Feb 16th - A major change

Yesterday Gill and I came to a decision because we are (I am) running out of money. We had planned for roughly 5 weeks of sleeping in albergues and eating the heavily discounted pilgrims meals. Instead we find ourselves mostly sleeping in hotels/private lodging and eating out every night. All the helpful pilgrim places don’t open until April. No way can we afford to stay in hotels for 5 weeks. The race to the next town isn’t about securing a bed ahead of other pilgrims, it’s about finding a bed full stop. And an affordable one! Today we are paying about 45 euros because the accommodation guide we were given was old, and after trooping around Pamplona for ages, we gave up and said yes to the first place we found.
So we are catching a bus to Leon. I’m pretty happy about this. I’m sad that money (and therefore time) is such an issue, but in a way I’m happy that now I can also spend more time looking at things along the way, and making detours, rather than racing to complete 28km because to stop at 20 would mean paying for private accommodation. But I’m also sad, because part of me feels that I won’t have completed the Camino. Still, I suppose it shouldn’t be about the distance, but about what I get out of it. I think I’ve changed a lot. I’m less fussy about what I eat and where I sleep. If a slab of hard, cold concrete is flat and broad, after walking 15km, it suddenly looks like heaven. And I eat almost everything now. I finally understand how fussy I have been. Actually, I’m discovering a lot of my faults. I wish I’d done this years ago – I would have done a lot of things differently. Said what should have been said, and done what should have been done. But it’s never too late to change. There is still a long way to go. To complete the Camino you have to do the last 100km, and I think we’re doing about 400 and something all up. Not the 800 I’d set out to do, but enough. Who knows, I might get to return one day – cashed up and with time to spend.