Have you ever imagined yourself walking for 20 days straight in a whole new country? This is exactly what Edward Yount did with his friend Junior Glen Pringle.
It all began with the help of a professor who told them about the YVAIN scholarship. This scholarship allows students to write a five page essay describing something that they would like to do and why. Edward and Glen wrote about going to Spain and walking “El Camino de Santiago,” also known as the “The Way of Saint James.” The Way of Saint James is a series of pilgrimage routes that go through France and Spain, and all these routes lead to the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in Northwest Spain.
After Edward and Glen sent in their applications, they were unsure if they were going to get the scholarship. After two months of silence, however, they received an email telling them that they would be able to go on the trip. When they went on the trip, all they had with them was a traveling bag which contained a sleeping bag, snacks, water, a few clothes, rain coats, and toiletries.
“After the third the day, I threw a few things away. My bag was way too heavy and I was carrying stuff I was not using at all,” said Edward.
They took off on a 10 hour trip on June 3from Miami Airport straight to Madrid, Spain. After they got to Madrid, it took them an hour to get to their starting location in Bilbao City, where they had to pick from a variety trails to take. These would inevitably lead to the same destination. These trails had arrows that pointed them towards the right directions to turn – some of them were hidden.
Edward and Glen stayed in hostels for their first night. Hostels are houses for any traveler wanting a place to sleep for the night. Families are usually the hosts, and they host these hostels for the purpose of giving shelter to people on quests such as these. In hostels, they also encounter other people doing the same walk. Halfway through the trip, they stayed in Guemes, which was one of Edward’s favorite places because the host, Ernesto Bustio, was extremely nice and lives in a typical Spaniards house you would imagine.
“His house was full of artifacts and treasure from his world travels,” Said Edward.
Edward’s second favorite place was Noja, because it was a beach town. He said there were mountains next to the beach and surfers that enjoyed the beach’s waves.
“I want to stay there forever, but I had to keep going,” said Edward.
But not everything ran smoothly. The walk was very long, and some days were more difficult than others since they got exhausted or too hot. At one point, they missed an arrow and realized after 30 minutes that they got lost. They had a mini guide book, but the book was confusing and they had to ask for directions in Spanish.
“Many (people) didn’t even know the right direction. One would say go to the right, and someone else would say go the left,” said Edward.
Eventually, they found their way back to a trail and continued on their journey, where they met a lot of great people from all around the world. Because they were the young, they received a lot of attention, advice, and care from elder participants who had ventured on the walk for many years.
“I was surprise because other people, much older than I am, were walking a lot faster than I was,” said Edward.
Towards the end of their trip, they arrived to their final destination, the city of Oviedo, where at the end of the day they took a three hour bus ride back to where they began.
“Although it was a fast three hour ride back, there were no adventures and no interactions compared to the 20 days of walking where we met different kinds of people from all around the world,” said Edward.
Edward and Glen said they will always remember their first time traveling to Europe.
“We felt accomplished,” they said in the end.
