Eddies and Stars: My 35 Days Walking the French Camino

By Janet L. Paduhovich and Mike Tiddy

“Sometimes life gives us a second chance. We find ourselves at a place and time in life that few others will ever experience. Seize it, as if it was the last breath of air you would ever breathe. Thank you Janet Paduhovich, for taking us to this place in your life.”
Wayne Drumheller, M.Ed., Editor and Founder
The Creative Short Story Project

Her possessions pared down to necessities, Janet Paduhovich set out from Seattle, Washington, on a pilgrimage that followed the Camino Frances, the French Way, a trail that begins in St. Jean Pied de Port in France and stretches away for 500 miles over the Pyrenees and, ultimately, into Santiago de Compostela in Spain.
Drawing from her daily journal, Janet recounts the rigors of the pilgrim trail, both physical and emotional, and takes us from town to rural town, and through cities, too, as she faces the challenge of a lifetime.
Janet joins a flow of pilgrims that is centuries old on a walk that brings tranquility and joy, as well as pain and fear.
Hints of the mystical hover about her experiences, and, against the backdrop of human frailty, Janet examines her daily experiences on her pilgrimage to gain insight about herself and others, notions of family, beliefs, and companionship. She also confronts solitude and perseveres through even this interior trial.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Balboa Press
• Release date: Jun 22, 2021
• ISBN: 9781982269296

Janet L. Paduhovich

Janet Paduhovich describes herself as a “curious explorer.” Growing up in New Jersey, a few miles from New York City, she encountered diverse people, places, and opportunities. She worked as caseworker with the South Carolina Department of Social Services and as an early volunteer with People Against Rape. She also worked with the National Crime Victim’s Center in Charleston, South Carolina, raised her son as a single parent, completed law school, and practiced law in government and in private practice. Janet has “wondered and wandered” from New Jersey to South Carolina to Washington State to North Carolina, and, one day, in 2014, she left home for France where she began a pilgrimage that would lead her on The Way of St. James, from St. Jean Pied de Port to Santiago de Compostela in Spain.

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Copyright © 2021 Janet L. Paduhovich.

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ISBN: 978-1-9822-6930-2 (sc)

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Library of Congress Control Number: 2021910307

Balboa Press rev. date: 06/21/2021

Contents

Acknowledgments

How I Became A Camino Convert

The Journey To The Beginning

Introduction

DAY 1

DAY 2

DAY 3

DAY 4

DAY 5

DAY 6

DAY 7

DAY 8

DAY 9

DAY 10

DAY 11

DAY 12

DAY 13

DAY 14

DAY 15

DAY 16

DAY 17

DAY 18

DAY 19

DAY 20

DAY 21

DAY 22

DAY 23

DAY 24

DAY 25

DAY 26

DAY 27

DAY 28

DAY 29

DAY 30

DAY 31

DAY 32

DAY 33

DAY 34

DAY 35

Epilogue

Bibliography

About Mike Tiddy, Illustrator

Acknowledgments

I translated this pilgrimage into writing due, in large part, to Judy Selby, a faithful friend, whose steadfast care and chronic delight in my journey were invaluable to its completion.

And with gratitude to my friends and family for the just right timing of support and encouragements: in North Carolina—Shannon Rood, Nancy Swanson, Mary Ey, Pat Bennett, Darlene O’Dell, Pam Fuhrer, Lucy Butler, Kristin Armstrong, Kathryn Polmanteer, Elizabeth Pell, Laura Plush, Bridget Pradella, Kelly Netro, Christine King, Wayne Drumhiller, Janine Lehane; in South Carolina—Joan Pittman, Mary Balbach; in Seattle—The Shillings (Jamie, Bruce, Kyna, and Calder), Sheila Holtgrieve, Myrna Aavedal, The Roehls (Lori, Al, Luke, and Rachael), Charlie Greig, REI, Greta Sorensen, Peter Wallis; in New Jersey—Carol Martancik and Linda Russell; In Spirit—Steve Paduhovich, Jr.; in the Midwest—Margaret Bowman, Susan Muskat; all Pilgrims everywhere; and every Stranger for their willingness to connect with another Stranger—to be strangers no more.

How I Became A Camino Convert

I’d seen the 2010 Martin Sheen movie The Way. On February 7, 2014, I attended the Seattle premier of Lydia Smith’s documentary Walking the Camino, and I also attended two standing-room-only Camino talks at Seattle’s Recreational Equipment, Inc. (REI) flagship store. None of these exposures moved me to walk the Camino. Perhaps I didn’t relate to the walking, the word pilgrimage, or the seeming frenzy of its supporters. But, I was, however, interested in the pilgrimage concept of the Camino itself.

I began reading To the Field of Stars: A Pilgrim’s Journey to Santiago de Compostela, by Kevin Codd, an American Catholic priest, and, at the time of his pilgrimage, the head of a Belgian monastery. It is a warm and personal account of his walk to Santiago. I wanted to know more about this field of stars. It was this book, along with conversations with my REI co-worker, Myrna, who had likewise completed the Camino, that intrigued me. One route begins in France and ends in Santiago, Spain. I began to feel something akin to wonder as I learned about the enduring Camino as pilgrimage for those who risked their lives, and perhaps health, to walk The Way. Their experiences walking beneath the stars of the Spanish sky, and reports of feeling drawn to Santiago, captured my imagination. I thought: What drew these Pilgrims so long ago and still draws them? My curiosity deepened. What does it feel like to be drawn to a place?

One day, in 2014, I found myself unmotivated, restless, yet hungry for inspiration. My eyes drifted to the plain brown-paper-wrapped DVD purchased at that February Camino film premier. The DVD contained scenes that did not make it into Lydia Smith’s Camino documentary movie. For the first time, I popped it into my laptop not expecting much. After all, it only contained materials cut out of the feature film.

Lydia’s documentary focuses on interviews with six individuals who are walking the Camino. This DVD features only interviews with hospitalieros and priests who offer housing for traveling Pilgrims. Such housing is provided at churches, convents, hostels, and albergues along the route to Santiago. Of these interviews, one specific interviewee and his words moved me. He is a mature man, someone who’d seen and lived many days. He tells us that he is a hospitaliero because the Peregrinos (Pilgrims) teach him a lot and that he remains there on the Camino because he has much to learn from the Pilgrims. I thought, Wow! and likely said it out loud, repeatedly, as I am inclined to do when something moves me.

What he said, and the power of his message, caused me to doubt any and all disdain and reluctance I had about what I perceived as herd mentality regarding the Camino pilgrimage. His words opened my heart and mind to the experience he described. Now I found myself estimating the number of days I might need to complete the journey to Santiago and planning my actual trip to France to begin my Camino! I knew then that my heart and head would lead me to become one of those Peregrinos.

The Journey To The Beginning

On August 9, 2014, I did it! I booked my roundtrip flight to Paris, having calculated forty-four days to walk the Camino, a total of 500 miles of pilgrimage trail. Could I do it? Could I complete it? I wondered these same questions as I began almost anything I approached as a novice.

On September 6, 2014, I flew nonstop from Seattle, Washington, to Paris, France, a ten-hour journey, and arrived Sunday morning, September 7.

The only time I had been in Paris was the year I graduated from law school, 1991, when my brother, Steve, took me to Paris as a graduation present. That was seventeen years earlier almost to the day, and ten years from his passing, again during the month of September. Steve did our navigating on that trip, while I was awe-struck at his ability. Now who would be my guide? I knew little about Paris Airport and nothing of the French train system that was essential to reaching the beginning of the Camino, the city of St. Jean Pied de Port.

I tried, with much frustration, to sort out the information about the Charles de Gaulle airport train connection before departing. Fortunately, ten days before my Paris departure, while on the Seattle light rail, I sat next to Carolyn, a young French woman who lived in Seattle. During our thirty-five minute ride, we connected, and she showed me how to navigate airport-to-train on her French train app. Her help was invaluable, and she was the first of many guides who appeared as I needed them throughout my Camino journey.

I do not speak French or Spanish. I do, however, recall a few terms from my French classes of years ago, so I knew that finding my way in France and Spain would be challenging. From the Charles de Gaulle Airport, I had one train to catch and then a bus to St. Jean Pied de Port. If I made these connections, they would place me in St. Jean in time to secure a bed for the night. Transit schedules in France are reduced on Sundays, but I made it. Once on the train, I was more confident that other kind people would help me along the way.

To my surprise the train stopped before I’d reached my intended destination, and all passengers were required to disembark. Armed military personnel were visible throughout the train station. They were clearly not there to give directions to foreigners. By piecing together a word here and a direction there, I found out that I needed to change trains. So I moved forward as best I could to locate my next train, hampered somewhat by a heavy backpack.

On that second train, I met Viola, a young Hungarian woman living in Vienna who was on her way to St. Jean to begin her own Camino. She, an English speaker, had reserved a taxi-van to drive herself and six others from the train station in St. Jean. The fee for the transport was 125 Euros, clearly a stiff price if one traveler had to bear the entire cost. Two of the seats on Viola’s taxi-van were available, and she invited me to travel with them. Merci! By the time her taxi-van arrived, however, other online reservation-makers had filled those vacant seats. Merde!

But what Viola modeled for me next, would serve me for my entire journey, a behavior that I came to know rather quickly—strangers reaching out to strangers. Once she learned I would not have a seat on her van, she sprang into action. She asked each newly-arrived passenger if they were traveling to St. Jean and if they wanted to share a taxi. She found an American woman about my age who looked as befuddled as I did. Taking Viola’s lead, I ran to a taxi stand and asked the price to St. Jean. It was the same price as Viola’s cab. I then found an Irish couple who wanted a taxi as well. Now we were four passengers sharing the cost of the taxi. I would have been awake for thirty-six hours by the time we arrived in St. Jean. But I was almost there at the start of the Camino, I’d made four new Camino acquaintances, and I’d be arriving in daylight rather than the 10:30 p.m. arrival time dictated by my original train-bus schedule. I relaxed, that is, until our taxi driver took his Mercedes Benz out of parking gear and began driving toward St. Jean.

I believe we were in the car for an hour, under the control of a crazed driver. After his initial gasp of fear, the Irishman in the front passenger seat hardly spoke more than fifteen words during our ride. I, too, was afraid, but I was so tired, and all I could think was that I would be in St. Jean that night, and that’s where I wanted to be. I was eager to land at my starting point. With my focus on the driver’s behavior, I paid no thought to my next hurdle: a place to spend the night in St. Jean. I assumed I could easily find a room for the night.

When the taxi driver asked where we wanted to be dropped off, the Irishman spoke up. In this instant, I learned that the Irish couple had a reservation. I assumed then that Viola and her travelers also had reservations. Delivered to the Irish couple’s hotel and realizing that neither the American woman nor I had reservations for the night, we exited the taxi. We were exhausted, hungry, and in an unfamiliar town. We examined the narrow main street at 8 p.m. and learned that every room was booked.

The main street in the village of St. Jean is lined with small hotels, rooms for rent, bed and breakfasts, and, that day, each had a "complet" sign on their door. I suggested we walk in one direction, fully prepared to sleep on the grass at the end of town if necessary. As we walked towards the end of the street and the end of town, I spotted a door that was ajar. I rang the bell.

A woman with a British accent opened the door. I asked about a room. To my astonishment, she said she had one bed. Yet, clearly there were two of us. After a short conversation with the owner, a rollaway bed was offered as an add-on to the available room. My companion immediately offered to sleep on it. With the acceptance of this accommodation came my first hope of sleep. I was elated. Our room and hosts were lovely. They suggested a restaurant, and we had a lovely dinner of soup, salad, and a meat entree, and we met others who would begin the Camino journey. We went to bed exhausted and pleased to have found room at the inn.

I had read that those who walked the Camino felt they were being called to Santiago. That feeling began to deepen as I started my journey and unexpected connections, strangers, and beds began to cross my path.

Introduction

As I reviewed my daily journaling of the thirty-five days traversing the French Camino to Santiago, Spain, memories returned in high definition. I was transported to the paths, roads, faces of strangers, and those yellow arrows and sea shells of The Way.

I never thought I could levitate. However, I often dreamed of flying through the air, my body the sole source of propulsion. The exhilaration and surprise of finding myself flying is an impression I love waking to. Spending an evening and morning at the Albergue of the Hospital of St. Nicolas¹ was as close to that feeling of flying for me.

On other days I was caught in my own personal eddies, or content to walk in the darkness of the Spanish morning, illuminated only by evening stars until they were supplanted with a rose-colored sunrise. I recorded my wonderings, grief, surprises, and disturbances, including my inability to connect with myself and others. From my arrival at the Paris airport, I questioned my abilities to complete this journey. Several themes visited, circled and re-circled me on this pilgrimage, my eddies. Ultimately the phrase on my own two feet took on profound meaning for this path which began as a challenge and became a pilgrimage.

It is my hope that you, likewise, will travel those paths with me, physically and spiritually, amidst our common humanity.

DAY

1

Monday, September 8, 2014, St. Jean Pied de

Port, France, to Roncesvalles, Spain

Travel Time/Distance: 7:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., 32 km/19 miles

Today, I begin walking the Camino Francés, the Camino de Santiago de Compostela.

I awake this morning in St. Jean Pied de Port, France, tired and grateful for my bed. Slowly, I set myself to applying tape and bandages to my feet. Two years ago, I had complicated surgery on my right foot. My right foot is healed but by no means back to normal, and my left foot has a bunion that can create discomfort at times. Back in Seattle, my physical therapist did his best to train me in taping both feet to minimize the expected impact of walking these daily distances carrying the weight of my backpack. As I said to my son, Martin, when I made the decision to walk the Camino, "Who knows, in a year I might not be able to walk at all. Now is the time to do it." So, now I am dressed, packed, taped, and proceeding downstairs to breakfast.

There are five of us Peregrinos (Pilgrims)² at our bed and breakfast this morning. I am joined by a 68-year-old who is eager to experience multi-day walking for the first time; another American woman, who has waited fifteen years to do this walk; and three people from the UK, a brother and sister, Bob and Barb, and Barb’s ex-husband’s cousin, Sal (short for Sally). I meet them for the first time at breakfast, as they were already settled in their rooms when I arrived late last night. Breakfast is yummy: bacon, eggs, British jam, toast, and lovely coffee.

Today, we cross the Pyrenees Mountains into Spain. That is, four of us make that crossing; the other American woman starts her walk tomorrow. Everyone traveling the Camino arrives with different baggage, intel, strategy, and plans. If I’d planned this journey for fifteen years or even six months, I’d likely have a different approach from my start today. I had not studied the maps or my copy of the classic A Pilgrim’s Guide to the Camino de Santiago, Walking The Way of St. James³ by John Brierley, hereafter referenced to as the Brierley Guide. In fact, my copy of the Brierley Guide, which offers a roadmap for completing the walk in segments totaling thirty days, had only come into my possession two days before my departure. Now, here I am: under-educated about the Camino, my return flight booked forty-four days out from my Seattle departure, unsure if I can complete the walk, but just wanting to get started. I am both anxious and excited.

I understand the Pyrenees Mountains can be cold, rainy, foggy, socked in, and, at best, a vertical hiking challenge. Our breakfast discussion includes the topic of today’s terrain/route and suggestions from our British bed and breakfast hosts. The Barb, Bob, Sal Team had already signed up for a taxi to transport their packs ahead to their hostel for this evening on the other side of the Pyrenees, at €6 per pack for the transport. This is an unexpected option and gives me pause. I wonder: How much of a Camino purist do I want to be? Do I carry my own pack today or have it taxied?

Even though it is far from clear to me where my pack would be delivered, I opt for the taxi leaving me with a light, day pack containing my water bladder⁴ and rain jacket. I wouldn’t know how pleased I’d be for making that choice until the end of this day.

I am delighted to start out with Barb, Bob and Sal. They are of good cheer and, having arrived in St. Jean early yesterday, they’d had time to scope out the starting point of the Camino. While everyone is instructed to merely follow the yellow Camino arrows and seashell symbols, I had not become accustomed to those symbols and likewise didn’t trust my eyes to find these markings. I am a bit leery that these symbols will be sufficient guides. We also have to decide which of the two routes over the Pyrenees to take, The Route of Napoleon or the Valcarlos Route. Both routes climb and then have steep descents. We choose the Napoleon Route, the higher elevation of the options, the recommended route (weather permitting) with a summit of 1,450 meters (4,757 feet).

The weather holds as we cross the Pyrenees, manifesting only as drizzle and fog. The increasing incline and elevation, as well as the descent, are hard on my feet. I am thankful for my trekking poles and for not carrying my backpack today.

After crossing the Pyrenees, I hike off and on with one or more of the three new folk from England. I remember little of that day. My sparse journal notes made at the end of the day reflect that. I note that My quads feel like they ran a marathon. I stick with my companions as we discover together the depository of our backpacks at the end of our walking day. Barb and Bob have a reservation at a hostel a kilometer or two away from our backpack depository. As we separate from Barb and Bob, Sal and I make a plan to meet them in town the next morning for breakfast. Then, we head to the Roncesvalles Monastery Albergue⁵ to spend the night. We learn its main building has been renovated. Sounds good to me!

There are many learning opportunities to be had on the Camino, some more practical than others. While today I became more familiar with the Camino arrows and symbols and its path, I also make an important discovery this first evening.

The number of beds available in a location is important because the beds fill up with Pilgrims as the day unfolds. Some Peregrinos start walking in the dark before sunrise and seek their beds early in the day, increasing their chances of staying at the facility of their choice. In addition to the early-arriving Pilgrims, many make room/bed reservations, and likewise fill beds, leaving later-arriving Pilgrims out of luck, which may require the unfortunate ones to walk an additional three to six kilometers or more to the next available facility or town. Typically, facilities offering beds open at varying times between 11 a.m. and 1:00 p.m. and close when beds are full or around 10 p.m.

This day, I begin walking at 7:30 a.m., and I reach my destination nine and a half hours later, having walked approximately thirty-two kilometers or nineteen miles. Consequently, I did not arrive in time to secure a bed in the renovated, modernized monastery building which had clothes washing and drying facilities. Instead, my bed assignment is to the monastery’s overflow building in the older unrestored building which contains 110 beds in its single-story, undivided structure. I was unaware of how the timing of my arrival would affect my sleeping options. Now I know.

After our initial arrival at the monastery, we walk down the road for dinner, returning just in time to attend the Catholic mass within the monastery grounds. We must also be alert to return to our beds before 10 p.m. when the dormitory door will lock and its lights go out for the night.

I had hoped to attend mass as I traveled to churches along the Camino. This being my first night, and since I was staying at a monastery, I felt certain there would be an evening mass to attend and there was! Tonight’s mass is said in Spanish without any portion translated to English. I don’t know why this surprises me, but it does. I am in Spain after all. I barely arrive in time for the Pilgrims’ Blessing, which is traditionally given at the conclusion of Catholic masses along the Camino. At the end of the service, I depart the church eager to stretch out on my assigned bed for the evening.

My bunk bed is close to the building’s entrance door and the stairs leading to the two female showers and two female toilets below. Sal’s bunk bed assignment is at the end of a long hall and the farthest distance from the entrance door. She urges me to move to a bed closer to her. I am too tired to do so. I am glad for my placement near the women’s facilities because diarrhea hits me about 11 p.m. and continues until about 3:00 a.m. the next morning. I can only imagine my heightened discomfort had my bed been at the farther end of the large hall. I am grateful for this seemingly small stroke of fortune. There would be many, many more of these coincidences to come.

On this my inaugural Camino night, I also experience the Pilgrim snorers, their harmonics and cacophony of sounds, for the first time. Every one of the 110 beds in this single large room is filled. It is a clean, sparse facility, and all manner of sounds abound. Yet, it is also as safe as it can be. Volunteers, required to have previously completed their own Camino walk, sleep at the facility along with the 293 newly-arrived Pilgrims in the combined monastery buildings. In contrast, the population of the village of Roncesvalles is reported to be thirty people.

And so Day 1 ends.

100%20beds001.jpg

Monastery Beds by Mike Tiddy.

DAY

2

Tuesday, September 9: Roncesvalles to

Larrasoaña (population 200)

Travel Time/Distance: 9.5 hours,⁶ 28.7 km/17.8 miles

Our start is casual and late. Leaving the monastery around 7:00 a.m., Sal and I meet Bob and Barb up the road for breakfast and leave Roncesvalles at around 9:00 a.m. I would come to learn that 9:00 a.m. was a very late start and had its consequences. I make several travel adjustments in the days immediately following, but for now my pace seems on point. Our preceding first day had been tough, and we are easing into another day on the path. And today we have our packs on our backs, not taxied ahead for us as they were yesterday.

I am astonished to be physically here on the Camino. I think about how ideas or inklings get started and which ones are acted on, longed for, while others are discarded, or never thought of again. I had ideas or ambitions in all these categories. I wanted to see Colorado, the Grand Canyon, the American West. An opportunity to travel cross-country on a motorcycle fulfilled that idea albeit with a crazy guy as companion. I had another idea as I left Washington, D.C., to move to Seattle, Washington. I thought to sell my car on the theory that not having a car there would free me from dependence on it and prompt me to rely on mass transit or shared transportation to get around. These are ideas I would have been unable to seriously consider, let alone act on, at earlier times in my life.

A year into my non-car ownership days in Seattle, I wanted a place to live that didn’t require a lease. Through the encouragement of a faithful friend, I obtained a volunteer position at Holden Village in Washington State for three months. l had never been to Holden Village before my arrival as a volunteer. At the end of my first week in this most remote location, I heard myself speaking out loud, asking myself: And you thought this was a good idea, because—why? I was beginning to ask myself this same question about this 500-mile journey: Tell me again why you thought this was a good idea?

My journal notes for today are sparse and almost illegible scribbling which was done in the evening at the end of a long day of nine and a half hours.

While beginning the day’s hike with the three British folk, my lasting companion for this difficult day was Viola, the young Hungarian I‘d met on my second train heading to St. Jean Pied de Port after leaving Paris airport.

Sal walks like a delightful imp, wearing low-impact footwear, shorts, and speaking multiple languages with those she encounters along