Buen Camino

As a union organizer, I was trained that campaigns are like mountains. You start small, at the bottom of the mountain, to test your strength. And as you get stronger and get more folks involved, you start climbing the mountain. Workers do bigger, more militant actions until you get to the top.

But on my first real day of the Camino Santiago pilgrimage, I abandoned all of the lessons I’d learned on the metaphorical mountains I’ve worked on over the last 15 years. No testing my strength or doing the work to get to the next level. No. Instead, I went straight to the top.

14.85 miles and 4,328 vertical feet carrying a 20 pound pack walked in one day by me - a person who’s been backpacking once in her life and prepared mostly by walking around San Francisco.

14 miles of winding country roads, and fog, and cows nibbling by the roadside, and dirt roads, and a barefoot hippie carrying a guitar with a weed sticker on his back, and cow shit, and an eagle soaring above the valley, and more cow shit, and a pilgrim from Montreal who, once he heard Andy played hockey tournaments in Quebec as a kid, proceeded to name French-Canadian NHL players, and sheep baaaaaing, and false summits - so many false summits! - and mossy beech trees, and mud, and finally going down hill, and muted yellow and purple wildflowers, and oh God we’re going up again, and signs pointing the way but we’re sure they’re lying about the distance because it seems to stay the same no matter how far we walk, and celestial rays shining on rolling green hills, and finally going downhill except maybe it’s worse? so steep with the rocks and mud, and thank God for my hiking poles but my arms hurt so much, can we sit on a log and eat Nutella cookies and watch German retirees whiz past us (how do they walk so fast?!), and still going down, through a forest that cows are wandering in for some reason, and finally FINALLY FINALLY, a bridge and a giant old building and we made it.

And we are met by lovely retirees in cheerful red vests who move us efficiently through registration and to our bunk beds. They’re volunteers who come here on two week rotations and help over 200 pilgrims who pass through every day get a hot meal and a bed. It’s a wonderfully well oiled machine.

And so, while I wouldn’t recommend climbing across the Pyrenees with no preparation at the start of a 450 mile walk, it seems going straight up the mountain - just this one time - turned out all right.

(Please excuse typos and incoherence - my hands are still cold and I’m writing this on my phone)

Just wow.