A trip of a lifetime - El Camino de Santiago

Some say James’ disciples shipped his body to the Iberian Peninsula for burial, but it was shipwrecked and washed ashore covered in scallops. Others say an angel brought his body back and a groom saying his vows on the beach ended up covered in scallops after his horse spooked and dragged him into the water and they miraculously resurfaced. Either way scallops are a symbol for pilgrims along the Way.

The road years ago was dangerous, for pilgrims and those punished to walk it alike, but today it is a way of pilgrimage, tourism, tradition, and a physical challenge.   (Excerpted from The Catholic Link)

Our very own Arne and Eva Dunhem from Drott Lodge #168 took on this monumental task.   Here are some 'footnotes' from their 350 mile adventure:

The hike is and has been absolutely wonderful, but, of course has taken a lot of our energies. We both got a bad cold, but we will persevere. We will never forget the smell of the cow dung in all the Galician villages we have passed the last few days.  We saw a brand new beautiful big house, like a mansion. But it was in the middle of the smell. Would we want to live there? The scenery is stunning with a rolling landscape, sweeping views over fields with corn and other fields with cows and horses.

We had brought four small rocks with us from our granddaughters, daughter-in-law and from our condo building in Ashburn. We read two different recommended prayers and climbed up to the top of the pile of rocks that had been left by people over hundreds of years. We carefully place our rocks and took photos and a video. Very emotional.

And now, the not so good things.

We started to hike again and after about two hours and having hiked a couple of miles, the heavy black clouds started to sail in. Then the heavens opened up again, but this time with heavy, heavy downpour, hail for a while, and lightning and thunder. A really severe thunderstorm. We were upon the mountain with nowhere to take shelter. Despite us having rain jackets and rain covers over our back packs, we got soaking wet. The rain came down horizontally in the strong wind.  It took us a couple of hours in the rain to get down to the next village. We walked the road and not the trail as it became muddy and very slippery. Somewhat easier on asphalt but still slippery.

Now the second not so good thing. Both of us developed a pretty bad cold after the hiking in the heavy rain, which we still have. We gave up on hiking for the day, with a couple of hours left, and steep wet slopes downhill. We called for a taxi after reaching the next village, after having something to eat and warm up. Caffe con Leche and a sandwich. It tasted heavenly. The taxi brought us to our hotel in Ponferrada. The taxi ride was also an adventure. The driver had two phones that he constantly talked in, something to do with customers not showing up. And the road down was steep and lots of s-curves.

Yesterday Monday around 1 pm we finally reached our goal for our Camino de Santiago - The Cathedral, Praza do Obradoiro, Santiago de Compostela. It has been a real struggle, a lot of hard work, hiking uphill and downhill and sometimes level, day after day. We have hiked through corn and wheat fields, vegetable fields, cow, horse, goat and sheep areas, through many hamlets, villages, towns and cities. But we never thought about giving up. It was just a great new experience.  Arne wanted to just lie down on the Praza, like the younger ones did, but Eva, who is the smartest one, said Arne could not get up again if he did…