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CAMINO TRAVELS
A Tough Lesson Learned on The Camino
Better safe than sorry
Today, my sister Lori began walking her second Camino de Santiago. The first time was last year, just months after I completed my first Camino. She was walking in my footsteps, following the same Portuguese Coastal Route from Porto to Santiago de Compostela in Spain. This time, she is forging her own path along the Portuguese Central Route.
Lori set out from Porto and also plans to add the Spiritual Variant to her walk. It’s a seventy-kilometer detour, beginning outside Redondela, Spain.
The Camino is not easy — walking fifteen to twenty kilometers or more each day — every day — with a fifteen to twenty-pound backpack.
Everyone who finishes this marathon has their own tales to tell about the best days and the worst, but we all learned our lessons on the road. My favorite memories are walking alongside waves crashing on golden sand, following paths through the forest, and discovering small villages, towns, and cities.
Even though I was with a good friend of mine, the Camino was the perfect opportunity to get inside my head and focus on my me — my life, my dreams, my future — for kilometer after kilometer.