[Gocamino] Los Libros,,,

[blaroli at aol.com]

Indeed, some of the pilgrims' comments mentioned in the message below are published. 
There is a hauntingly beautiful publication called "Huellas del Camino" (Camino's footprints) which contains some of the pilgrims' comments  left in the Logrono albergue; the hard-cover book was published by the Ayuntamiento de Longrono and contains photo-copies of the comments, drawing, poems, etc., left by pilgrims at the albergue, in their own handwriting and in various languages.
If I were not already permanently enamored of the Camino, reading these comments would propel me to grab a walking stick and go.
Alas! the book doesn't have an ISBN number; I expect that you can get it by writing directly to the Ayuntamiento de Longrono and/or the Printing outfit:  :"Graficas Ochoa"  in Longrono.
All the comments are so heart-felt and moving that it is almost impossible to choose one to cite.
There is one, however, which pretty much mirrors  the reaction of my over-busy and distracted  New Yorker heart to my first Camino,  it reads:
"My soul caught up with me in the Camino..... and I didn't even know that I had left it behind who-knows-when ago".
The book contains some comments and drawings by children, one of them shows a child's drawing of a boy walking behind his dog by a country house with its chimney's smoke billowing under the snow and the caption: it is snowing in the city, and underneath, almost like a footnote,  a smaller drawing of cloud-crowned mountains and a machine gun with the caption, in smaller lettering, that says "and there is a war in my country". 

And so on.  The book is composed of 139 pages of soulful comments that put a very broad smile in your heart or make it cry The drawings are priceless.
-----
Some pilgrims who reach the Pilgrims' office in Santiago also leave soulful comments there, and from time to time some of them are published in the magazine Compostela  (the publication of the Archconfraternity).

And you are right Paul, these priceless pilgrim "footprints" are seldom, if ever, mentioned.  Sigh!

Hugs!

Rosina







Seldom mentioned here is the fact that each alburgue / refugio has a 
LIBRO (an informal record book) in which the pilgrim can jot down his 
thoughts, or his messages to other pilgrims who follow; or read messages 
from others.  Many of these books have wonderful drawings by artistic 
peregrinos, and sometimes poetry, sometimes descriptions of those 
blisters that we sometimes get.  While on the Camino I always took the 
opportunity to seek out those LIBROS and look at the journal entries by 
others.  It was always fun to read the messages.

Paul Newfield
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