What walking 100KM SOLO taught me
I needed to be alone; to shed the frustrations of a demanding life. I wanted to walk my way back to rediscover who I was. So I set off along the Camino...
ITime alone was not something I’d had in large doses for the previous 14 years – marriage, two children and a business meant I was at the beck and call of others who needed me physically, mentally and emotionally. What I wanted was release from the demands of daily life, from answering to clients, kids and family. I craved, and wanted, me.
I decided to do something I’d been wanting to do for years: walk the Camino, or at least a part of it. For me, walking might be monotonous, but it’s never boring. It’s a feast of smells, textures and colours. It’s the variation in the pressure my feet impose on the ground; it’s the earth, the grass and the gravel. It’s the heat of the sun that bears down on me in summer, and the slicing wind of winter that feels like ants crawling on my skin. It’s something I do every day, and it goes beyond the physical to a form of meditation. It grounds me, and it helps me to piece together solutions to challenges in both work and personal life. And it keeps me fit.
So I packed only what I needed, including a 10-litre daypack, into a small carry-on suitcase and went to Portugal for a week. The lightness of worrying only about myself and a few items was exquisite. I had chosen to walk a part of the Portuguese Camino that very few choose: the fewer people I’d encounter, the better. I wanted to experience the walk alone.
My journey started in Azambuja, a 45-minute train ride from Lisbon. I’d done quite a bit of research online and noticed that the first few days of the route from Lisbon are along national roads, which in my mind meant lots of traffic and fumes – things I wanted to avoid. The route from Azambuja to Thomar was through gentler landscapes: farmlands and forests, with a few short sections of main road. It also fitted into my timeframe: 110km in three days.
People will either help or not help – it’s universal. About half an hour after setting off on my first day, I realised I was on the wrong track. I spotted another walker who was checking something on his phone. Unable to communicate in English, he pointed to the train station and showed me the route on Google maps. I encountered many helpful people, but there were others who pretended not to understand my questions or were purposefully obtuse.
I knew I had to follow the painted image of the shell that signifies the Camino, or the yellow arrows, but I had no idea how or where to find them. Then I saw it: a yellow scallop shell on a blue tile. Next to it was another tile in white, indicating the Caminho de Fátima, immortalising the shrine of the same name. I got goosebumps as the immensity and legacy of this struck: millions of feet over thousands of years had trodden the same route I was walking. Millions of reasons for doing so
– an expression of faith, to escape brutality, to find redemption and, as I was doing, to find myself again.
Safely on the right path now, I encountered four French sisters and walked with them for six kilometres, which took about an hour or so because it started to rain. We dodged puddles and mud, and communicated with (my) high school French, shrugs and smiles. I spoke about my children. They were walking from Lisbon to Fátima. I admired their tenacity. Eventually, we reached a town along the edge of the Tagus River where the French sisters stopped for lunch.
I waved au revoir and continued on the path, passing a garden with fig trees and chickens. I chose to walk along the watercourse to watch the river as it meandered and shifted form. The rain filled it and, during the moments when the rain caught its breath, I listened to its whisper.
My lightweight poncho covered my top half, but the rest of me was drenched. My socks were soaked through and my feet sloshed in my shoes. Stopping at a concrete bench, I sat down for the first time in hours. My limbs were stiff. The soles of my feet were tingling and sore: my skin was long past the pruning stage. I carefully pulled off my shoes and socks, and was grateful that I had brought two extra pairs of socks with me.
Dry socks had never felt so good. I stretched my legs, and ate a few grapes – they tasted like sun and wine on my tongue. For the remaining 29km that day, I was blissfully alone on the path, not another human in sight, except when I walked through towns, which were a treat. I peered into back gardens lush with aubergines, spinach, orange and lemon trees. I marvelled at the rich colours of the tiled walls so ubiquitous in Portugal. The last 5km of the day was up a steep hill to the town of Santarém. I passed a dead snake, men sawing the branch of a tree that had fallen across the tar, and an empty water fountain with the date 1805 inscribed on it. I felt deeply engaged with everything around me.
I had expected to solve my life’s niggly issues while
I walked; instead, I was immersed in the experience of putting one foot in front of the other, eating when I was hungry and drinking when I was thirsty. It was so beautifully simple; it was the closest I have got to re-experiencing life as a four-yearold, when everything is as it is and as it should be.
In Santarém I had my own room in a hostel, and the luxury of being alone. My hamstrings and glutes were aching but
I felt good. That night I had one of the best sleeps I’d had in ages. The next morning I expected to wake with aching muscles, yet I was surprisingly well recovered.
Santarém was beautiful. I got lost, letting myself be sucked into churches, down narrow winding roads and up steps to ancient quarters. A rain-washed pavement reflected sunlight so that the air itself sparkled. It led me to an archaeological site where Roman ruins had been unearthed. I stood still to take it in. The silence held its weight. My eyes delighted in the view of patchwork fields. The river was there waiting for me.
In Santarém the shells were on people’s homes and on the wall of a school: I was in a life-size game in a beautiful labyrinth. And then… they stopped. The road I was meant to take was closed; a whole section of it had fallen away. Undeterred, I kept walking. I was back on the path to Santiago de Compostela.
Day two was textured with vineyards of green and rust and outcrops of silvery olive groves. My sole companions were my footsteps and the ground beneath me – until I bumped into a German couple. We had all, quite literally, reached a crossroads: the section of the route had been extended by 9km. We checked the maps on our phones. None of us wanted to take the longer route (it would have meant walking 42km instead of 35km), and risking not arriving in Golegã before nightfall. We found the original route and chatted as we walked. I enjoyed their company. When we reached the main road, they hitched a ride and I decided to continue on foot.
Not the best choice, I discovered, as I had to jump into the stormwater channel each time a vehicle thundered past. By the time I arrived in Golegã, I was spent. I sat on a bench at the entrance to the town while trying to figure out the shortest distance to my accommodation. This was horse and bull country – very male, very nationalist and not partial to foreigners. The town was a maze and it took me another hour to find the ‘hotel’. The place was surreal: my room was above horse stables. In the morning I sneaked into the adjacent arena, ignoring the ‘no entry’ sign, to watch a horse and rider practise. I ate breakfast in a bar hung with a bull’s head, while patrons watched a bullfight on TV.
It was my last day of walking and I wanted to delight in every step. My body felt good; in fact, it yearned for the physical activity that lay ahead. I discovered that long-distance walking is addictive to me. My body loves it. Craves it. At the end of day three, I wanted to keep going.
Self-love and self-awareness are increasingly highly valued, and with good reason, but it seems that we, as women, make time for it less and less. Those three days – when I immersed myself in my own company and the ancient ritual of pilgrimage – made me realise that self-love is vital to being alive. I realised how cluttered my life was. I realised that life isn’t Facebook, FOMO, nine-to-five, helping my child prepare for exams or buying that coveted handbag (and yes, I do all these things). It is about less of that, and more of me.
'I was blissfully alone on the path, not another human in sight, except when I walked through towns.'