A common man marvels at uncommon things. A wise man marvels at the commonplace. CONFUCIUS

Tuesday 2 February 2010

It's A Long Way To Santiago

It's a long way to Santiago, it's a long way to go,
It's a long way to Santiago, to the sweetest place I know!
Farewell Extremadura, no volver volver,
It's a long, long way to Santiago, but my heart's right there!


Sing to the tune of It's A Long Way To Tipperary and repeat endlessly through the day to help cope with dolor and sufrimiento on the Camino.

I'm finding this Camino hard. It's lonely. It's cold. The path is flooded in parts because of torrential rain in December and early January. Two rivers have been impassable, which meant long detours via roads. There's more tarmac pounding than I would like. And I seem to be quite tired, as there are often big walking distances between places of accommodation - sometimes over 30 km.

Tomorrow I leave the region of Extremadura and enter the region of Castilla y León.

(Posted from Baños de Montemayor, on the Vía de la Plata, Spain.)

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wishing you un brazo fuerte. For me, the tough bits were the most valuable, but you know this already. I hope you get enough of the joy of the Camino too.

And it could be worse - if you had been near me in the heat of La Mancha in September, you would have heard "Is this the way to Santiago?" being badly sung along with Peter Kay comedy walk.

with prayers,

Andy

Anonymous said...

God, but I do think of you often, as the bitter winter we're having here blows straight across the Atlantic to you! Would that there was a way to divert it! Sorry bout that! Sending you very warm dry thoughts, Karin

Lorenzo — Alchemist's Pillow said...

Keep the faith, SW. I have really enjoyed your earlier poetic posts from the trail.

You will probably be going through Bejar, Salamanca soon. Let me know if you need anything there, I have some very close friends who live there.

Timecheck said...

I sympathize. Its the lonely that's the hard part. A few moments of human interaction can carry you through a long distance of otherwise difficult walking conditions.

gleaner said...

Don't forget your not all alone - you've got all the followers of your blog with you in spirit...and even the rough patches in your journey are going to offer you some rich perspective and musings in time. And well, you can always change your original plan and perhaps take another path or zig-zag somewhere else or rest longer in one place.