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<DIV><FONT color=#0000ff face=Arial size=2><SPAN class=590260723-10012002>Dear
Felipe</SPAN></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#0000ff face=Arial size=2><SPAN class=590260723-10012002>Thanks
for you sincere and open comment. </SPAN></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#0000ff face=Arial size=2><SPAN class=590260723-10012002>I was
suspecting the same after reading carefully both books.</SPAN></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#0000ff face=Arial size=2><SPAN class=590260723-10012002>With
other members of this net I have been discussing the reasons persons have to
walk the Camino.</SPAN></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#0000ff face=Arial size=2><SPAN class=590260723-10012002>From
the different categories that usually are mixed in different degrees this is a
new one. Unfortunately this might grow as people will walk for the reason to
"profit" either with touristic promotion or promoting his/her "experience"
(book).</SPAN></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#0000ff face=Arial size=2><SPAN class=590260723-10012002>As
some of us will say ; God has different ways to attract people and the hope is
that while doing the "walk" for individualistic interest or curiosity they will
open their mind and soul looking the uninterested people that are the real
"PILGRIMS". Remember that there were people doing business in the
temple!</SPAN></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#0000ff face=Arial size=2><SPAN class=590260723-10012002>I
start making difference between "Pilgrims" (Peregrinos) and "Walkers"
(Caminantes).</SPAN></FONT></DIV>
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<DIV class=OutlookMessageHeader><FONT face="Times New Roman"
size=2>-----Original Message-----<BR><B>From:</B> Felipe Sanchez
<BR><B>Sent:</B> Thursday, January 10, 2002 12:05 PM<BR><B>To:</B>
GOCAMINOaPETE.URI.EDU<BR><B>Subject:</B> Fiction<BR><BR></DIV></FONT>
<DIV>Before trekking from Saint Jean to Santiago in May and June of last year,
I read CAMINO by S.M. Along the route I spoke with hospitaleros about
her. Their accounts are summarized here: she received sellos at the
refugios but stayed in hotels; her pack was so small as to be
risible; she was accompanied by body-guards; she was invariably
well dressed, occasionally with ostentation, clean, and not
trail-ridden. In the town of Acebo I spoke with the only hospitalero
that supported her claim that she had traversed the entire Camino. He
adamantly affirmed that she had spent seven days in mediation there and he had
witnessed this. If I remember correctly her book stated that she had
done the entire walk in thirty days. If we allow seven days for
meditation one must conclude that she accomplished the entire trek in 23
days. Unbelievable! Similar reports were shared with me about
Cohelo whose work, according to the many Brasileros on the trail, sold about
forty million copies. Based on my conversations, then, I must
allege that both authors are long on imagination and short on practice and
veracity. I walk my own trail so the actions of most others in no ways
impinges on the integrity of my being but I find the inconsistencies inherent
in the two accounts aforementioned interesting and rather representative of
the "new age." The respect I feel for the experience I perceived while
on the Camino prohibits my profanation of the experience by hyperbole or
fabrication. Apparently, my attitude and reaction are unique.
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