Sitting on the cold ground outside a church, I felt the world spinning out of control. My body and mind had reached their breaking point. The backpack lying in the road seemed to mock me, daring me to confront the weight of everything I was carrying—both outside and in.
"You have too much baggage." Those were my ex-boyfriend’s parting words two and a half years ago, when we broke up. He was talking about my mother’s illness and how it seemed to consume every corner of my life. Now, they’d taken on an entirely different meaning.
I took a deep breath, put the pack back on, and strapped it tight. I had chosen the best one, I assured myself—designed to distribute the load (not more than 10% of my body weight, as recommended by the tons of travelling blogs I consulted) so that it felt like you’re carrying nothing. And it really did feel like that at first.
But as I kept walking, it was suddenly not just the gear that weighed me down. My grief, heavy, unyielding, pounded me into the soil like a stake, each strap a taut reminder of everything I’d been bearing since my mother’s death.
Why would someone choose to walk 170 miles over two weeks? Why would I? Could a pilgrimage really make me feel whole again? These questions circled in my mind, a constant hum beneath the rustle of my feet as I made my way through the Portuguese Coastal route of the Camino de Santiago, a scenic path winding along Portugal’s Atlantic coastline from Porto to Santiago de Compostela in Spain.
I had trained for this journey—walked around my neighborhood in Mexico City with a backpack full of books or other weights. But how do you prepare to lose a person? How do you prepare to hold the weight of their absence? For the way it colors everything you see, everything you touch?
My mother had brought us to the Camino for the first time eight years ago, to celebrate my parents’ 25th wedding anniversary. We’d walked the last 62 miles of the French route—a trek of just five days, barely enough time for our bodies to adjust. We all promised to return. But cancer took her before we could walk it together again.
Those who have walked the Camino can tell you: once you’ve done it, it lingers. It urges you to come back, to go further next time—a different route, more weeks, less planning—whatever it takes to make the adventure even greater. A little over a year after her passing, and with my father’s 60th birthday approaching, walking the Camino again felt like the right way to both celebrate him and honor her. But this time, we determined we’d take on the shifting landscapes of the Portuguese Way. So, we pulled out our calendars and set the date.
Six months later, my (second) first day of the Camino arrived with a lightness—the kind you only feel in the early hours of the day, when the sun hasn’t risen high enough to burn. Armed with our hiking gear, a stash of electrolyte powders, and our Camino passport—a small booklet that pilgrims carry to collect stamps along the route—two of my siblings and I set off from Porto. (My father, other sister, and brother-in-law would join us in the second week.) As we walked through its old, cobbled streets, cafés opening as we made our way, the promise of a new adventure hovered in the distance.
By the time we reached the first albergue—a type of hostel for Camino de Santiago pilgrims—the sun was high, the heat hanging thick and heavy. I felt my body aching, a rash emerging on my feet. We let the albergue wrap us in its quiet rituals: showers in communal stalls, the soft splash of water over hand-washed clothes, stories drifting like whispers into the evening. My mother had shown me how to live like this—to move lightly through the world, to carry only what’s needed, to turn small acts into a kind of prayer. By nightfall, the albergue was quiet, with only the sound of breath filling the air.
The next day, I tried to keep pace with my family, but my feet betrayed me, throbbing and stinging with each step. The rash had already settled deep, like an ache I couldn’t shake. I thought of my mother again—how she always seemed to know what to do, what remedy to trust, how to keep going. On the Camino, there was no option but to plunge ahead, even when the weight of it all felt too much to bear. And so we walked for hours from the seaside town of Labruge to Povoa de Varzim, nine miles along the coast.
I was near the edge of myself, fighting to keep my body from collapsing. People kept asking about my rash, how it had climbed all the way to my knees. “Are you okay?” asked a spry 80-year-old man from Ireland. “I don’t know,” I answered.
Around mile 37 came the church—and the breakdown. There I was, sprawled on the ground while one of my sisters knelt beside me. She offered sips of cold water, dramatically splashed some on my face and feet, and then fed me bits of brownie as if I were a fallen Roman soldier. I realised, in that moment, that this is what the Camino was about, too—the breaking, the falling apart, the moments when you can’t go on anymore and yet, somehow, you do, by leaning on the people around you—and accepting their questionable snacks.
By the time we reached Viana do Castelo, on day four and mile 55 in our itinerary, I was bone-weary, but in a way that felt more earned. And it was beautiful. We stopped for a meal—vinho, arroz de pato, and lamb. My mother would have loved this meal; she would have loved seeing us together, despite everything. I wanted to carry that feeling with me as we moved on.
The climb to the hostel at the top of Monte de Santa Luzia afterward was one I wasn’t sure I could make, but when we finally reached the top, the world seemed to open before us. The view stretched wide; the town spread out below like a living painting. The coastline curved gently, the deep blues of the sea blending with the sky as it turned amber and pink. Standing there, watching as the clouds rolled over the buildings, swallowing the town whole, I felt something like grace, the evening suffused with a light that seemed almost sacred.
Soon, after one week and 96 miles, we had left behind the coastal path and entered a quieter, more introspective part of the journey, through the dense woodlands of Galicia. The sun still beat down on us, but there was a shift, a change in the rhythm of things. It was green here—lush and comforting, the scent of earth and pine thick in the air—and the days started to blur together, demarcated only by the stamps on our passports. By night, the albergues were fragrant with hope and exhaustion, the traces of travellers come and gone.
I went to the pharmacy, where they told me I had a severe heat rash. My skin had been suffocated, unable to breathe, and the rash had spread like a protest. I needed hydrocortisone cream, new shoes and socks. My body, like my grief, had needed a release—to let things out, to give them space. It would take time, they said. And I found a kind of peace in that.
Our last day of the Camino, I felt the pull of the finish line, the excitement of completing something that had seemed impossible. But as we walked into Santiago de Compostela, there was also a sense of sadness, a longing for something that could never be captured again.
The pace of the walk had become familiar, my feet finding their way even when my mind was elsewhere. Home felt so far away now, I was not sure I wanted to go back. Yes, I missed the bathroom, the bed, the little comforts that make life easier. Yet here I was, living without them. Learning how to live without them.
I thought of my mother. I d carried her with me in ways I can t explain—through the wind, the birds, the rain-scented earth. She was always there, from the first Camino to this one, a presence in every step.
The Camino is wise; its lessons come slowly, mile by mile, day by day. It teaches you to surrender—to the journey, to the uncertainty, to the impermanence of it all. It’s about trusting the road to take you where you need to go, wherever that is. It’s about learning to leave behind what no longer serves you; that some people stay with you for a long time, others for only a moment. Yes, my ex-boyfriend was kind of right—I do have baggage. But it isn’t a burden. My grief is an extension of the love I had for my mother, and anything born out of love is worth bearing.
When we arrived at the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, we collected our final stamp, marking the official end of our journey. But as we sat down for our celebratory meal at Casa Marcelo—a Michelin-starred restaurant (how we ended up there, still in our sweat-soaked clothes, is another story)—I couldn’t help but feel that the journey wasn’t really over. Standing in front of the Cathedral, I knew I’d reached the end of something. Now, it was up to me to keep moving forward.