memento mori
i had planned a different topic for today, but as it happens time and again - the camino provides, the camino decides.
i started today solo form carrión de los condes towards terradillos de los templarios. this is the etape every guide on the camino warns pilgrims about, because it includes this long stretch of 17 kilometers in a more or less straight line, that doesn’t offer any services, is exposed to wind and weather, doesn’t offer shade when the sun burns down, and because of that, the authors of the guides think, that it doesn’t offer much sensory experience.
i dare to disagree and find the experience as being incredibly rich.
after walking through the icy wind for about six-seven kilometers (see, what i did there) out of carrión, i come upon the first and only food truck with hot coffee today. more or less at the same time with me arrives a friend of the italian couple from the piedmont con carretilla, i met the day before yesterday.
i order my cafe con leche, she orders her espresso. we nod to each other, quickly have our coffees, say ciao to the chico running the stall off of his trucks engine, otherwise just trying to stay warm. he poses for a photo, i head on back into the wind.
somehow naturally i come up on the young woman and great her in italian. we start a conversation in english, castellano and italian. it works surprisingly well. she agrees, today is a really beautiful stage of the camino, the peaceful landscape, the far views, including a rainbow that reappears in the distance a number of times as if a signal to pilgrims, the consistency of just putting one step in front of the other, the rhythm of the walk, the resonance in the other soul of what we speak about in our special mixture of idiomas, lead us to the core of why people walk the camino.
of course, it isn’t the same camino for everyone. yes, we walk the same stretch of road, but our inner caminos are entirely different for each and everyone of us.
chiara tells me what brought her on the camino. i show her one of my contemplation cards. it resonates with her, as does her story with me.
the card reads something along these lines:
memento mori - try and live every moment fully & as best you can - things can be lost - friends move away - souls move on.
somehow on the camino the experience of living every moment seems more intense than in our ‘other lives’. time seems to slow down.
we talk about family, about fathers and daughters. she is a daughter (obviously), i am a father of a daughter. my story of the promised camino together when my daughter turns 50 makes her smile.
i will have to go on many more caminos just for training purposes, so i’m fit for this one - probably the final one - at the age of then 88 if it is a winter camino, or 89 if we opt for warmer weather.
we speak about who we carry with us on the camino, what is in our backpacks in terms of the metaphorical content. buen camino para ti y tu papa, chiara!
chiara studied sociology, but - not but, but and - and has been building her own artisan pastelleria for sweet and savory creations. she agrees to supply una torta for my 60th birthday. we just have to figure out how it travels from pescara to whereever i am to celebrate in 8 years time. go to insta @majelladelizie to give chiara your likes and see what my birthday cake at 60 will look like!
we run up on the two chicos de valencia i met yesterday - a father and a son - the father says to chiara: in case you were unsure, i’m the father, he is the son. funny chap.
the 17 kilometers fly past. we are surprised to arrive in calzadilla de la cueza already. it is merely late morning - time for second breakfast for chiara and her amici italiani barbara and mateo, who wait for us at the corner. all of them will stay at this lovely little albergue in moratinos i stayed at 4 years ago later today, another 3 kilometers past my cama in terradillos today.
we say our ciaos and i continue solo. i reflect on our conversation and the path continues to fly by.
i’m at the albergue before 12:30, plenty of time for chatter amongst pilgrims checking into the albergue.
there they are again: anny, giovanna and sabrina from taiwan, myrto from greece, fernando de aranjuez, pablo de suiza, juan de valencia, and - a new addition - joaquin de euskadi (egunon y eskerrik asko, joaquin). joaquin also writes a daily journal, limited to his family and close friends. he shows me, hence we are friends now.
we (joaquin de euskadi y bernardo de tirolo, which i suppose is my knights’ name) end up in a room with yannick de francia and paul de suiza. even though there are only four beds, there may be a fifth soul in the room. the founder of the knights templar, hugo de payens, who our room is named after.
if there is snoring tonight, i suppose it must have been him!
las hospitaleras maria y cristina run a tight ship. between checking in hoards of pilgrims from many countries, speaking with them in many languages, they serve the bar with a few locals, then a lunch and later there will be a 3-course pilgrims dinner. they do it in good humor, with friendly smiles on their faces, even when the older korean chap isn’t satisfied with the knife he received, that barely manages to cut his steak.
the korean comes back later with two fellow pilgrims, one of which is a priest and they celebrate a catholic mass in the bar (it is too chilly outside). the woman in the kitchen makes the cross across her chest.
maria patiently organizes a taxi for pilgrims that arrived too late to be allocated a bed and won’t be able to stay here tonight. however, they do get to stay in the competition that really matters, mentioned in my post yesterday. that’s something, no?
let me finish my report for today with two new palabras in a language i don’t know at all - but since it is about birds, i note it down for paul (aka pablo de suiza): cham sae, that is how you call this little bird sitting in the bush over there, says ming from korea. sae means bird. no idea what kind of bird it is, sorry paul.
plus, today’s special of artistic photography, those in black & white especially for volker, but also for all.
