Christmas on the Camino

We wake up on the blue, sheetless mattresses of the albergue, which are surprisingly clean and comfortable. So far, Spain takes great care of its peregrinos, the five of us feeling quite charmed by the two police officers who let us in for free and checked up on us later. The police are in charge of the albergue; nothing sketchy.

Our German and Danish counterparts, who came later in the night, leave some time apart from one another, but they know they'll see each other at the next albergue tonight. We stay in bed.

It's not that we're lazy, but with 30+ pound rucksacks full of our cold gear, computers, and more, we are feeling quite weighted down. Moreover, with the way that the rain has been peppering the landscape, paths are muddy (and I'm in running shoes) and streams are swollen. One of the streams, with deeply muddy farmland on either side of us, we ford by taking our shoes off and walking slowly and painfully along the rocks. Another we avoid, hearing from a cyclist that the water is chest-deep (verified by the German pilgrim), and take a several-kilometer detour along the guardrail of a very fast-moving highway. Yet so many cars are honking, so many folks in the town are glad to meet us, and we can't help but feel exhausted and touched.

We've been talking about small miracles lately. A waiflike, exhausted Merav opens her sleeping bag, borrowed from a friend, for the first time in the albergue to find a bar of chocolate––delicious Swiss dark stuff with Hebrew lettering––with a funny sketch of Merav and a note wrapped around it. Chocolate that has been there all the time showing up at just the right time. Miracle. Sunset and how we're inspired by it. Miracle. We wonder how we need to believe in these things, how the correlation of simple wonderment is too much to pollute by saying it is mere chance, how a miracle can remind us that God is still God, and God is good despite the world.

So we are in an albergue for Christmas, away from the consumerism, away from the two-thousand years of add-ons like Santa and the Christmas tree, away from all of that and... and Merav looks at both of us and says, "Merry Christmas." I fear I have been viewing this as a normal day––and perhaps it is, my scholarly heart knows that Jesus was really probably born in Spring––but as Ryan reads Luke and Merav wishes us Christmas wellwishings and we play Christmas carols and they get stuck in our heads then I realize what is the true miracle of Christmas. The true miracle isn't whether or not December 25 is Jesus' actual birthday or not, whether the magi convened on exactly that day with the shepherds and all of that, but rather that we come together as family and friends in community during the bleak midwinter when everything is dead and wet and tired and cold and we celebrate rebirth. By myself, Christmas is just another day, but in the presence of my loved ones and other of God's children, I see new life breathed into old bones.

Ryan feels like we've given up on the Camino, though all of us feel we have acted wisely. We are cutting it short because our packs are brutal and because of the rain and the fact that, as our German pilgrim friend tells us, the Via de la Plata is the toughest one of the five. Whereas the Camino Français has albergues every fifteen or sixteen kilometers, the day after tomorrow we would be traveling twenty-nine clicks without a town in between. So, for now, goodbye tying food onto our bags and goodbye socks dangling wet and putrid from them to dry. Goodbye also the long stretches of Spain, the wonderful people, and the good food, not to mention the combination of the nice Spaniard who gave us "chocolate for the Camino" yesterday. Sevilla is a nice place.

I don't feel this is a defeat. For me, I plan to come back, packed differently, with my bike and with whomever of you want to come, to do a whole route or two. I want to see Santiago and know more about this pilgrimage which, says our German friend who has hiked all of them (and some multiple times), is like a drug. For now, though, I have applications to finish and, if I am lucky, my family and Rachel to call. I hope, if you are set apart from your loved ones, that you see what is lovely around you, the small miracles like distant gorillas in the mist.

First day on Camino

This is a part of Spain that no one sees. Small towns, car dealerships, highways running along the Via de la Plata of the Camino de Santiago. Honestly, I don't know much about this road other than it is one of the five traditional pilgrim routes that the apostle James (a.k.a. "Santiago") took while bringing Christianity to Spain, yet I am not sure why there are five. Ours, the Via de la Plata, starts in Sevilla and directs us via yellow arrows through Andalucía, Extremadura, all the way up to Santiago. The yellow arrows are over everything, on street signs, on old rubble beside the rural roads, a simple yellow like three sloppy strokes of a paintbrush pointing us forward.

In a way this is much like the Pilgrimage for Peace with Rachel. By saying this I do not mean by any stretch that I am as hardcore as Rachel and those folks, mostly in middle age or later, who committed to the 50-day, 1000-mile walk, sharing the message of peace twice a day with community centers, schools, churches, and throughout the day with the common folk on the road. I'm not even as hardcore as the people who joined for one more day than I did, but I relate in that, as people see us walking, they cheer us on. It seems every few cars are proud of us, honking and waving, and that small towns know exactly what we are no matter from what culture. Merav is right, there's something about peregrinos, those pilgrims that the road draws, that local people strongly respect.

This rapport with the locals proves very advantageous to us in Santiponce, fourteen kilometers away from our destination. When the deluge comes, as it does for us in Spain, we realize how foreign this part of Spain is to such water from the heavens. Their architecture includes almost no overhangs, and we duck into a church, into restaurant door wells, and anything that will keep us dry. Even in the rain, though, people are friendly, one man shielding Ryan and me with his umbrella talking about this and that while our rucksacks and a distant Merav were continuing to get soaked. He told us about a woman in the middle of the town who lived alone and welcomes pilgrims, so, after some wandering and trying to find free bedding at an old monastery (which is closed), we get back to the center of town, where several women tell us to find this Carmen. We knock on her door and get no answer, so I ask the barkeep two doors down, and, instead of getting the phone number like I asked, he walks us to the house, and bangs loud enough to bring Carmen to the door. She is old and smiley and brings us in. We have to pay, and it's expensive for the Camino, but we were willing to pay much more to get dry on such a day. We watch Inglourious Basterds, stretch our sore limbs, and stretch our clothes out to dry after a very good day.

Read more about the Pilgrimage for Peace either here: http://walkaboutpilgrims.blogspot.com/2009/11/zigzag-back-through-these-states.html

or here: http://peacewalk-newengland.com/

Merav is not really on fire

Merav is on fire. She yells, "It's not funny!" from the kitchen, but it is, and she tries to quench the flames with water. I tell her we fight fire with bread. And milk.

It is my night of making dinner and, faced with a lackluster pasta sauce––thrown out of whack by my choice of unpredictably sweet canned tomatoes––I dash the sauce with chilies. This doesn't do much for overall taste, but creates some sweaty faces 'round the table. Ian rocks back, exhales thoroughly, and says, "Are there chilies in here." Ryan loves the heat; Sally complains how she doesn't have any chilies as I wind up with chili after chili. Merav, however, is different. She gets one and covers her mouth like she is trapping a rampaging alien that comes to life with just enough pasta sauce combined with balsamic––and it is on fire, too; the terror!––and Merav, also on fire, runs to the kitchen, where she tries to wash the chili down with water, saying "It's not funny!" But it is.

Perhaps this is cruel. Well, yes it's cruel, but we have such jokes among friends, and we love Merav. We are on the move, through a country where giant legs of ham––jamón ibérico––hanging from their hooves in shops are as ubiquitous as the Spanish language, and this is interesting when traveling with an Israeli Jew. Yet we are unstoppable. We are headed from Málaga toward the Camino de Santiago and the Ruta Campostela and we are awesome, Ryan and his tapestry of digital pictures, Merav and her half-made didgeridoo in a hand-woven shoulder case, and, well, me, who flies on the wings of words like the mighty pterodactyl.