Camino Reflections

PW: I have had two days lying on a Barcelona beach reflecting on the last month. This is what I’ve come up with:
1. 750 km is a long way.
2. A Camino is not ordinary. It is crucially about the people you meet and the experiences you have with them. Their life, like yours, is suspended doing the walk and so pilgrims have time and space to explore. Every day contained some wonder about who we were going to bump into that day. There was also the joy of making reconnections with folk you’d met along the trail.
3. There is also alot of time for solitude and self-reflection. There are long periods of walking alone. Note: the mind can bring up some whacky stuff and it’s best not to pay it too much attention.
4. The Camino is embedded in the history of past pilgrims who have done the walk. It must have been physical hell for them in earlier times. When I was dealing with painful shin splints, which could’ve jeopardised my Camino, I felt their spirits urging me on.
5. Unexplainable things happen on the Camino. Interpret them as you see fit.
6. To have no other task but to walk for 30 days, and be totally living and alive in your body, is an absolute bonus. We are both physically and mentally stronger and just feel both more ‘alive’ and grounded.
7. Spending a whole month in Spain, and being supported by the warmth and hospitality of the Spanish people has been another bonus. Kishore, Antonio and Rnelio, Manolo, Estella and Pep, Bea (our Camino Angel) and, of course, wonderful Merce. I’m sitting here in the warmth of Barcelona, and am sad to have to leave all this soon.
8. I am convinced anyone can do a Camino. We saw a lot of walkers punching above their weight on trail. It is physically demanding and you need a good reason to want to do one. That’s a question you’ll get asked from time to time walking the trail. After all, it is not that logical give up 6 weeks of your life to walk an 800+km historical religious trail. Nuts really. Could be at the beach instead.
9. If you have this unexplainable urge, the support infrastructure is there in terms of accomodation and food; all you have to do to prepare is start walking half marathons regularly. Oh yes - it is not all long and flat; there are a few grunty inclines. So hill work is important.
10. I got asked several times on the trail my reasons for walking the Camino and, in short, my response was;
i) just turned a significant age;
ii) coincided with accumulated work leave that I had to use.
iii) life is short
But that wasn’t the full story. There have been undercurrents. In 1996 I read David Lodge’s comical book, Therapy, about the trials and tribulations of Tubby Passmore, as he tries to overcome a pain in his knee. The last part of the book finds Tubby reconnecting with his first love on the Camino. The seed had been planted in those pages. Growing up in a Catholic household probably held some interest with the religious aspect to the walk. Libby also read the novel and kept prompting me over the last 30 years about when “I’m going to do that funny Camino walk…”

From 2020-23, small Paul and I completed a section of the South Island Te Araroa Trail over January/Februray. Other walkers on the trail, who’d also completed the Camino, suggested that small Paul and I would be a good fit for a Camino. Thanks to Phil, Maree and Denis the Legend for those seeds.
11. What happened with Libby’s diagnosis and cancer treatment this year was a shock to us all. A real spanner in the works. However, it’s been a good reason and motivation to go on Camino, and I have to thank Libby for encouraging me to go when she was going through the grind of cancer treatment. She’s the real hero out of all this; our walk pales into insignificance compared to her cancer journey. I came to the conclusion during the walk that instead of living with uncertainty that a cancer diagnosis feeds on, making Hope and Gratitude one of my and our best friends and is a natural antidote to uncertainty. Sweetheart, we are scheduling in the Portuguese Camino, 10 days from Porto to Santiago, in 2-3 years time. Would love doing this with you and for us to be in this special part of the world again.
12. My good friend and neighbour, Paul Nicholas, deserves a lot of thanks. He was looking for another adventure after the TA and jumped on my Camino urge. Thank you Paul for putting up with my occasional grumpiness, mental absurdities, and need for rest and recovery (i.e sleep). That is small testament to your patience and kind heart. Small Paul was always fitter and ahead of me on the trail (bastard). The distances increased more when I was hobbling and battling pain with my shins. Thanks for waiting patiently at the various junctions. My goal is to be as fit as you are when I’m 66 (!).

I learnt that you are a man of simple pleasures. To compensate for all the exercise you do, I became conditioned to your need to have three square meals per day and at least three beers in that day. Drinking supermarket beers in a Spanish parks, like a couple of hobos, while waiting for towns to come out of siesta, was a feature of our Camino.

You are a natural tour guide and love helping others and giving advice. I still maintain that you bother people. We do the physical grind and can have some laughs along the way. I really hope you can install more adventure in your life. I hear from a reliable source that the 1200km temple-to-temple walk on a southern Japanese island is worth doing…

13. That’s all the thoughts I have for now. I re-read and left a tattered copy of Therapy at our final Albergue in Santiago. Hopefully another pilgrim will get some joy out of Tubby. Others thoughts of our adventure will come up, that I’ll likely add as time goes by. We are now showering and heading to airport for the 30 hour journey home.

Buen Camino everyone!Read more