June 25, Day 6

Navarrete to Azofra (22km): Fastest time yet...otherwise blissfully uneventful

For some reason, it´s been taking A and I about an hour to wake up and pack up before we can hit the road each day. With all that OPIM we´ve taken in b-school, that´s just unacceptable, considering how very little we´re carrying (I mean seriously, I only brought 2 pairs of shoes and even left my blowdryer at home!)

Anyway, I´m happy to report we shaved our time in half and we´re out of the alburgue by 6, even though we ¨slept in¨until 5:30 this morning. We arrived at our final destination, Azofra, at 12pm and have been chilling since. Today´s walk was yet again easy, which I noted in my journal today (though of course, the minute I wrote that down, it started to rain and it hasn´t rained thus far). It´s funny, because of the spiritual aspect of this trip, it´s almost like a lot of us pilgrims are expecting each day to be super physically and emotionally demanding so that we can achieve profound meaning from the experience. So when our day is pretty easy, it´s easy to be disappointed because we feel like we´re not suffering enough and therefore not deriving meaning from the journey. But then I realized there was something to learn from such an uneventful day like this - to BE grateful when nothing bad has happened and things went smoothly. I spend so much of my energy avoiding bad things in my life, I´ve forgotten to just sit and appreciate when things do go right. So lesson learned today, no news is good news and that´s today´s blessing in disguise.

Speaking of blessings, the neat thing about the alburgue we´re staying at is that each room just has 2 beds each. When you´re used to dorm rooms that cram 8 or more strangers in a room and you´re trying to sleep with a bunch of snorers around you, stuff like this becomes a real luxury. Yes, such is the pilgrim´s life - it really just revolves around two things: how bad was the snoring in your room the night before and how bad are your blisters today? And you know what? I love that life is that simple.