Like the proverb, Kathryn Ronay began a thousand-mile journey with a step out her door.
Ronay prepared for the Camino de Santiago, a European walking trek, by hoofing about six miles a day from her home to Walmart and back.
The Camino marks the route that pilgrims took carrying the bones of St. James from the interior mountains of Europe to the coast of Spain.
Although she isn’t “churchy,” Ronay said, the idea of walking the trail intrigued her.
Ronay left Iola in early May for the two-week trip.
She kept to a $300 budget with spartan eating habits and accommodations.
She stayed at “albergues,” hostels whose breakfast fare featured strong coffee with milk plus a slice of pound cake. And instead of the heavier and more expensive fare served by restaurants, Ronay stuck with the simple, but delicious, bread of the region topped with butter and her own stash of canned tuna.
Her travel, she noted, is typically on the cheap, with free airline tickets provided by her daughter Amy Ronay, who works for the travel industry.
For the trip to Spain, she took only a day pack, a sheet and clothes, including a rain jacket. May in Spain, she learned, is the rainy season.
“It was very muddy,” Ronay said of the path. “Every time you picked up your foot, it was like picking up a five-pound weight.”
Each night, the hikers — pilgrims as they are known along the “Way of Saint James” — removed their mud-encrusted boots and slipped into lightweight sandals.
“Out in the towns, you could always tell who was a pilgrim because of their footwear,” Ronay said.
Ronay said she had an advantage by hiking in canvas boots as opposed to leather ones.
“Everyone had many blisters. I just had one,” she said.
Walking the Camino was an arduous journey. Ronay, 66, walked most of each day. Altogether, she covered about 172 miles over two weeks. The entire route traverses 500 miles.
Ronay noted each albergue was unique.
Some were rustic bunkhouses with room for only a dozen. Others could hold more than 100.
One notable inn was a converted church run by an Italian couple.
The couple provided a light meal, but first came Mass, and a foot washing ceremony reminiscent of what Jesus did for his disciples at the Last Supper. With no electricity, the meal was by candlelight.
Ronay noted that as she traveled from the mountains to foothills to rolling plains, “similar to eastern Kansas,” the towns became poorer. In the towns of the plains only a tavern was available to provide for travelers’ needs, Ronay said.
And evening Mass, a staple at the beginning of the pilgrimage, became scarce.
“The towns, because they were poor, had to share a priest, so many did not offer Mass every evening,” she noted.
Nonetheless, she said, the altars were resplendent.
“You can’t believe the gold in the churches. You’ll go into these small towns and the altar is nothing but gold.”
She said a fellow pilgrim remarked it was indicative of the people’s piety that, despite their poverty, for thousands of years the churches have stood undefiled, while people eke out a living from the land.
“They’re so devout. I think they’re a lot happier than we are,” Ronay said. “They know what’s important in life.”
The journey gave Ronay time for contemplation.
“Sometimes, I’d walk for hours and hours by myself, and not see anyone,” she said.
At other times, people would offer her a ride to the next community. One man even gave her a tour of a town, refusing payment for his service.
“Once you said you were walking the Camino, everything slipped into place,” she said of the spontaneous help people offered along the way.
About midway through the trip, Ronay was joined by her 21-year-old granddaughter Annika Ronay, of Sonora, Calif.
“I’m so glad my granddaughter came,” she said.
By then the elder had grown weary.
“I kept thinking that a kilometer is a lot less than a mile,” she said, but slogging up and down hills made it seem more so.
“If I go back, I’m going to get a backpack with a waist-strap,” to make the walking easier, Ronay said.
Ronay said that pictures of scallop shells mark the trail. The shell represents the shores of Santiago, where St. James’ bones were taken for burial.
Ronay had a shell, painted with a crusader’s cross, plus a small stuffed turtle tied to her pack. The shell showed she was a pilgrim and “the turtle is because I walk slow,” she laughed.
Another curiosity on the trail is the presence of roosters and hens in many towns — and in some churches, Ronay noted.
Myth holds that hundreds of years ago, an innkeeper’s daughter became besotted with a young pilgrim. Denied permission to marry by his parents, who sought to continue their trek, the girl accused the young man of thievery and he was tried and hanged by the town council.
Heartbroken, his parents continued on their way. Upon their return through the unnamed town, they came upon the body of their son, still hanging in a tree.
He looked at them and asked that they cut him down. Astonished, they approached the town mayor about the task.
At supper, the mayor quipped their son was no more alive than the roast chicken before him.
At that moment, his evening meal stood up and began to crow.
“No one ever mentions what happened to the girl,” Ronay chuckled.
The story states that San Domingo and the Virgin Mary held up the young man during the time his parents were away, allowing him to live.
Such novel tales are what keep Ronay on the road, she said.
“I was born with itchy feet,” she noted. “When I was little, we traveled from Kansas City to California every year.”
But it wasn’t until she was in her 40s with her children grown that Ronay could begin her global explorations.
She has no plans to stop, and hopes to travel again on the Camino, which wanders through France as well as Spain.
Iolan tackles saintly trek
