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We went for a walk on Sunday.
Or maybe it was a hike. When does a walk stop being a walk and become a hike? Is it the distance? The degree of difficulty? The moment when you suddenly realize one call to Uber could end all this?
Anyhow, we went for a walk on Sunday.
Eight miles, round-trip.
Continue reading
Decontamination crews are spraying down the streets of San Miguel de Allende today. The visuals alone ought to drive the doubters indoors. (Photograph by John Bohnel)
So, Mexico entered Phase 2 on Tuesday. While the president still hugs and kisses the babies and young girls, his Health secretary has called for restaurants and casinos to be closed, for public gatherings to disperse — you know, the same stuff we have been doing in San Miguel for a couple of weeks now.
Only, a lot less.
Phase 2 is clinically called the “community transmission phase.”
Phase 2 feels like Mom calling the kids inside to safety — after it starts raining. The kids have been playing outside, conscious of the dark clouds building. Continue reading
Overlooking some of the beach that extends west from the village of Finisterre.
Santiago de Compostela to Porto (160 km – felt like being in a sci-fi movie and life is playing out in reverse. Not recommended!)
There are so many ways to return to Porto at the end of your Camino walk. You can fly, take a train, take a bus, car pool (there’s an app for that) …
My advice is, whichever way you choose, put a bag over your head.
Sensory deprivation will be your friend.
Here’s why. Continue reading
Of all the incredible, awe-inspiring art and architecture in Santiago, this sculpture spoke loudest to me. It is a powerful reflection of how our soggy feet felt at this moment. The translation is something like “Walk straight, walk upright,” as if we need that advice now.
A Coruña to Santiago de Compostela (7 km — felt wet and like it would take forever but, suddenly, it is over)
We have reached the end of our journey. We have arrived in Santiago de Compostela after walking more than 150 miles over 13 days through Portugal and Spain.
Words fail me.
No they don’t. Just kidding. Continue reading
This is me, as we wait for our auberge to open at the end of a lovely day hiking from Padron. Two hours of absolutely nothing. I kept track of the cloud formations and listened to my clothes dry in the warm sun.
Padron to A Coruña (20 km, felt like a constant climb)
I’m flat on my back. I can’t move.
Or, maybe I don’t want to move.
My boots are off. Yes, my boots are off. I can see the tips of my socks. I can smell them. So, I must have taken my boots off. Yes? That is a specific act. Not an accident.
My backpack is not where it is most often during the day: on my back. So, that too, is a clue. Continue reading
The land and sea, the animals, fishes, and birds, the sky of heaven and the orbs, the forests, mountains, and rivers, are not small themes … but folks expect of the poet to indicate more than the beauty and dignity which always attach to dumb real objects … they expect him to indicate the path between reality and their souls.
— From Walt Whitman’s original introduction to “Leaves of Grass”
Today is the day I found the path between reality and the soul.
To say that the path we walked was simply the most beautiful in all of the Portuguese Camino is difficult. There have been many remarkable sights. None, however, affected me quite like this one. Continue reading
An element of a plaza water fountain in Pontevedra, in which the shape of the spouting water is constantly changing to some hidden rhythm. The statue of the little boy always seems to get his mouthful, however.
Pontevedra to Caldas de Reis (22.2 kilometers, felt like 22.2 except for a very flat stretch of open and empty road after the sun came out)
We awake to a different Pontevedra this morning. Last night, we walked through gray granite and stone canyons, brightened only by the logos and signage of commerce and colorful storefront pitches for their wares, and the occasional art installation. And graffiti, ambitious graffiti murals in fluorescent colors.
But otherwise, a gray city fostering teeming waves of pedestrian life along traffic-free streets.
Now, in the morning gloom, the rain and the streetlamps have washed everything with a shimmering amber sheen. A neon art project sings like an aria to the skies above. The pulsing cherry-sherbert lighting on a plaza fountain vibrates with a force unfelt in daytime. Continue reading
This is Ponte Sampaio over the River Verdugo. This is yet another spot where Galacian fighters kicked the ass of Napoleon’s soldiers. This isn’t the first site we’ve encountered marked by the defeat of Napoleon’s army.
Redondela to Pontevedra (23 kilometers, felt just right)
Sometimes the best part of your day on the Camino isn’t the glorious autumn weather, or the cathedral-like walk through an ancient forest, or the breathtaking vistas that greet you at the crest of a difficult climb, or the journey back in time as you pass through a Medieval village along narrow cobblestone paths.
No, sometimes it is a simple story told by another pilgrim.
This happened on our walk between the mellifluously named cities of Redondela and Pontevedra. Continue reading
A lovely spring up near the peak of our highest climb for the day. The design invites you to linger, unstrap the boots, and dangle your feet in the icy mountain water.
O Porriño to Redondela (16 kilometers, feels like that)
After a day walking in the rain, you couldn’t help but admire the optimism that filled the auberge in O Porriño. Wet clothing was hanging everywhere. A carpet of wet shoes was laid out before the one window that offered sunlight after the clouds broke.
Just the same, everyone left the next morning with damp clothing and damp shoes. We all smelled like wet dogs. Continue reading
Have you ever seen a more beautiful Roman path? Grape arbors on your left, stream on your right, ancient paving stones beneath your feet. And rain coming down on all. Enjoy, because I took very few pictures this day. A wet iPhone takes lousy pictures — when it works at all.
Tui to O Porriño (18.5 kilometers — feels like swimming 15 kilometers)
Did you ever want to reach back into the past and grab your younger self by the shirt collar and smack yourself up the side of the head for something really stupid that you said?
Yeah. Me, too.
The Me from September 21, 2019 — a few weeks back.
We were walking from Tui, just across the border in Spain, to O Porriño, about 18.5 kilometers away.
And it rained. Oh, man, it rained. All day. Continue reading
Musings, Magic, San Miguel and More 