Magical Happenings on the Camino

[JohnnieWalker]

A pilgrim wrote to me the other day:

Hi John
Pilgrim with dad who came in on last friday here sure you've heard similiar stories a hundred times but anyway:
Arrived Pontedeume.. from ferrol on camino ingles, bought pair of plastic hiking sandals in market to give feet a rest in evenings, worked a treat for a few days,, carried on outside of way too small backpack. Arrived Bruma- only one shoe present. Next few days carried single shoe on backpack to lots of queries from fellow pilgrims and increduility of hiking partner - replied "am confident the holy shoe will find me".)
Arrived to queue at foot of stairs to your office and hey presto there it was lying on a ledge (not only found me but overtaken me which is odd as noone overtook us on route -must have started earlier one morning).
Bye4now"

Anyone else had magical happenings?

 

[Dael]

I had a very strange thing happen to me in Stanstead airport. I had stayed overnight in an airport hotel to catch the early flight to Santiago. At 5am/ish I was standing in the concourse when I thought I heard my name spoken. I looked around but didn't recognise anybody and relapsed into brain dead when I again heard my name. A nearby person held out his hand and offered me a coffee. I had just met and been taken under the wing of "Johnnie Walker". He identified me from my kilt and the jacket I was wearing. What a star.

 

[efdoucette]

I've posted this before, a little piece of magic that still resonates with me.

"Sitting on the sidewalk in SJPDP finishing a snack and just about to put on my pack for the walk up to Orrisson, a lady walks by with an airdale terrier, identical to my dog back home. She let me pat the dog and have a few minutes with him, I saw it as a sendoff from my training buddy back home. That's what I call a Camino Moment! The first few steps I will never forget."

Eric

 

[Rebekah Scott]

Can´t tell you how many pack-towels, passports, telephones, I-pods, pants-legs, and pocket-knives we have found here in the pilgrim bedroom, left behind by hiking pilgrims. We send them forward with the next bike pilgrim we see, with a description of the person who lost the item. I have never heard of any of these items, some of them quite valuable, NOT finding their way to their owners.

It´s not really magic, I know. Just people treating one another with kindness.

 

[Kitsambler]

Medieval pilgrims had two saints looking out for them, St John (Jakob) and St Roch (Rochus). Me too, except mine are named Igor and Radka. The good news is that I’m alive, nothing is broken, and I have my wallet and passport intact.

Here’s the bad news. I was walking the Czech Jakobsweg section from Zvikovec to Liblin. Already, coming out of Chlum, the track had made a very steep (steps required but not universally installed) descent to the Berounka River and (pull yourself up by the tree roots) ascent. The next descent started off typically, then the track ducked into a wood and became both unmarked and poorly maintained. I was trying to match up my gps track with the faint and intermittent traces I was seeing on the ground. Meanwhile the slope was becoming steadily steeper; lots of side-slipping and fetching up on well-rooted trees. Suddenly the trail and the ground under my feet disappeared. So this was an uncontrolled, on-my-butt, slide down a forested ravine, about 15 feet I would estimate, something like a 60 or 70 degree slope. This left me messy but functioning at an almost-dry brook. The gps track and the faint traces on the ground led up the other side, so I climbed up a bit and then the ground gave way a second time for another 15-foot slide, back to the brook. The brook channel started looking like the safest route, and I could see the river below me. So I was successfully following it, until I came to an almost dry waterfall, about 8 feet tall. Somehow I managed to pick my way down it with no further slides and reached the river bank.

My heart sank when I realized I was trapped by the riverside. The rock walls came down to the river both upstream and downstream. The only way out was going to be by boat. Meanwhile, although I was bruised from head to toe and thoroughly scraped up on the extremities, there didn’t seem to be any medical emergency.
I had not hit my head at all, and no wounds looked deep enough to require stitches.

Let’s see what my options are here. It is Sunday afternoon. I could call home in the US, have them relay my gps coordinates to the Embassy in Prague … That could take a day or two. I could call my new friend in Vienna, get her to contact Czech emergency services in English … That wasn’t sounding promising either. My host last night spoke English pretty well, had boats, and I had his phone number in my guidebook. Could I get the iPhone to make a local call? Yes!

As it turned out, he was the head of the local fire and rescue unit. It required the remainder of the afternoon, all the way to sunset, to get found (river makes many bends and don’t ever underestimate the value of having an article of day-glo orange clothing to wave around) first by the on-foot team and then by the boat squad. Then his wife, who just happened to be a former emergency room nurse, did a fine job of soap and water wash, Betadine scrub, and dressing application. They fed me dinner and tucked me into bed. Truly I am lucky to be in one piece and have connected with such caring people.

 

[Al the optimist]

Hi all
Well the Camino starts from home , doesn't it? (Well maybe it really starts at the first germ of an idea, but whose arguing?)
So my "magical happening" happened in England. I was due to fly Heathrow to A Coruna, but the flight was overbooked. (The check in girl must have been amazed at my reaction as I burst out laughing when told, as two weeks before the same thing had happened to a friend travelling to Barcelona!) Anyway, I travelled into central London on route to Stanstead airport for a flight the next day to Santiago. I happened to be walking past Westminster Abbey 5 mins before an evening choral service, so I went in. Surprisingly there was a guest choir from the church opposite my aunt's home in Bexhill-on-sea! (about 120 miles away). Afterwards I took the opportunity to ask for a blessing - and was taken into the "inner sactum" - Edward the first's chapel, and received it in beautiful peace and quite in from of his tomb. What an auspicious start to what became a wonderful two caminos (the Ingles, which I had planned, and the Finisterra which I had not).

 

[capecorps]

I was walking the Camino by myself in May of this year. As I was walking along the trail that wended its way through farmer’s fields, I noticed the farmer on his tractor with its sprayer attached, fertilizing his fields. When he got to the Camino trail, he turned his tractor around to do a few more rows. While turning, his sprayer left deposits on the trail that looked like bubbly effervescent laundry detergent, glinting with many colours in the bright sunshine.

Later that day, I was relaxing with many of my fellow walkers enjoying a few beers with limon. The topic of conversation was the magical happening on the Camino that day. Everyone had observed a effervescent substance on the trail spaced at regular intervals. Theories were advanced fast and furious as to the cause. The final consensus was that the Camino has been a magical trail since the beginning of time, and that this was yet another instance of its magical properties whereby the earth itself gave forth an ethereal substance.

I said nothing and excused myself to attend mass where as per usual there was only me and about twenty elderly Spanish ladies. During mass the priest performed a real miracle by transforming the Host into the body and blood of Christ.

You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink.

 

[LGin]

I was walking the Camino by myself in May of this year. As I was walking along the trail that wended its way through farmer’s fields, I noticed the farmer on his tractor with its sprayer attached, fertilizing his fields. When he got to the Camino trail, he turned his tractor around to do a few more rows. While turning, his sprayer left deposits on the trail that looked like bubbly effervescent laundry detergent, glinting with many colours in the bright sunshine.

Later that day, I was relaxing with many of my fellow walkers enjoying a few beers with limon. The topic of conversation was the magical happening on the Camino that day. Everyone had observed a effervescent substance on the trail spaced at regular intervals. Theories were advanced fast and furious as to the cause. The final consensus was that the Camino has been a magical trail since the beginning of time, and that this was yet another instance of its magical properties whereby the earth itself gave forth an ethereal substance.

I said nothing and excused myself to attend mass where as per usual there was only me and about twenty elderly Spanish ladies. During mass the priest performed a real miracle by transforming the Host into the body and blood of Christ.

You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink.

Such a well crafted post. I was on the Camino this past June/July. Loved the fellow pilgrims I met. Would have loved to have met you, too.