Reflections

Well it is nearly a month since I returned from Santiago de Compostela.  It is still too early to say in some ways, if , and what I learned from the experience.  Walking for days on end is a curious experience.  Not always how you imagine it.  Over time, fatigue takes over the early energetic, enthusiasm at the offset, so a certain amount of rhythm and habit kicks in, giving way to a progressive evolution of emotions.  The closer the destination comes into focus, there is change again--the desire to reach the goal mixed with the sadness that it is all about to end.  Yet for the pilgrim, constant is the overriding metaphor--life as pilgrimage.

I am still limping slightly, especially if I am tired or am on my feet too much, or overexert myself--I never really stayed off my feet to rest them when I returned to Paris (no small wonder!), so I don't think that helped.  My MBT (Masai Barefoot Technology) sandals do seem to help--those shoes with the funny curved bottoms that are supposed to help your posture by mimicking the walk of the Masai. I think just wearing different shoes help, as does going barefoot.  Pounding the pavement, however, does not.

As for the errant walking stick, it turned up at my doorstep two days later, undamaged.  The so-called low-cost airline had to pay a high price for leaving without the cargo, and for making me check the stick which collapsed so conveniently into my backpack. . .

I have so many photos that creating an online photobook seems a prohibitively expensive prospect which I'll have to forgo--I've had most of them developed and just put them in two regular photo albums!  I have nearly 400 of them.  Flipping through them, in more or less chronological order, helps bring back the memories of each mile of my journey. . .  And the Galician countryside was truly beautiful (thank goodness it didn't RAIN!) 

I've uploaded all of them to Flickr, so if you're interested, I can add you as a "friend" and you can view them--just email me and let me know. . .

If I were to do this again, I would be sure NEVER to walk over 15 kilometers a day--that seemed to be my limit.  And no morning walks before 8:30 a.m.  It would have been good to have scheduled a couple of extra days of  NOTHING, so that it would allow more flexibility in my schedule.  For example, walking a 10 km day would give me an opportunity to do the 2.5 km deviation off the Camino to see a small church with spectacular frescoes without having to think of it as 5 extra kilometers to walk!  Sometimes these little spur of the moment detours can be the most rewarding. . .

As for the final stretch to Santiago, where there is a paucity of albergues, it would have been best to stay in a small hotel.  Even the nice looking Hotel Amenal where I stopped for breakfast at 7 a.m. on my final day of walking, still a kilometer outside Lavacolla and putting me close to my 15 km limit, would have been preferable to the long haul from O Pedrouzo.  Also it would have been helpful to have obtained a decent map of Santiago beforehand to check out the exact locations of the prospective albergues relative to the historic center of the city!  Unfortunately, it seems the only "streetplan" on Amazon seems to be out-of-print!

All in all, it was a GREAT experience, and I'm glad I did it. 

To watch a video version of my Sarria to Santiago de Compostela experience, click here.