Walking the Camino de Santiago
Preparations and planning.
For the past two days walking out ofBurgos, we have been entering into the Meseta. This is the vast plateau that sits in the center of Spain. We will be walking this for about the next week or so. And it is flat. Well, the top is flat, anyway. Most of the towns are located in deep valleys carved out […]
» Read moreWe have been experiencing a protracted zone of low bandwidth and little Wi-Fi. This makes it extremely difficult to post photos. In particular, I am something like 400 photos behind in updating my Flickr account. Weirdly, it is much easier to upload photos to Facebook. The bandwidth problem has also made updating the blog somewhat sporadic. For this, I apologize. […]
» Read moreTwo nights ago we stayed at the Parroquial Albergue San Juan Bautista in Grañón, and last night at the private Albergue San Roque in Villambísta. Two more different experiences in pilgrim hostels would be difficult to imagine. Both did feature communal meals, which I very much enjoy. Not many albergues do this, which is too bad, since it fosters camaraderie […]
» Read moreTo pole or not to pole? How to pole? Do you pole? Pole to Pole? Staff. Hook. Crozier. Stave. Cane. Scepter. Caduceus. I like my walking sticks. They’re made by Easton and telescope to different sizes. They have rock-lock on them which makes them simple to adjust. They’re my most cherished hiking accessory and if I were to lose them I would be very, […]
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This post has been in edit for 1055 days. It was one week until my first Camino. I was in full on panic mode. Now that I am in full on panic mode being less than a week away from departure, I feel as though I’m not prepared. I understand that this is a normal pre-Camino stage. I’m mainly concerned […]
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The countdown has begun. It won’t be long before Thom and I take off for our next Camino. His job is to keep all the travel bits on track. My job is to make sure the house doesn’t fall down while we’re gone. There will be house sitters, auto-bill pays (so the lights don’t go out), and neighborhood watchers. We’re […]
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As a follow-up to Monday’s post, this morning we received confirmation for our reservation at Beilari. All of our pre-walk pieces are now in place. I’m a little giddy.
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We hope to begin our 2016 Camino in the quaint French mountain village of Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port, a name that more or less means “Saint John at the Foot of the Pass”. Getting to Saint-Jean is always a bit of an adventure, particularly if you are, like us, flying into Madrid rather than Paris. You may remember that we purchased bus tickets […]
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Well, the Alsa web site is much better than it was three years ago. For one thing, it’s pretty clear that they have a new English translator, and that he or she knows English. There are still occasionally blocks of Spanish text, but that’s manageable. Trying to interpret Spanglish was not. As I said, much improved. And we are now […]
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Slowly but surely, we’re ticking things off of our pre-Camino “to-do” list. Today, I purchased our travel insurance. As in our last Camino, we purchased the “standard” package from World Nomads. What I love about these guys is that they have an exhaustive list of all activities covered under their plans – and that list goes from abseiling (rappelling) to […]
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