A warm, yellow light falls on the treetops of Cerro del Obispo, in the municipality of Ameca, which welcomes those who start from its slopes the pilgrimage route, a 117-kilometer journey that crosses valleys, rivers, hillsides and downhill paths until you he reach the shrine of the Virgen del Rosario in the municipality of Talpa de Allende, a small town in the Sierra Occidental region in the state of Jalisco, Mexico. The hikers prepare their backpacks with the basics and especially the burrita, a vine root that will serve as a walking stick and will be the inseparable companion in the following days, after the starting flag, during the three-day journey through impressive landscapes.
Some make it in two days, others in four, it all depends on age and physical condition. Everyone is different on the road, there are 75-year-olds who walk slowly and young people who are in a hurry, horns on their shoulders, the popular song sounds loud: Bad Bunny sounds, but also Juan Gabriel. The common element of the pilgrims is the belief, everyone thanks or asks to save something, an illness, a job, exams: “I couldn’t come for two years and I had to go back,” says Luis Vargas, a man from Zapopan who has been since goes to the sanctuary for several years. He asks for nothing, he prayed years ago for a family tragedy that he does not want to remember, he has already forgotten, but he has faith, the need to return year after year to “suffer along the way”.
A seven-year-old boy complains to his mother because they are about to start climbing the Espinazo del Diablo, the highest point of the route, the roughest section where people have to help themselves with ropes to climb. The line of pilgrims is crowded, the first-time visitors can’t believe the path continues there, the more experienced laugh and reassure that there haven’t been that many people in a long time. Voices mix, there is nervous laughter, some suggesting they won’t be able to. “If we fall, we don’t go any further,” agree others. More than 23 hours of the route have already been completed and it is this climb that tests the belief that one could say that the sun is the great enemy, but no. The line waiting to be climbed does not diminish at sunset or dawn, all day and all night pilgrims move on.
History agrees that this tradition began 200 years ago when the Tarascan Indians brought the first carved wood image of the Virgin. There the reputation spread that it was wonderful, for this reason they began to come from all the surrounding towns and the peculiar pilgrimage continued to this day.
The road is accompanied by legends of ghosts, ghosts, miracles and other inexplicable anecdotes. It is not for nothing that the land of Juan Rulfo is explored and the stories soothe tiredness and make the pilgrimage more bearable.
On the morning of the third day, Don Gabriel enters the town of Talpa de Allende, tired, walking with pain in his legs, his knees bend a little. On the one hand, his partner seems more settled, they’ve been following the route for years, they don’t give up, they’re among the experienced and maybe that’s why they proclaim the sentence that they have printed on their shirts: “Pain is temporary, but the experience lasts.” forever”
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