Sunrises to Santiago: Searching for Purpose on the Camino de Santiago

by Gabriel Schirm

  “Buenos días!” the woman greets us with a warm smile. She is wearing a thick colorful wool sweater, rubber rain boots, jeans, and has sparkling blue eyes.

  We grab two coffees and decide to rest and chat while drinking from tiny plastic cups. Maria is from Italy and moved to Galicia recently. Another Camino transplant. We tell her about our journey so far, my injuries, and the people we have met. She is one of those people you just click with and has a vibrant soul.

  “We are from Colorado,” I say sitting on a big moss covered rock next to the barn. A heard of sheep starts to pass us slowly.

  “Colorado!” She exclaims! “My brother lives in Colorado! He works on a pumpkin farm in Loveland. Do you know it?” I smile in acknowledgment.

  “My mom lives in Loveland! Small world,” I reply.

  The sheepherder strolls up to our location following her sheep. She says something to Maria in the local Galician language, which I can’t follow. They exchange a laugh, and then shepherd and sheep continue up the trail.

  “There is a school group coming,” she turns back to us explaining with a frown. I hear them before I can see them. A small rumble of conversation grows.

  As if on cue, a massive group of 90+ high school and middle school students rounds the corner and descends on this little food stand like a swarm of locusts on a field of corn. Many taking advantage of the donativo and donate nothing. They all want a stamp for their Camino passports, and I watch Maria scramble to stamp a constant stream of papers with her unique Camino stamp.

  Despite my efforts to be in a zen-like open-minded state on this trip, I find myself incredibly annoyed. The teachers finally come up behind the large group and offer a buen Camino. I frown. This is not the first school group I have seen on the Way, and each time, I have been equally annoyed at the chaotic interruption to my peaceful days.

  When you are walking for religious purposes, to get over the death of a loved one, to discover the meaning of life, or for whatever the reason, when this pack walks around the corner with techno music blaring from cell phone speakers, it tends to piss you off. I am enraged at the treatment of Maria and her stand.

  My wife Amy is a school psychologist and loves kids, so I turn to her to see if I am just being an unreasonable jerk.

  “I know this is not my trail, not even close, but why the hell would you choose the Camino de Santiago as your school field trip?” I ask annoyed. Amy shoots me a look to say be quiet.

  “Oh they speak Spanish and I hope they can hear me!” I say, my volume increasing.

  “It is a historical trail,” Amy replies. “A UNESCO World Heritage Site. I know it is annoying but I am sure the teachers are just trying to bring a local history lesson to life.”

  The crowd finally passes completely, and Maria is clearly a bit rattled. I would be, too, if my pay what you want business model was just devoured by a mob. I ask her what she thinks of this.

  “This is a new phenomenon on the Camino de Santiago,” she replies. “You never used to see school groups, and many locals think it is another way of turning this sacred trail into a tourist attraction. Especially when there are so many other amazing hikes in Spain that would work for a field trip.” I nod in agreement.

  We say our goodbyes after letting the noisy group walk ahead for a while and pop some euros in her wooden donativo box. I am thankful for our chat with this stranger. Our slow pace has allowed us time to have these unrushed improvisations.

  Hours pass back on the trail. Unfortunately, there are even more giant school groups crowding the Way, and they are singing. I am in a bad mood, listening to a group of school kid’s versions of Lady Gaga and trying my best to focus on learning patience or any kind of lesson from this. I just want them to go away and be quiet. We work to find gaps between the school groups and try to walk in these quiet pockets of solitude. I notice other pilgrims, haggard looking from weeks on the trail like me, who are doing the same.

  “Stop being such a grumpy old man!” Amy snaps at me as I glare at yet another group we let pass.

  “I can’t help it!” I reply. I decide to stop wanting silence and at least embrace conversation with other pilgrims. Amy has a point, and I need to change my mood. She has a habit of doing this.

  My mind wanders back two years in the blink of an eye. I have a hoodie on in our small apartment in the middle of Granada. It is January, and as usual, our apartment is freezing because electricity is too expensive in Spain, and I am too cheap to turn on the heating. It also happens to be our birthday. Our birthday because Amy and I happen to have the same birthday.

  “What is the matter with you?” Amy asks.

  “I am freaking depressed,” I reply from under a blanket laying in the dark on the couch in the living room. “I am 30, Amy! 30! I also found a gray hair! I am dying in front of your eyes!”

  “So what?” she replies. “When you are 40, you will wish you were 30. When you are 60, you will wish you were 40, and when you are 120 you will be dead and won’t have the chance to worry. Here.” She hands me a cupcake. It is from a particularly amazing bakery in town. “Happy birthday.”

  She always manages to do something special even though I piss and moan every year. I hate birthdays. For someone who hates to be reminded of his own mortality, birthdays are the worst. A sick way to remind you that you have one less year to live on this Earth.

  “Happy birthday,” I reply. Instantly I am filled with gratitude for her. My other half. I know that no matter what, she is the best thing that has ever happened to me. Something that actually matters and if all else goes to crap it will still be enough.

  “Seriously, stop being such a drama queen,” Amy snaps me out of my daydream as the school group has finally passed us on the trail.

  We continue on and throughout the day meet a virtual traveling United Nations. We meet people from South Korea, Poland, Australia, England, Ireland, and more. Each person here for a unique reason. I continue to be pleasantly surprised by what an international experience this is. You truly are walking with the world. The human experience and the struggles people come here to work through and walk through have a very common thread. Money problems, loss, anxiety, relationship difficulties, religion, life crisis, all answers to the most common question on the Camino de Santiago, “Why are you here?”

  When we finally make it to Portomarín, we sit down to rest at an outdoor café and order a pitcher of ice cold sangria. As we sit, Tezka from Slovenia, whom we met a few days ago at the albergue El Beso in the middle of the woods, pulls up a chair at our table. I love these random second meetings, and we enjoy a drink and refreshing conversation. I soak up her words as she seems to be a sort of spiritual guru who also has been sent here to teach me not to be such a grumpy old man.

  There is a straggler from one of the school groups outside throwing an absolute tantrum as her teacher or dad begs her to keep walking. She refuses, and the battle rages on while everyone pretends not to stare. They argue in Spanish.

  “Noooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!” the girl screams at the top of her lungs.

  “Por favor. Vamos!” the man pleads with her. Please. Let’s go! His nerves are clearly frayed, and he looks exhausted.

  “No camino mas!!” I am not walking any more!! She sits with her arms crossed on the bench outside. Tears are streaming down her face, which is red with teenage rage.

  “Well. That is some birth control for ya,” I glance back to Amy and Tezka.

  “No kids?” Tezka asks.

  “All of our friends have kids. Some have several already. But for us, not yet,” Amy replies.

  Our conversation turns to these school groups, and Tezka says she handles the annoyance by seeing herself in the school kids and remembering how she used to be. “They are simply on a different path and part of the Camino of life. If you see yourself in people it is harder to dislike them,” she says.

  “Gabe throws fits like that every year for his birthday,” Amy jokes. We both laugh. She has a point. Living in the
moment, Tezka decides not to stay here for the night so continues on after our drink. Who knows if we will ever see her again, and we exchange hugs before she walks off into the afternoon sun.

  After being turned away from several full albergues, we eventually score a room in a small albergue with only four beds. Translation: a good chance of sleep tonight!

  This small village, situated next to a giant reservoir, feels very Scottish. As we are dining on a delicious dinner of lomo with pimientos de padron (small green peppers fried in olive oil), we hear bagpipes playing in the town square. We head towards the music to find a small group playing bagpipes and drums as the sun begins to set on this incredible scene. Pilgrims dine outside of the multiple restaurants that surround this central plaza. The sound of the bagpipes echoes off the medieval looking Romanesque church of Saint Nicholas, which has managed to catch the last rays of today’s sun. A little boy rides his bike zigging and zagging over the cobblestones, imagining the crowd is watching him.

  “Happiness, not in another place but this place … not for another hour, but this hour. Walt Whitman,” Amy says out of nowhere.

  I turn to look at her and ask, “Since when do you quote Walt Whitman? Are you on Pinterest?”

  She points at the guidebook, “I cheated.”

  “Wise man,” I laugh.

  We sit simply enjoying the music. And taking Mr. Whitman’s advice, I shut off my mind. Soon the sun is down, and the musical group parades out of the square, pilgrims slowly follow suit, making their way to bed, the music and crowds fading along with the day.

  The Pencil

  Trail Day 27

  “Happy 4th of July!” Amy jokes. The fog is thick today, and we can’t see very far ahead on the trail. I am starting to grow fond of the fog of Galicia. It is like a calming security blanket that eases you through the day.

  “Happy 4th!” I reply. “Feels like we are a long ways away from the U.S. of A!”

  The sun eventually starts to burn off the clouds and the day gives way to the heat of summer by the afternoon. My knee pain has returned, reminding me to take it easy and giving me something new to worry about. We may be close to our destination, but there is still a long way to go. Sleep deprivation, constant pain, drying clothes on my backpack, and not shaving for 27 days now is increasingly turning me into a sort of homeless looking hiker. My hat has been soaked too many times with rain and is sort of sagging off my head in a sad worn state. I feel a lot like my hat today.

  We decide to stop for lunch at a busy trailside bar and are surprised when Aaron, one of our Australian friends whom we met at the beginning of our Camino, sits down next to us! I did not think we would see him again because of my injury break in Léon.

  “How is it possible that you caught up to us!” I asked actually wanting to know. “Did you take a bus?”

  “No, no. Training, mate. Training,” he replies in his thick Australian accent.

  We devour a bocadillo and fresh squeezed orange juice as he tells us about a hike he took in Papua New Guinea a year earlier called the Kokoda Trail. It’s a sort of rite of passage for Australians, Aaron explains, “That hike tore me up. I was the last of my group to finish, and I was in so much pain that I cried several times.”

  In front of me, I see this tall, muscular man’s man and have a hard time imagining him crying.

  He continues, “I didn’t train at all for the Kokoda Trail. So when I decided to walk the Camino de Santiago I spent every weekend walking with a heavy pack over long trails. Hours at a time. This time my body was prepared for the shock, and I am in good shape because of it.”

  I think about my training, which involved walking to REI from my house in downtown Denver to break in my shoes. That took about one hour. No wonder my body is in such bad shape.

  When I first met Aaron somewhere near Pamplona, he was walking with a friend from Australia who he traveled here with named Blake. We shared dinners with them both as well so I am a little confused. We finish our breakfast and before continuing on I ask, “Where is Blake?”

  He stares at his coffee and frowns his reply, “Thirty days is a long time to walk with someone, mate.”

  I decide to leave that one alone, and we say goodbye. We walk through thick woods over natural paths of dark soil for hours. It feels like walking through yet another idyllic emerald green Galician postcard.

  We finally make it to Boente and check into what at first looked like a complete dive of an albergue. A few flies scatter as Amy and I enter, and we see a Spanish man with a huge salt and pepper beard in the corner. He is busy working on a computer. He notices us after a few minutes, and my lack of enthusiasm quickly fades as a huge smile spreads across his face.

  His name is Hector and he welcomes us to his establishment, asking if we need a bed. We check in and are shown our room, which is small, containing only four beds. After a hot shower and nap, we head downstairs for dinner. Hector and his mother make us feel incredibly welcome and he gets to work making us a fresh plate of baby squid, lightly fried with garlic and olive oil. The meal looks a bit terrifying but the flavor is incredible.

  After an equally amazing dessert, he sits down and a fantastic conversation ensues. He tells us to wait a minute as he walks into the kitchen, brings out a large brown ceramic dish and declares it is time for a Queimada.

  “Queimada,” Hector explains, “is a traditional Galician drink to be shared among friends. You are my new friends, and I am happy you are here in Spain spending your evening with me.”

  The drink is a sort of hot punch made from Orujo Gallego, which is a clear spirit distilled from wine. As he talks with passion about the Camino de Santiago, which he has walked almost 10 times, he pours a full bottle of the strong liquor into the pot. He follows this with a generous amount sugar and begins to stir. His mother, who must be about 80 years old, looks on with a mischievous grin on her face.

  Hector stirs in fresh squeezed lemon juice and handful of whole coffee beans. He then lights it all on fire! A deep blue unnatural looking flame licks at the air above. The heat is like a little campfire, and we all gather round like city folk in the woods trying to get a picture of a rare animal. He hands the large ceramic ladle to Amy followed by a large scroll filled with words and tells her to read.

  “What is this?” Amy asks unraveling the scroll of paper.

  “It is a spell!” Hector explains. “It is in our language, Gallego, but I will translate. The purpose of the spell is to ward off bad spirits that surround you. We will get rid of the bad and invite in the good!”

  “Is this like a witches brew or something?” I ask.

  “Sort of. It will help you make it to Santiago in good spirits,” Hector replies. “Read, read!”

  Amy begins, “Mouchos, curuxas, sapos e bruxas. Demos, trasgos e diaños, espíritos das neboadas veigas. Corvos, píntegas e meigas: feitizos das menciñeiras.” Her words sound strange as she struggles with pronunciation. The lights are dimmed, and Hector translates for us all. Firelight dances on the walls of the room.

  “She said … Owls, barn owls, toads, and witches. Demons, goblins, and devils, spirits of the misty vales. Crows, salamanders, and witches, charms of the folk healer.” Hector is enjoying this immensely and so am I. “Now, use the spoon to lift some liquid and poor it back into the pot.”

  She follows his direction and as she pours a stream of blue fire slowly drips from the ladle back into the pot. A trick that any bartender would be proud of. Amy continues her spell for a few minutes as we all stare into the fire.

  “Pecadora lingua da mala muller casada cun home vello. Averno de Satán e Belcebú, lume dos cadáveres ardentes, corpos mutilados dos indecentes, peidos do infernais cus, muxido da mar embravecida.” She continues on. The translation making us all giggle like adolescent boys.

  “Sinful tongue of the bad woman married to an old man. Satan and Beelzebub’s Inferno, fire of the burning corpses, mutilated bodies of the indecent ones, farts of the asses of doom, bellow of the enraged
sea.” Hector’s voice is deep and theatrical and he also smiles as he translates the word farts.

  Hector stirs the cauldron as it continues to cook our strange brew. His mother clearly approves.

  Amy makes it to the end of the spell before we can take a drink. “E cando este beberaxe baixe polas nosas gorxas, quedaremos libres dos males da nosa alma e de todo embruxamento. Forzas do ar, terra, mar e lume, a vós fago esta chamada: se é verdade que tendes máis poder que a humana xente, eiquí e agora, facede que os espíritos dos amigos que están fóra, participen con nós desta Queimada.”

  Hector passes out small ceramic mugs to us all as he translates the end, “And when this beverage goes down our throats, we will get free of the evil of our soul and of any charm. Forces of air, earth, sea, and fire, to you I make this call: if it’s true that you have more power than people, here and now, make the spirits of the friends who are outside, take part with us in this Queimada.”

  Hector then fills all of our mugs, and we settle into a seated circle with our drinks. The warm sweet flavored brew is delicious. We all sit in thought for a while and are then joined by three more pilgrims who must have been napping upstairs. A mother, daughter, and aunt from Australia whom I have seen off and on over the past few days on the trail.

  “El Camino de Santiago,” Hector begins. He wants to tell us a local’s perspective on the Camino and how it has changed. Amy translates his Spanish for the threesome of Australian girls. Hector continues with passion speaking with his hands for emphasis. I wonder to myself if he does this every single night with pilgrims.

  “Unfortunately most establishments see you all as euro or dollar signs as you walk,” he emphasizes the international sign for money by pointing his fingers to the sky and rubbing them together. “Most of the food you have eaten until now is not the best Spanish food. They make for you what is cheap and profitable and I should know because I have walked the Camino de Santiago many times!”