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Author of three books set in Africa: Safari Jema, My Life with Ndoto, and The Dancing Bridge of Kamunjoma. I write about travel and adventure from my home in California and from Africa. I've sailed a catamaran from California to Hawaii, trekked in the Himalayas, worked as a construction manager on a bridge project in Zambia, hiked 500 miles of the Camino de Santiago, cruised 6000 miles on The Great Loop, and traveled to more than100 countries and all seven continents. Indie Book Award Winner for Best Memoir of 2012, New York Book Festival Honorable Mention for Non-Fiction, San Francisco Book Festival Honorable Mention for Non-Fiction, Travelers Tales Solas Award for Best Travel Writing Honorable Mention for My Gambian Husband. Indie Book Award Finalist - Best Travel Book 2013. BOTYA Honorable Mention 2013 - Travel Essay. 2022 Indie Book Award Finalist for Dancing Bridge. Member of The Explorers Club since 2013 Thanks for reading!

Friday, April 30, 2010

The Handkerchief - On the Camino de Santiago


Two hundred and forty kilometers into our walk of The Camino, Scott came across a mauve handkerchief on the trail. It was a wet day on a muddy track, but the handkerchief wasn’t soiled, so we assumed the two girls from Prague walking 50 meters ahead of us must have dropped it. Scott looped it around his backpack belt and we increased our pace to catch up to the girls.
“Did you drop this?” Scott asked. One of the girls laughed. “I didn’t realize I dropped it. But you must keep it now! You see, I found this scarf on the trail five days ago and, as you did just now, I picked it up and assumed the Italian guy hiking ahead of me had dropped it. He said it was not his, but that he found it on the trail two days ago and had unsuccessfully tried to find the rightful owner. Someone said they had seen it on a Brazilian man. I have been looking for a Brazilian man ever since. Anyway, you must keep the scarf now.”

So Scott is the fourth person on The Camino (that we know of) to come across the Brazilian-Italian-Czechoslovakian handkerchief . He has it looped around his trekking pole strap and will carry it to Santiago - if he doesn’t drop it on the trail first.

Scott and Tris
On the Camino to Santiago, Spain


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