Camino de Santiago Day 18: Terradillos to Calzadilla de los Hermanillos
I've been enjoying the Camino thoroughly the last few days - maybe too much - and so I decide to go off on my own again, to reclaim my own path
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I leave Terradillos in the dark.
Dinner last night was fun, but I’m drawn to walk alone again.
Instead of getting warmer, the day gets colder and colder until it’s freezing. When I get to the nearest cafe I’ve to run my hands under the hot tap to warm them up.
Two on-duty policemen come in and stand at the counter. I wonder are they here looking for a rogue pilgrim. Maybe they are, but they’re going to enjoy a glass of red wine and catch up with their friends for about 45 minutes before they do. It’s 10am.
Everyone keeps asking “Which way are you going?”
There are many alternative paths on the Meseta these days. Much of the original Camino Frances runs alongside busy highways, and there exist more rural routes which offer an alternative to the traffic and noise. Naturally, I always opt for these ones.
The way people are going on though, you’d swear you’d to choose between going up the north side of Everest or the south side – as if it were a life-or-death situation. It turns out there’s still no difference in difficulty: I mean, we’re all stuck on this flat straight stretch of road.
People fret that there’s “10km to the next town”.
“Nowhere to stop along the way”
“I heard there’s no shade on the alternative route”
“I think all the albergues will be booked out in the next town if you go the other route”
Oh, would ya stop.
Sick of listening to this. I learned a long time ago not to listen to cynical pilgrims. If worse comes to worst – as it did in Los Arcos, and I had to make an unscheduled walk to the next town, in the sun, with no food – then so be it. I back myself to survive a bit of walking.
When people ask me where I’m going, lately I’ve responded with a genuine: “I don’t know".
I don’t even bother to check the map or the book until lunchtime. I haven’t been looking at the names of places up ahead. At this stage, it doesn’t really matter.
The anxious energy could get you down, but I find it funny. I’m sure I contributed to it plenty myself, just by repeating something I’d heard without thinking, in an attempt to appear informed or intelligent.
Enough, though. As much as I’m enjoying the company these past few days, I think I’m enjoying it too much. I decide to go off again on the alternative route.
I leave Belfast Simon in Sahagun, just after the halfway point on the Camino Frances, marked by the track passing through a totem-like gateway. Simon’s carrying a pretty aggressive injury in his leg, and we look for a pharmacy.
Typically enough for this part of the world, when we get there it’s closed.
His detached deadpan acceptance of the situation says it all:
“No… well… I mean… why would you be open at – let’s see - 12 o’clock on a Monday?”
Simon isn’t sure he’s going to be able to make it to Santiago on this Camino, such is the extent of the pain he’s in. I don’t believe him, though he seems quite open-minded about it:
He sees one of the biggest lessons you can learn from the Camino is if you accept that it’s okay if you don’t finish it, rather than continuing when it’s not feasible and ignoring genuine warning signs from your body.
I admire his detachment from the whole thing, as I think I’d be filled with regret if it ever came to it that I’d quit.
Thankfully I’m nowhere near there.
After Sahagun I make my way onto the Via Trajana – the ancient Roman road that crossed the north of Spain. After the last few nights I feel like I need to get away from it all. I’ve been enjoying myself thoroughly, though perhaps too much.
I find myself so anxious to get to Leon – for no reason other than it’s there – that I resolve to take some time to myself for a few days. It’s like the restlessness to reach the apparent climax of the journey is too much to bear. Though I must remember I’m not ready for it until I get there.
The only other souls I pass on the road are the young French couple who are travelling the Camino with a donkey. Supposedly their destination after Santiago is Jerusalem, which they’ll get to through North Africa.
The Camino provides me with a beautiful, homely B&B, with welcoming hosts, pleasant guests, scented hallways, a private bathroom and a duvet and towel – uncommon luxuries on the Camino.
I have the best night’s sleep I’ve had in a long time.
How are you doing the Camino?
“Everyone does the Camino in their own way”
Everyone’s saying this but few stop to think what it means
Everyone’s asking “Why are you doing the Camino?”, but does anyone stop to ask
“How”?
“How are you doing the Camino?”
You make your first choice when you answer the Call to Adventure – this is what brings you to the Camino in the first place.
Although there is an external destination in place, and perhaps an internal one chosen by yourself or your life circumstances, the journey as a whole is just a world within a world; it is a means not an end.
Within the greater journey there are smaller ones to undertake, and within those are nested smaller ones again, and each journey big and small is made up of a series of choices.
The Camino is made up of kilometres and days; the days are made up of stages – distances between and in towns and villages.
Each stage made up of steps.
With each step you make a choice to keep walking.
Sometimes then you are faced with a choice: to stop of keep going? To talk to someone or stay walking alone?
To rest or to go?
To eat or to drink, or do neither?
To take a photo or to write it down or just take it all in?
To talk or to listen, to book ahead or make plans and give yourself a destination for the day, or to remain free and go wherever the road takes you?
In the evening some small jobs: to stretch or to shower, to eat or to nap, to read or to write; to seek out the company of others or to remain free in your own quietness.
When someone asks you the inevitable “Why are you doing the Camino?” how do you answer?
Do you answer honestly, if you know at all?
Do you go through the motions, or do you open up your heart?
Have you considered your answer since you began walking?
Do you resent the repetitive conversations with the other tourists and pilgrims, or do you recognise the beauty of simple but profound questions, and that in these everyday interactions and apparent ‘small’ talk – where are you from and what’s your name and what do you do – are the answers to everything you’ve been wondering all along?
It is in making these choices – these simple matters of survival, progress and how you engage with the world and the people around you – both pilgrim and host – that define your trip.
With every conscious choice you actively create yourself, as a sculptor creates a statue from a block of marble – it appears that he reveals what was already inside, though no-one could say he’s not responsible for the masterpiece within.
And this might be a better question to reflect on than trying to figure out the thoughts in your head that make up the “Why?”
A better question might be: “How?”
If you’ve done the Camino, are thinking of doing it, or are just interested in discussing the Camino or travel in general - then please leave a comment. I’d love to hear from you.