El Camino, another world

If you are wondering to where I have disappeared, you must go back a few centuries to the medeival times and even before, when Roman roads were cutting across the Iberian Peninsula!
As this pilgrimage is rather sacred at times, full of mediation and personal reflection, we are encouraged to distance ourselves from the outer world of modernity. The Way of Saint James is also communal, bringing together voyagers from France, German speaking countries, Italy, Brasil, plus a handful of Canadians and US citizens.
I have gone through a variety of foot pain, including the stretching of arches tendons. I have walked thru the pain and somehow arrived on the otherside. ¨Physician heal thyself¨as the bible suggests.
I hike from village to village along marked paths thru forests and fields. At times my ears burn from the extreme sun, while other times I am wrapped in my gore´tex avoiding wind and heavy rains. The storks are flying high in the sky and build nests upon the belfry of each church, many of which are in ruins.
The fountains are spring fed in the villages and serve as necessary watering holes to refill our reservoirs and canteens. Hospilaleros greet us at the door of albergues and refugios, showing us the way to showers, toilets and bunkbeds. Exhausted, we prop our feet up and look forward to dinner, sometimes in restaurants which offer a special fare for pilgrims, othertimes we cook in the refuge kitchen. Some refuges serve communal dinners. Some refuges ask for a donation, others have a set fee for lodging.
We sleep in monasteries, churches, convents, gymnasiums, hostals, hotels, pensiones, refugios, albergues, .... wherever a bed is available that we can afford. The hundreds of pilgrims in transit sometimes make it difficult to find room availability. At times this requires walking additional kilometers in the early evening, with wornout feet. These are humbling challenges which serve to strengthen our faith in the human spirit and powers that be.
Although each pilgrim will have a very personal adventure, I will say that by the end one is sure to experience transformation in facing multiple levels of challenges.