[Gocamino] Fwd: [Santiagobis] windup of a failed venture

[Robert Spenger]

This message was bounced from gocamino because the initial message had  
too many recipients, so I am resending it.

Bob S.

Begin forwarded message:

From: Robert Spenger <rspenger at earthlink.net>
Date: October 22, 2008 2:47:36 PM PDT
To: Derek Reimer <dlr47 at shaw.ca>

Derek and others,

Your e-mail response is quite timely. Just this morning I had been  
thinking about sending a message to S-bis (and perhaps the other  
caminos groups to which I belong) about the incredible coincidence of  
meeting with the two of you at the very beginning and the end of the  
Spanish section of my walk. That is to say that when we met where the  
Route Napoleon and the road from Valcarlos come together, you were the  
first pilgrims that I talked to in Spain itself. There were none on  
the route from Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port up through Valcarlos. Then in  
Sarria, you were the last  pilgrims with whom I spoke before I took  
off for the bus terminal and the start of my trip home.

I agree that the term "failed" really applies to one feature of my  
trip, i.e. that I didn't make it all the way to Santiago. In just  
about every other aspect it was successful beyond my expectations. I  
completed the remaining section of the LePuy  route to SJPdeP. I got  
to visit with Huberta and Arno at their gîte in SJPdeP and I got to  
stay at the marvelous albergues maintained by Acacio and Orietta at  
Viloria de Rioja and by Rebekah and Paddy at Moratinos. I also enjoyed  
the facilities of the CSJ run albergue in Rabanal. I had heard a lot  
about this one as well, and under the hospitalera/o team of Maggie and  
John, it lived up to its reputation for hospitality. I also enjoyed my  
stay at the German run albergue in Las Fabas and the albergue privado  
in Fonfria which had been strongly recommended by the hospitalera at  
Las Fabas. One of the gîtes in France stands out. It is at Cambarrat  
and owner, Nicolas, served the four guests with a fine dinner, and  
followed it with a blue grass concert. Nicolas is an accomplished  
banjo player and this was a completely unexpected treat. Another  
surprise at Cambarrat was meeting a German pilgrim who actually knew  
where Big Pine is. He had recently visited Yosemite and Death Valley  
and remembered going by (or through?) Big Pine on the way from one to  
the other. He was doing 35-40 km per day, so I never saw him again at  
my puny 16 km per day pace.

I also walked the parts that I had skipped on the 2002 trip, i.e. from  
Burgos to Sahagún and from Astorga to Ponferrada, and took the side  
trip to the Eunate, which I had gone by in both 2000 and 2002. I have  
now done all parts of the route from Ostabat in France to SdeC in  
Spain at least twice. A couple of these, SJPdeP to Roncesvalles and  
Hornillos to Castrojeriz, were done by alternate routes on different  
trips and I sometimes took to the pavement instead of the marked path,  
but I didn't keep track of these.

Except for lack of sufficient knee cartilage, I enjoyed good health in  
spite of a diet that was far too high in sugar, fats, white bread, and  
cholesterol and too low in green, leafy vegetables and non-fat dairy  
products. My own fault really. A great many of the other pilgrims were  
doing their own food preparation, a much higher percentage than I  
remembered from previous year, and I have no excuse for not having  
done more of that myself - it was just laziness on my part.

Overall it was a worthwhile trip. If the proposed knee treatment   
(injections of hyaluronic acid - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ 
Hyaluronan ) works I may be hot to go for that last 120 km. I saw  
quite a few people walking the camino, joined at the stops by a  
companion traveling by motor transport, both private car and public  
transport, so perhaps Connie could join me on that - if only we could  
get there without taking to the air.

Bob S.

On Oct 22, 2008, at 10:16 AM, Derek Reimer wrote:

Bob:

Maxine and I had the good fortune to cross your path several times on  
the Camino Frances over the past few weeks and while I admit you were  
a bit down when we talked to you in Sarria just after you had decided  
to stop your walk, the rest of the time you were upbeat, glowing and  
great.

I am sure that "upon further review" as the NFL officials say after  
reconsidering a call, you will find that this was anything but a  
"failed venture".  It didn´t end as you had planned but I am sure you  
learned a lot (not many in their 80s can say that) and you continue to  
inspire the rest of us pilgrams.

- Derek Reimer

----- Original Message -----
From: rspenger <rspenger at earthlink.net>
Date: Tuesday, October 21, 2008 10:01 pm
Subject: [Santiagobis] windup of a failed venture

 > Well, as I indicated in my last message from the route in Sarria
 > on the 13th of October, I dropped out on the 44th day. I see
 > that there was an error in that message in regard the distance
 > remaining.  On checking, I see that it should have been 120
 > km left to go from Sarria to Santiago de Compostela – a
 > reasonable 6 days or an easy 8 days. I had 12 days available
 > before my scheduled flight out on the 24th by Ryanair to
 > Stansted, but I had already realized that the post-camino trip
 > to Birmingham would be taking on too much, both physically and
 > financially. I had filled in all the gaps left from the 2002
 > walk and I had checked out the special albergues that I was
 > interested in, so I had completed many of my objectives for
 > making this trip, so I just did not have the incentive to
 > continue.
 >
 > The event that confirmed my decision to drop out occurred on the
 > road between Samos and Sarria, about 3-4km short of Sarria. My
 > right knee gave way under me, as it had done a few times before.
 > These occurrences were occasionally painful, but this time it
 > was a 10 on a scale of 1-10. Fortunately, the pain was fleeting
 > – a small fraction of a second, but my effort to keep from going
 > down under the weight of the pack sent me staggering to the
 > right – out on to the road. There was no traffic at this time,
 > so I was safe enough, but the thought that this could have
 > occurred when there was heavy traffic was a sobering one –
 > enough to convince me that Sarria would be the final stop.
 >
 > Actually I had probably really made that decision a couple of
 > days before when I was leaving O Cebrero. I have never stayed
 > there longer than just enough time to have a big bowl of soup
 > and a large glass of beer, but somehow the place always gives me
 > the creeps – on all three of my snack stops there. It started
 > this time as I arrived at the village and found myself following
 > a route that was unfamiliar to me. In 2000 I had come up by the
 > trail, but at that time it me to the road just before the
 > village and that led to the bar with the nice soup. In 2002, I
 > took the road all the way and everything was recognizable. This
 > time the arrows led around the south side of the village and I
 > had a lot of trouble finding the bar that I had liked. I did
 > eventually find it, had my soup and beer, and took off. For the
 > whole way to Alto de Poyo I was feeling out of sorts – Probably
 > still tired from the climb from La Faba where I had stayed at
 > the very fine German-run albergue. A big ensalada mixta at Alto
 > de Poyo revived  me to some extent,  but I didn’t see
 > anyone I recognized in the large crowd of pilgrims who had made
 > a lunch stop there. Many of them had come all the way from
 > Ruitelán and even from Vega de Valcarce, so I figured that my
 > previous companions had all passed through earlier. Wrong – as
 > it turned out, I ran into many of them at my stop for that night
 > at the very good private albergue at Fonfria and they all came
 > in after I did. I assume that they must have spent more time in
 > O Cebrero than I did, since they were all faster walkers.
 > Originally, I had hoped to make it to Triacastella that day,
 > since I had made it all the way from Ruitelán to Triacastella in
 > 2002, but the hospitalera at La Faba had recommended Fonfria and
 > downhill was not making my leg happy, so I gave in. From
 > Fronfia, Sarria was certainly going to be too far, so I opted
 > for Samos as the most practical place to spend the night. I
 > definitely did not want to spend the night in the albergue
 > there, since the reports I had heard made it sound like it would
 > be uncomfortably cold (note: I did not bring a sleeping bag on
 > this trip, just a light silk liner). The first building I found
 > after crossing the river was an hostal, so I booked in there.
 > The albergue at the monastery was right across the street and it
 > turned out that many of the gang were staying there and eating
 > dinner at the bar associated with the hostal where I stayed. It
 > would have been nice to have joined them and that might have
 > revived my spirits, but GERD still rules my life even though it
 > rules out the group dinners, one of the more fun things of the
 > camino, except on special occasions.
 >
 > A recurring thought on those two days was that I was no longer a
 > pilgrim, but a tourist trapped on foot. In Triacastela, I had
 > checked to see if I could get a bus to Sarria, but it was a
 > Saturday and the bus was not running. In Samos, there was
 > obviously nothing running on Sunday and I didn’t feel like
 > trying to locate some sort of taxi service (I was also feeling
 > too cheap to use one if I found it).   It was still
 > Sunday when I reached Sarria, so there was no tourist agency
 > open to find out about flight changes. It wasn’t until 10 A.M.
 > on Monday that I could find out my options and, by the time I
 > got through there it would have been too late in the day to have
 > exercised the option to continue on the route.
 >
 > Here is the itinerary for the sections that I did do. The
 > distances in France are taken from the Raju book and the
 > distances in Spain were based on Jakobsweg, published by
 > Bergverlag Rother.
 >
 > Started walking from Condom, France on August 30.
 > September 7, reached Cambarrat,  France, 150km
 > September 8, rode in private car to Abbaye de Sauvelade, 10km.
 > September 8 to September 23, walked to Viloria de Rio, Spain, 305km.
 > September 24, walked to Belorado,  8km, and took a bus to
 > Burgos, 54km.
 > September 24 to September 30, walked to Moratinos, 117km.
 > October 1, walked to Sahagun, 10km, and took a train to Leon, 54km.
 > October 2 to October 12, walked to Sarria, 205km.
 > October 13, took buses to Lugo and A Coruna.
 > October 14, flight to Heathrow.
 > October 15, flight to LAX and express van to Lancaster.
 > October 16, rode home in private vehicle.
 >
 > The bus and train rides covered sections that I had done
 > twice  before and didn’t feel the need to repeat. In 2002,
 > I had taken the bus from Burgos to Sahagún and from Astorga to
 > Ponferrada, so this year I was determined to fill in those gaps,
 > and did.
 >
 > Regards to all,
 >
 > Bob Spenger
 >