An Unknown Camino

I had been living in Barcelona for 5 months when I quit my job to set out, on my own steam, on a more unknown Camino.

A Catalan language guide book I had found in my local library revealed a path of the Camino de Santiago which begins in Catalonia (the most trodden trails are on the opposite side of the peninsula).

My trek began in the mountain monastery of Montserrat, where (equipped with my Pilgrim's Pass) I slept for free. The next morning monks in the monastery tolled the 5am bell. I stepped out the door to face a sunrise which revealed why the mountain was chosen by the monks.

The way was marked by yellow stripes. Yellow stripes, not crosses. For a reason unknown to me still, I ignored the stripes and followed the crosses. It also still stuns me that I didn't think something amiss when the yellow stripes (and crosses) were absent altogether. Instead, I pursued red stripes owing the colour change to 'weathering'.

Not knowing where I was going, I ended up somewhere else. Several hours of side tracking, back tracking, and red stripes or yellow crosses brought me upon Sant Cristòfol. My phone had died several hours earlier—the pilgrim bunks had no electrical sockets—so my reliance on Google Maps failed me.

The small urbanisation of Sant Cristòfol had a welcoming map in a square. Once I had spent enough time worrying at my guide book's crude map and noting how it resembled nothing on the village's more extensive one, I gave up on my own steam. Then, striding through the church yard, came a handsome man. I think his name was Christopher, but I might be confusing his and the village's name. In any case, he was a saint. My Saint Christopher of Sant Cristòfol.

As I struggled to form the word 'perdido' and managed to recall the word for lost in Irish, French, and Japanese before Spanish or Catalan, Christopher guided me to his home. He refilled my near depleted water bottles and produced an array of maps. We both exerted ourselves over the maps until the two of us were fed up with the language barrier. St. Christopher then produced another miracle —an Australian.

With the language barrier torn down (and a clearer idea of where I was) we did as any Irish woman, Spaniard, and Australian would; we went for beers.

We spent the afternoon chatting in the sunshine and when the worst of the heat had passed, my saints drove me down the road to shorten my journey to the next town.

That night I sat nursing my bunions. My own steam would not have been enough.