Lost and Found on the Camino de Santiago

Author's Note, Prologue. Chapter 1: Part 1

Author’s note

My love for travel was born on trips to México during my childhood. We drove 2,200 miles south from our mint green house in East Chicago, Indiana to our house in Michoacán that always changed color according to my grandfather’s whims. Our world changed color too. The spectrum widened and our roots deepened. Those trips grounded my faith in family and tradition.

And simple joys. 

I’m sure there are several generations whose lives were anchored by these trips. The long hours made us resilient and adaptable because they were journeys into the familiar and unfamiliar all at once. They ensured that we were never the same thereafter. It was during one of those trips that I also made my first pilgrimage. 

When my paternal grandmother was alive and we arrived home, she would ask us to take her on a pilgrimage of thanksgiving. We would pile into our station wagon and drive over to San Juan Nuevo to thank El Señor de los Milagros for our safe arrival. My grandmother would dance through the main aisle of the church for Jesus. So would we, next to her or just behind her, more out of amusement than devotion.

Yet, these were some of the seeds of my journey to Santiago de Compostela. The pilgrimage became a way to reconnect with home and with who I am. 

When I heard the Camino call, I knew I had to prepare a backpack and take off. When I returned from that path, the emotions and memories welled up inside of me. This book is a product of that energy, the work it sparked, and the faith that moves us forward on the pilgrimage of life. Ultreia et Suseia.

Chicago 2016

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The pilgrim, lost in that no man’s land, in that Neverland that is the Camino, navigates in a solitary capsule though he moves forward surrounded by a multitude. An act of devotion, fulfilling a vow or promise? Homo viator? Yes, that and much more: Spirituality, above all things, the Camino is spirituality or it is nothing, but it is also selflessness, solidarity, camaraderie, hospitality, searching, adventure, freedom and Camino to walk. An immense door that opens to all without distinction for race, creed, culture or motivation and also an everyday miracle.


—José Antonio de la Riera, Asociación Gallega de Amigos del Camino de Santiago

Chapter 1: Part 1

“What did the angel say?”

“This is the sign you were looking for.”

“The sign?”

“Yes.”

I awoke from the dream just as the plane from Prague landed in Madrid. Stepping off, I slipped on my sunglasses and removed my jacket—drops of sweat rolled down my back as soon as I stepped out of the luggage claim area with my three bags and my crimson backpack. I left the cool, cloudy, misty skies of Bohemia for central Iberia—bright, hot, and desert dry. Just months before, an angel had sent a message to me in a friend’s dream. It saved me and eventually led me to Spain—to the Camino de Santiago.  

The Camino is an ancient path in northern part of the country that leads to Santiago de Compostela, where the remains of St. James, the apostle of Jesus, are said to rest. As one of the three Christian spiritual centers during the medieval era, this city inspired millions over those centuries to leave their small towns, cities and farms throughout Europe to walk to the end of the earth, as they knew it. Santiago lies just 85 km from a rocky peninsula named Finisterre—land’s end. Medieval pilgrims stared into the Atlantic Ocean and watched the water swallow the sun and rise anew on the opposite end of the earth—a symbolic representation of their own death and resurrection. I wanted this walk to be just as meaningful. 

Many believe this region was sacred to the Celts, as some of their symbols line the Camino, but Santiago de Compostela’s name is based on more of a mix of legend, mystery and medieval Christian beliefs. Santiago is Spanish for Saint James, and Compostela is often thought to mean “field of the stars,” as it might refer to the Milky Way or the stars that shone above the holy grave where the relics of St. James were discovered around the year 813. 

Trips to the city never completely stopped, although the current of people ebbed to a trickle at certain points in history as was  the case for most of the twentieth century. But in the past twenty-five years, the path had come back to life and continued to inspire thousands from around the world to abandon everything for weeks or months and walk on the ancient trail. That’s what I remembered. I wasn’t motivated by devotion, though I knew the Camino was sacred, but I felt it had something I needed and would provide the space and time to walk, to think, and to pray, but most importantly to recover, fully I hoped, from a trip that had gone terribly wrong just a year before. 

I went to see about a girl in Italy. The girl. The one you wait for your whole life. She was the one. I was the one. That’s what we whispered to each other. But on that trip, everything went wrong. First, the airline lost my bag. I wore the same clothes for three days straight. My sole outfit: a blue T-shirt, jeans, socks, and boxers. At night, I lay naked as the clothes hung to dry in the windows of tiny hotels. I was emotionally naked too—risks involve that, don’t they—especially those involving the heart. 

Between morning and night, I wandered through the center of Rome, walking through the places where we had kissed and dreamt of a life together—the Piazza Navona, where we sat in the shadow of the Fontana di Nettuno to share two sandwiches and a single juice box. And by the Spanish Steps, where we had walked inside the church to escape from the heat, but stayed for the silence and calm, a respite from the vroom of cars, the buzzing mopeds and the pressing tourists. We were on our own Roman Holiday.

“Ti amo, Miguel,” she said for the first time. 

“Te amo,” I replied. “Te amo…” 

It was best that I could not remember where that café was, the tiny one where we sat for an entire evening, only leaving when the city was resting. The café owner asked us to return home as he was closing up, “A casa ragazzi per favore. Grazie.” We walked under the glow of streetlights that had transformed the city into one of gold and shadows. Every alleyway was ours. We meandered through the streets for hours. We held hands, pulled each other into doorways…kissing...kissing…whispering. 

“Ti amo.”

“Te amo.”

That first trip led to three more and a fourth, the last one the previous year—a tragic tale. If only it had been written in pencil, to be erased and blown away in crumbs. 

After a three-day search, the airline found my suitcase and forwarded it to Rome. I picked it up, then went back to the privacy of the small Internet café where I had kept connected to my family and friends back home. “I’m fine,” I lied in the emails while counting my money and checking my bank account before I decided to spend one more night in the ancient capital—at a hostel instead of a hotel—before heading back to Modena to look for her. 

“Just enough,” I whispered. “Enough to make it through the week for food, a couple of train tickets, the hostel fees, and rent when I get back.” 

I tossed and turned unable to sleep and on the train the next morning I got up or switched seats no fewer than six times. There was no music to soothe me. Someone had stolen the iPod out of my suitcase. The guidebook became a security blanket I held to my chest when I wasn’t reading. People just stared when I fidgeted. I was alone. No one knew me, no one cared who I was, and no one knew why I was there. The feeling became more acute once I saw her in Modena. No hugs or kiss after kiss after kiss. No walks during twilight by the Fontana dei Due Fuimi. We would not window shop on the Corso Canalgrande. She did not offer to cook or make croissants as she had before. I sat in her living room for an hour.  She sent me away with a handshake. I went, I saw, I lost and I never heard from her again. I had pictured us sitting again at her small kitchen table sharing a breakfast of caffè, pane tostato con marmellata e burro, and talking about the future like we had many times. A house. Children. “Una casa semplice,” she would say.  We had agreed there would be no expensive cars or fancy apartments full of things we didn’t need. We wanted to focus on building a family and traveling around the world. 

“Forgive me,” I said. “Give me a chance. We can create the life we imagined.” 

“You lied,” she said as she walked me to the door. “You lied to me, you’re a coward. Don’t come back here.” She closed the door. 

Those final words smothered my heart, and filled me with a guilt and sadness that became two stones I tied to my heart and dragged away. They pulled me into months of despair.  In the middle of working on a Master’s degree in journalism, I struggled just to get the reporting and research done. I often had to read articles three or four times just to glean some meaning from them. And what do you do when just about everything goes wrong and you don’t want to repeat the story over and over? Well, I became an actor. I tried to be normal, but studying and acting felt aimless. I was a poor performer. I started drinking, got drunk in public too often and stopped going out altogether to avoid embarrassing one-man performances like the time at my friend Michelle’s party. Loaded with some ten beers on top of several shots, I karaoked a preachy, piercing “Kiss”—the Prince version—and knocked over a table full of food mid-song. Chips and macaroni flew everywhere. 

I forced smiles, forced my work and only slept about three or four hours a night. Gallons of coffee kept me in a functional zombie state. 

The medium latte from the coffee shop served as an elixir, something to look forward to after a sleepless night, though only at the beginning, because its punch quickly faded and my body begged for more. I would drink about seven cups of coffee throughout the day. Is this your treatment? You need some help. I ignored the heart tugs and questions or drowned them with rationalization. Rum and beer took over on the weekends, but slowly crept into the rest of the week. 

“I need this,” I would say. “This is a crutch, but how else can I make it? I have a degree to finish.”

 At the school’s newsroom, I snuck into the bathroom stalls to combine the coffee with cheap rum, pouring a quarter of a bottle from a plastic flask. My friend Helena once took a sip when I was away from the desk.

“No wonder you’re always drinking that coffee,” she said. 

“What?”

“Yeah, that’s some strong stuff.” 

My stomach dropped and I broke into a sweat.   

“You should talk to someone,” she offered, staring at her monitor. “That’s some, ehem, coffee you’re drinking.” 

No words. No defense. The blinking cursor on my monitor didn’t move the entire day. I stared at the window, at the building across the street, then at the clock and left early without submitting a story. I retreated even more from people, and remained pretty miserable until my friend called me that morning in late October—both a simple phone call, and a call to healing, the first step toward recovery. A miraculous message.

I cut down on the rum, but never gave up coffee, even though I wasn’t sleeping through most nights. By the time I reached Prague for my final semester of study, which was an internship at an English-language magazine, I wasn’t drinking much alcohol, but I had become addicted to caffeine. I walked and walked in search of good coffee. Sometimes I found it and it was strong, and good—the beans roasted just right, no bitterness. Yet, I often found it far from my apartment on Na Bojisti. Czechs were better at making beer, and that was more widely available. Sometimes it was a good substitute, but I didn’t want to disturb my roommate or for her to confirm the rumors. Her mere presence saved me from falling into constant drinking again.

I took the subway, the tram, but mostly I walked in search of that cup of coffee, and sometimes those trips became unending rambles through the city’s neighborhoods. On the weekends, when I left Prague, the walks continued in other cities: Krakow, Vienna, Berlin and the Czech towns of Cesky Krumlov, and Hradec Kralove. Wandering in silence, and only speaking when it was necessary. There was no checklist, no harried chase of the local color. Walking had made something grow inside me, though I could not tell what it was. 

I only learned what it was after a clumsy couple bumped into me at the Dinitz Café in Prague’s core. The dance floor was crowded enough without their awkward salsa steps and offbeat spins. They stepped on me a couple of times. When the music finally stopped, I went to the bar and ordered water with a wet face and tired feet. They sat at the bar too, smiling and laughing and holding each other, and were such a picture of affection that my anger evaporated. I don’t remember how we began talking, but I even ended up buying them a beer—the first one I had had with other people in months. I learned that Elmer and Maria Rita were from Italy, near Milan. We had such a good conversation; we quickly made plans for dinner the next night. 

We met at 8:30, had some traditional Czech food—or as I called it Vitamin P (pork, potato dumplings and pivo)—and afterwards, we meandered through the narrow streets of the Malá Strana neighborhood, near the castle. We spoke about my plans after graduation, and Elmer shared his thoughts about careers and life in general. 

“You must do what you really love,” Elmer said. 

The conversation became personal. We spoke about family, hopes, dreams, and I thought about mentioning the trip from the year before. Elmer then spoke about how he connected spirituality to walking and how he had walked the Camino de Santiago. The seeds sown on my own walks sprouted with Elmer’s words. This is it. This is it. That very night I turned on my computer in the dark kitchen of my apartment and Googled the Camino. I told my roommate Nicole about the idea. 

“Miguel,” she said. “It sounds amazing.”

Even though she encouraged me to take the trip, and I knew that the Camino was the right direction to take, I still had some doubts. I had only been car camping and had never been on a long hike, just some 11 kilometers at the most. I didn’t even own hiking boots. I think Nicole noticed my apprehension, which increased as our professor flew into town to evaluate our work, making visits at the organizations where we had chosen to study. Afterwards, she treated us to dinner, and the conversation turned to travel plans after the semester ended. 

Nicole spoke about her plans to research her family’s history near the eastern Czech border with Slovakia. 

“Tell her what you’re thinking about doing,” Nicole nodded toward me. 

“Well, I want to do a pilgrimage in Spain,” I softly said while chewing on a piece of cake.

Mindy did not probe, though her bright eyes asked for more.  

“I just want some time to think before heading back to Chicago,” I mumbled. 

She looked into me—stopped stirring her coffee, reached across the table, took my hand and put her advice succinctly. 

“Do it!”