Freaky co-incidences on the Camino

[Tigger]

Reflecting on my widely varied experiences on parts of two Camino routes that I walked this year, I am wondering if anyone else had any truly 'freaky' bizarre and meaningful co-incidence type experiences.
Everyone says that 'The Camino provides" and I guess this is an extension of the deeply 'spiritual' in the broadest sense of things that can happen.
Are we specifically more 'open' to such things? Do we refine on our experiences at this wonderful and challenging time? Do we emit some kind of 'spiritual beacon'?
For some this can be religious awareness, for others maybe a connection with strangers or nature. Anyway this is one such occurrence that happened to me somewhere around the 60 km mark out from SDC on the Camino Frances.

I was walking along almost covered and consumed by an Altus poncho as the Galician changeable weather was prevailing and dark clouds were threatening.
A faster walker, a man walking alone, probably in his 60's walked past me and we exchanged glances. He faltered, looked again at me and then said...
" Are you Danish"?
I was surprised but open to pretty much any conversation and without thinking too much about it replied
" No, actually I am Australian...Buen Camino".
He shrugged and walked on.
After the initial surprise, I pondered his comment. It was inexplicable on so many levels. Walking on further and analysing the situation, a revelation came to me.
Believe it or not, I actually do have a most interesting historical familial background.
I am 'royal',
...illegitimate (?... the prince actually married the mother and had other children with her, who were not acknowledged due to political and dynastic reasons back in the early 19th century,and he was forced into an unhappy marriage to a princess )
...and I am the great great great granddaughter of Kaiser Wilhelm 1 of Germany.
Kaiser Wilhelm had a daughter who was banished to Australia during the European revolutions, in collusion with his cousin Queen Victoria in 1848.
( should you have further interest in this subject I have co-written a book on the subject and you can google Agnes The Secret Princess - An Australian Story)

As luck would have it, I caught up with him co-incidentally again and he was having gear problems and had stopped to adjust...

I said " You know how you asked me whether I was Danish, back there? Well Queen Margarethe ll of Denmark is actually my 4th cousin." ( actually a double cousin both through the German and Russian sides of German descendants who married into the Swedish and Danish courts)
I never saw him again despite hoping to meet up in SDC as he was a volunteer in the pilgrim 'Compostela' office.

 

[Curtis]

Great story here's mine.
I was writing my nightly journal while staying in the Municipal Albergue in Ponferrada and an American man named James was sitting alone at the table next to me on the back patio. We started sharing the usual camino conversation. When I asked him his motivation to talk he said his father recently passed away, and when he was younger and would get injured he remembers his dad always saying "Walk it off".

I never saw James again, but the next morning written in black ink on a street sign was "Whatever pain life throws at you, walk it off."

 

[Tigger]

Great story here's mine.
I was writing my nightly journal while staying in the Municipal Albergue in Ponferrada and an American man named James was sitting alone at the table next to me on the back patio. We started sharing the usual camino conversation. When I asked him his motivation to talk he said his father recently passed away, and when he was younger and would get injured he remembers his dad always saying "Walk it off".

I never saw James again, but the next morning written in black ink on a street sign was "Whatever pain life throws at you, walk it off."

Love it!
As an athletic family, we also have the saying 'Ice it up and walk it off' to any problem that you encounter.

 

[Kanga]

An old friend decided on the spur of the moment to join us walking the Le Puy. He had a dinner jacket in his suitcase, but no walking shoes, no hiking pants, no hat. His normal shoes sufficed, his jeans were OK, but a handkerchief on the head did not prove much use. It was blazing hot and very sunny. We searched in every village and town, but we could not find a hat to fit - his head looks normal but turned out to be abnormally large (he claims extra brain matter). He was ready to pull the pin, suffering too much sunburn. We sat down to lunch in a garden, and over the hedge flew - a hat. It landed at his feet. Not just any hat - a perfect sunhat, with a large floppy brim, in camino dust disguising grey-green, even a strap to hold it on during wind. You know the rest - no owner to be found, and it fitted perfectly.

 

[Anemone del Camino]

Everyone says that 'The Camino provides" and I guess this is an extension of the deeply 'spiritual' in the broadest sense of things that can happen.
Always have believed in Camino Magic. But also,that the only things that provide for my Caminos are my bank account and credit card.

 

[Theatregal]

I lost my Brierley guidebook in Trinidad de Arre. My walking companion of the previous few days saw it later in the evening on a garden table of the albergue where we had been sitting and picked it up, thinking he would give it to me in the morning. I set out on my own, early the next morning so did not see him. He carried the book for a couple of days and didn't think he'd see me again, so he wrote my name and city in it with the inscription "Perhaps the camino will bring it back to her" and left it on a table in a cafe in Puente La Reina.

Two weeks after I returned home from my camino I received a call from the receptionist at my workplace with the message that someone had called to say that she had my camino guidebook. The caller said she had found my book in the albergue in Puente La Reina and had seen the inscription with my name. Somehow the book had travelled from the cafe to the albergue. By coincidence she was from a town close to where I live, so she thought she would use the book for the rest of the camino and try to return it to me when she returned to Canada. She googled my name and found it connected to the company I work for.

We arranged to meet for coffee and when she walked into the cafe, we realized we had met! We had chatted at coffee stops and albergues a few times during the last couple weeks of the camino. I even asked to look at her guidebook a couple of times, not realizing I was looking at my own book! This guidebook means a lot to me. It had it's own camino with someone else and still came home to me.

 

[scott the farmer]

We were having dinner in Burgos because a few were going to walk larger distances and leave the tribe
A Swedish girl I hadn't met was across from me so I said I knew a Swedish guy called Viktor
She said she knew Viktor then laughed and said every second guy was called Viktor!
I stated that Viktor had walked 3500 kms from Sweden to Finisterra
She looked at me in shock and stated that she did know Viktor through the internet and he had been giving her advice for her Camino
10 minutes later she had contacted him and showed a picture of him he sent on her phone to us
Its a strange and wonderful world

 

[mspath]

One stormy night late January 2009 in Trinidad de Arre at the Marist fathers' albergue I was writing in the common room a blog post on happenstance, chance encounter and camino serendipity.

At the very moment that I defined the word 'serendipity' another pilgrim knocked at the door. Happily speaking Italian he was welcomed by two Spanish pilgrims. The Italian entered the common room, turned to say 'buona sera' to me and then enthusiastically shouted 'Margaret'! Imagine my delight upon realizing that he was Mario whom I had last seen during breakfast at Burguete the year before in 2008!! Another fortuitous chance encounter indeed.

We and a French pilgrim, Polo, had met on the little train going to St Jean Pied de Port and together walked up the Valcarlos route to Roncesvalles. As Mario and I nostalgically recollected those 'good old times' we tentatively promised to meet again "next year on the camino". ...Although our paths have not yet re-crossed, one never knows !

 

[KinkyOne]

On July 12th 2016 I was in a Pension in Leon. The owner came to my room to tell me something and when I stepped out to the corridor I saw Laurie (@peregrina2000 ) standing in the doorway of the room next to mine. That was the first time we met but I recognized her at first.
Not really freaky coincidence I think, sorry for being off-topic

 

[FLEUR]

In Mansilla de los Mulas I discovered the man in the next bunk was the brother of my neighbour at home. I had never met him before.

 

[hel&scott]

"Whatever pain life throws at you, walk it off."

I love that. It is so true. It also reminds me of a Dane we met one Camino, who used to say "Knit happens" whenever something went wrong on her way... She thought it was an English proverb, and I couldn't bring myself to correct her.. But as it turned out we were both advid knitters and it is the motto of my knitting group.

 

[SabsP]

I wrote my experience already in another thread .Here it is again.
"On my Camino Frances 2011 I met a group of seven men from Verona. I called them my Italian posse. I met them in Portomarin and for the next two days we bumped into each other. We had lenghty discussions about the way pasta should be cooked to perfection . They also " rescued " me from some French man who was too clingy to my liking. And they bursted out in beautiful arias from Italian operas.

Roll on 2013. Who did I meet at the Parroquial in Granon? Yes the Italian posse again...all seven of them.
I have this great picture where I and some other women were cooking the dinner and the seven guys were sitting at the table. They were joking that seeing there was no pasta to be cooked they would not get into the kitchen. They did do the washing up though..."

And on my first Camino in 2011 I met a couple in Puente la Reina, Belgians too, and we said hi and went our way. Some hours later a mutal pilgrim friend told me they were from town X in Belgium. This is the town next to mine and those people were friends with my neighbours.

 

[wonzi]

During my 2013 CF Camino, my granddaughter and I met these two lovely ladies-friends, one from Peru and the other from Australia-both Susie's! When we arrived in Santiago, we had hoped they would be there so we could bid them farewell as they were only about a day behind us. Alas, after waiting two days we did not see them and were really sad. Jump forward to 2015 and I am walking the Le Puy to Santiago with a friend and we arrived in Cahors and checked in to Gite Papillon where the hospitalera took us and introduced us to the rest of the ladies. As he went up the stairs, he was introducing my friend and said and behind her is Wanda! I heard this lady say: "Wanda? Wanda? " and around the corner came one of my Susi friends! What a surprise! And, this October, she will be coming to my home for a visit.

 

[Icacos]

For five days in 2013 I was holed up with tendinitis in a hostel in León. I was alone, and very low in spirits wondering if I would be able to continue on the Camino. On about the fourth day, after hobbling about the city for a while, I got back to the hostel and, for the first time since I had arrived, I heard English being spoken in the kitchen. Naturally, I went to investigate. Turns out the ladies were from a small island community just a short ferry ride from my home.

(BTW, I finished my camino, with the help of camino angels, but that's another story.)

 

[fraluchi]

Freaky "coincidences" on the Camino, or perhaps "It's a small world". The topic can be endless, because many (long time?) travelers have experience of some extraordinary situations in far-away places. I guess we all could write a book?

 

[J F Gregory]

Some one took my wife's underwear we hope by mistake. A couple of days later we were walking with some one from China. My wife shared the story of the missing underwear. The other pilgrim told my wife she had brought a extra pair that was still packaged and she could have them. Yes pilgrims are a helping community.

 

[nycwalking]

February 2014, I sprained my ankle other side of Alto de Perdon then walked, hitched, and hobbled for weeks to Ponferrada. I rested for eight days at Nicolas del Flue albergue at insistence of priest who also insisted I go to doctor for ankle. Physician bandaged ankle, gave me tape and said I'd need it to Santiago and beyond. My taped foot could not fit into my Nike running shoes I always wore on camino. What to do? Back at albergue there were a pair of practically brand new women's Columbia waterproof hiking boots in my size sitting on top of pilgrim discard bin. They fit me perfectly even with a taped ankle. I was able to finish camino. I refer to those boots as my miracle boots.

 

[Icacos]

If one exudes good karma, one gets it back in return, ten-fold. I'm finding, since my camino, that it is far more easy now to 'be nice,' so very simple now to see what is important, and to cast off, or disregard, what is not. The benefits of good karma are infinite.

 

[Former member 49149]

Not freaky, just pure delight, at meeting a pilgrim who had passed through Zabaldika 4 years ago when I was there on duty.... this time, he caught up with me just after Cizur Menor, and was very kind and did not pass me out, keeping pace with me as we climbed up to El Perdón. Why? Why not!!!

 

[alexwalker]

I walked with an old German on (parts of) the VdlP in 2012. Has kept contact since.
I walked with a young Dutch on (parts of) the CF in 2014. Has kept contact since.

In 2016, one evening back home in the Arctic, I got a telephone from my Dutch friend: He and the old German had met on the CP, and after some talk realised they had me as a common friend. That was a 1 hour Skype happening for the 3 of us.

I Am returning to CF in late August via Madrid, and will stay overnight with my Dutch friend & girlfriend who live there before taking the train to Pamplona.

 

[alexwalker]

If one exudes good karma, one gets it back in return, ten-fold. I'm finding, since my camino, that it is far more easy now to 'be nice,' so very simple now to see what is important, and to cast off, or disregard, what is not. The benefits of good karma are infinite.

I could have written that. But it was you who did it.

 

[C clearly]

I arrived at the albergue in SJPP with 2 pairs of boots. I had new ones that were an identical model to my trusty old ones, but I had only got them a week before and there was a nagging pressure point. So I brought my old ones while I tested the new ones for another day, planning to abandon one pair before starting the camino. Mailing the new ones home was going to be rather expensive, but I really preferred my old ones.

While I was sitting on my bed at Beilari, pondering what to do, in walked a pilgrim who had managed to forget her boots. What size do you take, I asked? 7.5, she answered. Precisely what I had. So I sold her my new boots and used my old ones.

She only walked to Burgos, and I understand that she passed them along to someone else at that point.

 

[FLEUR]

I saw two pilgrims swap rucksacks one day. Each had decided the other had the size / make they really felt they needed . Mid walk they stopped, contents were emptied, rucksacks swapped then repacked and off they went!

 

[HedaP]

Walking the CF in 2015, I did that bizarre and completely unnecessary hill just before Pamplona really tired and really late on a hot afternoon and completely alone. Just out of the underpass tunnel, as the camino meets the highway, I looked back and there was a very big, tall man with a huge, bushy beard, big coat, floppy hat and holding a large staff. Scared the living daylights out of me. He looked at me then turned and walked back through the underpass. Phew!
On reflection I was convinced he was Santo Iago or Santo Yago or St James or whatever you want to call him, just making sure that I'd got through safely.
Walked again this year. And on the bridge at Trinidad de Arre there was a very big, tall man with huge bushy beard. This time no coat, hat or staff because it was a nice, warm day and he was fishing. It was the same fellow. Laughed my way into Pamplona.

 

[HedaP]

The previous post was true but was just meant to make folk smile. I did have a wonderful freaky co-incidence. Have enjoyed all @C clearly blogs and staying at an albergue, I recognised a photo on the wall of two women setting out on a camino. I recognised them because their photos were on C clearly's blog. In my best pigeon Spanish I told the young woman behind the bar that I knew the photo and it was of dos abuelas y dos hermanas. The young woman did a double take. Told me it was a photo of her mother and her aunt. Called her mother out of the kitchen and we had a wonderfully happy time talking about knowing her because of the internet.

 

[Tigger]

Walking the CF in 2015, I did that bizarre and completely unnecessary hill just before Pamplona really tired and really late on a hot afternoon and completely alone. Just out of the underpass tunnel, as the camino meets the highway, I looked back and there was a very big, tall man with a huge, bushy beard, big coat, floppy hat and holding a large staff. Scared the living daylights out of me. He looked at me then turned and walked back through the underpass. Phew!
On reflection I was convinced he was Santo Iago or Santo Yago or St James or whatever you want to call him, just making sure that I'd got through safely.
Walked again this year. And on the bridge at Trinidad de Arre there was a very big, tall man with huge bushy beard. This time no coat, hat or staff because it was a nice, warm day and he was fishing. It was the same fellow. Laughed my way into Pamplona.

A serendipitous local!!! lol

 

[Field Marshall]

An old friend decided on the spur of the moment to join us walking the Le Puy. He had a dinner jacket in his suitcase, but no walking shoes, no hiking pants, no hat. His normal shoes sufficed, his jeans were OK, but a handkerchief on the head did not prove much use. It was blazing hot and very sunny. We searched in every village and town, but we could not find a hat to fit - his head looks normal but turned out to be abnormally large (he claims extra brain matter). He was ready to pull the pin, suffering too much sunburn. We sat down to lunch in a garden, and over the hedge flew - a hat. It landed at his feet. Not just any hat - a perfect sunhat, with a large floppy brim, in camino dust disguising grey-green, even a strap to hold it on during wind. You know the rest - no owner to be found, and it fitted perfectly.

Miracles' come in all shapes and sizes..
Looking foward to my first Camino, Sept 15 - SJPDP, and I pray to be aware enough to what God wants to show me...

 

[Tigger]

Miracles' come in all shapes and sizes..
Looking foward to my first Camino, Sept 15 - SJPDP, and I pray to be aware enough to what God wants to show me...

These were not miracles, at least what happened to me.

May you find what you desire on your Camino.

 

[Anemone del Camino]

These were not miracles, at least what happened to me.

If my debit or Visa don't bounce, it is a miracle.

 

[FLEUR]

On one of my CF stages, walking into Burgos from the train station I tripped on a shallow kerb, propelled by a heavy rucksack I hit the pavement hard falling on my face. ( thankfully nothing was broken!). I was rescued by two young Spanish men who took hold of my upper arms and picked me up, still with the rucksack on my back. You need a bit of imagination to conjure up the picture but it must have looked quite comical. Note: I recovered and continued walking on to Leon that year.

 

[Tigger]

On one of my CF stages, walking into Burgos from the train station I tripped on a shallow kerb, propelled by a heavy rucksack I hit the pavement hard falling on my face. ( thankfully nothing was broken!). I was rescued by two young Spanish men who took hold of my upper arms and picked me up, still with the rucksack on my back. You need a bit of imagination to conjure up the picture but it must have looked quite comical. Note: I recovered and continued walking on to Leon that year.

One is often reminded of turtles or tortoises in these circumstances!
I suppose it is good to look back and laugh however accidents like that can be serious. Only a couple of days out of SDC I was walking with a companion in a long stretch of forest in the pouring rain by ourselves and she entangled her walking pole in a fallen tree branch and came down heavily on her elbow. From her level of pain and debilitation we thought it badly broken and it is scary as hell to be the only person to help, to call the emergency number with reception cutting in and out and no English speaker on the phone for MANY minutes. It was lucky she was not walking with a pack that day as I seriously don't know how we could have got the pack off her body. As it was she was vomiting/nauseous and in and out of consciousness. Thank heaven for a party of three Spaniards who happened along in the middle of this crisis, and a local farmer who dropped everything to drive us to the medical centre ( as the emergency services couldn't find where we were owing to the way markers having been stolen).

 

[FLEUR]

Turtles, yes indeed, I laugh now but at the time I think I was in shock for several days . I attempted to carry my rucksack the next day but it was too hard ( I suffered bruised ribs as well as a bashed face !) After that I was very pleased to pay to have my rucksack transported each day. Prior to that event I managed to lose my footing going down the other side of Alto del Perdon and fall backwards, that time the rucksack provided a softer landing.

Some walkers do have some horrendous accidents, take care everyone.

Sorry, these stories don't really fit the freaky coincidence post.
I am very cautious these days.

 

[rappahannock_rev]

In 2012 I walked with a small group of peregrinos from SJPP to SdeC....

When I walked the Frances again in 2015 I arrived in SdeC and encountered upon arrival one of my 2012 walking companions, who'd come up via the Portugal Camino! Pure coincidence!

And when I walked the Frances yet again in 2017, I arrived in SdeC and encountered upon arrival yet another of my 2012 walking companions, who'd also come up via the Portugal Camino! Again, pure coincidence!

How wonderful!

 

[Ralph Keith Redhead]

My last Camino (2017), I was engrossed with studying the Kabbala - The Tree of Life, hoping to find resolution to life-long dilemas. Met a nice guy at Mino, we ended up the only pilgrims in the Alberque, and he has a big tatoo of 'The Tree of Life' on his right upper arm, so we talked about the Kabbala and he said the most profound thing to me that answered my questions and changed my life - and he's a chef, so that was an extra bonus too for the evening meal.

 

[riverbender]

Not so freaky but......

I walked for all of June and then some, a combo of Frances and Norte, until I finally gave up due to my feet are (still) killing me. I ended in Llanes, took a bus to Santiago to pick up xtra stuff I'd mailed ahead.

MY return flight isn't until mid August, so I went to Croatia, Slovenia and then Austria. While sitting in a cafe drinking a 3.50 cup of not so great cafe con leche, texting with my daughter, I opined that I wished my feet would let me finish the camino where coffee is chraper and yummier.

I paid my bill and began walking back to my hostel. Not 10 minutes later I see the pic attached.



I booked a flight back to Madrid as soon as could. Today I managed 10k out of Lèon. My feet are still killing me but I dont want to stop because I love being here!

 

[WayWalker]

Walking out of Cacabelos to Valcarce on our CF in 2013 my husband and I came upon this fellow from Seattle and we struck up a conversation. After talking and walking for about an hour, my husband said, "well I'm John and this is my wife Casey." This guy looked at us like he had seen a ghost! He said, "You're kidding me!!!" I thought, oh my has our reputation preceded us (tongue in cheek)? And he replied, "My name is John Casey."

 

[KinkyOne]

Not so freaky but......

I walked for all of June and then some, a combo of Frances and Norte, until I finally gave up due to my feet are (still) killing me. I ended in Llanes, took a bus to Santiago to pick up xtra stuff I'd mailed ahead.

MY return flight isn't until mid August, so I went to Croatia, Slovenia and then Austria. While sitting in a cafe drinking a 3.50 cup of not so great cafe con leche, texting with my daughter, I opined that I wished my feet would let me finish the camino where coffee is chraper and yummier.

I paid my bill and began walking back to my hostel. Not 10 minutes later I see the pic attached.

View attachment 35304

I booked a flight back to Madrid as soon as could. Today I managed 10k out of Lèon. My feet are still killing me but I dont want to stop because I love being here!

Can I ask you where this pic was taken?
Thanks and Buen Camino

 

[Anemone del Camino]

Can I ask you where this pic was taken?
Thanks and Buen Camino

I was thinking you were the one who put it there.

 

[Saunterr]

The silver toe ring I had worn for years mysteriously disappeared in the first flooded crossing I encountered on the VDLP this spring. . . .

 

[TonyC]

In Autumn 2015 after leaving Sahagun we reached the point where the Way splits. One direction takes you on the old "Roman" route, the other on the more modern route. We had, more or less, decided to take the modern route towards Bercianos but stopped to look at a large map display at the junction. Just to the side was a bench to sit on. On this bench I spotted a spectacle case but there were no other people around. I looked inside to find that it contained a pair of ladies spectacles. As there was nobody around they had obviously been forgotten. I guessed that they probably belonged to someone following the Camino, it was unlikely that they belonged to a local, so I decide to take them with me and make enquires whenever we met anyone that day, particularly wherever we stopped for the night. Hopefully I might find the owner, or possibly meet someone coming back to claim them.

We then set of towards Bercianos where we hoped to eat. Before we reached it we passed under a new railway track, still under construction. By the Camino trail there was a rest area with several benches and tables. Several other pilgrims, male and female, were already there taking a break. Without thinking I went straight to a particular one of the ladies, not the nearest, but one a little further over, and showed her the spectacle case and asked her if she had lost it.

She looked at it in shock, it was hers, but she hadn't even missed it at that point. She asked how I had it in my hand, so I explained that I had found it way back. She remembered stopping at the bench but not taking the case out of her bag and hadn't needed them since so hadn't missed them.

She was very grateful to get them back, obviously.

I was left wondering just what made me go directly to that particular lady and not any of the other nearer ones when I arrived at the rest area. I still don't know.

 

[KinkyOne]

The silver toe ring I had worn for years mysteriously disappeared in the first flooded crossing I encountered on the VDLP this spring. . . .

Where was that, Marcie?
I need to fund my next Camino

 

[KinkyOne]

...I still don't know.

You don't really have to. It's just one of those "little" things that happens. You already did it and someone else will pay it forward for you. Smile and keep walking

 

[Peter Heath]

I posted my experience 'trusting the Camino provides' on this Forum at:
https://www.caminodesantiago.me/com...idnight-early-start-ferrol.48600/#post-526776

peter

 

[tpmchugh]

I lost my Brierley guidebook in Trinidad de Arre. My walking companion of the previous few days saw it later in the evening on a garden table of the albergue where we had been sitting and picked it up, thinking he would give it to me in the morning. I set out on my own, early the next morning so did not see him. He carried the book for a couple of days and didn't think he'd see me again, so he wrote my name and city in it with the inscription "Perhaps the camino will bring it back to her" and left it on a table in a cafe in Puente La Reina.

Two weeks after I returned home from my camino I received a call from the receptionist at my workplace with the message that someone had called to say that she had my camino guidebook. The caller said she had found my book in the albergue in Puente La Reina and had seen the inscription with my name. Somehow the book had travelled from the cafe to the albergue. By coincidence she was from a town close to where I live, so she thought she would use the book for the rest of the camino and try to return it to me when she returned to Canada. She googled my name and found it connected to the company I work for.

We arranged to meet for coffee and when she walked into the cafe, we realized we had met! We had chatted at coffee stops and albergues a few times during the last couple weeks of the camino. I even asked to look at her guidebook a couple of times, not realizing I was looking at my own book! This guidebook means a lot to me. It had it's own camino with someone else and still came home to me.

I left a copy of my own book in Orisson, April 2015, not by accident, deliberately. I put a note in the fly leaf asking fellow pilgrims to take it, enjoy it then leave it somewhere for the next pilgrim. I included my e-mail and asked that if possible, contact me and tel me where you left/found it. Never heard a word about it and guessed the exercise had been futile. A couple of weeks back I was contacted by a friend of a friend on FB. She had seen a post by Camino Ways posting a picture of my book and looking for the author. I contacted them and they posted it back to me. They found it in O Cebreiro. It crossed 4 international borders on its journey fro Belfast back to Belfast. The people who walk the Camino are amazing folk who make the most unlikely things happen. By the way, two people signed the book. One was the McCoy family, the other I cannot read. If anyone knows the McCoy family, I would love to hear from them

 

[capecorps]

Just returned from my third Camino.

I had dropped into Caminoteco in Pamplona to renew my Brierly guide. As I bought my new guide, I donated my old guide to the owner advising him to gift it to a worthy soul.

Signed into Casa Paderhorn and took a walk along the river. Ran into a forty something English guy with a guitar on his shoulder and very little else. We fell into conversation and since I have noticed on my various Caminos that there is a whole generation of mid forties Englishmen who have lost their way (or perhaps found it), I was interested in his story which he narrated between goodly slugs from his wine-filled flask. He was living rough and had been for several years. But he spoke in an educated voice and his discourse was sensible and insightful, permeated by a kind of Eastern mysticism. Although he had no money and slept outside wherever he happened to find himself, he was convinced that the universe was taking care of him. As an example of this, he told me that he was semi intending to walk the Camino and had dropped into a store and the owner had given him a Brierly guide. At this point he displayed his gift: and it was my old guide! I did not mention the coincidence and we spoke some more; I gave him ten euros which he seemed reluctant to accept.

Some ways down the Camino, I was walking in a park and noticed someone sleeping under a tree. It was him. I walked on ... to my subsequent shame.

 

[Julibel]

In Astorga, late April 2017, I was very ill and said to the hospitalero, "necesito un medico".
I must have looked terrible, because an American peregrina standing nearby said to me, "oh, your poor thing" as she hugged me. Not wanting to spread my germs, I gently pushed her away and told her I could be contagious. Later that day I was diagnosed with acute bronchitis. A week later at albergue A Reboleira in Fonfria, I met the same peregrina again. After chatting a bit, we discovered that we had a mutual friend, with whom she had walked the Camino Frances two years previously. Our mutual friend had told us both she hoped we would meet up.....

 

[JillGat]

Tigger, did he say why he asked if you were Danish? Did you resemble somebody he knew?

Reflecting on my widely varied experiences on parts of two Camino routes that I walked this year, I am wondering if anyone else had any truly 'freaky' bizarre and meaningful co-incidence type experiences.
Everyone says that 'The Camino provides" and I guess this is an extension of the deeply 'spiritual' in the broadest sense of things that can happen.
Are we specifically more 'open' to such things? Do we refine on our experiences at this wonderful and challenging time? Do we emit some kind of 'spiritual beacon'?
For some this can be religious awareness, for others maybe a connection with strangers or nature. Anyway this is one such occurrence that happened to me somewhere around the 60 km mark out from SDC on the Camino Frances.

I was walking along almost covered and consumed by an Altus poncho as the Galician changeable weather was prevailing and dark clouds were threatening.
A faster walker, a man walking alone, probably in his 60's walked past me and we exchanged glances. He faltered, looked again at me and then said...
" Are you Danish"?
I was surprised but open to pretty much any conversation and without thinking too much about it replied
" No, actually I am Australian...Buen Camino".
He shrugged and walked on.
After the initial surprise, I pondered his comment. It was inexplicable on so many levels. Walking on further and analysing the situation, a revelation came to me.
Believe it or not, I actually do have a most interesting historical familial background.
I am 'royal',
...illegitimate (?... the prince actually married the mother and had other children with her, who were not acknowledged due to political and dynastic reasons back in the early 19th century,and he was forced into an unhappy marriage to a princess )
...and I am the great great great granddaughter of Kaiser Wilhelm 1 of Germany.
Kaiser Wilhelm had a daughter who was banished to Australia during the European revolutions, in collusion with his cousin Queen Victoria in 1848.
( should you have further interest in this subject I have co-written a book on the subject and you can google Agnes The Secret Princess - An Australian Story)

As luck would have it, I caught up with him co-incidentally again and he was having gear problems and had stopped to adjust...

I said " You know how you asked me whether I was Danish, back there? Well Queen Margarethe ll of Denmark is actually my 4th cousin." ( actually a double cousin both through the German and Russian sides of German descendants who married into the Swedish and Danish courts)
I never saw him again despite hoping to meet up in SDC as he was a volunteer in the pilgrim 'Compostela' office.

 

[JillGat]

I love these stories! I especially loved this: [[I even asked to look at her guidebook a couple of times, not realizing I was looking at my own book! ]]

In a small rural rest area past Carrion de los Condes, I set down my pack and refilled my water bottle in the fountain. The only other pilgrim there was a Spanish man about my age (around 60), sitting at a picnic table, so I took out my bread and cheese and joined him.

We talked for awhile and he asked where I was from. I told him that I come from a part of the US that was called "Nueva España back in the 1500s-1600s, after the Spanish conquistadors arrived and claimed the territory for Spain. The king of Spain created land grants for settlers, and many of the descendents of those original settlers are still there in what is now the state of New Mexico.

He was from southern Spain and found this interesting. "De que ciudad eres?" he asked. I told him the name of my city is Albuquerque, named after Francisco Cuervo y Valdés, the 8th Duke of Alburquerque who came up the Camino Real from Mexico City and became the viceroy of "New Spain" from 1653-1660.

His eyes lit up and he took his driver's license out of his pocket to show me: his name was "Francisco Alburquerque". The surname is so rare in Spain now, he always looked for it in every Camino town he passed through.

(The Spanish town of Alburquerque in in the region of Extremadura, just south of Badajoz. Nobody knows why the first R was dropped at some point in the name of our town in New Mexico)

 

[Kanga]

@JillGat I can tell you that @Tigger is a dead ringer for Queen Margrethe II of Denmark. I had not noticed it until Tigger relayed the story of her encounter, but it is true.

 

[Inbar]

Walking up the Pyrenees, my husband lost his rain cover. Apparently the wind blew it off. We stopped at the last French stamp truck when the rain was starting again trying to figure out how to protect his stuff, when a lovely Spanish woman came up there carrying a different rain cover in her hands. We call her Angela to this day. No one else claimed it so we took it, and swore to give it back to its owner if we ever found them. We never did. I sort of hope the person who lost this cover got a hold of ours. It probably blew right down the road.

But if you've lost your black shaggy rain cover in the Pyrenees in September 13th 2015 let me know!