Today we took a bus from Finisterre to Santiago. It made us dizzy with motion sickness. We hadn’t moved that quickly for that long (two hours) since arriving in León three weeks ago. Time travel is real.
We’ve grown accustomed to moving slowly. To moving only as fast as our bodies can go, move, step by step.
Although we will soon be back in LA, the city of driving — and will no doubt adjust within a week to the pace of life there — I hope we can keep the memory of slowness in our bodies somehow.
It’s how we all used to move, all the time. Our ancestors. Just as fast as the legs could go. Or horses 😉
We will board a plane this evening, to Madrid, then take the Metro back to our friends’ house (Elena and Gustavo). We’ll fly through the air at 500ish miles an hour — which would take us an entire month to walk. Then we will bolt from the airport to the center of Madrid in a train, which would take us a full day to reach by foot.
Perspective is everything.
Lunch at Bierzo Enxebre. Liquor de “hierbas” (the great mystery) & de crema.
Above the Compostela office there is a lounge so we went to hang out there before our flight. Turns out it is run by the Dutch Association, and that they totally welcomed us even though we’re not Dutch! Theo and Marianne are volunteering there for two weeks, offering tea, repose and information to Pilgrims. Theo has walked the Camino 3 times, and Marianne once. Both of them say it has made them more open and that it was transformative. They were so wonderful and we were lucky to be welcomed by them.
We then stopped at Pilgrim House (Rua Nova 19) run by Americans, which is super comfortable and welcoming and has a kitchen and couches and wifi and printing and coffee and a quiet space and great staff. Here is Anne, who walked the Camino Frances from León in 2013 before starting to work at Pilgrim House!
