The Road Less Travelled: Camino Primitivo -
By Ralf Becker
5/5
()
About this ebook
Ralf Becker begins preparing for his first ever pilgrimage. Against the advice of his chiropractor he decides to take the most difficult route to Santiago - over the mountains on the Camino Primitivo. The ancient pilgrimage route is summed up by a question from a young Dutch man about whether he discovered anything profound in the mysticism of the Camino, and Becker’s simple answer.
Ralf Becker
Born at 20.May 1956 at Frankfurt a.M. Germany.
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Reviews for The Road Less Travelled
1 rating1 review
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I really enjoyed this book. Far from being a guide to the Camino Primitivo or talking about some type of spiritual enlightenment, it's a fun, light read about one man's camino journey. Nice read!
Book preview
The Road Less Travelled - Ralf Becker
*****
Reader Review:
A man buys a pair of hiking boots and sets off on a journey to Santiago de Compostela on the practically deserted Camino Primitivo
– the oldest of all the St James pilgrimage routes. Delightfully tongue-in-cheek, Ralf Becker tells us all about painful legs, clammy clothes, nocturnal snoring as well as remote farming villages, primeval landscapes and authentic conversations with his occasional fellow pilgrims. Read this book and accompany Becker to the rhythm of his own improvised walking sticks on your own pilgrimage to the moving finale in the cathedral – and have a couple of cafés con leche along the way!
Dr. Kai-Uwe Stoll
*****
The Road Less Travelled
- Camino Primitivo –
Ralf Becker
Published by Ralf Becker at Smashwords
Copyright © 2010 by Ralf Becker
Translated by S.T. Paterson
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
* * * * *
* * * * *
"……I took the one less travelled by,
And that has made all the difference."
By Robert Frost
* * * * *
The Planning
Arrival
Oviedo
Escamplero
Cornellana
Bodenaya
Tineo
Borres
Berducedo
Grandas de Salime
Fonsagrada
Cadavo-Baleira
Lugo
San Roman
Melide
Arzua
Monte do Gozo
Santiago de Compostela
The Planning
Sooner or later it catches up to all of us. Not what they call wanderlust - I’ve never much fancied chasing that particular passion - but rather the desire to drop out of day-to-day life for a while and experience a totally new existence. Well, perhaps ‘new existence’ sounds exaggerated. It would just be a few weeks in which my life to date no longer has any relevance. But the desire grew inside me to clear my overloaded head and see what was left afterwards.
What route should I take? When to start? How long would I need? What should I take with me?
Fortunately there is plenty of information on the Internet. Unfortunately nobody can tell whether any of it is applicable to you or not.
Just take the average speeds of 15 km or 30 km that you can do on one day: The difference is 10 days over a distance of 150 km. Practice walking is not particularly useful in this case, because an untrained person will probably have had enough by 15 km and can barely imagine covering any more distance that day – especially not with their backpack. Subsequent terrain and the climate can’t be simulated, either. The only thing practice walking really helps with is wearing in your footwear, and this is something you should definitely do.
In the end, I went for the 15 km per day option and reckoned on about 420 km – that meant I had 28 days’ time. That should be enough!
My start date depended on Air Berlin’s flight plan - outbound flight 29 September 2009 from Frankfurt to Oviedo, returning on 27 October 2009 from Santiago to Frankfurt, each flight via Mallorca.
After I had booked both flights on 4 September for approx. 130 Euros each way, I ordered my pilgrim’s passport from the Franconian Association of St. James in Würzburg on the Internet.
The happy news of my passport’s arrival reached me by text on 23 September 2009, which my wife sent to me at the beach. That was the starting signal - there was no way back for me now.
As a novice pilgrim I immediately informed my girlfriend Karin that she would be spending a month without me. I was quite apprehensive about her reaction; I hadn’t thought it particularly urgent to tell her about my plans beforehand. I had considered this trip last year, too, but wasn’t able to go through with it for personal reasons, so I thought it better to wait and see if it all went to plan this time rather than giving a false alarm.
But she bore it with equanimity and then announced to all her acquaintances that I would be walking the Camino de Santiago. That triggered a series of questions: why, why now, what route, how many kilometres... I was able to answer the ‘how long’ question to some extent.
The fact is that I sometimes make spontaneous decisions: at 17 years of age I hitch-hiked to Paris with two school-friends as soon as school was out for the Easter holidays (and after a drinking binge at the pub). I told my mother the truth when she asked where I was going. I took her answer Don’t be late home
to mean that she didn’t quite believe me, so I called her again the next afternoon from Saarbrücken so that she wouldn’t worry unnecessarily. I did think about coming back, of course, but unfortunately I only had five Deutschmarks with me. It was my first lesson in what hunger really was, and how you start to stink when you haven’t washed for 5 days.
I didn’t want to be quite so spontaneous this time, so over the next few days I tried to plan my route. The complete Camino Francés from the French-Spanish border was out for time reasons, plus it didn’t promise me much originality. Only the Camino del Norte (Northern Route) or the Camino Primitivo were left to choose from and I agonised over it until shortly before departure. I once read a wise saying somewhere that went: It doesn’t matter which way you go, the main thing is that you choose a route
. I also found the quote by Chuang Tzu: A path is made by walking on it
very helpful.
In short, I opted for the oldest of all the routes to Santiago, the so-called Camino Primitivo. This was probably also to do with the fact that I have rather inexpedient tendencies: when my chiropractor Tom recommended avoiding the mountains and taking the Burgos-León route because the terrain was flat, the decision was clear. Mountains it was, then! The higher the better! So I bought the Outdoor Guide to the Camino Primitivo.
The next few days were all about arranging and purchasing the equipment. I found a recommendation for hiking boots by the company Lowe on the Internet, and after trying on about 10 different pairs I finally found some that didn’t pinch. Admittedly they felt a bit on the small side, but for 120 Euros and being relatively comfortable, I couldn’t say no and decided to risk them. The unanimous recommendation was to go for a pair one size too big because feet apparently swell on such a long hike. Last year’s waterproof red cagoule with built-in hood was also on the list, as well as a