One more on the Way

Here be dragons! Oh wait no, wrong saint... No dragons, but compassionate scallop shells, stone ships and an endless field of stars... This is my registry in the ongoing story of pilgrims on the Camino de Santiago de Compostela, or the Via de las Estrellas!

Herein you will find research at it's most personal. This blog is one piece of my auto-ethnography about the landscape of pilgrimage. A continuous introspective postcard from Spain as I walk towards a Master's of Landscape Architecture.

A note about the title: Apparently Henry David Thoreau, the quintessential Saunterer himself, understood (perhaps falsely) that the word 'saunter' derived from the French "Sainte Terre", a reference to medieval pilgrims en route to the the Holy Land. Whether the entymology is correct or not, it resonates with me as I saunter myself along this earth in search of a Saint.

Sunday, October 2, 2011

...Where I left off

Passed through Astorga yesterday and had a very nice meal at the Hotel Gaudi, opposit the Palacio Gaudi (resembling a Disney castle somewhat), and the Cathedral. The hotel was nice enough to offer an inexpensive menu for pilgrims so there was a large group of us around a round table with wine and bread and lovely food. Nice to dine well for once! As expected of course, vegetarian fare is non-existent. I eat a lot of Tortilla (eggs and potatoes) which fortunately I totally love, but the diet is not so varied for me. I am happy though.

Passing Leon (then Astorga two days later) I am officially beyong the Meseta and as of today, climbing again. Tomorrow I will climb to the highest point along the whole Camino (1,505M) and see the famed Cruz de Ferro (Iron Cross). Over the years of people leaving rocks at the base a mountain has built up around this cross I understand. I´ve found my rock to leave back along the old Roman road (Calzada Romana). I´ve been picking up too many rocks (like I do) and they are beginning to get a little to heavy... perhaps I shall leave several, a little mountain of my own, at the cross.

The Meseta, the vast empty plains were very beautiful to me. Many found them boring, too much of the same thing, eerily empty, or skipped over them alltogether. I liked it. But I don´t know how ¨emotional¨ I found the experience of crossing them... But then I´ve never been particularly in touch with my emotional nature. I did find, that on those long days though I tended to prefer walking with company, rather then on my own. And when you walk with company on the Camino (besides of course, the constant company of God) then the conversation can be very interesting. The somtimes difficult miles of space to cross on the Meseta did seem to bring out some deeper memories for people, and often people spoke of their motivations for walking the Camino.

Again, I seem to be running out of time on this computer and I can´t keep feeding it Euros so I I´ll have to bid you all farewell.

Just over a couple hundred more kilometres to go until Santiago. Will write again as I near it.
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1 comment:

  1. LukewithnopantsOctober 4, 2011 at 1:22 PM

    I want to see a picture of the Iron Cross, stat! What were some of the motivations that people had for walking the Camino?

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