Month: May 2019

I am having dinner that incuses wine, I was surprised when they gave me a whole bottle. There is a free wine fountain a few days ahead.

I was here in 1967, I don’t recognize anything, dispite the fact that in the old city not much has changed. Iwent to the bull fight ring, I took an audio tour complete with videos. As a 22 year old, reliving Hemingway, the bullfight was an amazing spectacle, a dance with death. It has lost its luster, although the final killing is no worse than the slaughterhouse, the lead up is probably torture for the bull. I probably couldnt watch one now. This is my most alone day, my pilgrim friends have moved on. I will need to make new ones tomorrow. However I am getting much more spanish practice.

The man restored the church told me not to miss another church about 8K further which had the oldest bell in spain. it was on a hill that was off the main camino. The bell had a sign next to it, ring the bell only once and then listen. The women in the church asked me where I was from and then gave me a page with a pilgrims blessing, hopefully you can read it. It was very Unitarian-Universalist, it looks like many of the worlds religions are moving toward us. She also gave me a paper with times for a pilgrims tour of the pamplona cathedral and ecumenical service, The tour was in french but delivered so slowly I could understand every word. Thank you again Monsieur Dannon from Reed I may have gottten a D but what you taught me has enriched my life, I am doing great in spanish also, I can ask questions and understand the answers, The priest at the service was from canada and we had an interesting discussion, His job was to adjudicate the defrocking of priests for child abuse, he claimed that this was not only a catholic problem and celibacy had nothing to do with it. “Abuse is not about sex it is about power”

I stopped at an ancient church, the door opened and a man from south africa invited us inside, he had bought the church and was nearly singlehandedly restoring it. its alter dated from the 12th century. He pointed out the pagan symbols on the partially restored alter painting. It brought to mind, the conversation the day before about work in the age of robots, and the volunteers from Holand who ran the pilgrims hostel in

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the monestary. What will my work be?

They woke us at the monestary at 6 with gregorean chants, how appropriate. This day has been picture perfect, sun birds singing, panoramas of farmland, and quant villages. What I came for. First stop as a waited on line for coffee I chated with a women from england living in dubai, It hadn’t occurred to her that waiting in line is a spiritual exercise, will i come back home a more patient man? Chatted with a great many people. my shoulders arestill hurting, today i only had that day pack whichnwas designed as an emergency pack for travels. Today I bought a very nice daypAck, which means I am now committed to the pack transport service, 7 euros to take your pack to the next town.

Had I bit of an international incident which I now think I did not handle well. When I went into my room with two bunk beds, it looked like a lower bunk was open so I put my stuff on it, when I got back we had a long conversation in broken spanglish about how they had been there first and i should take the upper bunk, wihout thinking much I played the age card, I am 74 and have trouble getting up and down. I decided later what I should have said was that I was 74 and need to get up an pee quite often and didnt want to wake the person on the lower bunk, that would have given them the option of saying, “it wont bother us” In any case i have the lower bunk and guilt as well(they were in there early 60’s) if they were kids i would have no guilt about playing the age card. Yesterdays pictures didnt load so I will try againthe white trees are covered in frost. I wore socks on my hands it was so coldThe monestary It is very beautiful here

After a simple but ample diner, with lots of red wine, the 100 assembled pilgrims were asked to tell their names, where they came from and why they were doing the camino. Only one said for spiritual reasons one man’s wife had died three months ago, he had sold everything he owned and this was his start clearly he hoped to heal. The rest had either done it before or liked the idea like me.

I ask the question why do so many religions have pilgrimages? What is there essance, you walk all day mostly alone, you meet people from all over and they come in and out of your life, sometimes often sometimes not. You listen to their stories and tell your own. You live in close quarters with strangers, you wait on slow lines for everything because there are many of you. You eat communal dinners you work at being patient, generous and nice. What better way to learn to love your fellow man and realize that life is ephemeral and we are all just passing through. Tonight I am staying in a monestery staffed by volunteers. I holds 250 pilgrims, it very well organized, institutional if you will, but clean with a modern interior, and you can’t help but appreciate that it welcomed pilgrims many years ago, it looked different inside but its essance was the same.

• Today I walked over a high pass very stenuous day. Also my pack became very painful. Tommorrow I will send it ahead. Alas I feel sick, I hardly ate dinner. Hopefully it was just exhaustion and I will feel better tommorow.

The white trees arent blossoms they are ice. Haven’t learned yet how to put captions on pictures especially with a painfully slow network. Just like the lines for everything- Patience, humility can i learn?

What an experiance walking through the mountains with all these other wonderfull people. Tonight we went around the table 50 people introducing themselves. I expect to see many of them again as we travel through spain

Finally meeting the rest of the pilgrams, the Bayone train was mostly us going up to st-jean where we start. St-Pied-du-Port, to be complete, is a gorgeous medieval town. Spending time talking to people, a lot of other old arts like me. The flowers were growing on a wall. Every time I look at a flower I think of Ellen because she taught me to look at the flowers as I move through life. One thing about this pilgrimage is that you can window shop but you can’t buy. I wish I had a smell camera for this spice shop.

Todays the big day, off to France on the first leg. Spent Monday coding, I need six weeks of no computer to break that addiction