Prior to my first Camino I spoke with a woman who had spent a week walking The Way. She stayed in hotels the entire time and had her pack ported from town to town. She was the first one to tell me that “Everyone does their own Camino.”

During my Camino, I wrote an entire blog post on that very topic. Upon my return, I contacted the  woman who had shared her wisdom with me. She had read the blog post  and wanted to tell me why she had her pack ported: she had a family member with special needs. Every day she felt like she was carrying more weight than she could bear. The Camino was her chance to let someone else shoulder her burden.

Her words stuck with me and I hoped to carry that lesson for the rest of my life. Who was I to judge? Rarely do we have the whole story, and even if we do, what good does my judgement do anyone?

Of course, living this lesson is easier said than done. Such was the case on day 3 of our Camino, when I walked up to the front door of the Corazon Puro, at which we had a reservation. The owners looked down on me and in very few words dismissed me: I had been told to arrive by 3 p.m. and it was 3:15. They informed me they’d given our room away.

I freely admit I had forgotten they had told me to arrive by 3 p.m. But four pilgrims who had stayed at this place had raved about how wonderful the owners were, and their curt dismissal left me stunned.

As I told Lois what they said to me, tears sprung to my eyes. I knew there must be some explanation for their attitude. But at that moment I couldn’t get over it.  Lois and I found a bench and sat down to talk about our next steps. We decided we’d go back to the bar we passed and call a taxi to take us back to Burguete, a town we walked through that we thought looked like a wonderful place to spend a night. On the way to the bar, however, we saw a handwritten sign that said, “Rooms.” Nearby another sign indicated the name of the place: La Posada Nueva. I recognized it from our guidebook and we decided to take a look.

I inquired in my broken Spanish, and asked the woman if we could see a room. She indicated that would be fine, but asked kindly for us to leave our hiking shoes in the space under the stairs. I was spent and flopped onto the couch. “You go look,” I told Lois. “I’m still too flustered to make any decisions.” Let alone climb any stairs.

A few minutes later I heard Lois exclaim and start laughing. She returned with a thumbs up, telling me two friends we’d met earlier in our trip were staying in the room next to ours. I breathed a deep sigh, unlaced my shoes, and hauled my bag upstairs.

That evening, over a meal home-cooked by the proprietor, we dined with our friends Mandy and Bill, another Rebecca we’d met the day before,  and a couple from–of all places–Asheville, NC. We shared our stories over our first course of  perfectly seasoned garden-grown tomatoes and cucumbers. We shared our greatest challenges during the main course of pasta with blue cheese, rabbit, and tortilla. The wine and laughter continued to pour forth as we devoured our apple cake for dessert.

The next day, friends that spent the previous night at Corazon Pura told us they were unsure why we were turned away–there were only three pilgrims in the entire place. I will never know, and have decided to let it go. Who am I to judge?