2017 Camino update – To the End of the World (and back again!)

It’s been almost a year… Reaching Santiago proved not to be the end of the journey.  In fact, one year on, I realise it was just the beginning. 

Recalling the final days of 2016’s Camino…. We spent 2 days in Santiago, absorbing the atmosphere and the enormity of our achievement, then it felt time to move on.  But where to? My feet had long since forgiven me for the abuse they’d received, the blisters were now hard callouses, and my flight was not for another 4 days.   There was only one possible destination, Finisterre, which the Romans believed to be the end of the world. It sounded suitably remote and bleak, an ideal place to end my adventure

Leaving Santiago with Jannik, I immediately felt free again, totally at one with the pack on my back and happier than ever that our adventure had not yet finished.  The route was well defined, but without the army of peregrinos who marched with us along the crowded and markedly more commercial French Way for the final 40 kms into Santiago. 

We arrived after 3 days to meet again with our beautiful Camino family, Liz, Susan, Shimmie, Leo, Max and Anton. The last stretch to the famous lighthouse was in atrocious wet and windy conditions.  I walked alone the final path, precariously down the slippery rocks towards the raging sea, and released the remainder of my brother Pete’s ashes to the wind. My mission was complete… It really was the end of the world and the end of a most amazing pilgrimage.  

Fast forward one year to Sept. 2017… 
…. And here I am… Sitting in a bus at Asturias Airport, awaiting departure to Ovieda, tonight’s staging post for the start of another Camino – the Primitivo. Last year at the same stage I was nervous and apprehensive about what lay ahead, and found it quite difficult to articulate, even to myself, why I was walking a Camino. 

Today, I feel the same sense of anticipation and excitement, but the journey holds no fear.  It’s been a year of some highs and one or two lows but right now I feel a much greater sense of purpose and a feeling that the remoteness of the Primitivo will lead to an even greater awakening than the Norte provided in 2016. 

This morning I was told that a close business associate has developed a life-limiting condition at a very young age, only hours after I’d heard a very similar story from a close friend. Life is so very precious and we each have a responsibility to make the best of it and find our true purpose… So here we go..!