I'm Off Then

Hape Kerkeling the German Bill Bryson finds God--in forgiveness, in silence, and in love--on his pilgrimage along the famous Camino de Santiago.

An account by a popular German comedian and writer describes his unlikely candidacy for the physically arduous spiritual pilgrimage across the French Alps to the Spanish Shrine of St. James, the loneliness that prompted his quest for meaning, and the deep sense of peace and positive transformation he experienced during his journey. Original.

Auteur

Hape Kerkeling

Texte du rabat
Hape Kerkeling, the German Bill Bryson, finds God--in forgiveness, in silence, and in love--on his pilgrimage along the famous Camino de Santiago.

Résumé
From one of Germany’s most beloved celebrities, a cross between Bill Bryson and Paulo Coelho.
    It has sold over 3 million copies and been translated into eleven different languages. Pilgrims have increased along the Camino by 20 percent since the book was published. Hape Kerkeling’s spiritual epiphany has struck a nerve
    Overweight, overworked, and physically unfit, Kerkeling was an unlikely candidate to make the arduous pilgrimage across the French Alps to the Spanish Shrine of St. James, a 1,200-year-old journey undertaken by nearly 100,000 people every year. But that didn’t stop him from getting off the couch and walking. Along the way, he began the journal that turned into this utterly frank, engaging book. Simply by struggling with his physical limitations and the rigors of long-distance walking, he discovered a deep sense of peace that transformed his life and allowed him to forgive himself, and others, more readily. He learned something every day, and he took to finishing each entry with his daily lessons.
    Filled with quirky fellow pilgrims, historic landscapes, and Kerkeling’s self-deprecating sense of humour, I’m Off Then is an inspiring travelogue, a publishing phenomenon, and a spiritual journey unlike any other.

Échantillon de lecture
I'm Off Then

June 9, 2001 Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port

I'm off then!" I didn't tell my friends much more than that before I started out-just that I was going to hike through Spain. My friend Isabel had only this to say: "Have you lost your mind?"

I'd decided to go on a pilgrimage.

My grandma Bertha always knew something like this would happen: "If we don't watch out, our Hans Peter is going to fly the coop someday!"

I guess that's why she always fed me so well.

I could be lying on my favorite red couch right now, comfortably sipping a hot chocolate and savoring a luscious piece of cheesecake, but instead I'm shivering in some café at the foot of the Pyrenees in a tiny medieval town called Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port. An enchanting postcard idyll, minus the sun.

Unable to make a complete break with civilization, I sit down right by the main road. Although I've never even heard of this place before, there seems to be an unbelievable amount of traffic whizzing down the road.

On the rickety bistro table lies my nearly blank diary, which seems to have as hearty an appetite as I. I've never felt the need to capture my life in words before-but since this morning I've had the urge to record every detail of my unfolding adventure in my little orange notebook.

So here begins my pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela.

The journey will take me along the Camino Francés, one of the official European Cultural Routes. I'll be trekking over the Pyrenees, across the Basque country, the Navarre and Rioja regions, Castile and León, and Galicia, and after about five hundred miles I will stand right in front of the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela. According to legend, this is the location of the grave of Saint James, the great missionary for the Iberian people.

Just thinking about the long trek makes me want to take a long nap.

And here's the amazing part: I'll hike it! The entire length. I will hike. I have to read that again to believe it. I won't be alone, of course: I'll be toting my twenty-four-and-a-quarter-pound, fire-engine red backpack. That way, if I keel over along the route-and there is a real chance of that happening-at least they can see me from the sky.

At home I don't even take the stairs to the second floor, yet sstarting tomorrow I'll have to cover between 12 and 18 miles a day to reach my destination in about 35 days. The couch potato takes to the road! It's a good thing none of my friends knows exactly what I'm up to. If I have to call the whole thing off by tomorrow afternoon it won't be too embarrassing.

This morning I took my first wary peek at the start of the official Camino de Santiago. Uphill from the city gate, on the other side of the turrets and walls of Saint-Jean, is the entrance to the Spanish Pyrenees, and the first segment of the Camino Francés is marked by a steep cobblestone path.

My route begins in Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port.

I see a gentleman of around seventy who has difficulty walking, yet is evidently quite determined to undertake this pilgrim's marathon. I watch him in disbelief for a good five minutes until he slowly disappears into the morning fog.

My guidebook-I chose a wafer-thin one, since I'll have to lug it with me over the snowcapped peaks of the Pyrenees-says that for centuries, people have undertaken the journey to Saint James when they have no other way of going on with their lives-figuratively or literally.

Since I have just dealt with sudden hearing loss and surgery to remove my gallbladder-two ailments that I think are perfectly suited to a comedian-it's high time for me to readjust my own thinking. It's time for a pilgrimage.

I paid the p