Camino Day 23: Villar de Mazarife to Astorga
The trip is really intensifying now: people come and go in instants; empty days are made up of so much; everything is flux, and nothing stays still
I’m currently publishing a day-by-day account of my adventure on the Camino de Santiago. If you’d like to keep up with it, or if you’re interested in more stories and essays about travel, the outdoors, physical movement and the journeys they take us on, then Subscribe Now.
Nothing is constant here
You get up every morning, and that night you’re 10 or 20 miles from where you were
You can’t settle down anywhere, the flow of the Camino doesn’t allow it
You have to keep moving. Nowhere to throw an anchor, nothing to hold onto
Don’t get too carried away by a good morning’s walking, I learned early on; but soon after I learned the welcome corollary: don’t write a day off
But there’s more to come: don’t assume that anything will remain throughout the Camino, even those grand epiphanies and transcendent insights you had,
Just yesterday
“It’s all about the people”
And then just like that,
Today it felt like it was done
Like the group had reached its natural conclusion, and that in becoming such tight friends over the course of – what, 10 days, 2 weeks? – we had facilitated each others’ freedom, not so much in our stories, but in how we act on a day-to-day basis, the How rather than the Why, How We Walk – true freedom
Today I walked alone, and I realised I might never see my friends again. It’s not that this was the first time it was possible, but the first time the weight of it had hit me.
By lunchtime it felt like I was embarking on a new journey
The weight of these realisations comes thick and fast now
The intensity of the trip has maximised.
Despite the same flatness of the landscape, and the aloneness, more seems to happen in every day now – despite nothing happening. Every day is made up of so much – when you meet someone you could talk for hours, spend just as long catching-up as you both did walking. But nothing happens in those days, only walking – where does it all come from?
Every time I meet someone I know, even if only half a day has passed it feels like forever, lifetimes flash before our eyes,
When I meet someone new, relationships form within hours and minutes.
We are reaching escape velocity
A hill presents itself before Astorga – the first I’ve had the pleasure of climbing in about a week. The moments of the profound encompass grand realisations but also appreciation of the absolute basics, like some natural wonder as simple as a hill to test my body.
Astorga is fittingly beautiful, a town that feels like the grounds of a palace.
Inevitably, almost everyone I know is in the same room in the attic of the albergue; the rest are scattered among the other floors.
Everything is flux, nothing stays still.
If you’re enjoying this and think others will enjoy reading about my journey on the Camino, then why not share it?
Some random thoughts on Day 23:
Breakfast time, and the TV in the albergue is showing the weather forecast for Spain. There’s an image of a sun over every single one of Spain’s 50 provinces, unironically mimicking the legendary ‘scorchio!’ bit from The Fast Show.
So many people are telling me about the French Camino – there’s a route of equal length to one I’m doing now that runs from Veselay or Le Puy in central France to St. Jean (or maybe Puente la Reina, historically speaking). It sounds like a different experience to this one. Everyone tells me they much prefer the French route. The caveat, however, is that they’re all French, of course.
You hear so many stories of people’s lives here, that eventually I realise how ridiculous all of our lives are. Despite what you think, there is someone out there – or many people – who are fascinated by the details of your life, even if you think it’s normal, average, down-to-earth, mundane, or otherwise ordinary. This applies if they’re from Timbuktu, or a background very similar to yours.
Leaving Hospital de Orbego I decide to play a game: I count my steps to 1,000. I complete my task with relish, noting two things: (1) It’s harder than it sounds: every decade out of every century my mind wanted to jump ahead to 80 or 90-something – as if it were focusing on the destination and the future rather than the one I was on – a metaphor for the Camino at large?; and (2) with every step I took a different story or image or memory from the Camino would enter my mind and compete with the counting for my attention; a thousand stories in a thousand steps – imagine how many steps and stories pass through our consciousness in the entire Camino, or in an entire life?
It feels like we are entering a new phase – Camino 3.0 – regardless of whether it’s mental, physical or whatever the hell other cliché people are spreading at this stage. The temptation remains to break free yet again, feeling more myself than ever, but rather than forging another new beginning, maybe now’s the time to lean into those that I’ve naturally gravitated towards at this point, to practice depth of connection rather than breadth of experience. Going solo is an ideal I had before the Camino began, it may be wiser to pay attention to how the trip is actually developing. Just as I really felt like it was all over – I check in and am led to a room with all my friends.
A few kilometres outside Hospital de Orbega, I believe the Meseta ends. We are treated to the gift of a gentle hill, some trees, and various other things you might call ‘scenery’ – the first of its kind in about a week.
275km to Santiago. Almost a number I can wrap my head around. I stopped noting distances shortly after 200km – maybe that’s the limit for a person.
It’s nearly mid-October and today is by far the hottest yet, conveniently it’s a very long one, with little to no shade. I stop for a bit in the shade of a bush, but the flies are insufferable.
If you’ve done the Camino, are thinking of doing it, or are just interested in discussing the Camino or travel in general - then please leave a comment. I’d love to hear from you.