Tag Archives: solotravel

Mindfulness on a Modern Camino

Posted on by under Adventure Travel, camino de santiago, CaminodeSantiago, Hiking, spain, spirituality, travel

As I left Santiago and headed down the Camino Frances, I thought of the struggles I might face on the way. Walking backwards might not only pose a bit of a navigation problem, but as a fairly introverted person I feared it might get rather isolated with no way to make a Camino family. Turns out neither of those worries would be a problem because a) turns out tracking 1000’s of people is really easy, and b) it was really easy to struck up conversations with people knowing I would never see them again. What I wasn’t prepared for was the sheer number of pilgrims on the trail and the logistical problems that resulted. Even at it’s busiest after crossing the Portugal/Spain border, the number of pilgrims on the Camino Portuguese paled in comparison to what I would face on the Camino Frances, and as I headed against the crowds, the number of pilgrims seemed to multiply by the day as I was headed straight into one of the busiest months on the Camino, not to mention by year end 2016 would mark the most pilgrims on the Camino in recorded history (~278 000). The official number of pilgrims that arrived to Santiago via the Camino Frances the month I was walking was 21, 309, meaning that on average I was crossing paths with 710 pilgrims per day!

The number of pilgrims walking the trail had doubled in a short seven years, and as I began the Camino Frances I quickly learned that the number of albergues and beds were hard pressed to keep up with the hundreds of pilgrims on the Camino per day. This shortage (or perceived threat of shortage) created a rat race culture on the Camino; pilgrims would wake up at ungodly hours in the morning and rush to the next albergue to ensure they got a good bed, and after 3PM I was lucky if I was to come across a pilgrim on the trail. While the Camino Portuguese had more of a laid back atmosphere, we rarely booked beds in advance, were in bed by 10PM, or out of bed by 8AM, the Camino Frances had a somewhat militant structure. The accommodation created a culture on the Camino Frances that to me, was all to similar to the culture than many pilgrims were trying to and needed to get away from in their daily lives. At home, many have a fairly strict schedule leaving little room for the unknown, and on the Camino with morning wake up, departure, and arrival times strictly planned out, many pilgrims were allowed to continue on with their habitual routines, allowing the Camino to pass under their feet in a haze.

My first stay in an albergue on the Camino Frances, I would be irritatingly woken up at 4:30 AM by the “bag rustlers” shining their lights and packing up to head out for the day, falling back asleep I would be rudely awoken at 7:30AM by the receptionist and informed that all pilgrims must be out of the albergue by 8 AM! This I had most definitely not signed up for. I am not a morning person so I was pretty peeved to learn that on my vacation I would have start setting an alarm. As I made no move to get out of bed calculating I could sleep for another 20 minutes and make it out by 8, the clearly thought otherwise as she looked dubiously at my belongings that were strewn on top of my bag. What she didn’t know that my bag was similar to a children’s puzzle, and while it may look like it would take a bit of time to put together to someone who hadn’t seen the picture on the puzzle box,  I could put my bag together in about 5 minutes.

The number of pilgrims on the Camino France route and resultant culture was so overwhelming, that after a few days on the trail some pilgrims would hop a bus and start down a different route to Santiago such as the Camino del Norte or the Via de la Plata. If you’re looking for a quiet enjoyable hike that may be a fine thing to do, but if you are doing a pilgrimage it is important to trust that everything on the Camino is exactly as it should be for your journey. For myself although there would be some growing pains and grumpy early mornings as I got used to the Camino Frances, I knew that if I was mindful enough there were lessons one could learn that could only be taught through crossing paths with 100’s of pilgrims everyday on the path. As I worked to change my perspective of the number of pilgrims on the Camino from negative to positive, I realized that the growing number of pilgrims in recent years was a reflection of our modern lives. With internet we find ourselves interconnected with more and more people than ever before, with social media we may interact with 100’s or 1000’s of people a day when pre-internet we would be lucky to talk to 20 people a day. It was only fitting that the Camino had changed over the years to mirror this. Much like the Camino, in our lives we can choose to distance ourselves from others and try to hack it on our own, or we can use the increased interconnectedness to our advantage.

On the Camino Portuguese I had learned not to rush from point A to point B, and the Camino Frances tested this as I tried not to worry about arriving to albergues early enough to ensure a bed. It was a practice in releasing control and having faith that everything would work out, something easier said than done. Luckily, I had brought an air mattress, so I knew if worst came to worst I could sleep on a floor or outside, and with this backup I was able to step away from the bed races and hike the Camino on my time. As it would turn out, despite some late arrivals after 6PM, I always managed to find a bed! I would end up using my air mattress to camp out some nights, but that was a result of deciding I would camp when I set out that day, not due being turned away at albergues. It was amazing how having a little faith could reduce so much of the stress and worry that many pilgrims had on the trail. Once I stepped out of the Camino rat race, I had very little worries and my Camino experience would transform for the better in other ways as well.

While many pilgrims on the trail could be heard complaining about the sheer mass of people on a narrow trail (especially after Sarria, the 200 km point and last place to start the Camino to receive a compastella). As I was hiking in the reverse direction, if anyone was going to have a right to have an annoyance at the number of pilgrims on the trail it would be me but I was having a completely different experience! Though I had to leave most albergues by 8AM, I would usually only hike to the nearest cafe to get a tea, only really starting on the Camino by 9AM and being out of the bed races meant I could hike well into the afternoon, often stopping between 5 and 6PM. While I would pass many pilgrims in the morning, often getting weary of the pilgrim’s greeting on the trail when passing of “Buen Camino” as going in reverse I passed every single pilgrim, after 12PM pilgrims on the trail tapered off significantly. By 2PM I often found myself hiking in solitude for hours, enjoying the mild May temperatures and beautiful scenery in complete silence. One didn’t need to uproot and head to Santiago on a completely different route to find solitude, all one really needed to do was change their approach and one could find all the solitude in the world on the Camino Frances.

Potential pilgrims often find themselves turned off of doing the Camino Frances route because of the numbers and stories that circulate the internet. For myself, the Camino Frances was exactly as it needed to be for me to learn what I was supposed to learn on it. It is challenging to maintain mindfulness on the modern Camino Frances, more so than quieter routes such as the Camino Portuguese, but not in a bad way.  If one can learn to maintain mindfulness on the Camino Frances, they will be better prepared to maintain that mindfulness as they return to the hustle and bustle of their homes. For some it may be too overwhelming to start on the Camino Frances and like myself it may be better to start on a quieter route before heading down the Camino Frances, but I strongly recommend not to completely discount it based on the number of pilgrims walking it. Even if it is not clearly describable why, there is a reason it was in medieval times and still is the most traveled pilgrimage route and the Camino Frances will always be a special experience whether there are 1, 1000, or 100 000 pilgrims on the way.

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Fear and the Solo Female Traveler

Posted on by under Uncategorized

Oh you’re planning a trip? Who are you going with?? Are you meeting someone?

These are the common questions I was faced with when I told anyone about my plans to travel around the world. To some it was unfathomable that traveling to remote corners of the world was something that could be done alone even as a women, and going alone was something I actually wanted to do. It seemed like they would rather get a root canal than venture out into the great unknown without some form of companionship. When they finally did believe that my plans were serious, there was a common opinion of me; “You must be really brave.”

Me. Brave? I don’t think so. I had been traveling solo to Peru and Ecuador for the past four years, and never once thought of myself as brave. Stupid, yes, often. But brave, never. There seems to be this stigma held that traveling is this big scary thing, and when you’re traveling without planned tour, not in a resort, and on your own, especially as a women, you must be narrowly avoiding rape and near death at every corner. Traveling solo as a women is painted as this big scary thing, I can’t put a number to the amount of blogs written on the subject, telling one what to do, what not to do, advice making one afraid to leave their trip-advisor approved hostel, turning traveling into a chore rather than fun.

The majority of the people you will meet anywhere in the world are just REGULAR people, though cultural norms and certain idiosyncrasies may be very different than home, at the heart the majority of people will be governed by the same moral compass. What does this mean for a young solo female traveler? Don’t do anything you wouldn’t do at home and trust your instincts if you are. Many of the horror stories one hears about solo travelers arise when people see travel as an opportunity  to let out their inner wild child with people they will never see again. An important part of traveling is the opportunities that push you out of your comfort zone, but there is a striking difference between bungee jumping or hitch hiking with friendly locals and taking drugs at a club or going somewhere with someone because they pressured you (prepare yourself to be assertive in saying no to men’s advances, being a tourist you will experience an aggressive level of pressure from locals not only in markets, but all the way to romantic offerings as well).

I only started travelling when I was 23, so maybe I never put off the same vibe to attract the same frequency of negative situations as a more naive 18 year old might, or maybe more stories sell when they focus and elaborate on the negative side of situations, but on my travels, the majority of the time I felt safe. I wandered cities at night, took local buses, hitchhiked, drank the water, drank some alcoholic beverages, and talked to people (including men) that I met. All alone. I never felt I was in any danger, though not all my encounters with the opposite sex on my travels were positive.

On a trip to Ecuador, I had a rather uncomfortable run in with a local male. While wandering the beach in broad daylight I became aware of a young local following me. I had wandered off the main beach onto a rocky outcropping, though two other tourists were visible a few hundred meters ahead. I continued on though not completely comfortable with the man now following me, and just to be safe I picked up a “walking stick” off the trail. As I wandered among the tide pools attempting to catch some of the little crabs, the local started to try to engage in conversation with me. The polite Canadian in me could not just tell him to go away, as he started speaking to me in Spanish I figured he would soon clue in to my terrible understanding of Spanish and give up.

He was not to be deterred that easy though, and with broken English he pushed on, inviting me to dinner at his house that night. Unable to shake my polite Canadian demeanor and just tell him to %$&* off, I had to get creative in my evasion tactics. Drawing on my grade 7 curriculum of a semester of mandatory french class, I decided that posing as a French Canadian was a viable option, “Solo hablo Frances” I responded to his invite shrugging my shoulders with a blank look (I should mention I would have failed French class had I not seen the final exam the day before I had to write it). Thinking I was finally in the clear I started to walk away, he called me back and I turned around to see him holding out a crab he had caught. I couldn’t deny my inner 5 year old that was desperate to catch one, so I walked over and took it from him.

As I looked up from the crab I had so desperately wanted to catch, I was shocked to find that the local had pulled down his pants and was giving me a full view! I quickly dropped the crab and while grasping my multi-functional walking stick said “umm no thanks!” while turning and walking quickly away towards the other tourists. He seemed to finally get the hint and did not attempt to pursue me. I was in a very touristy area known for partying, drugs and alcohol, so as much as I couldn’t fathom this approach to women ever working, I knew it must have worked once down the line for it to become something attempted in broad daylight.  I had wanted to catch some crabs on my walk, but not the type of crabs he was offering!

While some of the men I had met in South America seemed very forward, they had nothing on how men treated solo females in India. Many young men I crossed paths with seemed to think that foreign females travelling on their own must be desperate for male companionship, despite them vocalizing the opposite. Whether walking down the street, sitting at a cafe, or riding on a train; doing anything without a males companionship was the equivalent of wearing a big red sign saying “single and ready to mingle.” It was not uncommon to be approached by a local and interrogated about ones marital status. I learned to never, ever say that I was single. Though claiming a boyfriend or even wearing pretend wedding ring did very little to deter their pursuits, often claiming that when one is on holiday those commitments are as well.

I was surprised at the aggression that could result if I tried to politely dismiss their advances like I would do at home and had done in South American countries. One evening I ended up being invited to an Indian wedding by a tour operator. I was told that other tourists would be coming, and having heard that Indian weddings are not to be missed I accepted the invite. As soon as I arrived I felt the urge to leave, it was not the spectacle I had been led to believe, as soon as I arrived the tour guide ushered me into a small room where illicit alcohol was being served. Only one fellow tourist had managed to make the wedding, and feeling rather out of place I took a seat beside him and made conversation.

Not long after, and a few shots of whiskey later, the tour guide who had brought me pulled me away from the other tourist. He told me that he was offended that I would be talking to another man when he had brought me as his guest. Feeling really uncomfortable and knowing this night was on a crash course for a finale I did not care to be a part of, I demanded that I drive myself back to my guesthouse immediately. A younger me would have stayed to avoid hurting someone’s feelings, part of me believing that the tour guide had honorable intentions, but the few years of traveling I had under my belt had wizened me to nip these situations in the bud. In India especially, anything that was not a clear and aggressive “no” was interpreted that there was still an opportunity to pursue.

A few weeks later at the guesthouse I was staying at, over the course of a few days the cook had gotten progressively aggressive to another female tourist, not taking no for an answer. Finally, one morning things escalated after he had tried to lure her into his room, matters were dealt with in a rather western justice manner, a couple men showing up and “discussed” the matter with the cook in his room. Some time later, the cook emerged stiffly from the room sporting a freshly forming black eye, and was fired on the spot with his wages for the month given to the girl. Though I had been experiencing some of the Indian male forwardness, it was the first time I had witnessed it escalating to that level. Within the context of the spiritual hub of Rishikesh, it was a shock to the system to witness how the situation was handled, and a part of me sympathized with the cook.

For any female considering travelling solo to any country (especially India), be forewarned that it will be a challenging experience, but don’t let that deter you. Travelling solo will be the most rewarding thing you ever do, and something that is only possible at certain points in your life (I am told that the average person will spend a very little proportion of their life single (slightly hard to believe as a perpetually single person, who’s longest relationship lasted 3 month, with two of those months spend building up the courage to break it off), then factor in kids, and solo time will be a thing of the past!). Unless you have never lived outside of your parents basement, you will have the skills and instincts to travel solo without mishap, while wandering more than a block from the hostel, going out at night, and riding local transit despite what online articles and blogs may say. Just be prepared for local women looking at you like you have a terminal illness upon learning you are not married!