My very first day on the camino started in an almost anticlimactic way. I woke up at 7 in the morning, took a bus to my starting point, and started hiking. And… that was it. I didn’t meet other pilgrims, and I barely met other people in general. The only person I met on my first day was a sweet old lady who – without asking me anything – gave me a handful of freshly picked blackberries. “For extra vitamins,” she told me.
I didn’t hike a lot of kilometres on my first day, mostly because I wanted to start off slow to give my body time to adjust and to prevent injuries, but also because the choice was between hiking 13 km or 32. Easy choice, me thinks. (Yes, I’m hiking 979 km, no I don’t think that hiking 32 km a day is peanuts.)
At kilometre 7, I encountered my first camino-lesson: topos are not just random lines but give you a lot of information. Such as, how long a hill will last. It also prevents feelings of extreme rage that you might experience when you think that this time you have really reached the top, only to realise that… it was just another bend. Again.
My first day ended in Lacommande, a small town in the middle of nowhere that counted about 30 houses, of which exactly none were a grocery, bakery or anything else that sells food. There was a big wine shop though. The people of Lacommande have clear priorities
I finally met other pilgrims late in the evening, a couple from the north-east of France. I left before them the following day, but when I took a break a few kilometres in, they quickly caught up to me. We encountered each other a few more times on the trail, which was a pleasant change from the rather lonely hike the day before*.
*addendum from present-day Merel: despite the joy of getting to hike with other people a little bit, I:
- cried two km in because as it turns out, attempting to hike just short of 1000km on your own can feel a little bit overwhelming, and
- felt really awkward the first few times I encountered Sophie and Alan on the trail because they were together and I was alone and I didn’t want to impose on their together-time, you get me?
Eighteen kilometres, one inexplicable water park in the middle of nowhere and a whole lot of cows later I reached the city of Oloron-Sainte-Marie. This time, the pilgrim’s hostel was decidedly busier than the one in Lacommande, and I met a lot of new people. Funnily enough, out of the nine-something other people in the hostel, no one else is hiking towards Santiago, or at least not this year. There were some people who divided their camino into parts, hiking a part every year until they reach Santiago. Most of the others have already reached Santiago at some point in time, and are now hiking other parts of the trail.
Let the record be known that my evening in Oloron firmly proves that I am one big extrovert. I didn’t know that I thrived that much in social settings. The difference between my emotions on the second and third day is crazy. Where I was feeling very insecure and shrouded in self-doubt on the way to Oloron, I felt excited, energetic and happy when we started hiking towards Sarrance. That is, until I learned my second lesson of the camino.
Allow me to set the scene. I spent the evening in Oloron talking with people and sharing life wisdoms and stories. As if that wasn’t enough yet to lift my spirits, I also realised in the early morning that due to the clouds the day before, the mountains had been concealed. And once those had been lifted, I couldn’t believe how close they were. I adore the mountains, so honestly, nothing could break me at that point. (Or so I thought.)
I started hiking on my own and already caught up to one of the other pilgrims heading to Sarrance a few kilometres in. She was taking a break to enjoy the view, so I passed her by and continued on. Around kilometre 7 (of 20), I met Sophie and Alan, the couple from the first day. They were hiking together with a Catalan man they met in Oloron, and for a few kilometres I got to experience for the first time what it feels like to hike together with people. Until kilometre 10-ish, when I decided to let the group continue on and take a little break, because my backpack was starting to feel heavy*.
And there she was.
My second lesson of the camino: ALWAYS MAKE SURE EVERYTHING IS WELL SECURED.
I needed about three seconds after sitting down to realise that the straps of my backpack were weirdly loose, and it took an embarrasing amount of time before the understanding dawned that they were that loose because my fucking sleeping bag was gone. *Cue the panic.*
I jumped up, grabbed my backpack, started crying, and hiked back. Since this was a prime example of ‘I need an adultier adult’, I called my parents. (Not that they could do anything, but it is absolutely ingrained in me that whatever goes wrong, my parents can fix it. Even if I’ve lost my backpack somewhere over the span of 10 km and they’re in another country.) They don’t pick up, so I call my brother, who – by all means – definitely counts as an adultier adult. He provided the emotional support I needed, and, calmed down a little bit, I continued hiking back in search of my sleeping bag. My only hope at this point was that the woman who I passed by somehow found it and carried it with her. The chances were very low, because my sleeping bag is black and thus not so easily visible, and with its weight of nearly 1 kg it is also considered heavy for thru-hikers. Yet when I met Ghislaine a frantic 15 minutes later, she simply turned around, pointed to the sleeping bag attached to her backpack and told me to make sure my things are better attached next time. I thanked her profusely – remembering just in time to swallow the word putain because this is France and not Brussels – and went about putting my sleeping bag back where it belonged. This time, I made sure it was secure by clipping it on with a carabiner as well. When I thanked Ghislaine yet another time, she simply told me, “This is how we do it on the Camino, you know.”
(If, after this, you’re wondering how I never felt my backpack – and consequently an entire kilogram – fall off my backpack, you can join the club. I still have no clue how I didn’t notice.)
*the irony of this hurts my soul.
My third day of the camino ended in Sarrance, yet another small town in the middle of nowhere, although this one did have a bakery. One that I didn’t need, because for the first time I got to sleep in a pilgrim hostel that offered dinner and breakfast too. The hostel was part of a monastery, and after a nice, warm shower, I took the time to explore its gardens for a bit. In the evening, all five of us had dinner together with the volunteer who worked for the hostel and a guy my age who spent his summer playing organ during the mass. After dinner, we even got to join the evening prayers of the brothers who lived in the monastery. Truth be told, I mostly listened to the sound of the organ.
I also remembered, after five minutes of sitting still, that – unless you give me a book – I have the attention span of a chicken. Lucky for me, the prayers only lasted fifteen minutes, after which the brothers left the church, and Organ Guy started having some fun by playing – among other pieces – the British coronation song.
