The 4th Dimension

Walking the Camino is sort of like playing Survivor in that you have your physical, social and mental games all going at the same time.  The physical has been challenging and I am proud of how I am doing.  My social game has been easy and now I have a good Camino family.  The mental game has been my biggest challenge as there is a lot to think about on a journey of this magnitude.  

Yesterday, the spiritual component ramped up considerably.

 

There have been a lot of spiritual aspects of the first 75% of my journey, but I am feeling it a lot more after Astorga.  First was the pilgrim’s chapel.  Then last night, I attended the vespers service at the local church and I was asked to read the English portions of the service.  How could I pass on that opportunity to join the local monks?  (Their part was all in Latin.)  It was a very special service. 

 

Today I came to the Iron Cross at an altitude of 1,500 meters, which is marked by a tall, simple cross on a large wooden mast.  Dave has spent most of the time in the backpack, but he needed to come out to honor brother John.  The striped rock in front of Dave is from Seattle.  The Camino tradition is to bring a rock from home and place it on the pile as you offer up your prayers.  It was very moving to watch people make their prayers and place their rocks. 

The route down was extremely challenging with lots of steep places combined with many washed out areas.  The path leads down the side of the mountain and then pops out in a few lovely towns.  The folks on mountain bikes that want to pass by add to the mental game. 

 

Tomorrow is my last big city and the start of our last big mountain pass.  I am now down to a single-digit count for days and only have about 125 miles to go. 

 

32,297 steps 

  15.85 miles

 

Location:  Molinaseca @ 42.53789, -6.519955