<HTML><FONT FACE=arial,helvetica><FONT SIZE=2>Hi Mary,
<BR>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.
<BR>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.
<BR>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.
<BR>Warm regards,
<BR>Rosina
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