13.9.25 — First Stage: Sarria – Portomarín (23 km)
Today I walked 23 kilometres, from the darkness of early morning to the light of midday. I left the A Pedra hostel (Pensión Albergue A Pedra) at 7am, still dark out, and that first step was a real challenge: I knew my story was behind me, and ahead lay this dreamed-of path. And maybe a new present?
I had dreamed so many times of doing the Camino…
The first time I heard about it was more than twenty years ago, through The Pilgrim, by Paulo Coelho. The book is still on my shelf, yellowed with time. In 2020 I started looking into how to do it. I suggested it to friends, to partners… until I understood I had to do it alone, and stop waiting for someone else to appear to share it with. Everything comes to those who know how to wait, who don’t give up and who chase their dreams.
And one day — without quite knowing how — I took a twelve-hour flight, crossed Spain by train and, suddenly, there I was: one step away from beginning what I had wanted for so long. The feelings were intense. My soul knew something big was about to happen. I felt an immense joy, the kind that draws a thousand smiles, with shining eyes and a pounding heart.
I’d be lying if I said my eyes didn’t well up. I cried and laughed by myself, all at once, in that moment when I finally stood before the first yellow arrow, backpack on my shoulder, ready to set off.
I also felt fear: fear of the unknown, of doing it alone.
I was afraid of my own fears. I looked them in the eye and said:
“You’re coming with me. I don’t know how, but we’re going.”
I feared losing myself, feared finding myself, and — finally — listening to myself.
That’s when I understood the true value of “one step at a time”.
And so it was: I took one step, then another, then another… I was on my way.
The sunrise kept me company: first a grey sky, then the first rays daring to break through, until I felt the sun’s warmth on my back.
Before leaving Sarria, I decided to stop for breakfast. Standing in front of the sign I had seen so many times in photos, now lit up and real before my eyes, I understood this journey wasn’t going to be just another one.
An English couple asked me to take their photo and went on their way. An Argentine guy, who had watched the scene, offered to take one of me. His name was Santiago — like the apostle — and, curiously, I didn’t connect his name with the Camino until the end of the stage.
He was a catechist and religion teacher at a school in Buenos Aires. Between silences and conversations, we walked together. We talked about faith, about what moved him to do the Camino, and about what moved me.
We shared our views on religion, and I was able to say out loud something I had felt for a long time: that sense of being “divorced” from the institution of the Church, of not quite finding my place, even though my spiritual search never stopped being alive in me. It was comforting to discover there are less severe, more human, wandering and loving perspectives out there.
Santiago gave me a definition of religion I didn’t know:
“Religion”, from the Latin religiō, religiōnis, comes from the prefix re- (repetition or firmness) and the verb ligare (to bind, to join). It means, then, ‘to bind again’, ‘to strengthen a bond’.”
Could there be a better start to my Camino than reconnecting my bond with faith?
On this first stage, I let go of a weight I had carried on my shoulders for years: I too deserve that compassionate love, that forgiveness I so often denied myself.
Santiago’s company gave me exactly what I needed: deep conversations and silences that let the words settle inside me at the rhythm of my steps.
Sometimes I needed to be alone, sit down, breathe, and then keep going.
He also taught me how to use trekking poles — so necessary for the climbs and descents — and warned me that I hadn’t used enough vaseline on my feet and should wear the two pairs of socks everyone recommends. But stubborn and unconvinced, I decided it was too hot for that many socks. Not listening cost me dearly. Two terrible blisters formed on my left foot.
At times, it felt like I was walking on fire. The last kilometres were maddening: I couldn’t put weight on my foot and moved slowly. Santi was patient; he waited for me, encouraged me, kept me entertained with his stories. And so, finally, we arrived in Portomarín.
There was still the staircase leading up to the town to climb, but with an energy that didn’t come from my body, but from something greater, I managed to climb it — as tradition says you should — in one go, without stopping.
Finishing this stage filled me with a pride impossible to describe.
We are stronger than our pain, stronger than the mind that insists on telling us we won’t make it.
I proved to myself that I can. Deep down, I think I doubted myself.
Arriving was exhausting and, at the same time, deeply moving. My body felt the kilometres, but my heart was beating strongly.
I carried the physical pain with a new smile: that of someone who discovers they’re capable of achieving whatever they set their mind to. That yes, they can.
First stage complete.
I celebrated the company and the deep conversations, but also the silences that dwelled in me.
I was grateful that the Camino invited me to look outward and inward, at the same time. Climbing the staircase, I felt that something in me had crossed a threshold: I was leaving behind who I had been, with her fears and doubts, and a new version of me was being born — lighter, more truly mine.
At last, my soul was finding its step, its rhythm… And I understood that the real Camino was only just beginning, inside me.
