#8 Updates from The Camino de Santiago

Just a little pilgrim walking across Spain

Listening to -

Hola from a small village called Hontanas, where I'm typing this blog on my phone from my dormitory bunk bed (the coveted bottom bunk, a-thank ya) at the albergue where I'm staying for the night. It's going to be another not-so-edited one considering my limited resources for blogging, but I just wanted to give a quick update. Tomorrow, as I've done for the past 15 days (minus one rest day in Burgos), I'll get up with everyone else at around 6am, pack my bags, put on my boots, and hike another ~20kms.

I'm on Day 15 of my Camino de Santiago pilgrimage, walking the French route across the entire top of Spain, starting from the French border. So far I've walked around 315kms, setting out in St-Jean-Pied-de-Port, ultimately destined for Santiago de Compostela. The whole pilgrimage is 773kms in total. I may continue on another few days to Finisterre on the coast, because jumping in the ocean after walking across a whole country will feel glorious.

It's been an amazing experience so far, filled with beautiful moments of joy, awe and wonder, and plenty of challenge. They say the first ten days of the hike are physical, the next ten are mental and the rest are spiritual. I'm at the "mental" part, which traverses the Meseta of Spain.

Everyone has their own reason for hiking the Camino, whether it be to grieve the death of a loved one or a relationship breakdown, feeling existentially lost and trying to figure things out in life, or simply because it's been a lifelong dream, or they just love hiking.

I was incredibly nervous the first day setting out, as all the apps and blogs and people I'd spoken with who'd done it before had said that the first day was by far the hardest and extremely physically gruelling - 26kms in total with significant elevation gain through the Pyrenees. There was also meant to be a thunderstorm at 3pm that day, so I had to race make it to Roncesvalles before that. I wondered if I was up for the challenge. It was indeed very difficult, and the day was sunny with bright blue skies but SO windy, but I think because I'd expected worse, I actually found it easier than I'd anticipated. The sunset was especially vibrantly beautiful that morning.

It's been quite the experience seeing what my body and mind are capable of, watching the landscape change as the kilometres tick by, observing the early-morning moonlight, sunrises, wind turbines, hay bales stacked high, sprawling wheat fields, little chapels amongst olive groves, bucolic farmhouses, richly-scented pine and birch forests, vast blue skies with the most incredible cloud formations, and huge stork nests perched on church steeples. At one point there was even a municipal wine fountain. I've walked in beating sun, buffeting wind and drizzling rain. I've listened to music, been lost in thought, chatted to other pilgrims, tended to my inner child, swam in rivers under old stone bridges, eaten tapas, slept in monasteries, sang at pilgrim dinners, laughed ‘til my stomach hurt, cried, struggled and felt ecstatic and calm. A couple of times I've felt an inexplicable lightness of being. I've felt myself become mentally and physically stronger. I've eaten handfuls of luscious blackberries and almonds that I've found growing alongside the trail. After sleeping in the monastery the first night, we woke in the morning to the sound of monks singing over the speaker in the dorm room, utterly delightful and oh so pious! On a boring stretch of the way along a highway, I'd wave at trucks going past and rejoice when they honked a greeting in return. Some of the other pilgrims and I entertained ourselves by playing on a playground in one of the villages. I don't mind when the walk is mundane, it teaches me to be present and appreciate simplicity and to search for the beauty in the banal - the clouds racing across the sky, a beetle walking along the trail, some moss on a rock. I've felt absurd as I've trundled along with all my possessions amounting to the contents of a 7kg backpack - a modern-day pilgrim, sweaty and grimy, walking into big cities and towns such as Pamplona, Logroño, Estella and Burgos, where people are going about their everyday lives. Local people will often sing out "Buen Camino!" - the standard greeting to pilgrims, as we walk past. They're very friendly and welcoming of pilgrims, which is nice. All of this going on while following the blue and yellow seashells that are symbolic of the Camino and mark the route to Santiago.

Although I'm not religious, I've enjoyed the beauty of the churches and cathedrals along the way. I love the iconography and pageantry of Catholicism - so snazzy!! All the gilded murals, the crucifixes, kitschy figurines, stained glass, incredible stone and wood carvings and paintings, and the ancient musty incense smell.

I've fallen into a lovely group of other pilgrims - a few Irish of course, some Americans, Kiwis and Danish, among others - a truly wonderful slice of humanity. I see the same faces come and go along the way, and the comradery has been uplifting. One of the gang, an affable and jolly Irish guy called Bill, has already finished his leg of the journey and gone home, and it felt a bit empty, like something was missing the day after he did. Another, Jen, is a certified yoga instructor, and most days she's been teaching a yoga class in the gardens of our albergues, and I'm grateful to her for sharing her wonderful skills with us. My best Camino friend is Mike, a mischievous, generous and kind-hearted builder from Kerry who makes me double over and roar with laughter with his ridiculous humour and hijinks.

The conversations on the way often centre around people's ailments - blisters, shin splints, tender feet, Compeeds and sore muscles. Everyone always gets their feet out at cafe stops...like, imagine doing that at home! But along the Camino it's very much accepted. I tell ya what, the Camino would be a foot fetishist's dream.

The routine generally goes like this - wake up at 6am and out of the albergue, often setting out into sleepy villages while it's still dark, walk as the sun rises before grabbing coffee and a pastry at a village around 5kms into the day, hike to about 20kms plus, get to a village and check into an albergue by 1pm, quickly grab something to eat before everything closes for siesta at 2pm (or else risk STARVING until the communal pilgrim dinner at around 7pm), shower, nap, then dinner and bed by around 9 or 10pm. Rinse and repeat.

It's lovely just walking each day and seeing where I end up, often not having much of a plan, but knowing that the Camino will provide and take care of me with its abundance. The infrastructure along the French route is very good. Each village has at least a couple of albergues, or pilgrim's hostels, that cater only to pilgrims hiking the Camino. To show you're a pilgrim, there's a pilgrim passport, or credentiale, that must be stamped each day at cafes, restaurants or the albergues. It's very satisfying, kinda like collecting tokens in a video game - the Camino is basically just gamified hiking. Each albergue is different, some are very basic and others quite lovely and quaint, in old farmhouses or attached to churches. The one I'm staying in now has a spa - an unheard-of luxury for a simple pilgrim! You stay in vast dorms, some with 40 beds, with the other pilgrims. There's always snoring and hardly any privacy. At check-in, they give you a packet containing a disposable fitted sheet and pillowcase made of hair net material, the challenge being not to rip it as you put it on the sticky vinyl mattress in your bunk bed. The showers are often lukewarm, and are the ones where you press a button and the stream lasts for ten seconds before you have to press it again, shivering beneath the jet like that of a campsite shower. It's not for the faint of heart! If there's ever an albergue with bunk beds with privacy curtains, or the shower has good water pressure without the need for pressing a button, that's A1 luxury right there, my friend - it's the little things in life!

I started the Camino still somewhat brokenhearted, but I'm definitely feeling a turning point, the hurt being replaced by hope. I was afraid that after the hurt I'd experienced that I'd feel closed off, but I feel my heart opening further with each day. The scarcity of my possessions and the frugal and simple nature of the Camino has taught me that I don't need much to feel content or satisfied - all I really need is food, water, a place to sleep, my own determination and some good people around. That's abundance in itself, and all you really need in life. And maybe a foot massage every now and then.

I hope you're all well. Have a blessed day, and thanks for reading Brain Trinkets 🙏