It seems surreal I am sitting across on a couch in my hostel with the Tour de France on the Spanish telly. Locals and their dogs are out for a drink at the bar and heat is blaring down while my washing dries in the Spanish sun. I have walked from France  (okay, it was the very bottom of France but still) to this tiny dorp which measures roughly 100km in distance from the start.

To sum it all up is the surreal situation. I have gone through physical discomfort and challenges to emotional roller-coaster in a  few short days.  It may be the same for everyone as we learn to live without our physical comforts  (and support) from home. Every day a new town, shower, bed and sleeping mates as Pilgrims from around the world try to find a new routine. Some people are up very early to make headway before the Spanish heat. Some have to be pried from bed and growl at the plastic rustlers in the low light. I am both amazed and sometimes  irritated by all of it.

It is said that we face our ‘demons- or dark selves’ on the slow pilgrimage to Santiago. I have already seen glimpses of mine. My first issue was my light sleeping and noise sensitivity. Tested to the maximum by being roused from slumber by snorers. If I get up early for something I am cheery however I don’t take kindly to being woken for nothing. Eventually I had to face the issue and so far I have booked a private room and when that option isn’t available, I took a fellow pilgrim’s antihistamine. Both worked a treat and I had two full nights sleep. I am slowly understanding that it is okay to have an opinion or not and that it is important to get the best bed available. I have learned a new kind of selfishness that isn’t really selfish but it is very unusual for me to put myself first in very basic ways. (It might not seem like it if you talk to my husband though. ?)

I am living, learning and loving it. All of it.