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Buen Camino
Oct. 19th, 2019 10:29 pmSome trails are happy ones,
Others are blue.
It’s time you ride the trail that counts
Here’s a happy one for you.
Happy trails to you,
Until we meet again.
Happy trails to you,
Keep smiling until then.
Who cares about the clouds when we’re together,
Just sing a song and bring the sunny weather.
Happy trails to you,
Until we meet again.
(Happy Trails: Dale Evans – 1952)
You know you are bone-weary tired when you can’t conceive of stopping to rest or sit for fear that you will never be able to get up and start again. The only thing propelling you forward is the hope that the walking will eventually end, and my two friends and I will eventually reach our destination. Our thighs are chapped from rubbing, our knees ache, our legs cry out in pain and weariness, and our feet hurt. No amount of 6-mile training hikes can prepare you for 8½ grueling hours of traipsing up and down Galicia’s hilly terrain in northwest Spain, with its steep upward slopes and its knee-jarring, cascading descents. Gravity is your foe, and your only ally is your walking stick, which you use as a prop to push yourself upward, step by step, on sharp inclines, and as an anchor to brace yourself from pitching forward on radical descents. Your only solace comes from the company of Greg Ryan and John O’Riley, the two friends who joined you on this 115-kilometer pilgrimage – but even they are silent now as we wearily trudge on, step by step, toward Portomarín, our first destination stop, on our first day of walking, on the Camino de Santiago de Compostela. 30 minutes earlier, on a hill outside the Galician hamlet of Mercaidoro we had glimpsed the tantalizing sight of the far-off town and church steeple of Portomarín, but quickly despaired at realizing that it was still over 6 miles away. This was only the first of our seven-day pilgrimage from the Spanish town of Sarria to the Cathedral of St. James in the city of Santiago de Compostela, and we were feeling beat and seemingly defeated…
We officially finished the Camino on Friday, October 11, 2019, standing proudly in line, in front of the Pilgrim’s Office of the Cathedral of Santiago with about 300 other pilgrims at 7 o’clock in the morning. We had actually arrived at the Cathedral on October 10th but were too late to be issued certificates that afternoon. Thankfully, our tour had booked us into a hotel in Santiago for two nights – giving us time to wake up early the next day and get in line to be the 40th pilgrims to have our Pilgrim’s Passports stamped, and to receive official Certificates of Completion. By that time our previous 6 days on the Camino had settled into a regular, comfortable routine:
After the first day, we would each walk at our own pace and speed for about 2-3 hours, meeting at some midway roadside café, bar, or albergue (hostel) where I would find Greg waiting, and then the two of us would wait for John. We always finished the day’s journey together, walking another 2-3 hours to our casa rural (as we did in Portomarín), or calling the casa rural for pickup and transportation to the countryside house where we would spend the night. The casas rurales were the most pleasant surprise of the Camino. Although we began and ended our pilgrimage at two luxurious hotels in Sarria and Santiago, the other four nights were spent in charming countryside houses which accommodated pilgrims for the night (or longer). These casas were always outside the towns and villages which were on the Camino itself (and were our day’s destinations), but whose albergueses provided only limited accommodations. On the other hand, our casas rurales were located in beautiful wooded areas or countryside, and they provided quality hospitality, and a warm and comfortable environment with all the amenities one would ask for – nice rooms, comfortable beds, showers with hot water, and a rustic, family style dinner and breakfast. The three-course meals were delicious and typically rustic, with “caldo” (soup) being a staple. They also had bar facilities where we could self-medicate after the day’s walk. Sometimes our drivers also added thrilling, amusement park-like rides to and from the casas, and they were always happy to answer questions or provide information about the Camino and the Galician countryside. The casas were the perfect refuge to recharge our energies after a day of walking, to assess our progress, and to check the weather for the next day.
One often hears that all pilgrims learn something about themselves after walking the Camino. What did my friends and I learn on our 115-kilometer (71 mile) pilgrimage through Galicia in Spain? Well, let me list some of my thoughts in no particular order:
1) No amount of training, hiking, or walking can prepare you for the Camino. As Greg said after the first day, “The Camino is not about fitness – it’s about perseverance.” We saw and met countless pilgrims on the Camino who were young and old, fit and handicapped, weak and strong. All had one goal, one mission – to reach the Cathedral in Santiago – and they took as much time as they needed. We saw no joggers on the Camino – it was not a race or a competition – it was a walk. Training or exercise will not prepare you for the unexpected. One will have to adapt to cold, heat, and rain, along with the chapped skin, sore muscles, and blisters that catch you by surprise.
2) Unless one is really roughing it along the Camino – carrying all of their belongings in their backpacks and staying at basic hostels and albergueses – you really don’t need to carry too much stuff in your day pack. With a tour group transporting luggage and arranging accommodations along the way, all you really need to do is walk. Cafes, bars, and restaurants are everywhere along the Camino, and they provide water, refreshments, and food to consume there or carry with you. These cafes are incredibly friendly and accommodating, allowing pilgrims the use of chairs, tables, and bathroom facilities without charge or bother. By the second day of walking I had dumped all but the direst essential items from my day pack and purchased water and food along the way (after the first day, the heaviest object in my backpack was my camera, which I never used – relying only on my mobile phone for pictures).
3) You can’t get lost on the Camino. We had each taken the precaution of buying guidebooks describing the walking route from Sarria to Santiago, and our tour group, Camino Ways, had provided Route Notes for the journey. After the second day I never used them as guides, referring to them only for distances and end points. The walking path is so clearly studded with multiple concrete sign markers, decorated with pilgrim shells and ubiquitous yellow arrows, that one is never at a loss of direction. Every crossroad or pathway is marked (the stone markers also give you the number of kilometers to Santiago, so you can see your progress). The only challenge comes at certain Split Points were the Camino offers an alternative route for cyclists (Camino Complementario). We usually avoided these longer alternative routes, except for the time I accidently found myself on one, when I noticed the concrete marker reading “complementario” instead of the kilometer distance. My initial surge of panic (“Oh my God! How did I get on this path?”) was quickly subdued when I realized the split path would eventually connect with the regular route. Even if one does get confused, all you have to do is sit and wait – other pilgrims will always come along and you can follow them. There is a never-ending trail of pilgrims on this Camino, and they are either in front of you or behind you, but they are always there.
4) The Galician countryside we walked through was amazingly beautiful and idyllic. The area was startling green, lush, and “foresty”, with the Camino taking you through pastures, farmlands, and charming towns and villages. It reminded me very much of the Irish countryside I saw around Connemara and Galway, with their stone houses and stone walls. The Camino itself is one of the best hiking trails I’ve ever walked, one that has been cleared and smoothed by millions and millions of walking feet, taking you through canopied forests and open fields.
5) Without exception, all the pilgrims on the Camino are happy, friendly, and encouraging people who greet each other all day long with the ubiquitous phrase of “Buen Camino”. It’s the mantra of the Camino – one of greeting and encouragement, that expresses the hope that you will have a good day on the Camino. Even though Greg, John, and I had promised not to engage in conversation with strangers (not wanting to encumber ourselves with tag-along, chatty companions), it was impossible to avoid interacting with them, when we saw so many of the same faces day after day, along the Camino, giving us the same salutation. We became so accustomed to the greeting of “buen camino”, that we felt its absence for days after we had completed the journey.
6) What I did find strange, was learning that some pilgrims repeated the Camino many times over and seemed to consider it a “walking vacation”. This was hard for me to understand. To me, the Camino was a form of “extreme walking”, like running a marathon is extreme jogging – it’s meant to be hard. Marathon walking on the Camino is not my idea of a vacation – but then my friends and I had signed on for a quick, 6-day Camino, and many of these vacationing pilgrims were extending their Camino vacation over 10 to 12 days, with shorter walking periods, and staying at more casas rurales.
7) Finally, I think Greg, John, and I learned that we were not too old to adventure forward on one more absurdly difficult but satisfying adventure. We had traveled many roads together during our 55-year friendship, and visited many places, but none had been this trying. I suppose it simply came down to trusting one another and knowing that we would always be there to support and help each other to the end. We all had moments of weakness and doubt, but doing it together kept us moving forward, and got us through. There was nothing sweeter than standing in front of the Cathedral of Santiago, knowing that together we had accomplished something few people would ever experience.
I started this essay describing the exhausting last 5 miles of our first day’s 14-mile journey on the Camino into Portomarín. If it sounded weary and bitter, it was because that was the way I felt about a day’s journey that seemed never-ending. I think my exhaustion finally erupted when we crossed the bridge over the Rio Miño into Portomarín and we sat down to decide where to go next. Greg wanted to walk to the “nearby” Casa Rural Santa Mariña, while I wanted to walk into town and call for a pickup at the Church of San Juan. After 23 kilometers, he insisted the casa was closer and I angrily assented. It proved to be an additional 2 kilometer, mostly uphill, climb, with me cursing Greg as he speeded on in front of us. John and I crawled along so slowly that a female pilgrim who had been walking far behind us, eventually passed us by with the greeting “Buen Camino”. My ire finally started dissipating when I saw Greg waving us onward at the entrance to the casa and greeting us with the news that our luggage was here and our rooms ready. He insisted however that we delay our showers and meet him for a bottle of chilled white wine on the patio overlooking the languidly flowing Rio Miño. It was there that we toasted our achievement with the realization that we had done it. We had successfully started this journey, and finished the 14 miles of the first day, and were still in one piece. The pains and discomforts of the day slowly subsided as we recounted details of the journey and expressed more and more confidence that we could finish this journey. With the Spanish sun slowly began sinking in the West, we each visualized how it would feel to stand in front of the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, having officially earned the title of Peregrino del Camino. It had been a good day after all, and a fine start.
Others are blue.
It’s time you ride the trail that counts
Here’s a happy one for you.
Happy trails to you,
Until we meet again.
Happy trails to you,
Keep smiling until then.
Who cares about the clouds when we’re together,
Just sing a song and bring the sunny weather.
Happy trails to you,
Until we meet again.
(Happy Trails: Dale Evans – 1952)
You know you are bone-weary tired when you can’t conceive of stopping to rest or sit for fear that you will never be able to get up and start again. The only thing propelling you forward is the hope that the walking will eventually end, and my two friends and I will eventually reach our destination. Our thighs are chapped from rubbing, our knees ache, our legs cry out in pain and weariness, and our feet hurt. No amount of 6-mile training hikes can prepare you for 8½ grueling hours of traipsing up and down Galicia’s hilly terrain in northwest Spain, with its steep upward slopes and its knee-jarring, cascading descents. Gravity is your foe, and your only ally is your walking stick, which you use as a prop to push yourself upward, step by step, on sharp inclines, and as an anchor to brace yourself from pitching forward on radical descents. Your only solace comes from the company of Greg Ryan and John O’Riley, the two friends who joined you on this 115-kilometer pilgrimage – but even they are silent now as we wearily trudge on, step by step, toward Portomarín, our first destination stop, on our first day of walking, on the Camino de Santiago de Compostela. 30 minutes earlier, on a hill outside the Galician hamlet of Mercaidoro we had glimpsed the tantalizing sight of the far-off town and church steeple of Portomarín, but quickly despaired at realizing that it was still over 6 miles away. This was only the first of our seven-day pilgrimage from the Spanish town of Sarria to the Cathedral of St. James in the city of Santiago de Compostela, and we were feeling beat and seemingly defeated…
We officially finished the Camino on Friday, October 11, 2019, standing proudly in line, in front of the Pilgrim’s Office of the Cathedral of Santiago with about 300 other pilgrims at 7 o’clock in the morning. We had actually arrived at the Cathedral on October 10th but were too late to be issued certificates that afternoon. Thankfully, our tour had booked us into a hotel in Santiago for two nights – giving us time to wake up early the next day and get in line to be the 40th pilgrims to have our Pilgrim’s Passports stamped, and to receive official Certificates of Completion. By that time our previous 6 days on the Camino had settled into a regular, comfortable routine:
- Up at 7:00 am to dress and organize our luggage and day-backs.
- Have breakfast of toasted rustic bread, ham and cheese, “café Americano con/sin leche”, sometimes an egg “tortilla” (omelet) and pastry at 7:30 am.
- Be transported from our “casa rural” (country house) back to the Camino where we had left it the day before, at 8:00 am.
- Begin walking again on the Camino at about 8:30 am.
After the first day, we would each walk at our own pace and speed for about 2-3 hours, meeting at some midway roadside café, bar, or albergue (hostel) where I would find Greg waiting, and then the two of us would wait for John. We always finished the day’s journey together, walking another 2-3 hours to our casa rural (as we did in Portomarín), or calling the casa rural for pickup and transportation to the countryside house where we would spend the night. The casas rurales were the most pleasant surprise of the Camino. Although we began and ended our pilgrimage at two luxurious hotels in Sarria and Santiago, the other four nights were spent in charming countryside houses which accommodated pilgrims for the night (or longer). These casas were always outside the towns and villages which were on the Camino itself (and were our day’s destinations), but whose albergueses provided only limited accommodations. On the other hand, our casas rurales were located in beautiful wooded areas or countryside, and they provided quality hospitality, and a warm and comfortable environment with all the amenities one would ask for – nice rooms, comfortable beds, showers with hot water, and a rustic, family style dinner and breakfast. The three-course meals were delicious and typically rustic, with “caldo” (soup) being a staple. They also had bar facilities where we could self-medicate after the day’s walk. Sometimes our drivers also added thrilling, amusement park-like rides to and from the casas, and they were always happy to answer questions or provide information about the Camino and the Galician countryside. The casas were the perfect refuge to recharge our energies after a day of walking, to assess our progress, and to check the weather for the next day.
One often hears that all pilgrims learn something about themselves after walking the Camino. What did my friends and I learn on our 115-kilometer (71 mile) pilgrimage through Galicia in Spain? Well, let me list some of my thoughts in no particular order:
1) No amount of training, hiking, or walking can prepare you for the Camino. As Greg said after the first day, “The Camino is not about fitness – it’s about perseverance.” We saw and met countless pilgrims on the Camino who were young and old, fit and handicapped, weak and strong. All had one goal, one mission – to reach the Cathedral in Santiago – and they took as much time as they needed. We saw no joggers on the Camino – it was not a race or a competition – it was a walk. Training or exercise will not prepare you for the unexpected. One will have to adapt to cold, heat, and rain, along with the chapped skin, sore muscles, and blisters that catch you by surprise.
2) Unless one is really roughing it along the Camino – carrying all of their belongings in their backpacks and staying at basic hostels and albergueses – you really don’t need to carry too much stuff in your day pack. With a tour group transporting luggage and arranging accommodations along the way, all you really need to do is walk. Cafes, bars, and restaurants are everywhere along the Camino, and they provide water, refreshments, and food to consume there or carry with you. These cafes are incredibly friendly and accommodating, allowing pilgrims the use of chairs, tables, and bathroom facilities without charge or bother. By the second day of walking I had dumped all but the direst essential items from my day pack and purchased water and food along the way (after the first day, the heaviest object in my backpack was my camera, which I never used – relying only on my mobile phone for pictures).
3) You can’t get lost on the Camino. We had each taken the precaution of buying guidebooks describing the walking route from Sarria to Santiago, and our tour group, Camino Ways, had provided Route Notes for the journey. After the second day I never used them as guides, referring to them only for distances and end points. The walking path is so clearly studded with multiple concrete sign markers, decorated with pilgrim shells and ubiquitous yellow arrows, that one is never at a loss of direction. Every crossroad or pathway is marked (the stone markers also give you the number of kilometers to Santiago, so you can see your progress). The only challenge comes at certain Split Points were the Camino offers an alternative route for cyclists (Camino Complementario). We usually avoided these longer alternative routes, except for the time I accidently found myself on one, when I noticed the concrete marker reading “complementario” instead of the kilometer distance. My initial surge of panic (“Oh my God! How did I get on this path?”) was quickly subdued when I realized the split path would eventually connect with the regular route. Even if one does get confused, all you have to do is sit and wait – other pilgrims will always come along and you can follow them. There is a never-ending trail of pilgrims on this Camino, and they are either in front of you or behind you, but they are always there.
4) The Galician countryside we walked through was amazingly beautiful and idyllic. The area was startling green, lush, and “foresty”, with the Camino taking you through pastures, farmlands, and charming towns and villages. It reminded me very much of the Irish countryside I saw around Connemara and Galway, with their stone houses and stone walls. The Camino itself is one of the best hiking trails I’ve ever walked, one that has been cleared and smoothed by millions and millions of walking feet, taking you through canopied forests and open fields.
5) Without exception, all the pilgrims on the Camino are happy, friendly, and encouraging people who greet each other all day long with the ubiquitous phrase of “Buen Camino”. It’s the mantra of the Camino – one of greeting and encouragement, that expresses the hope that you will have a good day on the Camino. Even though Greg, John, and I had promised not to engage in conversation with strangers (not wanting to encumber ourselves with tag-along, chatty companions), it was impossible to avoid interacting with them, when we saw so many of the same faces day after day, along the Camino, giving us the same salutation. We became so accustomed to the greeting of “buen camino”, that we felt its absence for days after we had completed the journey.
6) What I did find strange, was learning that some pilgrims repeated the Camino many times over and seemed to consider it a “walking vacation”. This was hard for me to understand. To me, the Camino was a form of “extreme walking”, like running a marathon is extreme jogging – it’s meant to be hard. Marathon walking on the Camino is not my idea of a vacation – but then my friends and I had signed on for a quick, 6-day Camino, and many of these vacationing pilgrims were extending their Camino vacation over 10 to 12 days, with shorter walking periods, and staying at more casas rurales.
7) Finally, I think Greg, John, and I learned that we were not too old to adventure forward on one more absurdly difficult but satisfying adventure. We had traveled many roads together during our 55-year friendship, and visited many places, but none had been this trying. I suppose it simply came down to trusting one another and knowing that we would always be there to support and help each other to the end. We all had moments of weakness and doubt, but doing it together kept us moving forward, and got us through. There was nothing sweeter than standing in front of the Cathedral of Santiago, knowing that together we had accomplished something few people would ever experience.
I started this essay describing the exhausting last 5 miles of our first day’s 14-mile journey on the Camino into Portomarín. If it sounded weary and bitter, it was because that was the way I felt about a day’s journey that seemed never-ending. I think my exhaustion finally erupted when we crossed the bridge over the Rio Miño into Portomarín and we sat down to decide where to go next. Greg wanted to walk to the “nearby” Casa Rural Santa Mariña, while I wanted to walk into town and call for a pickup at the Church of San Juan. After 23 kilometers, he insisted the casa was closer and I angrily assented. It proved to be an additional 2 kilometer, mostly uphill, climb, with me cursing Greg as he speeded on in front of us. John and I crawled along so slowly that a female pilgrim who had been walking far behind us, eventually passed us by with the greeting “Buen Camino”. My ire finally started dissipating when I saw Greg waving us onward at the entrance to the casa and greeting us with the news that our luggage was here and our rooms ready. He insisted however that we delay our showers and meet him for a bottle of chilled white wine on the patio overlooking the languidly flowing Rio Miño. It was there that we toasted our achievement with the realization that we had done it. We had successfully started this journey, and finished the 14 miles of the first day, and were still in one piece. The pains and discomforts of the day slowly subsided as we recounted details of the journey and expressed more and more confidence that we could finish this journey. With the Spanish sun slowly began sinking in the West, we each visualized how it would feel to stand in front of the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, having officially earned the title of Peregrino del Camino. It had been a good day after all, and a fine start.
