A little bit about the history of the camino--
The history of the camino begins with the town of Finisterre, which is on the western coast of Spain. Finisterre was thought of as the end of the earth, back before the times of the explorers.
The world was considered to be flat and Finisterre was the last bit of it.-- at least in Spain...
In the time of Christ, St. James, the apostle, preached in Spain, and after he was martyred in Jerusalem, legend has it that his remains were brought back to Spain. His remains are supposedly buried in Santiago, where a cathedral was built and named for him. The Cathedral of James was started around the year 1022, and finished 200 hundred years later.
Pilgrimages to Santiago began during the middle ages, and the route is now very highly traveled. About 170,000 people walk some part of the camino each year. In the middle ages, The Moors inhabited Spain, and the crusaders were in this area, routing them out, and I understand that there are many relics of the blood shed along the camino The Knights Templar were there, as well as Napoleon.
The route lies under the Milky Way, and pilgrims in the past, used the Milky way as a guide to get to the city of Santiago.
Hundreds of thousands of people have walked this route from about the year 800, and the route to Santiago extends not only from St Jean Pied du Port in France, where I am starting from, but from all over Europe. My portion is really the last leg of the journey.
The symbol of the camino is the scallop shell, and all along the way there are yellow arrows, or scallop shells pointing the direction to go. There is also a legend about that, that I will share with you in another posting. A lot of pilgrims wear scallop shells on their packs. We have brought two from home, with holes drilled and cords to put on ours.
I have a camino credential, a kind of passport that you get stamped at each place you stay. If you walk the last 100 km of the camino, and present your credential to the cathedral, you recieve a compostella. A compostella is a certificate of accomplishment given to pilgrims and it also gives an indulgence or forgiveness of sins as related to the Catholic church.
It is all quite interesting, and I first became interested in walking the camino, after seeing the movie "The Way" with Martin Sheen and directed by his son Emilio Estevez two years ago. it is an impressive spiritual movie, and when I walked out of seeing it, I said to myself, I would really like to do that! (And it is an instant play on Netflix for any of you wanting to see it)
Our flight leaves tonight from Tampa to Miami and we leave Miami for Madrid at 11 tonight. We fly from Madrid to Pamplona tomorrow and will stay in Pamplona tomorrow night. On Saturday, we leave Pamplona by bus to St. Jean, over the Pyrenees to stay the night and start our walk on Sunday.
My biggest concern as of this moment-not to take anything I really don't need to carry, and sleep on the plane tonight. All will work out! Ufltreia!! (onward!)
