Hasta pronto, España

The idea started as most inspired ones do—with a drunken Spanish art history teacher during the early years of the first W. Bush administration. It was nine o’clock at night—the halls of the Universidad de Oviedo all but abandoned save for an eleven member cohort of fellow foreign exchange student classmates. The cause for our dedication? A Tuesday evening session of Intermediate Level History of Iberian Peninsula Art. Profesora Laura (pronounced “Low-rah”) took a long drag off her cigarette before launching into her impromptu lecture on the changing styles of Crucifixion depictions throughout the ages. As I struggled to take notes in Spanish, (“the Jesus… his head with the looking up yesterday, then today neck to side. Skirt be shorter…”) the focus of Laura’s ramblings shifted slightly to examples of the different artistic renderings along a route through northern Spain called the Camino de Santiago—the Way of Saint James.

“Basically,” she explained in Spanish, “in 814, the remains of St. James the Moore Killer washed up on the shores of Spain above Portugal—in Santiago de Compostella—and this hermit guy found them. They came from Jerusalem on a raft. It was a pretty big deal. Word got out, and lots of people wanted to come see, ya’ know? So, right up there with Rome and Jerusalem, Santiago de Compostella became a major pilgrimage destination with roads leading in from all over Europe. One of the routes goes through our town here—you can almost see it out the window. Pilgrims flock there even today. You’ll see ‘em pretty regularly in summer—with their boots and sticks with shells on them. Now… who wants to cut class early and go get a drink?”

My interest was perked. Admittedly, this had more to do with: A.) confusion as to whether Laura was propositioning us all, and B.) my abysmal Spanish comprehension. The latter had lead to my confusing the Spanish word “peregrino” (pilgrim) with “pingüino” (penguin). Imagining flocks of penguins waddling across northern Spain in deference to St. James was intriguing to say the least. When I later reviewed my notes with the help of a dictionary and realized my translation error, I was at first a bit disappointed. Still though, I was curious. A Moore-killing saint’s bones on a raft, a thousand year old trail cutting through campus, a possible arctic bird convention and cryptic sea shells? Like a virulent strand of Taenia solium, the parasitic brain tapeworm, the idea of the Camino settled somewhere deep into the recesses of my brain and began to grow.

Since that evening class with Professora Laura, the Camino de Santiago has become something of a Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon for me. This incredibly useful German coined term is the word for when one learns about an obscure new topic or proper noun—say, the tragic death of Madeleine Sophie Blanchart, official aeronaut of the Napoleon Empire, or rapper Lil Wayne’s insatiable love for cough syrup—and then suddenly, that same nugget of information seems to pop up everywhere in day-to-day life.

Indeed, several weeks after learning about the existence of the Camino de Santiago, the program director of my study abroad program in Oviedo announced we would be taking a weekend group excursion to Santiago de Compostella—the final destination of the pilgrimage route. Back in the States, a friend informed me that she and her grandparents had plans to hike the trail the following summer. Later, one of my favorite non-fiction authors, Jack Hitt, came out with a brilliant book—a combination historical treatise of Midevil Spain/Chaucerian travel log of his trip down the Camino called: Off the Road: A Modern-Day Walk Down the Pilgrim’s Route into Spain. All these factors combined eventually thrust “walk the Camino” right up there along side: own a motorcycle with a sidecar; win a backgammon tournament; join a Klezmer Jazz band, and get Andy Griffith’s autograph on my top five “to do” list in life.

Thus, engaged in a discussion last summer with my dear friend Meredith about how to properly celebrate her impending graduation from an arduous PhD program, I suggested the Camino de Santiago. After a brief pause of mental deliberation, Meredith concurred. “Um, yes,” she said simply, with a solid nod of her head. The deal, tentatively, was sealed.

Fast forward nine months… it’s a girl! (No no.. sorry, I was contractually obligated to follow-up with that following the cliche phrase “fast forward nine months”). No, instead I’m in New York, hours away from take off after a blissful week of long over-due reunions with old friends. If variety is the spice of life, the past seven days have been a liberally seasoned Masala cuisine. I went hobnobbing with a crew of champagne sipping gynecologists in Manhattan (one of whom is a dear friend from high school), tried on capes at the Brooklyn Super Hero Supply Store, feigned Finish heritage in Riverside Heights, and bonded in Long Island with a friend I’ve had so long, we used to regularly soil ourselves in one another’s company. Being as how we were in diapers at the time, there was considerably less judgment passed then compared to when it happens now.

Back in Brooklyn, it’s time to tie up the last minute loose ends, and then set about a soggy walk to the subway/JFK. In an attempt to summarize my ambitions and dreams for the upcoming trip to a friend recently, I turned to a page from the aforementioned Jack Hitt book:

"The road had an Old World sense of discipline that I liked. A pilgrimage is a form of travel alien to the American temperament. We colonists like to think of ourselves as explorers, path blazers, frontiersmen always on the lam and living off the cuff. Our history is an uncharted odyssey, a haphazard trip down the Mississippi, of unscheduled stops along the blue highways. When Americans are on the road, we don't really want to know just where we are going. We're lighting out for the territories. But a pilgrimage doesn't put up with that kind of breezy liberty. It is a marked route with a known destination. The pilgrim must find his surprises elsewhere. I hadn't the slightest idea what this would eventually mean, but liked the idea of searching out adventure in the unlikely place of a well-trod road.

I don't hold myself out as much of a pilgrim, what with my cloudy motives and facile past. But even as I sat reading at my desk in New York, my failings became encouragement. Among the ancient documents that survive are reports that during the Middle Ages many "others" walked the road, including Moors, then the very stamp of libidinal mustachioed infidel. A twelfth-century document form the pilgrims' shelter in Roncesvalles declares: "Its doors are open to all, well and ill, not only to Catholics, but to pagans, Jews and heretics, the idler and the vagabond, and, to put it shortly, the good and the wicked." I believe I can find myself in that list somewhere."


Well said, Señor Hitt. Hasta pronto, España.