Paige Fowler: Making it to Foncebadón

“This is horrible. Why wouldn’t Dr. Mentley mention that this was horrible? He’s literally having us climb Mt. Olympus… I just don’t understand why this would be part of the walk. We just climbed to like 40,000 altitude.... up there has to be the top. It has to be.”

This is the exact script of a moment that still triggers a bit of trauma in my mind—and it’s a moment from my Honors College Breakaway. In this moment, I am a brat. I am whining and complaining because after already spending two weeks in Spain, completely alone and learning Spanish in a solely Spanish-speaking household, I’m on the Camino de Santiago (an extremely long, extremely tiring ancient pilgrimage route in northern Spain). This was my first day on the Camino, and I was walking from a town named Astorga to a town named Foncebadón. It was a hike of about sixteen miles, which seemed formidable but doable. What I didn’t know is that the last few miles of the day required me to climb almost 2,000 feet in elevation.

I didn’t know Spain would be like this. When I decided to come to Spain in November 2016, visions of tapas and siestas filled my mind. I thought my time in this country would be challenging, but not traumatizing—I would get my classes done, then hop on the Camino and that was that. I was always pretty good at studying languages and I was always relatively athletic, so I thought I could handle this monthlong escapade with minimal struggle.

In this moment, I am taking a break: I am sitting on a log with my shoes off. I’m cleaning the dirt out of my socks and I have grass on my back from where I had just spent five minutes laying on the ground, cranky and completely defeated. My travel companion—my mother, who’d flown to Spain to accompany me for the first few days of my journey—was recording me for our Day 1 video diary. At this point, my mom and I (but mostly me) were beyond frustrated—we were following our map and GPS closely throughout the climb, and all signs were pointing to Foncebadón being just over the next ridge. But we would walk for twenty minutes and still not be at the summit. Then we’d walk another twenty minutes and still not be at the summit. We went through this process probably five times until we were both mentally and physically exhausted. Every time we thought our stopping point was minutes away, our hopes were dashed. So I’d had about enough, and I sat down to complain.

“Pilgrims are supposed to suffer,” I remember telling myself as I pulled my socks back on my blistered, swollen feet. I took a class on the Camino de Santiago with Dr. Mentley before coming to Spain; I knew that, traditionally, pilgrims are supposed to endure physical and emotional distress during their journey on The Way of St. James as a sort of religious penance. But at the time, I remember thinking “Well I’m not here for religious reasons: I’m just here to fulfill a university requirement. Why should I have to suffer, too?”

I get up—with much protest from my lower back and calves. I’d been walking for seven hours straight, and the last two hours were uphill. It was in this moment, as I stood up from the log with sore muscles and a quickly fading resolve, that I thought about quitting.

The thought surprised me and, frankly, kind of scared me. The daughter of two soldiers, I grew up pretty athletic and strong-willed; I thought two tough parents and a stubborn personality to boot would’ve prepared me for this journey. I thought about my bedroom back in North Augusta: all sorts of soccer and cheerleading and hockey and softball trophies littered the walls, assuring me my whole life that I was strong and smart and capable. But I’d never felt this sort of exhaustion before, and I still had ten days of walking left. “You can’t even get through the first day: what makes you think you can walk 160 more miles?,” I asked myself. I began to imagine my exit strategy: I would turn around, walk down this mountain, get in a car, and get myself back to Madrid. I’d spent the rest of my Breakaway in a hotel, spending my days shopping and eating tapas. Forget this Camino.

But despite my daydreams of flight, I knew there was nothing else to do but keep going. Despite my grievances, I knew I couldn’t quit: it just wasn’t practical and, honestly, I knew I couldn’t have lived with myself if I gave up on Day 1. So I kept going, and just fifteen minutes after my breakdown, we arrived in Foncebadón.

I began my Day 1 journey at 9:41 am in Astorga. I arrived in Foncebadón at 4:52 pm.

I think my Breakaway taught me that it’s okay to take it easy on myself. I can’t expect to be good at everything and perfectly prepared for every obstacle I face. I’ve always been very much in control of my life, because I’m Type A to a fault—a trait I inherited from both of those solider parents. So I’m always on the go and always ready to tackle any situation at hand without ever worrying if it’s too much for me. I think my Breakaway gave me a much-needed slap in the face; it was a reminder that it’s okay to fail. It’s okay to be exhausted. It’s okay to want to give up. I went into this Breakaway just trying to fulfill a university requirement, but I got more out of this experience than I ever could have imagined. As cheesy as it sounds, I learned what matters is that I continue to put one foot in front of the other—sometimes literally—each and every day, one day at a time.

I arrived in Santiago de Compostela on June 1, 2017.

Paige Fowler is a senior English, Professional Writing major from North Augusta, SC. In May 2017, she studied Spanish at TANDEM International School in Madrid and later walked 172 miles on the Camino de Santiago, an ancient pilgrimage route through northern Spain. She will graduate from Lander in August 2018 to pursue a career in editing or publishing.