Those who have walked the Camino can tell you: once you’ve done it, it lingers. It urges you to come back, to go further next time—a different route, more weeks, less planning—whatever it takes to make the adventure even greater. A little over a year after her passing, and with my father’s 60th birthday approaching, walking the Camino again felt like the right way to both celebrate him and honor her. But this time, we determined we’d take on the shifting landscapes of the Portuguese Way. So, we pulled out our calendars and set the date.
Six months later, my (second) first day of the Camino arrived with a lightness—the kind you only feel in the early hours of the day, when the sun hasn’t risen high enough to burn. Armed with our hiking gear, a stash of electrolyte powders, and our Camino passport—a small booklet that pilgrims carry to collect stamps along the route—two of my siblings and I set off from Porto. (My father, other sister, and brother-in-law would join us in the second week.) As we walked through its old, cobbled streets, cafés opening as we made our way, the promise of a new adventure hovered in the distance.
By the time we reached the first albergue—a type of hostel for Camino de Santiago pilgrims—the sun was high, the heat hanging thick and heavy. I felt my body aching, a rash emerging on my feet. We let the albergue wrap us in its quiet rituals: showers in communal stalls, the soft splash of water over hand-washed clothes, stories drifting like whispers into the evening. My mother had shown me how to live like this—to move lightly through the world, to carry only what’s needed, to turn small acts into a kind of prayer. By nightfall, the albergue was quiet, with only the sound of breath filling the air.
The next day, I tried to keep pace with my family, but my feet betrayed me, throbbing and stinging with each step. The rash had already settled deep, like an ache I couldn’t shake. I thought of my mother again—how she always seemed to know what to do, what remedy to trust, how to keep going. On the Camino, there was no option but to plunge ahead, even when the weight of it all felt too much to bear. And so we walked for hours from the seaside town of Labruge to Povoa de Varzim, nine miles along the coast.
I was near the edge of myself, fighting to keep my body from collapsing. People kept asking about my rash, how it had climbed all the way to my knees. “Are you okay?” asked a spry 80-year-old man from Ireland. “I don’t know,” I answered.
Around mile 37 came the church—and the breakdown. There I was, sprawled on the ground while one of my sisters knelt beside me. She offered sips of cold water, dramatically splashed some on my face and feet, and then fed me bits of brownie as if I were a fallen Roman soldier. I realised, in that moment, that this is what the Camino was about, too—the breaking, the falling apart, the moments when you can’t go on anymore and yet, somehow, you do, by leaning on the people around you—and accepting their questionable snacks.
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