| SPECIAL FEATURE |
Hike Of A Life Time - Arne and Eva Dunhem Special Adventure
This contribution was written by Pat Bellingham of our sister lodge, Svea Lodge, Erie, PA, and partly excerpted by her from “The Catholic Link”. It was originally included on the District #9 website.
5ks may be all the rave, but would you walk 500 miles? In Europe, through mountains? On something called The Way of St. James? El Camino de Santiago is a 500-mile walking pilgrimage trail from France over the Pyrenees to Santiago de Compostela (St. James of the Field of Stars). Yes, 500 miles on foot. It depends where you start, but most commonly the path begins in Southern France, from a town called St. Jean-Pied-de-Port.
People from all walks of life and countries in the world travel it. Legend says that St. James, Spain’s patron saint, was sent to that area to preach the Gospel before he returned to Judaea and was beheaded by the romans in 44 AD. The El Camino de Santiago ends in Santiago de Compostela, where tradition says the body of Saint James, the Apostle rests. A 9th-century hermit Pelayo received a dream revealing the remains of St. James, to which the bishop he told decided to check and then told the king. Some say St. James’ disciples shipped his body to the Iberian Peninsula for burial, but it was shipwrecked and washed ashore covered in scallops. Others say an angel brought his body back and a groom saying his vows on the beach ended up covered in scallops after his horse spooked and dragged him into the water and they miraculously resurfaced. Either way scallops are a symbol for pilgrims along the Way.
The trail years ago was dangerous, for pilgrims and those punished to walk it alike, but today it is a way of pilgrimage, tourism, tradition, and a physical challenge. These pictures here were taken by Arne and Eva Dunhem during their Camino de Santiago pilgrim hike September – October 2023. They hiked 350-miles out of a total of 500-miles.
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Our very own Arne and Eva Dunhem from Drott Lodge #168 took on this monumental task. Here are some notes from their adventure written by them on different days during their 350-mile hike:
“The hike is and has been absolutely wonderful, but, of course has taken a lot of our energies. We both got a bad cold, but we will persevere. We will never forget the smell of the cow dung in all the Galician villages we have passed the last few days. We saw a brand new beautiful big house, like a mansion. But it was in the middle of the smell. Would we want to live there? The scenery is stunning with a rolling landscape, sweeping views over fields with corn and other fields with cows and horses.”
“Today we reached the “Cruz de Ferro”, The Iron Cross, along the trail West of the big city Leon. We had brought four small rocks with us from our granddaughters, daughter-in-law and from our condo building in Ashburn. We read two different recommended prayers and climbed up to the top of the pile of rocks that had been left by people over hundreds of years. We carefully placed our rocks and took photos and a video. Very emotional.”
“And now, the not so good things. We started to hike again from “Cruz de Ferro” and after about two hours and having hiked a couple of miles, the heavy black clouds started to sail in. Then the heavens opened up again, but this time not with the sun, but with a heavy, heavy downpour, hail for a while, and lightning and thunder. A really severe thunderstorm. We were up on the mountain with nowhere to take shelter. Despite us having rain jackets and rain covers over our back packs, we got soaking wet. The rain came down horizontally in the strong wind. It took us a couple of hours in the rain to get down to the next village. We walked the road and not the trail as it became muddy and very slippery. Somewhat easier on asphalt but still slippery.”
“Now the second not so good thing. Both of us developed a pretty bad cold after the hiking in the heavy rain, which we still have. We gave up on hiking for the day, with a couple of hours left, and steep wet slopes downhill. We called for a taxi after reaching the next village, after having something to eat and warm up. Caffe con Leche and a sandwich. It tasted heavenly. The taxi brought us to our hotel in Ponferrada. The taxi ride was also an adventure. The driver had two phones that he constantly talked in, something to do with customers not showing up. And the road down was steep and lots of s-curves.”
“Yesterday Monday around 1 pm we finally reached our goal for our Camino de Santiago - The Cathedral, Praza do Obradoiro, Santiago de Compostela. It has been a real struggle, a lot of hard work, hiking uphill and downhill and sometimes level, day after day. We have hiked through corn and wheat fields, vegetable fields, cow, horse, goat and sheep areas, through many hamlets, villages, towns and cities. But we never thought about giving up. It was just a great new experience. Arne wanted to just lie down on the Praza, like the younger ones did, but Eva, who is the smartest one, said Arne would not be able to get up again if he did…”