Day Four: Zabaldika

One bathroom!  We are staying in a convent, I think there are 21 beds. There is one bathroom.  Should be interesting!

The day started for us a little after dawn, the super moon smiling on us, the trail quiet and peaceful. 

It turned out to be a peaceful walk today as we find ourselves in between the typical stages. We took our time to hike the 15 miles. Each pretty little town along the way was an opportunity to take a break, have cafe con leche, and snacks!

We have visited the 13th century Romanesque church here, and were allowed to climb up the bell tower and ring the oldest bell in the region. 

The nun gave us these nice writings: (I hope you can read the photos)

Day Three. Vizkarreta

Dinner last night.  We have been dubbed "The Nine"

Short day today so that we could stay back at Corazon Puro. We stayed here the night before we started. Our host picked us up at the airport, and then drove us to St Jean Pied de Port the next morning. Saved us having to go by the train or bus schedule. We are eagerly awaiting another home cooked dinner!

Another hot day!  

Day Two

We had a fantastic two days hiking over the Pyrenees!  

Our launch point was St. Jean Pied de Port, in France. 

Everyone was anxious to get going, so after checking in at the pilgrims office, buying poles, and grabbing some snacks from the market, we headed up. Short but steep and hot. It was still a wonderful day. We got to Orisson in the afternoon, plenty of time to get to know several of our fellow perigrinos, and enjoy the view!

Today we did the rest of the mountain crossing. Nice cool weather, a little rain and another beautiful day!

While Wig and a few others took the safer route down the mountain, Vic and I took the steep route down through an old Beech forest, worth the extra care we took to keep from falling!

St Jean to Orrison to Roncesvalles

     Wig again. No poles and the airline does not have a clue of their whereabouts so new poles were our first order of business when we reached St. Jean Pied de Port. 

A steep short climb to Orrison partway up the Pyrenees and we were at our first night's lodging. It was a steep and hot climb But what a fun place to meet a whole bunch of new friends. We are currently dubbed "the Nine" by most people. Today, we started earlier and the weather was cool with bits of rain. The ponchos came out and the 18 km climb

over the Pyrenees was a cakewalk. We saw lots of bird scavengers and horses and sheep, lots and lots of sheep! We found the largest earthworm ever. Pic is of me getting a taste of the critter. Laura has that pic.

     Currently lounging in a bar in this little town of Roncesvalles.

Flight Over the Atlantic

     Wig here again.  Not much funfare on our departure. Left the sweetest dog in the world, Wallie, with Brandon and Chrissy. Wallie will help them prepare for our upcoming grandchild. Six takeoffs and landings and we are making our final approach to Pamplona. It has been a good day. TSA got nothing from me and this is a first as I have donated various Swiss army tools, knives, kayak paddles and possible flammable liquids in the past. Between my sandwiches, Susan's goat cheeses, divine crackers and almond and fig treats, Kat's dried apples, we were the envy of every airport terminal lounge.

      Now in Pamplona waiting for our checked bag, a box of a dozen poles and hopefully, our driver and host for the night. Well nightmare begins. No checked bag of poles and the airline doesn't know where it is.........nice drive to Viskarret in the home of Istvan and Barbara who made us nice tomato soup and turkey paella and cherry cake. Nice to see old friends Vic, Kay, Rod and Kristin. Hopefully good news about our poles tomorrow.

Training and Packing for The Camino

     Wig here. Laura wants me to state this every time I add something to her blog so you don't mistake my poor attitude and gibberish remarks as hers.

     Well, we depart tomorrow and Laura just got home from work. Now, the vacation can begin.  This trip actually began exactly the day after we returned from our last Camino on May 5 of last year. We thought we could try it out in the Fall now that we had done it in Spring with its mud, wind, rain and snow. Fall ought to be an improvement with blistering heat, dehydration, intense body odor and short tempers. In addition, she proclaimed that we are not using a baggage transport service like we did last year. We are also bringing seven OLD friends, misery really loves company. 

     I have been following the Camino Forum trying to get real time info and tips from experienced Camino pilgrims. Everyone has always got something to say about everything. It seems that each of them has experienced the wrong way of doing certain things and now feels they have the perfect solution to every situation. One of these is training. They stressed preparing a year ahead, walking an average of 5 miles twice a week and a weekend hike of 10 miles or more. If we had followed them we would be crippled with shin splints, plantar fasciitis, knee and ankle tendinitis before the trip even began. As health care workers, we did our training the scientific way. We had knee surgery, rubbed healing ointments all over our joints, had cortisone injections into our knees and hips, and took copious amounts of antiinflammatories. If we had more sufficient training time, we would have undergone full knee and hip replacements.

     Another important point that all experienced peregrinos swear by is the 10% rule. One cannot downplay the biblical significance of ones backpack never exceeding 10% of their body weight. This we took very seriously and shared within our trip mates. Laura had lost 35 pounds and proclaimed success with her 14 pound backpack. I, on the other hand, have hardly lost any weight and binged on everything edible the last couple of weeks to make sure I hit my target. Success as I ended up with an 18 pound pack and can carry more with my new current weight. Don't you love these rules when you can rearrange them to your advantage?

2014 Camino #2

I love walking, and reading, so I read every story I find about walking adventures.  I remember a few people starting out their tales by describing walking as the act of barely keeping from falling!  They say that each step results from throwing ourselves forward as if we are planning on falling on our face, and then putting a foot out to stop that fall, repeat over and over...yikes!  No wonder some people start out on a walking trip with trepidation and doubts.  I prefer to think of walking as a graceful, coordinated dance into the near future, with only a few stumbles along the way to keep it interesting!  I look forward to walking trips with eager anticipation. Photos of trails give me goose bumps. My pack is packed weeks in advance!  Weather forecasts of thunderstorms make me shiver with excitement...this all describes me right now. We leave for Spain and a second, longer trek on the Camino de Santiago, in three days!

This time we are going to start in France and cross the Pyrenees mountains. We missed that part by starting in Pamplona last year.  We are also planning on going past Santiago, to the "End of the World" on the coast of northern Spain. About 600 miles of walking in six weeks!  Seven wonderful friends are joining us too, I hope they are still our friends afterwards!!  Our cast of characters will be:  Vic and Kay, from Chico; Susan, from Nevada City, Dave and Kat, from Davis and also on their second Camino, Rod and Kristen, from Wyoming/Montana, as well as me, and the biggest character of all, Wig!!