Now, I love the thru-hiking community dearly, but I can’t help but notice certain patterns to the conversations at shelters, watering holes, or shade trees:

“I just crushed 21 miles.”

“Yeah, I’m easily at 3.5 miles an hour — uphill.”

“Your pack looks like the new Gregory model.  I looked into that one, but then I chose one that experts say beats it on every level.”

“People say this trail is rocky, but it’s nothing compared to Mahoosuc Notch.”

“Guess I need to go grab some water.  This filter has 3,000 miles on it, but it will probably last a bit longer.”

“I should be in Canada in just a couple months.  Everyone could if they really put in the effort.”

There’s so much bro talk!  I try my best to avoid such conversations, but sometimes, especially when it’s clear that the speaker imagines he’s the most seasoned/fastest/toughest hiker there is, it’s too hard to resist asserting myself.  When Ant would catch me discussing pace or mileage on the PCT, he’d start calling me Rainbro Dash.

Years of these sorts of experiences had convinced me that that’s just the way the backpacking community was, and I’d stopped thinking much of it, bro-ing out when need be but (probably like many other hikers) relishing the deeper-than-gear-and-bro-talk conversations that happened one-on-one.  And, that’s why I was completely caught off guard by the absence of bro talk on the Camino de Santiago.

In the albergues at night and along the way, pilgrims didn’t discuss the number of miles they’d gone that day or on their journey. Pilgrims didn’t discuss pace.  There wasn’t any talk of gear.  No one exchanged resumes or tried to impress each other with tales of their adventures.

So, when I put in my first “big-mile day” on the Camino — my first marathon day of the trip — the only social consequence of my exhaustion was the way my sun-muddled brain struggled to string together Spanish sentences for the hospitalera.  I think the absence of external motivation made the day seem both more surreal and more fun.

The day had begun in Arrés, a tiny hillside town of 40 people.  I hadn’t slept much the night before, but I hadn’t cared:  I was in good company and had enjoyed my first communal Camino dinner.  We also breakfasted together, and then I set off.

I was on the Camino Aragonés, and the day seemed to dawn hot and just get hotter.  Along old rural roads, shade was limited, but I found a few cooler places to rest occasionally.  Most of the time, I was too busy marveling at the area’s “lunar landscapes” to stop walking:  The valley of the Rio Aragonés is dotted with eroded bad lands where nothing grows.

The middle section of the morning involved a brutally hot walk along a deserted new highway which may or may not have been the Camino.  (It’s a long story.)  It provided stunning views of a bright blue reservoir beneath long ridges, before yellow arrows led me downhill.  They took me along an overgrown, forested path, where a crumbling old ermita waited in a clearing, still providing a quiet place of worship and meditation to pilgrims.

Most of the Arrés crew stopped for the day in another small town under the towers of a medieval castle.  After cooling off with them, I continued on my way, surprised to find that the trail ascended into a forest.  I walked along a forest road, and the mid-day sun provided little shade, so I found a good spot and enjoyed one of my favorite components of a long day’s hike: a trailside nap.

When I woke, I headed toward Puenta la Reina once more and soon found myself in high moorland.  A longtime fan of The Secret Garden — I answered to “Dickon Sowerby” for about a year — I have a special love of the bioregions known as “moors,” and reaching the heathered highlands late in the day, already elated from exertion, was enough to make me quite high on life.  By the time my journey up there was over, I was thoroughly windblown, thoroughly sunbaked, and thoroughly happy.

Depending on the elevation gain, my favorite hiking days are generally 24 to 32 miles long.  That length seems to allow me enough time to stop and smell the roses and take some scenic breaks — such as my dinner break under a tree near the descent to Undués de Lerda — but still walk long enough to find a lovely hiker’s high.  As an Irish pilgrim told me, “When the body is tired, the mind feels good.”

That night, my mind was wonderfully quiet and content as I made my bed at the albergue.

adventure backpacking Camino Camino de Santiago feminism hiking nature outdoors pilgrim Spain travel wanderlust