The Camino experience (2)

As one of the three most important pilgrimage sites of the Catholic world, the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, where the purported remains of St. James the Apostle are buried, is visited by millions of pilgrims every year. Many arrive in Compostela by plane, by train, or by bus. What is called the Camino de Santiago expressly refers to the path taken by those who choose to walk, travel by horseback, or ride a bicycle to Compostela.

If the sole objective is to get to Santiago de Compostela, doing it on foot is clearly not the most practical way. But if the main point of the journey is to retrace the ancient pathways that countless pilgrims have trodden since the 10th century, then there is no other way except by walking. Every step of the way, a pilgrim encounters the same question in other forms. Do I take the long way through farms and hamlets or the shorter way alongside fast-moving highways? Do I follow the path suggested by the Camino map, or do I turn to Google Maps for smarter directions?

“No more highways for me,” I told my companions on the second day of our walk, and they agreed. This meant that henceforth, whenever there was a choice, we would always follow the longer interior route through villages and vineyards, farms, and forest walkways, instead of the motorways. I would be lying if I said I was completely confident that, at 78, I still had the stamina and patience to go through the Camino. Having trained for six months prior to the trip, I knew I could do 20-25 kilometers in a day at a leisurely pace. What worried me was doing that for 10 straight days, across rolling hills and sometimes slippery terrain, without the restorative benefits of a full seven-hour restful sleep the night before.There was one segment where we had to do 32 km in one day to make up for the previous day’s shortened trek of 17 km which entailed an elevation gain of 700 meters. We took more breaks to avoid cramps and conserve energy, assured that daylight was available until 10 p.m. That segment—from Palas de Rei to Arzúa—took us 11 hours.

I drew strength from knowing that I was with three younger companions—my daughters Kara and Jika, and Jika’s husband Brice, who had done the Camino before. Each time any of us fell behind, the others would instinctively slow down. At crucial corners where one could easily miss the signs and take the wrong turn, we waited for each other.We made prior bookings at all the pensions and hotels where we would stay every night. While this assured us of accommodations, it also meant that we had to commit ourselves to completing the day’s walk and reaching our pension before nightfall. Instead of carrying all our clothes and necessities in a single backpack, as many younger pilgrims still do, we had our suitcases transferred every morning by the Spanish correo to the next pension or hotel. My daughters made a list of eating places along the way and around our hotels, where we could have our biggest meal for the day. “Camino y comida,” signifying sacrifice and reward, became our favorite toast as we capped each day with a plate of cheese and a bottle of wine.

It dawned on us after the second day that the only way to ward off the onset of fatigue and the weakening of will was to stop calculating how much more walking we had to do to get to our next hotel—or to Santiago de Compostela. The temptation to call a taxi and have oneself ferried directly to the hotel was always there. I kept reminding myself that something in the Camino trail itself called for one’s total attentiveness. I realized that once I took this on faith, I effectively opened myself to the willful surprises of a magical experience.The moment I shed off my audio device, and stopped checking my watch and mobile phone, I instantly became aware of the relay of chirping sounds created by unseen flocks of small birds seemingly moving from tree to tree. They would fall silent each time I paused to take a closer look at where the birdcalls were coming from. Then as soon as I resumed walking, they would pick up their tune once again as though to prod me to keep walking.

Wildflowers of varied colors and sizes lined up our path. In many segments of the Camino, the soothing murmur of shallow streams underlined the pervasive silence of the woods; and the earthy odor of cow manure and rotting hay blended with the fresh scent of the pine forest. Going through some medieval villages felt like intruding into a mise-en-scène featuring the passage of pilgrims and traders, kings and warrior-saints, knights templars, and the ever-present Mary Magdalene. Throughout the Camino Francés, chapels, churches, monasteries, and ancient clinics, dotted the landscape, attesting to a centuries-old institutional support for pilgrims. We spotted tiny crosses and makeshift markers indicating the passing of pilgrims who had fallen along the way.

As one nears Compostela, the network of pathways that make up the Camino de Santiago begins to converge. One meets other pilgrims who had taken other routes—the Camino Portugués, the Camino del Norte, the Camino Primitivo, the Camino Olvidado, or the Camino Ingles, among others. “Buen Camino!” we greet one another in a timeless gesture of universal camaraderie.

The Spanish poet Antonio Machado captured the essence of the Camino as a metaphor for life in a famous poem: “Caminante, no hay camino/ se hace camino al andar.” Traveler, there is no road. You make your own way as you walk.

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