Terry Callery
Chi Walker
I had occasion to speak this week to a pilgrim who lives near me in Maine about my experience on the Portuguese Camino. I had walked from Lisbon (only 1% of all pilgrims getting compostelas start there) in February finishing on Saint Patrick's Day in March. These are some of the least traveled months for pilgrims, so I had a very uncrowded Camino experience "listing to the great silence".
As we talked, I was very specific about the names of places I encountered and the fellow pilgrim said to me "How did you remember all those places and Portuguese names, sometime my recollection of my Camino is like a big blur all blended together."
Since I was planing to write a second book - part literate travel guide and part reflective memoir -I had kept a journal, jotting down a page worth of observations and insights each morning after breakfast while on the Portuguese Route. The journal became the backbone of the paperback book/kindle. What is interesting is that I never journal while at home, I suspect that others are like me. That our lives away from the Camino are much more routine and habitual and perhaps not as "journal worthy" as when we are on our spiritual adventures of discovery. There were a few places that I stayed at I had no record of, no stamp or an unreadable stamp on my Pilgrim Credentials - so I had to Google half a dozen places in that town to see a photo online that looked familiar. Often one of the 300 photos I took would jog my blurred memory to crystallize. I was reading some of my journal descriptions of the best restaurants that I experience and this one really awakened a rich Camino experience in the town of Oliveira De Azemeis.
"Inside Hotel Dighton is Restaurante D. Gomado, which maintains a traditional wood-fired grill. I went down to the restaurant just as they opened for dinner at 7:30 and was seated at a white tablecloth table in the elegantly appointed restaurant.
A show began almost immediately. The man was dressed all in black, with a black chef’s headband on his head, and he looked more like a martial arts instructor than a highly trained chef. He danced effortlessly around the massive fireplace, which was covered with a metal plenum to vent out the wood smoke. The chef placed a small pile of hardwood sticks into the brick grill and watched as the fire consumed the fuel with its hungry flames. I had ordered grilled prawns and baby squid, and the chef poured a marinade onto them before he placed the skewered shellfish over the wood coals to caramelize. In the same way that a bullfight in Portugal is a fusion between a sporting contest and a theatrical event, grilling my prawns and baby squid was an athletic event and also a stylized ritual. It took about twenty minutes for the coals to be ready, and the chef shifted cat-like around the firepit, poking coals and adjusting the position of the skewer. In the meantime, I ate my bread with Portuguese olives and a creme de marisco, or seafood bisque soup. Finally the prawns and baby squid were brought to my table, served with roasted potatoes and Portuguese kale. The fresh ingredients were transformed into intense versions of themselves—sweeter, smokier, and more textured. The meal was another Epicurean masterpiece, and I slowly savored each bite."
Are there other pilgrims who have kept journals on the Camino who do not normally journal at home - and if so, has the writing process enriched their Camino experience???
Terence Callery
As we talked, I was very specific about the names of places I encountered and the fellow pilgrim said to me "How did you remember all those places and Portuguese names, sometime my recollection of my Camino is like a big blur all blended together."
Since I was planing to write a second book - part literate travel guide and part reflective memoir -I had kept a journal, jotting down a page worth of observations and insights each morning after breakfast while on the Portuguese Route. The journal became the backbone of the paperback book/kindle. What is interesting is that I never journal while at home, I suspect that others are like me. That our lives away from the Camino are much more routine and habitual and perhaps not as "journal worthy" as when we are on our spiritual adventures of discovery. There were a few places that I stayed at I had no record of, no stamp or an unreadable stamp on my Pilgrim Credentials - so I had to Google half a dozen places in that town to see a photo online that looked familiar. Often one of the 300 photos I took would jog my blurred memory to crystallize. I was reading some of my journal descriptions of the best restaurants that I experience and this one really awakened a rich Camino experience in the town of Oliveira De Azemeis.
"Inside Hotel Dighton is Restaurante D. Gomado, which maintains a traditional wood-fired grill. I went down to the restaurant just as they opened for dinner at 7:30 and was seated at a white tablecloth table in the elegantly appointed restaurant.
A show began almost immediately. The man was dressed all in black, with a black chef’s headband on his head, and he looked more like a martial arts instructor than a highly trained chef. He danced effortlessly around the massive fireplace, which was covered with a metal plenum to vent out the wood smoke. The chef placed a small pile of hardwood sticks into the brick grill and watched as the fire consumed the fuel with its hungry flames. I had ordered grilled prawns and baby squid, and the chef poured a marinade onto them before he placed the skewered shellfish over the wood coals to caramelize. In the same way that a bullfight in Portugal is a fusion between a sporting contest and a theatrical event, grilling my prawns and baby squid was an athletic event and also a stylized ritual. It took about twenty minutes for the coals to be ready, and the chef shifted cat-like around the firepit, poking coals and adjusting the position of the skewer. In the meantime, I ate my bread with Portuguese olives and a creme de marisco, or seafood bisque soup. Finally the prawns and baby squid were brought to my table, served with roasted potatoes and Portuguese kale. The fresh ingredients were transformed into intense versions of themselves—sweeter, smokier, and more textured. The meal was another Epicurean masterpiece, and I slowly savored each bite."
Are there other pilgrims who have kept journals on the Camino who do not normally journal at home - and if so, has the writing process enriched their Camino experience???
Terence Callery
.
, so I avoid putting them down in writing. Reviewing the blog and my photo book brings back the memories imperfectly but well enough to please me. 
