Pilgrimage

On Sunday we did a beautiful pilgrimage to Saint Teresa of the Andes (Santa Teresa de los Andes as she’s called down here). It’s a 27km hike over a hill to her shrine/chapel in the mountains. A wonderful way to spend a day I thought – it could be a neat experience, have some time to think and be out in nature. I’m in.

What I didn’t know is that 79,999 other people were thinking the same thing and decided to accompany me throughout the journey! You know how crowded and sometimes claustrophobic is feels trying to leave a sporting venue after a big game? This is what it was like for seven and a half hours! I thought we were towards the end of the line when we started and then I looked down the mountain when I got to the top…nope, not even close (and I had been walking for 4+ hours). It was incredible.

It was nice to be a part of something like that; Chile is ~80% Catholic and to be in the masses of Catholicism was sort of cool because we saw all walks of believers – from monks and nuns to teenagers who really just are going because that’s what everyone was doing that day and they wanted to do what everyone else was doing. But, they were there.

And no it does not compare to the “Camino de Santiago” for you readers out there who did that and are better at everything.

Oh, and I had a great/clever idea. When you’re making a 27km journey up a mountain, who would you call upon to help you find the strength to continue? One could say the Spirit. Having thought of this, I thought it would be a great idea to get some mileage out of my newly acquired flask down here and bring some spirit that I could call on during the pilgrimage. This notion quickly evaporated as I got onto the bus in the morning and the realization that I was going with three schools that the Movement runs and would be amongst throngs of younger people. Sneaking a little sippy sip wouldn’t be kosher by my standards. So it stayed in the pack. It’s times like these that I wish I didn’t want to be a teacher and be a positive role in student’s eyes! But it did lead me to this realization (this sentence only works if you read this post before the one preceding it) –