Day 9 - Walking with Our Lady, Fatima
Today I went from Granon to Villafranca Montes de Oca--sports fans following progress on the websits´s map page won´t find either city. Granon is a little past Santo Domingo de la Calzada and Villafranca is a little past Belorado, both of which appear. What is Villafranca Montes de Oca? Sounds exotic, no? Maybe some scholar out there can trace the name. Montes would be like hills, and an Oca, someone tells me, is something like a swan---Villafranca´s hills of swans?
I had a very touching experience this morning. since I start in darkness, I´m usually walking as the sun comes up. This part of spain is filled with rolling hills that go off into the distance, most of them now brown fields (maybe something like hay was growing and was harvested). Anyway, it´s a very special moment when the sun lights up this landscape, and not long after sunrise a young woman passed me (yes, lots of people pass me---but i end up getting into town before many of them...my engine hums along in low gear, but when I shut it down by sitting down, it takes a lot of juice to get revved up again, my old bones get sore. So I tend to keep chugging along). Anyway, she passes me, and I notice she is holding a rosary in her hands. So, I say to her, hey look, and hold up my own rosary, which my mother gave me to take with me for the trip. Turns out her name is Fatima, and she shows me the cross on her rosary, which has an indication that it too is from Fatima. Thus my walk with Our lady named Fatima.
Tomorrow a long, long day---40 K, which would be about 24 miles, into Burgos, and I¨m planning to take a mental health day after that.
I had a very touching experience this morning. since I start in darkness, I´m usually walking as the sun comes up. This part of spain is filled with rolling hills that go off into the distance, most of them now brown fields (maybe something like hay was growing and was harvested). Anyway, it´s a very special moment when the sun lights up this landscape, and not long after sunrise a young woman passed me (yes, lots of people pass me---but i end up getting into town before many of them...my engine hums along in low gear, but when I shut it down by sitting down, it takes a lot of juice to get revved up again, my old bones get sore. So I tend to keep chugging along). Anyway, she passes me, and I notice she is holding a rosary in her hands. So, I say to her, hey look, and hold up my own rosary, which my mother gave me to take with me for the trip. Turns out her name is Fatima, and she shows me the cross on her rosary, which has an indication that it too is from Fatima. Thus my walk with Our lady named Fatima.
Tomorrow a long, long day---40 K, which would be about 24 miles, into Burgos, and I¨m planning to take a mental health day after that.
1 Comments:
OK, Montes = mountains, but Oca is from Auca the ancient Roman name. Has been a titular see for a long time - first as Auca, now as Oca! So, Town of the Franks at the Oca Mountains. No swans - sorry : )
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