I woke up this morning to find that I was the last person in the dorm. All the beds were empty. It was barely 7 and everyone had already left, probably eager to finish the damn walk. Well, I suppose if I had been walking for the last 6 weeks I’d be rarin to go as well.

8km into our walk or so, we saw the Irish lady from the albergue, the one who’s been doing the walk in stages (etapes) – finishing one etape and coming back another year for the next. Curious about how she maintained the motivation to come back year after year, I asked her why she’s doing the walk. “I see it as nourishment for the body, mind and soul,” she said. “It’s good to take time off from life and nourish these three things.” And then she added, “More than any other walk, the Camino always seems to pull people back to it,” she said, as if the reason she – and thousand others – always come back and keep walking is partly supernatural, an invisible magnet of sort that pulls people into its sphere. Because the first reason she gave us, albeit rational and easily understood, didn’t fully explain the madness that is the walk.

I felt the cumulative fatigue of the walk and the physical toll of sleeping in hostels and being on the road for a week. Each step felt like a slog, the next one heavier than the one before. After lunch we walked for another hour before we came to a hill outside the city. And there they were: the three spires of the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela. This spot must be our personal Monte de Gozo (Mount of Joy), the spot where past pilgrims caught the first sight of their destination after weeks of struggles. Traditionally, pilgrims cry out in rapture upon seeing the symbol of the end of their walk. I had no such desire and it struck me that perhaps these pilgrimages, like other challenges in life, are only transformative when they are so hard – physically and mentally – to the point where you think you can’t go on. Or perhaps we blindly assume that a transformation must have occurred to justify all the sufferings because otherwise, … what’s the point?

The last 3km, I must say, was not the end I had in mind. As soon as we entered the city limits, cars and traffic and noise and people beset us from all directions. I saw another pilgrim who was walking in front of us made a detour to take a coffee and cigarette break at a sidewalk tavern and I wanted to ask, “Why?” Or perhaps it was more of a “How??!” How could he have the patience to delay the end further and resist running to the end of the finish line when it’s so close yet feel so far as the city seemed to conspire to hide the end from sight. Even the painted yellow arrows that had been our constant assurance and companion throughout the walk suddenly disappeared. We had to use our phone map to guide us. I felt, for the first time on this walk, lost.

As we pushed our way into the inner sanctuary of the city, presumably closer and closer to the cathedral, we started seeing more souvenir shops, restaurants offering ‘End of Pilgrimage’ menu and other people with big backpacks like ours. Roads turned into alleys flanked by tall stone buildings from centuries ago and finally, after a few turns, the path opened up into a large plaza with the cathedral on one side and hundreds of people sitting on the stone pavement on the other side. Llegamos. We’re here.

But our journey didn’t end there. To receive our last stamp and a Compostela (certificate of completion), we had to go to the Pilgrim’s Office, which was another experience in itself. The official name of the building is the Office of Pilgrim’s Reception, but everyone drops the word ‘Reception’ from the description because no pilgrims ever feel received or welcomed in this place. Every day during summer months, one thousand plus people finished the Walk and had to come to this office to get their Compostela. When we arrived, there was no sign whatsoever, but luckily another person told us to head down the stairs into he garden, into another building behind the main building to get our queue number. We were 1034, 1035, 1036; they were currently processing number 530. The lady who gave us our tickets said it would take 3-4hours before our turn. I had heard about the long queue but didn’t expect it to be that bad during the low season (i.e. not summer) like now. I looked around the waiting room and saw a few faces I recognized – people we met on the walk, at the albergue – though everyone looked too forlorn to offer a nod of recognition. I caught a glimpse of purgatory in this room.

We finally got our Compostela in the evening. A piece of paper written in Latin.

The Chapter of this Holy Apostolic Metropolitan Cathedral of St. James, custodian of the seal of St. James’ Altar, to all faithful and pilgrims who come from everywhere over the world as an act of devotion, under vow or promise to the Apostle’s Tomb, our Patron and Protector of Spain, witnesses in the sight of all who read this document, that: <name> has visited devoutly this Sacred Church in a religious sense (pietatis causa).

For three Euros you could get a “personalized” version of the certificate that would note your point of departure and the distance, because the template doesn’t mention the walk, the distance, and the struggle you went through. And there it is again, our desire to have the world recognize our individual suffering.

It’s exciting to think that we just covered another 17km today and are left with just 17km to Santiago. Today we saw more farms than usual. Actually, we smelled more than saw. So much so that I can now tell the kind of farm from the smell.

The albergue we’re staying in is up in the mountain with no restaurants or grocery stores nearby, so we had to carry food from the nearest town, Ponte Ulla. When we got to the albergue around 5pm, there were only two other people. But by 7pm, the dorm was full and there was a sense of quiet excitement as everyone realized what tomorrow meant – the end of their journey on El Camino. Some people have been walking for months. The lady from Ireland next to our bunk bed had been doing the Camino in stages, completing one etape one year and coming back another year to do the next etape. It took her altogether five years, which coincided with the completion of her doctorate. A man, Victor, on the other hand, was a Camino expert, having done all the different Camino routes. He said that all the routes are essentially the same. You have to walk a lot, he said.

Damn right, I thought. I must admit that I am getting quite bored by the walk and looking forward to finishing so that I don’t have to wake up at dawn and start walking before the sun is out anymore. I definitely think the drudgery, more than the distance or the physical challenge of walking that far, is the biggest test on El Camino because the landscape gets repetitive after a while and the terrain is mostly flat / moderately hilly, which add to the tedium. Can you keep walking day after day after day even though you are already so sick of walking?

We often romanticize these long, arduous journeys and in the process, fall into the trap of expecting everyone around us to recognize and be sympathetic to our “hardships”, self-inflicted as they might be. We want friendly faces and welcoming arms along the way — for people in the cities we pass through to smile and say “Buen Camino!” as we walk by, for hospitaleros and restauradores to be sweet and kind, to commiserate with us and console us when we are having a tough day, and provide all cure necessary for our hungry stomachs and tired feet.

Compared to pilgrims of yesteryears, who often never made it to Santiago due to illness or robbery, those attempting the Walk these days actually have it easy. There are, in fact, a community of innkeepers and bar/restaurant owners along the routes that ensure that travelers have shelters and food on their way to Santiago. And so far, we had not encountered any situations where we felt unsafe. Also, since many of these businesses are located in small cities and villages, my guess is that the pilgrims make up a big part of their economy. Sometimes, judging by the size of the town, I even wondered if some of the cafés and bars we encountered would survive without the walkers.

The services provided by these places are basic, but sufficient. A bed and shower. A place to eat and drink. Sometimes the beds look clean, other times they don’t. Sometimes they provide blankets, other times there aren’t any. Sometimes the restaurant serves pilgrim’s meal (read: hot food), sometimes bocadillos (sandwiches) and Spanish tortillas (potato and egg frittata) are all they have. But one always find a bed to sleep on and something to fill their stomachs. That’s for sure.

But don’t expect hospitality on the road. Even though these places do cater and advertise to pilgrims, they’re often curt. Like the caretaker in the albergue in Cea who barely said a word as he registered us and made no effort to make us feel welcome. (Interestingly, the message board was filled with kind words from previous peregrinos complimenting his cordiality. Were they being sarcastic?)

Or like the bar owner in Silleda who was combative from the moment we sat down, unwilling to tell us what kind of food she served, offended when we asked for the menu, and plain angry when we asked if we could order a side of fries after the food arrived. “Antes, sí; ahora, NO!” she lashed out. Instead of sharing her reluctance to reignite the stove to fry the potatoes, she assumed we knew better than to order another hot food. You should have ordered it earlier, she continued to yell at us. There was so much hostility in her voice that my instinct was to get up and leave. We didn’t have to suffer the indignity of being scolded by this woman. But I was hungry so I played the stupid tourist card and just smiled, pretending not to understand Spanish and all the vitriol that just came out of her mouth.

Our experience was not unique. When we traded notes with other people we met at the albergue or on the road, they recalled similar experiences on the Camino. “But that’s el parte de Camino,” one guy concluded. That’s part and parcel of the Walk: to endure these not-so-nice and not-so-welcoming people along the way.

Though I was no longer mad, I was still thinking about the angry lady this evening. I’d never find out why she was especially rude to us. Perhaps she was in a bad mood. Perhaps she was annoyed that we switched table or that I took off my shoes and changed into my sandals inside the restaurant. Perhaps the law of demand (tens of thousands of pilgrims each year) and supply (her restaurant being one of the 3 or 4 in town) makes it such that she can be as mean as she wants to the pilgrims and they will still come by the thousands.

Or, perhaps there was no rhyme nor reason for her attitude and that our expectation of hospitality and niceties from the locals is nothing but a form of entitlement, an egoistical wish that the world be gentle to us and that people should understand our suffering when we often don’t realize the suffering of others?

These are the noises one hears in an albergue at night. Someone snoring, loudly, like a deep rumbling train. The ruffles of paper bedsheet as someone tosses and turns in their bed. The sound of sandals shuffling across the hallway as another wakes up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night. Someone rummaging their bag and spraying themselves furiously with (I assumed) insect repellent. Someone sighing with so much despair, as they realize a good night’s sleep will be impossible with all these noises going on. If this is a symphony, it would be an avant garde interpretation of a nighttime scene. No rhythm nor melody; just pure dissonance of random human rackets. Ah.. the joy of being in a hostel.

In the morning, everyone woke up around the same time. An inevitable chain reaction as there was no way to disturb your neighbor with your morning routine of getting dressed, packing up etc. While we were cooking breakfast, one of the German guys was giving direction to the only other woman in the dorm, warning her about the first 4km of the walk from the albergue. It would be on asphalt, by the highway, he said. Unpleasant. Perhaps she ought to consider taking a cab to the next town; that’s what he and his friends had planned to do. It was the same advice he had given Pilar last night. He has a guide book with detailed description and instruction for each section of the walk so he can anticipate everything in advance and apparently “skip” the unpleasant section.

He (and his guidebook) was mostly right. The path followed a small road next to the highway – the one that connects Ourense to Santiago de Compostela – a stark reminder that the distance we covered in the last three days could have easily been accomplished in less than an hour by car. But that’s the lesson, isn’t it? El Camino is not about getting to Santiago. It’s about the walking itself.

Was the route unpleasant to walk on, like the man had warned us? Not really. I thought it was fine. We weren’t always next to the highway and we got to walk on an abandoned highway, next to a cow farm, pig farm and goat farm and an abandoned polyester factory. Before long, we were back on small roads by the countryside surrounded by farm lands. Besides, as Pilar nicely put it, “Sometimes it’s good to be surprised.” What fun would life be if we already know all the plots ahead of time.

When you give yourself to places, they give you yourself back; the more one comes to know them, the more one seeds them with the invisible crop of memories and associations that will be waiting for you when you come back, while new places offer up new thoughts, new possibilities. Exploring the world is one of the best ways of exploring the mind,and walking travels both terrains.

Rebecca Solnit, “Wanderlust: A History of Walking”

Slowly but surely we started getting into the rhythm and developing some sort of a routine. The morning breakfast routine. The “packing up and making sure we have all of our stuff with us” routine. Even on the road we naturally have this routine where we’d walk 100-200m apart from each other, walking in silence for a little while, then regrouping after an hour or so to check in, and resting every 5km.

I like the solitude as we walk alone, together. There’s not a lot of places where one can walk undisturbed for hours without having to pay too much attention to road safety. You can on El Camino. It’s so conducive for walking meditation that I often lost track of time, distance and speed. The trails themselves were new and familiar. The landscape similar to walks we’ve done in other places; I recognized the trees, wildflowers and plants and the overgrown blackberry bushes offering their fruits to us. I’m writing two long pieces in my head – one about insights that one tend to develop from these long walks, and another on race and identity. They’re more like bits of scattered snippets of paragraphs at the moment, but it’s interesting how new insights often develop when you’re walking even as I wonder if one could come up with original thoughts by walking on a well-trodden path like the one we’re on.

It was raining the whole morning. The misty drizzles made it look like we’re walking through clouds, wet clouds. At least it’s not cold or pouring rain. We walked in between farm lands and cattle fields. Some sections were covered in cow/horse/goat poop; the soles of our shoes were caked with the smelly brown stuff.

The whole time I was simply amazed by how fit Pilar is. This is not one of those “she’s fit for her age” kind of compliments. She’s fit, period. There are people my age who would not be able to do this walk. They would be huffing and puffing and complaining the whole time. She, on the other hand, plowed through uphill sections with no problem. Never looking out of breath. Maybe tired at times, but I have yet hear her complain.

After 11km or so, we arrived at Dozón, another small town by the highway. At least here they have a gas station with a store next to it, a grocery store, two restaurants and an albergue that serves food. Things are looking up!