One of our great regrets for this trip is that we didn’t get to Calcutta to volunteer with Mother Theresa’s Sisters of Charity before she died. Calcutta was just too far and we were penniless and tired when we reached that juncture.

But we did manage to visit the medieval walled village of Avila, Spain, the home of St. Theresa of Avila and the Spanish Inquisition, and the highest city in Spain. Its walls and parapets, myriad churches and chapels and nesting storks were a stark contrast to what we would have found in India.

It was here in this city on the high plains of Castile that the infamous Grand Inquisitor, Tomas de Torquemada at an "auto de fe" (literally, "act of faith") had burned at the stake over 2,000 heretics around the same time Columbus was "discovering" the Americas.

Surrounding the ancient city of Avila are over two miles of high stone walls. At the tops of the spires of this church large storks were nesting.