July 26th, 2016 – Camino completo!
Matt, Barrell Roll and I wrapped up our Camino pilgrimage on July 25th with an easy walk into Santiago de Compostella. The city was bustling with a huge festival celebrating the feast of St James. There was also numerous rallies of the Galician Independence Movement. I know nothing about this movement, but in my mind there was definitely a tension in the air. Matt and I went to 4:00 mass, which just felt like the right thing to do. Shortly afterwards, we bumped into Roger and the blonde Austrian girl, who’s name I never totally understood. It turned out that the whole crew was in town. Roger had met and begun hiking with Michael and Csaba and the whole European crew that we had enjoyed so much on the early days of the Primtivo. We all met up for a nice group dinner, and seeing them all one more time and celebrating the completion of this journey was so uplifting. Afterwards we watched a strange laser show in the square which I suppose was celebrating the life of St James. The following morning the three of us headed to Madrid, where we’d spend a day sightseeing before heading home where another school year awaited us.
July 23, 2016 – Santiago Bound
Since I last wrote, the Camino Primitivo has joined the Frances. The Frances, or “French route” is by far the most popular route to Santiago. Describing today – our first day of walking along the Frances- my guidebook says, “Prepare yourself for pilgrim culture shock…it can feel jarring to suddenly find yourself among not 50, but 500 pilgrims.” I imagined that we would feel as if we were walking in some sort of parade, but perhaps bc of that expectation, today wasn’t as intense as I’d imagined. We did stop in a little chapel and saw that 277 pilgrims had checked in yesterday. 
We continued to enjoy the Primitivo after my last post, with its dirt paths, forests, bucolic farmland and historic villages. We also walked through one larger town, Lugo which is best known as the site of the worlds largest surviving Roman walls. The walls were neat, but the best part was that Lugo had a Chinese restaurant, which was a phenomenal change of pace from the bocadillos (sandwiches) we are eating for most meals.
Tomorrow we will reach Santiago de Compostela, and our journey will be complete. We have timed out arrival (pretty much coincidentally) for the feast day of Saint James (Santiago), which is a major holiday in the Galicia region of Spain. We are not quite sure what to expect, but supposedly the town will be quite festive for the occasion.
July 18th, 2016 – Camino Update
I apologize for being so remiss in posting. I last posted on day 7 of the Camino from Bilbao, and we are now on day 21, having walked 260 miles since my last entry. That means that we are about 360 miles into our Camino with 140 miles, and eight days to go. 
Most recently my reason for not writing is because I’ve been feeling sick for the last four days and all I’ve wanted to do at the end of the day (and at every break) has been to lay down. I’m happy to report that I finally feel like I’ve turned the corner today though.
Too much has happened to provide a day by day recap without boring everyone, but here are a few random tidbits from the last two weeks…
-almost everyone we meet thinks I am Dutch. A good handful of people have thought Irish and a few have guessed German, but Dutch is the overwhelming favorite. Matt final asked some people why this is the case, and they explained that it is because of my accent. Apparently I speak English the way a Dutch person does. Or at least the way a French or Spanish person thinks a Dutch person sounds. BR’s Dutch girlfriend on the other hand thinks I sound quite American.
-On day 16 we reached the spot where the Camino Del Norte and the Camino Primitivo split. The Norte stays along the coast, while the Primitivo heads inland towards the “mountains.” I put mountains in quotes because these are like north Georgia mountains (at most) as opposed to the Pyrenees or the Rockies or something of that nature. We’d planned all along to take the Primitivo, but our last two days of coastal walking were so stunning that we almost decided to stick with the Norte. Ultimately we opted for the Primitivo and are glad we did. While the beaches on Spain’s northern coast are phenomenal, the Norte route involves way too much road walking. Some sections traveled highways through industrial areas and crappy suburbs, and were fairly miserable. We’ve really been appreciating the trail on the Primitivo.
-We’ve been staying pretty much exclusively at albuergues that cost 5 euros a night per person (which is $5.50 USD). Camping hasn’t been as feasible as we’d imagined. First of all, it isn’t allowed. People that have “wild camped” (what camping not in a campground is called here) along the Camino allegedly wait until after dark to set up. I didn’t realize that it would get dark until nearly 11pm here. Also a lot of the places we walk by are fenced in, so that limits the camping options as well. Everyone has different comfort levels with stealth camping, and admittedly mine is lower than that of most thru hikers I know. For both Matt and me, paying five euros a piece for a night in an albuergue is well worth it.
-The albuergues are nice for the social aspect too. I wouldn’t say that we’ve made new really close friends as I’ve been fortunate enough to do on my hikes in the US, but we have met and really enjoyed lots of interesting people. We have only met six Americans this entire summer, which is pretty noteworthy since we have encountered well over a hundred people total. The Spanish are the most well represented, followed by Germans and French. We’ve also met at least one person from Ireland, Hungary, Austria, Denmark, Belgium, Italy, Britain, and probably other places that I’ve forgotten at the moment. Obviously there’s been a lot of news coming out of both Europe and the US this summer – most of it bad – so it’s interesting to be getting a European perspective on some of it.
-I will probably never be able to eat bread or salted meat of any sort ever again after this hike. Still relishing pastries and cafe con leche. I am surprised that I like some octopus – depending on how it is prepared. Grilled is excellent, canned not so much. All cafes have ice cream coolers with Popsicles and chipwhich type treats. Our favorite is something called maxibon, and we try to eat it everyday. It’s basically a large ice cream sandwich.
-the walking on the Camino is just not that hard. We don’t want to be dismissive of other people’s struggles, but the terrain is milder than what we are used to, and we are probably becoming soft from not needing to carry food or very much water. We have just over 140 miles to go to Santiago and plan on seven more days of walking.
July 2nd, 2016 – Update from Bilbao
The Camino has been a bit hit or miss for me since the last post. Day 3 provided sweeping coastal views as we hiked along cliffs overlooking the ocean. The landscape was reminiscent of the central California coast, and it was a phenomenal day of hiking.
Since then though, the Camino has taken us inland, and the scenery hasn’t been particularly notable. There has also been quite a lot of road walking, which I knew to expect, but it can still be kind of a drag. One highlight was two nights ago when we stayed overnight at the Zenarruza monastery that (I think) was almost 1,000 years old. The monks provide dinner, and the four of us sat down for dinner with two Italians, two Germans, and a girl from Hungary. The Italian guys weren’t too impressed with the food. “Never since I was born have I had pasta with potatoes in it,” Mikela commented. But everyone ate multiple helpings anyway.
I must agree with the Italians regarding some of their assessments of the food we’ve been eating. “Tapas, tapas, tapas. Everywhere tapas,” Mikela’s friend Fabio lamented. “When will we find a real meal?” Most cafes put out these little sandwiches called bocadillos, which usually involve cured ham, and cost just over a euro each. There is typically not a menu, patrons just choose what they want from what is available on the counter. I have also an eaten an ungodly quantity of baguettes and sausages from the grocery stores, and am pretty tired of both.
I bought a slice of watermelon yesterday from young boy on a rural road who’d set up a little lemonade stand type of operation. He was also selling beer, which I found amusing, as it indicates quite a cultural difference compared to what I am used to.
Tomorrow we head back to the coast, which I am very much looking forward to.
June 27, 2016 – First Day on the Camino
Excellent first day on the Camino. We walked from Irun to San Sebastián via the “alpinista”route, which was just over sixteen miles. We had spectacular ocean views, and compared to the GR 10 the hiking was not too difficult.
We had to take a ferry across the river…
So we arrived in San Sebastián and weren’t quite sure where we would be able to stay. The albuergue doesn’t open until July, and hotels were pretty expensive. We met an American couple – Ari and Ben -this morning and walked much of the way with them today. When we got to town we went to a gelato shop and Ari and Matt both got online to research our options. Ari ended up finding a 3 bedroom Airbnb apartment for $120, which was a solid deal for the six of us so here we are. It’s so funny how in regular life it can take a month of knowing someone before you might consider asking them on some sort of low stakes social outing. But on the Camino, as on the trail we are splitting overnight lodging with folks that we’ve known for maybe 10 hours. Probably a shorter day tomorrow, hoping for another good walk.
June 26, 2016 – Traveling to the Camino
We weren’t sure when or where we planned to leave France and the GR 10 to travel to Irun, Spain to begin our walk on El Camino del Norte. In fact, I had miscalculated the mileage from our starting point in Cauterets that I thought we might be able to walk all the way to to the Atlantic Ocean and the starting point of the Camino. Alas this was not possible if we still hope to walk 500 miles on the Camino (which we do). After four days of perfect weather, rain had moved in during our fifth day of hiking and was still lingering when we woke up in Lescun, France this morning. I wanted to hike for a few more days, but doing so would take us further from a bus route, so with that and the weather, the whole group agree that we ought to begin our journey to Spain today.
We did some research online into busses and trains, and were greatly helped by the woman who ran the gite where we were staying. From what I can tell a gite is basically a hiker hostel. The gite lady called to make sure that there were no strikes. She also told us that the train out of Bedous would be free today bc today was the first time that a train had come to Bedous in thirty years, so there would be kind of a party. So the train hasn’t run to Bedous in thirty years, and the one day that we are in town and need a ride, here it comes, and it’s free. Seriously, I couldn’t make this stuff up.
We walked three miles down to the highway and then hitched another four to Bedous. When we arrived there was indeed a party with food, beer and music. When the locals and the four of us all crowded into the train for the free ride, we were joined by a marching band who walked through both cars playing a very merry tune.
We had a few connections to make and not all the trains were free of course, but we were pretty amazed that we made it to Irun with just half a day of travel.
When we got to Irun we set out to find the albergue. Albergues are like hostels that are just for pilgrims, pilgrims being us – people who are hiking the Camino route. The Camino de Santiago is an ancient Catholic pilgrimage route that culminates in Santiago de Compostela where the apostle James is buried. Historically the pilgrimage began at a pilgrim’s front door, and thus there are Camino routes all throughout Europe. The route we are doing – El Norte – came into use during the Muslim occupation of Spain. Today people walk the Camino for both spiritual and secular reasons, and it attracts a really diverse crowd.
I felt nervous as we approached the albuergue, and even now as I lie in my bunk, I am unsure of what to expect. We have tents and hope to camp when possible, but again just aren’t sure what to expect in that regard. I do know that we plan to walk 16 miles to San Sebastián tomorrow.
June 25, 2016 – The GR 10
On the evening of our third day into our sixty-five mile, five day hike along the GR 10 in France’s high Pyrenees, Matt manages to buy a kilogram of cheese from a woman who ran a restaurant in the village of Gabas. Gabas has no store – at least not one that is open this early in the season, but a sign outside the restaurant reads, “vende fromage.” Fromage is one of the only French words we’ve learned in our few days in France, but it’s a valuable one to know. The woman takes Matt back to kitchen and gives him a sample off the wheel, which he devours. She probably expected him to savor and contemplate the taste, but all he’s eaten all day is a few chunks of baguette and a mayonnaise packet, so he’s going to buy the cheese regardless of its taste. She seemed surprised when he says he wants a full kilo. He speaks no French, and she speaks no English, so she probably wants to make sure she understands. Yes, he wants a full kilo of cheese. Our hiking companions DG and Barrrell Roll (BR of CDT and PCT fame) arrive shortly and are exhausted after hiking sixteen miles with thousands of feet of elevation gain and loss, but are both thrilled to learn of the cheese purchase. 
How did we get ourselves into this situation, of having nothing to eat but baguettes, cheese, and mayo packets, all of which we begged, bought or stole* from restaurants? On day two, around lunchtime, in the town of Arrens-Marsous, BR looked up the word supermarket in his dictionary. He approached a French hiker heading east on the trail (we were hiking westbound), and said, “Gourette?” and pointed at the word, supermarket. “Oui, oui,” the man replied. The double “oui.” Surely that must mean that not only did Gourette have a grocery store, but a truly fantastic one. Thus we did not resupply in Arrens-Marsous, but headed back to the trail towards Gourette, which we would reach later that evening. When we arrived in Gourette we found a ski town that was nearly deserted, the summer season not really beginning until July here in France. And definitely no grocery store.
There was one restaurant open in town, and we ate a big meal in attempt to load up on calories for the next day. Our server didn’t speak any English, but there were several hikers there who did, and they were kind enough to translate for us as we asked if she might be willing to sell us any baguettes to take with us. She obliged with two fresh baguettes, “gratuit.”
We stealth camped with the French hikers on the outskirts of town before going our separate ways. We were heading towards the highest pass of our hike, and the only significant snow crossing. It took us about three hours to cross the terrain with the snow, and although some of it was steep enough to be a little scary to me, had I been carrying micro spikes and an ice axe, I wouldn’t have found it at all disconcerting. Matt was even able to glissade down the backside, but I declined to do so fearing the inevitable wedgie and subsequent butt chaffage that comes when one attempts to glissade in running shorts.
By evening we reached Gabas and the lady with the cheese. Again we camped just on the outskirts of town and in the morning we began another climb towards a high mountain pass, rationing our cheese and remaining bread cautiously. We’d heard that there was a high backcountry refuge eight miles (and several thousand feet of climbing) into our day where we could buy food, but not having a similar institution in the US, we weren’t sure what to expect, so we didn’t want to get our hopes too high. We were ecstatic when we arrived to the most beautiful setting imaginable and a full menu. We all ate crepes and omelettes and drank coffee and felt incredibly rejuvenated for the second half of our day, which would end in the village of Etsaut, which did indeed have a small but well stocked grocery shop.
Admittedly, I am being a bit melodramatic about our food issues, and I am a big wimp about doing strenuous hiking on a calorie deficit. A huge difference between the long distance hiking trails in the US though and what we found during our five days on the GR 10 was that even though we weren’t able to resupply, we did reach a village with a full service restaurant each evening where we were able to make up some of our missed calories from the day.
While the trail runs all the way from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean, our stint on the GR 10 is now over. We got to experience some of the best of the trail and were incredibly fortunate to have perfect weather. Perfect for me, at least; some would call it too hot. The scenery in the high Pyrenees is possibly the most stunning I have ever seen in my life. Like Colorado, but more green. I’d love to return to thru hike it someday, but for now it is on to our primary objective of the summer, El Camino de Santiago.
Peanut Butter and Frosting 