Let me start with a small correction: I didn’t start at five, as I said in the video. I actually set out a little after six, and by the time I reached Almadén de la Plata, I had walked 28.4 kilometers. I arrived around two in the afternoon—hot, drained, and ready to collapse. This was only my second day on the Via de la Plata.
I was supposed to start in Seville, but nothing went as planned that day. Instead, I took a bus to Guillena and began walking the next day. In Guillena, I stayed at Luz Hostel, paying 15 euros for a very minimalistic albergue. There was no toilet paper at some point, no soap, and the air conditioning didn’t work—but I shared the room with two sweet ladies, which made it more bearable.
The next stop after Guillena was Castilblanco de los Arroyos, 18.7 kilometers away. The municipal albergue there was a delight—so clean, so well-kept, and run entirely on donations. It’s amazing to see such a place maintained so beautifully.
The Via de la Plata demands a lot—not only because of the heat but also because of the long distances with almost nothing in between. There aren’t many people walking this path, which makes it feel quiet and solitary.
This Camino has always been in the back of my mind. When I first walked a Camino in 2023, I dreamed of taking on the Via de la Plata—but I didn’t dare. A thousand kilometers felt impossible, far beyond what I believed I could handle. Instead, I chose the Portuguese Camino, and later the Primitivo. Even before that, my very first taste of pilgrimage was with my son when he was nine—we walked the last 150 km of the Camino Francés together.
Now, after having walked 200 km along the Fisherman’s Trail on the Portuguese coast, it felt like the right way to wrap up many months of my spiritual journey with one last, long pilgrimage.
After these journeys, I feel stronger. The Via de la Plata, with its Roman origins stretching all the way north to Santiago de Compostela, is quieter, harsher, and more solitary than the better-known caminos. And maybe that is exactly what I need right now: to walk through silence, heat, and distance, to let the road demand everything from me—and to discover what remains at the end.
There is a short video following this text. The goal is to share a short video every day with reflections that pop up on the walk—but let’s see if the energy is there.
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