Such Joy!

[poogeyejr]

I saw a pilgrim in the wild !!!!!

I'm in Spain so that does make the chances higher! I just turned 48 and decided it was time, to backpack through Europe. Of course, with the cheap Ryanair flights, I'm also going to Morocco.

I am here for three weeks starting and ending in Bilbao , so last night I took night bus to Madrid and I will be flying to Tangier this afternoon. I arrived at the bus depot at 7:30 AM and as I was figuring out the subway system a pilgrim walked past with the scallop shell and walking sticks and everything!

It is so strange, I have seen pilgrims on Camino, but living in Canada I never expected to see one when I wasn't heading to or from a Camino. It's really reinforces the fact that hundreds of thousands of people do this every year.

If it was you, at the bus depot this morning, Buen Camino. And thank you, just walking by you brought me such joy!

 

[Playful Dread]

I remember about 8 weeks after my wife had returned from walking the French. We were both stood at a train station, she had her backpack on with her shell hanging proudly off it when a random stranger walked past and said "Bon Camino" to her. It was the first time my wife had heard that simple but connected phrase that she'd heard so many times on the camino. It literally brought tears to her eyes.

Happy for you that you too found such joy in that moment you shared with a fellow pilgrim.

Bom Caminho!

 

[MaryLynn]

Related to 'bringing joy' post-camino:
After I returned home from my first walk of half of the Camino in Spring 2011, I soon got a bad case of The Camino Blues and was unexpectedly tearful and sad, missing the friends I had made and the landscape and the walking. In an effort to ease my sadness on a warm, sunny Sunday afternoon, I went for a walk at a nearby conservation area on a trail in a beautiful forest. I didn't encounter anyone on the trail (which was strange for such a nice afternoon) and I spent most of the walk thinking of my new Camino friends, and feeling sad and lonely and sorry for myself. Just as I was finishing my walk, there was a guy on a bike riding toward me. He looked out of place here, more like a street person than a nature lover. He had a big smile on his face. We made eye contact. He raised his arm in a welcoming wave and yelled "HOLA!!" at me as he rode by. I responded in kind, and then laughed and laughed and then cried (out of happiness). The next day I decided to return to the Camino in the fall to walk the remaining sections. If there is such a thing as Angels, I think he was one who was sent to me at just the right time and place. It was too strange to be just a coincidence.

 

[Deleted member 36903]

So there I was at the Gare de Lyon on my long detour to Porto looking for a post office to send my daughter a postcard. I crossed the road, found the post office and asked for stamps at the counter, at which point another employee having obviously noticed the shell on my backpack came round to me and asked if I was walking to Santiago. He told me he had walked via several routes and we exchanged experiences. He took over the transaction from his colleague and sold me the stamps, bidding me Bon camino! That certainly put a spring in my step - it seems that fellow pilgrims are never strangers.

 

[domigee]

After finishing walking the camino francés last Summer, I spent a few days visiting friends in Santander. One morning, one pilgrim approached me and asked me if I knew of any sport shops in the town....Turns out he needed to replace the rubber ends of his walking sticks. We did take him to a couple of sport shops but they didn't have any. I then ran to the appartment and brought him my new ones, which actually had been given to me by another pilgrim a few days previously
I was soooo happy to have met that pilgrim out of the blue and to have been able to help. There weren't that many in the centre of Santander...
He was quite pleased too.