Day 13: Villamayor de Monjardin - Torres del Rio (4/13/14)

The first stage of our walk was described in my guidebook as "bleak and desolate".

In Edwinas', the phrase used to describe the same area was "the lovely loneliness"...

I love what that reveals -

not about the geography, but about the writers.

We walked by olive groves and fields of white asparagus.

We saw a pilgrim catching a nap

and watched, over lunch, 

as children got ready to participate in their churches Palm Sunday procession.

 using olive branches, complete with olives.

When planning my Camino,

I didn't realize I would be walking through Spain during Holy Week and Easter -

but what a gift -

to have that window into seeing how another culture celebrates events central to our faith.

The church in Los Arcos was the first time we got a look
at how ornate even a small church could be...

 But, it was soon time to move on...

A pilgrim develops a strong awareness 

that we are all "just passing through".