What Happens After an 85-mile Walk Across Spain

A Surprising Lesson on Attachment and Letting Go

Author and husband on the Camino de Santiago in Spain. Photo taken with the author’s cell phone by fellow pilgrim Joe of Pennsylvania.

The Camino de Santiago, a 1,000-year-old pilgrimage in Spain, leads to a Cathedral reputed to be the resting place of St. James, the apostle of Jesus. My husband, Chris, and I took a trek along the Portuguese Way, one of the Camino’s numerous routes. Six days of walking, 85 miles total, I learned we can do hard things.

But that hadn't been my only lesson.

Chris and I had just finished the hike, which began in the coastal town of Oia in Spain, near the Portuguese border, and finished at the Cathedral in Santiago de Compostela in northwestern Spain.

Now, with the Camino behind us, we were in a beach town in southern Spain, taking a three-day respite from our hike before flying back to the United States.

The lessons from the Camino would revisit me here in a decision I made in response to one simple question.

"Where do you want to sit today?" Chris asked.

Chris and I stood on the promenade facing the beach.

Before us, there were two options. On our left were rows of ocean blue lounge chairs and bamboo thatched umbrellas. To the far right sat bright orange lounge chairs with tropical-colored leaves and swirls under similar thatched umbrellas.

We had been to the blue lounger side for two days now. I liked the older Spanish man who operated that side. We had bonded over our conversation about Mexico. He loved his visit to an old Mexican beach town. As a Mexican-American and someone who has visited Mexico many times, it filled my heart to be in Spain and hear him fondly talk about Mexico. He had settled us into a lounging spot a row from the sea.

By day two, we were back at the same loungers, as well as an older group of German tourists who sat in front of us. Winds arrived on day two. The Spanish man or his crew had tied horizontal opaque tarps to posts anchored in the sand. The tarp cut down on the wind but also obstructed the sea views I had enjoyed the day before.

My focus had narrowed to the Germans in front of me and the truncated swath of ocean before them. One German man stood over his friend and talked incessantly to him in German. I can affirm that non-stop talking in any language doesn't feel peaceful.

"Where do you want to sit?" Chris prompted me again on the third day as we stood between our choices: the blue lounger side and the orange side.

I felt a loyalty to the Spanish man and wanted to patronize his blue lounge business. I didn't know the orange side. I looked at it and wondered. Both sides had wind tarps up, but the orange side had left one side entirely open for expansive sea views.

On the Camino de Santiago, we hiked from town to town, laying our heads in a new place every night. Our travel company would take our overnight bags each morning and have them waiting for us at the next hotel upon our arrival. Each day, we carried only our day packs filled with water, protein bars, money, passports, and anything else that felt essential. Our hiking poles remained in our hands most of the time.

There wasn't much else to think about during our hike but to follow the path to our next destination. We greeted fellow pilgrims (on the Camino path, we were known as pilgrims or peregrinos) with the Camino greeting, "Buen Camino."

Our travel company had described the hike as a moderate challenge, and it certainly felt that way. Spain is hilly. Florida, where I practiced walking for the long-distance haul, is not. Each physical step we took brought us into our body, the present moment. "Dig deep" pinged in my head for the steeper ascensions.

Daily, a new place revealed itself: a trail, a city, a coastline, a restaurant, a hotel. We released our hold on the day before. And unfolded into a new experience: beautiful, surprising, demanding, challenging, awe-inspiring.

Photos by the Author while on the Camino and arriving at the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela. The author highlighted the journey on a restaurant placemat.

The exception was that we sometimes saw fellow pilgrims again. We met people from England, the USA (a guy from Orlando, Florida, and Joe from our backyard in our former home state of Pennsylvania who took our best hiking photo, which now hangs in our kitchen), Korea, Canada, Guatemala, Germany, Mexico, Spain, Portugal, and Poland. We synchronistically kept bumping into a mother and son from Ireland. But, eventually, they, too, faded away.

The Camino became a place of a simultaneous beginning and ending. Of exploring, of a quieted mind, of a physical anchoring in the body, of human connection, and the human spirit.

"Let's try the orange loungers," I finally said, letting go of the Spanish man I had bonded with on the blue lounger side.

Once on the orange loungers, I looked across the sand to where the blue loungers and the now-familiar Germans relaxed behind a tarped wall.

Simultaneously taking in the wide Mediterranean Sea view, I couldn't believe that in only two days, I had grown attached to the blue side; the awareness surprised me.

How often do we hold on to yesterday and miss out on a new experience today?

The Camino hike taught me that we can do hard things. But a more subtle lesson after the Camino had vibrated in my choice.

The more you hold on to yesterday, the less you expand today.

The seaside views accentuated this point, a peaceful closing to our Camino adventure trip in Spain.

For more on our pilgrimage in Spain, check out our daily journey captured in reels @anitawaskoauthor on Facebook and Instagram. Buen Camino!