Not even a 100 Miles to Go


One of the strange things about doing the Camino is revealed in the title to the blog post. Walking a 100 miles is a long and arduous task for anyone but, after you have already done the best part of 400 miles, it doesn’t seem very daunting; it feels like the finishing straight.

The pleasures of the Camino have yet to pall. I found myself just grinning today at nothing more than landscape. Despite some rain, today was another joyous day – just walking and enjoying amazing views, those persistent wild flowers (which today added orchids to the mix) and the little incidents of Camino progress (today, huskies hauling an owner along, horse riders, good company and the church bell chain that I really should have pulled harder). Food and drink have been great today too – local cider, chestnut cake and Galician wine especially.

I am slightly dreading what is to come. This is partly because lots of newbies will join at Sarria, the last place to join and still qualify for a compostela, and partly because it is now a slog – 20 kms or more every day. The newbies might well annoy, not least because of the tales I have heard of ‘tourgrinos’ – people who walk 5 kms, get a stamp and then get back on their tour bus before heading for the next stamp. But I will try and remind myself that I am not the Camino police and that they are only cheating themselves. And everyone else in the gigantic bloody queue for a compostela (sorry, that’s the wrong attitude).

I would like to think that my prolonged exposure to Camino thinking has made me a better person but the evidence of, say, my attitude to cyclists suggests that it has a lot of work to do in the next six days.

Perhaps I entered with some negativity. After all, Hazel left a stone at the Cruz de Ferro with a message involving nearest and dearest; I left a stone from the Ridgeway and the message when selecting it was almost challenging and aggressive towards the Camino – ‘you think a 1,000 year old path is old, try this from a 5,000 year old path’. Not the right spirit.

But I do think that anyone, even me, exposed to so much natural beauty over such a long period is bound to change a little. And I am not so arrogant as to assume that I am immune. One of our albergue hosts said that even those who think themselves unchanged by the Caminoo will find that it has had an effect – and she was a wise woman who had seen a lot. Let’s hope any change is by way of mental enlightenment and not knackered hips.

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