The Ways of the Road

If you are planning on walking the Camino, I would like to give you some advice.  Having been on the road for three days and all I feel as though I have enough experience to enlighten you on some things.

The first thing I would like to touch on is shoe choice. If you are anything like me, you have your favorite pair of sneakers.  Those sneakers that you’ve had for a while now and you just take comfort in wearing.  Now people are going to tell you time and time again that you should not wear those on the Camino.  In fact, you should not even wear them for casual runs because they ruin your knees.  They might even go as far as to say that you should just throw those shoes out in general because they are horrific for your arches.  Then you’re going to think that those people have no idea they are talking about and you will choose to wear them anyways.  Well, I am here to tell you that if that favorite pair of sneakers are Nike free runs, I would highly recommend you listen to the people who strongly suggest not wearing them.  Nike free runs are not and will never be the shoe of the Camino (despite how special of a place they have in your heart).

Next, I would like to touch on the fitness journey you think the Camino will take you on.  First let me clear something up: yes, you are using extenuated amounts of energy in order to walk around 15 miles a day.  This will burn a lot of calories and will result in you needing to refuel properly throughout the day. However, if you thought that you were going to lose weight on the Camino, I regret to inform you that you will simply not.  Just because you’re are walking 15 miles a day, which by the way you are mostly doing at a very slow pace, does not mean you can eat as much food as a small village.  Those 15 miles will not burn enough calories to account for the meals you eat if you are eating anything like me.   I went in with the mindset that eating a full breakfast mainly including bread and pastries with a lunch composed of a sandwich the size of my head and a three-course meal for dinner always ending in dessert was totally acceptable because I was ~walking~.  In reality, I think I have eaten about a month’s worth of carbs and it’s been three days.  With that being said I would recommend living life to the fullest and eating as much as you can on the Camino; just don’t expect to lose weight.

For my final piece of advice for today I would like to talk about people.  Walking the Camino forms a kind of communitas. Everyone is brought together under the fact that we are all fellow pilgrims depending on the kindness of others in one way or another.  It is common to meet other pilgrims along the way and start talking to each other or see the same pilgrims each leg of the journey and form some kind of bond.  However, you may be shy or afraid to go right up and talk to people. In my opinion, if you make eye contact with someone for a period of time over two seconds you should say hello.  Obviously, there will be language barriers, but if the person seems as though they speak any kind of English you should ask where they are from and from there the conversation should take off.  Unfortunately, there will be those times when the person will answer and then say “Buen Camino” and speed walk ahead of you so they don’t have to talk to you anymore.  Now, this is like a rough break-up and can be disheartening, but remember it’s not you, it’s them.  The Camino is a personal and self-reflective journey so you will not always encounter people who just want to aimlessly chat with others, however, almost everyone will be friendly. And who knows you may find your best friend and new travel buddy on the Camino. The scope of people is truly amazing, so I recommend trying to talk to as many people as possible.