Day 10: Viana-Logroño

Day 10: Viana-Logroño

Click here to hear the song recorded in the tunnel

Click here to hear a spoken version of today’s blog

“ no coming, no going, no after no before I feel you close to me I release you to be so free because I am in you and you are in me because I am you, and you are in me” Practice Song, Plum Village Tradition

My days are starting to blur together a bit. But I think it was yesterday that I walked by this beautiful impromptu shrine on the top of the hillside, with many, many, many prayer flags from multiple faiths and spiritual traditions adorning a set of trees and then photos and sayings and goodbyes and appreciations of loved ones now past, including the shoes of loved ones now past that perhaps had walked the Camino hanging from some of these trees. It was beautiful and deeply moving. And I placed a stone there for my own ancestors past and loved ones and people that raised me that are no longer with us.

I just found a beautiful underpass!. Under some noisy cars, but with a beautiful acoustic and recorded a couple songs that I've learned from our Sangha in the Plum Village tradition in Albuquerque. I'm missing our Sangha a lot. And the ways that our weekly Sangha meetings anchor me back to myself and also back into community with others. And back to my deepest intentions and values. Floating through space and time on a Camino with just my own two legs to carry me there is deeply humbling and slows things down exquisitely, which is exactly what I wanted. 

But it can also be really disorienting. Especially when we've removed ourselves from the majority of our daily rituals and habits. Both ones that feed us and ones that feed us less. And also finding the further I walk, the more I want to walk, because on this walk, I've been simulating the distances that I would do with my songwriters, when and if I bring them onto this portion of the camino. So I have been deliberately sending my guitar ahead too much shorter distances than I would walk if it was just me and my backpack. Because of course, in addition to walking, we need time to write!

And so instead of 20 or 25 kilometers I've been doing anywhere between 10 and 15 km. Yesterday, I arrived in Viana all my legs and my feet wanted to do was to keep on walking. And I felt very frustrated that I needed to stop because I'd made a commitment to lodging and the kind people holding my guitar. So I reluctantly stopped. but I think this desire to keep on going also means that I am physically getting stronger also means that I'm feeling and getting stronger.

 When I first walked the Camino in July of 2022, my deepest fears were 1) I be able to sleep in communal settings, such as albergues with multiple people and in mixed gender settings in a single room and 2) would my body have the stamina to complete what was being asked of me? The first part about sleeping and communal settings mostly resolved itself and you're so tired anyway that I slept incredibly deeply each night. And the second part I think is resolving itself on this trip which is that when I'm carrying a pack I don't want to be the person walking 30 plus kilometers but I think I can walk 15 to 20 or 25 if needed and know that I'll be upright at the end of the day. And while I could of course send my pack ahead to lighten it and in some instances that makes really good sense to do so, for me right now there's something very empowering about walking with everything that I need in a given moment on my body and on my back. And knowing that it's pretty light. It's weighing in at about 11 pounds and that barring extreme weather conditions that I can't anticipate, I have everything that I need on me, right now. and so now, as of this morning, I am in my destination, town of Logroño and technically the end of my trip. But I will keep on walking for a few more days until I have to fly back to sardinya. Without my guitar, which will be stored safely here. and with no reservations and no plan as to where I’ll be sleeping, so three days of complete spontaneity :)

Last night, five unicyclers from Kansas City, Missouri. checked into the Albergue right before dinner. They rode from St.Jean, up through the Pyrenees on unicycles with regular sized backpacks on their backs and have been riding about 35 kilometers a day. They plan to arrive in Santiago in about 35 days. Four of them are brothers and the sixth person is a cousin and they're all members of the Friedl family. They were joshing each other, and some of them were starting to get irritated with each other, they sort of became the auntie and residence for the evening. I’d like being an auntie! They’d forgotten to eat lunch yesterday and were having trouble identifying supermarkets and figuring out how to feed themselves. And it sounds like this is the first time for them being both in Spain and in Europe. And they're mystified by the fact that milk is not refrigerated here and wanted to know if it was still safe to drink. But some of them seem to be having a really powerful time. And of course earning lots of attention as they show up on their six unicycles. The tires on these unicycles are insane. They're super thick and insulated, and essentially are built to withstand boulders. Because a lot of this terrain for example, the second half of yesterday's walk was literally just like canyons and ravines and loose gravel and loose stones and loose rocks. Super steep up and down among vineyards. So that was really special to get to meet them and just catch a glimpse of them on their on their journey. These six super Midwestern guys and they're probably late teens to mid 20s. (They also have other unicyclists in their families, But they were too young to come on the trip). So essentially, it's an entire extended family of unicyclists from Kansas City, Missouri. Their great grandfather was Karl Friedl and he came over in 1868 from Germany to somewhere in the Midwest.

~unicyclers starting their trek this morning from Logroño~

I had a fantastic celebratory luncheon on Calle Laurel, the famous street known for its tapas in Logroño, with a really wonderful Methodist minister from Texas who I walked with this morning named Tina. I’m at Tina as we were eating yellow and pink plums on the Camino, along with a wonderful Hungarian – Syrian woman who is a poet and a novelist named Ajna.

patatas bravas, puntitos, pimientos de padrón, vieras, glasses of red and white rioja

disclaimer: All posts written on the camino are written from my cell phone from transcriptions of a recording, and therefore have very minimal editing. They are meant to be a snapshot/soundscape and a representation of daily life while walking, rather than a polished publication. Please take that into account when reading.

On ‘calle laurel’ at a tapas (pinchos) restaurant

#Camino #CaminodeSantiago #SongwriterontheCamino #Singer songwriter #Singmebackhomeretreats #SongsofSantiago #Ethnographic  #AnthropologistInSpain #AnthropologyOnTheCamino #3MilesAnHour #estella #Navarra #Rueda #cantautora #losarcos #casatiago #alberguedelaabuela #sansol #palacio.de.sansol #viana #logroño