As we walk the Camino again after 3 1/2 years, we find the silence - auditory and visual - harder to find than before. There seem to be more peregrinos (albeit good people), more traffic sounds from upgraded roadways, and more graffiti (usually political).
But today as we walked to the big city of Burgos, although we dreaded the remembered walk through the noisy-busy industrial city limits, we found another way. The guidebook we're using suggested an alternative "green" route into the city ("just follow the river," starting in the outer suburbs). Although hard to find since it lacks the usual markings, we were led, perhaps by the Spirit, to discover a peaceful alternative which led us all the way into the heart of the city.
And within the city another gift - the Casa de Peregrinos Emmaus, in a former Jesuit seminary, with a shared meal and Christian prayer and blessing in the spirit of Emmaus (Luke chapter 24).
