How Does Pilgrimage Change with Experience?

“We do not grow absolutely, chronologically. We grow sometimes in one dimension, 
and not in another, unevenly.”

Anaïs Nin, The Diary of Anaïs Nin

 

Returning to Camino When You Already Know How to Be a Pilgrim

 

By the time we stepped out onto the Camino de Madrid in 2022, we were no longer learning how to be long-distance walkers or pilgrims for the first time. Six years earlier, when we left Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port on the Camino Francés, almost everything about pilgrimage had seemed new. We had worried about whether we could walk day after day, how far we should travel, where we would sleep, how albergues worked, whether we were carrying the right things and whether there would be a yellow arrow at the next intersection. Since then we had walked the Via Podiensis across France, returned to the Camino on the Portuguese Central route and continued beyond Santiago toward Muxía and Fisterra. Beyond pilgrimage, we had also walked the Bruce Trail and East Coast Trail and were still in the midst of our much longer trek across Canada. Somewhere among all those kilometres, uncertainty had gradually been replaced by experience.

 

Experience is useful on a long trail. We knew our bodies better than we had in 2016. We understood that difficult days eventually ended, that plans sometimes had to change and that a closed café or unexpected detour rarely amounted to a catastrophe. We knew how little we needed to carry, how to wash clothes in a sink, how to recognize the yellow arrows and shells that marked the Way and how quickly strangers sharing a table could become part of a temporary Camino family. Perhaps inevitably, however, all that experience also created a  bit of confidence that we knew what we were doing. Looking back, there may even have been a little arrogance mixed into that confidence. We had walked thousands of kilometres across several countries and were now members of a Royal Canadian Geographical Society Expedition Team.  As such...surely, by now, we knew how to be pilgrims.

Trekking the Camino de Madrid, Camino de San Salvador and Camino Primitivo meant that we spent the next several weeks being reminded that knowing how to walk a long way is not the same as knowing what the next path will ask of you.

 

Looking for a Different Camino

 

Our decision to begin in Madrid was itself partly the product of experience. We were intentionally looking beyond the busy pilgrimage routes we already knew. We wanted quieter trails, more time in nature and fewer crowds. From Madrid we planned to walk north-west to Sahagún, briefly rejoin the Camino Francés to León, turn north across the Cantabrian Mountains on the Camino de San Salvador and then continue from Oviedo on the Camino Primitivo toward Santiago. On paper, the pieces connected neatly. We had walked Caminos before; we were accustomed to long-distance trekking, and the thought of travelling through some of the peaceful and more mountainous parts of Spain appealed enormously.

 

Almost immediately, however, the Camino de Madrid began exposing the assumptions hidden inside our confidence. Undeveloped routes mean fewer amenities, and quiet really did mean quiet. At times we seemed to be virtually alone on the route, without the steady flow of pilgrims that reassures you that you are heading in the right direction. Services could be sparse or unexpectedly closed. A place listed as having accommodation might have none available, a café we anticipated reaching might be shuttered, and phone calls could go unanswered. Communities that appeared substantial on a map did not necessarily contain anything useful to a pilgrim arriving on foot.

 

None of these things was beyond our ability to manage, but that was not really the lesson. We had deliberately chosen a less-developed Camino because we wanted greater freedom and solitude, without completely appreciating how much we had come to expect the infrastructure of pilgrimage to be waiting for us. Years earlier on the Francés and Portuguese routes, signs, albergues, cafés, other walkers and pilgrim-oriented businesses had formed an almost continuous support network. We had begun to think of those things as part of the Camino itself rather than characteristics of particular Ways. Madrid reminded us otherwise.

 

Yet the absence of those things also gave us what we had been seeking. Without a procession of other pilgrims setting the pace, we increasingly stopped for birds. We watched frogs beside roadside ditches, noticed storks, deer and swallows and took detours that interested us. We no longer felt obliged to stop simply because a guidebook suggested that a stage should end in a particular town. Long ago, on the Francés, we had generally followed the prescribed stages and often worried about whether we were doing things correctly. Now we were much more willing to let curiosity alter the day, and need not determine the length of each stage.

 

Experience had therefore changed pilgrimage in a very real way. We were less concerned with the mechanics of being pilgrims and consequently gave more of our attention to the landscape and birds around us. At the same time, the Camino de Madrid was beginning to demonstrate that the moment we stopped paying attention to the practical realities of a particular route, experience could become expectation.

 

Returning to Something We Thought We Knew

 

When the Madrid finally deposited us onto the Camino Francés at Sahagún, the contrast was extraordinary. Suddenly there were open cafés, readily available food, obvious pilgrim services, English conversations and other walkers everywhere. After days when we had sometimes struggled to find somewhere open, the familiar infrastructure seemed almost luxurious. We had returned to a Camino we knew, and for a short time it felt as though we had returned to something easy.

 

Yet even that familiarity proved deceptive. We were not the same walkers who had crossed the Francés in 2016. We now covered distances differently, noticed different things and questioned the stages we had once followed almost unquestioningly. Birds and wetlands could tempt us into a detour. Twenty or twenty-five kilometres no longer seemed like an unquestionable definition of a day's walk. We enjoyed once again sharing food and conversation with other pilgrims, but we also recognized how much freedom we had experienced while walking alone.  For all of our critiques and frustrations along the Camino de Madrid, we also quickly began to miss it. 

 

Perhaps most revealingly, we realized that seeing more was not always the same thing as experiencing more deeply. We understood roads, rail corridors, towns and landscapes in ways we had not during our first passage, yet some of the mystery had disappeared with that knowledge. Experience had given us context while taking away some of the sensation of experiencing something unknown and without preconception.

 

At León we reached a physical expression of the choice we were making. Beside the Parador San Marcos, one arrow continued west on the Camino Francés toward Santiago while another pointed north toward Oviedo on the Camino de San Salvador. We turned north. Almost immediately the crowds thinned again, and the familiar pilgrim highway disappeared behind us.

 

Discovering the Value of Other Pilgrims

 

One of the surprises of seeking quieter Camino routes was discovering how quickly solitude could change the way we valued companionship. On the Madrid, having the trail largely to ourselves had initially seemed like a gift. We could walk at our own pace, photograph wildlife, stop without explanation and spend long stretches listening to birds rather than in conversation. By the time we reached the San Salvador, however, we had also begun to recognize something we had missed – namely that having other pilgrims nearby matters.

 

On our first morning heading north from León, we encountered a few others beginning the San Salvador. Suddenly the possibility of having familiar faces somewhere along the route seemed exciting. We wrote in our travel journals at the time that companionship was one of the best parts of any Camino and admitted that, wonderful as the Madrid had been, we had missed having people with whom to share it.  The difference was not simply between being alone and being in a crowd. On a route with relatively few walkers, individual people became more noticeable. The same pilgrims appeared in cafés, at fountains, on climbs and eventually around dinner tables. You knew who was ahead, who was behind and whom you might see again in the next town. The community on the Camino de San Salvador was small enough to recognize while still leaving long stretches of solitude in between for each person to enjoy.

 

This too, complicated what we thought experience had taught us. After crowded portions of earlier Caminos, we had assumed that fewer pilgrims would necessarily create the experience we wanted. Instead, the Camino de Madrid reminded us that there is a difference between escaping a crowd and having no community at all. Pilgrimage could offer solitude and companionship without one needing to defeat the other.

 

Becoming Beginners Again on the Primitivo

 

When we reached Oviedo and began the Camino Primitivo, the balance shifted once again. Almost immediately we found ourselves among far more pilgrims than we had encountered on either the Madrid or San Salvador. After weeks in which we had sometimes been two of only a handful of people walking a route, lines of pilgrims initially felt intrusive. At times we deliberately stopped to allow groups to move ahead because we wanted enough space to walk at our own pace, photograph something or watch a bird without affecting everyone around us.

 

Slowly, however, those strangers acquired names and became familiar to us.  We began sharing stages with people who were undertaking their first Camino. Some were nervous about what lay ahead. There were fears about the mountains, accommodation, difficult stages and whether they had somehow understood the unwritten rules of pilgrimage correctly.   Having already walked several Caminos and thousands of kilometres elsewhere, it would have been easy for us to see ourselves as the experienced walkers in the group.  And I admit that to some extent, we probably did.

 

That assumption made what happened next all the more valuable.  One of the most powerful days came on the Hospitales route, the exposed mountain alternative across one of the Primitivo's most demanding landscapes. There were long stretches without services or easy shelter, steep climbs and descents and an openness that made the consequences of bad weather easy to imagine. We loved much of it because the remoteness and mountains were precisely what we had come looking for, although even we eventually found ourselves hot, exhausted and short of water.

 

Throughout the Primitivo we had also repeatedly noticed an older woman who walked slowly, dressed far more elegantly than we expected a mountain pilgrim to dress and carried herself with an ease that encouraged an assumption we should never have made. Privately among some on the Way, she had been labelled a "Gucci pilgrim," someone we all imagined might disappear into a taxi when the walking became uncomfortable.

 

Then we encountered her once again high on the Hospitales route. She was still moving steadily through one of the hardest and most isolated stages of the Way. More humbling still, she repeatedly passed us. We stopped to rest, photograph something, eat or escape the heat; she simply continued moving at her own measured pace. By the end of the day, whatever assumptions we had made about her had been dismantled by the simple fact that she kept walking.

 

We never learned her name. We did, however, remember the lesson. Experience had not given us the ability to determine who was or was not capable of walking a Camino.

 

Watching Pilgrims Grow

 

That same lesson revealed itself more clearly (but no less powerfully) among the people we came to know.  One of them was Ben, who had a fear of heights. During the difficult Hospitales stage, he faced terrain that was genuinely frightening for him, and his arrival in Berducedo at the end of that exhausting day was greeted by cheers from the growing collection of pilgrims resting outside a bar. The stage had pushed people in very different ways. Some loved the remoteness; others found the absence of services and possibility of help deeply unsettling. Yet around the dinner table that evening, what stood out was how much confidence was beginning to replace the uncertainty we had seen earlier

 

Many of those around us were on their first Camino. At the beginning, some had worried about whether they were doing pilgrimage properly or whether they were capable of finishing even a single stage. Day by day, however, those concerns began to loosen their hold. Difficult climbs were completed. Fears were confronted. Problems were solved. People learned what they needed, how they preferred to walk and which voices in the endless stream of pilgrim advice were worth listening to.  We had seen this transformation before, although perhaps we had forgotten what it looked like from the outside.

 

Near the end of the Primitivo, as we climbed through mist toward the Sierra del Careón and the eventual junction with the Francés at Melide, Ben appeared behind us on the trail. Earlier in the journey we had watched him and others with concern, wondering how they would manage particular stages. Now he was climbing quickly and confidently. In our travel journals and notes from that day, we reflected on how remarkable it had been to watch several of these pilgrims change from uncertain and slightly shy walkers into people who had crossed difficult terrain and confronted personal fears.  Today, as we approached the final stages of our pilgrimage, Ben passed us. He gave a cheerful wave and disappeared ahead over the horizon.  It was funny, impressive and, in retrospect, wonderfully appropriate. We had begun the Primitivo seeing ourselves as two of the experienced people in the group. Now one of the pilgrims we had once worried about was disappearing down the trail ahead of us – outpacing us, walking strong, confident and determined.

 

Perhaps no moment better expressed what the Camino was reminding us – that experience is not the end of learning. 

 

Experience Is Not the End of Learning

 

The mistake would be to conclude that experience did not matter. It matters enormously. The kilometres behind us had given us confidence that a bad day could be survived and that a changed plan was not necessarily a failed one. When accommodation disappeared, weather deteriorated, or a stage became longer than expected, we had a reserve of previous experiences from which to draw. Long-distance trekking had taught us patience, self-reliance and the importance of continuing to move when that was the sensible thing to do.

 

But experience could not tell us what the next stage would contain. It could not guarantee an open café, a bed, good weather or a clear waymark. It could not determine whether solitude would feel liberating or lonely. It could not tell us which pilgrim would struggle, which would flourish or who would eventually pass whom. Most importantly, it could not remove the need to pay attention to the world and others in it.

 

We received another reminder of this near the end of the Primitivo. Leaving Lugo, we had imagined completing a very long stage to Melide. A late departure, hunger and heavy rain gradually dismantled that plan. Cold and soaked, we reached Ferreira and learned that a room had unexpectedly become available. Instead of stubbornly forcing ourselves through another twenty kilometres simply because we had once decided that was what we should do, we stopped.  Perhaps that was experience working properly. 

 

The lesson is not that experienced pilgrims always know how far they can walk, or that they can make everything work perfectly.   It was knowing that there is no prize for ignoring what the moment is telling you.

 

How Does Pilgrimage Change When You Know How to Be a Pilgrim?

 

Looking back on the linked journey from Madrid through Sahagún, León and Oviedo to Santiago, I am not sure that becoming an experienced pilgrim means becoming someone who has figured pilgrimage out. If anything, the Camino de Madrid, San Salvador and Primitivo suggested almost the opposite.  On our first Camino, so much attention had been consumed by learning the routines themselves. We worried about yellow arrows, beds, packs, stages and sore feet. By 2022 those things were familiar enough that we could give far more attention to birds, landscapes, history, people and the pleasure of simply stopping somewhere interesting. That was one of the great gifts of experience.

 

Yet familiarity also created expectations. We assumed towns would contain services because previous Camino towns had. We assumed quiet routes would necessarily be better because we disliked crowds. We assumed we understood what capable pilgrims looked like. We sometimes assumed that because we had walked so many kilometres already, we had a pretty good idea of what another day's walking would demand.  Again and again, the Way and other pilgrims on it corrected us. A closed albergue reminded us to remain flexible. Solitude reminded us of the value of companionship. Crowds reminded us of the value of solitude. An elegant older woman steadily walking past us on a mountain challenged our assumptions about other hikers – and ourselves. First-time pilgrims whom we had worried about grew stronger, found their own ways of walking and eventually disappeared down the trail ahead of us.

 

Perhaps that is one of pilgrimage's enduring strengths. Experience does not eliminate uncertainty. Instead, at its best, it teaches us how to meet uncertainty with a little less fear and a little more humility.  You can learn how to be a pilgrim.  You can believe you know what being a pilgrim is. You can learn how to carry a pack, find a bed, follow an arrow and walk through discomfort. You can become stronger, calmer, more self-reliant, and more attentive to the world around you. You can even begin to believe that after enough Caminos and enough kilometres, there is very little left on a trail that can surprise you.  Then someone you once worried about walks past with a cheerful wave and disappears over the horizon. And once again, the Camino reminds you to pay attention and stay open to growing each day.  The simple truth is you can be highly experienced in one respect and still have something fundamental to learn the following morning.

 

See you on the Way!