We must be nuts. This is not the first time I’ve said that, nor the first time I’ve said it in reference to the topic at hand:  walking to Santiago de Compostela.  When we finished our hike across Spain and arrived at the tomb of the apostle in October 2016 (500 miles, 44 days), I was done.  I’d had the pilgrim experience.  It was an adventure but it was hard, and I didn’t need to do that sort of thing again.  However, time has a way of blurring the pain and burnishing the good memories—the fun Maurice and I had hanging out together, walking with Jesus, eating well, losing weight, seeing new things in a rich culture and meeting interesting people, accomplishing our goal—and we have set our sights on another walk to Santiago.  Well, I thought it was a good idea; Maurice sighed and said he’d have to come along to keep an eye on me.  This time we are walking north to Santiago on the Camino Portugues.  We only have time for part of it, in conjunction with Maurice’s two-week art class which is meeting in Porto this year.  We have three weeks to walk before the artists gather.  There’s not the apprehension we felt before; we know we can do this!  With our shorter distance (only 160 miles) Maurice says we can move at a more leisurely pace.  He won’t be picking up his pack as I’m still chewing the last bite of my tortilla.

But it’s been a busy week, especially the rush of the last 48 hours, and I’m exhausted.  I had the best of intentions and started packing weeks ago, but regular life goes on even as we try to work ahead and plan for a trip, and part of regular life are the little extras that get tossed in.  Our delightful and energetic Trent, Lucy and Grant came over for a last-minute overnight and ride to school the next day.  Maurice’s bees are reproducing and making honey prodigiously and he needed to add another honey box and start a new hive.  I had agreed to do a presentation at our church’s women’s prayer retreat.  I was a bit nervous but it was well received, and then I felt guilty for savoring a refreshing retreat when I should have been packing.  The last 48 hours made up for it—final items packed, several final trips to the store, final household tasks, Mom over for lunch after church on Sunday, and then there was Maurice’s hand.  On Sunday morning his hand was swollen like a puffer fish.  When he tended the bees on Saturday he’d been wearing the bee suit gloves, too thick for a bee to sting through, he thought.  Maybe there was a spider in the glove, suggested Larry the bee mentor.  Who knows?  Maurice followed the advice of several nurses but this morning his hand still looked like a pink party balloon.  While he went to the urgent care center, I doubled my speed so I could finish his chores too.  “Don’t you have to be going?” asked Will who had come over to take us to the airport.  Indeed.  Maurice had returned all gooped and drugged.  We are now on the second delayed flight of the evening, sardined into our seats in one of Azores Airlines’ fleet of five aircraft, and Maurice’s hand is much improved.  “When the crush of getting ready for your trip is upon you,” my friend Michele had emailed, “you have wonderful blessings [of the retreat] to hold on to.”  Yes.  Through the press of the last few days my thoughts have kept turning back to the retreat, to the rich scriptures, to the songs we enjoyed, to the worship.  “No more betrayal, for he is faithful.  He fills me up and my cup runneth over!” sings Matt Maher in my head.  My eyes can hardly stay open and they are serving us dinner (with plenty of wine) at fifteen past midnight, but in my spirit I am waving my banner and dancing before the King.

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While waiting for our second delayed flight in Boston we met Jay.  He and Maurice were one-upping each other about travel and military experiences until Jay mentioned he teaches at a seminary in a certain African country several months a year.  “I know that place,” said Maurice, to Jay’s surprise.  “Baptist.”  Maurice hadn’t been there, just heard about it through some of the Kenyans he’s met through his OneLife Africa mission trips.  “What do you teach?”  “Theology,” replied Jay.  Suddenly my ears perked up.  “Jan’s the one who talks theology,” said Maurice, but the plane was boarding.  It turned out my seat was right behind Jay’s.  As we sat on the tarmac for yet another hour we chatted through the cracks between the seats about his relatively recent Baptist seminary training, my lovely Baptist daughter-in-law, differences among Lutherans, the inerrancy of the Word and differences and similarities between Baptists and Lutherans, a conversation we finished over fresh chocolate croissants in the airport in Ponta Delgada before Maurice and I had to dash to our next flight.  Jay was interesting and interested, but as quite the talker himself, there was not enough time for him to fully grasp what I might mean by charismatic evangelical Lutheran.

We were met at Porto’s airport by a pleasant driver, Thadeo, who took us the scenic route over cobblestones and along the river to our guesthouse.  Even with his minimal English 

Thadeo pointed things out to us, once diverting us down a narrow street lined alternately with dining tables and tents housing big grills sizzling with fresh fish just in from the harbor, but we weren’t always sure whether Thadeo’s smooshy Portuguese words were a name, a street or something else.

At our guesthouse 33-year-old Bruno checked us in.  A poor student, Bruno discovered young that if he wanted to play online games with people around the world, he needed to know English.  Suddenly motivated, he set himself to the task by watching English-language TV and astonished his teacher when he returned to school in the fall.  We discussed regional differences in languages and he agreeably taught me a few Portuguese words.  Bruno reminisced about the sleepy Porto of his childhood when he played soccer in empty streets and spent his free time wandering safely far and wide through city neighborhoods.  Now Porto has become a popular tourist destination with cosmopolitan visitors filling the old town and packing tour boats churning up the delightful Douro river.  

After an hour’s sleep, Maurice and I walked along the river, past colorful houses stacked up the hillside, to the town center to start our exploration.  Bright azulejo tiles, the  Eiffel-inspired bridge, brightly-painted buildings, a hot sun and steep hillls, port wineries, the youthful energy of the city and our first pastel de nata—well, tired as we were, we didn’t find a bus home until nine.