Chase-in on the Camino
Best way to combat the spring semester burnout slump?
Fly roughly 5,000 miles to a foreign country, and then follow the ancient pilgrimage of a disciple of Jesus Christ on foot for another 500 miles to a different foreign country.
Duh.
Scoff as you might, this was the perfect antidote for senior Chase Harward and his partner, Portia Lynn Price.
“I was looking for a change in my life that might just be grand enough to help me find a new perspective,” Chase said.
After he and Portia struggled through a rough semester fraught with COVID concerns and academic difficulties while they continued their long-distance relationship, they decided to do something to help reinvigorate their relationship.
“When I was falling apart during finals week,” Portia said, “Chase called me via Zoom — he was in Logan, and I was in West Jordan — and he had put together a PowerPoint presentation to propose that we escape the confinement of the ‘daily grind’ for a couple months. And I was all for it.”
The Camino de Santiago is an on-foot trek that cuts through the northern part of Spain, a pilgrimage route to the remains of the Apostle St. James (Camino de Sant Iago translates literally to “Way of St. James”). The legend goes that St. James’ remains were discovered by a shepherd in the ninth century and soon after — much to the delight of the Spanish king at the time — hundreds of thousands of pilgrims flocked to Spain to see this religious relic.
As the Camino became a cemented destination in Christian culture throughout Western Europe, several kings throughout Spanish history dedicated resources to better defining and taking take of the pilgrimage route.
Chase said he came up with the idea to walk the Camino de Santiago after studying abroad in Spain two years earlier. While abroad, Chase connected with the program director David Richter, who led them through a small section of the Camino.
“By the end of that experience abroad,” he said, “I knew that becoming a ‘pilgrim’ and walking the Camino de Santiago was something I wanted to do one day.”
The Camino has numerous routes, with starting points all across Spain and even some stretching further into other countries. Chase and Portia decided to walk the most popular: a 500-mile stretch from Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port (close to the Spanish/French border in Southern France) to Santiago de Compostela.
The pair did this over the course of a little less than six weeks, making sure to have a rest day every week or so. Along the route, there are small and impressively cheap hostel-type places to stay for pilgrims called “albergues.” Many of the towns along the route also offer special discounts for those who are traveling the Camino.
“Staying in a different city every single night for a month was quite an adventure,” Portia said. “With COVID restrictions, a lot of the pilgrim hostels were at limited capacity, so we spent some days wondering if we were even going to be able to have a bed for the night. On the days when the albergues were full, we usually just walked to the next town. One day we had a late start to a long and hot day. By the time we reached our destination town, we were dead tired and had walked about 19 miles. I was so excited to see the hostel because I felt that my feet couldn’t even carry me another step. Then we found out that every available bed was taken, so we had to walk another four miles to the next town, marking 23 miles for our total distance for the day. Days like that really taught me that our bodies and minds are capable of so much more than we think they are.”
Chase and Portia also felt very lucky by how many generous and interesting people they were able to meet on their journey — they met folks from Italy, Germany, the U.K., Ireland and even the U.S. They even crossed paths with an older man from the Netherlands who had started walking from his home in the Netherlands a few months earlier — almost tripling the distance that the couple was walking.
When asked if they would do it again, both Chase and Portia said yes without hesitation. Chase said that one thing he remembers most prominently is “this strange evolution of attitudes. When you wake up and start walking — for us that was about 5:30 a.m. — you hated the world and everything in it because it feels like you are walking in the middle of the night with so much more distance to cover before reaching the end. I’d be walking in the morning and thinking, ‘Man, there’s seriously 20 more days until Santiago? How am I even going to make it through today?’ By the time we reach the next town and finish for the day, I marvel at how far we’ve already come and how sad it will be when we finish. Thinking about how much farther our end goal was felt overwhelming, but thinking about just the destination that day made it much less daunting. Before we knew it, we only had a few days before reaching Santiago, and I found myself feeling sad that our journey was coming to an end.”
Both highly recommend the Camino to other folks interested in the opportunity for growth and adventure.
Portia said the time and peace to self-reflect was one of her favorite parts of the Camino, and it served as an excellent grounding exercise.
“On the Camino, you learn to live with what is necessary, since it all has to fit in a backpack,” she said. “I found that the items I left behind didn’t matter as much as who was by my side.”