Camino de Santiago Day Sixteen and Seventeen

Rabé de las Calzadas to San Antón

We had great conversations along the way to San Antón with new friends and “old” friends we haven’t seen in a few days. We ran into Koishi and Ishiro at coffee. We met them almost two weeks ago in Zubiri. We walked with Kazu into the hostel and met these two retired men from Japan—a few hundred miles away from Kazu. We share broken English and smiles with one another, asking about each other’s Camino. Kazu left them a few days ago because he had to stay on schedule to finish. 

The theme of conversation today seemed to be around letting go and loss. A woman from New Zealand shared with us about her breast cancer, father’s death when she was a teenager, and her husband and mother dying within a few months. She giggled as she saw some of her new growth hair fall out into her hat. It’s grown back curly, she said. I’m trying to put it all into perspective and how those I love have prepared the way for my journey.

We walked over one of the mesas—flat farmland—with lots of storm clouds and a little rain and two new friends: a 20 something student from Bologna and a retired man from Alicante. We spoke in English and Spanish about everything: politics, house sizes in the US (bigger) and aches and pains on the Camino. We stopped for lunch together in Hontanas—about the half-way point of our Camino. 

Amy and I stopped in San Antón, the ruins of a medieval church and pilgrim hospital. San Antón was a fourth century monk who is the root of the oldest Christian—Coptics and Maronites. His symbol was the Tau or T cross that Saint Francis of Assisi adopted—maybe because he stopped here on his way back from Santiago.

The cloister-church-hospital was a thriving community until the order disbanded in the 18th century. It fell into disrepair for two hundred years. A pilgrim saw the ruins and had a dream to renovate the grounds and create a new albergue for pilgrims in 2003. 

It is the most primitive one we’ve stayed at—no electricity, WiFi or hot water, five guests and one hospitalera from Poland. It’s also the most captivating and beautiful. I soaked my feet in cold ice water and took in the beauty of the walls, arches, rose window and portico that the highway passes through. 

Nerla made a beautiful meal for dinner: lettuce from the garden and pasta, bread and wine. Before the meal we shared our name and Home countries (Poland, France, Spain, Belgium, Germany and US) and some experience of our Camino or why we were walking (to experience God, clear my head, receive something from God or whatever, pray for my sister who had cancer and her daughter who is blind from birth). 

We had a simple breakfast of coffee, biscuits, bread and jam by candlelight and continued our conversations. Like a family we all ate together and no one was in a hurry to leave. One is walking the Camino with no money to experience his life differently and depend on the generosity of others, another is working on emptying himself every morning so that he can be filled up with God. 

Emptying ourselves in order to be filled—with God’s presence and the simple gifts of those we meet and paying attention to what we see.