Day 5: Puente la Reina to Estella

May 11: 22km

I had slept like a stone. The German man Roland, who had slept in the bed above me, got out of bed saying: “What a night!” pointing to the French group, who occupied most of the room of 10 beds. I had no idea what he was talking about, as I passed out as soon as I hit the pillow and woke up again after someone switched on the light at 6 a.m.

When I went down for breakfast, Jürg had already left and Neda and PJ were cheerfully eating their yoghurts. I had my usual breakfast, a banana and plain mini croissants that I had bought in the supermarket the day before. Neda and PJ left early as well, but eventually sleepy head Mark came and joined me for breakfast. The following might seem trivial in the narration, but I found it fascinating to watch. Mark did not fancy eating plain croissants, so he hid a piece of chocolate in one of the croissants and put it in the microwave. If you don’t have nutella, you just have to be a bit creative.

I went to brush my teeth, but after I got back from the bathroom, Mark was gone. I hadn’t seen Dani this morning either. So I started on my own once again. It was pretty easy walking through wine yards, with only a few ups and downs. Some of those downs were tricky again, but I just sang to myself and it helped me a lot to stick to a positive attitude. The pain in my right knee was completely gone. However, I could now feel a piercing pain in my left knee. Gone was the hope of toughening up. I thought that my body would get used to the walking eventually. Instead the pain was just hopping from one knee to the next.

The pain got worse and worse the more I walked that day. My unusually fast speed of walking did not help, but there was a huge and very noisy French group behind me and I just wanted to get away from them as fast as I could. They gave me a headache and all I wanted was some peace and quiet.

It was a long way down…

Once again, I struggled the last few kilometers, but since I knew that I would meet my friends in Estella, I just had to get there. I had come this far with pain– at this stage around 100 kilometers – so I knew I could keep going now as well. During a break, Mark appeared. So he had been behind me all the time. He was eating one of his six eggs he had boiled the night before. In fact, he was boiling six eggs every night to eat the next day on the road. That and a lot of chocolate. No wonder this man had so much energy. Other people are on caffeine, he was on eggs and chocolate. He had met a Korean guy now living in Canada, who was determined to go to Santiago in just three weeks due to his lack of time. It is unnecessary to say that he was very fast, so a perfect match for Mark. I couldn’t keep up with them. I tried nonetheless, but that was a bad mistake.

For days, my body had tried to tell me to slow down. I refused to listen – because I wanted to be with my mates. I realized that they were so much fitter and more experienced but I liked them so much, so I ignored my limits. By the time I got to the albergue in Estella, my left knee was swollen.

It was lunch time, so I had to find some food. But my knee only carried me to the next bar and even though it didn’t look very promising, that was as far as I could get. They didn’t have a menu and no one in that bar spoke English. For the first time, I was on my own and had no idea what to do. All I knew was that I needed food and I needed it now. There was some dodgy stuff on display and all I could do was point at things. I had forgotten all the Spanish vocabulary I had tried to learn before starting the camino. It was day 5, but until now my lack of Spanish hadn’t been a problem. In the albergue I only had to show my pilgrim’s pass and they gave me a number and all I had to do was to find the bed that fitted that number. My friends were always cooking, so I never had to order anything in a bar. In the supermarket I never understood the sum I had to pay, so I simply gave the cashier a ten-euro-note. Now, the lady behind the bar asked me a lot of questions.

“Comer?” – What?

“Beber?” – huh?

I tried my pantomime performance, but that didn’t help. The lady got frustrated and annoyed and I did too, though I was too hungry to give up. Fed up, she just gave me a bottle of water and I eventually pointed out to something that looked really disgusting.

“Pan?” – When does she get that I have no idea what she is talking about? I just nodded, because at this point I just didn’t care anymore.

I got some very disgusting meat, some bread and water. I sat down and ate that horrible meal feeling really stupid. I felt like an idiot. I had always been the clever one, but ordering that meal made me feel so retarded.

I ate as much as I could before getting sick, and looked up “too much” in the dictionary, wanting to explain that I am full and can’t eat no more. I found “demasiado”, went to the bar again, made a gesture of wanting to pay and gave her the left food. Then I said “demasiado” and smiled. She started shouting at me and I got really scared. What was going on now? All I wanted to do was pay. I think she got angry, because she thought I meant the price of the food was too much. Well, she did charge me nine euros for a horrible meal, which to be honest, really was too much, but I would have never said that. I will never know what was going on. I left a ten euro note and ran out – as fast as one can ran with a swollen knee.

I was so fed up. I had been walking for five days with a constant pain, walking up and down all the time and got into bar fights. What was I doing here anyway? I could have also sat at the beach with my friends back home – but no, I chose to being shouted at in bars, feeling retarded and physically damaged. I had no idea why I was doing all this and what for. I limped back to the albergue, found some ice in the freezer and sat in the garden of the albergue to cool the swollen knee. Everyone was so cheerful, while I was homesick and miserable.

People were trying to give me tips. “You should stretch your legs.” “You should take a pain killer.” “You should take a day off.” I felt pressurized and eventually it just got all too much for me. In front of everyone I broke out in tears. I limped to my bed and cried my eyes out. I felt ill, weak and stupid. I was homesick, sad and angry. All these emotions came at once and a fever started to crawl up on me.

Dani had then arrived at the albergue as well – two hours later than me. He was in pain, but not such an emotional wreck. He asked around for me and someone directed him to the room I was staying in. He looked so worried seeing me like this and asked if there was anything he could do. I asked him to find someone to go to a supermarket for me. I needed water and some food for the next day. There was no way I could go anywhere now with my injured knee. Dani was injured himself, but instead of finding someone to go shopping for me, he went himself. I was once more amazed by this kindness and his caring nature. With my non-existent Spanish and Dani’s poor English we had a hard time communicating with each other and even though we never managed to have very long, deep, philosophical conversations, he cared for me so much. He hardly knew me, yet he made sure that I was okay, before thinking about caring for himself. When he came back and brought me the things I needed, I asked him: “Dani, what means ‘angel’ in Spanish?” Dani replied: “Oh, the same – angel.” I then said: “Dani, tú eres mi angel.”

I was so touched by Dani’s kindness that I soon recovered and felt better very quickly. I got down to join the others for dinner – made by Neda again, this sweet soul. This time, others joined and I think we were ten or so eating dinner together. Afterwards we had a jam session in the garden until late at night. A man from New Zealand had brought an instrument with him that was somewhat similar to a ukulele. At least it had a ukulele tuning. If anyone knows how that instrument (see picture below) is called, please let me know.

Mark got out his harmonica and PJ came out with a pot and spoons and joined the band as a percussionist. We had so much fun and I felt like home again.