El Camino: Sarria

Despite my best efforts and general exhaustion, I did not sleep soundly last night. My circadian rhythm hasn’t had a chance to catch up with my physical location, and despite the darkness, my body was unwilling to fall into deep slumber at three in the afternoon. Go figure.

The alarm jolted me awake at seven, and I grumpily got up, pulled everything together, and made my way to the Metro station. A little help from a helpful subway agent got my card reloaded for the ride, and with very little difficulty, I found my way to the train station.

The train ride across Spain to Ourense was seamless. We zipped smoothly along the countryside and beneath the mountains at 300km/hr. I found myself wishing I could ride that way to Minneapolis - it would sure beat driving!

At Ourense, there was some construction something down the line, and they switched us to a bus for the last 90 minutes of the journey. The drive was along a windy not-quite-mountainous road. We had to stop in a town along the way, and I quickly developed a great appreciation for the driver’s spatial reckoning ability.  Kind of like playing Tetris with a bus.

Once we arrived safely in Sarria in mid-afternoon, all I had to do was drag my suitcase a mile down the street to the hostel. As I bumped along, I found myself grateful for the sturdy wheels on the bag; the sidewalks were no smooth airport floors! Like the day before, once I was checked in, I went upstairs and promptly fell into bed for a nap. 

My travel success notwithstanding, (I neither got lost nor missed any connections. The tour company had actually done their job, and the hostel was expecting me.) my grumpy mood has stayed with me for much of the day.  I know it’s one of the common side effects of jet lag, but I still found me being impatient with myself. 

I felt very alone today. Though logic tells me there are a plethora of other solo pilgrims, it seemed that everyone I saw but me was in pairs or part of a larger group. Yesterday’s welcome smiles morphed to quiet assessing glances, smiles were fewer - probably a reflection of my own unquiet mood.

Don’t you want to go walk around and see all the things?  No, I definitively did not. I just wanted to stay in my clean but cramped room and stare at the ceiling. Which, since I had no travel companion to boot my butt into gear, is exactly what I did until shortly before dinner, when I convinced me to head out to at least find the branch-off spot for the Camino. (Which turned out to be just around the corner from the hostel.) I wandered down the street a bit further anyways, and found a pleasant stream. There, I took time to find a bench where I was able to sit and listen to the running water and the unfamiliar bird calls. A few minutes there helped to level out my mood.

I’ve now had a delicious dinner, and am ready to stretch and head to bed. I know the entire country stays up late as a general rule, but sometimes, you just gotta buck the trend.

Tomorrow, I start my walk along the trail!  It’ll be the shortest walking day of my journey, just 11km. It’ll be just long enough, I hope, to just stretch the kinks from my legs and work through another layer of this jet lag.

Buen Camino to me!

Photos: (all in Sarria) the long main street I hauled my suitcase down, my quiet stream, my Camino start point!, the stream, on the other side of the street, where lots of people were gathered