El Duo Camino - Day Three

Today’s walk was the longest and will be the longest for us. We did 28.9 kilometers (18 miles) in 8 hours. To put this in some type of context, 18 miles is the equivalent to walking from Coral Gables to Miramar. However, today’s hike unlike Coral Gables to Miramar was all about ups and downs. If you notice the pic, our walk today fluctated between going up and coming down and it dawned on us while walking, that this is a perfect symbolism to life. Life is all about ups and downs and how we handle it.

Today’s walk was not like the other two days. Our walk today consisted of a single path, very different from the open mountain views. These paths guiding us to our next stop/town was more about ultimately guiding us to Santiago de Compostela and the path to our life. 18 miles was not easy at all, we spent 8 hours (a day at work) walking up and down mountains on cobblestone pathways, gravel, mud and when we were lucky a paved pathway. This walk for both of us was for the most part silent (believe it or not, Bibi didn’t talk). We didn’t plan that, it just happened. It was a pensive and self-reflective walk. For most of the walk, it reminded us that 1) we were not alone, we were together and feeling the presence of God (in nature, fellow peregrinos, or stops along the way) and 2) when you think you can’t conquer something, just push through or in our case, take one step at a time and let God lead the way.

Yesterday, we met a group of riders that are doing El Camino. They started their walk/ride from Madrid on horseback. Today we saw them on our walk to Arzua (yes, we are missing the accento). One of the riders, stopped along the way so that his horse could communicate with a farmer’s horse. What we witnessed was love, community and the power of interaction. We wished we would have recorded what happened when the white horse walked away. The brown horse was elated. He couldn’t contain himself. His owner was afraid he would jump the fence. Needless to say we wanted to free him! But again, we were reminded that alone we are not and everyone or everything has a purpose.

Wild flowers we’ve seen along the way; absolutely beautiful!

Mile 10…lunch break. Thank you Oscar Brito for the recommendation. It was amazing!

Mile 16…ice cream break!

Speechless!

Perfect place and meal to end an 18 mile hike. Casa Brandariz thank you for an incredible stay and service!