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Buen Camino
By Rachel E. Lukawitz
Genre: Non-fiction
Category: UAA/ADN Creative Writing Contest

Sometime in the weeks immediately following the death of my husband, a friend suggested I watch the Reese Witherspoon movie Wild. Based off the autobiography by the same name, the book and movie tell Cheryl Strayed's story of hiking the Pacific Crest Trail by herself in the 1990s. Lost as I was in grief and depression, a long walk like that sounded perfect. Shortly thereafter, a Facebook friend posted: "The husband gave me permission to hike the Camino de Santiago if I can find someone to do it with me. Anyone want to do this? Bonus points if you speak Spanish." I read her post while on a break from my second job. I had never heard of the Camino, but a quick google search revealed it to be a nice long walk. I commented on her post that I spoke mediocre Spanish and wanted to join her. My friend recommended the movie The Way which is about walking the Camino. After watching it, I was all in. One year later, my friend and I flew to Barcelona, Spain where we hopped a train to Lèon and the start of our two-week quest as peregrinas (pilgrims) to hike the final 309 km/192 miles of the Camino Francès. Buen Camino.

            I have always been a shy, introverted person who clings to friends and family. On the first day of college, I remember entering the dining hall with my roommate, whom I had just met, and begging her, "please don't leave me, I don't know anyone." In my relationship with my late husband, Jim, we were a perfect match of codependency. We rarely did things apart and I certainly never hung out socially with friends outside of training runs for the many races I used to complete. I was not worried about the social aspect of the Camino because it's safe to do alone and my level of social interaction was whatever I would choose it to be. Even with my friend, we knew we would start each day's hike together, but we did not need to stay together the entire day. She was at least half a mile ahead of me most of our days. There was only one day where I maintained a lead on her as she nursed a minor injury.

We leap frogged with several other peregrinos: a married couple from Albany, NY; two men from South Korea; a mother daughter duo from Winnipeg, Manitoba; single women from Denmark, Germany, Australia, and France; a single man from Germany; and many others. Peregrinos cheer each other on, they wish one another a buen Camino, they share experiences (don't stay at such-and-such albergue [hostel], I hear they have bed bugs), they share medical supplies, and at the end of the day they share a pilgrim's feast together if they so desire.

Several people asked me why I was on Camino. Everyone has their own reason. Frequently peregrinos hike the Camino for religious reasons; the Way is rooted in Christianity. I told anyone who asked: "I'm lost. I have been lost since Jim died. I'd like to maybe find myself."

It quickly became apparent that I had not trained sufficiently in my hiking boots for my Camino: my feet swelled and developed terrible blisters, and I had a very difficult time walking. I learned more than I wanted to know about blister treatment. The unfortunate thing about crippling blisters on Camino is that you must walk on unless you have time budgeted for rest days. Or you can take a cab and cheat yourself out of miles.

Our third day on Camino ended at a tiny mountain village called Foncebedòn where we checked into an albergue with a fantastic vibe. I had given up on my hiking boots that morning due to massive blisters on my heels and climbed that mountain in flip flops. After a shower and taking time to doctor my feet with medical supplies gifted by the Albany couple, I sat fireside with a glass of wine (wine is so inexpensive in Spain!) and relaxed. A table of peregrinos invited me to join them for dinner (paella, salad, bread, cheese, salami, and ice cream), and I shyly sat down. It ended up being my favorite night of my pilgrimage. Admittedly, the three glasses of wine helped loosen me up and increased my ability to socialize, but the atmosphere of the albergue and the kindness of my tablemates was a salve for my soul. The wine also helped me feel more comfortable when we went upstairs to the bedroom. Albergues are often co-ed with rows of bunk beds lined up. This albergue had beds pushed together, so, I ended up essentially sharing a bed with a woman from Australia with whom I had just dined. She joked, "I'll bet you didn't expect to get lucky your third night in!" It certainly was outside my normal, reticent bubble and excellent for forcing me to adapt.

The next morning, we climbed two more kilometers up the mountain to reach La Cruz de Ferro. This iron cross is 1,504 meters / 4,934 feet above sea level and is an important location for peregrinos. Many peregrinos carry a stone or some other token with them to leave at the cross. It rises from the middle of a mound of rocks left by decades or even centuries of peregrinos. I carried with me a small round stone from our saltwater aquarium that Jim had picked up at Point Woronzof in Anchorage, Alaska when we had vacationed there in June of 2014. Alaska had been Jim's dream vacation. We spent eighteen days exploring Anchorage, Seward, Fairbanks, and Denali National Park. We were surprised that Anchorage felt like home to us both; I had never felt like I belonged at any of the places I had previously lived, and we were not sure we should trust how comfortable Anchorage felt after just eighteen days. We decided we would return for a full month in September of 2015, however, Jim died six days before our great Alaskan trip. When I left his stone at La Cruz de Ferro, it was a surprisingly emotional moment for me. It symbolized another end to my relationship with Jim and another step in finding out who I was as a single person.

My blisters were causing me so much pain by day eight. We had not allowed time in our schedule to rest, so my friend and I decided that she would walk the 18.7km / 11.6 miles without me while I would take a cab to our next stop, an actual city: Sarria. I needed to have time off my feet, but I really needed to find a sporting goods store so I could buy different shoes. My feet were too bandaged and swollen to fit into my hiking boots and I had been hiking in cheap flip flops for several days. I needed better footwear options.

I had never used an Uber, Lyft, or taxicab in my life; that form of transportation was so far outside of my comfort zone. Once my friend departed for the day, I sat in a restaurant in the tiny village of Triacastela and cried over my breakfast. I was so scared. I was all alone in a foreign country where I was only mediocre at speaking and understanding the language, and I had to figure out how to hail a cab and explain to the driver that I needed to buy shoes. Terrified.

After breakfast, I managed to successfully ask the waitress to please call a cab for me. Once the taxi arrived, I was able to adequately explain where I needed to go and that I needed to buy shoes. Towns located along the Camino are full of people who love to help peregrinos; the cab driver was no exception. He took me directly to a sporting goods store located right on the Camino that is even recommended in the guidebook we were following. By happenstance, the German peregrina with whom I had dined back in Foncebadòn on night three was hiking past the cab as I exited. She hugged me and offered me much-needed encouragement before she continued along her way, and I went shopping.

Taking that cab ride by myself in a foreign country is one of the scariest things I have ever done. It sounds like a simple non-event to so many people, but for me it was a huge deal. That was a pivotal moment in my life. I took a cab by myself in Spain. Watch out, world! I can do anything now!

When we reached Santiago de Compostela, the end of the Way, I reconnected with a woman from Denmark. She and I had hiked several kilometers together a few days earlier and had exchanged medical supplies. After the noon pilgrim's mass at the cathedral in Santiago, she invited me to join her and another peregrina from Berlin, Germany for a little down time that evening. With trepidation, I left my friend at the hotel we had booked and joined the two women in a park where we shared a cerveza. I was amused and a little appalled to be drinking from the same beer bottle as these two women I barely knew, but also proud of myself for doing something so foreign to me. We then moved on to a bar for more cerveza, and later to dinner at a restaurant. That night in Santiago was another magical night of personal growth.

During the thirteen days it took me and my friend to get from Lèon to Santiago de Compostela, I repeatedly found myself humbled by blisters, by exhaustion, by swollen feet, by loneliness, and by miles and miles of time with my thoughts. I wanted to quit several times and find a way to be a tourist in Germany instead, but I kept going. I found strength and confidence I never had before. I began to find myself.

When I returned home, I felt empowered from my Camino and ready for another challenge. I began planning to move to Alaska, if only for a year, to try it out. Jim and I had dreamed of moving to Alaska, but that dream seemed to have died when he did. I had lived in Florida for twenty years, so I was not sure I could actually cope with the Alaskan climate, but I wanted to try. Because I had taken that cab ride in Spain, I knew I would be able to drive across the country to Anchorage. I could do anything after Spain. I had a work-at-home job, and my boss was planning to close the office for a two-week paternity leave once his wife had their baby, so I wanted to take advantage of that two weeks to relocate. Roughly a month after my Camino I received a text from my boss announcing the birth. I threw everything I owned into storage, loaded what I could into my tiny car, and my dog, Huxley, and I hit the road.

It took me twelve days to drive from my starting point just outside of Nashville, TN, to Anchorage. Traveling by myself with only my dog for company presented some limitations and challenges. I was worried at every pit stop that some good Samaritan would smash my windows to save my dog while I was away from my car for a few minutes. It limited my ability to visit tourist destinations as most of them are not dog friendly. It also limited my dining options; I ate far more drive-through fast food than I would have liked to. But my good boy was guaranteed to eat chicken nuggets, so the Golden Arches was our primary food source.

In Mitchell, SD, I stopped off at the famous Corn Palace. As I walked Huxley, a tornado siren sounded, and a voice came over the Palace's loudspeaker advising its visitors to go to a specific place within the building to ride out the storm. I looked at my dog and laughed at the absurdity of my situation. What was I going to do if a tornado came through? We loaded back into the car and stopped at a McDonald's for food and a reliable restroom. As we stood in the increasing wind eating beside the car outside the restaurant, a teenaged employee came outside and said I had to come into their storage room to ride out the storm. Since they allowed me to bring Huxley, who I absolutely would not have abandoned in my car in the storm, we went in and stood in a stock room with a bunch of strangers until the manager decided the danger had passed. Back outside, I set my food and Coke onto the hood of my car as I buckled my dog back into the front passenger seat. In the few moments it took to accomplish that task, the wind blew my food and drink away so that I couldn't even see them in the vicinity. The sky was an ominous green, and there were cloud fingers reaching down from the sky. Nope! I hopped into the car and drove for three more hours to get away from that weather system!

Tornado night was my first time camping by myself. I found a KOA in Belvidere, SD, where I set up my tent and marveled that I was doing another thing that was not within my comfort zone. Huxley did great in the tent, so well, in fact, that we camped several more times during our road trip. Each day and experience provided me with more self-confidence and pride in my growth as a single person.

On day nine, I crossed the border into Canada. Cities and towns are much farther apart in Canada on the route I was driving to Alaska than the cities in the States. My drive times lengthened, and I had fewer options for places to stop. I planned to stop for the night in Banff, Alberta. What I did not realize is that Banff is a tourist resort-type town that is very expensive and outside both my budget and comfort zone. Immediately after arriving, after roughly eight hours of driving, I realized that I did not have enough cash on hand nor money in my bank account to get a hotel for the night. My funds were in transit from my savings account in one financial institution to my checking account with a debit card at another financial institution. That two-day funds transfer delay was crippling, as was my lack of a credit card. I called a friend and sobbed. I acknowledged I was over my head and didn't know what to do. And then I pulled myself together, found a campground to set up my tent and a reasonably priced café to buy a couple of sandwiches for dinner and breakfast. That used up most of my remaining available money. The temperature dropped below freezing that night, and Huxley and I huddled together wishing I had thought to purchase firewood.

Day ten of my trek brought me to the start of the Alaska Highway in Dawson Creek, BC, and a whole new brand of driving. I had never encountered frost heaves before. I quickly discovered I had to drive slower than I wanted to avoid becoming airborne and breaking an axel. Large sections of the highway were gravel, which slowed me further. I constantly had to slow down for moose, caribou, buffalo, bears, porcupine, woodchucks, and even the occasional fox. Huxley was not amused by the wildlife, but I was enthralled! I played a game to see how long it would be between sightings of other cars and people... it was usually around forty-five minutes or more.

I started my drive on June 11, 2017, and arrived in Anchorage, after a nineteen-hour push because I was over it already, on June 22nd at 2:30am. I pulled into the parking lot at the apartment I had rented by telephone a few days after my Camino and was home.

Alaska has been cathartic for my soul. I have made excellent progress in recovering from the depression that attempted to destroy me after I became a widow. The mountains are magical, and I marvel at them daily. I have made some great friends, had fantastic adventures, and even met someone. Being widowed at age 38, I did not have much hope that I would ever find love again. I met my new husband just over a year after arriving in Anchorage. We now have the most amazing miracle child, a faithful dog (Huxley passed away a year after I arrived in Anchorage), and a beautiful home. I have found happiness I never dreamed I would have. I am so lucky. None of this would have happened if I had not taken that cab ride in Triacastela, Spain. That cab ride gave me the courage to start the journey toward this life. Buen Camino indeed!


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