Buen Camino

Puente la Reina, Spain

I write from Puente la Reina, my fourth stop on the Camino de Santiago, a 30-day medieval pilgrimage route that goes from St. Jean Pied de Port, in France, to Santiago de Compostela, in the northwest corner of Spain.

It´s amazing how easy it has been to slip into a new way of life here. In Spain, I wake up at 5.45 and leave the Alburgue (hostel) by 6.30. A few hours later, if possible, I stop in a small village for a snack. I lunch on the road at noon – today, at a mysterious hexagonal cathedral surrounded by wheat fields. It´s mysterious because no one knows exactly who built it or why – perhaps, it is thought to be a 12th century structure modelled on Jerusalem´s Church of the Holy Sepulchre. But it may also be the cathedral where medieval pilgrims were buried when they died on the camino.

It´s not just me that´s taking on this new way of life. There are people here as young as 20 and as old as 70 – I have met folks from France, Spain, and Italy, as well as Hungary, Holland, Korea, Japan, and of course the Americas. Everyone is here for a different reason and the common language is, as in so many other places, broken english.

But it´s fun to be on such a strange adventure with so many different people. Fun to feel united, too, not just with this group of walkers but also with those who travelled centuries ago, by donkey or on foot, to pay penitence or ask for favors or seek god or, a la Chaucer, because it was the thing to do.

Next week, I hope to return with some of the stories that I have heard along the way. Until then, Buen Camino!

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