A Walking Bassline...

Fame! (Remember my name)

Continuing on from my quest to star in a musical (it was on the life list), an opportunity was thrown my way that one just couldn't resist.

Participate in a reenactment of the famous street scene from Fame!

Yes people! I have officially made it on the TV screens of cable-loving Londoners. T'was only fitting that it should be (a) for a musical number and (b) for Fame!

So my very good friend Al (red shirt):

Decided to go and get a little directing/producing/editing job in London directing this shoot.

Clearly his first preference was to let his little friend Dara (we were blind dates to my Year 12 formal) get all the airtime possible. Would you believe he gave me an entire second!! Yes dear-hearts, in a "blink-and-you-will-probably-miss-it" role, I have officially cracked London. At 1:14 the screen is clearly all mine.

Click here to see it on Youtube.

Now with all of my new found fame and fortune, it may come as no surprise to you that I will be working (illegally and therefore for free) on a documentary this week for a certain celebrity... Stay tuned...

¡Hola Amigos!

Your preemptive questions. Answered!

So I'm going to assume that you all have a few questions and I'm going to do my best to answer them, BEFORE YOU'VE EVEN ASKED! The Camino power has given me the gift of prediction! You just have to figure out what the question was. (It's a game, you'll like it).

1. 812km
2. 20 was a slow day, 25 was an average day, 50 was a hero day
3. Behind a bush on the side of the trail - although you can be sure that if YOU think it's a good spot, so have twenty other pilgrims already
4. Yes, about 4kg
5. Average would be 6am. You would wish the curse of blisters on those damn bag rustlers of a morning
6. Pretty much done by lunch
7. 3-9 Euro, never more
8. Vegemite, and my osteopath
9. Snorers
10. Only once, and that was after having a lengthy discussion with someone in the morning about the backpacker murders. I was quite convinced the Spanish version of Ivan Milat was going to jump out of the bush. Around this time I acquired my stick.
11. Yes
12. No
13. The first seven and the last hundred
14. Resting
15. Yes, it's 42
16. That there are two types of people in this world - complicated and uncomplicated ones. The complicated ones are all walking the Camino.
17. The population of Sydney, which I STILL don't know!
18. Yes, well, enough to order a beer at a bar and buy oranges from the side of the road
19. Too hot. Average would be 35 degrees. It's why you wanted to get your walking done early.
20. Only if I was going to write a book about it, or do it with my kids.

Let's get a few things out of the way

Ok, some vital information here, so let's be efficient about it.
The "Camino di Santiago" (or "The Way of St James) is a medieval Catholic Pilgrimage, dating back to 400AD. We walk from all over Europe to see the Cathedral at Santiago, which has the remains of St James in it.



It's all about the scallop shell really. This is the symbol of the Camino - it is supposed to signify the path of all roads leading to one destination.



In fact we all wear scallop shells on our backpacks so people know we are pilgrims.



Oh, and yellow arrows and red stripes tell us the way to go.




Ok, let's begin. Day in the life of a Pilgrim:

We wake up VERY early to start (so it's not so hot),


And feel the sunrise on our backs as we start walking (we're always heading west).



We walk through beautiful open fields,



Or little Villages in the middle of nowhere,



Stopping to admire the smallest details.



We walk alone,




Or with friends,




We try to avoid the traffic,



Maybe grab some lunch,


Top up with some Dencorub,


And take a break if it all gets too hard.


We find a hostel to sleep in called "Albergue's"



And have 25 seconds worth of a mildly warm shower.




We do our washing,


And eat pilgrim meals,


Before going to bed with 80 other people at about 8:30pm.


And that's it! For a solid month, the Pilgrim routine never changes. The life changing stuff happens between all of this!

An intro after the intro...

The walk of life is 800km long...

Here's how it's going to work. It's agreed that from here on in, 800km of story telling could get a little tedious... "and then I looked to my right and saw a field of poppy's! And then I heard a bird who was singing a happy tune...", yes TEDIOUS right?

Instead, I am introducing you to my theory of the Camino, which is far more user-friendly. It has been pilgrim-tested (and believe me I had a lot of free time to have this conversation) so the theory has at least a little bit of cred.

The theory is that 800km = 80 years of life.

I'll explain...

0-100km (0-10 years)

Hello new world, where the hell am I?! Much like the early years of life, this first onslaught of the Camino unveils the following:

1. You have NO IDEA where you are or why you are there
   
2. You don't know the language and people keep looking at you weirdly
   
3. You want to cry ALL THE TIME
   
4. You are in bed by 8pm
   
5. You want a hug and maybe some warm milk to make it all feel better
   
6. You have the incredible urge to say "NO"
7. You make the friends that will be your "best friends" until the end.

100-200km (Adolescence)

1. You discover alcohol!
   
2. A beer at lunch, a beer after lunch, endless red wine for dinner...
   
3. You never spend more than 2 Euro on a bottle of wine
4. Bedtime gets closer to 10pm
5. Your body starts changing (rapid weight loss, muscular development)
   
6. You pop your first pill (Ibuprofen is the drug of choice)
   
7. You drink into the night, fully aware that you have to get up in 4 hours to go to work (walking)
8. You wake up vowing to never drink again...
   
9. You drink again.

200-300km (Your twenties)

1. You sing! Dance! Laugh with new friends and old friends! Life is Great!
2. You find teachers (old men normally) you really resonate with
3. You've learnt how to control your alcohol
   
4. You're even deciding to cook for yourself (pasta of course)
   
5. You start to realise what you're doing with your life
   
6. You're hungry ALL THE TIME and realise you can totally get away with having chocolate biscuits for breakfast because you are going to burn it all off in an hour anyway...mum won't know...

300-400km (The Daily Grind)

1. You know how it all works, you have a routine - this is just a day job
2. You get up, you do it, you go to bed, you do it again in the morning
   
3. You've learnt from your twenties and you are back to early nights, reading in bed and healthy breakfasts.

400-500km (Mid Life Crisis)

1. The thought of "Oh Jesus! What the hell am I doing with my life?" sets in.
   
2. You start searching for answers, attending more and more pseudo "group therapy" walking sessions, searching for the true meaning of life.
3. You think "Shit! I've come this far and what do I have to show for it?! I need new shoes! A new backpack! And what's with these damn hostels?! Put me in a hotel dammit!"
   

500-700km (Approaching retirement)

1. The meaning of life is becoming apparently clear
   
2. The friends around you seem much more like family then they did 200k's ago
   
3. You definitely have invested in a walking stick
   
4. Everything hurts, still.
   
5. You think about writing a book
6. The medical profession make a lot of money from you here - massages, prescriptions, bandages
   
7. You are quite sure that you will need a hip replacement.
   

700-800km (Nearing the end)

1. With only 100km to go, more school kids join the trail. 
   
2. You think to yourself "Look at these young, fake pilgrims with their inappropriate footwear and attire - didn't their mothers teach them anything?! Why do they have to play their music so loud? Don't they have any respect for older people? Why won't they go to bed early? They don't know about the Camino - who are they to just start walking now... why when I was back in Burgos..."
   
3. You start giving advice to all of the "young pilgrims"
4. The subject of conversation nearly always revolves around your ailments..."Yes, well I've had two calf injuries and my back isn't as good as it used to be..."
   

Welcome to the hardest day of your life.

Only two episodes are documented in full here. Day One is the first.NOTHING could have prepared me for this. Arriving in St Jean Pied-de-port after sharing a taxi with three crazy Germans, I was all ready to book myself into a hostel, grab a bit of tapas and a few cheeky beers.

But no. Ze Germans vonted to valk.

Being a solo traveller in a strange town, I felt I had no choice but to walk with these crazy's. And this was 6-P-M PEOPLE! Who in their right mind would commence a Pyrenees journey AT 6-P-M?!

I did. Of course. Ever the over-achiever.
The result was this:



This picture says "Why the f##k am I here in this f##king country doing this mother f##king walk with these friggin shetland ponies who have NO IDEA of the amount of pain I'm in plus I think I'm going to die from altitude sickness, lactic acid and LOSING THE WILL TO LIVE, why the F##K didn't anyone STOP ME?

I was sure I was going to die. In fact, I WANTED to die so i didn't have to think about the fact that I was sure I was going to die. It was 9pm, I was in France, I was on a mountain, I knew no one was behind me and Ze Germans were far in front of me. I only had one choice - to keep walking.

So it takes me three hours to walk 7km.
Of course, when I get to the hostel,the bastards are full. Luckily enough, the hostel owner decides to drive me BACK DOWN THE MOUNTAIN (I am not kidding here) in a 1977 Daihatsu Charade whilst eating, texting and constantly looking over to talk (in French).

Do you blame me for crying myself to sleep that night?!
Fortunately, in the morning I got a lift back up the mountain to where I had left off and was of course confronted with the most incredible view. Ok, whatever, it was worth it.





After that little ordeal, everything seemed achievable. And that's the point. EVERY Pilgrim is sure they are never going to make it through day one. And we all do.

All by myself

And this is what the road is like... it turns out that the majority of the time there is a whole heap of NOTHING out in Northern Spain! 

Friends, guys and videotape...

Meet JESUS.

By far, one of my favourite pilgrims was Jesus.







One of the first things we did together was share some red wine! How Holy! Actually, it was a drink called "Kalimotxo" - 50% red wine, 50% cola (and not as wrong as it sounds).

We had a fabulous moment where we met a guy called Christian (note that there are actually no words of English being spoken here), and we had a real good giggle about the fact we were walking a pilgrimage with "Jesus Christ". From then on I became known as Mary, just to make up the trio!

Medieval Marius.

Now, this boy deserves a post all on his own because I probably learnt the most from him. Marius is half German, half French and introduces himself as a Medieval actor. We hit it off straight away. Just when I thought I knew all I could possibly know at 26, I meet Marius the 22 year old who seemed to have it all figured out...

Marius knew EVERYONE. It was hard to walk past any pilgrim without him running up to them for a magical "I haven't seen you in 400km!" embrace. Truly an absolute gift to be around.

 I had two of the most random experiences with him - wandering the streets of Santiago playing "The theme from Titanic" on the nose flute, 

and hanging out in a tomb on the side of a mountain...playing the nose flute (there is video evidence of this, but we'll save that for the DVD extras).

Easily a Camino friend for life.

Raymond. Oui?

No words could describe this man - and I mean literally NOT A WORD OF ENGLISH was spoken to Raymond (I've blocked out all the French I learnt for those two years in high school), but we communicated in smiles, charades and open hearts.

Would you belive that at the age of 79, he was the first Camino friend to give me his email address...

Team America.

Brian and Cindy are going to hate me for these photo's.

Sadly, it's all I've got! We were trying an interactive photo session with the running of the bulls...can you see that? It's sheer TERROR on their faces...ok, you had to be there.

These two get an honourable mention because they were friends from the beginning. They accepted (and ridiculed) my love for boybands and musicals, and I accepted (and ridiculed) their love of gardening. A friendship built to last.

One of the interesting things to arise out of my conversations with these guys (besides the explanation of what an Australian "dodgy sausage" is), was Brian's concept of a life list. And no! Not just any old Anthony-Robbins-inspired-goal-setting-list, I'm talking a fully fledged "this is what I want to do before I die" list.

Brian's list highlights included:

- Learn how to play "The Piano Man" on the Piano

- Learn how to make fire without a match

- Shred wheat fields by hand with the Amish

- Write a book

- Stomp on grapes with the Italians in Southern Italy...

And the list goes on...

So it got me thinking.

And I mean, I had a LOT of time to think.

So my list got a kick start.

- Finish the Camino (tick)

- See Take That live in concert (tick)

- Visit the real life set of The Sound of Music...

United Nations and The Last Supper

Finally, after kilometres with old men, I migrated to the largest bunch of young randoms on the Camino - otherwise known as the United Nations.

Brilliant people - we were from all over the world, mostly traveling solo, coming together for one last celebratory dinner in Santiago.

I'll take the High Road

There is a quote from Yogi Bear that says "If there is a fork in the road, take it". It is quite probable that he was referring to an actual fork, but let's not get bogged down in the detail here.

So 600km in, we get given a choice. Take the high road, or take the low road.





Knowing I had 600k's under my belt, I went up. And yes, it was as steep as it looks. The result was incredible - quite the Camino challenge, but after that first day, anything was possible.



Surprisingly, a great amount of people chose the easy road. Life then became about spending as much time with the people who had taken the hard road.

THAT day.

Now look, by this stage I have monster calves that could rival any body builder, so why on this day they both simultaneously decided to give up, I do not know.

I am in the middle of nowhere. I do not have a map. I have misjudged the distances between towns. I am running out of water. I have convinced myself that it it not just a calf strain but a life threatening BLOOD CLOT that is slowly going to work its way up to my brain and that without medical attention I might just die on the side of the trail.

Catastrophic thinking, HELL YES!!

This is the video of that moment.

The following is an excerpt from my journal documenting what happened next:

My body was SCREAMING at me to stop. Except I was in the middle of nowhere, with no one, so I couldn't. I got desperate. REAL desperate. I am sure at one point the cows on the side of the road said "Moooooove it or Looooooose it". I was really low on sugar.

I finally staggered into a town, and vowed to stop at their Albergue - except there wasn't one. I was still 8km away from a bed. Making a decision out of respect to the pain my body was throwing at me, I decided to catch a taxi - except there weren't any. I love my life!!

I sat down in despair and tried to look helpless.

Finally, through broken Spanish (and a charades game involving me limping and acting like a homeless person/leper), a young girl (I'm sure she had a licence) offered to drive me into town.

I had a business card of a hostel that the woman from the night before had given me. She dropped me off and I was greeted by Jose.

"Albergue Completo" (Translation: Sleep outside).

The devastation across my face was clear.

"Australian?!" he said.

"Yes! How did you know?" I chimed back.

"My friend Angela said you might come. She said to look after you. Walk this way..."

Divine intervention.

I love my life.

The "Going West" Tanline.

So the problematic thing about walking West in the Spanish summer, is that only one side of you sees the sun. 

And I had long shorts.

This became the tattoo of a true pilgrim. If ever you forgot your pilgrim passport to prove you were a real walker, all you had to do was whip out your tan lines. Problem solved.

I think the main comment from these glorious legs of mine was that people were very surprised to know that an Aussie could get that white in the first place!

I assure you that there are no photoshop tricks going on here...!

The Foot Horror File.

Thankfully, my feet stayed relatively intact for this trip - All I needed was a bit of strategic taping and I was good to go! 

Out of the many HECTIC feet that I witnessed, here are my top two: Best Blister goes to Paul from the UK. I have never seen something as massive as this. Trust me, this photo doesn't even capture the angle properly. This thing was protruding from his foot!

Best infection goes to Team Mexico. It probably didn't help the poor girl when I came into the room, took one look at her foot and said "Oh sweet Jesus that is so wrong!"

And in case you're wondering, the preferred pilgrim method of blister attack is to leave a bit of thread in it so it is constantly draining. Yukkkkkkkkkkkkk!

Mission Accomplished.

This was a good day.

Somewhere over the Rainbow.

15km to go...

The journey has just begun.

With a hint of sadness and a defiant sense of accomplishment I made it to Santiago.

Please note, this is the only time that "Croc's and socks" are at all acceptable. Out of the context of "traveling pilgrim", this it a crime against, well, everything.

What does someone do who has walked 800km to see a cathedral?

Sit in front of it.

For a really, really long time.

Until being pulled away to play the obligatory "Europe vs The World" soccer match...