On the Camino, the People You Meet are as Interesting as the Trek Itself

This is Part 4 of a 6 part series on my experiences while trekking along the Camino de Santiago (the St. James Way) in northwestern Spain. To read other parts of the series, please use the term “Spain” in this site’s search function. 

There are countless stories one could tell about the people we met while on our trek. Here are some of my favorites:

The Australian

After a couple of hours, MK and I finished one of our days' long uphill climbs and met up with the five Australians who are part of our larger group of eleven walking along the Camino.  We rested briefly at a cafe in a small trail-side village while having our cups of coffee and some Spanish cakes. On this day, the weather was spectacular, unlike what we had experienced on most of our other days where the rain and wind were our constant companions. We needed to take advantage of it and make up for the miles lost.

“Time to get a move on,” I said as we drained our mugs and licked the remaining crumbs off of our plates.

“Yes,” I overheard Tony, the Australians’ 80-year old family patriarch, say to his son as he lifted his pack onto his back. "Let's harvest and butter the turnips."

Tony, from Sydney, Australia

It was a unique, but funny way to say "it's time to go," a saying Tony had picked up somewhere in his world travels. It stuck with me, but I never had a chance to ask him where he had heard it or what its true meaning was. It wasn’t until about a month after getting home and sharing my journal with this story as one of the entries did Tony explain it origins. 

“I didn’t retell to you the Dutch saying about buttering turnips very well,” Tony told me in an email. “The first I heard it was when I worked in Holland in 1978-80 and shared an office with two Dutch men. One of them - Joost - was a farmer’s son around my age. He had lived in Europe during the depression and World War II. They were very tough times. They survived two near-famines, especially during the war when the German army stripped farms of all the food it could find. The remaining lowly turnips became a food staple.  Joost said his father loathed idleness and if he ever found Joost sitting around when there were chores to be done, the father would tell him that being idle would ‘butter no turnips’. The imagery of the saying stuck with me and I just blurted it out but sort of upside down when you heard me use it.” 

I was grateful for the explanation. While its origins arose during one of history’s darkest chapters, it is a reminder to make the best of your time whether it is to endure unimaginable hardship or to make up for lost miles during a sunny day. 

A Man and His Dog

We approached the outskirts of a village late one morning.  A man with his dog was resting on a rock wall while he smoked a cigarette. He was filthy. So was his dog. His eyes were glassy (the man's, not the dog's). Had he been drinking? He asked us by motioning with his camera to take a picture of him with his dog. We obliged. He spoke to us in a blend of Spanish and French. We had no idea what he was saying but it was clear he was walking the Camino.

We moved on from him and stopped at the village's only cafe to have lunch. A one-eyed calico cat watched us while we ate. Truly, it had only one eye. An empty socket was all that was left of its other eye.  I took a bite out of a peach I had taken from that morning's breakfast table. It was rotten and I immediately spat it out. The cat came running to take it. After only seconds, it too spat it out. It looked over its shoulder at me disgustingly as it sauntered away looking for a more suitable hand out from other pilgrims nearby.

Soon after, the man and his dog caught up to us. He sat near us at one of the cafe's outdoor tables. He again struck up a conversation. He seemed happy when we nodded our heads, making him think we understood him. Other pilgrims showed up and watched us talking to this man.

"Looks like you found a new friend," one of them said as we slinked away, trying to distance ourselves from this bedraggled Spanish/French man, embarrassed that we pretended to understand him when we clearly did not. 

The German

We met Uli while walking the high route option between Villafranca and Ambasmestas. She was from Germany, was between jobs, and was using her time off to walk the Camino. There were only a few of us hiking along this high route. 

Later that day in the bar of our Ambasmestas hotel, we saw Uli walk in. She quietly took a table in the far corner. MK invited her to join us and our group at our large table while we consumed some (ok, a lot) beer, wine, and tasty snacks. The Australians and Canadians from our group manned a table nearby. We soon joined tables and continued with our drinks and stories while MK was toasted for her birthday.

We all fell victim to the Spanish tradition where dinner doesn't start until 8:00 p.m. So we drank more wine and beer until then. At 8:00, the fun transferred into the adjacent restaurant where we all ordered the Menu de Dia. Uli sat with MK and me. We shared yet more stories, mostly about the kids, work, politics, Merkel and Obama, different language dialects, and Uli's wonderful command of the English language.

The following day, I lit a candle for mom in an ancient church in O’Cebreiro. I said a silent prayer that her health improves and that she will be okay while we are away. We left the U.S. with her being very ill and weak from her chemo treatments. My brother kept us informed throughout the week via email on her condition.

We questioned whether we should have even gone on this trip given her medical situation. She insisted that we go saying that all will be okay. We ended up convincing ourselves that we should feel comfortable in leaving her given her strong will and spirit along with my brother's care and oversight.

Late that afternoon the skies turned even drearier than earlier in the day when the rain fell off and on throughout our hike. Fog enveloped our surroundings. Everything and everyone was damp and cold. We went off by ourselves to eat one of those fantastically priced Menu de Dias at a nearby restaurant. Uli walked in. We hadn’t seen her since the evening before. She had checked in at another nearby hotel. We asked her to join us and ended up having another evening of fascinating conversation.

MK (l) and Uli (r) chat on the streets in O'Cebreiro

We didn’t see her again until several days later at a restaurant in Triacastela. It was at dinner that she divulged to us that she recently had survived a cancer scare. It is a horrible thing to go through, but especially so for someone so young (late 30s). But survive it she did. It was unspoken, but we now knew her Camino had a very special and personal meaning for her. And, we suspect, having a husband who is supportive of her undertaking this long and arduous trip alone was special for her as well.

The days wore on without ever seeing Uli again. We missed her and talked about her as we walked. What if by meeting Uli we were being sent a message? What if the message is twofold? First, what if this is God's way of saying my mom's own cancer scare will turn out just as well as Uli’s did? It was eerie to think that since we met Uli, my brother's emails had included reports that mom's health had been gradually improving over the past several days.

And second, in meeting Uli, what if this is also a message that we should always be thankful for the health that we have and that we should always live life to the fullest for one never knows what the next day brings? It's a lifestyle MK and I believe in and practice regularly. If in meeting Uli, were we being sent a message confirming that everything with my mother will be okay and that what we are doing with our lives is indeed the right thing?

Later in the week, when we arrived in Santiago, we inquired at the front desk of the hotel we believed Uli said she was going to stay in. The clerks had no record of an “Uli” being registered to stay in their accommodation. Our only remaining hope was that we would eventually see her somewhere on the streets of Santiago over the next couple of days, but it never happened.

We left for the U.S. never to see her again, nor knowing how to ever connect with her in the future. She had entered our life for a reason, we are convinced. We only wished that we had a chance to thank her for doing so.