Once more I entered the outskirts of a lovely little Camino township, once more I stopped in at the first pathside cafe to drink some water and sit with a few of my fellow pilgrim life-travelers, and once more Luis from Brazil – like he did yesterday in Hontanas – graciously offered me a smattering […]
I found myself deeply admiring the architecture of (& radiating calm flowing from) the large cathedral across from the cafe where I was resting, and so I decided to enter the same and spend some time there before leaving town. Unfortunately, the societal malaise that is the cousined partnership of capitalism & Christianity kept me […]
The 11th century fortress ruins on the mount overlooking Castrojeriz provided a steadily glowing reminder – poignant to the ego, transcendent to the Soul – that “this too, shall one day pass”; that no matter how “civilized” or “advanced” or “awakened” we might claim to be, our community too will one day fall away and […]
The horizon-long ridge just past Castrojeriz proper may not seem like much from afar, and yet all pilgrims soon come to know its steeper & more tiring truth. The small train of early pilgrims steadily slowed both before and behind me as we all trudged up that hot & dusty path. The way was a […]
At the crest of the previously summited mount, I had been told by fellow pilgrim Ferdinand (once again well met) that I had officially arrived at the famed Maseta – a huge, flat, dry, and dusty plateau; the northern portion of which was traversed by roughly 200km of the Camino Frances upon which I was […]
It was gloriously smooth & easy walking that day (a path-trait that would prove to be a common one for much of the next several weeks) and I soon enough found myself at the famed Ermita de St. Nicolas*, the famed donativo hostel of which I had heard so many wonderful things. It was places […]
“Suddenly I came out of my thoughts and noticed everything around me again, as though I was seeing it all for the very first time – the catkins on the willows, the lapping of the river on the reed-thronged banks below the bridge’s smoothed-out concrete, the leafy patterns of the shadows resting lightly across the […]
I eventually made it to the small dusty town of Itera de la Vega, where I reconnected with fellow pilgrim Erin (who I had first met and with whom I had shared a lovely dinner back in the hostel at Ages). She was just finishing up her lunch when I arrived and I sat with […]
“And so it is in the rawness of travel – especially travel taken as a pilgrimage; the way it laid you open to the clear blue nerves. You find yourself walking & walking & walking, until you suddenly fully embody your five senses – pouring yourself down an unknown trail, you become the slap of […]
This day proved to be exceptionally hot and exceptionally dry and exceptionally dusty; all conditions that made for a quite tired arrival into the town of Boadilla. The pathside bars and hostel cafes here were already filled with dozens of pilgrims by the time I arrived; pilgrims who had not walked as far, and yet […]
“The paths ever provided breath-taking views. There really is something special – almost sacred – about an empty road going on and on and on to the horizon; where the sun burns the world away into a dancing, shimmering heat-haze that reflects the crystal blue sky, blurring the line between heaven & earth, and disintegrating […]
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