Roots, Hold Me Close!

Friday, May 2

Today’s theme is “roots.”

Roots in the sense of flora. We have passed trees – not the ones I spoke of yesterday that are planted to create forests – but hardwoods that have been here for hundreds of years and whose roots wind around the fences and rocks and the Camino itself. And other trees, which have been standing tall for generations, and where ivy has grown up and covered the trunks and has grown as tall as the trees themselves.

And roots in the cultural sense. Without ever thinking about it too much, I’ve never really understood the architecture of California’s missions. The free-standing bell towers – often more arches than towers – where did they come from? The answer, it seems, is Galicia! All the small town churches we have passed have bell towers just like them. My understanding is that many of the conquistadores came from Extremadura, but if I hear that Father Junipero Serra and the other Franciscan friars were from this part of Spain, I will not be at all surprised.

Along the Way today we came across a man with a prosthetic leg who was offering stamps for our pilgrim passports in exchange for a tip. He saw my Rotary tee-shirt, and immediately said that he was a Rotarian from Romania. His father, he said, had also been a Rotarian and had been president of their club, but now his earthly father was with his Heavenly Father. Mind you, he was speaking in Spanish and I in English, but this was all perfectly understandable. He also said that he would be going to Cincinnati in the summer for the Para-Olympics; he said he is a champion javelin-thrower. Vi, the Malaysian on our group, is also a Rotarian – so we were three Rotarians from three different continents, but we all knew the power of “End Polio Now,” and so of course we took a picture. Maybe this was not so much roots as connections, but Rotary brings together disparate people with a common purpose of making the world a slightly better place in whatever way seems appropriate.

And roots in the sense of our shared Christian background, even though this is a Catholic country and we are on what is – at face value, at least – a Catholic pilgrimage. This afternoon we wandered into another little church in search of a stamp. This church itself is a relative newcomer – it was built in the 1840s. The priest showed up and offered to stamp our passports himself, and then he showed us the church, and then he gave us a blessing. The blessing turned into shared prayers, and a hymn or two. He also said he would pray for us, and asked us to pray for him.

He was speaking Spanish, but again, he was perfectly understandable as he showed us his little church and gave us his blessing. The hymns were easy to hum along to as well, since they were all A-A-B-B. Much easier than, for example, following the rhythms in Uganda last month. Shared roots of western religion and music.

Our walk today was much shorter than it has been the past few days. It just worked out that way based on the terrain, but it was nice to have a lay-day of sorts half-way through our walk. It was also warmer today, and so I wore shorts for the first time. This caused a minor sensation at breakfast and a lot of discussion about people from Maine being able to tolerate cold better than the norm, but I was very glad to be wearing one less layer as the sun rose higher in the sky.

We finished our walk before lunch and went to a restaurant known for its octopus. It guess it was boiled in seasoned water for an indefinable amount of time, then cut into bite-sized pieces and eaten with a toothpick. Sounds terrible, but it was really quite good. You’ll have to take my word for it; squid and octopus are not Frank’s idea of a good time, so he stuck with more traditional fare of chorizo and salad. And flan with whipped cream for dessert!

And then we moved to yet another country inn. This one is by far the most luxurious of the ones we have stayed in, and even appears to have decent internet (yeah!).