Take a Virtual Vacation: El Camino 2023

Eating the hugest plate of padron peppers with Andre Mallinger planning our opening ritual for the beginning of our pilgrimage, our first day on the trail. We leave Madrid in five minutes for a long day of transit.

Today we walked our first miles on the Camino de Santiago. It was only a few miles because most of the day was spent in transit from Madrid to O’Cebreiro Pass. Walking to the taxi stop, taking taxis to the first bus, five hours on the first, a final hour on a second bus. We

I woke up at 5 this morning, slipped out of my bed at Hotel O’Cebreiro, packed my bags, and went out in to the darkness to walk through the town before anyone was up. It was chilly and misty and pretty soon it started to rain. I went back in to retrieve my raincoat and

It was a little easier getting all geared up and ready today than it was yesterday. Everything didn’t feel as new or unfamiliar. We had our routines established. Before we started off, Brenda informed us, “Today will be an uphill day.” And it was. It wasn’t like mountain climbing but much of the day involved

When I led my first international tour in Bali twelve years ago, Surya Made and Judy Slattum, our on-the-ground organizers and guides, schooled me on the basics of leading a tour. They let me know that the first and most important thing you have to pay attention to is feeding people before their blood sugar

When we woke up this morning, it had been raining all night, so I assumed, as many of us did, that we’d be walking in the rain all day. So, we dressed for it, but then the rain never materialized. The sun came out, but it was never too hot. It was a perfect temperature

Today we walked 6.8 miles, about half the miles we walked yesterday. Piece of cake. It was so much easier, and so nice to stop earlier in the afternoon and get to relax. It was a much mellower day. The weather could not have been more perfect for hiking: warm with a little cool breeze.

This is typical of the little mini art lessons that Brenda gives while we are walking the Camino. Turn up your volume.

I’m way too tired to write a long post tonight, but I still wanted to share some of the great images and captions from our day. Oh . . . and this reading I shared with the group: WALKING “None of your knowledge, your reading, your connections will be of any use here: two legs

Six years ago, when Brenda Porter and I first listed the Creative Camino trip, it sold out in just a few days. We scheduled the trip for June 2020, and I remember when Covid first made itself known in February of that year, we hoped that it would be a little blip, and that we’d

My group just had their final art/writing class today and I wasn’t with them. I won’t be at tonight‘s final dinner either. However, they’re going to have a closing circle outdoors for an hour in the late afternoon/early evening and I will try to make that. I’m in my cozy cell/like room at the monastery