I was up early, gathering my belongings in a room near my sleeping quarters. I began my solo 24-mile day’s walk.

My first new friend for the day was Eugina from Greece. She had a lot going for her at the young age of 23. She had graduated from a local university with a degree in accounting. For fun, she was a lifeguard in the summer and taught skiing in the winter. She did tell me about having some financial struggles on the Camino.

I found the trip to be rather inexpensive ($30-$50 per day covered food and lodging), but everything begins from a different perspective. When we came across our first small village, I offered to buy her coffee and toast. She graciously declined my offer. Her pace was much faster than mine, so she took off while I enjoyed my breakfast.

Which Path Are You Walking?

Eugina was using her time on the Camino to contemplate her next move in life. I was always impressed to meet people in her age group on the walk. It made me wonder how my life would have been different had I undertaken this challenge in my twenties.

Would this spiritual refreshment have allowed me to confront my alcohol demons at an earlier point in life? Would my fears of intimacy have been eased at a different time? Would I have taken the same career path? Would I have walked the entire 500 miles in a cast-iron shell to prevent new ideas from seeping into my soul? I also wondered if the even-older crowd thought about how their lives would be different if they had walked at my current age of 48.

Later, I passed a sign pointing east with the word Santiago and 518 KM. This meant that in nine days of walking I had already covered about one-third of the Camino. It was a bit of a wake-up call as I felt time disintegrating at a rapid pace. I calculated that 17,740 days separated my birth from that day. If I am lucky and live to age 80, I had roughly 11,000 days to go.

Creating a Fork in the Road

Like many people, I spent the first portion of my life trying to please my parents. After college, I spent time and energy trying to please my employer and society. My retirement at age 36 was a deliberate move to create a fork in my own road.

Now, on this trip, I was contemplating how to live the rest of my life. Would I marry Roberta or find new love? Would I exit retirement for a paying career or be fulfilled with volunteer work? How would I take my mom’s death? All this weighed on my mind as I walked.

About two thirds of the way to Burgos, I stopped to take a routine break and give my feet some attention.

On the Camino, feet need a lot of attention. Foot problems can become all consuming, even catastrophic for the Camino pilgrim. They can slow a trip or end it.

Preparation, Preparation, Preparation

Even before the trip began, feet were a primary focus when I chose my Patagonia Drifter A/C boots and my REI Moreno Wool Hiker socks. On the trail, they required daily care. Every evening, I washed my feet and socks and changed into different footwear for the evening. Whenever possible, I soaked my feet. On the trail every day, I stopped every few hours to take off my shoes and rest. I developed my own stretch, which began by placing all four fingers in-between the five toes, then using the palm against the balls of my feet as a lever to twist and manipulate the stress out.

For Camino pilgrims, vanity disintegrated about 10 minutes into the first day, and they were quick to share the naked foot as some type of trophy. My memory carries twisted images of feet with blisters. They were all disturbing to see and worse to endure. They served as a constant source of chatter, an obvious reason for a limp, and one of the few acceptable topics for complaining.

But not me. I felt that I was prepared. I was fit. I had worked out two hours a day for decades. I was the guy who always seemed to be at the gym on the cardio machines. I had always been an athlete. In recent years, I had biked at least 15,000 miles in the U.S. and Europe. On the Camino, I had already taken 334,370 blister-free steps. I felt like Superman!

Until day number nine.

The Blister of Reality Shows Up

I got a blister.

And it hurt!

The physical pain was irritating, but the mental anguish was ridiculously devastating.

“How could this possibly happen to me?” I thought.

“Will they mate, have babies, and cover my entire feet?”

“I may need to get crutches and cut my daily steps in half.”

“Will I even make it to Santiago?”

“How unfair!”

“Why Me?”

“My elite status is gone.”

“Should I sue Patagonia?”

“What evil spirit forced me to walk the extra miles today?”

From Mental Anguish to... Acceptance

I tried to think of good times or events, but joy was on siesta. This went on for 90 minutes, until I finally looked closely at this blister and realized its actual size and impact.

It was a small blister –– just a soft bump on my right heel. I knew what to do. I came prepared with my little kit. I drained the blister with a needle and thread. I left the thread in the skin to promote drainage. I covered the blister with a special bandage...

It took me a few days to fully understand this Camino insight. When I was able to process “blistergate,” it became clear to me that the experience was not about a sore on my heel.

I realized that I’m not invincible. Superman had come back to earth and found out he was just like everyone else.

*Subtitles by InnerSelf

©2013 by Kurt Koontz. All Rights Reserved.
Reprinted with permission. kurtkoontz.com

This article was adapted with permission from the book:

A Million Steps
by Kurt Koontz.

Kurt Koontz thought he was well prepared for his 490-mile walking trip on the historic Camino de Santiago pilgrimage route in Spain. He was fit and strong. He had a good guidebook and all the right equipment. His pilgrim passport would grant him access to the shelter of hostels along the way. But all that, however helpful, did not begin to encompass the grandeur of his external or internal adventure as he navigates through his personal history of addiction, recovery, and love. With outgoing humor and friendliness, part diary, part travelogue, A Million Steps is a journey within a journey all the way to the Cathedral de Santiago de Compostela and beyond.

Click here for more Info and/or to Order this book on Amazon.

About the Author

After retiring early from his job as a successful sales executive for a Fortune 500 technology company, Kurt Koontz volunteered in his community and traveled across Europe and North America. He never considered writing a book until he walked nearly 500 miles across Spain in 2012. Those million steps were so compelling that he returned home and began writing and speaking about his life-changing adventures. He lives and writes on a tree-lined creek in Boise, Idaho. Read his blogs at kurtkoontz.com.