Perhaps this essential connection between image and other sensory perceptions is the reason why photos are not always a good means to convey our Camino memories to others, especially those with no personal relation to the Camino.
I can show a photo to some friends and enthusiastically say “now, look at
this!” and can see them politely suppressing a yawn, because the photo may just show a dusty path leading over the plain and disappearing in the horizon. But
I can recall a special feeling of the moment – perhaps I was feeling tired and thirsty at the time and thinking “Please God, put a bar behind that next hill”; or I recall the feeling of the wind and the sun in the face, the crunching sound of gravel under the shoes, the scent of rain in the dust and dry grass, the smell of damp granite in the chapel. Sometimes the strong smell of cow dung
. But all of that cannot be communicated to others by a photo and trying to explain it….. well, it could be a good way to loose friends….