Another book about the Camino? Apparently, in spring a not-so-young man’s fancy turns to Spain–or there’s some unequal distribution in the pile of books I intend to read. I don’t remember getting this one, either, which might be a side effect of buying stuff on-line. But it’s an excellent book–one of the best things about the Camino Francés that I’ve read.

Robert Ward has walked the Camino Francés–the pilgrim path that runs between Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port on the French side of the Pyrenees to the cathedral city of Santiago de Compostela in the northwestern corner of Spain–five times. He wrote this book after his fourth pilgrimage. This is his second book about the Camino; in his first book, he focused on stories about the Virgin Mary. In All the Good Pilgrims, the stories Ward tells are mostly stories about the people he met on the Camino, a cast of unusual and sometimes comical characters: Julio, the aggressive, wheel chair-bound pilgrim, and his sidekick, Paco; Tony, the Canadian who is celebrating the remission of his Hodgkin’s disease; María, the pensioner pulling her belongings in a bundle buggy; and Nuala and Kara, two British pilgrims who get into all kinds of odd scrapes along the way. There are plenty of other characters in the book; whenever Ward takes out his notebook, someone worth writing about comes into view. It helped me understand why some people will walk the Camino Francés multiple times, instead of trying some other path; that route is the one that most people walk, and the more people there are, the more stories you hear.

Because he’s walked the Camino so many times, Ward knows where to stop and rest, and I particularly liked his accounts of the days he spent in Castrojeriz, one of my favourite towns on the meseta, the high plain in the middle of Spain. He also explains the strange Goose Game sculpture in Logroño–something I remember looking at and not understanding. In fact, Ward makes a number of suggestions about things to see and do along the way that would make any Camino a richer experience.

Ward also writes about things he learned during his pilgrimages, but since he is a seeker, not a finder, the book’s focus is on questions rather than answers. Given the temptation to assume that one’s pilgrimage will solve all of one’s problems, that approach is refreshing. But what makes this book unusual is the way it draws from multiple Camino experiences. Maybe you need to complete the pilgrimage multiple times to collect so many stories and characters. If you’re only going to read one book about the Camino, make it this one.

Ward’s web site is here; a short essay he wrote about the Camino de Santiago is here. The essay is worth a look if you’re curious about the Camino or Ward’s longer account of it.