Jottings From Journeys

El Camino

In Spain, one thing I heard from friends that left me agape was the El Camino. Somebody once took me to a hilltop and showed me the direction from where the pilgrimage started. I listened to what they said, but didn’t pay much attention to the idea at that time. Much later, I read Shirley Mac Laine’s book about the excruciating voyage she made through this road on foot. It was an internal pilgrimage of sorts for the actress and she believed she came out of it for the better.

Would I do it? I doubt it. I’m rather protective of my creature comforts and I believe I can get the same results just by a short walk on the beach or on the pier where my troubles leave my mind and my body alone.

Coming back to El Camino de Santiago, El Camino for short, this road stretches through 800 miles (thousand if you somehow manage to get lost) from Somport or Roncesvalles to Compostela. According to legend Virgin Mary has appeared twice on the two starting points. The belief is once you’ve walked the Camino, you’ll never be the same again.

The preservation of history on this road owes its endurance to its travelers with religious fervor. The more than a thousand-year piety of the pilgrims on El Camino has left its Roman, Gothic, Renaissance, and Baroque art untouched. Here history has blended with legend to such an extent that where one starts and the other leaves is difficult to figure out.

El Camino de Santiago, in other words St. James’s Route, has been traversed from one end to the other by emperors, kings, important leaders, tradesmen, singers, writers, painters, artists, romantics, mystics, riffraff, and criminals, who were attended, helped, and housed by volunteers, farmers, and innkeepers.

The prize for this journey is the town of Compostela with its prestigious cathedral and the idea that says, “Whoever is sad, becomes happy.”