Day 16 - 10.07.2020

 I forgot to tell you a story yesterday, after leaving Samos, walking full of boredom but still admiring the beautiful oak and chestnut forests, at one point we met a pilgrim who was returning from Santiago on foot.

Among other things, I related with the lady when I was able to sympathize with her feelings during the pandemic. I had a deja-vu and it was as if I went back in time 8 years ago, a few months after my accident, when it had been months since I had seen the sun's rays, except through the window.

Maybe you remember those who read my "story", at that time I lived with my family in an apartment, on the 2nd floor without an elevator, so if I wanted to go out I needed a real adventure. This is probably why I missed being on the go, but also my stubbornness to motivate other people to travel, even if at first with fear or shame, but then I can guarantee that it is worth it.

Let's go back to our story, everything goes smoothly until we reach the albergue in Portomarin, when we want to take up quarters, we notice that we do not have any identity documents. Crazily, we unpacked our bags to look for them as we didn't understand how or where we could lose them, because we always kept them in our fanny pack, and the other things were all in place. Scrolling through the previous day, we realize that the last place we used them was at the pension`s reception in Sarria. We check to see if they're there, and the gentleman on the phone tells us he forgot to take them out of the scanner and return them to us. The gentleman offered to send them to us in a taxi, so that we don't have to go back after them, our forgetfulness cost us 25 euros.

Being the only pilgrims in the hostel again, the owner lets us use the kitchen, make our own food and coffee, even use the cutlery and plates in the albergue. The owner of the albergue tells us that every day at 7 pm there is a service for pilgrims at the church of St. Nicholas. To our surprise, about 30 people gather at the church, the priests were very nice and at the end of the service, they stopped to talk only to us.

A pleasant sensation warms your heart, being a stranger thousands of miles away from home, when someone tells you that you are a person with a gift and a special mission.

We didn't expect that. 

Everything is divine.

Day 1- 25.06.2020- Pamplona, Spain

Where were we? Ah yes, after too many hours on the bus, one day in Zaragoza and again on the bus, to Pamplona now, ​​we officially became pilgrims after obtaining the first stamp on the credencial in the cathedral of Pamplona.

Credencial-Pamplona

    So many feelings! God, I relive that moment every day and I wonder how have we succeeded to make it to that day. But let's move on with our story, after receiving the stamp we decided not to linger too long in the city and start the Camino in the same afternoon, but wait a sec!? Trying to get out of the twisted old center of Pamplona, impossible for us in that moment, ​​we lost sight of the signs of the route (the specific markings of the Camino, which I leave the picture of below), we lost precious time, but we succeed in the end. We left the city crossing parks, many streets, we passed the huge university campus and slowly, slowly we head towards Alto del Perdon, without realizing what awaits.

Specific signs of Camino

After a short break in Cizur Menor and a run to the pharmacy to get magnesium, heart and muscle support, we head to a more filled with mountains terrains that culminates with Alto del Perdon itself, without knowing and without anyone telling us that we will meet a rocky road, so of course we hardly advance on the stony road that crosses the vast fields of cereals.

    But it seems that nature opposed us from the beginning: a monstrous storm coming out of nowhere caught us close to the summit. Three hours under a walnut tree without the possibility of advancing or return, wet, cold and scared of course, we advance to Zariquiegui to spend the night, but unfortunately the 2 albergue (shelters for pilgrims) were closed due to Covid -19. Without the possibility of a roof above our heads, we look for a place in the following villages, we a sigh with relief when we find an open hostel in Uterga. The problem was the 5 km we had to travel to get there, you have to keep in mind that it was still raining and it was already 9 in the evening, but salvation came to us, the host, the owner of the hostel that would welcome us had called us a taxi. And so, dear readers, we ended the first day of the Camino, a hard day, full of adventures and emotions, I can not tell you how many times we wondered what we actually got into and if it makes any sense to continue. One thing I noticed from the first day of the Camino, from the perspective of 2 people with not much exercise, is to listen to your body and heart, can it handle more? To pay attention to the advice received from the locals (we had received warnings from the village elders that a storm was coming, but the signs were contradictory so we ignored the warnings) and certainly the more water, the better.

    From the perspective pf a person with disabilities, although I used a hand bike and prepared myself somewhat mentally and physically for exercise, it does not compare to what you encounter in the day-to-day life, every stone was against me and of course climbing a mountain exceeded my physical exercises at home, but if I learned something that day, it certainly was to never give up.

    So darlings, we will soon continue with the second day of our adventure. Until next time, peace of mind and body!

Y buen camino, peregrino!

Pamplona Cathedral

Pamplona

Buen camino, peregrino!

 

    If you think that Camino is calling you, you can find out my experience during the 21 days of walking, on the French route, the oldest pilgrim route in Europe. Being a special year, post Covid-19, with uncertain situations, closed borders, applied security measures, deserted roads, municipal, parish and even private albergue (some, of course) closed, planes left on the ground and thus cancelled flights and many cancellations of plans, I realized together with my husband that it is necessary to mobilize and that's how we covered the approximately 840 km from Pamplona to Santiago de Compostela. You may be wondering, how did we do this in just 21 days, because you usually need a longer period of time to cover this route, about 35-40 days actually, well, pure audacity, lack of open accommodation, where we could spend the night, but also driven by the desire to reach the destination without problems. Of course, various problems and fears arose during this adventure, among which we were stopped by the police and the fear of not being able to return (due to the government desire to close Romania's borders) and others I will tell you in the coming days of Camino.

Turistic indicator

  Of course you may not know, but I am a person with disabilities, paraplegia after a spinal cord injury (or in less medical terms lack of feet mobility), which often led to the need of help from my husband in most stages of the route, even if I had a hand bike attached to the wheelchair (cool, huh?).

So coming back to this year's main problem, Covid-19, planes don't fly, what do we do? That was in our minds, since the end of March, when our first flight was cancelled. That shouldn’t have been a problem, but they were cancelled again two times, desperation took over and we said stop and made the impulsive decision to take our bus tickets. Nice, isn't it? 36 hours spent in a bus without many possibilities to get off, accessibility? naaaaah. We chose the Baia Mare-Zaragoza route, as we are from Maramureș and have long wanted to bathe our eyes in the beauty of the Virgen del Pilar cathedral. It was strange that before entering the cathedral, we accidentally entered a church dedicated to St. James (as well as the cathedral of Santiago), it seemed to me a magical coincidence, which wonderfully makes our story take a cyclical touch. From here on again on the bus to Pamplona (we were just talking about cycles), because Saint-Jean du Port, the usual place to start the pilgrimage was closed. I cannot express myself clearly, describe in words what I felt when I received the first stamp on the credencial (pilgrim's passport) in Pamplona Cathedral.

Bus somewhere in Europe

Delicias, Zaragoza

Delicias, Zaragoza

To Pamplona

Virgen del Pilar, Zaragoza

The dream comes true and our adventure takes off, as we soon see the first real day as pilgrims.

Until next time,

Buen Camino, peregrino!

Welcome home

       I don’t want to describe the Romanian medical system as any other system it has its ups and downs, but at that moment all I wanted was to go back home, to my rays of sunshine, to my children, cause I was too disgusted by this system and I was ashamed that I was a long time ago part of it, or tried to be.

 Everything revolved around money, after six weeks of hospitalization on 5 December I signed the discharge papers, I couldn’t stand mentally in a hospital anymore, I couldn’t stand to just lay uselessly in bed and watch how my husband loses himself from watching me lay around anymore.

 Even though I couldn’t move at all and my husband was exhausted from staying in a chair 24/7 on 6 December we arrive home with some presents for our kids (in Romanian culture is Saint Nicolas holiday).



And so a new chapter of my life begins…

Helplessness

       Fallen on the humid ground, I remember looking at the sky and thinking that it was a nice warm autumn day, the sun was shining and the sky was a brilliant blue.
       Even to this day I hear the drumming of hooves and the sound of the chariot’s wheels drifting into nothing. My husband’s roar of despair and the darkness in his gaze, the fear and the groans of utterly pain, it shook me out of my stupor, I almost came alive, he was trying to take me in his arms, to embrace me as close as he could, he was raising slowly my head.

‘Don’t…please, I can’t move my legs…I have spine trauma’ he could hear me barely whisper. Agonizing flashes that I barely remember go on: the ambulance came with a young nurse, who was more panicked than me, she didn’t really know what to do, she barely got my neck brace on and we go to the hospital.
       Between salons and doors at which I needed to wait the doctors finally decide to keep me at a hospital a night to see if I survive.  A single nurse approaches me all night trying to keep me calm, trying to encourage me ‘remember what you need to live for’.

 The next day my husband appears threatening trying to rationalize with the doctors, pleading for me to go to a better hospital, to Cluj Napoca. I was supposed to go with a helicopter, the situation was a critic one, but in my place goes an 80 year old man with a broken femur ( apparently it was more critical, he was the father of a senator). I wish to say my trip on the ambulance approximately 125 miles, and maybe it appears that it was made quick and easy but let’s remember we are in Romania, so the trip wasn’t slick and nice at all. In fact it was hell for me, the inflatable mattress that was supposed to keep me from feeling the bumps of the road was punctured so it staid deflated all trip. Next up awaits me hellish days that sometimes I wish I could forget, because of lack of cash, the hospital decides that until I have 3800 Ron cash to pay for the titan system that I needed, I won’t be put under surgery. My mum manages to arrive from Spain with the money, Saturday night, but the surgery won’t happen until Wednesday.

Days and nights of despair, hopelessness and trembling fear pass.

 I know what will happen, but do you want to?

Broken wings

         Seven years ago, in a beautiful autumn day somebody decided to tame my life, hopes and dreams were shattered but let me tell you...

      I was in our farm, we were supposed to reap the harvest and bring home some hay. Because we were pretty new in this domain, we didn't have the instruments necessary for all the work we were supposed to do. We only came from Spain back home, in Romania and we decided to ground ourselves more with the nature, so we decided to build our own little farm.

     Although I am a nurse, I didn't find a position without bribery and the farm was the only possibility for me to bring money in our house. As I was saying, that day we were bringing home some hay, with the help of our neighbour, that had a chariot, which would help us bring it all. We were at the end of this proccess when one of the chariot's horses gets spooked and runs and I couldn't get away fast enough.

     The result of a stupid accident from where I get spine trauma and not even now do I know the verdict. Will I be able to walk again? Nobody had an answer.

      Therefore the follows a husband and a wife without the ability to walk and four children, the younger having only a year.

     Time doesn't wait for us, wounds heal and life slowly goes on.


Did I capture your attention? There is so much more...

My Story

       


       Since an early age I liked to travel, to go on trips: deep in the forest or up a mountain or simply just walking. I remember, I dare to call it, an adventure from childhood. I was at my grandmother's old house, in the countryside,
I remember I absolutely hated to stay rooted in one place or to do common things, but I was supposed to help. That day I was supposed to watch over a cow, so it wouldn't stray away, aaaaaaaall day long, while the other children were playing and swimming in the nearest river. That cow was a little crazy but I didn't expect for it to just appear in front of me and what threw me off, literally, was that it actually took me with its horns and threw me exactly in the thorns. Ouch, I still remember that there wasn't a part of my skin that didn't have this minuscule wood thorn in it. Forgetting the pain or trying to, I took care of most of them and I left the cow but that wasn't all, I left my grandmother's place without even telling her anything as I didn't see her and I didn't bother looking for her. I went all the way to my other grandmother, I don't even remember the actual time it took me to get there, but I know that it was a long way (16 kilometers or 10 miles) may I remind you that I was a child and I went on a walk, alone through three villages, until I arrived in the city to my salvation. Since then I think something in me sparked at the idea of walking, of exploring. If it were somebody else maybe they would have hated the idea of it, but I wanted more. Not the pain, but the adrenaline of just getting away from my problems even for a short amount of time. It amazed me how you could just get up and go and discover, to just travel away from your worries and nightmares.
Fast forward in 1998 I married and a year later my only daughter Mihaela brightened my life, she was my little ray of sunshine as she was a little bundle of happiness with bright eyes and little blonde curls. Since then life took me through different countries, but two of them I knew more of, because of our prolonged stay: Lisbon, Portugal, where we lived a short period of time (God, as I rewind these memories, the longing of seeing them once more takes over my heart) then eight years we lived in Spain, where we visited and we took trips frequently balancing them with our work. In that time I had my two boys, Raul and Tudor, in that order, the light to my happiness. After long eight years we decided that we must come back to our ancestral home, to raise our kids with the same love for our country as we had when we grew up, but a surprise for us was our last child, Seraphim. Now my four children were my pride and joy, they grew up and we actually went through so much these last 7 years, you won't even believe it! But I think that is another story, for another time.


See you soon!