Penngrove-based social worker, teacher, podcaster, award-winning author and dear friend, Suzanne Maggio is newly returned from her second intrepid Camino walk in Spain. She's an absolute trooper, walking solo (though building her Camino Family along the way), carrying her own pack and opting for the authentic dorm-like sleeping arrangements.
Suzanne is in her 60s and there's no stopping her. She's all kinds of inspiring. Her feet have had a little rest and she's reading and speaking at Petaluma's VIBE Gallery in the heart of town, this Thursday, June 30th, 2022 from 5.30 to 7.
If you've walked the Camino or other long trail, would like to one day, or simply think you'd enjoy the armchair travel via Suzanne's experience, come on down to VIBE Gallery at 1 Petaluma Boulevard North (where the old camera shop used to be).
When I asked Suzanne to write a brief paragraph to share with my Southern Sonoma Country Life Readers, to give you an idea of what she's been up to this past month, she quickly penned this for us:
"I checked into the Hospedería Oviedo, the albergue I’d booked back in April when I first made the decision to walk the Camino Primitivo. “Suzanne?” the hospitelera said when I walked in. She smiled warmly as I handed her my passport and she stamped my pilgrim passport, my credencial, for the first time. I wondered how it was that she knew my name.
She showed me to a room right off the main entryway, a small rectangular room filled with 4 bunk beds, eight bunks in all. She pointed me to an unassigned lower bunk and I breathed a sigh of relief. I’d learned on my first Camino that I’m not a top bunk kind of gal. The room was empty of pilgrims but evidence of my bunkmates was everywhere. The bunks were full of Camino gear, bedsheets and power cords. Backpacks lined the floor.
I spent the afternoon wandering through the beautiful cathedral and sampling empanadas from the street fair that filled the main square. I sat down at a café table and nursed a glass of vino blanco. I was anxious. Nervous even. Tomorrow I would begin walking.
When I returned to my room at the albergue my bunkmates were all in bed. In the hours since I’d checked in the room had filled and I understood why the hospitalero had known my name when I first walked in. I was the only woman in the room.
And so began my second Camino, the 320 Kilometer Camino Primitivo through the mountains of Asturias and Galicia to the town of Santiago de Compostella."
Come join Suzanne this Thursday, June 30, 2022 @ 5:30 p.m. at Vibe Gallery, Petaluma to hear more about this fresh, new journey as well as her first one, The Camino Frances, the 800 Kilometer walk that inspired her memoir Estrellas, Moments of Illumination Along El Camino de Santiago.
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