Camino de Santiago: Part 7

Via Dolorosa (Logroño to Villafranca Montes de Oca, Palm Sunday - Good Friday – 2nd-6th April)

'Let man's Soul be a Sphere, and then, in this,
The intelligence that moves, devotion is;
And as the other Spheres, by being grown
Subject to foreign motions, lose their own,
And being by others hurried every day,
Scarce in a year their natural form obey;
Pleasure or business, so, our Souls admit
For their first mover, and are whirl'd by it.
Hence is't, that I am carried towards the West
This day, when my Soul's form bends towards the East.
There I should see a Sun, by rising set,
And by that setting endless day beget;
But that Christ on this Cross did rise and fall,
Sin had eternally benighted all.'
- Good Friday, 1613. Riding Westward, John Donne



Anne, Terry, Marg and Ursula at the Logroño refugio

We made a quick getaway from Logroño, before daylight. It was a murky morning, raining, and the streetlamps were reflected in the wet pavements. We managed to get lost before we even found our way out of the city; a man with an umbrella pointed us back in the right direction. It was interesting, we were beginning to think, that everybody who helped us find our way was carrying an umbrella. Admittedly, most of the time that this was needed there was some degree of precipitation – but not always. The sky was becoming light as we left Logroño by way of a large park, which led to some kind of nature reserve. There was already a heavy stream of ponchoed pilgrims passing along the muddy Camino. Anne and I worked our way through all the folk songs to which we knew the words; it earned us a few funny looks, but it kept our spirits up.

( Read more... )