The first time I set off to walk the Camino de Santiago, my mother gave me some advice. Take your time, she said. Stop and look around. Sometimes the best views are the ones behind you. And for God’s sake, don’t write about it.
That was May 2023. Since then, I’ve returned eight more times, walking stretches of the Camino with friends and on my own. In July 2025, before wildfires closed part of the route for a period in August, I set out on my ninth and most challenging mission yet: walking 180km alone from the city of Burgos to Leon.
This route, known as La Meseta, is notorious as the longest, flattest, driest and most challenging section of the popular Route Francés. Even in mild weather, many pilgrims tend to skip it. I elected to do it at a time when temperatures would soar to more than 35 degrees daily.
Here’s how it went down.
RM Block
Day 1
Burgos (population: 174,000) to Hornillos Del Camino (population: 70)
Distance: 21km
My alarm goes off at 6.45am. It’s 17 degrees in Burgos. Only the sanitation workers have hit the streets before me. In a city park, I spot my first fellow pilgrims. They’re carrying full-length backpacks and their calves are bronzed.
That means they’re doing the entire 780km Camino Francés to Santiago de Compostela. Pilgrims with half-length backpacks, like myself, are incrementalists who pop in and do a week here and there, as work commitments allow.
I arrive in today’s destination of Hornillos just before noon. I sit on a bench in the shade drinking a can of beer from the local tienda as a stream of sweaty pilgrims stomp into town, shake the dust off their boots and introduce themselves. This is the pick-up crew I’ll be walking, eating and socialising with for the next few days.
One of them, Caolan Barry from Baldoyle, has been on the road since St Jean-Pied-de-Port in southern France. Whenever things are tough, he tells himself: tomorrow will be easier. Tomorrow will be all downhill.
The sun will come out tomorrow?
“Or better still,” he replies, “the sun will stay in tomorrow.”
Day 2
Hornillos del Camino – Castrojeriz (population: 803)
Distance: 20km
The guidebooks suggest day two is when the vast emptiness of La Meseta – the wide open skies, rolling wheat fields and long, straight dust paths – overwhelm the pilgrim and begin to induce some form of inner reflection.
But I haven’t time for that right now. I stayed in Isar last night, which means my new friends have had a 3.3km head start on me. Still I’m confident I’ll catch up.
This is partly because my backpack weighs about half that of the average pilgrim. I’m a ruthless packer. Including what I wore on the plane, I’ve brought:
- 3 T-shirts
- 3 boxer shorts
- 3 pairs of walking socks
- 2 pairs of shorts
- 1 pair of walking shoes
- 1 pair of sandals
- 1 smart shirt
- 1 toothbrush
- 1 passport
And literally nothing else. If I want to read a book, I use the Kindle app on my phone.
In Hontanas, I catch up with Tom from Detroit and Marie from Finland. Tom is a jolly, larger-than-life character with a Santa Claus beard. Back home, he writes op-eds about Sino-US relations for major publications.
He’s doing the Camino in memory of his son, who died from alcoholism. He asks how I ended up here. I tell him that after my father died nearly 20 years ago, my mother started walking the Camino regularly as a means to process grief.
She always asked me to accompany her, but I always said no. A few weeks before we were finally due to walk together, in May 2023, she was diagnosed with cancer. But she encouraged me to take my friends on the trip instead. (Oh relax, this isn’t The X Factor. She made a full recovery and we’ve since walked the Primitivo route together.)
Castrojeriz looks like one of those frontier towns whose bank gets robbed in a Sergio Leone western. JP from Canada is in the midst of a messy divorce. Over dinner he worries about its impact on his grown-up children.
Dave and Llani from Tasmania can sympathise. They’ve been married seven times between them. Dave is an AC/DC fan. On this trip his thoughts are with his 20-year-old son who is facing dismissal from the army after testing positive for a banned substance.
Doesn’t that substance disappear from the blood entirely after 48 hours, I ask? “Yeah, the silly bugger took it on Anzac Day and they tested his entire unit the next morning.”
“I’m not saying he’s an angel. But he’s a good kid. He deserves a second chance.”
Day 3
Castrojeriz to Frómista (population: 770)
Distance: 25km
Perhaps the Meseta’s only serious climb is just outside Castrojeriz. I ask Roberto from Hamburg if the German language has a word for that phenomenon, where, when you’re climbing a mountain, the crest of the hill just in front of you always appears to be the summit – but never is.
It seems like something the Germans would have a word for.
They don’t, he says. But those are compound words. You can make them up. He suggests Gipfelhoffnungstäuschung, meaning “false summit hope”.
On our descent, I spot someone struggling on the path ahead of us. It’s Caolan from Baldoyle. He’s been stricken with blisters. I can diagnose the problem – he’s wearing ordinary socks – but have no solution.
I’m not going to leave an Irish man on the battlefield. He limps on as far as Boadilla del Camino, where thankfully we run into Tom and Marie again.
Marie is a doctor and she’s able to treat him on the roadside. Once that’s done, I have my own question that’s been bothering me. Is it possible, I ask, that I drank 2.5 litres of water while walking the other day, but never went to the toilet?
“Of course,” she smiles. “You sweat it out of your system and it evaporated in the breeze.”
Day 4
Frómista to Carrión de los Condes (population: 2,005)
Distance: 20km
I slip out of Frómista just before 7am, hoping I might grab breakfast in the village of Población de Campos, just a few clicks down the trail.
When I get there, rubbish is piled high in the streets. Inebriated youngsters are slumped over on benches and windowsills talking gibberish. Yesterday was a local religious holiday. By the looks of it, this town threw one hell of a party.
I keep walking. Today is day four of my Camino. At this point, readers may reasonably ask, with three of everything packed, what am I wearing? That’s a valid question and one I am prepared to answer frankly. The truth is that, every afternoon, when I arrive in my hotel room, I soak my dirty socks, boxers and T-shirt, in turn, in the bathroom sink – adding a drop of whatever hotel shampoo or shower gel might remain after I’ve showered.
Then I rinse them, wring them out by hand and hang them by an open window so they’re drying while I join my friends for dinner. Is this a perfect system? No. But it is what it is.
That night I check into the rather fancy Hostel Real Monasterio de San Zoilo in Carrion. The receptionist points out that, although I’m being given a double room, I’ve only paid for one person. So I’m not permitted guests.
That dig feels a little unnecessary. After two wears, I’ve now got a combined five litres of sweat residue baked into my outfit. If I enticed anyone back to my room wearing these clothes, it would be an event so miraculous the locals would have to mark it with a new annual feast day.
Day 5
Carrión de los Condes to Terradillos de los Templarios (population: 59)
Distance: 27km
The 17km stretch between Carrión and Calzadilla de la Cuez is regarded as the most daunting of the entire Camino. There are no towns, no water sources, no shady areas and no escape. The flatness, straightness and sameness of route has driven some pilgrims to distraction.
All of that is true, but what the guide books fail to mention is that (at least on the day I pass by) there is a food truck reminiscent of something you’d see at the Electric Picnic parked and open for business at the 8km mark. It’s the best breakfast I have on the entire trip.
Day 6
Terradillos de los Templarios to El Burgo Ranero (population: 841)
Distance: 30km
By a picturesque field of sunflowers, I pause to allow a pair of YouTubers complete the shot they’re working on. The wife has stepped into the field and is twirling around looking suitably fabulous. There is a drone flying overhead.
When she speaks to camera, the wife says, “Each one of our Camino journeys is unique to us, and it’s important to embrace that.”
This is the longest and hottest stage of the week. In organising this trip, I let ChatGPT select my stops. It selected El Burgo Ranero as today’s destination. However, just after the town of Sahagún, the route unexpectedly splits – one path taking an exposed path to El Burgo Ranero, the other following the old, shaded Roman road to Calzadilla de los Hermanillos.
I’m the only walker who chooses the former. So I walk the final 18km entirely alone. Stranger still, when I get to El Burgo Ranero, it turns out the accommodation I’ve booked called Hotel Castillo El Burgo – which I assumed was the local hotel – is actually in a 24-hour service station on the side of a motorway.
I think about the YouTuber’s words this morning. Turns out my unique Camino journey today involved taking bad advice from an AI chatbot and spending the night in a petrol station.
Day 7
El Burgo Ranero to Mansilla de las Mulas (population: 1,913)
Distance: 19km
I can see mountains in the far distance. They rise up like the Rockies over the Great Plains. The end of La Meseta is in sight.
I meet Tania from Switzerland, who admits she cheated and took a bus yesterday. That’s nothing, I tell her. Caolan took a taxi, then checked into a hostel with a swimming pool. We might never see him again.
Day 8
Mansilla de las Mulas to León (population: 122,000)
Distance: 18km
There are 10 main Camino routes crossing the Iberian Peninsula, running a combined length of over 9,000km and converging on the city of Santiago de Compostela in Galicia.
La Meseta is only a small fraction of one of those routes. It ends in the beautiful medieval city of León. But León is not the destination any more than Santiago is.
The walk is the destination.
Kiwis Brendon and Björny flew 24 hours from Auckland to be here. They admit to being jealous at how easily European pilgrims can come and go. I mean, I could probably come back and do a 10th Camino in September if I wanted to.
Living in Dublin, it sometimes feels cheaper than staying at home.
So what keeps us all returning? Everything, I tell them. The aches. The pains. The setbacks. The whole universe of battle.
The only bad day I ever had on Camino was once when I decided to take a rest. I went out for coffee and had a gawk at the local cathedral. By 10am, I had run out of things to do.
I just couldn’t wait to get on the road again.
Friends I made along the way
Caolan Barry (28), from Baldoyle, Dublin
“My twenties were coming to an end and I realised I’d been going flat out for 10 years, between college and work. They say you can get burnout or bore-out – well, I had bore-out. So I said, you know what? I’ll take the nuclear option and quit.
The best thing about the Camino is just how easy it is to meet new people. Everyone is so friendly. I’ve made friends from the Netherlands, Hong Kong, South Korea and Mexico. The common suffering that everyone goes through on Camino is its own connection.”
Gráinne and Paul Enright, from Swords, Co Dublin
Grainne: “I first heard about the Camino 15 years ago. But it wasn’t until about two years ago after our kids had left home that I was able to go. Now I go every chance I get. Paul joins me when he can.”
Paul: “The Meseta is amazing. It’s kind of like middle America. Just endless, endless wheat fields. Or a Mondrian painting with just two colours. Straw on the ground and blue sky above.”
Tania (32), originally from Switzerland but living in Rathmines, Dublin
“I first heard about the Camino when a German comedian called Hape Kerkeling wrote a book about it. He was honest about it. He told the good, the bad and it was just very funny. So I recently quit my job and I thought, before I start something new, it would be nice to have some time to reflect. I’m not really spiritual, but then you look up and you’re surrounded by such beauty. Maybe you become spiritual because it is so beautiful.”
