El Camino

El Camino de Santiago is a pilgrimage that people make across northern Spain (in Galicia). There are multiple starting points from places in Spain, Portugal, and France, all ending in Santiago de Compostela. Supposedly, after the apostle, St James, died he was carried from Jerusalem to Santiago, where he was buried. Some Catholics believe that completing the walk is a way of removing their sins. In order for your walk to be recorded, you have to get two stamps everyday in your pilgrim passport and walk a minimum of 100 km. Our group walked from Ourense to Santiago, which is about 106 km (although we had to take detours, so we walked a lot more than that). When I say walk, I actually mean hike-- the trails were littered with mud, rocks, and costiñas (hills).

We took a night train to Ourense and thought that it was incredibly uncomfortable... if only we had known what the future held. We were only walking for four days, but that meant that we had to walk about 25 km a day, which is a little over 15 miles.


The first day was SUPPOSED to be an easier walking day, but our guide abandoned us and we ended up walking towards the wrong city. We had to walk for two extra hours to correct that mistake (oh, did I mention... it was in the cold and rain). Our group was split in two and the people ahead of us had to be driven to the correct town by the civil guard-- I was jealous. After a rough day, we all were looking forward to a good night of sleep. We were staying in a monastery, which was very authentic, but FREEZING. Sarah and I ended up cuddling up next to each other for body heat; even with that and two blankets, it was terrible.




The next day was one of our longest walking days and one of the worst moral days. I got some huge blisters on the bottoms of my feet and wanted nothing more than to cry and give up. After a rough afternoon, we made it to our albergue (a hostel for peregrinos) expecting to finally sleep well. There was a shortage of beds and it was cold, again-- so, for the second night in a row, I curled up next to Sarah.


I was prepared for the walking part of the third day to be bad because we had to cover the most distance, but surprisingly, it was the best day. My group passed time by telling each other stories about our lives, books we had read, and movies we had seen. That night, however, was the most horrible night of my life-- it was worse than Las Fallas, worse than the monastery. The albergue that we had planned on staying in was full, so they gave us some rubber mats and sent us to a recreation center/shack. The floors were covered in dust, I saw several spiders, and it was like an ice box. Even squished up next to Sarah, I woke up every half-hour whimpering and hoping for morning to come. In the middle of the night, we heard the door slamming, dogs barking, and something running on the roof-- so creepy. I'll never complain about a sleeping situation again.


The last day of walking was one of the shortest, but also one of the worst. We kept thinking that we were almost to Santiago, only to find out that we weren't. We finally did arrive at our albergue in Santiago de Compostela; that night I slept SO well.

The next day, we toured the cathedral of Santiago and attended a peregrino mass. At the end of the mass, they swung a large container, called a botafumiero, stuffed with incense, from the ceiling. Since 2010 is a Jubilee Year (when St James' Day falls on a Sunday), the church swings the botafumiero after every peregrino mass-- we got lucky.



Now that the Camino is over, and my brain has repressed all memories of the pain, I am happy that I participated in it. I stretched my physical limits and proved to myself that my body and mind are a lot more capable than I had previously thought.