PLEASE STANDBY…

Hola everyone. Having some internet technical difficulties along the Camino. Let’s see what happens tomorrow.

A PERFECT DAY

I’ll start from the end of the day first. Dinner was at Bar Luis. Mixed salad, chicken, bread and vino. This was one good meal…and it wasn’t too much. While not a foodie I just say can’t say enough about the food in northern Spain. It is too good. Yeah, I meant to write it that way.

Our day today wasn’t very long. About ten mile. The route was a bit hilly but not bad. So far one of  the nice things is how well the Camino it’s marked.

If one can’t follow this arrow, well…what can I say? Imagine walking from Los Angeles to San Francisco and having an arrow painted on a wall, or a tree, or a building, every few minutes or so, for five hundred miles. That’s the Camino. Not that one couldn’t get lost but on this Camino it would be hard to do. Here is what someone had in front of their house. Isn’t that nice.

We finished our walk in a town called Pontedeume. A cool town on a river. We got in about one thirty and went out for our daily “After the walk beer & snack.”

Today was a good day. Slowing getting rid of the jet lag. The walk offers enough diverse vistas to keep one mentally involved in the walk. That was always one of the problems with training. Over the years we had walked all over Los Angeles and were running out of new places to see. It got harder to stay focused.

At the end of the day we also celebrated with our bottles of tequila.

Here’s some scenes from the day:

Walking into town.

 

I thought this was funny…what do I know?

 

No, she didn’t join the Spanish army.

 

OFF WE GO…SORT OF

Here we are at the start off the Camino Inglés. Today we walked only about eight miles. We really had planned to start the Camino tomorrow, but since we had all day today with not much to do. We walked…a little. We started at about nine and walked till about noon. It is going to be warm out for the next few days, so a short day today and tomorrow helps. Plus we are dragging  a bit from the long journey here.

Today despite some heat it was a very nice day for a walk.

 

Looks like they are having a drought too, though I doubt it. Not sure what going on here.

We had a big lunch got back to Ferrol and took a nap. Many Spanish towns close during the afternoons so there isn’t much one can do. I mean like almost everything is closed. We also used the afternoon to sink wash clothes, put minutes onto our Spanish phone and catch up on some missed sleep.

At night, although not really hungry, we decided to go out for dinner. Unfortunately most places were closed. Not sure if Ferrol is really a big tourist town because everything was closed. The nice restaurants we saw on Saturday were closed. So we stopped at a small restaurant bar to eat. Not really hungry we ordered way too much food. Calamares, cuttlefish, yes it is very good, tortilla, which is potato and eggs cake like, shrimp and cheese croquettes, and each dish came with a large plate of fries. We left the place stuffed. I mean stuffed. We were not even hungry in the first place. From this point on we will try on cut back a little.

My new Jawbone said we walked 19,400 steps today.

Does anyone know what this represents? I’m afraid to guess.

 

I wonder if the original pilgrims had to deal with detours?

 

On the Caminos de Santiago one should always only follow the yellow arrows and not ones of another color. Those are different routes going to different places. I learned the hard way.

ARE WE THERE YET?

We arrived in Madrid bright and early.

Everything was going smooth…then somehow the day got long…very long. How long is very long? Real long. As in 25 hours long. Door to door: 25 hours.

A car ride, three plane rides, a taxi, a bus, and finally a twenty minute Camino to the hotel. Were we tired and angry? Well, we were certainly tired, but sometimes travel takes a long time. If one wants to travel, long and complicated days are part of the process. We survived. Checked  into a nice hotel in the town of Ferrol, Spain and begin the second part of the day that never seemed to end.

Despite the lack of rest, we headed out into the town to check it out. Ferrol is the northern home of the Spanish Navy and a major shipbuilding center. It is also a pretty city with some good restaurants. It is also the hometown of general and Spanish dictator Francisco Franco. Oh well. This week may be unusually warm for Ferrol. Not what we were expecting. We were hoping for cooler weather to walk in. There isn’t a cloud in the sky.

We took a walk around town. Stopped for a cold beer.

Bought some fruit. Then waited for dinner. Dinner around here doesn’t start until around 8pm. By this time we were starving. We stopped for some calamare, octopus, mussels, a little bread, and some vino.

On Sunday, tomorrow, a day we planned to take off, we will do part of the Camino. We will walked for a few hours to make Monday a much shorter day. On this Camino we are not really going to kill ourselves if we don’t have to. Plus I think there will still be a few long days.

 

 

PAPER OR PLASTIC?

Well, plastic of course. Or should I say baggies. Baggies of  all different sizes.

On the Camino being organized is a good thing, as one is packing and unpacking everyday. We need to be organized when we do a Camino. It is easy to lose things. In the evenings before going to bed, or in the morning, one wants to be able to gather their stuff and be ready without too much of a fuss.

We don’t want one or two big baggies with everything, because day after day pulling things out, and putting them back in becomes old…fast. I like just pulling out the bag I need that has only the stuff I need. I like knowing where things are without wasting too much time. Sometimes it’s those little things that make a big difference. Walking and washing is, most of the time, enough to worry about.

As we walk Caminos it is always good to know that your documents and electronics are dry when everything around you is wet. We don’t mind walking in heavy rain. We have done it many times. What we do worry about is keeping the necessary dry things dry.

Another good thing about having enough baggies is they take up very little room in the backpack. You can squeeze them into anywhere. Most of the one that carry documents can be used again on other trips and Caminos. The stay clean.

We are just about all packed and ready to go. We leave tomorrow. Cool.

A LITTLE TRADITION…

No, unfortunately we’re not in Europe yet. We’re at a local pizza joint celebrating. Patricia feels that with every holiday, occasion, or trip we take, there should be a dinner accompanying it to celebrate beforehand. I agree…but it’s not my good idea, it’s hers. Having dinner is an important part of the tradition and ritual involved in taking a trip, or doing something special. It doesn’t have to be at a restaurant, but it should take place. So in honor of our trip we went out for pizza…and some vino of course.

Another tradition on our trips is a couple of small bottles of tequila. Usually we drink them to celebrate after the first day of walking. We would celebrate this part a bit more if carrying more bottles were easier…and finding tequila in Spain is not always so easy. Unfortunately for us.

So dinner is over, we did our last walk this morning of about three hours. Lots of steep hills, and now we are done training. Not sure yet if it was enough. This is the least amount of training we have ever done for a Camino.  Although this will be a short Camino, physical problems can occur for the unprepared. We’re counting on a lot of muscle memory to kick in. Yeah, right. Most of one’s problems can occur early on on a Camino, so just because this one is short, it is still long enough to create problems. Oh well.

Oh, during dinner I got a gift. A really cool gift from Patricia. A Jawbone: to track miles, steps, calories, and a lot of others healthy things. So I may be boring you about all the thousands of steps we are taking everyday. Cool!

We have packed and unbacked, and repacked our backpacks to make sure they are carriable. We’ve done all our notes about things to remember while we are there. Not much else to do but wait. I guess we are ready. We’ll certainly know in a few days…won’t we?

WHY WE WALK…FAR

People are always curious as to why we continue to do Caminos. What is it about walking long distances, especially after you’ve done it once…or twice? They know we talk and write about the hills, the soreness, the bad weather, the lousy rooms. So why do we walk Caminos? I’m not sure. I guess now it’s in our blood. People who do these types of walks feel the same way. Like it is no longer up to them. Like a higher being is now in charge of that department for us. I don’t mean, in this case, a godlike or religious higher being. Nah, just a thought, a swaying, something that lives inside of us that says, “Aw, come on, let’s do it again.” And it always seems to win the argument. It really doesn’t get much of a fight out of us.

On days when one has to walk twelve miles, it’s always, “Great, just twelve miles.“ When it is fifteen it is always, “Cool, just fifteen miles.“ Even when it is a bit more than fifteen we say, “I think we’ll be okay. Let do it”…even if we don’t always believe it. There is a period of the walk day where you feel like a million bucks. Where there is no place you would rather be. Like you can’t believe you are actually at that location: walking, talking, eating, drinking.

You are where you see things you could never see unless you were on foot. I know the things we have seen on other Caminos could have only been seen on foot, and that unless someone has walked on the same Camino they have not had quite such a good look at everything along the way. It’s impossible really.

Perhaps walking the Camino is a combination of things that cannot really be explained. Things that can’t be put down on paper, or told around the dinner table with friends. Something that has a strong magnetic pull on you, but science is not where you go for the answer. So we will walk and we’ll enjoy some days, while others days might be not so pleasant, and we’ll think about how to answer the question: Why do we walk…far?

HAVE WE TRAINED ENOUGH???

Well, that is a good question. Yes, we have been training and feel confident, but we haven’t train like we have in previous Camino. Although this one is not as long, it is long enough if one hasn’t trained. The difficulty of not training shows early on on the Camino. Sore muscles and sore and blistered feet. Blistered feet are the absolute worst. You really have to stop walking for a  couple of days or so. You cannot really walk if the blisters are too big or at a place on the foot where the walk increases the pressure on the sore. Bad News. Now, I don’t think blisters will be a problem for us…or they never have been, whether in training or on the Camino. We shall see. We do take a lot of precaution for this.

We also need to do some walking with our backpacks. Something we haven’t really done during this training. Most of our walks have been around 10 miles, but we did do one 18 miler. We came out of that okay. We will continue to train but not at the same intensity of the previous walks. We hope that isn’t a mistake.

 

MORE WALKING…

Well it is now 2015 and we have not had enough. In late September Patricia and I will start our third Camino together. In September we will do the Camino Inglés. Now fortunately, or unfortunately for us, this Camino is not very long. It is a bit over 118 kilometers, or about 74 miles. It should takes about five days to complete. It is an official Camino route…it just isn’t very long. So to help this situation we will walk for another six or seven days or so, from Santiago de Compostela to Finisterre on the coast, and then up to a city called Muxia. From there we will walk back to Santiago.

Finisterre and Muxia are actually also official Camino Routes. With every Camino one completes they are given a certificate of completion. In Santiago de Compostela it is called a Compostela. We have two. The Certificate in Finisterre is called the Fisterrana and in Muxia it is called the Muxiana. We don’t have either. They will be cool to have.

Total walking days will be about 12 or 13 and total kilometers will be about 200. In Miles? About 124.  200 kilometers sounds better, doesn’t it? It isn’t long like the other Camino we have done, but we’re cool with this. We have even added a few extra days just in case we want to take it easy along the way. In past Camino we usually only had enough days to finish with no days to spare. This will be nice.

We are leaving to the Camino on September 25th, and arriving in Spain on the 26th. Unlike other Caminos we have walked, on this one we will take the next day, Sunday, off and just hang out for a day before we head out. We may even walk for a couple of hours that day and eliminate a few miles off the first official day for us which is Monday the 28th.

The Camino Inglés starts officially in a town call Ferrol at the very northwest tip of Spain. This part of Spain is called Galicia and is known for their food. Seafood in particular. That is all I keep thinking about. Octopus and calamare…and tapas…and vino…and cold cerveza.