The first days of any pilgrimage are physical. Even if you feel fit and you do sports regularly, you cannot completely avoid pain, exhaustion and/or blisters. When someone asks me about the Camino, I first mention the lessons learned, people that crossed my path, but what I often forget about are physical difficulties. The physical part is nevertheless very important, because it lays the foundation for the mental part. Suffering is easy to forget later, but you will always be proud of how you carried it with you.
In the beginning of my first Camino, I pushed my limits again and again, without a good understanding why. I simply put my trust in the process and did my best to keep moving. As a result, I earned trust in my body, learned how to take care of it and understood that I was stronger than I thought. My painful part lasted 5-7 days, that’s why I’d recommend walking for at least two weeks. Based on my previous experience, I expected the second Camino to be painful. I knew why I had to go through this. However,
you can’t prepare for the pain. Instead, you can come with the right mindset. Courage is knowing it might hurt and doing it anyway. Stupidity is the same. That’s why life is hard.
Day 4 of the Camino Portugués. Maria and I enjoyed boiled eggs for breakfast and a nice chat with Kathy and Diane. We started the day a bit later than usual. For a while we just followed the coast, until there were two possible paths. Camino Portugués da costa turned inland; Senda Litoral continued along the coast. Senda Litoral is an unofficial route of the Camino Portugués and it’s not very well marked. It follows the coast even more closely than Camino da costa, sometimes they overlap. My paper map showed that the Litoral route avoided some hills, so we both agreed on choosing the (easier) coastal route. My foot did not hurt anymore (fasciitis was a false alarm!), but still, the plan was to be gentle to ourselves. As you can guess by the title of this post, we did not succeed.
Soon after taking the Litoral path, we found ourselves in a mystical coastal forest, hidden in the morning fog. It was immensely beautiful and peaceful, filling us both with joy. The coastal path had completely vanished at some point, so we had to make a small detour through an agricultural area. Many fields were abandoned and still surrounded by half-ruined stone fences. They also made convenient spots to pee! Just so you know, it was not easy to find good pee spots in dunes, near busy boardwalks or beach promenades. As I was giving some nutrients back to nature, I discovered a familiar smell – mint! There was plenty of fresh mint around us and Maria had an amazing idea to put it in a water bottle. I also carried a mint plant in my hands just to smell it occasionally. Ocean breeze + mint, what a pleasure! It felt like a fabric softener for my skin.
We returned to the coast and the path was getting sandier, which meant very difficult to walk on. Maria’s blisters kept growing and I was definitely not motivated to walk on an uneven surface for the next 15 km. We met a couple of British bikers from the opposite direction and asked them about the path. They had to push their bikes for a very long time in the sand, so they told us to rather go somewhere else. I’m very glad they did, because there was a road to a village where we could join the Camino. We needed a break. We sat on a bench, ate some fruit and gifted advice to many pilgrims heading into the sandy suffering. Not all of them took it. Two Latvian ladies were very thankful and stopped by for a quick chat. They gave us their advice in return – always check the location of your hostel on the map. They had to walk 38 km on their first day, because they booked accommodation in the wrong village. How so? Both villages had the same name. We almost made the same mistake a few days later, thank you Camino angels! We said goodbye and never saw them again.
At midday we arrived in Belinho, a typical Camino village. Small, historical, with little bars catering tired pilgrims. We got cold orange juice for motivation and a little rest for our stressed feet. The Way did not get easier – we escaped the moving sands only to step on hard uneven cobblestones. Ouch! The weather was hot and we missed the ocean breeze, but at least we were in civilization with enough fresh water.
The Way led us into a forest, where we crossed an old stone bridge. Then we came across a small Camino memorial full of the most random objects and photos of people. I felt like leaving something behind and giving it a symbolic meaning. After careful consideration, I chose an extra set of tips for my hiking poles. They looked like feet and I liked how they fit into the jungle of objects. That’s it, no meaningful story behind. Just my way of saying “Sandora was here”.
I haven’t used my hiking poles very much on this Camino. The terrain was flat (asphalt, wood, cobblestones), so I mostly used them at the end of the stages, hoping to transfer some pain from my feet to my arms. I think this trick only works in hills, but I managed to convince myself that it was helpful.
Pain and avoiding pain were slowly stealing more and more attention from both of us.
Our feet were killing us and we still had a long way to go. Long way to our guesthouse, long way to Santiago.
Wrong! As soon as we climbed a steep cobblestone hill, we ended up in Santiago. A small pilgrim group has formed over the past days, and we were cheering for each other on the uphill race. There was a sweet Scottish couple in their 60s and a friendly Danish guy in his 20s. Plus other people who I don’t remember any more. Maria and I thought that we were walking slowly. Since we also started late, we didn’t expect to meet so many pilgrims. Looking at the limping people with painful facial expressions, we were all suffering, our own Way. Everyone knew that “shared pain is half the pain”, and “it helps to complain”!
Maria and I found a great lunch spot in a forest. She let her feet open for a while, exchanged her blister patches, put on a second pair of socks… Despite her regular care, her blisters were only getting bigger. When we reached the nearest village, I started feeling a terrible shin pain. Every step sent shooting signals towards my knee and I hated walking, the path, my life decisions, the world… Maria was dealing with her own blister hell.
I promised her that the Camino would get better. But when?
The Camino continued over another hill towards Viana do Castelo. Since our guest house was in a village before Viana and away from the Camino, it made more sense for us to go there directly. Those final three kilometers were a killer for both of us. Maria’s blisters broke, and she had to clean them on the side of a busy road. Once we switched to a field path, it crossed an illegal landfill. Trashy mood in a trashy environment. I played my favorite techno set from Eelke Kleijn to give us a nice beat and a distraction from the pain.
The music was a brilliant idea; we didn’t have any energy to motivate each other anymore.
Wow, we pushed the limits of exhaustion again. We probably walked around 24 km, but if felt like 30. Yes, we made it, but it didn’t feel good. There is nothing pleasant about overestimating your physical abilities. We agreed to follow the coastal Camino tomorrow and avoid walking on sand. Unfortunately, walking a much shorter distance tomorrow would not be an option. We had already booked a hostel in Caminha that we could not cancel. Moreover, it would be hard to find different accommodation a day before. This Camino was more crowded than we imagined, and hostel beds were booked out very fast. Lesson learned, I will do my next Camino “off season”.
We arrived in our guest house for the night, where we were greeted by a friendly man with a prosthetic leg. My legs felt instantly more relaxed, and we had a nice chat. A radical change of perspective also works very well for dealing with pain. When supplemented by a fistful of colorful pills, maybe you’ll be able to walk again. Thankfully I managed to make a quick trip to a supermarket to get us dinner. We had zero energy to see the famous church in Viana do Castelo, one of the Camino highlights according to my guidebook. It was a pity, but we couldn’t push ourselves anymore. We survived.
There is one thing that pain teaches you, something that you will appreciate in the next stages of the Camino. Once it takes over, it takes your mind away from your previous life, right into the moment. You learn to be present and aware of your body. No pain no gain, and tomorrow we’ll do it again.
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