When I lit an altar candle in the cathedral at the end of the Camino de Santiago, it was not because I had completed the 400-mile pilgrimage across Spain. It was not because I am an especially religious person (and definitely not Catholic), though I have spent a fair amount of time in churches over the past nine months in Spain. I lit the candle in remembrance of John, my first father-in-law, who was an important part of my life for nearly 40 years. Some time ago, he read about the revival of the Camino de Santiago, a medieval Spanish pilgrimage, known in English as The Way of Saint James. We agreed to someday walk the pilgrims’ route together. Someday never came for us; he passed away last year. But finding myself at the terminus of the Camino, I took the opportunity to remember John and our dream of being pilgrims.

It’s often this kind of emotional and spiritual journey that drives today’s pilgrims… and there are a lot of them. More than 300,000 people complete a Camino each year and according to the official Camino web site, which tracks daily arrivals into Santiago, 1,808 pilgrims registered their completion just yesterday. Weary-looking, backpack-laden, sun-tanned, and dusty from the road, the steady stream of pilgrims make their final approach to the cathedral of Santiago in the northwest corner of Spain. Many have been walking for weeks, up and over the edge of the Pyrenees mountains, through villages, towns, and cities, along the rugged coast, and across flat, exposed agricultural plains. They have set out from France, Portugal, Germany, Great Britain, and beyond. Most people walk but you can travel the route by bike, horse, or wheelchair. To get a  certification of completion, known as a Camino Compostela, you must walk at least the final 100 kilometers into Santiago. We learned that there is not just one Camino, though the Camino Frances is by far the most popular—there are more than a dozen different routes of varying lengths and points of origin.

People walk for many different reasons—religious, spiritual, health, cultural curiosity, social, adventure, or perhaps just to say they have. One afternoon in Pamplona, over 350 miles from Santiago, we passed a young man rubbing his sore and blistered feet outside a pilgrim’s refuge (a system of free or nearly free lodging for people walking the Camino). He brightened when he saw us and asked if we were also pilgrims. We fell easily into a conversation with him, in which he shared that he was walking the Camino in memory of his mother. As a devout Catholic and mother of five, living in rural Wales, she was never able to satisfy her desire to travel. So, after her recent death, her son decided to take her on a trip. With her ashes along for company, he was hoping to give her spirit (and his) the chance to find peace and satisfaction along the path. In Santiago we met a couple from England, residing in France, who did not match our picture of the typical long-distance walker. They were about our age, not in peak condition (to put it politely), and seemed like they would be more apt to be seen on a hop-on-hop-off bus than carrying heavy backpacks on a mountain pass. But they too felt the call to make a pilgrimage to Santiago and so spent 45 days of their vacation time walking over 600 kilometers. Like all the other pilgrims we encountered, the young man and the British couple had open hearts and exuded a calm, trusting, engaged energy that immediately drew us in. Others we met spoke of making fast friends—and even finding romance—along the way, of helping and being helped by strangers, of having an unexpectedly transformative experience. All expressed certainty that they would continue to do pilgrimages.

I had every intention of walking the Camino when I got to Spain. Since arriving nearly ten months ago, we have from time to time found ourselves on one section or another of the Camino. The routes are all signposted with the iconic scallop shell image or the telltale gold and blue “blaze” (indicators of a trail) that point walkers in the direction of Santiago. Some of the places have been beautiful paths, high in the mountains or on dirt roads alongside pretty streams. Other times we have come across the marker unexpectedly on a noisy, traffic-clogged, city street or on the shoulder of a busy multi-lane road. I used to imagine the Camino as a long walk in the wild, ending at a shockingly beautiful cathedral. I now know that there are some lovely sections punctuated by lots of not-so-lovely bits. And while the Cathedral of Saint James has a long and interesting history, a very cool roof you can walk on, and the supposed remains of its patron saint, it doesn’t make my top ten list of most stunning cathedrals. There are plenty of more beautiful hikes to be found throughout Spain. I began to rethink my plan, and had come to the conclusion that the Camino was not for me—but I was thinking like a hiker, not like a pilgrim.

Now, having witnessed the emotional reaction of pilgrims arriving at the cathedral in Santiago, hearing their stories, and getting a better sense of what it means to be on a pilgrimage, I am circling back around to the original idea. When I lit the candle for John, it gave meaning and purpose to our visit to the Santiago cathedral. It was not just another big church to admire. I took the time to reflect on a life well-lived, a loss, and my sense of gratitude for all that is good in my life. I see now that the Camino it is not just a long walk, it’s a communal experience and at the same time deeply introspective for those who do it. It’s not done for the physical beauty of the surroundings, but for the feeling of accomplishment, for learning about oneself and others, for the meditative state of day after day of walking, for paying tribute to those who have gone before. There are as many reasons to walk as there are walkers and when one completes the journey they are not the same person as when they started. That seems like reason enough to get on the path.

Now that I think about it, doesn’t that describe pretty well what we are doing on this ten-year journey? Perhaps we don’t need scallop shells, blue and gold blazes, and a cathedral to be on a pilgrimage of discovery, to awaken our spirits, to connect with others along the way. To be sure, we will not be the same people at the end of our ten years of travel as we were when we began. Perhaps we are pilgrims after all. 

And so, we raise a glass to pilgrims everywhere, to our loved ones past and present, and to the next destination in our journey: Chile. Salud!