People of the Camino

Many who start the Camino originally intend on traveling alone. People have these big plans on discovering themselves and wandering over the grasslands of Spain without other people to distract them or detract from the experience. It never works out: people are the experience. I know this because I hear it almost universally repeated from those I talk with. From day one, it is quickly apparent the Camino is too full of excellent and engaging people to spend the entirety of it alone.

The stories I hear on a daily basis never fail to amaze me, or occasionally, bring me to tears. People who dedicate their walk to their marriages or families, or in memory of loved ones who have died of cancer. People who are seeking a radical lifestyle in order to encourage a permanent change in their outlook on life. Some are desperately seeking God, others trying to forgive those who have hurt them. Parents who have lost their children. Those seeking adventure. An escape or celebration of life. The list of reasons goes on.

My traveling party: a family of three from Oregon, a software designer and engineer from Colorado, a family of Romanian missionaries who are now Texas transplants, and a German graduate student who, like me, is trying to figure out the next step. Sometimes we sit around at a dinner table and laugh for hours. We share our fear, our anger, happiness. We weep for one another. Perfect strangers a mere month ago (a week for me), the level of trust and respect is strong and completely fearless. We have our differences, of course. As it often is in life, relationships on the Camino are far from harmonious. Yet because we have embraced each other so completely and without hesitation these problems are insignificant compared to the strength the Camino forges.

What happens when we finish? No freaking idea. I’m pumped to see the reactions of those I have grown so close to come to the end of their journey. It’s going to be crazy, I’m sure. Beautiful, definitely.