Casa da Lima-Porto
What to prepare for the camino? Everywhere there are lists online and in books. I just take my toothbrush an extra pair of clothes and some grapefruits for breakfast. This time oranges because I couldn’t buy grapfruits. The Portuguese don’t like this fruit so it is hard to find. O yeah, I forget my computer… Unfortunately my bag still is too heavy, my hips will not be happy. The Chief pilgrim has a weighing scale, and it is 8,5 kg without my fruit. Total it is 9,5 kg. It is too heavy. It must be the small towel and sheets to sleep under and the computer of course. I think the bag itself weighs also a lot.
Normally you see many oranges hanging in the trees. They don’t bother to pick them.Sometimes they are not good to eat. Some germans asked me even why the orange trees are so full of oranges while the new unripe already grow. Unlike these I saw this one during my camino, with only one orange hidden in the middle.
Sleep in Refugio
This time my preparation was to sleep in Refugio, the place of the Chief Pilgrim and his wife. Cinta and I stayed there for the weekend and I stayed a week longer before starting my camino. Cinta gave stamps to passing pilgrims and so we were getting already in a camino mood. We saw pilgrims in a hurry, some who took the time, some who didn’t dare to go into the refugio or the chapel, and a lot of Fatima pilgrims, even praying while walking and always in kind of a hurry to reach Fatima in time.
“When I walk the camino I take my tent with me, I need the luxury”
Chief Pilgrim
You would think an albergue is more luxury?
I know now the Chief Pilgrim is right. If you are looking for peace and quietness and some sleep.
If you slept in an albergue yet, you know he is right.
“What a beautiful quiet place, if I knew this Refugio, I would not sleep in the albergue O Bonito a few kilometers back”.
Pilgrim lady from the Elzas
“But this is place was not in my book”.
After talking to a lot of pilgrims amd walking the camino myself I replied: “the camino is not in your book, and not in any other book”.
I hope I can learn from my own knowledge. The experience outside is what counts, listen to the people around you, figure out, learn and live. It is not written down. The camino is the path of your life, not written down. Some days are good, others not, the camino is sometimes surrounded by beautiful nature but today for example I walked a part along the highway, just like the Portuguese Fatima walkers. Not so beautiful but the camino stands for our life with ups and downs.
Read about this caminho Day 1-7 on my Aylinkho.wordpress.com blog. This is the blog that I used before we had our pPilgrims house and this website!
