Go Feedback: Aoife Archerhad a life-changing time walking the Camino de Santiago through northern Spain
SOME DO IT by bike. Some do it on horseback. Most do it on foot. However you do the Camino de Santiago, the 798km pilgrimage path across northern Spain, expect a memorable and life-changing experience.
The camino, or Way of St James, which leads to the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in the Galician capital, where the saint's remains are said to be buried, has been popular with pilgrims since the Middle Ages. Today religious and secular pilgrims, art and nature lovers, history fanatics, hikers and bikers walk side by side.
I began in St Jean Pied de Port, a French village across the Pyrenees from Pamplona, where caminovirgins, veterans and hangers-on converge. Getting a Pilgrim Passport from the Society of St James enabled me to stay in refugio, or hostels, along the way.
Pilgrims also receive a scallop shell, a symbol of the camino that you hear chiming on pilgrims’ rucksacks. A final, crucial component of the uniform is a deep, uneven tan that starts above your boots. This is the part of the outfit that takes a bit longer to acquire.
For my first night I booked an evening meal in a guest house for pilgrims. The compass I had bought, in case of a Bridget Jones moment was, I was told, a mistake. So was my lack of a bell-shaped raincoat.
A Dutch couple had walked to the guest house from the Netherlands – a fact that caused amazement around the table that night but was a familiar story by the end of my travels.
The customs of the guest house also became much more familiar over the next 35 or so days: a prayer was said over the meal, the wine flowed freely and we were all in bed by 10pm, to facilitate a 6am rise.
The first day's walk – 27km through the Pyrenees to Roncesvalles, a village about 10km into Spain – is one of the most difficult and spectacular on the camino. One of the attractions of the walk is the Canterbury Tales-style storytelling among pilgrims. Some argued that this day tested your commitment. Others said it represented one of three stages in Jesus's life – the Crucifixion.
When I re-embarked on the start of the camino, a year later, I would have my own tale to tell. This time I carried an extra weight on my back: a bottle of champagne. I walked on the French side of the border with my boyfriend, then, later that night, celebrated my engagement with my fiance in Spain. Four months later my husband and I returned to Santiago for our honeymoon, after our wedding in Dingle, a traditional point of departure for many Irish pilgrims.
I carried everything I needed on my back – like a tortoise, as a fellow pilgrim described it. I soon realised how little I needed in order to be happy. You can walk as little or as much as you want each day, the way signposted by yellow arrows. Walking can become like meditation, with the focus on steps instead of breaths. Your mind is then free to wander.
The shortest distance I walked in a day was about five kilometres, the longest 40km, but usually I did between 20km and 25km. Often I allowed my walking day to end whenever I reached unusual lodgings. One, for example, offered an evening ceremony in which my feet were washed by long-haired, bearded men in blue velvet capes.
I also slept outside in the ruins of the Convent of San Antón, near Castrojeriz, which had neither electricity nor hot water. Caminofeng shui caused pilgrims to shift their sleeping bags around during the night, in search of more positive "energies".
Occasionally I shared the path. I sung out loud and unselfconsciously on the flat middle stretch of the caminowith an Englishwoman. I walked with a one-legged Australian athlete, who wanted to prove he could do what any "two-legger" could.
My now husband came and went for a few days at a time, and followed my progress on a map at home, like the benevolent detective in Thelma & Louise.
I have had some of the highest and lowest moments of my life on the Camino de Santiago. I saw a Spanish farmer in her apron, cutting the neck of a chicken for dinner. I’ve been dazzled by the colours of the stained-glass windows of the cathedrals in León and Burgos and have danced in a sway of red and white at the bull fighting in Pamplona.
The open road let me think and cry and dream. And I learned a new Spanish word, puntos, meaning "stitches", during a brief spell in hospital in Santiago after a tumble.
There are, of course, challenging days when a package holiday seems like a much more sensible option. But walking the camino is such a unique, life-affirming experience. It is, in fact, so much more than a walk. It is a chance to free the mind and perhaps see clearly for the first time what is important in life. And I look forward to rejoining the path with my husband throughout our lives.
Go read
The guidebook of the Irish Society of the Friends of St James (www.stjamesirl. com) is all you’ll need on the camino. I also downloaded Ruth Potterton’s day-by-day guide from the site.
Before you go, try: The Pilgrimage: A Contemporary Quest for Ancient Wisdom, by Paulo Coelho, The Road to Santiago: The Pilgrim's Practical Guide, by José María Anguita Jaén, and The Pilgrimage Road to Santiago: The Complete Cultural Handbook, by David Gitlitz and Linda Kay Davidson.