Three days for the body - the rest is for the soul

by Aleksandr Tretyakov (Russia)

A leap into the unknown Portugal

In September of 2018, my life was totally changed. Last year and a half I worked as an engineer in the Turkish construction company in Russia. I was part of the team, which developing schemes and documentation for built manufactury of one of the most famous international auto concerns in Russia near Moscow. The same responsible work every day played a cruel joke on me - I completely burned out mentally. One day I clearly understood, that if I want to be happy I needed a reboot. I took the decision to quit the job. That's was the start of the new life. Several weeks later I was flying to the new country, where I have never been yet, for making an awesome thing like hiking along the Atlantic ocean coast by the way Santiago. This trip was planned in two weeks, absolutely randomly, by the happy case (I learned about the existence of such a trip in an audio podcast one of the well-known travel communities in the CIS). It was first my self-planned trip, which took a challenge for me due to poor knowledge of English and totally misunderstanding of the Portuguese and Spanish. From the very beginning, everything went wrong and I realized that this was only the beginning of my adventures. I flew with a change and my aviation company lost my baggage. It's meant that I ended up in a strange country without things. Thanks to that occasion, I met with my first friend on the Camino. It was Andrew. He worked as corresponding to one of the Russian TV channels and with his stuff was the same problem - they were lost too. As you know, the trouble unites and the next two days in anticipation of the return of luggage we spent talking about and sightseeing in the city of Porto. After two days in the city, I started my itinerary by the path of Santiago way and on the first stop for the night at the hostel I met a couple, a girl and a guy from Belarus. They were a good mans and we became friends but the next morning our paths diverged. I waked up early and lonely leave the hostel. It so happened that the first three days of my trip I walked alone occasionally meeting people on the road. Before starting my journey in one of the forums about the path of Santiago, I read the following thought one man, who went this way. He said: "The first three days of the road, your body comes in the right shape to become able to walk about 25-30 kilometers daily. The rest of the way you bring your soul into shape. You give a test to the body so that at the end of the route both the body and mind are completely cleansed of sins and you become the best version of yourself". With this thought, I walked all the days of the campaign. On the fourth day, I decided to change my route and leave the coast of the ocean in the direction of the central path (one of the three routes leading from the city of Porto, Portugal to the city of Santiago de Compostela, Spain). I turned onto the central route and found myself in the city of Ponte de Lima. Here, by a happy coincidence, I met again my friends from Belarus. In addition, here I met a girl from Moscow whom I fell in love with and thanks to which, looking ahead, I was able to write a book about this wonderful journey. The rest of the way to Spain we went together. As a result, in 8 days of this journey, I overcame more than 270 kilometers. Despite the fact that our relationship didn't continue, I got an incredible experience in communicating with people. I found the strength to go all this way, met interesting people from around the world and undoubtedly became the best version of myself. Now, after a while, I am again ready to visit new countries, because it's worth it. Believe in your dreams - they are your nature.