Western North Carolina Pilgrims on the Camino

Five Amigos Western North Carolina Pilgrims on the Camino Danny Bernstein www.hikertohiker.com In 2017, I asked pilgrims to tell me a little about their Camino experience. What Camino did they do? Why? Any quirky stories? I published a story in the Mountain Xpress but could only use a portion of the great material that I received. I put together all the comments, edited and shortened some of them but included almost everyone who gave me a story. How did Western North Carolina discover the Camino? It all started with Tom Sanders, a long-time leader in the Carolina Mountain Club. In early 2007, Tom approached several men in CMC to see if they were interested in walking the Camino de Santiago. No one had heard of this trail but thought it was intriguing. Four guys took him up on it and they became the Five Amigos. The next year, with one change of amigo, they walked a different portion of the Camino. See the photo above Don W., Tom S., Chris S., Carroll K., and Jay B. And the idea of walking 500 1

miles in Europe and staying at hostels (albergues in Spain, gites in France) took hold of our imagination. Here are the experiences of Western North Carolina pilgrims. Tom Sanders I seem to be the first Ashevillian still around to have hiked the Camino de Santiago, Tom says. I knew about the Camino from previous travel in Spain, but an article in the New York Times by a man who had done it persuaded me that it was possible. It was April 2001. Armed with a letter of recommendation from a priest at the Basilica of St. Lawrence in Asheville, North Carolina, I traveled on my own via Madrid to Roncesvalles. After a bitterly cold night there, Tom started walking, and the reality became apparent. He met three Spaniards, a Dutch couple, and a French banker who became his off-and-on companions to Burgos. From there he walked largely alone with frequent rain and wind to Santiago. I was entranced by the beauty of Spain, the historic Catholic culture, and my fellow pilgrims. On this trip I learned about the French Chemin. The next May (2002) I traveled to Le Puy and at the end crossed the Pyrenees. I enjoyed France Tom Sanders even more than Spain. When I returned to the U.S., I talked about my experiences on CMC hikes and persuaded some of my friends to do the Camino Francés in Spain together. It took until 2007 for the group to get there. The next year, the amigos walked Le Chemin de St. Jacques, and the following year the section from Geneva to Le Puy. The momentum built up. People came to the group of amigos to get information, and others just went on their own and reported back. Western North Carolina has become an exceptional region in the number of pilgrims who have hiked the many routes to Santiago. One day on the French Chemin when I was by myself, I set off early and walked all morning following blazes that were the normal red and white, but slightly different, Tom says. Toward noon I arrived at a town and learned that this was a different hiking trail and that I had walked about ten miles in the opposite direction from the route. Rather than walk back I noticed 2

two couples talking in front of a house and asked if anyone could drive me back to the trail. I offered to pay. One of the men agreed; we went to his house and he uncovered an ancient car and off we went. At each intersection, the motor gave out and the man had to get out, lift the hood, and restart the car. This was nerve-racking. Tom shared that his father, who had been in France in World War I, traveled around after the War, and took many photos. When he was a child, his father showed him these pictures and talked about his experiences. My father caught the flu in the famous epidemic of 1918 and was taken care of by a village priest, Tom says. At this point, we must have driven at least twenty miles until we came to a town on the Chemin. I offered him a generous Euro bill, but he refused any payment and took off. I thought of how kind he had been, especially having to go back and restart his car at every road crossing. Then I realized that it was about my father, Tom says. As another French fellow pilgrim told me, We French will never forget what you Americans did for us. This lies deeply in the consciousness of the French and helps explain the warmth and helpfulness Americans experience on the pilgrim route in France. Don Walton Don Walton, one of the original amigos, has done seven Caminos since 2007. The first four Caminos were done annually. Tom Sanders is credited for introducing local hikers to the Camino in 2007 by leading four WNC hikers including myself on the Camino Francés, Don says. The following three years, Jay Bretz, Carroll Koepplinger and I finished a contiguous section from Lake Constance on the German/Swiss border across Switzerland, France and Spain to Santiago, about 1,200 miles. In 2012 I repeated the Camino Francés. In 2013, I then went on to the Portugués from Coimbra. In 2015, I walked the Via Francigena, from Astorga to Rome. Don Walton 3

Don did all seven Caminos in the month of May each year, maybe because our first leader, Tom Sanders, always promised no rain if we went with him in May. What was the attraction? At first, so I did not have to sleep on the ground, like on the Appalachian Trail in the U.S. In Europe, we always sleep in a bed, have coffee at 10am, beer at 3pm and dinner at 7pm. My walks evolved into a spiritual adventure. He received three certificates in Santiago and one in Rome. On the first Camino, I listed my reason as being on a walk, the other three as spiritual. The last pilgrimage that I walked has always been my best!! Carroll Koepplinger Over the past eleven years I have hiked the Camino in Spain, Portugal, France & Switzerland. Each year one of the most important aspects of the trail has been meeting people from all over the world. While hiking and bunking with them, we discussed many aspects of our lives including various cultures and politics, Carroll says. The most rewarding activity, Carroll says, is enjoying a meal with fellow hikers. At one recent dinner there were fourteen hikers representing seven different countries. Where else could you immerse yourself in such a beautiful setting? Meeting people on the trail from all over the world has greatly enriched my life. In 2016, at the monthly talk at REI, sponsored by the WNC chapter of American Pilgrims on the Camino, Carroll shared memories from his trip on the Camino de Santiago the Northern route. The Camino del Norte is the coastal route from Irun to Santiago. When he walked the Camino del Norte, Carroll flew to Europe by himself and quickly found amigos from many countries. He s known as the ageless hiker because, at 87 Carroll Koepplinger years old, he might be the oldest serious pilgrim on the trail. But unlike the Appalachian Trail Conservancy, the Camino doesn t keep track of these things. The journey on the Camino del Norte was Carroll s ninth Camino; he s a serial pilgrim, starting when he was 77 years old. He started as one of the five amigos but now travels by himself. Like other experienced pilgrims, he knows that he won t be alone for long. I think that the Norte has the best albergues on the Camino. One of his favorite albergues was in Guemes, La Cabana del Abuelo Pueto, where he met hospitalero, Ernesto Bustio. 4

Carroll averaged about eleven miles, not a record, but it got him there steadily. He moved on from the Norte to the Primitivo at Oviedo. On another Camino, the GR 78 in France, Carroll got lost a couple of times. I don t hesitate to ask for help and directions, he says. Every time I needed help, someone was available to help, even in an isolated area. Dearing Davis Dearing Davis, a clinical social worker and ceramic artist, is in the middle of her working years. In 2017, she took a sabbatical, a professional transition. I had two goals this sabbatical year to learn French and to hike. Dearing admits that the Camino was not on her bucket list to start with, but she liked the Camino infrastructure. Dearing Davis I m a big hiker but not on long distance trails. The Camino sounded magical. I m a spiritual seeker and I liked the pilgrimage aspect. Every morning on the trail I did yoga, prayed, and meditated. That put me behind other walkers on The Way. Sometimes it was challenging to find affordable places to stay. On the trail, Dearing stopped to pray in churches and open spaces in villages. This allowed her to connect with people who had walked the furthest and longest. They seemed to be quiet, steady, not caught up with practical details on where to stay or eat. They didn t have that monkey mind. She met Arthur, a French man who looked transient he wasn t wearing shoes. He had piercing blue eyes and seemed to abandon society and vice versa. Because he didn t have shoes, he couldn t go into a restaurant or a grocery store. He was a shining light, encouraging Dearing in her journey. I had the Camino crud, a cold I couldn t get rid of. I stayed in a hotel alone, feeling sick and isolated. When I started walking with Gabor, a Hungarian man in his forties, we came up on a little spa, curated garden and food place. The owner had peanut butter within a gorgeous display, which really impressed me. He made me red ginger tree with real ginger which he had to peel. Dearing isn t sure what s next. She would like to walk for a living. 5

Priscilla Richter I've known about the Camino for at least a decade, Priscilla says. When I was working, I could never get a large chunk of time off to walk it. When I retired, I bumped into a friend who had walked it the previous year. We sat down to talk about it, and three hours later, after seeing his pictures and hearing his stories, I committed to walking it the following year. Priscilla Richter with Steve, her brother When Priscilla decided to walk the Camino, she had no idea that, by the time she started her journey, she would be officially converting to Catholicism. She had considered herself 'Catholic friendly'. Her pilgrimage started two weeks after her official conversion to Catholicism. So, it was indeed a religious and spiritual pilgrimage for me, Priscilla says. I loved the simplicity of the daily agenda on the Camino: get up quickly, get the minimal stuff back into the backpack and start walking. Stop for coffee, breakfast, or lunch, find an albergue when the body says it's time to stop, unpack, shower, wash clothes, relax in the town. The bonus, of course, is doing this in the company of people from all over the world. I now have several friends in different countries. The Camino taught her that her mission is to keep life simple, engage fully in the activities of the day, and stay on the spiritual journey. This inner pilgrimage now finds Priscilla living in a monastery, where she lives, works, plays and prays with Sisters who are very active in social justice efforts. I don't think I'd be here if I hadn't done the Camino! Mark Cobb Mark Cobb, a retired dermatologist, has done five Caminos. He lists them: Camino Francés from St. Jean Pied-de-Port to Santiago, Portugués from Porto thru Santiago to Finisterre and Muxia, Francés from Astorga to Santiago, A hybrid which included Norte, San Salvador, Primitivo, Lebaneigo and Vadiniense. The hybrid Camino is an innovative way to see bits of less-well known trails, Several portions of the Via Francigena in Italy. 6

Mark explains that he walked for many reasons: adventure, cultural immersion, spiritual seeking, and just plain fun. When he was asked in Santiago, he shrunk them to spiritual and cultural. I have attempted sitting mindful meditation on multiple occasions and have always been defeated by my kinetic nature and monkey mind, Mark says. While walking the Meseta in Spain with its hypnotic landscape, I felt like I experienced a form of walking meditation with prolonged clarity and remaining in the moment. Some of the deepest and richest conversations with other pilgrims took place in this setting. Mark Cobb Rebecca Gallo Rebecca Gallo has walked four Caminos: St. Jean Pied-de-Port to Santiago twice, the second time on to Finisterre. She walked the Portugués from Porto to Santiago and recently from Le Puy-en-Velay to Figeac in France -- the Via Podiensis, aka the GR 65. Rebecca Gallo Rebecca, an Asheville teacher in her thirties, wasn t sure why she did her first Camino. It was just something I had to do. When I got there, I realized I was walking it to find out if God would be okay with me if I decided to leave the Catholic Church in which I grew up. When I applied for my Compostela, I said that I walked for religious reasons. The second one was because I was spending three months in France and didn't have any plans, so I took off to do something I was familiar with; walking the Camino. 7

It rained. I took a lesser-known trail that wasn't well marked or well known by locals. I got lost a lot. But I always knew I was headed in the right direction as long as the ocean was on my left! After coming back from her first Camino, Rebecca told her then-seventy-year-old friend Lois, You would love this. Lois said she would have but was probably past the time in her life when she could do such a thing. If you ever want to go, I'll go with you, Rebecca told her friend. Three years later, she took me up on it. She walked all five hundred miles. And it was completely different from my first. The first time I was on a tight budget. I had stayed in hostels and cooked plenty of my own meals. But Lois said, anytime we can stay where there are sheets and towels, we're going to stay there. And I'm paying for it. Rebecca hardly pulled out her sleeping bag. As for Rebecca s question on her place in the church, she says, by the third day of my first Camino, I knew it was fine for me to leave the Catholic Church. God and I were still good. Eventually I found my way to the Center for Spiritual Living in Asheville. Chris Slater Chris, one of the founding APOC chapter coordinators, has done ten Caminos. He may have the record for the most Caminos in the WNC chapter of APOC. He lists them as: Chris Slater 2004 Villafranca del Bierzo - Santiago 190 km 2006 Saint Jean Pied-de-Port - Santiago 800 km 2008 Le Puy - Los Arcos (Navarra) 800 km 2009 Norte - Vilalba - Santiago 2011 Camino del Norte, Oviedo - Avilés - Santiago - Muxía - Finisterre 400 km 2013 Arles - Santiago 1600 km 2014 Norte, Ribadeo - Santiago 200 km 2016 Norte - Liebaniego- Vadiniense - Salvador - Primitivo, Irún - Lugo, 800 km 2017 Sarria - Santiago 120 km 2017 Camino del Invierno, Astorga - Ponferrada - Santiago - Finisterre 400 km He s also worked as a volunteer hospitalero five times. A short distance from the albergue in Ponferrada there s a prominent signpost right for the Camino Francés, left for the Camino de Invierno. The latter was traditionally a route for pilgrims when the heights of O Cebreiro were impassable due to snow. The crowd went right, I went left and was the only pilgrim for nine days before the route joined the Via de la Plata outside Lalín, two days from Santiago, Chris says. My reward was a delightfully diverse Camino, from the remains of Roman gold mines at Las Médulas, along the 8

Sil valley with a different view at every turn, steeply down and then up to cross the Miño at Belesar, then over the highlands of Alto de Faro. This is a different Galicia, with lots of grape vines on terraced hillsides, even olives, but the same timeless hamlets and tiny churches. Chris enjoyed the dedicated hospitality of Asún in A Rúa, who has converted two rooms in her house for pilgrims, and of Manolo at Bar Mar in Sobradelo. As the only pilgrim I felt very special, very privileged. I felt special in a unique way at the vast albergue in Quiroga where I became an object of curiosity to a large tour group. I felt like a zoo animal but unfortunately, I wasn t petted. Frank Goldsmith The Camino is also a vehicle for those contemplating new directions in later life. Frank Goldsmith, an Asheville lawyer, used the walk to help me make a decision on what I wanted to do professionally in the remaining years of my career. As a Jewish man, he looked at the history and culture of Spain where Jews had lived for centuries and then were expelled in 1492. After all, James was a Jewish visitor to Spain, Frank says. I have walked two Caminos - the Francés and the Finisterre in 2013, and then a combination of the Camino del Salvador, Primitivo, and Francés in 2014. The Camino breaks down the walls of separation. Something called him to do this. I was free from all distractions. Your job is to walk. Frank Goldsmith Annie Erbsen Annie Erbsen walked her Camino in 2007 when she was 23. After college, I was living and working in Ireland, having a year to adventure between college and grad school. My Irish visa was about to expire, and I had a few months that I needed to fill with something exciting and inexpensive before my next adventure, Annie says. When I visited the countryside near Toulouse, France with several Irish friends, one of them told me about the Camino. We only talked about it for a few minutes, but I knew I had to do it. I didn't know why because I'm not remotely religious. I come from three generations of non- 9

practicing Jews. I just had a feeling. I've learned to trust that gut feeling when something feels necessary and inevitable. Annie started to walk from St Jean Pied-de-Port by herself. Like most young people who walk the Camino, I walked too fast and approached it like an athlete. The first ten days I walked through torrential rain, ending up with giant infected blisters on my right foot and a raging fever. I had to stop for a few days. When Annie started walking again, feet well bandaged, she walked west through the gorgeous and dramatic Meseta. She visited the local clinic to get her bandages changed. She was filled with adrenaline and wanted to keep walking 10 km to the next town since the albergue was full. Annie Erbsen However, she met Gianluca, an Italian, who helped her find a place to stay in town. She ended up sleeping on the floor of a closet in the town hall. We went to get a coffee and forged an instant connection. He was the first fellow scientist that I met on the Camino. He was also incredibly kind and respectful. We walked, or rather, limped, the next hundreds of miles together, though we made a point of having our own Camino experience. From that first day, we agreed that we would only walk together if it made sense. Annie and Gianluca made it all the way to Finisterre together. Eventually, they got married and now live in Asheville. As a result of this whole experience, I learned to stop rushing, to savor the experience and the journey, Annie says. This is something that hasn't yet left me and is one of the most important lessons I have learned in life. I also learned to separate out who I am versus what I do. I learned to love myself more, and to realize I have more value as a person than I thought. Beth Ransom Beth walked part of Le Chemin de St Jacques, and the whole Camino del Norte and into Finisterre. I walked the Caminos because a friend (the author) asked me to join her. I wanted to pare life down for a bit, meet people and have time to just think, Beth says. She felt she walked for cultural reasons and to see the country and its people. Beth is not a fan of most fish and seafood. When she took a side trip off the Norte to Ferrol, she walked around the seafood market. 10

I haven t recovered from the visuals I experienced in the Ferrol fish market. I found the evening in the Sobrado Monastery very interesting. I particularly enjoyed talking to Brother Lawrence, the British monk. Beth Ransom And me (Danny Bernstein) After finishing the Mountains-to-Sea Trail across North Carolina, I was restless. I searched for my next long-distance trail. I didn t want to walk between two sets of trees, so the Camino sounded perfect. Because I can speak French, I suggested Le Chemin de St. Jacques to my husband and two friends, including Beth Ransom. In 2013, we took off from Le Puy. My three cohorts planned to walk to Conques; after that I was on my own and I loved it. I picked up several companions, mostly, I think because I spoke French and I had a phone. But I never got to Santiago; that would have been another 500 miles. Four years later after a major life change, Beth Ransom and I walked the Camino del Norte from Hendaye, the last town in France, to Santiago and onto Finisterre. I didn t speak Danny Bernstein 11

Spanish, beyond a few courtesy words. We didn t meet many people on the Norte. My right foot hurt almost constantly but I was going to finish the trail. When I applied for my Compostela, I told the woman behind the counter that I had walked for cultural reasons and to hike. I received the same beautiful certificate as pilgrims with other reasons for walking. But I am curious about the Camino Francés that everyone else talks about. I felt that I had done the advanced course the Norte without the beginner s course. Therefore, Beth and I are planning to walk the Camino Francés in 2018. * * * Buen Camino 12