One Step at a Time

John Ingersoll

I would never have thought of myself as someone who would, or should, embark on a somewhat extreme physical challenge. Sure, I played sports growing up and have always enjoyed being outside. But I am not, and have never been, an elite athlete: I have worked in the insurance industry for 35 years (so in addition to not being an athlete, I’m old!) and, for the past five-plus years, have been head of strategy for a $7-billion-plus insurance company. My days are spent mostly at a desk in front of a computer, a decidedly sedentary existence.

Nevertheless, after several years of thinking about it, and working to convince my wife, Irene, to come along, I decided last year that I was going to walk the Camino de Santiago, a 1,200-plus-year-old pilgrimage that ends in the western Spanish city of Santiago de Compostela.

My mother was Ines de Gorostiza Fernandez Oliva, a proud Spanish woman. She and I had talked about the Camino in 2009 when we were planning to travel together to Spain for the wedding of her nephew (my cousin). Sadly, Mom was diagnosed with cancer and died 88 days later and did not make the wedding or the Camino.

I’m not a big believer in the power of numerology, but there was something about 2024 that felt like the year if I was ever going to walk the Camino. First, my mother would have turned 90 in 2024. My father passed away early in the year. My parents would have celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary in May, and their honeymoon had taken them to many of the towns the Camino would take us through.

Meanwhile, 2024 featured other significant family moments. My daughter got married, and it was the year our first grandchild was born. Irene celebrated a milestone birthday, and the year also marked the 50th anniversary since she and her family came to the United States from the Soviet Union.

As I saw it, I could either walk in 2024 or wait until 2034, but who knows what shape we’d be in then? We hatched the plan and started to research what the Camino was all about and what we were in for.

Pilgrims and adventurers

Back in the Middle Ages, Catholics from the far reaches of Europe packed up a few belongings, what little money they had and embarked on the long trek to a cathedral in western Spain where, supposedly, the bones of the apostle St. James are entombed. For over a thousand years, the Camino de Santiago was a strictly religious pilgrimage made to show devotion to God and the church.

In the past two decades, though, these Camino routes have exploded with walkers—some of them showing devotion to God and church, others seeking a nonreligious spiritual experience and others just looking for an adventure. In 1990, the number of “pilgrims” who reached Santiago de Compostela and received a certificate of completion was under 5,000. In 2024, over 500,000 people walked one of the several Camino routes.

There are quite a few of these paths, and they all end in Santiago de Compostela, but they start in different places. Back in medieval times, when there were no planes, trains or automobiles, the Camino started at your front door, so realistically there were many ways to get to Santiago. Over time, the routes became more recognized, and today there are perhaps a dozen “official” Camino routes that, when followed, allow the pilgrim to receive their certificate—or “Compostela”—when arriving in Santiago. Some Caminos are long—500 miles or more—and others are around 100-120 kilometers. As long as the pilgrim walks 100 kilometers along a recognized Camino route, they can receive a Compostela.

While I am not an elite athlete, I also would never want to be called a “turi-grino”—the term by which Spanish locals derisively refer to people who treat the Camino as a short walking vacation—so I quickly decided if we were going to embark on this spiritual journey, we would take one of the more ambitious routes—the “Camino Frances,” or French Camino.

Starting in the little French village of Saint Jean Pied-de-Port, it makes its way over the Pyrenees Mountains into Spain and then crosses almost literally the entire country to reach Santiago—some 500 miles with a cumulative elevation gain of nearly 50,000 feet. Breaking this down over a normal walking schedule, our days would average 13 miles with a 19-mile day and a few 17- and 18-mile challenges. The route also crosses three mountain groups or ranges with some notable days that would be both long and uphill.

Before embarking on this ridiculously ambitious trip, we realized some training would be required. Fortunately for us, we live in the Bay Area, which has a multitude of hiking trails of every conceivable length, elevation and terrain. Much of our preparation was in Sonoma and Marin counties, but we also did many walks up and down the streets of San Francisco and just around our neighborhood when there wasn’t time for a full hike.

We started walking 3-4 miles, then increased the walks to 5-7, adding some elevation. One weekend, we made our first “two-digit” hike, crossing the 10-mile mark. Then we decided we needed, at least once, to prove to ourselves that we could do a 15-plus-mile walk, which we did. And then tacked on another 17-miler just for good measure. We continued to increase our elevation challenges as well and enjoyed “eating up” hills. Finally, we were ready.

Traveling light

One reason I wanted to do the Camino was to spread my mother’s ashes in Spain. As soon as we crossed into the country from France, we scattered the first of her ashes. Every few days, we spread some more in places we felt she would have enjoyed. Since my mother only drank red wine from Spain’s Rioja wine region, I spread a fair amount of her ashes in a Tempranillo vineyard in Rioja, under a vine full of grapes ready to be harvested.

Unlike some well-known U.S. thru-hikes like the Appalachian Trail or the Pacific Crest Trail, we were not camping and did not need tents or other camping gear. But we needed to have all our clothes and gear in our packs. To keep the weight down, this meant carrying just three of everything—shirts, pants, socks, etc.—that we could wash every few days. Throw in a rain jacket, rain pants, toiletries, medical supplies and an extra pair of shoes for the post-hike evening, and the packs filled up fast. Mine weighed about 23 pounds—not super-heavy, but you feel the weight after the tenth mile or so each day.

The Pyrenees crossing was long, steep (about 4,700 feet of elevation) and, for us, rainy, cold and muddy. Thankfully, for the rest of the trip we only saw light rain on three other days.

Although the Camino meanders through some larger cities (Pamplona, Burgos, Leon) and many little villages, it is really a nature walk. The majority of the days are spent walking through some of the most beautiful scenery, including mountains, rivers (lots of rivers—sometimes multiple per day), forests, meadows, vineyards and valleys, and past cows, sheep, goats and wild horses. Some pilgrims opt for the “authentic” pilgrim experience and stay in churches or in dormitory-style hostels stacked with bunk beds where everyone shares the restroom facilities. This was not going to fly with Irene (and, to be fair, didn’t appeal much to me either).

We decided that we would seek out lodging where we had our own room and bathroom. Often, we would be in a very basic hostel and other days we found something that could actually be called a hotel. But our door closed and locked and only we used the shower and toilet, which was all we needed.

On a 500-mile hike, food is fuel. We quickly realized how important it was to have some at hand at all times, especially on stretches where the villages could be more than 10 miles apart. Also, because we walked later in the season (ending in November), many bars, restaurants and hostels were closed until spring, making getting food a bit more complicated.

Never again . . . maybe

Sometimes we walked alone. Other times, we walked with people we met along the way. Some days we talked a lot, while some stretches we were quiet and more contemplative—“walking meditation,” I call it. Remarkably, we were able to spend our entire time walking with a 100% information blackout. We avoided social media, news, sports and work, and even limited interaction with our family. When the Camino ended, we learned that our beloved Dodgers had won the World Series. Further evidencing the success of our total outside world blackout, we had no idea who won the presidential election until the following week, when a TV in a bar we were in gave it away.

Somewhere along the way—maybe 150 miles in—my left foot started to bother me. I assumed it was tendonitis but didn’t want to visit a doctor and get the inevitable advice: “Take a few days off.” So, on we walked with the benefit of lots of ice and stretches recommended by Dr. Google. The foot didn’t get better, but we managed to finish the 500 miles on schedule and arrived in Santiago de Compostela the night before Irene’s birthday—what a gift! Tired, relieved, grateful, happy, but mostly numb and in disbelief. We had done it. As soon as we got there, we both promised we would never do something like this again (although this past weekend we both started saying “wouldn’t it be nice to . . .”).

We have two memorable collectibles from the trip. The first is our “Compostela”—the certificate that says we did the Camino de Santiago. The second is our “pilgrim passport” which contains dozens of stamps that we collected along the way from hostels, hotels, bars, restaurants, churches, hermitages and monasteries. Oh, and hundreds of pictures that we look at frequently to bring the details back to life.

When I got back to work a few days later, I was about 30 pounds lighter and still buzzing from the Camino. I felt lighter of spirit also and as close to “Zen” as I am capable of being. I was also anxious to get caught up on all the work that had been underway during my seven weeks of paid time off.

Miraculously, everything was where I hoped it would be and I was able to finish a big project and close out the year strong. Although I did not think about work on the Camino, I think about the Camino a lot at work to this day. I work mostly from home and the computer in my office there has a rotating series of Camino photos as its background. These photos help ground me when things get stressful—which is most days, because I came back from my seven-week PTO and promptly got promoted. In addition to Strategy, I have assumed the roles of CEO/chief of staff and leader of the company’s Strategic Program Management Office. Echoes of the Camino regularly remind me not to let things I cannot control overwhelm me and also help me prioritize what to think about (and worry about) in a given day.