It’s a week since I’ve been on my second Camino. And tomorrow will be the day I arrived on my first. This is where I met James. I can’t call him a friend. I guess Caminomate would be an appropriate name. Or kind of soul-mate, too. Cos’ we shared the passion of traveling.
It was somewhere in the middle of Camino when I came to Ponferrada. It was a long day of walking, especially the last part when You can see the city and then way leads you around and around. When I arrived in aubergue, I was so exhausted. I met some Camino friends and Sean was cooking something as always. He asked: “Would you like to join us for the soup tonight?”. I was more than happy to accept that proposal otherwise I’d got to bed without eating – no strength for cooking or walking to the store.
Then I unpacked my bag and came back to the yard. There was the big pot of soup on the table and I just sat down next to it. “Ou, take a plate, have a dinner”, guys said and I did. After a while I recognized that some other friends and even Sean are not eating. Wait. “Sean, is it Your soup?”. “No, mine is still cooking,” Sean answered nicely in his British accent. I was eating a soup prepared by Mark and James that evening.
And afterwards also a bit of Seans meal. It was a wonderful evening, about 20 piligrims were gathering around one table. James was sitting next to me so we chatted a little. He told about his job in Apple and why he left it (and I thought that I left a cool job). We were laughing a lot, especially Heather making videos and fun of non British speaking people.
Two days before Santiago we stayed in a nice albergue with a kitchen. James and Mark volunteered to make a soup again and it was a great meal. It started by a Tim’s speech about ships and he said that the best of all ships are friendship.
The last day was very rainy and all albergue was full of wet clothes. That evening we eat strawberries, guys drunk campaign and singed.
Next day we arrived in Santiago. Cried, had a nice dinner, glass of wine and went asleep. Next evening was a farewell party, almost everyone was there.
Next morning there was goodby’s near cathedral. James and other guys ate a Nutella from a jar, hold Nicole as a trophy, we had a farewell picture together. I was feeling too bad to say proper goodbyes because of hangovers. Last night I had way too much wine I should have had. But – some smart person has said that you should live your life and have moments which are nice to remember but you feel ashamed to tell to anyone. But if I had to die tomorrow that evening would be in my treasure box together with some other special moments of life. A lot of them would be coming from my travels. Cos’ traveling makes your soul wider and life brighter.
James, I’m more than sure your life box was full of diamonds as well. May be the box became full too early. Or God just gave you too small box. Most probably he gave you an usual box and some people die with half empty boxes – but yours was full already now. He didn’t now it will become full so soon.
T.I.P (Travel in piece).
