Camino Map

Monday, 4 July 2016

Stage 18: Calzadilla de la Cueza to Sahagun (23 km--27 degrees)



Last night we elected to have the peregrino menu offered in our hostel. We invited a fellow pilgrim, Grace from Duluth, to join us. Spanish people traditionally eat after 8:00 pm so we are always the first to arrive and are constantly looking for an earlier venue! We certainly had the place to ourselves at 7:00 last night.
We had a later start this morning and after consulting the various markers and maps we stopped for our second breakfast under a palm tree.

I made grid 2 to further convince readers of the beauty of the meseta. For several kilometres this morning our walking path was cushioned with yellow or mauve flower petals. It seems a real mix of what we would see in the summer and fall. Certainly most of the grain crops are ready to harvest but gardens seem more in line with Quebec or Ontario early summer vegetation. Flowering bushes lined most of the way and if you look closely you will see the top of Jim's head in the wheat. The flowers still draw my attention and I find myself dropping behind to capture just one more.


Tonight we are staying in a Refugio de Peregrino Benedictinas  that is attached to the church in the photo. It is committed to raising money to support orphans in Peru. We hope to attend the nightly Peregrino mass and communal dinner this evening.




The Relativity of Distance

On the Camino, the subject of distance is not one that is discussed with the kind of scientific precision that you would expect the metric system to support. Distance is, in fact, a political topic for many, an article of faith for others, and an indicator of pain for an unfortunate few. The politics of distance is rooted in the platforms of the different guide books for the Camino. None of them seem to agree and they can disagree by 4 or 5 km on a day's journey. This could be the result of what a particular guide book is measuring, outskirts to outskirts or centre to centre. The road signs also provide conflicting distances, depending on who put them up. Albergues and restaurants from the next town always underestimate the distance to entice you to go an extra 3 km, when it is 5.5 on our gps. There is also word of mouth estimates that vary in accuracy depending on the source or the pain threshold of the provider. ("I don't understand it, the guidebook says the walk to Los Arcos was only 24 km, but my feet definitely confirm it to be 31! I believe my feet more than some satellite out in space!")

We have decided to use RunKeeper, a gps cell phone app, to record how far we walk from albergue to hostel each day. So our distance includes all of the intended and unintended alternate routes that we end up on, but the distances are accurate. Once we arrive at our bed for the night I shut it off. Exploring villages after siestas and all rest day treks are not logged. The distance from Santiago de Compostela is calculated by eCamino, an app that takes gps locations and computes the quickest way to the end, via a pilgrim route.

So now you understand the math and how, on some days, we can walk 24 km to cover a 19 km journey and at the end of the day be only 15 km closer to Santiago. It involves math, science, and a whole lot of faith!