Day 2 - 26.06.2020

    Early in the morning we wake up with more vigor after yesterday, the sneakers still wet (they were soaked in water, although we put newspapers in them, according to the instructions of the host), after a cafe con leche and a hearty breakfast (included in the price of accommodation) and a photo as a souvenir (I was going to forget, the owner told us that we are the first post-Covid pilgrims to stay in his house).

    We start moving, we actually have to recover the 7 km from the last stage and the 21 km from the current stage. Great aspirations, but we start with hope. The 7 km from Uterga to Puente la Reina are done without any problem, the only inconvenience was the lack of shops, well, the lack of open shops. A saviour appears as the following event happens to us in Puente la Reina. I was sitting outside on the sidewalk, Vasile, my husband, sitting on the curb, enjoying a soda and a well-deserved break, and we were watching the lively conversations of the locals. We decide to start following the original route, but we don't make more than a few steps and we are interrupted by a voice that warns us from behind: “No podeis ir por ahi con la bici, teneis que tomar la carretera. Hay escaleras al bajar”, what we didn't know and the local tells us is that when we go down from the village we will find stairs following the traditional route. We couldn't go that way of course, so the local led us to the road, we thanked him and we started for the Roman bridge that is after the descent. 

Roman Bridge

We are on the right way

Refugio de P.P Reparadores-Puente La Reina

Refugio de P.P Reparadores-Puente La Reina

Two pilgrims walk on the Roman bridge

    In our thoughts we thank heaven and the man that warned us for sparing us of the unnecessary effort. We advanced another 5 km on a dirt road, keeping the highway on the right.

Highway on the right

Small Break

Dirt Road

Camino 

Highway 

Under the Highway

Under the Highway part 2

    A not so very pleasant part of this stage is the ascent of Mañeru. Although it is very hot since the morning, you could feel the effects of yesterday's storm, the humidity of the air stuck to our skin and the hot air took our breath away. The sloping dirt road with numerous ditches made of water flowing down the valley, along with mud and stones made the ascent a torment. 

Ascent

    We move slowly as if time stood still, we finally manage to reach the end of the climb, sweaty and weak. We don't even feel the rest of the trip to Estella, how it passed, what happened, although there were many ups and downs. We arrive in the city, we are one hundred percent sure that we will find open hostels (on the specialized sites they were all open), surprise !! Everything is closed, another storm is approaching and we are without accommodation, so we took all the hostels in the city one by one. In the end we find something accessible from all points of view, financially and without too many stairs. Of course, human nature in conditions of stress toys with us, dark thoughts surround us: what do we do if albergues will not open? What if we have to continue to stay in hostels / hotels? We decide to calm down and take each day as it comes. It's a wonderfully special trip, let's enjoy it!

Day 2

Somewhere on Camino

On Camino de Tronos you either walk or die

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?