Saint James Way: A Living Pilgrimage 1

“We have many, many things in common, among them, that we are big, the biggest, fans of Granada F.C.., and that we are both cancer survivors. Life has given us a second chance, and this is what we want to do with it: collect beautiful moments. We walk at our own pace, not rushing, and we carry no backpacks —we sent them by car— instead, to help us, we carry these wings."

“We’ve been coming together for nine years and we snore a lot so, at the hostels, we usually ask to be put apart from the rest of the pilgrims. At a nun’s auberge in Castilla we were sent to the warehouse, which was close to the chapel, and we said to the sister: ‘Look, do you think this is a good idea? because, with our roaring power, the Christ will probably remove his nails from the cross and run away in fear. You’ve been warned.’"

“We were always saying: ‘When we retire we will walk the Camino de Santiago’. So here we are. Everything has been good so far: the food is great, drinks are cheap, and the landscape is beautiful. In fact, we were just saying that it looks a lot like…, well, it looks a lot like Ireland!” (Laughs.)

“It’s been a long time since we’ve been able to spend this much time together. We are sisters and we don’t live that far apart, but we both have teenage children, and our parents are getting old and need care, so we’ve got a lot of things in our minds. These last days we’ve been able to be ourselves, without distractions and nothing in our minds —except maybe the pain from walking this much— and just have a laugh. Just like when we were young".

Camilla: “My mom never drinks alcohol and yesterday she had a couple of ‘refreshments’. The first glass of wine, she just dropped it over me; and while drinking the second one, don´t ask me how, she managed to fall from her chair —we were in an elevated terrace—, into the arms of an American pilgrim who was chatting with his wife behind us.”

Marcella: “Well, now I guess you know why I never drink, eh?” (laughs)

"The camino is popular in Denmark, partly, because of a television show: Bertelsen på Caminoen. Still, many people don’t have a clear idea of what it is. They don’t know, for instance, that many routes exist, they think there is only one. When I arrive home I want to start giving talks to help make it clearer to my compatriots what the Camino is. I love this, because here you are only a human being facing the most basic things: eating, going to the bathroom, cleaning yourself and sleeping. There is nothing superfluous, only the indispensable and that, for a change, is really wonderful.”

“I’ve brought several stones with me from Ireland, I call them ‘gratitude stones’ and they work like this: If you’re feeling tired, stressed or in pain, you have to hold the stone close to your heart and think about all the good things that occur in your life; the people you love, and the ones who love you. Then, you have to just forget about it and keep walking. In almost no time, the weariness, the pain —whatever you were feeling— will have vanished for good. Once this has happened you have to leave the stone on the road, so that the next pilgrim in need, will be able to find it...

...I’ve made many friends here, all kinds of people, and I feel that we all have something in common, share something: We are all carrying a heavy backpack, a burden—our everyday life’s baggage. So what I say is, we have to dwindle down that load; we have to walk lighter. And this is a good place to do it, because, you know what? We are a moving community, and we’re walking, all together, in the same direction. Isn’t that something?”

—Hi! Do you think I could take your picture? It’s for a websit…
“Yes, but I don’t wanna talk”
—Ok.
“It’s because I don’t speak English.”
—Well, you’re doing it now.
“No, I really don’t…”
—And your accent is good.
“No, believe me. This is all the English I know.”
—All right… (Laughs)

“Look! I painted an arrow in my forearm with sunscreen and it’s beginning to show! Isn’t it funny?”

“The other day, walking, a man approached me and said: ‘You are beautiful and I have neither wife, nor children. I’m worried that my house will be left to rot after I die. Can I show it to you? I think you’ll like it’. When we entered the house I couldn’t simply believe my eyes: the walls were falling to pieces and everything was full of dirt. He sat on the bed, patted it with his hand, and said: ‘Sit down, please, I want to talk to you. I want to give you this house’. I looked at him, without getting any closer, and said: ‘I already have one, a house, in my country; in Denmark’. ‘I don’t care’...

‘And in that house, waiting for me, there is also a husband’. ‘I don’t care about that, either’. I turned around, picked up my backpack, and headed towards the door. He remained sitting —unmoving— and I think, feeling so sad, so devastated, that I could feel it in my bones. I don’t think he wanted anything suspicious from me. Only someone to look after his house, when he was gone. It’s weird but I think that, had I been younger and had I been stronger, I’d have, seriously, thought about his offer”.

“This is the right moment for me to be here because, lately, I’ve had a bit of confusion in my head. The first few days I walked on my own and it wasn’t easy. In Palas de Rei I went to the pilgrim’s mass and, when the priest said: ‘We are all brothers’, I began to cry -it wasn’t sadness- it was that, suddenly, I didn’t feel lonely anymore. The good thing is that walking alone gave me a lot of time to ponder and consider, and I think I’ve come to several conclusions...

...First, I need to become more responsible for myself, more mature. I had recently returned to my country, Italy, after two years living in England. Everything there was great but I wanted to come back because of my girlfriend. Three weeks before my flight, she left me. Now I’m living with my parents again, but I need to build my life as an adult. The second conclusion I’ve come to is that I need to be stronger, less fearful. Sometimes I get scared, simply, by talking to other people, especially if they are strangers...

...I’m always wondering, ‘What will he think about me?’ or ‘How is she seeing me?’. This really harms my relationships, and makes me recoil, it takes away a lot of the joy in… Oh! Excuse me…” (Runs towards a friend) “Lia!! Buon giorno!”

Lia: “Marco!!, Che bello vederti! Come va, bellissimo?”

Marco :“Tutto bene! Ho conosciuto questo ragazzo mi sta facendo una intervista!” (looking back at me) “I’m sorry… it’ll be only a minute.” —Of course… (Laughs)

Once, in Pamplona, at a private hostel, I was alone with this German guy. He ended up really drunk, falling asleep and, of course, snoring like a rocket. When I got tired of staring at the ceiling, I grabbed the mattress and moved it to the kitchen floor to try to get some sleep. He appeared not before long. He had just woken up and wanted to ‘dance with me’, he said. He insisted for a while, and when he realised that I was lying back on the bed, he, instead of giving up and going back to his room, he just… well… he just lay beside me, on the floor, snoring again, this time, right into my ear.

...In the morning, when he woke up, that poor man didn’t even know how to apologise. He only remembered bits and pieces, but he was so ashamed, so embarrassed, that he could barely speak. We ended up crying, hugging each other, comforting each other. He had been there for a week, alone, drinking like crazy. He never told me, but I think he was escaping something, something he couldn’t fix".

Sandra: “We’ve walked more than six hundred kilometers so far and I’m recovering from an illness, so I’m always a bit tired. We’ve tried to come with enough time so we wouldn’t have to rush. We are walking at a slow pace; taking it easy. The bad side is that I can’t wear boots —they rub my ankles— and any wound can develop into an infection, and any infection is very likely to spread, so I’m walking with these, which are regular sneakers...

...And the good thing is that because of the medicines, because of the treatment, my sense of smell is really accentuated, so you can imagine that all the scents: the flowers, the earth, the eucalyptus wet with rain; all of them are of a beautiful, overwhelming intensity”.

“My first Camino was with my father, he loved it deeply. He was very sick by then and, shortly after, he passed away. Now I come here often, every two or three months. He passed on his passion to me.”