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Six Days on The Way

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“A million dollars you can’t pay for this,” Andreas from Germany said on Night Three of our Camino Francais adventure. We were sitting at a high top table in Pamplona, under an awning as the rain fell. Joining us at the table were Silke from Germany, Vlasta from Croatia, Leo from Denmark, and Patrice from Bordeaux in France. “This,” he continued, “is what it is about.” My fellow Pilgrims were chatting with each other in German, French, and English, laughing enjoying delicious Spanish food, beer, and wine.

My Camino started before I took my first step along The Way. As I made my way from baggage claim in the Biarritz airport toward the row of taxis, I heard “Deutsch? English?” When I realized the voice was talking to me, I turned around to find a tall smiling man at my side trying to get my attention.

“I speak English,” I replied.

“Can we share a car?” He asked.

“I’m going to the train station in Bayonne,” I said.

“Yeah, yeah, me, too. We can save money.”

My backpack was a dead giveaway that I was making my way to St. Jean Pied de Port via Bayonne. We were headed to the same place.

“Sure,” I said.

I learned that this was Andreas’s third time walking the Camino Francais, and he did the Camino Portuguese last year with his girlfriend. He assured me that by the end of the Camino, I would have a “strong body and a clean mind.”

Yes, I thought. That is what I want.

I am writing this entry after completing six days of walking and hiking. (I am exhausted, and this will not be edited well, but if I don’t do it now, it won’t happen!) My lodging for the night is the Casa de la Abuela in Los Arcos, the smallest village I have stayed in yet. Two couples, older than I am, are speaking French with the proprietor while a woman, who could be the Abuela herself, is cooking a pot of lentils, the smell of which is making my mouth water.

I don’t know how to describe what I have experienced over the last six days and 100+ kilometers. Day One was absolutely as difficult as advertised. The climb from St Jean Pied de Port to Orisson was extremely humbling and had my heart rate solidly in Zone 17 for most of the distance. Throw in a thunderstorm after our break in Orisson, and it felt a little like the Game Master from the Hunger Games was punishing me for enjoying the orange juice and Basque cake once I had the steepest part of the climb behind me.

Day Two had more climbing and about two kilometers of the craziest shale razor stuff that I have ever seen. Dinner that night was a big juicy burger that was supposed to be cow but may have been horse. This was after soaking my feet in the beautiful stream that ran through town with other Pilgrims.

Day Three was Pamplona, which was an assault on the senses after making our way through some of the most beautiful countryside I have ever experienced. That is where I found myself at a table with an international crew of Pilgrims doing our best to communicate with each other.

Day Four brought me to Puenta la Reina, which was another medieval town with churches that must have proven to Pilgrims 800 years ago that indeed there was a god. How else could such magnificence exist? I enjoyed a Pilgrim dinner with Maria from Australia, Adam, also from Australia but another part, and Gerhard from Germany. Our ages ranged from 22 to over 60, yet none of that mattered. The time flew as we each divulged the Camino Crisis that brought us here.

Day Five brought me to Estella, where I enjoyed a beautifully clean hostel and another joyous Pilgrim dinner with what is becoming my Camino Posse.

I returned to my room, a pod of four beds, to organize my stuff and turned around when I heard the door to the room open. I was met with Keith from the UK, who was standing there in only a small towel, perhaps unaware that anyone would be back in the room. He seemed completely unfazed by my presence and his near nakedness, so I went with it and exchanged pleasantries and other chit chat as if he were not clad in a terry loin cloth and we just met. I stuck my head back into my bed space, giving Keith time to put some clothes on if he wanted to. Apparently he did not want to. He managed to get some very tight black underwear briefs on, which was a little better… I continued to play it cool (HA!) as Keith explained to me that this was his third Camino Francais. He did it for the physical challenge, and because there was “nothing like being around people who are on the same page.”

I had to agree. After just five days of walking, I understood what he meant. Keith from the UK, standing there in his underwear, and I were indeed on the same page. In no normal circumstances would Underwear Keith and I be on the same page. The Way is becoming a great unifier, cutting through the superficial stuff so that we can be human together as we make our way across Spain.

After six days of walking, my body is exhausted, and my mind is more peaceful. At times, I become overwhelmed with the beauty around me and at the fact that I am walking through Spain and following in the footsteps of millions of Pilgrims before me. I try to imagine what it would have been like for them to crest a hill and see a small village, to go into a grand church, and to meet other travelers along the way, all headed in the same direction for their own reasons.

That, as Andreas said in Pamplona, can’t be bought for a million dollars and is what this is all about.