Walking the Camino: My Way

By Brian Bigg

Walking the Camino: My Way is the only humorous - and strangely informative book - revealing what will happen to you physically and mentally during your odyssey.

Trekking the Camino is one of the most powerful emotional journeys you will ever make. There are a lot of books explaining where to go and what to see along the way. There are also a lot of books explaining the spiritual journey you can expect to make.

But Walking the Camino My Way is the only humorous - and strangely informative book - revealing what will happen to you physically and mentally during your odyssey.

Former television producer, reporter and newspaper and magazine editor, Brian Bigg has charted the highs and lows of the Camino Frances - the mood swings, the rustic accommodation, the food, the blisters, the cultural entanglements and the changes that walking 800kms over a month can make to a person.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bigg Communications
• Release date: May 18, 2020
• ISBN: 9781922389008

Book preview

Copyright

Before we get started

Trying to write a humorous book that touches on reli­gious belief, in this Age of Outrage where everyone is offended by everything, all the time, was always going to be a challenge.

I’ve generally found that few people who have strong religious beliefs also come equipped with a broad enough sense of hu­mour that they can look at their own beliefs with anything oth­er than self-righteousness. And good luck to them, I say. But it is usually difficult to make them smile. And very easy to offend them. If that’s you, please read no further. Put this book down and walk away. Stay in your own lane and I will stay in mine.

I am not, by the most generous of definitions, very religious. I used to be, until my religion wandered off into a dark corner from which it is still to emerge with any credibility. For me, walking the Camino was never intended as a religious expe­rience. I wanted to do the popular and challenging hike part­ly as a physical challenge (I ended up losing 10kg, which was sensational) and partly as a spiritual realigning. I celebrated a milestone birthday in 2019 and wondered where in life I was meant to be.

I felt maybe a tough journey would help me work that out.

Even though the Way of St James started in the Dark Ages as a strictly Catholic expedition, even the official guidebooks concede most people these days define their reason for doing it as spiritual, rather than religious. To me, they are quite different things.

I only met a couple of actual Christians on the walk. I thankfully managed to avoid a few others. By far, most people I met were like me, doing it for a combination of fitness and a challenge.

Some people were doing it for quite pragmatic reasons. I was told, for example, that in South Korea, having walked the Camino is a valuable item to list on your resume when apply­ing for a job. (This answered the question I had asked several times in Spain: Why are there so many bloody South Koreans here?)

So, is the Camino closer to tourism than to religion? The number of people doing the walk is going up every year, but the number of Christians is not, so the answer is probably yes.

Like most people contemplating the awesome prospect of a super long hike, when I was preparing to walk the 800-odd kilometres of the Camino Frances, I soaked up everything I could about it. I saw the movie (twice), watched the BBC doc­umentary, read the official guidebook (which is brilliant and pretty hippy in its approach) and read, and looked at, lots and lots of things on the internet. They were all full of details about the spiritual journey I could expect to take.

But none of them dealt with the day-to-day issues of what I would face physically and mentally, walking an enormous number of kilometres in a body that had never, ever, walked that far before. And I would be alongside strangers from all over the world, few of whom had walked that far before. I didn’t have a clue what to expect. I mean, seriously. 800 kilometres?

I know I keep going on about the distance, but it’s a hell of a long way to walk, in anyone’s guidebook. Other than that super fit neighbour of yours who does half marathons every few months just for fun, what normal person walks 800km in one go? No one I know. Not me. It’s why cars and buses were invented.

The material I saw and read was no help to me. The movie actually dismissed hundreds of kilometres of the trip by show­ing a dot moving on a map. John Brierley’s official guidebook is absolutely essential and a great resource. It covers just about everything you can think of and is full of the tourist attractions I could pop into and visit on my journey (it never left my hand the entire trip). But it was also full of less than helpful hints, such as how I would experience awakening beyond human consciousness and testing the mysteries of our individual soul awakenings. Did that mean I needed to pack my own toilet paper or not?

The religious stuff about the Way of St James was likewise full of details and history of the two million or so churches I could expect to pass on the road. (Fortunately for all my future dinner guests, I have become somewhat of an expert on the dif­ferences in the gothic styles of architecture used in Middle Ages cathedrals – ask me about it sometime.)

But nothing I read, or watched, could actually answer the big questions I had.

Could I actually walk that far? Or would I die doing it? Se­riously. I worried about that. And, if I didn’t die, would I wish I was dead because I would be surrounded all day and night by people flagellating their backs in the time-honoured Catholic tradition? Would I enjoy myself or would it be just like attend­ing a really, really long mass on a stinking hot Sunday morning in summer? Endlessly stupefying.

Wouldn’t I be better off staying at home and walking 115 times around my local park (a 7km loop) and save myself the airfare? Would I get lost on the walk? Would I get diseases, fleas or nits from the unhygienic nature of my fellow hikers (you know who you are)?

I worried about these things right up until the time of my departure. This book is a way of answering those questions for you. It may not help you find God (wherever She is), but it should give you an idea, before you leave home, of whether you will enjoy the experience (you will, despite everything).

I have played up most situations for laughs obviously, but certainly there will be too much gruesome reality in here for some. It’s meant to balance all the spiritual stuff you will go through. Believe me, both are real.

I understand many people who walk the Camino do so be­cause they are troubled – either within themselves or as a result of some crisis in their lives (I met quite a few people who were commemorating the death of a loved one) – and this book is not meant to offend them. They take their own journey. It can definitely ease their pain, no doubt about it. But the walk means something different to them than it did to me. (That’s the point of both the walk and this book.)

I also understand not everyone will walk the same distance, at the same speed, as I did. You will get something complete­ly different from the experience, depending on which Camino you walk (there are lots of choices), what time of year you do it (I went a week too early) and how far you choose, or can manage, to walk each day (I averaged 30km, which was just ridiculous, considering I’d never before walked more than 15km in a day).

I met one couple who got up late each day, strolled about 10km, stopping to look at the churches and other touristy sights along the way, sampling the local wines and cheeses as they went. They stayed in a nice hotel each night, with a private toilet and bathroom. It cost them three times what my journey cost me and took three times longer. Was their Camino experience worth less than mine? Of course not (actually, Brian, it sounds a lot better, to be honest). But I walked the way I did and this is how I felt about it. Many nights I dreamed of having a private bathroom … (See what I mean about too much detail?)

Psychologists will tell you that the public face we present to the world each day cannot hold up under more than three days of constant scrutiny (Big Brother viewers will know what I am talking about). When our public face fades and we reveal our true self, often it also reveals typical national characteristics.

I have travelled to 60 countries so far and plan to go to the rest before I finish up. I am yet to find one I didn’t like. I have always found it amusing that people of all races have so much in common with each other, even while they are telling me how unique and special their particular culture is.

And I have found that people of a particular country are re­markably similar to other people from the same country. If one Italian laughs at your jokes, you can be pretty sure that most of them will. When you read in these pages a line about how Dutch people are tight with their money, or how Germans al­ways like to do things by the book, be assured these are jokes they make about themselves. If you don’t believe me, go find one and ask them. They can laugh at themselves. Feel free to join in, rather than scream racist! at me in an irritatingly high-pitched and shrill voice.

Again though, if this sort of humour is likely to offend you, please read no further. This won’t be fun for you, as it hopefully will be for everyone else. Just don’t give me the I have a very good sense of humour, but this is offensive line, because it’s more likely to be just you being offended, and being outraged, about everything, all the time.

I tried to find the fun and joy in the Camino I did, and in the people I met along the way. It’s meant to be informative and funny, not a serious exploration of how sensitive you undoubt­edly are.

You will see that, even as I was whinging about it all, I was going through exactly the same profound spiritual changes the Camino forces upon everyone.

This won’t necessarily be the walk you do.

But it was how I walked the Camino – my way.

Note: The names of some people have been changed where necessary. Through my story I use the word ‘hostel’ to describe the places we stay each night. The local word is actually albergue but you won’t know what that means until you get there, so I use hostel.

St-Jean-Pied-De-Port is the small French town which is the jumping off point for people walking the Camino Frances

Prologue

The Camino de Santiago is known by many names, including The Way of Saint James. It is a network of walking paths taken by pilgrims since the Dark Ages. The paths start mainly in France, Portugal and from with­in Spain itself. They all lead to the shrine of the apostle Saint James, in the cathedral of the city of Santiago de Compostela in northern Spain.

The pilgrimage was popular in the Middle Ages when Spain returned to Christianity after centuries of Muslim rule. It later fell out of favour, until relatively recently when it was rediscov­ered by Christians and adventure tourists.

In 2019, more than 300,000 people were expected to walk one of the Caminos. Pilgrims, or peregrinos as they are called (peregrinas if you are female), walk up to seven or eight hours each day, carrying their possessions on their back. They stay each night in subsidised dormitory-style accommodation called albergues, and usually eat subsidised pilgrim meals, consisting of three basic courses and half a litre of wine.

The Camino Frances is the most popular of the walks. It starts in France at a village called St-Jean-Pied-de-Port near the Spanish border. Pilgrims walk into Spain, up the Pyrenees mountains and down the other side, passing through the cities of Pamplona, Burgos and Leon, as well as dozens of small vil­lages, on their way to Santiago. Because snow usually blocks the path over the mountains in winter, the Camino Frances Napo­leon route (over the mountains) is closed until April 1 each year.

Pilgrims unable to go over the mountain take an alternative lower path for the first part of the journey.

I made the decision to depart St-Jean on April 6 to be certain the snow had gone. It was a rubbish decision, the first of many.

Looks like the postcards, doesn’t it? But it’s a false sense of security

If you gave me the choice right now between repeating the walk I took today or getting kicked in the nuts by the entire Real Madrid soccer team (excluding their interchange play­ers), I would have to consider long and hard before I could give you an answer. Real Madrid has a lot of strong kickers.

A beautiful stroll through a beautiful valley, chatting with fellow walkers with a hale fellow attitude. The light rain was not off-putting, all part of the experience, we all chortled. But at the 16km mark, the trail left the valley and began to climb the hill towards where we knew the village of Roncesvalles, our first night’s stopover, would be.

The track became steeper and steeper with each passing kilometre. The nice paved road became a chewed up, muddy, sloppy goat-track. The happy chat soon dried up. I started puff­ing.

For a while I followed a Scottish doctor called James. We’d had a great chat lower down. Not anymore. I stopped breathing through my nose, as per my fitness-obsessed son’s instructions, and started using both nose and mouth to suck in air.

Eventually, I was forced to suck in air through every orifice, just to get enough oxygen into my system. As I climbed, the air got thinner and thinner.

The older and less committed of us fell behind. I was put out by an 80-year-old Korean man who fair belted past me like I was standing still. I didn’t even have enough energy to throw something at him. And, to be fair, I was actually standing still.

The track went up and up and up. It also got colder and colder. About the 22km mark, I entered the snow zone and the temperature plummeted to well below zero. It was no real prob­lem for me, because I was blowing steam from every opening, enough to power every home in the valley.

Eventually, a bloke called Brian Black from Canada and I were down to staggering 50 metres higher, then standing for a minute to drag in more air before staggering another 50 metres, then stopping to repeat the process. I thought I would die for sure. It would have been a relief.

The climb seemed to go on forever. Around every corner, the muddy, wet track kept going up. I kept gulping mouthfuls from my water bottle.

The other problem was my pack. Someone had, without me noticing, slipped a 2019 VW Golf into my rucksack, including the optional seat covers. The 7 kilos I had blithely hoisted onto my back this morning somehow doubled in weight the higher I went, then doubled again. It was incredibly painful and made breathing even more difficult.

I was nearly done in by the time we Sandakan death-march survivors finally reached the top, where we were blessedly greet­ed by a 50km-an-hour freezing gale and snow storm. Who the f@+* cares about that?!! I had reached the top. I stood