Eunate

(Muruzabal to Lorca: 21 km)

Psalm 119:33-40, The Message
v. 33: God, teach me lessons for living so I can stay the course.

Right now I don’t know for sure that I can stay the Camino. I am so tired. I am tired when I start in the morning and wish I could stop by ten. Maybe you shouldn’t walk the Camino without a thyroid. Worst of all I have a horrendous blister on my left heel that seems to be several layers deep. I’m guessing it’s from those comfy new shoes–for the right shoe to be big enough to cradle my bunion and give my toes room to expand, the left shoe, I suppose, is a bit loose. It felt like I was walking on knives all afternoon, and the last few kilometers I had to limp, which meant I’ve done something to my leg muscles too. I don’t know how I will walk like this tomorrow. Maurice compassionately says that I have to anyway. The German girl in our six-bed dorm room has kindly given me an oval of Compeed. Her young man has offered a tape he said is like a second skin. I emailed Laurie for advice. I just want to sleep for a week and get up better. Dear Lord, please show me what to do. Please invigorate me on the pilgrim way (v. 37).

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We must be nuts. I hurt all over and could have slept for a week. We got out at 8:20 this morning. Maurice kindly suggested a detour to the Eunate church that we missed yesterday. The path led through fields of red peppers and the air smelled heavenly with their scent. As we slowed down to watch an enormous piece of farm equipment dump a load of field corn, a man stepped into the road and offered us a huge yellow pepper from a plastic bag over his arm. What a delight!

The lovely church at Eunate was closed but the sun peeked out for some nice photos. We washed the pepper in the fuente and crammed it into our pack for lunch. The pepper-scented air continued along the way to Obanos where we stopped for a tortilla and cafe con leche. At 10:45 we reached Puenta la Reina, pretty and quiet. We stopped in two churches, got a sello, bought a couple postcards for the internet challenged (elderly, infants and incarcerated), then walked down the long narrow street, seemingly little changed since the Middle Ages, and over the bridge out of town at noon.

The path ran smoothly along the river then turned abruptly up, with nice views back to town when we stopped to breathe. It was a very long and steep climb and my left heel hurt. We missed ruins marked in the guidebook. We missed the 14th-century cross at the top. All I was focused on was getting to a cafe with a chair, a coke and a loo. At 1:20 we rolled into Maneru and followed the signs to a bar on the side of the church, where we bought cokes and a chocolate croissant and ate our lunch of leftover bread and cheese and the fresh fat yellow pepper.

On we went, past thorny hedges of blackberries. Much of the day we were in sight of a very morose cleric in a long brown robe and perhaps his disciple, a man walking fifteen paces behind him; when we finally caught up with them they barely mumbled “b’camino” to our greeting. Sometime after two we got to Cirauqui, which seemed to be a lovely little town, but we only stopped at the farmacia to see what I could get to cushion my heel. The pharmacist was helpful but didn’t have the soft gel heel cup I had envisioned. Then we barged through a festival, where a trumpeter was blasting away through an amplified sound system, to get to the ATM (we looked just a mite out of place). Maurice, though sorry my heel hurt so much, was anxious to get down the road, because we are behind schedule. I didn’t want to disappoint him so I said of course I can make it to the next town. It was only four or five or a hundred kilometers farther.

The road went up and down and up and down. And it was historical–an actual Roman road, though not the smooth basalt blocks of the Appian Way; this must have been the road’s under-layer, globs of haphazard rocks with a pointed ridge of stones on edge running through them. It was miserable on pilgrim feet and especially my heel. Finally we were back to just up and down. It spit rain. I felt like I was walking on knives. I can make it, I can make it. We stopped several times for me to fiddle with my shoe. My pace slowed. My body contorted into a limp. It was 5:00 when we trudged up the final hill into Lorca, a tiny place with only two albergues. The first was full. The second had two beds left in a 6-bed room, which we gratefully accepted, and no breakfast. Exhaustion. 32,801 steps.

Our room was stone-walled, wood-beamed, recently renovated and spacious–plenty of room for four Germans and us. I examined my heel, now adorned with a big blister. When the young German couple noticed my predicament they were quite solicitous and offered supplies from their first aid kit. In spite of my determination to avoid the infamous Compeed, I accepted an oval of it, as the woman insisted it was the best for healing blisters.

We ate dinner in the small 12th-century barrel-vaulted dining room. Before I limped downstairs Maurice had ordered gazpacho for my first course; it came fresh, cold and delicious in a deep bowl and rejuvenated me for the rest of the meal. After we ate Maurice went to the grocery store for a few basic breakfast supplies. I did not even attempt the blog but fell into bed exhausted. I never heard the night’s pounding rain but every time my foot rested on my heel the pain woke me up.