What We Wish We Knew Before Walking the Camino de Santiago
This isn’t another one of those blog posts that makes you feel like you’ll be the most inadequate pilgrim to ever walk the planet if you forget your hiking poles or stay in a hotel instead of an albergue. I’m here to capture the three things we wish we knew before walking the Camino de Santiago, things that were whispered to us in passing or conclusions that fell upon us as if the heavens had opened and rained clarity at some of our hardest moments.
Taken on Fujifilm X100VI
Now, if we could have soaked up every second of our pilgrimage and let it marinate within our minds, we would have. The sounds of the grapevines rustling in the wind or the crunch of gravel as we walked through trees beaming sifted sunlight through their leaves. There was no corner of the experience that we would leave untouched. From blisters to the snoring in dorm rooms, and the Spanish sun cooking you from the inside out, every aspect of the journey commands a fragment of your memory. I suppose the moral of this expressive rant over the things you will reminisce is to take your time. Soak up every moment, stop to smell the roses, and introduce yourselves to strangers. Simply, take your time to make the most of every second because before you know it, you will be flicking through your journal, desperate to relive the short sentences you jotted down at the end of your long day.
Taken on Fujifilm X100VI
Rain, rain, go away and come back another day, was our mantra for the first three days of walking the Camino de Santiago. When I started the planning process, I envisioned swimming on our lunch breaks and striking tan lines that I would be embarrassed of once I returned, so when the forecast showed me what I thought was my worst nightmare* I was disappointed to say the least! Waterproof trousers were donned, umbrellas were sprung to life, and waterproof pack covers became tortoise shells on our backs. We joined the trail of pilgrims making their way up the Portuguese coast like an army of ants on a foraging expedition, our pheromone trail leading us to Santiago de Compostela. It was in these moments that we reminded ourselves how lucky we were to become waterproof at the drop of a hat, compared to the pilgrims who had walked for centuries before us in open-toed sandals and tunics. It wasn’t until we reached our last few days of walking that we encountered our last true test; as our bodies had grown accustomed to the physical demands of the pilgrimage, we were gifted a heatwave. Oh boy, what we would have done for a sprinkle of precipitation as we crawled to our albergues in the sweltering heat at 10 am. Our learning here was that you aren’t a witch; therefore, you will not melt in the rain.
* It was, in fact, not my worst nightmare; the once glorious sun icon with 26c written next to it transformed into ‘I never want to see the sun ever again’
Taken on Fujifilm X100VI
Sure, you can prepare for an experience like this, but the reality is, you’re very unlikely to walk 20km+ for days in a row in the name of training. We liked to think that our first few days on the trail were a crash course in waking up, putting your shoes on, and walking until you reached your albergue. We quickly knew our bodies were capable, but our minds were letting us down. The constant thoughts of why are we doing this, how much further do we have to walk, and I don’t think I’m going to make it to the end, replayed in our minds like a broken record. The reality was, we were climbing a mental mountain that we finally conquered on day four. We were no longer getting walk fit, but we were getting mind fit and, before we knew it, we weren’t even flinching at the mention of a 27km day. We had proved to ourselves that we were capable of anything. Our saying became, We eat hills for breakfast.
If I could put these lessons in a pill and shove them down my throat before taking my first steps on the Camino de Santiago, I would have. Because the truth is, once you walk your first Camino, it becomes a high you chase for the rest of your life. You have the peaks of delight as you stumble across a quaint Portuguese village lined with cobblestone streets and church bells pining, and you have the troughs of taking step, after step, with a blister pulsating in your $350 shoes that made promises of walking on clouds. But as I sit at my laptop a month after arriving at the base of the Cathedral, a beacon for pilgrims migrating from all over the world, I find myself itching for the euphoria that is walking the Camino de Santiago.