The Camino Teaches
Without really knowing where it was taking me, but with the certainty that every step had a purpose I didn’t yet understand. At first, the Camino was physical: exhaustion, heat, rain. My body protested and my mind doubted. I wondered why I had set out on it, why I had left the comfort of my routine to sleep in shared hostels and wake before dawn.
But as the days went by, something began to change. The noise inside me started to fade, and in its place came a new calm, a sense of lightness that had nothing to do with the weight of my backpack, but with the weight of my worries.
Each day was a small world of its own: a stranger’s greeting, where the words you heard most were “Buen Camino”, a brief conversation that felt eternal, a different sunrise every day. On the Camino, strangers became companions, silences filled with understanding, and distances were measured more by the soul than by kilometres.
I learned that the goal wasn’t Santiago, but every step, every moment of presence.
I remember a sunrise in Arzúa. The sky opened into a thousand shades of orange and yellow, and we watched in silence as the sun rose behind the mountains. No one spoke. There was no need to. In that moment I understood that the Camino was a metaphor for life:
“We move forward without knowing exactly what awaits us, carrying what we believe we need, but discovering, in time, that almost everything that truly weighs on us lies within”
In the final days, when the Catedral de Santiago already seemed close, I felt a mix of excitement and melancholy. I didn’t want it to end. The Camino had become a home in motion, a space where everything was simple and true. Walking into the Plaza del Obradoiro felt like closing a circle, fulfilling a dream, something almost “impossible”. I saw the cathedral’s imposing façade and, seeing it, tears came to my eyes. Not from sadness, but from gratitude. Embracing the apostle, I realised I was no longer the same person who had set out walking. I had left something of myself behind — maybe the rush, maybe the fear — and in its place I carried a new way of looking at the world.
Now, back home, every time I hear the sound of my footsteps on the street or feel the weight of a backpack, I remember that Camino. I understand it doesn’t end when you reach Santiago de Compostela: the real Camino begins when you return, carrying the nostalgia of those memories, trying to keep that clarity, that peace, alive amid the noise of everyday life.
And so, every day, as I walk, I know that in some way I’m still on the Camino.
October 2025
