I am sitting in a Renfe high speed train that's going 300 kms/ hr. My two friends are sitting across the aisle and nodding off. We have about 2 more hours to go on this train and we are already tired to the core. A meticulously planned trip took a wild turn,all because an airline decided to do maintenance on a plane bound to Madrid.
This trip has been more than a year in the making. We did a trial run last year and felt we could tolerate, why even enjoy, spending days on end together, not just shooting the breeze, but slogging it out.
And so we planned things, we booked tickets, planned our walking days and halts. We booked hotel rooms and train tickets and plotted our itinerary and finished it all up, way before the actual day arrived.
Every leg had time cushions attached so we wouldn't miss a connection or lose a trip.
But, as usual, the world had other plans.
My flight to Dallas to meet up with my friends was delayed by about 30 minutes, but no issues because the flight to Madrid was almost 4 hours later and we knew I would be fine.
We met up at the gate allocated to us and we were happily catching up when we noticed that all our phones pinged with a notice that the flight was delayed by an hour. No big deal because we had built in cushions. But that cushion evaporated in a matter of minutes.
The new time was almost 4 hours later than the original. That was it! Poof!!
That began a frantic search for alternatives to get to the town we were starting our walk in. Oh, did I mention we were walking the last 113 kms of the Camino? So we had to get to Sarria to begin our walk and our direct train from Madrid to Sarria would leave way before we even got to the train station from the airport. Vincent who it seems, is more invested in my pilgrimage than I am, instantly volunteered to look for alternatives and since we were sitting and twiddling our thumbs while cursing American Airlines with every swear word possible, we put our heads together and starting looking at other options. Unfortunately the train we would miss was the last direct line to Sarria and every other train after that required a change. That's when it hit me that Ourense seemed to be the connecting point for trains to Sarria, but the layover was too long. A taxi service though, took slightly over a hour to get to Sarria from Ourense.
So we asked Vincent to rebook us on the train to Ourense at a later time and requested the hotel that we were staying in to book a taxi for us. And our flight to Madrid took off.
To add insult to injury, there was no wifi on the international flight and so we had no idea if Vincent had even rebooked tickets for us.
After a tiring 9 hour flight into Madrid, we turned the airplane mode off on our phones to find a message from Vincent about our new tickets for a later time. Love the guy to bits!!
Got off the plane, finished immigration and customs picked up our luggage and walked to an information booth to ask about taxi versus train service to the Madrid main station to board our high speed train. The sweet and helpful lady there suggested the train to get to the station instead of a taxi. Done!!
The ticket machines waa tricky..but one of our friends managed to break the code and we bought tickets to the main station and got to the right platform and boarded the train. 15 minutes later, we were at the main station which waa biuzzing with people. We figured out where we needed to be to board our train to Ourense and finally made it to the train.
And that is how we find ourselves seated in a high speed train, fighting off sleep and waiting for the last leg of our trip..our taxi ride to Sarria.
Tomorrow we will begin our pilgrimage and we will surely forget what a rush it was,with all its twists and turns to get to our starting point. For where we start doesn't matter does it? Where we end is what counts and we surely will, by the grace of God, end where he wants us to.
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