Where I Tumbled on the Camino
This is a real photo. I mean it is not from the Internet. My husband took it. The broken fence shows where and why I tumbled.
Where: In the middle of the infamous Les Hospitales Route, the most difficult stage of the Camino Primitivo. If you have never heard of it, Camino Primitivo is the most difficult of the Camino routes in Spain.
Why: We stopped for a quick water break, and I leaned on this fence, my backpack facing the abyss of the steep downhill slope behind the fence.
What happened next you can imagine: I tumbled backward, pulled down by the weight of my backpack. Somehow some subconscious instincts, or childhood muscle memories instantly commanded my body to curl into a coil by pulling the knees to the chin, the chin to the chest, my arms encircling the legs…
And off I went rolling downhill, contracted into a ball, accelerated by the omnipresent forces of gravity and momentum…
The elevation was high enough to kill me had I rolled all the way down to the bottom of the hill.
