my way or the camino

With the release of Emilio Estevez's new film The Way, about a man's journey along the Camino de Santiago, I began to reminisce about my own experience along the ancient route. The photos I had taken, now caged in an external storage device, were worth sharing, I thought, even if they can only skim the surface of what the 800km trek has to offer. Indeed, it would be senseless to recite to you the lessons I learned along 'the way' for the Camino would have other lessons to teach you were you to go yourself. This was my way.   

The Camino came to me in a peculiar way. In the winter of 2008 I met a Bulgarian man traveling on a bus in Morocco who had just come off the medieval Camino. He was careful not to tell me too much but after our meeting I couldn't stop thinking about how a month of walking would alter my life. I returned home to Quebec City, packed up my life and with only a 9kg pack I made my way back to the French side of the Pyrenees where European Camino routes converge and begin to head west toward Santiago de Compostela.

40 days and 1050kms later, I had made my way west along the North of Spain, reached Santiago, and pivoted South, walking backward along the Camino Portguese to Porto. This was my camino through a lens.