I walked 500 miles.

I could spend time thinking of a more playful introduction, but the sentence above represents both the banality of my life at the time and the simplicity of the accomplishment itself. From May 4th, 2015, to June 15th, 2015, I was walking. Not running, not swimming; neither driving nor flying. Walking through little towns and big cities alike on the Northern coast of Spain, from the French border to a city in Galicia called Santiago de Compostela, in the West of the Iberian Peninsula. Looking back today, I’m skeptical that it even happened or that I did it. But I did, for what it’s worth.

By it, I mean the Camino de Santiago, a system of trails throughout Spain where pilgrims way back when would make the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela. There are many caminos; but the one with the most trekkers per year is the Camino Francés, which crosses over the Pyrenes Mountain Range and into Spain continuing on an interior path which carves through sunflower fields and poppy fields. I did the Camino del Norte, which starts in the Spanish city of Irún, following the coast until an inland turn at Oviedo. Again, there are many more – some shorter, some longer – but they all hold a religious significance, as these were the paths that were taken back in the day. Nowadays, however, people do this journey for a variety of reasons: to find themselves, to challenge themselves, and certainly to find their relationship with God. Personally speaking, I wanted to challenge myself and throw myself into something without too much planning and see what happened. Interestingly enough, you don’t have to do hours and hours of research and planning to do something like this. It’s simple. Walk. Eat. Sleep. And there’s a certain type of infrastructure that facilitates these three basic components of any given day. Along the way, in many towns and cities were albergues, special hostals designed to house pilgrims on this journey. These places are cheap, and after walking 20+ miles everyday, all you really want is a place to lay down, so there is no reason to be picky. Also in these towns (usually) was a bar or a little restaurant to eat at – most of which offered a special price for pilgrims.

If you’re still unsure about how this thing works, listen here: you wake up (usually around 7:00 am), strap on your walking feet (not to be confused with your non-walking feet), and walk. You walk until you see another one of those spray-painted yellow arrows pointing you in the correct direction, and then you keep on walking. Keep on walking until you find a town that has sitio (in other words, a place to lay down). This is hopefully around 1:00 pm. Once you find that, you should probably shower, but in all reality you may eat and then nap. Sometimes, you may wake up to a new day, in which case, the aim is to repeat the process. On average, I walked between 20-30 kilometers a day. Some days, more. Some days less. One day, I ended up walking 55 kilometers, which is equivalent to 34 miles. That was because after walking 28 kilometers, the albergue was full, making me have to walk another 27 kilometers to Llanes. I walked about 12 hours that day, and I’m lucky enough to say that that was the only day I got a blister. Many of my comrades were not so fortunate.

I met people from quite a few places around the world. I learned their incredible stories, and I did my best to enrich their lives as much as they had influenced mine. On the Camino, fellow pilgrims are all that you have, and you grow to realize that it’s important to value them, not as family nor as friends, but as human beings on this planet. You respect them.

I was a fast walker, not particularly by choice. It isn’t a race across the country. You are supposed to take your time, enjoy the view, think about things. But since I was young and more or less in shape, my strides naturally ended up being longer (and less painful) than most. This allowed me to keep going all day until I arrived at an albergue.

I would attack every uphill stretch as fast as I could. I’m a firm believer in getting to the top of a hill and then resting instead of resting halfway up. But by being able to treat it step by step, I was able to distract myself when things got boring. Oh yeah, did I mention? Walking can be incredibly boring.

Boring to the point where you start talking to different muscle groups and parts of your body asking them how they’re feeling. Some days I walked with others, but due to my fast pace, most pilgrims would end up falling back. On days where I walked alone, there was nothing to do except marinate in my landscape. And I think marinate is an accurate verb because you spend so much time passing through, but you make such gradual process. You soak in the environment. The birds, the roads, the farmland, the ocean, mountains. I think we are removed from this process of truly soaking in our surroundings because modern technology has allowed us to speed through our landscape. Hay tanta rapidez. We are coming, we are going. All the time. And we can only see it through the rectangular lens of the car window, going 50 miles per hour. I was humbled by this realization, and my interactions with and relation to my geographical and natural surroundings have been altered for the better.

This change in attitude, I’ve come to realize, counters beliefs about societal development and modernity. For us, a developed, modern society is one with a variety of key things: some form of infrastructure, buildings, and technology (among other things). But the more I thought about these three components, the more I realized that for the most part, we as humans prefer a landscape that has been manipulated in some way by humans. It asserts our dominance in some really weird, quirky way. Think about it: we mow our lawns. Why? Because the aesthetics of tall, wispy grass isn’t desirable. Depending on who sees it, it could be viewed as a sign of laziness, or even of socio-economic status. And as humans, we put so much value into these tokens of status that we coax ourselves into believing that one type of grass looks better than another. You don’t have to necessarily agree with me on this; in fact, I’m not even sure if I truly believe what I’m talking about. But it’s just a thought, an observation – call it what you may.

I could ramble about more weird thoughts like this, go on and on with stories, I could show a million photos, but I’m encouraging you – the reader – to step out of the comfort zone. I pretty much just threw myself at this. I bought the plane tickets, and really nothing else. I knew that if I just went, everything would sort itself out. And it did. I always had a place to stay (sometimes most times in incredible locations). I ate. There’s bars everywhere…  unless there’s not a bar (because sometimes there are dry spells). But you’ll always find a coffee within 10 kilometers.

If you want my recommendation or approval of something like this, well, you have it. Here you go. But seriously, I encourage everyone to do this. Some people may not have the money or may not want to spend the money, some people may not have the time, and some people straight up just may not want to do it. And that’s perfectly fine. I don’t blame them. But you can do it, because I did it. And I’m not different than anyone reading this. If you have questions, PLEASE contact me. I am more than happy to be a resource, and I definitely have a lot useful information that may or may not be available on the Internet.

Here are some links to get you started on your journey in, around, and through the beautiful Iberian Peninsula. The first is on El Camino del Norte, the route that I did. Below that is El Camino Francés, another well-traveled one. There are routes from Portugal as well. You’re bound to find it if you look on these two links right here.