Meandering thoughts
Two weeks into the Camino de Santiago
Today marks two weeks since I set off on this adventure, and I’ve walked over 330 kilometres - an average of more than 22 kilometres each day. I started in France, crossed into Spain climbing the Pyrenees, and have since walked through three autonomous communities of Spain - Navarra, La Rioja, and (currently) Castilla y León - noticing the changing landscapes from mountains, vineyards, wheat fields, forests to now the Meseta (plateau). And I’m not even halfway through! There are still around 450+ kilometres to walk.
I don’t think there’s a theme around what I want to share in today’s article, and it might be a meandering of my thoughts about the last few days.
I started this trip in Barcelona, where I visited famous landmarks, most notably the Sagrada Familia. For those four days, I was a tourist in a big city. While a sea of people always surrounded me, I was also very alone. In urban life, we are far too suspicious of people we don’t know. Don’t get me wrong, I loved my time in Barcelona. It was also time to recuperate from a severe sore throat and fever I had developed just days before leaving for the trip. The last two weeks, however, have been so different. I have found that I enjoy walking by myself, letting my thoughts wander to wherever they might go, so I don’t particularly seek the company of people with whom I can walk. As you walk on the Camino, you see many people who start walking on the day you do or a few days apart. People walk at their own pace; some walk faster/slower than others. So, almost every day, I meet familiar faces taking on the same challenge as I am and some unfamiliar ones, which is an opportunity to get to know someone new. So, despite being alone on the walk, there are always many people I know around me.
In addition to the people I meet walking the Camino, there’s a fair bunch of intriguing people you meet as you walk. The morning I walked from Villafranca Montes de Oca to Atapuerca, I met this gentleman wearing a mocha-coloured cape, serving coffee to wearily pilgrims on a cold, overcast morning. He played baroque music on speakers, and his art strewn around the path we were walking. He offered the pilgrims free coffee, fruits, and snacks (you could donate some money if you wished). With a flick of his fingers on his cape, he bellowed that his coffee was the most magic one on the way to Santiago, pointing to the colour of his cape as apparent proof. Always ready for some coffee, I tried some. It was good coffee, but the music, the winds, and probably the art around made it memorable.
Yesterday, I got to Burgos. It’s one of the larger cities on the Camino Frances. After three weeks of staying in hostels and two weeks of particularly gruelling walking days, the indulgent side took the better of me. I decided to use some saved Marriott points to book a private room in a decent hotel. After a long bath and a comprehensive tour of the Burgos Cathedral (a UNESCO World Heritage Site), I felt very alone in that lavish room and deeply missed my family for the first time since I embarked on this journey. The next day, I wanted to sleep in and visit the Museum of Human Evolution in Burgos, which was closed the previous day because it was a Monday. Sharply at 10, when the Museum opened its doors, I strode in to get my dose of science after the previous day’s cathedral visit. After soaking in the exhibit for two hours, I decided to start my walk from Burgos to Hornillos del Camino at noon when it was already hot. I got to the albergue around 5:45 pm, drenched in sweat.
As I was looking through the pictures in my phone gallery to remind me of what happened over the last few days, what stuck with me most was how much beauty I’ve been experiencing - of changing terrain as you walk, of words written in the most random of places, and of art you find along the way. I want to end this short blog with some pictures barely capturing some of the immense beauty I have experienced:
