(Not so cold, and not so hard, but I need to share).
Cold hard reality #1– Death by strangulation. We seem to have a lot of things around our necks at all times. A combination of backpack, body purse and sunglasses is common. Add a hat with a chin strap. Add a buff, a headband, and/ or a necklace. Add a hydration tube coming from the backpack. Add poles sticking up over the shoulders, a fanny pack, and a belt and we have gargling pilgrims asking for help.
You will notice that one enterprising peregrina is using the cleavage storage component for her water bottle. Another clever pilgrim is using her sunglasses as an auxiliary food storage area, saving crumbs and octopus juice for a snack later.
Cold Hard Reality #2– Food that will eat you and not vice versa. Enough said.
Cold Hard Reality #3– the bathrooms can be too far apart. I had two forest stops today, Stephanie had one. Luckily we follow the hiking rule of Leave No Trace. Others are not so well trained.
Cold Hard Reality #4– The Feet are Everything. It all comes down to the wheels. If the wheels are good, you can make it. Hitherto unknown problems emerge when you average 12 miles a day for ten days in a row. Farmacias here carry racks of tapes, bandages, corn plasters, canes, blister pads, knee braces, and we are meeting pharmacists. So far we are all moving ok and are grateful for (mostly) good feet.
Cold Hard Reality #5– hand washing your laundry each day and stringing it around the hotel room.
In reality, the hardships are few and are self imposed. No police will fine us if we take a taxi or a bus. No Camino monitors check our daily progress. One scrupulous church official will check our credentials at the end to see if we seemed to make the correct progress, but for now we decide how early to get up and how fast to walk. We decide whether to go to bed at 8:30, as I did last night. Cold and Hard, not really.