Camino de Santiago - May 2025

I’ve hit a huge milestone finishing the first stage, so more thoughts and reflections.

Finding the groove
In the morning creaking joints but just start and all comes right as we get going. A good life lesson. Time flies and 10km goes by in a flash. I would never have expected to be thinking like this a few months ago. A training walk was a planned and deliberate exercise with appropriate logistics, now we just walk.

So many churches
Each town or village has one or more medieval church. Usually huge imposing buildings designed to be seen from afar. And inside decorated with ornamentations and gold that defy comprehending. The money, the desire, the drive to develop them back 100s of years ago is just astonishing. At home we turn every infrastructure decision into a war of words nowadays, maybe we need to be more focussed on why we’re doing what we’re doing rather than getting distracted by the details.

Slow down
Living life at walking pace is unusual in this day and age. We drive everywhere, all the time, sometimes too fast. Living slow allows us to see, hear, smell everything around us, and really appreciate life.

Rural Spain
The small villages and the agricultural countryside has been wonderful, particularly the forested areas. I’ve enjoyed the peacefulness of the walk, the birdsong and the cuckoo call which I’ve not heard before. One particular memory will be walking into a village of population 20, three bars, a monastery, and a church, in a thunderstorm - it felt like a scene from a Clint Eastwood western.

Love the feet
My shoe choice didn’t work out, so heaps of blisters. To keep amused I named my blisters after high school teachers. Inner right foot near my toe, Arnott - irritating, incessant, an unnecessarily distraction. Outer right foot, Combrink - looked scary but actually just fine. Right heel double blisters, Brown - big, mean, violent, enjoys causing pain. Left heel double blisters, Faber - not as bad as Brown, but memorably painful. I bought new sandals, hopefully better from now on.

Stage 1, done
After 9 days I passed 200km, which kind of snuck up on me. Then at 12 days I was over 300km. The early days of the walk get consumed by the logistics of the day - strapping up everything that’s hurting, the start time, selected route, what to consider along the way, what to organise for the destination. Meantime km keep on accumulating, and next minute I’ve hit a milestone. Burgos is the end of stage 1, which they refer to as the Body stage, and the difficulty reduces, or maybe we’re accustomed to the walking? I’ve now walked over 300km, go me, who would have thought a year or so ago? It feels good.

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