Pilgrim's Point of View

One month ago I was in Santo Domingo, writing my blog, with the intention of keeping it up every few days. Almost exactly one month later, here I am in Santiago already, my head full of ruminations about the experience I've just had and trying to decide what my next move is. What happened to my good intentions? Well, after walking 20km a day and spending most of that time thinking, the isn't much desire to sit at a computer (if you can find one) and compose a coherent blogpost. At that point, most pilgrims shower, wash their smelly clothes and try to take a siesta before the shops open at 5pm. Being one of the pilgrims who had chosen to disconnect a bit from technology, I was forced to find pay computers, which are becoming a thing of the past, much like public telephones and phone cards. So, all of this to say, Sorry for not writing in a while.

So where to begin? It feels like I'm in a bit of withdrawl since walking into Santiago on Sunday, November 4th, 5 weeks, 6 days after starting in Roncesvalles 800km ago! It is surreal to be sitting in a hostal (cheap hotel) room all alone rather than in a busy albergue (special pilgrim hostal in full dorm room bunk bed stylings). Another change is that I've finally reached my limit of pay computers, so I splurged and bought myself a Samsung Galaxy II tablet! Holy smokes! I've come back into the real world already! This of course is just so I can keep up my blog in a more timely fashion (yeah right). I was pretty envious of all those smartphone users on the trail who could check email and get directions without carrying a heavy guidebook! Oh how the pilgrim has changed over time.

And that might be a good segue into the topic of types of pilgrims one encounters on the trail. There are pilgrims, and then there are tourists. To me, the real pilgrims are the people who come to the trail with some sort of question they are trying to find the answer to. They are drawn to the camino because it represents the opportunity for change in their daily life and a chance to get back to a more natural rhythm, to reconnect with themselves. There are as many reasons for walking the camino as their are pilgrims, such as spirituality,  illness, a convenient holiday, but I believe that the frame of mind is what separates the pilgrim from the tourist.

At the beginning, in Saint Jean for many, or Roncesvalles for others (although I did meet many on the trail who had started way before that and had already been walking for a month or so!), we were all trying to figure out what the camino was all about, to find our rhythm in the mass of walkers and bikers, still learning that we had left the race behind and we just needed to settle in. But I believe that most of us started at that point with the idea of walking for a month and reaching Santiago. That, to me, shows a commitment to the trail and an intention to submit oneself to whatever the camino puts in the path. Not that any of us were aware of that then.

After a week or two of really finding my rhythm and feeling like part of the camino community, I started meeting people who were just joining the trail in Logrono and then Burgos. That was my first time realizing that people do this for holiday too. It hadn't crossed my mind that someone would want to just walk for a week or two, but not everyone wants to quit their job to fly halfway around the world to find themself. Fair enough. But their backpacks were so small, and they didn't have walking poles, and they carried enormous cameras. They joined the trail with such levity that it brought out my inner grump (more chocolate, please). And, hey, I have respect for those people who get the idea of the camino and choose to spend a couple of weeks finding their inner rhythm again, but at the two week point, I was in no mood to hear people complain of their first blister as though it was ruining their trip. I didn't appreciate watching them gallop ahead without a trace of tendomitis from the two weeks of constant wear on you feet. But hey, we each have our own path to walk. At least they were walking.

But the "pilgrims" who really got me were the groups who had all the gear for backcountry camping, who at the end of a 5km walk would get on their fancy coachline and cruise to their 5 star hotel at the end of the day, and who got picked up at lunch to go to a nice restaurant in the next town. All I can say about them was at least they weren't staying at the albergues and stealing my hard-earned spot. They even made the pilgrims who transferred their backpacks to their next destination look like hardcore warriors.

In the last days of the pilgrimage, a whole new set of tourists show up. They are the weekend walkers who want to get the fun credential full of stamps, proof that they were a pilgrim. They show up in the last 100km (because that is what the pilgrim office requires to earn the compostela certificate in Santiago) and race to evert cafe and bar to get the sello (a unique stamp in every place) even though they rarely bought anything to earn it.

Anyway, with a true pilgrim heart, all can be forgiven, or at least forgotten. Whatevrr the reason for walking, the camino is an opportunity to think about things in a new way. The trick, I think, is to carry the lessons forward and not get too caught up in the everyday worldin which we constantly find ourselves.