Here are a few things that people have said over the camino...
"Anything is possible on the camino."
-Luciano, Italy
There are so many things that can happen during one month on the camino, including finding help at the moment you need it the most. Around the second week, I was suffering from some pain in my right hip. It was so deep, I had to no idea what to do to help make it better. Should I walk differently? Should I be doing a certain stretch? Eventually, it became so uncomfortable that I was taking ibprofen throughout the day and had to rest it in the evenings.
Then one evening at one of the albergues, an Italian man (not Luciano) noticed that I was walking around holding and ice pack to my hip. He knew exactly what was wrong, pointed to the woman he was travelling with and said ¨physiotherapist¨. It was music to my ears! It was the first time I ever had treatment from a physio and it was amazing. She squeezed my hip, bent my leg back and forth, did something else, and when she asked me to stand up and see if there was any pain, there wasn´t! I couldn´t believe it. After walking for days in such pain that it could be gone within minutes. For the rest of the camino, I had no more problems.
Anything is possible on the camino, even finding a physiotherapist in an albergue in the middle of Spain.
"The Camino makes the old people feel young and the young people feel old."
-Someone told this to Leighton on the Portuguese route and he told us
As you can see in my last story, I had a few physical injuries. Nothing major of course, but, boy, did I feel old. In the mornings I would walk around with a mild limp because of foot and muscle soreness. I had body aches. I tried to avoid stopping when possible because I knew if I did, it would take a while for my body to get going again.
The older people on the other hand, they were wizzing by us. They would walk more kilometres than us, start earlier than us, many would finish before us. You couldn´t tell their age by seeing how agile and fit they were on the camino.
In the evenings, you would see all the young pilgrims nursing out blisters and limping around the albergues, while the older pilgrims walked around just fine.
It was really great to see to retirees all doing so well on the camino and I hope that I will be as healthy as they are when I am their age.
"Doing the camino is a priviledge."
-Aiden, my brother
Aiden said this early on in the camino, probably during our first week. During the final leg of the camino I really understood what he meant. Not everyone gets a chance to do something like this. Not everyone has to flexibility to leave home for a month and experience a country in the same way we did.
The experience of the camino was really a true priviledge. I am so happy I was able to do it and even happier that it was something that I shared with my brothers - Aiden, Mark and Leighton.
