It's here!

My Illustrated Camino Diary

by Nupu Press

Links to purchase on Amazon worldwide are below, thanks!

How hard could it be, right?

Sure, I’d never hiked before, but I liked to walk. This didn’t involve camping or anything that intimidating. And this was in Spain, for goodness’ sake! I could do it. Right?

After planning it for seven years, I finally walked the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage trail in summer 2022. It turned out to be like nothing I had anticipated.

And it changed my life.

I kept a sketchbook diary “live” so each day of this intense month was captured as it happened. I wrote, drew and painted after I finished walking for the day, never knowing what was around the corner, or how I would be transformed by the end of it.

This is that diary. It is out now! I hope you enjoy it!

Here’s an impromptu 5–minute chat with Rubaiya Ahmad about how the diary came about, and a bit about the process behind it. (Forgive the sound quality – it really was impromptu!)

More videos!

Printing the book!

A short intro (and flip through).

The decision I made on the first day that changed everything.

Reading the back blurb.

Bangladesh friends! The paperback is available from Bookworm, Gulshan 2, Dhaka. Phone +8801779–790130

My Illustrated Camino Diary by Nupu Press

Artist and writer Nupu Press kept a daily sketchbook diary of watercolour art and text as she walked the Camino de Santiago in Spain.

The famed historical walk to Santiago de Compostela, which she begins 720km (447 miles) away in Pamplona, is full of shocks and surprises. She scrambles to find medical help for her injuries, then a wobbly tooth, not to mention a pair of shoes that won’t destroy her feet, and a place to sleep each night. Her impeccable packing list did not prepare her for this. Soon, she falls into an easier rhythm fuelled by the kindness of the community and hard-won lessons in perseverance, but bigger questions begin to loom large. Where is she really going – in life? What does she want? And who even is she?

Nupu captures every agonising and glorious moment day by day in this unique illustrated diary. Funny, thought-provoking and revelatory, we witness her transformation in real time as she learns to honour her own heart.