Yes, it´s true. I am hardcore. I´m not bragging- just stating facts. For the last week or so, the other five members of my hiking group and myself have been affirming to each other several times a day that we are, in fact, hardcore. Our hardcoreness, if you will, is demonstrated constantly in a variety of ways. Examples? 1) The blisters, burns, and other injuries that we bear on our bodies- which do not stop us from hiking. Every morning before we venture out, blisters are drained, feet are bandaged, ibuprofen is administered, etc. But we keep on. 2) The route we have chosen is the primitive route. This means that the route is...well... primitive. It is much less popular and the trail is harder to navigate than some of the others. We all came to the conclusion today that the Camino de Santiago would make a good video game. There are many near-deadly perils along the way, such as stinging nettles which jump out suddenly from the bushes, thorns that spring out from inconspicuous shrubbery, dirt that instantly turns into mud and sucks you in when you step on it, R.O.U.S.´s (rodents of unusual size), etc. I may be exaggerating slightly there, but a few of us were chased by a horse a couple days ago, we were nearly stampeded by a herd of cows once, and there have been more than a few dogs that have done their best to get at us. Not to mention a bull that we cautiously passed on the path the other day. Our taking the primitive route also means that we have fewer options regarding places to stop. The French route has an albergue (pilgrim´s lodging place) every 5 k or so. If a pilgrim on that route gets tired, he has many different options for places to stay. Not us. We have a set hike each day and there generally aren´t other options for us. We hike until we get there. 3) We often complete our hikes significantly under the time alotment. This is because we hike quickly, we don´t take breaks often, and the breaks are short. 4) We just are. Take my word for it. We´re hardcore. That´s my story and I´m sticking to it.
We only have 53 k left of our hike. It´s amazing to me to think that I have hiked over 200 k in the last 9 days. Today´s hike was about 32 k. We´re pretty tired, but it wasn´t hot for most of the hike and that helped a great deal. We actually had a bit of a thunderstorm, which was pretty cool. We were sort of hoping to get poured on, but that didn´t happen. Also, we´re hiking in Galicia now, which is not nearly as mountainous as Asturias was. But probably the main reason the hike wasn´t as difficult as we expected it to be is that we grow more hardcore by the day. Tomorrow we have another 33 k, then 20 k on Sunday and we´re in Santiago!
Although this hike has left me completely thrashed, I have enjoyed it. Thinking that it will be over in just a couple of days is almost sad. Almost. I´m definitely looking forward to sleeping in (we´ve been getting up around 5 most days) and letting my body heal. I´m also really looking forward to going to Morocco and the other travel that I have planned for the next month. But for now I think I´ll just go put some aloe vera on my sunburns.
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