Another Night on the Camino

A kilometer, it turns out, is not a very good measure of a walk. It does not account for incline or decline, footing, stairs, wind, weather and unfortunately distance. On the Camino, one of the first things that you realize is that all distances are "as the bird flies" and do not take into consideration …

The Camino Walk

The Camino walk is characterized by a tightening of the legs and upper body in reaction to the pain generated from moving your legs and putting weight on your feet. This cramped gait is the way that you can identify someone in town that has been walking on the Camino. Several towns have specialists that …

Happy My Birthday

It's apropos that my 200th blog on this site is being written on my birthday, my fifty-second birthday at that, which means that even if I live to be 100 I am officially over the hill. It should make the trip down a whole lot easier than climbing up here! It has been a year …

I’m Back

If you have ever used a hammer to open a walnut, you know how the force it takes to break through the hard shell sends the soft, edible bits flying in many directions. (This was originally posted October 2012.) Walking the Camino did this to me. I have spent the last several weeks collecting up the …

Meseta

Pilgrims are dropping like flies. The stretch of the Camino that precedes Leon is a long straight path that runs beside the highway. The heat, sun and monotonous flatness is seen by some as meditative. The cold reality (or hot!) is that a couple of people have been hospitalized for heat stroke, many more have …

Changing Landscapes of the Camino

A church bell is sounding off the time of day while a dog barks and a flurry of swallows chirp and dive in the plaza. Every small town has the same assortment of wild cats, often of a Siamese or calico descent. A rooster just crowed to remind me that this constant reminder of the …