Month: June 2017

Day 5 – Carrión de los Condes to Terradillos de Templario 
Slept well in Espíritu Santo, and got an early start to the day. Knee did better (dryer day), and I was first to the Albergue in Terradillos this day. 

I notice I’ve been running into 5-time camino veteran, Francisco, from Italy. He is usually first out the door, and walks with such long strides that he seems to glide over the camino with ease. 

Francisco has a cool and collected demeanor and has been a good resource on discerning towns and albergues to top in.  

Francisco has been unemployed for the last six years, and he and I connected immediately because I have some experience in that area… 

We talked about “the glass wall” and what it feels like to be “on the outside looking in.” I think this is why I empathize so much with the homeless now, moreso than before my bankruptcy… I know what it feels like to be unheard and disenfranchised.  

The good thing about Francisco, similar to myself when I went through the same ordeal, is that he has chosen to stay active and to focus on activities, like the camino, that give him health and perspective in the midst of his trial.

Francisco and I left Espíritu Santo around 5:30 am… and he soon disappeared ahead of me in the morning darkness.  

Just outside of town I saw a grouping of bobbling headlamps, stopping and looking around frequently, and taking wrong directions repeatedly before getting back on the camino. 

I quickly gained on them as I was waking by the twilight mostly, and had a better eye for where the camino markers might be, and I noticed that the bobbling headlamps began to bobble and swivel more and more as I approached, and I was thinking I had a nervous bunch ahead of me.  

It turns out that this was a Spanish family with two young kids and a very protective and uncertain dad leading or following the way. I’ve ran into them a few times, and I always try to give them a warm greeting when I walk by, but dad is always ready to defend. I suppose I’ll be the same, or perhaps more with the occasional passing cars than with the pilgrims.  

After passing them up I quickly found myself on the vía Aquitania, an original Roman highway, which covered at least 18 of the 26k that I walked yesterday. 

 For me, the long, straight, mostly flat, and somewhat treeless stretch was a welcome chance to listen to Don Quijote on audiobook. I have an excellent translation and narration and it’s like a 40 hour long story with a seemly endless number of digressions filled with rich prose and poetry that eventually tie out into a beautiful literary work which marks western societies transition from pre to modern worldview. 

This particular morning I was listening to the penance of Don Quijote, where he intended to have Sancho watch him perform a number of acrobatic feats naked (as penance and also proof of his madness), where Sancho only witnessed the first feat, with Quijote doing summer salts or cartwheels in a meadow. This is one of 100’s of hilarious scenes in the book. This is my second time listening, and I’m also slowly working through the book in its original Castilian form.  

At the end of the vía Aquitania i found a great breakfast place, the first place that refused to serve a tortilla española, but instead served, fresh made, a tortilla francesa (an omelette without the potatoes). She prided herself, rightly so, on the tortilla, as typically, bars and restaurants are serving day+ old tortillas, and sometimes even cold.  

I finally made it to Terradillos de Templarios, where I found the perfect little private albergue, Jacques de Molay, with a relaxing central garden, a roof terrace, and a coffee bar. Stilled in bunk rooms, nut luxury by pilgrim standards, and for $8 euro/night. I’ve mostly been staying at municipal albergues for $5 euro.  

Later in the afternoon I had a gentleman in our bunk room that collapsed mid sentence and almost cracked his scull on the radiator… It turns out it was a blood sugar issue, but passing so quickly from good conversation to a falling tree was jolting, and a good reminder to cherish each moment that we have with one another. This pilgrim plans to make it all the way to Santiago, FYI. 

Finally, finished the day with Jean & Christine from France, where I got to brush up a bit on my language l, but Jean also speaks excellent Spanish as he learned it while courting his wife who is Mexican.

I feel my body getting a bit stronger with each day ok the camino… some days worse than others, but on average, improving. 

Next morning headed to Burgo de Ranero… 31k walk… 

I took the top bunk for first time to allow the priest traveling with the young seminarians to stay in the same bunk room. I slept alright except for an extreme, almost cartoonish, snorer in the bunk behind me. The older Spanish gentlemen would interchange between wheezing, groaning, and something that sounded like hkhkhkgggglblbnknknkaaaaphooo…
Needless to say, I was fully awake at 3:30, and then fell asleep for a slightly late second morning at 5:30, where it seemed everyone was getting up earlier than normal…

I got it together in frazzled fashion, belt too tight, shorts too low, shirt too high, backpack straps all out of whack, with two semi dried socks hanging from the sides.

Right out the gate of the Albergue there were two semi lost pilgrim ladies trying to find their way out of the village in the dark… Somehow I was designated the guide and so I just used a combination of instinct and yellow arrows, using the bit of twilight and then my headlamp when coming up on an ambiguous corner or fork in the road.  

As we made our way out of town, each of the three of us worked into our paces, one of the ladies, Klara from Vermont, clicking along at my pace for a while (I’m slightly faster than the average walker).

Klara had a slightly heavier pack than normal, with a little teddy bear attached to the back and a pilgrim shell with a peace sign on it (most pilgrims wear the shell on their backpack to identify themselves).

Klara is doing a five month camino, covering the French and Primitive ways as a loop, and she is taking time to stop along the way to experience local sites. 

She is doing the Camino, in part as a means to seal with some difficult life events and circumstances in her past, and also as part of her quest to know Christ more.  

She came to Christ through those difficult circumstances, events, and life choices, and has been devouring any scripture and supplemental teaching she’s found in her pursuit for Him.  

After she is done with the Camino in October, she plans continue hiking, including to Jerusalem, as part of her means to know Him more fully.  

Among many things, we discussed Christ’s explicit claim to deity and the only way to be reconciled with the Father, we discussed God doing away with sacrifice by the giving of His Son once and for all at the culmination of the ages, and we discussed true faith and it’s evidence as a heartfelt overflowing of gratitude having recognized our state apart from Him and his mercy in calling those of us in Him to salvation.  

Along the way, I stopped at a “bar” (which in Spain and Latin America is a slightly different concept that that in the US) for a coffee and for breakfast.  

After walking into the place, the bar attendant being in a night shirt and heavily made up with a raspy voice, and the two patrons having their last bear of the evening (at 7am), I opted out of the breakfast (perhaps to avoid the chance of getting cigarette ashes in my tortilla de batatas), and just ordered a coffee, holding out until later. 

Upon leaving the bar it started to rain, and then more so, and so I suited up in my rain suit, which fit me a lot better in 2013 :(. Walking the camino in the rain can be nice if you have the right gear.  

Only issue though, was the knee. I originally injured in my high school dojo doing a wave kick from horse stance, and then reinjured it playing Hacki sack at a bust stop in Brasil back when I was a kid, where I ended up having surgery in Sao Paolo. Well, with age, and rainy weather, the knee acts up on me and I looked pretty comically pathetic hoveling myself down the camino this day. 

This walk, like most other days so far on the Camino, was an opportunity for exertion, determination, and catharsis. I’ve always been a cathartic or “broken”person when it comes to realizing my emptiness apart from Christ and to mourning my sin, a foreign concept in today’s increasingly dominant secular or deistic world views. As I walk along and contemplate the things of God, whether longing for the beatific vision, or mourning my transgressions, or just being overwhelmed with a sense of gratitude and humility, I often cry it out… folks may find that odd, but at the end of it all, I am able to bear burdens that might otherwise be to difficult, by God’s grace.  

I later stopped at nice breakfast spot in Villalcazar de Silva, where I had some good conversation with two local wheat growers… I enjoy plugging into another world where I can, especially in Spain or Hispanoamérica, where it comes easier for me. 

After this I continued the last stretch into Espíritu Santo, a very nice albergue ran by nuns, where the nun who registered me, about 65+ years of age, noticed my emotional and physical state and was very accommodating hand comforting. I had the best nights sleep in Espíritu Santo.

That afternoon during normal albergue daily routine, took time to observe, perhaps with discernment but not judgement, the various folks on the Camino, either for tourism or for pilgrimage.   

While I think in some level, all of us are here, for some as an end and others as a means, to fill the Christ shape void, but I would say that many, and perhaps more and more every year, are not conscious of that, and are consciously here for adventure, distraction, for excercise (self included, :)) or for many other reasons related to the purging of guilt, frustration, and stress in general.  

There’s lots of Camino conjecture as to what makes a “true pilgrim,” :), one might say that it is someone who, like Abraham, and Jacob, considers himself a “sojourner” here in this age, and setting their hopes on the next age, when heaven and earth will be reunited and those of us in Christ will be raised to our new bodies, “held in the palm of His hand” for eternity.  

Later in the afternoon I tried to siesta, in spite of a few young men playing guitar and signing in the patio below. It would have been fine except they used the same two or three chords for every song, and were just off key about the whole three hours of their singing, and never could get past the 2nd verse of each song… I know I’m being particular, but it was another “burden” to bear that day :). 

On another occasion I was amused by one of the nuns’ lively interaction with some local repair men as she was trying to get some electric work done urgently. It was an odd combination of yelling and belly laughing l, all mixed up together. 

Up in the room, later that day there was a fidgety Italian guy folding and refolding the items for his pack, and then intermittently tapping the table and his feet while rolling his eyes and occasionally getting up to pace… I asked him if he was board, and he said very… I wondered if the Camino was right for him, but left it at that.  

Also went grocery shopping and learned that donut peaches are called “paraguayos.” I learned this because it took me 20 minutes to discern the labels on the self service fruit scale until a kind gentleman helped me out. 

What else happened that day?

Did a little exchange of goods, soap for Kleenex and the like, went to watch a pilgrim blessing at the church next to algergue, and then made dinner, where a Chinese women helped me figure out the stove, and almost slapped my hand when I was not doing it right. :). She did not speak English or Spanish, and y could only remember how to say police station in Mandarin, and to count to ten in Cantonese, so that was not to helpful.  

Also, I and a cagey Spanish couple were the last ones to be eating dinner in the mess hall area, and they were overdoing the whispering and eye shifting so I decided to finish dinner early and avoid the awkwardness.  

As I was washing dishes, some young British boys started a brief conversation and enjoyed my story of stopping and restating the Camino to finish, as well as my experiences in business.  

Finally, to bed.

Another twilight start through the narrow streets of Castrojeriz, wanting to hit Alto Mostelares, a 900 meter climb, with a fresh set of legs.
I left town into a long tree lined dirt path with the valley on either side of me mantled by twilight-painted blue fields of wheat and barley; behind me the lone Venus in the sky…

The climb went well, as I usually just slow down, turn on the “torque” and attitude, breath deep until I reach my goal.  
I passed a retired Spanish couple in their 70’a on their way up the mountain. This is their 25th camino together!  

The sun rose while I was on the plateau, and as I made my way to its end I looked out over a vast unpopulated valley. I was talking to my wife Lyndsey on the phone at that time and mentioned that I had little water left and a way to go to next fountain… I made it fine to my morning tortilla and coffee in Itero de la Vega.

While having coffee I ran into Gaby, a quiet Hungarian woman who does not speak much English, but we seem to run into each other recurringly at the same coffee shops or albergues and use a combination of sign language, bits of English, and google translate to make observations on the normal happenings on camino life. 
I also ran into a gentleman named Jack from Clovis, CA, who studied at my same dojo when he was a kid (now Japan Ways, used to be Way of Japan back then). His wife is joining him to do the last 100k, from Sarria to Santiago.
As soon as I finished talking to Jack, an Irish teacher I met in Castrojeriz, Seamus Connor, showed up on his rented bike. Seamus is a catholic Christian who teaches religion, and I think also history, and he makes a point of sharing his faith and experience with the students. He is doing at video blog on the camino.

Before moving forward, I made a point to ask a few pilgrims where they were staying that evening while I had planned on staying in Fromista, it sounded like the best option was a rural house refuge called “En el Camino” where they serve a pilgrim meal.
While at the refuge, the priest who had came work the young seminarians to Burgos but who had to stay and wait for his bags, finally caught up with them. 
I was able to reserve a table for us al to share a pilgrim dinner together, and I then joined them for their evening prayer routine in the garden, which included some psalmity and other canticles, without any Marian veneration. Coming from a more “low church” faith tradition, the antiphonal scripture reading ad song was a welcome experience for me. 
Finally, there were some local families there at the refuge and the kids started doing taikyoku shodan, a kata that is part my karate system… I asked the kids if they wanted to do Heian Shodan together, and it was real fun, and a treat for the other pilgrims.  🙂

The walk to the village of Catrojeriz (“judge’s camp”), once a walled medieval village, was largely uneventful except for the most beautiful sunrise I’ve seen in a long time… 

Just before arriving to the village, the camino passes right through the ruins of the 15th century convention, San Anton…

And then walking up to Castrojeriz I was taken back by the castle ruins on the mountain top, with the later gothacized, originally Romanesque church building at the foot of the mountain as I entered town…

I also noticed one of the recurring religious motifs here on the camino where by folks pick up and pile stones, the quintessential act being at the Cruz de Ferr where one is supposed to leave a stone with their name on it. 

Most of these motifs are echos of mankind’s struggle with sin and it’s accompanying guilt. Of course, the camino itself is originally catholic a rite of penance, dotted with acts that symbolize the removal of guilt or stated more secularly, “the laying down of burdens.”  

Here are a few burdens laid at the entrance to town…

I also decided to buy lunch at the local market vs the bar next to albergue where I noticed that there is a local market protocol… the shopkeeper customer relationship is personal and rooted in community where the shop keeper accommodates the apparent impulsive buying of their client, which is actually the clients enjoying a more full customer service experience where the keeper knows exactly what is in their motley array of goods… and while they work together to close the purchase, they catch up on the village news… I learned about a current funeral, an up and coming wedding, and the various plans that each grandmother has to keep her grandchildren busy over summer break…

After checking into the albergue and running through routine (shower, laundry, lunch, devotional, nap, & blog) I ran into the young seminarians and spent the afternoon touring the various churches before having a quiet dinner by myself…

Around mid-night I was jolted from my bunk by what sounded like canon fire echoing through the stone buildings and the surrounding valley… I could hear the initial blast and then the multiple echos followed by repeated blasts. I finally got up to see that they were celebrating the day of San Juan with plenty of midnight fireworks… not the soft popping ones from back home, but what seemed to be stone shattering blasts.

After shaking off a bit of blast-related PTSD, :), I finally found myself asleep.

Had the pleasure of meeting four young catholic seminarians on Friday evening, and enjoyed theological and philosophical conversation. These young men are 19-23 years of age and only two years into their 8 year program, the first four being philosophy and the last four being theology. 
Among other topics we discussed the doctrine of penance vs penitence, transubstantiation, and purgatory… 

We also discussed early church fathers and doctors of the church such as Origen, Jerome, Augustine, and Aquinas… We discussed Augustine’s notion of evil as the privation of good… the one good and source of all that reflects goodness being God himself. We also discussed the literary styles of Aquinas vs Augustine, one of the gents preferring Aquinas for his plain language, and myself preferring Augustine for his vivid illustrations.

One highlight with these gentlemen was during the bonfire when folks we’re sharing the guitar… scattered among the many folk and popular songs, there were a few religious songs and also a praise song that I used to sing in college…

***

Lord I lift Your name on high

Lord I love to sing Your praises

I’m so glad You’re in my life

I’m so glad You came to save us

[Chorus:]

You came from heaven to earth

To show the way

From the earth to the cross

My debt to pay

From the cross to the grave

From the grave to the sky

Lord I lift Your name on high

***

On Saturday we received a private tour of the local temples by the town priest, and the gentleman sang in Gregorian chant… a beautiful experience. 

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I look forward to hopefully running into them again on the camino, and to meeting others like them, who at such a young age, are seeking to know and to please God, as best as they can.  

I am hoping our conversations will be fruitful and will further shed the gospel’s light on their studies and their understanding of God’s will, via His Word, in the coming years.

Telling time on the camino…
Walking the camino gives one a glimpse into a time without smart phones, GPS devices, and watches where the sun and the village church bells collaborate to indicate time, location, and the management of ones daily routine. 
Indirectly, ones shadow, as it indicates the suns position relative to ones person, also indicates the time. 
Starting the day at or just before sunrise, one can almost measure the hour by their shadow’s length, one’s actual body height being about two hours from mid day, so it seems so far anyway… 
Looks like it’s about 10am… time for a coffee and a pincho de tortilla española. 

Just when I thought day one was over, the activity started downstairs in the municipal albergue where folks were cooking up whatever we could find in the kitchen and in local grocery market…  Spagetti, Boiled Potatoes mixed with cheese and tuna, some chorizo, and some Tempranillo wine from La Rioja region of Spain.

It was good to share some perspective on life with the younger ones a at the table, and also to hear a bit from each of them as to why and how they came to do the camino…  

I was here reminded that for some, the camino is an attempt to recapture a sense of family that many have lost today.  God made us to be in families and in community, as we are His image bearers, created to reflect His Glory with unity in diversity…  at the table this evening… we had a diversity of nationalities, ages, world views, and life circumstances… but all of us, like every human being, “seeking” to fill a common void that all humanity shares, what Christian’s have referred to as the Christ shaped hole in our hearts.

Before dinner I was able to sneak in some reading as well as a call to home… my son, who is brilliant but not particularly athletic, hit a home run at baseball practice yesterday!  I imagine that this was a marked moment for him, perhaps opening him up to more sports and physical activity in the future.  I was really excited to get this news yesterday…

Finally, the whole group of us pilgrims, together with some of the folks from the community, had a bon fire where we all shared a bit of our backgrounds before the guitar was broken out and the rest of the evening spent singing and/or visiting.  

One gentleman made a Spanish distilled concoction called, Quemada, the smell of which moved me back to the Tempranillo for the evening…  entertaining watching the preparation, however… 

After that, lights out.  A good first day, but unexpectedly long first day, and the strange thing about the camino is the “instant familiarity” that is obtained by all living “day by day” and “communally.”  It’s like time passes more slowly.   

Part of the enjoyment is the little markers of presence all around that we too often overlook back home…  the smell of a juniper bush on a cool breezy morning, the crunch of the pebbles under foot, the two storks nested on top of the church steeple, looking down on the passing pilgrims.  

First day walking… 🙂

I awoke early and a bit anxious to start my walk today, and after quietly gearing up in the dark so as not to bother my fellow pilgrims, I was able to sneak downstairs and have a small devotional before heading out at 5:45am… 

I welled up with a sense of immense gratitude and wonder as I took those first pre dawn steps through the quiet streets of Burgos, carefully watching for the yellow arrows or shells painted or plastered on streets or building walls, “lighting my path” westward out of town.  

The early morning hours where breezy and overcast, perfect morning for my entrance into the Meseta, the flattest and least verdent section of the camino.  

***

As I walked along I asked God for understanding, asking Him to help me to hear His voice throughout the day, and as I walked through a park  the trees we’re those kind that have upward facing blooms and pods directly under that hang towards the ground.  This scripture came to mind… 

“Faithfulness springs forth from the earth, and righteousness looks down from heaven.”‭‭  Psalm‬ ‭85:11‬ ‭

As we bloom upwards in expectant faith, Christ fills us, and our blossoms bear fruit, that fruit proceeding from the blossom.

***

I continued to press on towards my mid-morning breakfast stop at Rabe de las Calzadas where I had a torta and coffee with Chomin, a Basque gentleman, recently retired, who is completing his 3rd month on the camino.  

He mentioned to me that “the camino engancha” or “it pulls you in.”   I can see that, and especially for folks who find themselves in a life transition, which happens to all of us, whether we expect it or not… many folks on the camino seem to be waking against an incumbent societal dependence on wealth and “security,” or at least so it seems.  

After Rabe, the sun came out in full force, thankfully still with a cool breeze, and I traversed a meseta bathed in wheat and barley, almost ripe for harvest.   I liked the texture and uniformity of the barley vs the wheat, but I can see where the two crops go hand in hand, due both to soil type and also for market diversification.       

After descending the first meseta via the steep path called mátamulos, I felt the energy waning and had to press forward with deep breaths and intentionality, listening to my body, which had decided that Hornillos was my destination for the day.  

As I arrived two hours before the municipal albergue opened, I was invited to have a beer with some good folks from Spain, Denmark, Hungary, and Brasil. Through the conversation I recalled that I’ve had the travel and culture bug ever since I left for Mexico City at age 18. 

After spending time with them, we checked into the albergue, I hand washedy clothes, did a bit of work, and then took a much needed 3 hour siesta.    🙂

Day’s not over, but so far so good.   

Photos to follow on current posts…

I’ve been looking forward to Thursday for the last four years, as I had to leave my good friend and walking companion Jesus del Carmen in May of 2013 when I returned home from Burgos.

After picking me up from the airport, we spend the better part of the day walking around Madrid, catching up on the last four years, reminiscing about our last camino together, and discussing the camino that lies in front of me. 

When walking the camino, one usually walks alone and then the relating and sharing starts as folks converge on their next stopping point for the day, but with Jesus and I, as with some other folks I imagine,  it was an easy and natural thing to walk together every day…  perhaps because we just personally clicked, and perhaps also because we both drove forward with a similar determination and pace on the camino.  

***

Good to see you again my friend!  It’s an honor to carry your stone at Cruz de Ferr this time.  Thank you for carrying mine the last. 

Un Abrazo,

Jerald