Tag: journey

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A Pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela – Why?

My last post summarized the beginnings of my journey – my pilgrimage – through northwest Spain. While I did say that I had many different inspirations motivating me to hike alone for three weeks in a strange country, I didn’t say what they were. I should have, because when I tell people about this particular trip they wonder what could possibly compel me to spend three weeks in the mountains of a country whose language I didn’t know, and with nothing but my backpack.

I’ll try to explain here.

Purpose

When I was a kid my family would go on trips for summer vacation, about one per year. This was how I got to see Atlantic City Boardwalk, or the Green Mountains in Vermont, or the Montreal Biosphere, or the Grand Canyon. While I did enjoyed the trips, I never had the choice to go or stay home.

Now as an adult, I could go wherever I wanted; however, I felt no great urges to go on vacation. Many people I knew travelled to relax on Caribbean beaches, or to feel sophisticated within European cities, or to snap photos of Asian temples. Don’t get me wrong; I would have loved to see these things also, but I feel like going just for the sake of going. I needed a reason, a purpose.

Luckily for me, I was a part of many groups and events that gave me reasons to go. I went to Peru for a karate tournament…and saw Machu Picchu on the way. Mount Fuji was a quick aside on my trip to be a part of the first foreign university team to take part in a Tokyo area kendo competition. Since my family wanted to see the Pacific Northwest, we might as well visit my cousin on the way. If I had to fly to Calgary for work, then I would stop in Banff for a little sightseeing. And so on and so forth.

A picture of the lost city of the Incas I took from 2018.
A view of Machu Picchu. Just a little side trip made after an international tournament.

In short, I like travelling when I have a purpose besides seeing the sights. Even if the purpose is just a flimsy excuse to go on vacation. And for my first solo trip I wanted to have an important purpose. Three of them, actually.

A Call to Adventure

I love to walk. But strangely, I probably don’t walk as often as most people. I remember one time I showed a friend of mine the picture below. After being suitably impressed, he inquired about my daily average steps. Despite the fact that I had walked nearly one million steps in three weeks, my daily average over the past 12 months was lower than his. Of course, he was the type of person to spend at least half an hour every day walking.

Add 6 hours to the time and you get the time difference between Toronto, Canada and Italy.
From my iPhone after walking day and night along the hills of Tuscany during my pilgrimage to Rome.

I love walking, but when I do I want it to be an adventure. There has to be something for me to see and discover, to learn about and to appreciate. This is why I don’t take daily walks. Sure, I could see and discover what new lawn ornament my neighbour put up, or appreciate how much higher the grass has grown. But that’s not really an adventure.

I can easily recall my many walking adventures. I once walked through a pitch-black forest with a CEO. There was a time I hiked through a jungle in my bare feet. To skip school and avoid a horrible assignment, I took a detour and followed a stream into a strange forest. On a bright summer day I walked along a country road, and with every step I took frogs would jump out of the grass. I could go on and on about my little adventure walks.

Whether long or short, local or foreign, easy or difficult, an adventure for me is a journey somewhere out of the ordinary. And that was the most compelling force pulling me towards a pilgrimage.

Escape From Reality

For many people, vacations are an escape from the constant grind of work, school, and responsibilities. Some people can’t truly escape their duties; however, I had nearly cut myself off from not only contact with family and friends, but from thoughts of home as well. I did the minimum required of me, which was to let my mom know I was alive every couple of days or so.

But for the most part, I let myself be absorbed into the present, thinking nothing of where I came from or what would be waiting for me when I returned home. I only had one all-encompassing goal: to reach Santiago de Compostela. The simplicity of having this, and nothing else, motivate me was a freedom I had rarely experienced. I was not beholden to many different bosses with many competing tasks. It was just me and the road ahead.

Picture taken during my pilgrimage, north of Leon, Spain, on February 23, 2014.
Just me and the road ahead.

Trust in God

I also wanted to reconnect with my spirituality. The Camino de Santiago has its basis in religious pilgrimage, after all. A pilgrimage, as defined by Wikipedia, is “…a journey, often into an unknown or foreign place, where a person goes in search of new or expanded meaning about their self, others, nature, or a higher good, through the experience. It can lead to a personal transformation, after which the pilgrim returns to their daily life.”

As a practicing Roman Catholic, I thought I was being faithful by going through the motions of attending Mass and praying. That was not enough. For me, while the real meat of this pilgrimage was the adventure, the heart of it was the spiritual aspect. This journey would really show me what it meant to put one’s trust in God. Though I was all alone for most of my journey, I did not feel alone. And as I stumbled across northwest Spain I saw and experienced things I found hard to explain, though I certainly hope to try later on with this blog.

Though the spiritual lessons I learned didn’t stick with me long after the walk had ended, it did lay a seed of belief within me that would blossom and bear fruit…much later. It would take years of time, another pilgrimage, and many tests of character before I realized how important my faith and my spirit was to me. I mean, I am kind of stubborn that way.

From https://www.spain.info/en/places-of-interest/cathedral-santiago-compostela/. My pictures are not as good.
The Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, the main goal of my pilgrimage in Spain.

Blended Feelings

In my previous post I alluded to the fact that there was wasn’t a single reason compelling me to go. Which is true; I have listed three. But when I had decided to go on a pilgrimage in 2013 I didn’t have any of my reasons clearly laid out. I just felt like I had to go. When explaining to people why I was going, I threw out the words “pilgrimage”, “sightseeing”, and “adventure”. But I used those topics because they were easier to explain.

I simply felt a calling, a deeply felt need to go. I am unable to explain it in any other way. Yes, the reasons I listed above were involved, but they manifested themselves as this single beacon of light beckoning me to come closer. Interestingly enough, you may find other pilgrims that continue to be called back to the Camino despite having completed it already. This pilgrimage was, and I’m sure remains, special for all people who have experienced it, no matter their nationality, creed, or purpose.

Now that I’ve gotten the why out of the way, I hope to show the what and the how of my journey. With any luck I will write again sooner rather than later, and more consistently as well. If you have anything to add at all, you are welcome to comment.

Take care and my God bless you on your journey through life.

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A Long Walk To Somewhere Special

I last made a post here a long while ago, and in that time the world has changed dramatically. The COVID-19 pandemic and its associated effects, such as lockdowns and layoffs, affected many millions of people including myself. However, that has had little effect on my lack of posts. Though I have been busy at times, I have had enough time to write. But I could not bring myself to do so. And I don’t really know why.

I have so many stories to tell about my adventures, but so few people to hear them. Not because I don’t know many people, or that my family and friends don’t want to listen to me. But people can only listen for so long, and my tale can’t really be told in one sitting.

One would think that that would be great incentive to pen my tales and present them on this site. But after holding them in for so long, I found it hard to let the words flow from my brain onto my computer. I also found it difficult to break my adventures down into bite-sized pieces for people to digest in one sitting. There is nothing I would love more than to sit down with a captive audience and regale them with a story of my journeys from start to finish.

A bonfire picture to show my second most ideal setting for storytelling, and to wax nostalgic about past events...the most ideal way to talk about a long walk is to take one with someone willing to listen.
I always imagined telling my story to a captive audience in a setting like this. It’s been a long time for me since I enjoyed a good bonfire…

Actually, there is one thing I would like more than to sit by a fire and tell stories. That would be to take a long walk with someone while telling them my story. Those few moments in life when I engaged in just that were some of the more memorable walks of my life. Maybe one day I will tell the tale of when I took a long walk with someone while telling them a tale of when I took a long walk…

Alas, as I don’t have a captive audience at my beck and call, this site will have to do. I suppose I should start with one journey at a time. Let us start from before the beginning…

The Way of Saint James

As mentioned before in a previous post, in February and March 2014 I went on a pilgrimage along the Way of Saint James (The Camino Santiago, Camino for short) in northwest Spain (If you want more information about its origins, you can start here). There are many different paths one can choose from, and I chose two paths. The first was called the Camino San Salvador, and ran between the cities of Leon and Oviedo. The second was called the Primitivo, and linked Oviedo to Santiago de Compostela, the pilgrimage site for the Way of Saint James. In total my journey was over 500km (300mi) long and took three weeks to complete. Quite the long walk indeed!

A map of the most popular Camino route starting in France and ending at Santiago de Compostela.
A map of the most popular route, the French Way. This would not be my way though…

It was my first overseas trip all alone. Beforehand I had travelled and had explored places alone, but they were local affairs and certainly were not as lengthy (both distance and time-wise) as this trip. During these few weeks I saw huge cathedrals, abandoned monasteries, blinding blizzards, snow-clad mountains, sunlit seas, and many other wonders and horrors. I received unexpected boons from complete strangers, as well as many quizzical stares.

I made friends in the middle of nowhere, and celebrated at impromptu parties. There were powerful feelings of ecstasy and terror, as well as pain and elation. I learned about the things my body and mind could and could not endure. And after all that had happened, I look back on it all and realize that those three weeks were some of the greatest in my life.

What drove me to take this long walk?

There isn’t any single reason that compelled me to go. Sometime during my university days I had read about the Camino during one of my many procrastination moments. I have always been curious about many topics, except for what I should be doing at the present moment. While this trait has helped me learn much, it has also left many unfinished projects waiting for my input. Anyways, being in university to study civil engineering, I put aside all thoughts of travel to concentrate on my studies.

Even after I graduated during the Great Recession in 2009, instead of travelling I tried to find a job in my field despite the bleak job opportunities. More than four years would pass before thoughts of the Camino would once again pop up in my mind.

Rows and rows of bland cubicles representing dreary office work.
Looking back, I can’t believe I was looking diligently for the opportunity to work in one of these instead of using my post-graduation freedom to explore the world…

By this time I was working, though in a slightly more humbling position than I expected to be in. During one of my breaks I was nonchalantly surfing the Internet, and somehow I managed to chance upon information about the Camino. Suddenly my heart filled with a burning passion to go on adventure to this strange land. This was in early 2013.

Afterwards I made plans, performed practice walks of ever-increasing lengths (from 10km to 40km), booked vacation time, and bought plane tickets. However, at the last moment my boss would not let me go to Spain in September 2013. Dejected, I asked for the next available three week time slot, which would lead to my pilgrimage in February 2014. In the meantime I practiced winter walking and asked my family for more appropriate winter hiking wear for Christmas.

So there I was in mid-February 2014, all packed and ready to go on a long walk. I felt prepared for anything, but reality would throw many wrenches into my plans even before I began my journey. If you’re reading this, I hope you will continue to join me on my long walk as I recount my tale from start to finish. It will take a while, but I promise to keep the stories coming on a hopefully timely basis.

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Why People Drive Cars, Part 2: The Journey

Happy Canada Day!

First of all, Happy Canada Day! I write this article as fireworks rise and explode over the local park while I enjoy them from my bedroom window.

If you have not been to Canada, maybe you should take a journey there!
Happy 152nd birthday Canada!

It does not matter if you are Canadian or not, or if you are in Canada or not, or taking a journey in Canada or not. I am a Canadian living in Canada, so for me July 1st is Canada Day, and I wish you a happy one whether you care or not!

With that out of the way, I warn you not to be fooled. Despite the title of this post I am not trying to explain why people go out and drive cars. If you have even driven a car, or have ever travelled by car, it might be somewhat obvious. Well, besides people who are showing off their Lambourghinis or other expensive cars!

People. Drive. Cars.

I want to explain why I used the phrase “People Drive Cars” as my site’s name. In my previous post I explained how I came up with the phrase, but why exactly did I use it? Well, for starters, it is simple and easy to remember. People. Drive. Cars. Not only are they three common words, but they make sense together.

On a more selfish note, the phrase has not been used for a website before. In fact, typing “peopledrivecars” into Google brings up my website first, though sadly, it does not appear when typing “people drive cars” – at least, not yet.

So the phrase is simple and unique, surely a good way to brand something one might want to sell. However, I used the phrase because of its connotations with people going on journeys. I may not be the most travelled person, nor have I been to the most places, but I am fond of journeys.

What is a Journey?

By journeys, I do not exclusively mean vacations. Of course, many vacations ARE journeys (those that are not are usually referred to as “stay-cations”), and not just because of the obvious travelling aspect. They require planning and some forethought as to where one wants to go and what one wants to do.

So a journey involves a person or people travelling to a particular destination for a particular reason, or set of reasons. Sometimes we may not know our destination or our reasons for undertaking such a journey. Many people reference the journey of life, how life is like a journey, though besides the destination for our bodies being six feet under, no one really knows where we will end up. The same is true for the reasons for our life’s journey. Some say we make one for ourselves, while others say that there is a reason preordained by a higher power (maybe God, maybe the government).

Historically, the word journey came from the French journée, meaning day, which came from the Latin diurnum meaning a daily portion. So the word journey basically means “a day’s travel” and also means “a day’s work” in reference to it’s use in words such as journeyman (a skilled worker who has completed an apprenticeship).

I like this meaning because a journey is a day-by-day account of where we have gone and what we have done. Our long vacations and trips can be described day-by-day. Our lives (if one was willing to listen to the whole story) could be told day-by-day. I think back in my own life to all the trips I went on and places I have travelled to, and see them all as journeys, done day-by-day.

My Journeys

Since I was a child, my family would go to a far-off destination each year, mostly by car. These road trips were taken in a minivan, with my parents in the front seats, myself and my sister in the middle, and my brother in the back. I was in the middle because I was the eldest child. I was responsible for passing food and drinks from the cooler to whoever wanted food or drink. My brother was in the back so he could sleep through the ride. This was a good thing, since he had a sensitive stomach when he was younger and long car rides made him queasy. My sister sat beside me since there was nowhere else for her to sit. My brother would not let her take up his sleeping space.

A 1995 Dodge Caravan. The road trip vehicle of choice for my family.
A 1995 Dodge Caravan. The road trip vehicle of choice for my family.

Family Vacations

I am certain that before I was 18 my family had gone to every interesting place that was an 8 hour road trip away from Toronto. Montreal, Ottawa, Boston, New York City, and Chicago were obvious targets. Niagara Falls, Algonquin Park, Sauble Beach, Muskoka, Sandbanks Park, and the Thousand Islands were other visited attractions.

As my siblings and I grew older we travelled further afield. We went to Baltimore and Washington D.C. by car one summer. After that the next few trips were by plane. For the turn of the century we returned to the Philippines, the land of my birth, many years since we had left it. We went to Disney World (as any kid should) and Universal Studios as well. Another trip to the Philippines was made the year after, though after that there were no more family trips since I was about to enter university and money would have to come from somewhere to pay for that.

Travelling Sans Family

However, just because the family trips stopped did not mean that mine did. In fact, starting in my second year of university I went to Ottawa, Calgary, and Montreal in the dead of winter, learning about the cold, chinooks, frozen rivers, mountains, and drunken all-night parties. I was with fairly trustworthy people in a fairly trustworthy organization, so my parents mostly approved.

My journeys did not stop after university; in fact, they were further afield. A couple of years after university I went to Japan for martial arts, the first of many trips for that reason. In fact, the year after I went back again with a few of my friends, but this time for fun. This was also about the time when I started taking my own photos of the places I had seen.

Kofukuji Five Storied Pagoda in Nara, Japan.
Kofukuji Five Storied Pagoda in Nara, Japan.

The Whole Gang Again

About this time my youngest sibling finished university, so it was time for family vacations again. There was quite a bit of sightseeing to do on the West Coast of Canada and the United States, so we went to Vancouver, Seattle, San Francisco, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, and San Diego (not all in one trip of course). And just because these places were far from home did not mean we did not drive. Using rental cars we saw Vancouver Island, the Mojave Desert, Yosemite Park, and the Grand Canyon.

I also did a couple of vacations with my brother, and those were quite fun. In two tours of two weeks each (not in the same year) we completely finished seeing Croatia and Ireland, with little snippets of Italy, Bosnia, and Northern Ireland as well.

Dubrovnik, Croatia and King's Landing.
King’s Landing, Westeros? Or Dubrovnik, Croatia?

And remember when I said that I went on trips because of martial arts and that one was only my first? Well, I went to a few other places for the same reason, including Japan (again), Chile, Peru, and Maine. Of course I went to Machu Picchu, and I also took a detour to Easter Island.

Just Me This Time

If you are still with me, you must think that I like to boast about my travels. This is hardly boasting. This has just been a list. You see, I did not mention my two most memorable trips. They are worthy to be called journeys. They are the ones people hear about with shock and awe and bewilderment. People call me crazy or weird or insane for having gone alone in the first place. However, it was not where I went but what I did that made them the journeys that they are.

In the winters of 2014 and 2019 I made pilgrimages in Spain and in Italy, respectively. In Spain I walked from the city of León, through the Cantabrian Mountains, to Oviedo. Then my real journey began, walking along the hills of northern Spain to the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela where the remains of St. James were buried. In Italy I walked from the town of Piacenza, outside of Milan, southward across the Apennine Mountains and the hills of Tuscany to the Eternal City – Rome. Both of these were journeys of more than 500km and took three weeks to complete.

The Camino de San Salvador through the Cantabrian Mountains.
The second day of my journey from León to Oviedo across the Cantabrian Mountains.

And My Point Is…

Both of these journeys had many days’ worth of stories to tell. They were the primary motivators for my starting a blog about journeys in general. The ordeals that I went through each day are stories in their own right, and someday I may set my affairs in order to document them. When I thought about those journeys I realized that many other walks in my life had been journeys as well. The 15 minute walk from my home to the local library? Yup, it was a journey (for a nine year old me). A walk in the park? Yes, also a journey (I found two new pets that day). What made them special journeys? I will tell you why, little by little, when I tell these stories.

So my point (and the point of this whole blog) is that we are all living our own lives, and going on our own journeys. We may think that they do not mean much, but when examined closely, could tell us much about ourselves and about the world around us. I will try to tell my story through my stories, hopefully sooner rather than later. I will also try to post some of my pictures online, for they sometimes tell stories better than words can.

Until the next post, take care.

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Another Post, Finally!

Italian cars on an Italian train en route to an Italian city.
Cars on a journey, but no people to drive them!

It has been a long while since I posted on this blog. Too long. And I can hardly call this a blog when it has only one post from 10 months ago and the site itself is incomplete. I have plenty of reasons for the delay, though the vast majority of them are simply excuses, nothing more. Still, perhaps going through the mindset of a serial procrastinator may shed some insight into the human condition, though I doubt it will illuminate anything not already known to you and to me.

Motivation

I did not have strong motivations for starting this blog. All I had was stories in my head and a succinct, easy-to-remember URL (peopledrivecars.com). I thought to myself, “I’d better use this phrase before someone else does.” This was back in February 2018. As of now, after a search for “peopledrivecars” (no spaces) this site is the 22nd search result on Google and the 1st search result on DuckDuckGo and Yahoo (excluding ads). My fears were unfounded, but on the other hand I did not seen any results from my investment and my efforts (as if either of those were substantial in the first place).

Despite the name of the site and the topic of my first post, I am not very interested in cars. Where I came up with the phrase “People drive cars” (emphasis on People) will be the topic of a whole other post. For now, it should suffice for me to say that if I have any sort of attachment to cars it is because of what they do for us, namely, to get people from one place to another.

Intention

Though I was not strongly motivated to use my blog, I did have a definite intention. I wanted to write about my personal experiences, specifically about travelling and journeys. Not quite a travel blog; more like describing the act of going on a journey, or surmounting obstacles, or the experience of exploration. Mind you, I am not some sort of professional explorer or traveller. My jobs (when I am working) usually have me in an office somewhere. Sometimes I do have to travel to an office in another city, but most of the time the travel is run-of-the-mill and there is nothing to report.

Though my intentions were there, I had poor motivation and strong procrastination skills. Let’s see why else it took me so long to write again. After my first post, I got lazy. Then I was laid off, which gave me a valid excuse to be lazy. After that I was just procrastinating. I did go on a two week trip to Peru in September, and yes, I did go up to Machu Picchu, but that’s a story for another time. I came back and got lazy again. December came, and the Christmas season gave me yet another excuse to be lazy. In February I did go to Italy and walked 700km in 19 days, but now I’m back. And I have finally posted something here.

What is coming up?

So if my intentions are to write about my journeys, what will my actions be concerning this blog? Firstly, my next few posts will shift the focus of the site from the item in its name, peopledrivecars, to my more general interest in journeys. In the next week or so I hope to explain:

  • Where I came up with the phrase, “People drive cars”;
  • Why I thought it was appropriate as the name of a blog about journeys; and
  • What I think a journey is, exactly.

Hopefully this time my motivations will be strong enough to complete a few posts within the next week instead of within the next year.