The Camino de Santiago: Our 42 day, 612 mile walk from St. Jean de Luz, France to Muxia, Spain.

Introduction

The Camino de Santiago is a journey of the mind, body and spirit.  As cliché as it sounds it’s life condensed and more potent for a time.  Everyone approaches it differently and at different stages in their lives so we will all inevitably experience the journey uniquely.  My intention for this post is to encourage you to plan your own Camino and hopefully continue to uncover the impact of my own by reflecting upon it.  I’ve broken this post up into sections to make it easier to scan through so feel free to skip around and read what sections may be of interest to you.  I’ll greet you now as pilgrims do each other on the journey; buen camino!

History and Origins

There are many legends about the origins of the Camino but the short story is that Saint James, one of the 12 discliples of Jesus Christ, came to be buried in what is now Santiago de Compostella on the west coast of northern spain.  A man found an inconspicuous marble headstone in a forest around the year 800; He was said to have seen a star marking the area and so it came to be called Compostella, the field of stars.  King Alfonso of Asturias heard of the finding and made a pilgrimage to the site along the route that is now called The Primitivo.  Pilgrims from across Europe began making the walk and the most common routes became Caminos that have been followed ever since!  In years past many pilgrims became sick and died on the Camino and it often took a year of their lives to make it there and back home.  We have it much easier now days of course but I believe the journey still has a profound impact on our lives.  That’s all I’ll say regarding the history as it’s been covered extensively on other sites so just google Camino de Santiago and enjoy.

The Camino we Chose

Sofia and I decided to walk a combination of two routes:  The Camino del Norte and Camino Primitivo.  We had read that the Camino Frances has over 200,000 people per year now and we wanted an experience that was a little more remote with a little more solitude.  The other routes were about a week or so whereas the Norte-Primitivo would take closer to 5 weeks.  The Norte and Primitivo cover harder terrain, more climbs and descents and is slightly less supported in terms of places of stay and eat so it is far less traveled.  It follows the northern coast officially starting in Irun and eventually heads inland towards Santiago.  We followed the Norte for two weeks before reaching a split off where pilgrims can continue on the Norte or divert inland towards Oviedo.  Oviedo is the capital of Asturias and the beginning of the Primitivo; where King Alfonso began his walk in the 9^th century. 

A short Description of the Walk

A book could be written on this journey, and in fact many authors have done so already, so I’ll do my best to condense it down to a quick read.  All in all we walked through four regions of Spain.  Basque, Cantabria, Asturias and Galicia.  The Basque country was beautiful, very green and full of farmlands and beautiful beaches.  I was pleasantly surprised at how undeveloped this coastline was considering its beauty and we spent more time hearing birds and seeing livestock than traffic and cities.  We started at the end of May so the weather was pleasant, slightly cool in the morning and warming up in the day.  Cantabria was similar to Basque and the experience changed daily as we went through towns of various sizes. 

We walked through villages of just a handful of houses to large cities like Bilbao which has close to 1 million residents.  We walked along dirt paths, busy roads and even barefoot across beaches.  If I had to describe the first part of the Norte in a nutshell it would be beaches and farms.  Grass, dirt, sand and then roads.  Gorgeous views every day, literally every day; though I must admit a few stretches were terrible, like the day leaving Bilbao when we walked for hours on flat streets along an industrial port.  I’m happy to say though that those stretches were few and far between whereas the beauty of the country was abundant.  We found ourselves in constant awe of the views and this isn’t an exaggeration; often stopping to just soak in the moment, the sun, the breeze, the seagulls.  Even the hard moments of sweat and physical stress were often broken up by a repetitive experience of gratefulness presented in different ways whether that was a gorgeous view, a discovery of new type of insect, plant, or flower.  At the risk of sounding soft I’ll admit tears were often brought to my eyes from an overwhelming sense of gratefulness for the life I have and the chance to experience the Camino. 

The landscape changed considerably as we diverted towards Oviedo.  We would begin the walk into the mountains of Asturias through more forested areas of low-lying hills and small villages dotting the landscape.  This stretch was completely different but no less beautiful.  We climbed and descended similarly to the first part of the Norte but coast and oceans were replaced by forests, ridges and valleys.  Again, we walked through towns and cities of various sizes, abandoned farms and vibrant villages.  We walked along muddy trails, fire-roads, through narrow streets and along major highways.  Under the shade of the oak and eucalyptus and under the steady swoosh of many windmills that stood along the ridge lines.  Our senses were constantly active with the sights and sounds of birds and animals and at times the heavy breathing of the climb.  At last, we reached Melide which is where were joined the Camino Frances and the thousands of people on the route.  For the last few days we walked among groups of people, young people playing music, families with young children, tour groups and people that had been walking for sometimes a few days and sometimes a few months.  Admittedly this stretch was less enjoyable as it seems that the “pilgrim” to “tourist” ratio wasn’t what it had been however I did enjoy seeing that so many people were outside, walking, being active and generally in pursuit of a positive experience for their lives. 

For our last day into Santiago de Compostela we again wanted some solitude so we got up at 1am and walked through the night.  To my surprise we were the only ones.  I thought for sure, with this many people, we would have seen one or two others but we walked alone in the dark for 5 hours.  It was a new moon night so the stars were bright but even though we were close to the capital city of Galicia we still walked through pitch black forest and small villages until the final couple of hours.  We arrived in the main Plaza of Santiago known as the Praza do Obradorio at 5:45am.  It was quiet with only the sound of birds beginning to stir.  We had walked for 38 days and covered 530 miles to get to that point.  We had made friends from countries all across Europe, spent more time in conversation with each other than ever before.  Spent more time in conversation with God than ever before.  We became accustomed to living out of a backpack, getting up before the sun, walking until about 2pm and then resting, spending time with other pilgrims and then to bed early and ready to go again.  Our feet often were in pain at the end of the day but amazingly were refreshed and ready for another day.  For me personally every morning when I woke up my legs were in pain but as I got up and moved around the pain would subside and the walking was no problem. 

Thoughts on the experience: a portrait

Like I mentioned in the beginning of this post, the Camino experience is unique for each of us, yours won’t be like mine for better or worse and I believe that Sofia and I experienced different Caminos even though we walked together the whole time.  However, if you’re interested in my experience I’ll start by setting the context of where we were and why we went.  Coming out of the last two years of Covid and before those the last ten years of my life, I was ready for a change.  I’ve always been acutely aware of the limited time we have on this earth and I think the heavy and extreme change of the Coronavirus world; not just the virus itself but the world that we humans created in response to it, led me to this path.  I believe strongly that we are responsible for our lives, our attitude, our decisions.  We can hardly control the external world, though many people make it their life’s work to do so, but each one of us has the choice and ability to take action despite our circumstances. 

I spent the last ten years of my life building in a constant state of work.  My friend and broker would probably laugh at that statement because she believed I took more time off than anyone else in my office but I think this is less a statement about the quantity of my work so much as it a statement about the excessive work nature of my fellow Americans.  I would often work seven days a week, until late at night and most things I did were related directly or indirectly to the pursuit of building a business.  I found ways to pursue meaning such as volunteering in the community but admittedly even these connections were tied to work in one way or another.  I say all this to make the point that many people, including myself, make it their life’s priority to earn an income and prepare for retirement.  Even though I consciously tried to not fall into that trap I wasn’t able to escape it.  My physical and mental health were suffering, my marriage was strained and I didn’t have a spiritual life to speak of outside of going to church a few times per year.  Covid was kind of a pause for me to reflect on the life we were building and whether I wanted to continue on that path.  Unlike other people whose work was negatively affected, the real estate market took off and I was having some of the best years of my career.  In fact this year, the year we left it behind, was on track to be my biggest year ever in the business.  I was extremely busy with work, with all of my volunteer activities but I felt an emptiness.  When I looked around I felt fortunate to have a thriving business, a beautiful house, a beautiful wife, great friendships as well but still something was missing.  It was most evident in my personal health (physically, mentally, spiritually) and my marriage. 

I felt that the Camino and an extended sabbatical would provide the time needed to refocus my life on things that were truly important to me and so we began our pilgrimage.  It was scary.  We were excited to pull up ties which were hampering our freedom but scared because those same ties provided safety and security.  We began to think about what we would do with all of our belongings, our house, our cars and all of the conveniences of modern life.  I was scared we wouldn’t have enough money and worried about all of the things that could go wrong. Foreign countries, foreign dangers.  However, we both felt a pull in this direction and believed, though we didn’t talk to God very much, he was behind this journey.  It took us about a year to launch but we finally made it happen.  The stress was immense and it was much harder than I anticipated but like on the Camino, periods of great stress are followed by periods of great beauty.  The change was exciting of course; traveling always is, but this time was different.  We were not tourists, we were pilgrims.  There’s an important distinction there and it comes from the intention of the journey.  We started our mornings early and always began with a prayer.  We prayed for strength and health, we prayed for our families, our friends around the world and other pilgrims on the trail.  We asked for God to show us his plans for our lives or at least to show that our decisions were in accordance with his will.  I began to work through a lot of the trauma I had experienced in my life.  I think we all have had experiences that we would rather have not had and like many others I pushed these things aside and instead focused on projects to keep me busy.  I spent time thinking and reflecting, talking to Sofia about how I was feeling and what I was going through.  I began having strange dreams, many I can’t remember exactly but I remember waking up confused, maybe a little scared.  One night I had the first dream ever of my grandfather who passed over 10 years ago.  It was an interesting dream because he was down in the basement level of a huge house sorting through items on shelves.  In my dream Sofie was ahead of me opening each door that led to the next level and at the final door she encouraged me to open it for myself.  My grandpa was happy, he explained that my grandma was happy as well and handed me some pictures that belonged to her.  I don’t remember much else other than the feeling of complete peace and happiness.  I woke up with tears in my eyes, missing my grandpa but happy to have felt his energy again.  I’m not one to put too much meaning on my dreams but I know that he would have been happy to know that Sofia and I decided to take this pilgrimage and seek out our inner lives.  A recurring theme for me on the Camino was that the external world is there to take us to internal places.  I first felt this in the high country of the Eastern Sierra.  Life was different up there, it’s a place where we aren’t physically capable of living for an extended period which ultimately makes us visitors and changes our perspective.  The Camino is nothing like the Eastern Sierra however it’s a far away place and an extended journey that takes us within ourselves to places as remote as some of the villages we encountered.  I began a spiritual journey, beginning with a belief in a creator, in God.  Simply put, for me, it seemed far less plausible that everything is random and I’ve had too many brushes with death in my life to believe that I’m just incredibly lucky.  I don’t quite know what this looks like yet but at least I’ve begun speaking to God and reading texts by thinkers far smarter than myself, C.S Lewis being one example.  In the Cathedral of Santiago during the pilgrims mass I felt that I encountered the presence of God.  Kind of like in a dream when you can’t explain what happened and things don’t make sense but yet you felt a strong understanding; I felt that God was telling me to give him by burdens, to admit that I wasn’t strong enough to carry them and not only was he strong enough but more importantly he wanted to.  The peace that I felt in that moment was unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. 

Maybe I was just tired, maybe it was just the beauty of the moment, the music, the journey.  Sure, I think it’s always possible for us to explain things away but I’m not in that camp anymore.  It was God and he wants us to seek him, again like the Camino, pointing us in a direction and requiring us to walk. The journey was ultimately an incredibly rewarding experience that has enriched our lives. We grew closer as a couple, I grew closer to myself and began a spiritual journey and built new relationships with people from many different walks of life. In a few weeks we are heading to Finland to visit a friend we made on the walk and we’re really excited to continue to walk down this new path we’ve been presented with. The day we arrived in Santiago we were heading to our albergue for the evening and we ran across a French lady we had met several times during the walk. She was sitting on a bench far from the city center eating cherries. This lady had to be in her mid-seventies, about 5’5 and weighed maybe 110 pounds. She had walked all the way to Santiago from her home town in France carrying an enormous backpack and unlike the rest of us pilgrims had camped in her tent the whole time. Her skin was old and wrinkled, her body appeared frail but she had beautiful blue eyes, full of energy. She spoke spanish to Sophie in a thick French accent so I only caught part of the conversation. They caught up on the last week of walking, talked about the excitement of arriving in Santiago and then finished the conversation with some other things I didn’t understand. When we walked away I asked Sophie what she had said before our goodbye; she had told us, “remember that life is marvelous.”             

Logistics of the walk: Getting from St. Jean to Santiago de Compostela

Though the trail seems daunting given its length, it’s an incredibly well supported walk.  There are plenty of places to stay and to eat and plenty of help from locals and other pilgrims so if you’re not an experienced hiker you have nothing to worry about!  We had scheduled where we would stay the first few nights before realizing that it was easy enough to just show up into a town and find a place.  Of course, as the trail got busier toward the end of the trip it’s necessary to call ahead and make sure you have a bed but not everyone does that.  We would typically leave the Albergue (hostel) by 7am and walk until around 1 or 2pm.  There were always plenty of places to stay.  We would then shower up and head out to get some food, often choosing to go to the grocery store and then cook dinner in the albergue kitchen to save money.  If there was a special dish in the city or region we would try it but the expenses go up considerably when you start eating out.  Having said that, Spain was incredibly affordable for food.  The trail was often really well marked making for easy walking and after a few weeks we stopped worrying about where we’d go next and just decided based on how our bodies were feeling.  One day per week we decided to take a rest day to enjoy a city and let our bodies relax and if you can make time for that I think it was a great idea.  At the end of the journey there are plenty of buses to get you to the airport so that’s no problem.  Many people came into the Camino at different points using the many trains and buses in Spain so that makes access pretty easy.  We even met some people that dropped in, walked for a few weeks as far as they could and then just took buses back to the airport.  One great resource is an app called “Buen Camino.”  There are a few others but this is the one we used after hearing about it from another pilgrim and it was great.  There is also a website called Gronze that is extremely helpful.   

Gear we took with us: what we needed and what we didn’t

Thankfully my Dad taught me how to explore in the wilderness so I already had everything I’d need for the Camino but if you’re not so lucky, here’s an initial list that you can start working on and a few thoughts on each.

Backpack:  Mine was the 48 litre Marmot Graviton and Sofia’s was the 38 litre.  I decided to take a bunch of camera equipment with me to document the trip so I need a bigger (and much heavier) bag.  I think a 38 is more than enough and if you get an ultralight pack then you won’t be carrying extra weight while allow for extra room in the pack for the days you carry food with you.

Headlamps: Whether you decide to walk early in the morning or through the night they are great to have but more importantly for the camino you are often in shared rooms.  There is a setting on most headlamps that turns the light red so it’s even dimmer than the lowest setting so you can move around, use the restroom or move your stuff and not wake other pilgrims.

Sleeping bag and sleeping bag liners:  We took summer bags, mine was a basic one my brother gave me that he bought on amazon.  It was inexpensive, I think around 40 bucks and worked perfectly.  You don’t need anything super warm as your in buildings so stay focused on the weight and packability.  In an effort to keep Sofia’s pack as light as possible I bought her a Sea to Summit 50 degree summer bag.  It is incredibly light and packs down to the size of a water bottle so that worked out great.  We originally bought the sleep liners and were going to only take those which wouldn’t have been comfortable.  We took them as well because they were light weight and they were perfect because some beds and pillows didn’t have sheets at all.  We used them as sheets sometimes but more often as pillow cases.

Camping pillow: this was one item that we absolutely didn’t need, all the albergue’s provide pillows.

Clothes:  We brought more clothes than we needed.  Pretty much every albergue has a handwashing station and a place to hang-dry clothes.  Many of them also have washers and dryers so you can get away with very little clothing if you’re willing to wash every day.  We weren’t sure what we’d encounter so we took 5 pairs of both socks an underwear.  I took a long sleeve shirt and three other T-Shirts.  A down vest, rain jacket, sweat pants, running shorts, one pair of hiking pants/shorts.    Sofia took a long sleeve, two T-shirts and three tank tops.  Two pairs of hiking pants, two pairs of sweat pants, a light sweater, rain jacket, down jacket a long with multiple pairs of socks of underwear.  She also brought a beanie and gloves which came in handy because in Asturias the temperature plummeted and we had many very cold days! We prefer dry-fit clothing since it dries quickly after a wash or after you’ve encountered rain   **A good item to take is clothes pins to hang your clothes!

Towel: We took two different kinds of REI brand towels, both worked great and I’m sure any camping style towel will do. 

Rain covers for the backpack: A definite necessity, we got rained on several days and were told it was a much dryer season than typical.  Our packs still got a little wet one day even with the cover but without them it would have been terrible.   As far as rain, we opted not to take poncho’s and instead just used pack covers with rain jackets.  Poncho’s are something to look into if you want to try that. 

Medical supplies:  We bought a few different kits and put together what we thought we’d need.  Basic first aid, sting and bite relief, supplies for blisters and some advil, ibuprofen etc.

Sunglasses: REI sells some inexpensive polarized glasses that are great.  Not such a bummer if they get damaged or lost.

Hats: The more protections the better, chose whatever you like but make sure you get lots of coverage from the hat.  There are many sections without shade on the journey.

Shoes: We opted for Nike trail running shoes and Altra trail shoes.  For us they were perfect, we both didn’t get a single blister in over 600 miles! The shoes are toast now, certainly not designed for that kind of mileage but they did the job.  A few sections of the Primitivo it would have been nice to have a pair of boots for the mud and rock but overall these shoes were sufficient for us.  I also wouldn’t have wanted to wear boots considering the long flat stretches on pavement but that’ll be for you to decide.

Technology: We took our phones for gps and photos, portable battery pack, European power convertors.  I also took many things for making video like my laptop, a drone, camera, tripod, microphones, extra batteries, external hard drive though I wouldn’t recommend doing that as it doubled the weight in my pack!

Travel Guide:  We bought the Ciceron press guide for the Norte and Primitivo.  The book also has a website where you can downloan the gpx files that show the trail in real time to help you from getting lost, you just need to download an app.  I used Gaia gps.  I will say that the trail is incredibly well marked and you can almost get away with simply following the arrows but there were many times we were happy to have a map for when we decided to go our own way or when the arrows were missing or confusing.  The map and guide definitely prepared us for the trip but many things we just learned on the road by talking to other pilgrims with more experience. 

Toiletries: Entirely up to you but make sure you have sunscreen and chapstick.  

CamelBak: We had the 2 liter camelbaks and were surprised to see that many people did not have these.  I think they are incredibly convenient and you drink much more water when it’s easily accessible.  We also brought Camelbak filters but these were unnecessary; the tap water in Spain was perfectly fine to drink in every place we stayed.