When I returned to the Camino de Santiago in the month of June, I did not know which piece of work I would develop; I took small canvases, a roll and pastel pigment paints. The places where the works were to be “planted” were more or less decided upon. I had very few days to develop the paintings, for I arrived on the 14th of June and had to return on the 21st.

I reached Veloria de Rioja on the 14th of June to meet Acácio, and we went to Carrión de los Condes. I had thought of preparing something for the next day, but the inspiration did not come.

14th of June

I arranged with Acácio that we would place some works in the middle of the Camino, so we stopped here, a place that many pilgrims normally skip because they find the spot uninteresting. It is a plateau that turns into a desert in the summer. When I did my pilgrimage in the summer of 1990, I found it all extraordinarily beautiful.

What I came across now was an immense garden filled with lovely flowers with strong colors, like yellow and red poppies. I decided to do a whole piece with these flowers.

Right at that moment it was as if everything else around me was out of focus and my energy was concentrated solely on my work. I produced ten pictures and left them buried in the middle of the Camino (among them a picture of a mouth that I took to the Amazon in 2004 and which an Indian girl had altered).

I felt that connecting the Brazilian Amazon with the Camino de Santiago would make a splendid fusion.