June 8
Walking distance: 22 kilometres
Sarria, one hundred kilometres off Santiago, is quite a significant place for the camino. Many many pilgrims only start in Sarria. You have only truly done a pilgrimage if you have walked at least 100 kilometres to Santiago. A pilgrim must at least have started in Sarria to receive the official pilgrim’s certificate in Santiago.
Therefore, Sarria is the starting point for quite a lot of holiday pilgrims, who could only take a week of holiday. Many of the “old” pilgrims, having walked most of the camino, saw them merely as tourists and complained about them, as the camino had become quite crowded through them.
For me it was a good lesson not to get into judgmental mode and I found I succeeded. I didn’t feel like it was getting more crowded. Maybe it was, but I didn’t notice. I was in heaven, as the camino led through forests, my favourite places. The mountains were impressive, the Meseta magical, but the forest is my true home. This is where I feel safest. I can get so much energy from the green, from the trees, the air, the birds. Since there were trees everywhere, I did not even see other pilgrims, though there were many of them – behind or in front of me, but since I did not see them, they did not exist in my world. I only had eyes for the leaves, the birds, the soil.
In Portomarín I ran into Philipp from Berlin. I had met him for the first time in Burgos and then our paths crossed a few times on the Meseta. I had not seen him for a very long time and since he was walking many hours and kilometres every day, I was surprised to see him. I had expected him to be in Santiago a long time ago. He explained to me that he had spent six days in a monastery, where he had lived with the monks and learned a lot about Christianity. Wow – not only to the fact that he had taken a break for six days and managed to catch up with me nonetheless, but I was also amazed what experiences he made and wished I had stopped in a monastery.
The Yellow Arrow 