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Photo by Erin Nelson.
Cindi Patsios stands at the Alto del Perdón in the city of Pamplona in Spain during her 500-mile journey across the Camino de Santiago last year.
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Photo by Erin Nelson.
Stamps from the various checkpoints on Cindi Patsios’s 500-mile trip across Camino de Santiago last year.
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Photo by Erin Nelson.
Stamps from the various checkpoints on Cindi Patsios’s 500-mile trip across Camino de Santiago last year.
Six years ago, Cindi Patsios watched a movie.
“I’ll Push You” documented a lifelong friendship of pals Justin and Patrick traveling across Camino de Santiago in Spain for 34 days, totaling 500 miles through mountains, deserts, hills and valleys.
Oh, and Justin was in a wheelchair. Patrick pushed him. It inspired Patsios so much that she looked up everything she could about the journey.
Six months after watching that movie, a pastor friend of hers went on the journey himself, and he posted daily updates on Facebook. She was again so mesmerized by it all that she woke up each morning and immediately visited his Facebook page.
In 2022, four years after that pastor hiked the Camino de Santiago, his Memories popped up on Facebook. Patsios told her husband, Rich, “I’m going to do this.”
Those five words are simple, straightforward. They held much deeper meaning for Patsios, who is quick to say that she plays things safe, that she doesn’t take chances.
“I need to conquer my fears,” she said.
Patsios had been walking three miles per day in her Trussville neighborhood before her declaration. After she decided to conquer her fears, she doubled that output. Then she tripled it. Then she quadrupled it.
She left Trussville on Sept. 1, 2022, bound for Spain. She would be gone 51 days, until a return flight back to Alabama on Oct. 21. Her first walking day was Sept. 4, a journey that included hiking across the Pyrenees Mountains. She made it six miles that day.
It was the “emotional high of this trip and this journey,” Patsios said.
The ending point of Camino de Santiago is the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, the shrine of the apostle Saint James the Great — one of the apostles of Jesus Christ — where tradition holds that the remains of the apostle are buried.
“On this trip, you hope that maybe it’s a transformational journey and that some significant changes could take place in your life and you have deeper understanding of things,” Patsios said. “I feel like I accomplished a lot of what I wanted to do.”
Patsios found independence on her trip. She planned everything herself. When she ran into a bump in the proverbial road, she figured it out. Like her pastor friend, she posted daily updates of her journey on Facebook for those back home, seven hours behind her. On her second day of walking, Patsios logged 33,602 steps, good for 13.02 miles.
“My body is definitely feeling the pain,” Patsios posted on Facebook. “It was another beautiful day with amazing views. The wind was blowing violently for a good bit of the walk, almost knocking me down a few times.”
On Patsios’s 10th day, she walked 15.78 miles, bringing her to 122 miles in her 10 days. She left in the dark to try to arrive to her day’s destination before it got hot.
“There has almost always been someone within my view both ahead and behind me,” Patsios posted on Facebook. “Today that was not the case, I realized that I depended on the other pilgrims for assurance that I am going the right way. If I didn’t see a marker for a while I would be concerned. One of the things I’m working on is believing in myself and being confident in my own abilities.”
The longer the journey wore on, the stronger Patsios got. She totaled 18.03 miles on day 18. The next day, she forged ahead 16.19 more miles. More than halfway through the hike, on day 25, Patsios was feeling energized, ready.
“For the last several days I was having doubts in my mind about my ability,” Patsios published in her daily Facebook update. “I think the flat Meseta had me thinking I couldn’t handle the hills that were in my future. I had to turn up the volume in my head that said, ‘Yes, you can! You made it through the Pyrenees and through Zubiri and over lots of hills and rocks. I CAN make it and I WILL!’”
She tallied nearly 41,000 steps — 17.23 miles — on day 36, less than a week before reaching the end of her journey. The day was “a little challenging for me,” Patsios posted, but was “getting excited to reach my goal” in four days. Three days later, a cloudy day with the threat of rain, Patsios posted on Facebook about not being able to wash her clothes daily, an “obsession” that “has not always been possible.”
“I’ve learned to trust myself and my decisions more,” she posted. “Sometimes I wonder how I have walked across Spain with only a couple of times getting misdirected but couldn’t seem to navigate the trails at Oak Mountain Park.”
On her final walking day, Patsios and Susan, her bunkmate several times over the previous week, stopped for breakfast before reaching the golden square of Santiago.
“I can’t even describe the excitement that we felt today as we began our walk and how it built as we got closer to the cathedral,” Patsios posted.
She attended the noon pilgrim’s mass at the cathedral and lit two candles, one for thanksgiving for her protection and safety during her journey, the other for everyone who prayed for her daily.
The day before she flew back home, Patsios reflected on her journey. The Camino was an analogy for life. There were sometimes flat and easy paths. Other times, the roads were rough and winding.
“I learned that I can do most anything I want to do, and I can figure things out on my own and make it work,” she said. “This is life. Things are going to go good one day, sometimes even in the same day they’ll be good, and then bad and worse and then great. That’s just how life is. Whatever happens, you’re going to get through it. Just keep taking the next step, and things generally will work out.”
When Patsios returned to Trussville, her church held a welcome home party for her. Many came, from those who wave to her from neighborhood mailboxes to friends as far away as Hoover and Holly Pond. The interest level in her experience has been high. Some, perhaps, may feel as inspired as Patsios was to fly to Spain and hike the 500 miles, too.
“I would just be blown away and happy to know that somebody else was inspired from my journey to want to do that,” she said. “I would feel just honored and just feel awesome that I had an influence to make somebody want to do something like this, because it can be something that can kind of change your life a little bit, I think. I feel like it has mine, and I can’t even totally put my finger on it all. I feel like I still have a lot more to process.”
