La Profe Caminando

There are lots of different food options along the Camino! Most often, we eat at small road-side cafes with pleasant outdoor terraces. Once, we stumbled on a vegan food truck parked in a wooded area and, in a small Galician town, a grandma sold crepes from her front doorstep.  Generally, there is a rest stop (either a picnic area or a cafe) every few kilometers; the Camino Francés is well equipped to service all of the people that travel its path. But there are some days where these stops are spaced further apart. In this case, it is nice to have grocery store snacks on hand and we stop at the nearest grocery store whenever we arrive in the new town. Part of the Camino culture is that you are often traveling on pace with a cohort of people making similar stops to you, so you run into each other at cafes or picnic stops. It is a fun ritual to greet familiar faces and exchange encouragement before continuing onward to the next town. These are some typical snacks and meals we ar

While each day looks and feels differently, there is a rhythm to our days on the Camino that go something like this: 6:00am - Hit snooze if you set an alarm. 6:30am - Wake up, get yourself ready, pack backpack, lotion on feet, stretches, fill water bottle. 7:30am - Start walking! Follow the yellow arrows from one town to the next. 9:30am - Find a little café and order a pincho de tortilla, café con leche, tarta de santiago, banana 11:30am - Stop again for a snack! This time, maybe a grandma will call from her balcony "¿Tenéis hambre? ¿Queréis crepes?" (Are you hungry? Would you like crepes?) and maybe you run to her door eagerly because of course you're hungry and the exact food you need is a warm, homemade crepe by the cutest grandma in town. 1:30pm - A cold stream appears when needed most. Treat those feet to an ice bath! 3:30pm - Arrive in a new town and find an albergue. Ask if they have any beds for the night. If

The Galican poet, Rosalía de Castro (Santiago de Compostela, 1837-1885) was a pioneering female voice whose poetry and fiction addressed topics like the lack of women's independence and the plight of migrant workers. Today, she is considered a literary heroine in her native Galicia* with several museums dedicated to her life and work; however, during her lifetime, she was disregarded and her work unvalued. Since we will be walking through Galicia on the second half of our Camino, I wanted to share her voice in this post. How did Rosalía de Castro experience her homeland of Galicia and how might I experience it today?  Below you will find her poem in its original Galician ( gallego ) followed by the English translation.  I chose this poem because 1) The poetic voice is expressed in gallego, 2) It is characteristically melancholic, 3) It reflects a major theme of Castro's work which is love of her homeland, Galicia, and 4) It paints the kinds of rural landscapes I expect to

If the journey is just as, if not more, important than the destination, then L.A. is the perfect place to start a journey on the Camino. Here are the preparations we did leading up to the start of our Camino hike.  Physical preparations Physical preparations aren't obligatory to hike the Camino so why did we do them?      1. To stay healthy and engaged in the process.    2. To reduce the chance of injury.    3. To feel more confident overall.    4. To be in nature and have fun! How did we prepare physically? We made long hikes each weekend using the guidebook Top Trails: Los Angeles by Jerry Schad to choose hikes of varying degrees of difficulty and skill. Our favorite long hikes near Los Angeles were Dawn Mine, La Jolla Valley and Cheeseboro Canyon because of their challenging terrain, relative quietness, and beautiful scenery.  We scaffolded hikes to include weighted backpacks at 0% to 80% of total weight over the course of 6 months.  Two weeks prior to departu

This poem "Oda al presente" ("Ode to the Present") was written by Pablo Neruda (Parral, 1904-1973), a Chilean poet,  diplomat, politician, and Nobel Prize winner. My high school English teacher, Ms. Hepburn, and my high school Spanish teacher, Ms. Cavo, did a collaborative poetry unit where they read Pablo Neruda's odes to us. I fell in love with this one and wanted to share it with you. It inspires me to seize the day and to savor the present moment which I intend to practice on the Camino.  Oda al presente by Pablo Neruda  Este  presente  liso  como una tabla,  fresco,  esta hora,  este día  limpio  como una copa nueva  — del pasado  no hay una  telaraña —  tocamos  con los dedos  el presente, cortamos  su medida,  dirigimos  su brote  está vivente, vivo,  nada tiene  de tiene de ayer irremediable,  de pasado perdido,  es nuesta criatura,  está creciendo  en este  momento, está llevando 

As a student of Spanish literature, I was first introduced to this poem "Caminante no hay Camino" by Antonio Machado (Seville, 1875-1939) in my graduate studies and it has stayed with me. In fact, it was read at Tim and my wedding! I'm sure I will think of this poem on my Camino journey because of the beautiful message it imparts: we each create our unique destinies and legacies one step at a time. Caminante no hay Camino  by Antonio Machado Caminante, son tus huellas el camino y nada más; Caminante, no hay camino, se hace camino al andar. Al andar se hace el camino, y al volver la vista atrás se ve la senda que nunca se ha de volver a pisar. Caminante, no hay camino sino estelas en la mar.  ------------------- Traveler, your footprints are the only way, nothing else. Traveler, there is no way; you make your way as you walk. As you walk, you make your way, and when you look back you see the way you will never