Rest And Reiki

Ola peoples!

I feel like heaps has happened since I finished my Camino.

Lets see...

I stayed in Santiago a few days to relax and recharge, so I decided to shell out and spoil myself and booked a room at a hotel, spa and wellness centre.

In Satiago de Compostela

Yeah nah that didn't pan out at all!

The spa had gunk floating on top so I spent most of my time hopping in and out of the sauna rather than sitting in that human stew.

And the hotel just so happened to be on the French Camino (I didn't know that) which was also a very popular pub crawl street (also didn't know that). So when it came to sleep I got sweet fuck all!

My favourite night was the Friday night when the pubs shut down around 4am and a loud couple came back to the hotel yelling as loud as they fucking could up the stairs. And I had the pleasure of having the room below theirs. OK, whatever, they're piss drunk they'll pass out soon... NOPE!

Then I start to hear some moaning. May I add I was wearing ear plugs. I could hear her moaning through my ear plugs!

If I can hear you through my ear plugs and the ceiling you are FUCKING TOO LOUD!

Yeah so I decided I wasn't going to listen to drunk sex so I turned my phone up as loud as it could go and blasted some Iron Maiden.

After the first song ended they had shut up (don't know whether it was because they realised they could be heard or the awesome sounds of Iron Maiden was too much for the bloke and he blew his load) but I finally managed to get some sleep.

Anyways. After my no-rest rest time at Santiago I caught the train to Madrid.

My first day in Madrid I spent almost entirely in my hostel bed. I managed to get to the post office to send my Camino stuff home before my body crashed. But that night I felt well enough to go to the cooking class with bottomless wine I had booked.

Now that was a fun time! The food was amazing and the vibe was great and the wine kept coming.

But that did mean I spent my second and last day in Madrid hungover and hanging out in my hostel bed and laundry room (desperately needed to wash my hiking clothes).

After Madrid I got a train then a bus back to Portugal where I joined a Reiki Level 1 retreat in a small village called Melo.

The retreat was held at an animal sanctuary so I got to spend my time learning reiki and hanging out with gorgeous dogs, cats and horses!

Now that was good for the soul!

Fuck me if it wasn't hard though. The first day of reiki training nearly had me passed out from exhaustion. The second day was slightly better but we didn't finish until half past seven. Yesterday was the last day and we did a reiki treatment on some volunteers. I was pretty nervous beforehand but ended up really loving the experience.

I have always wanted to learn reiki and now I finally have! Hopefully I find some people willing to let me practice on them while I'm travelling. And hopefully I can get my Level 2 at some point as well, which would allow me to practice professionally.

But for now have to complete 21 days of practice which also means no grog and no meat. Not sure how the no meat thing is going to go but I'll give it a crack. Don't know if you remember from one of my other blogs but the Portugese are not the most veg friendly.

Now I'm in a 1920s hotel in Coimbra, which used to be the capital of Portugal way back when.

In a couple days I'm thinking of going to Aveiro, which is supposed to be the Venice of Portugal.

Coimbra

Then on Friday I'm starting an 8 day horse riding retreat about an hour out of Porto!

I'll let you know how that goes!