I mentioned earlier that there was a good chance of crying on el Camino. The chances for laughter are much higher and lucky for us, that is how we reacted when faced with adversity. We also met so many wonderful people to laugh with each evening as we shared our Pilgrim's table. Laughter comes in varying degrees, from a slight chuckle to a full bodied belly laugh. Sometimes you get into a laughing fit where you can't stop and you are crying at the same time. This happened to me more times on this adventure than previously in my lifetime. Like a scenic picture on a grey day, it is hard to recapture the moments in words but I will try with one story.
When Lori and I realized our packs were way too heavy and we had expensive gear we could not throw away we went to the post office in Pamplona to ship parcels to Santiago. Imagine two women with very little Spanish trying to buy two pack boxes, build them, sort our gear on the floor, pack the boxes as tight as we could, tape them with duct tape, figure out how to fill out the shipping documents and extra arrival time instructions with the help of an iPhone Spanish app., some kind locals and some very inpatient postal workers. We are also trying to beat the clock because the office was closing in one hour and every time you approached the counter you needed to pull a queue ticket. Think Lucy and Ethel but me cracking up in laughing fits on top of it all. Happily the parcels were in Santiago on our arrival and were easy to retrieve, even though I managed to lose my receipt which meant iPhone translation work at that end.
It sounds like we are having a fantastic adventure and we really are but there is a lot of hard work and minimalism going on to swing this kind of a mega trip and it really helps when we can laugh our butts off when things don't work out as well as hoped.
Pilgrim A
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