Day One: Sarria to Porto Marin

Finally getting boots on the ground in Sarria was a major relief.  The Camino in town is one thing, it winds through old cobblestone streets, past a small church and a monastery, several wayside crosses, but then you cross an ancient stone bridge and your out in the country and that is when, as they say, it gets real.  See, in the towns the Camino can be a sort of touristy feeling thing, there are little cafes that call themselves albergues, after the shelters for pilgrims, but which are really just bars or coffee shops.  Out in the country, there is nothing but your feet on an ancient way.
It is immensely freeing, after days of planes, trains and cities to finally be a Peregrino, there are no security screenings or schedules, only you, God and the Way.
Then we ran into the first tour bus load of people.
Somewhere, part of my soul felt like it died, but it wasn't really dead, it was just a little in shock.  It took a little adjustment of expectations, but I realized that the presence of tourists was not going to destroy my pilgrimage, it couldn't, the way would not allow it, there were too many kilometers to cover.
On the first day the distance markers mostly still had triple digits on them, that was a curse, and a blessing.  It was a rather bracing reminder that you had to pass a whole lot of those little stone pillars before you got where you were going, but it was also assurance that you had a whole lot of time to get over whatever it was you needed to get over, whether it was sore feet or turistas, there was a lot of open space and beautiful scenery to lose yourself in and to.
The first day also introduced me to the reality that Spain has hills, rather mountain-like hills.  Just in case I thought the Camino had been worn nearly level by so many thousand pilgrim feet over the centuries, I found out that that was not, in fact, true.  That reality confirmed another reality that I suspected even before I left home: I brought too much stuff.  I didn't drastically over-pack, but I certainly could have left a few things home and those hills made me wish I had done so.
That aside, I spent most of the day being immensely thankful for the journey.  It was a healing thanksgiving, it was letting go of all the bumps in the road up to that point, it was embracing the challenge, it was even enough to make me appreciate the presence of the tourists, after all, if you can't appreciate the beauty of this Way, you probably can't appreciate beauty at all.
It was twenty-six kilometers to Porto Marin, by the time we climbed the steps of the city we were absolutely exhausted and the crowded Xunta albergue, which was probably the worst we stayed in the whole time, was a welcome rest, the next day was going to be the real test, we were going to put the tourists and a whole bunch of other Pilgrims behind us and try to make up the time we had lost with the little train snafu.