Go your own way
WHEN MY 74-YEAR-OLD FATHER asked me to walk a stretch of the famous Camino de Santiago with him to celebrate his 75th birthday, I said yes. “I’ll tell you now though, we’re not the kind of walkers who carry snacks,” he warned. We were to walk a 150km section of the Via de la Plata, one of the Camino’s lesser-known routes, carrying our own bags and staying in albergues, ranging from basic state-run hostels to family-owned lodges serving home-cooked dinner. We agreed on an occasional night in a hotel for a hot shower and fresh sheets. As an editor and travel writer, my job has spoiled me and the fancy hotels and exotic destinations I’m now accustomed to are a long way from the sticky camping holidays in France I grew up with. I wanted to test myself. But more than that I wanted to spend time with my dad. I’m one of four, and the last time we had quality one-on-one time together was when I was 21 and moved to San Diego. He flew with me half way, and we had a run ashore in New York. Since then he’s beaten cancer and had key-hole surgery on his knee. I’ve had one or two close scrapes as well, notably a car accident in Iceland which left me hanging on a cliff edge. Life is precious.
My dad joined the Royal Navy at 16. In his first term he learnt to navigate by memorising the pattern of the stars and taking astronomical sights. But you don’t need charts or maps to navigate the Camino. The way is marked by blue and yellow symbols that represent scallop shells. A knight, chased into the sea by heathens during the Moorish conquest of Spain, rose up from the waters covered in them, or so the Christian version of the story goes. My dad – an incurable scholar – believes pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela predates Christianity.
The route takes walkers to Fisterra, once considered the end of the world. It’s the westernmost point in mainland Europe, and the last place to watch the sun go down over the sea – and that’s exactly what the waymarkers look like. During our trip I often find myself thinking of the people from all over Europe who walked this way in ancient times to see the setting sun. They would have wondered where it was going; if it would come back. Burial sites that predate Roman times can be found on the cliffs there.
The route winds through the hills of Galicia, going through villages and cities, where keeping track of the way can be more difficult. Day one navigating out of Ourense I reach for my phone. While I’m still trying to work out which way the little blue compass is pointing and fend off the last of my work emails, my dad goes over to some complete strangers (cue me cringing like a teenager) and asks them. With huge smiles they clapped him on the back, wished him well, and pointed us on our way, taking the time to compliment him on his travel companion. “What an honour to do this with your daughter,” they said. “You will remember this for a lifetime.”
There are many differences between us. I’m artistic, chaotic and carefree. My dad is scientific, ordered and pensive. But I’ve never seen these differences on a plate before. At a truck stop where we fill up on flame-grilled steak, fries and a carafe of local wine, he neatly lines up the stems of his Padron peppers like spooning sailors round the curve of his plate. I toss mine in a pile on the paper tablecloth. At a seaside cafe in Fisterra, I spot the same difference as we feast on mussels. When I point this out he takes his fork and messes up the mussel shells, “There, is that better?” I felt sad to have hurt him, I meant it affectionately.
One night after dinner, when we are both so exhausted all we can do is sleep and eat, eat and sleep, we muse on how different our lives have been as we lie in our twin beds. It’s strange and beautiful having these intimate moments with my father. He feels life would be different if he’d gone to Oxford or Cambridge. His teachers wanted him to, but he felt it would alienate him too much from his family, and they couldn’t have afforded it anyway.
His dad was a bus conductor. I had the opportunity to go, yet chose not to. Jacket potatoes flew around the kitchen. But it wasn’t until that moment I realised the extent my decision had hurt him.
I like to think he learnt a few things from me, and about me, too. One day, after a tortilla and coffee for breakfast, we walked for hours in the rain and failed to find a stop for lunch. By 4pm I was ready to throw myself face down into a grass verge crying. My dad learnt that we are the kind of walkers who carry snacks, and from that day on miraculously produced an orange from his bag whenever it looked like my blood sugar levels were getting low.
And I took my dad to see his first sunset. Of course he’s seen countless sunsets, mainly from ships’ bridges, charting the exact position it set at to track their progress. But he’d never really seen one. So we walked the extra 3km to Fisterra, and sat on the cliffs at the end of the world and cemented our friendship forever.