Blisters.. Ampollas if I didn’t miss the right Spanish translation

After a long busy week, I headed north to Alexandria for a break. Sitting on the hammock in my friends’ garden, my eyes caught a scar on the back of my feet. I bent to see what it was. Simply a scar left from the blisters that hit my feet during the Camino. I did not see it well recently.

Wow, am recalling memories here! Memories of night blister-treatment circles, arranged by pilgrims with some interesting music and bottles of wine, while everyone is treating their feet to stand up for another long walk next morning.

We used to sit and share medical tools and tips. Some would suggest using Compeed plastic plasters, others suggested normal plasters, and some even suggested just leaving them alone. Wear 2 socks, no just one wool sock, ok don’t take a shower in the morning to keep them dry, put Vaseline, put benzoyl …aaaaah what should I really do ???

It was a very confusing experience cause all what you want was to wake up and walk the next morning, but the precious thing about it was how you got to understand your body and what it needed more than ever. You totally disregard all what you read and what you were told, and create a personal way of comforting yourself according to how you studied your body by midway.

Just recalling the tons of posts about wearing a hiking shoes or hiking boots and some suggested athletic ones, at the end I used my sandals most of the way.

The blisters experience, taught me how to tolerate some pains to achieve a goal, starting from too much complaining, that many of you would remember me always complaining from my blisters, into believing that they became another credential that a pilgrim would receive aside from the ones stamped on the camino passport! I bet there were real stamps that cannot be faked.

Today I wish these scars would never leave my feet as they carry a lot of memories. Today I am wondering how many pilgrims are looking at their feet and remembering the good days through these scars, although many ladies worked on removing them in Santiago before going back home, but they have all their right and our blessing ….Buen Camino 🙂

Sherif, Cairo.