Camino

Dispatches Del Camino

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It is among the grandest churches in the world. It is one of the greatest achievements of man that took so long to build that architectural periods changed several times throughout its construction.

Even so, when you walk into Santiago de Compostela the first thing you see is not the cathedral. You neither see the gilded grandeur, nor the ornate.

The first things you see are pilgrims.

Dispatches Del Camino

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I have learned that everyone walks the Camino for a reason. This is my second Camino, and thus far I have not met anyone who approaches this 1,500-year-old path without a spiritual and emotional objective.

The reasons are not always clear. Sometimes the reasons are even unclear to the person walking. But the reasons are there. They walk so they can find something. Something unnameable.

Dispatches Del Camino

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Rain. It never stops coming. Rain, rain, rain. Sometimes it seems like all it does is rain.

It’s been raining for two days now on the Camino Primitivo. And there is no end in sight. Spanish news channels on television, which are wonderful media organizations whose reporters dress exquisitely, speak rapidly, and replay the same four news stories every six minutes, are predicting rain each day this week.

Dispatches Del Camino

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The albergue looks like a mountain chalet. We are snugly situated deep within the Fonfaraón Mountains, which climb high into the Spanish sky, separating us from an entire civilization below the cloud line.

Here atop the world, the mountain peaks look like incarnations of the Appalachians, with a fuzzy, green carpet-like texture, rounded edges, and swooping valleys that gather pools of fog like a white lake.

We will be hiking this today.

Dispatches Del Camino

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The village of Tineo is bathed in thick morning fog. The impenetrable miasma is smothering the Sierra de Tineo mountains like a damp dishrag.

The miasma is really spectacular. I have always wanted to use the word “miasma.” But I’ve never had a reason to use it until now. I’ve gone for many, many years with a burning passion to use this word, just like actual authors do in actual classic literature, but alas, I’ve never had the opportunity. Until today. But now that I’ve used “miasma,” I don’t feel any elation inside. In fact, I feel nothing. It was not the exuberant vocabularial experience I was hoping for.