Lost and Never Hoping to Get Found

In 2013, for the first time in my life I traveled all by myself to a tiny village in France close to the boarder to Spain, named Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port. My goal for the following 4 weeks: to walk 800 kilometer to a city in the west of Spain called Santiago de Compostela, and find myself on the way. Or at least have a nice, long chat with myself about what me and myself actually expect from life and in which direction we would have to go in order to become a happy person. The Camino de Santigo by now has become a form of therapy to a great deal of people from all over the world. Two years ago, it was my time to go after my everday life in Munich started to feel like a shoe that doesn't fit anymore. Looking back at this time, it is very hary hard to pick only one place to describe since the whole hike was an incredible experience. But I remember that after having walked more than 500 kilometer, I reached the Cruz de Ferro, a curiosity between the Spanish villages Foncebadón and Manjarín, the highest point of the Camino and an important stop that every pilgrim will pass on the way. While I had to overcome a lot of ugly highway-views to get there, its actual situation is quiet wonderful, surrounded by dark-green woods and next to a tiny stone-chapel. It was an on-and-off raining day in October. The Cruz de Ferro itself might not look special at the first glance since it is only a very long wooden pillar that ends in a small iron cross, standing on top of a huge pile of stones. But the second glance reveals its beauty. When I observed the stones, I saw that they were not just randomly lying there but that every single stone was a hope, a dream, a memory, left behind by the pilgrams of many decades. The stones were covered in writings and quotes. Many pilgrims had left photographs of loved ones or other items to either remember something or to get over it. I too, left a stone at this place with a quote important to me, together with my last ration of antidepressants. To me, this cross meant to confront my fears and to leave them behind at this place, where so many before me had done the same. I placed it close to the cross, between a violet crystal and a letter somebody had left, and climbed to the top, realizing that this place was of such wonderful power due to its meaning to so many people. It was a kind of beauty, a kind of magic that happens in people's minds and for me, this is the most interesting one since it lives inside and it is available anytime.