Nine days since I finished walking and less than a week since I returned home, I’m starting to get my head around what I’ve done. So before the busyness of life, work and ministry overtakes me again, I thought I’d post one last blog to try to bring together what I’ve learned over a week of walking the Camino Frances. It’s an eclectic list - some of it practical, some of it spiritual, some of it unclassifiable! But, for what it’s worth and in no particular order, here’s what comes to mind:A pilgrimage often starts out as one thing and becomes another - many of those I spoke to started off going for a (very long) walk and ended up having a deeply spiritual experience. If you walk the Camino, pilgrimage will find you, even if you don’t know what it is or whether you want it when you start.The peace of walking alone or with undemanding company over long distances is the most powerful aid to good thinking and to prayer that I have ever experienced.Once you get home, stopping is not an option! My feet have been itching to get out of the door each day since I got back.It’s surprising how little you need for a week - my pack weighed about 6.5kg fully loaded, including water, and I still brought back a few items unused.Preparing your mind and spirit is optional - that happens along the way. Preparing your feet is essential!Just because folk are walking the Camino like you are doesn’t mean that they are ALL your kind of people - but mostly I met lovely, kind, open-hearted fellow pilgrims as I walked.God is as much, if not more, present in the people you meet and the natural world you encounter along the way as He is in the churches that punctuate it, especially as many are sadly not open.Being vegetarian / pescatarian in northern Spain is manageable, but monotonous. I suspect being vegan or gluten-free / dairy-free might be a lot more challenging.Next time, I’ll learn more Spanish.Long-distance walking turns you into a Hobbit - second breakfast become a very important feature of my Camino.One Camino isn’t enough! I didn’t meet a single person who didn’t express a desire to go back, including me.And finally … tarta de Santiago is absolutely delicious and incredibly easy to make. So I’ll finish with a bonus - the recipe for my favourite Camino dessert.Preheat oven to 180C. Line a 20cm springform cake tin.Whisk 4 medium eggs and 200g of caster sugar together until pale, creamy and about doubled in volume. Fold in 200g of almond flour / ground almonds and the zest of one lemon, taking care to retain as much air in the mixture as possible. Pour the batter into the lined tin.Bake for about 30 minutes until pale golden on top and until a skewer comes out of the cake clean. Cool in the tin for 15 minutes, then turn out and remove lining. Once completely cool, dredge the top with icing sugar. Traditionally, the top is marked with a cross of St James - to do this, print and cut one out, place it on top of the cake, removing after adding the icing sugar.Goes extremely well with a strong cup of coffee!And, for one last time, Buen Camino!
After a wonderful and refreshing night’s sleep, it was lovely to have a lie in this morning until 8am and to get up slowly and in the light!Yesterday was almost too full of different experiences and impressions. The walking was up and down, but easy enough, especially as it was a shorter day than the day before. It was also, after the first hour or so of relative solitude, busier and busier the further we walked. By lunchtime, we were only about 5km from our destination and Amanda spotted 2 good Camino friends in a cafe. And thank goodness we stopped to join them, as about 5 minutes later, the heavens opened. We sat it out for a while, but eventually felt we had outstayed our welcome and ventured out to walk the final stretch into the city together in the teeming rain.Gradually, the countryside turned into suburbs and light industrial buildings, the rain eased and the roads we walked along and crossed became bigger and busier, until we reached the much ‘zapped’ giant Santiago de Compostela sign - it seems that pilgrims, like sailors, have a penchant for covering significant items in stickers!The last couple of kilometres felt slow … perhaps because we were getting weary, perhaps because the anticipation was making everything seem like it was taking longer. A short diversion to our final albergue, in the former Seminario Menor, and we headed uphill again to the 0km marker and our ultimate destination of Santiago Cathedral. I’m still working out how I feel about that arrival - if I had been alone, I’m sure I would have gone straight to the Cathedral with my backpack and poles. As it was, I went unburdened.I’m also still trying to work out why I did this or what it means to me. Part of it was definitely about an opportunity presenting itself and taking it. Part of it was fulfilling a long held hope. Part of it was proving to myself that I could do it physically. Maybe the biggest part was quite simply finding out what would happen and opening myself up to possibility.Would I do it again? Absolutely! I’d love to walk the Camino Ingles some time. But maybe next year …!Perhaps in a few days, once things have settled in my mind, I will have had a chance to reflect on what I’ve learned and maybe I’ll post something more. But, for now, the pilgrim is signing off for a few days’ rest and tourism and wishing you - Buen Camino!
Day 5 was always going to be a challenge. After a lazy evening in the sunshine yesterday, we left the albergue as the sun was rising, knowing that we had 26km to cover before our last night’s rest. The morning was overcast but very pleasant as we continued on through fields and farms. A second breakfast of tortilla was followed by empanada for lunch - the cafes and bars were fewer and further between today and many were either closed or closing as we passed. In fact, although the map showed a long string of villages to pass through, we barely touched many of them. And then the Camino started to follow more closely the main road to Santiago … just as the rain set in. So this afternoon has been 13km of getting our heads down and just plodding.It seems extraordinary that tomorrow we will be in Santiago - I’ve only been walking for just short of 100km so far, but it feels like it will never end. I can only imagine how my friend is feeling as she contemplates the last 20km of nearly 800km since France.Today feels as though it has, in some ways, been the essence of pilgrimage - aching feet, miles to cover before bed and time both to think and not to think. The steady rhythm of my feet has got me here and has freed up my mind to travel here, there and everywhere.Tomorrow, we will finish our pilgrimages - and perhaps start to make sense of what we have achieved.
