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Most unusual Camino souvenir

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Altus BALI Sleeping bag liner
Ideal sleeping bag liner whether we want to add a thermal plus to our bag, or if we want to use it alone to sleep in shelters or hostels. Thanks to its mummy shape, it adapts perfectly to our body.

€46,-
I found this huge pine cone (almost 6 inches long) just after O’Cebreiro in 2017 and carried it to Santiago then back to Slovakia then snuck it through Canadian customs without damaging it.
 

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Not that easy to make it out now but when I worked as an Amigo in the Pilgrim's Office back in 2012 a pair of Irish lads arrived at the office and as I welcomed them to Santiago and chatted about their respective Caminos one of them gave me this Pistachio Nut, into which he had carved a small scallop shell. Apparently he had been giving these out to people that he had met along the Camino and that the had connected with in some way.

The carving has deteriorated a little over the subsequent years but it comes with me whenever I travel anywhere.
 
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On my Portuguese Camino I met a Portuguese woman who was staying at the same hotel in Barcelos.
We really connected and I told her that I wanted to return after I complete my Camino.
So after I got to Santiago, I returned to Barcelos and we had a mad eight day love affair before I had to fly back to Maine.

We went to Ponte de Lima, and there she purchased an beautifully crafted embroidered hankie with the initial "T" for me (Terence).

I was totally unaware at the time that the fine embroidered fabric was for the man to overtly display in his pocket - to show he is "claimed" by a lady. I didn't wear it that night when we dinned in Ponte de Lima.

So I unwittingly did not do the expected thing, the customary thing that a Portuguese man would know to do.

I thanked her for the gift and stuffed it in my backpack - oblivious to the symbolism.

I have the hankie on a cork board with my Pilgrims Credentials (with all the stamps) and the book jackets of my books about the three Camino pilgrimages.

Every time I look at the hankie in the room where I write, I had a SAUDADE of what might have been.
 
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Kiernan said:
While everyone carries a stone from home, to leave it at Cruz de Ferro...I bring home some little stones from special places
Click to expand...
I'm sorry if this offends but in March 2019 I put a stone inscribed with my three grandchildren names on the pile at Cruz de Ferro.
Almost 12 months later, while showing my wife some of the sights of the Camino we passed the Cruz.
On a whim I went back to the pile AND FOUND!!! my previously placed stone.
It now has pride of place in my home. I couldn't let it stay there.
 
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I feel things like this are treasures! You have made me happy today just seeing this. Thank you!
 
I am such a romantic....
 
Mycroft said:
I am such a romantic....
Click to expand...
A bit more about the encounter - very romantic ---
Ophelia was sitting on a plush couch in the reception area on the ground floor of the guesthouse when I returned from dinner, and she looked up at me and smiled as she rolled a cigarette. The smile revealed a Lauren Hutton gap between her front teeth, her hair was black and curly, and she wore an assortment of beaded necklaces but little in the way of makeup. She held her head high with a sort of defiance, and I noticed the elegant curve of her neck, her light olive skin, and the way she paused pensively between sentences. She spoke excellent English which was fortuitous, since my Portuguese was not so good.

I was immediately taken with this woman, though she was twenty years my junior. Men will calculate the possibilities (I suppose women do the same) when meeting a woman for the first time, and if she had been another pilgrim traveling along my same path, I might have pursued her.

Instead, knowing I would be leaving Barcelos the following morning, I said good night after a brief introduction and went up to my room to sleep.

I went down for breakfast in the morning.

The windows in the breakfast area at the BWay Guest House go all the way to the ceiling, and that morning the cozy room was bright with sunlight as I started to consume a large hiker’s breakfast. With a ray of sun shining on her like the spotlight on a Broadway stage, Ophelia walked into the room. I was immediately in awe of her.

She paused and pivoted when she spotted me sitting in a nook created by a tall bay window. It seemed as if her dramatic entrance should have been accompanied by violins. She was radiant, and she flashed a warm smile at me. I stuck my arm in the air like a schoolboy anxious to answer the teacher’s question. Ophelia glided over, wordlessly accepting the invitation to join me.

She was an artist and designer who was in Barcelos to oversee an art installation. She was staying at the BWay Guest House for the duration of her two-week contract. She had this “wink-and-a-nod” gesture that she paired with her radiant smile that said, “You must agree with me because I am just so irresistible.” For two enchanting hours over breakfast, we spoke about our lives, our hopes, and our aspirations.

I don’t really remember the details of the actual conversation. I do have a very clear memory of the idealized woman whom I created in my mind’s eye.

And that is how it all began - one day in Portugal on my second Camino.

We go on the Camino to search for healing. hope and faith - but sometimes we find the unexpected.

The journey is full of twist and turns- and surprises. For me this was one big surprise.

PS Ophelia is not her real named - I have given her a pseudonym - Respecting her identity.
 
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Oh my Lord!!! What are the chances??? You are meant to have it.
 
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camino.ninja said:
The blood of Mother Teresa. A korean priest gave it to me. It was the foundation of their congregation. But he considdered it to be too much of a burden, and gave it to me.
Click to expand...
Just a drop or an entire armful? (Credit: A Hancock, 23 Railway Cuttings, East Cheam). If you don't get that, don't worry.
 
simply B said:
If a souvenir is something that reminds one of an event or place then my lasting keepsake is 1.5 inches off my height and a shoe size increase by 1-1/2 sizes.

But maybe that is not unusual for "serial walkers"?

b
Click to expand...


Not so much a souvenir as one of the (second edition) four horsemen of the apocalypse: gravity, old age, poverty and the IRS (or HMRC for those of us in the UK) one of them will get you in the end.
 
Why, gosh, @henrythedog! Aren't you just a bowl of effervescent sunshine...? And , no, you are "not a good boy" with that kind of denigrating wit.

I cannot honestly disagree with you but I can palliate the pain of gravity and old age (after planting/mulching perennial onions and garlic today) by opening a nice bottle of plonk. You can only hope that your master, David, does the same for you. (Though, from your appearance, I think you would not be satisfied with anything less than a good malt or a hearty red ale. I know dogs!)

B
 
Altus BALI Sleeping bag liner
Ideal sleeping bag liner whether we want to add a thermal plus to our bag, or if we want to use it alone to sleep in shelters or hostels. Thanks to its mummy shape, it adapts perfectly to our body.

€46,-
most unusual = most characteristic thing I sent home, was a chiselled scallop in granite...
To me that is an unusual thing to do, but the object was characteristic of my journey..
I bought it tigether w other badges and memorabilia in the corner shop where the lady speaks several languages.
With the cost of the parcel to send home, there was plenty room for this weighty thing....

Short after my arrival home one of the studs at the base broke off and I glued the whole scallop to a piece of black granite tile I pilfered at a quarry pile....
Every day, it is reminding me, as it is lies there on the front step, to what I want to do and to go soon...

As it shows right now it is weathered proper with lichen, but as soon as I am going to take off again, I brush it clean to have a clean stone to meet me when I come home again...

It is my little friend and I greet it every time I leave the house

 
Not sure if this counts as a souvenir,
but I didn't start out with it. I did purchase it in Burgos. It brought me luck (I finished my Camino). And, I still have them with me.
-- Forearm crutches
 
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