San Diego
So you are starting to wonder – what’s up with Cat visiting all these towns that are named after saints in Spainish? Well, I promise you it is purely coincidental. My parents booked this family vacation to San Diego long before I planned to walk the camino to Santiago, but it worked out great to follow up my trip with this one.
This trip was purely vacation and it was great to spend some time with my parents. (I love them. They are wonderful.) I got to…
…scuba dive with my dad (not our best dives ever, but we learned somethings)…
…take a rib ride with my mom (we didn’t see any whales, but we looked for them!)…
…cheer on the Atlanta Braves in an embarrassing loss against the Padres…
…ride bikes around Coronado Island (even further than intended – we knew where we were, we just couldn’t find it on the map)…
…see the Broadway musical Wicked for the first time (two thumbs up!)…
…look at the inner workings of a naval ship and planes that would land on it…
…and eat seafood!
It was great to see my mom and dad, and now I’m back to Atlanta until I can get my next trip off the ground!
| Posted in » The Camino Review
The Camino was a truly amazing experience that I recommend to anyone and everyone – regardless of age or physical fitness level. I met pilgrims from age 9 to 71 and even met a lady who had both knees and one hip replaced who was making the Way.
It was such a phenomenal experience for me specifically – there is no way that I’d be able put into words or pictures or videos exactly what all I learned there or saw there or experienced… but just believe me when I say it was life changing. I don’t say that lightly.
The big cathedrals in the three big cities of Burgos, León, and Santiago.
The Camino Frances route to Santiago is naturally broken up into three sections by the major cities you go through and the terrain changes. My friendships, emotions, and physical fitness followed the same segments. In each section there was a good balance between ups and downs – leading to a perfectly relaxing, calming, and centering experience.
PART I: Pamplona to Burgos
Terrain – Slightly Mountainous with lots of farmland and greenery.
Beautiful scenery, cute Spainish towns.
So, in this part I was most excited and fresh and happy. I laughed a whole whole lot every day and enjoyed meeting each new person. I was free, and getting time to sort through concerns from Atlanta, and the world just felt beautiful. On the downside, my feet were covered with blisters and worse, I had a wretched pain in my hip that literally made me hobble in the 20-25 km days. I learned a lot about humility as I realized that I might not be able to make it to Santiago if my hip got worse or if i twisted an ankle as I’d seen another lady do.
Favorite pilgrim ever – my hiking buddy Imre. I met him two days in in the town of Estella. We walked together for the next 16 days or so.
PART II: Burgos to León
Terrain – A rolling plateau called the ‘meseta’ with endless wheat fields, very little shade and desert-like dustyness.
Dusty, dry, wheat fields forever.
Equally dusty brown towns covered in the history of the Templars, pilgrims, and wars.
A lot of people skip this section for it’s boringness, but it was my favorite of all three. Admittedly, the path was long, hot and tiring and moved slowly with few towns in between, but the community in this section was amazing. I spent the days hiking with my favorite pilgrim – Imre from Hungary – and the evenings with a rotating but familiar crowd of friends. The hostels were smaller, the Way less crowded and it fostered some really really great time hanging out. Also, I stayed in more hostels ran by nuns and monasteries and this section – the evening prayers they hosted for the pilgrims were really moving and thought provoking.
A sample photo of some of the great people on the Way in this section. There were so many others too…
PART III: León to Santiago de Compostela
Terrain – Mountainous and green, fairytale forests, cow pastures. Oh, yeah. And rain. Lots of rain.
On a peak on the other side of Cruz de Ferro – a high point. I walked down to the town you see at the bottom of that mountain later in the day.
Green earth, cloudy skies.
The last stage was bittersweet for me. I had been walking too slowly to make it to Santiago in time at the rate I was walking with my crowd (clocking 25km days on average when I needed 30km days), so I had to bus forward 70km to the other side of León. It was really hard for me to leave the people I had gotten so attached to. I know we’d only know each other for 15 days or less, but people get really close really fast on the Camino. So emotionally, this section started out tough, but my body was finally into the swing of things. Nothing hurt, no new blisters, and I could walk a 30km day without getting tired and I could walk it fast. The solitude helped me work somethings out in my head to, and certainly prepared me to conclude the trip.
By the second half of this stage, I started hanging out with a really great group of Spanish people, which helped me not get so discouraged as the Way got really crowded with day tripping tour groups, school groups, and people just walking the minimum 100km to get their compostella at the end. Still though, when I rolled in to Santiago on the 26th, the crowds and tourism and souvenir shops and long lines just about made me sick. So, I changed plans last minute and took my friend Roberto up on his offer for me to come home with his family for a day to see the beaches (cause it’s almost a sin for someone to spend a month in Spain and never see one of the beaches…). I hopped in a car less than three hours of arriving in Santiago and headed north to the wonderful town of Viveiro.
Santiago de Compostela. Breifly.
Beautiful beaches. Rare sunny day in Galacia. Yes, please!
Viveiro.
The beaches were great and relaxing. It was amazing to get a glimpse into Roberto’s life and his dad had the greatest and most inspiring farm and bee hives and orchard ever.
Eva, Eva’s boyfriend from Holland – Arnold, Manuello, Roberto.
Then it was back to Madrid on a night train, a quick visit to an Annie Leibovitz exhibition, a stop through H&M for clean clothes, a quick visit with my best friend from high school – Kat E./L., and back to Atlanta. Whew.
Me and Bookie (Katherine)
I walked home from the closest Marta station – a sweaty 2mi walk in Atlanta’s humidity, but 100% worthwhile. Historically, people walked from their front door steps, and I wanted to at least return that way. Also, for me it was symbolic of the journey not ending.
The Way isn’t really about Santiago or getting your compostella. It’s about the journey and I’m still looking for the yellow arrows…
SANTIAGO!
I made it around 11:30am on June 26th after 26 days of walking from Pamplona – clocking in around 630km of walking on the Camino, 14 blisters, no rest days, and met dozens of the world’s most wonderful people. One of the best experiences in my life!
A ‘real’ blog post to come…
