Google Camino View

We're famous! At least, as much as being on Google Street View makes you famous. As luck would have it, as we were walking on the Camino last year, the Google Street View car cruised by us a couple of times. I knew what it was right away since I had seen pictures of it online before. So we made sure to get on the pictures and note the exact location that we saw it. We have been checking that spot from time to time on Google Maps and had just about given up hope that they were going to use those pictures. But then a couple of weeks ago they actually updated the imagery. It's pretty awesome that the only place we're on Street View is on some random rural road and hanging out with some cafe con leche at a local bar in Spain.


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The Lost Camino Footage

Much as archaeologists discovered the Dead Sea Scrolls thousands of years later in a cave, we have discovered some lost footage of our Camino buried in a cave of SD cards. Maybe the anthropological significance doesn't quite stack up, but hey, it was a pretty cool find in the Aber household. (Now if we could just do an archaeological dig to find our silverware that has gone missing in the move...)

So on the advent of our Caminoversary, we thought we would post them. They were both pretty early on in the Camino, taken on September 13th & 14th of last year. That was around the time when we were figuring out what the Camino was all about, and when our hair started dredding out. The first video is a tour of the most awesome Albergue, the Casa Paderborn in Pamplona. Then we've got a video of the trail just before we hit Alto del Perdon. I would rate our hike from Pamplona up Alto del Perdon and down into Pueta la Reine as one of my favorites. The landscape was amazing, we got our first taste (literally) of the vineyards to come in la Rioja, and it just seemed like a nice hike. The end of the day was kind of shit, though, because the amazing looking medieval albergue in Pueta la Reine was full, and we had to walk an extra half mile out of town to get to the next one. But it wasn't all for naught, because at that albergue we met some awesome peregrinos like Heinz-Peter (yes, that was his first name), who had already biked 1000 miles from Germany to Spain and then was going to walk another 500 to Santiago and Nurse Rosey who solved my knee problems. Anyways, enough of my blathering, here are the videos!

The Camino One Year Later

Crossing the Bridge at the bottom of Rue de la Citadele

One year ago today we started walking out of St.-Jean-Pied-de-Port, naive pilgrims without an idea of what was ahead of us. That seems like a lifetime ago. On the occasion of most anniversaries, I reflect on how quickly time has passed by. It seems only yesterday that we did this or that. It was only a year or so ago that we graduated, met friends, lost touch, moved in, moved out, traveled to this place or that; all things that happened years or decades ago.

This year has been different, though. I sometimes try to reflect on all that we did this year, only to have the details lost in the fog of time and memory. It takes looking back at pictures to remember all of the people we met, places we saw, and all the things we did. The pictures bring back only good memories, where it takes reading our old blog post to remember the physical and mental pain we suffered on the Camino. This is what makes the most everlasting memories though: remembering how much we needed the other people around us to keep on.

It seems years have passed by since we walked the Camino. It's hard to imagine that after we walked the Way, we also traveled all over the US, Carribean, and Central America. Our time after the Camino affected me nearly as much as the time on the Camino. We hiked the most amazing, awe-inspiring, and breathtaking trails in the National Parks, and rekindled a love of camping and the American outdoors. The National Parks we visited instilled in me an awe of nature and a pride in America that I haven't felt in years. We snorkeled among beautiful underwater gardens of coral that I didn't imagine possible. The time out living at Kahola gave me a new outlook on conservation and being less wasteful with water and energy. Living in Colorado, and seeing no other soul besides Lauren for weeks at a time gave me a much deeper understanding of our marriage and made me love her that much more.

On reflecting on the past year, I think that I can come up with three things that I've learned: we all need each other for happiness and survival, the Earth is a more beautiful and amazing place than words are capable of describing yet all too easy to defile, and we don't need extraneous material goods in our lives to be happy. What follows from this is that we should spend more time with our friends and families, spend more time outdoors, be more conservation minded, and live simpler with less things. Material goods only serve to bind you to an unhappy life of keeping up with the Jones's; working long hours to afford things that won't make you happy and serve only to fill up our landfills. Whereas, camping, hiking, and generally being in nature will make you happier, lead to lower stress, and give you a sense of how important it is to protect our natural environment. What's even better, is to enjoy these things with friends and family alongside.

A happy Camino family just after receiving our Compostela's at the end of the journey in Santiago, Spain.

Sweet Reunions

We are so lucky to have reunited with our dear friend Kaitlin while she was in town for Thanksgiving.  After trudging through rain soaked cow poo for days in Galicia together it was so nice to share a warm evening with her and her family and experience "normal" life outside of the Camino.  This girl got me through some severe trail breakdowns and I can't imagine the Camino without her.  You should check out her blog which includes her incredible art, photos, and diary of the Camino. 

Cheap Trips by the Charity of Others

After finishing up the Camino, I've been giving a lot of thought to traveling super cheap, and also the idea of living off the charity of others. We never actually did it on the Camino, but we certainly heard stories of people on the trail who either because of whim or necessity, asked locals for free room and board. As far as we could tell, most of the local people obliged. We even heard a story of one group that stayed at someones house, and when they went to leave they left some money on the homeowner's counter top before letting themselves out. Just a little while later, after the local found the money that was left, they chased the peregrinos down to give them their money back.

Its a pretty crazy idea, just to go stay with a stranger for free. Anyone who knows Lauren and me, knows that our home is always open, free of charge, room and board provided (within reason, don't get any crazy ideas). Although, I don't know that I wouldn't feel a little uneasy about staying over at another persons house for more than a night or two without repaying them somehow. Maybe its just that rugged individualist streak imbued in us by our frontier ancestors (or at least our frontier ancestors' mythical representations). Either way though, staying with someone else sounds like an adventure to me, and would no doubt make the trip more memorable and cheaper than just booking a hotel or hostel somewhere. The best part would just be meeting locals who just enjoy meeting other travelers (no, not those travelers), and who can give you advice on all the places to go or not go (mostly the places not to go).

Another bonus to this whole lifestyle is that, as with many things these days, the Internet makes it just that much easier to find like-minded charitable people with whom to bum a couch. I just thought I would share some of the websites I'd found when looking into this, just in case any of the rest of you might also like to bask in the charity of others.

Couchsurfing
This is the most well known and publicized of all of these sites. Although I've not signed up yet myself, I've heard good things about it. If you haven't heard about it, its kind of like an online dating site for couches. You make a profile up, then can browse other peoples profiles (which people can review, either as couch giver or receiver), to decide with whom you would want to stay with. I imagine its probably best for one or two night stays, not longer ones.

Staydu
Staydu allows people to post places to stay for free, for work, or for pay. It seems like this would be a better bet if you want to go for a week or longer. I think this is a pretty new website, but already has some pretty awesome sounding stuff listed. I'm feeling sheep farming in Scotland or primitive farm living in Sweden. There's also a bunch of stuff closer to home, like this possible hippy commune in New Mexico. Lots of the people just want to learn another language as well, and are just looking for people who speak that language to stay with them to help them learn.

Airbnb
This site is basically set up for people to rent out spare rooms in their house/apartment, or whole houses when they're out of town. I don't know that it is necessarily the cheapest way to travel, but if you want to go somewhere for a month or more, you would probably be hard pressed to find a livable place for cheaper.

Diverbo
This is another work for board kind of a site, but the opportunities are limited to specific organized programs to teach English. The whole idea is that native English speakers volunteer in exchange for a free week at a resort hotel to teach people English. Sounds like a pretty sweet deal to get a free vacation just to talk to people.

Camino Pictures!

So the moment has finally come that I'm sure you were all waiting for...we finally uploaded all of our pictures! So now you can see where we were walking all those days that I endlessly complained about feet, knees, showers, getting sick, etc. Although oddly enough, we seem to be smiling in most all of our pictures. Suck it up for the camera!

We tried to whittle them down pretty far, but there are still a whole bunch of them. Almost 1000 actually.... But come on, thats only 2 pictures per mile! And when you're wondering who is going to look through all of these, just think of the moms of the world who want to see all of your pictures. At least we split them up into different albums for your convenient viewing pleasure! So here we go, in chronological order on the trail (click on the title or picture to go to the album).

Pyrenees Mountains

 

Navarra

 

La Rioja

Meseta

El Bierzo

 

Galicia

Camino Roundup

Wow. So here we are back at home, and how it is to be home again. I cant write enough about our last couple of days on the Camino. It was an amazing and bittersweet ending to the trip. We spent our last days with the Camino family and managed to stick together to walk into the cathedral square in Santiago together all holding hands. Some were crying, the rest smiling and laughing, and myself just kind of in an awestruck stupor. Its hard to describe my feelings when we walked into the square. I was partly elated and ecstatic, partly sad, and kind of numb just trying to comprehend what it meant to be done.

Making the ending even more amazing was that our German friend Marius appeared before us out of the crowd of hundreds of pilgrims in the square. He was supposed to have finished four days before us, and we had just been talking about how the only thing missing from our walking into the square was Marius being there with us. It was like a real miracle of St. James. (I also have to point out another miracle of St. James, or perhaps it was just due to always wearing two pairs of socks (polypropelene and wool), and my awesome AKU boots, I walked 500 miles without getting ONE SINGLE BLISTER. I love my feet!)

The elation of finishing the walk continued on to the pilgrims office where we received our Compostela (which, being all in Latin, I still need to figure out what it says) and on through the night, eating and drinking like we had just walked 500 miles. It was the next morning when we attended our final pilgrims' mass in the cathedral that the idea of our Camino coming to an end really took hold. It was quite depressing to realize that we weren't going to be walking, talking, and laughing with all of our new friends the next day.

It was really this point when I realized what the Camino is all about: people. I think before the Camino, I had really started to become very cynical about the world. Especially with the nonstop election year bullshit going on with all of the negativity being thrown around for nothing. I really came to realize on the Camino how important other people are in our lives. There were many times along the way that I don't think that I would have continued by myself. Of course, Lauren was always there to help me (and Lauren sitting here reading this as I write would like to point out that she also could not have done the Camino without me), and even beyond that, we always had a huge support group of people going through the same thing as us. I'm really going to miss that, but I come home knowing that we have so many family members and friends here at home that will always be there for us. It gives me great pride to call all of you my friends and family.

Beyond that, I come back home with a new perspective on other things. Since I studied abroad for a year in Germany, I've always loved the quote from Nelson Mandela's book A Long Walk to Freedom, "There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered." The title of that book never seemed more appropriate either, come to think of it. I come back from our long walk even more excited to downsize our lives over the next year. I look around at all of the things we have and think back about how great and free it felt to have everything on my back, just walking all day. That, and its so much easier to see what's important in life. Its not about acquiring things or wealth. So many people think that they must seem richer to other people through the show of wealth. That's no way to live a life. You should impress people with your generosity, kindness, and love. With less things in our lives, we will have so much more time to devote to this. I've never been more excited about the future!

Although some things are just so nice to have. For one, a shower with consistent temperature and pressure is awesome. Also, regular internet service is a bonus. Which is why we'll soon be uploading all of our pictures (well, not ALL of them, there's like 3000 somehow...), and our videos from the Camino. Stay tuned! (Also, since we haven't really gone through our pictures yet, I stole these pictures from Andy MacDonald on Facebook. Thanks in advance, Andy!)

Time Warp

Its totally crazy that I feel like I was just writing about having 100 miles left. That seemed like so much when I wrote it too! Well now we're going to be in Santiago in 2 days. Its like we've been accelerating through time and space. We have actually been accelerating though space somewhat. In the last 3 days we covered 58 miles. Never thought I would be able to do that. I think the most we ever covered in 3 days earlier in the Camino was maybe 45 miles. If you would have told me that I would be walking this much before the Camino, I wouldn't have even believed you. I knew it was like 500 miles to walk, but really had no idea what that meant. Now, only 25 miles shy of our goal, we have a little better idea. 

Our last days have been fun and not fun. Let's start with the not fun part first. We had heard that it rains a lot in Galicia. Well we stepped about 500 ft over the boarder and it started to rain. It hasn't really stopped since then. Not hard rain, but a solid on and off drizzle. We also haven't been feeling great. Lauren got all dizzy and disoriented on the trail yesterday. I think it was from a combination of taking Valerian root to try to sleep better and wine. Anyway, she felt better after a few hours. I've also not been feeling great. I would imagine it has something to do with walking 20 miles a day and wine. Too much wine! 

Which brings us to the fun part! Wine! And friends to drink with. Our walks have been a laugh a minute walking with our Camino family. Camino Clown, Dean, never let's it rest. We've also been playing "I've got a business." Which generally goes something like: 

"I've got a business."
"What's you're business?"
"I sell vacuum cleaners."
"How's that going for you?"
"It sucks."

Ha! Its basically a bad pun game that Tom of London taught us. It does get rather hilarious sometimes, but maybe that's just the haze of endorphins talking. We need to assemble all of our best ones to see what our masses of readers think. Its really been a lot of fun walking and drinking and joking together though. And in 2 days, the party is on for real in Santiago!

Only 100 to Go... Really?

We are rocking this Camino. Officially today we have less than 100 miles to walk. This sounds like a lot, but we have already walked 380 miles to put it in perspective. We're rolling now with our new Camino family which makes things even better. We have our Camino parents, Dean and Tracy, and our Camino sister Kaitlin (all formerly of the Utah 4, but the fellowship was broken. Although it may be reunited tomorrow, stay tuned for the next 4 hour movie installment.) We also have the quirky Uncle Undies, aka Crocodile Undies, aka Andy from Australia. He had some underwear issues a few days back, as in losing his underwear in the washing and going commando for a few days. We also have long lost Aunt Sherry, a newly discovered addition to the family.

I think the last installment we were still on the Meseta which is now a distant memory. We actually crested the highest point on the Camino at 1515 meters, which rose directly out of the Meseta. We were near the top as the sun rose and we saw the deep red ball of the sun rise through the haze of 100 miles of the Meseta. We stood there and thought: as far as you can see across the plains, we walked that.

At the top of that peak was the famous Iron Cross where you drop your rock (which has become a 20 ft high pile of rocks) to in load your burden. We dropped our rocks and had our moment and were glad we missed all the tourist busses that descend on the place later in the day. Then it was down to the business of walking down off the mount and into the Bierzo region.

Ponferrada was an awesome town in which we treated ourselves to a real hotel room! Our first private room in 4 weeks! Private shower! And the Discovery Channel inexplicably in English. All the show titles and ads were in Spanish but How Its Made commentary was totally in English. Now I know all about horseradish, buttons, and screwdrivers. But really it was pretty amazing to take a shower and dry off with a towel that I didn't have to pack up right away. It was hard going back into an albergue the next night.

We also hit up the bars American style (i.e. before 11pm) to drink wine and beer and eat tapas. Its pretty awesome that when you order a drink here, they give you a free tapa. Its not like peanuts or something either. You get ham, mussels, croquettes, cheeses, little sandwiches, whatever you want really. Also, when you order food for dinner you get free wine with your food. I'm trying to work out how I can lure a Spaniard into a feedback loop of giving me both free drinks and food. Anyways we spent a great night with our Camino family dinking and eating, pub crawling Ponferrada.

That was 2 days ago. The last two days we've had some great walks through the Bierzo with endless vegetable fields and vineyards. Today we climbed up out of the Bierzo at the end of the day to finish our hike. 17 miles total and 2000 ft elevation to finish off the day. I think I should be much more tired than I am. But I was able to enjoy the end of the day without much pain, drinking wine on the main "street" of Laguna de Castilla. We watched 4 herds of cattle be led through town on this street by farmers. Then we had some tripe soup for dinner! Yum.

Tomorrow will be a real test though. We've planned a monster because we're going to try to get to Santiago a day early and spend 2 days there. So tomorrow is going to be a 23 mile day with some serious elevation change, up and down. Right now it seems daunting, but I'm sure once its done, it won't seem to be that amazing of a feat. This seems to be the theme of our Camino. Doubting our abilities, then surprising ourselves when we complete whatever we were fretting about. I think if I'm changed in any way by this Camino, it will be the confidence that I can do much more than I believe I can.

It Gets Easier Peregrino

Today was a good day. I am born again. We walked 13 miles and were in town by 12:30. My feet didn't hurt. My knees didn't hurt. My legs didn't hurt. It was like a stroll in the park. When we got to our albergue, I felt like a new man. Its amazing to think that it could be that easy. I remember just a few weeks ago when 13 miles was almost unthinkable. I know that tomorrow will be brutal once again (17 miles to come tomorrow), but I can still revel in the fact that 13 miles is like a rest day for us now. I just wish I could talk to those peregrinos about 10 days in and tell them what I know now: like most things in life, it gets so much easier. All you have to do is walk 275 miles.

We had a pilgrim party at a crazy artists bar tonight in Reliegos. I'm not being facetious either. The man is crazy. His bar is covered inside and out with his own and other peoples paintings and writing that he stays up all night painting. He kept bringing us food and beer and never asked for money. He sat with us for hours speaking like a possessed man. Of course, I understood none of his Spanish, but I have on good authority (Spanish speakers) that it was crazy talk. I'm not sure how much we had over about 5 hours, but we gave him the 20€ he asked of us at the end. Apparently, this guy is in the movie The Way as well. I believe he plays himself as the crazy bar owner.

It was pretty wonderful though. We just sat in the sun (a small miracle in itself, we haven't seen the sun in about a week), and drank beer and ate tapas with about 15 other pilgrims that straggled in through the day. Mirko, the German civil engineer, photographer, painter and harley rider was there with his wife. They were at the bar 2 years ago and wrote on the wall, "Der Camino macht uns alle reich." The Camino makes all of us rich. We also met Kaitlin again, whom we thought we had lost a few days ago. For the first time, we met St. Martin, as they call him, the German guy who has taken a vow of silence on the Camino. He will supposedly talk when we reach Leon tomorrow. Although he nearly talked when an American guy accused Germans of not knowing how to party. Maybe he's not a saint after all. I suppose we will find out tomorrow. Some other new faces and old faces as well. Its a pretty eclectic bunch, but I wouldn't trade it for anything.

Whoa! We're Halfway There...

Yeah! Living on a prayer! This has been my music in my head for the last two days. (Without other means of music, walking lends itself to having songs play on repeat in your head for days.) It is appropriate though considering we passed the halfway mark a couple days ago. Spirits are high in the Aber camp. Today was our longest day yet at nearly 17 miles, but it didn't seem much harder than an average day for us now. Our feet seem to be mutating into rawhide punishment machines and aren't hurting as much anymore. (I also do math in my head when I walk...go figure. Anyway, I figured up that we're going to take about 900,000 steps on the Camino)

We've lost some of our original walking mates now, but we're on to a new chapter. We've been walking with Jim and his grandson, Nick from Minnesota for a few days now, and the Utah 4: Dean, Tracy, Jane (actually Canadian), and Kaitlin (actually from Colorado). We've also got the Flying Dutchmen, Mike, Erik, and Op, all of whom walk neatly twice as fast as us. It seems we've lost track of Marius, Tom, Martina, and South African Hank and his groupies. So goes the Camino, many new beginnings and endings.

Tonight, we ate the communal dinner at our albergue. We took part in preparing the salad, and also had some awesome lentil stew with potatoes and chorizo. Also, wine. Always wine. It was so perfect because I was starving. Its amazing his much food you can eat when you spend all day walking. This is how I imagine the Camino in the middle ages, walking all day then coming in to eat hearty stew with 20 fellow travelers in the basement of your albergue. And also being serenaded by an elderly peregrino in Spanish just because.

We've been getting some pretty rad dinners in general lately. Last night was artichokes and ham for the first course, rabbit and meatballs for the second. The night before we managed to get ourselves whole trouts, heads and all, on our plates. (Although, sad to admit that we're seriously craving some Chinese food and McDonalds milkshakes with fries for dessert. We actually haven't seen a single McDonalds, Burger King, or KFC along the Camino. I find this pretty amazing.)

The best part about dinner is the company. We haven't eaten dinner alone for days or weeks now. Lots of people say that they're on the Camino to learn how to live with less. I've learned that you can live with less of everything except other people.

More Tests

I think this Camino is testing me. These last 2 days have been definitely harder than usual. We entered the Meseta to 30 mph sustained headwinds, cloudy drizzly weather and 40-50° F temperatures. Add to this that I started to get sick yesterday and have been spending significant time sitting on the toilet. 

That's not all that bad since immodium puts a quick stop to all that. The worst part is being sore all over. Walking 12 miles doesn't seem like much to us anymore, but after yesterdays hike, my legs ached so bad from my hips down to the tips of my toes that I nearly laid down on the side of the trail and cried. Its just a good thing that Lauren was there to keep me moving forward. Needless to say, I've been loading up on ibuprofen since then and am doing much better. This sickness also seems to be going around and I've heard reports that it usually only lasts a couple of days. 

All this got us to thinking about the movie The Way and all of the things it egregiously omits from the Camino experience. Most of these things weren't our experiences, but all were at least first hand accounts:

Blisters that cover your entire heel,
Constant foot/knee/leg pain,
Everyone getting and staying sick,
Shitting yourself on the trail from diarrhea,
Knees swelling to twice their size from tendonitis,
Bedbugs,
Cold showers that you have to walk across the street to,
And probably more that I'm forgetting.

Oh well, its still awesome after all this when you get to a great albergue like we're in right now with super hot showers and soft beds. That and all your Camino friends are in the same albergue with you to share the pain/shame/elation of the Camino.

Home on the Camino

Ahhh...how wonderful it is to sleep inside a UNESCO world heritage site, for the second night in a row even. I'm writing this laying in bed inside the San Juan de Ortega monastery, which was built in the 16th century. Last night we slept in a 16th century theater, which was built as part of a church of the same vintage in Belorado. The medieval town center of Belorado is a world heritage site.

We went to the pilgrims mass tonight in the monastery church, of which I understood nothing, but its OK, the Spanish do mass with German efficiency: full mass with communion in under 30 minutes. Also, we've met a Bulgarian opera singer on the trail now (who awesomely speaks with an Irish accent) who sang Ave Maria for the mass for everyone. She also sang for us last night outside the albergue as we all sat around like we were in some kind of feel good Hollywood film (except for the wine and rum and drunk Czech guy). We all sang songs from our countries; Lauren and I sang Home on the Range, of course. It was all rather surreal in its Camino-ishness.

I haven't mentioned much about walking here because its just kind of become our life. We wake up, we walk, we get to town, shower, laundry, nap, then dinner and drinks with fellow peregrinos. I literally don't know what the day of the week is, how many days we've been walking, or the mileage unless I really take some time to look it all up. (Although I did just add up our mileage to be 164 miles if you were wondering, 30 miles in the last 2 days!)

It doesn't much matter anymore though because nothing really changes day to day anymore. Our feet hurt, or legs and knees hurt, our backs hurt, but that's just life now. (Speaking of feet though, I believe the entire bottom of my feet are becoming one giant callus. The skin under my heels and under my first two little toes  is numb to the touch.) We've pretty well settled into our backpacks and clothes and have a solid system for water and food going. So its really just more of the same with a little bit different scenery and people every day.

We have been walking with A pretty solid cast of characters also lately, an explanation of which I think will have to wait for another post. The most memorable may be Nico from Italy, who has "Nico" tattooed in big block letters on his forearm.

All the People

We've been walking and eating with a lot more people lately. We always have the typical icebreaker conversations about the trail of the day, whether their feet & knees hurt, what country their from, and how much of the Camino they're walking (and usually in that order). But past that its always interesting to find out why they're on the Camino and how they are able to do it at all.

Lots of people only seem to do the Camino in stages, like Tom from England who is also a civil engineer and who could only get 3 weeks off work this year to do half this year and half next year. Then there's the disaffected European college student who all seem to just travel around after they graduate until they run out of money. We met a girl named Martina from the Netherlands and a German guy Marius both doing this. Theres lots of retirees as well, like the retired 76 year old surgeon who performed some minor blister surgery on Lauren and Martina last night in the albergue with me as his scrub nurse. He's the oldest we've met, but we've heard some rumors of an 82 year old on the trail also.

Of course there's also a bunch of people in their own circumstances. We just met a Danish basket artist today who just sets her own hours. And there's the stay at home mom with her 16 year old home-schooled son who are meeting her husband in Leon. There are also a few other people that we've met that I couldn't tell you much about. We've been in the same albergue for the last 4 nights, Takaguchi, who speaks almost no English, but at least we figured out each others names. We still haven't met anyone else who quit their job to come though.

Have We Really Walked 100 Miles?

Today we topped 111 miles on our Camino, which is 1 mile more than my trek hiked at Philmont when I was 18 years old. Granted our backpacks were heavier then, but we did our trek in 10 days and Lauren and I are only on day 9 right now.

So I guess the point is that walking isn't all that difficult to do even when you're not in your physical prime. Hell, half the people here are retirees. I'm coming to find out that its really all mental. Out feet hurt so much I just want to sit down and quit just about every day. (Although on the good advice of Nurse Rosey that we met on the trail, I started taking Celebrex once a day, which is a prescription arthritis medicine in the US but only $40 for a 30 day supply over the counter in Spain. It works wonders on knees!) However, where when I was younger I probably would have sat down and quit, or at least started throwing things and yelling in frustration and anger (or maybe getting in a fight with my brother, Jeremy), I apparently have learned some more self control in the last 10 years.

People keep talking about how much you change on the Camino, but I'm not really feeling the magic yet. Although, as clichéd as it sounds, if I do see anything now, I see how much easier things are when you just buckle down and keep at the job. I almost imagine that the 60+ year old people may be having an easier go at it than we are, since I'm sure they've learned this lesson long ago.

In other news, we've been seeing some pretty amazing stuff and meeting some great people. I think the best part of the Camino is the loose fellowship along the trail. Its so easy to meet people, and we may walk with them for 2 or 3 days, or see them day after day in the albergues, and then not see them again for days or ever. But they've all been memorable if short friendships that I'm sure we won't soon forget.

We're on into La Rioja, the most famous wine producing region of Spain and its vineyards as far as you can see. We've been sampling their bounty in the form of grapes plucked nervously from the vines and in the wine that is included with the price of every meal. We actually bought a bottle of wine for 1€ and it was pretty decent considering. Tomorrow we will be in Najera for their San Juan Martir y Santa Maria la Real festival, which apparently includes a bull and paella competition. Mmmm...paella.

The walking has been a bit easier going since we're out of the mountains for the most part. We will have a couple big inclines to top yet before we head out on to the meseta in 5 days. All I'm hoping for is dirt trails and no more pavement. I don't think my bruised feet can handle another kilometer of asphalt.

Dreading Hikes and Dreadlocks

Well we survived another day and it wasn't all that bad after all. Don't get me wrong: it was hard, it hurt, and it took us 8.5 hours of hiking, but I think that being mentally prepared for it all by absolutely dreading the day's hike just made it that much easier.

As far as dreadlocks are concerned, we've been using this all natural lye soap called Dr. Bronners for everything (body, hair, clothes) and we think our hair is just going to turn into dreadlocks if we don't get some real shampoo soon. Other items of note: a dog literally eating human shit; walking by sunflower fields, vineyards and blackberry thickets, taking samples of all; walking across a real draw bridge and a 1000 year old stone bridge; playing word games on the trail to keep our minds off the pain. Also, walking the longest single distance in one day of our lives.

The Real Camino Begins

I imagine every pilgrim has approximately the same thought some time near the beginning of their Camino, whether its the first day, or in our case, the fourth day: what the hell have I gotten myself into. This thought sneaks itself in somewhere in between the incessant foot, knee, and back pain. The feeling is much amplified by the fact that everything hurts this bad and you've only been hiking a few days and still have 30+ days left.

I think this thought first crept through my mind yesterday after we had nearly reached the bottom of the seemingly endless decent into Zubiri. It was about 1300 ft in about 1.5 miles. My knee really was not having any of that and Laurens feet also not. My feet don't hurt that bad since my knee generally steals the show. Oh and it rained all day yesterday and today.

But after about 13 miles or so, and we're both ready to give up, we inevitably reach our refugio and all in the world is back in its right place. Hot showers, hot meals, and clean laundry seems a real miracle at the end of each day. We also take great comfort with the other pilgrims. It doesn't make us glad to see them limping around in pain, per se; it does give us some solace that we arent alone in our journey.

Tomorrow should be our hardest day for the next couple of weeks. We have to ascend 1200 ft and descend 1600 ft over 6 miles in the middle of our 15 mile day. I never believed I would say it, but I sincerely wish it was all up hill. Thankfully though, after tomorrow we're out of the Pyrenees and on to the Meseta.

Anniversary & Camino Packing

Look at what a good husband I am.

Monday was our 1 year wedding anniversary! There were many exchanges of niceties and flowers and cards in addition to light supping and sipping of homemade foods and wines. We chose not to do anything too over the top, and instead focused on our final packing for the Camino.

Of course, Lauren's parents did take us to Fogo de Chao on Sunday for dinner where I proceeded to stuff myself so full of beef and pork and chicken and various cured meats and cheeses that I nearly got to taste it all a second time after dinner. I'm starting to believe that Brazilian steak houses are instruments of the devil; however, I'm sure I will be going back as soon as the after-dinner memory fades and all that I can remember is how awesome it all was when I was still eating the steaks. So needless to say, we weren't really in the mood for another feast. Of course, Lauren still made the perfect dinner of pasta with venison sauce.

My last bottle of riesling that I made 2 years ago in the fall. And damn was it good, if I do say so myself.

Anyways, speaking of our packing, we've nearly got our final list together. We're sitting about 25 lbs on my back (including food & water), and about 23 lbs for Lauren. This is about where we were aiming for at the beginning, but we're only able to get our weight down this far by taking our our tent and sleeping pads. We wanted to take our tent and camp as much as possible, but the more we hear from other pilgrims, it sounds like we would only be able to realistically camp 4 or 5 nights of the 35 night trip. Most of the land around the Camino is private or protected wilderness where camping is not allowed. So we figured that a couple more nights in albergues was a fair trade for 4 lbs of gear.

If you're interested, we've got a spreadsheet of our packing list that includes every bit of stuff we're taking with us. Only 2 pairs of underwear for 42 days! Going to be a lot of clothes washing happening on the trail...

Anyone see anything that we left off the list? Or things that we could probably do without?