Remembering the Camino, Part 2: Blisters and Bug Bites!

Our last post, "Remembering the Camino de Santiago, Part 1: Introduction," might make someone eager to lace up some hiking boots.  But, here's fair warning that you might soon want to ditch those boots in frustration.  In coastal areas west of Santiago Cathedral (for instance, if you go on to Finisterre or Muxia), you are likely to see a sight like the above: abandoned hiking boots.  If you do walk the camino, you'll likely understand why.

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When Will and I have the opportunity to encourage future camino participants, we are wildly enthusiastic.  But it's possible that we are operating with a slight bout of amnesia about the experience, perhaps because walkers are filled with unadulterated bliss ONCE they have completed the camino.  During the walk itself, emotions are a bit more complicated...

While I wouldn't trade those 34 days (33 walking, and 1 day resting) of my life, I have to admit that there were moments when I thought I was crazy for getting up at--and sometimes, in the hot and dry meseta section, long before--the crack of dawn for another punishing day of walking.  Yet when people ask me about it now, my face breaks out into an idiot grin, and I wax poetic about the transformative nature of this walk.  Although I've never experienced childbirth, I wonder whether there is some slight similarity between the agony of pain followed almost immediately by a rapturous feeling of goodwill generated by successfully surviving both experiences.

After we were finished with our walk, we stayed in the city of Santiago for four days before flying to Paris to "reward" ourselves for our hard work.  (We were actually supposed to remain in Spain only two extra days, but there was yet another transportation strike in France that delayed our flight.  We're getting way too familiar--and perhaps even a bit jaded and bored?--with these greves.)

In our hotel, we often found ourselves at breakfast chatting with others who had just finished one of the many paths that end up in Santiago.  Two older women we talked with told us that they just finished the Portugal route after having already walked several of the others.  They confessed that they ALWAYS wonder why they are on another camino when they start walking.  But then just a few days after they are finished and back at their respective homes, their "feet start itching," not for just another adventure but specifically for another camino walk.  We heard about someone having walked it 17 times!

And, yes, Will and I are already planning on walking at least two more: the Portugal route (shorter than the Camino Frances), and the route from Le Puy to St. Jean Pied-de-Port (more intense and difficult than the most well-known one we've already completed).  It's inexplicable, but others will agree with us that it is indeed addictive, albeit a bit masochistic.

Just to make sure though that we're not overselling the walk--or at least not understating the difficulties--I thought it important that I share some physical demands of this pilgrimage.

Camino Blisters

Not everyone gets blisters.  In fact, I'm still sore with Will that he never got even a single tiny blister.  But really, a LOT of people get blisters, and it's really hit-or-miss.  It's not a matter of youth, physical fitness, experience in hiking, or even how broken-in your boots are.

A young German woman got blisters on her heels that sidelined her for several days at the beginning of the hike; a young British male mixed martial arts trainer got blisters at the bottom of his feet that sounded excruciatingly painful, and he had to stay behind a third way into the walk.

Perhaps the most heartbreaking case (for us, because we had become friendly with her over several days' acquaintance) was of a woman from the United States, an experienced hiker who got such painful blisters towards the end that she was not able to walk the last five days of the camino.  But because she was traveling with others and they all had travel commitments, she could not recuperate and walk later.  Instead, she wept with both pain and sadness when she took a bus to Santiago to meet the rest of her party.  Everyone else wanted her still to get the official "Compostela" (that certifies you completed the camino), but she refused to do so since she did not complete the last five days.  Perhaps a bit unfairly, the certification rule makes it possible to get the compostela merely for walking the LAST 100 kilometers (from Sarria to Santiago), but not if you instead walked the first 680.

And, yes, I got amazing blisters.  I spent most afternoons treating my innumerable wounds!  That got me out of laundry duty with Will, but honestly the blisters were painful enough that I'd much rather have washed and hung up t-shirts and underwear every afternoon.  The blisters started on the second day of the walk and didn't go away during the entirety of the 34-day journey.  In fact, they were so painful at one point that I needed a "rest" day to let the blisters dry out a bit during a rainy day in Santo Domingo.

Every afternoon, once we were settled into our albergue, I conducted the daily routine of attempting to manage them by draining the fluid, leaving a piece of thread in the blister to continue the draining process, and then protecting them by covering with Compeed.  (Great stuff, and absolutely necessary on a long hike!)  Then on to treating the next 8 blisters the size of nickels to half-dollars.  ALL OVER BOTH FEET.

I'd love to be able to say that I have a handle on blisters now and that I won't get them again on the next camino, but I seriously doubt that.  Instead, I would just hope that any new blisters will indeed dry out again and eventually become thickened yellow callouses--as they did in the picture above--over two weeks after the camino was completed!

Camino Bug Bites

I am allergic to various kinds of insect bites.  Typically, mosquito bites swell up to the size of a calf muscle, and throb like mad.  One time, at the end of a trip from France, I got bitten by fleas--or, my doctor thinks possibly "no see ums"--and the bites traveled from my right elbow up to my chin.  (The nurse who processed me was aghast.  "What the heck happened to you?!," she exclaimed when she saw me.)

So, needless to say, I was justifiably nervous about the prospect of spending five weeks on the Camino de Santiago, walking outdoors in (mostly) rural Spain all day long and then sleeping in questionable beds at nights.  We got all the usual stuff: sleeping bag treated with permethrin, insect-repellant sleeping sack, bottles of insect repellants, tube of hydrocortisone anti-itch cream, and the all-important Zyrtec to forestall (or stop) the crazy allergic reaction my body gets into when it deals with an insect bite of any sort.

It's possible that reports of bed bug infestations might have spread wide enough that people who haven't walked the camino already know about that terror of all terrors.  There are internet forums devoted to alerting fellow pilgrims about when and how bad a bed bug outbreak is: Which albergue?  How many people?  Are private rooms available, and are those ok?  Are other albergues affected, or should the whole town be skipped over?  I ran into people who did get bed bug bites, and I had a strong suspicion that my especially-susceptible skin wouldn't be able to survive that horror.

Thankfully, I was able to avoid that fate by scrupulous attention to an elaborate bed-time ritual involving all those above-listed items.  However, despite my best preparations, I did wake up one morning to see a spider crawling away from where my arm had snuck out of the insect-repellant-coated sack which was inside the permethrin-treated sleeping bag.  (To this day, I still don't know exactly what bit me...)

By the end of that day, an angry redness surrounded fluid-filled blisters that started to take on a frightening aspect.  I felt hot and flushed, body full of toxins and unable to get any rest or sleep.  I worried that I was so far away from home--in rural Galicia, Spain!--with no idea about who to go see about this problem.  Would my U. S. insurance even work here?  Would they insist that I stop my walk and be hospitalized--at this point only two days from my final destination?  What if they say I needed to amputate my arm?  (Ok, yes, I got a bit melodramatic!)  In retrospect, I realize I should have at least stopped into a pharmacy, just to be safe.

On our final day of the walk--three days after the initial bites--I woke up in Santa Irene, about 14 miles (22.8 km) outside of Santiago.  I felt a little cooler, less feverish.  The redness was barely receded (I had drawn an outline with ink to track its progress...), but it was just a bit fainter around the elbow.  While I was by no means "better," the bites seemed to be "on the mend."

I walked the final miles of the camino with the assurance that I had survived the ordeal, insect bites and toxins and all.  And indeed, in a few more days, the redness had disappeared, and I had a glorious time being back in good health--and in Santiago!