On day one of my Camino I met Olivia Newton-John and Claire Danes. I’d arrived at the large pilgrim hostel in Larrasoana around 4pm only to be turned away as the place was full. I wasn’t the least bit concerned. I was high spirited from the first day and the walk had been so exhilarating. A local directed me to a Pension House on the other side of the village. When there, a cute old man showed me to my room.

There were two bunks in the room. On one of the bunks lay two fellow female pilgrims, both red faced yet cheerful and smiling. The three of us bonded, rapid camino style. Laughing about almost everything; how tough the walk had been, how sore our bodies were and how they’d managed to manifest both a banana and a toilet on top of the Pyrenees in the middle of nowhere.

Our room was a rather stuffy. There was mould on the walls and the sheets looked like they hadn’t been washed for rather a long time. We all laughed about all that too. I felt like I was high. I was too grateful to be bothered about any faults in our room. And the girls were too exhausted to care about trivial things such as dirty bed sheets.

They felt familiar now, not the bed sheets, the girls. Their names are Olivia and Claire. I loved that we laughed so much. But most of all I loved that we were all grateful for where we were, for what we had and for getting to meet each other.

I told them, “I’m going to call you Olivia Newton-John and Claire Danes. That way I won’t ever forget your names.”

Cherry, inspired by Polish beer in Wraclaw, Polska.