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Two highlights from this middle portion of my time in Spain were the multi-day hikes I did with my fellow Mizzou students and ALI Abroad professors. They were part of the classes we are enrolled in for the program, but both were optional. The first was called the Senda del Poeta, a three-day tribute walk for the revolutionary 20th-century poet Miguel Hern\u00e1ndez. The hike starts in the town of Orihuela, where he was born, and ends in Alicante, where he died from lack of medical care while incarcerated by the then-dictatorship. It was amazing to hear renditions of Hern\u00e1ndez\u2019s poetry while we rested, explore small towns in the region of Spain I\u2019ve been living in, talk with other admirers of this poet, and appreciate the natural landscape of Alicante Province. However, this journey was the most physically grueling experience I\u2019ve had here. The heat of the sun made us feel delusional, the food offered was not ideal for fueling a body to walk all day long, my left foot endured an impending stress fracture, my whole body was fatigued from sleeping two nights on a hard gym floor, and the soles of my feet were excruciatingly bruised from walking only on concrete. With all this said, my friend and I cut the walk short on the final day by taking a bus home from Elche. So, this experience, though truly a positive one overall, was discouraging as we anticipated an even longer hike a month later. <\/p>\n\n\n In April we did five days of a Catholic pilgrimage called the Camino de Santiago, or Way of St. James. It has many routes to the city of Santiago de Compostela, which pilgrims have been hiking since the 9th century. Though my classmates and I did not embark on this journey for religious reasons, it is of great importance in Catholicism because the city\u2019s intricate cathedral is where Santiago, or St. James, the apostle\u2019s remains are said to be buried. <\/p>\n\n\n I was nervous to repeat this physical pain, so I tried to learn from the Senda del Poeta in preparation for the Camino de Santiago. I practiced long hikes in Alicante wearing my backpack with added weight, wore a two-layer sock combination to prevent blisters, tied my shoes much looser, and traded my sneakers for sandals at any break during the hike. My feet, though uncomfortable during the Camino, never neared the pain they endured on the first hike. I found myself dancing down hills with friends, running in the Galician rain, singing in seemingly enchanted forests, laughing with herds of sheep, and gleaming amidst the beauty of a lush and mountainous region that so many people before me have enjoyed. This all reinforced in me the idea that a challenge shouldn\u2019t prevent you from trying something again. Rather, I was able to gain so much knowledge from that first difficult experience, the Senda del Poeta, and made the second, the Camino de Santiago, a much more pleasant one. Though the impending return home is sad, I can confidently look back upon these adventures with true admiration.<\/p>\n\n\n![\"People](\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/52908144249_6411b44d71_c.jpg\")
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