My wife and her sister are walking the Camino from St. Jean to Santiago. They have planned 2 1/2 months for the adventure. On occasion I will provide her accounts:

Started from St. Jean Pied de Port to Orisson (both in France), into Spain: to Roncevalles, Viskarret, to Akerreta, to Pamplona

St. Jean Pied de Port is a tiny town is the former ancient capital of the Basque region. The streets were crowded with tourists, many on local bank holiday; a favorite activity is watching pilgrims from France and Germany and other parts of Europe entering St. Jean thru the townīs medieval gate on its western side in search of a nightīs accomodation. If you are an early riser, you can watch the very same pilgrims leaving via the same street on its eastern end to begin their climb into the Pyrenees.
Which is what my sister Carmen and I did on 5/3, excited and a little bit fearful, feeling that this might be a bit beyond us. The countryside is beautiful. The cream-colored cows keep their faces buried in the spring grass. The herds of sheep and lambs scatter and flee when we pass and form and unform into mysterious lines and patterns. Overhead black vultures float, flashing gold when they tip their wings. They are watching and waiting for us to fail and we think they have a point. The people we meet smile and wave and call out "Buen Camino," Good camino.
The weather is sunny but scorching hot in the mountains. The first day we climb about 2500 feet in about 7 or 8 miles. It is very steep and pretty soon we are staggering. That night we stay in our first refugio (hostel). It is very clean. There are 6 bunks to a room and people from all over are chattering in multiple languages (german, french, italian, portugese, spanish, basque). Carmen talks to everyone, despite the fact that she speaks none of these languages.
The next day, up another 1500 feet and down about the same. This area of the Pyrenees is the area where Roland, nephew of Charlemagne, died in 778 along with many French noblemen. His death is recorded in the epic poem Chanson de Roland. Like many great legends, the geography is a bit inexact as he seems to have fought and blown his horn and died in multiple places. The descent on day 2 is ruinous on the body - aches and pains and grim blisters. But that night we sleep in the town of Roncevalles where pilgrims have crossed into Spain for over a thousand years. Many pilgrims who did not make it across the mountains are buried here, as well as (who else?), the soldiers who fought and died with Roland. We rest, tend our wounds and limp about to see the sights.

Hi, aduchamp -

thank you for giving us a chance to share in their adventure.

May I ask if they are undertaking this for religious reasons, or just for "fun"?

regards, ann

For the adventure. Their father was born in a small town near Santiago.
I will meet them in Santiago. I have threatened to walk the last mile, put dirt on my face, and rip my clothes so look like I walked the entire 500 miles.

Hi Aduchamp,

Thank you so much for posting this. I'm in awe of anybody that does "the real thing"!

They are truly excited. By the way not every small town has a telephone or the internet in the libarary.

My cousins live down the camino from Roncevalles in Linsoian. The pilgrims go right past their house. My cousin's husband was a shepard here in the US about 40 years ago, so he practices his English on the pilgrims.

Hope they have a great trip.

MY

Aduchamp1, please keep posting. Carmen is like my daughter. In 15 minutes she knows everybody and everyone's life story. FBI should have grabbed her out of school.

El Camino is on my list of things to do before it's too late. Give my regards to your wife and her sis.

Dear Aduchamp1-

This is a goal of mine as well. I've done a bit of Jakobsweg which is the Swiss portion of Camino...It runs from Lake Konstanz to Geneva.

All the best to your wife and her sister. And kudos to you for being a supportive partner.

Looking forward to more.

gruezi

Wow! I'm envious. I'd love to do this, but I'm so old and out of shape the best I could hope for the the pilgrimage "lite," where a van carries your luggage, arranges hotels and meals. And I'm not even in shape for that.

It's a dream of mine to make this pilgrimage.

Pegontheroad,

Don't feel bad. I also want to do the Camino "lite", as you call it( my husband refuses to go with me. He calls it the "fake" Camino). But I accept my limitations , and although I admire people like Aduchamp's wife, I know I'll never get to do it that way.

I'm just waiting for the US$$ to improve (hopefully in my lifetime!).

Another day.

Gruezi-we have been married 36 years and I never thought I would get her out of the house.


We had our pilgrim comeupppance on the road from Pamplona to the town of Uterga. And it was all because of the beautiful spring weather we have been enjoying. We counted ourselves lucky for the sunny dry days we have enjoyed with lots of time to admire the flowers in bloom along the way. Sprays of mustard mark the paths. Broom bushes are sweetly fragrant with yellow blossoms. And in the fields, foals dance around their mares. These are heavy set Basque ponies, very broad in the belly and short-legged. They are very hardy and will live out-of-doors throughout the mountain winter without a need for shelter.
We got our warning that things were changing in Pamplona. Our plan was to rest here and spend time sketching the cityīs ornate birthday cake style architecture which is punctuated by vivid colors. But instead it rained heavily for 2 days and we ran from bar to bar drinking the wine and tasting the tapas (we could have run from cathedral to cathedral but it was bar to bar). We never took off our hiking panchos, looking very nattily-dressed, if you are an admirer of the walking garbage bag style of fashion.
When the rain finally came to an end on our walking day to Uterga, we were very hopeful. Big mistake. We left Pamplona on a flat road, lined with chestnut trees and came to the town of Zariquigui. Itīs very pretty now but was wiped out by bubonic plague in 1348. From there, it was up 600 feet, an ascent that was unforgettable and miserable. The route was deep with sticky mud, pulling at our boots and feet and walking sticks. Pretty soon we were covered with mud. At one point, a french woman came back to guide each of us by our hand over a slippery log thrown across a ravine. She knew 3 necessary English words -- "Donīt look down." Our heavy packs made us completely unsteady. Amazingly, we did not fall here or anyway this day, although there were skid marks and boot marks and butt marks everywhere, marks of the less fortunate who had passed before us.
That night at the pilgrimsī dinner in Uterga, a German tourist declared that it was impossible to stop and look around and enjoy this camino (as is widely advised). All he could do was look at his boots and his stick and the rocks and mud ahead. This was greeted by a lot of laughing and talking about what we each had thought the camino would be and what it is becoming.

aduchamp...

please keep sharing this wonderful writing with us!


Peg...

There is no "right" way to do the Camino. I hope you pursue this dream in whatever way you can. Many people do it over a number of years - a section at a time - and this is considered authentic.

g.

Greuzi, thanks for the encouragement.

I made a sign yesterday and put it on the refrigerator. It says, "Which would you rather do most, eat that or make a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela?" I'm hoping that will motivate me.

I am encouraging my wife and SIL to turn this into a book. They are also drawing along the way, watercolors for my wife, colored pencils for my SIL.

One little hotel in whcih they stayed, asked my wife to do their postcard after seeing her work.

In the past she has made her own books from scratch and filled it with a spcific trip. Our trip to see the cave drawings in the Perigord region fo France resulted in many spectaculat renderings.

Unfortunately do to weight limitations of her backpack, she cannot carry a book or a full complement of art supplies.

Aduchamp1,

Really enjoying this post. Please keep it up. One small suggestion, however; could you add paragraphs? It would make reading much easier.

Thank you for the last installment. Looking forward to the next one!

This is great so far - someone living one of my dreams.

Peg - I'm stealing your refrigerator sign since I would like to do the camino too (at least the last 100K) but have the same problem - old and out of shape! I put a map of Galacia on my fridge but it didn't work - hopefully words will send a stronger message to my brain. We should get a club together - women of a certain age and out of shape who want to change their lives and do the Camino!

and Peg already has the right screen name!

By the way my wife is 62 and my SIL 74. Many people, when the learn of the walk say to my SIL "God Bless You" in that tone that puts her closer to 90. So now the entire family says, 'God Bless You" knowing it irritates her no end.

I have passed on your praise, inspiration, and appreciation to them. They, however, are modest and tired.


5/25/08 (Santo Domingo de Calzada)
Logrono to Navarette to Najera to Santo Domingo)
Reaching Logrono meant crossing from the Basque kingdom of Navarre into La Rioja. Shamefully, we have not learned a word of Basque, although SIL created "Xit" for steaming cow patties. We are now in serious wine country and the bottles served at table are not to be taken lightly, if you want to get up after lunch without lurching out of the restaurant, knocking over tables. The numbers of pilgrims on the road seem to have thinned out. For the first time, townspeople seem amazed at our trip. We have been stopped several times, asked if we were pilgrims, if we were really going to go all the way to Santiago de Compostela. The questions seem a little odd when you are carrying a backpack half your size, a walking stick, boots caked in mud and you look like xit. When you answer yes, they shake their heads and walk away.
If there are less pilgrims, they are just as interesting a group. For instance, there was Monica, a German woman with a bad back, who is pushing her belongings to Santiago in a baby stroller. There is Corey whose traveling companion is a sweet black cocker spaniel with her own English passport. No hotel or pension or refugio will accept Molly, passport not withstanding, and so Corey is making her way west by sleeping out-of-doors, under bridges, in shacks. A few days ago, we walked for a while with the very handsome Sven. He was a bit lonely and told us that he had not spoken to anyone in 4 days. Sven began his walk across the Pyrenees at 7 pm at night from St. Jean and without even a flashlight to guide him through the pass, stumbled his way into Spain. He walked through the night and into the next day. At one point, the Spanish Guardia Civil stopped him and asked what he thought he was doing. Walking to Santiago, he replied. They were astonished and decided he was quite mad. Fortunately for the young Sven, this story did not take place 30 years ago in wonderful Francoīs Spain when questioning by the Guardia, those men in patent leather hats, was more rigorous and less forgiving of the mad. And a Spanish pilgrim rhapsodized about finding accommodations for 6 euros a night and where else could that happen? I didnīt debate the point, it happened to be quite a nice place we were staying that night, although there were 7 other people in the room. I just thought to myself that no sane American would spend the night with 7 total strangers. Well, at least, they might spend the night but they wouldnīt sleep

Hi again,

my respect for you increases by the day. I hope the trip brings everything you might wish for.

adrienne - have you read the book by Tim Moore about the trip he did along the camino with a donkey?

that might help. or not, if you read the book.

regards, ann