The beauty of simple, unadorned travel
The old man, hell he was probably my age, flagged me down after I passed his home and garden.
“Buen Camino,” he called, waving me back.
I initially thought the pie pan with the smashed bits of food was for his chickens, whom I could hear scratching and clucking behind his fence. He popped one of the nuts into this mouth and then held the tray out to me. Exhausted, I eagerly tossed one of what I think was a chestnut into my mouth and savored the tangy sustenance.
He held out another, and afterward another. I looked at him with a smile and offered a line of my pitiful Spanish: “Tres es mejor,” meaning “three is better,” and he and I both said the words at the same time. We broke into laughter, and he clasped both my shoulders and repeated “Buen Camino!”
I was dog tired, cussing my backpack and wishing I had brought less stuff, knowing I had more than 15 miles in front of me before reaching Guemes and the day’s end. But then the interaction warmed me, invigorated me, and I smiled and walked a bit more lightly as the path opened in front of me.
I felt then that I’d become part of a brotherhood, a community of like souls. I stake claim to a place amongst this group only temporarily, really just a part of the clan while still here, paying for my spot via a pound or two of my own flesh.
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Lori and I have been trekking the Camino de Santiago in Spain along the Cantabrian coast from Irun — in the Basque land — to Santiago de Compostela for a month now. The backpacking worked for 15 days, then an injury almost aborted what we had planned as a five-week adventure.
When Lori’s foot would not heal after two days of rest, everything changed. The months of planning to walk this 500-mile ancient pilgrimage turned into a bike trek. We hastily rented mountain bikes and saddlebags, sent our backpacks to Santiago via the bike rental company, and began a two-wheeled ride through the north of Spain.
Biking in mainland Europe is so different than in the states. People here have so much more respect for cyclists and most of the roads have wide shoulders or even bike lanes. We cycle at home and had been walking for hours each day, so the fitness wasn’t a real challenge.
As much as the foot injury hurt Lori and still pains her, it has become one of our best memories of this trip. At least five different people — and we are not done yet — have given her foot massages and offered up essential oils and home remedies. I keep asking what I have to do to get that kind of treatment, but it wouldn’t work for me. No, people see her limping and jump to action, asking all about it and telling her to take her shoes off. That’s the beauty of traveling with my wife and the wonder of the Camino.
All the pilgrims along this route share the fitness challenge and the struggle to put miles on the route every day, whether on foot or bike. But it is the spiritual pact you find among those on the route that makes it so special. We talk in the albergues — the hostel-like inns along this route, some hundreds of years old — about why we’re here, other travels, how long we have until the trip is done and it’s time to leave the group and get back to our lives.
And we get up the next day and put one foot in front of the other or one pedal in front of the other and keep moving along the path, learning perhaps more about ourselves than we learn about Spain or the pilgrims who have been making this trek since the 9th century. Such is the beauty of simple and unadorned travel.
Buen Camino.
(Scott McLeod can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..)
