And a Little More

CAMINO STAGE 5- Markina Xeimen to Guernica (Gernika) 18 miles. Camino Del Norte Route El Camino De Santiago

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You just have to go half way… and a little more. John Tavner “Patriot”

One of our favorite TV series “Patriot” ends with the protagonist John Tavner beaten and broken swimming the English Channel, with jelly fish stinging him, in order to finish his mission. He has shown all through the series that if he can just make his journey half way, he can finish …as it’s the same distance turning around from halfway as it is to go forward. So he just has “to go a little more.”

We were one of the last pilgrims to leave the pensione Casa Rural Intxauspe at 8:30 am. Another 93 degree hot day meant earlier was better but we had to get Steve’s blistered feet taped and bolstered before leaving. The Camino stage the day before was brutal and everyone was blistered and hobbling as they left. Within a couple hours, even though we left later, we started coming across pilgrims injured, exhausted and discouraged on the side of the trail. One German woman I had I interacted with and hung her laundry on the line the day before, had tears rolling down her face. (I had read a blog where discouragement and crying kicks in around day 4/5). I stopped on the steep ascent and asked her if she was ok. She nodded, cried some more and wiped her tears. She said in broken English “I think I’m ok now… to go more.”

The human spirit is so remarkable— during difficult challenges it can still find reserves “to go a little more.” Descending one mountain and starting up another we crossed a freeway and a man leaned out his car and waved and cheered us with a “Buen Camino” helping us climb in a little more.

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I was thinking about Pablo Picasso’s painting “Guernica” (as we were hiking to the Basque town of Gernika) and the anguish Picasso painted after Guernica was bombed by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy in 1937 during the Spanish Civil War. As we passed the injured and as I looked at Steve, grimacing but still walking, due to his painful blisters, the painting’s howling and feet in the bottom right made me feel great compassion for those that carry on a little more despite great pain.

“While the difficult takes time, the impossible just takes a little longer.” Art Berg

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The last three miles stretched an eternity but we distracted ourselves looking at vineyards, looking at beautiful basque homes with cascading flowers from the windows, listening to church bells and the sound of cows with bells around their necks. We made it a little longer….