is the Highlight Reel
I'll be honest. Not every day on the Camino is a Michelin star sunset and thermal pools.
Day 11 was the reality check. Leaving a city that had given so much, arriving somewhere that gave considerably less — it's a particular kind of deflation that catches you off guard after days of everything exceeding expectations. The accommodation didn't sing. The food options were thin on the road and thinner at the end of it. A hungry pilgrim, it turns out, is a grumpy pilgrim. I was not a happy camper.
And yet.
The forest was fantastic — deep, green, and generous in the way forests on this route keep being, like the Camino knew it owed you something and paid it in trees and light and quiet. The steps, the endless accumulated steps of eleven days, had built something in the legs and the spirit that meant even a disappointing day was still a day spent moving through beauty.
There's something the hard days do that the good ones can't — they make the ending sweeter. Every blister, every brutal hill, every sparse meal and rainy mile is quietly doing the work of making Santiago mean something when you finally get there. Day 11 understood its assignment.
And just when the mood needed lifting — two lovely ladies from Texas appeared, warm and funny and full of the particular energy that means you end the evening smiling despite yourself.
One day to go. One single day.
After everything these legs have carried, that is almost impossible to believe. 💜
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