Dust, mire, sun and rain,
that is the Camino de Santiago
Thousands of pilgrims,
And for more than a thousand years.

Pilgrim, who is calling you?
What secret power draws you?
Not the Campo de las Estrellas,
nor the great cathedrals.

Not the greatness of Navarre
Or the wine of Rioja,
nor the Galician seafood
Or the fields of Castile.

Pilgrim, who is calling you?
What secret power draws you?
Not the people along the Camino,
Or the traditions of the country.

Not history and culture,
nor the cock of Calzada,
Gaudi's palace,
Or the castle of Ponferrada.

All this I see in passing
and it is a delight to see all this,
but the voice calling me
I feel much deeper within me.

The driving force within myself,
The force that draws me,
are neither the explanation.
Only He from Above knows!

Text on a wall near Nájera, signed by E.G.B.

WHITE RABBIT ON THE CAMINO 

Discover the magic of the Carrer del Miracle  

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Willem Gerritsen

 
 
 
 
First edition: 2025 
 © 2025 Willem Gerritsen 
Cover image: 
 © Willem Gerritsen 
Portrait work: 
AnneMarleen Cornelissen 
 
ISBN n/a. 
Publisher: n/a. 
 
 
 
 
 No part of this publication may be reproduced and/or disclosed by print, photocopy, microfilm, Internet or any other means without written permission from the author. 
 
 





 
 

For Ellen 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
'The white rabbit is a sign of the possibility of spiritual enlightenment and an encounter with the Divine. The white rabbit symbolizes an invitation to step out of ordinary life and embark on an extraordinary journey.'
Quote from internet
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
     

PART 1 

Reason 

There is an invisible magical world along the Camino. 
Santiagus 
 
It started with a Camino from home to Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port in southwestern France at the foot of the Pyrenees, near the border with Spain, roughly about 1500 km. Then the brakes went off. 'The pilgrimage is an addiction some say, but I say it's an obsession. At least for me.' I wrote in my diary on one of the 332 days I spent on Caminos during the years 2021-2024. Time enough to philosophize about the special value of the pilgrim roads to Santiago. I was encouraged in this by the miraculous encounter with a white rabbit. 
'The Camino provides' is a well-known saying. During my thousands of miles on the Camino, fortuitous events were often too coincidental to maintain that - as I usually call it - 'the universe' would have neither part nor share in them, and so the confidence grew that 'along the Camino there is an invisible magical world with a protective guardian who will guide you and who awaits you to give you happiness' and who provides for your every need. 
Frankly, I saw not only my confidence growing but also my concerns about increasing commercialism serving ever greater numbers of tourists, luxury runners and electric cyclists, which could erode the Camino's authentic character. 
Worrying makes no one wiser. That is why I set out to write this book to contribute to preserving the special meaning of the pilgrim's way to Santiago. Hopefully it will inspire you to relax on your way and fully enjoy your Camino to Santiago as a source of spirituality, because "White Rabbits on the Camino" is an invitation to you, reader, to step out of ordinary life and embark on an extraordinary and miraculous journey. 
 
 
 
     
 
 
 
 
 
 

For whom this book was written 

From walking dreams to walking the Camino. 
 
It is no coincidence, that you have this book in your hands: you have heard about the Camino to Santiago and perhaps about its magic. Those extraordinary paths that, after hundreds, sometimes even thousands of kilometers, end in the great square near and in the cathedral of Santiago. You dream about the Camino and you want to know more about it and experience for yourself what it is like to walk there. For you, this book comes at the right time because with it you will have all the information you need to make your Camino a special and magical walk. 
Perhaps you are not yet ready. You have thought about "doing" a Camino, but you don't think you are ready yet. You may have put off the idea of a Camino for a while because you think other things are more important and you don't have time or because you could never walk that far. Maybe you think you are too old, not strong enough or too awkward or that you need to know more about the Camino first. Maybe you're afraid of dogs, wolves, wild boars or some people along the way and that's why you've put it off. Maybe you worry about sleeping in dormitories with bunk beds full of snoring people. The desire for the Camino may lurk in you behind these high thresholds, yet it keeps calling to you. 
This book is written to help you cross these thresholds and more than that: it shows you the way to the magic of the Camino to discover, that the Camino is much more than any long-distance walk or fun vacation. From walking dreams to walking the Camino and more, because your Camino can become a pilgrimage, a spiritual journey of discovery. That is why this book comes your way 
But what exactly do those words Camino, pilgrim and pilgrimage mean? I'll tell you in the next chapter.  
 

Pilgrimage to Santiago 

A journey of discovery of healing, enriching and spiritual insights.

Camino is the Spanish word for "road. So the Camino de Santiago, or simply "the Camino," is simply the road to Santiago. It is, however, a special road, namely traditionally a pilgrim's road to the relics of St. James in the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela. The pilgrim roads to Santiago are not ordinary long walking trails, not Grand Randonnées. On an "ordinary" GR, people walk mainly for the pleasure of walking longer distances. The difference with a GR is in the spiritual essence of the Camino, where runners consciously or unconsciously follow in the footsteps of an ancient pilgrim tradition. Pilgrims traditionally walked the Camino for a variety of reasons. Crooks were sentenced to a pilgrimage as penance, others went on a pilgrimage to the relics of St. James in search of forgiveness of sins, enlightenment of spirit or obtaining indulgences by reaching the final goal.
During my first few days on the road to Santiago, I thought that a "real" pilgrim on the Camino of Santiago was a faithful Catholic pilgrim, heading for the relics of St. James. Even though I had resolved to set out with a spiritual intention, meditative walking I called it, I was reluctant to feel and call myself a pilgrim. I was not a Catholic, let alone a devout Catholic, and frankly I was rather skeptical about the alleged relics in Santiago Cathedral. I still am, by the way, but as the understanding gradually dawned that it is not the relics, but the Camino with its mind-expanding potential itself, that may be the goal of the pilgrimage, I could freely identify with the role of pilgrim as spiritual explorer.
The pilgrim's certificate of pilgrimage, de compostela, is traditionally an official ecclesiastical document in the pilgrim's name with the following text (in 2024):
'The Chapter of this Holy Apostolic and Archdiocesan Church of Compostela, custodian of the seal of the Altar of St. James the Apostle, who prepares authentic letters of visitation for all the faithful and pilgrims coming from all parts  the world, who with an attitude of devotion or because of a vow or promise make a pilgrimage to the Tomb of the Apostle, our patron saint and protector of Spain, recognizes for all those who observe this document that: (name pilgrim) has devoutly visited this most holy temple and has traveled the last hundred kilometers on foot or on horseback or the last two hundred by bicycle with Christian sentiment (pietatis causa). As proof of which I present this document, endorsed with the seal of the same Holy Church. 
This document merely states, that the pilgrim has "devoutly visited the most holy temple. It promises nothing. Passing this finish line in itself does not grant the pilgrim absolution from sins and or an indulgence. Although a completed pilgrimage to Santiago can in principle, under conditions, give such a reward, even that is the reason for fewer and fewer people today to go to Santiago. Much more, besides sporting and/or tourist reasons, the Camino is walked for personal and/or spiritual motives, often in the hopeful expectation of interesting experiences along the way, such as friendships, healing insights, spiritual growth and even transcendent experiences. The visit to the alleged relics of St. James the Greater in Santiago Cathedral and the religious text of the compostela may then be considered a meaningful ritual but is no longer the ultimate goal of the pilgrimage in the traditionally ecclesiastical sense. The Camino itself has become the goal and Santiago the end point of what for many has been an extraordinary journey. 
In the past, one was a pilgrim or pilgrim by being on the way to a religious place of pilgrimage. As the road is experienced as an end in itself, the notion of pilgrim expands in the sense from traveler on the way to a place of pilgrimage, to explorer of enriching and spiritual insights on the road itself. 
     
 
 

What this book is not and is not about 

A spiritual explorer sets out with confidence 
 
As an informant with the Dutch Society of St. James, I get a lot of questions about pilgrimage, for example about public transportation, what time of year is best to go, itineraries and so on. The Internet provides plenty of answers to such questions. We won't go over that here. This is a guide for all Caminos, but feel free to leave it at home when you set out because it is not a travel guide in the usual sense of the word. It does not give information about routes including facilities such as places to eat, places to stay overnight, what to see along the routes or history. Nor is it about who or what belongs or does not belong on the Camino. Everyone should know that for themselves, as long as basic rules of civilization such as respect for others and nature are observed. Want to bike on the Camino? Fine. Want to walk the Camino in an organized trip in a group or go on horseback or dressed as a medieval monk? With a dog or a donkey? All fine. This "guide" does not pass judgment on any form of locomotion or motivation. Before anything else, let it be clear that physical limitations can limit your choice of transportation and that no mode of locomotion on the Camino can stop the universe from manifesting itself. The same applies indifferently to whatever motivation or intention a person may have for moving on the Camino. In principle, the Camino is a public road that anyone can use, pilgrim or not, but the question is what does most justice to the Camino as a pilgrim road, as a spiritual journey of discovery. 
 
A more interesting question I am regularly asked is what I think is the most beautiful route, because that leads to the simple realization that all routes are beautiful, provided you decide to be happy every minute on the Camino, no matter what. Worries get in the way of happiness. Important, then, that you prepare well, physically and mentally. That makes room for happiness and confidence. By setting out with confidence, you will be able to benefit most from the special value of the Camino and you will see how wonderfully beautiful walking a Camino can be, even if it runs through an industrial park. In the following chapters I tell you, what I do in terms of preparation for a carefree pilgrimage, including physical and mental training and putting together a complete but simple set of equipment. In the second part, you will find many of my thoughts on this, hidden in the stories of two long Camino's, included as illustrations in this book. 
 
 

   Material preparation 

Z=AxBxCxPxW. In words, the severity of hiking is determined by the factors of distance, luggage, fitness, trail and weather. 
Jeroen Gooskens, Far Away. 
 
Backpack and clothing. Much information can be found on the Internet, but again and again I see that people find it impossible that a backpack can't weigh more than six pounds and they often have no idea how to control the weight of a complete set of gear, which is why it gets extra attention here. It is important to get this right so that your equipment does not literally and figuratively weigh down on you. 
 
 

The backpack 

There is a rule circulating, that ideally the backpack should weigh 10% of your body weight. This rule applies at most if you do not weigh more than 70 kg. There is no logical relationship between body weight and what you can carry. My motto is: always as light as possible. Limit basic gear to a maximum of five kilograms or seven if you are taking a tent and accessories. Don't bring stuff "just to be sure if...." and trust, that should you run short of something along the way, the Camino will provide it. The more confidence, the lighter, but not at any cost. Use common sense and a (kitchen) scale. Walking on flat roads, a kilo more or less will not matter much, in the mountains, however, all the more. I have experienced them, hikers with fifteen kilos or even more. In extreme cases with both a backpack and a 'breast bag'. I should not think about it! On my first Camino I carried a backpack of around eight kilos, not counting water and food. In later years I got rid of more than three kilos without compromising my comfort. A backpack weighing five to seven kilograms cannot be felt after a few days of walking and can be carried over longer distances by almost anyone without any problems. As a result, you don't need separate transportation of your luggage, which means you're not tied to a particular overnight spot and you can stop whenever you want. The slight burden of your backpack is dwarfed by the freedom it gives you along the way. 
Of course your backpack should be of good quality and preferably personally fitted in a specialized store, but pay particular attention to the weight of the backpack itself because before you know it you are walking with a backpack weighing two kilos or even more, while less than one kilo is quite possible. Thirty, at most thirty-five liters is enough. In the backpack I hide a tag so I can easily trace it after a flight, for example. 
A useful principle is, some items can be used for multiple purposes. For example, I use my raincoat also as a windstopper and as a rain cover over my backpack. That easily saves half a kilogram. 
What do I not take with me? To be sure, on the Camino you don't need gear to spend days self-supporting in the bush. So no stoves, pans, plates, cups, extensive emergency supplies, spare clothes and parts. I met someone with a 16-pound backpack. He defended taking a stove and accessories with the argument, that he could make a cup of coffee anywhere he wanted. A great example, how the illusion of avoiding a rare disastrous coffee-less day makes life tough literally and figuratively. Sometimes I eat a can of cold beans or something else. Can be fine. Cold beans, no coffee, you might think, and indeed if that is your firm expectation, it will be hard. Maybe it helps if I tell you that on the more than three hundred and thirty days that I was on the road, I had no coffee for maybe ten days. 
Give the universe a chance to get through to you and meet your needs, when needed. Leave at home everything that keeps you away the here and now that you can do just fine without on the Camino: earphones, e-readers, books and so on. Make not only your backpack as light as possible, but also your thoughts and judgments. 
 

What ‘s in the backpack? 

 
In terms of clothing, I take everything I need for all weather conditions: hot, cold or wet. I take less in the summer than in the winter, but even in the summer it can get cold at night, especially if you're high in the mountains. Keep that in mind. 
One pair of lightweight shorts made from a pair of long merino (blend) pants whose knees were broken by a fall. They are my spare pants that I put on when my long hiking pants go in the wash. Of course, if you're not afraid of burning your calves in the sun, it can be done the other way around. One merino T-shirt. Merino is not cheap, but it dries quickly and does not absorb sweat odors, unlike synthetic sportswear or cotton. One pair of underpants. I put those on at night after showering and keep them on until the next evening. Then it goes in the wash and I put on the underpants I washed the night before. If necessary, the underpants also function as swimming trunks. Mutatis mutandis, women's lingerie can serve as a bikini I've heard, but I don't know about that. I also take a fleece jacket, sometimes a light wool sweater and usually a quilted jacket or a down jacket. As long as it's not freezing, this is enough for me. You can combine it in different ways in layers according to the temperature. If you expect lower temperatures, bring gloves, a hat and or a buff and possibly thermo leggings and long-sleeved thermo shirts. Don't worry about getting too cold along the way. If it gets colder than you expected, you can always buy something warm and if your sleeping bag isn't warm enough at night, you can keep the jacket on, but most of the time it won't be too bad. One or two pairs of socks. No more. On the road, they can be bought at any larger supermarket. Some swear by merino, others by cotton, wool or special hiking socks. Still others prefer to walk with toe socks. I myself usually start a hike with toe socks to give the skin of the toes extra protection. After a few hundred kilometers sufficient calluses have formed, after which I can do with regular socks 
Rainwear is a chapter of its own. As with socks and footwear, everyone has their own preference. I see all kinds of things: a rain jacket with rain pants with or without zippers from top to bottom along the legs for easy donning, plastic (disposable) ponchos, umbrellas. I haven't found the ideal outfit when it rains a lot so far. I use a lightweight raincoat with a zipper in the front and an extra bulge in the back for over the backpack. That saves another rain cover over the backpack. I unzip when the shower is over and pull my arms out of the sleeves. Then it hangs like a loose cape over my shoulders to dry: nice and airy, because especially if it's not very cold, it's bound to get sweaty in a rain outfit, even if it's supposedly breathable. Sometimes I use this raincoat as a windstopper. 
What else? A spoon and fork, preferably combined as a "spork. A simple iron S-hook is very handy for hanging things on the bed or in the shower. I made one from a coat hanger. A pair of slippers for the evening, a quick-drying towel and toiletries, a sitting mat, a light or headlamp for when the days are short, a charger for my phone, and last but not least a bag containing disinfectant, a tick remover and nail scissors, any medications, a roll of sports tape and some sterile gauze and band-aids. Even if you don't need it yourself, it's nice if you can help another hiker with that. 
 Also, a document bag with a drawstring, which holds my papers and which I can hang around my neck if I have to leave my backpack somewhere 
Always, depending on the season, I take a sleeping bag or a lighter fleece blanket with me: nice to lie in or on: I don't really like the blankets often available in hostels. 
Everything goes on a kitchen scale with me. For example, if I have to choose between two similar sweaters, the lighter one goes with me. Then I put everything into an Excel file so I can see exactly what the result of my weighing is. 
The stuff in my backpack is sorted and stored in two or three drybags of different color, then it stays dry and compact and everything is easy to find. 
 the back of the book is a list of everything I am taking with me. It also lists things that can be brought extra if necessary, such as camping gear.Hiking outfit 
Long merino (blend) pants: lightweight. These let sweat through well without sticking and dry quickly after a rain or a wash. If it's cold at night, I also use them as pajama pants. I made two mini pockets with a snap-button closure on the inside where I keep an ID card and a debit card. If all my stuff gets nicked, I can still move on unless they take off my pants, too. If I walk through grass, I tuck the pant legs into my socks to keep ticks out. Furthermore, a merino T-shirt and possibly layers of clothing from the backpack: a fleece jacket, a wool sweater, a quilted jacket and possibly a raincoat/poncho. A cap or hat. The latter protects the neck and ears better when the sun shines brightly. Shoes is something, which everyone thinks about differently. In general, again I say: the lighter the better, because the weight of your shoes feels at least twice as heavy as weight in your backpack. In any case, the soles should have a good tread and, because your feet expand on long treks, they should be at least one size larger than what you are used to wearing. Sometimes an extra-wide shoe is the solution to prevent blisters on the toes. Special insoles can be useful, for example with extra support for the arch of the foot, or thin at the toes giving them more space. If it rains constantly, almost no shoe is waterproof. Bring an extra pair of insoles as a spare, which is nice if the insoles get wet. I heard enthusiastic stories about waterproof socks, but have no experience with them (yet). Some want ankle-high shoes, myself I prefer low trail runners: light and quick drying 

Walking sticks are endlessly debated. Some swear by them, others detest them. It ranges from a simple stick or branch to expensive foldable lightweight carbon sticks. I almost always walk with sticks. Just see in practice what you like best. One thing is certain: with sticks you won't get fat hands while walking and you can keep dogs at bay well with them. Often they are not allowed in the cabin of an airplane, so you get extra charges for checked baggage 

Information and the web 

 
If you scour the Internet you will automatically find many useful apps and facebook pages with useful information about routes, lodging addresses, etc. Camino associations are active in a number of countries. In the Netherlands it is the Genootschap van Sint Jacob. If you have spelled out the site of the Genootschap from front to back, you are already very well informed. The same goes for the site of the Flemish Compostela Society. A few suggestions I don't want to withhold from you. 
□ The site caminoweather.com that gives weather averages for each (part of) your Camino. Useful if you want to know if you need to bring warm clothes, but you won't be guaranteed ideal hiking weather. 
□ The Spanish app AlertCops, for when something nasty happens. 
□ The site Rome2rio.com which gives you a lot of information about public transportation. Incidentally, I believe, that overly eager use of public transportation, including cabs, is conducive to boosting convenience but less conducive to an authentic pilgrim experience. 
Make sure you have a good weather site on your phone that can alert you to adverse weather conditions. 
Other useful sites can easily be found on the Internet. I leave further searching there to you: I don't want to deprive you of that fun 
Hiking guides and route books are informative but have the disadvantage, being an extra weight in your backpack and vulnerable on a rainy day. Moreover, the information soon becomes dated. I don't take them with me. All the information is in my phone. 
 
   

Physical preparations 

It is a noble art; know how to walk and you know how to live. 
Stephen Graham 
 
'The Hiker's Luck' is the title of a little book written around 1925 by Stephen Graham and recently published in a Dutch translation. Graham was a passionate hiker who traveled halfway around the world, preferring to spend nights in nature. Although his equipment did not have the technical sophistication we know today, he gives interesting practical advice that is still relevant today. He does not shy away from philosophical reflections on the utility and intrinsic wisdoms of hiking, regardless of outdated insights such as his praise of tobacco smoking, but the essence of hiking as a healthy and insightful activity comes out nicely in this booklet. 
Hopefully this book will bring the same values to the fore, beginning with a description of the necessary physical measures for a successful Camino. 
The physical training 
 
It is perhaps needless to say that prior to your long hike you should walk as much as possible. I have seen too many hikers who went out unprepared and often that caused problems. Walk to work and back home. Leave the car somewhere along the way and walk the last five kilometers to work. Do your errands walking. Take a long walk once or twice a week and gradually work up to twenty kilometers or more. Walk in your walking shoes and walking socks as much as possible. Take the stairs instead of the elevator, even if you live fourteen stories up. 
If you manage to keep the weight of your backpack below five pounds, you do not need to train with a full one, although it is wise to try running with your backpack a few times. If you can't keep your backpack light, train often with a full one to get used to the weight. But better to see, what you can throw out before you leave. 
Once you start your Camino, it is advisable in the beginning not to walk more than fifteen to twenty kilometers per day. This way you have less chance of injuries. Your condition will improve by leaps and bounds during the first days and weeks and before you know it you will easily be walking twenty to thirty kilometers a day in flat terrain. Your Camino is intensive athletic workout!


 

Blisters 

 
A whole chapter on blisters? Yes, many hikers on the Camino suffer from blisters. So it can't hurt, to say something about that. If you are very sure, that you will not get blisters then you may skip this part, although, you can help other runners with blisters well if you read on anyway. I myself have painfully learned what does and does not work for blisters and how to prevent blisters as much as possible. 
Because you walk a considerable distance every day on the Camino, the skin of your foot becomes more fragile than you are used to, especially at the beginning of your trek, and you may get a blister as a result. Some use special foot creams for that. I'm not sure it's much use and have never used it, but use it if you think it helps and otherwise do everything else that is sure to help prevent blisters. That means appropriate, well-fitting shoes and socks. What is appropriate is different for everyone. Find that out well before you start your hike. Are you on your way and notice a burning sensation in the skin of your foot, stop immediately and stick porous sports tape over it. With any luck, you'll prevent a blister that way. Blisters are painful but if they get infected, you're totally screwed. Therefore, be sure to be sterile when treating a blister. That's why: don't pull a wire through it because you will attract bacteria and they will feast on the exposed skin in the blister and an inflamed blister hurts so much that you don't want to take another step. Always disinfect the skin and scissors or needle before opening the blister. I prefer a small sharp nail scissors and iodine ointment (or an alternative remedy if you have an allergy to iodine) from a small tube. If a blister causes little or no pain, leave it nicely closed, so no bugs get in, but keep an eye on it, that it does not get bigger, and tape sports tape over it. If the blister needs to be opened to relieve the fluid inside, first apply some iodine ointment (Betadine) to the skin and the scissors. Then cut the blister open a little bit. You can also prick the blister open with a needle, but since that hole is very small, you run a chance, that it will close again with the same speed. Empty the blister and then cover it with a porous sports tape that allows the moisture from the blister to pass through. The tape forms a protective layer on the skin and stays on for days, even when showering. If you want to do it all right, smear some iodine ointment on the tape. With this approach, you can continue walking virtually pain-free the next day and have the least chance of an inflamed blister 
Treatment and prevention of all kinds of other physical problems can be easily found on the web. 
 
 

Mental preparations 

Begin by being silent. Silence the outer world so that your inner world can bring you insight. 
Neale Donald Walsch 
 
If you want, that your pilgrimage on the Camino becomes a spiritual journey then the mental preparation is at least as important as the physical. In this context, trust is a key concept 
Give attention only to positive thoughts about your upcoming Camino, look forward to it, and from now on, leave negative future thoughts and doomsday scenarios for what they are: no more than thoughts. 
The following chapters reflect my experiences on the Camino. Perhaps it will give you some ideas, but do what you think of and what suits you, as long as it makes you feel good. 
 
 

The Camino as a spiritual journey  

The voice calling me I feel much deeper within me.
Line from a poem by E.G.B.


It is said that the numerous devotees of the Pilgrim's Way imbued the Pilgrim's Way with a certain energy, reflected in a magical power that could make the pilgrimage an extraordinary journey with events described as miracles. The location of the path on presumed ley lines would also play a role in this, just as it is believed that some churches, due to the devotion of numerous believers and a specific location on ley centers, are charged with a silent religious energy. This energy disappears completely or partially as soon as the house of worship turns into a museum, let alone into stores, homes or other non-religious forms of exploitation and commerce. Similarly, it is sometimes feared that the spiritual power of the Camino will perish because of its commercial success as a tourist event with huge numbers of hikers and the general human desire for luxury and comfort which does not suddenly stop at a Camino and which in recent decades has become more and more visible in the form of luggage transport, luxurious options for spending the night, electric bicycles, fully organized walking tours and so on. Whether these fears are well-founded remains to be seen given the steady stream of pilgrims' stories in books and on the Web about extraordinary occurrences, which are difficult to explain as coincidences and are quite often referred to as "magical. Nevertheless, I believe that, to put it mildly, there is no harm in focusing primarily on spirituality as a runner, not only because it brings you so much more than a mere tourist walk, but also because it is a valuable contribution to the preservation of the special spiritual nature of the Camino, just as authentic devotion of church-goers is more conducive to the quiet religious energy of a church than the restlessness of a more or less corporate function. This is why I walk the Camino not as a tourist, but as a pilgrim with a spiritual intention.

Start the mental training for a spiritual Camino with a thoughtful composition of your equipment, which means that later you will have with you everything that is really necessary and nothing more than that. Make sure you feel you are adequately informed about the Camino you are going to walk, then you won't lose energy on the Camino about it.
Are you someone, who wants everything arranged and under control? To you I would say: let go of control, walk in freedom and trust that the Camino, the Universe, God or whatever you call it, will take care of you. Don't worry about accommodations along the way, don't worry about wild animals or people along the way, don't worry about getting lost, accidents, disease, bad weather and whatever other calamities can be thought of. The more you trust, the more peace in your mind, the more your intuition is fed by the universe, and the more happiness comes your way. Impress upon yourself that you can do it, pay no attention to doubts and annoyances, but look forward to your pilgrimage. 
Practice walking in silence and leave thoughts for what they are. Pay no attention to them because silence is necessary for undisturbed reflection of the universe. The cadence of walking helps to clear your head and get rid of judgments, worries and other mostly fleeting thoughts that get in the way of contact with stillness. Focus outward, paying particular attention to everything that makes you happy. Talk less and listen all the more. Listen and see the wonders of the Camino. 
In the travel stories I am going to tell you in this book, they are bursting with miracles, mostly hidden in the text, just as miracles hide in everyday life. Miracles are always and everywhere. The longer you are on the Camino the more you are open to them. On the Camino you are taught, as it were, to discover them. That is the beauty of the Camino. 
 
 

Booking or not? 

'Both poor and rich pilgrims of whatever origin, departing from Santiago or arriving there, should be received and welcomed hospitably' 
Codex Calixtinus, book five: The Pilgrim's Guide. 
 
 
At first glance, it may seem strange, that this and the following paragraph have been put under the mental preparation section. It is not a mistake. It is all about the trust you have that the Camino, the universe or whatever you call it, will take care of you. Many times I have said that St. James reserved a place to spend the night for me. Never did I have a problem finding a place to sleep. Usually I was welcome at the first inn without a reservation. Sometimes I made a reservation in the morning for the next night, sometimes for the next two nights. Sometimes I got a place to sleep before I realized there was a problem with an overnight address. For example, one time I was picked up somewhere in France by a motorist who drove me to one of two lodging addresses in the nearby village. Both addresses turned out to be closed. Then my benefactor arranged an alternative address fifteen kilometers away. He took me there, after first offering me a beer on a cozy terrace. Sometimes things "sort themselves out," like the time I was overtaken by a runner. She struck up a conversation with me. I asked her if she knew a spot for my tent. She called the management of a nursing home and arranged for me to spend the night in the beautiful garden of a vacant retirement home that had recently been decommissioned. Sometimes with a clear request to the universe like that time in Belgium when I was looking for a place to sleep in a small village and said to myself, "Father Jacob, do something about it!" Within a minute a car pulled up. The driver stopped, whereupon I asked him if he knew a place to pitch my tent. "Just walk behind me." A hundred yards away, he stopped at his modest home, offered me a nice sheltered spot in his garden overlooking the meadows. I could go on and on listing these kinds of chance encounters, which in my mind are not really chance. It may sound unreal to your ears, but I learned to trust, that problems do not exist. 
Then you should never make reservations? Of course not. Use your common sense and don't go on the bonnet when locally the vacations break out or if you're running in a group, but in your search, don't be guided by fear because it will get in the way of your happiness. 
 
 

Alone, together or in a group? 

 A traveling companion is ideal. Yet we all know that even for close friends, keeping each other company for an extended period of time can be quite an ordeal. You find that out when you share a room with someone for some time. You even find out numerous things about your companion that you never expected from him, and he from you. A cloud no bigger than a human hand can develop into a huge thundercloud, and then there will be an argument over something that, in retrospect, hardly seemed worth all the fuss. Even a man and a woman who are ideal for each other will experience this. Perhaps nothing tests a friendship like a long trek. You expose each other to all the selfish, self-righteous traits that are your own. You may not even recognize your own, but you may recognize your companion's. 
Stephen Graham 
 
 
This is exactly how it is and on the Camino it is no different, Stephen Graham wrote a century ago. On the Camino you win friends and lose friendships, it is often said. It's up to you to make your choice with these considerations: walk alone or walk together, but if you're looking for the magic of the Camino it's better to walk alone. Tuning into another person and talking all day usually does little to help you tune into the universe, at least that has been my experience and all the more so if you are walking with a group. Along the way and in the albergue in the evening you usually get plenty of opportunity for contacts and good conversation, if you feel the need 
 
     
 
 

Summary and recommendations 

being happy is a decision
 
This book shows you the way into the magic of the Camino to discover, that the Camino is much more than just any long-distance walk or fun tourist outing. Moreover, by walking along the Camino as a pilgrim, you help  its spiritual potential and original character. 
Philosophizing about the special nature of the Camino, the following recommendations came to mind 
 

• always seek happiness: being happy is a decision.
• Go with confidence in yourself and the universe.
• Walk alone and turn your attention outward and in particular to everything that makes you happy.
• leave at home anything that can keep you out of the here and now that you can do just fine without: problems, earbuds, e-readers, books, etc.
• talk less and listen all the more.
• Take with you only what is really necessary. Make not only your backpack as light as possible, but also your thoughts and judgments.
• Carry your own luggage so you can go and stop when you want. 
• Walk longer Caminos and take your time.
• move forward in your own strength.

 
 
Summarized in one sentence:
Give the universe space to get through to you and meet your needs. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

PART 2 

 
 
Do it too!
Walk, walk.
Defy your pride, your ease.
Walk the blisters on your feet.
Sleep in creaky bunk bed.
Sleep surrounded by animal snoring.
Sleep in dank cubicles.
Drag yourself panting up mountains.
Eat from unity sausage pot.
Walk and indulge in love
of the universe,
of nature and each other
and closer to yourself,
preferably to more than that. 

Walk, walk the Camino de Santiago. 

 
 
In Part 2, I'll share with you two of my Camino, which I named the Carrer del Miracle and Calle de la Esperanza, respectively. 
By way of encouragement, I can tell you that you can certainly undertake such Camino's, assuming your health is no less than mine at my age. Assuming an average of 25 km. per day, the longer of the two routes takes 56 days, the shorter 28 days. If you really want it and are convinced, that you will succeed then it will certainly happen, because you are not the subject of your circumstances, but the creator of them. 
 
In these travel stories, miracles are sometimes called white rabbits, but often they are hidden in the text like rabbits in their burrows. Miracles are always and everywhere. On the Camino you are taught, as it were, to discover them. That is the beauty of the Camino. 
  
     

Carrer del Miracle 

"In this life, there is time for everything, but the most important thing is to live. 
Gotarrendura police 
 
Valencia - Santiago de Compostela: across Spain and Portugal from southeast to northwest over thirteen hundred kilometers. It can be hot, but also very cold. Pay close attention to the short-term and long-term weather forecasts and especially avoid the heat. For the first twelve hundred kilometers you will see few or no hikers or pilgrims. A pleasant consequence is that this Camino does not slip into a commercial witch-hunt and nowhere is there a "completo" sign. Here you are often received and welcomed hospitably and the magic of the Camino is easily expressed. That's why I call this road a "Carrer del Miracle. 
 
     
 

On the road to Valencia 

Carrer del Miracle
Street sign in Valencia

June 3, 2024, Santiago de Compostela.
I don't feel the pain in my scholarship-ridden feet. I don't feel the fatigue. I don't feel my backpack. I only feel excited joy.
Ellen and I walk through the narrow crowded streets of Santiago. We squeeze past strolling tourists, a beggar, a leaflet seller and hurriedly pass other pilgrims with large full backpacks and the runners with small day bags. My heart is racing: soon we will be at the cathedral in the Plaza do Obradoiro, the goal of our pilgrimage
Energetically and at the same time almost solemnly we walk into the square, moved, delighted and also somewhat proud. Around us the familiar scene of the countless pilgrims, photographed in triumphant poses against the backdrop of the cathedral, sticks raised high, luxury runners with day bags and touring cyclists, often tied together in groups by a tour guide. The white tourist train is waiting for them in one corner of the square. From the same corner comes the overpowering wail from a bagpipe. Nothing stands in the way of our happiness here.
Nevertheless, the hotel does threaten to get in the way of our happiness. A blazing hot attic room with a skylight above eye level. No air conditioning. Ellen is furious. She bluffs the hotel and Booking, gets us to cancel the room free of charge and reserves a room in the Parador Hotel on the same square as the cathedral. Three times as expensive, a hundred times better. We enjoy the luxury and the friendly staff. We have earned it, we think: not for nothing did we walk more than four hundred kilometers on the Camino Portugués from Porto to Muxía.



June 4, 2024, Santiago de Compostela
I want a real Panama. I buy one at my favorite hat store, Sombrerería Iglesias, located in the quaint Rúa do Vilar in Santiago's old town. A small antique store with mouthwatering hats and caps in the window. From floor to ceiling, piles of round burgundy hat boxes line the walls. With great patience, one box after another is opened. The owner, Tino Fernández Iglesias, understands exactly what I want despite our poor communication. My choice falls on an elegant one with a nicely dented top, fitted with a black band and a wide rim that curves slightly down at the front. I will love putting these on my head in the coming weeks!

June 5, 2024, Valencia
Early in the morning I leave the five-star world with a cotton bag from the Parador Hotel containing a desayuno that I can walk on for three days. After an embrace, Ellen waves me off with a "Buen Camino." She is traveling back to Rotterdam today. For her, 400 kilometers was enough. For me, it is just beginning. The many "rounds of Kralingseplas" of 10 kilometers and the Camino Portugués up to Muxía were a nice training for the next Camino. Tomorrow I start a walk of thirteen hundred kilometers with calluses on my feet, trained legs and bursting with energy from Valencia to Santiago, via the Camino de Levante, the Camino Teresiano, the Camino Torres and the Camino Portugués.
The train leaves around a quarter to eight from Santiago to Valencia. Check-in is complete with luggage scanning. In Madrid, I have an hour of transfer time before the connecting train. Somewhere along the way it stalls eerily long, dwarfing the transfer. The ventilation fails. As a result, I start smelling people. The initially peaceful silence gives way to restless chatter, but fortunately after about fifteen minutes we move on and peace returns, even in myself. Long tunnels and overpasses, one of which I recognize by its shape. That's where I walked along the Vía de la Plata last year. That was tough: the path was not nearly as straight as the trail and very steep. After two hours we cross the Meseta: endless plains. I don't understand myself that I will soon want to walk through that for weeks. But I have to. Pilgrimage is an addiction some say, but I say it's an obsession. At least for me.
During the long train ride, I contemplate the route I will walk starting tomorrow. In the past three years I walked from home to Santiago via the Camino Francés, I walked the Norte, the Portugués, the Primitivo and the Plata. A different Camino each time, because to walk the same route twice, I don't like that. Perhaps unfairly, but I think repeating a route is too easy and at the expense of my open-mindedness. I like the surprise of unknown routes. Unknown routes over the next few weeks are sure to be. A site like Gronze, which describes countless Caminos, just doesn't get the Levante off the ground and certainly doesn't mention the Torres or the Teresiano. I used to lie awake sometimes and see central Spain as half a desert, where almost no human life is possible: dry, hot and desolate. I still find it a bit exciting. I didn't feel that before, even when I was going to walk solo from Rotterdam to Santiago in 2021, even though I had never done anything like that before. What a strange habit that is to invent doomsday scenarios and then suffer from them. Why no indestructible confidence? Yet I know, that once I have taken the first steps on the Camino, all doubts and tensions will fall away from me. Satisfied with this conclusion, I take another long look through the window at the land that slips beneath me at 295 kilometers per hour.
After 7 o'clock I step into a summer warm Valencia. From tomorrow some thirteen hundred kilometers back to Santiago, 130 "rounds of Kralingse Plas," and I'm back to square one. Don't bother to understand....
Valencia is a beautiful city with beautiful women, beautiful stores, beautiful cafes, beautiful terraces, beautiful facades and beautiful churches. And also with lots of beggars and the foul smell of sewage, as befits big hot cities. The cathedral has been turned into a museum, where I am allowed in for 6 with a 3 euro discount because of my advanced age, including a stamp in my pilgrim passport. Not much for a museum, but for a church, I don't know. No, then the iglesia San Juan del Hospital, around the corner from the Carrer del Miracle. There I can go right in for pilgrim mass to reflect on my walk. A handful of elderly believers and only two other pilgrims. That will be a quiet walk tomorrow. Three of us at most. 
Right next to the Center Valencia Youth Hostel -'rooms with 2, 4, 6, 8 and 16 places in bunk beds'- where you can be promoted to vagrant for a trifle, is a hotel where you can put that off for five times as many euros. I walk into the hostel, I think. It looks very good for a bunk-bed warehouse, until the receptionist mentions the price. I gloat, because it's kind of expensive for bunk beds, but go ahead and don't whine: I get a private room with air conditioning, a regular bed and a bathroom. 
I walk into town and only then see, that the youth hostel is next to my hotel. On the sidewalk are young people smoking dope. Father Jacob has guided me through the right front door. Tomorrow I do start the real pilgrim life, on my Carrer del Miracle. 
 
 

Camino de Levante

I am a bingewalker.


June 6, 2024, Algemesi, 39 kilometers
Early in the morning I start the Camino de Levante. About the road to Algemesi I can be brief: 17 kilometers of city, 13 kilometers of industrial area and 10 kilometers of agriculture, mostly citrus. Not a single pilgrim, not even on a bicycle. Dry river beds. A nice square in Silla with a beautiful church open and a nice terrace with good coffee. The road is literally as old as the road to Rome: Via Augusta, of which there is no more left than imitation columns, a kind of kilometer markers, but different.
I walk into an ugly city: Algemesi. The first Algemesians I see are two Muslim women and a scalper digging in a dumpster. The old town does make up for it a bit with nice little streets. My, I might add, excellent mood and energy were hardly compromised, even by all the roaring, smelly factories, but for now, forty kilometers in one day is the limit for my feet and legs.
There I sit on a bench in a park at a quarter to four, gazed upon by an important bronze man's head on a granite pedestal. 29 degrees, but in the shade and with some wind it is quite bearable. I would have preferred to lie on my pilgrim's bed now to give my feet, legs and back their well-deserved rest: it has taken me since six o'clock this morning to get here. The Museum of Tourist Information does not open until 5:30 and not at 3:30 as my itinerary says. Half past five! They have the key to the municipal inn. I can also get it through the police. The officer on duty speaks Spanish, like me, but more than the ten words I know. That doesn't communicate well over the phone. In any case, he doesn't understand what I want. I thank him for the trouble with one of those ten: 'gracias' and he replies with one of the other nine: 'nada'. That is why I am now sitting on that bench being patient and listening to the birds, because to walk another few kilometers to the police, I cannot do that to myself and especially my feet.
The hostel is on the second floor of an old building. I am taken there by an employee of the museum across the street. She speaks a little English, but enough for me to understand her. Her older colleague speaks fluent Spanish. I don't understand her, but the cordiality is no less. The dormitory could be in a museum. At the end of a long corridor are showers and toilets. It looks neat. A good place for the first night on the Camino.
Mountains are coming into view. I should hope, the Camino does not cross them. It's hard enough as it is.

June 7, 2024, Xátiva, 35 kilometers, total 74 kilometers
I had the whole albergue to myself. Nice and quiet. As I leave, the sky looks strange and after a while I hear thunder, not predicted on any weather site. In Alzira, an attractive modern city, I go for an extensive coffee, but the thunderstorm does not start, so I decide to continue. After a kilometer it dawns on me that I don’t have my sticks with me, that I forgot to bring my poles. Back to the café. Eventually this takes enough time to get the thunderstorm including shelter still just in the city and not in the open field: white rabbit! Never heard of my white rabbit? It stands for miracle. On the Camino I have more of an eye for miracles than in "ordinary" life. Then it is usually called coincidence.
Beautiful villages and towns with whipped cream pie houses, a creek with turtles, many more miles than expected, less industry and more orange plantations than yesterday, complete with irrigation and poison spraying. I reach the mountains but don't have to cross them. No other runners. Those two from Valencia? Never seen them again.
In Algemesi, I meet a very helpful employee at the tourist office who speaks good English and does his best to arrange a place to stay. Tonight I sleep in the Casa Rural de Xátiva. It is only a 10-minute walk. Halfway there, the boss with one leg in a cast waits for me on his scooter to show me the way. He kindly shouts a lot of info in Spanish, which doesn't help me understand better, but I understand the most important thing all the better: I have my own room, even with air conditioning and easily found. I am happy.
 
June 8, 2024, Moixent 29 kilometers, total 103 kilometers
I wake up a little after five and immediately begin the morning ritual: breakfast, shower, pack and leave at six. By then the town is still quiet, except for the singing of blackbirds. After an hour, the road goes up to a nice village, where a cat comes to keep me company while I eat some bread. The route becomes more rural, passing through a valley with a languishing stream. Less and less orange plantations. Olive groves take their place. In the distance against a mountain I see a town, caused by a castle above it. Every town in this region is under a castle. There must have been a lot of bickering here and still I hear heated disputes in the cafes and see all kinds of views sprayed on walls, up to swastikas, often fortunately sprayed away again. I don't want to give it any attention and certainly no picture. I would prefer not to pass judgment, but I don't succeed, nor do I manage to neutralize my horror at all the roadside trash. Today, for the first time, someone wishes me buen Camino. She is an energetic woman in a pretty town. I did photograph her. Furthermore, the many unfinished projects strike me again and again. Today especially kilometers of railroad without rails. The fences are rusting. Such a railroad is often the shortest way and well level. Too bad it is closed.
At the Moixent police station, I gain access to my lodging. A police officer registers me and takes me to my albergue in the same building. It is because I am not handcuffed, but crazy it feels. Again, I am the only pilgrim. This has the advantage that I can shower and wash extensively. Outside the window hangs a drying rack. Quickly my laundry dries in the sun, just before a hailstorm would ruin it. Furthermore, the absolute simplicity of the lodging helps me not imagine anything. It is not clean and as cozy as a detainee's quarters. Good enough for a pilgrim but not for tourists. Those should just stay in a hotel between ironed sheets. Here are bunk beds with mattresses with a plastic cover, which bedbugs don't like and neither do I, for that matter. I put my fleece blanket over it and go to sleep in my clothes. This is a pilgrimage, not a vacation. I am not quite sure how I could tout this existence to some as the happiness of the pilgrim.
 
June 9, 2024, Almansa, 40 kilometers, total 143 kilometers
I have to go up into the mountains today to get to the beginning of the Meseta. The mountain slopes are often converted into horizontal terraces. Today only a piece of 17 kilometers therefore I left at eight o'clock. Nevertheless, I arrive at my destination, La Font de la Figuera, where there is a market, at half past eleven. In a café I have two coffees, a non-alcoholic beer and my water bottle is filled with cold water, all for five euros. At the market I stock up on bananas as I decide to take advantage of the ideal hiking weather to continue walking. At most 26 degrees with a strong breeze and bananas, I walk well on them.
On to Almansa, another 23 kilometers. Wide landscapes with beautiful fincas. This is how I get to La Mancha, from the "Man of. Long flat roads. Not a soul in sight. Several kilometers along a highway. Time enough to contemplate sudden new insights about a past relationship. The wind, blowing straight into my face drowns out the traffic noise. I thoroughly enjoy the scenery and the walking and don't realize that I am getting a blister under my left foot and that the sun is burning my calves. I only find this out when I want to take a shower in Almansa. The hot water burns my calves.
I stay at Albergue Esclavas de María, where for a pittance I get a guest room of the convent with bathroom. The friendly Sister Maria on duty wears a white outfit like that of a dental hygienist. I have to insist on getting her to accept ten euros: the rate is only seven. The floor of the room is damp and the bathroom more than dirty. I more or less dry and clean the place with a towel. I don't understand, that the clean Sister Mary let this happen. Again, this town has its own castle, but it is for the tourists. Needless to say, I am not one of them. I eat fried potatoes and a sandwich with fried eggs and ham in a café. I don't finish it and take the rest for breakfast.
At night I wake up to the thought that the place was probably flooded through the drain due to a huge downpour the night before. I also had that squall including hailstones as big as hazelnuts. Maria is rehabilitated and finds a dirty towel in the morning. Maybe she will get a hunch the next night, that I am not such a dirty person, but a very clean pilgrim.

June 10, 2024, Alpera, 23 kilometers, total 166 kilometers
Sister Mary had told me that the front door, which locks at midnight, would reopen at six. I am promptly outside at five past six for another very long walk of up to forty kilometers. Cooing pigeons everywhere.
I have new trail runners on my feet, the exact same model as the previous ones, worn down to the wire, but a different color. These days no color is too crazy when it comes to athletic shoes, but to put on luminous lemon yellow as a 77-year-old hiker. I couldn't find anything better anytime soon. In recent years I have tried all kinds of footwear, from high "mountain shoes" to simple sneakers. Sometimes I got a sore knuckle at my ankle, with other shoes blisters. Now I have turned to trail runners. Less useful when it is very wet, but otherwise almost ideal for me.
I have too little food and drink with me. A gas station is open early, good for weak sandwiches and a liter of Coke. What I have left will get me through the forty kilometers. Now comes the real work: a path through nature, up, down and up again. Incredible views. Traffic sounds ebb away and it becomes quiet. Only the occasional bird and the crunch of my shoes in the gravel. Sometimes my backpack makes a creaking sound. After two hours, I force myself to take a 15-minute rest. It is at least ten hours of walking today, so quickly on again. I pass a high rock formation, which I saw for the first time two days ago. A stretch along a railroad line, a hamlet, a majestic tree all by itself. And then, right at the halfway point, a sign pointing to a hostel with a special peregrino rate, but 3.6 kilometers away from the Camino. Tempting, but I walk on. After two hundred meters, I change my mind and check my phone to see what the weather is going to do. I see warnings of huge showers with thunderstorms and decide to be sensible.
The hostel is a simple hotel. On a spacious covered terrace, I wait for my room to be prepared and order a large glass of fresh orange juice. After a while, the boss takes me to an office to register me. The room, a neat tutte room smelling of green soap with air conditioning and a painting of a half-naked lady seen on her back, costs thirty euros. The boss says, I can pay for that later in the restaurant, when I go there to eat anyway. My feet cheer, a pair of underpants goes in the wash and I can rewrite my reports in peace and quiet, as they missed the necessary details due to lack of time. There is also time for some shopping. The old shoes go in the trash today. Saves six hundred grams in the backpack. I keep the laces. You never know what they are good for. It was a good decision not to walk any further. Thunderstorms, I don't like them. Only, the storm audibly passes by Alpera. The menú del dia also passes me by. At eight o'clock I think I will eat in the restaurant. No way: everything is shut tight. On the site of the hostel I see that the regular room rate is thirty euros. Nothing special peregrino rate. I decide, that the zumo de naranja enjoyed in the afternoon falls under the special peregrino rate of zero euros. I don't need their food: enough supplies in my backpack. Am I cheap today after all.
 
June 11, 2024, Higueruela, 24 kilometers, total 190 kilometers
I sleep like an ox. The alarm clock must put an end to it. Before leaving, I slide thirty euros under a shutter of the hotel office.
I have not been on the road for half an hour yet when a runner catches up with me. He had already noticed me because he had a light on his chest, even though it was already light. He is wearing a long-sleeved shirt with a yellow hiking club shirt over it and shorts, with a pair of pale calves sticking out from under it. On his back a pair of red taillights, also on. Professional hiker! From his phone comes Spanish croaking. Thank God he has no backpack: no competitor at the municipal inn of Higueruela, where there are only two beds. He rushes past me. After twenty minutes, he approaches me again. His lights are off now; the Spanish croaking phone is still on.
Rain is coming. Just a little at first, but enough to put on gamaschen and raincoat, always a strenuous time-consuming chore. The umbrella opens. When the rain stops I can sit down on the concrete edge of a culvert, there's nothing better, and eat. Then it starts raining again. A motorist stops and offers me an elevator. No need for that. It is ideal rain: no wind, sixteen degrees. Sixteen degrees! In the middle of Spain, in the middle summer! I stay dry and don't sweat in my poncho. Unfortunately, there is nowhere to sit to give myself and my feet some rest. That breaks me up. An Italian on a bicycle on the way to Santiago passes by. Cycling in the rain is no fun, although he can sit down.
Tired, I arrive at my destination. Maybe it is because I am not yet used to the altitude here of a thousand meters. I am told at the town hall that the key to the albergue is in a restaurant. Coffee at last. The menú del dia is fine. The boss also has rooms on offer for a special peregrino room rate of thirty euros, but I go to the town's albergue. The albergue is in the former town hall on an idyllic little square. The interior rivals in simplicity the detainee's quarters of two days ago, but it is spacious and has a fine bathroom. And free. I put my pride aside for that. I wouldn't do it to Ellen, but it's good enough for me. As long as there are no nasty bugs in the bed, or I'll regret my thrift. Children enter the same building for music lessons. They drag far too large bass tubas up the stairs. One of them gives a brief demonstration while the case is still on a cart in the bag. He bends into a squirm to make the honking sound. I shout bravo. A moment later, the hum echoes cozily through the building: an aubade for the weary pilgrim.
The village is located on a hill. At the top is a chapel dedicated to St. Barbara. In the distance I see a thunderstorm, but here Barbara lets the sun shine.
 
June 12, 2024, Chinchilla de Monte-Aragón, 29 kilometers, total 219 kilometers
I fall asleep like a log right through the endearingly false-harmony sounds of the brass band rehearsing above me. Upon awakening check for bugs. No spots on my skin, no nasty bugs, no regrets. I leave as soon as possible because bad weather is predicted during the day. Besides, at two o'clock the tourist office in Chinchilla closes and it is 29 kilometers or at least seven hours on the road. I can't get the front door locked. Then it must remain open. At the bar where I got the key there is no mailbox and all the shutters are closed. I put the key half under an ashtray on a beer barrel, which is on the sidewalk in front of the bar, along with a card from the bar. I'm sure they'll find it. What a wonderful trip it is again. I keep taking pictures. Orchards with mostly almond trees, wheat fields, fallow land. A hamlet. A cross with a sign "1000 kilometers to Santiago. The play of sun and shadow through the cotton wool clouds allows me to see the land in all its colors. Hundreds of rabbits, who betray themselves by running away hard as I approach, and a trio of chamois-like animals, who also flee rock hard.
If yesterday my energy level was below par and my backpack heavy, today I am running like hell again. Just as well, because I have just arrived at the tourist office when a thunderstorm erupts. After the shower, the friendly and somewhat older employee takes me to the albergue. He puts a stamp in my credencial, as solemnly as if he were signing my will. It is a neat room with good plumbing in a beautiful old building, the town hall no less. In the register, I see that pilgrims come here sporadically, the last one a week ago. Soon the sun shines again. I eat a healthy meal and walk up to the castle of this beautiful city with narrow steep winding streets. From there I can see for dozens of kilometers far, also in the direction, which I am going for the next few days: on the face of it completely flat land. It impresses me very much that I will cross all that. Albacete, 14 kilometers as the crow flies, is easy to see. That's where I'm going tomorrow. All around are dark skies. When I get back "home," the thunderstorm erupts again. Later I do some shopping at small stores, one-man shops, where I am helped pleasantly. That is good, because that is all I have to do: I have no other contacts here.
 
June 13, 2024, La Roda, 41 kilometers walked, (+17 kilometers by train and twice 2 kilometers by car, not counting) total 260 kilometers
I planned to walk to Albacete, only seventeen kilometers, but now I see, that if I add twenty more, to Gineta, I won't have to walk forty the next day, but much less. This is convenient because the next few days will be warmer and warmer. The earlier in, the less bothered by the heat when walking. Today the route is composed of long quiet roads past orchards, fields of corn, onions, garlic and busy roads through industrial areas, including associated illegal garbage dumps. Once, a long fat snake crosses my path. Hundreds of rabbits take cover.
Albacete is a big city with lots of stores and traffic, not ugly, not pretty either, and good enough for lunch on a park bench. After eating as fast as I can for the last twenty kilometers. I take few pictures. Only the arena that looks like a giant bright yellow tiara I find worthwhile.
In Gineta, the municipal sports facility is said to have a kind of albergue where pilgrims can sleep on judo mats. I read that somewhere on facebook. Much too hard and the only reason I carry an air mattress weighing almost half a kilo. In a cultural center annex pub I make it clear that I want to spend the night there. This causes a lot of fuss and phone calls, but finally a man comes and tells me that the albergue has been closed down and that in all of Gineta there is no hostel or hotel. In La Roda, seventeen kilometers away, the albergue is open. Quickly drank my 0% beer to catch the train. At lightning speed he drives me with his car to the station, where the train arrives after only five minutes. Such a timetable of a few times a day. White rabbit! The conductress sells a ticket for cash.
In La Roda looking for the albergue. A police car stops and the officer asks if I am a peregrino and on my way to the albergue. He puts me in his car and takes me there. Another white rabbit! He doesn't have his seat belt on and gestures to me that I don't have to either. So we drive squealing to the albergue. He calls the hospitalera several times, but she doesn't answer. The officer leaves and tells me to wait on a bench in the shade. I am glad to be sitting down. He comes back after twenty minutes and says he is still working on it. Then a very friendly lady arrives. She beckons me to come with her. I end up in the bullring of La Roda in a section, which was set up as an albergue, estimated 80 years ago, but that doesn't matter. She is friendly and engaging and gives me a list of albergues along the camino. I am sleeping in the arena of La Roda! But first I explore the arena. I look from above into the pens, where the bulls stand before the fight, and I walk across the field, where they, or the torero, die.
Thought I would have an easy day tomorrow by walking those seventeen missed kilometers, Ellen says I shouldn't be so strict with myself. Okay, but then that means I have to walk much further tomorrow, when I have already walked so much today. It will work out in the end. I am confident and that is what it is all about. Confidence. Here are not only brown rabbits and not so few, but also white ones from time to time.
The air bed goes permanently into the bottom of the backpack.
 
June 14, 2024, San Clemente, 38 kilometers, total 298 kilometers
At five o'clock I wake up and then shower myself anno 1935. The light switch is right next to the faucet. Still, I don't get electrocuted while showering. So the knob is expertly taped with plastic wrap and I take care not to splash too much. Not difficult, since the fancy copper shower head is practically clogged with limescale.
I head first for Minaya, eighteen kilometers away. After yesterday's long trek, I do not yet dare to plan further, but when I arrive there at ten-thirty, there is nothing to stop me from walking to San Clemente: Minaya is a dull village, the coffee houses are packed and the hostel is a kind of motel in an industrial park.
About today's trek: at first still a lot of urban noise and junk but gradually quieter, slightly undulating and more grand. It is the "Ruta de Don Quiote. Ants are dragging oats. A farmer sprays an orchard with only a mouthpiece covering his face. A farm worker makes small talk before asking for a cigarette. Stones from the land lie gathered in large piles. The first village shows off a gate. The second with nothing. The grocer there works as I experienced as a child. I ask, she consults with her husband and picks. And all in a few square meters. A lifetime. Touching. I have lunch in the shade on a bench under a tree.
San Clemente has a beautiful old center. I have to wait another hour for the tourist office to open. I spend some time in the church. After twenty minutes I call it a day, walk out of the church and just then see the tourist lady open the door. White rabbit I think and walk after her. The intake takes about fifteen minutes, but then I also get a completely modern apartment. A passerby spontaneously shows me the way. On the first floor there is room for six pilgrims, but it is all to myself with all the trimmings, even a washer and dryer
Today I begin to understand a little bit why I keep walking. Some people watch series after series on Netflix to follow the story, I walk one stage after another to see how the landscape rolls out from under my feet. And just like a series: you never know what surprise is in store next, and so I keep walking with curiosity. Even an industrial estate does not disappoint. Crazy isn't it. I am a bingewalker.
 
June 15, 2024, Mota del Cuervo, 45 kilometers, total 343 kilometers
Not out early for today's 24 kilometers. I walk out of the street and immediately I am back in paradise: endless fields, no traffic, no industry, just the sweet-smelling nature. A castle ruin. There are few rabbits here, but many birds of prey. Could that have something to do with it? I am all reminded of my childhood. The simple vacations on Texel in a farmhouse. The farmer, Uncle Aris, shot pigeons, pheasants and rabbits. My mother roasted them on an oil stove. Nothing oven with top and bottom heat and roasting programs. Delicious, roast rabbit.
A car stops. I get talking to the driver. He has walked Caminos and recently started an albergue. We had a nice contact and he gives his address. The hospitalero of the intended albergue for today does not respond to ringing, even after attempts by a contact. Meanwhile, I have sat on a terrace so long that, rested, at a quarter to five I do dare to walk the twenty kilometers to the address, which I received in the morning. Long story short: at half past nine I sit, washed clean with a cozy Spanish couple, Ricardo and Cari, at the table for a fine meal. Using Google Translate, we have a good, personal conversation. They qualify for a white mini-rabbit.
 
June 16, 2024, La Villa de Don Fadrique, 34 kilometers, total 377 kilometers
Breakfast consists of several kinds of cake and coffee. I discuss at length with Cari where I will spend the next night. In the end, there seems to be nothing left but to go to El Toboso, a kind of Don Quixote Disneyland, only eleven kilometers away. I walk out, after Cari gives me a kiss in farewell, I also can't help being so charming, and feel that yesterday's race has not demolished me. I decide to go to La Villa de Don Fadrique, 34 kilometers away. I choose the easiest, but not the most scenic route: along the provincial road, which saves another four kilometers, and asphalt runs fastest. A bit boring, but given my departure at 8:30 a.m. and the expected temperature of 30 degrees, it makes sense.
An unknown Spanish number calls me. I get a Spanish-speaking person on the line and don't understand a thing. Later on a terrace with a beer without alcohol I discover that it is a casa rural in La Villa de Don Fadrique, no doubt approached by my Cari. After some whatsapps, I get a guest, Antonio, on the line. The first pilgrim after ten days of walking. He speaks English and says, that in his room is still a bed free. Quickly arranged! The last seven kilometers are again top-notch: rural, slightly sloping, it can't get any better. The casa is a house with a sumptuous interior. The hospitalero, Juan, offers a beer and wants to take a selfie with me. He hands me a plastic Camino hand. These little hands are not bought or sold. They are given to people who are on the Camino and are distributed through a handshake. They symbolize the camaraderie of the Camino. Their creator is José Sanchís, better known as Mocho. I hang it on my backpack. Last year, Lola gave me one. I met Lola two years ago somewhere on the Camino Francés. She was wearing a beret with all kinds of Camino pins, which I complimented her on. We immediately became friends and remained so, although we did not see each other for perhaps four hours in total. Last year she unexpectedly sent an app. It turned out that she was running 75 kilometers ahead of me on the Vía de la Plata. A few days later I saw her for a lunch in Zamora. Then we saw each other briefly one more time while she was waiting at a bus stop. Then she quickly arranged a bed for me and two camino friends in a B&B, which was just as well, otherwise we would have had to walk another ten kilometers. Friends for short, long or forever, that's how it goes on the Camino. Back to Juan's casa. The room I share with Antonio is almost antique chic and has three beds with velvet blankets. A large bottle of cold water is waiting for each of us. No bunk beds. Juan washes our clothes. Later in the evening he brings the laundry dry and neatly folded to our room. Antonio is a nice Spaniard, 68 years old and also a runner. He already has a lot picked out for the next few days.
This is the way things are going, which is very special because few pilgrims walk here. As a result, overnight accommodations for pilgrims are scarce. Some addresses even turn out to be stupidly closed. I sometimes have to walk a long way for it, but almost always the nights are arranged smoothly for me and I  to make little effort. Typical Camino.
 
June 17, 2024, Tembleque 32 kilometers, total 409 kilometers
Juan provides a good breakfast, followed by another photo session. He puts pictures of his guests on his Facebook page. Juan also offered to take this elderly person a long way by car, just as he offered yesterday to pick me up twenty kilometers away. With thanks I declined his offer. You shouldn't pamper old people too much, you should let them walk, because sitting doesn't make you old.
Antonio and I are running the same way for the first ten kilometers. We are literally and figuratively on the same track, so to speak. Although Antonio likes to study history and facts about the Camino and I am much more concerned with experiencing, we have corresponding spiritual motives for walking. Coffee on a terrace and then continue separately. I give him a white rabbit, which he accepts with understanding and a handshake.
The rest of the trip goes off without a hitch. A small mistake adds two kilometers. Lots of thistles, sometimes up to three meters high. This grows under the harshest conditions. It is quiet. I only hear the tapping of my sticks. It's warm, not to say hot, but it doesn't feel that way because of a punishing wind that blows my fancy panama off my head. I make another chin strap to the hat with a lace from my discarded shoes. That works better. On the horizon two windmills and a church tower. I walk slowly closer to those.
The hotel is large, neat and rural, with, in my opinion, little atmosphere. After a siesta, we went into town for some food. Tembleque is beautiful with an unusual square, which turns out to be a former arena in the square. A dry river has been set up as a park, but can handle a flood of water if need be. With Antonio, I eat a salad with pollo in a busy restaurant. We get talking with two ladies, Esther and llano. Antonio explains my status as an elderly rabbit pilgrim. That's the cue for Esther to fire a long philosophical treatise at me, to which llano sits awkwardly silent. It is about the inspiration of the Higher. I can't fault her for that. As the ladies leave the eating place, she sends a young man towards me who, unhindered by any awareness of language barriers, adds words of wisdom, at a pace that Google translate cannot keep up with. I manage to rescue the following words from the translator: 'sow with every step you take in your daily life and give your best.' I do my best, friend, but sow? On the Camino I only walk to reap.
It is a lovely soft summer evening. Chatting, Antonio and I walk back to the hotel. Before sleeping, I note today's harvest in my phone.
 
June 18, 2024, Almonacid de Toledo 39 kilometers, total 448 kilometers
At dawn, I leave the town that stands out with its mills in the morning red. The first 15 kilometers to Villanueva de Bogas go smoothly: flat roads. There is a coffee shop there. Closed on Tuesdays, that is, today, I hear from a resident. She points to the house in front of which I am standing and tells me to ring the bell for a cup of coffee. I don't, of course, but she has already alerted the resident that a peregrino is at the door. I am ushered inside. The interior is well-kept. Lots of plants and forged furniture. Lovely to be able to sit with the shoes off after more than four hours of walking. The man, art smith, is hospitalero of the local albergue. He lovingly does his volunteer work at the albergue. Even if you want to continue, because the day is far from over, he is happy to be there for the pilgrim. In my case with a whole pot of coffee and a jug of hot milk, plus another kind of cake. Thus my coffee moment is "automatically" taken care of. I donate five euros for the hostel. He thinks that's weird and maybe it is, but so much goodness for nothing I find difficult to receive.
The next twenty kilometers also go well, but my energy is slowly waning. Especially my feet do not like such distances. Did I walk the first part between grain fields, now it is olive groves with thick old trunks. Along the way the ruins of a hermitage.
Almonacid de Toledo has its own castle, visible from afar. At the albergue is Antonio's backpack. He is apparently getting the key. No idea where. After a while he arrives - without the key. Lost. That doesn't seem to help his mood. Together we search his route, but no key. The bar where he got it calls the mayor. There we can pick up a copy. In the doorway of a stately home, a well-groomed lady, apparently the mayor, gives us the key. With this hassle I have walked several more kilometers. So I decide not to go to a restaurant and just get some necessities at a small supermercado and then get into bed. I have my own room with a bathroom. That's nice. Too bad the maid hasn't shown up in a long time, but I'm already happy to be lying down.
 
June 19, 2024, Toledo 24 kilometers, total 472 kilometers
Antonio says, he cleaned his room first, before going to sleep. Good idea. I must remember that. A night of good sleep did his mood and my feet good. We walk together to Bar Kuki to put the copy key "left in the window of the left window next to the entrance." Then he follows a different route than I do. That still broke me up quite a bit, because as it is the case with many projects in Spain, the beginning is beautiful, but maintenance, there is no thought. My official route with yellow arrows comes to a dead end on a highway, which has apparently been built over it. If I want to go back, it's a detour of at least ten kilometers. I crawl with difficulty under the stretched fence of the highway, tear open my precious merino T-shirt in the process, end up on a vast finca of probably a cattle rancher, and after half an hour of walking I have to climb over a two-meter high fence to  get back on a public path. But it works!
Toledo I can see from afar with impressive buildings. Steeply up to the old center. I see myself standing in a motorcycle store staring as if I have shop window legs, gasping out. I find my hotel room near the cathedral on a narrow, old street. I open a window and hear loud Spanish voices and cars winding through the alley. First I take a shower and wash clothes. The dust roads leave traces. Terraces, tourists, old buildings, it doesn't stop in Toledo. The cathedral is a museum. A museum is not a cathedral. That's what it feels like. As an old man, I get a discount. It is large and impressive but in my mind over the top of all the gold and sculpture. Groups of Chinese are shown around in their own language. I even forget to get a stamp in my pilgrim passport here. I walk around town some more, eat a plato combinado and buy lots of water and mouth supplies for tomorrow's 32 kilometers: away from the city, back to nature. That's where I prefer to walk.
 
June 20, 2024, Torrijos 36 kilometers, total 508 kilometers
I walk through zigzagging streets down the mountain on which the old part of Toledo sits. Then I see, that on the other side of the old city there are escalators made along the mountainside, all the way up. I should have known that yesterday!
My insides are upset. I neither want to eat nor drink. Without energy I set off. Due to diversions I have to walk more than I like. I follow the yellow arrows, which everywhere along the Camino point in the direction of Santiago, and that is a good thing because the route my phone indicates would have got stuck on private property, as I see later. Once I almost end up on the wrong side of a highway fence again. Yesterday was a learning day. After four hours of walking along busy roads, I finally find a wall to sit on. Then on again, now no longer along traffic roads, but on an almost overgrown path, not nice either. , again after hours of walking a village with benches. Finally I can sit down. It is far too hot in the sun. I hoist myself upright again and look for a bar and shade. I find a terrace under trees. I only half finish the bottle of 0% beer. In Spain you often get something with your drink. This time olives, pickles and pearl onions. I love them, but today I can't get them down my throat. Still, the long break and a few sips of Coke do me good. Threatening skies over the last 6 kilometers. So I run quickly. I walk through a thunderstorm, but then I am almost in Torrijos.
The rain holds off, as does the thunderstorm. At the tourist office, I get the code for a box containing the key to the front door. I can open the locker, but I can't unlock the door with the key. Back to the tourist office. I've walked so much and now it's going to rain, I complain to myself. A young man from the tourist office walks with me and opens the door at once. The albergue is spacious and neat. Usually I enjoy walking, but to be honest, today I was struggling. By the way, did you know that mousse au chocolat liquefies when it sits in the sun all day warming up? It was my breakfast, but I only now consumed it as a thick chocolate milk.
 
June 21, 2024, Escalona, 27 kilometers, total 535 kilometers
I haven't experienced that in years. I slept more than ten hours! Now some more pills for the diarrhea and on my way. It's still nice and fresh outside. To my surprise, my energy is back. Even the first six kilometers along a highway can't bother me. I can't believe my luck. After twelve kilometers I take a rest in a village including a castle and eat some saltines. I don't dare go for coffee yet. The next thirteen kilometers also go well. And just like yesterday, I walk for kilometers on an almost overgrown path, which in the end ends in a large puddle, densely overgrown on both sides. I walk in a wide arc through the thicket and manage to keep my feet dry. Dry feet are less likely to get blisters. Mountains are approaching. This region is suddenly remarkably green. Trees, shrubs, reeds.
Escalona is on a wide river. By one o'clock, before it gets really hot, I find my albergue after a tough climb in a fortified town with a castle strategically overlooking the river and the land beyond. Countless storks on the castle walls. I can pick up the key in a school. I am told it is the last day of school. Good thing, otherwise you have to call the police for the key and get a language barrier on the line. The albergue is minimalist. Mattresses on the floor and a shower without a screen. I don't care. I have a roof over my head again and I can wash my clothes. There are no other pilgrims, very practical for showering and changing. My sticks serve as clotheslines. In the sun and wind: within an hour everything is bone dry. The city is pleasantly busy with a few nice squares and terraces. I go there after siesta to browse around and eat something. I am hungry. I now drink the beer 0% again without any problems.
 
June 22, 2024, Cadalso de los Vidrios, 21 kilometers, total 556 kilometers
If I had known last night that there were at least four three-inch black beetles running around in my classroom, I probably wouldn't have slept so well. A bed on legs has advantages.
I am on the road before six. Nor should I leave much earlier because it will still be dark. The first section has probably been neglected for hundreds of years: a bumpy stretch of loose boulders uphill. The sun rises over the fields and the terrain becomes flat. After a few hours, I arrive in a nice town with many cafes open. Orange juice and coffee. Opposite the terrace, the town hall clock strikes nine. The sound comes from four large speakers. Time to move on. Leaving Almorox, I suddenly find myself walking in the mountains, surprising after all the almost flat fields. The road rises slowly in green surroundings. Yesterday I found a tick in the back of my knee, probably contracted from walking in the tall grass. I tuck my pants into my socks, because even now the path is almost overgrown at times.
My itinerary says that in Cadalso de los Vidrios I can get the keys to the albergue through the police. I shoot a young lady who looks like some sort of enforcer. After much fumbling, she understands the issue and goes to make a phone call. Then she takes me to a church, where a policeman, Juan, is waiting for me along with a man, calling someone from the keys. He insists on carrying my shopping bag and sticks and is kind enough to show me around the church before the keys are brought. A simple procession of beautifully dressed women leaves as we walk out of the church. A white cart with a canopy decorated with flowers. It looks like an old-fashioned ice cream vendor's handcart, but with a statue of the Virgin Mary in it. Meanwhile, the key lady has arrived. She lets me into an old-fashioned annex of the church. For ten euros I get a bed, sheets, towels and a detailed registration procedure. And again I have the kingdom all to myself. Showers, toilets, a huge kitchen that I don't use and a covered courtyard. Time for an undisturbed siesta. Then to a terrace for my favorite cerveza sin alcohol. Carding men, a lone woman in black, excitement over a wrongly parked car, holding up traffic for 10 minutes. Television soccer sounds in the background, foul cigarette smoke. It's time to go to bed.

June 23, 2024, Cebreros, 22 kilometers, total 578 kilometers
It is a hassle to get the steel gate to the street open, but after fifteen minutes I am outside. What is it that I can't open doors these days? In the twilight along a quiet asphalt road, that shoots along nicely, but after ten kilometers the fun is over: along and over rocks and through advancing vegetation, barely crushed by the single pilgrim ahead of me. A dog, guarding a flock of sheep comes to watch me and otherwise it is quiet. I pass medieval bridges and arrive at the last steep stretch of concrete to Cebrero, after briefly commanding the respect of an interested cyclist and all the more so after my answer to his question about my age. I love that question.
In Cebrero, I first get water and bread just to be sure. You never know if tomorrow morning, Monday, a store will be open. But on Sunday afternoon, they are also already closed. And yet I see someone walking with a loaf of bread. I walk in the opposite direction and yes, there is a Chinese junk store there that sells water and bread, among other things. The smart man has an oven in the back of the store, which he uses to bake take-out rolls. At checkout, I encounter a white rabbit: Gustav, who speaks fluent English, starts a chat with me. I ask if he would help me with a phone call to the police, where the key to the albergue would be. He invites me for a cup of coffee on a cozy terrace, introduces me en passant to his best friend, owner of the bodega in town, and calls with the number I give him. He takes me to the police station, where an officer waits for me on the sidewalk with a key to the albergue. There is some chuckling, but I don't know why. Then Gustav drives me there. On the way, he says something about the divisions in Spain, still a result of the civil war. "Your grandfather shot my grandfather," and accusations like that fester to this day. He does not engage in that discussion on philosophical grounds. I agree, seeing that division in slogans on walls and in disputes in cafes. We can't find the albergue. Gustav makes small talk with Carmen, who turns out to be a neighbor of the albergue. It is a small detached white building. Carmen says, she is ready if I need anything. Gustav gives his phone number. I can always call him if there is anything. We say goodbye as good friends. Today I am housed in the treatment room for impaled toreros of the arena of Cebreros. Inside it is an incredibly filthy mess. That surely explains the chuckling. The "arena" consists of a fenced-in field. The treatment room has an oxygen tank, a treatment table, a small table on wheels to put the medical tools on, a height-adjustable stool, a mobile lamp, which I would love to have as vintage in my home, and a sink with cold running water. As a retired physician, I feel right at home. For the pilgrim, hurt or not, the bunk bed is not missing. It has probably been centuries since anything happened here, including cleaning. I donated my donativo in kind: toilet paper, garbage bags and a fly swatter, purchased at the Chinese for less than four euros and a thorough cleaning including pest control. That's a bit much for an albergue without a shower, but who can say they slept in the treatment room for butchered toreros? Tomorrow morning me. 
 
June 24, 2024, Ávila, 42 kilometers, total 620 kilometers 
In warm Spain, one comes alive when the weary pilgrim lays to rest. I am just asleep or the back neighbor starts terrorizing his garden with a motor blower. The exhaust fumes blow into my house. When I am asleep again, a gang of youngsters comes by with a lot of noise. Then I still got my hours for today's long trip. 
First more than three hundred meters steeply up along a boulder path. Then I opt for asphalt, because with many kilometers ahead, it should not be too difficult. The road climbs slowly to above 1300 meters. A lot cooler than down. After fourteen kilometers and a steep descent with hairpin bends I reach a nice village with a brand new albergue. I get there at ten o'clock, but what should I do all day in a village where there is nothing to do. I decide to continue on asphalt through the mountains. Few cars pass by. 
Finally, after ten hours on the road, I arrive in Ávila: a modern city with many apartment buildings. In this anonymity, I suddenly feel lost. I wonder what I am doing and even think about stopping. I am wise enough to decide not right away but tomorrow at the earliest. The downtown has beautiful old buildings and is completely surrounded by an impressive fortress wall where numerous swallows shoot past in their swift flight. Here three people promptly help resolve my slightly depressed mood. A young man, who is interested in my walks, someone who just says buen Camino, which I hadn't heard in a while, and a very helpful lady from the tourist information who calls the hospitalero of the inn and shows me the route to it. Another fifteen-minute walk and I am at a spacious albergue, just outside the city wall. The friendly and elderly hospitalero is waiting for me with the keys. In the albergue, to my surprise, I meet Antonio and, last but not least, I get Ellen on the phone. She implores me to complete the Camino. I reassure her. In this albergue, I feel human again after all the unsightly and unkempt places to stay where I felt more like a shoddy wanderer than a venerable pilgrim. Sheets, a hot shower and a washing machine. Can I get on the road clean tomorrow.

Camino Teresiano 

Guided by St. Teresa, you can have a rewarding experience based on an encounter with yourself and, if you are a believer, with God.
Text from the site of the Camino

June 25, 2024, Gotarrendura 23 kilometers, total 643 kilometers
I leave Ávila without having looked at her enough, but just on my way I still get to see her, resplendent in the early morning sun, in all her glory. Here begins the Camino Teresiano. The traffic noise dies down. In a wooded area, a roe deer skitters away. A few rustic villages. Then suddenly I find myself on the last spur of the mountain range in which I have been walking for the last few days. In a spectacular vista, I survey the plateau with a few villages strewn on it. I hear myself say aloud, "Oh how beautiful." No café in sight today.
Finally in Gotarrendura a bar is open for my daily serving of beer without alcohol. No effort was made to make it a cozy place. The bar also serves as the reception for the albergue municipal. Afterwards, Antonio comes in as well. He is surprised that I am already there and tells everyone in the bar who wants to hear, that as a 77-year-old I am walking the longest Camino. The albergue was set up with government money. The exact amount is listed on signs: just under fifty grand. That provided a room with two bunk beds, a bathroom, a living area and a kitchen in romantic Spanish country style. I am taken there by a man, who sits in a chair in front of a slot machine in the bar all the time and is constantly talking to no one. We walk past his home, or what must pass for it: half collapsed, on the sidewalk in front of it a huge collection of household goods, shelves and undefined junk. The afternoon closes with a violent thunderstorm. Fine for the farmers and fine that I'm not walking now, but taking a siesta. Later I return to the café, where the same man delivers a long monologue with chilling details about deadly misdeeds of Spanish settlers, interrupted only to smoke from time to time outside the establishment. Screaming clientele recall the atmosphere of a mental hospital in the 1960s. The woman at the bar made a meal for Antonio and me. Lasagna, straight from the supermarket here into the freezer and reheated for me today. How well that woman can cook! There is no reason to dine here any longer. I go back to the albergue to sleep.

June 26, 2024, Fontiveros 28 kilometers, total 671 kilometers
This day begins with an unexpected squirt of orange juice, which has been fermenting in a plastic bottle in my backpack for a day. A nice start to the day as if a well-shaken bottle of champagne popped open festively.
Slightly undulating land. With fine gravel paved roads, which gets so nice in my shoes and when walking says crunch- crunch, crunch- crunch, sound I meditate on in my own way. I call it empty-walking. Ellen calls it full-walking. It's just how you look at it, but we mean the same thing. Fields of grain and other crops, the occasional pine grove with resin taps, and every six kilometers a rural village of nothing, but proudly located on the Ruta Teresiana, as evidenced by all the roadside references to St. Teresa, the 16th-century learned religious, who was born in Ávila and buried in Alba de Tormes, where I hope to arrive in a few days. De la cuna al sepulcro, from the cradle to the grave. She didn't walk as far as I did but wrote all the more books. On a site of this route I read, that, "guided by St. Teresa you can have a rewarding experience based on an encounter with yourself and, if you are a believer, with God. I ignore the side sentence: 'if you are a believer'. Storks are scouring the land for food. The only other runners are the countless ants, diligently carving their shortcuts into the road surface. I get thirsty but dare not drink my supply of tap water. My bowels are struggling again and I fear, that the warmed water in my water bottle is undergoing the same processes as the orange juice. Therefore, I don't drink that anymore. After twenty kilometers I reach a bar: coffee, cerveza sin alcohol and a bottle of water. Once more I notice, how important it is to take long breaks: after an hour in the bar I am full of energy again and walk the last seven kilometers whistling. I am in a hurry because I can see from the sky that another thunderstorm is coming.
I report to a café in Fontiveros for the keys to the municipal albergue. Two policemen join me at the bar and give me the opportunity to brag: 77 and this year alone 1100 kilometers. We make some jokes. They know I am not a criminal, “because you have sweat on your back”. One of the gentlemen pays for my coke and orates, "In this life there is time for everything, but the most important thing is to live." I feel like I'm hearing Teresa. I accept the coke and wisdom from him. Then I am professionally escorted to the town hall where my albergue is housed, containing everything I could want: shower, refrigerator, microwave, washing machine, except..... a bed. I am supposed to sleep, as if I were a disaster victim, on one of ten camp beds. You wouldn't put a refugee on that, but I'm content with it. As a pilgrim you really experience all kinds of things and the most important thing is to live.

June 27, 2024, Mancera de Abajo, 28 kilometers, total 699 kilometers
After several days without a single rabbit, I see a limited number today. The first, white, runs across the street just as I close the door of the albergue. She calls out something to me. I think she is saying, the key should go in the little white mailbox, and throw it in with conviction. The lady reacts slightly irritated, because the key should have been in the box at the town hall. And here I am, thinking I slept in the town hall. Turns out it's a post office. Anyway, the lady is on her way to the town hall, and she will see that it is fixed. "Bale" she says a couple of times and I call that too. A few days ago I saw on Google Translate, that's how you write that: 'vale', which means okay.
Today's hike is again one big feast: hilly terrain with the most beautiful views, the mountains at a safe distance to the south, orchards, fields, cows, storks, birds of prey, mice crossing the road, a few small farming villages with invariably a mace of a church and a bar halfway up for coffee and a sandwich big enough to walk on all day.
At the beginning of Mancera de Abajo, sculptures remind visitors that Saint Teresa once walked here, too. I get the keys to the albergue at the village café. The barmaid has little text with them. Upon request, I silently get a stamp in my credencial. After this minimalist welcome, a café attendant is thoughtful enough to come out to show me the way to the albergue, which is further down the road in a former school. The walls are full of posters of Saint Teresa de Jesús, but that has inspired neither guests nor manager to keep the place clean. After a while, someone comes by to flip knobs so I have hot water. Meanwhile, I cleaned up a rotted melon on a desk and thoroughly cleaned and disinfected the floor and plumbing with chlorine. I'm sure Teresa would have done the same. Donativo in kind in the chloria.
 
June 28, 2024, Alba de Tormes, 32 kilometers, total 731 kilometers
On my way an hour before sunrise under cock crows. It may rain during the day and I will be on the road for at least eight hours, hence so early. The trail is moonlit. The landscape becomes more hilly. This produces the much-desired beautiful vistas. At eight o'clock I'm having coffee somewhere, a rare matinee. Further on I regularly pass a simple farming village, where nothing is to be had. Once someone spontaneously steers me in the right direction. "Gracias señor!" 
In Alba, the Camino Teresiano officially ends: Teresa's life ended here. I visit a church cum small museum, where some things of the saint are displayed, including a piece of "meat. Strangely, there is no albergue in Alba, but the parish house would also accommodate pilgrims. I am told by the friendly official of the parish house that only the homeless can go there. I, too rich, must make do with a hotel or I must walk all the way to the Salamanca albergue, but that is too far and there is a threat of thunder. Of the two hotels in Alba, one turns out to be shut tight. That adds two extra kilometers for nothing, as if I haven't walked enough. Through Booking I quickly book the other hotel, which is open. It starts raining and thundering just before I get there. The thunderstorm continues for hours. I'm glad I decided not to continue walking to Salamanca. Neither did Teresa. 
 
June 29, 2024, Salamanca, 24 kilometers, total 755 kilometers 
When checking out, the receptionist cannot find my payment. Neither of us have the patience to figure it out. I want to leave quickly because more rain is coming today and she needs to provide breakfast for a handful of guests. I pay again and do fight it out with Booking. 
Today's hike is almost ideal: a former rail line as a footpath. No inclines. From afar I can see Salamanca. The cathedral dominates the view. What a magnificent city! Last year when I walked on the Vía de la Plata, I was also so enamored with it. Then I wrote that I wanted to be there with Ellen. I have that feeling again now. 
When I arrive at the inn, I find that it doesn't open for another hour. I am waiting on a stone staircase, along with an American. In addition to a backpack, the man is carrying a huge rolling suitcase that includes a large backpack. I am jostling him a bit, telling him that my backpack weighs 4.5 kg all in all. Then he tells me that his wife dictated to him, what all he had to bring, such as four pairs of underpants, two pairs of pants, so many pairs of socks, etc. He pulls out a notebook and shows a large heavy route guide. I add to that by telling him, that's all in my phone, which weighs nothing. Then he pulls out a thick A4-sized notepad, which contains his printed reservations from Booking, among other things. Finally, he does me a great favor by also showing me his four glasses with accompanying tubes. We laugh about it and for the moment we are close camino friends until he decides to go shopping with me. That will not happen because my friendship does not go that far. I know the albergue from last year. It does not disappoint. A friendly welcome by two English-speaking volunteers and finally some people with whom I can talk. I share a room with the American. I do my shopping alone even though it's going to rain a bit. Looking for bread, fruit, water and orange juice. That American must be eating a Big Mac instead of bread, fruit, water and orange juice. I have hardly seen him except sleeping in his bed, snoring passionately. 
I take a walk through the city. In the Plaza Mayor there is a happy child with a white plush rabbit. I get to take her picture. I give her grandfather one of my mini rabbits. He passes it to the child, who is intensely happy. A golden moment. I enjoy the beautiful squares, parks and terraces. Beautifully restored buildings with art exhibits to make my mouth water. There is no end to all that beauty. And yet tomorrow I walk on, on my way to Santiago. Otherwise it will never end. 
 

Camino Torres 

"You earned it."
Rosi, mayor of Aldea del Obispo

June 30, 2024, Robliza de Cojos, 34 kilometers, total 789 kilometers
Diego de Torres Villarroel was a renowned professor at the University of Salamanca. He made a pilgrimage from Salamanca to Santiago in 1737 because he had something to make up for. Starting today, I walk the same journey, the "Camino Torres," which ends in Santiago via Portugal after about 600 kilometers, the last 130 kilometers of which coincide with the Camino Portugués
At my departure at seven o'clock it is simply cold with eleven degrees and a brisk wind and it will not be more than twenty-two today. One last look at Salamanca and then thirty-four kilometers without a single village, let alone house and not even a bench or anything to sit on and rest. Only after hours do my hands get warm. The trail is a transhumance: wide strips of land overgrown with grasses and shrubs, running throughout the country, where cattle are driven from summer to winter pastures at the end of the season and vice versa. A few large farms with cows and extensive orchards. A herd of cows and bulls brings the transhumance to life by standing in the middle of the path and walking in front of me as I arrive. They have big horns and calves. I don't dare pass them very well. The whole time I have not seen anyone and just now a car arrives. The driver can surely tell me if I can pass safely. He stops at a sign from me. In fluent Googles I ask him. Yes, it's okay, as long as I walk in a wide arc around it. Not so convenient when that arc is full of bushes. After a while I succeed in a place, where the vegetation is less dense. The cows and I keep a close eye on each other. That was pretty much the most exciting moment of the day, or it had to be a dog running loose. The owner puts him on a leash. In Spain, people are kind enough to immediately leash a dog as soon as I come into sight. Quiet days like this help to be in the here and now, and that's what it's all about as far as I'm concerned. The last few kilometers are, as usual, arduous, but again offer the views, which I love so much. On the horizon I see mountains. I seem to have to cross them later.
At the beginning of Robliza de Cojos, I discover a bar with a large terrace full of families and groups of friends getting together on the free Sunday afternoon and where I can finally sit down. Nice hot chicken sandwiches, serveza-sin and lukewarm coffee. The bartender calls Cristina from the albergue for me. After half an hour, she comes to pick me up by car. She does her best to make me comfortable. "Welcome," she says several times. What a sweetheart. The inn is located in an empty school with a large garden and a shed, where I make myself comfortable. Very special: from five to seven on Sunday nights, the spacious, neat and simple village supermarket opens in a windowless barn. That way I can continue tomorrow with fresh water and provisions, because even then there is nothing to be had on the road.

July 1, 2024, Alba de Yeltes, 46 kilometers, total 835 kilometers
It turns out differently than planned. After 22 kilometers past lots of cows, standing behind fences and running away from me like mad, and again the most beautiful views, I arrive in San Muños. All the cafes are closed. I go to the town hall, where a lady refers me to the albergue, "in the doctor's house." She asks my name and takes my picture. On the way I hear, that the albergue houses homeless people. The albergue is under the same roof as the village doctor, a woman who clearly has no use for pilgrims. She talks in rad Spanish. Google can't keep up with her, but one sentence sticks: "You have to wait." I feel put off. Surely this is no way to treat a pilgrim. I see through a window, that the albergue is a hideous mess. I sit down on a bench and contemplate the situation as I watch my colleague drive away in a big fat Audi. Wait until that pigsty opens and no cafe here? Then just add another twenty-four kilometers. At that moment, a mobile trader stops across the street. That can't be a coincidence. The driver opens the cargo bay doors and lo and behold: a heavily made-up Spanish woman, bright red lips that I will never forget, stands there among piles of vegetables. She is good for a comb of bananas: power food for the long haul and on sale at the right time.
Walking on to Alba, despite two ticks landing on me, turns out to be a good bet. At the beginning of the village, many people are playing petanque. They enthusiastically point me to the albergue, which is next to the court and gesture, that I can just go inside. Inside, I am welcomed by two ladies. Aurora, an older woman is the hospitalera. The other, Manoli, also elderly, is from the local bar. She immediately arranges a meal in her bar and a cheese sandwich for breakfast. Two white rabbits at just the right time. Aurora is surprised that I came. She had received word that I would arrive tomorrow! Apparently, Cristina called her or the lady from San Muños City Hall. I don't find out, but it is extraordinary. Aurora grumbles, saying that some guests make a mess of things. "Just yesterday a whole family. They were going to a wedding. Those are not pilgrims." That's why she's cleaning up now. I get a white face with her by telling her that I have cleaned out two albergues. Aurora points me to a coffee maker plus milk and ground coffee for a cup of coffee tomorrow morning with my breakfast. At her request, I promise to pray for her when I get to Santiago. Here the real authentic Roman Catholic pilgrim faith still prevails.

July 2, 2024, Ciudad Rodrigo, 26 kilometers, total 861 kilometers
After Aurora's filter coffee, Manoli's sandwich and six kilometers of asphalt over, what I read on a sign, the Cañada Real de Extremadura, note that last word means extremely difficult, I reach the village of Bocacara, where both bars are closed. In one of the bars a worker enters. She has no intention of providing basic necessities to this pilgrim, but I have no intention of walking the next twenty kilometers on just a can of Coke and half a liter of water. An elderly gentleman solves it for me by asking a couple of construction workers. Of course they fill my bottle with tap water. Then he gestures for me to come with him, back to the bench where I had left my sticks. I thank him for his help and set off again, first through a forest of cork oaks, then along fields of grain and sometimes on grass paths through fields of dense vegetation. After the grass I check to see if that has produced any ticks and yes, I see one walking up over my pants, heading for the grassy pastures of my body. Yet another within a few days. Finally, by missing a turnoff I end up on through asphalt. That nicely saves almost two kilometers in my favor. That's nice at twenty-nine degrees under a Reckitt's blue sky.
Ciudad is a beautiful classic Spanish fortified town. On a terrace I eat and drink until it is 4:30. Then the tourist office opens and hopefully a store, where I can buy new T-shirts, because my merino shirts are literally falling apart due to the excess UV. The albergue is very large and calculated for all kinds of tourist-educational packages for the youth, but there is none. Thank God I have the kingdom all to myself again, although I must say that the action of a plumber or sewer specialist would have helped better against the stench in this building than the lavish spraying of synthetic floral scent. It limits my enjoyment of my stay considerably. I may be a pilgrim, but that doesn't mean I put up with stench. That includes, by the way, the regularly ruining stench of pig fattening along the way. But other than that, I am very satisfied again.

July 3, 2024, Aldea del Obispo, 32 kilometers, total 893 kilometers
The self-service breakfast in a refrigerator is way past the date, the fruit partly rotten. What a stinking place. Be gone!
Varied route, ranging from asphalt to tall grass. The latter is not pleasant: all sorts of things poke through my socks. A few times I share the route with cows and bulls. I don't like that either. They walk endlessly with me and barely leave room to pass. It is a warm day with temperatures above thirty and almost no wind. Fortunately, I can stand it well.
In Aldea, I don't quite know where to ask for the key to the albergue. Eventually I end up on a covered terrace in the Plaza Mayor, where a few people are sitting. I shout "hola" and immediately a lady in front of me starts calling Rosi, the mayor. She arrives after fifteen minutes. Bright red hair, blue T-shirt and short jeans. She and the caller take me to the albergue, which is perfect. Good beds, a kitchen and, exceptionally, plumbing without defects. I receive detailed explanations and they also walk with me to point out the grocery store. I thank them for their cordiality. "You've earned it" is their motherly response. A hundred times better than yesterday's stink tent, where I also left my towel for crying out loud. Fortunately, there are towels here. Tomorrow I'm sure I'll find one for sale in Pinhel.
I buy some mouth supplies in the neat simple supermarket recommended to me by the two ladies.

July 4, 2024, Pinhel/Coimbra, 33 kilometers, total 926 kilometers
It will be thirty-five degrees today, which means leaving at six to be inside before the greatest heat. Within half an hour I am in Portugal. There I get a gift of an hour and it's 5:30 again. Just after Almeida, a beautiful fortified town, four barking dogs come at me. One I can handle, but four....I decide to turn around. A hundred yards back is a shunt to fast asphalt without dogs. Just before Pinhel, a strange kind of dog crosses the road. He doesn't bark and has no collar. We watch each other and avoid each other. As I walk on, he crosses the road again and disappears into the green.
In Pinhel, I visit a local medical post because my left eye is bothering me. Around noon I get there. After two hours of waiting, time enough to put my medical history in my phone and translate it into Portuguese and a lot of fuss but no examination except an unnecessary blood pressure reading, a cab is ordered. Thirty kilometers away in Guarda is a hospital where there is an ophthalmologist. The cab driver can barely write. He fiddles with something on a business card. That must be the bill, then. The counter stands at 42 euros, 40 he thinks is enough.
The intake nurse immediately says that a doctor will look at me, but that there is no ophthalmologist in this hospital. I am put in a waiting room, next to an elderly woman, psychiatric patient by the sound of it, who loudly expresses her displeasure about something or nothing and apparently thinks everyone is as deaf as she is. The entire waiting room looks on seemingly unmoved. Then the food service arrives with a trolley. Sandwiches, coffee and tea. I choose a Vache qui rit sandwich. Pretty tasty if you're hungry. There is a smile at the food service. Meanwhile, I discover an electrical outlet above my head. Good to charge the phone. How I would love to take pictures! Time passes, without the waiting room shrinking at all. Soon the eye doctor, wherever he is, will be home when I get there. The sweet intake nurse assures me that it is available 24 hours. Apparently an orderly referral is required. At 5:30, a doctor calls out, "Jan Gerritsen." I forget for a moment, that I am in Portugal and call back in unadulterated Dutch, "That's me!" He apologizes for the long wait and explains that he has to cover for three colleagues. He contacts a colleague in Coimbra, 168 kilometers away, gratefully using the medical history I just made and which I am now emailing to him. Back to the waiting room. For the umpteenth time, the screaming lady rides in her wheelchair towards the exit. That is not the intention. The staff and a helpful waitperson roll her back again. One afternoon in this waiting room and you get a whole book. People shuffling IVs, patients being pushed through the waiting room with bed and all, a tall young man assuming all sorts of catatonic postures, in short pandemonium. I am called back into the doctor's office. The result of the consultation with the eye specialist is that I have to go to Coimbra urgently for examination and possible treatment. The insurer allows this by ambulance. That is something else than walking. I will not add the cab and ambulance kilometers to my runs. Although I am an emergency, the ambulance is still quite some time away. At seven, the food trucks come by again. I take another cowlick sandwich. The screaming lady also gets a sandwich. She screams with her mouth full. I tell her that's not proper. In Dutch. At that she calms down for a moment. The impassive one laughs a little now. I go to the toilet and to do so I have to navigate between two beds filled with patients. It stinks a lot, just like sometimes in the countryside. I believe that comes from the patients. Afterwards, the toilet keeps flowing under much clamor. That one needs a referral plumber. Heavy snoring sounds rise from one of the beds. With thirty-three kilometers in my legs and on from five o'clock local time, which is four o'clock here in Portugal, I too am ready for a nap. My neighbor accompanies this thought with a whooping cry a donkey would envy. A lady waiting in the waiting room comforts her, but that doesn't help for long and again she tries to run off with her wheelchair. Finally, around eight, I am put into a rattling ambulance for a two-hour ride to the Hospital da Universidade in Coimbra. There, in a busy traffic square, the driver lets out the triophone for a moment. Delightful. The university clinic: what an old mess, but an adequate examination. By midnight I get the results: something to do with the vitreous, will go away by itself. I consider sleeping behind a pile of chairs in a waiting room, but a guard prevents that. Somewhere in a corridor I sit down to look for a hotel, preferably nearby. Booking can only figure out that I'm looking for something for the next night. That doesn't help me at all. I want a hotel now. On my map, I see a hotel right nearby with a 24-hour front desk. The hospital exit is hard to find, no signs but paper directions that contradict each other. Asking twice and I am finally outside. After a fifteen-minute walk I arrive at the hotel, large and modern. That's something different from an albergue communal. At one o'clock I am lying between the white ironed sheets.

July 5, 2024, Trancoso, 16 kilometers, total 942 kilometers
Those sixteen kilometers I walked mostly in Coimbra. Coimbra is a beautiful city, but I don't see much of it. Decathlon, where I want to buy a towel and merino T-shirts, is six kilometers outside the center. That takes me half a day and they don't even have suitable towels. Later I do succeed at a Chinese store where you can really buy anything from screws to bikinis. I feel too tired to walk steeply up into the center. Downstairs are some nice streets and squares. On a small cozy terrace I enjoy a good plate of food. Online I arrange a ticket for the five o'clock bus to Trancoso, where I would have walked to today from Pinhel if I had not been taken to Coimbra. As beautiful as Coimbra is, give me the peace and quiet of the countryside. Then no white ironed sheets.
Trancoso is a quiet fortified town. On the Friday night, I see almost no people. The terraces are empty. Perhaps it is still too early in the evening. My hotel is outstanding, especially considering the only thirty-five euros. There are no other guests. That will be good sleep and again between white ironed sheets.

July 6, 2024, Sequeiros, 24 kilometers, total 966 kilometers
The hotel was okay, the bed idem, and still not sleeping well. Then twenty-four kilometers, even on as much easy asphalt as possible, is more than enough. Once I make a U-turn, when my path after an ancient stone bridge degenerates into a wilderness. Several stray, barking dogs, but not one has the guts to come close when I bark back and threaten with my sticks.
In my phone there is an address for twenty euros. Yes, they still have a room for me. I arrive at a chic four star hotel with many festively dressed guests. I am a bit out of place with my little festive outfit. A room costs a hundred euros, but the receptionist adds that at restaurante Santo Estêvão, a hundred meters away, there are rooms for thirty. Win, win: that man just feels, that I am on the token and he is rid of this bum. The room next door is more than good, better than last night. Incomprehensible how they do it here for a few bucks. For that money I even have a swimming pool with screaming children and a crib in my room. The latter is an unnecessary luxury.

July 7, 2024, Moimenta da Beira, 24 kilometers, total 990 kilometers
My energy is back after an excellent night's sleep. To then also find a coffee bar after eight kilometers in the Anton Pieck village of Lapa, pasteis de nata with it, delicious. No annoying dogs, but annoying flies. Quiet asphalt roads. Pine forests. Many slopes. A village of ruins, Carapito, where I rest and have lunch.
Moimenta has a stately old section with many overnight addresses, but all but one appear to be closed, permanently or otherwise. A young lady in a café gives an address, but alas, also closed today. Finally, I find a room over the phone, but I can't find the address. It is not indicated properly in my map. I speak to a random lady on the street to see if she can help me. She speaks French, calls with the address and, talking rad French of which I understand ten percent, takes me all the way to my "hotel," three hundred meters away. What friendly cordiality. I am met by the landlady, a grumpy fat old lady, who in turn is totally devoid of kindness, let alone cordiality toward me and her wretchedly barking dog, who, left to his own devices in the heat, runs desperately around in a filthy pen in the backyard full of garbage. My room has a simple old-fashioned bathroom with the necessary flaws and a side room with an extra bed and windows at eye level. Food smells and mothballs. The furnishings are from the 1950s. The place is noisy and the vacuum cleaner has probably been broken for years. The landlady doesn't see fit to take down her guest's details. Silently she takes the rent for one night. The same price as my suite last night. How dare she! And yet, it is indeed for the third consecutive day, that I get room number 6. For Chinese, a lucky number, especially as 666, I read in Wikipedia. Now I have to say, I unfortunately lost the €2.15 towel I bought in Coimbra at a Chinese store the same day, but today, on my way to a supermarket close to my mothball room, I found another towel just like that in one of those Chinese stores, this time for only €1.95. If that's not luck!

July 8, 2024, Lamego, 32 kilometers, total 1022 kilometers
The route passes through several beautiful and apparently fairly prosperous villages with pretty churches and a multitude of the most beautiful landscapes. Vineyards, fields, forests and especially mountains, lots of mountains and the path, in these regions often paved with square granite blocks, never goes around them, but always over them. I also walk one or two kilometers wrong. At ten-thirty coffee. There is a company in the bar, paying for my coffee. Just like that. That is nice. I take one myself for the enormous sum of one euro. Good coffee from freshly ground beans, like everywhere in Portugal, even in the mottiest cafes. Yesterday two coffees and two cakes, three eighty. I don't understand how that's possible. As I continue walking, I see clouds of smoke rising from behind the mountains. Clearly a wildfire. On a specialized site I find exactly where it is. Far away for now, but I keep a close eye on it, also in view of tomorrow's route. One village has a medieval tower at the beginning of a bridge from the same era. There is a terrace there, where I recover with a glass of Coke, which means sugar, caffeine and water. I walk comfortably on that. The steep roads call for long and frequent breaks, which is why I am on the road for a long time today.
By late afternoon I arrive in Lamego, sweaty and tired. The cathedral, like many churches in Portugal and Spain, is closed. Opposite it is my hotel, which is clean and a bit fussy. The room overlooks the square with the cathedral. I do some shopping and look around. The city has many churches. At the end of an elongated square with terraces, ponds and statues, at the top of a mountain at the end of a long Baroque ascent of up to a hundred meters high stands a church with two towers, pointing theatrically to the Higher. Among all the splendor of this place of pilgrimage, I feel like a cherry on a big cream cake.

July 9, 2024, Mesão Frio, 32 kilometers, total 1054 kilometers
A splash of rain falls all day, too little for the peasants and the raincoat. The advantage is that it doesn't get so hot under the cloud cover. This is just as well, because I have never taken such steep slopes as today. That's sweating and sighing, even though it's no more than twenty-two degrees. I shouldn't think of running here at thirty degrees. After an hour, five barking dogs run toward me. A neighbor, along with two more dogs, a total of seven so, come over to the noise, which the dogs and I make. "Nada mal!" I call back indignantly in good Dutch that I couldn't have known that and at the same time am proud that I have defied them, albeit trembling with fright. The other dogs today are either chained, behind a fence or not moving, so that's otherwise not a problem. At Peso da Régua, I cross the Douro over a long old-fashioned iron bridge with lots of tourists. On the way, you don't see them. They prefer to congregate in reputable tourist centers. After two kilometers along the Douro, the road crosses an unguarded railroad crossing and then rises extremely steeply. Magnificent views of the valley and the river are my reward for the panting climb. This area is unique and of great beauty. Centuries of toil were spent here to terraced the mountain slopes with stone walls to grow vines arranged in tight rows. This draws unusual graphic effects in the landscape, rightly honored as a World Heritage Site. The overnight address, where I made reservations yesterday, turns out to be a restaurant. When I get there, a delivery man smashes a five-liter bottle of wine on the floor. For now, I enjoy the delicious smells rising from the puddle of wine, unaware of this portent of misfortune as I shall soon find out. Inside they manage to tell me, that I have not reserved a room but a table for tonight. Didn't I mention earlier that it doesn't work when I have to talk on the phone to someone who only speaks Spanish? Thus my illusion of a nice bed is shattered, but I do have the prospect of a good plate of food. Somewhat disappointed I walk out, but there is hope: further on I see HOTEL on a roof with very large letters. Alas, another setback. Closed and has been for years, given the neglected state of the building. Eventually I find a B&B. Annoying, though, that the proprietress wants me to pay even more than Booking. At my prattle, she admits five euros, but without breakfast, because she has no intention of getting out of bed at six for this early pilgrim. She charges in cash. Madam puts the money in her pocket in black. The room is luxurious and has a magnificent view of the mountains and the Douro and even a swimming pool in the garden. Thus I begin to feel less and less like a pilgrim. Luxury beckons. I spend an hour in the shower, using all the towels, soaps and shampoos. If only she should have been nicer. Back into the village, where a friendly greengrocer points me to the albergue. It would be open. Probably a lot cheaper than the nine tens I docked at the B&B madam. In the restaurant, a nicely set table is waiting for me. The food is very good and inexpensive, the service friendly. All's well that ends well. The misfortune is not so bad in the end.

July 10, 2024, Amarante, 28 kilometers, total 1082 kilometers
The road climbs constantly, sometimes by as much as 20 percent, but it is worth it. Once again I am filled with admiration for the people who live all over the mountains here and made the area passable over the centuries. Hamlets plastered against steep slopes. As a rural person, it seems almost incomprehensible to me. Surprise: after six kilometers an impeccable establishment. That means sitting, resting, caffeine and cake, indispensable for the next stretch: again steeply up through forests to today's highest point: 884 meters, almost six hundred meters higher than my starting point three hours ago. Still the weather favors me with cloudy skies and about twenty degrees, and that midsummer. Then the reward: the descent along a winding road in exuberant green surroundings. The sun breaks through.
I walk into the center of Amarante across a long classical bridge. Nearby is my hotel with rooms and dormitories. I choose a dormitory. Chances are, no one else will be there. I may have ended up in a busy tourist city, but tourists don't sleep in halls. Beautiful old buildings, squares, churches, terraces. It sounds trite, but it isn't. At 7:30 I eat on a terrace. Impossible to get a sandwich here.

July 11, 2024, Guimarães 40 kilometers, total 1122 kilometers
Today a bit of everything: fog, drizzle, sunshine, lots of asphalt and traffic, a few more steep hills, an ideal path on an abandoned railroad line, coffee in due course and two stages in one day because the first stage ends too early in a completely uninteresting place. What would I do there all day? Occasionally I see someone working in the fields. Just tilling the ground with a hoe. Regularly, even in the larger cities, a public death ad taped to a lamppost, including a photo of the deceased, when alive, always too fat. The baker drives around and hangs plastic bags of rolls on the fence from his customers. Somewhere a wagon drives, loudly calling out important announcements. A church bell fake strikes the time through loudspeakers. Vineyards, where there is still a lot of manual labor, because the terrain is not suitable for big machines, or because the labor is cheap, I don't know. Poison sprayers without masks. Many ruins, even of a large monastery building. Flats and other buildings that were never finished. An old woman doing her laundry by hand at a public wash house. Cubist new-build villas with lots of white and black and glass, sometimes shot to the point of resembling a bunker. In between, traditional properties complete with fences, embellished with lions or eagles guarding the entrance gate, both looking to the right. The left was definitely up. Rarely a hop with its nice soft hop hop hop sound.
The pilgrimage town of Guimarães is a classic Portuguese town with a mace of a castle and proud of its church at the end of an avenue of rising baroque gardens as if the carpet has already been laid out for Our Lord at His Second Coming. I feel privileged to be here in the middle of downtown in a bargain designer hotel. In the small lobby, two glazed white rabbits stand in an alcove. I added another one of my mini-rabbits, having initiated the interested and not ugly receptionist into the gospel of the white rabbit.

July 12, 2024, Braga 22 kilometers, total 1144 kilometers
Few miles today. I can leave late and take it easy. Initially through a pleasant urban setting with plenty of coffee, water, cola, bread, fruit, yogurt, chapels and even twice bom caminho by attractive ladies and once by a scrawny smoking man, who offers me water. But then. The dreaded hump of nearly 250 meters and the only way into the next valley. The path is an old Roman road paved with large flat boulders through a eucalyptus forest. Often a boulder is missing. Nicked to build a hut with? Atop the hump is a church, again with a driveway for Our Lord. This the umpteenth pilgrimage site I pass. Santiago is being competed away here.
Walking into Braga is less unpleasant than usual with big cities. Beautiful avenues of greenery and contemporary apartments and houses. I provide access to my hotel room by various codes. Give me a live receptionist. I thought Booking had omitted a 1, but my "room" does indeed measure only five square meters. That's all I need, and it's always better than a bunk bed in a dormitory, and above all: right in the middle of downtown that flaunts beautiful buildings and streets as grandiose as the other larger cities. The shared bathroom is immaculate and not yet used today by other guests, which is nice. I have been lugging around an emergency supply of canned beans for days, but the need did not come. So now that must be my dinner. That saves weight in the backpack again. Then a tour of downtown, including a very full glass of inferior quality port at one of the crowded terraces where everything is on the menu except a healthy salad. If only we had such lukewarm summer evenings in the Netherlands. Then to bed in time for tomorrow's long trek. My coop is not only very small, but also blood hot from the sun that has been shining inside all day. The window can be opened, even for the noise of the busy street below and the mosquitoes. The fan makes noise like a lawnmower from the municipal parks department. Window closed and fan off. The smothering heat and the fact that I sleep near a pilgrimage site helps just fine to feel like a little pilgrim again.

July 13, 2024, Ponte de Lima, 36 kilometers, total 1180 kilometers
About this long route I can be brief. Hilly, green, streams, rapids, houses, churches, eucalyptus forests, barking dogs and a hop. Behind the mountains more mountains. The exertion swallows my attention. I can't quite manage to stay in the rhythm of walking. The villages here are blandly modern, the towns classically beautiful and though different, yet the same: large impressive buildings, beautifully tiled buildings, cozy squares, stone arched bridges. I get just about oversaturated.
In the tourist crowded Ponte de Lima, the Camino Torres, where until now I was the only one walking along with the Camino Portugués comes overland. I look in my phone to see exactly where the inn is. A man asks, "Albergue?" I nod. "You're at the door!" Inside the inn, I see a woman on a landing. We greet each other. She says, "How are you?" The usual response to such a question is usually something like okay thank you, but after five weeks of silence, I take it as genuine interest in my little person and pump some ramblings about my hike into her ears. This municipal albergue is large with more than enough room for the estimated thirty-five guests. It feels good to be among people, but it also takes some getting used to. Especially the constant chatter of those people. Next to me, two ladies are talking at length and not very restrained in volume with each other in a Slavic language. I hold back, but I would prefer to shut them up, with pasteis de nata if necessary. Otherwise, the dormitory is filled with young people, talking and laughing enthusiastically with each other. After thirty-eight days of walking alone like a young dog, I feel old and lonely for the first time.


Camino Portugués
For stories, it's better to walk the Camino.

July 14, 2024, Gandra/Valença, 30 kilometers, total 1210 kilometers.
This is a Camino day, which I like after all the silence of the past weeks: the occasional familiar face from the previous albergue with a pleasant chat. Here on the Camino Portugués I see for the first time again billboards of hostels and albergues and pilgrim menus, yes even cab companies, which do drive you over a tricky hump. Memorials, where people leave stones, photos and other treasures. All not seen before Ponte. There were no pilgrims there to host, feed, transport or places to leave treasured possessions.
I stop in a quiet place in the middle of nature at an albergue, "Quinta Estrada Romana. In front of it in the garden are some people, whom I recognize, waiting for the inn to open. I abandon my plan to walk into Spain today. Bull's-eye. The hospitalero, Diogo, provides a warm welcome, clean laundry and a shared meal, where good conversation easily ensues. His guests today are happy and open-minded. Diogo has got it right. He is often on a pilgrimage himself. At the table, I address him and reveal the secret of the White Rabbit. He is eligible for the White Rabbit Award because of his efforts to create a nice cozy place where the wandering pilgrim can catch his breath and meet other pilgrims. No certificate but a mini plastic rabbit falls to him. Glasses of wine are clinked. Friendships are made for shorter or longer periods of time. Twelve hundred kilometers after Valencia I finally find it, here in Valença, the real old-fashioned Camino feeling, thanks to Diogo and those nice guests today.

July 15, 2024, Moss, 28 kilometers, total 1238 kilometers
When I wake up, almost everyone has already quietly left. One last look at Diogo's remarkable inn, then head for nearby Valença, a beautiful fortress. The restaurants are still closed when I walk through the town, and why should they be open? Tourists are not that early. Soon I cross the Rio Miño. Halfway across the bridge, Spain begins and it starts to rain. It stops at some splashing and repeats itself a few more times. On the other side is Tui, also a beautiful fortified town, where I see some familiar faces from yesterday, especially at the ticket office of the Mosteiro de Nosa Señora da Concepción, where a nun sells a box of cookies for a tenner through a kind of mini turnstile. This is how she stays secluded from the world and earns something for the convent. I run into Beth. She is carrying a large, well-stuffed backpack and pushing a stroller with even more stuff and a child. I offer to push for a while. She's fine with it. She is walking the Camino Portugués from Porto with her five-year-old daughter and has done enough pushing. Occasionally the child is allowed in the stroller, but not uphill. Beth turns out to be a psychologist. We talk about failed relationships, psychotherapy and, of course, pilgrimage and how wonderful it can be. Meanwhile, I walk as Grandpa behind the stroller. We joke to other runners that since today we are a family. After ten kilometers, mother and child get on the bus, heading to a hotel and we say goodbye with a proper hug. Friends for ten kilometers.
Today's albergue is commercial, nevertheless does not cost a dime. I can eat in the accompanying restaurant. At the reception is a pilgrim, Marie, whom I have met for three days now in every albergue. Both happy to see a familiar face. She was the first and only pilgrim to chat with me in Ponte de Lima after I had been alone for weeks. I found that very special. We sat down to dinner together and had a good time in this otherwise not very interesting ambiance. The few other guests go their separate ways. The people from last night probably stopped in O Porriño. I would have liked to have seen and talked to them again. You can quickly get attached to some people. I didn't like O Porriño: lots of backpackers, including fakes with small bags. Besides, not far enough, because in four days I want to arrive in Santiago. It's only a hundred kilometers now. I have to score two stamps for my compostela every day, otherwise I will have walked thirteen hundred kilometers for nothing.

July 16, 2024, Pontevedra, 32 kilometers, total 1270 kilometers
Today's route is not very exciting. I came to a stretch where I walked with Ellen this year. Occasional nature and then a lot of city noise. Lots of runners, I won't classify them. Sometimes a rabbit with felt-tip pen chalked on something. Mysterious. Of course, also places where people go about eternity with commemorative things like stones, photos, bracelets, shoes and so on. A bonus of ten kilometers because my intended goal turned out to be fully booked and the next opportunity only presents itself after two hours of walking. And yet today I feel supreme. I find myself talking to a young lady with a sore knee, but that conversation is roughly hijacked by a faith healer, who, by laying on of hands, directly descends the Lord into her knee. So much rude kindness does not merit my interest. I walk on, and for the rest I am only concerned with moving forward on such a schedule that I reach my plane on the way home just in time.
What was fun today? A German teacher of twenty-seven with the most beautiful pitch-black hair with small waves, with whom I sat on a terrace pleasantly talking and having breakfast, that is, two cups of coffee, a glass of orange juice and a hunk of cake, and then also with a Flemish translator at the EU of forty-four with beautiful brown eyes, who wants to discover on the Camino what she wants to do with her life and who had promised me a few days ago that I would talk Dutch with her for a while, because until then I had not met anyone with whom I could talk in Dutch. That too was a pleasant conversation.
I ended up in a giant albergue. The place is swarming with young people. I am about to describe this day and then a metal plate above my bed catches my eye, indicating that this bed is for an invalid. I am not that bad off. Except for my feet, which got too much work and too little rest today, I am feeling great. This is the only non-stack bed and was given it by the hospitalero because of my advanced age. To him that is apparently synonymous with disability. Excellent! I share the dormitory of no more than five by five with ten others, including a Spanish father with his twenty-year-old daughter. Her grandfather is two years younger than me. Hearing that, I am thickly satisfied with my status quo after more than thirty kilometers.

July 17, 2024, Caldas de Reis, 23 kilometers, total 1293 kilometers
The last bedroom companions went to bed at 11:30, the first one let the alarm clock go off at six for a nice long time. On the road with too little sleep, that doesn't run well. In the semi-darkness the blackbirds were singing. Funny, in some towns or villages I heard mostly pigeons early in the morning, in others roosters, and in still others many blackbirds. And so this is a blackbird town. And speaking of noises, all towns and villages roar and reek of lawnmowers and chainsaws on gasoline engines. As soon as you start hearing and smelling that, you know, a village or town is coming. Not a long route today and not a very tough one either.
We succeeded again, thanks to the rejection at a fully booked albergue in Caldas de Reis, in finding a spacious room for a few dollars, the last according to the hotel receptionist. In the lobby are dozens of suitcases of fakes who, I think with delightfully uninhibited nuance, are buying off their fear of letting go at baggage transporters. I literally land in a warm bath and can sleep for a few hours undisturbed. Just what I need.
Spanish friendliness in the hospitality industry is sometimes as warm as ice cream. After my excellent meal of a tomato salad swimming in olive oil and fried pulpo, the gum-chewing waitress asks, or rather, shouts as she takes the table away, "Dessert or coffee!" Among themselves, Spaniards talk loudly and intrusively. Neither gets used to it. She comes back: "Dessert?" I "Helado." She: "Helada." Indeed, I think.

July 18, 2024, Padrón, 19 kilometers, total 1312 kilometers
The closer to Santiago, the more runners, in this case vacationers who cling to each other in groups twittering. I choose an albergue for my overnight stay, which is located in the original Franciscan monastery of Herbón and is accessible only to those who carry their own luggage and have a credencial. Reservations cannot be made here. In the evening there is a communal meal for the maximum of thirty guests. In short, only the "real" pilgrims come in here. It seemed to me an ideal albergue for the last night before Santiago and I was happy to make the five kilometer detour. I arrive early and have to wait a few more hours for the door to open. Slowly the guests trickle in. I can hear some of them talking above the silence of this beautiful place in nature. I marvel again and again at people's irrepressible need to cram texts into each other's ears. At a quarter past three, the door opens. The number of pilgrims has increased. The old hospitalero is losing count. Everyone gets a set of disposable sheets and I think, just prepare thirty in advance and see if you have reached your limit. His dedication is no less and becomes even more intense when he realizes that I am no less than ten years older than he is. This results in a lower bed and my upper bed is kept empty. I like to be old when it suits me. A lady also walks in, massaging donativo calves. I don't need that. If only she came by with fries or something. After all, the meal is not until nine o'clock. First Mass has to be celebrated and there is eating and drinking, but I don't get to do that as an uninitiated person. Then three camino friends arrive with food. They invite me to eat with them. White rabbit! In the evening, all the guests get a nice tour of the various buildings of the monastery. Then to Mass. At the end, all present read a saying in their own language. Then the pilgrim's blessing is distributed and sealed with a certificate, on which you still have to fill in your name and date. Finally, at nine o'clock, there is a simple meal. A nice pumpkin soup, lots of healthy salad, a simple pasta and a modest dessert. The noisy acoustics of the dining kitchen makes, that I cannot participate well in the conversations thanks to my poor hearing. It doesn't matter. The atmosphere is good and that's the important thing. All in all, a classic old-fashioned creamy occasion, full of goodness, for the one and only pilgrim on his way to the holy remains of St. James in Santiago.
Spain is modernizing. Old simple villages are modernizing. Crowded Caminos are modernizing. A place and evening like this may not exist in twenty-five years.

July 19, 2024, Santiago de Compostela, 28 kilometers, total 1340 kilometers
I wake up at seven with Gregorian music. Breakfast is as frugal as a pilgrim could wish for: two pieces of toasted bread with butter and jam plus coffee and then on my way. Padrón is nearby and good for the necessary supplement to breakfast. Coffee with cake. On the way I say goodbye to some people, including Mark from Liverpool and Marie from France and a few more, whose names I do not know but with whom I had brief friendships. Otherwise, the daily protocol is completed as it has been for forty-two days: walk, walk and walk again.
Arriving in Santiago, I pass a store that sells branded clothing for next to nothing. I buy a pair of jeans and a polo shirt for a few dollars. Although my clothes have been washed regularly, I am not sure that I will get on the plane without any smell. As always, it is pleasantly busy in Santiago. I hurry to the office for my compostela. Near there, I hear my name. It is Leon, whom I know from the Society of St. James in Rotterdam and who lives at the same port. Extraordinary to meet him here. In the office, my tracking number is skipped, so I walk up to a random employee, who miraculously speaks Dutch. She tries as best she can to enter my routes. The computer system doesn't know the Levante, nor the Teresiano or the Torres. But it eventually manages to juggle the 1340 kilometers and Valencia in my certificate. Me satisfied. Never would have succeeded with a Spanish-speaking employee. White rabbit to the last! On to the Living Room of the Low Countries for a nice chat with the two ladies who host pilgrims there and Leon. We agree, later in the evening, to have dinner together in Pinario.
I left alone in Valencia. I arrived alone in Santiago and true enough, James immediately provided good company.

July 20, 2024, Rotterdam 1395 kilometers
First, let's get some breakfast at a good cafe. Then some shopping for my sweetheart. It is not easy to find something nice in this Valhalla of souvenirs and knickknacks. Fifteen minutes before the start of the pilgrimage mass in an already packed Santiago cathedral, I only find a spot on a stone staircase at the side entrance. Not very comfortable but strategic: should the botafumeiro, the enormous censer hanging in the middle of the church, start swinging I will be in the front row here. There is still time for a pleasant chat with people around me. A lady with the text on her T-shirt reads: To Jesus Through Mary and her daughter gratefully use my knees as a backrest. Impressive how thousands of people, religious or not, gather here every day in peace. 
Along the way there was a lady somewhere who asked me to pray for her in Santiago. You can't say no to such a question, can you? At least I can't, and although the good Lord knows who I mean, it would be proper to recommend her by name. But I don't remember. I therefore read many of my notes before the service begins to find out her name. Thus, en passant, the stories of more than forty days of walking and thirteen hundred miles full of miracles resurface. I ask, inspired by her name and the sunlight that briefly but intensely illuminates the cathedral on this wet overcast day, if our dear Lord may illuminate Aurora, for that appears to be her name. And yes, I am again in the front row to see the botafumeiro enthusiastically snaking through the cathedral at the end of the service. The white smoke fills the church with the smell of incense, which, along with my new pants and polo shirt, reassures me that I will not stink like a pilgrim during the nearly fourteen hundred kilometers home by bus, plane and train. 
In the rain, I wait for the bus to the Santiago airport. In a few hours, I'll be home. Nice and fast, but end of story. For stories, it's better to walk the Camino. 
 
 

Carrer del Miracle: epilogue 

"Something," call it the Camino, the Universe or St. James, takes care of you as you make your way down a Carrer del Miracle. 
 
It is eight o'clock in the evening. The day is almost over. I look back in my mind, look at the pictures I took today and start to write. Enough has happened and what I had already forgotten surfaces again with those pictures. Writing seems to come naturally. I restrain myself: no time to write everything down, because I also have to get a good night's sleep before the next day which starts early in order to arrive at my next sleeping place in time for the greatest heat. 
This is how I ended all forty-three days I spent on the Camino from Valencia to Santiago de Compostela. Starting in Valencia, where a street sign caught my eye: Carrer del Miracle. Every day a new story of different roads, different towns, villages and hamlets, different landscapes, different people, different experiences and, above all, different miracles. 
 
How should I summarize that? By saying that it is a thirteen-hundred-kilometer road, where, up to where the Camino Torres joins the Camino Portugués at Ponte de Lima, you rarely meet a pilgrim, in my case only one other? Or by enumerating all the different landscapes, from various types of orchards, endless wheat fields and smelly industrial sites, mountains, rivers and streams to the undulating Meseta or by telling, that I have been helped by the police to a place to sleep about four times, twice housed in a room of a bullfighting arena, twice cleaned out a neglected albergue as a donativo in kind, removed about four ticks, lost two towels and one cap? I don't know, but this is what I do know: on this long silent unknown Camino, I encountered happiness every day in the beauty of the land, in the warmth of the people, in the inspiration of the universe, in myself. 
 
That more pilgrims do not walk this beautiful long path is beyond me. Really, you don't have to be a hero, athlete or young god. Sometimes it is hard, but gradually you get stronger and stronger, not only physically, but also in confidence, that "Something," call it the Camino, the Universe or St. James, takes care of you, because you are moving on a Carrer del Miracle. 
 
 
 
     
 

Calle de la Esperanza 

Walking with the hopeful expectation of interesting experiences along the way
 
The Camino Francés: the classic pilgrimage route from Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port to Santiago de Compostela. Pilgrim paths from all corners of Europe converge in St. Jean at the foot of the Pyrenees in southwestern France. Countless pilgrims leave here toward Santiago, often in the hopeful expectation of interesting experiences along the way: rightfully a "Calle de la Esperanza. 
 
 
 
       
 
 
 

On the road to Bayonne 

The Camino provides 
 
Sept. 6, 2024 
"Willem, it was nice to meet you today. Thank you for talking with me and helping me to not feel anxious. I wish you joy in your journey and luck with your book." Aubrey appended this during the day. She was sitting next to me on a bench on platform two of Rotterdam Central waiting for the train to Brussels, the same train, which will take me to Paris. I struck up a chat with her. The eight o'clock train she and I had booked had been cancelled. She was afraid she had misunderstood the situation. The next train was fully booked. We were allowed on but without reserved seats. As far as Brussels, we talked about all sorts of things and joked while standing in the aisle of the crowded train. Aubrey wanted a selfie with me. I had no objection to that, nor to the hug she offered me in farewell. A beautiful person, and I met her just like that. A good start to my Camino to Santiago de Compostela. Beforehand I had firmly resolved not to make reservations anywhere, anywhere, on the way, after all, 'the Camino provides'. Surprisingly, now even my train is not reserved. 
I am sitting in a dining car on a hard chair contemplating the first hours of my pilgrimage. Until Paris, I stood on a packed train. Time flew thanks to conversations with this and that and my short-lived friendship with Aubrey. On the train, I forgot to buy a ticket for the metro. In Paris, there are always time-consuming long lines in front of the ticket machines. Troublesome when you have little time for the subway from Gare du Nord to Gare Montparnasse, but quietly I waited my turn, bought my ticket with the help of a railroad official and arrived at Montparnasse well ahead of time. The connecting train had long since left. I could take the next one south, though. This train, too, was fully booked. This threatened another four hours of aisle time. So I asked Father Jacob to position me favorably on the platform, and he did. The dining car stopped right in front of me. 
The seat may be hard, but at least I am sitting, courtesy of the universe. Meanwhile, the French country shoots past me at more than three hundred kilometers per hour and lots of train noise. Forests, fields of sunflowers, quiet villages, too beautiful for this pace. I want to walk there. 
The happiness ends when I discover, that I have sat down in the wrong part of the train. Jacob didn't realize that, neither did the conductor, and I don't see until an hour later that we are going to Pau instead of Bayonne. 
Return Bayonne. Another hour longer on the train, after a very wet shower of rain across the platform in Pau. Or is it luck after all, that the good train arrives after only twenty minutes? In any case, it fits in with my plan to walk the Camino Francés without reservations. That is bound to bring surprises. More surprises await me in Bayonne. The train to Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port is not running. Buses have been used, which take twice as long. Then I would not arrive until ten o'clock. Way too late. I walk in the evening sun through this beautiful French town to an inn where I spent the night last year at the beginning of the Camino del Norte. The small but clean inn is full, but the friendly elderly hospitalero improvises an extra bed. I am given a cup of tea, a fellow pilgrim from the Far East brings a nectarine and I am also served a bowl of yogurt. What a warm welcome. 
Despite appearances to the contrary, the journey started well for me. Nothing booked, no train, no bed, and yet I am sitting princely in this auberge. Tomorrow morning there will probably be a train to Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port.

Camino Francés 

'Camino is a way inward that you do alone and where silence is essential.'
Hospitalero of Casa Paroquial Hospital de Peregrino, Tosantos.

Sept. 7, 2024, Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port - Roncesvalles 28 km.
A short night thanks to the coughing of two fellow travelers and the wiggling of my downstairs neighbor in the bunk bed. Breakfast consisting of two pieces of toasted baguette and a mug of coffee needs to be supplemented with rolls from a bakery.
On the local train to Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port. Surrounding me is a group of five hikers with large well-stuffed backpacks and a daypack large enough in itself to walk half the globe with. With great fun, they search through a multitude of bags for their train tickets. In SJPdP, the morning is a dull affair. I don't feel like hanging around here all day. I buy sandwiches for the long trip to Roncesvalles. It will be late and yet I have the confidence, that there is a bed waiting for me there.
It is not crowded on the Camino. Most have left well before seven and I don't start until 9:30. It goes uphill almost all day and it's not so bad. The most exciting thing is a horde of up to twenty-five horses, galloping straight toward me, too fast for a photo. It is a bright sunny day. The mountains are beautiful. A single eagle circles in the sky. My left knee hurts on the last long descent.
Eating and drinking well along the way is very important for a successful hike. I am finding that out today by trial and error. Didn't bring enough food, didn't have enough energy left. In Roncesvalles I arrive exhausted. In the winter quarters of the refugio a kind of emergency bed is free. It couldn't be simpler, not even an electrical outlet, but an excess of mothballs. Dinner is served in the adjoining hotel, which is just as well because I am hungry and there is nothing else to be had in this former monastery complex. Fast forward to the pilgrim's blessing. The service is almost over, but I can just about catch the blessing under the supervision of a silver statue of Mary. Good food is not a given in Spain. Here, good is synonymous with much. This becomes apparent at dinner. Lots of macaroni, lots of indeterminate soup, lots of chicken that I suspect to have been an old rooster and that I leave on my plate because of a dubious color and then an ice cream for dessert. A lot for little money.
It is ten o'clock. Bedtime. The light is inexorably turned off by the Dutch hospitalero. With me, it went out earlier.

Sept. 8, 2024, Roncesvalles - Urdaniz 27 km, total 55 km.
Fate has decided, that among four extraordinarily adipose snoring figures, I must learn to maintain a cozy mood and sleep. The four showers here are too cramped for these people and it can be smelled. That AND an idiot, who packs his bags at four o'clock, makes the night a learning experience. My upstairs neighbor flees to the kitchen and sleeps on a few loose pillows. I seize that moment to turn the headboard into the footboard, away from the snoring head of my fragrant neighbor. It doesn't help much: someone is snoring fragrantly there, too.
At six o'clock the lights go on. Most are busy packing by then. The cramped showers have lovely hot water. Thanks to the hook I have with me and the luxury of a hand shower, I manage to hang my clothes in a corner of the shower stall and keep them dry. There are no other hooks. Nowhere.
Everyone is rushing to leave this place as soon as possible, and I can understand that. It is still dusk and chilly outside. My knee that suddenly started hurting yesterday on the descent feels a lot better today. Walking carefully, especially downhill. I resolve not to reserve a place to sleep until Santiago but to knock at the first inn after about 25 kilometers every day.
Varied landscape, many forest trails. Some villages with coffee. Jean-Marc wants to take a picture with me. Nice guy, he sat at my table yesterday. A couple of Spaniards ditto, because of my Basque beret. Miles of almost impassable path. That doesn't get us anywhere.
Just like that, for no apparent reason, I give a white mini rabbit, symbol of an extraordinary journey, to a lady from Taiwan. For her reason to give me a pin with the Taiwanese flag. I attach it to my beret and resolve to pass it on to another Taiwanese.
After twenty-five kilometers I reach a beautiful village, Zubiri, via an old bridge, where no place to sleep is unoccupied. The place is swarming with backpackers. A few kilometers further on I find a quiet albergue with a bed, a swimming pool, a washing machine, Shannon from Utah, Nuria from Madrid and a friendly hospitalero, who cooks for the ten guests and does it very well. It is cozy at the table. There is a lot of laughter. The inn is completo with me. My bed was the only one not reserved. San Tiago kept it free for me.

Sept. 9, 2024, Urdaniz - Cizur 22 km, total 77 km.
Slept well, but unfortunately woke up with a cold. I suspect the coughing in Bayonne as the cause. This inn is so neat and the people so friendly, it doesn't make for exciting stories. After the communal breakfast on the road. Back after a kilometer to get my beret.
Beautiful trails along a fast-flowing river. The murmur of rapids drowns out the traffic noise of the thoroughfare on the opposite side. Shrubs and trees with colorful berries. Autumn is coming.
Pamplona beautiful, but not enough to stay there, besides many signs: 'completo'.
At the Inn of the Maltese Order, a few kilometers outside Pamplona, there is plenty of room. Not many kilometers, but today sniveling more than enough. There I meet a young lady from Taiwan, twenty-five years young. Sweet face with bangs. Yo is her name. Earlier today I already saw Taiwanese, but only now I decide to give away the flag of Taiwan. She is very happy with it and tells, that she has been looking for such a pin and could not find it. Then I think I got it yesterday to be able to give it to her. That's how it works on the Camino. Yo has big blisters under both feet. She had read that you have to put a wire through them. That is a persistent misunderstanding and the worst thing you can do. I treat her professionally and give her a mini rabbit as comfort. Afterwards, she wants her picture taken with me. I'm okay with that. Sophie, who sat next to me at the table yesterday walks in. She brings a camino friend, Beth from the US. We decide to go to a restaurant together. Joe from Belgium joins us as well as Yo and a young lady, Tal, from Israel. She is going to follow my Polarsteps. They are all solo runners with no reservations. It will be a pleasant evening with good food and an exceptionally friendly waitress. We have to hurry to be back before 9:30 because that's when the hospitalero locks the door. As a pilgrim, you have complete freedom, but the hospitalero has the last word.

Sept. 10, 2024, Cizur - Puente la Reina 22 km, total 99 km.
Slept little, snickered a lot. I feel lousy, but paracetamol brings salvation. Yo is happy with her feet no longer hurting. My left knee is pain-free, which is also nice.
Beautiful undulating landscape and a steep and muddy path to an impressive viewpoint with a large pilgrim procession of steel. There are remarkably many young ladies from Taiwan. With four of them I have a chat.
Puente la Reina is a pretty town with several albergues. I choose one in the quiet outside the town. It is large and unsociable, like a campground in the 1970s. I put up with it, and unreservedly. So far it has taken little effort to find a bed, despite little positive predictions from experience experts such as "just bring an air mattress for in a fire station" or "at least make reservations in SJPdP and Roncesvalles" or "in September there are big parties in Spain, then all the big cities are fully booked." The more sounds like that, the more I believe that booking is a collective illusion. The Camino "provides" except in SJPdP, Roncesvalles and September?

Sept. 11, 2024, Puente la Reina - Azqueta, 30 km, total 129 km.
Today I walk through a lush landscape of hills, harvested fields and ripe fruits of roses, elder, oak, grape and fig. Along the way I receive greetings from Yo, conveyed by another Taiwanese who recognizes me by my beret.
This day, day five, is hug day. It starts at seven in the morning with a young lady from Hungary, a soldier, who was trained to pick up war dead, complete or otherwise, from the battlefield. She showed me her valuables last night, including a white plush bunny, which she got when she was adopted, two years old. She always has it with her. Of course she qualifies for one of my mini-rabbits, including a story to go with it. She asks nicely if she can give me a hug. I hope to see her again today, because she wants to include my stories in a book she is going to write. The second hug is from a lady from the US, who, like me, wears a Basque beret, but red. I give her the address of the finest hat and cap store in Santiago. She cannot proceed without a hug and she too asks nicely. The third is from Beth. I have known her for three days now. She says goodbye to go to her reserved pilgrim sleepover, but later decides to walk on to my albergue, where I find her again. The fourth is Helene, the hospitalera of the albergue "Perla Negra" in Azqueta. She remembers me very well. We are happy to see each other again after two years. Two years ago she heard in fragments my rabbit story that I told to Eddy, another pilgrim. After breakfast, she asked me if I would tell the story to her as well. It resulted in a touching conversation and much later than intended I continued walking that day. We never forgot each other. She granted me the same bed she had two years ago: in the attic in a room of her own by an open window.
How quiet this village is! I am sitting outside on a bench. The sun is finally going to shine, today. I sip a half-liter of wine, tapped along the way at a bodega with two taps in the wall, one for water, one for red wine, good for a hundred liters each day. Free. Only for pilgrims. Last time I passed it at six o'clock. Too late, no wine. It is a simple wine, but what is more delicious than to tap and drink wine like water. I cannot share it, or one must sip my virus. Meanwhile, I do some more acquisition for the inn and talk a lone runner in
In the evening the runners eat dinner together and interesting conversations about the magic of the Camino unfold, which more or less come to a dead end in a preachy monologue by a pilgrim who has seen the camino light. After the broadcast is finished and the preacher has left, the conversation resumes. Helene is clearly delighted with this company. She tells in Spanish, larded with English, that as a child she sometimes saw a single pilgrim passing by. She would call out to her mother, "A pilgrim!" Her mother brought each pilgrim into the house, to eat and drink, and offered them a bed. This is how she came to start this hostel, but also how a pampered public, looking for comfort and less for experiencing an echo of pilgrimage in earlier times or any kind of spirituality, detracts from her ideas of the ideal pilgrim hostel without luggage transport, Booking etc. Finally, she asks me, if I would like to retell the original rabbit story. Nothing better than that. Of course, she qualifies for a mini-rabbit.
I'll leave the wine for now. Enough slobbering.

Sept. 12, 2024, Azqueta - Torres del Rio, 23 km, total 152 km.
I forget to take a dose of paracetamol before bed. That ends up costing me an hour of sniveling insomnia halfway through the night. Then I slept through the night and got up late. Extensive breakfast and talk with some, who are also not so early. Helene tells, that she got a relationship with a Dutchman, René, who visited her as a pilgrim and has not left since. He took over a bar in the village and now resides permanently in Spain. René had come here last night to talk to me, but by then I was already in bed. I should definitely visit him, is the recommendation. I do. He is so busy serving a stream of runners that we barely get a chance to talk. He was an accountant and an economics teacher. This life suits him much better.
I don't set out until ten o'clock. It is another delightful walk through a beautiful hilly area with the most beautiful towns, and well done.
I am by no means the only hiker. Along the way, I talk to a man who is remembering his grandmother, who died in March. He was raised by her after his mother relinquished him. He flew to Turkey from Canada for the funeral. His mother had arranged it so that grandmother was buried the moment he landed. He apparently did not matter. Since then he has broken with his mother, which is why he is now walking the Camino to remember his beloved grandmother.
After two it gets quieter. Most of the "pilgrims" are on beer by then. So is Sophie, the farmer's wife from France, who can never be away for more than a week. I meet her on a terrace. Her husband had told her over the phone that a huge pile of work was waiting for her. You would love to take care of a man like that. She is going home tomorrow, her only consolation being that she loves her work. Sophie says goodbye to me appropriately. She must think most men are virtuous. In Torres del Rio, Beth reappears, sitting behind a glass of beer. She says under tears how hard it is for her that her husband does not understand her pilgrimage and that she cannot share her happiness on the Camino with him. Then I am much better off with my Ellen: she assures me again and again that she wants nothing more than to see me happy on the Camino. Today it seems like an old-fashioned consultation hour, with the difference, that I used to never end a consultation with a dinner date and hug. I do that with Beth.
The albergue is in a beautiful antique building, which also contains a hotel. Ten bunk beds in a limited space, but not all invested. Again, I can get in without a reservation. My upper bed remains empty. Can I turn over as many times as I want without waking my neighbours. The food in a nearby restaurant is advertised as paella and consists mainly of sticky rice with chicken bones and lots of red wine. With fifteen camino friends at a long table. We cheer and applaud as it is served. The mayor drops by as well.
For those who would like to see my medical file: my left knee has completely recovered, my cold has degenerated into a purulent tracheitis with coughs and rattles that even Sophie's husband would be ashamed of, and my as yet unmentioned muscle pains since crossing the Pyrenees. Those are still there. A gram of paracetamol three times a day and you won't hear me complain.
Not so convenient and inconsistent to book a return ticket. I have calculated, that my target must be increased from twenty-seven to thirty kilometers per day, to catch my plane on Oct. 6, or I must cheat with public transportation.

Sept. 13, 2024, Torres del Rio - Ventosa, 43 km, total 195 km.
Someone's alarm clock goes off at six. As a result, I am on the street at seven with a cup of coffee and a fried egg sandwich behind my teeth. Today it is time to tackle the kilometers missed because of my cold. To that end, I have my eye on an albergue, which is forty kilometers away and slightly off the route. There will probably still be room when I get there at four o'clock.
The description of the landscape is getting monotonous, see yesterday, although I still can't get enough of it. Nor do the villages and towns bore me with their narrow streets, sumptuously carved churches and romantic squares with terraces. Logroño ditto, but magnified. A vulture on a pole sits quietly as I pass by. Almost ripe grapes. A twenty-five-year-old Italian actress-to-be is overwhelmed by an old Spaniard, who suddenly gives her a kiss on the cheek. She no longer has grandparents. I am adopting her as my grandchild. She is happy about that, but we lose each other before there is even anything on paper about it.
Forty kilometers is a lot, but it works. Only three hundred meters before my goal a car stops. The driver advises me not to walk any further: "completo." There is still room in the next village, I am told, and that turns out to be true at the cost of three extra kilometers. I shouldn't have been so stubborn as to deviate from the route. The inn where I am going now is just along the route.
I have dinner with three Swedes and one Italian. Neat people. A silent combination. I throw in some stories, which helps a little. The waitress acts like she's crazy when I gesture clearly that she shouldn't serve so chicly sparingly. She just needs to go to school for a while. Then she can learn to clean up the plates first and only then arrive with dessert if you really want to do fancy.
The albergue, again this is getting monotonous, is a beautiful old building with numerous rooms and even more bunk beds, one of which is assigned to me on top. It is because two reservations did not show up, otherwise my arrival would have made things completo. The hospitalero warns me that I must leave early tomorrow so as not to miss the boat. You chat, I think. At a quarter past nine, my roommates are already in deep rest. That will probably mean getting up early again tomorrow and the hospitalero will have his way after all.

Sept. 14, 2024, Ventosa - Cirueña, 28 km, total 223 km.
This is not so bad: it is only after 6:30 that some movement in the dormitory begins. My packing and getting out goes more and more efficiently. Within twenty-five minutes I am outside. The bar around the corner provides a quick snack with coffee and then I walk among the vineyards of Rioja almost all day and even for hours alone.
On the way, I chat with Brenda, a sedate lady from the US. She looks old and tired. I venture to ask her age. Maybe she is older than me, that would be nice. I don't always want to be the oldest. Fourteen years younger. Later I see her on a terrace rejoicing at our reunion. She even exclaims that she will never forget me. With such a cry, I have already diagnosed myself. "Brenda feel free to forget me" but such a cutting response always comes hours too late.
On the same terrace I meet another runner, whom I have seen and talked to along the way: Shana. She has a plush little bear, Peggy Bear, hanging from her backpack. The bear resembles Bumo, my bear, when I was little and who mysteriously disappeared from my life. Once she gave the bear to her grandmother. After she died, she got it back and now it goes everywhere with her. She lets him have all kinds of adventures and makes booklets out of them, which she wants to publish. Brenda, I have never forgotten Bumo.
A mistake in my map causes me to detour four kilometers and, as a result, I arrive an hour later at a bright blue painted albergue where, despite last night's gloomy predictions from the hospitalero, there is just another bed for me, and a real bed at that, not a stack. The hospitalero rules with a punishing hand at the expense of the necessary warmth, which I feel is moderately compensated by a very nutritious meal, causing agitation in my intestines despite being heralded with a three-second prayer and served in wooden naps. He sits there yawning, apparently exhausted after a season of six to 10 every day with different guests each time. Baggage tags for "toeregrinos" lie ready in the hallway. That's clearly not his favorite crowd. His albergue is for sale.
After the meal, I hear stories about problems that can arise if you don't reserve a bed. I can't relate. Someone suggests, that my optimism and energy ensure, that there is always a bed for me. Could well be. My Italian roommate, despite his nationality, is a quiet person. He politely asks if it is convenient for me to set the alarm clock to go off at 6:30. I agree.
 
Sept. 15, 2024, Cirueña - Tosantos, 35 km, total 258 km.
Upon awakening, little is spoken. As I leave the building it begins to dusk. It is a beautiful road, straight across hills. Grape crops have given way to mowed cornfields and fields of spent sunflowers, no longer following the sun. This joy, however, is short-lived. For the rest of the day, the route runs along a busy thoroughfare. Once again the most beautiful cities and churches, though. The cathedral of Santo Domingo de la Calzada has a tower of Brussels side. A smaller church has an impressive altar, so beautiful that for twenty cents I light a candle, even though it is electric. Along the way, I have few interactions.
I head for a donativo albergue, Casa Paroquial Hospital de Peregrino, where I receive a friendly welcome. It is an old building, both inside and out. You can't make reservations there. The hospitalero carries my backpack and sticks to my room. The beds are up, but there are still mattresses on the floor and anyway, I have a roof over my head again without a reservation. If you are even a millimeter keen on luxury, this is not the place to be, but there is a communal meal in the evening, prepared by some guests and I especially like that atmosphere. The boss gives a speech. The bottom line is that the Camino is a way inward, which you do alone and where silence is essential. I might have said it.
After the meal, the party made their way to a small chapel in the attic, where there was singing and, as an intercessory prayer, bills with cries for help from pilgrims were read.
 
Sept. 16, 2024, Tosantos - San Juan de Ortega, 21 km, total 279 km.
After nine hours of sleep I set off, for the first time in days without paracetamol: it ran out yesterday. According to a post, it is only 550 kilometers to Santiago. I see frost on the ground, yet it feels less cold than yesterday. Separatists consistently scratch away 'y Leon' from 'Castilla y Leon' on signs. Although I abhor the numerous moralizing felt-tip pen texts on anything that can be chalked on, of the 'you are free' etc kind, I make an exception for the one who somewhere changed a scratched-through y Leon into 'y corazón'.
I walk nicely, but on a long slope comes the man with the hammer. If only I had paracetamol! I sweat my way up. A lady from South Korea wants to take a picture with me. That is the high point of the day for now. The low point comes a few kilometers later when I fall. I sit for half an hour recovering on a pole and notice the necessary bruising to my knee and ribs and feel totally deflated.
In the next village, two kilometers away, is a restaurant, where I get a good plate of food, but my energy doesn't come back with it. The adjacent albergue, housed in a former monastery with a beautiful old courtyard, has plenty of room. Then no thirty today. Before me, an American woman checks in, although her luggage had been transported to another albergue. The manager's wife drives her there to pick it up. She is happy that her problem was solved so quickly. A Canadian nurse gives me paracetamol. In my lower bed I fall asleep like a log for a few hours. Upon awakening, I look out at two lovebirds, cozily side by side on an upper bed. They have it firmly in hand. The Camino 'provides' in every possible
The hamlet where I am staying is little more than a former monastery complex, in the past mainly for sick pilgrims. This is where I am completely at home today.
 
Sept. 17, 2024, San Juan de Ortega - Tardajos, 40 km, total 319 km.
The day begins nicely with Michael from Texas, who marvels at the superficiality of most camino runners. People who don't know the difference between a hike and a Camino. He has studied history thoroughly and hopes for divine inspiration on the Camino. He hangs a red plastic cross on my backpack and, of course, I have to give this soulmate a mini rabbit, with accompanying story. Then I talk briefly with two happy Argentines and later with an American in a bar. All of them pilgrims. Crossing Burgos is eleven kilometers of big city with industry and one kilometer of beautiful old town.
My albergue doesn't arrive until six kilometers after Burgos. That makes the walk long, but I can do it again. In Tardajos I ignore large albergues, which advertise with huge signs, and walk on to the municipal albergue, where no reservations can be made. The welcome by hospitalera Teresa is warm and personal. Again, there are several empty beds.
Afterwards, I see some acquaintances in a restaurant, especially Yo. We are happy to see each other again. She gets all upset when a man has an apple faint. I try to calm her down a bit. It has gotten late. My eyes are closing with sleep.
 
Sept. 18, 2024, Tardajos - Hontanas, 21 km, total 340 km.
After a few romantic and rural villages with edifying murals and texts and an undulating hilly landscape, I end up in an increasingly flat land with shaved grain fields and the occasional bird of prey. The weather is nice and sunny and not too hot, in short ideal for walking. At times a bar with coffee and food. Yo is also there again and a lady from Germany who manages to walk with only 1.5 kg. Kilometers of flat land, I wonder if this is the Meseta. Along the way a chat with this and that. Some texts, on everything that can be written on, show that the Camino Francés is not only walked by pilgrims but also by psychotics and other deranged people. The idiotically large signs kind of call for it. I prefer the original signs.
After twenty kilometers I call it a day. Whether it is because of yesterday's forty or the rhinovirus that has been bothering me for over a week now, I have not felt very fit all day, so twenty kilometers is enough for today. I walk into the first inn and get a spare bed without a problem and, to reiterate, without a reservation. There are several bedrooms. Most of the beds remain empty. In the evening I sit at the table with Eleanore and Judy from the US. They descend on the suitable hiking infrastructure. There is no such thing in the US, which is why they come to Spain for a week or two each time.
 
Sept. 19, 2024, Hontanas - Itero del Castillo 20 km, total 360 km.
It is foggy and chilly early in the morning as I walk through a beautiful undulating landscape along a narrow path, softly lit by a full moon. Most hikers walk two by two. I pass a ruined church, through which the Camino runs as an asphalt road, a symbol of the changing times. Further on is Castrojeriz with a church, turned into a museum and, as far as I am concerned, ruined. Admission 1 euro. I don't have it to spare. It is a pretty town with lots of restaurants for the pampered runner. You can sleep on stand here, but I walk on. Then I meet Anne, a Frenchwoman. We walk up together for a while, sometimes talking, sometimes silent. We have a nice conversation, which for once is not about the weight of the backpack. She qualifies for a mini rabbit, after we take a long incline. What a view! After a few hundred meters, another spectacular view. The path descends steeply to a plain. I impulsively stop after twenty kilometers in a donativo albergue, housed in a former chapel. It looks interesting. Only in an outbuilding is electricity and a shower. Unfortunately, three ladies take up a lot of space by continuously chatting. It prevents a healthy siesta. In the evening, a communal meal takes place, preceded by a ritual foot washing. One foot per pilgrim, we won't exaggerate. It does not temper the noisy presence of a group of Italians. The meal, 95% consisting of pasta with a touch of cheese, served at 7:30 p.m. and the singing of the Italians afterwards test my patience, but finally at 10 p.m. I can seriously try to go to sleep, which succeeds quite well until 7 p.m., when candlelight and Gregorian chanting wake the crowd.
 
Sept. 20, 2024, Itero del Castillo - Villalcázar de Sirga, 30 km, total 390 km.
After breakfast by candlelight, I set out energized. This is not just an observation. It has been for days, that I feel so good. Apparently the virus is on the retreat. The path passes through fields with all sorts of irrigation systems but after last night's rain they may be off. After ten kilometers I find a bar, where the meager breakfast from the chapel is supplemented by two cups of coffee with cake and a large piece of baguette with fried egg. I can walk on that. It is so flat here that there is even a canal, as if I were walking through Drenthe. Police on horseback are surveying. Then the path runs parallel to a quiet thoroughfare for miles. Little exciting, but ideal for making miles with my mind at zero. In a simple village I buy some mouth supplies, but bread is not there. The villages are too small for bakeries. The baker here drives around honking in his van, but not when I'm around. After thirty kilometers, I give in to my rest-demanding soles and report to the pilgrim hostel of the Order of Malta, a secular religious order of the Catholic Church with a "mission to serve the vulnerable and sick. I fit the bill perfectly. Sore ribs, especially when coughing. I am therefore welcome. The hospitalero insists on carrying my backpack upstairs. For a tenner I get a lower bed with disposable sheets and, with a euro added, ten minutes of hot shower. During the afternoon the place fills up completely and especially after yesterday's merry Italians show up by seven. This village looks simple. In the past, a lot was built with clay, however, this does not apply to the disproportionately large church, which is built of stone. I am allowed in for the reduced peregrino rate of one euro. The lady behind the counter does not check to see if I am a pilgrim. I apparently look very pilgrim-like. Opposite the church is a bar, where I order plato combinado No. 4. McDonalds on Coolsingel is cozier, but there you get a fraction for the same money.
 
Sept. 21, 2024, Villalcázar de Sirga - Ledigos 30 km, total 420 km.
Thanks to the early stumbling of a few figures, I can set off as early as 7:00 a.m. into a moonlit landscape on a path that runs for miles along a main road. There are few cars. It's kind of quiet. Only after breakfast in a frumpy hotel-restaurant and twelve kilometers does the path bend away from the road and I walk with an entire horde through a totally flat landscape. That must be the Meseta. How fast most of them walk. They just can't keep up. But everything else goes well. With Kees, the first Dutchman I talk to this trip, I don't have much. The weather is fine despite predictions of rain. Like yesterday, police on horseback approach me.
After a long walk, all the noisy fellow runners alight at the first village, for me an encouragement to continue walking for another seven kilometers to Ledigos. Here it rained hard last night. The access road is a mud puddle. I choose the most luxurious albergue and there for the most luxurious accommodation: a "family room" for five, with luxurious romantic beds plus towel and bonbon. No sense in the shabby pilgrim romance of bunk beds for a while. I share my room with a woman of Filipino origin from the US and another man, whom I do not identify in the dark. In the garden, I chat with American Jim and his wife over red wine. Pleasant people, despite not being pilgrims. So you see, boxes and compartments don't matter. I meet Alies, a Dutch woman from Utrecht, a sociable idealist. At the table I sit well with Victoria, Sandy and Stefany. Sisters Victoria and Stefany from Australia pour their hearts out and reward my listening ear with an appropriate hug. They seem like pilgrims.
 
Sept. 22, 2024, Ledigos - El Burgo Ranero 33 km, total 453 km.
It was a long night: at a quarter to seven I got up. A quick quick breakfast and a chat with Jim and his wife and then on my way for today's thirty. I walk fourteen kilometers on the N120, a quiet provincial road. The trail runs parallel to it, but I prefer the road. Give me asphalt, it runs nice and fast and requires little attention, making it easier for me to get into meditative mode. For a few kilometers, the path runs through fields, but then comes another choice: asphalt or gravel. I know: asphalt. Unfortunately due to a mistake in my map, I detour for three kilometers.
The first two lodging addresses are completo, but the donativo still has seven empty beds, simply because reservations cannot be made. The reception by a hospitalera from Canada, a retired doctor, is most cordial. It is buzzing with problems because of the large crowds and fully booked inns. In the albergue, I meet Rob and Vivian. We share great stories in Dutch. Rob comes walking from Antwerp. Vivian walks from the Netherlands because last year she got an inspiration to walk the Camino. She hardly knew what that was. They make few reservations, but now they hesitate. They fear they won't find a place to sleep, now that the Camino is getting more crowded. I'm not going to be rushed. Tomorrow just set off early again.
 
Sept. 23, 2024, El Burgo Ranero - León 38 km, total 491 km.
Again, the path runs parallel to an asphalt road, which is quiet at first, but becomes increasingly crowded near León. A whole horde of schoolchildren make me doubt whether there will be room in an albergue, but for a long time I allow myself no uncertainties. It will be just fine. Occasional loud talking channels. A few kids with music. Lots of old bridges over fast-flowing rivers and irrigation canals. Jacotrans vans tearing past to bring around the suitcases and backpacks of luxury runners. The area becomes more crowded and increasingly poor. The entrance to León is by no means fancy. I pass countless industries, car dealerships and vacant lots. The path is pushed away by a spaghetti of highways.
I see several albergues in the suburbs, but head determinedly toward the center. Less than a kilometer from the cathedral, I find a modern hostel behind an antique facade, "Palacio Real," where, among other things, a neat room for four is free. Two beds remain empty. There you are: plenty of room, and in the Royal Palace, even though almost only the facade remains. My roommate Henny, an accountant, is a sociable Dutchman. We drink together on a terrace and have a nice conversation. He is interested in the book I want to write and agrees with me that trust is a key concept, which makes life a lot easier, especially on the Camino.
 
Sept. 24, 2024, León - Hospital de Órbigo 36 km, total 527 km.
After twelve kilometers of city at its worst, twenty kilometers of path follows along a busy thoroughfare before finally the peace of the countryside returns. Meanwhile, a brief friendship with Carla from Brazil, once an architect, now an art therapist, and Val, from somewhere in the US. She details where exactly in America, without wondering if that specification makes any sense to me. She started the Camino with a friend, but that didn't turn out to be a success. Now she walks alone. After she splits out, as the nestor of the Camino, I get to tutor her in walking a Camino. It takes much of my wisdom not to lose myself in the violence of the fast-moving traffic and all the graffiti and chalked slogans and similar stupidities. I forbid myself to pay attention to them. A light drizzle now and then does not affect my mood. Finally, wearily, I arrive at an albergue of the Maltese Order, specializing in simplicity. The entrance has a beautiful old courtyard decorated with flowers and plants. Since I am supposed to be old, I am assigned a lower bed.
In the village church that is open, volunteers put stamps in the pilgrim passports of hikers from the Far East. On a bench, elderly villagers chat. The local restaurant is not bad. The trout soup is especially special, but preferably I'm going under the wool as soon as possible now, because I'm cold and tired. Hopefully my seven roommates won't make the night too short.
 
Sept. 25, 2024, Hospital de Órbigo - El Ganso, 31 km, total 558 km.
A very quiet and long night. Not until about seven o'clock does movement in the dormitory. Off quickly, thirty-one kilometers means at least eight hours on the road. I can choose the shorter version along the highway or the longer one through nature. The latter, of course. Finally slopes again, as a prelude to the mountains on the horizon. After a few kilometers I walk past the albergue where I spent the night two years ago and have a chat with the hospitalera, a nice and sweet person. Business is good, despite the fact that half the beds are mostly empty. She is already getting reservations for next year. It doesn't have to get any crazier. Jean from Taiwan, 64, asks my age. I see admiration and disappointment: so old and still active, but now she is far from being the oldest. Again, I assume the role of camino-nestor and give her unsolicited advice to get rid of half of her stuff. She is carrying a large backpack and on top of that she has another backpack hanging from the front, a breast pocket so to speak. First get rid of the mess in your pockets and then the mess in your head, or preferably all at once. She doesn't plan to. She gets more muscle from a lot of weight. Yep. Later at a donativo-open-air café, she wants her picture taken with me and flatters herself against me to such an extent that I wonder if she can show that print in Taiwan. Then a thirty-second conversation with Carl from England, just long enough to tell me that he runs 45-50 kilometers a day "for athletic performance" and whoosh, there he goes again. Finally, Janneke from Limburg, who has a runny cold. She asks me how long it took me. I tell her what I heard in college about sixty years ago: fourteen days without treatment and only two weeks with. In the Plaza Mayor of the beautiful city of Astorga, we drink our daily shot of caffeine together. Further along at an albergue is a sign that reads, 'I know that you're scared.... But you can handle this.' I'll remember that one for my book.
In El Ganso, I think I walk into the Albergue where I stayed two years ago. The innkeeper charges twenty-four euros for half board and then he also lugs my backpack upstairs and grants me a spare bed. Never mind that San Tiago reserved this place for me, instead of the one I had last time. Many beds are empty. Where have they gone, all those runners who populate the Camino? During the afternoon, Henny apps me. He has passed El Ganso and is five kilometers away. He must have taken my advice to do the thirty kilometers after León by public transport. Perhaps we will see each other tomorrow when I walk to Molinaseca. Rough weather is on the way for tonight. From me, it could get a little warmer. My hands have been cold all day. If only I had brought gloves. Dinner consists of a full plate of spaghetti, a plate of French fries and chicken and a bowl of porridge rice and a carafe of wine. I had several choices, but this seemed to give me the most calories, which is necessary for running. I said it before: incomprehensible what you get here in Spain for a few pennies. For the price of lodging with half-board here you get at most an appetizer in Holland, but it still takes getting used to how a three-course dinner is put together here.
 
Sept. 26, 2024, El Ganso - Molinaseca, 32 km, total 590 km.
I am not sleeping well. A mutant of my previous cold virus is draining me. It rains that it pours, but oh well, asphalt, a perfect raincoat and still something over my shoes, it's manageable. The romantic villages along the Camino have coffee and cake and along the way it gets drier, but not at Cruz de Ferro, there it comes pouring down. Fortunately there are shelters and in one of them I meet Bob from the USA. I confess that the iron cross doesn't mean much to me. It does to him all the more, because Jesus, who once shed his blood on the cross, is also there for him. Forty years ago, penniless and homeless, he woke up one morning when he encountered Jesus. Since then things have gotten better and better: job, home, wife, children. Bob gets my rabbit story and so we are friends for life for thirty minutes. He just doesn't dare yet leave his reservations to our dear Lord. The rest of the trip is hard work with little energy, a snotty nose and a tough trail, but with the most beautiful views.
Late in the afternoon I arrive at the same hostel as two years ago. There are still beds to spare. Regular beds including the notice, that you are not allowed to treat your blisters on them. No idea, why not. Here I see several people without a reservation. Bob could learn something from them.
 
Sept. 27, 2024, Molinaseca - Villafranca del Bierzo, 32 km, total 622 km.
It never ceases to amaze me that there are people who leave two hours before the sun rises. And they act quiet, but are not.
The route is uneventful for the first seventeen kilometers. Houses, buildings, businesses and lots of traffic. Then comes peace and quiet. Rain, sun, hot, cold and wind. Raincoat on and off. Then vineyards and sometimes another stretch along a traffic road. Along the way, I speak to no one.
Of an albergue, I see a sign along the way. Intuitively I know, that's where I should be. It turns out to be a beautifully stylishly decorated antique building in one of the narrow streets of this beautiful town. The welcome by the hospitalera is warm, so is the inn, where wood stoves are burning. The inn is completo. I say that I like to stay here and that I am sure she can accommodate an old man of 78, who has walked more than thirty kilometers just to spend the night here. If I want, I can sleep in the attic. It's more than fine with me. A whole attic just for me. Am I sure about that? Yes, ma'am, I'm quite sure. My laundry is done and neatly folded ready when I return from an excellent meal. Someone says, now that it is closer to Santiago, that it is getting busier and busier, and that it is wise to make reservations. I don't want to be wise. I want to trust that San Tiago will make reservations for me. I warm myself by the fireplace and go contentedly to my bed in the huge old attic with thick beams and dusty antique cupboards.
 
Sept. 28, 2024, Villafranca del Bierzo - Vega de Valcarce, 25 km, total 647 km.
I slept wonderfully in my private loft and no one was bothered by my coughing fits. I haven't paid here yet, but the reception is closed. I send an email, because the wonderful people of this beautiful albergue have more than earned it. I leave in darkness and cold, but with warm hands thanks to the gloves I found in a Chinese junk store yesterday.
The trail follows an enthusiastically flowing and rushing river, surrounded by mountains in mists and low-hanging clouds. A highway cuts handsomely through the mountains with tunnels and overpasses. The villages, too, are beautiful. Dilapidated houses, romantic houses, Spanish houses, I love it. Like yesterday, I have hardly any contact with others. Most do not walk alone and apparently have enough to do with themselves and their mates, and besides, my condition is so limited that I can still walk twenty-five kilometers, but not much more than that. I put no energy into talking. At a pharmacy, I am denied codeine. In Spain only on prescription. I am not into alternative medicine, but I am forced to take an ivy extract. A gray-haired man with a beautiful panama on his head makes camino trinkets. I can't just walk by without buying something. The place is bursting with albergues, hostels, hotels and B&B’s. One time I even saw a "boutique hostel. Something for everyone, from pilgrim to luxury runner. In a motel along the route, buses spout numerous neat people on vacation.
Around two I arrive at my albergue, which is run by a German church. I know it from two years ago. It is in a quiet place surrounded by trees. Here I hear French, Italian and German non-stop. The guests drag a lot of stuff around. There are many old gray men. They study at length their route books and distances, make calculations and notes and like to talk about it. But the shower is hot and, exceptionally, without flaws, the sun is shining and the mercury is rising pleasantly. A can of white beans with sausage along with a piece of baguette is my supper. Twice I am tipped off that the kitchen has a microwave oven, but I find cold beans just as good. I feel too tired to even go into the nearby village for a hot meal. The accompanying chapel is open and quiet. Here you can light real candles. I don't miss this opportunity. In this albergue, reservations are not allowed. Therefore, there are no Americans, Australians and other exotics. Extremely rarely, at most once a year, I learn, are the more than fifty places completo. Over the years, overnight prices have barely risen. I once learned that this means that supply and demand are in balance and thus there is plenty of sleeping space and I don't have to make reservations. At seven o'clock a few more people walk in. Still, my upper bed remains empty. Can I go to sleep undisturbed with paracetamol and ivy.
 
Sept. 29, 2024, Vega de Valcarce - Tricastela, 28 km, total 675 km.
I sleep restlessly due to coughing fits, which all the other guests will talk about for years to come. I sweat and hear disturbing noises in my chest, make diagnoses incompatible with pilgrimages and see my Camino already ending prematurely. In these parts, only one treatment is available: get up and walk. Moodily, I comply with this disciplinary measure, after an adequate dose of ivy and paracetamol. The dawn and the wonderful mountain scenery make intensive efforts to cheer me up. The route initially climbs, a wind picks up and the temperature drops. Jacket on jacket off and on again. In the tourist village of O Cebreiro, consisting entirely of albergues, bars and souvenir stores, I find hot chocolate and orange juice in a stove-warm shelter. After another coffee, orange juice and cake and a serving of paracetamol, things are much better in the afternoon and I get chatting with a couple from Canada, Janneke from a few days ago and a couple of camino lovers, Gloria and Honza, whom I have run into a few times, an engaging couple. There are not many other runners around me, so the silence of this area comes into its own completely.
In Tricastela is a modern municipal inn without any warmth. I find that further on in an old building with a designer interior with rough stone walls and many old beams and with a hospitalero who knows his trade and who has invested heavily to make something good and beautiful out of it. This should be especially mentioned, because most albergues excel in cheap sparseness, such as showers that are almost always defective, cheap beds and the lack of an electrical outlet by the beds.
I eat on the street and am again amazed at what you get here for a few euros. I have a view of other tables. Three gray-bearded gentlemen in shorts struggle to keep the conversation going and seek refuge on their phones. At another table, a station keeps things busy. They unintentionally comfort me in my solo dinner: rather be alone than uncomfortable company. The beautiful evening sky makes me even happier.
 
Sept. 30, 2024, Tricastela - Sarria, 20 km, total 695 km.
My body doctor Pim chides me, that I have not yet arranged for antibiotics, but it is not Rotterdam here, where the digital family doctor is there for you day and night. Anyway, I'm in a Centro de Saúde at eight in the morning, where the nursing staff responds kindly and does their best to make themselves understood. Not so Madam Doctor. Estimated age 55 and gruff, verging on rude. She speaks only Spanish. I almost fall off my chair in amazement. How did that woman study medicine? Anyway, what I consider an exotic treatment is energetically started. I am given a mask through which Ventolin and Pulmicort are nebulized into my lungs, with a shot of corticosteroids intramuscularly as an encore. At my urgent request to also give antibiotics, my colleague says, I will get them after the treatment is over. So I allow myself this nebulization session, to access a more adequate therapy. Meanwhile, I do my best to convince her that she is dealing with a colleague in order to optimize my chances of getting antibiotics. Finally I get my way and much more than that: four prescriptions, of which I only pick up the antibiotics at the pharmacy. Then I have to recover on a terrace with a desayuno. By the time I have everything under control, it turns out the only bus to Sarria for the day has left, and I adjourn to take a cab like a first-class tourist. I set off quietly walking, while the syringe and paracetamol work like pep on me. It becomes one of the most beautiful walks so far: a lovely landscape of forests, meadows, rushing streams, tree-covered paths, cow-dung stinking villages of slate houses and farmhouses, stone walls with ferns. It makes me quiet and happy. Today many people walking alone. It is easy to make contact with them. At a donativo terrace I pause at length and have a one-hour friendship with Angela. She is intelligent, beautiful and pilgrim of the purest water. We exchange beautiful stories.
Finally, I arrive in Sarria, for many the starting point of their Camino, because from here to Santiago is the minimum walking distance to qualify for a compostela in Santiago, as if that were your main goal. This is why many shout that you should definitely make reservations, because it gets very crowded with these starters. In my case, there is no need. I run into Yo again after days. It is a cordial reunion and she takes me straight to her albergue, where there are plenty of free places left. We eat and drink together and gradually a handful of Camino friends join us, as well as a guy who has the patent on the mores of the Camino and who recites his Camino etiquette rules, thus paralyzing the exuberant mood for a moment. It turned out to be a good old-fashioned Camino day after all.
 
Oct. 1, 2024, Sarria - Portomarín, 22 km, total 717 km.
I actually have to rest from my body doctor, but I can't. I want to continue. I do walk very slowly and take long breaks regularly. Hundreds of runners pass by, many on their first day of camino. Along the way, to reassure the home front, I have a bar call a cab for the last ten kilometers, but there is none. Far too busy with lazy runners, I guess. I take another shot of antibiotics and paracetamol and walk happily on with that, all the while chatting pleasantly with Shana from Australia. She announced her divorce to her husband ten years ago, then went on vacation with him and she never brought it up with him again, but he is not allowed to go with her on the Camino. Those are fun stories.
It starts to rain a little. The runners unpack their new ponchos and turn into kobolds. The route is beautiful, admittedly less scenic than yesterday, but the first-day runners don't know that. 
In Portomarín, I hit the first best hostel, a modern version of the term albergue. I sleep for a few hours and then head into town. This town was built as a replacement for a flooded city in a reservoir. The fortress of a church has been rebuilt brick by brick. The long colonnades make an artificial impression. The soul of the city was left in the reservoir. 
I eat with Rien and Martha, brother and sister and Luna who is from Korea, all friendly intellectuals. I make preparations to tell Martha about the Camino Teresiano. It triggers in her a lecture on Teresa of Ávila and her contemporaries, causing her to miss my stories about the Camino and a white rabbit. I can't finish my pizza, wrap it up but forget to take it with me. It's bedtime. 
 
Oct. 2, 2024, Portomarín - Palas de Rei, 33 km, total 750 km. 
When it rains, it is better not to walk in the dark if you only have the phone's light to assist. Now to keep my phone dry I have to walk behind head lamps for almost an hour. Those guys go way too fast for me. After almost ten kilometers I reach a bar, which is overcrowded with the first wave of runners from Portomarín. I stand in line for fifteen minutes for a cheese sandwich, coffee and orange juice, but to walk another three kilometers to the next bar is not an option: I am hungry and that does not go well. If only I hadn't forgotten my pizza. The rest of the day is quickly described: rain, rain, rain and busy, busy, busy. So busy that in some places police are directing traffic. 
I don't want to spend the night in Palas. The city is unattractive to me, the albergues look big and gross, and I want to do extra miles to make the last day easier. By the way, I am running like a horse again and unstoppable. The next inn is completo, the next closed. It doesn't bother me. Then five kilometers past town I see an inn where I spent the night two years ago. It has character and is not so massive. There is room, even a room, and a communal meal. Again, it couldn't be nicer. Good thing the first two addresses fell off. My room is in a water mill and is romantically decorated. Far too nice for a pilgrim, but lovely. Unfortunately, the power fails, while I wanted to put my wet clothes and sneakers in the wash, and in the dryer. A Spanish guest plays guitar and sings. A pilgrina sings along with a clear delicate voice. 
The communal meal is good and lavish. My table lady Karin from England proudly wears a T-shirt with references to Jesus on it. She walks away with him. I don't manage to walk with her for a bit. Jesus is in between. The flow is not restored. 
 
Oct. 3, 2024, Palas de Rei - Arzúa, 23 km, total 773 km. 
In the middle of the night there is power again and the light in my room goes on. That wakes me up and I decide to finish yesterday's report and then I can go back to sleep. 
All the wet gear is still damp in the morning. Dry spare socks and insoles come in handy now. Still raining between fog and drizzle. Poncho on. I join the goblin procession. Because the Camino Primitivo unloads its participants on the Francés here, it is so crowded that here and there the police keep an eye on things and even I sometimes almost doubt that not everything will be completo. 
Near an old stone bridge is a fine old restored albergue, where I impulsively stop and am kindly received by the two elderly American hospitaleras. My clothes go into the wash and dryer. Peace reigns. But not for long. A large group of figures descends, loudly overcompensating for their lack of brains. This is my final exam as a pilgrim. If I manage to remain calm during this, I will be guaranteed my diploma in Santiago. It's going to be exciting, then. 
 
Oct. 4, 2024, Arzúa - Sabugueira, 33 km, total 806 km. 
I remained quiet and, for that matter, so did the noisy gentlemen. Slept long and well despite the restlessness in my stomach due to eating pulpo, touted here as the pinnacle of local cuisine. Never again, I can tell you. Too salty, too tough, too heavy on the stomach. Nevertheless, I awoke with an energy I haven't had in ages, thanks in part to coughing attacks missing for the first time since the same times. The weather cooperates with pleasant temperatures and above all: dry. Early on, the procession of runners is equipped with flashing lights on their backpacks to avoid being hit and head lamps to illuminate their path. My father used to pray before dinner, "Thou art a lamp to our foot and a light to our path," but Thou is no longer needed. We have led. For last night's noisy gentlemen, a buffet awaits us on the road on a stone picnic table, complete with a large ham in a metal holder. The Camino provides? We have a tour operator. Cozy chats with this and that, especially three ladies from the U.S., who hang on my every word as I sit on a terrace explaining my curriculum vitae of the Camino. I reward their genuine interest with the authentic rabbit story. Afterwards, they want nothing more than to pay for my drink. Each of them qualifies for a white mini-rabbit, which they are delighted with. On another terrace, I meet two Dutch gentlemen, also sociable. An Israeli young man, Jacob, walks with me for a while, but unfortunately I have to put a stop to that because his English is impossible to follow and it requires too much of my attention. Finally, Maaike, who is on her way to the same albergue as me with two camino friends, but reserved. 
Eventually we all end up in Sabugueira in the same room of an attractive inn. I am assigned a normal bed, because I am still an old man. You don't put those in bunk beds. As I said before, I like to be old when it suits me. In the same room, another Frenchman, Jean François, reports in. Who pretty much lives on the Camino and is weighed down by an enormous backpack, from which he takes out a miniature palette of paint. He watercolors a beautiful "stamp" in my credencial. I stop by the supermercado across the street and get my dinner and a bottle of wine. I hand out glasses of wine to guests sitting in the garden. Most of them drink modestly. That is not how I get rid of the bottle. Then I must have just one more glass, and one more, after all I have practically arrived at the end of my mission and that is worth celebrating. A guitarist plays and sings beautiful Spanish songs, some sing along and it becomes a cheerful crowd. This is how this day ends in Spanish style. 
 
Oct. 5, 2024, Sabugueira - Santiago de Compostela 10 km, total 816 km. 
The weather forecast says rain and more rain. My raincoat is unfortunately not waterproof. Still, I walk cheerfully with soaking wet shoes and feet toward Santiago. 
I see a sign that says Seminario Menor, an inn recommended to me by Jean François, the stamp painter. It is a large classical building that is part of a huge monastery complex on the edge of the center of Santiago de Compostela. Strange, there are signs saying "completo" everywhere here and yet I get a bed with no problem. I sit with wet clothes in a large room with long tables and chairs until I will be admitted to my dormitory at two o'clock. The waiting area even has an ATM and a small supermarket. 
I make my way to the compostela office. There they find that the stamps of two days are missing, but after consulting with the chief I still get my compostela. And rightly so, I think, but I won't tell. On to the living room of the Low Countries. It is quiet and the atmosphere is good. I can tell my rabbit story there and leave a mini rabbit behind. Surprising: the Dutch-speaking lady from the compostela office, who helped me so much on my previous Camino comes in. She remembers me well and it's a nice reunion. Later I walk into the compostela office again and give her a mini rabbit as well. 
High time to get something to eat. It is busy everywhere inside: the pouring rain is washing the terraces empty. There is just one spot left at the bar of a small restaurant. I end up next to two elderly American ladies, Ann and Karin. I don't know what it is with me, but I always end up in situations like this. Rarely men. Those go more for the performance. It becomes another good conversation and, as has happened more often than not, a picture with me must be taken. They qualify for a mini rabbit and I qualify for a hug goodbye. 
A trio of ladies from Texas in the same establishment, friendly people, turn out to be passionate Trumpvoters. Way to go. No rabbit. Another lap around town and then to my albergue. 
My bed is in a room, which could go straight into the museum as representative of a hospital room from the nineteenth century. I fit right in there. The beast is not yet completely gone from my lungs. Across from my bed, two beds remain empty. Even in Santiago, reservations are not necessary. 
      
 
 

Camino Francés: epilogue 

Happy is the man who is satisfied with what is his due. 
Marsilio Ficino 
 
I walked the Camino Francés from Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port to Santiago de Compostela. The white rabbit went with me. Occasionally I gave one away to a soul mate: a tiny white mini-rabbit, symbol of an extraordinary journey. Eight hundred kilometers of toiling, sweating and floating along the busiest Camino in the second busiest month. Nowhere, but nowhere a place to sleep reserved. After all, "the Camino provides," right? Some said I should at least make reservations in SJPdP and in Roncesvalles and in Santiago or at least bring an air mattress in case I had to sleep on the ground in a fire station. Everywhere I found a bed, without having walked even one kilometer too many. Never was I worried about finding a place to sleep. San Tiago reserved everything for me. 
Some said, "You were lucky, that you always found a bed," but I wasn't lucky. You can't have luck. You can have a dog or a degree, a car or, if necessary, a partner, but you cannot have happiness. Being happy is a decision. 
Don't be fooled: there is always a bed. Let go of control, walk in freedom and call it the Magic of the Camino, call it the Universe or call it a White Rabbit and trust that "The Camino" will take care of you. And that works. At least with me. Not only for a bed at the right time or a meal, but also for surprising moments with other pilgrims: real friendships for five minutes or longer. 
The rain has stopped. I go to the early pilgrim mass at Santiago Cathedral. At the end of Mass, the church fills with the white incense of the botafumeiro. I descend into the crypt, walk past the silver shrine with the relics of St. James, embrace his bust and light a candle. That is the tradition. A woman glares at me. A cordial greeting. I do not easily recognize her. She opens her hand. A white mini rabbit in the palm of her hand. 
 
 
 
 

   Coming Home 

'A lo largo del Camino hay un mundo mágico que tu no ves, es el guardián protector que te guiará y aguardara dandote suerte. Buen Camino.' 
Santiagus
 
Walking along the Camino del Norte on my way to Santiago, I notice the text on a miniscule tile bricked into a wall. I take a picture and don't think about it anymore.
Now, more than a year later, I come across that photo again while writing about beautiful things from the Camino. With the help of Google Translate, the text is translated:
 
'There is along the Camino an invisible magical world with a protective guardian who will guide you and wait for you to give you happiness. Buen Camino.  Santiagus'

This little Camino wonder, just by the side of the road, is from the heart. A tile wisdom about the magic of the Camino and, as far as I am concerned, not only of "the" Camino. I, like Santiagus, want to write about that.
But who is this Santiagus anyway? He cannot be found on the web, not even in the Biblioteca Nacional de España. I put A.I. to work and it says, it's a pseudonym for Santiago López Navarrete, but I don't fish that up with the Internet either. I have to guess whether he walked on sandals from inn to inn with knapsack and self-carved stick or whether he rode an electric bicycle, booked his overnight stays, used cabs and luggage transport. Too bad, I can't find him. I would have loved to shake his hand.
However, his invisible magical world has found me and is shaking my hand keyboard tapping as I write about the Camino.
Back home, I continue my Camino, my path of life, always searching for the miraculous.
 
Don't think your pilgrimage in Santiago is "done. Count on your experiences on the Camino, not to mention lessons, to stay with you forever. You will take home your contemporary version of an indulgence.
Peregrino por siempre. 
 
 
     

PART 3 

 
 
If the pilgrimage is a metaphor for life, then it only takes trust to live our lives, trust in the good outcome, trust in the companions of the journey. From that trust, you set out on your journey. Without knowing where to go. For who knows the outcome of his life?
Wim Diepeveen
My Camino resume
Peregrino por siempre 
 
As far as it interests you, in the following chapters you can learn about the Caminos, which I walked in the years 2021 - 2024. 
 
 
 
       
 
 
 

2021 

Rotterdam - Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port
A learning path long distance walking 
 
I first heard about the pilgrim routes to Santiago in 1998. A friend walked, given a pilgrim's blessing by the local pastor from the Netherlands to Santiago. Her stories evoked a desire to get on the road as well. It never came about, until a magazine article about the Camino to Santiago woke me up in early 2021. I presented my plan to walk from Rotterdam to Santiago in three months to my wife Ellen. "Of course you should do it. You have to live to be a hundred and walking is good for your body and mind. You have worked hard. Enjoy life." was her generous response, for which I am still grateful. At that time, because of covid, public life had come to a virtual standstill. Walking was almost the only thing allowed. And so we did, Ellen and I. It was a wonderful opportunity to quietly explore Rotterdam, where we had recently moved. Walking felt like a liberation from the limitations of covid and it was a nice preparation for the longer walk I was going to take as soon as possible, after all, I was 74 and didn't know how much time and energy I had left for the trip, which in my imagination would be long and arduous. 
As soon as corona's restrictions were relaxed I set off with eight kilos including a tent and even a featherweight chair in my backpack. To reassure Ellen, she could see in her phone where I was. Moreover, she wanted me to take a power bank with me to recharge my phone if necessary. I walked in brand new high shoes until I couldn't go any further in Belgium. Large blisters under both feet caused my hike to stop for weeks. As a result, that year I did not get further than Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port at the foot of the Pyrenees near the border with Spain 
I did not walk in vain. It was a learning curve for good reason. I learned how to take care of my feet, which shoes I liked, which things could stay at home and which were indispensable. I learned that my age was no impediment and that I gradually built up an excellent condition and could cover longer and longer distances, but also that new shoes can cause problems. I learned how to read maps, how to navigate, how to find accommodation and above all how wonderful the roads to Santiago are. 
Through Belgium and France on foot: what an experience, what beautiful countries and what a beautiful way to experience it on foot. The desire for the Camino did not diminish. The following year I would set out again from Rotterdam for Santiago, but now better prepared. 
 
 

2022

Rotterdam-Santiago de Compostela
An invitation to step out of ordinary life and embark on an extraordinary journey.
 
Of course, I could have continued walking from SJPdP, but I very much wanted to walk from home to Santiago in one go, in my view a condition that a 'real' pilgrimage had to meet, and so I left Rotterdam again. On this long Camino I wanted to "walk meditatively. I didn't really know what that meant, but I did know that I wasn't going for the sporting achievement or as a tourist and that I wasn't particularly interested in public transportation or all kinds of peculiarities along the route, such as museums, architectural styles, terraces, haute cuisine, landscapes, history, etc., but all the more in the simple experience of walking in itself and what that would do to me. Naive, uninhibited and preferably treated to mind-blowing experiences.
The first four days I returned home by public transportation every evening. On day five I walked with Ellen from Middelburg to the ferry port of Flushing. On day six I crossed the Scheldt with the ferry and with that, as I felt, my Camino began. Three days later I walked somewhere in Belgium along the Scheldt. In the previous days I had already had the necessary interesting encounters that put me in the desired Camino mood. There was a count who offered me hospitality in his castle, a bargee couple who invited me to their beautiful barge for a few cups of coffee on a day without coffee, a caterer who stopped his car to give me some delicious sandwiches on a morning without breakfast. As I said, I was walking along the Scheldt on a towpath. Every ten meters there was a thick tree. In front of one of those trees sat a rabbit. This caught my eye, not only because I had not seen any rabbit until now, but mainly because the creature was snow-white and sat upright. It looked like a plush toy rabbit left behind by a child, but it was indeed a real rabbit that disappeared into its burrow under the tree at my approach. At that moment, the wondrous thought occurred to me that I wanted to know what the significance of that could be. Without thinking about it further, I grabbed my phone and typed on the Internet: 'spiritual meaning white rabbit'. The first thing I read was the following text:
'The white rabbit is a sign of the possibility of spiritual enlightenment and an encounter with the Divine. The white rabbit symbolizes an invitation to step out of ordinary life and embark on an extraordinary journey.'
I was astonished and more than that. I took it as a clear sign, that I was not walking alone, but was accompanied by..... yes, by who or what really?
As a child, I saw seemingly pious people in my parents' black stocking church. During the miserable services, there was plenty of time for reflection. Thus, I thought there were two types of people in this context: those who simply believed in God, at the risk of falling from your faith, and those who knew God from personal experience and had direct contact with Him. That seemed like a more solid belief to me. Thus, I suspected that the pastor should be professionally in direct contact with God. It seemed less likely to me, that he was just asserting something, without first-hand knowledge. Besides, this guaranteed him a ticket to eternal life in heaven. That seemed like something to me. These childhood thoughts were the basis for my lifelong interest in and investigation of spiritual experiences. Meditation I tried many times to penetrate the wonderful world of the universe. Limited success. Until something gave me the curious thought of searching the Internet for the meaning of the white rabbit. The answer was downright startling and for me a sign, that I was not walking alone. I no longer had to believe that this "something" exists. Since that special event, the white rabbit has been for me the symbol of, let's say, the universe and in particular the magic of the Camino. Looking for the miraculous became the essence of my pilgrimages and walking the Camino became a kind of meditative retreat.
The original plan was to switch to the Camino del Norte after SJPdP. Due to a mistake in making reservations, I inadvertently ended up on the Camino Francés. Just as well in hindsight. Nowadays, I would recommend anyone walking to Santiago for the first time to do so via the Camino Francés: the classic pilgrimage route as a "rite of passage" from numerous European countries.
After arriving in Santiago, I reported on Facebook that my pilgrimage was complete and that I was a pilgrim. Promptly someone sent a response: you are and will remain a pilgrim from now on: Peregrino por siempre 
     
 
 

2023 

Camino Portugués, Camino Fisterra, Via de la Plata, Camino del Norte-Camino Primitivo
Pilgrims agree in advance to what happens to them. What happens is good. My bed is good. The reception is okay. So is the sleep. And then the pilgrim can move on. Because that's what it's all about. Walking. Onward. 
Hape Kerkeling 
 
Ellen understood from my stories, that the Camino is a good place to live and so she decided to walk the Camino Portugués with me in the spring. We stayed mostly in B&Bs and hotels. After Santiago we walked on to Fisterra and Muxía. It became a wonderful trip and a whole new experience of the Camino. I learned, that walking together has different qualities than walking solo. 
Immediately after this, I took the train to Seville to "do" the Plata "for a while. Actually, the plan was to walk the Norte. In summer, the north is usually a bit cooler than the middle of Spain, but the weather turned from extreme heat to acceptable temperatures across the country, offering the chance to responsibly walk across Spain in the middle of summer. In Granja de Moreruela, I switched to the quiet Camino Sanabrés that continued on to Santiago. A thousand kilometers of nature, towns, villages and as Spanish as can be. 
An unforgettable walk, but still the Norte had not been walked. So I left September 2023 for Bayonne to finally walk the Camino del Norte, a quiet scenic route with a lively tourist atmosphere along beaches and coves, beautiful villages and towns. Halfway through I switched to the Camino Primitivo, which, with its peace and quiet and space, meets the needs of a pilgrim better than the Norte, at least I think so. Here toward Santiago grew a group of camino friends who spent the last evenings eating and drinking, talking and laughing together. Unforgettable memories. 
 
 
 
       

2024 

Camino Portugués, Camino Fisterra, Camino de Levante - Camino Teresiano - Camino Torres, Camino Francés
The Camino provides 
 
Ellen was eager to walk the Camino Portugués with me one more time. As in the previous year, we walked on to Muxía. Almost 400 kilometers, but not enough for me, so in early June immediately afterwards we continued to Valencia for the Camino de Levante. Again, the weather cooperated. Not too hot which made it responsible to make this long walk across Spain and Portugal to Santiago in midsummer. 
In Ávila I switched from the Camino de Levante to the wonderful and silent Camino Teresiano, which ends just before Salamanca in Alba de Tormes. 
From Salamanca, it continued on the Camino Torres. Before that, on the first 1250 of the 1400 kilometers, I met only one other runner, with the exception of Salamanca, where the route crosses the Vía de la Plata. The silence provided ample opportunity to reflect on the concept of pilgrimage. 
After Ponte de Lima, the Torres coincides with the Camino Portugués Central. Here I finally saw hikers to Santiago again and had special encounters with other pilgrims, so characteristic of the Camino. Upon returning home, I assured my wife that this would be enough for the current year. Nothing could be further from the truth. Within two months I was already on the road again and for a reason. 
Along the way and on all kinds of facebook pages, I saw how people, in fighting their fears and insecurities about walking the Camino, cling to supposed certainties such as walking together, reserved overnight stays, electric bikes, transportation of their luggage, group travel and the like, thus frustrating their chance to experience the spiritual potential of a Camino. As a counterbalance, I decided to write a book about the magic of the Camino based on the idea that the Camino takes care of you, that it works to fully rely on it before and during your journey and that it is therefore not necessary to worry about anything in advance, to build in all kinds of certainties and to record everything in detail. I thought, as a writer, that I could not be more convincing by walking the eight hundred kilometers of the busiest Camino in the second busiest month of the year, the Camino Francés in September, without reservations and leaving the reservation of my overnight stays to the universe. How that turned out you have been able to read in this book: The Camino Provides! 
 

Words of thanks 

 
First of all Ellen, thank you, for generously giving me months off to the Camino and in love granting and encouraging me that I can continue my spiritual journeys of discovery again and again endlessly along the Camino. You read the manuscript over and over. Thank you for your patience and all the corrections. 
White Rabbit, thank you for waiting for me on April 5, 2022 at 6:30 p.m. near Esquelmes in Belgium along the Scheldt River to put me in direct contact with "ANYTHING" which you can give many names, for example, "Source of Everything" or "Universe. 
Thank you, IETS. 
AnneMarleen, thank you for the beautiful portrait of me with the white rabbit. I am very happy with it. 
Neeltje, 27 years ago you put me on the trail of pilgrimage to Santiago with your camino stories. I am still grateful for that. 
Thanks to Frans, Maarten, Ben, Netta .... They read the manuscript with great dedication and provided valuable comments 
Dennis, you are eligible for a White Rabbit Award because of all the time you spent on the English translation.... 
Thank you to all the readers. You are indispensable for the preservation of the time-honored values of the camino and contribute to it by taking the trouble to read this book. 
Thanks to all the pilgrims, hospitaleras and hospitaleros, with whom I had precious encounters and who thus strengthened for me the spiritual appeal of the Camino..... 
 

     Accountability 

 
This book has been compiled on the basis of the author's personal impressions, views and experiences. You are welcome to be inspired by it, gladly even, but of course you remain responsible for the choices you make. This applies to all aspects of pilgrimage: what you take with you, whether you walk alone or in company, whether you are organized or not, whether you reserve places to sleep, and so on. 
 
Consult a (sports) doctor if you are unsure if you are physically and/or mentally capable of undertaking a long hike. 
 
 
 
     

Appendix 

Weight of backpack 

 
Backpack Gram
Backpack 810
Neck bag 165
Clothing
Underpants     65
2 pairs of (toe) socks   60
Shorts 165
Fleece Jacket 210
Shirt long sleeve 115
Padded jacket 330
Slippers 260
Wash
Towel 85
Toiletries 280
Rain
Poncho 335
Gamaschen 100
Electronics
charger etc. 120
Sleep
Sleeping bag + cover 825
Food and drink
Spork   10
Drinking bottle 50
Miscellaneous
Seat mat    45
additional maximum 500

Sticks
2 pieces, usually not in backpack 325

Total            4.5 - 5 kilograms 
 
In the cold season, additional clothing adds up to 600 grams. 
If tent and air bed are included, then about1400 grams are added. 
All together including tent with accessories and extra clothes and warmer sleeping bag for the colder season no more than 7 kilograms. 
Ignore the 10% rule. Go for the least amount of weight. 
 
 
 

Spanish words 

 
Words in italics in the Carrer del Miracle chapter are in the glossary below. This list is in the order of the story. If you don't already sense what a particular word means, you can find it here. Even if you don't speak a word of Spanish, you will learn the words from this glossary playfully within two days, even if you are not a language-talent like me. You don't have to put any effort into that beforehand. If you learn a language easily, it's nice if you learn a little Spanish and or Portuguese before you leave, especially useful if you want to talk on the phone with someone who speaks only Spanish. If you need the police along the Camino, you can use the app AlertCops in Spain, then you will definitely get an English-speaking police on the line, and they will see exactly, where you are.
It is essential, that you trust that you can make yourself understood anywhere, even if you only know a few words....
 
desayuno   breakfast
buen camino   good road (pilgrim's greeting)
iglesia   church
gracias thank you
nada   not(s to thank) (country house)
casa rural   rural house
albergue   hostel
finca   estate
peregrino   pilgrim (man)
peregrina pilgrim (woman)
zumo de naranja   orange juice
menú del dia   menu of the day
credencial (compostela) pilgrim's passport
hospitalera   hostess
hospitalero   host
pollo   chicken
plato combinado   plate with various food
donativo   donation, gift
torero   bullfighter
De la cuna al sepulcro  From the cradle to the grave
señor   mister
albergue communal      municipal inn
mold   bad
helada          ice 
 
 

Donativo 

 
Many hostels along the Camino are funded by a voluntary contribution, a donativo, from guests. The principle is that you pay for a guest of tomorrow who is less fortunate. 
In keeping with this good old donativo tradition, this book is being made available digitally for no profit or (hidden) commercial motives. If you would like to make a donation, there are several options for an "in-kind donativo. 
 
1.  Forward to as many relations as possible (friends, family) and especially to people, who want to walk or have walked a camino, a link to this book and.... 
2. Send a message to me with a brief review of this book and indicate if you would like to be notified of new posts from my side about new chapters and whatnot. Additions or corrections are also welcome 
A contact form is on the website 
 

Books 

 
Quotes or citations are found in the bibliography below. 
 
Jeroen Gooskens, Ver onderweg. Valkhof Press 1998. 
Steven Graham, The happiness of the walker. Publishers Oevers 2022. Original title: The Gentle Art of Tramping. 
Neale Donald Walsch, An unusual conversation with God. Kosmos publishers 1997. Original title: Conversations with God: an uncommon dialogue. 
Hape Kerkeling, Ik ben er even niet er. Publisher Ten Have 2007. Original title: Ich bin dann mal weg. 
Marsilio Ficino, Letters, Book lll. Pink Cross Press publication, 1996 
The Pilgrim's Guide. Published Nederlands Genootschap van Sint Jacob, 2021. 
Wim Diepeveen, Always Today. Walking to the end of the world. Publisher Palmslag, 2021 
  
 
 

Contact 

 
Did you enjoy reading my stories, think you have a good idea to make this book more beautiful, or have another message? Let me know! 
Would you like to email me? Fill out the contact form.
 
 

 Blurb 

Make your Camino to Santiago a magical journey of discovery 

 
Willem Gerritsen walked more than 300 days on the Camino's to Santiago in the years 2021 - 2024. Time enough to philosophize about the magical nature of these ancient pilgrim roads, encouraged in this by the miraculous encounter with a white rabbit. 
Would you like to do a Camino, too? His engaging stories are an inspiration to turn an ordinary walk into a wonderfully beautiful and surprising journey of discovery with plenty of opportunities to discover the magic of the Camino in special friendships, healing insights, spiritual growth and even transcendent experiences. 

Willem Gerritsen (1946), retired psychiatrist and psychotherapist, is active as an informant with the Dutch Society of Saint James, where he uses his extensive experience to help prospective pilgrims on their way. With 'White rabbits on the Camino' he shows that even at an advanced age with a reasonably healthy body long walks are possible and, if you are open to it, the magic of the Camino is close at hand.