Day: March 31, 2015

With a little help from my friends…

/ davidmangicaro / 1 Comment

So you’ve seen the unbelievable beauty of the camino thru photos which I’m sure don’t even do the camino justice but what I haven’t shown or talked to much about is the ugly part of the camino for me – my feet – blisters!

When i arrived in Longrono 2 nights ago I was seriously doubting I would walk today and really couldn’t see how I could possibly finish my camino and make it to Santiago.  My feet were in extreme pain due to blisters. To the point I basically couldn’t walk.  If anything can derail your camino it’s bad feet!  Well to my rescue came my camino friends – my Aussie and Yugoslavian  friends took it upon themselves to go into save the Americans feet mode.  As I was just lying there they came to me fully armed with strerilized syringe, disinfectants. Etc. – I know I know lol gross tmi (too much information) – but here’s the thing on the camino none of that matters! You sleep within feet of young, old, male, female that you may have just met for the first time in your life a few moments ago. And you rely on yourself and each other in the best possible way that you pretty much never see in life.  So they proceeded to treat all my blisters and then repeated again in the morning and fully bandaged them up and off I went – from not walking to completing a 30k day! Oh and not only that but did my laundry and cooked dinner!

So here’s to:

Kath – my kind and generous Aussie mate who was the first I met in sharing a taxi ride when arriving first day

Tatiana – the Yugoslavian Wonder Woman who is carrying every imaginable remedy for anything

Carol – my Irish girl determined , funny and red as can be from sunburn 

Michael – the German firefighter who calls me snow monster when he sees me in the trail

Philip – the young German brilliant free spirit who seems to know the history of everything 

Andrew, Jost and Kevin – the young Germans who are always willing to share there beer with you:)

Phoenix – my fellow American from Arizona whom calls me New York 

Nate – from Alabama first time leaving bama and Mississippi walking for his ill father and had us all Rollin tonight when he told the story of how within hours of stepping foot internationally he ended up in a Paris police station cause he thought he was being helpful by giving money to a charity instead to scam artists 😉 

And last but not least Hans from Switzerland – the legend , the myth , the topic of many of our conversations as we fondly remember our grueling first day pass over the Pyrenees . Hans was the hiking machine that is probably been to Santiago and back by now lol!!

So for now I am thankful to my camino feet angels and now hopeful that my feet can survive the camino and for another day, for now at least,  I’m closer to Santiago :)….