El Camino de Santiago – The Way of St. James

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You may first have heard of El Camino de Santiago – The Way of St. James – when the Martin Sheen movie entitled The Way came out in 2010.  I had never heard of this ancient route before, and was fascinated and inspired by the whole concept of the sacrifice and commitment involved in undertaking such a journey, not merely for fun or as a vacation, but as a spiritual endeavor.  Later on, an associate of my brother Jeff actually made the several-month long pilgrimage, and I learned a little more about all that is entailed in the preparations.  There is a tremendous amount of careful planning that goes into making ready for such an arduous journey, expenses for equipment, figuring out how to carry everything you will need on your back, and then of course, becoming physically and mentally ready for the challenge of walking the rough terrain and sleeping rough as well.

The more I learned, from reading pilgrim journals and community boards, the more daunting it seemed.  I had fleetingly imagined “getting in shape for it” and making the journey perhaps in a couple of years’ time.  I no longer believe I could handle it, primarily because of my back problems.  However, I refuse to admit defeat.  If I cannot go in person to walk The Way, I can at least attempt a “virtual” pilgrimage, keeping track of my distance walked and how far I am along the trail.

I found hundreds of maps online, but I liked this one because it had nice little markers all the way long the path:

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And I have begun my sojourn already.  Today is my third day, and so far I have conquered 16.0934km of the 28km from St-Jean-Pied-de-Port to the second dot on the map, Roncesvalles.  My goal is 4-5 miles per day, a little in the morning and a little at night.  So far, so good, although my miler with Jeff this morning in the rain was very cold and wet.  I may have to invest in a rain poncho (although truthfully there is scant use for such a thing in the desert).  I am expecting a few pauses along the way for various inevitable minor injuries or illness, but I hope not to be deterred by weather, and I hope that as I see my distance increasing I will remain inspired to forge ahead and complete my journey.  The total distance is about 450 miles, which will take me (if I can average 20 miles per week) 22.5 weeks.  I’m not frantic to finish quickly, though.  But I do aim to finish!

I’ll update here regularly so you can follow me along my journey too. 🙂

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Update:

3/17/2013

I have had a terrible rough couple of weeks with this illness (actually I’ve been fighting it for a month now) — I see that since this was published on March 8th I was only able to walk one day.

March 9th I added 8.04672 km, which brings my total to 24.13012km, which means I have almost reached my first dot on the map at Roncesvalles.  I’m feeling well enough that I may be able to reach that by the end of today.

What I sincerely wonder is how people deal with illness while on this kind of pilgrimage…

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

4.82803km this afternoon, for a total of
28.95815km!
I have finally reached my first stop at
Roncesvalles!!

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Update:

5/01/2013

Again I am lax in my updating.  I have managed to walk a couple of times and forgot to include it here.  I walked about 16km in the last month and a half (I know, hardly anything right?!), and today I biked 17km, so that means I am currently 15.5km outside of Pamplona, Spain.  Huzzah for progress, however slow.  I must endeavor to update more faithfully.

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Update:

5/31/2013

I am back again… my torturously slow journey has inched along very slowly, but I am determined not to give up.  Last weekend I climbed up a mountain and back down again.  I am not ashamed to say, I absolutely feel that it was worth more than the three miles of distance that I can claim, considering how hard that climb was for me.  At the steepest part, I had to count my paces and stop to rest regularly to catch my breath.  This alone was motivation to continue my efforts back down in the valley at gradually, gra-a-a-a-a-adually, increasing my fitness.  And, since returning, I have in fact walked every day with my brother, starting Tuesday, one mile in the morning and one mile in the evening.  As of this morning, that is seven miles of going around the big block here in the neighborhood.  (Tonight’s mile will make it eight, so I will count that for today in advance, as there is no reason I can forsee that I will not be able to complete that as planned.  Now, translating that into kilometers for this virtual pilgrimage, that comes to a total of: 17.7km, bringing my current position to 2.2km beyond Pamplona, for a total of 78.95815 so far.  

Ad majorem Dei gloriam.

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