By Stephen Bugno

Like Saul, I greatly anticipated my arrival to Damascus, an ancient city even in his day. I, however, was not coming to persecute Christians, but to retrace his important life-changing events that would prove to be the most important in Christianity after the life, death, and resurrection of Christ.

Shrine of Saint Paul on the Walls

As Saul approached the city, a light shown from heaven all around him and he fell to the ground. Saul was a Jew from Tarsus (in modern-day Turkey); on a mission to arrest new Christian converts in Damascus. As he lay on the ground blinded and confused, a voice spoke out: “Saul, Saul why are you persecuting me?” It was Jesus speaking to him.

Unable to see, his companions led him into Damascus to the house of Judas where he waited, having nothing to eat or drink for three days.

The Conversion of Saul

Meanwhile, a local disciple Ananias heard God in a vision tell him to go to the street called Straight, and enquire in the house of Judas for one called Saul.

So Ananias arrived and put his hands on Saul and carried out the Lord’s orders. Immediately scales fell from Saul’s eyes and restored his vision. Saul of Tarsus left the house as a baptized Paul and began proclaiming Jesus as the Son of God.

At the St. Ananias Chapel, a wall of illustrations takes me through these events of Paul’s conversion. The chapel, located deep in the Christian quarter of old Damascus, commemorates his conversion and baptism of Saul.

I follow the stairs down to the original Roman street level where the stone house stood in the time of Christ. The chapel is small with a few pews in front of an altar adorned with more depictions of the miracles. In a side shrine, the visitors before me have stuffed hand written petitions through a metal grate.

Escaping Damascus

The Chapel of Ananias photo: Stephen Bugno

Leaving the St. Ananias Chapel, I continue down the narrow lane to the biblical Straight Street and through the Bab Sharqi, or Eastern Gate, around the outside edge of the old city walls to the Shrine of Saint Paul on the walls. This is the place that most accurately marks where Paul escaped out of a window through the ancient gate, Bab Kisan. It lies in the southeastern part of Damascus, which even at that time was populated with Christians, close to the start of the Roman road that led to Jerusalem.

Inside the church, my travel companion, who was once in the seminary, enthusiastically explains the painted scenes that depicted Paul’s activity before, during and after his journey to Damascus. He reiterates just how crucial these places were, not only in Paul’s life, but for the whole of Christianity. If Saul had remained a Jewish rabbi, we wouldn’t have fourteen books of the New Testament.

My friend goes on to explain that after his conversion, Paul went on to preach the word of Christ in the synagogues around town and consequently the Jews quickly conceived a plot to kill him. So they stood guard around the city gates and as described in Acts, “the disciples took him by night, and let him down by the wall in a basket.” We gazed at the replica basket to help us imagine the events better.

Today, the church’s fortress-like appearance appropriately resembles a high city gate, its thick stones, including some originals, represent the barrier between Paul and his freedom, and consequently, the future of Christianity. As Ananias’ original house was destroyed and replaced by a mosque after the Arab conquest, so was the fate of the church which originally commemorated St. Paul’s escape.

The present shrine was finished in 1941 and in 2001 the site was visited by Pope John Paul II on his footsteps of St. Paul pilgrimage. Since 1964, the Melkite-Greek Catholic Church has maintained the site along with its adjacent orphanage and home for the elderly.

After leaving Damascus, Paul returned to Jerusalem before going abroad to become one of the church’s foremost evangelizers. Pope Benedict designated the Pauline year to run from June 28, 2008 to June 29, 2009, commemorating the approximate 2,000th anniversary of the saint’s birth.

We left Damascus in a more stress-free fashion than Paul did, surprised by the Christian presence that still thrives in this heavily Muslim country and by the friendliness and hospitality of both the Syrian Christians and Muslims alike.

If You Go

Damascus, one of the oldest cities in the world, is a magnificent place to visit, chock-full of history. Syria is safe for U.S. citizens to visit and a visa, available only at the Syrian embassy in Washington, DC, is required. If including Syria on a pilgrimage to the Holy Lands, remember to visit before traveling on to Israel because an Israeli stamp in your passport will bar your entry to Syria.

Stephen Bugno visited Damascus during a six-month overland journey from Istanbul to Cairo. His articles and essays have appeared in The San Francisco Chronicle, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Seattle Times, and Transitions Abroad magazine. He edits the Gomad Nomad Travel Mag.

By Stephen Bugno

a fellow pilgrim on the Camino de Santiago

Not a morning passes when I don’t hear the oop oop oop of the hoopoe. Some days I walk through vineyards, other days through centuries-old olive groves.

Usually the camino follows dirt roads, but at times I suffer the unforgiving impact of the pavement. Occasionally my way narrows into single-track, and I savor those moments. Wildflowers saturate the Andalusían spring. The waves of orange, yellow, and red make me smile when the pain in my feet demands otherwise.

When I arrive in Extremadura, free-range pig farms and cork forests compose the land. Later comes the monotony of the plains and the burn of the mountain climbs. I always pass cow pastures, and sometimes a toro stands alone on the opposite side: the road cutting the farm in two.

I can’t fully appreciate Spain’s history until I cross Merida’s 60-arch Roman bridge and slip underneath its triple-tiered aqueduct. Since I am an American, these are the features that imprint my memory and are too often taken for granted by Europeans who have grown up with them. In Salamanca, I ponder the generations of academics who have toiled inside the high walls of the university’s oldest buildings.

In Galicia, I pass through stone-built villages: Laza, Cea, and Laxe, so old they are inseparable from the landscape. The villages here are situated closer together than those in the regions I’ve come from. The green rolling hills are cut into lots by waist-high rock walls. The aging faces and lack of cars expose the sharp contrast between the outdated countryside and the vibrancy of modern Madrid.

view from along the Camino

I walk to experience life at walking pace. I catch what those traveling by car and tour bus miss. Moving at this speed I feel Spain in my tired joints, I hear Spain in the ringing of church bells, I taste Spain in each of the changing regional delicacies as I make my way north from Sevilla on the Via de la Plata.

Instead of pulling over to a scenic view point for five minutes, the view follows me for five miles. I see Spain unfold in front of me—the landscape picture book of back roads, front roads, agriculture, mountains, meseta, and lavender-lined footpaths. Time passes along the way: 38 mornings of café con leche and 38 evenings of tintos y tapas.

When I walk I become part of the environment. When the wind blows and the sky pours I become cold and wet. The warm Iberian sun dries me back to warmth and the thick oak groves shade my rest breaks when it becomes too dominant.

I am happy to say buenos dias to the townspeople in each community I pass through. I appreciate their brief hospitality and the fleeting moments we cross paths. They smile: surprised that I’m so young and walking alone.

I have always been told that the journey is more important than the destination. So, nearing the end, I try to downplay the significance of my arrival at the cathedral in Santiago. But I can’t convince myself that tomorrow will not be extraordinary.

Santiago de Compostela is a special place, and after walking almost six weeks to get there, the magnitude of my arrival will only be amplified by the journey that got me here.

Stephen Bugno walked the 1000 km from Sevilla to Santiago de Compostela on the Via de la Plata in the spring of 2008. His writing has appeared in The San Francisco Chronicle, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Transitions Abroad, and the Matador Network.

By Stephen Bugno

I see now why they’re called the “steps of repentance”. Some people learn the hard way why they’re so aptly named. Luckily our guide explained that there was a second way to the top of the mountain where Moses received the Ten Commandments, on the longer, more gradual, Camel Path.

It was 2 a.m. when we started from the base of the mountain near St. Catherine’s Monastery. We would spend the next 2½ hours climbing Mt. Sinai, or Jebel Musa (Mt. Moses) as the Arabs call it, the moonlight enough to steer us up the well-worn path to the summit.

At the summit I was shocked to see hundreds of others camped out in anticipation of the sunrise. We all waited patiently, chilly even under warm blankets, for the most dramatic and divine sunrise I’ve ever witnessed, the sun breaking over the pointed mountains in this incredibly barren landscape.

We descended down a steep ravine by way of the 3,750 “steps of repentance”, illuminated in a striking orange glow by the morning sun. The steps were so named by one of the monastery’s monks, and walked by those in need of penance. We certainly felt compassion for those few on their way up.

The Monastery

Most of the way down we could see our destination below: St. Catherine’s Monastery. Located at the foot of Mt. Sinai, it is said to be the oldest continuously functioning Christian monastery in the world and has been designated a UNESCO world heritage site.

Despite its remote desert location, the monastery and mountain hike are extremely popular, the hardest decision not being whether to go or not, but to go for sunrise or sunset. The morning I visited, I pushed through the narrow monastery doors with bus loads of Russian package pilgrims and European and American tourists.

We spilled inside through the massive fortifications that have preserved this monastery for more than fourteen centuries. We immediately moved towards the Basilica of the Holy Transfiguration, built in the sixth century by Eastern Emperor Justinian, where the liturgy is still observed today. A huge mosaic of Christ in his glorious transfiguration adorns the apse.

Nearby, the monastery library holds the second largest collection of early codices and manuscripts in the world, preserving more than any other place except the Vatican library. The monastery also holds a significant collection of religious treasures, including an important collection of icons.

As I exited the basilica I saw the Burning Bush. Reading Old Testament stories, especially as a child, I always imagined the events; the people, places, and things in the stories as ancient history. Before my Middle East trip I was excited to learn that some of these places actually do still exist today and from the outset of my journey to the Holy Lands, St. Catherine’s Monastery was on my must-see list.

Crowding around the bush, pilgrims cut pieces from the dangling branches, which hung over everyone’s head, just as it has for centuries. As tradition states, it is the original bush that Moses saw, which was “on fire, but was not consumed by the flames,” as we know from Exodus.

There is also a mosque inside the monastery which symbolizes the mutual religious tolerance surrounding St. Catherine’s. It is known to be the only mosque in the world inside of a sacred Christian site and is still used by the monks’ Bedouin groundskeepers.

Catherine of Alexandria

Although officially called The Sacred and Imperial Monastery of the God-Trodden Mount of Sinai, first dedicated to the prophets Moses and Elias, the monastery became associated with St. Catherine when her bones were said to have been transported here by angels and discovered by monks around 800.

As a young woman, Catherine devoted herself to the pursuit of knowledge, and in addition to being highly learned in philosophy and theology, she was very beautiful and sexually pure as well. However, it was her faith to which she was most dedicated, and because of her enduring love of Jesus Christ, she was tortured, starved, and finally sentenced to death.

Pleading with the Roman Emperor Maxentius to no longer persecute Christians, Catherine was unsuccessful. But she did well in converting his wife, the Empress, and many others. She was ultimately sentenced to death by the spiked wheel, which has since become known as the Catherine Wheel, but during the execution it miraculously broke down and she was then beheaded.

St. Catherine’s feast day is celebrated on the 25^th of November and the monastery that takes her name survives today, as an important reserve of early Christian art, architecture and manuscripts.

Planning your visit

The oldest continuous and active Christian monastery is located in the heart of the Sinai Peninsula, in modern day Egypt. It’s easy to join one of the many group tours from any of the resorts in Sinai. For those who don’t wish to hike up to the summit, camels can be rented at the foot of the mountain.

Getting there

St. Catherine’s Monastery and Mt. Sinai can easily be included on trip to Egypt by way of Cairo, or while visiting the Holy Land, via Jerusalem. The Taba-Elat border crossing from Israel to Sinai, Egypt remains open for travelers in the region. Plan at least an eight hour trip by car or bus from either Cairo or Jerusalem.

Stephen Bugno visited the Sinai during a six-month overland journey from Istanbul to Cairo. His articles and essays have appeared in The San Francisco Chronicle, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Seattle Times, and Transitions Abroad magazine. He blogs at Bohemian Traveler and edits the Gomad Nomad Travel Mag.

By Stephen Bugno

“I started walking in Geneva,” said the light-haired woman with a guitar strapped to her backpack. Surely not Geneva, Switzerland I thought as I asked, “Where’s that?”

This 23-year-old Australian had been walking for 5 weeks now and was just one of the many Spanish and foreign walkers alike I met on the Camino de Santiago, or Way of St. James, an ancient pilgrimage route through northern Spain.

pilgrims leaving the town of Granon

Background

Not long after the crucifixion of Jesus, the apostle James left the Holy Lands to spread the gospel, attempting to set up the foundations of the Christian church. Although there is no mention of it in the Bible, he is believed to have crossed the European continent, journeying to Finisterre, the westernmost point of Spain. He gathered shells there to prove he had reached the coast of what people then thought was the end of the world. His missionary work proved unsuccessful, and with very few converts, he returned to Judea only to be beheaded by Herod Agrippa.

In the 9th century, while searching for a source of a strange light, a religious hermit found the forgotten tomb of St. James in a dense forest near present day Santiago de Compostela. Apparently after James’ death, two disciples gathered his remains and sailed them back to Galicia in northwestern Spain in a stone boat. It was after this discovery that pilgrims started embarking on the journey to Santiago.

Although the Camino Frances, the most authentic to Santiago’s actual route across northern Spain, is the oldest and most popular walking path through Europe, many others exist. The Camino Portugues and Via de la Plata leading north from Portugal and Seville respectively, are just a couple. Most of the others are paths from the rest of Europe that lead into the Camino Frances. It is sort of an “all roads lead to Rome” situation. Some ultra-dedicated pilgrims start their pilgrimage right from their doorstep, in the manor that medieval pilgrims did. Others start from the Vatican or even Jerusalem. For those starting in any part of Europe, there exist four major arteries in France onto which walkers can connect. The most common starting point today is at the French-Spanish border, where it is possible to make the pleasant 500-mile walk to Santiago de Compostela in six to eight weeks.

Walking trail – unlike the U.S.

This walking trail phenomenon is unlike that which we have in the United States. Our trails, like the famous Appalachian Trail stretching from Maine to Georgia do not stray very far from the wilderness, passing few small towns and requiring the hiker to be self sufficient with food and shelter for weeks at a time. But in Europe, a hiker infrastructure exists in the form of special walker-only hostels and food service in towns along the way. There are very few stretches of more than ten miles without a town to get the necessary food or lodging for the night. So while there is little wilderness along the European paths, there is plenty of agriculture, history, culture, and locals.

elders in the village of Azofra

These walker hostels, known as albergues or refugios are reserved for people traveling on foot. Although most will allow bicycle tourists to stay if at the end of the day there is space still available. There are no reservations—you simply show up and claim one of the open bunk beds by laying out your sleeping bag. Many, managed by municipalities and volunteer groups, charge about $5.00 US, but some just ask for a donation. They are simple and spartan, but usually clean. The highest concentrations of these albergues are along the Camino in Spain, but they do exist in France and less commonly in the rest of Europe. In most of European towns however, there is some form of inexpensive lodging, be it a traditional hostel or a family run hotel.

Two Dutch men I met along the Camino in Spain had left from their home in the Netherlands two and a half months prior. Still happy and healthy, although with blistered feet, they showed us their almost-filled credencial del peregrine, or pilgrim’s accreditation card. The credencial is a passport-like document issued at the beginning of your journey that proves you are a pilgrim, and have been walking on a daily basis. It is necessary for admittance into the albergues. Thus, the credential soon becomes a pilgrim’s most important possession, second only after the official passport.

What’s the attraction?

So what is the attraction to blistery feet, community lodging, and the scorching Spanish sun? Many modern day pilgrims come to the Camino for religious or spiritual reasons. But more often pilgrims are in some sort of life crises, in between careers or relationships, or searching for something more in life. Others come for the centuries of rich history and culture that Spain is so famous for. Some simply come for the joy of walking and the simplicity of a pilgrim’s life.

The Camino doesn’t discriminate—you will find every age and nationality walking. On my journey, I was fortunate to spend a few days with the first Malaysian to complete the pilgrimage. For a week I walked side by side a Brazilian in a mid-life crisis. Separated from his wife with a child, we were walking for similar reasons, but in very different circumstances. Yet we still bonded over a couple hundred miles together.

Despite their reasons, all pilgrims are issued their credencial at their starting point. This gets stamped each night and sometimes at churches and other monuments along the way. I got mine at the Abby in Roncesvalles, one of the two popular starting places for the Camino Frances.

A pilgrim arrives in Belorado

In medieval times

In medieval times, the pilgrim walked from his or her home to Santiago and back. At the end of the pilgrimage, a compostela was issued, which gave accreditation that the pilgrim had reached Santiago, and had done so for religious or spiritual reasons. Many of the pilgrims were walking as penance in order to be forgiven for certain sins. However, other medieval pilgrims may have just been curious about what lie away from home, since traveling was not a practical pastime in those days. Despite the various reasons, they all faced many dangers and hardships along the way. Robbers and wild animals were the biggest concern. Sickness and disease could also easily ruin a pilgrimage. For this, an infrastructure—hospitals, hospices, and fortresses were built—some of which can still be seen today.

Today you can tour the castle in Ponferrada, started in the 12th century by the Knights Templar in order to protect pilgrims. Much of it in ruin now, a climb around its high walls affords nice views of the city and surrounding mountains. Its striking architecture and long history were a welcome mid-day break on a 22-mile day for me. In the hamlet of San Juan de Ortega lie the bones of the village’s namesake, who dedicated his 12th century life to building and maintaining the roads, bridges, and hospitals along the route. Along the way, modern day travelers pass over many of these medieval bridges and there is even a stretch of Roman road preserved.

Memorable characters

Not only are the places along the Camino memorable. So too are the people passed. Some of these characters become famous among the pilgrim community. One Englishman drives his RV from Britain every April in order to make what he calls a “pilgrim pit-stop”. Everyday he parks his RV somewhere different and stops passers-by to offer water, soda, coffee, and beer, collecting only a donation. When October comes, he packs up and returns home for the winter.

Another man—a Spaniard named Tomas—is the most prominent and only permanent resident of the former village Manjarin. Years ago he left his family and career in Madrid to dedicate his life to hosting pilgrims in his mountain-top dwelling known to pilgrims as “the hippie place”. Located near a remote mountain pass where the weather often turns foul, Tomas graciously opens his home to walkers and even serves a supper complete with wine. What Tomas’ place lacks in amenities and cleanliness, sure made up in its character. After eating the evening meal and enjoying conversation in a multitude of languages, I slept on a ripped mattress in the attic next to a 77-year-old Austrian woman, a German, a Swiss, and two young French men.

If all of this sounds overwhelming, don’t panic, there are guidebooks out there, available in several languages including English. Besides this, there’s a wealth of information on the web.

If you go

Getting there: I flew to Barcelona and bused to Roncesvalles, my starting point. But it is just as easy to fly to Madrid. Flights from the east coast range from $500 on up round trip, depending on the season. Try Travelocity or Orbitz, on the Web, to book your cheapest ticket or contact the airline directly.

Summer is a good time to go, since all the albergues are operational. But to avoid the summer heat and overcrowded accommodation, try the spring or fall. Although it is possible, few go in winter. It will not be crowded, but will be cold, and some albergues may not be open.

What to bring

To walk the Camino you’ll need a medium-sized backpack, good walking/hiking shoes, a sleeping bag, and appropriate clothes for the season.

Most people allow six to eight weeks to walk the 500 miles from the French-Spanish border. Because there are not any rules, pilgrims should not feel any shame in catching a bus occasionally between cities if they are fatigued, injured or falling behind pace. The route is well marked so a guidebook is not necessary. However, many pilgrims like to carry one in order to read explanations about the history of the hamlets and cities along the way. A good one in English is: Walking the Camino de Santiago by Bethan Davies and Ben Cole. Knowing Spanish would be helpful, but not necessary if you carry a phrase book.

Check the Web for more information: http://www.santiago-compostela.net Buen Camino!

Stephen Bugno has been traveling and teaching English abroad for the better part of ten years. His articles and essays have appeared in The San Francisco Chronicle, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Seattle Times, and Transitions Abroad magazine. He edits the Gomad Nomad Travel Mag.