camino de santiago

we walked 500 kms through beautiful and happy and ugly and tired and cranky and hungry and smiley and cold and meditative and talkative and spontaneous and full bellied and looking down at our shoes and looking up at the sky and looking deep inside ourselves and looking superficially on others and deep at others and shallowly into us and in the end... there was no end.

we hitchhiked from faro to astorga with a lovely unexpected stopover at pepe~s house in zamora :) then we walked from astorga to santiago, from santiago to finisterra, from fisnisterra to muxia. then we hitchhiked from muxia to muros, from muros to noia and from noia to padron. we had divine pimientos del padron in the oldest taverna in town. it was a magical meal. then we walked from padron to valença. right after we crossed the border we started getting lost. could be that thing this country always does to me. but the arrows did get scarce, people were uninterested and unhelpful and kyle wanted to rest. it was his birthday. we started walking to vila nova de cerveira but it made no sense to walk on the highway. there was no other path. we hitchhiked to viana do castelo after a surprise stop at a super friendly funny family. we had some amazing bolas de berlim in viana, warm from the oven at 11am. and from there we hitchhiked to coimbra and got on a bus home. home? i mean we got to lisbon. we spent an EXCELLENT week in lisbon and got home. home again? i mean we got to faro. faro was all transformed by the arrival of autumn. many birds came to populate this part of the country and the salt has been taken out of the salt lakes. it cooled down a little too, up to the point that we can actually sleep at night!! i missed autumn :) have been skipping it too often with intercontinental travel and its jumping of seasons. it's so calming and makes me look more into myself :) staying home with a warm cup of barley coffee ;)

when i got here a friend asked if i had been in the tunnel in santiago. i haven't. she said you walk on a long long looooong tunnel for about an hour. it's a tunnel under a cathedral and it's moist and dark. you walk and you walk. to move along in the tunnel you have to kneel down at times, crawl under big stones, go up and down and accept the humidity. then suddenly you reach a wall. on the wall there is a sign that says:

turn back. there is nothing you can find here that is not already inside yourself.

so somehow i have been in the tunnel too. as i'm still in the camino. searching, walking on, moving, looking, meditating. and it's beautiful to walk in the algarvian autumn.