Five Rules on How to Walk the Road to Santiago

or: what happens if you do it in the shittiest shoes ever

Is everyone aware of what the Road to Santiago is? Short recapitulation: The pilgrim´s path to Santiago de Compostela in Spain. Actually, it goes through Europe, the most famous one is the Camino Francés through France and Spain, especially popular through books like "Ich bin dann mal weg" by Hape Kerkeling or "The Pilgrimage" by Paulo Coelho. It is 800km´s long and takes about a month to complete by foot, depending on how fast you walk.
There is also the

Caminho Português

starting in Lisbon, crossing the border to Spain and then finishing in Santiago. Some people also continue to the coastline and then throw their shoes in the sea.

But whatever way you choose and wherever you end, you should follow a few simple rules:

1. Get good shoes.

2. Get good shoes. Really important. Did I mention that?

3. Have decent maps, know the distance between places.

4. Have your sleeping bag on you, since there are no blankets provided in the pilgrim´s shelters.

5. Be a morning person since you have to leave the shelters before 8am and be in there by 10pm.

Guess what we did...
yup, we walked it (at least some). And guess what we didn´t do...
yup, we didn´t follow a single one of these rules.
And still, it was one of the purest, most beautiful experiences in my life that words fail to describe in all its facettes.

In Porto, Portugal, we happened to meet two german guys, Hoang and Christoph, who were about to start walking the Caminho Portugues the next day, starting in Ponte de Lima.

So we decided to join them, buying the cheapest sneakers from the next shop we could find and there we were, on the Road to Santiago wearing shoes whose soles were barely more than a piece of paper, really, without sleeping bags and no idea of where to go.

Arriving in Ponte de Lima,

we got our Pilgrim´s passes (hooray, we´re pilgrims now!) and 7.30am the next morning after a long night (how can people snore so loudly? There should really be snore tests for people before they are allowed in a shared dorm and depending on the volume of their snore they go to different rooms or something...) we started walking.

Around us, the sun was rising, the birds were chirping and the smell of autumn fire smoke hung in the cool, fresh air. We walked over little cobblestone footpaths fenced with grapevines, through lush forests, on hills, down again, just walking.

This day, we walked 40km´s. My feet hurt badly, but I was happy.

I just loved it. In the evening I thought there was no way I could walk further the next morning but there I was, up at seven again and ready to walk.

So beautiful man... it´s a thing you really should do yourself, all these words don´t describe half as nice as I would like it to be. All I can say is: It´s beautiful.

The athmosphere among the people, the special energy amongst the pilgrims...everybody just walking walking walking or going by bike, wishing everyone bom caminho (good walk) while passing by, it´s awesome.