Author: Éric Hébert-Daly

There are times when walking the Camino that the conditions were less than ideal. Walking the Camino del Norte from the Spanish/French border meant that my first day of walking included 32kms and 1000m of climbing and another 1000m of descending. It was a bit of a baptism by fire, not having been able to spend a lot of time climbing mountains in my part of the world. But my most difficult day wasn’t as a result of the mountains, it was related to the rain and mud. Climbing a muddy slope, I was...

As a pilgrimage, the Camino has been around for about 1200 years. When people were walking it, either by choice or by requirement for penance, they were doing so at great peril. While the path I walked wasn’t an easy one, I can only imagine what the early years must have been like… finding food, protection from the elements, getting lost, having shelter for the night… these are things that modern pilgrims may find challenging, but they are well cared for and benefit from many guides, arrows...

“Walk your own Camino” was a refrain I heard from many folks before I left for Spain. It didn’t take long for me to realize the importance of that. Some people naturally walked faster or slower than my natural pace. Sometimes I would adjust my speed in the interests of engaging with them, but walking at a pace that is not your own is uncomfortable, regardless of whether it is faster or slower. On the first day, I encountered two people walking together – Hans from Germany and José from Peru....

As many will have heard, my decision to walk the Camino was rooted in a need to strengthen my ‘solitude muscles’ and to find balance with my normal extraverted tendencies. During my process to becoming a minister, the psychologist who did my assessment qualified me as a ‘galloping extrovert’ beyond anyone he had met in his 40 years of service. He warned me of the importance to develop some resilience in times of solitude. The Camino seemed like the right place to hone these skills when it came...