Hooked on the Camino

I wonder if there if something that for many of us we do not get from our daily life.  I have met and talked to many people who have walked the Camino Frances more than once.  Walking the Camino Frances is a fairly big commitment in the way of time and money.

I got thinking on this yesterday while out hill walking in the Wicklow Hills.  I notice a Santiago de Compostela badge attached to one of the walkers back packs.  I asked, as I have a tendency to do.

They were telling me that they had just come back last week from walking the last 112km from Sarria to Santiago – they really enjoyed it and are now planning on the full Camino Frances next year from St Jean.  This is easy to understand, you get a taste of something, you like it and you want the full three course meal.

But the others like me who want to go back time and again…

The last time I walked the Camino people would ask why, why again?  And do you know I had no real answer, I just wanted to.  I am still not sure myself, I just had that yearning inside me to go walking again.

That yearning is once again growing inside of me.  But I now find myself in quite a different position in life.  It has become much harder to take one month off and just disappear, leave the phone and email behind for a whole month – very appealing but somewhat impractical now.

To get over this problem I have started considering cycling the Camino Frances next year – 2010.  From what I have read cycling the Camino is much more solitary experience than walking, less companionship of the same group a you travel along.  I wonder how I would be with this as I really like people and good conversations.

This helps me understand how people end up doing the same things over and over – if you like something why change it?  However earlier this year I decided to change the way I did a lot of things.  A small example:  I would go to the same restaurants all the time and eat the same food over and over – I knew what I liked.  So I stoped doing that and started eating in new places and when I was in the old places I would have something different from the menu – I found lots more that I liked.

Change can be good, sometimes I just get into those habits because I know what I like – but I have only one life and I often think that doing more might be better for me.  This reminds me of a quote I have sitting above my desk

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did – Mark Twain.

Enough said.

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