80 miles in 5 days

That’s how far we walked along the Camino de Santiago in northern Spain last August. Friends of ours have been so enthusiastic about their experiences walking the Camino that we jumped at the opportunity to help out at a training event which uses it as its matrix. Part of the training involved working as hospitaleros (hosts) at a hostel called “the Pilgrim’s Fountain” and part of it involved actually being peregrinos (pilgrims).

During our ten years in Mexico we saw a lot of people on pilgrimage to various religious shrines and never felt an inclination to participate. Somehow the Camino is different than other pilgrimage routes. A Portuguese man walking with his wife explained it this way, “The pilgrimages to Fatima or even the Portuguese route to Santiago are about suffering or asking for something. But the Camino to Santiago is about gratitude."

We’re grateful for the experience and don’t want to forget what we saw and learned so I’ll be posting excerpts from my diary with pictures from the walk. It’ll be almost like reliving the Camino, without the tired legs.