• Blog
  • About
  • Camino Frances
    • Why the Camino?
    • Camino Packing List
  • Other Camino Routes
  • Books
  • Contact Me

Nadine Walks

stories of trekking and travel

Day 10 on the Camino Primitivo, Boente to Lavacolla, 38km

October 10, 2021

Day 10 on the Camino Primitivo YouTube Video

Day 10 on the Camino Primitivo YouTube Video

Sometimes birthdays on the road are wonderful and magical, and sometimes they’re a little tough. My day 10 on the Camino Primitivo was an all-around not super great Camino day, and I suppose if it hadn’t been my birthday I wouldn’t have thought much of it, just chalking it up to the so-so days you have sometimes. But a birthday adds a certain kind of pressure, and today just didn’t give me the ingredients for a magical day.

For starters, I’m now on the Francés, and it is the weekend, and it is August. And let me tell you, it was the pilgrim superhighway! I know to expect a lot of pilgrims in the final stretch leading up to Santiago, and in some ways I think it’s kind of magical: here are hundreds and hundreds of people, all of us with our packs and our sticks and we’re marching along in a line, moving in the same direction, all of us from all over the world, heading to Santiago. It’s pretty cool. But for someone who likes to walk alone and loves having an open path all to myself, this influx of pilgrims was a lot! I’d never seen anything like it, and while it’s been awhile since I’ve walked this path into Santiago, I can’t quite believe how many more pilgrims there were on the way. From the quiet Primitivo to this: groups of friends, and students, and families, and just… people- it was overwhelming.

Crowds of pilgrims, Camino Francés

But I had a nice and quiet morning, I suppose the day started almost perfectly. Up and walking in the dark blue before dawn, one kilometer and then two and then an open bar. I was the only one there, with a huge cup of coffee and and a croissant, and just as I was finishing, Claudia and Jean Paul walked up, two pilgrims I’d met several days before. And, a few minutes later, the two Spanish pilgrims from my albergue last night. We all smiled and waved and chatted, and then I continued on, and for awhile the path was still quiet.

Then, the circus of the late morning and early afternoon, but I made the best of it: stopping again for a tortilla and a cortado, and then, again, for a beer and a small bowl of chips. There was a point when the path of the Camino veered off to the right, but the mass of pilgrims all continued straight: they were walking into O Pedrouzo, I was continuing on for another 10 kilometers to Lavacolla. And just like that, most of the pilgrims were gone, and I was walking under the trees with the path to myself.

Beer bottles on the Camino de Santiago

Path through the trees on the Camino Francés

And then it rained, light at first, and then harder, and it wasn’t ideal but when it rains on the Camino there’s nothing to really do except keep on walking. And so I did.

I arrived, wet and a little cold, to the albergue in Lavacolla. It was a fine enough place: a big bunk room but with decent space between the bunks, and a beautiful and well-equipped kitchen. Right as I entered I saw a pilgrim I’d met in Ferreira, and she was fine but not quite my cup of tea. She told me how the only shops in town were closed because it was Sunday, but then raved about the great lunch she’d just eaten at the restaurant down the road, and even how the owners had given her a ride back because it was raining. I could feel my stomach start to rumble: it was nearly 4pm, I’d walked nearly 40 kilometers, and while I’d stopped several times throughout the day, I’d never had a proper lunch. It would be too late for lunch now, but I figured I would shower and then maybe set off to explore and see if I could find a place that might be serving food.

I headed back out around 6, after a quick search on my phone revealed that the restaurant down the road would serve food at all hours. A pilgrim miracle! It wasn’t raining when I set out but it was gray and chilly. I walked and walked and when I arrived at the restaurant, I was greeted with a frown, a hostess pointing to a large sign. I needed to prove I was vaccinated in order to enter the restaurant, and of course, I’d left my vaccination card back at the albergue! (This was one of the two times I needed to prove vaccination to enter an establishment; I was walking through Galicia at a time this summer when it was required, but those regulations changed shortly after.) The hostess shrugged, pointed to a table under a canvas tent, and told me that the kitchen couldn’t serve me food until 8pm.

So I sat at a table outside and zipped my fleece up, tucking my hands into the sleeves to warm my fingers, and ordered a glass of wine. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do- two hours would be a long time to wait outside- but I figured I’d have a glass of wine, then walk back to the albergue, pick up my vaccination card, and then walk back to the restaurant for dinner. But just as my wine was delivered to my table, the skies opened up and it began to pour. 

Sitting in the rain in Lavacolla, Camino Francés

I sat, huddled and alone at a table outside because I was the pilgrim who didn’t have proof of vaccination, and wondered what I was going to do. It was then that I started to feel a little sorry for myself, to feel sorry that it was my birthday, and that I was close to Santiago but all alone, tired and hungry, staring out at the rain.

And then the hostess brought me a menu, and told me I could order food. Someone inside that restaurant must have looked out and taken pity on me, or maybe it’s just that the Camino provides, because I was able to order food and I was able to eat, and it was what I needed.

Dinner on the Camino de Santiago

I still had to walk back to my albergue in the rain, but it didn’t matter: once I got back I changed into the only clean and dry clothes I had left, I managed to find the hospitalera so I could ask for a blanket, I chatted with a few French pilgrims, and crawled into bed, warm and dry, with a full stomach.

Some Camino days are “off” Camino days, but at the end of it I tried to remember how grateful I was to be able to be walking at all. Plus, I was just 10km away from Santiago! Bright days ahead.

Santiago sign with graffiti, Camino de Santiago

Day 10 on the Camino Primitivo

Next Post: Day 11 on the Camino Primitivo

1 Comment / Filed In: Camino de Santiago, Camino Primitivo
Tagged: Camino de Santiago, camino primitivo, long distance walking, pilgrimage, solo female travel, travel

Day 9 on the Camino Primitivo, Ferreira to Boente, 25km

October 3, 2021

Day 9 on the Camino Primitivo YouTube Video

Day 9 on the Camino Primitivo YouTube video

25km today, and now, of course, my body feels strong and maybe those Camino legs have really kicked in because the kilometers were easy and so of course I felt like I could have walked longer. I did my thing of walking fast and stopping a lot: for coffee, for an Aquarius, for photos, for peering into churches.

Walking the last kilometers of the Camino Primitivo

Church and cemetery on the Camino Primitivo

There was a stretch with a long, stony path, bordered by green pine trees and tufts of purple heather and what remained of a gray stone wall and this path seemed to go on and on, under a big sky, with Melide in the distance, clouds and sun and no one there but me. I loved it! I’d walked it before- I must have, back in 2015- but I couldn’t remember it at all. As I walked, I thought about how beautiful it was, how I felt as though I would never forget it, and wondered what I’d been thinking about when I walked it 6 years before. Why hadn’t it stuck in my memory? What had been my mood that day? Were my eyes focused on the ground, was the sky dark and stormy, was I walking with someone else? I might not have remembered this part of the Camino the first time I walked but this time, it made an impression. In Melide the Primitivo would merge with the Frances, and so these were the very last kilometers on the Primitive Way. I tried to soak them up, I tried to imprint the path onto my memories. Maybe I did. 

Last kilometers of the Camino Primitivo

And then I arrived in Melide and I was surrounded by new and unknown pilgrims. This happens every time! I should be used to it!! But we’re all pilgrims and I told myself I only have a few days left until I reach Santiago, I can deal with a few more pilgrims on the path. But it makes me think of just how special the Primitivo is- every year and especially this year. What a special, special walk.

I passed through Melide, pausing for a glass of wine with a pilgrim I’d met that morning, then I continued on. I intended to get something to eat but I was flustered by the city so I just started walking, and then another 5km flashed by and I was at my albergue (Albergue El Alemán, Boente). I’d made a reservation just two days before; I’d been nervous about all the pilgrims on the last 100km of the Frances and reports that finding beds in this stretch was really difficult (especially considering I was now walking in the height of the summer), but luckily I had no trouble finding places to sleep. I think it helped that I was staying “off stage” (off of the typical Brierley guidebook stages, anyway), but in any case, I was pleased to not have to stress about where I would sleep.

Day 9 on the Camino Primitivo

And this albergue was great! It had been recommended to me by my lovely host back in Vilar de Cas, and everything was just as promised: a beer garden with outdoor picnic tables under a large awning, a tiny restaurant/bar area with some basic pilgrim supplies, even a small pool to dip tired feet into! As I arrived, two pilgrims I’d met the night before were finishing lunch, and they invited me to their table and I ordered my own meal: a big salad, fish and roasted potatoes, cold melon for dessert. Those friends both continued on, and in the end there were only 5 pilgrims- including myself- in the albergue, and incredibly, four of us had been on the Primitivo! Even though I was technically now on the Francés, it felt as though I’d extended the Camino Primitivo by a few more kilometers. 

Somehow I managed to eat more food for dinner just a short while later, after giving my feet a long soak in the pool. After eating every last bite of my big bowl of pasta (not only have my Camino legs kicked in, it appears that the Camino hunger has kicked in as well!), I finished the day with a stroll through the quiet streets of the village. 

Pool at Albergue El Alemán, Camino Francés

Pasta dinner at Albergue El Alemán, Camino Francés

But the real ending was a small commotion I made in the bunk room of the albergue as I was preparing to go to bed. While trying to close the blinds of the window across from my bunk, I accidentally pulled the entire thing down and it fell with a crash. A Spanish pilgrim came over to see what the noise was and together we managed to get the blinds back in place, but there were little plastic pieces, broken, on the floor. I gathered them up in my hand and the pilgrim said- “Destroy the evidence!” and the hospitaleros had already turned in for the night and I couldn’t tell them about the window. So if you stay at the Albergue in Boente and the window shade falls down in the night, it is not a ghost!! It was just me.

Albergue window view, Day 9 on the Camino Primitivo

Next Post: Day 10 on the Camino Primitivo

Leave a Comment / Filed In: Camino de Santiago, Camino Primitivo
Tagged: Camino de Santiago, Camino Frances, camino primitivo, long distance walking, pilgrimage, solo female travel, travel

Day 8 on the Camino Primitivo, Lugo to Ferreira, 26.5km (+3km detour)

September 29, 2021

Day 8 on the Camino Primitivo YouTube Video

My day started in what is- for me- the best possible way: a large and creamy mug of coffee and some sort of bready and slightly sweet pastry in an charming old café in the main square of a Spanish city. The sun hadn’t yet risen but the sky was beginning to lighten, the streets were quiet, the espresso machine whirled and there was one other woman in the café, tucked away in the corner. My pack propped against the wall, my shoes laced tight, the hot coffee and a day of walking ahead.

Café del Centro, Lugo, Spain, Camino Primitivo

Selfie in mirror, Day 8 on the Camino Primitivo

The highlight of today’s walk was detouring to see the Roman Temple in Santa Eulalia de Bóveda, just a couple kilometers off the path of the Camino. I’d only given a cursory glance at what I was going to see, and on the way there I sort of thought I was going to see an old church (I’m going to blame it on the Camino and being in a new place everyday and never quite remembering where you’ve been or where you’re going). I arrived, figured out how to find the tourist office (this makes the place seem like some bustling city… it’s not. It’s a super tiny, deserted village with some houses and a church, and this little room that acts as the tourist information center). Luckily I arrived during their open hours, and I knocked on the door and a woman appeared and said something and of course I was confused and I went to try to find the temple (you’d think it would be obvious- but really, this was a very small, nondescript Spanish village, much like so many others I had seen before. The fact that an ancient temple was tucked away somewhere here was pretty amazing!) and finally I realized it was behind a locked door and I had to wait for the woman with the key.

She opened a door, led me down some steps, and I walked into a dark space and was blown away. This 3rd century Roman temple was only discovered in the 1940’s, and it’s so tucked away (underneath the church!) it’s incredible that it’s there at all, and that I somehow managed to find my way there. And I felt lucky to get to see it- I needed to have known about it, I needed to walk a few kilometers off the Camino, the tourism office needed to be open and staffed, all of it seemed to need to come together to get to be in this pretty special spot.

Santa Eulalia de Boveda Roman Temple, Camino Primitivo

Roman temple of Santa Eulalia de Boveda, Camino Primitivo

The rest of the walk felt good, the time passed quickly. It was an overcast day, and cool. There were no services for most of the walk, not until a bar about 7km before the end of the stage, and while I was taking a break there I saw several pilgrims I knew- Kinka was eating a sandwich, Andre walked by with his friends. An American and an Italian came up after I’d arrived and we started talking and just like that, it felt as though I had new friends! The Primitivo has felt really special, and I’m not sure if it’s just a particularly nice batch of pilgrims, or if it’s the unique nature of walking this year. Maybe both. I’ve said this before but the connections happen fast- you can chat with a pilgrim for 15 minutes at a rest stop, see them again in your albergue, and be laughing like you’re old friends.

Drink break on Day 8 of the Camino Primitivo

And that’s exactly what happened: Simone, the Italian, was staying in the same albergue as I was, and we checked in at the same time, got settled into our bunks, took turns taking a shower, and then whiled away the rest of the afternoon in the lounge of the albergue. It had grown cold outside, and stormy, and I was wearing every layer I’d brought with me, but it was warm in the albergue and once again, I’d found another great place: the Albergue Ponte Ferreira, owned by a wonderful Dutch couple, who greeted pilgrims with small mugs of mint tea and an incredible homemade dinner. We all filed into the large dining room when it was dinner time- there were 6 of us- and were treated to a crisp salad with avocado, big slices of cheesy quiche, pasta with a hearty meat sauce, bowls of vanilla ice cream with slivers of banana and a dollop of whipped cream. And wine and bread (of course!). Simone and I laughed and joked and it was like we were old friends, though we had just met earlier in the day, and once again I was with a new group but we were all, mostly, new to each other and it seemed like I was able to fit in easily. 

Glass of wine in Albergue Ponte Ferreira, Camino Primitivo

I fell asleep quickly, in my bunk in the corner of the room, under a freshly washed blanket (not all albergues were providing blankets during COVID, but this one was- you just had to request it!). A satisfying walk, a nourishing meal, the easy connection of fellow pilgrims, the knowledge that my Primitivo was nearing its finish, wrapped up and warm in my bed, safe and sound. 

Next Post: Day 9 on the Camino Primitivo

Leave a Comment / Filed In: Camino de Santiago, Camino Primitivo
Tagged: Camino de Santiago, camino primitivo, long distance walking, pilgrimage, solo female travel

Day 3 on the Camino Primitivo, La Espina to Samblismo, 29km

September 2, 2021

YouTube Video: Day 3 on the Primitivo

I’m settling in, I think. I walked about 28km today and felt good, though I’m tired now (almost 7pm and waiting for dinner) The weather today was almost cool, and I needed to put on my fleece every time I stopped for a break. But I’ve moved into the countryside, full of rolling hills and green forest tunnels and cows and horses and wildflowers. There was road walking, too, there almost always is, but as long as it’s not all day I really don’t mind. I think of this stage as the one where the Primitivo starts to get really, really beautiful. Particularly on the stretch just outside of Tineo, as you move slowly up to a ridge that overlooks a green valley, with views that stretch on and on. It’s just a taste of what is to come! Plus, somewhere in this section, I found a suitable walking stick, which is always a cause for celebration. A Camino is not complete until I’ve found a walking stick!

Path of the Camino Primitivo

Me and my walking stick, Camino Primitivo

View after Tineo on the Camino Primitivo

I also found another monastery. This one was just a slight diversion from the path, in Obona (Monasterio Santa María La Real de Obona), and even more abandoned than the last one (pilgrims can’t sleep here, and that’s probably a good thing, though this time there were no ghost encounters). But as luck would have it, just as I arrived, there was a small group of people who’d pulled up in a car, and one of the men had keys to get inside! He gestured to me to come in to have a look around, and so of course I did. I’m not sure how active the monastery is, if at all, because while there were pews set up in the church, everything was dusty and full of cobwebs. But how incredible to get a chance to see inside!

Monastery Obona, Camino Primitivo

Day 3 Camino Primitivo

About 4km before my evening destination I stopped in Campiello for a snack, which ended up being a beer and an empanada. Giuseppe- the man that I met on my first day of walking- was at a table with an Italian woman, and I pulled up a chair to join them and it felt so good to have these sort of Camino encounters again. Easy, welcome, relaxed. The beer and the food went down easy, too, and I sat for longer than I needed to, just soaking it all in, enjoying exactly where I was. Storm clouds were gathering in the distance and moving closer by the minute so I packed back up for the final kilometers, feeling revived and strong.  

Cerveza and empanada break in Campiello, Camino Primitivo

Really strong. My pace was fast and I must have looked awfully determined because I was stopped twice by locals making sure I knew where I was going and that I wasn’t about to attempt to walk the Hospitals route. I wasn’t- the rugged and wild and isolated Hospitales route would be for the next day, a 24km stretch without any towns or services. I assured both of the men that I was stopping in Samblismo and they relaxed and nodded but I thought to myself- ‘it’s 4pm! Of course I’m not heading off into the hills!’ But maybe I looked so determined, so sure, marching so solidly towards those green mountains that they needed to make sure that I knew where I was going, that I was going to be okay.

Before I knew it I was at the Albergue de Samblismo. Most pilgrims stay back in Campiello (where I had my beer/empanada break), or 3km further in Borres. There are albergues in both villages, but I’d read about a great albergue just 1km past Borres, and right at the Hospitales/Allende split. When I walked the Camino Primitivo back in 2015 I stayed in Campiello and it was fine; there’s a good bar/restaurant and a couple shops there, so it’s easy to stock up for the Hospitales route the next day. This time, I picked up what I needed for the next day when I passed through and continued to Samblismo. The albergue here isn’t part of a village, it’s just a building up in the hills, with incredible views and such a peaceful and quiet vibe. The hospitalero, Javi, is kind and gentle and prepares a communal meal for all the pilgrims. The COVID measures were great here- the albergue has five dorm rooms, most of them with just one or two bunk beds, but unless you were traveling as a pair or in a group, he only puts one pilgrim per room. So I had my own little room, and we all wore our masks inside and we spaced out at the dining room table for our meal.

And what a meal! Vegetable soup and a huge tray of paella and creamy pudding with poached peaches, wine and bread. The air was cool outside and we were bundled up at the table eating hot soup and once again I was with some new pilgrims, just three others: Giuseppe was there, but also Rudolph from Slovakia, and Antonio from Spain. Except for the pair of Spanish friends in the albergue in La Espina the night before, every pilgrim I’d met and shared albergue space with was traveling alone and this felt a little unusual. I always meet other solo pilgrims, but never this many, and there were several who had walked the Camino before, too. 

Communal meal- Albergue de Samblismo, Camino Primitivo

Most of our dinner conversation centered around the route the next day, and almost an obsession over what the weather was going to do. “We’re going to get some sun,” I said, “I know it.” The forecast in the early morning wasn’t great, but Javi thought that the clouds would clear by late morning, and I hoped he was right. When I last walked Hospitales, I was in the fog and clouds for most of the way. It was an incredible atmosphere but there were no views, and I could only just make out the path in front of me. The Hospitales stages is considered one of the most beautiful stages of any Camino, and back in 2015 I told myself that one day, I would come back to walk the Camino again, to try for better weather for this stage. I kept my promise, and now I was back, hoping against hope for good weather the next day.

Group at communal dinner, Albergue de Samblismo, Camino Primitivo

 

Next Post: Day 4 on the Primitivo

Leave a Comment / Filed In: Camino de Santiago, Camino Primitivo
Tagged: Albergue de Simbolismo, Camino de Santiago, camino primitivo, Campiello, long distance walking, pilgrimage, solo female travel, travel

Arriving in Oviedo and Day 1 on the Camino Primitivo

August 30, 2021

I’m back home from my 2021 Camino adventure! In some ways it all felt like a whirlwind- how can I be home already??- but in other ways my time on the Camino felt just right. Like just what I needed.

I thought I might be able to blog while I was on the walk, but it was about all I could do to post smaller updates to social media, try to go through the dozens and dozens of photos to select a few to share, and attempt to stay on top of the video I was taking. I fell behind on it all, but maybe that wasn’t a bad thing; enjoying the walk was the most important thing, and I think I did a good job of that.

Some of you may follow me on Instagram or on YouTube, so maybe have already seen these updates, but I wanted to transfer what I shared there over here to this blog. I thought I would attempt to do a day-to-day post of my walk this year, and share the photos and ‘travel log’ that I wrote each day, plus the corresponding video. And hopefully add in some extra details too! So, here we go!

 

July 21st: Travel to Oviedo, for the Camino Primitivo

It all felt a little jarring, to be on public transportation again, the first time since early 2020. I was sitting in the 30th Street station in Philadelphia, waiting for my train to Newark, thinking that already I’d traveled so far when I hadn’t even really left my city! But it felt adventurous in a different sort of way than ever before. A little more nerve-wracking too. I didn’t know how COVID would affect the travel OR the walk on the Camino, I didn’t even trust that I would be able to stay in Spain for as long as I planned. I told myself that I needed to head into this trip with flexibility and take things day by day. Have a plan, but be willing to change the plan if necessary. 

But oh, even with the pre-trip nerves and the extra layer of uncertainty that a pandemic added to this trip, I was so excited. Excited to be on a train, excited to arrive super early to the airport and wait around for hours, excited to board the plane and to take off and be flying across the ocean again. 

The travel went well; all I really needed to enter Spain- other than my passport- was a QR code that Spain required. I’d downloaded the app on my phone the day before I left for Spain, filled out the necessary info, and got my code. The app worked fine and they just scanned it when I got off the plane, and that was it! I was in Spain again!

But arrival is always overwhelming for me. I don’t sleep well on planes, and to suddenly be in another country, hearing an unfamiliar language, trying to navigate where to go… it truly DID feel like I’d forgotten how to do it all! I was flustered. I found a café and got a coffee and a sandwich for the bus ride, but I somehow ended up ordering a super expensive sandwich and I couldn’t remember the words for anything and I was tired but also just really happy to be there, with my first café con leche and the fancy ham and the jet lag. Then, after a lot of confusion, I figured out where I needed to go to get the airport shuttle to the bus station at the airport. From there I took a 6-hour bus ride to Oviedo (didn’t eat the sandwich on the bus because no one was eating anything and we were all masked and I wondered if maybe it was a new COVID rule). It was a lot of travel, hours and hours and hours, and it would have been easier to have spent a night in Madrid, but I just wanted to get to the Camino and start walking, just get there as fast as I could.

Cathedral in Oviedo, Spain

The evening in Oviedo was a whirlwind too, but a whirlwind in a good way. I got to the city and found an Orange store where I could buy a SIM card for my phone, and the woman who helped me was so kind and I walked away with a deal that got me a 28-day plan with a good amount of data that cost only a tad more than my airport sandwich (which I was STILL carrying around because I hadn’t gotten the chance to eat it yet). Then to my albergue- a new and private one just around the corner from the cathedral (La Hospederia Oviedo)- and I checked in and the women working there showed me around and told me that there was a vespers service with a pilgrim blessing starting in 30 minutes. I desperately needed a shower so I rushed through it, briefly met another pilgrim in the albergue and then raced outside, my hair still dripping, to try to find the chapel. I settled into a pew and listened to the nuns singing and despite being exhausted, despite being hungry, despite being overwhelmed with it all- the trains and planes and buses and shuttles and being back in Spain- I felt settled, I felt comforted. I felt like I belonged. 

Travel log:

It will never cease to amaze me, that in one moment I can be home, and the next… just like that (in this case it took over 24 hours but time when you’re traveling always feels strange), just like that you can be in a totally different place. One day ago, or two, I was running around home and buying a new rain jacket and my mom was packing me a sandwich and my dad gave me coffee money, and then, a train here and a plane there, I’m in Spain. I forget how to do this. Do I remember how to do this? How to navigate a place, a language? How to recognize a street, how to spot the first scallop shell marker on the ground and nearly cry for joy. Then, truly, shed a tear or two in a church, a little chapel that I made it to just in time for a vespers service, my hair dripping from my shower, the instructions the hospitaleras gave me still ringing in my ears. I’d been traveling non stop and I needed to eat, and arrange my pack, and just get my bearings but this- being in a church and hearings the nuns singing, followed by a pilgrim’s blessing- this I could remember how to do. And this, sitting in a wooden pew, voices echoing off the thick stone walls, the smell of candles and incense, in a large city in northern Spain: this feels like belonging. And I haven’t even started the walking yet. 

(PS: It might have been the last thing I did that day, but I finally ate my airport sandwich. And it was really good.)

 

July 23rd: Day One, Oviedo to Cornellana, 38km 

I might have felt overwhelmed the evening before, but in the morning, those familiar Camino routines came back to me quickly: creep out of bed as silently as possible to not wake the other pilgrims in the room, change into my hiking clothes, brush my teeth, splash water on my face. There was a small kitchen in the albergue with instant coffee and toast, so I made myself a quick breakfast before I left for the day. While I was eating, one of the pilgrims in my room had gotten up and sat down at the table to have some coffee. He’d been walking on the Norte but had taken a train to Oviedo to switch to the Primitivo, because finding beds in albergues had been difficult. He asked me about my plan for the day, and had some opinions when I told him that I was planning to walk to Cornellana, 38ish kilometers away. “It seems like you’re doing this for some athletic reason,” he said. “You should be flexible with your plan,” he said. “38km is too long for a first day,” he said.

Snail crawling up Camino marker

I’d been excited about my plan; I knew it would, indeed, be a lot for a first day, but then again, this wasn’t my first Camino. And I’d come into this Camino pretty fit, having recently traveled around the American Southwest where I’d done a lot of hiking. AND, there was a monastery I really wanted to stay in. 

And, well, I just really wanted to walk. To walk and walk and walk.

I finished my toast, the last sip of coffee, and stood up from the table. I stuffed my things into my pack and laced up my shoes and said goodbye to the pilgrim and pushed his words from my head. Maybe 38km was too far to walk for a first day, but the only who gets to decide that is me. 

It was raining, a little, when I left Oviedo, and normally I don’t like walking in the rain but this time I barely noticed because I was just so happy to be walking again. It all felt so familiar, but also as though it had been a long, long time since I’d been on a Camino. Much longer than just two years. As I moved away from the city I could feel myself starting to settle in, to remember what it was like to be on a Camino: to always be on the lookout for the yellow arrows, to get used to the weight of my pack against my back, to greet the cows in the fields, to hope to find an open bar for a late morning café con leche. To put one foot in front of the other, over and over and over, and know that I was moving myself a little closer- with each step- to Santiago.

Travel log:

It’s probably too soon to tell, but this Camino feels like “classic Camino.” Classic like… it’s quiet, with not many pilgrims on the way, but when you DO see another pilgrim you really notice them, and take the time to say hello. Classic in that you make a friend on the first day, someone to walk with for an hour or two, to stop with at a big outdoor terrace with a little hidden door that leads down to the river where you can cool your feet, and then a few steps up back to your table where there’s a fresh tortilla pincho on really great bread, and a small of cana of beer, the perfect size.
 
 
Classic in that you walk for a really long time, farther than you should for a first stage (39km!!), but arrive to an 11th century monastery where it’s just you and one other pilgrim who also walked the whole way from Oviedo. You’ve never spoken a word to each other but there you are, high-fiving in the courtyard, beneath the ancient stone. Classic in that you walk to a store together, and buy pasta and a few veggies and take it back to the albergue kitchen (which is open, not many are) and cook a meal and talk about the Camino and about how you got here. Classic in that two more pilgrims stumble in, and you share your food, and the hospitalera brings you small bottles of cider. Classic in that, somehow, you have a small blister from your too long but also just right day, in a place where you’ve never had one before. Classic that it rained on day one, but also that the sun shone, and the hydrangeas were beautiful and you met a nice cat and the villagers said ‘Buen Camino!’ and tried to help when you got turned around in Grado. Classic Camino, let’s hope there are more days like this ahead!
 
chapel on Camino Primitivo
 
flowers in rain on day one of Camino Primitivo
 
 
YouTube video: Primitivo, Day One
 

Next Post: Day 2 on the Primitivo

9 Comments / Filed In: Camino de Santiago, Camino Primitivo, Trail Journals
Tagged: Camino de Santiago, camino primitivo, hiking, long distance walking, Oviedo, pilgrimage, travel, walking

It’s as if I’ve never done this before

July 20, 2021

The countdown is on and I’m heading back to Spain and I sit here in my apartment, with a glass of wine and a to-do list that is mostly checked off, and I wonder: was there ever a time that I could head off on a Camino and feel totally at ease?

Maybe. But maybe not. I always get nervous before these trips but this year it feels bigger. Because it is bigger, because I’m traveling internationally during a pandemic. But, also, there are all the regular pre-Camino worries and I suspect those will never go away, no matter how many times I do this, no matter if it’s been 2 years since I’ve been on a plane to cross the ocean, or 10 years, or 5 months.

In this case it’s been 2 years but it might as well have been 10 because I seem to forget how to do it all. The pile of things for my Camino pack- right now sitting on my desk, as a few freshly washed clothing items still need to dry- seems large. Really large. I keep adding more and more, and you’d think I’d know better, but it all feels essential! Or, it feels like I can handle it, like I can handle the extra weight: the neck pillow for the plane, the electric coil for morning coffee when there are no other options (this one I’m excited about. I feel like I’ve entered a new level of pilgrimage.) The face masks- essential. The rain pants- I never know whether to take these or not but they’ve been so wonderful in the past and the forecast for where I want to walk is calling for rain so into the pack they go!

Speaking of rain gear, I ran around today to buy a new rain jacket, because I discovered that my trusty white coat that I bought before my first Camino in 2014 is officially no longer waterproof. It took a downhill turn sometime in the last year (or two?) but I bought fancy detergent and rewaterproofing stuff from REI in an attempt to save the jacket, but of course I never actually used the jacket in this last month to see if it worked. A few YouTube searches later and I did an “immersion” test, followed by a “spray test” yesterday and the jacket failed spectacularly, both times. Water gets in and gets me wet, and this will not do for a projected 90% chance of rain for my first day’s walk in Spain. My old jacket was white, the new one is a rather bright blue. But I bought it in a hurry because what else is there to do? Lets see if it keeps me dry.

Walking in the rain on the Pennine Way, England

Goodbye, raincoat, you served me well

Have I trained enough? Will I remember how to order a tortilla? Will my feet swell, will I get blisters, will I find my way? Did I forget some essential item, like my towel, or my water bottle? Will I find a suitable walking stick once I start my walk? Will my knees hurt, even though they haven’t bothered me for several years? Am I going to be all alone?

That, maybe, is a big question, and a big unknown. I don’t know what the Camino is going to be like during COVID, even as I’ve been scouring the forum and the fb groups, even as I watch YouTube videos of pilgrims who are out there right now (here, and here, and here). I’m trying to go in with an open mind and a flexible attitude, with a Plan A and B and C, but even this is different. Usually, I go with an idea of which route I’m going to walk, and then I just… go. I probably have some notes of albergues I want to sleep in, or towns I want to stop in, but otherwise the plan is loose. I know my timeframe, I know approximately how long it will take to walk my chosen route, but then I just figure it out when I’m there.

This year, anything could happen. I’m reserving ahead. Part of me wanted to make every single reservation before I left for Spain (which would have been fine, but a lot!) but instead I’ve settled on the first 4 or 5 nights, along with a document outlining my likely stages and lodging options. I’m going to try private albergues for the first few nights, and see how it feels, with hopes that the reduced capacity of the lodgings (50% or 30% depending on the place) will make it feel less precarious and not crowded. After all of these months of COVID, I shudder a bit at those big, crowded albergues, the bunks close together (sometimes side by side, eek!) and the shut windows and the close air. While never ideal, I also never really minded it all that much, but this year is different.

And if I’m feeling uncomfortable with albergue life, I’m resolving to book private rooms, and most certainly will for part of the time anyway. But all of this thinking and researching and planning has taken time, and while it’s been sort of fun and has added to the anticipation, I’m now overthinking everything. Do you want to know how many times I’ve checked the weather app on my phone to see what the forecast is going to be like for Oviedo? No, I don’t think you want to know. It’s a little ridiculous.

15 photos that might make you plan a walk on the Camino del Norte; Oviedo cathedral in fog

I’ve been alone a lot during COVID, I recently took a long road trip to the southwest and it was wonderful and amazing but I was alone for that, too. I don’t mind being alone (readers of the blog know that I all but insist on walking alone!), but some of my happiest memories from the Camino are the days and the moments when I’m with someone, when I make a strong connection. I worry about how to do that, this time around. Have I completely lost practice, will I be too nervous, and if I stay in private rooms will I ever have anyone to eat dinner with?

All of this, and yet, a very solo pilgrimage appeals too. Honestly, just being out there and walking is the thing I want to do the most, it’s the thing I’ve dreamt about since March 2020, when I wasn’t sure when I would be able to get back to Europe. The fact that I can go at all this year feels like nothing short of a miracle, and I’m so very grateful.

What else do I need to do? Call my bank, make sure all the windows to my apartment are shut, find those leftover Euros from two years ago, maybe make a walking playlist, if I have time. But, really, I just need to take a deep breath, and remember the biggest lesson that the Camino has taught me: begin with a single step.

And so, very soon, I’ll take that first step, and I’ll be on my way. The Camino is calling, and I’m going back!

9 Comments / Filed In: Camino de Santiago, solo-female travel
Tagged: Camino, Camino de Santiago, camino primitivo, hiking, long distance walking, solo female travel

Video: Camino Aragonés Pt 2

January 26, 2021

Nadine writing in journal in Arrés on the Camino Aragones, sunset in background

If you missed part one, click here to watch the first part of my journey on the Camino Aragonés.

After those first 5-days (beginning in France, walking up a mountain in the rain, crossing into Spain and descending into a completely different landscape), I’m now in the small village of Santa Cilia and on my way to Arrés, where a famed albergue awaits me.

The theme of this second half of the Aragonés was definitely the heat. Much of Europe was experiencing a heat wave in late June 2019, and I walked some of my hottest days to date. The temperature reached 40ºC/105ºF on several days, and much of the time the path ran through an open, treeless landscape. This made for some early starts to beat the heat, even some pre-sunrise walking.

The end of the Aragonés- in Puente La Reina- was only the end of that particular path, and not the end of my walking that summer. I finished the Aragonés and caught a bus heading north, where I hoped the air would be cooler.

Here are the stages and links to places I stayed for the five days this video covered:

Day 6: Santa Cilia to Arrés, 10.2km
Albergue de peregrinos de Arrés   (*this is a must-stay albergue!)

Day 7: Arrés to Ruesta, 28.4km
Albergue de Ruesta.  (*very good albergue)

Day 8: Ruesta to Sangüesa, 22km
Albergue de peregrinos de Sangüesa

Day 9: Sangüesa to Monreal, 27.2km
Albergue de peregrinos de Monreal

Day 10: Monreal to Puente La Reina, 30.6km
Albergue de los Padres Reparadores

And here’s the video! I hope you enjoy the adventure.

3 Comments / Filed In: Camino Aragones, Camino de Santiago, solo-female travel
Tagged: Camino Aragones, Camino de Santiago, camino videos, hiking, long distance walking, travel, walking, youtube

Becoming a YouTuber?

January 21, 2021

January tends to be a really creative time for me. It was the month when I first created this blog. The month when I hatched the idea for my e-book. The month I started a Patreon, the month I explored posting photographs on Shutterstock (that one never really took off, but it was fun to experiment with.)

This year, and this month, I’ve thrown myself into yet another new thing, and it’s been fun. I started making videos!

I know very little about YouTubing, I don’t even spend all that much time on YouTube. But recently- and probably due to really missing the Camino- I’ve started watching hiking videos. It started with my friend Alan’s videos of his trek across Japan, then I discovered Sara’s Camino journeys. And then another YouTube channel, and another. 

I thought back to an idea I’d had after my 2019 walks on the Aragonés and the Norte. I’d taken short videos every day on those walks and posted them to Instagram stories. I’d had a lot of fun with it and had thought about stringing the videos together into something a little larger, more continuous. Not all of my friends and family were or are on Instagram (and I’d imagine some blog followers aren’t, either!), and many missed those videos. I thought it would be a fun thing to create and share.

So, 2020 turned to 2021, and the pandemic is still here, and the days are cold, the nights are long, and I decided to work on making an Aragonés video. I know I keep saying that making the video was fun, but I can’t think of a better word. It’s fun! I’ve made a few videos before- not really knowing anything about the process and figuring out iMovie by trial and error- but I’ve always really enjoyed the process. And this time was no different. 

There’s so much still to learn, and a lot about the videos that I wish could be different. For starters, all of the vertical clips! (Instagram uses a vertical format for their stories, and so on that platform it made sense to use a vertical orientation. But for YouTube? Not so great!) And because I never really intended to make a video like this, I wish I had shot a lot more, I wish my narration was a little different, a little fuller. 

But I can only work with what I have, and I loved sorting through the clips and stringing them together and finding music and choosing photographs and just… reliving it all. Watching my own progress, seeing how I grow more confident throughout the month, hearing the certainty in my voice, the joy. 

I have one video completed and posted up on YouTube. Here it is! It’s the Part 1 of my walk on the Camino Aragonés, and Part 2 will be done soon. I’m also planning to put together some videos from the Norte as well. After that… well, I’ll have to go on another walk. I think- maybe?- this will be a new project for my next Camino, another way to capture and share the stories of my walks. I’m still going to take lots of photographs and write blog posts, but the videos feel like a very natural evolution. A different kind of picture, a different way to show you my pilgrimage.

I hope you enjoy this new little venture. If you like the first video, please subscribe to the YouTube channel! I’m certainly no expert on this, but it’s a way to be notified when more videos are posted, and it gives me a good sense of how many people are engaged and watching. 

That’s the small update for now; more soon!

6 Comments / Filed In: Camino Aragones, Camino de Santiago, hiking, walking
Tagged: Camino Aragones, Camino de Santiago, camino videos, hiking, long distance walking, travel, walking, youtube, youtube camino

October Recap: Waterfalls and Scary Movies and Casting a Vote

October 30, 2020

There’s ragu simmering on the stovetop and I’m back to my regular spot at the kitchen table, beer in hand, the place where I sit to think and to write in the fall and winter months. Sometimes I think that I get my best writing done when the weather turns cool. Maybe it’s the shortening daylight (only 6:30 and already dark!), maybe it’s the desire to retreat, hunker down, put on my slippers and a long sweater and sink in. 

And so, back to writing it is!

Despite not posting a ton of content here lately, I think about this blog a lot. I have dozens of ideas for posts, a whole bunch of drafts and half-written things, and dreams of a grand return to blogging. At one point I was tempted to challenge myself to write a post every day for a month (who knows, it could still happen!)

In the meantime, we’ll start here, with a monthly recap. It’s my intention to start doing this every month, to put out a post that rounds up all the little things that I want to share: weekend trips and my latest hikes, what I’m reading/watching/listening to, the things I’m writing and the photographs I’m taking.

It feels like I’m always saying something like- “I can’t believe it’s ** already!”. Wasn’t I just saying that about the end of summer, or the month of September? But now we’re at the end of October and in some ways it still feels like spring. I’ve said this before and I’m still feeling it: it’s as if COVID froze time, as though it were still spring or that it’s one long extension of a very strange season, and that life- real life- won’t begin again until this virus is somewhere behind us.

It feels this way, and yet, life goes on. Real life, as strange as it is, is right now. And October was full of some good things!

Travel

I went on a couple notable weekend trips this month: up to the Adirondacks of New York, and out to the Pine Creek Gorge (often called the “Grand Canyon of PA”) in north-central Pennsylvania. Both trips involved hiking and finding good food and lots of time outside. Plus a chance to soak up the beautiful fall foliage! I think each trip caught the tail end of peak foliage, but even under overcast skies, the landscape was stunning. I might not love cold weather, but I still really appreciate living in a place that has four, distinct seasons. 

Goose Pond Inn Bed and Breakfast, North Creek, NY

Old-fashioned dinner in Wellsboro, PA

Hiking

Moxham Mountain (near North Creek, NY), a 5.5 mile hike featuring expansive lookouts over the Hudson Valley and the Adirondack mountains. There were so many scenic viewpoints and the climb up was gradual/steady, and never very steep. I loved it! 

Summit of Moxham Mountain, NY

Mt. Joy & Mt. Misery, Valley Forge National Park, PA, 6.5 miles: my local Camino group met for the first time since February. The group limit was capped at 10 and we all wore masks throughout the hike (it was easier than I thought it would be! Sometimes when I was a bit out of breath on an uphill section I’d pull my mask down but for the majority of the hike kept it on). Our leader for the day took us on a great loop through the park, including a section on a ‘border trail’ that’s not marked on any of the official maps. Valley Forge can get busy, especially on weekends, but once we got into the woods the people thinned out and it seemed like we had the trees to ourselves. And it was so good to see some of my Camino buddies, and be in a small group again. I was a little nervous heading into the gathering but a hike in the woods- with masks and social distancing- felt safe and good.

Sign at Valley Forge National Park

American Pilgrims on the Camino Philadelphia Chapter, Valley Forge National Park, October 2020

Great Falls Loop, Ricketts Glen State Park, PA, 4 miles: On my way to north-central PA to meet my sister for the weekend, I stopped by Ricketts Glen State Park, known for it’s waterfalls. I’d heard of the park before but had never made the trip- now I’m wondering what’s taken me so long! (like so many others, it’s taken the pandemic to get me exploring more in my own backyard). The 4-mile loop wound past 17 waterfalls- 17!! Just when I thought it couldn’t get better, it did. With dappled sunlight and leaves fluttering down from the trees, it was truly a perfect fall hike. (There’s a longer waterfall loop hike- about 7 miles- but if you park in the Lake Rose lot it’s possible to do a shorter loop and still see all- or nearly all- of the waterfalls).

Great Falls Loop, Ricketts Glen State Park, PA

Double waterfall at Rickett's Glen State Park, PA

Reading/Watching/Listening

It’s taking me forever, but I’m loving Haruki Murakami’s ‘The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle‘. I was reading a ton in late spring/summer, but now that I’m back to work in a school, my energy is sapped at the end of the day. But I’m determined to finish and then start on some of my current library requests: on the docket is Elena Ferrante’s ‘The Lying Life of Adults‘ (still on a waiting list but I can’t wait to read this!), and Yaa Gyasi’s ‘Transcendent Kingdom‘. 

I mentioned this in my last post, but I’m really enjoying David Smith’s new podcast– Clearskies Camino. His blog is a great place for all-things-Camino, and the podcast is proving to be more of the same. Each week he interviews a different pilgrim about their experience on the Camino, and it’s been so much fun to hear the voices of some people I’ve been “following” (blog/social media) for years now. I’m gathering up the courage to be one of his guests- I think I would love talking about my experience but of course these kinds of things always make me so nervous! 

It’s October, and that means scary movies! I watched Netflix’s ‘The Haunting of Bly Manor’ and it was the perfect thing to get me in a spooky kind of mood. Along with my annual viewing of ‘The Shining’, of course. On a completely different note, I’m also watching the new season of The Great British Baking Show (I love, love, love this show).

Writing

This month’s essay on Patreon is a reflective piece, about how an encounter on the Pennine Way got me thinking about what my version of heaven might look like. I’m having a lot of fun working on Patreon essays, and love that I have a place for these writings to land. You’ve got to ‘subscribe’ and sign up as a patron to get access to these once-a-month essays, but levels start as low as $1 a month! The support I’m getting here means the world to me, and I love that a platform like this exists.

I blogged about what it’s like to walk the Camino as an introvert, and as ever, I’m continuing to make slow progress on my Camino book. (An early chapter is up on my Patreon site, and it’s a public piece so you don’t need to be a patron to read it. Check it out!)

Photos

Over on Instagram, I’m revisiting my first Camino- my 2014 journey on the Camino Francés- and it’s been fun to share some of those memories. Otherwise, my camera roll is full of tall trees and fall colors: oranges, reds, yellows. This is one of the most beautiful times of the year in my corner of the world, and I’m trying to get outside everyday for a walk, even if it’s often the same loop through my neighborhood. What a beautiful loop it is!

Majestic fall tree, southeastern PA

Fall neighborhood walk, southeastern PA

***

Two additional, quick highlights:

1: My grandmother turned 90! Happy Birthday Baba!

2: I voted! Election Day isn’t until November 3rd but this year, millions of voters are getting their ballots in early. I dropped off my mail-in ballot at a local drop-box (I was able to walk down my driveway and onto a path through the woods to get there- what a way to vote!), and I got confirmation that it got to where it needed to go. Hoping, praying, for some good change to come to this country.

 

Nadine Walks sometimes uses affiliate links, which means that if you make a purchase through one of these links, I’ll earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.

4 Comments / Filed In: Writing
Tagged: autumn, Election Day, hiking, long distance walking, solo female travel, travel, walking

Walking the Camino as an Introvert

October 13, 2020

I had a lot of worries before my first Camino. They mostly centered around the physical nature of the journey: would I be able to walk all the way to Santiago? Would I develop crippling blisters and have to stop walking? Would I fall and hurt myself? Would I lose the way? Would I run out of water, or food?

But there was another layer of worries as well, and these revolved around the social part of the experience. Would I make friends? Would I walk alone? How would I do sleeping in albergues with dozens and dozens of other pilgrims?

Before the Camino I read a lot of books and blogs and articles, and so many mentioned the idea of a ‘Camino family’. Most people, as they walk, pick up a small group of others that they move through the Camino with. The groups can tend to form early and the bonds are strong. These Camino families, it would appear, were one of the highlights of the way for so many people.

I was intrigued by the idea of a Camino family. I was excited about the possibility of it: a group of people you could always be with! No loneliness! No losing your way! Someone to share a bottle of wine with!

But I was also a little terrified of the idea. When would I ever get my alone time?

I was listening to a podcast the other day, the Clearskies Camino podcast, a new venture from David of Clearskies Camino (a blog I’ve been following for years!) He was interviewing Pablo, of Setmeravelles (another blog I’ve been following for years!), and one piece of advice that Pablo shared was this: Don’t be afraid to make connections with other pilgrims, especially if you’re an introvert.

This struck me, because I don’t often hear talk about introversion on the Camino.

I’m an introvert, through and through. I recently did a Myers Briggs test (for probably the 6th time), just to see how I scored, and on the extraverted/introverted scale, I was 93% introverted. I’ve known this about myself for a long time, but I think I can sometimes forget, because I like people. I really like other people (I’m a counselor who talks to teenagers all day!), and I think a common misconception about introverts is that they don’t like to socialize or be around other people. Another misconception is that all introverts are shy, and quiet (I happen to be rather shy and quiet, but it doesn’t mean that all introverts are!)

The real key to understanding an introvert is this: a lot of time around people can really drain them and tire them out. I, for one, have a limit, and once I reach it, all I want in the world is to be in a space by myself. The time to myself is what energizes me, fills me back up. Plus, I’ve always really liked my own company, and often I want to spend time alone, in my own company. It makes me feel centered and solid, grounded.

The Camino is a really great opportunity to be in your own company: if you’re walking the entirety of the Camino Francés, you’ve got 500 miles of walking, day after day after day. There are a lot of other pilgrims around, but there’s a ton of opportunity to be alone and be with your thoughts.

And, also, the Camino is a really great opportunity to be with other people. I remember a pilgrim I’d met towards the end of the Francés telling me about a girl he’d walked with for the first two weeks of his Camino. “We were never apart,” he said. “Every single minute of every day, we were together.” (I shuddered.) And it wasn’t a romantic thing, it was just… a Camino thing. A people thing. It’s fun to be around other people on the Camino, and with all of that walking, having friends at your side can make the time pass quickly. It’s great to share big experiences with other people.

And I might even argue that most pilgrims, on the Camino, like to share their experience with other people. I could be wrong (and please, say hello in the comments and share your experience if you walked!), but so often on the Camino I saw people in pairs or groups. Even if they’d arrived at the Camino alone, they almost always linked up with other people. Formed their Camino families.

I’ve walked a lot of Caminos since that first one, back in 2014, and I’ve never formed or been part of a Camino family, not really. I’ve made deep connections, I’ve made friends, there were people I would always run into or make loose plans with or stay in the same towns with, but never all the way to Santiago, never until the end of my walk. There are lots of reasons for this (and really, that’s a separate post), but I don’t think I ever needed a true ‘Camino family’ to appreciate the social aspects of the Camino. I’ve had such good, deep experiences with other pilgrims, and the opportunities for those connections is something that makes the Camino really special.

Being an introvert isn’t the only reason I don’t form Camino families when I walk. But I do think it can sometimes feel a little difficult to be introverted and be on an incredibly social sort of experience, surrounded by dozens and dozens- even hundreds and hundreds- of other people every day for weeks at a time. You see them on the trail, you see them in the bars, you see them in the places you sleep (often just feet away in the next bunk bed!).

And sometimes, it can feel a little lonely to see other pilgrims in their groups, laughing and sharing a bottle of wine, and to sometimes be the one on the outside. Even if you’re choosing to be the one on the outside. Even if sometimes you need to be the one on the outside.

Crossing the mountains, Dragonte route, Camino Francés

But I do think it’s possible- very, very possible- to walk the Camino as an introvert and have a fabulous time.

If you’re walking the Camino as part of a pair or a group from home, I think it’s important to have a conversation before you start. I’ve done this on the several occasions that I’ve walked with a friend from home, explaining that, sometimes, I’ll want to walk by myself. It can sometimes feel hard to have this conversation, or to set this expectation (especially if the other person prefers to always have someone to walk with!), but having an open conversation upfront can really help.

And if you’re walking the Camino solo, it’s still important to have these conversations with the people you meet, the friends you make. This is something I learned after my first Camino- when I wasn’t clear enough about my needs and didn’t get enough time alone- and it’s something I’m always working on when I walk. How to be friendly and sometimes walk with others, how to form strong, deep connections, but how to give myself enough of what I need, and the time that I need alone. How to truly walk my own walk.

Introversion on the Camino; solo pilgrim statue, Camino Frances

Sometimes this is hard. Sometimes I can spend hours walking with another pilgrim- sometimes all day- and thoroughly enjoy that time. Sometimes I feel lonely and crave company (and this can be the day after I went slightly off-stage from a group of friends so that I could get alone time). Sometimes I need to tell a friend that I want to walk alone, and I can see hurt and disappointment in their eyes. “It’s not you!” I want to say. “It’s just that I’ll feel so depleted, feel like I’m giving away too much of myself, if I don’t get the chance to walk alone.”

But, mostly, it’s not so bad. I’ve learned how to have this conversation gently, easily (most of the time). Most people get it. Sometimes, I’ll meet someone on the path and fall into a conversation and walk with them for an hour. I love how this can happen on the Camino, and I love that pilgrims usually cut out the small talk, and go right to the deeper stuff (which introverts tend to like anyway). But after walking for awhile, if I want to be alone, all it takes is saying, “I’m going to walk by myself for awhile, but I hope I’ll see you in the next town!” Sometimes I say, “I’m going to stop here and take some photographs.” (Often I do want to take photographs, but sometimes I say this if I don’t feel like explaining that I want to be alone.)

And the Camino really can be the perfect place for both introverts and extroverts. For me, if I’m able to walk all day or most of the day alone, I love that I can socialize in the evenings with other pilgrims. I often really want to spend time with other people, because I’ve already had plenty of time to be on my own.

And if you really need a break, there’s almost always an option to stay in a private room in a pension. I never did on my first Camino (I ended up loving the albergue experience), but on my second Camino, the Norte, there was a night I needed to stay in a pension because the albergues were full. And I have to say, it was an illuminating experience. It was such luxury! To have my own little room, a bed that wasn’t a bunk bed, a bathroom all to myself! I went to a corner store and bought basic supplies for dinner and then returned back to my room and spent hours there, all alone, soaking it up. I loved it. 

In the last few years, I’ve gravitated towards less-traveled paths. My 5-days on the Camino de San Salvador were almost completely solo: no one in the albergues until the last day, no one on the trail with me until the last day. My walk on the Pennine Way was much the same: after some great and fun interactions over the first three days, I went on to walk a very solo walk, often staying in empty bunkhouses. Walking like this isn’t for everyone, and these were on the more extreme end of ‘socially isolated’ walks. But there are some good in-between trails. For me, the Camino Aragonés is the perfect blend of quiet time and socialization. Not many pilgrims walk, but there are just enough- maybe a dozen or two- walking the same stages. You’ll mostly be alone on the path, but will inevitably run into the same group in the evenings. Perfect for a friendly introvert like me.

One of my favorite things on the Camino is when I unite with other introverts. I had a few days on the Norte when this happened- somehow, a group of about 6 of us came together. We were all on the Camino alone, none of us had formed a ‘Camino family’, most of us seemed to be doing our own thing, I suspect we were all introverts. But we came together for a night in such a beautiful, perfect way, to share a meal and talk and laugh and feel so at ease together. We parted the next day, we didn’t walk or stay together as Camino families tend to do, but that didn’t make the experience any less magical, or any less meaningful.

I’m always curious about others’ experiences: how many readers/pilgrims/walkers are introverts? Do you ever have difficulty with the social experience of the Camino or a long walk? How do you balance the social opportunities with enough time alone?

5 Comments / Filed In: Camino de Santiago, Travel
Tagged: Camino Aragones, Camino de Santiago, camino del norte, Camino Frances, hiking, introvert, long distance walking, pennine way, solo female travel, travel, walking

Dreaming of Walking Again

August 16, 2020

This was going to be a big walking year. Well, I suppose you could consider every year since 2014 a big walking year for me, since I always planned at least one long-distance hike/walk. But this year? This year was going to be good.

Last summer I returned to Spain after three years away, and spent 30 days walking the Camino Aragonés and part of the Camino del Norte. As I walked (particularly at the three-week mark), I realized that I hadn’t walked a 30-day stretch since 2015. And I have to admit that I was a little surprised to realize that it felt GOOD.

coastal path on the Camino del Norte

Previously, I’d thought that my body adjusted and my hiking legs kicked in after about 10-days of walking, and while there’s probably some truth to that, something else seemed to happen after another 10-days, at least on this particular trip, something that I hadn’t felt since 2015: I felt like I could walk forever.

I not only start to feel strong, I continue to feel strong. My body adjusts, almost completely.

It’s physical but it’s mental too, because 30-days gives me enough time to really settle in. On my two-week long trips (like Le Chemin du Puy, and the Pennine Way), just as my body starts to adjust, my mind begins the wind-down process, and I never get the chance to just really sink into it. But to have an entire month to walk? The routines feel natural, normal. Walking becomes what I do.

Nadine and backpack on beach, Camino del Norte

I’ve wondered what it would be like to walk for even longer, and I fantasize about giving myself two months, even three months, to walk continuously. Would my body eventually break down? Would I become restless or bored, wishing I could just stop moving and stay in one place?

While I didn’t plan a two-month walking trip this summer, I did recognize that I wanted to walk for more than a few weeks. I wanted another long stretch. And so I booked a flight to Portugal and had a solid 40-days of walking before I would need to make my way over to France, and my writer’s retreat at La Muse.

I didn’t even have a plan of how I would spend those 40 days! I had a Camino Portuguese guidebook, and the thought that I could spend a few days walking south of Lisbon on the Fisherman’s Trail (Rota Vincentina) before making my way north on the Camino, towards Santiago. I intended to walk to Santiago, but knew that I’d have extra time and thought I could either do another trip out to Finisterre/Muxia (and finally walk the link between the two villages!), or maybe walk part of the Camino Invierno.

Muxia, end of the Camino

The coast at Muxia, Spain

All I knew was that I was excited, really excited, to have 40-days to walk.

But this wasn’t it; had all gone according to plan, I would have done some spring-time walking in Japan, as well, on the Kumano Kodo. That would have been 5 days of walking in the mountains of the Kii Peninsula, and it’s hard to describe how much I had been looking forward to that trip.

And maybe ‘hard’ is the best word for all of this. It’s been hard to give up these trips because of COVID. It’s been hard to not go on a long walk this year. It’s been hard to be uncertain about the future, to worry about where my country (the United States) is headed, to stay energized and hopeful in the day-to-day.

At first, I couldn’t look at or read anything that had to do with travel, it stung too much. But a few months ago, I listened to a podcast where Sherry Ott (of Ottsworld, a great travel blog) talked about her long-distance walks and at first I thought I would have to turn it off but as I listened some little spark reappeared. She talked about St Olav’s Way, in Norway, and my brain started turning. What would it be like to walk in Scandinavia?

rising sun, Camino Primitivo

Not Scandinavia, but a beautiful path in Spain, on the Camino Primitivo

I started to do a little research and before I knew it, I had a document outlining a 30-day trip on the Gudbrandsdalen Path (the most popular of the pilgrimage paths making up St Olav’s Way). I didn’t know that I would ever actually walk in Norway, and if I did, I had no idea when it would be, but it felt good to plan. 

And then, a few weeks later, I bought myself another ticket to Japan. I just pushed my trip back one year and honestly, I have no idea if I’ll be able to get to Japan next spring but I figure I might as well act as though I can (a caveat: I got 100% of my flight/lodging money back for the trip I had to cancel, and my flight for next year has good cancelation options). 

In the past couple of months I’ve let myself dream of travel again, especially of all the walks I want to do. A friend living in Spain traveled up to Scotland to walk the Great Glen Way… and instantly I was reading blogs and doing research, planning my own stages. And then I started thinking about Portugal, realizing that I never really looked through the guidebook that I’d bought for my trip and so I started dreaming of walks by the coast and pasteis de nata.

Boat on the Duoro River, Porto

I dug back into Kat’s blog (Following the Arrows). She passed away earlier this year and it was hard to read through her posts but I’ve always gone to her for information and inspiration, and her blog is excellent. I saw that she’d walked the Coast to Coast- had I realized this?

And then I remembered that a few years ago, I’d asked for a Coast to Coast guidebook for Christmas (this must have been right after I walked the Pennine Way), and suddenly I was planning yet another walk, this time a walk across England.

Winding Path, Day 15 on the Pennine Way

It’s hard to not be able to buy a ticket and hop on a plane and use the last few weeks of my vacation time on a walk through the moors, or along a coast, or deep in the mountains. But I have to say, planning feels good. It reminds me that this virus won’t shut down life forever, that there are so many amazing places yet to discover, so many roads to travel, so many walks left in me. 

It feels good to dream, and to have hope for the future.

Here are some links and resources to the walks mentioned in this post, in case you want to do a little dreaming of your own!

Camino Portugués (Portugal): 

Overview from American Pilgrims on the Camino, overview from the Confraternity of St. James. 
Blogs: Camino Portugues- the Nuts & Bolts, Following the Arrows.
Guidebooks: The Camino Portugués, Cicerone, A Pilgrim’s Guide to the Camino Portugués. 

Kumano Kodo (Japan):

Overview from Tanabe City Kumano Tourism Bureau.
Kumano Travel- Official Community Reservation System.
Blog: Following the Arrows.

St. Olav’s Way (Norway):

Pilegrimsleden website: information on the paths and planning resources
Blog: Everything You Need to Know About Walking St. Olav’s Way in Norway

Great Glen Way (Scotland):

The Highland Council: information and planning resources
Independent Hostel Guide: information on hostel/bunkhouse accommodation 
Guidebook: The Great Glen Way, Cicerone.

Coast to Coast (England): 

Blog: Planning Your Coast to Coast Walk, Rambling Man.
Guidebook: Coast to Coast Path, Trailblazers.
Guidebook: Wainwright’s Coast to Coast Walk.

 

5 Comments / Filed In: hiking, solo-female travel, Travel, walking
Tagged: Camino de Santiago, camino del norte, Camino Portugues, Coast to Coast, Great Glen Way, hiking, Kumano Kodo, long distance walking, pennine way, solo female travel, St Olav Ways, travel, walking

And then it all went up in flames

June 27, 2020

I just returned home from a 2-day backpacking trip that was supposed to be a 9-day trip, though to be fair, I always knew that I might have to cut the trip short. I’m new to backpacking, and I like camping well enough but I don’t exactly love it. I’m nervous about animals at night and I don’t like being dirty and when I’m on vacation, I really like a glass of wine or a beer at the end of the day. On a Camino, you can sleep inside and take a shower and have a hot meal and an entire bottle of wine. All reasons I really like the Camino. So nine days for someone who’s never backpacked before was ambitious.

But, you know, I thought I could do it. If not for the coronavirus, I would be walking through Portugal right now; I’d planned 40-days of walking this summer, more than I ever have before, and I was excited for it. Walking long-distance paths has become such a big part of my life, ever since I walked that first Camino in 2014. What’s a year without a long walk? COVID has demanded this question, and I didn’t want to accept its answer. I felt restless, my legs itching to go: to go somewhere, to go anywhere. Could I find a long walk a little closer to home?

view on the C&O canal towpath

The Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Towpath (the C&O) runs for 184.5 miles from Washington DC to Cumberland, MD. It’s a mostly flat path and often used by bikers and day hikers, but there are some backpackers who hike the entire trail. With enough free campsites, water pumps and several towns close to the path, I thought it would be an ideal first backpacking experience. And in many ways, it is.

I threw my gear into my pack: a tent and sleeping bag and sleeping pad, a camp stove and a bag full of food and a water filter. I booked a hotel room halfway through the journey, in a town with a post office where I could ship a resupply box full of more food. If all went well, I’d walk for nine days, camping most nights.

I set out early, at dawn, driving to the my starting point, stowing my car, finding the start of the trail. The sun was shining and the air was fresh, my pack was heavy but my legs were eager. I was back on a long path! Nothing to do all day but walk and walk!

first steps on the C&O canal towpath

Cumberland, MD, C&O canal towpath

sunny day on the C&O canal towpath

After about 3 miles, I realized how much weight I was carrying on my back. I could start to feel an ache in my shoulders and around my hips. My feet were starting to hurt a bit, too. I walked a few more miles, stopped for a short rest. A few more miles, stopped for lunch. I was 9-miles into the walk and starting to get worried. I’d planned for a first day of 22-miles (I know, I know), and the next day I was due to walk 23, the day after that, at least 25.

I’d intended to start a little slower, but poor planning involving picking up my resupply box from the post office meant I had to do big miles (note to self: in the future, don’t time a resupply for the weekend). But I thought I could do it, because hadn’t I walked 20-miles a day before? On the Camino, I do it all the time!

But here’s the thing. When I was planning this little adventure, I was imagining myself on my strongest Camino days. After 3 weeks of walking when my body had adapted to the path and my legs were strong and my shoulders could bear the weight of what I carried. Those were the days I recalled, the days when I felt strong and unstoppable. And there were days on the Camino, or on a hike in England, when I pushed myself hard, when I struggled but kept going. And these are also the kind of days that stick in my mind, proof that I can push myself hard, that I can keep going through some pain, that I can endure.

straight path of the C&O canal

Well, maybe ‘endure’ should be the word of the last two days. There I was, on the C&O, putting one foot in front of the other, pain radiating through my body. “Have I ever hurt this much on a walk before?” I asked myself. I felt it everywhere: my shoulders and lower back and hips and thighs and feet and even in my ankles. My ankles hurt! I realized that I should have been more careful in my packing, that I probably should have done a few training hikes wearing my pack. Why did I think I could walk 20+ mile days with 30 pounds on my back like it was no big deal?

I made it to 15-miles. I stopped, I rested my feet. “4 more miles,” I told myself. “Then you can stop.” As I walked I came up with a new plan, one where I would shorten my next few days, and then take a bus or an Uber to the next town where I could pick up my resupply box.

Potomac Forks hiker biker campsite, C&O canal towpath

After 19.5 miles I made it to a campsite and I sat on a bench and didn’t move for awhile. Slowly, hobbling, I set up my tent and washed my socks and changed out of my sweaty clothes. Two people on bikes road up, and set up camp at the opposite end of the site.

I took out dinner supplies, figuring I could eat and then crawl into my tent and have an early night, that maybe sleep would soothe my muscles.

I have this little camp stove that is nifty and neat and so easy to use. It heats up water in under 2-minutes and I’ve had it for several years, used it a few dozen times.

But this time? I was using a new fuel canister so that must have been it, maybe there was a leak, there must have been a leak, because something went terribly wrong and my stove went up in flames.

I keep thinking of that expression- “burst into flames”. That’s what happened. One minute nothing, the next, the thing was engulfed in flames. I started at it for a few seconds, my brain lagging behind the reality of the situation, lulled by the licking and leaping flames.

I snapped out of it. “Help!” I called out, panicked. The bikers ran over, the guy reached in to turn off the gas and the girl suggested I douse the remaining flames with water. I’d been frozen. I don’t do well in emergency situations, when I need to think and act quickly. If I’d been alone I would have figured it out, I think, but thank goodness there were other people there.

The stove was dripping like a Dali painting, the lower component fused to the fuel canister, the smell of burnt plastic everywhere.

“My stove,” I whispered.

I knew that my trip was over. Half the food I was carrying needed to be heated, coffee included. I might be able to push myself through a lot but I wasn’t going to do this walk without a morning cup of coffee.

aftermath of stove catching fire

It’s hard to quit something. I was thinking about that today, on my drive back home, and I realized that once I set my mind to something and go for it, I rarely quit (sometimes to my own detriment, but that’s another story). I thought about all of my research, the stages I’d planned, the treats I’d tucked into my resupply box, the excitement I’d felt about being able to head down a long path again.

But I knew I was done. I let the stove cool off and ate a cold dinner of tortillas and babybel cheese and tucked myself into my tent and fell asleep to the sound of trains on the tracks and frogs in the canal.

The next morning, at 6am, I packed up my things and turned around and walked the 19.5 miles back to where I started. I didn’t think it was possible that things could get much worse, but maybe it’s just that kind of a year.

About 3-miles into the walk, I could feel a blister developing on the bottom of my foot. I’d felt something the day before, but figured it would be fine. But this time I knew it was a blister. Should I have stopped and tried to do something about it? Probably. But my pack was so heavy that I just didn’t want to stop to take it off and put it back on more than was necessary. I was already feeling defeated, I just wanted to get the miles done and get back to my car.

misty morning on the C&O canal towpath

So I walked, and walked, and the blister grew, and grew. After about 12-miles, I knew I’d be coming to a bench beneath a tall tree (aside from the campsites every 5-7 miles, there were few places to stop and take a break). I stared ahead, constantly looking for the bench, walking on and on.

Finally it appeared, but there was someone already there. A young guy, with a large pack and a tall walking stick.

My head was foggy from the lack of coffee, my blister ached with every step and I was annoyed that I couldn’t stop to rest at the bench. But then the guy called out- “Where are you headed?”

I stopped, and turned. “Just to Cumberland,” I said. “How about you?”

He gave me a small smile. “Denver.” A pause. “Colorado.”

I grinned, something shifted. “Tell me more.”

He talked about the route he’d plotted: starting in Pittsburgh, winding down to Cumberland and then onto the C&O to DC. He would hop to the Appalachian Trail and hike down to Georgia and then through the forests and into the midwest where he would pick up another long rail-to-trails path, and get himself over to Colorado.

“When the coronavirus hit,” he said. “I started to walk around where I live. It’s the best therapy I’ve ever found.”

I nodded and nodded.

“And then when restrictions started to lift,” he continued, “I knew that I just wanted to go out and walk for a really long time. It’s freedom.”

We talked for a few more minutes, he told me that I was the first backpacker he’d seen, and he wanted some advice. I sheepishly told him that I didn’t know much, that I was new to this too, that I didn’t even know the base weight of my pack. But I did know how to walk, and I also knew that walking was freedom, and maybe despite it all, that was enough.

He told me his name was Colby, and I wished him luck on his journey, then I continued on. I thought about him as I walked, wondering what would have happened if I hadn’t had to turn around. If I’d shortened my days would he have caught up with me? We would have been headed in the same direction and maybe I could have made a friend.

Or maybe, I wouldn’t have met him at all. Maybe I needed to turn around to find another person walking the same path.

scene on the C&O canal towpath

A half mile further on I found a flat and grassy patch where I could stop and rest. I aired out my feet, drank water and ate a snack and stared off into the distance, where dark clouds were gathering.

Dark clouds. I’d timed the start of my walk for days that promised sunshine and clear skies, no rain. But the clouds were moving closer, and then there was the rumble of thunder, too.

storms clouds on the C&O canal towpath

I kept walking. What else was there to do? The clouds moved overhead and rain drops began to fall and then in the next minute, the skies opened up and the rain poured down.

Another expression: torrential downpour. How else to describe this rain? I’ve walked a hundred days on long-distance trails and I’ve walked in the rain but I have never walked in rain like this. I’d put a rain cover on my pack but hadn’t bothered to put on a rain jacket, figuring that I might just walk under a passing shower and the rain would feel good and cool on my skin.

This rain was hard and cold. It pelted down, for 10 minutes, for 20 minutes. After about 30 minutes it slowed and stopped, and I stopped too. I took off my pack and dug through to find my little towel. I looked up and down the trail and then took off my shirt and dried off as best as I could, then put on a dry shirt and pulled out a poncho to carry in my hand and then continued on.

The rain started again, falling even harder than before. I threw the poncho over my head and for awhile I stayed dry but soon there was too much rain. And then thunder, and lightening, and my blister growing larger and larger, I limped with every step through the thunderstorm, through the puddles and the mud, retracing my steps from the day before.

Thunder directly overhead and the path coming to a clearing in the trees and I stopped, and waited, and stared at the ground as water ran down the poncho into my shoes and then I saw tiny white marbles bouncing in the grass. Hail!

When it felt safer to continue I kept walking, and saw that further up the path, there was a bridge overhead and people sheltering underneath. I approached, and a woman called out to me.

“Where are you headed?”

She told me all about her days of hiking the Appalachian Trail. There was wistfulness in her voice, a tinge of envy, she looked at my pack and my poncho and my shoes and told me to savor every moment. Just as I was leaving she asked if I had a trail name. “I don’t,” I said (though the name ‘Flame’ ran through my mind). Trail names are common on the the long-distance hiking paths in the US, but not at all on the paths I’ve walked in Europe.

Something else shifted when she asked this, just as something had shifted during my conversation with Colby. It didn’t matter that I’d only made it one day on the trail and had to turn around. It only mattered that I was out there, and doing it: the weight of the pack, my battered feet, soaked to the bone, water rolling in my shoes and dripping from my nose but my legs still moving, one step at a time. Just call me Flame, I thought.

bridge over the C&O canal towpath

I continued, two more miles to the end. The rain stopped, the clouds moved out just as quickly as they came in. The sun poured down, warming me again. A man on a bike pulled up alongside of me. “Where are you headed?”

He was biking the final stretch of the C&O, doing an out and back ride and had seen me at my campsite the night before. “I figured you were heading south,” he said.

I told him the story of my stove, that I’d decided to turn around. And the blister, and the rain, and the hail.

“Karma,” he said, “I think if you can make it through this with a smile on your face, then something good will come back to you.”

I had a half mile left, 10 more minutes to walk. The sun was shining. My legs were still holding me up.

I smiled.

hiking the C&O canal towpath

20 Comments / Filed In: hiking, Travel, walking, Writing
Tagged: adventure, backpacking, C&O, camping, Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Towpath, coronavirus, hiking, long distance walking, solo female travel, travel, walking

Walking in Circles

May 25, 2020

I was reading a post the other day, from my Camino buddy-in-blogging, Beth. As I read I realized how nice it was to hear her voice. I knew she wasn’t out walking in France or in Spain, but that wasn’t why I opened up the post. I just kind of wanted to hear how she was doing, if she was thinking about the Camino, if she missed walking, if she was restless or energized, in despair or filled with hope.

And then I started to wonder if maybe I should l find my way back to my own blog, and post an update of my own. ‘Update’ feels like the wrong word, because not much has been happening. I was on a family FaceTime call today, and I opened my mouth to give some news, but realized I didn’t have much to say. What has changed day-to-day? It starts to feel tedious to say that I went on another walk, I baked another cake, I read on my porch.

Quarantined porch sitting

So maybe this isn’t an update, but I’ve used this blog to write about my thoughts and feelings too, so here we are. Have I blogged at all since being under stay at home orders? I don’t think so. In fact, I think in my last post I wrote about travel considerations in the time of coronavirus, which feels a bit ridiculous now because a few weeks after I published that post, all travel shut down, just about completely.

It feels a little hard to write about travel. I didn’t go to Japan- a trip that was scheduled for the beginning of April- and I’m not going to Europe this summer, either. Well, despite my June flight having been canceled, I’m still harboring some wild hope that there could be a chance that I could sneak away to La Muse for a week in late July, or August (I know that the odds are less than slim, but I’m letting myself have this hope, because I think I need it).

cherry blossoms over Ridley Creek

I was supposed to walk in Portugal this summer, on the Camino Portuguese, but also on the Fisherman’s route, and then I would still have some time to do more walking in Spain, at least from Santiago to Finisterre, but maybe even the Camino Invierno if the timing was right. I’d given myself 40-days to walk, the most I’ve ever walked in one go, and it felt right. There have been a few years- last year in particular- when I wasn’t quite sure what I wanted to do, where I wanted to travel, which route I wanted to walk. But plans seemed to fall together so easily this year. Once the idea of the Kumano Kodo in Japan lodged itself in my mind, I couldn’t shake it, and it seemed to work perfectly: an inexpensive flight, rooms booked despite the late planning, a chance to see the cherry blossoms.

I’ve always had a vague sort of sense that I’d travel to Japan ‘one day’, but it always felt so far, so difficult, so out of my league. But after I did a little research and started to see how a trip might come together, I realized that I was more than ready to tackle Japan. Again, it felt right. I was doing something new, something so exciting. And it made a decision about my summer feel easy, too: by going somewhere new in the spring, I felt free to go back to Europe to do my favorite things: walk a Camino and spend time at my writer’s retreat, La Muse. I found a perfect flight for the summer too: an unbelievable price that took me into Lisbon, and the return out of Paris. It couldn’t have been more perfect!

Bamboo curtain

To have travel canceled any year would have been a blow, but for some reason it felt particularly cruel this year (although- and I’ve thought about this a lot- does it feel worse only now that I can’t have it? I’ve always appreciated my ability to travel and the time that I have in the summers, but I wonder if it feels even sweeter, in hindsight, now that it is (temporarily) lost). But I do wonder if it feels harder this year because I felt so settled. For the last seven years, ever since I walked my first Camino, I’ve continued to return to Europe, searching for something: to push myself further, a new adventure/experience, a community. Some years, I’ve wondered if I should skip a summer of walking, and see some new countries, instead.

But I didn’t have those questions this year. I felt so confident in knowing what I wanted, confident in the life I’ve built for myself, in the things I’ve grown to love, in the community that I have built from my summers in Europe.

There are other things about these last few months that have been hard, but if I’m going to talk about anything here, it will probably be about travel. But I can’t publish this post without acknowledging that I still have a job, that my family is healthy (even my two grandmothers: 89 and 101 years old! I still worry, so if you have a moment, send a good and warm thought out for my Babas). I live alone, so I’ve been particularly isolated during this long stay-at-home order, but I can’t even really complain about that. For better or for worse, I like being alone, and video-chatting (plus a job where I spend many hours a day conferencing with teenagers) makes it not too difficult to hunker down and not see anyone. And, as I mentioned at the top of this post, I’ve been spending my days walking and reading on my porch and baking bread and cake and scones. I’ve made pesto from scavenged wild garlic mustard, and syrup from the violet petals I picked in my yard. I’ve done a few puzzles and turned myself into a Vermeer painting (this was early on in the quarantine; I thought I’d do a series, but I’ve lost some of that initial energy). I’ve also been writing every day; not in a big way, just small, daily diaries that I post to Facebook. I’m not sure how Facebook became the place where I shared my musings, but so be it. I’ve been taking photos every day and sharing those, too, and I think that small daily habit of writing and taking photographs has been really good for me. I won’t continue forever- in fact, I think I only have another week or two in me- because then I want to turn to other writing.

Art in Quarantine: Vermeer

Garden focaccia in quarantine!

What’s a summer of my life without travel, without a long walk, without the view from my window at La Muse? I’m not sure, and it’s hard to face, but I’ll need to come up with something. I’m going to have a few months at my disposal. The obvious answer, the one that is trying to knock me over the head, is the one that says: “Nadine, finish your book!!”

It feels inevitable, doesn’t it? I can’t spend 40-days walking through Portugal and Spain, so maybe I should finish writing about that first time that I walked through Spain. Face the difficult parts of the book, do a little research, a lot of editing, find a few people who might be willing to read a few chapters, and see what happens.

So that’s one part of my summer. And the rest? It’s hard to know what this country is going to look like in a few weeks or a month, but I’ve been tentatively putting together notes for a little backpacking trip, and a road trip to the mid-west (I know that Nebraska is not Europe, but I’ve always had some strange fascination with Nebraska, and this could be the summer that I finally make it out there). It might be impossible to do any traveling like this at all, even a road trip or a backpacking trip, but I’m going to remain hopeful.

Yesterday, over on Facebook, I wrote about a cake I tried to bake. I followed a recipe for a Berry Buttermilk Cake, though I didn’t have buttermilk. In the end, it turned out that I didn’t have berries either (where did those frozen blueberries get to??), and all I could do was laugh at my buttermilk-less and berry-less Berry Buttermilk cake. It felt like an analogy for my life, for maybe all of our lives: trying to bake cakes without the key ingredients. But someone commented on my Facebook post, saying it’s what we do with those ‘berry-less’ cakes that matter.

Which is the truest thing I know at the moment. This virus isn’t personal, we’re all affected, every single one of us. I can get caught in feeling frustrated about a plain cake sort of life, a life that’s supposed to have the berries in it, but I can’t let myself get stuck there for too long. I’ve got to make the best I can with the ingredients I have.

 

I’ll try to write more here in the next few months, to keep you updated on the different kinds of adventures I’m having this year. I hope you’re all well, finding hope and peace and creativity and energy where you can, making the most of your berry-less cake days. More (hopefully) soon.

Redbud with raindrop

6 Comments / Filed In: Writing
Tagged: Camino de Santiago, long distance walking, quarantine, solo female travel, travel, writing

Self-Love on the Camino

February 14, 2020

It’s February, and the word ‘love’ comes up a lot. I hadn’t planned to write a post about love (and not for Valentine’s Day, either), but as I was walking yesterday, my mind turned towards ‘self-love’. And I started thinking about what this has meant for me in the context of my Caminos and other long-distance walks.

Self-love is a practice, and it’s different than self-care, though the two certainly overlap. Self-care gets a lot of talk these days, which isn’t necessarily a good or a bad thing, but I’d say that it’s having a moment. We can have a long discussion about self-care on the Camino (and maybe we should! It’s a topic I’ve never written explicitly about), but for now, I want to think about self-love on the Camino.

Yellow arrow and red heart on the Camino del Norte

Loving ourselves. It can be hard, right? Like, to really, really love ourselves. It takes great self-awareness and intention and focus and practice. And because we’re constantly evolving and changing, and entering new phases of life, I think it’s probably a life-long thing, this idea of learning how to love yourself.

The Camino is sort of the perfect place to work on this. I actually think it can happen without us even realizing it. I’ve heard fellow pilgrims say: “I really liked who I was on the Camino.” The Camino can help us return or, or remember, or unearth our best selves, our truest selves. The people we are, when all of the noise and distraction are stripped away. The Camino gives us time, and space, and a pure physical challenge that makes it difficult to hide. Who hasn’t had a day when you’re in the middle of a long uphill stretch, and there’s nothing left: no energy, no optimism, you’re running low on water. It’s hot and the flies are buzzing around your head and the clothing you washed the night before never dried and you’re hungry and annoyed and you lost your earbuds and everything is wrong. Who are you, then? Do you love yourself, then? It’s hard to hide. It’s hard to hide because there’s nowhere to go, there’s nothing else to do. You can only continue walking up that hill, and then back down the other side. You can only continue walking until your clothing dries and you find something to eat and you regain some energy in your legs and you fill up your bottle at a fountain and you see a friend and you smile. You have to walk through all the pieces of who you are on the Camino. You’re forced to face yourself.

Camino reflection, Santillana Del Mar, Camino del Norte

And this experience has the potential to lead us towards self-love.

I’m not sure how much I practiced self-love on my first Camino. I’m sure I did, in ways that I wasn’t even aware of. Maybe it was when I bought a soft black t-shirt in a crowded shop in Burgos, so that I had something fresh and clean to wear in the evenings. Or maybe it was when I stopped in an albergue in the middle of nowhere, in a place where I knew no one, because I wanted time alone. Or maybe it was when I continued walking and walking, because I just didn’t want to stop.

But this idea of self-love has grown for me in the last few years, as I continue to return to Europe for more Caminos, more long walks. I suppose that going on a long walk, at all, is an act of self-love. I’ve learned that it’s something that makes me happy, something that makes me feel like one of the most true versions of myself, something that energizes me and makes me feel healthy and strong and good.

This is what self-love is, to me. Well, it’s a lot of things. But I keep coming back to those words: ‘truest version of myself’. It’s me, in all the wonderful and fun and sweet and quirky and annoying and difficult ways of being me. It’s knowing who I am, accepting who I am, and allowing myself to be who I am. And, the other piece, I think, is being kind and gentle and patient with myself, especially when things are hard.

And I get to do this on the Camino, every year I examine how I feel and try to let myself be totally present with who I am, and how I am. And then, I’ve learned to ask myself what I want. I ask myself what I need, too, but asking myself what I want is different.

All You Need is Love sign in café, Santiago de Compostela, Camino de Santiago

How have I practiced self-love on the Camino? What has that looked like?

It looks like this:

Taking myself to a bar and finding a table in the corner, or maybe out in the sunshine, and drinking a glass of wine. Alone.

Walking past where I planned because I’m feeling so good and I just don’t want to stop.

Waking up early in the morning and walking with the sunrise.

Eating three-course meals and savoring every bite.

Making a playlist of favorite songs every year to listen to when I walk. Putting old Disney songs on the mix, and singing aloud as I walk (apologies for anyone who may have overheard my rendition of ‘Part of Your World’ from Little Mermaid this past summer).

Grinning and laughing as I walk down an empty trail, with the sun shining and the wind blowing and my walking stick held high in the air.

Choosing to stay in albergues by the coast so I can spend time with my feet in the water.

Playing with puppies, taking pictures of horses, saying hellos to the cows.

The full English breakfast. (This is not a Camino thing, but it’s a ‘hiking-in-England’ thing, and I love it).

Sitting in a pew in a dark and empty chapel, saying small prayers for my family and friends, saying a prayer for myself, asking for strength as I walk.

Sharing my stories with my fellow pilgrims.

Toasting to my sturdy ankles, learning to appreciate those ankles, those wide feet (I can’t exactly say I love them yet, but I’m getting there).

Carrying the weight of a bigger camera, so I can take thousands of beautiful photos as I walk.

Giving myself pep talks and encouragement when I need it most. My go-to phrase is actually something I mutter to myself in French: Tu peut le faire. You can do it.

Booking a ticket back to Europe, to return to yet another path, to do it all over again.

Fort William Jacobite Steam Train, Scotland

I just re-read this list and I can feel myself being lifted up; any tension I might have been carrying from the day eases. I feel lighter, I’m smiling, I’m grateful for discovering this thing that I love, this thing that I can choose to give myself (time and time again!).

So in this month where lots of people are celebrating love, I hope that all of you- my good and true friends and readers- can find moments of self-love, moments when you can give yourselves the things that you want, the things that make you feel like the truest versions of who you are.

More soon. With love.

Heart of Stones, Camino de Santiago

1 Comment / Filed In: Camino de Santiago, Travel, Writing
Tagged: Camino, Camino de Santiago, hiking, long distance walking, self-love, solo female travel, Spain, travel, walking, writing

Italians and Puppies and 19-year old Knees; Highlights of the Camino del Norte

November 5, 2019

This is the first year that I haven’t written daily journal posts from my summer long-distance walking adventures. Last year’s recaps from the Pennine Way took me nearly 10 months to write (or some incredibly delayed amount of time like that), and that walk only lasted 15 days.

But this summer I walked a total of 29 days on the Camino, and since I didn’t blog in real time, the thought of going back and writing a post for each day feels too overwhelming. It could take me years to write, especially if I also want to be working on other writing projects!

I’ve written a couple of posts from the Camino Aragones, the first part of my walking journey. But I still have 19-days from the Camino del Norte that I haven’t even begun to talk about here. There was a post of my favorite photos (which I loved putting together), but what about the stories?

The Camino has been on my mind lately. This happens every year, right about now. It’s early November and we’re turning the clocks back, the leaves have turned and many have fallen, the temperatures have dropped too, and winter is approaching. My hours of walking are limited and it’s been nearly three months since I came back from Europe. I’m settled back here at home, but that also means that my mind starts dreaming about the next adventure, picturing a time when I can be back on the road.

I’ve been thinking about how to write about the Norte, and I decided to just share some highlights. Maybe it will be one post, maybe there will be several. When I think back to my walk this summer, I always seem to remember the really happy memories: the days when I felt strong, the friends I made, the beautiful landscapes. My walk on the Camino del Norte wasn’t perfect, but right now I’m struggling to remember the frustrating bits (well, aside from all the closed albergues and the race for beds. But that might be a separate post altogether).

Mostly, I had a great Camino, a great return to the Norte. I’ve already written about my experience of repeating a Camino, but for this post I just want to talk about some of my favorite moments of those 19 days in northern Spain. These are the moments I think about when I’m longing to return, the moments that keep me planning my next trip, the moments when I’m stuck inside and missing those long days of walking .

In no particular order:

My Italian Family

“Ecco che arriva l’americano!” I heard a voice from down the pathway, and moments later there was singing, five voices joining together, loud and boisterous and off-key. I walked closer and the voices swelled, and I could see the group of Italian pilgrims that I’d been running into on and off for the past four days. They raised their arms, smiling and singing and cheering.

They were singing a famous old Italian song, about an American or maybe just America. I can’t remember the details, only that their song was one of the best welcomes I’ve ever had on the Camino.

I first met Alba and Ruggero in the albergue in Getaria, after my second day on the Norte. Alba could speak just a bit of English and Ruggero only knew a few words, and so we communicated mostly with smiles and gestures.

And then, we kept showing up in the same albergues- sometimes this is all it takes to make friends on the Camino. After only a few more days, Alba and Ruggero called me their Camino daughter. I only walked with them a little here and there, but they looked out for me and I looked out for them. They’d also befriended another group of 5 Italians, and I just sort of folded myself into the mix.

Italian pilgrim friend on the Camino del Norte

We were all together, the seven Italians and me, in Islares, where we stayed in bungalows at a large campground (this was when I had my serenade). I ate a long dinner with them, at a restaurant overlooking the sea. From time to time Gloria or Alba would try to translate the conversation but it was mostly all Italian, and I didn’t really care that I couldn’t understand. I was sitting in the middle of this warm and friendly and kind group of people, feeling like I belonged.

Camping bungalows in Islares, Camino del Norte

I lost Alba and Ruggero when I stayed in Güemes and they continued on to Santander, and afterwards, even though I started to walk longer days trying to catch up, I never could. We’d send each other text messages and notes through Facebook, updating our location and where we were staying, but I just didn’t have enough time to try to catch up with them again.

It’s funny- I walk alone, and I always think that Camino families are for other pilgrims. It’s so important for me to have my freedom on these longs walks that I never fall in with a group and stick with them until the end, which always makes me think that I don’t form “families”. But this year, I had to laugh when the truth hit me over the head. Alba and Ruggero called me their Camino daughter, and in return, I joked that they were my Camino parents. What’s more of a Camino family than that? I might not have stayed with them- or the rest of the Italians- until the end, but they had become my friends.

Ruggero, Alba, and Nadine; Camino del Norte

A Poem by the Sea

One of the best parts about the Norte is that, often, the route follows the coast. But a frustrating thing about the Norte is that sometimes the route veers away from the coast, continuing parallel to the water but a kilometer or two out of view. There are various alternate routes that leave the official Camino and continue along the coast, and I tried to take these as much as possible. But something else I did was to plan some of my stages so that I would end in a town or village by the sea.

One of these stops was at Caborredondo, a very small village between Santillana Del Mar and Cóbreces. The albergue here (Albergue Izarra) was small and charming and offered a communal dinner, but the best part of the experience was my late afternoon walk to the coast. The hospitalero pointed me in the right direction, and after a kilometer or two I found myself on a narrow pathway that ran along dramatic cliffs that dropped sharply down to the water. I looked to my right and to my left and there wasn’t another person in sight. 

Rocky coastline, Cantabria, Spain, highlights of the Camino del Norte

I found a flat rock and settled down on my perch. At first I was hot, and restless, and preoccupied with whether I was walking this Camino in the way that I wanted. I’d walked about 25 kilometers that day, but when I arrived in Caborredondo, I hadn’t been ready to stop walking. I’d felt stronger than any previous day, the kilometers were flying by, and I just wanted to walk and walk. But days before I planned to try to stay at this particular albergue because I’d heard good things, and sitting there on the rock along the beautiful coast, I was still conflicted over my decision. I didn’t know anyone else in the albergue, I’d lost Alba and Ruggero a few days before, and I was feeling lonely. All of that, and my body had wanted to keep walking, but I hadn’t listened.

You’d think I’ve walked enough long-distance trails at this point to know how to go about the whole thing, but the same challenges are always there: walk alone, or stay with others. Plan ahead or be spontaneous. The lessons of this Camino were no different than nearly every previous one. 

So I sat and I sat, and eventually the thoughts in my head quieted. And once they did, other sounds appeared. The waves crashing against the rocky coastline. Insects in the grass. A whistle of wind, a spray of water. 

Something made me think of the Wendell Berry poem called ‘The Peace of Wild Things‘. 

“Ah,” I thought. “I’ll memorize a poem. I’ll memorize this poem.”

I looked it up on my phone and hunched over so that my body blocked the glare of the sun and I could see the screen. I read the words, over and over and slowly, I worked through each line, repeating the words aloud. Over and over and I put the phone down, closed my eyes, said the words. I checked the lines again, then I put the phone away. I sat on that rock, alone but no longer lonely, just me and the sea and cliffs and the birds and the insects and the rough grass and a new poem, a poem that I recited out to all the wild things. 

The Peace of Wild Things, Wendell Berry

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

Nadine on the Cantabrian coast, Camino del Norte

The Knees of a 19-Year Old

When I saw that a massage therapist was offering massages at the albergue in Güemes, I was tempted. I’ve never actually had a massage before, not by a professional, but of all times when I thought I could use one, it would probably be in the middle of a really long walk. 

I was talking about it with a pilgrim I’d met a few days before, Astrid, and together we decided that since there wasn’t much else to do, we might as well wait in line and see what it was all about.

We sat on the pavement behind 6 other pilgrims and waited nearly two hours. In that time I started to grow a little nervous. Everyone coming out of the small room was smiling, their legs shining with oil, their posture relaxed. “It’s great,” they said. “Worth the wait.” I knew that there was nothing to be nervous about, and yet, I wasn’t sure I wanted someone touching my legs and my feet.

When it was my turn I went inside and met the massage therapist, a Spanish man named Miguel. “Please,” he said, gesturing to the table. “Please lie down.”

I stretched out my legs and waited. Miguel moved around the table, looking at my feet, staring at my feet. He was silent, still looking at my feet, and I grew worried. I knew there was something wrong. I’ve never really liked my feet: they’re wide and my toes are stubby and finding proper fitting shoes has been an ordeal for my entire life.

I could feel my heart start to beat harder and I was about to hop off the table and tell Miguel to forget about the whole thing but then he looked at me, and smiled, and said, “You have the perfect feet for walking.”

I laughed. “It’s true,” he continued. “They are perfect.” He looked at them again, touching one lightly and moving it a little to the right, then the left. “Do you practice yoga?”

I shook my head ‘no’. “A shame,” he sighed. Then, all at once, he clapped his hands and started the massage. 

He continued to say that my feet were perfect, which was when I decided that this massage thing might not have been a bad idea after all. He massaged my calves, telling me that it was amazing that I walk these long distances day after day, but I have completely relaxed muscles. I wasn’t really sure what to say, because I wasn’t doing anything special, at least I didn’t think I was. I was just walking.

Then he got to my knees, and when he started in on the right knee he suddenly stopped, and looked up at me in disbelief. 

“What, are you 19??” he asked.

I laughed again and he did too. “I know you’re not 19,” he said, “But you have the knees of a 19-year old.” He shook his head. “Incredible.”

Maybe he was just being kind and flattered everyone with observations like these, but I like to think that I really do have the perfect feet for walking, and knees of a 19-year old (even though I’m twice as old), and that maybe this combination will keep me walking for years and years to come. 

I’m counting on it. 

Walking along coast on the Camino del Norte

A Swim in the Sea

There was a lot working against me when I decided to go for a swim at the beach in Pendueles. For starters, I hadn’t brought a bathing suit on this Camino. Then there was the fact that the little beach was tricky to access: there was a very steep and narrow dirt path that required using the provided rope to get up and down. The beach itself was rocky, with no comfortable place to sit, and the water was chilly (I’m a bit of a wimp when it comes to cold water).

But the day had been one of those really good Camino days. I walked an easy 19km from Serdio to Pendueles, taking a gorgeous alternate path along the coast for the last few kilometers. I arrived at the albergue over two hours before it would open, so I went to a nearby bar and ordered a large salad and a cold beer and took my time eating. When I got back to the albergue (Albergue Ave de Paso), I talked with two Italian girls and a group of Spanish college students- they’d all made reservations for the 14-bed albergue, and were alarmed when I told them that I hadn’t. “What if it’s full?” they asked. I shrugged; I was feeling relaxed that day, and had a good feeling that I would get a bed. But even if I didn’t, I knew there was another albergue in the village that I could try.

When the albergue opened and Javier checked us in, he announced that there were 13 beds already reserved and just one free one left… for me! 

So it had already been a good day and I knew that there was a beach nearby. The Italian girls changed into their bathing suits and headed out, so did the group of Spanish students. I stood at my bunk, thinking. I knew I wanted to go to the beach, and the day was sunny and warm and the idea of taking a dip in the water was appealing. I looked through my very limited clothing options and decided that I could fashion a bathing suit from the thin pair of shorts I wore for sleeping, plus one of my buffs.

One of the buffs I was carrying is the one I’ve had since my first Camino, but the second was gifted to me by an Italian pilgrim, just before I took a bus up to the start of the Norte. He’d been going through his pack and removing things to ship home, and he was insistent that I should take his buff. At the time I wanted to be polite but I also wasn’t sure if I would ever need it; now I had the perfect solution. A bathing suit top! (It wasn’t perfect, but it worked).

When I arrived above the beach I clutched the rope and slowly made my way down the steep hill. The Italian girls weren’t anywhere to be found (turns out they missed the beach and walked two kilometers back to another one), but I could see the group of Spanish students, gingerly putting their toes in the water.

I left my shoes and bag in a small pile on the rocks then carefully made my way down to the water. It was cool, but not cold. I waded further in, up past my knees, then took a deep breath and dove under. And after that first shock of cold it felt perfect. I swam a little, back and forth, and then just floated for awhile. 

I’ve walked the Norte twice now (or at least parts of it twice), and this was the first time that I’ve gone swimming. If I ever return to the Norte for a third time, I’m definitely going to pack a bathing suit and get in the water a lot more.

Rocky beach at Pendueles, on the Camino del Norte

Beach at Pendueles on the Camino del Norte

A Sunset on a Hill

The day I stayed in Piñeres, I walked 40km when I thought I’d only be walking 33. I’m not sure where the mistakes were (could have been one of the alternate routes I took, and getting stuck in a field with no clue how to get out and walking in circles for awhile). In any case, I was tired when I arrived in Piñeres. The first albergue I tried was completo, so I had to continue another kilometer up a long hill to the Casa Rectoral that purportedly had more beds. 

I wasn’t sure what I was going to find at this albergue. Most of the group in Pendueles, where I’d stayed the night before, had made reservations at a new albergue in Villahormes, about 6km back. I’d passed by and the place looked attractive: an outdoor terrace with strings of white lights, colorful signs advertising ice cream and coffee and beer. There were a few pilgrims sitting at a table when I walked by, and I lingered, wondering if I should see about a bed. The race for beds on the Norte had been a distraction, and for the most part I’d resisted calling ahead and making reservations. Sometimes I get a feeling when I’m in a village or town, urging me to stay or else to continue walking. Nothing in my gut was telling me to stay at this albergue, and yet I worried that if I passed it by, I might have trouble finding a bed later. But I continued to walk, trusting in my gut, trusting that there would be a bed ahead.

The first albergue in Piñeres was full, so all I could do was trudge up the hill to try the next one. But in the middle of walking up that hill, I suddenly stopped, overcome with a strong memory from my previous pilgrimage on the Norte. It was on this hill that I took a selfie with some cows, green mountains in the background, and I remember feeling really happy. I’d been alone for a few days, not running into many pilgrims or anyone I knew (and I would continue to be mostly alone for another day or two), but I’d settled into the solitude and was loving the walking. So this time, when I realized where I was, I smiled. I looked up the path and saw two buildings at the top of the hill, and realized that one of them must be the albergue. Already the memory from my 2015 pilgrimage felt like a good omen.

Me, Cows, Mountains- Camino del Norte

Camino del Norte 2015

The Casa Recotral had plenty of beds. The building was old and quirky, but the location was amazing. The building next door was a church with a small cemetery, and otherwise there was nothing around as far as I could see. The hospitalero was kind, and when I was making my dinner from items I’d bought earlier that day, he offered me a huge piece of watermelon. I took my food outside and sat at a table and watched as the sunlight changed the color of the mountains. I chatted with some pilgrims- a few that I knew, a few I’d never seen before- but mostly it was quiet and peaceful.

As the sun dropped and the mountains glowed pink, I started to gather my things to head into bed, but then wondered if I might be able to see a sunset. So I walked over to the church and then along a path next to the cemetery, and was greeted with the most stunning sky. My view stretched across the hills and I realized that I could see straight out to the sea, and sure enough, the sun was sinking down below the water’s horizon. And just as the sun dipped down, the church bells started ringing 10pm, and I listened to the bells and watched the pink sky, and a small cat wandered out of the grass and brushed against my leg. 

It was an unexpectedly magical night.

Sun setting on the Camino del Norte

Sunset in Pineres, Camino del Norte

Puppies!

My walk on the Norte this summer provided lots of puppy encounters. There were other animals, too, but the puppies were my favorite. I said hi to a couple on my first day, about 30 minutes after I left the albergue in Irun. Then there were two more outside of a farm on the way to Deba (these two came sprinting over to me as I walked up, so excited and happy). And then there were four more at the albergue in Pozueta. After I showered and washed my clothes, I sat down and pulled one of the puppies into my lap, and wondered if I could somehow tuck him into my bag and walk the rest of my pilgrimage with him. 

Puppies playing on the Camino del Norte

A pile of puppies in Pozueta, Camino del Norte

A puppy friend on the Camino del Norte

The Walking Stick

When I walked my first Camino- the Camino Frances, in 2014- I bought a walking stick in a tiny shop in St Jean Pied de Port, right at the very start of my pilgrimage. But for each long walk since then, I’ve always waited until I was on my way to try to find a piece of wood that would work as a walking stick. Sometimes I’ve had to walk several days before I find something. Some sticks are perfect, some are a little short, or a little tall, or have a quirky bend.

But this year, I got my stick from a pile in the back of the gîte in Oloron-Ste-Marie, where I started my pilgrimage on the Camino Aragonés. I’d noticed the pile of sticks the night before, and as I was eyeing them up I thought one or two might make a perfect walking stick. Before I left the next morning, I asked the hospitalera if I would be able to take one, and she was thrilled to be able to pass one over to me. 

So my walking stick was with me every step of the way on this pilgrimage, and like all the walking sticks that have come before, I grew very attached to this one.

On my last day, as I walked into Oviedo, I met a Spanish pilgrim. We walked together for about 30 minutes, he had just started his pilgrimage the day before, and would be continuing from Oviedo on the Camino Primitivo. He was eager to talk to me: asking questions and telling me why he was on the Camino. Already, he had blisters, and his pace was slow and labored. I had to really slow down to stay next to him (remember, I was on my 29th day of walking!), but even so, I think he had to quicken his pace to stay next to me. 

I was feeling distracted, knowing I only had another hour or two left of my summer Camino. What I really wanted was to be walking alone, and thinking about the last kilometers of the walk, and thinking about the last month, and trying to process it all… not walking really slowly and trying to make conversation with a new pilgrim.

At one point he looked at my stick. “That’s nice,” he said. 

I also looked at my stick, the part at the top rubbed smooth by the palm of my hand, the bottom that was covered in dirt. I looked at the stick and then looked at the pilgrim. “When we arrive in Oviedo, if we are at the same albergue, I’ll give it to you.”

A little later I continued ahead, and had the last hour of the pilgrimage to myself. And later still, in the municipal albergue in Oviedo, I found the Spanish pilgrim, and presented him with my stick. 

“This is for you,” I said. “It’s helped me on my walk, and I hope it helps you on yours.”

He was thrilled, smiling and thanking me and telling me that I might have saved his Camino. 

Sometimes I just need to leave my stick when I finish a Camino: in Santiago I left it resting against the cathedral, on the Chemin Le Puy I left it tucked into the corner in an albergue. After my first Camino del Norte I was so attached to my stick that I shipped it home (and now it’s on the mantel above my fireplace). But this ending felt the best: putting it in the hand of the next pilgrim. Maybe it continues to be passed from hand to hand, maybe it’s still out there now, walking someone to Santiago.

Beginning of the Camino del Norte; selfie with a sign to Santiago (787km)

Pilgrim shadow with stick

Hopefully I’ll be back with more soon… more posts from my summer, more thoughts and musings about life and writing and walking. 

2 Comments / Filed In: Camino del Norte, solo-female travel, Travel
Tagged: albergue, Camino de Santiago, camino del norte, Guemes, hiking, long distance walking, Pendueles, pilgrim, pilgrimage, walking, writing

How to Walk the Camino in a Heatwave

September 28, 2019

One of the stories from this year’s Camino was the heat. Oh, the heat! I like to escape the humidity of a northeastern US summer for Europe where it’s almost guaranteed to be a little cooler and all-around much more pleasant. And usually, it is.

But this summer, Europe experienced some record-breaking heatwaves, and I happened to be walking through one of them.

It was intense.

Pilgrim shadow; Camino Aragonés

I like to think that I can handle heat pretty well- after all, until earlier this year, I’ve never owned a car with working air conditioning. I rarely use air conditioning in my apartment, either (I have one small window unit and I generally only use it a few times a year, on the very hottest and most humid days. But I suppose I should say that my apartment stays pretty cool and a fan is often all I need to manage the heat). In any case, walking a summer-time Camino has never been too stressful to me. I expect that it will be hot, but I never worry too much. There have been some pretty uncomfortable days, but I’ve always been able to handle them pretty well.

But this summer was a different story. All told, I only walked for about 3-days in really bad heat, but that was enough. It was the end of June, and the end of my Camino Aragonés. The heat had been building and building and then suddenly it burst: unrelenting and all-consuming. At times, it was hard to think, that’s how hot it was. The highest temperature I saw recorded was 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit), displayed on one of the pharmacy signs as I walked through an empty town one afternoon (empty, because every other person was inside, taking a siesta. More on that later). 40 degrees is hot, and it’s very possible that I may have experience heat a degree or two higher; I know that other parts of Europe certainly did.

Temperatures during a Camino heatwave

I learned a few things about walking in this kind of heat, and I thought I would share more of that experience here, in case anyone else ends up in the middle of a long walk and trapped in a heatwave. 

When I think back to those days, what stands out the most is the sense of community and support that developed among the pilgrims on the Camino. We were all walking through the heat, and it was a struggle for everyone. I think that the heat helped us form stronger bonds; pilgrims looked out for one another, always checking in and making sure others were okay. And, in addition to the sometimes intense experience of walking really long distances, we added an incredible heat to the pilgrimage, and it was like we were all in it together, even if we were walking separately. Like I’ve said in a previous post, the Camino Aragonés had this really nice community feel to it anyway; there were about 12-15 other pilgrims walking the same stages as me, so I got to know the others from staying in the same albergues. But I think the heatwave just made the connections easier. By the end of the Aragonés, I felt like the entire group was my Camino family, even the Spanish guy in the red shirt who didn’t really say much to anyone. It didn’t matter. When I saw him at the albergue in Puente La Reina, I ran up and smiled and gave him a big thumbs up (we couldn’t really communicate so gestures and body language went a long way). His smile was just as big as my own: we’d each made it, and in a way we’d been looking out for one another. That’s what mattered.

Pilgrim family dinner; Camino Aragonés

I walked through the heatwave but I never felt like I was in it alone. That meant a lot.

This idea of group support leads me to my next point. When walking in a heatwave, start early. Start really early. I was trying to do that anyway, but ‘early’ took on a new meaning the morning we left Sangüesa. The night before, a Dutch woman organized a 4:30am wake-up call. We were all in one big bunk room in the albergue, and this pilgrim figured that if a few of us were going to wake up really early, we might as well all wake up really early. Initially, I thought the wake-up call was way too early; anything in the 4 o’clock hour is a time that is meant for sleep, and I’ve always felt pretty strongly about that. And sure, I could have stayed in bed while everyone else woke up, but when you walk a Camino, if several people are moving around in an albergue room and packing up their things, it’s guaranteed to wake you up.

So I rose with the others and drank a cup of instant coffee in the common room, ate a bite of leftover tortilla from the night before and then headed out alone, pilgrims a few minutes ahead of me, pilgrims a few minutes behind me.

It’s probably no secret that I like to walk alone. I don’t mind occasionally walking with other people but mornings are my favorite time to walk alone, so even though I left the albergue just after 5am and it was pitch black outside, I was happy that I was walking by myself.

Walking before dawn; Camino Aragonés

This was good and fine for the first 20 minutes: I was walking on a sidewalk out of town, the arrows (when I could find them with my flashlight) were pointing straight ahead. The air was somewhat cool and it was kind of exciting, a little thrilling, to be walking under what still felt like a night sky.

But then, naturally, I missed an arrow. I walked, then turned around, confused. I heard voices behind me and realized it was a group of pilgrims from the albergue. I waited until they caught up with me and then, together, we figured out where to go. I walked with them for awhile, up and down the hills until the sun began to rise behind a mountain, throwing a soft pink light through the sky. Eventually I stopped for a break and let them walk ahead of me so that I continue walking on alone. But I learned something that I should have already known (because I’ve gotten confused walking in the dark before): if I need a flashlight to walk the Camino, I shouldn’t be too far from other pilgrims. 

Sunrise on the Camino Aragonés

In any case, waking up really early and starting your day’s walk well before the crack of dawn is important in extreme heat. The first few hours of the day were really pleasant and so, so beautiful as the sun was rising. Once that sun had crested the mountain, however, the heat began. It was a bit like a race against the clock, walking as fast as I could before the sun had fully risen in the sky. But the more kilometers you can walk before the sun rises, the less you’ll have to walk in really bad heat. For those three days of walking through the heatwave, I think I had finished walking and was checking into my albergue by noon, or 12:30 at the latest. The last few hours of the walk each day were tough: by 10am the heat was strong, and the time between 11:00am and noon was just a difficult hour, the kind where you need to focus on each footstep and tell yourself- “One step at a time. One step at a time.”

I can’t imagine what I would have done if I’d needed to continue walking through the afternoon on those days. It would have been really difficult, and maybe dangerous. In the past, I’ve heard pilgrims say that they walk in the morning hours, take a really long siesta during the afternoon, and then continue walking in the evening when the heat has cooled. I think this could be possible if you’re walking a Camino route where you know there will be availability in albergues, or else if you’ve made a reservation in an albergue or hotel, so that you could arrive late and still be guaranteed a bed.

On some Camino routes, it can be easy to alter your schedule and just walk short days in extreme heat. A 10 or 15 kilometer day, if started early, could have you finishing by mid-morning before the worst heat of the day. A lot of albergues don’t open until early to mid afternoon, but it would still be better to hang out inside, at a bar or restaurant, and wait for the albergue to open, rather than continuing to walk through the heat. On the Aragonés, I met two French pilgrims who decided to skip ahead a stage and take a bus to the next town, so that they could walk shorter stages and still arrive in Puente La Reina on schedule. They were worried about walking 25 or 30 kilometer stages in the heat, and so they adjusted their plans. 

Open road of the Camino Aragonés

I think this is always a good idea. Some pilgrims will stop walking if it gets too hot, and either hang out in a village or town, or take a bus to a city for a few days and then just return when the weather has cooled. I think mentioning this is important, because walking through a heatwave can be dangerous. I never felt like I was in any danger this summer, but it helped to start early and walk fast before the sun had fully risen. If I hadn’t been able to end my walking day by noon, it could have been a very different story.

But ending the day around noon has another advantage: if the albergue is open, it gives you time to claim a bed, take a shower, wash your clothing, and then head out for a big menu del dia lunch before returning to the albergue for a nice, long siesta.

I loved doing this. I had some incredible meals and with a full belly and a hot sun bearing down, there was nothing more I wanted to do than go back to my bunk and rest for awhile. This is a pro-tip for the Camino: a menu del dia (menu of the day) is very similar to a pilgrim’s menu, but the quality of the food is often better. The price is comparable- around 10 euros- and you’ll get a starter, main dish and dessert, bread and wine, too, just like the pilgrim’s menu. But it was a treat to have varied and delicious options (and the little pitchers of wine help slow you down for the siesta, too).

Menu del dia lunch on the Camino Aragonés

Walking in the dark and eating big lunches are good and fine, but what about actually walking in the heat?

I focused on three things: keeping myself as cool as possible, drinking water consistently throughout the day, and resting in shade every chance I got. 

In terms of keeping myself cool, options are a bit limited, but there are still some strategies that I think any pilgrim could use. The first is to wear a wide-brimmed hat that will keep the sun off of both your face and the back of your neck. Initially, I only had a ball cap, but when the heat got bad I went out in search of a better hat. The town of Sangüesa had a pretty awesome general store with really cheap stuff, and I found a 2 euro hat with a somewhat wide brim. It was navy blue which wasn’t the best (lighter colors are recommended), and the fit was rather poor, but at least it shielded my head from the sun more than my ball cap did. (Some pilgrims carry an umbrella to fully protect themselves from the sun, which can also work really well).

How to walk the Camino in a heatwave

My other tip for trying to stay cool while walking in a heatwave is to use a buff. I’ve written about my buff before, and it’s come in handy more times than I can count. But my very favorite way to use it is this: when passing a fountain, run it under the water until it is soaked and dripping. Without squeezing out too much of the water, I’ll put it either around my neck or up over the top of my head. Water gets everywhere, but- at least initially- it’s cool and refreshing. The buff will dry out and warm up pretty quickly under a hot sun, but even ten minutes of a cool sensation against my neck or head is such a relief. I’ll refresh the buff at every fountain I pass.

Camino in a heatwave; Camino Aragonés

And speaking of fountains, it might go without saying that staying hydrated is really important during a heatwave, but I’m going to say it anyway. Water is key. I read somewhere that it’s better to take small sips continuously throughout the day during extreme heat (rather than gulping down a ton of water all at once), and I’m not sure if that’s true or not, but it’s what I tried to do. In any case, I made myself drink even if I wasn’t feeling thirsty, just to make sure that I was giving my body enough water. And this is something I do on the Camino anyway, but every time I passed a fountain I would fill my water bottle. Even if the bottle was nearly full, it didn’t matter. I’d make sure it was filled to the very top (and often, the water from a fountain is cooler than what’s been sitting in your bottle, so it helps to refresh). You’re going to sweat a lot while walking in hot temperatures, so that makes it extra important to stay hydrated. Many people carry electrolyte tablets or some equivalent, and I think this is a good idea, especially if you’re walking in the summer. (There are lots of different kinds you can buy: I’ve tried these, and these). 

Fuente sign, Camino Aragonés

Finally, the shade. If you’re on a forested path or walking in an area with lots of trees, the air will be a little cooler and the shade will be a relief. But on the Camino, it’s often difficult to find shade. So much of the path is out in the open, and my walk on the Aragonés during the heatwave was no different. There was a long stretch when I could see the path winding far ahead of me, the heat shimmering up from the ground, the path was a blaring white and there wasn’t a spot to hide in the shade for what felt like miles. In a case like this, there’s not much that you can do. But if you do pass a tree, even just a tiny section of the trail that has just a bit of shade, my best advice is to make a beeline to that spot and stand there for a few minutes. Small breaks are good for your body during a heatwave, and a chance to escape a relentless sun is important. I actually learned this from a dog that I hiked with a few years ago in France: on hot afternoons, he would criss-cross the road to walk in shade as much as possible. At first I thought it was funny, but then I realized that this dog was really smart. He knew what he had to do to stay cool. 

A break under a tree, Camino Aragonés

A little shade on the Camino Aragonés

I now look back at those days of walking in the heat and I wonder- “Was it really that hot?” Then I remember the last day in Puente La Reina, sitting around a table in the albergue with a group of pilgrims: from Italy and France and Japan. Most of us had just met and we were eating and laughing and toasting to the Camino and even while sitting still at the table, sweat dripped from all of us. There was no escape. 

Walking in the heat isn’t always fun and it’s important to be really careful, and the smartest thing might be to change plans and avoid walking during the hottest days. I’m curious if others have had experience walking the Camino in a heatwave: what did you do? Do you have any other tips or tricks?

Camino in a heatwave; temperature sign

5 Comments / Filed In: Camino Aragones, Camino de Santiago, Travel, walking
Tagged: Camino Aragones, Camino de Santiago, heatwave, hiking, long distance walking, solo female travel, Spain, travel, walking

  • 1
  • 2
  • Previous Entries
Welcome! I’m Nadine: a traveler, a pilgrim, a walker, a writer, a coffee drinker. This is where I share my stories, my thoughts and my walks. I hope you enjoy the site!
Support Nadine Walks on Patreon!

Looking for Something?

Struggling with the Post-Camino blues? Check out my free e-book!

Top Posts & Pages

  • Home
  • Camino Packing List
  • Other Camino Routes
  • About
  • My favorite albergues on the Camino del Norte

Archives

Prairie, Theodore Roosevelt National Park, ND
Walking along the coast on the Camino del Norte

Coffee on balcony of Airbnb, Paris, 12th arrondissement
Nadine writing in journal in Arrés on the Camino Aragones, sunset in background

Curving path of Hadrian's Wall, Day 13 on the Pennine Way
Nadine in Finisterre, Camino de Santiago

Inspiration

 

“A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”

-Lao Tzu

 

 

“… For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.”

-Wendell Berry, The Peace of Wild Things

Camino Packing List

Nadine and backpack on beach, Camino del Norte

Theme by 17th Avenue · Powered by WordPress & Genesis