The Transition
I am sitting in the airport lounge, surrounded by the hum of a world that never stopped moving.
After fifteen days of walking through the rugged heart of Spain, the noise here feels strange. People rush past me checking watches, scrolling through phones with an intensity I had almost forgotten existed.
Just a few days ago, my only “deadline” was the setting sun.
My only “meeting” was with the steep incline of a mountain path.
Now, sitting here between departure gates and duty-free stores, I find myself slowly rewinding the film in my head.
I look down at my hands—tanned, weathered, rougher than when I arrived—and think about the miles they carried me through.
I think about the paths I crossed, the strangers I met, and the things I finally understood.
Over this past month, I carried a lifetime of emotions in my backpack: fatigue, fear, pain, uncertainty, and defeat—but also laughter, joy, connection, and a sense of relief so deep it felt like breathing properly for the first time in years.
The Decision: Brave or Crazy?
When I first told people I was flying to Spain to walk the Camino Primitivo, I saw the look in their eyes.
Some saw adventure.
Others clearly thought it was late-onset madness.
To be honest, sitting here now, I am still not entirely sure which one it was.
The Primitivo is known as the “Original “Way”—the oldest, steepest, toughest, and most isolated Camino route.
Why did I choose it?
At the time, I told myself it was for the challenge.
But the truth runs much deeper than that.
I think I chose it because I needed to know whether the person I had become—through years of business, responsibility, stress, investigations, and the constant noise of “real life”—was still capable of being just a human being in nature.
Not a title.
Not a business owner.
Not a strategist.
Not a public figure.
Just a man walking.
Whether it was bravery or ignorance no longer matters.
What matters is that it changed me.
Before I left Australia, “The Camino” was simply a famous trail I had read about.
Now, it feels stitched into my DNA.
The Illusion of Being “Ready”
In my life and career, I have always been the man with the plan.
I do not like surprises.
So naturally, I prepared for this pilgrimage like I was launching a major company operation.
I bought the best gear.
I studied maps until I could see the turns in my sleep.
I had daily kilometres calculated, accommodation booked, recovery snacks organized, and contingency plans prepared.
I genuinely believed I had mastered the Camino before I had even stepped foot in Spain.
But mountains do not care about spreadsheets.
I remember the second day vividly.
Rain hammered down in sheets. Mud pulled at my boots like wet cement. My “perfect” plan was collapsing by the hour.
I stood on a hillside completely soaked, exhausted, and frustrated, asking myself the following:
“What on earth am I doing here? Why did I think I could do this?”
That was the first true lesson of the Camino:
Humility.
You realize rapidly that your titles, your bank account, your followers, your achievements, and your past victories mean absolutely nothing when you are climbing a steep mountain in a thunderstorm.
On the trail, everybody becomes equal.
You are simply another human being in a yellow poncho trying to reach the next village before dark.
The Argument with Nature
Modern life has insulated us from reality.
We move from air-conditioned homes to air-conditioned cars and climate-controlled offices. We usually feel comfortable now.
We have forgotten what true exhaustion feels like.
It wasn’t “I had a stressful day”-tired.
I mean, bone-heavy tired.
Soul-heavy tired.
The kind of exhaustion where every uphill step becomes a negotiation with yourself.
During that first week, I constantly fought nature.
I was angry at the rain.
I cursed the wind.
I felt as though the trail itself was personally trying to defeat me.
More than once, I cried—sometimes from physical pain, sometimes from frustration, and sometimes because silence has a way of forcing buried emotions to finally surface.
Nature made me feel small.
Insignificant.
And strangely… that became healing.
Because somewhere along the trail, something shifted inside me.
Instead of fighting the mountain, I began listening to it.
I realized the rules of nature are actually very simple:
Move when you can.
Rest when you must.
Pay attention to where you place your feet.
That is all.
The Primitivo taught me patience.
In modern society, we demand immediate answers, immediate success, immediate validation, and immediate results.
But mountains do not move faster because you are impatient.
Rain does not stop because you complain.
The only thing you can do is continue walking.
One step.
Then another.
Then another.
And eventually, you realize the silence you feared so much is actually the peace you have been searching for your entire life.
The Weight We Carry
As a businessman, I spent years believing that “more” automatically meant “better.”
More growth.
More opportunities.
More projects.
More responsibilities.
But on the Camino, “more” becomes your enemy.
Every unnecessary item in your backpack eventually punishes your joints, your energy, and your spirit.
By day four, I was already throwing away things I had considered “essential” only days earlier.
And somewhere along the trail, that became a metaphor for my life.
How much emotional weight do we carry every day?
Old grudges.
Regrets.
Unnecessary fears.
The need to impress strangers.
The pressure to constantly prove ourselves.
The Camino strips you down emotionally the same way it strips down your backpack.
It forces you to decide what is truly worth carrying.
Along the way, I met an eighteen-year-old girl from Germany walking because she did not know what to do with her life.
I met a seventy-five-year-old man from Italy walking to say goodbye to his late wife.
One afternoon, we sat together on an old stone wall sharing an orange.
In that moment, none of our differences mattered.
Not our age.
Not our education.
Not our professions.
Not our countries.
We were not our résumés.
We were simply pilgrims.
Three human beings sharing silence beneath the Spanish sky.
The Quiet Victory
People often ask me:
“What was the best part?”
Most people expect me to say that reaching the cathedral in Santiago was the best part.
But honestly, that was not it.
The best moment happened on an ordinary Tuesday afternoon.
I was exhausted. My feet were throbbing. I sat beneath an old oak tree somewhere in northern Spain with absolutely nothing spectacular happening around me.
And for the first time in a very long time, I was not thinking about emails, deadlines, obligations, taxes, responsibilities, or expectations.
I was simply there.
Present.
And suddenly, I felt something I had not experienced in years:
Enough.
I was enough.
The moment was enough.
Life was enough.
The Camino does not hand you a trophy.
It gives you something far more valuable.
It quietly hands you back pieces of yourself you did not even realize were missing.
The Return
So here I am now, sitting at the gate waiting for my flight home.
I am returning to my business, my responsibilities, and the noise of the “real world.”
But I am bringing the mountain back with me.
And perhaps that is the true purpose of the Camino.
Not escaping life.
But learning how to return to it differently.
To my readers:
You do not need to fly to Spain to find this transformation.
But you do need to find your own “Primitivo.”
Something that challenges you.
Something that strips away ego.
Something that forces you to sit with silence long enough to finally hear yourself again.
Whether you are eighteen and just beginning your journey, or seventy-seven and reflecting on the road behind you, remember this:
Nature is always waiting for us.
Patient.
Tough.
Honest.
I left with fear, doubt, and uncertainty.
I am returning with a quieter heart.
My backpack is lighter.
But my life feels infinitely fuller.
Buen Camino.