Burgos to Santiago / Camino Frances

  When arriving at La Cruz de Ferro  I found a bench a short distance away and thought that this would be the perfect opportunity to sit in silence and wait for a while. While I was sitting, the South African woman from the Donativo the night before walked up to me. We shared a smile and she told me that a couple of years before she had walked here with her son and his friend. Her walking companions arrived at the Cruz de Ferro before her and when she arrived she saw that they had tears in their eyes.  A few of us walked up the small hill to have a quiet moment with the burdens we had brought to lay down under the Cruz. Some burdens of fellow travelers  Mando's burdens brought from people at Centinela  My tiny meteorite with (some of) your burdens laid down in a shell  It felt good to reach this milestone, to release these burdens and slowly move on.

  This is Albergue Gaucelmo. A Donativo in the small town of Rabanal del Camino. At the Donativo you pay only what you can afford, including a breakfast also by donation. We had to wait a couple of hours for the Donativo to open. This was a lovely young man and the sweetest puppy, both tired from their earlier walk. Although the women in the town just across the way from the albergue assured us the albergue was open, or would be open very soon and that it would be a great place to stay. They were right about one thing, it being a great place to stay. The two women at the top right of the picture are the volunteers at the albergue. They served us five o'clock tea. They volunteer for two weeks time and must have walked a Camino in order to be eligible to volunteer.  Sitting around our tea table was a young man from Tasmania (pictured left), walking the Camino with his mom and dad and after  they walk to Santiago they will attend his sister's wedding in Bulgaria together....

                                  Labyrinth along the way  Around day 17 things begin to fall away. Walking turns into a rhythm and a kept pace so that is no longer on the mind. Small pains move out of view into the background. Visions of things that might be important in life move slowly forward and back and forward again. No one orchestrates it. Some things stay longer and begin to garner attention. Those things linger and take on a life of their own.  Decisions become opportunities to look at and try on like new pieces of clothing. How does it feel? Why did I leave this behind and why have I picked it up again? It really doesn't feel like a choice so much as being let in on something. Almost like a happy new discovery that you are let in on but have very little say in. It's as if life decisions are made for you and this is a spectator sport.  Somehow though when decisions are made as t...

  Yesterday on the way into Astorgà these young Italian men walking the Camino passed in the morning and we all exchanged a morning greeting in various English/Italian words.  Catching up to them later in the day, they had decided to take the Camino arrow literally and climb to the top of this structure. I walked over to the base of the tower, looked up at them and said in my best mom voice "cuidado." They responded in broken English "yes, we will!"  They then asked me if I would take a picture of them with their camera that was on top of their backpack lying on the ground. I answered "of course!" I took a couple of pictures of them, waved and smiled and went on my way. Not long after they passed me with a "Buen Camino." I counted them to be sure that everyone got down safely, which they had. All is good on the way.

Walking into Astorga    

The Path is The Path is love, communion, humility, suffering, pain, reflection, atonement, action, courage; it is the victory over fears and anxieties. Along the Path, we are all equal, and we all experience it in our own personal and different ways. The Path is awareness: it is the realization of the essentiality of things and the strength within us. The Path is silence, anger, joy, happiness, prayer. The Path is the sun that warms you, the stars that show you the way, the rain that purifies you, the wind that refreshes you, caresses your face and dries your tears, as you progress step by step toward achieving your goals, through ups and downs, just as in life. The Path is sunrise in the morning and sunset in the evening.  It is the scent of the earth, the colors of the sky.  In the morning you follow your shadow, and in the afternoon your shadow follows you, because you are following the Light. The Path is conversion, salvation, faith in ourselves. The Way is listening and b...

                                                 Alex I first met Alex as I was walking into the kitchen at  Albergue Eclesial Espiritu Santo and he was walking out. He had a giant tray of coarse beautiful bread like I had not seen anywhere in  Spain. He quickly handed me a piece and said something like "best bread you will eat!" Then off he went to share with others.  He came back into the kitchen when I was cooking pasta and half was in the boiling pot and the rest sticking out. When I found out he was from Italy I asked what to do with the unwieldy pasta that wouldn't go in the pot. His answer, "let it stick out, never break the pasta." I said that in the past when I broke the pasta at home, little bits flew all over the kitchen. (I wasn't about to ever make that mistake again.) His reply was, "oh, that's okay." Buen appetito! It turns out that A...

 

The Day in Pictures  Old Wall leaving Sahagún 6 am On the road in the morning  Sun waking up Field of Corn World Peace of Course First Breakfast Thunder Storms in the Forecast "There's no summer without a bicycle" Free Fruit for Peregrinos Wild Cyclists  Donativo for the Night in El Burgo Ranero Thanks for coming along!

Halfway Point on the Camino Frances to Santiago A couple of nights ago in Albergue El Chiringuito del Camino in Fromista, a few of us were invited to dinner by Phil and Nina. Over dinner they told us that they had met three years ago a few kilometers away in Hornillos del Camino at an albergue called Meeting Point. Nina was walking the Camino with her mother and when they left that night she and her mother both agreed that Phil was loud (he chimed in here with a smile, that some people call that personable). They met again a couple of cities later and decided to walk together a little, along with other friends that they had in common.  When they arrived in Santiago, Phil said he was shamed by his friends into asking Nina on their first date. He told his friends not to show up on this date, but of course they all did anyway.  Nina is from Croatia and Phil from Michigan. They were married 4 months ago in Croatia in a traditional Croatian ceremony where everyone is given a small ...