Gifts of the Camino

Today on Pentecost Sunday I'm in Santo Domingo de la Calzada. There's a 5-day feast for the saint going on this week, so there's one party after the other going on in the village. It's fun, makes one forget that it's cold and damp out. There's a great legend here that features miraculous chickens, so in a while I'll go to the church and check out the chickens there. You can read the legend by following the image on the site above, to "milagro".

Sounds tacky, I know, but there are so many great things that happen as one walks along, so I thought I'd make a little litany of thanks for the gifts I've received, in no particular order.

The four compañeros I've travelled with yesterday and today: Wolfgang, Kay, Fernando (link to his blog at left) and Oscar (2 Germans, 2 Mexicans). It's a great little band of pilgrims, there's lots of singing and laughing and multilingual chatting. Yesterday when I was walking with a wet behind for about 4 hrs their company helped me keep my spirits warm, and in the evening in Nájara we had a great time at dinner. When we're walking, there's a nice rhythm of walking alone or with the others, and we wait for each other at major crossings or at a café/bar for our morning coffee.

The views: the beautiful colours in the fields, the amazing delicacy of flowers (the colours of the season are blue, red, yellow). The lines of geography: the shape of the hills, the line of the path ahead, the shapes and colours of the wet rocks, the different colours and textures of the mud. The villages: smooth shining cobblestones, beautiful arrows and shells showing us the way, seemingly unpopulated before 9, except for the flowers in the windows and at the doors, and then when we finish dinner, around 9, and come out of the restaurant, suddenly there are people everywhere.

It seems there's something every day: Fri I walked into Logroño with 4 men from the Frankish area of Bavaria, and they turned out to be a folk quartet. Their beds were in a row next to mine, and as we were settling in they sang for me "Grosser Gott wir loben Dich". They've promised me "Weisst Du wieviel Sternlein stehen" next time we meet. The room we ended up sleeping in last night had huge skylights through which we watched storks flying around. Today when we were having a wet picnic on a bench beside the road in Cirueña, an elderly couple opened their window and welcomed us. The man, Ismael, came out and said, "nice picnic, but where's the wine?" We said we didn't have any, and he motioned for us to follow him. He led us to his cellar where he has 4 vats of 300 L each, and he gave us from the vat of young wine of tempranillo grapes. It was so delicious with our baguette of ham and cheese! He was so fun, telling us about the process, about how he sees hordes of pilgrims rushing by but rarely anyone who stops and even more rare the possibility for a conversation. His son and grandson dropped by and we talked to them too.

The food: the morning coffee after a couple hours of walking, when friends meet again and check on each other's aches and pains and how they slept and where they're walking to. The lovely fresh bread, delicious cheese, the interesting local stuff on the pilgrim menus in the restaurants.

The hot shower at the end of a day's walking, the crashing on the bed afterward before heading out to explore the village when everything opens again at 5. The delicious feeling of early sleep, a natural waking, and peaceful start to walking at first light.

This is just a little taste of some of the joys in my days. I'm filled with gratitude for these and many other gifts of the Camino.