I had quite a lot of silence in my early weeks of walking from Le Puy, beginning in mid-April last year. The Le Puy route is much quieter than the
Camino Frances. It still has plenty of people on it, but you seldom seem to actually see too many of them, until you stop for lunch, and then again in the evenings. Or if you are a relatively slow walker like me, you do get to greet people as they pass by.
In my early weeks I was walking 'alone' and was one of the few English speakers along the route. (But after three weeks of sharing gites with mainly French speakers, it was amazing how much my French improved!!)
During my early weeks of walking I had many moments of 'silence' along the way, and they were precious moments. Sometimes I just rejoiced in the landscape I was walking through, in the small or large details. Sometimes I thought about my life back home, and all the people that I knew. Sometimes that meant I treasured them all the more, and sometimes I came face to face with some guilt over how I had neglected them. Quite often, irreligious as I often pretend to be, I spoke to God/Jesus along the way, often having conversations about how hard I found it to 'believe'. And other times, I just walked, and was at peace, without thinking much of anything. The rhythm of walking had its own being.
I'm pleased I had that time of quiet.
It was quite an adjustment for me in many ways to arrive in Spain, where it seemed much harder to find that quiet. I won't forget the sight of the early morning 'rush hour' of pilgrims as we left Pamplona! From books I had read, I was somehow expecting the Meseta to be a place of some silence, but I was surprised to find that for me, it wasn't. You seldom seemed to be out of sight of others, and villages actually mostly seemed a lot closer together than they were in parts of rural France. Though to be fair, maybe I had already had my 'thinking time' in France, and my walking was all about rhythm here.
The biggest shock to me in terms of 'lack of quiet' was the day I left Sarria, especially the last kilometres into Portomarin. Suddenly the path seemed to have been invaded. There were those that had loud mobile phone conversations as they walked; there was one person who carried a huge ghetto blaster, blasting his version of music loudly through the forest. I found all the noise and busy-ness almost too much. That evening I seriously considered just getting a bus to Santiago to finish, and not to worry about getting a Compostela. But by morning, I felt calmer again...and am glad I never missed out on walking through so much lovely Galician countryside!
I have to add though, that though I was glad I had the times of quiet that I had, I also enjoyed the company of others. In Spain especially, I walked quite often with a couple from Quebec, and we walked all of the last 100km together. I was glad to finally stand in front of the cathedral in Santiago with them, having arrived together.