Journey to the End of the World

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I stop once to eat bread, cheese, and fruit. I carry water in a plastic bottle, one of three items I had to buy for the journey. Friends told me I should also get a plastic mat to put on the ground under the sleeping bag, and a poncho. Soon I have to pull the latter out of my pack and put it on, for it begins to rain.

After a few hours of climbing the mountain-the ascent is never terribly steep-I start to feel tired, and the pain begins, first in my feet, then in my legs, reaching my back and shoulders until my entire 65-year-old body aches. Curiously, I am able to distinguish two distinct feelings-pain and exhaustion. I can think of nothing to do to relieve the pain. If I could sit down, get the weight of the pack off my body, and rest, I think I would be able to handle the exhaustion. But I cannot sit on the wet ground, and I could not simply stand up again with the pack-it is too heavy. So I watch for large rocks on which I can sit and rest the bottom of the pack.

Coming around a bend, I see what looks like a cave. It is a few meters up a steep hill next to the road. I try climbing up, and fall down. I take off the pack and try again. Even without the pack, I cannot get up the incline.

I have no choice. I must go on.

Rules of the Road
May 5, Roncesvalles to Zubiri 

I begin to feel something new. I am not passing through space, as one does in a car or airplane. This is a radically different sensation. Here, with each step, I am always in place, in some place, going to the next place, an inch or a foot farther on.

I'm not at all clear about where I am, nor about where I'm going. I have heard that one should follow the yellow arrows-painted on trees, fence posts, an old wall. The people who maintain what is called the camino francés, mapped out by Aymeric Picaud in 12th century, have painted these arrows to guide people like me. As I was totally dependent yesterday on the spirit of the ancient pilgrims to carry me along, today I depend on the modern ones who have marked the path.

Every camino guidebook gives a list of suggestions: what to take, what to be careful about, and so on. The best I've seen are in an 18th-century account by the Neapolitan pilgrim Nicola Albani: First, don't undertake such a long journey without un bucompañero, true in heart and soul, who shares your outlook. If one cannot be found, set out alone, for "better alone than badly accompanied." Second, never set out in time of plague or war. Once, at Genoa, Albani had to disguise himself and accompany those bringing produce into the walled city, which was besieged by both plague and war. Another time, in the forest, he was awakened by approaching soldiers. He hid in thick underbrush while they robbed and killed a person they met.

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