BUEN CAMINO
The Camino de Santiago is a series of ancient Pilgrim routes which run like veins through the beating heart of Europe to Santiago de Compostela in Galicia, Spain. More than 300,000 Pilgrims each year follow in the footsteps of their ancestors, accepting the extremes of nature, the aches, pains, blisters, doubts, and dormitories, in pursuit of their path. A new one, an old one, a forgotten one. A path less travelled, one they were told they could not access, or was a step too far. A path of their own choosing, forged along the Way to Santiago.
My path was 1,000km from the mountains to the ocean, and was a path which led me back to myself. Inspired, emboldened, and enlivened by this journey of serendipity, I felt both as deep and as light as I ever have, and as I really am. Stripping back all the layers of life, there was a boy who wanted to write poetry, listen to a Pilgrim, sit on a hilltop, join a dinner, drink a beer, and dance on the cobbles. Contrasting, happy, and whole.
Along this wise old route I also wanted to take photographs and find out why a few of these wonderful people had chosen to go walking. To find their own way. On my 1960s Minolta SRT I captured a moment in time, forming this series Buen Camino. Perfect because behind the lens I was me and they were them. Age, race, faith, or future, irrelevant. Bonded by our vulnerability. By being human.
The outcome was 33 portraits, unintentionally but fittingly one for every year of my life so far. But really the outcome was a love story. A story of me falling in love again with life, with nature, with humanity, and with our narrow, borrowed, and precious moment in time.
“What the world needs now, more than ever, is female energy. Ahead of us is a difficult period. A lot of tragedy. Violence. Sadness. But the god of divinity, the god of hope in the face of this strife, is feminine. For too long masculinity has shaped our way of being, and if it continues it will heap more pain on our planet and our people. However, recently I have seen more and more women walking the Camino alone. Women with a lot of power. Women who are seeking and exploring their own fierce and graceful interior power. They have the female chakra, like a cross, protecting them as they go. I have been here, alone, for 30-years and I have seen many Pilgrims. None have given me cause for hope more that these recent bold and vital women.”
“The last time I was in Galicia, I fell for a girl, and I screwed it up. I am walking back to her, from my home in Paris, to say that I am sorry and that I love her. When I was living with her, before I left, I found a fruit tree which had fallen and was dying. From it, I cut a length, and set to work on giving it new life. As a kid I saw a mini didgeridoo in a local antique shop. I was fascinated by it. I had never seen one before. The shape, the sounds, the gems and jewels you could add. I was transfixed. So I set about saving my pocket money and buying it. I do not have much pocket money for this Pilgrimage either. I made my bag by hand, and I am busking my way to Santiago. Busking my way to a shot at love.”
“She has just reached the teenage years, where you face, for the first time, questions of identity, character, direction, and purpose. The same questions I faced, in that mid life point, when I first walked the Camino. It is after all the ‘Camino Interior’ because although it is a physical journey to Santiago, really it is spiritual journey to yourself. It is hot and it is quite challenging, but we are enjoying it...I think!”
“I reached a point in life where I had lost my job as a University Professor, and I had turned to the bottle. I was drunk for 10-months before my friends dropped me at a local church. They left and I never did. There I picked up the book One Million Steps, on a 28-day Camino. Being a New Yorker I thought “I bet I can do it in 20.” I was a mother, a wife, a daughter, a friend, a professor, and a recovering alcoholic. But under all of that. Who actually was I? This is now my fourth Camino. Each time I get to the airport, I feel a shift, and I know I am going in the right direction.”
“The Beatles, The Kinks, The Stones, and The Who. Incredible! Those British bands inspired me to play guitar. I am going to study music in America next year. One day I dream of being a rock star like them.”
“Each morning, as I go out to buy bread in my hometown near Lyon, I walk over the shell. Every time I do so, I am reminded of the Camino. Its energy, uncertainty, and brilliance.”
“In the first year of my life my parents took a boat from Italy to Argentina. They separated men and women on board, so my twin sister and I went with my mother, and my father sailed alone. I am walking this Pilgrimage in memory of him. A 35-day solo voyage, just like his. I have been married four times, and I am hoping to find my fifth on the Camino! I am not really. I have felt really quite sad since my last divorce, but these paths are teaching me that I need to be alone for a while, and that I can be. I fall in love easily. I followed love to Ireland without knowing a word of the language! Italian woman are wonderful. The best. But they know only three words; “rompe il coglioni!”. Cross them at your peril! I have three wonderful daughters, one in Edinburgh, one in Dublin, and one in Turin, where I live and own a shop. I used to love catching the train to the UK, and did so every year, but since Brexit I no longer can. I do not own a passport and have not left Europe for 20-years, so that particular Pilgrimage is over for me.”
“Camino De Santiago….con grande alago mi Peregrina la encontré yo! Tenias zapatos largos, sombrero negro y un grande amor. No llores, no llores mas que en le Camino me encontrarà!’ If you look for ‘El Gitano de Astorga’ on YouTube you will find me. I have been playing for Pilgrims for 20-years now. I drive my motorcycle to a different place on the Camino each day and hope to bring some joy to those who pass me. I have played to some famous Pilgrims including the King of Spain! That was a great day. I have never taken a lesson, but learnt watching TV, and now I can even play with the guitar behind my head and my back!”
“We worked together at Minolta, the same company who make your camera. What is the meaning of all those years if it doesn’t give you that chance to explore? With the Camino, what some people forget, is that it is not a race to the end, but rather the journey through.”
“This is my 97th day. Starting from my home in Austria, for the first 23 days I did not see another Pilgrim. I am not a religious man but I really think someone has been looking out for me. Serendipity has saved me on many occasions.”
“My Mother and my Grandmother, they taught me to cook. The two best cooks in the world! I made a bet with a friend that I would not spend a single euro, nor accept any offered to me. So, it is cooking, cleaning, and helping. My hands are taking me to Santiago. The empty plates and sounds of new friendship make me feel wonderful. Although it is not quite clear whether I am a good cook or the Pilgrims are just extremely hungry!”
“I am a professional Pilgrim! My life is the Camino. I open this shop at 4am so that I am ready for the first Pilgrim, and ask those who visit to sign this book of messages. It is a snapshot of the joy that this journey brings to people, from all around the world. Each year I send it to the government so that they continue to appreciate its brilliance.”
“My name ‘Amparo’ means ‘protection’. It has always felt like my purpose, to look after people. One day, after I retire, I will walk the Camino. I will be a Pilgrim myself. But until then, I will continue to help them in any way I can. I have done so all my life.”
“I had heard that it was a Pilgrimage that helped people get closer to god. My religion is Shintoism, which involves a connection with the natural world, so this journey is deepening my faith. I am studying to be a vet. My bag weighs 20 kilograms so I can carry my laptop and books for the evenings. I am sleeping well in the dorms, and my body feels good. I have never been to Europe before, and my parents back home in Tokyo do worry, so I call them twice each day. I mainly drink oatmeal tea and amazake in Japan so I enjoy having a Coca Cola each time I stop. I eat four bananas for lunch, and then continue on to Santiago.”
“‘Nadie es como tu! Mi gusta tu y solamente tu tu tu tu....!’ I like to sing to the Pilgrims who pass me. My name is ‘Bienvenido,’ so I feel like it is my duty to make them feel welcome. I sell these pumpkins because they are an important symbol of the Camino. Santiago did not have a bottle like you so he filled ‘la circa’ with water and wine to help him along to Santiago.”
“I have run La Casa Los Dioses 33 for 13-years now. All my refreshments are made with love, and offered for just a donation. I am open all the year round, sleep under the stars, and I feel like the luckiest man in the world.”
“I was a computer programmer but my real passion was always photography. So I commissioned myself to go on a road trip across America, capturing portraits. After that, there was no way back.”
“I am not walking with anyone from Italy. I love my country, and its people, but I want to learn of other cultures. I enjoy what I do, working in an ice cream factory, but I see the same faces. I suddenly had this urge. So I took five weeks holiday, and a chance on life.”
“Pilgrims have been staying in La Faba, where my Albergue is, since the 11th century. It is a special place. We came here to Finisterre today, too see the end of the world. The end of this Camino.”
“It is our third Camino together, and my wife, José’s sister, has told us both very clearly that it is our last! The Albergues are brilliant. That sense of camaraderie. The dormitories. The eating. The cleaning of clothes. It is like being in the army! We adore it.”
“I started dancing, back home in Cape Town, aged six. For most kids it was rugby or cricket, but for me it was always dancing. Like any athlete, you a reach a point where you accept that your time is up. Your spirit is still there, but your body needs a new route. After 20-years of professional ballet, I am walking and wondering, ‘what next?’”
“I have been a dairy farmer all my adult life, alongside my Dad and my big brother. But we grew apart. I became disillusioned with the practice. It was all about money and scale. I couldn’t ignore the climate any more, and they wouldn’t budge. So, I went to volunteer on an organic farm and began noticing these people walking past with backpacks. The seed of the Camino was planted, and here I am, seeing where life will take me, along 1,500 kilometres of a great unknown.”
“I remember the first time that the fog lifted. It was a family holiday in Florida, three years back. The sun light, the activities – like sea kayaking – and the company, it reminded me what actual tiredness felt like. It gave me hope. With Covid those clouds, and that hapless, dispiriting exhaustion returned. As things began to open up, my Uncle suggested that I might enjoy the Camino. He pretty much put me on the plane! The training gave me a reason to get up in the morning. It took me out into nature, into the world, and got my body moving. This coincided with me finding the first job I actually enjoyed. A month passed and I realised I hadn’t felt down. I kept expecting it to return, and it didn’t, for more than a year now. That wonderful Floridian lightness again. It made me realise just how important community, purpose, and nature is for your health.”
“The Camino is like love. The first time – that first rush – is intoxicating. After that, the rush is never quite the same, but it is still beautiful. My first Camino, five years ago, changed my life. I just wanted to live in that world forever, and I ended up doing three more. In lockdown I met a group of Spaniards along the way and together we built a house out of mud and lived in it, in community, for a few liberating months. Since then, I have been living back at home in the Dolomites, working the winter seasons. Now I am weighing up where to go next. I will use my hands – as a carpenter, or mechanic, or gardener – to start building a life for myself. Something more concrete. As I make this decision, I needed to shake the smallness you can feel living back with your parents, and instead carry with me that Camino energy. Walking this time, I have felt like a separate person. Outside of my body. Watching myself. Witnessing me, and the space, and distance, and time. With that, a new understanding is forming.”
“I asked her to marry me within three hours of meeting her! I was joking, but only half joking, because I was completely in love. She was a super successful florist back home in Australia when she first arrived to walk the Camino in 2012. She became hooked and walked a further 10, before stumbling upon this building which was an old run down barn. Together with her Dad they set to work in creating this haven for Pilgrims. It is funny how serendipity works, something made me choose Casa Susi and with that decision my life changed forever. Back in 2017 I was an architect in Pamplona, wearing suits, eating dinners, and chasing money for 20-years. I was her 30th Pilgrim, in the second week she was open. It was love in a night. We closed the shutters and walked on to Santiago together. I wasn’t ready to go back to my other life, the life I walked west from. So I said “I’ll come back and help you for a week.” It has been five years now. I genuinely thought I was happy before. I had no idea that this type of happiness even existed.”
“My daughter has been living with me since her mother and I separated, when she was young. I have been dreaming of the Camino for nearly 20-years but felt that I couldn’t take the time away from her. There were two main challenges I wanted to confront. The first was emotional. It was two years since my long-term partner and I had broken up, and it was time to let go. The second was physical. In the midst of lockdown I came tumbling off my skateboard. When the ambulance picked me, a 44-year-old man lying on the halfpipe, they and I both thought ‘you are too old for this!’ The rehabilitation from the broken hip has been arduous and I wanted to reconnect to my body. The Camino has given me that sense of freedom and strength again. However, when I get back home to Hossegor, I will stick to surfing!”
“I have been bending wire and selling my wares for 15-years now. I have walked it nine times. Long Caminos each time. This way taught me my craft, and gave me my livelihood.”
“A few years back I retired, and a couple months later my wife passed. Suddenly, in a moment, I had this huge void in my life. She had always been there, and I had always worked. More than forty years in the army. She had been so flexible, finding new work wherever we went. We spent two-years in Bournemouth in the UK, and she taught in Salisbury. I remember vividly she put on a most brilliant service in that amazing Cathedral. Hey, look there! Behind you on your seat. She has come to say hi. Her spirit is a butterfly. She’s been checking up on me all along the way.”
“Your bag on the Camino is like life. You think at first, ‘I need this, and this, and this’ and it becomes too heavy. Then as you go, you start to realise, that you can unpack it. Each Pilgrim who passes, a conversation starts, a connection is made, and you forget the strap which is aching, or the blister on your foot. I have walked the Camino eleven times now. It is the best version of me. I met my wife along it, and she was the one who suggested ‘why don’t you live that way?’ So I opened this shop and I can honest say, I have never been happier.”
“This is my 10th year walking the Camino. I am doing it this time in my van. People ask me how I can walk back on myself each night. But it is easy. When you love someone, such effort is no effort at all. It is a pleasure.”
“They have a saying in Spain that after fifty we ‘vuelta al jamón’, we flip the ham and start cutting from the other side. I started living the Camino. I am the happiest man in the world. I love this work. I feel a sense of duty in what I do, to make people smile as they go. They arrive on the Camino feeling stressed and pressured and anxious and lacking inspiration, and I want this experience to free them from those shackles. As it has for me.”
“I would be playing my guitar but my hands are too fucking cold. Mornings like this remind me that winter is coming. My third winter here, and I am not sure I can face it again. I got caught on the wrong side of the border by Covid, so I have been walking the Camino for three years now. The police would stop me during lockdowns, so I started walking at night. But that was hairy! My first Camino was back in 2008 after my brother died. He was caught under a tumbling vehicle on his construction site. It crushed a part of me also. Walking this route, it is an addiction. I worked as a hospitalero for a while, but I was so jealous of the Pilgrims each morning. I wanted to move. I had to move. This summer I drove a tractor for the first time, working a harvest season. I sleep mainly outside, and have a little gas hob for food. Pilgrims are incredibly kind. Every item of clothing I am wearing, including my bag and shoes, are gifts. They also say to me, “call your mother, Russel!” I don’t have a phone so they lend me one to check-in on her. I do feel guilty about being away, and I am worried about winter. It might be time to finish my Camino.”
“We really should thank god for your depression, Simon. It is an amazing gift. Showing you how to live. Imploring you to live authentically. To steal a quote from Paul McCartney, you just have to “let it be.” It is resistance and fear which is stopping you, from being exactly who you are meant to be. In my mind, it is really quite clear that your purpose is to help others. To help those who are struggling, who are repressing themselves. Doing so by talking, listening, guiding, and offering an example. You owe it to your sister Sophie. She lives on in you. Just as I see my brother, alive and well, in my son. People are drawn to authenticity. What you seek, it will find you. It is the same with love. When people go on a date then take 60% of themselves, and meet 60% of the other. When that relationship forms, it is limited to just 60%. Instead, like Paul said, by letting go and living freely and truly, the universe provides. I was a married man, a father of two, an owner of a smart job, money, boat, car, house, and horses. Aged 50, my wife left me for another man. I am incredibly grateful to her for doing so. In the 30-years since, I have found ease in a life on the road. A life now on the Camino. I have walked it five times. I now rest here, in my van, a kilometre shy of Santiago Cathedral. Each day between 750 and 1,000 Pilgrims pass my van, and my sign asking them if they have “one more question?” Of that number just one person stops. By then the Pilgrims have forgotten that it is about the journey - the ‘Buen Camino’ - and they are desperate for the destination. By choosing to come on the Camino, you are choosing your soul. You could go to the south of Spain and sun bathe and drink and party, but instead you are choosing the dorms, the community, the 800 kilometres, and all that you learn along the way.”
Finisterre.
The end of the world.
The end of my Camino.
A buen camino.