Do it alone or with others? And the sunrise

23.09-26.09.2013

When I got there, Logrońo was a city of fiesta (Spanish word for a holiday but the way the Spanish celebrate differs significantly from what people in Poland or the UK do during a holiday). I did not plan to arrive in the city on the day of a fiesta, nevertheless, this is what happened. It was the day of San Mateo and people were celebrating out in the streets. During the day there were different shows, performances, artists, games. During the night, music, alcohol, dancing. All the time, happiness and the festive atmosphere. A pilgrimage is not only a time to reflect, think through your life, change. It does not have to be like this at all. Or it can be exactly that but there are different ways in which you can do it. It depends on you. You choose what pilgrimage you are on. The day I spent in Logrońo was a good reminder of that. Maybe not a reminder since it would require previous knowledge but still a very important lesson. I realised that happiness and smiling are good ways to go on a pilgrimage. On the Camino. Visiting is another thing you can do during a pilgrimage. Well, it is something you do anyway, in a way, by default, since you are walking every day. When you are travelling on foot for almost 800 km to Santiago de Compostela, when you are hiking for fours days in the Pyrenees, when you are walking around Lourdes for two day – when you do all of those things, you see new places, people, experience new customs, cultures, languages daily. A good example of that is a small town, Santo Domingo de la Calzada. When you arrive there, if you have not be told that before or have not read it somewhere, you find out that there is a cathedral in the town with a real and alive hen and cock inside. They are kept there as an expression of respect for tradition and a legend according to which several centuries ago a young 18-year old German pilgrim has been saved by an intervention of Saint Dominic when he was falsely accused of theft. It is definitely worth going inside to see the place where they live. Interestingly enough, there was an exhibition about the Han dynasty from China in the same cathedral when I visited. In other words, a pilgrimage is also a chance to see many things which you would have not been able to see otherwise. One of them can also be a sun rise. Between Logrońo and Burgos, on several occasions, I left albergues early in the morning when it was still dark outside. Walking already for half an hour or longer and seeing how everything around you starts to wake up, how the sun appears on the horizon, it is an experience. You do need to be cautious when you are hiking in dark, it is really easy to miss an arrow and go the wrong way. But it is worth the effort you have to make to get up at 6 am, or before, to do all the morning duties and walk through the door of an albergue early enough. Another positive aspect of this is that you avoid the hottest moment of the day, around 2 pm, and, since after the initial part of the Camino de Santiago, there is not that many trees around any more, it is vital to protect yourself from too much sun.

Before I set off for my pilgrimage I was thinking that I will do it alone. That I would meet other people, talk with them but that I would then go on and continue by myself. In fact, it has been like this until one albergue where I meet two girls from Lithuania. We started talking during a communal meal prepared by the owner of the albergue, soon we started laughing and we since we had a similar idea for where we wanted to go the next day, in the morning we left the albergue together. I did not know that yet but they were going to show me several of the most important things that I have learnt during my pilgrimage. One of them being the value of companionship. If we believe that to think through our lives, we need to set off on a long journey, we probably usually assume that the thinking process goes on when we are by ourselves. It certainly does happen in solitary situations, however, we can go through it with somebody walking next to you. Even when that somebody is talking with you and asking you questions. It is amazing how much we can learn about ourselves from other people. I have been told something that refers to that, it will be later on and much closer to Santiago, but I can quote it now. Paraphrasing slightly, a guy from Bulgaria I met has said that people are like mirrors to each other. So we continued together, two Lithuanians and a Polish guy, helping each other out and joking most of the time until Burgos where we got 10 days after I left Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port.