Into the last days of the journey to Santiago, with my Camino Compadres stretched out in either direction (but still constantly communicating via WhatsApp), it was a quieter day's walk for me, with Ruben and Nina of Belgium for company for most of the way. The country is flattening and becoming more woody, with eucalyptus …
Climbing Through The Clouds
Having savoured a straight month of generally spectacular Spanish sunrises, it's been rather unusual to wake to two sets of consecutive grey skies, both into Portomarin and on yesterday's climb uphill towards Palas de Rei. Being denied a daily sunrise isn't necessarily a bad thing, if it is then immediately followed by climbing up through …
Like A Good Book
This morning saw the arrival of another significant marker as the 100km sign was reached and the Camino entered its final stages. Like when finishing a good and mighty book - let's say Anna Karenina - that sense of impending conclusion is growing stronger by the day, with all the range of emotions implied. There's …
Drop The Qualifiers
Since I began this journey in St Jean Pied de Port 28 days ago, I've been joined along the way by a great number of fellow Pilgrims who started their own Camino somewhere else, like Pamplona, Burgos or León. I've noticed that when describing their journey, the words "only" and "just" often feature. "I only …
Relative Values
A couple of days ago, Aoife observed that my predilection for freshly squeezed orange juice at pretty much every stop probably meant that I was spending more on that item each day than I was on where I slept each night. This is actually nearly sort of true. A glass of zumo con hielo can …
What Goes Up…
What now seems like A Very Long Time Ago, I pulled on my rucksack, laced up my Timberlands, took a deep breath and began my Camino by following Napoleon's route from France into Spain by clambering up and over the Pyrenees. I'd asked people before starting the Camino about the toughest stages and most had …
Incoherent In Several Languages
Earlier today as we walked through Cacabelos, a belligerent terrier decided to greet our arrival on his patch with a barrage of high pitched yaps, delivered from the relative safety of a first floor balcony. His owner quickly appeared from behind a curtain to admonish her pooch - and it then transpired that his name …
