Day 2 – Day or Night, Miles or Kilometers?
Of all the things I thought I needed to prepare, and be prepared, for on my first Camino Walk, I never dreamed how much of a challenge Time and Space (or distance) would be, at least for the first few days and miles I spent in Spain. Initially the big adjustment was the time difference between home and Spain – it is like… well… like day and night – Spain is 8 hours ahead of my life-long bio-clock in Mountain-time-zone. I’ve traveled far east and far west many times, and know about jet-lag and learned many tips on what to do to alleviate the short-term stress on body and mind so I can enjoy a week or two of touristing on the other side of the globe – and then just collapse for a week when I get home and back to my native diurnal and seasonal biorhythms!
For me, The Camino Frances journey was in a whole different universe in regards to the demands on my physical body – I would be walking an average of 15 miles per day, through unfamiliar country/terrain and unpredictable weather (hot and cold, wet and dry). It also took me about a week to get my digestion and sleep cycles mostly adjusted (never completely normalized even by day 21). Daily meals were generally as follows: Breakfast at 8-9 a.m. Spain Time (ST) – 4-5 p.m. Mountain Time (MT); Lunch/Snack no later than 1 p.m. ST (before everyone closed for afternoon siesta hours) – 9 p.m. MT; Pilgrim Dinner/biggest meal of the day 7:30-8:00 p.m. ST – 3:30-4:00 a.m. MT! My sister Marcia, our friend Debbie, and I usually tried to be in bed by 9 p.m. ST (5 a.m. MT) so we could get up at 4:30-5:30 a.m. to be on the Camino by 6-7 a.m. ST (often before sunrise) so we could get most of our walking in during the cooler hours of the morning. We would walk a couple hours until we got to the first open bar (where both food and drink are served, and where you could get your water bottles filled and use the restroom facilities for the price of a snack or beverage). The Time challenge mostly affected my physical body. Now the Space challenge was more of a mind and psychological thing for me. I was rationally prepared for the conversion of my U.S. standard miles to the rest of the world metric measure of distance in kilometers, but psychologically I had to play a few games with myself during the first half of our trek – it just seemed too depressing to think about walking 21 kilometers to our albergue the second night on the Camino, so I converted the daily distances to be walked back to miles, 12.3 miles (seemed a lot more reasonable to knock off on our second day of walking). Later on in our Journey, I reverted back to kilometers – especially at the end of the day – as it made me feel a lot more accomplished for the ground we covered (and I didn’t have to do all that math in my head when looking at guide books and road signs!)
Here’s an excerpt from my Camino Journal on Day 2:
Sunday, May 7th– Tardajos -> Hontanas (12.3 mi)
Up earlier today and a much longer day across the Mesilla. Heard my first cuckoo bird, as well as seeing more storks and their high-perched giant nests… Along the way today: a big woolly dog drinking water out of puddles, and then laying down in the middle of them to cool off… Lots of birds singing today and more flowers blooming. Mariposas – iridescent blue, painted lady, and sulfur butterflies – Time to Transform Again!
cathedrals we would see later along The Camino.
What gifts did your Camino bring you TODAY? (Please share your thoughts below in “Leave a Reply” Box)
Living in Grace and Flying with Spirit 
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