You know those guys who drive around in vans with public address systems screaming about election campaigns or advertising dutch furniture, or something like that? Well, one followed us today! You kind of expect them around suburban areas, or where there are a lot of people to impress or engage. You don’t really expect to find them on lonely, empty country lanes. That’s where this guy chose to do his broadcasting. There we were, walking along a muddy track, between rows of hedges, in quiet farmland, when we hear, quietly at first and growing steadily louder, the sound of a campaign in Spanish. I’ve no idea what was being said but it was very enthusiastic. And besides, if he would come all the way up that isolated track just to get my vote ….. hey, the boy deserves some return! He passed on. We hiked on. Half an hour later, on an equally empty track, what do we hear creeping up behind us…………. you guessed! The same van! The same cry for support! Dedication, I call it! Dedication!

The camino has changed! All things must, I know. But it has changed. For weeks I saw it differently. It is a litany. A litany of steps. You set out in the morning and walk. You put one foot in front of the other and then repeat the procedure. This goes on. You move on, it matters not where. It is a mantra of movement. The movement is regular and constant. The body responds. The mind wanders. It fills it’s time and goes to where it wants to go. The litany and the mantra. That is the camino. That was the camino. It has changed!

The final few days have arrived and I tend to think about the end. About the destination. About completing. This was far from my mind before. Now it stares me in the face. People who before talked only in terms of wanderlust, now talk about arriving. A shift has occurred. Also, the people who have come to do a single week have blended in. They look much cleaner than the rest of us. They smell much better than the rest of us. We are outnumbered by the new and beautiful. The camino has changed! Maybe it’s time to finish. We have only 57 km’s left. I’m beginning to think about the end.