Camino "too late" / Ellen / Authors

[Jennifer L. Aiken]

Hello all, and Ellen,

Amazing!!  Ellen, I have your book, "Following the Milky Way: A
Pilgrimage Across Spain", on hold for me at the local library!  Along with
"Roads to Santiago" by Cees Nooteboom and "Walking to Santiago" by Neil
Curry.  I put them on hold, via the internet, on Saturday and haven't heard
from the library yet.  It usually takes about a week.

I can't tell you how exciting it is for me to have even the smallest
contact with all you fabulous authors of books regarding Camino de
Santiago.  It really is a thrill for me!

Thank you for your information regarding Camino "too late".

Cheers,
Jennifer



>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