Chrysalis

The QATAR Boeing 777 capsule transported me to Spain. After emerging in Madrid I then discarded my bedraggled flight clothing, now obsolete, and an unnecessary burden for the rest of my travels, or indeed my life. The ability to fly in once desired, but now threadbare clothing is a luxury of travelling alone, for to travel in such clothes may cause embarrassment in a companion. It is hardly likely all the others travelling in the confines of economy class would have noticed in our collective state of discomfort.

At the Hostal Molles, like a pupa, my belongings expanded from their in-flight configuration, my walking poles unfurled. I now have the personna of a pilgrim - "a person in a foreign land".

And so begins 6 weeks in southern Spain, for me a land more exotic than most of Western Europe, and at the moment more alluring than any other. In its own way a blend of European, Eastern and North African that many many many before me have come to experience.

During the flight, in a form of 24 hours of suspended animation, I read "A Philosophy of Walking" by Frederic Gros, a French philosopher of some note. My copy will be discarded in an Albergue soon, as is the pilgrim's way. I am likely to quote from him in future posts. As his linguistic style, and those he in turn quotes from, even after translation, exceeds mine it will be apparent where due attribution is implicit.

For those who walk, or not, I commend it to you all - my walking mentor (N) recommended it recently to me.

Now in Cordoba. We are experiencing a heat wave.