It’s hard coming home from a Camino.

No-one really talks about this.

The Camino takes you up so high, then you come home and you drop down so low.

Steve on this past Camino said it’s an unreal world. And yes, it is. For the period of time you’re walking, nothing else matters. Your priorities become very simple: where will you sleep, how will you do your laundry, what will you eat, how will you deal with your injuries, how far will you walk tomorrow, and how tough will it be?

Most of us ignore the outside world. We don’t keep up with the news, we don’t watch tv, except maybe for a footy game in a bar, or a Formula One race, or the weather forecast.

Some of us don’t check emails, we turn off our phones, some of us sever all communications. The worries of the life we left behind are, well, left behind.

But no matter how far we walk – whether we walk from Le Puy or from Porto, at some point we have to come home.

And it’s tough.

For a start, once we come home we don’t walk 25km-30km a day any more. We no longer get that aerobic high. We no longer have those endorphins coursing through our bodies, and that causes a big energetic and emotional slump.

Also, any worries or issues that we left behind are invariably waiting for us on our return, ready to jump out and ambush us with renewed vigour.

Some of us might have walked the Camino to work out stuff. A faltering relationship perhaps, or a business decision, or simply what to do with our lives. That “stuff” now stands baldly in front of us, waiting to be addressed.

We might hope to address it with a new-found wisdom acquired on the Camino. We might have spoken to someone on the pilgrimage who triggered something that now gives us a fresh outlook. We might have come home with a cocktail of emotions, unsure how to now approach our post Camino life.

If we’ve learned lessons, and most of us who walk the Camino do learn some profound life lessons, then we struggle to take what we’ve learned back into our everyday lives.

That’s hard.

On the Camino it’s easy. Relatively. It’s a finite world, for a start. A pilgrimage begins and ends. You get to Santiago, and it’s over. The trick is to keep it going. To take your learned Camino ethos into your daily life back home. So that it never ends. So that every day is a pilgrimage, irrespective of where you are.

That’s hard.

Some of us go back to the Camino. Some go back time and time again. To learn more lessons? To define ourselves? To breathe that refined and sacred air of a pilgrimage? We each have our different reasons. Already I’m thinking of my next one. And the next.

Jennifer and I got back home yesterday. We went to sleep and woke up 18 hours later. I’ve never slept 18 hours straight before in my life. Never.

Jennifer is nauseous. She was nauseous at the start of the Camino, now she’s nauseous at the end. It’s an esoteric reaction to an emotional state. It has nothing to do with anything else – it’s an energetic cleansing.

The Camino has that kind of impact. It resonates in all kinds of ways, in different ways in different people.

It’s hard coming home from a Camino.

I’ve been thinking back on my Camino, and trying to work out what I did right and what I did wrong.

I speak now as a pilgrim, not as a tour leader. It will be for others to determine what I did right and wrong in my capacity as a tour leader.

But as a pilgrim, here’s quick rundown of what I did right:

1. I was relaxed. This is probably the biggest thing I did right. I went into the walk relaxed, and I remained relaxed. I believe this is why I didn’t have any real pain this Camino, as compared to the last. On the last one – the Camino Frances – I was tense and anxious. And I believe those negative energies manifested themselves in my body as extreme pain. This time, I knew that I could manage the distance, and so I kept relaxed.
2. I gave in to The Way. I started out wearing a GPS watch with a chest strap on to monitor heartbeat, calories expended etc. At the end of the first day I took them off – everything – and I decided to wing it. I had digitised my guide books but I never referred to them. I never knew how far it was to the next town, or what the next town would be. I just walked, and I winged it.
3. I got my injuries right. I wore a knee brace with black pantyhose underneath to prevent skin sores from the metal brace. The brace kept the bone-on-bone separated, and I had no pain. I had set out at the start to not use any painkillers – tablets or creams. And I didn’t. I didn’t need to.
4. I got my boots right. Those Meindl boots, pure leather, were a joy to walk in each day. I’d broken them in sufficiently – about 600kms or so around Mudgee – and by the time I hit the Camino they had moulded into my feet.
5. I got my blisters right. Even with these super duper well fitting German boots, I still got blisters, probably because the first week or so of walking the Camino Portuguese was on cobblestones. They were brutal. And on some sections, the Camino led you along busy roads with a sloping cobblestone shoulder, which acerbated the foot issues. This time though with blisters, and there were only a few small ones, I ignored them until I couldn’t ignore them anymore, then I lanced them with a pin, drained them unceremoniously, and then covered them with Betadine. That’s all. The Betadine dried them out, hardened the skin, and within a couple of days the blisters were gone.
6. I did it right. I wore a backpack, I walked every mile, I never offloaded my pack on the van, and I never took a ride. I did the whole Camino as I’d set out to do it. There were a few days there when I was really knackered – like the day I did 37kms because I got lost, adding 6kms to a 31km day. That was tough. But no-one ever said the Camino was easy.
7. I had fun. The last Camino had been intense. This Camino was intense at times too, but I also had a lot of fun with a bunch of people whose company I really enjoyed.

What I did wrong:

1. Nothing.
2. Just kidding. I did a lot wrong.
3. I got my water totally wrong. I left myself dehydrated too many times. One time, after leaving Arcos, I walked nearly five hours without a drink, because I’d given my water bottle to my wife, who was sick. That was dumb. I should have picked up more water immediately.
4. I didn’t do enough yoga in preparation. That was a big mistake. My back wasn’t as strong as it should have been, and my hamstrings were tight every morning. Next time I’ll make sure I include a very solid regime of yoga as part of my preparation for the Camino.
5. I should have been more inclusive of other pilgrims. My focus on this Camino was on my group, and my wife, but I should have engaged more with pilgrims outside of the group. I did so with Cathy and Tim, the two lovely Americans from Virginia, but that was about all. You learn so much from talking with others, and you also give out too – equally important. I regret now that I didn’t give myself the time to do that more.
6. I should have gone to Mass on Easter Sunday. I didn’t do this, figuring that I wouldn’t have gone to Mass if I’d been in Australia because I’m not a Catholic, why should I in Santiago? That was nonsense talk. I’m a pilgrim, I’ve walked the Camino, I should have gone to that Mass – and I deeply regret that now.
7. I shouldn’t drink white port at 11am – three bottles of white port between the four of us – when I have another 15ms or so to walk. I regret that too. And yet we had the best time!
8. Lastly, I regret not whupping the Landers Express at least on one occasion. The only time I did, I woke up three hours early and got the jump on them. That’s kind of cheating. I regret not having smashed them fair and square on the hill up to Rubiaes. But fact is, they were always going to leave me standing still…

Apart from my duties and obligations as a tour leader, this Camino for me was a test ground – I wanted to see if I could walk two weeks without pain, and I did. That’s given me enormous confidence now to start to plan something much longer. An epic pilgrimage…

This time last year, I walked the Camino Frances – alone.

It had a profound impact on me.

It pressed my RESET button.

I think, I hope, that the walk defaulted me to my true nature.

It certainly rid me of a lot of accumulated junk.

Before the walk I was like a sea creature trying to swim against the current of life, with weed and barnacles hanging off me.

The Camino stripped me clean.

It allowed me to swim freely, and with the current, not against it.

This year I walked the Camino Portuguese – leading a group of pilgrims. Some had walked the Camino before, some had not.

It was an entirely different experience for me.

For a start, I was relaxed this time. Because I’d walked the Camino Frances, I knew I could physically walk the Portuguese, even though I hadn’t trained as hard this time.

Last time I was tense and anxious – and fearful.

This time I had no fear.

I was relaxed.

I allowed myself to laugh, and have fun.

This time I focused on others, not myself.

I was less concerned about how I felt, what my problems were, and more concerned with making sure that everyone else was alright – that their issues and concerns were being dealt with – either by myself or Jennifer.

What this meant was that my journey, at times, was less inwards – and more outwards. 

That in itself provided some big lessons for me.

I learnt the need for patience, tolerance, acceptance.

I learnt that I’m not the most important person in the room. There are 11 others more important than me.

Last time, I walked the Camino Frances with pain. I did it on maximum dosages of Ibuprofen, and copious amounts of Voltaren.

I not only had bone-on-bone knee pain, and very painful shin splints, I also had huge blisters.

This time I had no pain.

I only took a tablet of Ibuprofen once, and that was for a blinding headache, induced I suspect by some white port.

This time I wore an elaborate knee brace, and it seemed to work. Only now, a week after completing the walk, is my knee giving me some issues. But the brace kept me pain free.

This time I wore a different pair of boots – full leather Meindl, from Germany.

Exquisite boots.

Only a couple of minor blisters, but more importantly, the boots were a joy to walk in.

This time I used poles.

Last time I had a foolish romantic notion that a true pilgrim used a wooden staff. I learnt very quickly that this was a complete nonsense – that walking poles helped you enormously.

These are the physical differences – the outward differences.

The biggest inward difference is that this Camino was a shared experience. And I discovered that a shared experience is no less powerful than a lone experience.

In some ways it’s more powerful, because you learn from others.

I witnessed their transformations, and perhaps Jennifer and I helped at times with those transformations – I don’t know – but irrespective, I shared that experience with them.

I saw what they were going through, what they were learning, and I saw relevance in my own life. It meant something to me.

Another thing I discovered – and this surprised me: you don’t need to walk 800kms to have the Camino work its magic on you. I saw transformative changes in some of our group after just 100kms of walking.

Perhaps that’s because the Camino Portuguese isn’t easy.

I’ve said it before: it’s a gnarly little walk. There are some very long sections – because there are simply no places to stay in between – and there are some very tough climbs.

But it’s not long distances and steep hills that do it – it’s the magic of the Camino.

The soul imprint.

That’s what seeps into you, and causes the transformative shifts.

I’m still going through a fairly massive internal “audit” of the walk. Of the tour. There are things inside which need to bubble to the surface, so I can examine them in the light.

That takes time.

But the thing I know, this pilgrimage was no less powerful than the previous one. If anything it was more powerful, because of the shared experience.

The multiplyer effect.

The Camino works in mysterious ways.