El Camino de Santiago

Words cannot even begin to describe my experience - I will try my best, but even through limited pictures and words, I won't be able to fully express the adventure.

This trip was an optional excursion trip planned by IES and thus cost a fair amount of extra money. I struggled for a little bit, figuring out if that's how I wanted to spend my money - questioning where my heart was and realizing that I was holding onto things of this world far too tightly. Alas, I signed up for the trip and I will never ever regret it!

12 students from my program plus the program director (Barbara) & student activities coordinator (David) were all crazy enough to sign up for the trip, which includes 100 km of hiking in 5 days on El Camino de Santiago. We left Wednesday morning to drive in our bus to Sarria, a town to the north where we'd catch on to the camino (which starts in France & beyond) to begin our trek. However, there is a law in Spain that bus drivers can't be on the road for more than 3 hours straight, so we stopped after just about an hour in another small town for a mandatory half hour break. It just so happened that the town was in the middle of their festival week and within the 30 minutes that we stopped there, they were having a traditional bull run in the streets.

They shut down the main streets and people gathered along the sides as if to watch a parade. Right on the hour, we watched as 6 bulls came running down the streets. They were not alone, however, but were essentially being herded by a bunch of people who threw things at the animals or hit them with sticks in a "non-threatening" way (mostly men, though some rather crazy and enthusiastic elderly woman who gave us all free muffins and balloons to throw was also right up in there). After just watching the bull fight the other day, it was definitely another challenge to witness cultural traditions that are extremely different from anything I've seen in the US. Once we loaded back onto the bus, Enrique (our very entertaining tour guide for the week) gave us all BINGO sheets with words all relating to El Camino de Santiago. As we drove along, we got quick glimpses of the camino with hikers and bikers alike trekking along. We finally arrived in Sarria and after a quick comida (very rare in Spain!), we began our trip with our lovely traditional walking sticks in hand.

Enrique told us there are only 2 secrets to life: 1-the recipe for Coca Cola, 2-how to get to our starting point on a bus (due to very windy narrow roads).

TRADITIONS & EXPERIENCES ON EL CAMINO
-For all those peregrinos (pilgrims) who walk over 100 km or bike over 200 km, you can receive a compostela, which is essentially like a passport which you can get stamped all along the trail at various restaurants, hostels and churches.
-Enrique (our tour guide) is quite the character. He has done el camino over 60 times (granted, not always the whole 500 miles+ but still!), holds a couple Guiness World Records and just a goofy enthused individual. He didn't walk most of it with us, but he and Javi, our bus driver, always met us at our "paradas" or stops/breaks. Every 4-8 km we would have a meeting spot to take a break at a designated place. Enrique would always greet us with the camera-you can see all the pictures at this link: https://picasaweb.google.com/CSIES14septiembre2011 .
-Whenever you see someone on the trail, you [should] say "Buen camino," wishing them well on their journey.
-Striking up conversations along the way is almost always well-received by fellow peregrinos. I met many many people from all over the world (The Netherlands, Korea, Brazil, Madrid). I really got to know a woman from Madrid after talking with her for over a half hour and she ended up giving me her phone number for when I go to the city to visit.
-It is always so exciting to see people again after you saw them maybe a few days earlier on the trek. There is a sense of connection between those on the camino, since we all have the same destination. [A side story on this note: I was walking along with a few friends when we saw a man walking towards us with his hiking gear. This is very rare, since the trek is made towards Santiago de Compostela, not away from there. We stopped to talk with him & he told us how the world is always telling you where to go, what to do and we have no free will anymore. Also, he told us how you get to meet more people this way because you come to people face to face rather than greet people to their backs.]
-We saw a HUGE field of sunflowers & I couldn't help but think of my future sister-in-law, Liz, who absolutely adores those flowers. It so happened to be on her birthday, too!
-We played games along the way, like 20 questions and impossible riddles (all in Spanish, of course!).
-Along the whole trail, there are yellow arrows & signs marking each km.

I honestly couldn't help but be reminded of the Fun Run with DCF I did in April with the markings along the street to remind us how far we had run. PLUS-we had Enrique & Javi meet us along the trail many times, just like Lincoln & Michael did to take pictures & hand out water!
-For those of you who don't know, I am a huge peanut butter fan and indeed I brought a jar (Wegmans!) from the US. I brought it on the trip & often shared it at breakfast with my fellow peregrinos and everyone was extremely grateful. Enrique was flabbergasted as to why Americans love PB so much and why we eat it with so many different foods. Regardless of his critique, I persevered and ate my PB & J on toast!
-Usually, Northern Spain (Galicia) receives a lot of rain - thus, there was a lot of green, which was exciting because not too much down by Salamanca. We all came prepared with panchos and raincoats, but not ONCE did we get rained on. The mornings were always pretty cool, though, with lots of clouds and one morning it was almost raining but more of a mist that was really cool to walk in. By the afternoon, though, there was plenty of sunshine to soak up, whether you liked it or not. Fortunately, we usually finished walking by 5:00 or so each day.

-The scallop shell is a tradition for peregrinos to carry along with them. We all received one that we attached to our backpacks to show our pride & glory along the way.

-While on El Camino, we saw a bunch of older race cars preparing for a showcase race later that evening. It just so happened to take place right outside our hotel!

-Often priests at the various churches along the way would ask where you are coming from. I would tell them the US and they'd proceed to give me a prayer card or one even gave me a huge prayer book (all in Spanish, but relating to El Camino).
-For some reason, there always seemed to be barking dogs or roosters making lots of noise near our hotels (which, by the way, were definitely much more luxurious than most peregrinos who would camp outside or stay in cheap hostels specifically for peregrinos).
-Enrique surprised us after our longest etapa (stage/day of I believe 28 km) with pan y nocilla (bread & nutella)! Quite the treat and exactly what we craved after a long day. Another note on Enrique - he always has the same sayings to get us moving and motivated: Ánimo, Venga, Chicos! After the first few days, we just began to imitate him and he played along with us too. Also, every day, regardless of what he told us before, he would say, "Oh, today is the most beautiful section." But to me, everything was absolutely breathtaking! The last night, he gave us all silly gifts with a story from our trip behind it. I apparently wore a lot of Gburg attire (woo!) so he tried to find something with Gettysburg on it, but alas not much in Spain for that. He ended up giving me a lovely pencil that has a little doll attached that "looks like me" with red hair and a red jumper. We also all got IES Salamanca tshirts to wear on our last day together (mostly to wear in a picture at Santiago, but regardless, another free shirt!).
-Another tradition along El Camino is to carry along a stone or rock of some sort that you pick up early on in your trip that you lay down at the end. You are essentially getting rid of all your burdens that you carried with you before you made the journey. I placed my down with a collection of existing rocks from past peregrinos.

-We went through what is essentially like Ellis Island with our "passport" of El Camino de Santiago, where we told them our name, origin, motivations and the like in order to receive a fancy certificate of completion.
-There is a daily mass in Santiago de Compostela at their incredible cathedral (which is impossible to capture in one picture) that is for all the peregrinos. We witnessed so many people coming together after coming from all different walks of life from all over the world!

I also wanted to share a website I have of lots of pictures (probably too many) but regardless, feel free to check it out. I update it randomly with new pictures of my adventures in Spain!
http://allisoninsalamanca.shutterfly.com/

This week we started IES classes - I'll save that for the next post :)