A New Year!

Welcome to 2019!  A new year with new adventures, challenges, failures, successes and joys.

For me, Christmas wrapped up with a great gift, the opportunity to walk the Camino de Santiago once again in 2019, almost 2 years from when I did my first Camino which has afforded me time to reflect on my first and consider the possibilities of my second.

This pilgrimage will be different, I have a quote attached to my email that states:

 “No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it is not the same river and he is not the same man”

This Camino for me is very much like that.  I am a different person than I was two years ago and, the Camino has certainly changed as have the cast of characters who make up the daily comedy and drama of the Camino de Santiago.

This year, some of the same people who walked the Camino with me in 2017 will once again trod that ancient path.  Happily, joining Leighton, Renee and me will be my last Camino friend, a woman I met walking up to the lighthouse in Finisterre.  Katja, my German Amiga.  I call Katja the Camino Beast, this will be her 5^th trip to the Camino but, she’s so much more than an experienced Pilgrim, she’s a force in her own right.  I look forward to walking with her and for her to get to know some of the people that I consider to be my family.

My friend Chris (one of the Professors), who I met along with her husband Steve on the Camino in 2017 will be taking a group of students from Texas A&M to the Camino, what a wonderful opportunity for them all.  Our plan is to begin our Camino in Astorga and to walk with them for at least one day.  By the time we meet up, they will be experienced Peregrinos.  I look forward to hearing their stories and sharing the Way with them, if only for a brief time.

It’s ironic, joining the last friend I made on the Camino will be Leo, the first friend I made in 2017.  I met Leo, who happens to be from the Dallas area, in the Pilgrims office in Saint Jean Pied de Port (SJPP) while we were checking in on that rainy day.  Leo and I separated in Estella without getting to say good-bye. 

Leo had to skip part of the Camino, the meseta, to get back home.  Leo made it to León and then took a bus or train to Sarria where he finished the final 100k.  He wants to walk the pieces that he missed so, he’ll start in León, walk to Astorga (2 days) where we’ll all join up.

Our Camino this year will take us from Astorga to Sarria, some of the most beautiful areas along the Camino in my mind, it will also give me an opportunity to visit the stone the Professors left last year for our friend Dave who passed away last May.

From Sarria, the plan and, there is nothing written in stone, is to take the train to Ferrol where we’ll walk the Camino Inglés, the English Way to Santiago.  From there, we’ll keep walking to Finisterre, the end of the world, one of my favorite places.

As I said earlier, this will be a very different Camino for me and I expect I’ll have a very different reaction to this experience because it is not the same Camino and I am not the same man. I can’t wait.

Camino prep begins on January 5^th with a nice training walk with the Dallas Pilgrims.  Yay, Outside!