Gear for the Way

When you walk the Camino de Santiago in the north of Spain, every item you carry is carefully considered, weighed in your hand, weighed in your mind. You need the essential gear, but you don't want to carry too much, straining your shoulders, blistering your heels, adding to the jumble to sort through day in and day out of the refugios where you rest and regroup before moving on. I only walked one stretch, a beautiful trek atop a valley that took me ultimately to the highest point of the camino, the Cruz de Hierro, or Iron Cross, where thousands of stones of atonement lie, thrown there by the thousands of pilgrims who have walked the Way. I threw my stone onto the pile, too, but not my Ghurka wallet.