Re sending clothes ahead

[Rosina Lila]

Hi Mary,
I usually calculate how far I will walk in two or three days and where I will
stay and send my backpack ahead thereto by taxi,  carrying with me but the
barest minimum.  The taxis that take the backpack are surprisingly inexpensive
and fully trustworthy, and I was told that many pilgrims, mostly Spaniards,
follow this practice. Upon arriving to wherever the backpack went,  the people in
charge of  wherever I stay  make the arrangements themselves for the next
stop two or three days thence, and take care of sending the backpack; and so  all
the way to Santiago.
Some pilgrims make consider this method a less than pure pilgrimage, but when
I asked a priest in Roncesvalles about it ,he told me that the pilgrimage
requires walking only, or bicycling,  and that there is no need to laden oneself
to a point that might be tantamount to an un-Christian physical pain and
torture rite.  He also told me that when Saint Francis made the pilgrimage he
carried nothing but his staff and gourd, and that he would wash his one set of
clothes in a river waiting by its side in the sun while they dried.
Even although what I do carry never weighs more than four or five pounds, it
is still a bit of a hardship for me since I only weigh one hundred pounds and
am now in my sixties; but as all pilgrims know, only the first day or two seem
hard. Afterwards one no longer notices the difficulties.
Warm regards,
Rosina

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