Around 250km into the Camino Frances there is a rather testing area which is known as the Mesata. It is flat and rather dull after having traversed through mountains, dells, vineyards  and lush green landscapes. A strange thing happens to Pelegrinas  here and add to this, the effect of a full moon and female hormones are pushed to full tilt. We get cranky, bored and miserable. Okay maybe I should not talk about all women, but I know this one was pretty out there.

Some rest days in the larger city of Burgos started me off thinking that I should just get on a plane out of here. I put it down to not walking during that time. So we walked 32km after leaving the town and I seemed to hit a physical wobbly when we were finished. I felt nauseous and lump. One of my running friends likened it to ‘hitting the wall’ in a race. That settled me a bit. My toe blisters had healed and I was looking forward to walking some more. Then I got my credit card summary on my phone and I went into a bit of a financial panic. My funds had been spent way quicker than I had anticipated and I wasn’t really surprised when I ended up getting a blister on my heel. The ‘seat’ of financial worries according to some.

In two days we covered 62km so I was feeling quite good apart from the new worry. We booked into a hostel and into a huge room which slept around 30 of us. Now I know that antihistamine helps me sleep so I took my tablet, donned my eye pads (a Camino necessity for me) and earplugs and promptly dozed off. I felt the bed shake a bit when the top bunk sleeper climbed on and luckily ignored the ruckus happening all around me. I found out the next morning that a young couple opposite me could not hold back their yearnings and had some public action. This was at the same time as the young 12 year old, was trying to climb onto his bunk above me. I was mortified when I heard and understood why my Camino mate could not get to sleep afterwards after seeing the amorous couple. Some things are just very unusual on the Camino or is it just me that is not Europe wise?

Our shorter walk today proved nice and cool for the first 25 kilometres as we left the hostel not long after 5am. We saw the police doing patrol in the middle of the farmland under a beautiful full moon and I listened while my companion growled her way out of town. After our pace settled I listened to some music and realised that I am doing fine. Tomorrow we are catching a bus 20km down the road to the next stop over and I am looking forward to it. The journey is a personal one for everyone and sometimes realising that we have many choices and we don’t need to take all of them is incredibly freeing.

I have less than a month left and the yearning for home has shifted as I knew it would. As the kilometres get clocked so does the life experience and it ain’t always pretty but it is life and I am loving it.