The Camino I Led Was Not the Camino I Expected

I just returned from walking the Camino Portugués from Porto to Santiago. For the first seven days, there were five of us. On our rest day in Tui, two friends of mine joined, bringing the group to seven for the final seven days.

This was the first time I had led a Camino group, and I expected my role to be mostly facilitative. I would set the destination, offer a daily reflection, help create some structure, and otherwise give people room to have their own experience. That is not exactly what happened.

By the end of Day 1, it was already becoming clear that more of the day-to-day responsibility was going to land with me. Day 1 also happened to be about three and a half miles longer than we expected. I had checked the route against Gronze and Camino Ninja and still do not know why the numbers were so far off, but there it was: a very long first day and some understandable questions about my route planning.

By Day 2, the pattern had settled in. “Jon, when is the next stop?” “Jon, where are we eating?” “What time are we leaving tomorrow?” Occasionally the questions made me laugh. “Where is the bathroom?” I do not know. My best guess is the same place bathrooms have been in restaurants for most of recorded history: somewhere inside, toward the back, on the right or left.

Mostly, though, I understood what was happening. These people were on vacation. They had made the decision to walk the Camino, but they had also paid, emotionally if not literally, to stop making so many decisions for a couple of weeks. So I made them. When we stopped. Where we ate. When we left. Which way we went. I also handled our accommodations, which sometimes meant coordinating with one, two, or three different places every afternoon or evening. None of this was bad. It was just different.

Less solitude, more responsibility

One of the things I love most about the Camino is the randomness of it. You walk next to someone for twenty minutes, two hours, maybe three days. You hear where they came from and why they are walking. Sometimes the conversation is profound. Sometimes it is ridiculous. Sometimes you never even learn their last name.

That happens because you are available for it. On this Camino, I was less available. Most of the group wanted to stay together, which I had not anticipated. I assumed people would naturally split off, walk at different speeds, wander into cafés, meet people, and then reconnect later. Instead, we became a unit.

I had a few of those classic Camino encounters, including a woman from Kazakhstan and a younger guy from Italy who, strangely enough, had worked for both TIM and Accenture, two companies that were also part of my past. But there was not the usual parade of strangers, and there was much less time alone.

This was probably my least reflective Camino. Again, that is not a complaint. It is simply what happens when your attention keeps pointing outward.

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Watching people change

There was something else happening, though. I watched a couple of people become noticeably more confident, more capable, and more independent. They started the Camino looking to me for many of the answers. By the end, they needed fewer of them.

That was rewarding in a way I had not anticipated. I was also challenged by one of the participants. She pushed me in ways that were useful, even when they were uncomfortable.

Before we left, I had told the group there was something of my own I hoped to work through while walking. One person and I ended up having several deep conversations about it along the way. So while I did not get the solitary, introspective Camino I might have imagined, I did get something else: connection, leadership, and reflection through other people. Maybe that was what this Camino was supposed to offer me.

The Camino I was not sure I could walk

There was another uncertainty hanging over the trip before I ever arrived in Porto: my hip.

I have been dealing with a significant problem in my groin and hip. I have not yet had an MRI, but the prevailing theories are a torn labrum or a strained ligament. Physical therapy has not solved it. When it flares, twisting hurts badly. Downhill walking can be particularly difficult. Sometimes the pain is debilitating enough that I can barely walk.

A week before leaving for Portugal, I was not sure I could walk fifteen miles. My contingency plan was simple. If I could not walk, I would rent a car and become the support vehicle.

The early Portuguese route gave me one advantage. From Porto to Tui, much of the route is relatively flat. And something strange happened: my hip stopped hurting. I wondered whether the extended flat walking helped. I wondered whether wearing a pack changed my posture just enough to stabilize something. Whatever the reason, the pain stayed away.

As we left Tui and entered the hillier second half, I was nervous. Still nothing. Eventually, I stopped thinking about it.

Day 12

Then my body found another way to get my attention.

Day 12 was a long, hard uphill day. I love climbing. I am strong going uphill, and when my muscles start firing, I naturally want to push the pace. At some point during one of those faster uphill sections, I think I pulled my left glute. I did not realize it at the time.

I had also slept poorly the previous night in a hostel, so I was already carrying some accumulated fatigue. That evening, the problem showed itself. The next morning, I woke up and could not put my sock on my left foot. I simply could not reach it.

Eventually, the tension became bad enough that I finished the day in a taxi. For someone who loves walking uphill and had been worried for months about the opposite hip, the irony was hard to miss. The hip I feared would stop me had carried me almost the entire way. Then the other side gave out.

The Cathedral

By Santiago, I had nearly forgotten about my original hip problem.

We arrived in the Cathedral square, took the photos everyone takes, and stood there together after two weeks of walking. Then we decided to go to the Pilgrim Office to get our Compostelas.

I turned to walk out of the square, and the pain shot through my hip. Instantly. Severely. After nearly two weeks of almost nothing.

I have no medical explanation for that timing. Maybe the walking had helped stabilize it. Maybe my posture had changed. Maybe my brain had simply decided there were more important things to worry about until I reached Santiago. Or maybe there really are Camino miracles. I am not quite ready to make that claim, but the timing certainly made me wonder.

Letting go

There was one moment during the trip that probably says more about this Camino than anything else.

At one point, the map we were using was wrong. We ended up walking for fifteen or twenty minutes along a busy road. It was unpleasant and, frankly, not very safe. I was furious with myself. I was the leader. I had chosen the route. I had allowed this to happen.

Everyone else essentially told me the same thing: get over it. Nothing bad had happened. We corrected the route. Keep walking.

That may have been one of the lessons I needed more than any other. I like getting things right. I like having a plan. I like knowing where we are going. The Camino does not always cooperate with that. Neither does the body. Neither do people.

Maybe leadership is partly learning when responsibility becomes control. Maybe preparation is partly understanding that you can do everything right and still end up on the wrong road. And maybe durability is not just having the strength to keep moving. Sometimes it is letting go of the version of the day you thought you were supposed to have.

I am still figuring out what this Camino meant

I do not know yet whether I will lead another one. I suspect I will. But I would do some things differently.

I would protect more space for people to walk independently. I would probably protect some of that space for myself, too. And I still have to figure out what to do about my hip.

Part of me wonders whether the Camino was telling me something about that too. Walk. Move. Strengthen. Heal. Trust it.

I am not ready to take medical advice from an ancient pilgrimage route, so the MRI probably still comes first. But there is something about walking for two weeks with a body I did not trust, leading a group I could not completely control, and arriving in Santiago anyway that feels worth sitting with.

This was not the Camino I expected.

Maybe that was the point.