We will start walking before sunrise. Pilgrims are lacing up boots in the darkness outside our hostel, on our way to Santiago. Many languages are spoken. No English.

It’s cold in these mountains. And windy. A guy sits beside me. He has a Southern accent, like I do.

“This seat taken?”

His name is Steve, from Chattanooga. We shake hands. He and I are so grateful to have someone to speak English with that we are talking blue streaks.

“Isn’t this amazing?” Steve says. “To be in a place where you don’t know anyone, and yet you feel so close to everybody?”

He’s right. It is strange. To feel deep comradeship with total foreigners. People you might otherwise never interact with.

But you’re speaking now. In fact, you do more than speak. You empathize. You connect. You complain about the weather. About the five-minute showers. You’re all in this together.

Breakfast is light. Steve has Cornflakes. I have coffee. I’m trying to coax my muscles into another day of abuse.

A Korean man at the table sees my cowboy hat and is intrigued. He asks to try on the hat, communicating solely in hand gestures.

The hat is four sizes too big, and droops on his head like Speedy Gonzalez’s sombrero, but he is thrilled. The man poses for pictures with his friends, holding pretend air-pistols, saying to the camera, “I am Crint East-rood.”

Our walk begins.

The sun is not yet up. Pilgrims are on the desolate highway, trudging onward in the dark of morning. We are in the far flung hills.

There are no houses out here. No barns. No evidence of man. Just farm animals, kept captive without fences. Because where would they go?

It’s foggy, we can’t see anything except our own feet.

Then the sun comes up. Sunrise starts slow, and intensifies. Like the second movement of a symphony. That’s when we realize we are in the sho’ ‘nuff mountains. Not a reasonable facsimile of the Pyrenees. Not a tourist-bred imitation of mountains. We’re in the actual Pyrenees. It looks like we are walking through Shangri-La.

“Wow,” says my wife.

“Yeah,” says I.

Jamie and I hike alone. Everyone hikes the Camino alone. There are no tour groups here. You do not belong to an organized hiking party with a guide. There is no cohort of pilgrims with paid lunches and free pamphlets. Or at least if they are, I haven’t seen any.

Out here it’s just you. Just the road. You move at your own pace, or you don’t move at all. The choice is yours.

We are climbing massive hills, surrounded only by towering granite slabs, and the occasional herd of horses. The fog behind us settles in mountain valleys like suds in a bathtub. We are walking a steep incline.

Then the wind picks up. And by “picks up,” I mean wind gusts become strong enough to knock pilgrims off their feet. Some hikers are injured by the hurricane-force winds.

The gusts are so intense, you can hardly open your eyes. Pilgrims are taking shelter against the big rocks. It is a bitingly cold alpine tempest. Jamie and are shouting to be heard over the gale, but even shouting is not sufficient.

“We need to get out of this wind!”

one of us is shouting.

“I can’t feel my hands!” shouts the other.

We are leaning into the headwind to prevent falling backward onto our fat American assumptions. This is all beginning to feel dangerous now. One wrong fall and you could tumble down a mountainside.

This was definitely not in the brochures.

There ahead, in the fold of the craggy rocks, sits another group of pilgrims, huddled together, taking shelter. Alex and Eric and Christina. We join them and decide to brave the wind together.

Thus, five unlikely pilgrims leave the security of our cleft, and soon we are climbing forbidden slopes, wading in mud, marching across sheep pastures, plodding through massive piles of fresh sheep gratitude.

After hiking most of the day, we finally reach Roncesvalles, which features a former monastery-turned-hostel. Many pilgrims are stopping here. They’ve had enough abuse.

The monastery is huge, with all the charm of a federal prison. There are a couple pilgrims outside who look about as happy as inmates on strip-search day. The wind has worn everyone out. Everyone’s hair looks like they recently stuck a fork into an electrical socket.

Everyone is talking about the wind and how they almost didn’t make it. But here’s the thing, we did make it. And we feel even more confident than we did before. Bring on the next disaster.

So Jamie and I decide to keep walking. We press on toward the next few towns. This is a lot like life. You just keep walking. Even when you don’t know where you’re going. You walk. What else can you do? You can’t go back. You can’t quit. You can’t change your mind.

So you suffer. You rejoice. You laugh. You weep. Your back hurts. Your butt hurts. You are cold. You are tired. Wind burnt. Confused. And underneath it all there is a strange and joy set before you.

On our way, we pass a highway sign that reads “Santiago—790 kilometers.”

“Oh, hell,” says my wife.

“Si,” says I.