Everyone calls it something different. The Camino has many different names. The Germans out here call it “Jakobsweg.” The French call it the “La Chemin de St. Jacques de Compostelle.” The Chinese we’ve met say “Cháoshèng zhě zhī lù,” which means “Pilgrims Path.” 

The South Koreans call it “Santiago Gill.” The Ukrainians call it “Camino Podolico.” We Americans, who speak fluent Roy Rogers, cannot help but refer to it simply as “The Trail.” Which is why many of us Americanos say “Happy Trails” to each other, despite the ribbing we receive from sophisticated Europeans who neither understand why we say these words, nor why we giggle after we say them. 

Either way. My wife and I have walked this path for a long time. We have been out of our own country, living in sweaty albergues, municipal hostels, b.o.-scented dormitories, and the occasional bedbug-fumigated bunkhouse for one month and a half. 

We have been hiking The Way for most of this time. For five of those weeks, the Camino de Santiago has been our only home. 

The cohort of

international pilgrims has been our only community. We are a family. eat together, sleep together, cry together, go to the bathroom together. We walk together. We shower in the same foul stalls. 

We share everything. Food. Clothing. Water. Toiletries, phone chargers, nail clippers, antiinflamatorios, music. We bandage each other’s blisters. We loan each other Euros for cafés. We share pocketknives, boot laces, and even—this actually happens—sports bras. 

We even share sickness. Currently, a lot of the pilgrims are sick with what is being termed “Camino Flu.” The virus has been making the rounds, hopping from albergue to albergue. It’s an intense, quick-moving head cold. But everyone gets a turn experiencing it. 

When…

A few random things I have written in my journal throughout my time walking the Camino de Santiago. 

— Humility is the natural, resting state of creation. Pride is man-made. 

—Good sleep is worth more than good money. 

—Your schedule doesn’t actually exist in spacetime. If you don’t believe this, try telling your schedule to a cat. 

—You’re stronger than you realize, but not nearly as tough as you think. 

—If it’s true that people’s opinions are like rear anatomical orifices, then it is also true that the advice they offer is similar to the output of the aforementioned bodily cavity.

—In some cultures, it is considered dignified, admirable, and even beautiful for a grown man to cry. 

—The most important thing in life is to make life important. 

—Walk more. 

—You will never realize the meaning of “daily bread” until you don’t have any. 

—Hapiness can be doubled, tripled, quadrupled, quintupled, and infinitely multiplied, if you give it away. 

—Pain can be halved if you share it. 

—If ever you’re confused, just remember, so is everyone else. 

—You can’t do everything you thought you could. Neither can your wife. 

—Slow down. 

—Eat cheesecake. 

—Weep as often as you are able. Enjoy every tear, especially the bitter ones. Tears are a gift. 

—You have no idea how today will turn out, so pay no attention to your first impression of the day. 

—Tomorrow has no mistakes in it. 

—Find a beautiful place in nature every day, and sit there for a while. Even if this place is only in your mind. 

—Water is good. 

—If you’re going to stop and smell the flowers—and you definitely should—prepare to…

I walked 10 hours and 42 minutes just to surprise her in Portomarin, Spain. I entered town at dusk, limping, dehydrated, breathless, leaning on a walking stick. Her first words were, “And you STILL can’t fold the

laundry when I ask?”

I’m afraid that’s all the energy I have to write today. 

—Sean

I am standing at a bus stop in the unrelenting rain. Although to call this a “bus stop” is being generous. It’s just a highway guardrail. I am alone on this empty highway, waiting to catch a ride out of O Cebreiro. 

O Cebreiro is a tiny, prehistoric village, entirely made of stone and thatch, with a Pigeon Forge vibe. The gift shops and pubs operate a thriving trade, selling pilgrim essentials like trinkets, walking sticks, handkerchiefs, seashells, and probably even monogrammed toilet paper. 

This is rural Galicia. The mountains in the distance are brilliant green, rising like swells in a foggy ocean. These are not the beer-commercial Rockies, nor the ski-brochure Alps. These are distinctly Spanish mountains. You can just tell. 

I don’t know why I’m in such a good mood. But I am. It’s raining and cold. I should be angry, or bitter that my wife is somewhere out there, hiking deep within those hermosas mountains, walking the Camino without me, as I limp through Spain on shin-splinted calves. 

But I’m maybe happier than I’ve ever been. I have hiked the Camino for a solid month, I left a huge piece of myself on the trail, and this is enough. 

And now I am bumming around the Iberian Peninsula with nowhere to be, no schedule to worship, and no one to appease but my Maker. I hop from village to village, playing my fiddle in taverns. The locals give me free cervezas until I quit playing or fall off the stool. 

I’ve met throngs of injured pilgrims, like myself, who have battered, bloody feet. I carry many bandages in my backpack, bandages I’ll never use, so I’ve been handling a lot of sweaty feet lately, treating blisters and wrapping the infected sores of my fellow pilgrims. Some French lady nicknamed me “le medic…

The town is small. Postage-stamp small. The village of Ambasmestas is nestled within the Galician mountains like a Spanish fairytale. Rock-paved streets, ancient buildings, crowing roosters. 

It is raining. I sit on a bench, reading a book, waiting for my hotel to open in another five hours. I am sopping wet. Even my socks are wet. 

Somewhere in the distant mountains, my wife is hiking the Camino. I should be with her, but I am here with shin-splinted legs and swollen calves. 

But somehow, I am in a great mood. Somehow. I feel marvelous, reading my book in the rain. Because my personal Camino is, for the most part, finished. I now have the distinct pleasure of bumming around Spain, without a schedule, gaily drinking cervezas with locals, playing my American fiddle in taverns where no inglés is spoken, and they give you free beer if you have shin splints. 

I could think of worse places to be. 

Across the street is a stone church. The doors are open. These doors represent the

only open doors in the village. 

I trot across the muddy street, squishing in my boots, wincing in pain with each step, carrying my backpack and fiddle. 

I have been following the Camino via taxi the last three days. Today, my taxi driver, God love him, did not like Americans. He charges Americans three times more than people from other countries. 

Yesterday, for example, I took a taxi with a French woman. The driver assumed I was French, so he charged me 15 Euros. This morning, however, I told the driver I was from Alabama, his demeanor changed. He drove less than five miles and charged me 55 Euros. 

When I paid, I smiled and said in Spanish, “This is a little expensive, no?” His reply was—I’m not…