The summer after my first year of college, I chose to participate in an experiential learning opportunity offered by my school where I would hike across France and Spain with other students and professors for a couple of weeks. I believed hiking the Camino de Santiago would be an opportunity for me to grow, and I was not disappointed. Last year, over 260,000 people hiked the Camino. In honor of it being almost exactly a year since my trek across Europe, here are a review of the lessons I learned from my travels, photos I took along the journey, and chronicles from our trip.

1. Walking Can Hurt

Anyone who tells you otherwise hasn’t hiked 170 miles in the span of a couple of weeks. Hiking the Camino showed me how much I can handle and tested me like no other experience I have ever had. Even on the first day of hiking, I was already in a lot of pain. Our first day was a 21 km (13 mile) hike. Though it started out fairly flat and straight and looked like a park trail you could find in the United States, I began having pain in my left ankle. Over time that day, I began to limp, attempting to reduce the pain. Towards the end of our hike, the shade we had been graced with at the beginning of our hike was gone. By this point, my ankle had become very agitated and my limping was dreadful. Every bit of pressure placed on it hurt. I was in the back, far behind the rest of the group, so I could not ask for a break. Even if I had yelled, they would not have heard me. When we finally reached our destination, Auvillar (pictured above), I had a painful knot in one of my shoulders. One of my hiking companions gave me a massage to try to get rid of it. It didn’t go away.

On July 1st, my dad's birthday, I wrote in my journal, “Today was the most physical pain I think I’ve ever experienced.” It was our first hike in Spain, and our first 30 km (18 mile) hike. I did not have any blisters on my feet, but they were always in pain, even when we were done hiking for the day. It became a ritual when daily hiking was done or when we were taking a break to either loosen our shoelaces or completely remove our shoes and socks to massage our feet, no matter where we were. I expected to find blood when I took my socks off at the end of the first hike through Spain. To my surprise, there wasn't any. I only had calluses on the bottoms of my feet. Some of us even invested in foot cream specifically designed for pilgrims whose feet were in pain. That became my favorite possession throughout the duration of the pilgrimage.

2. Pay Attention to the Signs Your Body Gives

On the second day, the hiking in the middle of nowhere began. We woke up at 6:30 in the morning, already sore from one day of hiking, and we had ten more miles in store for us that day. It was much hotter than our first hike, and the terrain was more hilly and difficult to amble through. My head began getting this fuzzy feeling that would hit in waves. It would last for a couple of seconds; my head would feel like it was shaking and the fuzziness would come causing my vision to blur. Then, it would be gone as quick as it came. After it happened repeatedly, I mentioned it to the group. They said I was probably becoming overheated and that I needed to sit down in the shade and drink water. They also gave me a bandana that was drenched in cold water to place around my neck. The blurry vision never returned.

3. You Can Make It To The Front Of The Pack

Your mindset becomes your outcome. After a couple of days of continuously falling behind, I decided that I no longer wanted to be in the back of the group. I wanted to lead. When I made that decision, I was at the tail of the pack and promptly began passing everyone until I made it to the front with one of the other hikers. That day, him and I got to La Romieu (pictured above) first and laid down on the ground for about an hour before the others started to show up. Him and I had amazing conversation throughout our 11 mile hike and found out how much we have in common.

Interestingly enough, that morning I had bought two bracelets, one of which the vendor had pointed to after I bought it and said it was lucky. She told me to think of what I wanted to happen and it would. After that, I continually walked in the front of the group and, despite a few exceptions, maintained my lead. That day completely changed my mindset and my trip around for the better. I was now more involved in the Camino since I actively had to look for signs of where to turn. I felt accomplished whenever I would arrive first or pass another member of our group. Sometimes, they would look at me surprised, which motivated me more. My proudest moment was when I was the first person to reach Santiago, the end of the pilgrimage. Despite the difficulties I faced, I realized that changing my pace required nothing more than changing my viewpoint, continuing on despite the pain, and using it as fuel rather than viewing it as a burden. The person who trailed the rest of the group became the person who led the rest of the group. I am proud to say I sat in Santiago a long while before the others showed up.

4. Know Your Limits

The hardest day of our journey was July 3rd, our second 20 mile hike in a row. My feet were already aching at 9:30 in the morning when I took this photo above. I had no clue at that time what the day had in store for the rest of the group and I. Thankfully, my knees and ankles were not nearly as much of a problem as they had been the day before, but I described in my journal how my feet felt: “The feeling is a pulsing ache that does not go away until you get off your feet, and even then, it takes awhile.” I took the lead of the portion of the group I had been with for the afternoon. Eventually, I could not see them behind me anymore, nor could I see the professors or one other student who had gone in front of me. It hurt every time my feet touched the ground, but I kept going. I took a pain pill which did not seem to be effective. After taking a break to hydrate, use the bathroom, sit inside a cafe, and buy a banana, I figured the others who had fallen behind me had probably passed me. I kept walking for a short while, and then stopped again in a small village. This village was completely silent. There was not a soul to be seen. It was an eerie feeling, as if for the time being, I was the only person in the world alive and left to fend for myself. I had not seen a trail marker so I wondered if I was even going the right way. I stopped and reapplied sunscreen in this ghost town and never saw a single person the entire time I was there.

By this point, I was making “I’m in pain” noises, similar to a whimper, but no one was present to hear them but me. I continued walking until I was out of the ghostly town. I played music out loud on my phone to try to distract myself from the pain. Still, it was hard to ignore. I eventually had to shut my phone off to preserve battery, in case of an emergency. I was beginning to feel paranoid. When was the last time I had seen another person? It seemed like it had been too long. It was now 6 in the evening. We had begun hiking at 7 a.m. It usually did not take us this long to get to our destination. Was I even close to where we were sleeping for the night? There was no one in sight to ask for directions. I was alone, in a foreign country, and uncertain of my precise location. I was unsure what was in store for me around the next bend in the road, trail through the woods, or over the next unforgiving hill.

I finally came to an albergue, and I hoped that maybe this was where we were stopping for the evening. There were a lot of people, but I knew none of them. So, I continued walking. Then, realizing that I did not know when I would see other people next, I turned around and went back. I approached two women and asked them if they spoke English, because I was too exhausted to attempt speaking a foreign language. They said no. So, I asked them in Spanish, “How many kilometers do I have to go until I make it to Portomarin?” They said 5. I smiled, knowing that I was so close to my destination in relation to where I had begun that morning. I continued on, feeling encouraged since I knew relatively how much farther I had to go.

However, the pain was relentless, and now I was having to walk downhill. I learned the hard way on the Camino that when you are fatigued and in pain, walking downhill hurts more than walking uphill. It seems counterintuitive, but after hiking for hours a day and waking up every morning to hike more, our ankles, legs, and especially the bottoms of our feet were in agony. Though it was not pleasant trekking up steep hills and left us sweating and out of breath, hiking downhill put more pressure on our joints, since we had to fight against gravity to prevent from plummeting to ground. Therefore, walking downhill felt more like stumbling, bitter agony than relief.

I finally came to a man sitting on a stone wall, alone. I asked once again in Spanish, “How many kilometers am I from Portomarin?” He said 3. So I kept going, knowing that this dreadful hike would soon come to an end. I began passing roosters that were roaming along the road I was hiking on. I was not sure if I would be able to hit them with my walking stick if they flogged me, so I steered clear of them. I walked for what still felt like forever, but there was no Portomarin to be found. The sun was beating down and I was alone. I imagined all of my companions already in Portomarin, enjoying their dinner without me. The pain was so intense that I began to cry, but I forced myself to stop, because it prevented me from seeing where I was placing my feet. The last thing I needed was to fall.

I finally reached a town. At last, Portomarin! Or so I thought. I contacted one of my professors and they said I should have passed a bridge and saw one of the professors waiting. I spun around, looking in all directions for a bridge. I could not believe I was not there yet. There were no other towns in sight. Was I even walking the right way? I had not seen anyone from my group since I broke ahead of some of them. I could not even remember whether I had crossed a bridge or not. I began wandering aimlessly through this little town, groaning from the pain. There was no place to sit down but in dirt. That was good enough for me. I contacted one of the other students in my group, asking where they were. Him and three other group members were at the 93 marker. I was at 91.5. I thought they had passed me after my break, but they were still behind me. I decided to rest and wait until they reached me. While I sat there, waiting, I imagined them never passing by where I was sitting, never finding me. The group member I contacted had told me that one of them was a little ahead, so I began yelling her name, hoping she was close enough to hear, but no one was there. I began to cry again.

Suddenly, she came around the corner. I said her name and she said mine. I was so happy to see her, until I saw her face. She looked utterly defeated. She had told me a while ago that she was not much of a crier, but there were tears in her eyes now. “This is my first official cry of the Camino. I have been done since 10 km ago,” she said. I replied, “I’ve been done since 9:30 this morning.” “Well,” she began, “We are almost there. Do you want to walk this last kilometer with me?” I nodded and began putting my pack back on. We started walking along the wall that led to the edge of town. We were just about to leave the town behind forever when we heard people screaming our names. We turned to see the other three coming around the last corner of the village behind us, so we walked back to them. They told us that they had contacted the professors who were in Portomarin and they were getting us a cab. We all dropped our backpacks to the ground and sat on the stone wall to wait.

If any person had come along at that moment and laid eyes on us, they would have thought we had lost our minds. Of our group, some of us were in tears and holding one another, some were laughing hysterically, some were cursing and yelling, and some were engaging in a combination of the above. It was a bizarre moment to have experienced, as if we all had lost our ability to properly regulate our emotions. It felt like we were not in control of ourselves, like our reactions were no longer ours, as though someone else was pulling the strings for the five pilgrims sitting on the wall. We were later told that this experience may have been due to us suffering from heat exhaustion and physical exhaustion. I was told later that one of our group members had thrown up earlier that day while hiking. Therefore, I am glad the professors called a cab for us when they did. After what happened on that hike, they gave us the following day off to rest.

5. You Never Know Who You'll Run Into Again

On our rest day in Portomarin, after eating a nice dinner, we went to look through some local shops. We were walking past a beautiful Church that had a plaza in front with a stone wall that people were sitting on. I saw a woman sitting there alone, reading a book. She had glasses, long dark hair, and a pretty sweater on. I told my friends that I thought she was beautiful. They responded with, “Well, you should go tell her.” I walked up to her, and some people sitting behind her watched me as I approached. They smiled as if they knew what I was going to do. I stood a couple of feet away directly in front of her while she read her book. In a matter of seconds, I decided I had changed my mind, and turned around to walk back to my friends. When I reached them, I tore a piece of paper out of my journal and wrote the words “Creo que eres muy bonita” which means “I think you are very pretty.” I walked up to the girl again, who hadn’t noticed me the first time, because she was so consumed with her book. This time, though, she looked up at me. I smiled and handed her the note. She looked slightly confused, but smiled warmly at me. As soon as she took the note from my hand, I turned around and walked swiftly back to my friends. They told me the details: she had unfolded the note, looked up at me, looked down and read it again, and then looked up and smiled. We walked back to our albergue, and I felt rather triumphant knowing that I had made someone’s day. I figured I would never see her again.

After the next day of hiking, when we reached our destination for the evening, we went to the church to get our pilgrim books stamped. To my disbelief, there she was, sitting in the courtyard on the stone wall, just as she had been the day before. She was reading and wearing glasses and a sweater just like the first time I saw her, only this time in a new town. It was like reliving the past. What a coincidence that we were resting in the same place two nights in a row. What a coincidence that I found her the same way I had the first time I ever saw her. My friends urged me to go talk to her. I gave a number of excuses, saying that she probably did not want to be disturbed while she was reading and that I should not bother her two days in a row, because that would be a little excessive. Of course, I was just scared. She left and I told myself, once again, that I would never see her after that.

Yet, when we made it to our next resting town the following day, one of the professors leading the trip told me that she thought she had spotted her (yes, by this point my entire group was just as wrapped up in this as I was). However, this time, she had been spotted staying in the same albergue as us. It seemed unreal to me, that she and I would coincidentally stay in the same town for three nights in a row, but also that out of all the albergues that she could have stayed in or we could have picked, we were in the same one. At this point in the Camino, we were not staying in remote areas so it seemed odd that she continuously appeared to be around every turn of our journey. That night, I was strategically journaling in the lobby of the albergue, hoping I would finally work up the nerve to speak to her if she walked in. She did. She glanced up, greeted me in Spanish, and then continued to her room, as if she did not recognize me. I went to sleep, feeling defeated. My chance to speak to her was lost.

The following day, we made it to our place of rest around lunch time. We were sitting outside a cafe in the afternoon, enjoying our meal, when she walked past and continued into town. I could not believe it, but I thought to myself, maybe she is continuing on and staying in another town. Later that evening, my friends and I were outside of a different cafe, a little ways down the street, and she walked right past us again. My friends were urging me to stand up and talk to her, telling me it was fate, but I wouldn’t do it. To our surprise, the people sitting behind us knew her and called out to her. They invited her to sit. So she did, right behind me. My friends were giving me looks and nodding in her direction. This was the fourth night our fates had brought us within feet of one another. She was sitting so close that if I reached out, I could tap her shoulder. So after an internal pep-talk, I turned around and did just that. She turned to face me and smiled the same warm smile she had given me the first day I saw her. I said, “Do you speak English?” She nodded. Then I said, “Do you remember me?” She said, “Oh, yeah!” We talked for a short while and then suddenly the other people at her table were urging me to sit with them, and so I joined an already overfilled table, one with many friendly strangers. They mostly spoke Spanish and I struggled to keep up.

I finally got to speak to the girl I had first seen four days ago. She told me her name and that she was from Argentina. When she got up to leave, she gave me a kiss on the cheek, which is a custom in her country, even with acquaintances. That was the last day I saw her, but several months later, when I was certain I would never hear from her again, I received a Facebook friend request.

The next day, we hiked the final stretch of our pilgrimage. As our journey drew to a close, I was the first of our group to reach Santiago, the first to lay eyes on the cathedral. I sat down against a stone pillar, and reflected on all that had happened. Though our second 20 mile hike in Spain seemed dreadful at the time, had it not occurred, we would not have had a rest day. Had we not rested for a day, I would not have given a note to a girl. Had I not given a note to a girl, it would not have been significant that I ended up seeing her in every town we stayed in for the next four nights; it would not have been significant that she stayed in the same albergue as our group one night. Had these occurrences never happened, I may not have ever gotten the opportunity or the nerve to tap her on the shoulder. Had I never tapped her on the shoulder, I would have never known how wonderful she was. I sat alone in the plaza and watched a never-ending stream of pilgrims file through the tunnel and into the plaza. They cheered and took pictures with the cathedral. At long last, they had made it.

And so had I.

Lastly, here is a video of our journey: