"Love In The Mud" Part I & 2 - His Story

 I set out on a quest in search of myself and ended up finding love...

[Part 1 and 2 by Hannes Bral]

As you are all now familiar with the story, I wanted to give you  a glimpse into my little Camino Love world.  And, please, pardon me for my English, as my native language is, in fact, Dutch...  Well, I should correct myself and say it's Flemish.

My story starts just before the Camino, as I had lost my way a bit.  I had all these different choices to make, a relationships gone bad, physical exhaustion from not having enough sleep, and so on.  But I got myself together, packed my bags, took vacation from work and set of on an adventure called the Camino de Santiago.  I was doing it no matter what anyone said!  My boss at work even told me, "If you don’t go, you 're not getting your vacation days back."  That was his way of making me do it, and what a way it was...  No turning back!

I remember someone even telling me, "Maybe you’ll meet a girl on the Camino."  That phrase raised my eyebrows a bit, and I kindly replied, "I’m not looking for love on the Camino; just me and myself walking."  

I wasn’t sure what lay ahead, but I was excited!

The first week of walking felt kind of like my birth on the Camino.  I had to learn all new skills and get used to the pain in my knees, hips and back, as they were not used to carrying the heavy backpack and walking for so long everyday.  What made it bearable were all the amazing people I met along the way.  People who kept me going, made me forget my physical discomforts and who even told me about a wondergel named Radio Salil - sounds like a Spanish radio station, but in fact, helped a lot.  I would use it just before I'd go to sleep; twisting in my sleeping bag and trying to rub it on without making any noises.  Albergues were already loud enough, filled with sounds of all kinds, especially symphonies of snoring.

I had days when I walked alone along desolate, beautiful nature trails, with sometimes not even a single soul present, except me and some birds making funny sounds as they flew by.  That gave me the opportunity to have some time to myself to reflect on my life as it had been up to that point.  [Side note: I’m also one of the ‘81 babies that will turn 30 this year!  Starting a new decade of adventures still to come...]  It did me good to have that ‘me time'.  There were even days on the trail when I didn’t take any time to think about that sort of stuff.  Instead, I just walked and enjoyed what was going on around me, or just the simple act of saying "Buen Camino" as someone passed by.

On one of my reflection days,  I had a strange thing happen to me.  I was thinking back on my love life so far and the question marks surrounding it.  Amazingly, out of that thinking I started having a conversation with my heart.  I know it sounds funny, and I didn’t realize it at the time, but I was digging really deep into that organ people sometimes just refer to as a muscle.  Yet, it is much more than that as I was about to discover.  I asked my heart what was wrong.  'Why didn’t I experience the love that I once felt?  Why didn’t I fall madly in love when I'd go on a date?  Was I getting too old for those sort of butterflies?  What was happening?' 

A revealing answer came, as the heart started opening up to me.  ‘You take the hurt of a lost relationship too personal,’ it said.  ‘You don’t allow yourself to feel that wonderful love again.  You put a wall up to protect yourself, so that nothing and no one can hurt you!  Instead, you should let it go.  Let love back into your life and start looking for the signs all around you.'  I would later discover what all this meant, but for now I thought to myself, 'Easier said than done.'  Though, in my head I had the firm belief that one day I would find what I was looking for.

After 20 days of walking, I wanted to give myself a treat, so rather than sleep poorly in another albergue packed with snoring pilgrims, I took a hotel.  I was in Burgos - an amazing city full of life, culture and spirit.  I loved it.  After a wonderful dinner with Camino friends and some nighttime walking trough the gorgeous moonlit city, I almost decided to take another day off.  I could sleep in and maybe visit the city some more...  But that morning, as I woke up late around 9am,  something in me said, ‘Why don’t you walk today?  Take it easy.  Like a rest day while walking?'  That thought would change my life as I knew it!

I set off on a lazy laid back hike to the village of Hornillos.  Walking at this point had already become like a routine for me.  Muscles on autopilot, and backpack light as a feather.  My Camino buddy Juliano and I walked into the village right before a thunderstorm hit.  As lightening and heavy rain filled the afternoon sky, we arrived at the albergue and got the last two beds in the main house.  This meant we were staying there for sure.

In the morning, I got up earlier than Juliano and decided to have breakfast and get an early head start on the day.  As I was quietly eating my already hard bocadillo - as a real pilgrim you sometimes take the food as it is presented to you, and I still had leftovers from the day before - I noticed two girls, Tess (your blog author) and Emily (otherwise known as Red), who I didn’t know yet, walk into the kitchen area.  That lovely girl with the hat on and the walking sticks already in her hands caught my eye.  But as a mantra playing in my head, I told myself, 'I'm not looking for love.  I'm not looking for love.'  Though, I have to admit, she looked interesting to me.

Not knowing I was going to meet her again, I set off on my walk.  As I was racing through the mud - Tess is right in saying we Belgians are used to walking through mud-infested tracks, as we have lots of rain in our little country - I passed by that girl with the hat, and she yelled "show off!" at me.  'Hmm, now it's getting interesting,' I thought to myself.  'Why is she saying that to me?'  She caught my attention right that very moment.  Something dormant inside me had been awoken.

So I decided to walk that day with Tess and Emily.  As Juliano caught up and joined us, he started walking with Emily, and I had time to get to know Tess a little better.  My big wall around my heart was still standing, so no feelings were allowed to pass through. Yet, it wasn't like a normal friendship between us, as we kept talking while walking that Meseta path.  I really liked her already.  Her voice.  Her humor.  Yes, it was even the first time a girl could make me laugh; that on its own was amazing to me.

Yet, the fear of falling for someone fast was still there, so it brought me back to reality.  My realist mind again said, 'Well, she’s American; you’re Belgian.  You’re both in Spain, so don’t get anything in your head, man!'  Keeping the facts in mind, I felt confident that there was no pressure to impress.  We started sharing our thoughts, dreams and experiences.  Talked about where our life was going, where we wanted it to go, what bad love stories had come before.  I mean, we shared it all.  As Tess put it, it was like two soul mates catching up with one another.  I started noticing that time flew by in her presence.  What normally takes about half a day walking. seemed only hours.

           

When we arrived in the next village, I didn’t want to say goodbye just yet.  It didn’t feel right after meeting someone that special!  So I insisted that we meet up for dinner.  Juliano and I left the California gang and got ourselves yet another snugly albergue, which wasn't even open upon our arrival.  Yet, it would turn out to be one of the best places we'd  stayed in on the entire trip. 

The dinner that night was also fantastic.  There was a good vibe in that cozy little restaurant... or was it something else?  Was it because of the company?  Had something changed in me?  I remember that night at the table, little sparks filling our eyes.  I had a different way of looking at Tess.  Something, indeed, had changed... 

To be continued...

"Love In The Mud" Part I - A Camino Love Story

When I told my mother the title for my multi-part Camino love story, "Love In the Mud," she replied back sassily, "Sounds like the less graphic version of The Beatles' Why Don't We Do It In The Road."  Humor, I guess, runs in the family.

But I can't think of a more fitting title.  The day my Camino Love, Hannes, and I met I was sick as a dog.  The Meseta plains of Spain had been drenched in a thunder/hail/lightening storm the night before, and my cousin and I were foot deep in the thickest mud you could possibly image.  In fact, do try to imagine it, and then multiply that by three.  With each step, our boots grew exponentially in size, the sludge clinging 360-degrees around our Lowas, adding much unwanted weight to our already loaded down bodies.  But before I get to the moment I saw my Belgian frolicking through the mud like it was a polyurethane running track, I should give you some back story...

Two nights prior I had experienced my first Camino breakdown (okay, it wasn't my first, but it was the most significant, as I don't count those that involve an inability to log onto wifi or learning there was an extra 3km to walk to get to our gite.)  What I mean by "breakdown" is I cried.  Like a baby.  Or like a blithering idiot depending on your perspective.  Perhaps I had been listening to too much Adele... but I sat in my hotel room, mom already asleep, thinking about my failed long-term relationships and wondering if I simply wasn't special enough to be loved for a lifetime.  I know.  Pathetic.  And sooo un-Blackheart of me.  But the Camino does that to you.  Brings your deepest, darkest thoughts and fears to the surface and forces you to finally schedule a meeting with them face-to-face.  So there I was in the boardroom of my subconscious, and boy did things look bleak.  

The following morning I woke up with eyes bloated to the size of baseballs and my body in the flux of a cold from HELL.  Mom was feeling tired herself and decided to stay in Burgos another day.  Burgos, my favorite and most beloved city thus far on the entire trip (click here to find out why).  She asked me if I wanted to stay behind with her.  Enjoy another night in our 4-star accommodations.  Eat bakery goodies all day in bed.  Watch the BBC.  And try to shake my cold before it got worse.  I was tempted.  Oh man, I really was.  But as I told mom that morning, there was something compelling me to keep walking.  I just had to be on the Camino the next few days.  I thought it was because I needed to work stuff out.  Maybe knock my cold out like a true pilgrim soldier.  But the Camino, in true Camino style, had other more life-changing plans in store.


So with Sactown Rick, Liz and Red as my trail companions, we set off for the village of Hornillos, planning to meet mom in two days time.  As we began to walk, I felt like I could make it.  There were a lot of miles ahead, but my body, even sick, was strong from the months of walking that had come before.  That was my sentiment until the mugginess of the day hit me like a brick.  Then the mist.  Then my inability to breath.  The exhaustion.  The negative thinking.  The lack of pee-estate (real estate to politely excuse yourself to... ahem... pee - i.e. bushes, boulders, thick patch of trees, abandoned sheep shelters.)  I knew that if things kept on this way, I would end up crawling into the fetal position in a patch of tic-infested grass and never get up again.  


That's when I decided to do a mantra, and that I would repeat this mantra of positivity with every step until I got to the albergue.  The mantra?  Well, it's a rather embarrassing one to admit and as cheesy as ballpark nachos, but in the spirit of honesty that is this blog, I will share it with you all and open myself wide up for ridicule.  Here it is... "I am lovable.  I am love.  True love will come."  Simple.  Easy to remember.  Covers all the bases.  It would do.  

Now, up until this point, love hadn't really been on my mind for the most part.  Plenty else had - my career, my future, my screenwriting, where I should move, what person I wanted to be, what person I already was.  I suppose it took walking in the hot mist with a fever and sore throat to make me think of romance.  An odd correlation, true, but that's what happened.  The mantra took hold, lightened my load and soon enough I was in Hornillos, being escorted by a rather unpleasant young woman to the "overflow" albergue (which, turns out, was better than the "overflow-overflow" albergue that consisted of throwing stained, soppy mattresses under the church's stone overhang.)  


I slept 13 hours that night, snuggled in my upper bunk, a bearded French man beneath me snoring away, my skin wreaking of the tea tree oil I has smothered on myself like the finest body cream.  The next morning I felt well-rested, but nowhere near cured, which explains that when a little voice told me upon seeing Hannes at the breakfast table in the albergue's kitchen that "he could be The One," I took it to be a lingering after effect of the very intense Spanish cold medicine I had taken the night before.  Besides, I wasn't a romantic.  I'm Blackheart.  Sure, I love "Under the Tuscan Sun" and "Eat Pray Love" as much as the next woman, but Diane Lane and Julia Roberts I am not (yes, I know these were books first, but I'm a film major, so cut me some slack.)  A fairytale vacation romance sounds lovely, but when you're wearing the same dingy clothes every day and your body is slowly falling apart at the seams, you don't give it much credence.

Besides, I hadn't even said as much as 'hello' to this guy.  Not to mention, he looked waaaay too young for me (turns out we're both '81 babies... good genes that boy has.)  So when he gave me a tired smile and said cheerily, "Buen Camino" I think all I mustered out was a gargled "igualmente" (or "same to you") and a half-ass grin before throwing on the old ball and chain (my Gregory backpack) and walking out the door.  "He could be The One"... ha!  What a Looney Tune my subconscious had become.


Yet, it must have been that same crazy little voice, when an hour later I saw Hannes skipping past Emily and I as we trudged through the mud, that made me take a chance and yell out abrasively to him... "Show off!"


To be continued...