One thought has been occupying my mind for the last hour or so, as we walk the final kilometer down into El Acebo.

And it’s a thought that occupies my mind a lot, when I’m walking on the Camino. And it’s how to maintain the feeling that you have whilst walking, when you get back home. It’s something that I haven’t managed to achieve yet.

Just walking down this mountainside amongst the wildflowers with the fantastic views of the mountains with no need to rush, we’ve got plenty of time to reach our stop for the day. As I look back, Pat is walking as slow as she ever has on this Camino so far, because every few steps she’s stopping to take a photograph.

So how do you actually maintain this sense of peace and calm and happiness? Do you wander various Caminos for the rest of your life? Do you put with the day to day to have your real life once a year on the Camino? None of that really seems like the answer, does it?

Somehow, there must be a way to take this feeling home with you so that you’re far more content in your day to day life?

But it always just seems so hard, when you get back to your real life, if indeed it is the real life, and you’re surrounded by noise, screaming neighbors, motorbikes up and down the street, pressures of work, and the like. Is that really what life is supposed to be like? That’s always the question that I’m pondering when I’m walking.

Maybe to maintain your sense of well-being, we just need to step back from the world that we have allowed to become our reality, into one which creates greater sense of peace and calm?

See Full Gallery: Foncebadón to El Acebo