Donna did the tour with us.

She was a delight. A delight to walk with, a delight to talk to, always a delight. Whenever I photographed her I always captured a truly beautiful smile.

This was her first Camino, yet she’d done a lot of training, particularly hard hill and mountain training, and she breezed through what turned out to be a tough walk.

She sent me this guest post –

On the 17^th June, 2013 my life changed forever.

I was sitting at my mechanics waiting for my car to be serviced when I stumbled across Bill’s blog. I read everything. Every blog entry. Every comment. That evening I sent Bill a message on the blog thanking him for his blog and inspiring words. I mentioned in my message that I intended to do the Camino in seven years time.

 A discussion ensued between myself, Bill and others suggesting that seven years was way too long to wait to do the Camino. Bill said I wouldn’t wait that long and if I’d been bitten by the Camino bug I would be there within a year. Honestly, I thought Bill was out of his mind.

Little did I know that by putting it out there I would be answered and I would be lucky enough to join Jen, Bill and others on the Portuguese Camino.

I didn’t want to go away and do the Camino because I didn’t think I could leave my children. Julie B wrote “

I hear what you are saying about waiting until the children are older and less in need of mother. Yet, when my kids were in High School, I had to travel often to take care of my dying dad. I had numerous “spiritual” experiences during that time because for the first time in my life I was only responsible for myself when I was traveling and staying in hotels. I literally could hear myself think and pray/meditate in solitude. I always came back with a heightened awareness and love for my family…..it was good to get away, not bad.”

Julie, such prophetic words. That is exactly what happened to me. For the first time I was responsible for myself and not for everyone else.

I never planned whom I would walk with on the Camino. Sometimes I was in a big group, sometimes with one friend and other times on my own.

When I was on my own I had hours and hours to think. Hours to ponder things. Hours just to occupy myself and not worry about anything other than “Am I still following the yellow arrows.” Walking on my own forced me to think about things I had perhaps been trying to avoid. It made me face issues that I had put to the back of my mind. It helped me to put things into perspective. It gives you processing time.

It also forced me out of my comfort zone and made me more self-reliant. There is something about getting lost in a foreign city where you have no language skills and you are trying to find your accommodation.

During the two weeks I had several spiritual experiences. These took me by surprise, as I don’t consider myself a religious person. I didn’t and still don’t really understand what they meant. It has given me a heightened sense of my own spirituality and it’s something I would like to explore more.

I had many conversations with lovely people that were part of our group and other pilgrims I met along The Way.  Each one of these people has touched me in one way or another.  I find that I am incorporating parts of the journey into my everyday life.  I’ll be doing something and I’ll think “Ah, that’s what Jen said.  Now I know what she meant.” 

I believe I have come back from the Camino happier and more able to deal with the stress of everyday life.  This cannot only be good for me but also for my children and others in my life.  I still have a lot to learn and a lot of lessons to apply.

Bill thank you for your blog.  You have been told by many others but it really does make a difference in people’s lives.

Jen and Bill thank you for organising the Portuguese Camino tour.  I will be forever grateful to you for doing this.  Without your tour I wouldn’t have gone this year.  Without your tour I wouldn’t have been able to make the changes in my life that I have.

A photo I took of Donna at the start of the Camino –

A photo I took of her at the end of the Camino –

I’ve been following a thread on one of the forums – about a series of armed robberies on the Camino Via de la Plata. A couple of men wearing balaclavas and brandishing knives have been stealing money off pilgrims walking alone.

It was a disturbing thread for a number of reasons – firstly, you set off on a pilgrimage believing you’ll be safe. That somehow the sacred nature of your journey will guard you from harm. But of course that’s nonsense. The Camino is like any other public place. You are vulnerable to the vagaries of man.

Secondly it’s disturbing that the economic situation in Spain is such that some men feel they need to rob others with a threat of violence. That’s sad.

Historically, pilgrims have always been subject to robbery and sometimes violence along the Camino. In ages past it was far far worse than it is today. The police in Spain want to prevent crime on the Camino, because the Camino brings much needed revenue to towns and regions that desperately need it.

And let’s put these recent incidents into context. The robberies have evidently been occurring on a remote part of the Via de la Plata out of Seville, where there are long distances between towns or habitations. Not the more popular Camino Frances. And it seems like this recent spate is the work of just two men – not several different thieves on different Caminos.

Of all the people who walk the Camino each year – and we’re into the millions – how many report being robbed or threatened? Hardly any. So the Camino is not unsafe. It’s just that you’ve got to be aware of your personal safety as you do anywhere, particularly if you’re a woman walking alone.

(Just on those figures – John Walker from the Pilgrim’s Office in Santiago told me that for every pilgrim who receives a Compostela each year, the Office estimates that there’s another ten that walk the Camino but either don’t complete the pilgrimage, or don’t receive a Compostela. More than 200,000 pilgrims received a Compostela last year – so multiply that by ten, and you have more than 2 million people walking parts of the Camino last year. That is staggering.)

People regularly report stuff stolen from their backpacks in albergues – even those that put their valuables in their sleeping bags while they’re asleep. And in some of the larger towns, pickpockets are known to target pilgrims.

I’ve always said, being a pilgrim walking the Camino doesn’t imbue you with a spiritual immunity from crime.

Particularly for someone doing their first Camino, there’s a warm fuzzy sense of being a part of a spiritual journey, and a belief that your fellow pilgrim has the same purity of intent that you do. You trust your fellow pilgrim. You want to believe that because they too are part of this sacred and ancient walk, that they too are honourable honest people.

And 99% are.

But the Camino does attract opportunists. Waiting to prey on the weak and vulnerable. And pilgrims are at times very vulnerable. They’re vulnerable because they trust, they’re vulnerable because often they’re exhausted or suffering from injuries, some are vulnerable because they’re naive or innocent. The Camino might be their first big trip alone overseas, and they’re not savvy to the scams and the dangers.

Someone on this post said all pilgrims are good people. Let me tell you, they’re not.

99% are.

But amongst those 2 million people who walk along the Camino each year, some are thieves, some are scammers, some are simply not nice people. Labelling yourself a pilgrim, getting your Credential and putting a scallop shell on your backpack doesn’t immediately make you a good person with a good heart.

In an albergue in Astorga, I saw someone leave their iPhone on a charger and head out for dinner. I warned the person, but they shrugged and smiled, said it would be ok. Later they came back and of course their phone had been stolen.

The Camino for me represents the journey through life.

You go through various stages – of hope, of disappointment, of frustration. Sometimes you get angry. You have times when you strike obstacles, when you struggle, when everything is boring and tedious. But then you also have times when you’re unbelievably happy, when you triumph. When you win. When you can only ever see beauty around you. You meet people along the way that change your life, and you might in some way change their’s too. And you learn huge lessons.

That’s the Camino. And that’s life.

As in life, you’re going to meet some good people, and some whose energies are confused. Sometimes foul. They’re not bad, because I don’t believe anyone is bad – they’re just unwise.

As in life, you have to be careful. You have to be aware. But you must never let fear take over. Fear limits you. Fear reduces and taints your experiences. Fear leads to antipathy. To hate. To rejection. Fear takes away the joy.

The Camino is a joyful experience. But it doesn’t give you spiritual immunity.

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…