Oranges of Goodwill on the Camino de Santiago

Notes from the pilgrim trail

Our friend Sonia called from California to say: “I’m planning to walk a stretch of the Camino de Santiago in Portugal – why don’t you come along?”

I love a journey that starts that way – with a proper Call to Adventure. One minute you’re minding your own business, huddled in all your usual habits, like a hobbit in his hole, and the next moment you’ve got a choice to make: to stay or to go.

My wife Lizzie and I could think of a hundred reasons to refuse the Call. We’d not done a really long hike for years; would we even be capable of walking a hundred miles in five days? It would be a wrench to leave our young daughters behind. Was it too much to ask of their grandparents to look after them for so long?

Measured against such doubts was the lure of the unknown and the chance to reconnect with a friend whom we hadn’t seen for years and the romance of one of the world’s oldest pilgrim trails.

The Call overpowered the doubts; we flew to Lisbon to meet Sonia and set out.

Sonia (centre) is a yoga teacher and spiritual seeker who served as our Camino mentor. Lizzie is an ecologist who taught us all about the flora and fauna we found along the way. My role was unclear, but I was happy to be there

Initially, in all honesty, I was underwhelmed. I enjoyed the company, certainly, and the conversation. But for the first twenty miles or so the hike itself proved nothing special. Perhaps my idea of the Camino had been too romantic, and the reality could never measure up. Or maybe it was the landscape that left me feeling flat: gravel tracks, wide and straight, ran through urban outskirts and uninspiring farmland.

At the end of the first day, Sonia asked me if I’d felt any spiritual connection with the pilgrim trail. I had to admit I hadn’t. This was something I’d wondered about before we set off. The Camino is a Catholic pilgrimage; as a non-Christian, would I touch into any of the deeper significance? Would I at least pick up some historical echoes? So far, no.

But then at some point on day two, all that changed. As the route took us into wilder countryside, and we followed a river through a wooded valley, I was suddenly and fully immersed in the joy of this endeavour – the simplicity of it. Nothing to do other than put one foot in front of the other. All the complexities of daily life – all the what-ifs and if-onlys – all of it dropped away. To be replaced by this most fundamental of human activities: moving our bodies through space, step by step.

We covered a lot of ground, walking six to eight hours per day

We talked and talked, the three of us, in that easy way that goes hand-in-hand with walking long distances, with the endorphins and the relaxation. We talked about weighty things: past ordeals and future hopes and grief and faith. And we laughed at ourselves and joked about nothing in particular.

The landscape changed to match my mood. We wound through verdant hills, covered in waxy-leafed trees and wildflowers. Through picturesque hamlets, the houses tiled and shuttered, the gardens bursting with colour. We stopped to listen to the call of exotic birds, to breathe in the aroma of jasmine and broom. The paths were now age-old and cobbled, bordered by moss-covered walls. I was beginning at last to hear those historical echoes – to imagine myself following in the footsteps of all those pilgrims of the past.

And then something happened to intensify the whole experience – to bring that history into the present and make it real, here and now. We had been walking and walking beneath a blazing sun. We stopped gratefully at one of the drinking fountains that stand on the edge of most villages.

As we refilled our water bottles, a woman called out from her garden “Bom Camino!” She came smiling to her fence with an armful of oranges she had just plucked from one of her trees. She insisted we take two each, sending us on our way waving and smiling and wishing us happy travels.

This simple act of generosity put spring in our step, made the following miles easy. We had never met that woman before, would almost certainly never see her again, yet she had greeted us like dear friends and bestowed on us unlooked-for gifts.

And it wasn’t the last time it happened. The next day we again passed people picking oranges, and again they gave us delicious, thirst-quenching fruit, along with effusive good wishes for the road ahead.

Sonia asked: “Why are the people here so nice?”

My guess is this: goodwill is contagious. People who live along this route have been helping pilgrims for generations. This has fostered a culture where people habitually give gifts to perfect strangers.

The sign reads: “Be happy and make others happy.” Behind it is a little refuge offering free coffee and biscuits

Here then was my spiritual connection to the Camino. It wasn’t directly related to religion. Rather it was an affirmation of my faith in humanity: in the basic goodness of people; in people’s willingness to help one another on their journey.

“We’re all just walking each other home.”

Ram Dass

This in fact will be my enduring impression of the Comino de Santiago: the feeling that all along the route, throughout the whole hundred miles, we were being borne up, almost carried on our way by that force of goodwill.

It wasn’t just the oranges. It was those water fountains that seemed to magically appear whenever you needed them most. It was the hosts of the guesthouses and the travellers’ halts who welcomed you with open arms no matter how grimy and wayworn you might be. It was the cyclists and walkers you passed on the trail, every one of whom, without fail, wished you a sincere “Bom Camino.”

And there were the arrows. From start to finish, the Camino is waymarked with yellow arrows, drawn onto rocks and posts and walls. Sonia, who has walked stretches of the pilgrimage before, told us that in the end the arrows would come to seem like trusted friends. And they did. Every time we started to question the way to go, or to wonder if we were still on the right track, a yellow arrow would appear to silently point the way. All too often, in life, we find ourselves blundering around without a map, left to work it out for ourselves. Here, generations of people had laid down this route, kept it passable and clearly marked. And I felt these unseen hands guiding us every step of the way.

Goodwill ripples outwards. Lizzie and I spent much of the journey home talking about what more we might do to help others. What’s our equivalent of gifting oranges to strangers? That’s a work in progress. But it’s safe to say, like all good adventures, this one left us a little bit changed.

Thanks for being here – and happy reading!

Tim

P.S. Something I’ve been really enjoying this week is the podcast Soul Boom (thanks to Sonia for the introduction)! I highly recommend having a listen:

P.P.S. I think the episode above will particularly appeal to

Claudia Befu

, who recently shared wonderful news about her sci-fi series, which tackles climate change head on: