One of the great conversations among those who are considering walking the Camino is foot wear - style - type - brand - high top - low cut - heavy weight soles - lightweight - shoes or sandals - flexibility - socks - and more. Once on the Camino - one learns that your precious footwear which you invested a lot of money on - has to be left at the albergue entrance - cannot take to your bunk - at risk of being taken either accidentally or intentionally. Rarely - pilgrims with old or uncomfortable footwear will leave theirs in the rack and take somebody else's. More often in the early morning in the dark - someone accidentally takes a pair similar to theirs but not theirs - causing destress and anxiety. Because we wanted to ensure that this did not happen to us - we made it a point to tie our shoes together with the laces and then tie our two pair together making it difficult for anyone to accidentally take the wrong four shoes in place of their two. Foot care is very important on the Camino - especially when you get blisters. As noted in an earlier post - the complete Camino - from the Pyrenees to Santiago is about one million steps. Since we did not start in France and walk over the mountains into Spain - we would only have about 800,000 possible steps maximum. In reality I only got one blister - one that refused to heal since I was continuing to irritate that area on a daily basis. Here now - at home on our Lenten journey - a spiritual trip - so easy for us to make changes - when we experience a misstep - changes to our our plans easy - able to continue towards our goal.
