The Way is Made by People

We fly to London today, leaving behind lots of friends. These are the Australians, Cliff, John, and Joan. Some people just seem to part of your destiny. Liz and Alex from North Carolina are a couple we expect to see again. We don’t expect to see these Austrian girls again, but we enjoyed getting to know them nonetheless. Alejandro and The Sloth helped make southern Portugal for us. The list goes on and on: Kenton (Indiana);John, a Scot in Georgia; Peter, an Austrian odds maker; Sally, an American in Germany. Ibrahim, a Frenchman and his companion Bernadette; Iris and her son Jonathan (Finland), the two Japanese men at Pilgrim Pause albergue; Monica (Germany); Colorado Tanya- hospitalera at Alpriate Albergue (one of our best stops in Portugal); Maria Rita, Alicia and Hans-Peter (Germany) in Azinhaga; Danielle, our waitress in Coimbra; Sugikubo-Kita and Sakuji at Pilger Pause (harmonica player, Japanese); the couple who own Se Vehla where we stayed on my birthday and gave us a shot of Port for breakfast to celebrate with us; Cris and Vanessa (Germany) who we think became a couple on The Way; Les from California, and the countless Portuguese and Spanish people who made us cafe con leche, delicious meals, warm beds, and pointed the Way to us when we made a wrong turn.

Our lives touch ever so briefly, and a spark jumps between us, and we are all forever changed.