Katharine B. Soper

“The Camino points to something more fundamental, to a way of thinking about self and others that looks inward past window-dressing and the usual social identifiers. Pilgrims leave behind professional and social tags when they enter the Camino. Here we're fellow human beings. Period. Often I know only the first name and nationality of people I meet on the trail, sometimes not even that, and with our standard pilgrim attire, we don't offer the usual visual cues to who we are and what we do in life. Yet we affect each other in profound ways. On this level playing field, we talk easily about whatever is on our minds, and the insights from strangers can be surprisingly perceptive. The French pilgrim at Compostelle 2000 (the Paris pilgrim association) was on to something when she told me that the Camino is more than a physical place. It does present breathtaking encounters with the land itself, but it also pushes me to look beyond the physical world.”
― Katherine B. Soper, Steps Out of Time: One Woman's Journey on the Camino