Day 6

Fun fact for you. 47% of the people walking the Camino are female. Awesome, right? And a lot of those gals are solo, like me. Today I walked with two American ladies (Sara from Washington and Stacey from Minnesota) that told me there’s actually an organization for ladies walking the Camino solo called Caminas. They both have patches on their backpacks with the logo on it, and didn’t know each other at all before they got to St. Jean. Spotted the logo on each other’s backpacks and knew they’d find a friend in each other. They mentioned that there’s a Caminas FB group where Caminas ask for advice and as soon as you post something there’s 40 replies, full of people wanting to help and offer support. For literally the 10th time in the last week this line came up in casual conversation today: “Oh, what if normal life was more like the Camino?”

In my normal life, I am very fortune that I have a general support system of husband/family/friends/cats that is just as fervent as the Caminas. I’m beginning to learn that a lot of my fellow walkers do not have that, however, and I can see what magic being on Team Pilgrim might feel like to them.

There are some people that do this walk every year. Every year.