“If I survive shipwreck, I promise you I will become a pilgrim throughout the world”. That was the vow made to the Virgin by José Antonio García, Spanish survivor of a shipwreck in the waters off Norway a few years ago, in which 16 seamen died. García has kept his promise and has walked some 60,000 km visiting sanctuaries and holy places throughout the world. “In the nine hours I spent alone with the corpses of two of my companions he reminisced I made a vow to Our Lady of the Carmine, our patron, to walk round the world, if I remained alive”. At the end of the last week, García, after travelling on foot no less than 60,000 km, arrived in Santiago de Compostela. The next stage of his pilgrimage will be Puerto di Santa María (Cádiz), for which he has already set out and where he is due to arrive in a few days’ time. In the course of his pilgrimage, during which he met the Pope and the Dalai Lama, García’s daughter made him a grandfather. His pilgrimage began on 27 September 1998. It has taken him to many cities, including Rome, Jerusalem and Lourdes, far-flung regions such as Tibet and countries such as Iraq. “The most emotional moment he said was getting to know the Dalai Lama: “The peace that reigns there I’ve never found again”. “The pilgrimage helped to me to know myself: if you understand yourself, you understand the whole world!”, a philosophy he proposes to put into writing in a book of his memoirs. Before that, however, he will visit the sanctuary of Fatima, in Portugal, and from there the sanctuary of El Rocío, in Andalucía, his homeland. “I’ll never go back to sea, but I’ll never stop walking”.
