We met Ruud, from Holland by way of Switzerland where he has lived for the last 25 years, halfway to Alvaiazere; we were headed downhill he was coming up, doing the Camino in reverse from Santiago to Lisbon.  Where are you from, etc.… “Ah well,” he said, “sometimes you have to shake the tree.”  Paula immediately replied “Maybe, but not with a chainsaw.”

Ray Dalio, head of Bridgewater Associates, one of the largest Hedge Funds in the world, to whom I listen occasionally to keep track of what the money-rati are thinking, said that there is a once in a life-time breakdown of the monetary, political and geopolitical order in the world.   I agree.  This isn’t some “shaking of the tree.”  It is a taking out, root and branch, of the political, financial, judicial and constitutional system we lived under until Jan 20. 

In the middle of this chaos (the English family at the table next to us last night was screaming “There hasn’t been so much chaos since WW2!”) we are grateful for the tranquil constancy our walking life provides.  The well-groomed olive groves, fruit orchards dripping with oranges and lemons, dry paths, cork oak forests, an unexpectedly good steak lunch at a gas station restaurant and, don’t forget, the Knight Templar standing guard at city hall, all suggest everything is going to be ok.