LOVE , LOVE, LOVE… ON THE CAMINO
As the song says “Love is in the air”, love is on the Camino as well. Love in all kind of states, shapes and intensity. There are so many love stories that were born on the Camino and that have grown into true love , there are also some stories that have their climax on the Camino or others in which the Camino itself becomes love .
I would like to show here some of which I have known about.
1) TANDEM cycling THE camino TO CELEBRATE their HONEYMOON
Maria and Javi arrived in Santiago de Compostela on 16th September 2014 after 13 days of adventure from France.
Their peculiar bike drew all pilgrims´ attention. Maria and Javi wanted to go further and be more original, so they made up their minds to celebrate their honeymoon traveling the Camino francés in tandem. Maria, a 31-year-old Spanish girl, decided to share her husband´s love for cycling and she changed her idyllic honeymoon in the Caribbean or Thailand lying on sandy beaches for dust, sweat and exhaustion.
“ Javi really likes cycling, but I was a little afraid of cycling by myself, he suggested me riding in tandem, and we found celebrating our honeymoon on the Camino would be something original and different.”
2) FAREWELL CAMINO WITH HIS LOVING WIFE´S ASHES
After his wife´s death, Angel Medina began a journey along the Jacobean Route to spread her remains on the way. “There are many days, many hours … It’s been a constant in his soliloquy, there are very powerful feelings”, Angel Medina showed his feelings after scattering the ashes of his wife Maria del Carmen Morales, who died in September 2013. A few weeks after his wife´s death, Angel traveled to Saint Jean Pied de Port to walk the way to Santiago, a way that his wife had already walked along.”I felt the need to do it, we´d been married for 44 years and the Camino had a special meaning for her and me, I undertook the commitment when she left. We both loved the Camino and we used to walk it quite often”. In 2004, they had traveled the Camino francés together and they lived wonderful moments in some emblematic places, “I opened my palm to release my beloved´s ashes and I felt her with me again on the Camino”.
Angel claimed that if his wife´s ashes became seeds, the Camino would blossom into gardenias and camellias, which were Maria del Carmen favorite flowers. He also says that the Camino turned hard many times “there are many days alone, the feeling of sorrow that overcomes you, and remember the time we were happy and the time she was diagnosed with cancer…”. But Angel had just decided that his wife´s ashes weren´t ashes any more but seeds, seeds that would bring a new life. And he would follow his journey and he would start a new one to spread her seeds in Rome and Jerusalem the next time. He concludes: “If my grandchildren want to see their grandmother, they won´t have to go to the cemetery, they have to walk the Camino de Santiago and smell the flowers on the way.”
3) WHEN THE CAMINO ENDS WITH A WEDDING
The Corticela chapel in Santiago´s Cathedral has become an international place where many pilgrims decide to get married after walking the Camino.
This small chapel located inside the Cathedral is one of the most universal of the world, as it is one of the few churches in Christendom that has territorial jurisdiction. It was in the sixteenth century when it was designated as a parish chapel for foreign pilgrims. Perhaps this universal vocation Corticela enjoys great fondness among hikers who complete Jacobean Route, and many people choose to celebrate their wedding in it. This was the case of the Austrian and German Herman Koch and Gotrwald Danuta, who married in this chapel in June 2007. It was their love for snow that brought them together, but it was their passion for the Camino de Santiago which helped them to strengthen their relationship. Their first experience in the Camino was in 2002, when they cycled part of the route. This pilgrimage was so special to them that since then, they have made pilgrimages to Santiago several times after following different routes. Italian Pietro and Alessandra also decided to get married in Corticela after walking the Camino de Santiago in May 2004. The American couple of lawyers, Olga Sanchez and Clark Quinn, even traveled with a priest from Las Vegasto to officiate the wedding ceremony.
LOVE AND BUEN CAMINO, AMIGOS.
ANXO SACO
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