Oviedo to Santiago de Compostela, onward to Finisterre and Muxía | 600+ km
It’s difficult to put into words what the Camino Primitivo has meant to me. Even now, with my boots off and the sea behind me, I still feel like I’m walking. There’s an ache that isn’t in the legs or shoulders but in the heart. The kind that comes from doing something deeply meaningful and then having to let it go. I began this pilgrimage with gratitude just to be walking again, to follow the yellow arrows out of Oviedo and see where the road would lead. What I found was more than I could have imagined.
The Camino Primitivo is called the oldest, the most rugged, and in many ways the most demanding of the Caminos. For me, it was also the most intimate. These days from Oviedo to Santiago, and on to the sea, were not just a journey through mountains, valleys, and villages, but a passage deeper into myself. From the first steps, the climbs came fast, the descents tested my knees, and the forests of Asturias gave me silence so complete it became a companion. Yet I was never lonely. Solitude on this Camino carried its own kind of fullness. An invitation to pray, to reflect, to simply be present with the sound of boots on wet earth.
Crossing into Galicia was a threshold moment. The landscape softened, the rhythm shifted, and the hills seemed to whisper, you are closer now. Long mornings of solitude gave way to afternoons of reunion with familiar faces. Santiago, when it came, was not the end but a luminous pause. And beyond it, the Atlantic waited. A breathtaking reward that taught me the Camino’s final lesson: endings are always beginnings.
The Camino Changes You
Each pilgrimage leaves its mark, and the Primitivo shaped me in ways both subtle and profound. It was harder than my others. Steeper, quieter, more physically demanding. But it was also gentler in spirit. It gave me silence when I needed silence, companionship when I needed company, and challenge when I needed to be reminded of my own strength.
This Is Not the End
The Camino doesn’t end in Santiago, or even at the sea. It continues in the way you live, in the way you walk through the world afterwards. Its lessons stay with me now: to walk with presence, to hold silence as a friend, to greet strangers with kindness, and to keep moving forward; one step at a time.
Buen Camino, always.
“You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose.” — Dr. Seuss
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