I woke up around 3-4am choking. Apparently I’d barfed in my sleep and because I sleep on my back, it started going down the wrong chute. At first, I panicked thinking “this is how I fuckin’ die?!? Choking on my own vomit in a random hotel in Spain?!? How lame!” And then I remembered I’d wanted to die the other day and could just let myself asphyxiate but decided that’s not how I wanted to go and I still need to finish this pilgrimage and see my family in Finland. This entire mental dialogue happened in the space of a second or so and I quickly coughed the acidic barf out and went back to sleep. Fun stuff.

Stuck here for another day. I woke up at 6am to gauge if I could walk and I still could hardly bring myself up to go to the bathroom so decided staying another day. Hopped in the shower and a HUGE thick glob of dark green/yellow snot the size of my hand came out of my nose which actually helped me breathe a lot better. I’d never ever seen that in my life. It was like the size of a clementine. No exaggeration.😳

Finally caught the pharmacy while it was open (they keep weird hours here in this town. They’re like open for 2 hours at random times, once early AM and then late afternoon). Got flu stuff, echinacea, diarrhea pills (yay!) and extra blister stuff just in case. I feel like I’m oversharing some bodily functions here but it’s my blog. If I can’t keep it disgustingly honest here, where can I?

Feeling a lot more positive today. I rarely get sick so this is a bummer but I’m sure it’ll take longer to heal if I’m mentally in a negative space.

Need to download for the previous days which were actually quite pleasant. Will post some of the pics here and put a bit of commentary next to them when able. I will then expound on all that later when more mentally aware (head is pounding at the moment). This is just 2 days of shittiness. The other days were fantastic so really don’t want my blog to represent the sucky part too much. Mentally, I really want to keep walking but my health needs to come first. But I’m not done here. Not by a long shot. I know I can do this. That’s not a question in my mind at all. Sometimes you just need a mental perspective shift.

The people are wonderful that I meet. Just the other day, when I was crying,  sopping wet and freezing from the rain and waiting for the albergue to open, some Italians walked past and offered to sit with me until I was ok which was so nice and made me cry even harder (whenever someone is nice to me when I’m upset, it just makes me cry. I’m more comfortable with people being harsh or ignoring me when upset, as bad as that sounds).

I separated from my walking buddy in Pamplona. Just needed to feel the feelings I was having and I couldn’t do that with someone else around, no matter how lovely. Miss her tons but we agreed it’s best for both of us.

Tried to upload a ton of pics but the wifi sucks at this fancy pants hotel which is frustrating but will just do a separate post when able. The support I’ve received from people on last post was so heartwarming and really, really helped. Thank you!! 
Some road walking (not my favorite but it was still sort of pretty) 👇🏻

This town is super old and this is the view from the rabies bridge (pic of bridge below this one). It used to be said that if you cross it 3 times with animal, they’d be cured of (or never get) rabies. The lepers would also be housed right nearby. Like holy shit, history man! 👇🏻👇🏻

Rabies bridge 👇🏻

Daily Baguette Service in this town! 😄😍👇🏻

Horsies!!!!! 😍😍😍👇🏻

I absolutely loved this day, when a lot of it was in the forests with birds chirping. Absolutely my favorite 👇🏻



Again, have SO many more pictures but unable to download. Been sleeping most of today and can feel my body healing itself so am very happy about that.

Adios for now! ❤️