It was long. It was hard on my body. There were times when I thought I would explode I was so bored of walking. But 700+ kilometers later, Genny and I can say we have done the great Santiago pilgrimage across the north of Spain.
A little about the Camino... There are many routes, coming from all around Europe and ending in Santiago de Compostela in the province of Galicia. The most famous one is in yellow on the map here and is called the Camino Francés. We chose to do the Camino del Norte (light blue/teal) to the Camino Primitivo (dark blue) based on fewer people, regions I'd never seen, and the ability to walk across a part of Spain most people will call the most beautiful. Before we started, I said I wanted to try the Camino Portugués, coming up from Portugal, when I finished this one; now I'm not so sure I would ever walk that far again without it being in a different capacity. See below.
We started in San Sebastián, although the Camino del Norte technically starts a day's walk away in Irún on the border with France. We decided it was most important to lie on the beach for a day doing nothing before walking our feet to pure, raw success and greatness (read: blisters and broken bones). It was the perfect place to do just that, La Concha beach is a great urban beach and here we first started to see the great people and culture of País Vasco.
First we bummed with these cats above for an afternoon, then we took off before all of them were awake for our first day of walking and saw the beach in the tranquility of the morning.
We averaged between 25 and 30 kilometers a day, with our longest day at 34 and our shortest about 15. We had hardships - my toe started smelling like low tide one day, which I thought was infection and rushed to a hospital for - and greatness - celebrating Spain's victory over Italy in the Euro Cup in a town of about 50 inhabitants with the only Italian they were probably going to see (and console) all year. We met great people - Justine, a fabulous Canadian from Ottawa who had been walking from France and had walked over 1800km when we were with her, who we walked with for 3 weeks - and less-great people - a Portuguese girl who once told me "DON'T look at me like that" when I was concerned for her safety, her German friend who wouldn't even say "hello" to us when we saw her every day, and a few old men who told us we were cheating for taking shortcuts. We walked through beautifully idyllic towns of farms, cows, and historical beauty and along national highways under construction. We got lost, the ginger lost her sunscreen, and we found a misplaced tambourine on the side of the road to get us through some long boring days. We developed relationships with each other, ourselves, and locals and travelers alike. I learned I never want to walk on roads and through towns that I could just drive through and would prefer to drive for such a vacation while Genny learned she would love to walk more and Justine told us she would walk for the next two months without stopping and see where she gets. People told us it is meant to be a solitary journey and we should do each stage alone. I started to go crazy when Genny and Justine put their headphones in and made me walk along talking to myself. I learned to walk in silence, to confront my thoughts, and came out stronger but never wanting to be alone again. I drank great wine, typical Spanish beer, and at least 2 liters of water a day (and carried those two kilograms the whole way!). I ate three course meals that I was still hungry at the end of, entire packs of digestive cookies, and craved anything that had to have a refrigerator for its success and consumption the way pregnant women crave McDonalds' fries. I learned a lot, saw a lot, and ate a lot. I'll leave you with some of the best images and we can talk about my experience in person someday. There's so much to say and so much still to reflect on that I just couldn't type it all (especially while the Olympics are on and McKayla Maroney just KILLED that vault). Over and out.
We made it!!!!
And then we destroyed some pulpo.
