Reading, reading, reading

In one of the first posts I made you a promise that I will come back to a more educational part of the preparation for the pilgrimage. Apart from the technical / regular organisational aspects and the physical training I was also reading social media sources and books written by pilgrims. It is more than informative that I mention it here since what I had read before setting off had inevitably influenced my own perspective. Even if I made every effort to be as impartial as possible. And I did. The list is limited here to the most important sources since listing all of those I consulted in some way would make this post one long and possibly not that captivating list of raw data. The social media sources are all to your left in a recommended blogs section. Among others, you will find there The Solitary Walker or Amawalker blogs. As for books, there are more than enough out there published on the topic. Below several of them that have been useful and informative to me, in an alphabetical order:

• Elizabeth Gilbert; Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia
• Fernando Morais; Paulo Coelho: A Warrior's Life: The Authorized Biography
• Gideon Lewis-Kraus; A Sense of Direction: Pilgrimage for the Restless and the Hopeful
• Paulo Coelho; The Pilgrimage
• Shirley MacLaine; The Camino: A Journey of the Spirit
• Zeno Howiacki; Moje Camino. Dziennik uczuć prowadzony w drodze do Santiago de Compostella

Enjoy the reading!

Another topic – on 7^th January: http://lourdes-pyrenees-camino-de-santiago.blogspot.com/2014/01/photo-gallery-and-contest.html 

I announced a contest. Unfortunately, none of the questions and messages I received has been interesting enough to publish it here, together with my reply, so this time additional photos will have to wait for another chance.

PS. This post completes the content I intended to publish here as a partial fulfilment of the commitments I have undertaken in the application for a Lord Rootes Memorial Fund award. This does not mean that I will not continue publishing new posts. It simply translates into my fulfilling the said commitments.

PS.2 Funny thing, although it has been almost three months since I walked the streets of Santiago de Compostela, I have just been reminded one of the lessons I have learnt there. Reading about the balance between technology, social media, online life, the Internet and what many call “real life”, I came across a paragraph stating that it is invaluable to focus on the present moment from time to time. The present moment, the place you are in and the people surrounding you. Completely agree. During the pilgrimage I experience the beauty of looking at the world around you and seeing that world. Try do that every now and then. :)

A human experience - part 3

One of the direct causes of Zeno Howiacki's decision to walk the Camino de Santiago was a book by Paulo Coelho. Maybe the most famous book about that pilgrimage. Definitely a reason why so many people from South Korea come to the south of France and the north of Spain. At least if you believe what a girl from there told me when we were entering Nájera. For the Brazilian writer it was this walk of almost 800 km that changed everything about his life. In his biography it is presented as one of the turning points on his way to becoming a writer. In a different scale, but the same happened to a Spanish pensioner I overheard when she was saying that before the pilgrimage she hardly knew herself. It is impossible not to mention here the volunteers that come and work helping pilgrims and the owners of those special albergue along the way who devote their lifes to caring from those who walk to Santiago. Two of them, a Brazilian and a woman from Italy, they moved to Spain and decided to start their own albergue. Now they live maybe 10 metres from the road through which passes the pilgrimage. She has walked the entire 800 km four times. As she remarked, each of those pilgrimage has been completely different from the previous ones. Life changing.

It might seem that a pilgrimage is full of contrasts and contradictions. If it is life changing for those mentioned just a paragraph before, and simultaneously, a holiday for others, a statement this is certainly strongly substantiated by many examoples. Regardless of how one evaluates it, there is a group of people making a pilgrimage as their holiday. A hospitalero (Spanish for a person working in an albergue) from Ayegui has described this phenomenon as “Ibization” of the Camino de Santiago (from Ibiza) and he clearly understood it in a negative way. Yet, numerous people I have talked with were more than happy to be walking this pilgrimage and to be on their vacation. When you discussed it with them, you could see a genuine smile of pure exhilaration on their faces. Can anyone simply negate this? To give you an example, a woman working in New Zealand in a job that she loved but also in a job that was intense, fast-paced and all-consuming took 6 week off to recharge her batteries. She decided to make a pilgrimage and she walked to Santiago de Compostela having experienced many unique moments along the way. Of course, there will be people who would seem disinterested, or maybe even disrespectful, but in judging them you would become more irreverent. You do not know why they are really there and a person can be hiding their motivation really well. Especially if it is very personal to them.

A pilgrimage can indeed be very personal if it is understood as a was of getting to know yourself. Marcel Proust wrote years ago something that applies here. He said that, “The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.”. The pensioner mentioned above certainly saw herself with new eyes. So did Elisabeth Gilbert after she travelled to Italy, India and Indonesia as described in her book. This has also been the fate of a German who read Indian philosophers that I run into in Santiago de Compostela. They could have changed everything but they did not need to. A pilgrimage might have changed it already, or at least a part of it. And that was enough.

Before I conclude these deliberations, if a pilgrimage is all of the above for different people, is there anything that is common to all pilgrims? I will most likely never know who was it, but someone did write a sentence on the bunk bed I was sleeping in few days before arriving in Santiago. It said, Camino es la vida, what means The Way is life. The first impression might be that outside of the normal life, that is, when on a pilgrimage, that you can feel that you are alive. However, when you consider it for a moment, it may actually be the other way round. On a pilgrimage you are alone and with other people. You see beauty and you are challenged. You go far and yet you stay in one place. You get to know yourself and you take a holiday. You change your life. A pilgrimage, it seems, is a human experience that we all live and share. Even if we do not notice it or try to forget it.

A human experience - part 2

When I have set off to undertake what I committed myself to in the application for the project, I intended strongly to do it on my own. I knew I would meet other pilgrims, talk with them, socialise. But the pilgrimage was to be my own done by myself. A hiker I spoke with in Refuge Wallon-Marcadau agreed with me. For him, the beauty was in the solitude. He purposefully was choosing the mountains he was hiking in bearing in mind how many people go there. He wanted to be on his own with the nature and the challenges. I doubt there are any official statistics on the matter, however, in all probability, there might be as many people making a pilgrimage alone as there are those who do the same with company. At least, I have meet numerous representatives of both groups during the realisation of the project. Some of them told me that they wanted to come with someone they knew, either for the comfort or for the need of companionship. Yet others, as a guy from Colorado, would conclude after more than a month of a pilgrimage, that people were the best part of a journey. Some pilgrimages are made alone, others cannot be made by yourself only.

Beauty is something that both those who travelled without companions and those who were walking in a group agreed about. Beauty is an indispensable part of a pilgrimage. Whether it is a physical beauty of a landscape that extends for kilometres ahead or an inner beauty of the changes that are under way. For a woman from Australia it was the beauty of the old architecture that for the Europeans is something they do not even pause to think about. Yet, for her it was what her pilgrimage was about. For a Bulgarian it was the beauty of being able to visit places you would have never come to otherwise. For a Lithuanian it was the beauty of el Bierzo and Galicia. For a citizen of the United States it was the beauty of visiting Spain. Beauty in all shades and forms.

Physical effort and a challenge might be seen as the antitheses of beauty. Even so, many responses about the meaning of a pilgrimage I heard could have been summarised under those labels. Zeno Howiacki, who walked both to Częstochowa, a religious capital of Poland, and to Santiago de Compostela, would be one person who supported this understanding of a pilgrimage. In his book about the latter of the journeys he defiantly asserts that for him a pilgrimage was how he challenged himself and his addition. The first pilgrimage to Częstochowa brought with it a challenge of stopping drinking, the second of recovering from the consequences of years of the abuse of alcohol. If it was not sufficient, when on the Camino de Santiago he was fighting the pain in his left leg. Not after he walked too much too fast. From the first day. On the other hand, a story of three guys that at some point were walking around 40 km a day, they were from Hungary, Italy and Poland, is not that dramatic but it too does revolve around the physical effort. When they came to Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port they did not know each other. A desire to walk as fast as possible and to challenge themselves as much as imaginable brought them together. They explained that it was easier to “run” the pilgrimage with some company running it together with you. 

(to be continued)

 Photo: The Pyrenees

A human experience

An exploration of the meaning of a pilgrimage in the 21^st century – this description of the blog explains one of the reasons behind my expedition. Below you will find the first part of the article I wrote attempting to provide an answer to a question, what does a pilgrimage mean now? Enjoy the reading:

Throughout this blog a word “pilgrimage” has been repeated over and over again. There has been a pilgrimage to Lourdes, to the Pyrenees, to Santiago de Compostela, to Finisterre. Others have made it when travelling to Jerusalem, Lumbini, Rome, Kumbh Mela, Mecca, Meherabad. The list could go on and on, and on. It seems that almost every place can be a pilgrimage site now. You might even have an impression that more people than ever before are making their own journeys to places of particular interest or significance, to borrow a definition of a pilgrimage from the Oxford Dictionaries. This might be even correct considering that there are more people alive now than ever before in the record history. If in fact we all, or at least a majority of us, are, have been or will be on a pilgrimage, what is this pilgrimage actually all about? Is it really simply a type of a journey indicated by the professors from Oxford?

Having read several books and social media websites, having gone on three different pilgrimages which can also be considered one long pilgrimage, I am still struggling with that question. Giving my own answer does not settle the issue since that response would have come from a single pilgrim. Considering that only Lourdes, one pilgrim destination, if you will, is visited annually by between 4 and 6 million people, an answer from a pilgrim hardly stands a chance of comprehensively covering the topic. In fact, to use a word 'pilgrimage' in itself might be seen by some as an overstatement. Mainly because of its strong association with religion. Gideon Lewis- Kraus, asked by an interviewer about the waning authenticity of pilgrimages nowadays when they are becoming “just this kind of backpacker jaunt”5 completely rejects this approach. He bluntly states that when, “Your feet are coming apart ... You've been walking for eight hours in the rain. Authenticity is the last thing you care about.” This opinion is shared by an increasing number of people. As a Spaniard from Madrid told me, they are making a pilgrimage because they feel like it. They have a need for it. And it does not have to be a religious need understood, at least, as being connected with this or that religious institution or organisation. At the very same time, it can be this type of motivation that will be driving a pilgrim forward. That would make them decide to walk through the doors of their house in the first place. The pilgrims I have passed by so many times in Lourdes came there exactly for this reason. Both are equally valid, neither is better or worse. One clever person I met made it very clear to me. When a topic of people supposedly making a wrong kind of pilgrimage came up, she replied with one sentence. This is their decision. Four words, that is it. Your pilgrimage is simply your pilgrimage. The person sitting next to you, even if they completely disagree with your motivation for walking, does not and cannot invalidate your journey. Pilgrimage is something you are on. An answer to the 'why' question does matter, and very much so, but its content, whatever it is, will not mean that you are not on a pilgrimage even if someone says otherwise. It is something you are on.

What comes to mind when one thinks pilgrimage? In all likelihood one of the places mentioned above, or a location of an analogous kind only somewhere else on the face of the planet. What unites these images is that they are somewhere far away from your home, from your life. A person from France met in Mansilla de la Mulas said that this is the case because it is hard to be free in normal life. That to go on a pilgrimage one needs to go away from whatever they consider the usual. Many do agree with that. A person from Belgium I run into on the first day in the Pyrenees explained that he is hiking because it is about going away, walking away. More opinions could be quoted here. Nevertheless, there are those who would dare to disagree. A reply would be that to go on a pilgrimage understood as a journey somewhere there is no need to physically move from a place X to a place Y. You can travel inside of you. You can grow inside. You can develop and experience without having to board a plane that is going to take you 2 or 5 thousand kilometres away from the airport. A dad of a friend inquiring me just days before my flight asked if I really needed to go that far to do what I was hoping to do. The question got me thinking. The answer would be not always and not necessarily. 40 or so days later when I was again in Poland another person I was talking with about what I have lived through said that she has experienced some of those things without going on a pilgrimage. That she could recognise and understand what I was saying even if she has not walked the Camino de Santiago, has not hiked in the Pyrenees or nor she has visited Lourdes. A pilgrimage is a journey far away but it is also a journey right where you are.

(to be continued)

Photo: Shortly before Ponferrada, the Camino de Santiago

The last days

14.10-18.10.2013

There are two rituals that you follow when you arrive in Santiago. Two in addition to the Compostela you can receive from a pilgrim office. They are the hug of the apostle and a visit to the tomb of Saint James. The first one is when you go up the stairs behind the altar and you can literally hug a statute of Saint James if you want. The second is when you go down the stairs behind the altar, although from the other side, and stand in front of the tomb of the apostle. You can simply be there, say a prayer, reflect, do really whatever you feel like. I followed those rituals a day after I arrived in Santiago. On Tuesday I continued my pilgrimage further to Finisterre which a thousand years ago, before the Camino de Santiago became a Christian trail, used to be the end of the pagan pilgrimage to the end of the world. Back then the existence of the Americas was an unknown fact for the majority of Europeans and Finisterre together with its Costa da Morte was as far as you could go. I arrived there in a car with one of the Lithuanian girls I have met before and we hiked the last 3.5 km from the city to the lighthouse. It was raining heavily so to see the ocean you had to go down the rocks next to the lighthouse. I did. The awareness of the fact that you are in this place, at the end of the world, was worth getting soaking wet. Even if you could only see what was as fas as 10 metres in front of you. After coming back to Santiago I have been walking around the city, meeting people I have met before who just arrived or who were having a lunch or a dinner somewhere around. I have tried the octopus which is one of the most traditional Galician dishes. One of my favourite things to do in the last four days was to sit in front of the cathedral in the main square (there are four squares around the cathedral) next to a shell on the pavement. A shell is a symbol of the Camino de Santiago and it is also where the arriving pilgrims come first. I have seen some of the friends I have made before in this square. On the next to last day I went to the Museo de las Peregrinaciones y de Santiago fulfilling the last remaining part of my expedition. In there you can find out a lot about the history of the Camino de Santiago and pilgrimages in general. You can also see an exhibition that might help you reflect on your efforts. Having done that, the next day early in the morning I went to the airport and after 40 days of my pilgrimage, which has been an experience impossible to fully describe with mere words, I flew to London and then to Lublin.

Photo: Finisterre, the Camino de Santiago

Santiago!

09.10-13.10.2013

During my pilgrimage I have passed by several monasteries, some of them being the most important monasteries in their countries in the past. Samos was one of them. I arrived there early in the morning after leaving Triacastela, in a way, by accident. When you leave Triacastela there are two paths to follow, a shorter one more direct to Sarria, and a longer one that passes through Samos. 7 km longer. I intended to go through the first one, however, as it was still dark when I started walking that day, I mixed up the paths and ended up going to Samos. Later, I was glad that this happened since that variant has been really beautiful and being in Samos when it was foggy is something hard to forget. There are more places on the Camino de Santiago where you choose between two, or sometimes even more, paths. Some follow more traditional routes, some have been developed by the associations of friends of the Camino de Santiago. This time I did not go as I wanted to initially and when you are on a pilgrimage this might sometimes be the case. 

Sarria, the city I have just mentioned, is located around 110 km from Santiago de Compostela. Because of this it is a place where many people start their walking the Camino de Santiago as in order to receive a Compostela, which is an official “certificate” that confirms your pilgrimage, you need to walk at least the last 100 km. Compostela has been given to pilgrims since the Middle Ages and except for your name (or only your surname if they can translate the name) it is all in Latin. Although not all pilgrims feel the need to have it, or, in other words, it is not why they go to Santiago, for others, it is a proud possession. As you have probably noticed, the majority of my Camino de Santiago went through Spanish territory. However, there much more routes to follow if you wish to make a pilgrimage to the tomb of Saint James and some of them start as far from this Galician city as Lublin in Poland, Dublin in Ireland, Oslo in Norway or Tallinn in Estonia. Regardless of where you are coming from, you experience the customs and traditions of the places you are crossing and then same has been in case of my stay in Arzúa. I was already well aware that during fiestas in Spain almost all of the shops are closed, however, it skipped my mind that that Saturday was El Día de la Hispanidad. As a result, since I was running short of food supply and since there was an important day in front of me, after the usual shower, I went into the city and it took me something like 30-40 minutes to find the only shop open in the entire Arzúa. Normally, it would have been 5-10 minutes, but if you have the right motivation, and food is definitely an example of that, you can look for a shop 4 or 5 times longer. After I have eaten and rested for the remaining part of the day, I was eager to leave the albergue early in the morning. Especially because Santiago de Compostela was only 39.8 km away! I was not sure if I would be able to walk that much in one day. I have never walked that much during the entire pilgrimage. I was simply walking and checking every now and then if I am still able to continue. It turned out that I was and my entire body was bouncing with energy and joy during that walk. It just wanted to be in Santiago now! Monte do Gozo, which is 5 km before the city, is a place from which for the first time the towers of the cathedral are visible (it was raining when I was there so this time they were not visible). From that place I did not have to walk using my feet, the enthusiasm about what was happening was driving me forward. Just before I reached Monte do Gozo it started to rain but that was not important at all. I walked into Santiago with a huge smile on my face, I shouted something a few times, some of the people I passed by were smiling, a driver beeped his horn and I just continued. Through the rain, without thinking about the fact that I was really tired, even if I felt it, just in the direction of the cathedral. And minutes later I arrived there, I have made it to the cathedral, I touched it and I was there!

Photo: Galicia, shortly before Santiago de Compostela, the Camino de Santiago

Recommendations

Taking into consideration the mere length of the expedition alone, to give a full account of all the practical recommendations for such a journey would have taken up a significant amount of time. Given the abundance of the similar texts available on-line, my intent here is to give you two short recommendations only partially related with the organisation. In fact, they are more concerned with the attitude of a person undertaking a pilgrimage than with how to go about booking or researching what is waiting out there. ;)

Go unprepared! - By saying this I am referring to the amount of preparation done in advance, not to the fact whether one needs to prepare at all. Just to clarify, one does need to do some preparation. However, having said that, I would recommend not to become too focused on or too stressed about the preparation. Consciously leaving certain aspects of the journey unplanned can be a well thought-through move given that it might aid the overall experience. People are often too focused on getting it right, and right according to a certain conception, so as a result they are more likely to miss on the actual and authentic things that happen along the way. Going unprepared could be a part of letting things just happen during a pilgrimage.

Do not try to plan or control – The second recommendation is related more with the realisation stage of the expedition. Personally I have attempted to plan a day or a few days in advance during a big part of the project. Having completed it, I would recommend not to follow my example. Planning and controlling might create expectations, sometimes unnecessary expectations, and distract from the present of what you will be experiencing. I do not suggest not doing any planning at all, however, fully living in the present time has been an invaluable experience for myself and it also can teach you a lot.

 Photo: The Pyrenees

Photo gallery and a contest

What you see during a pilgrimage or an expedition is one of the most amazing aspects of the journey. The views, the landscapes, the unexpected and simple yet extraordinary moments, the faces of fellow pilgrims, your own appearance after you have just walked 30 kilometres in pouring rain and still was able to reach your albergue, the focus and sense of purpose on the faces of the faithful in Lourdes, the animals and the wildness in the Pyrenees, the albuergue where the day before you spent the whole evening laughing and drinking wine. These and many, many other instants, this is your journey. And they can be immortalised by something so straightforward as a camera.

I have taken a lot of photos, more than a thousand during my 40 days of the expedition, and I have been sharing some of them with you in the posts. Now, to make it more convenient, I have just added a small icon with a slide show just below the most popular posts on your left. Scroll a bit down and you will see an illustration changing every now and then. (I am sorry about the resolution, nothing I can do about the settings of the blogger ;) ) When you click on it, you will be taken to my Flickr account where I have uploaded all of the photos from the blog. And there are new photos coming up. I hope you will enjoy them. ;)

One more thing, so far I have been telling you my story from my own point of view. And since I realise that each of us can look at the world a bit differently and be interested in distinct aspects, this seems incomplete. For this, if you have time and if you want to, I will be waiting for your comments or your questions about my or any other expedition / pilgrimage / journey until Sunday. You can send them directly to the following e-mail: 

projectpilgrimage2013@gmail.com 

For the most interesting ones, five additional and unpublished photos from my pilgrimage. Enjoy the pictures!

Edit: The comments/questions with answers from me will be published in one of the posts next week. ;)

Fighting the injury

08.10-09.10.2013

I stayed in an albergue in Villafranca del Bierzo resting for almost all afternoon and evening wondering what I should do the next day. And as it happens in life, so it did on my pilgrimage and I was given what I exactly needed at the time. One of the people working for the albergue came up to me when I was lying on my bed, we talked, he asked about the leg and then told me what exactly was the problem. Also, he gave me some advice on how to treat it and what to avoid and since that my leg was improving every day until Santiago. It still was a few days before I walked for the first time without feeling any pain and I continued to limp until I reached the cathedral in Santiago de Compostela but I was able to walk and it was a reason to be happy. In the evening of the next day, together with a woman from New Zealand (we have helped each other a lot on your way up O Cebreiro and if you happen to read this report, thank you for the company walking up the mountain!) and two guys from Germany, I have made it to the top of O Cebreiro having walked 30 km. I was really proud that I had been able to hike that much with the injury. The village has developed in a very close relation to the Camino de Santiago, although, now it is also a popular tourist destination. To be honest, when I was entering it I heard two people talking and one of them was saying that this is a place through which pilgrims to Santiago pass. 26 people live on a permanent basis in O Cebreiro and the albergue run by the Xunta de Galicia (from Spanish, the government of Galicia) has 100 places for pilgrims. This fact shows how important is the Camino de Santiago for the village. Most if not all the buildings have been renovated and the effects make an impression on you when you get there. During the night, there are almost no lights around so you can see the stars perfectly. One of the Germans knew about the starts so when we were coming back from the dinner he was explaining all about them. The next day I was descending from the second mountain range in Castile and León and although going down was the hardest type of walking for my leg, I did arrive in Triacastela feeling okay. The leg was improving

 Photo: Galicia, shortly before O Cebreiro, the Camino de Santiago

A few words of gratitude

The project I am describing in this blog would not have been possible without the support and inspiration of many people. Because of this, an official “thank you” is more than in order. I hope you will not mind too much me taking few lines to do this. ;)

I would like to thank the Lord Rootes Memorial Fund for their trust in the project and the award that made it feasible. Also, to Dr Toni Haastrup for her academic reference and an invaluable advice, both on the project and throughout the Masters year. To Jakub Lasota, Isabel Ferrer Molina and Matthew Richards for their kind references and the support that cannot be overestimated.

To my parents, Krystyna and Grzegorz, for their efforts that have allowed me to carry on with both my studies at Warwick and the project presented here. To my brothers: Łukasz, for the unwavering support in times of need, and Tomasz, for the brilliant feedback on my initial project application. Also, to my aunt Elżbieta for her simple yet extraordinary help with the practical preparation for the expedition.

To friends and people of good will that I have come across before and during the expedition. Without meeting you, whether it was a discussion that we had, a supportive smile that we exchanged, the value of human kindness and companionship that you showed me, a life-saving car lift to Lourdes that I was offered, a diagnosis on my injured leg or an advice on how to continue on the coming 550 kilometres, without each and every one of these, and more, my experience of a pilgrimage would not have been the same. Thank you whether you are in Belarus, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, South Korea, Spain, Taiwan, the United Kingdom, the United States or Ukraine.

Finally, to all of you reading this blog for the effort you make. Without it, I would definitely not have that much motivation to go on publishing new posts. ;) Also, for the smile caused by a quick glimpse at the statistics. ;)

A small gift for all of you:

Photos: The Pyrenees, a view from the Camino de Santiago and Galicia, the Camino de Santiago

A moment of crisis

04.10- 07.10.2013

León was one of the most beautiful places I have been to during my pilgrimage and I would like to be back there one day. It was also a place where together with two friends we have discovered that the night before we were attacked by bed bugs. They are a nuisance on the Camino de Santiago which is hard to avoid. Despite the extensive measures undertaken by the owners of the albergues, on occasion you might be bitten by bed bugs when you sleep. The bits are not dangerous in any way, they simply annoy you since they are very itchy. The only problem is to make sure that you do not take them with you when you go home after reaching Santiago. There are two things you can do, one is to use a certain chemical substance I did not want to use because of its smell, two is to wash all your clothes after you have been attacked. So the three of us were washing everything at the same time when we discovered what had happened the night before. On the plus side, the washing machine and the drying machine were available to everyone for free in our albergue so we did not even have to pay for them. A day after León I have stayed in a town called Hospital de Órbigo in an albergue verde. (Spanish for a green albergue) It was one of those extraordinary albergues on the Camino de Santiago and it was run by two great Spanish people who were vegetarians. Everything inside was ecological or prepared in an ecofriendly way, the symbol of a snail was all around the place, the people who were staying there were more than friendly, there was a dog running around and during a communal mean we all shared you had a great chance to socialise with everyone. An extraordinary place. There were more of them on the Camino de Santiago.

After I left the albergue in the morning and walked 15 km more, I arrived in Astorga which is where a region called the Maragatería begins. As my guidebook says, the Maragatos, of an unknown ethnic origin, are proud people with unique customs and high respect for honesty. In the area you can see many ruined buildings which make you pause for a moment and reflect. Few metres from them there will be buildings that have already been renovated during the economic recovery of the region that is due, to an important extent, to surging popularity of the Camino de Santiago in the last 15 years or so. A place worthy of a visit, not only during a pilgrimage. Even more so as it is where the so-called Cruz de Ferro is located. Originally, a sign for pilgrims crossing the mountains that was supposed to guide them, it is a place around which a tradition has developed. Pilgrims who arrive there are carrying a stone from their home country or hometown and then they leave it there as a sign of having gotten rid of a negative feature or character trait of their own. There is a circle of stones of around 30 metres in diameter at the bottom of the cross now. 

 

When you leave the Maragatería you enter another region that deserves a recommendation, el Bierzo. Not known outside of Spain, in this country it is famous for its wine and the beautiful landscape. In fact, the Camino de Santiago crosses through Cacabelos, a town in the heart of the region, and shortly after that you yourself walk though the vineyards and observe how people of the area tend to their fruit from which an excellent final product will be produced. Even if you do not drink wine, to see a place full of vineyards located in-between two mountain ranges is in itself an unforgettable experience. However, as the Camino de Santiago crosses northern Spain, it on occasion goes also through places which are less beautiful and more industrial. It is the case, for example, with Ponferrada, a city located at the border between Maragatería and el Bierzo. Although it has a location that is hard to beat in terms of the beauty of the surrounding areas, the city itself is not that pleasant, if not, simply speaking, ugly. Very industrial it does not fit well with what you see before or after it. Another example of this contrast would be Burgos and its outskirts. The city centre with its old building, an impressive cathedral and cosy traditional Spanish restaurants and bars is, in this case, complemented by industrial areas the you are crossing through when you both enter and leave the city. For instance, for some 15 minutes you are walking next to the fence of an airport. This contrasting places are yet another of the things that you see when on a pilgrimage. As I said before, I have not been spared physical difficulties on my expedition. After I have crossed the first mountain range in Castile and León, I have developed a condition called tendinitis on my right leg. Having rested in Ponferrada I was hoping to be able to continue the day next. And I was walking but it was far from good and I was feeling the pain. The worst part was that it was not disappearing, it was getting stronger. So strong that around 3 km before Villafranca del Bierzo I simply had to sit down on the ground as I could not make another step forward. This has been a moment of a crisis and I was not sure that I will be able to continue. I have rested for some time and then I managed to somehow walk those missing 3 km to Villafranca where I went to an albergue. 

Photo: El Bierzo, the Camino de Santiago

A Short Video

As has been promised, below you will find a short video that serves as a type of introduction or a trailer for the results of the investigation about the meaning of a pilgrimage. A word of warning and advice. Due to the copyright issue, I decided not to add music background to the video to avoid violating the rights of others. However, if you do not want to listen to a silent series of images, I would advise you that, before you hit play, you go to probably the most popular website with videos on our planet. There, you put “Find Yourself - Brad Paisley lyrics” in the search engine and you choose the first video available with some lyrics already visible. Try to start both the song and a short video almost at the same moment so they become two parts of the same whole. Enjoy!

PS. Having re-considered it, I am adding a direct link to music background --> just click where it says Music Background. ;)

 

Questions I have been asking

As I mentioned in the very first post, apart from living my own pilgrimage during the realisation of the project, I have been also investigating what does a pilgrimage mean for other people. Given the varied situations in which I could find myself during the expedition, it resulted impossible to follow a structured and organised pattern in terms of the questions I was asking. Because of this, I have decided to adopt a different approach. During the research process conversations, observations and reflections on what I had heard or experienced each day were guided by a set of questions presented below. In this way, it is believed, the coherence and academic quality of the findings of the project could have both been ensured. At the same time, every effort has been made not to unduly distort the research by the assumptions made beforehand, something considered an equally vital task. Also, the possibility of the additional issues to be considered has been taken into account. Overall, the question about the meaning of a pilgrimage in the 21st century has been tackled in this way.

Questions guiding the investigation:

• Why do you make a pilgrimage / hiking trip?

• Why this particular type of a pilgrimage / hiking trip?

• How did you come up with the idea of making a pilgrimage / hiking trip?

• In what situation did you decide to do a pilgrimage / hiking trip you are doing now?

• Do you have any expectations regarding your pilgrimage / hiking trip?

• If yes, what are the expectations? If no, why you do not have any expectations?

• For who, if anyone, are you doing a pilgrimage / hiking trip?

• What unites different types of pilgrimages / hiking trips?

• What differentiates different types of pilgrimages / hiking trips?

• How similar are different types of pilgrimages / hiking trips?

• How different are different types of pilgrimages / hiking trips?

• What have you experienced so far?

• Does it differ from what you have been expecting before the pilgrimage / hiking trip?

• Are the expectations of different people somehow connected with the types of pilgrimages?

PS. A short video / trailer presenting the results of the academic part of the project will be posted soon. ;)

Crossing la meseta

27.09-03.10.2013

A pilgrimage is also pain, including but not limited to physical suffering, effort and fighting. I was reminded of that when in Burgos one of my friends from Lithuania had to take two days of rest because of an injury. She was not, by any means, the only person that felt the consequences of walking every day for hours. My turn was only coming and it is going to catch up with me in the next journal entry. ;) Some of the people I have met or heard about had to make hard decisions to fly back to their countries or cities before reaching what they were hoping to reach. In fact, when on the Camino de Santiago you walk next to a grave of a pilgrim on several occasions, especially, during the first part. The majority of them died due to the physical effort they have undertaken. Few have been killed in car accidents. I am not saying that here to discourage anyone from going on a pilgrimage. I could not be further from that. I am simply stating that it is not easy. It is good to bear this in mind when you are about to travel into the unknown. This also makes the experience so much more real. Anyway, when you leave Burgos you enter what the Spanish call la meseta. It is a vast plateau in the heart of peninsular Spain through which you walk for several days crossing corn fields, corn fields and more corn fields. Some people complain that the landscape is simply speaking boring and does not stand a chance in comparison with Navarra, La Rioja or Galicia. Although it is very different from what you see in those regions, I disagree with the conclusion. It has its own beauty. And mystery. When you are there and you can see what is waiting for you during the next few kilometres, in this moment, without any warning, there might be a small valley in which there will be a town. They were invisible just minutes ago because they are located some 20-50 metres below the level of la meseta. You would not expect them to be there, yet the next moment you walk right through them.

The small villages. They are another element of a pilgrimage. In contrast to a tourist trip where you mostly drive next to them on a highway, here you visit them, you stay there to have lunch, you rest there, you sleep there. As I did whether it was Hontanas, Boadilla del Camino, Terradillos de los Templarios, Calzadilla de los Hermanillos or many others. While there, in the evening, you can sit in front of an albergue and watch the peaceful life of a village. Something that would brightly stand out if you thought about life in London, Madrid, Warszawa or some other big modern city. The value of a pilgrimage in this respect is that otherwise it would have been very difficulty to see a small pueblo (Spanish for a village) from inside. And the tranquillity and peacefulness you experience are worth walking even 30 km a day. If I have not mentioned that already, in the Pyrenees and on the Camino de Santiago there is something like a daily pattern. The usual day, if you will. Of course, there are exceptions and variations, but if one asked about the typical activities, it would be something like this. You wake up early in the morning, some go as early as 5 am, my usual time was between 5.45am and 6.30am. Then you take care of the morning duties, eat your breakfast, pack and go. Depending on the day, walking would take anything from 3-4 hours to 10 hours. The earliest I arrived in an albergue was 11am, the latest 7.30pm. When you finally get there, it is first shower, unpacking a little bit, washing your clothes, then relax, recovery, some visiting of the city/town you are staying in if you feel like it, a dinner most often together with wine (especially on the Camino de Santiago), talking, laughing, more visiting and then sleeping before the efforts of the next day. Most pilgrims go to bed around 10pm, in my case, several / many times I went to bed later but sometimes I was asleep at 10 pm too. This would be a typical or stereotypical day of a pilgrimage.

I have mentioned la meseta above. If you wanted to describe my pilgrimage in more detail in terms of geography, there are several different broad categories. La meseta, with its flat surface and corn fields would be one of them. Another would be the mountains, whether it were the Pyrenees near Gavarnie, the Pyreness which I was crossing after leaving Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port or the mountains of León in the autonomous community of Castile and León. The third category would be the cities with their busy streets and crowds of people, such as Lourdes, Pamplona, Logroño, Burgos, León or Santiago de Compostela to name the biggest ones. The final one would be the areas with a significant number of hills and small valleys with rivers where you often climb first and then descend only to be soon climbing up again. The view you see in those places is often hard to describe appropriately with words. Roncesvalles to Burgos, León to Astorga and Triacastela to Santiago de Compostela – this is where the fourth geographical type can be found. What differentiates la meseta from the other areas are the long stretches of solitary walks where you can see nothing but trees, fields and nature for, for example, 22 km as is the case between Calzadilla de los Hermanillos and Mansilla de las Mulas. There used to be more of those on the Camino de Santiago, but the development of infrastructure limited their number. Nevertheless, you will still sometimes find yourself walking and walking, and walking for hours at the time without a town or a city. In this way, mixing solitary hikes, corn fields and small villages, I arrived in León.

Photo: La Rioja, the Camino de Santiago