tourist and pilgrim

I am reading a book on pilgrimage – one of the quotes is that pilgrimages are 90% tourist and 10% spiritual.  We took part of the 90% tourist on Easter Sunday and joined in on the Pascua festival in Padron.  It is quite a jolting experience after spending many days in relative quiet of woods, small towns, suburbs, and rural settings to take part in what we would describe as the state or county fair.  It was a nice break and luckily a day with a short walk – so we could sleep in, back track via cab (we learned our lesson the first day), enjoy the fair, check out the church where the boat of St. James supposedly arrived, and continue our hike.  We enjoyed some churros (plain and con chocolat) and helado (ice cream). 

The Road to Emmaus, Pilgrimage as a Way of Life (Jim Forest)

Actual quote with more, page xvi-xvii "Most of us our a mixture of tourist and pilgrim.  In the spring of 1941 not many months before he became a monk, Thomas Merton went on pilgrimage to southeastern Cuba with the goal of visiting Cobre, a shrine to the Virgin Mary, but he spent days in Havana as well.  He looked back on his visit as 'ninety percent tourism, ten percent pilgrimage.' Perhaps this is as much pilgrimage as most of us can stand.  We are like Chaucer's travelers to Canterbury, spending more time with mugs of beer in our hands than rosaries.  But even the ten percent pilgrim is no small achievement.  According to Saint Paul, being a pilgrim is a calling of every Christian.  We become strangers and pilgrims the moment we realize we are seeking the kingdom of God."