I completed both the Camino de Santiago and the Camino Portugues in my first year out of high school. People come from all around the world to walk The Way of Saint James for a range of deeply meaningful and important reasons. Mine was that the European tour bus company I wanted to sign up with wouldn’t let me on because I was under eighteen. So I swapped a tour of European party towns for a catholic pilgrimage – a natural progression if there ever was one.
I left from Perth, Western Australia telling my family that I might, “just catch a bus if I got tired.” How little I understood. I remember a conversation I had with another pilgrim, midway through the walk, about the fact that a broken leg wouldn’t have stopped us from getting our compostellas.
Arriving in St Jean Peid de Port I found myself, a seventeen year old Australian girl, clad in jeans and converse sneakers, with no travel experience or map, surrounded by “serious pilgrims” with their guide books, hiking boots and walking sticks.
Over the next fifty-two days I walked 1000 kilometres, forged some of the closest friendships I suspect I’ll ever have, and learnt so much about myself, other people, endurance, faith and life. Truthfully, I still find it very difficult to explain exactly what the Camino means to me. It would not be an overstatement to say that it made me the person I am today. This is my account of a day on El Camino de Santiago.
Get woken up by early risers packing their backpacks. Wonder exactly what they plan to see walking in the dark. Roll over for thirty minutes more sleep. Yep, definitely awake now. Pull yourself out of bed and see who is sleeping in, who is leaving and who has already left. Whisper conversation and giggle in-jokes. Walk around the albergue that yesterday was totally unfamiliar, now feels like home, and soon will be just another stamp on your pilgrim’s passport. Sit outside and check you have everything. Dress your blisters with their little bits of cotton hanging out to drain them. Fill up your water bottles. Pull on your old faithful walking shoes and heave on your backpack. Walk a few kilometres out of the town with its brightly shuttered houses and dusty “roads”. Watch the break of dawn spill yellow light everywhere and be, once again, shocked at how beautiful it is. Stop for breakfast at the next town you come to. Take off your backpack and leave it resting against a stone wall – face down so the sweat can dry off it. It’s an extension of you now, your twelve kilo home accompanying you across the north of Spain. You feel fiercely protective of it. Use broken Spanish to order a slice of tortilla patatas and a coffee. Make conversation with a few other pilgrims – some you know by sight, some you’ve never seen before, a few are like family now. Talk about what you’ve heard of upcoming towns, what the albergue the previous night was like, where you each plan on stopping tonight, where is rumoured to have bed bugs. Swap maps and advice. Walk. Feel the sun intensifying. Think. Spend a few hours on the Navarrete alone. Feel the vastness of it shrink you. Realise if you were to run out of water, you’d probably die; you’re completely at the mercy of this place. Follow the yellow arrows – you don’t even have to think about it anymore. Pass a few pilgrims – recognise their shells, smile, “Buen Camino”. Walk alone for a bit longer. See the dot of another pilgrim on the horizon, and fall into step with them once you reach them. Talk about home towns, why you’re on the Camino, family, love and philosophy. Part ways when they stop at the next town and realise you never even swapped names. Feel the sun. Get lost in your thoughts again. Walk. Walk through towns. Painted yellow arrows under ceramic tile street signs. Ask locals where you are and where the town you plan on stopping in is. Laugh with people and be humbled by their kindness and patience. Walk. Walk harder. Think you’ve hit your breaking point. Walk through it – what else are you going to do? Meet up with one of your closest friends on the Camino. Chat. Calculate how many kilometres you’ve done. Anything under 25 isn’t enough. Anything over 35 is pushing it. Walk together into your town for the night. Find the albergue. Public or private? Church run? Communal showers? Communal meal? Kitchen? Laundry facilities? Donativo? Lock-out time? Get your passport stamped, pay, claim a bed and go for a shower. Wash the red dirt from your skin and out of your hair. Soak your aching muscles. Catch your reflection in the mirror and wonder when the changes happened – the tan and the leg muscles that seem to have appeared all of a sudden. Do some washing and dress in your only non-walking clothes. Meet other pilgrims staying in the albergue- “Where are you from?”, “Where did you start walking?”, “How are your feet?” Explore. Wander the town. Catch yourself looking for yellow arrows to follow – grin. One store, one bar, one albergue. And a church. Of course a church. See some local kids playing soccer. Watch them showing off and listen as they practice their English on you. Wonder what life is like here. Find your friends and go to the general store together. Buy rice, peppers, chickpeas, chorizo, and a bottle of cheap wine. Split the cost. Cook and drink together. Be joined by a few interesting people you’ve met that day. Talk and laugh in English with your various accents. Talk about home – it feels like another world. Swap stories – people you’ve met on the way, a wrong turn that lead to half an hour in the wrong direction, a strange albergue owner, a fiesta you stumbled upon while wandering. Get a massage from one of your closest fellow pilgrims. Talk about what you’ve been thinking about that day, talk about what you’re learning, talk about how you’re going to change your life when you get home, talk about things you’ve never talked about with anyone. These are the only people who really understand. Stay up all together drinking for a while. Go to bed in the dorm. Listen to the snoring. Smile. Sleep.
