The Uruguayan Association of Friends of the Camino de Santiago (Auacs) organized a new pilgrimage along the coast of the Río de la Plata, thus building a Jacobean route in these lands that serves as preparation for those who travel to the capital of Galicia in the coming years.
Adriana Fernández, president of the Auacs, expressed to Spain Exterior who lived “a year 2024 joining paths”, which they continued even in these two summer months with a new route on the Uruguayan coast.
This last route was “a wonderful stage that unites nature, culture and religion that we experienced last February 8, to continue building the Camino del Este,” said Fernández.
High temperatures, since we are in the middle of summer, “took a toll on us in some cases, but the challenge of moving forward was greater than the setbacks,” pointing out that “when difficulties appear, it is when one of the most important values of the Camino, solidarity, is expressed more than ever.”
He assured that “an institution is its people, it is the work of each one with an eye toward the common good,” reinforcing with these pilgrimages and the development of the new routes that are being generated in Uruguay, “to continue dreaming and building new paths that will unite the Caminos de Santiago, which will finally take us to visit the Apostle in his wonderful Cathedral of Santiago.”
Positive balance
Fernández described 2024 as “very special for the Auacs, since for the second time in its four years of existence, we carried out the Camino de Santiago as an Association, thanks to the volunteer work of two members who are members of the board of directors, Stella Cabo and Marisabel Regueiro, who shouldered the management of accommodations”, so that in the month of September eleven members traveled to complete the Camino Inglés, in an experience that was more than gratifying, on a Camino that travels entirely through the province of A Coruña and which has beautiful stages along the edge of the Ferrol estuary until reaching Betanzos, one of the seven provinces into which Galicia was divided in ancient times.
President Fernández commented that she traveled to Almería in April “with the intention of carrying out the Mozárabe Camino from Almería to Granada, promoted by the Association of the same name with which the Auacs has an important relationship since the XII International Congress of Xacobean Associations, which took place in Madrid in 2021.
In addition to walking the path, Fernández had the opportunity to thank the inclusion of a phrase of his in the book 'Pilgrim Voices. A hymn to the Camino in Femenino' and also seeing a very important aspect of hospitality on the Camino, which is the management of ten donation shelters run by the people of the Association, an experience that he described as “from another world.”
This association has developed local routes in these four years: the first was the '25 km through Montevideo' and then the '15 km through Colonia del Sacramento', the 'Walk between Cairns' with the company Cutcsa (in which for the first time yellow arrows were painted on the streets of Montevideo), the pilgrimage of the cairn to the Cathedral for the Month of Galicia, the walks for the Heritage weekend, a route guided by the secretary of the Auacs, Atali Pereiro and the treasurer Carolina Casalderrey and in which brochures designed by themselves were distributed, and the year-end night walk where three innovative proposals were added.
FOUNTAIN: FOREIGN SPAIN
