The Pilgrim's Mass

It was SRO (standing room only) at the noon service at the cathedral in Santiago. It didn't feel much like entering church as I arrived.more like entering a Broadway theatre....and the similarities didn't stop there.

There was first rate music of course. In this case, a nun with a voice like honey. Those who came early had a little music lesson that prepared us for spots when we could sing along. Later a big pipe organ with pipes placed horizontally like cannons ready to shoot each other across the aisle joined in.

There were great costumes and hats...a lot of green trimmed with gold and the bishop's mitre had plenty of sparkle.

The set featured Santiago himself high on a throne. Pilgrims lined up behind the altar and went up a little staircase one by one and hugged the statue from behind. Every few minutes a different set of hand would appear, although the pilgrims themselves were not visible. Flanking Santiago were two giant gold angels.

There were special effects, like things flying through the air. A giant insence burner called a botofumiero dangled from the ceiling and at a high point 8 brown robed monks appeared, lit it and working together got it swinging, swooping, spewing, smoking.

It brought energy and strength and people left happy. I had promised myself chocolate and churross just once on my trip and here they are.

Y

I felt well blessed body, soul, mind and spirit.

Destinations can Deceive

On Saturday I rapturously arrived at the outskirts of Santiago about noon. It is a large city and it was still quite a distance to get to the cathedral and the other interesting bits in the centre. When I arrived it was mid afternoon and the square had students demonstrating, police trying to drive them out, and bus loads of tourists wearing matching T-shirts lining up for group photos. Shops were flogging their souvenirs. I had been expecting some kind of spiritual feeling. Frankly this was not what I had been walking towards.

I went to the pilgrim's reception office and lined up to get my compostela (certificate). It was equally shocking....line up, wait your turn, show your booklets of sellos (stamps) , fill out this form, sign here, congratulations, get lost. I was disappointed.

On Sunday morning after a good sleep I returned early to the square about 8 am. The morning light was soft. The square was practically deserted...a few tourists, dog walkers, and bicycle team assembling. A young, fit, agile Australian girl lay on her back on the cobblestones to take this photo of me.

I am happy and about to spend the day exploring. I am luxuriously installed in a lovely hotel and part of the day will include a long bath and a siesta. There will also be the pilgrim's mass, tapas, and museums....and rest. It has been a buen camino.

Tomorrow i arrive in Santiago

My second last day on the camino had large portions of trail lined with oaks. The packed gravel underfoot was scattered with oak leaves and acorns. Lots of birds singing and the the faint smell of cows on the cool fresh air.Stone markers along the path give that all important feedback...how far yet to go.

 

Only 19 km to go tomorrow.

 

I am exhausted and excited simultaneously.

A Privileged and Cosseted Life or Is Pain Useful?

A former university classmate once declared about us early boomers..."We are the most privileged, cosseted generation that has ever lived". He spoke these words a couple of decades ago, and I dismissed them because in my view I was taking my life lumps...I was paddling hard.

I was thinking a lot about this today because I am approaching the Lavacolla River just before Santiago. It was here that medieval pilgrims cleansed themselves before they went to the cathedral. The name of the river is derived from "lava...to wash and colla...colon or arse". Literally the " Wash-your-arse River"...I will be there in only 3 more sleeps. Meanwhile I have stood under a hot shower everyday of the camino when I came off the trail and I have to admit that I have never enjoyed showers more. Sometimes I was cold from rain. More often I was sweaty and dusty. Always that hot water pouring over me created a sense of rejoicing in the simple ritual of getting clean. Was the struggle and pain of the trail an essential ingredient of that ramped-up enjoyment? I think so.

I am looking forward to arriving in Santiago but I love the camino. Today I met 2 Californians who walk at approximately the same turtle speed that I do. This is rare and worthy of documentation.

Tonight I am in a tiny village

This the view from the window of the bar where I sit.

Here is the bar where I sit having just had a big bowl of chicken noodle soup from a packet. It tasted like the food of the gods...but then I have walked and walked...I have put my rain poncho on and taken it off oodles of times. I am now going to have a strawberry yogurt and I expect that it also will taste superb.

Gratitude overwhelms me that I have the privileges of time, money and health to take this adventure.

What a friend we have in Cheeses

Once when I was visiting my Aunt Ethel and Uncle Alvin as a child, a cheese tray was presented for guests and my Uncle Alvin uttered words that have continued to stick my whole life....What A Friend We Have in Cheeses. I remember giggling and my Aunt Ethel somehow expressing disapproval...mostly as a reminder to her husband that impressionable child's ears were present. This of course upped the likelihood of my remembering it which I have. I confess to never seeing a cheese tray in the subsequent 6 decades without Uncle Alvin's lame pun running through my mind.

 

Galician cheese starts with these gorgeous creatures. Cheese was definitely an appropriate choice of fuel.

 

Generally I don't speak the words the wise words of my Uncle Alvin out loud anymore largely because a lot of people won't get the joke. Unless you have attended a certain kind of Sunday School during a certain era you will not know about the rousing gospel hymn, " What a friend we have in Jesus".

So it was with Uncle Alvin's wise words in mind that I set out to prepare to climb O Cebreiro. It is the highest point on the camino and involves scrambling up a rock path for 9km. That is by personal calculation about 18,000 puffs by me.

As usual I planned well and bought a little circular packet of laughing cow cheese wedges and a box of toasts. The plan was to refuel regularly, and it worked brilliantly. Here I am at the top.

I had planned on doing it in one big push but was stopped part way up by rain. Rain in Galicia, the northwesterly portion of Spain, is a given. It is simply a question of how hard, how long, from which direction etc. The area resembles Scotland and Ireland and the inhabitants are Celts. They have the bagpipes although I have not heard them yet. They also speak Galego, a Celtic language that apparently has lots of different words for rain. The rain that stopped me part way up was a callebobo rain which based on my sketchy understanding means a rain that drives everybody off the streets or calles except the bobos.

Time to smell the flowers

Another big day of walking....32 km from Mollinaseca to Villafranca. I set out at 6:15 am and ended at 4:30. I am realizing that every camino day takes me through a similar range of emotions... Optimism, confidence, doubt, confusion, revaluation, resignation, discouragement, fatigue, rest, excitement, curiosity, delight, amazement, surprise, fun...and always accomplishment.

Today the trail included a lot of suburban housing and industrial development around a small city called Ponferrada. Gone was the wild sky and the sweeping views....so I decided to look for flowers...those brave plants that risk investing in a second bloom....can you smell a metaphor coming...dammit I will just come out and say it. I want to risk a second bloom.

 

 

Tonight I rest for a big climb tomorrow. I am pleased that I can climb hills. I simply puff a lot and take it slow. Other are troubled by the descent which strains knees and legs and feet. In this, I seem to have the muscles and joints to take it. Perhaps the years of carrying my extra weight left me with strong legs.

The camino is full of people of all ages and stages. I learned yesterday that many Spanish young people are doing the camino in order to be able to use this on a resume. The unemployment among Spanish youth is alarming. I think it has a lot to teach folks of all ages.

A big, long, high, strong day

My good sleep prepared me well for a great start at 5:30 under the stars. All that I could see was a few lamp-lighted steps of the path before me and the stars overhead. I could not judge the incline or know how long the up part would last. All that mattered was the next few steps and the breaths that would make the feet move...my routine was simple...inhale on the left and exhale on the right. Each breath produced 2 steps. It is a strategy I understand well and perhaps over use...but it is unquestionably useful.

By sun-up I had travelled to a little town, had a coffee with pilgrim friends from previous days.

In no time the great pile of stones appeared. This moment is anticipated by pilgrims who often bring a symbolic stone. In my case it was a chance to shed a notion of myself that I no longer want, find useful etc. I had been practicing for this moment but now it was suddenly upon me.

IThe whole thing is a bit of cliche. My guidebook suggests arriving before 11 am to miss the tour buses who disgorge their motorized pilgrims for the requisite photo-op.

I quickly climb up and tuck my broken stone in a crack of the wooden pole.

I have done it.

My photographers cheer and I open my arms. Did it work? Who knows? It felt good.

My photographers are full of fun.

I stopped briefly at an eccentric establishment on the camino. The proprietor considers himself a modern day Templar and likes to welcome pilgrims. He does make a nice strong cup of tea with milk and listed 3cups worth.

 

 

Altogether I walked 32km today, and I feel great. It was fun to meet folks from Etobicoke just beginning. I was able to pass on some camino reassurance that it gets easier and that felt good.

I have taken to buying a drink for every Canadian I meet.

It was a big, long, high, strong day

Are you okay?

Today I realized that folks have stopped asking, "Are you okay?", as they catch me on the trail. I start early and walk slower than almost everybody. The camino day is planned around one's pace. Many young fit folks can average 5 km per hour on mixed terrain carrying a pack. I am pretty good on the flat but when the trail heads uphill I slow considerably. In the early days, folks would greet me in the universal manner, BUEN CAMINO, immediately followed by expressions of concern. Probably their concerns were related to my snail pace, my dripping brow, my heaving breaths or all of the above.

Here are Edwin from El Salvador and Grace from Ireland. I met them the first day...19 days ago and had not seen them since until last night. Grace stayed with me that first scary day and talked me up a steep hill with "let's just take 25 little steps and then take a little rest.". She would count and then tell me about herself during recovery times. Edwin rescued me on the steep, rocky descent. I was struggling to hold my balance when he simply handed me one of his walking poles. He showed me how to use it and then went on ahead. I found him later enjoying a cool drink and airing his feet and returned his pole.

Last night I accompanied them to church in Astorga. I was delighted to see them and they were generous with their positive feedback about my newly-acquired fitness.

Today my trail left the flat meseta and headed up hill. I was hoping for 26 km but settled for 22. I am trying to make the challenge real but reasonable. I am trying to keep myself in the zone of proximal development, hill-climbing wise.

Meanwhile I am pleased to report that the final countdown has begun in my mind. Of the 707 km of my camino, only 240 remain. I think that 9, 10, or possibly 11 days should do it.

My lungs and heart and butt muscles anticipate the up hill challenges ahead.

How to carry a torch for a lost love

Today I crossed the puente de Orbigo, the longest bridge on the camino. In 1434, por Don Suerno de Quinones was rejected by a lady. He took it hard and put an iron collar around his neck and vowed to keep it on until he had defeated 300 knights....until he had broken 300 lances

This story is believed by some to have inspired Cervantes to create Don Quixote.

By the way, Don Suerno did take off the iron collar and he went to Santiago and gave an expensive bracelet to the cathedral where it still adorns a statue.

Love and lost love are tricky things. It is sometimes hard to know when, if, whether we are over it?

Meanwhile the sun rises.

Peanut butter in the wilderness

When I travel there are little things that turn to longings. I confess that I have been silently and stoically missing peanut butter.

In the middle of the trail, appeared this mirage. The proprietor was giving a bit of a lecture...it was in Spanish but I think it was about the power of sharing and that we all need less.

He welcomed me and upon finding out that I was from Canada he immediately held up a jar of peanut butter. I was delighted.

From my pack, I dug out some bread leftover from breakfast. I spread on the butter butter, sat on a stump and had a feast. He pointed to a jar marked "donativo" and I added some coins.

 

A Swiss woman happened by and she delighted by muesli, her favorite cereal. I think there is an entrepreneurial hippie business unfolding here.

 

Spanish news reports daily on the high number of young Spaniards who are neither in school nor in jobs, a situation that is understandably unsettling to a country.

I wish this young man good fortune. He enriched my day and I hope I enriched his too.

When you travel, what little things do you miss?

Who is Santiago?

St. James of the English speaking world seems a cloudy, undefined figure. In Spain, Santiago seems to have two strong personalities. He is alleged to have come to the area during his life searching for converts but with little success. There is some historical evidence for this. Centuries later his bones were allegedly brought to Santiago for burial. He is sometimes portrayed as the exemplary simple pilgrim himself, the role model for us.

His existence seems to have served strong political, military purposes as well.

Here Santiago is the moor slayer, his horse about to trample an axe wielding moor underfoot. Several decapitated heads lie under the horse. Apparently European soldiers fighting during the reconquista would tell each other of sightings of Santiago himself leading the battle.

The medieval Spanish mind is hard to fathom. It seems gullible and uncritical. I wonder what notions I buy into that will cause future generations to wonder about me and my thinking?

Fruits and Kisses

Today I walked alone from Leon starting in the darkness just before 6 am. Gradually morning came and the suburbs and factories gave way to countryside.

I came across a beautiful walled orchard. It had grapes and apples and pears and plums. Although there were ways to see in, the whole area was walled. Not only that, the trees and vines were wrapped in mesh.

The message was clear. THIS IS NOT FOR YOU. I had already heard the news that we had been kicked out of the Garden of Eden, but this was the first time I had ever felt it. Not only that, I was hungry and alone.

I remembered a little six-year-old boy who came to my office sobbing and finally blurted out, "They out-cluded me". Now it was my turn to feel those feelings and ever exclusion I could remember came flooding up and I had a good cry.

Imagine my delight a couple of kilometres later to see this.

A basket of fruits...plums, apples grapes and tomatoes and a sign inviting pilgrims to eat and enjoy. I started with a plum and soon a man appeared. I thanked him and asked to take his photo.

He returned a few minutes later with his card with an email written on the back and I indicated that I would email him the photo. Off he went again, and some more pilgrims arrived and were nibbling. The man appeared again and surreptitiously handed me a pear and indicated that I should hide it in my pocket quickly. Once again I thanked him and we kissed goodbye on the right cheeks and were heading for the left cheeks (at least I was) when he planted a big one right on the kisser.

I don't think this relationship has much hope, but I am planning to enjoy an apple, appear, a plum, and two tomatoes today.

A day in Leon

Today I had lLunch time drinks and tapas with fellow pilgrims

Bought a new light for the predawn starts

Looked over Gaudi shoulder as he sketched

The plans for this building, his Casa De Bottines.

and now it is time for siesta. More fun and sightseeing later.

Places I Have Left Behind

Travel can be therapeutic and instructive...if only to point out places you would rather avoid.

In Spain when you enter a town the name appears on a sign in a conventional way. When you leave the same name appears but this time has a red slash through it, as if to say, "Enough of this place" or perhaps "I'm finished with you."

One does wonder about the implications of settling down permanently in Revenga...or perhaps it is better just to keep on walking.

The award for nasty place names visited on this trip is unquestionably, Carrion de Los Condes but at least it is accompanied by a good story. It seems that El CID married of a few of his daughters to counts living in the region and heard reports that they were being mistreated by their new husbands. According to legend he swept in, killed the counts and had their bodies tied to trees, leaving carrion for the condors.

Waltzing the camino

I am resolved to strive for a lightness of foot in the accomplishment of this journey. Mornings are easier in that department. My goal is to walk about 28 km on average. I try not to trudge or plod or otherwise demonstrate a less than positive attitude by my walking style.

I try for a straight walk with no wobble..friendly and purposeful. Along about noon however, the tiredness, the weight of the pack, the heat of the feet start to alter attitude.

Why am I doing this? Where is that damn village anyway?

Waltzing does the trick. Initially I chose march tunes or at least ones with a 4/4 beat. Marching is fine. Once when entering a little town feeling half dead and definitely bedraggled, I hummed Colonel Bogey's March under my breath. Immediately, my stride lengthened, shoulders went back and head lifted. With the music's help I think I made a reasonable entrance. That said, marching does have overtones and I do wish to come in peace.

That's when I thought about waltzing...I thought about "Mockingbird Hill" as played by Minetta Gill, a musical force at the little country church of my childhood. Whenever we had church fundraising suppers, folks would come from far and wide, buy their tickets, and then head upstairs to the sanctuary for the musical stylings of Minetta Gill. At intervals she would stop for announcements that ticket holders with certain numbers could go to the church basement to eat.

She had a solid repertoire that included My Sweet Little Alice Blue Gown but nothing could touch her Mockingbird Hill. When śhe attacked the keys, those tra-la-las and twiddly-dee-dees took full treble flight.

I delight in her musical gifts to me and imagine, 60 years later on dusty path in Spain, she is still giving.

The gift of community

Last night I was blessed to stay at the pilgrim albergue in Belicarios. Like many of these spots, the employees are volunteer hospitalerios. They greet guests, collect fees and donations, give sello stamps, assign accommodations, answer questions, clean, etc. At this particular albergue, the initial welcome included a piece of juicy melon and a big cup of water.

Pilgrims were invited to be part of a communal dinner. Donations of money, preparation, or cleanup welcomed.

Potato and onion peeling for the chorizo stew.

The fruit salad is chopped

At 7:30 we eat outside together in the twilight

Later we gather to watch the sunset, reflect on our own journey, and enjoy the chance to be together. This ability to create community is a complex and valuable gift. Sometimes it just needs a little nudge. I am resolved to put some effort into community building in my condo.

Just me and my shadow

One of the great parts of the camino is being outside most of the day....being recalibrated to the rhythms of each day. I particularly like striding along with my tall shadow in the early morning.

I walk predominantly west so I chase my shadow all morning and he shrinks a little with every passing minute. I am learning to estimate the time by looking at my shadow.

The morning light was so sharp, I made these self portraits.

 

A magical concert under the stars

Yesterday I dropped my lovely little solar powered flash light and it fell part and I put it back together as best I could and clipped it to my backpack to recharge. Alas pieces fell off as I walked and as I later explained to 3 male German pilgrims who like to start at 6 am in the starry darkness, "Mein lampe ist kaput."

They generously indicated with smiles and gestures that I should join them. Hans is 70 and sweetly shy.

 

For the most part they keep company with other and smile at the rest of us. They somewhat opt out of the unending game of charades that is part of the multi-lingual conversations at the albergues.

With full pack and varied terrain my goal is to travel 4 km per hour. I need 7 or 8 hours with the feet actually moving. After 2 pm the siesta-inspiring sun is no fun to walk in. That cool morning time before the sun gets up is both efficient and magical. We left at 6 am under a starry dome with fingernail moon. They all trained their lamp light on the path ahead of me. They matched their pace to mine and in truth we flew.

Then they started to sing hymns. I recognized some of the tunes and hummed along. The air was cool and life was better than good.

We arrived at the next town at sun- up just as the cafe con leche was ready and the roosters were crowing.

A pilgrim's blessing

Tonight I attended a pilgrim's blessing in the lovely church around the corner from the albergue in Villasirga.At the 7 pm mass the setting sun came flooding in the west window lighting the altar.

There were 8 pilgrims from Germany, USA and Canada. A lady read from St. Pablo (St. Paul) and I tried, unsuccessfully, to follow along but snatched the odd word. At the end the priest invited the pilgrims up to the front and blessed us and admonished us to care for one another along the trail. The priest asked each of us to state our country and city. The other Canadian, a white-haired man, was also from Toronto and when it came to my turn, he responded with "go leafs go."

Here is a sculpture of a local mayor remembered as a medieval pilgrim in the square outside the church.

Note the fortress quality of the church built by the Templars. That little window was perfectly aligned for the today's setting sun.