I love to read travel guidebooks, especially those written with a particular voice and point of view. That’s why I enjoy Rick Steves. Such accomplished travelers inspire me to pack my bag and take an adventure.
“A Pilgrim’s Guide to the Camino de Santiago” has a definite voice: it’s the voice of John Brierley, who is up front about his interest in the “Inner Path” of the Way of St. James. The guidebook’s subtitle is, “A Practical and Mystical Manual for the Modern Day Pilgrim”. Accordingly, along with a good detailed packing list, he includes a section on Inner Preparation, and a self-assessment with questions like, “How do you differentiate pilgrimage from a long distance walk? And also, “What do you see as the primary purpose of your life? Are you working consciously towards fulfilling that purpose?”
Those are very big questions for a travel guidebook, but the Camino is a very big walk. The beauty of Brierley’s guide is that he balances these big, philosophical questions with a ton of practical details. He breaks the Camino into thirty-three stages. Each stage is meticulously researched and has its own map and contour guide so you can see what kind of elevation to expect from day to day. Besides the maps, the most useful aspect of Brierley are the listings of albergues, hotels, bars and restaurants along the Way, and the notes on the availability of water. They are very accurate and up –to-date, and helpful. I found that when you know that there won’t be food, water or lodging for the next 12K, you can plan accordingly. Or not!
Each section includes a paragraph called “The Mystical Path,” a kind of daily philosophical and spiritual commentary. He also includes notes and background on the history and culture of the countryside and towns the Camino runs through. This is all in a very “Brierley-esque” voice, which is quite male, Anglo, and sometimes overbearing, and condescending. He has a definite bias against cities.
But overall, I enjoyed Brierley’s “Mystical Path” daily reflections. They had an unevenness that was somehow charming. Each section begins with a quote, and they were especially idiosyncratic. Some are familiar, like: “Be the change you want to see in the world,” Mahatma Ghandi, and “Practice random acts of loving kindness and acts of senseless beauty,” and there seemed to be too many new-agey ones from the Course in Miracles. But some were really wonderful: “worrying is praying for what you don’t want,” pg. 61, and “Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery and today a gift---that is why it is called the present,” pg 108. He also includes “Personal reflections” from anonymous pilgrims, and these were always thought-provoking. When I read some of them before being on the Camino they seemed sentimental or even surreal. But once I was a Pilgrim myself, they made much more sense, and now they remind me of the Pilgrim state of mind. You’re often bone-tired, sore, nursing an injury, full of joy and having the time of your life, all at the same time. Being a Pilgrim means entering an altered state.
That altered state can be so euphoric that you forget your own physical limitations. Even though Brierly says over and over in the first few stages to take it easy and listen to your body, the fact that he’s chopped the Camino into 33 stages makes it seem like you should be able to walk that far every day.
Beware! In your “regular life” you would never walk a half-marathon a day in a thirty day period, and even if you have trained for it, most people need more than the 2 rest days he recommends. Some of the truly awful blisters I saw along the Camino were due to overeager Pilgrims carrying too much stuff and walking too far. His stages have become normative for many Pilgrims, especially Americans. It’s easy to overdue it, injure yourself, and have to stop, or even go home. That’s what happened to me in June, 2013.
When I returned in October, I cut Brierley’s stages in half---to 12-15 kilometers a day. It was much more manageable, and I sometimes walked up to 25 kilometers a day when I felt like it. I had maybe one blister, and had much more energy and stamina. It opened up the Camino for me because I was no longer focusing on getting to a certain town at the end of the Brierley stage. I stopped whenever I wanted to. The journey became more about the journey than the destination. And that is what the Camino is all about.
Now that I’ve been home from the Camino for six months I return to my Brierley guidebook with fondness and read more about the places I barely saw because I was so tired and sore. It brings back good memories and details that I had forgotten about---and reminds me of the friendships I made that can not be predicted in any guidebook. My well-thumbed Brierley makes me want to return, and stay in a whole new set of villages, towns, and, even though Brierley thinks they are a grand distraction from the Camino, I want to revisit the cities I fell in love with, especially Pamplona, Burgos, and Leon.