While I’m relaxing in León, I’ll take this opportunity and good wifi to talk about a typical day on the Camino.

I wake up around 6:30 every day. I’ve stopped setting my alarm because other people’s alarms and shuffling are enough. Some of the albergues are really nice, and waking up like this can be pleasent. I’m often in a good mood when I wake up. I generally have the feeling of “today is gonna be a good day.”

It takes me about one to two hours to start thinking clearly, and because most albergues want you out by 8:00, I need to get moving before I start thinking. This leads to a general lack of efficiency in my movement. I try to counteract this by getting everything in order the previous night, but there’s always some part of my foot-care kit left in the bottom of my backpack, or a clothing item on the floor, or I forget to take my toothbrush with me to the bathroom and have to go back for it (I remembered the toothpaste!). Really, it’s amazing I’ve lost so few items on the Camino.

At 8:00, or a little after, I’ve left the albergue. If there’s a place open in town, I’ll have breakfast, but I often eat breakfast in either the next town or out of my backpack on the side of the road.

At the beginning of my journey, I carefully read the day’s entry in the guidebook the night before, paying attention to all the details. Now I skim it over breakfast. Sometimes breakfast is 6 kilometers into the day, so I’ve relaxed quite a bit about the guidebook following. Following the yellow arrows is not difficult.

The scenary varries, day by day. Sometimes it’s like this: 

But I don’t have many pictures of when it’s not nice. I have many more photos of when it’s like this:

On the Camino, we all eat like hobbits. We have breakfast, second breakfast, elevenzies, lunch, tea, and dinner. Some of these are more snack than meals, and I usually have either second breakfast or elevenzies. When it comes to lunch, what I enjoy most is to have food in my bag. I usually have either a baguette or half of yesterday’s baguette, some fruit, and some protein. Here’s a lunch of tuna, tomatoes, bread, and an apple (apple not shown in the photo):

In a day, I like to walk between 22 and 26 kilometers. Sometimes I walk with people, but lately I’ve been alone most of the time. But I’m rarely lonely. When I’m not in conversation with a friend and fellow pilgrim, or listening to the sounds around me or my own thoughts, I’m singing. I sing out of joy, apreciation for the surroundings, to encourage myself to keep going, or just because I’m getting bored of my own thoughts. I like to sing Road Goes Ever On and On in the morning, because in the afternoon it feels less like a cheerful fact and more like a grinding realitity. The road is never gonna stop.

My other favorites are Me and Bobbie Mcgee, which has been sung by a lot of people, and Home No More, by Matt Cosgrove. These song have the shared feature of letting me belt “Freedom” or “I’m free!” across the landscape, which is how I feel when I’m walking. After all, I’m traveling alone, I’m free to go at my own pace, follow my own needs. A few times I’ve even left the waymarked path because I wanted to do something different. And, if freedom really is just another word for nothing left to lose, then perhaps I’m at that point. Even the loss of a single clothspin would be felt, as I have only just the amount I need. Or at least, now that I’ve lost the stuffsack for my towel, this is true. I’m not feeling the loss of that stuffsack.

I generally arrive around 4 or 5. Then it’s time to shower and do my laundry (if I’m not too tired), then chill for a bit, eat dinner (which can be amazing. I mean, look at this:

which wasn’t the whole meal, I also had salad and flan.) and then it’s off to bed. Albergues close their doors between 9:30 and 11:00. When the doors are open until 11, it feels a little luxurious. You can eat dinner without any worry of getting locked out.

Then it’s to bed! I do whatever preparation I can be bothered to do for the following morning, brush my teeth, write in my journal, and then to bed. The same thing is going to happen tomorrow, and the next day, and the next.

I love it. I never want to stop walking.