My Camino Amigo

The Camino de Santiago (The Way of St. James) is one of the most gruelling pilgrimages in the world. There are many starting points throughout Europe for the Way but all roads lead the dedicated pilgrims to the shrine of the apostle St. James in Santiago de Compostela in Northern Spain. John describes his first tentative steps as a novice pilgrim many years ago, progressing, after many 'Caminos', and not a few blisters, to a guide in his 74th year! He has no doubt that the Camino, although physically demanding is, first and foremost, a spiritual journey which induces in the pilgrims a feeling of other-worldliness... an eerie blurring of time and space accompanied by an 'unexplainable' sense of inner peace. John's lucid descriptions of the Camino conjure up an uncanny sense of the mediaeval. The characters who accompany him on the road bring to mind the motley pilgrims in Chaucer's Middle Ages epic Canterbury Tales.