The day I jumped Chesterton's fence

The older I get, the harder it is to bear the long, cold, dark Czech winters. They suck the life out of me. Reminiscing about sun-filled Spanish adventures helps. So, here comes a sunny story…

Years ago, when I was backpacking across western Europe, I was hiking in the foothills of Mount Tibidabo on the path of the Camino del Norte, one of the pilgrimage routes to Santiago de Compostela.

One day, I decided to stray from the Camino path. It turned out to be a humbling day. I got a terrific lesson about the danger of hubris. It was also a beautiful day.

Let me paint a picture for you… After spending the first week on beautiful forest paths in the Basque Country hills, I found myself trudging through the flat lands of Cantabria for another week or so. The problem is that the Cantabrian part of the Camino consists mostly of walking on the road. Constantly walking on the tarmac is taking a toll on my feet.

When you are walking on a forest path, even a rocky one, each step stresses the foot differently. The tendons in the leg alternate and help each other, and you can walk for weeks without problems.

But on asphalt, every step is the same. Every impact stresses the same tendons. And my tendons can’t handle it anymore. They hurt. Sharply and incessantly. I thought I had flat feet or bad shoes, but when I asked other pilgrims, I found out many hated walking on asphalt as passionately as I did.

Yesterday was particularly grueling. I wasn’t paying attention to the beautiful surroundings; all I could think about was how painful each step was. The stretches on dirt roads brought immediate relief. Unfortunately, there were desperately few of them. I arrived at the hostel in El Pontarrón physically and mentally destroyed, went to bed around eight in the evening, and immediately fell asleep like the dead.

In the morning, encouraged by coffee, I examine the map for today’s route. The Camino del Norte, marked in blue, goes along a first-class road. So with the pain, I’ll also “enjoy” the traffic. The section after that looks more promising, but a closer look reveals it’s also mostly the road. So I’m in for a similar misery as yesterday. This really ruined my mood.

As I stare at the map desperately, I notice the red route along the coast. That looks like a beautiful coastal path with sea views. Jesus Christ, why didn’t they take the Camino that way? Do they think anyone enjoys dragging themselves along the road all day? Morons!

Should I follow the official Camino route or take a shortcut along the coast? I’m not here to obediently follow the prescribed path. After all, I was drawn here by the desire to roam freely. Feeling liberated, I’m leaving the real Camino and heading towards the sea.

It’s early. The sun has just risen and is starting to illuminate the mountaintops. It’s still shadowy and cold in the valley. I walk quickly to warm up - my feet are surprisingly OK, considering how wrecked I was yesterday.

I emerge from the valley. There is a beautiful beach. No one around - am I the only one who decided to escape the road? Are all the others such sticklers?

It looks like a sunny day. After yesterday’s crisis, my fighting spirit is back up - I’m suddenly looking forward to today. I like it here.

Why didn’t they take the Camino this way? I keep thinking about it. Does anyone really prefer walking along the road? The path here is sometimes overgrown. You have to push through the ferns, but it’s so much better than struggling along the roadside and watching out for passing cars.

I reach a cove with a small beach. I rest for a while and think about one strange thing I’ve noticed about myself. I feel great in places where there are no people.

Even though I consider myself a sociable person, one thing happens to me surprisingly often - when I am somewhere in the mountains where you can see for miles around, and there’s no one, I suddenly feel so free… and for reasons I don’t fully understand, I feel like I have escaped from prison, it’s an amazing feeling, and it makes me laugh out loud like a crazy person.

After a pleasant moment of staring at the sea and pondering life, I get up. The path starts to climb uphill. Looks like I’m going to have to exert myself a bit.

The following photo shows how difficult it is to photograph the slope so that you can see its steepness. You point the camera up, which makes the path look horizontal in the photo, but in reality, the slope is quite steep.

Half an hour later, I’m sweating profusely. The sun is blazing. I stop and admire the view. A photographic frenzy takes hold of me - I am trying to capture the beauty, but most photos are overexposed. I’m not a very good photographer and don’t have a good camera, just a phone, which can’t handle this excess of sunlight.

I circle around a huge bend of the mountain. I’ve been climbing its slope for about an hour. The further along the coast I get, the steeper the slope becomes. It’s now so steep that I ponder how easy it would be to stumble and tumble uncontrollably down to the rocks in the sea. I’m walking very carefully now.

I am getting close to the inaccessible-looking cliffs under the peak. I get that tingling feeling in my stomach, like when you lean over the railing of a lookout tower, the fear begins to reverberate, but you act as if nothing’s happening because you don’t want to embarrass yourself in front of your friends.

It’s getting harder to convince myself that it’s still completely safe. I don’t do well with heights. My imagination is too vivid.

I get right under those cliffs and can’t believe my eyes. The path doesn’t continue under them, as I was sure they would, but upwards into them! There’s no getting around it; further along the coast, what started as a very gentle slope an hour ago turns into an unforgiving cliff. The only way to continue is straight up. Suddenly, it is very clear to me why they led the Camino along the road and not this way.

Under the steepest part, I wonder for a moment if I’d better go back. The path claws its way skyward between the rocks with a two-hundred-meter drop behind my back. Reason tells me it is as safe as the “Grandma’s Quarry,” a popular hiking path near my hometown, suitable even for sprightly retirees. But I carefully hold on to the outcroppings in the rock and dare not look behind me.

I get over the top of the cliff and am surprised to find that I am not at the top of the mountain yet - the climb continues, thankfully not so steeply. I stand on the edge for a while - or, to be precise, about a meter from the edge, as I’m a little dizzy - and look around in amazement. This place was worth the effort. I breathe deeply and let the wind cool me. Then I look for the way forward - the path is overgrown with tall grass, barely visible.

I briefly enjoyed the comfortable walk on the flat. Then the slope rises again. It’s terribly rocky here. I forget to take photos and enjoy the views - I have to watch where I step. Sometimes, I climb over more than a meter high stone steps. It is hard work.

It’s scorching hot. In the last hour, I’ve gotten about five hundred meters further. I often have to go back and look for a more passable way. Occasionally, I scramble up a particularly steep section. When I look up to see which way to go, I squint directly into the sun. Sweat runs into my eyes and stings. Sometimes, I need to stop, lean forward, and let my eyes tear up for a moment before I can see again.

I expect it will start to be more passable any minute now, but instead, it’s getting worse and worse. Suddenly, I’m in the middle of a steep slope full of large boulders - I carefully step on them, feeling them creak and wobble under me. I shudder at the thought of them starting a stone avalanche that could crush me easily.

Something’s not right. I haven’t seen even a hint of a path on the stones for a long time - I continue wherever it seems at least somewhat passable and thoughtlessly assume that it must be the right way. Now I realize how stupid this approach is. I finally remember that I have Mapy.cz on my phone - why didn’t I think of that earlier?

I pull out my phone, but my hands are so sweaty that the touchscreen doesn’t work; I try six or seven times. I wait for the GPS to load my position. When I finally see my location on the map, my stomach tightens. I’m a few hundred meters off the red route.

For a second or two, I feel a wave of panic. Until now, I’ve been reassuring myself that it must be safe here because they would not mark a tourist path through a dangerous area. The danger is just in my head, I thought. Now I realize I’ve foolishly climbed somewhere I really shouldn’t have.

I swear out loud. As usual, curse words bring relief. I remember my friend David and the saying he lives by - “Dude, calm down.” That’s what I need to do now, to calm down. The main thing is not to start panicking. I sit down on a rock that looks stable, slowly sip water, and think.

The best idea seems to be to return to the last place where I was still on the red track. I don’t want to do it. Going up was difficult. Going down will be even worse. But it’s probably better than trying to find another way - who knows where I would end up. I’d had enough of discovering my own path for the day. I will humbly return to the beaten track.

There’s nothing to wait for - I want to be out of here as soon as possible. I slowly start to descend. I try to concentrate and not make a mistake. Clumsily, I climb down from stone to stone like enormous stairs - the fronts of my thighs are so overloaded that they start to shake. On big boulders, I sit on my butt and grope beneath me with my foot until I find a foothold.

Finally, I’m back on the trail - it follows the contour line under the slope I tried to climb. How could I have made such a stupid mistake? On the other hand, now that I’m writing this, I also feel a bit of pride. Friends, you know how I can sometimes stress myself out over the most trivial things. This time, things got tough - and I managed to focus and get out of it.

In the following moments, I intensely perceive the beauty of the surroundings. The sun, the sea, the wind… I feel exhilarated. So when I encounter the last trap of this mountain, it’s a bit of a shock. A comfortable path through a grassy meadow turns around a rocky outcrop above a cliff that drops steeply about 200 meters into the sea.

It’s a beautiful path. There’s even a rope stretched along the rock for support, but the view down, the idea of falling into the depths, just slipping on the wet grass, or momentarily succumbing to vertigo and losing my balance… suddenly I feel like it’s a bit too much for me today.

Why on earth did I think the Camino route was chosen by morons who just didn’t consider the brilliant idea of using the beautiful coastal path instead of the road? Why didn’t it occur to me that maybe they knew what they were doing and had a good reason to avoid the coastal path? I assumed I was smarter than them, and now I’m stuck on a cliff above the sea.

I sit down heavily and try to gather myself. I even think about returning all the way to El Pontarrrón, but that would mean I would have to climb down those rocks from the plateau, which I previously climbed up with my butt clenched. The path in front of me is actually quite safe. It’s just a mental thing. I gather courage for only a minute or two.

I can’t wait to see what’s on the other side. If there are more traps, I’m really curious how I’ll get down.

I regret not taking a photo right above the cliff, but it didn’t occur to me at the time. I didn’t look around much - I wasn’t in the mood to enjoy the view. I was just eager to get to that rope. It wasn’t until I had a firm grip on it that I looked down and saw several eagles circling below me. I tell you, when you see eagles from above, you feel high enough.

With both hands holding the rope, I carefully walk around the rock pillar. When I get past it, the tension falls off me and is replaced by euphoria. I find a comfortable stone to sit on and enjoy the view. It is breathtaking.

Perhaps it’s the adrenaline that I’ve pumped into my blood over the past few hours, but I feel excited and full of energy. The air smells wonderful, the colors are brighter than usual, and I feel alive. I walk slowly, stopping every now and then to soak it all in.

The bay beneath me looks like it’s within arm’s reach, but it takes me more than an hour to get down. On the rocky passages, the path is not visible. I have learned my lesson and occasionally check my position on the phone.

At the foot of the mountain, I come across a hut whose owner I envy for this place. My shortcut off the Camino ends here. I return to the official route.

Even down here, it’s surprisingly empty. I walk past the ruins of an abandoned old house. I’m not in a hurry - I’d love to wander around here until night, except I’ve run out of water, and I’m starting to get thirsty. I have to continue to a village.

Another pilgrim suddenly emerges behind me, a German named Tilman. I’ve bumped into him two or three times in the past week, but we’ve never talked. I immediately ask him if he also went over the mountain - I’m so full of impressions that I need to share it with someone who experienced it too. But Tilman came here from the road.

We walk past the remnants of something that was probably some old-timey crane for pulling things out of the sea. Tilman goes to inspect it up close. I prefer to sit for a while. I’m starting to feel tired. I look at the clock and can’t believe it when I find out it’s barely noon - I thought it was at least four in the afternoon.

We walk along the coast and after a while arrive in a town. We pass a church. I’m not religious, but beautiful Spanish churches are my soft spot, so I stay for a bit. Tilman continues on; he wants to get far today.

A little further down the road, I come across another church, even nicer than the first one. I buy a beer in a nearby shop, sit on a shady step, and rest.

I don’t know if it’s the beer or the endorphins from fatigue, but a strange mood takes over me. Physically, I’m destroyed. My legs are killing me. I’m sunburned because I was so busy getting lost that I forgot to apply sunscreen. But mentally, I feel as light and happy as I haven’t in a long time.

My original plan was to rest for a minute, hydrate, and then continue to find a nice place to get lunch. But I like sitting on those stairs. One more quick stop at the store to get bread, cheese, and another beer, and I return to enjoy the stairs for two blissful hours.

I perceive everything so intensely. The sheer delight of sipping a cold beer, the peace of sitting for a while and taking off my shoes, the pleasure of eating a crispy baguette.

I need to get across the bay to the town of Santoña, where there’s a hostel. The boat ride across the bay is beautiful. Everything seems so gorgeous and sunlit that I want to whoop with excitement like a kid.

I find a hostel, take an incredibly pleasurable cold shower, and head out. I can barely drag my feet, but the desire for an evening stroll along the waterfront wins. I buy dinner - another baguette, jamón, and half a kilo of tomatoes. I enjoy it on a bench. Several passers-by smile at me and wish me buen provecho - I gratefully nod and smile at them with my mouth full and tomato juice stains on my t-shirt.

The sun is setting, and a fiesta begins in the town. For a while, I listen to a band in the square. It’s loud and peppy, with the audience shouting and clapping to the rhythm. I can barely stand on my feet. I want to stay outside and soak up the atmosphere, but I can’t physically endure it any longer. I’m done for today. I have to go to sleep.

As I lie in bed, tired and sunburnt, I keep re-living the moment when I, scared and dizzy, walked around that rocky outcrop and emerged high above the bay. Today was one of the best days I’ve ever had.