ELY — The Ely Public Library recently presented Armchair Travel: El Camino de Santiago with Sarah Guy Levar. The Armchair Travel Series is an opportunity to listen to local people who have had some fantastic trips and to experience the world through their eyes. This month, Ely’s Sarah Guy Levar — an artist, author, storyteller and all-around Renaissance woman — shared her story of recently walking the El Camino de Santiago. She chose to walk along the Camino route that starts in southern France. There are three additional Camino routes to Santiago, Spain. The Camino de Santiago is often described as a pilgrimage and translates to the Way of St. James.
Sarah described how she came to walk a Camino: “When I was first in Malaga, Spain, on an art holiday, I went for a hike behind the beautiful villa we were staying at, and I saw a trail with a monument marker that had a shell and a yellow arrow on it, and I wondered what that was. The owner of the villa was like, ‘Well, that’s part of a Camino,’ and I was like, ‘What’s a Camino?’ And of course, he explained that a Camino is a path that leads to Santiago de Compostela and follows the path, supposedly, that the relics of St. James were taken to and are buried in the cathedral in Santiago. And I just found it a fascinating concept for a hike — a hike with more of a spiritual purpose.
“Conceptually, I didn’t think it would be as physically hard as it was going to be. For somebody my age, I was more easily fatigued. I took longer to recover. And even something as simple as remembering the name of the town and the name of the lodging that you stayed in or left that morning, that got exhausting sometimes, you know, when you’re moving to a new place every single day. Just my brain being tired and not working. All of the Spanish practice that I did, at the end of the day when you’re tired, went out the door. I just couldn’t remember. Thank goodness most of the people spoke English or understood my terrible Spanish enough for me to get across what my needs were.”
The Camino experience was enlightening, and she thinks about it daily, staying in contact with people she met via WhatsApp.
Sarah’s Armchair Travel session was fully attended with standing room only available. There were so many questions and insightful comments by attendees relating to her story that the audience stayed in place for a full hour after her one-hour prepared presentation. Here was a perfect example of a local gathering of individuals sharing a conversation that was enlightening, spirited, and symbolic of good life in a small town.
Friends of the Library sponsor the Ely Armchair Travel programs.