943,3 Km - August/September 2022

35 days walking + 2 rest days

I don’t know why it took me so long to decide to walk the French route of the Santiago Way…Or maybe I do. I am always apprehensive of going somewhere I think it might be crowded, and most of the stories I had heard about the French Camino pointed in that direction. At the same time, as I live in the northwest of Portugal, I am used to see pilgrims walking north along the coast with their backpacks, especially from spring to autumn. Sometimes alone, sometimes in groups, but always many, perhaps too many in my mind. It is relatively common in Portugal to walk the camino, mostly the Portuguese camino, from Porto (also from other cities and towns in the north) to Santiago. Maybe I felt that this geography was too familiar, and faraway travels have drawn my attention more, nurturing my desire for the remote and the exotic.

To clarify further why I haven’t done the camino before, I must say that in the past years I have been walking the whole length of the Portuguese coast, something I completed only in 2022 (see https://sites.google.com/view/costa-abaixo/home). Totalling more than 1400km (including the main estuaries), this walk made me look at the 800km or 950km of the French camino with relatively ease. While many stages of the coastal walk were not made alone, overall this was certainly a solitary journey, away from crowds, and with few exceptions, along beaches and cliffs with no marked trails. That gave me a sense of freedom I often seek and need.

Covid-19 had a say in all this. Firstly, it pushed me to complete the coastal walk, as I did not travel to faraway places since 2020. Secondly, when deciding what to do during August 2022, not getting a plane and not going far became quite appealing. So the French Camino became very appealing!

So, in the first part of the camino, we were two, as Ana bravely decided to walk with me. We drove to Miranda de Ebro and left the car there. The following morning, we took a bus to Bayonne, with a 2-3 hour stop for coffee in lovely San Sebastian, and then continued to Saint Jean Pied de Port by train. The plan was to walk for about 12 days until our path would not be too far from Miranda de Ebro so we could easily take a bus and get the car. I had 12 days to decide if I would to continue the camino on my own, or if instead, I would return to Portugal by car and start another adventure somewhere else. After a few days I had already decided. If my body allowed, I would continue until no more camino existed, which meant Finisterra or Muxía, depending on the route.

In the first days our bodies were adapting to getting up early, to the tortillas, bocadillos, aquarius, Estrella Galicia, to the gravel and dust, the up and downs. Legs and feet suffered a little, and getting to bed early was difficult at times. Yet landscapes were so overwhelming that slowly the body somehow became secondary. During this first part of the camino we stayed mostly in pensions, in private rooms and it was nice to have comfort and privacy, although we missed some of the social vibe of the pilgrims life (i.e. in Roncesvalles, Zubiri, Pamplona, Puente la Reina, Estella, Los Arcos, Logroño, Nájera, Santo Domingo de la Calzada and Villafranca Montes de Oca). Yet we spoke with many people along the way, and so diverse they were. Lonely walkers, couples, small and big groups, families with children, young students and graduates, older crowd…not to say anything about geographical diversity. All places in Europe, north America, Japan and Korea, Australia and New Zealand. Unfortunately, as expected and as it became clear after a few days, this is not an ecumenical walk, and Africans and pilgrims from so many places in Asia were basically absent. Such is our capitalist world in fortress Europe!

In these first days, and because it was August, we literally walked though many festivities. Those of Moruzabal, a small town in Navarra, Basque country, where locals, their family and friends were drinking, dancing and listening to music in the village square; and of Logroño, really made an impact on us. They were not made for tourists although it was easy for us to participate.

When walking it was always wonderful to look for the next village and to stop for a drink or for something to eat, and to see familiar faces, to say hello, to say ‘buen camino’, to ask how things were going and to establish some solidary links with other pilgrims. Villages were pretty most of the times, and churches, even in small villages, were recurrently huge, and were a constant presence on the way.

By the time Ana left I felt my camino would be totally different. First, as I was alone, I wanted to stay in albergues and share the pain but also joy with the other pilgrims. Dorms, bunk beds (luckily for me, no bed bugs), shared bathrooms would now be the norm, and overall I loved it. Naturally, there were many tough nights, when I slept little, but it became part of the overall package.

After Burgos the landscape changed. Less water, more flat sections, but gladly, the sizzling summer heat in the Meseta was absent. In fact, those first days of August going through the Basque Country were quite hot, and those going through the Meseta were quite mild. There were even some chilly nights and starting before sun rise was really cold. Those early mornings, when it was still dark, were actually some of the best moments of the trip. Looking at the stars, the moon also, and seeing how slowly the sun would make its appearance, was peaceful and astounding.

One of my best memories in this second part of the camino has to do with skies. In fact, the skies I am used to in a region not so far from the sea are quite different from these continental skies. They are big, overwhelming, part of an immense landscape that we can see in Missouri (not that I have ever been there) or in some Kazak steppe plains. Big fluffy white clouds, in all shapes…Rain never really arrived. Only once or twice did it rain, and that made things easier.

Certainly the most incredibly fact of this second part of the camino (from km 350 to 800) was that I slowly got to know a bunch of really nice people. In the camino, there is a lot of “free” time, basically from six or six thirty in the morning, till at least nine or nine thirty in the evening. Everyone is walking the same path, everyone has to eat and drink, to stop and rest, and to sleep. So naturally people bump into each other very easily. More importantly even, is that everyone goes through, at different times, similar pains and suffering. Blisters, muscles, back, etc. and wonderfully, people help each other, sharing bandages, compeed, scissors, tape, you name it! Slowly we get to know peoples’ names, where they were from, where did they start and where will they go to. Affinities and complicity built up, and before I knew it, I was already helping someone with the laundry or throwing my laundry into a pile of clothes that someone was taking care of. Then there are those moments when two or three people volunteer to cook dinner for a group of 15 or 20 people. Very quickly there were people waiting for me in the morning or in a cafe, or asking where I was or until where was I going to walk on a particular day. Before I knew it, I was part of a small community of pilgrims, very different from me in age and origin, but all wanting to get to the end and making the most out of the way.

By the time I (or we) got to Obradoiro square in Santiago, after almost 800km, and then entered the Cathedral, I was definitely not alone as I were leaving Villafranca Montes de Oca, 500km earlier. I felt a great sense of achievement, not only by walking all these kilometres, but also because of the community with whom I had done it.

The third part of the journey was very different but equally beautiful. Many friends stopped in Santiago as they had to go home and carry on with their lives, and only a few of us continued, and not always as a group, since time constraints made some go faster than others. Landscape changed also and prominently, the weather was completely different. It was actually superb to experience the camino with heavy rain, with fog, mist, and we often said, in a humorous way, this was the ‘real camino’. The long sunny days were gone, so was the sweat, the ice-creams, the tintos de verano or the calimochos. This was Galicia at its best in early September, bringing a nostalgic touch to the afternoons, slowly unveiling and preparing us for the end of the journey. It was far more introspective and calm. Blessed once more, we got to Finisterra just when the day cleared and a glorious sunny afternoon greeted us as we arrived to the lighthouse. It was all coming to an end in a perfect way. More so, in the following day, going from Finisterra to Muxía under extremely heavy rain for hours, the day cleared by the time we were arriving to the Santuario da Virxe da Barca, and again an outstanding sun set waited for us as we celebrated our final conquest with wine, cheese and chorizo. Almost 950km were walked and that alone was an accomplishment.

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