In Patagonia Day 22-23
In Patagonia Days 22-3 Puerto Natalas Puerto Natales, a town with a cemetery where the mausoleums have aluminum storm doors, and the people (living) even in late summer bundle in winter coats, all wandering about looking like puffy hand-grenades. I spent the first 18 years of my life in Woodstock, Virginia, with a population then […]
In Patagonia Day 7
In Patagonia Day 7 Puerto Natales For the category of odd but helpful coincidences: in part to help wrap my head around the vastness of Patagonia and to further an understanding of solitude (which I seem to write about incessantly), I was reading Gretel Ehrlich’s The Solace of Open Spaces, which describes her time on […]
Walking with Ghosts
Walking with Ghosts 28 May, 1968 Henry David Thoreau wrote the first modern treatise on the philosophy of walking— On Walking —arguing that one of wandering’s primary values is the possibility of genuine solitude, something he prized perhaps more than most. Walking is seen as a way to be alone, but it might actually teach […]
April 17
April 17 Puente la Reina to Estella. Still getting a feeling for this trail, getting at its history. In the USA we tend to build trails out in the wilds, but here, the pilgrim trail has been walked for millennia, so the towns have grown up around it, as have the primary roads. So it […]
April 13
April 13 The first day of the Camino is supposed to be the most difficult– 26 km up and over the Pyrenees from St. Jean-Pied-de-Port to Roncesvalles. The high trail was closed because of late snow, so I made my way up the valley along the river near the highway (along with many other pilgrims). […]