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The Camino de Santiago: 500 miles, 1200 years old. Every year, 250,000 pilgrims walk cross northern Spain in a journey founded on humility, forgiveness.and hospitality. When it was my turn to hike the ancient path, I walked alone. I wanted to be open to whatever the Camino cared to deliver. And it did, magnificently. Mountains, farmlands, villages, cities. Each day is a gorgeous gift on the Camino. I took thousands of photos. What do I remember most? The people. One morning I passed the famous graffiti-covered Bar Elvis in Refugio. The early light was perfect for a photo. A car approached and I stepped off the road. The car stopped. I waited. It remained still. I waited. Finally, I waved the driver on, pointing to the building. The driver rolled down his window, laughed, and asked--I'm pretty sure--if I didn't want to include a handsome Spanish man. Why not? He grinned, I snapped. Wishing me a "Buen Camino," he drove away. Imagine hiking steep hills on a warm, sunny day. No bar for many more kilometers. You come over a ridge, make the bend, and wow! There's Maria, a beaming young woman offering fresh orange juice for just one Euro. As I drank my delicious zumo de naranja from a real glass, rinsed out in a cement trough across the way, we chatted. Her tiny stand had bottled water, fruit, and Spain's ever-present Kit-Kat candy bars. Since she had clearly set up business in the middle of nowhere, I wondered how she transported everything. "In my wheelbarrow! Everyday I fill it up and come here." Maria, the vibrant entrepreneur, still makes me smile. Alicia was hauling two buckets of walnuts when I came upon her. She had cropped gray hair and lines around her eyes, from decades of laughter and sunshine. She wore an apron over her cotton housedress. Sturdy loafers. A checkered scarf around her neck. She had a good twenty years on me, yet carried twice the weight of my backpack. With toddler-level Spanish, I asked if I could help. She nodded and motioned me to follow. Each with a bucket, we entered her yard. She led me to an open shed, where eight more full pails waited. We set down our loads and she pointed to a tree stump that had been moved into the shed. She reached for a nut, and with a large rock she pounded until the thick shell broke. Then she cracked open another. And another. As I left, she stuffed my jacket pockets with nuts and waved good-bye. I felt blessed. Of all the pilgrims to pass her home in Campo that day, Alicia had picked me.