Here I am!

Here!

Everything hurts! Everything! Every single part of the body you can think of and some that probably don´t even exist are hurting! But it feels so great! So right! It was just about time that I gave some gas to this body again. And it responds so good. When I arrive at my destination, I´m feeling like I could break to pieces in a matter of seconds. Making a step, rising the hand, even just staying there and sit: whatever minimal movement I do, it hurts. But, astonishingly, in a matter of hours it´s almost completely gone. The body reacts. Nature reveals all its wisdom, and the result of loootsa years of being on the top of the food chain. In the third day of my journey, my body seems to be happily violating the energy conservation principle, and in the morning -after swearing internally a bit because of having to wake up so early- I´m full of power again. I get out, I walk and I sing- And I thought I was not fit enough! I love this body.

Now I am in the -private- house of a woman that has also gone the whole Way before. Because she lives in the middle of the german Way, she decided - a bit like Couchsurfing! - to share her home with the pilgrims. And you wouldn´t believe how full of love this place is, how beautiful and inspiring, how much attention it has been paid to the details... As I entered the door, I realized that this IS one of the reasons I had to go this Camino. People like Uschi Schneider paint the colors of life. Could you believe that she wasn´t home when I arrived? They let me in in their house, having only heard about me on the phone!

That´s the way life does taste.

This place, Haid, somewhere lost in the bavarian hills, has such a charm. The immaculate green plains surround everything. There are no´(t many) loud cars here, no big ugly buildings, no(t much) annoying civilization and asphalt destroying whatever desires to grow. There is green. Green trees big as dreams, and green plains wide as imagination. I was absolutely destroyed while walking up the last very steep meters to arrive here. But when I turned....

I could see the alps so near that I could nearly touch them. They were shining bright with the last sun rays, the snow was kind of orange, the sky behind, blue as if all the blue color of the world had condensed thre. I had to stop. Even with my feet on fire, I had to stop five minutes -and turn off the motivational mp3 I was hearing to make the last steps- and simply, contemplate.

To Contemplate.

This is what I have been doing, apart of walking. It´s funny how time passes at a different speed when you are not in a hurry and really really wish to just contemplate.

An old man approached me when I was sitting against a church and making a break and started talking to me. "Good that there are still people doing this by foot". -How I love this people...


I´m sorry that I cannot upload any photos yet, but my friend Juha, that accompanied me on the first day -and will one day go the Way himself-, took this excellent pictures:
http://strayshot.smugmug.com/Erasmus/El-Camino/16493462_ccR4F

As you see, my Way started on the rainiest day of the year. Honestly, it was raining like all angels in heaven had decided to pee on us at the same time. But, as Katharina said, ´it means that now it can only get better and better!´ And she didn´t realize how f***ing right she was.

Now I´m going to bed, before my back explodes.



Thank you people (:




-Ps. About the blisters of the beginning:
I bought not only one but TWO extremely expensive blister patches from the Apotheke because I was bloody scared of the Blister Monster. Remember, it took me ONE HOUR after arriving in Freimann, Munich, to get my first blister. So you can imagine how hell scared I was. (One hour, one blister, what about a hundred twenty days?)

After arriving at my first destination, I had two big blisters, one on each foot, and I put patches on them, then I went to sleep. This special patches do stick to your skin until the blister is gone for good and then they fall down. Theoretically.

Well, in the first break of the day, when I took my shoes off and looked at them, I invoked the full power and depth of the spanish swearings, since the fucking expensive blister patches were not only not where I had put them, but they had moved quite a lot towards the fingers. They were now white, had stick to the socks and were like melted. A mess and a lot of shit for 7 euros.

When I relaxed, I said to myself: Let´s think like the physicist you are. Why have those fucking shitty and expensive patches moved that much? The blisters were actually in a very strange location, where I had have no blisters before: Exaclty UNDER the feet. Wtf? Perhaps the foot was loose in the shoe and it was gliding hence and forth?

I tied my shoes much stronger after the break and, guess what? After half a kilometer there was no pain anymore. Nothing. It was gone. Bye, bye, and don´t cry for me, Argentina. Well, of course they were still hurting a little bit, but I could move at a decent speed and I hadn´t to be walking like an old Donald Duck anymore!

That has been my very first triumph in the Camino ((: