Walking with Francisco

I wake up from a hard night´s rest on cold concrete at the Pemex. Jorge has seen better days, but he too is awake. I ask if there is toilet paper for the bathroom. He pulls out and hands me a newspaper from the trash. Here, walking seems endless. I move further inland, away from the sea, where days are still very warm. I walk with a hardened agave stalk that keeps time and pace. At 36km (approx. 20 miles) per day, I find rest where I can, an abandoned building, soft grass to the side of the road.

With more water, rivers start to form, and sleeping under bridges become less and less of an option. And too, with more water comes more vegetation, and with more vegetation comes more bugs, and with more bugs come iguanas! What starts as a few at first, becomes an almost a predicable pair under every bridge.

I have adjusted to the constant hum (not quite the word I am looking for) of Mexican truck engines and cars as they pass, one after the other, a steady stream. A honk here, a wave there, occasionally one will stop and ask if I want a ride. I tell them it “es como una Manda” (like a Manda, a Roman Catholic tradition where pilgrims walk to a shrine after they have received a miracle), which they always understand and have great respect.

The rivers swell, but the land is still dry on the plane next to the coast. There is much more vegetation than further north around Hermosillo. Scrubby chapparel, the mysteries of the Sierra Madre to the left, I set goals in the day to make it from one peak to the next. 5km break, 10km break, the next closest distant, mark, one foot in front of the next, small distance compile and grow long.

I walk steady through the night, looking often to the sky where constellations I have come to know well begin to shift their place in the sky. Traffic thins and there are moments where I am truly alone, on a starry night, the silhouettes of mountains to my side. A radio tower beacons and pulses its red flare far off in the distance.

Morning breaks as I walk. I notice a marked change. Mist floats above green irrigated fields of oat and hay. Massive, song bird filled, semi-tropical trees flank their side.

After 3 days and nights walking,I arrive exhausted in Vicam. A short break in a small town, I leave like I came. Crossing under a pedestrian bridge, there are small shops and restaurants to my left. I turn and to my right are two men, walking, with backpacks.

I ask them what they are up to and they tell me they are walking.

“What a coincidence. Where are you walking from, where are you headed?” I ask.

One, jovial, an athletic build, replies in good English, a Mexican accent, that they areFranciscan seminarians, walking from Guaymas to Obregon, to complete the first portion of their seminary education. They tell me that they must walk, not knowing where they will rest. That they will talk with and get to know the local people, to stay with them where they can, and rely on God for sustainance. That St.Francis did the same. They only bring what they can carry, small backpacks with sleeping bags rope-fastened behind.

Our paths now joined, we sight providence, walking together, a new day, just begun…(cont´d)
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