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[Elyn Aviva]

Just a word about walking the Camino "too late." I first walked it in 1982
(did my Ph.D. in anthropology on it and wrote _Following the Milky Way: A
Pilgrimage Across Spain_, 1989, under my then-name, Ellen Feinberg)--not
quite as early as Linda Davidson, but long before it became popular. Only
some 3500 pilgrims earned the Compostela that year, and it was a Holy Year!
There were no refugios; we had to ask for assistance from local clergy or
mayors, and we got housed sometimes in out-buildings, other times we slept in
the fields or in inexpensive hostals.

I walked it again, with my husband this time, in 1997. The road had indeed
changed. And I walked part of it last summer, with a group. Again, the road
had indeed changed. But the more things change the more they stay the same.
In the Middle Ages, the Camino was not a nearly abandoned route. There were
hospices along the way. So in an odd way, the Camino is now more like it was
in its heyday. However we might like to romanticize isolation and travail (I
know I do!), that brief period when the Camino had slipped into unpopularity
in the 70's-80's was not its normal state. Yes, pilgrims are no longer an
oddity; yes, the Camino is well marked now, unlike in 1982--but one can still
get lost. One can still walk alone. One can still arrive at a pilgrims'
hostal and find no room at the inn; one can still be disabled with shin
splints, broken ankles, and blisters.

 The adventure lies before you and within you, whenever you are able to walk
it, and for however far your journey takes you.

By the way, I hope to walk part of the Camino this summer with my son, now
30! I look forward to sharing with him the wilderness that still exists
(miles and miles of it!) between villages, the excitement of the unknown that
permeates the journey, no matter how many times I walk it or how many others
walk beside me.

So, Buen Camino!
Elyn Aviva