Dear Caminoheads,

How cool is it that our friends identify us so much as pilgrims, that when they find a reference to the Camino, they have to “officially” report to us? This happened to me on Friday.

Luis is one of my Brazilian work colleagues who became a dear friend of mine, after we shared some work together back from 2011 to 2014. In fact, I believe we were meant to get to know each other: you see, in 2004 my then boyfriend and I went to get some training in Sao Paulo, Brazil. My training was in the same hospital and at the same time where Luis was completing his training as an hemato-oncologist. Seven years later, both working away from hospitals, we met again doing research; this time to become great friends. Luis is also an amazing artist: he writes, he paints, he cooks, you name it. And he probably qualifies to be one of the most curious and knowledgeable persons in the world -along with Kevan, our reliable Caminoheads from England-. I call Luis “Dr. Wikipedia”.

Luis called on Friday to share that he took a few days off work the week before and traveled to a “Fazenda de Cafe” (a coffee farm) that is a hotel these days, and during the weekend, as we, pilgrims Caminoheads were celebrating at the ranch, he went for a walk in the nearby village called “Rio das Pedras” (River of rocks) and found the shell of Santiago and a sign indicating the Camino passed through it and he couldn’t help but thinking about us (yes, he said he thought of us all). Luis promised a picture, but has not yet arrived, nevertheless, I went to look it up and the Camino is called “Camino dos Diamantes” (Diamonds Camino?) and it seems it is a recognized Camino too.

I just found this neat… I know there are many Caminos everywhere, but the synchronicity really makes me feel this all is special… Luis and I often talk about that our friendship was meant to me, and 10 years later, we keep getting signals!

Buen Camino!

Cris