hiking Archives - Nadine Walks

COVID-19 Update #1

March 29, 2020

Greetings to all of my quarantined friends! I can imagine that most of us- if not all of us- are hunkered down at the moment, staying in one place and doing our best to keep physically distanced from others. For the last two weeks I’ve thought about writing a blog post every day, and then inevitably, don’t write a thing. I’m about two weeks into a quarantine (16 days, to be exact), and one of the biggest things I’ve noticed is that it’s been hard to focus. Hard to sit down and get the coronavirus and all of its implications out of my head and focus on something that takes any sort of mental power. In other words, it’s been hard to write.

But here I am, I’m feeling just a bit more settled today (or at least, at the moment!), and I’m going to seize that energy and post an update.

First, a little glimpse into my part of the world. I live outside of Philadelphia, and we had identified coronavirus cases somewhat early on (in terms of identified cases in the US). It’s hard to remember dates, but the county where I live and the county that borders the school I work for had a few cases in early March, and from there things moved quickly. By March 13th my school closed for the day so that teachers could get some online learning training; the intention was that we’d be back in school on Monday, March 16th, but I think we all knew that wouldn’t happen. That next week there seemed to be a new restriction or new cancellation nearly every hour: school were closed for two weeks, parks and libraries and businesses closed, then my county (and surrounding counties) were issued “stay at home” orders.

The stay at home order isn’t quite a lockdown (though maybe that’s a synonymous term? I’m not sure). We’re allowed out for groceries and medicine, and to go to work if it’s deemed an essential service. We’re also allowed outside to exercise, take the dog on a walk, get fresh air. The “rules” here get a little hazy. I know that in other places, there are more restrictions on outside time. I could certainly be misinformed, but I read that in France, people can go outside but need to stay within 1 kilometer of where they live. And in the UK, I believe the rules state that you only get one allotted walk or exercise session a day.

Here, it’s generally understood that you shouldn’t stray too far from where you live, but there don’t seem to be restrictions on what, exactly, that means. Initially, the nearby state park where I always hike had closed, then the trails reopened. But other parks that had remained opened are now closed, because too many people flocked there. It’s being left largely up to us, as individuals, to sort of ‘self-police’, and use good judgment. So, don’t walk or hike in an area where there are too many people. If you go to a trailhead and the parking lot is full, go somewhere else.

I’ve been mostly staying at home, and walking around the neighborhood where I live. I’ve made a few exceptions and have driven out to my park, and for the most part the trails are actually more quiet than walking around my neighborhood is! I’m grateful that I can still get in my car and go somewhere, but I also want to be careful about this. I worry that if everyone gets in their car to go somewhere, areas will become overrun. So for now (and as long as it’s allowed), I’m going to limit the park visits, and if I go, get there early in the morning when it’s guaranteed to be quiet. Otherwise, it’s walks around home for the time being.

And walking, as ever, has kept my spirits up. These have certainly been a difficult few weeks, and for me, one of the most challenging aspects is not knowing how long this will last. Plans are cancelled, travel is completely upended, none of us know how long we will be sitting inside of our homes. There are the larger questions, too: if and when we’ll get a handle on this virus? What the cost will be in the meantime: who will get sick, how many lives will be lost, what will the economic landscape be when we’re gotten to the other side?

It’s easy to get overwhelmed, and when I find my thoughts moving in this direction, I get up and I move. I lace up my shoes and go outside and sometimes it’s just 15 minutes around the block. Sometimes I walk for an hour. Sometimes- if it’s raining- I just walk inside my apartment. Back and forth and back and forth. I put earbuds in and listen to music and move. It helps. It’s the best thing I know to do in times like these.

Many have commented that at least the weather is getting nicer, that spring is arriving and trees and flowers are beginning to bloom. It’s true, and the walking will become more beautiful, but I can’t help but be heartbroken, too. I walk in all seasons- winter doesn’t really slow me down too much- and while I’ll certainly enjoy nicer weather, it’s also a reminder of what I’ve lost. Nice weather had always been an indication that my adventures would soon be starting- and indeed, in less than a week, I was supposed to be on a flight to Japan, walking through the mountains of the Kii Peninsula, hopefully catching the last of the cherry blossoms. Needless to say, I’m no longer going to Japan. I hope it’s a trip that I can one day reschedule, maybe for next year’s spring break, but it feels too far away for me to even be hopeful. Right now, I’m just sad and disappointed. I’m also keeping perspective, knowing that there are much harder losses for so many to bear, but allowing myself to mourn the loss of this particular adventure.

In fact, I’m not sure that I’ll be able to go on any long walks this year, and I’m having a difficult time sitting with that. I’d just bought a new pair of hiking shoes earlier this month, and after a couple weeks of hiking and walking, they felt good and broken in. But a few days ago, I went back to wearing last year’s pair, reasoning that maybe I should save these new shoes for a time when I know I’ll be going on a really long walk.

It feels like I’m putting those new shoes up on a shelf forever, and I have to remind myself that it’s not the case. They won’t be put away forever. This ordeal might feel as though it has no end, and indeed, it’s hard to see a light when we don’t even know how long the tunnel is. But it will end, we’ll all emerge, we’ll dust off those new shoes and dance down a trail in the summer sunshine again.

In the meantime, be well, send news, stay safe and dream of brighter days ahead.

Remembering a pilgrim friend

March 5, 2020

I was making my lunch and waiting for my eggs to cook when I glanced at my Facebook newsfeed.

What I saw was incomprehensible.

It was a post sharing the news that a fellow pilgrim/blogger/writer friend had recently passed away. I stared and stared and couldn’t make sense of the words or the photo. I’m writing about it here, in part, to pass along the news to others who may not have already heard, because surely some of my blog readers were also followers of hers: Kat Davis, of Following the Arrows.

There are few details at this time; Kat’s partner, Howard, shared news that she passed on February 28th. There is a thread on the Camino forum, here.

Kat was a young woman who had hiked more routes than you can count: countless Camino paths, two pilgrimage trails in Japan, the PCT in California, all over the UK, and more.

I’d never met Kat, but I feel like I’ve known her for a long time. When had I found her blog? Was it before my first Camino, back in 2014? Or maybe a year later? Whenever it was, it was early-on in my walking adventure days. I remember reading about Kat’s journey on the Camino de Primitivo, and noticing that her blog header photo was a beautiful image from the route. When I left to walk my own Primitivo in 2015, I remember searching for the spot where she took her photo. I think I found it, but my photo was full of clouds and gray skies, with none of the rolling hills and glorious sunshine that Kat was able to capture.

Kat’s beautiful photo

In the last few days, I’ve thought a lot about the idea of community. I’ve been living in my little apartment for a long time, and I know some of my neighbors but I wouldn’t call the people who live in my neighborhood my community. The idea of community has taken on a very different meaning in our digital age, and in these last 5 or 6 years, I’ve come to recognize that my largest and strongest community is my fellow long-distance walkers. The pilgrims, the trekkers. I’ve met many in person, whether it’s been on a trail- in Spain, in France, in the UK-, or in my local APOC Philadelphia chapter. But the larger part of the community exists somewhere else, somewhere behind the curtain. Through my blog, through Instagram, through Facebook groups and Camino forums, I’ve been able to connect with other pilgrims and walkers. And sometimes it’s more than just connection, sometimes it’s friendship.

Photos from a hike: March 1, 2020

The loss of Kat has rattled me. We’d never met, why should I be so shaken? But she was part of my community. We’d exchanged messages: about our travels plans and our photography. Late last summer, as I was coming off of my walk on the Norte and Kat was just about to start hers, she messaged me, asking for advice. I warned her that the trail might be crowded, and sent the names of some of my favorite albergues. A few months before, at the end of June when I was on the Camino Aragones, I received a message from Alan, another Camino friend, who I’d met briefly in northern Spain in 2016. He sent a photo with the note- “Look who I bumped into today…” and it was Kat, the two of them together, their smiles and shining faces. I didn’t even know Alan all that well but did it matter? We were all connected- he and Kat, because of their journeys through Japan… and Kat and I, because of our blogs… and Alan and I, because of the time we overlapped on the Norte.

And it’s this, I think. This interconnection, this invisible thread that binds so many of us. There’s Kat, and there’s all the rest of you, so many of you who are reading this post. We may have never met on a Camino or anywhere in the “real world”, but the connection is there. Losing someone from this community is losing a friend. I feel it as though that thread is tugging at my gut, tugging and tugging, invisible yet felt with a force I didn’t know existed. One falls, and it pulls me down a little, causing me to stumble and miss more than a step or two.

Steps. I’ve often felt that I’ve been a few steps behind Kat, always looking to her blog to learn of new paths, new adventures. The route I’ve planned for my April pilgrimage on the Kumano Kodo was taken point by point from her own journey. I have a document of the trip with my daily stages and accommodations and in more than one place I’ve written her name: “This is where Kat stayed!” I’m planning to walk the Camino Portuguese this summer, and a few months ago ordered the Cicerone guidebook that she authored. Kat’s been one of my role models, as I’ve become a pilgrim and a long-distance walker. I’ve watched her, with respect and admiration, a strong and adventurous woman setting off on paths around the world, alone.

After I heard the news I left my apartment for a walk. I was going to go to the state park where I always hike, to the trails I’ve walked hundreds of times. But I decided, instead, that it was time to try something new. I drove to a wildlife refuge just 20 minutes from where I live- so close, but somehow a place I’d never before explored. I walked down the long path in the sunshine, through a landscape of tidal marsh, the sky so blue, the call of geese shouting overhead. It was beautiful.

To Kat, may I long follow in your footsteps.

Self-Love on the Camino

February 14, 2020

It’s February, and the word ‘love’ comes up a lot. I hadn’t planned to write a post about love (and not for Valentine’s Day, either), but as I was walking yesterday, my mind turned towards ‘self-love’. And I started thinking about what this has meant for me in the context of my Caminos and other long-distance walks.

Self-love is a practice, and it’s different than self-care, though the two certainly overlap. Self-care gets a lot of talk these days, which isn’t necessarily a good or a bad thing, but I’d say that it’s having a moment. We can have a long discussion about self-care on the Camino (and maybe we should! It’s a topic I’ve never written explicitly about), but for now, I want to think about self-love on the Camino.

Loving ourselves. It can be hard, right? Like, to really, really love ourselves. It takes great self-awareness and intention and focus and practice. And because we’re constantly evolving and changing, and entering new phases of life, I think it’s probably a life-long thing, this idea of learning how to love yourself.

The Camino is sort of the perfect place to work on this. I actually think it can happen without us even realizing it. I’ve heard fellow pilgrims say: “I really liked who I was on the Camino.” The Camino can help us return or, or remember, or unearth our best selves, our truest selves. The people we are, when all of the noise and distraction are stripped away. The Camino gives us time, and space, and a pure physical challenge that makes it difficult to hide. Who hasn’t had a day when you’re in the middle of a long uphill stretch, and there’s nothing left: no energy, no optimism, you’re running low on water. It’s hot and the flies are buzzing around your head and the clothing you washed the night before never dried and you’re hungry and annoyed and you lost your earbuds and everything is wrong. Who are you, then? Do you love yourself, then? It’s hard to hide. It’s hard to hide because there’s nowhere to go, there’s nothing else to do. You can only continue walking up that hill, and then back down the other side. You can only continue walking until your clothing dries and you find something to eat and you regain some energy in your legs and you fill up your bottle at a fountain and you see a friend and you smile. You have to walk through all the pieces of who you are on the Camino. You’re forced to face yourself.

And this experience has the potential to lead us towards self-love.

I’m not sure how much I practiced self-love on my first Camino. I’m sure I did, in ways that I wasn’t even aware of. Maybe it was when I bought a soft black t-shirt in a crowded shop in Burgos, so that I had something fresh and clean to wear in the evenings. Or maybe it was when I stopped in an albergue in the middle of nowhere, in a place where I knew no one, because I wanted time alone. Or maybe it was when I continued walking and walking, because I just didn’t want to stop.

But this idea of self-love has grown for me in the last few years, as I continue to return to Europe for more Caminos, more long walks. I suppose that going on a long walk, at all, is an act of self-love. I’ve learned that it’s something that makes me happy, something that makes me feel like one of the most true versions of myself, something that energizes me and makes me feel healthy and strong and good.

This is what self-love is, to me. Well, it’s a lot of things. But I keep coming back to those words: ‘truest version of myself’. It’s me, in all the wonderful and fun and sweet and quirky and annoying and difficult ways of being me. It’s knowing who I am, accepting who I am, and allowing myself to be who I am. And, the other piece, I think, is being kind and gentle and patient with myself, especially when things are hard.

And I get to do this on the Camino, every year I examine how I feel and try to let myself be totally present with who I am, and how I am. And then, I’ve learned to ask myself what I want. I ask myself what I need, too, but asking myself what I want is different.

How have I practiced self-love on the Camino? What has that looked like?

It looks like this:

Taking myself to a bar and finding a table in the corner, or maybe out in the sunshine, and drinking a glass of wine. Alone.

Walking past where I planned because I’m feeling so good and I just don’t want to stop.

Waking up early in the morning and walking with the sunrise.

Eating three-course meals and savoring every bite.

Making a playlist of favorite songs every year to listen to when I walk. Putting old Disney songs on the mix, and singing aloud as I walk (apologies for anyone who may have overheard my rendition of ‘Part of Your World’ from Little Mermaid this past summer).

Grinning and laughing as I walk down an empty trail, with the sun shining and the wind blowing and my walking stick held high in the air.

Choosing to stay in albergues by the coast so I can spend time with my feet in the water.

Playing with puppies, taking pictures of horses, saying hellos to the cows.

The full English breakfast. (This is not a Camino thing, but it’s a ‘hiking-in-England’ thing, and I love it).

Sitting in a pew in a dark and empty chapel, saying small prayers for my family and friends, saying a prayer for myself, asking for strength as I walk.

Sharing my stories with my fellow pilgrims.

Toasting to my sturdy ankles, learning to appreciate those ankles, those wide feet (I can’t exactly say I love them yet, but I’m getting there).

Carrying the weight of a bigger camera, so I can take thousands of beautiful photos as I walk.

Giving myself pep talks and encouragement when I need it most. My go-to phrase is actually something I mutter to myself in French: Tu peut le faire. You can do it.

Booking a ticket back to Europe, to return to yet another path, to do it all over again.

I just re-read this list and I can feel myself being lifted up; any tension I might have been carrying from the day eases. I feel lighter, I’m smiling, I’m grateful for discovering this thing that I love, this thing that I can choose to give myself (time and time again!).

So in this month where lots of people are celebrating love, I hope that all of you- my good and true friends and readers- can find moments of self-love, moments when you can give yourselves the things that you want, the things that make you feel like the truest versions of who you are.

More soon. With love.

Highlights (and Photos!) from 2019

December 31, 2019

Happy New Year, my friends and blog readers!

It’s felt like a long time since I’ve come on here to write, or to give any sort of update. But the new year felt like the perfect time, in so many ways, so here I am.

It’s one of my favorite times of the year: I love looking back, I love looking forward, I love taking stock of where I am right now. Every year, as the clock ticks down to midnight, I feel a flutter of hope and excitement for what’s to come, and I hope that never changes. There’s promise in a new year. Possibility. In some ways it feels like the slate is wiped clean, and I get another chance. “Begin with a single step”, I remind myself. It never feels more possible- whatever it is that I hope to achieve- than at the start of a new year.

What do I hope to achieve, in 2020? Oh, the same old wonderful things. Wouldn’t it be a dream to finally finish my book? (or, at least finish a solid first draft?). I’ve been slowly working on some essays to eventually publish in an e-book, and it would be awfully nice to get that out to readers soon. I always say that I want to keep blogging- and blog more- and then never do, but there it is, that ever present hope: I want to do more with this blog.

And I want to walk! I want to walk everywhere and I think (and know!) that 2020 is going to bring me to at least one path that’s a bit out of my comfort zone. Stay tuned.

Writing and walking, if I can do more of both in 2020, it will be a good year.

But this past year was a good one, too. Last year I wrote a highlight post of some top travel moments from the year, and I thought I would do something similar this year, too. But instead of travel highlights, I thought I’d just share any highlight, big or small. There’s travel, to be sure, but there’s also more: the stuff that made me happy, the things I’m glad I took the time to focus on, glad to have filled my days with.

In no particular order (or, in vaguely chronological order), here they are:

A new car

At some point, several years ago at least, I wrote a post about change and the fear of it all, and how to take the first steps. I wrote about how I don’t like change and I get very attached to my things and I love them until they fall apart, and I wondered: what would happen if I sold my car? Sold it before I needed to? Bought something more reliable and then drive myself across the country?

Well, it was a good thought, but instead I did drive my car practically into the ground. A year ago I promised myself I wouldn’t put my car through another winter, and so I had a loose deadline, then hemmed and hawed and finally, finally, bought myself a new (used) car in early February.

For me, this is a pretty big deal. My old car, my little silver Volkswagen, it still ran. There was no check engine light on. When I cashed it in for $500 (which was about $400 dollars more than I thought I would get for it), I had a flash of regret. “There are still more miles left in it!” I thought.

But I have to say, when I drove away in the new car, I felt something lift from my shoulders, and it’s been gone ever since. I don’t worry about this new car breaking down, or the transmission going, or the brakes squealing. I don’t worry at all. My old car was safe but this new one is reliable, and it opens up lots of new possibilities. Lots of road trips. And that’s exciting.

Final odometer reading

A somewhat “random” long winter weekend in Paris

It was fall 2018, a month after I’d returned from my summer trip, and already my legs were feeling itchy. I saw an email claiming that flights to Paris were insanely cheap, then confirmed it with a few google searches. I impulsively bought a ticket and when February 2019 rolled around, I found myself jetting off to Paris for a 5-day trip. (and when I say ‘jet’, I mean taking public transportation from Philadelphia up to Newark, and then getting on a flight to Paris that had a layover in Germany. Not the easiest or more direct trip, but still incredibly worth it for the price).

I’m extremely lucky to be able to do this, but even so, I worried that it was a little much. To fly from the States to Paris for 5-days because it’s the middle of winter and I need an break? No, I didn’t need to go to Paris. But I do think it was a wonderful thing to give myself. January and February can be hard months: hours of daylight are short, it’s cold where I live, and my job can be stressful and demanding and in the middle of winter it’s hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel. I don’t want to burn out from the work that I do, and lately I’ve been more intentional about taking time off and giving myself things to look forward to.

Anyway, this is a long intro to say that I had an incredible long weekend in Paris this past February. Did I write about it on the blog at all? I meant to, but I don’t think I did. I found an inexpensive studio apartment on Airbnb in the 12th arrondissement (it was a little far from the center and for such a short trip I don’t think I’d stay that far away again, but it was a charming little space and in the end just what I needed). I met up with a few friends, went to a poetry reading at Shakespeare and Company, drank lots of espresso and wine, and walked everywhere. I’d intended to spend a lot of time in museums, as well, but the city was having a warm spell, and it was hard to resist the sunshine. So I walked and walked, ate ice cream and sat in park chairs and wrote in my journal. It was perfect.

Concert reunions

Whenever my favorite artist is on tour, I always get together with my sister and best friend and sometimes another good friend and sometimes my cousin. In those moments, I wonder if there is anything much better: some of my very favorite people all together, crammed into my apartment and sleeping on my couch and my air mattress, driving to the show and singing along to our favorite songs, ordering pizza and drinking coffee and hanging out.

Our creepy “band shot”

Walks along the beach

When I was younger, I use to spend a lot of time at the beach. All through my childhood and adolescence my family would vacation at a beach house in North Carolina, and in my 20’s I’d spend time on the coast in Maine and New Jersey. I’d spend hours in a chair or a towel on the sand, hours in the water. But ever since I discovered long distance walking, I haven’t had the same kind of time to spend at the beach.

But I still find something incredibly powerful and compelling about the ocean, or being near the ocean. I may not be sunbathing or riding waves anymore, but I look for almost any opportunity I can to spend some time walking along the sand. And when I tally it up, I realize that I’ve walked on many beaches this year: Cape Henlopen in Delaware, Higbee Beach in New Jersey, Miami, Assateague Island in Maryland, all over the northern coast of Spain, and several lovely stretches on the coast of Maine.

Friends, friends, friends!

I can be introverted and at times like to tuck myself away, but I also value and cherish my friendships, and the opportunity to see friends who live far away. I got a few good visits in this year, with friends I don’t get to see as often as I like (which goes for nearly all of my friends, whether they live near or far), and this made me so happy. Here’s hoping that 2020 includes even more friendship, and time to reconnect with friends that I didn’t get to see this year.

My favorite local park

I’ve mentioned it before, many times, but here it is again: I’ve loved all the hikes I’ve done in my local state park. I know the trails like the back of my hand, and it’s a joy to hike through the forest and let my mind run free. There are just enough hills for decent Camino training, but not enough to make the hikes too strenuous. I’ve also gone on a few great hikes with my Philadelphia Camino chapter, and time with this group always leaves me feeling full and happy.

The Florida Keys!

I told my sister that I wanted to take her on a birthday trip, and asked her where she might like to go. “Key West!” she answered, and that’s how we found ourselves in the Florida Keys in April. I’d never been to that part of Florida before, and we had a blast exploring, seeing alligators in the Everglades, sunset dining on the dock, catching a Phillies game in Miami, and touring Key West with all its vibrancy and energy. We also got to tour Ernest Hemingway’s home, and I tried to soak up some creative energy in his studio.

Camping Weekends

First up, Assateague Island. Assateague is a 37-mile long barrier island off the coast of Marlyand/Virginia, and ever since my adventure on Cumberland Island, I’ve wanted to camp there. Wild horses roam the island and the campsites are steps away from the beach (some are on the beach!). My friend and I spent a great weekend on the island in May. We had ideal weather with no mosquitoes, a horse galloped through our campsite in the middle of the night (that was a close enough encounter for me!), we had hot dogs and marshmallows and wine and I pulled myself out of my tent for a sunrise walk on the beach. It’s definitely a place I hope to return to!

The second camping trip was with friends in Ohiopyle State Park, in western PA, this time in the fall. I liked getting to use my tent a few times this year, I liked getting an open sky filled with stars, I liked sitting around a campfire and spending entire days outside. Here’s hoping for more of this in the new year.

A photo with my baseball hero

I’m a big baseball fan, and I grew up watching the Philadelphia Phillies and cheering for their underdog second baseman, Mickey Morandini. I’ve met him before, but this year it was a somewhat random encounter- my family had tickets to a game, and he happened to be there that night to greet fans. We were walking into the ballpark when a voice said, “Do you want to meet Mickey?” and there he was, hanging around for handshakes and photos. Baseball is the only sport that I really care about, and it’s provided hours of entertainment throughout my life, but also opportunities and friendships. It felt like a privilege to be able to thank my favorite player and tell him that I loved watching him play.

A good, long, summer Camino

I hadn’t been to Spain in three years, I hadn’t walked for longer than 19 days in three years either. This year, I was craving a long walk, and I was craving the Camino. I had 10-days on the Aragones, and 19-days on the Norte, and by the end of it I felt like I could walk forever. There’s no doubt in my mind (or anyone else’s!) that I love the Camino and will probably continue to return all throughout my life, for as long as my legs will carry me.

Three days in Portugal

I’m hoping to write about Portugal on the blog (soon!); after my Camino I spent a few days in Porto and then took a quick trip to Sintra. I’d never been to Portugal before and my short time there told me that I wanted to come back (maybe even to walk a Camino!). I was charmed by Porto, by the blue of the tiles and the winding streets, the boats on the river, the port cellars dotting the hillside and the sound of fado, the taste of a creamy pastéis de nada. I’d just been walking for a month on the Camino and sleeping on bunk beds in shared albergue rooms, so to take a few days and slow down, in a room all my own, to wander through a city without a deadline or any real agenda, it felt perfect.

A birthday meal on the terrace

I returned yet again to La Muse- the writer’s and artist’s retreat that I can’t seem to get away from- and I spent two weeks writing and hiking through the mountains that surround the tiny village. When the other residents heard that I would be having a birthday, they organized a little dinner party on the terrace of the neighboring property (which is occasionally used for overflow musers). It was a magical night. I’m not used to doing much for my birthday, and initially I felt badly for the effort that everyone was making (I’d only met two of the residents a day before!). But in the end, I think it was a treat for everyone to be able to gather together, to dine on delicious food, to drink a glass of champagne, to squeeze around a table lit with candles, to share stories.

Another picnic along the Seine

For the past several years, I keep dreaming about moving to Paris. Not for the long term, but maybe for 6 months, or a year. I’ve never written extensively about Paris here before, but I’ve mentioned it enough for blog readers to know that it’s a city I love. What would it be like to spend more than just a few days there? To settle in and explore with more depth, to make some friends, to become a regular at my favorite spots?

But for now, my life isn’t in Paris, and I’m not sure that it will ever be. That’s the reality, and yet, I look at the ways that I’ve been able to capture some of what I’m seeking, even if I’m not living in Paris full-time. I always seem to manage at least a couple of days in Paris every year, and for the past three years running, I’ve also been able to meet up with friends and have a picnic along the Seine.

Sitting on the cobblestone, drinking a cup of rosé, ripping off a piece of baguette and smearing on some soft cheese, next to some friends, taking and laughing: that’s part of the image of my ideal Parisian life. And somehow, in these last 5 years of travel and walking and writing, I’ve been able to create that image for myself, even if it’s just for a moment.

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As expected, most of these top moments involved travel, but when I really start thinking, there are so many more: my grandmother turned 100, I had a lot of quality time with my family and my mom and I just saw Little Women, which was so special. I went on hikes and walks with a couple of great dogs, I practiced taking photos with my new camera. Work never really makes the highlight list but I worked hard this year, and will continue to. The year wasn’t perfect- none of them are- but the good moments far outshine any of the difficult ones.

I hope that the end of this year brings peace, and that the new year ushers in joy and adventure and opportunities for all of us to begin with a single step, and move ourselves towards our dreams. Happy New Year, my friends, I’ll be back soon.

Gift guide for the long-distance walker/traveler/pilgrim!

November 20, 2019

Two years ago I posted a little gift guide, for the traveler/pilgrim/walker/hiker in your life (or, for yourself!). As the holiday season is rolling around once again (is it just me or are the years just moving faster and faster lately? I swear I was just buying cheese for last year’s Thanksgiving cheeseboard, and here we are again!), I thought I would republish this list, but with more additions.

I know that when I’m trying to put together a small wish-list of my own, it tends to be filled with things I could use for my travels. I always ask for a fresh pair of Darn Tough socks (and Mom comes through every time!). And while there are still so many nifty and useful travel and hiking things out there that I don’t have, over the years I’ve accumulated a small collection of trusty and true gear.

From buffs to journals to cookbooks to camera cases; here is this year’s list. Happy shopping!

(Some of these links will be affiliate links; this means that if you click through and order one of these items, a small commission will come to me at no extra cost to you. A win-win! And, I’ll never use an affiliate link on something that I haven’t used and loved myself.)

Stocking Stuffers $15 and under

Dr. Bronner’s Soap: While this could give some people the wrong message, I think a good bar of soap is always a fun and appreciated little nugget to find in your stocking. There’s a lot I like about Dr. Bronner’s- it’s a family business that focuses on organic and environmentally responsible products, and I’ve used their Castile bar soaps on every Camino and long-distance trek (my favorite is peppermint). On my walks I use the soap to wash my body and my clothing and it works great, and smells even better.

Buff: Ah, the strange piece of tube-shaped fabric that has countless purposes. It took me a couple Caminos to warm up to my buff, but now it’s an indispensable part of my pack. Some popular uses: head band for windy days, head band on hot days (soaked in cold water first), wrist band for strange patches of sunburn (shout-out to my cousin!!), neck wrap to avoid sunburn, napkin, worn over the mouth in dusty areas, etc. The list is really endless. And this past summer, in a pinch, I even used mine as a bathing suit top!!

Moleskine Journal: I use Moleskine notebooks in my job, and I also use them in my travels. The link will take you to the particular type I use on my walks: they are thin and lightweight but high quality and perfect for capturing details and memories.

ExOfficio Underwear: You might not give this to a friend (unless it’s a really close friend!), but with family anything goes. This is great underwear for traveling: light, comfortable, dries extremely quickly.

Nalgene Water Bottle: I’ve had my Nalgene for years and years (I have several, but my 16oz bottle comes with me on the Camino, along with a backup supply of water in my pack). The bottle has taken quite a beating, but it’s been indestructible.

ChicoBag Daybag: I’ve taken one of these on every summer trip for the past 6 years: they barely weigh a thing, are perfect for using in the evenings when I’m not carrying my large pack around, and they also work well as a shower bag (they are water resistant and can hold an incredibly large amount of stuff).

Clothing:

Darn Tough Socks: They keep my feet warm in the winter, cool in the summer. They are durable and the pairs I’ve had for several years and worn day after day on my long-distance treks have held up really well.

Marmot Rain Jacket: Bought it for my first Camino, used it ever since. Lightweight and protects pretty well from the rain. A must for any long-distance walking trip.
Marmot Rain Pants: I bought these rain pants a few years ago before walking in England, and every single time I’ve worn them since, I’ve marveled at how wonderful they are. They keep the rain out amazingly well!

Havaianas Flip Flops: Hiking shoes or boots aren’t the only footwear you’ll need for a long-distance trek… you’re going to need something to change into in the evenings. For a summer walk, I love a pair of Havaianas. Soft, durable, designed and made in Brazil.

Gear

Eagle Creek Packing Cubes: These were a game-changer on my second Camino, and I’ve used them ever since. They helped me organize my clothing, protected it from the rest of my (dirty) pack, maximized space, and were ultra-lightweight. I love them!

Travel Towel: I use a medium sized travel towel that I bought from REI before my first Camino, and it’s the one I’m still using 5 years later. There are different sizes to choose from (the medium is more like the size of a large hand towel, but it’s worked for me), the towels are very absorbent and dry super quickly, plus are light and small and will hardly take up any room in your pack. They’re a great travel towel!
Jackery Bolt Power Bank: It took me five years of traveling before I got myself a power bank to use as backup for charging my iPhone, and now I can’t imagine traveling without it. I rely heavily on my phone to take photos during my walks (and sometimes I use it for navigation, as well), and the last thing you want is to be on a path in the middle of nowhere with a drained battery and no way to snap a photo (this happened to me on the Pennine Way, ugh). The Jackery Bolt is light and small, weighs 5.3 oz, and fully charges my iPhone up to two times (it charges fast, too!).

Backpacks: I still adore the pack I bought for my first Camino in 2014 (Deuter ACT Trail 24 liter- here’s the link but I’ve just discovered that it’s no longer available! I think it’s a wonderful pack, which makes me wonder why it’s been discontinued… though it seems like there are some other, similar options). I also really like my larger pack from Deuter, the Aircontact Lite 45+10 Liter, which I’ve used for the Pennine Way and camping trips. Finally, a couple of years ago I picked up a smaller daypack from REI, and it’s been great to take on traveling and shorter hikes closer to home. (It’s important to note that, when it comes to backpacks, what works for one person may not for another. For anything larger than a daypack, I’d recommend going to a store and trying packs on for fit and comfort. That said, I love Deuter!)
Neoprene Camera Case : Earlier this year I invested in a new camera for my travels, a Fujifilm X-T20 Mirrorless Digital Camera. I knew I wanted a case to protect the camera while wearing it/stuffed in my backpack, but I didn’t want to add too much extra weight. I found this neoprene case, and while it’s specific for a number of Fujifilm models, I wanted to include it in this list to give an example of a light and protective case. I’m sure there are similar types for whatever camera model you might be traveling with.

Jetboil Cooking System: I suppose you’d only take this on a pilgrimage if you were planning to camp (which some pilgrims do!). But if you are planning on any camping or backpacking trips next year and don’t have a way to heat up water to cook food, then I highly, highly, highly recommend this system. Compact, lightweight, beyond easy to use, heats water to boiling in 2 minutes.

I use my Jetboil to make coffee… what else??

Books

Camino/Trekking guidebooks: Now is the time when pilgrims and travelers are planning their travel adventures for 2020 (and beyond). For those choosing to walk the Camino, many will begin with the Camino Francés. Love it or hate it, John Brierley’s guide is the most popular of them all (personally, I really liked it). I’ve also used the Cicerone guide for the Camino del Norte/Primitivo and the Trailblazer series for the West Highland Way, Hadrian’s Wall, and the Pennine Way. My blogging friend Kat Davis has authored a Cicerone guide for the Camino Portugués, and I’m adding that one to my own list this year!
Walking to the End of the World: A Thousand Miles on the Camino De Santiago, Beth Jusino. I consider Beth another blogging friend, though we’ve never met (Camino connections are great!). I read a copy of her book as soon as it was published, and think it’s a wonderful depiction of a journey on the Camino, beginning with a pilgrimage through France on the Chemin Le Puy- there aren’t many books out there on Le Puy!
Tastes of the Camino, Yosmar Monique Martinez. While I don’t yet own my own copy (what am I waiting for??), Yosmar’s cookbook is THE Camino cookbook you’ve been waiting for. With 30 recipes from Tortilla Español to Pulpo a la Gallega to Sopa de Ajo, accompanied with personal notes and gorgeous photographs, this is a Camino must-have.

My Kitchen in Rome: Recipes and Notes on Italian Cooking, Rachel Roddy. I discovered Rachel Roddy’s blog years ago, and even though I’m not much of a cook, and even though I don’t do much traveling in Italy, I was drawn in by her beautiful writing and even more beautiful images. Her blog is where I got the recipe for the fabulous lemon ring cake that I make for dinner parties on the terrace at La Muse. Since her early days of blogging she’s published two cookbooks, all recipes and many of the photos are her own.

After the Camino/Misc:

Artifact Uprising photo book: A few years ago, a good friend gifted me a beautiful photo book from Artifact Uprising- full of images from my travels! It’s a beautiful little book that I love flipping through whenever I’m missing the Camino. So often we return from trips and aren’t sure what to do with the hundreds (thousands?) of photos we’ve taken, and I think putting together a book of favorite images is a great way to capture and revisit the memories.
Cairn box subscription: Another good friend of mine once gifted me a few months of Cairn boxes: a subscription gift-box of outdoor goodies. It was such a fun gift: each month I’d receive up to 6-items of outdoor products, including gear, apparel (I got a very warm hat that I wore earlier today on my walk!), food, skincare, etc. You can send a one-time box or choose a specific number of months to gift, and I think this is a wonderful gift for any adventurer in your life. (Or, yourself! I think it’s a great service to use if you’re just getting started in your outdoor adventures).

These are just a few ideas; if you want to read more about the things I brought on my Camino you can take a look at my packing list, as well as this post, which goes into more detail about the items I used and loved on my treks.

Happy shopping and happy future travel planning!

Italians and Puppies and 19-year old Knees; Highlights of the Camino del Norte

November 5, 2019

This is the first year that I haven’t written daily journal posts from my summer long-distance walking adventures. Last year’s recaps from the Pennine Way took me nearly 10 months to write (or some incredibly delayed amount of time like that), and that walk only lasted 15 days.

But this summer I walked a total of 29 days on the Camino, and since I didn’t blog in real time, the thought of going back and writing a post for each day feels too overwhelming. It could take me years to write, especially if I also want to be working on other writing projects!

I’ve written a couple of posts from the Camino Aragones, the first part of my walking journey. But I still have 19-days from the Camino del Norte that I haven’t even begun to talk about here. There was a post of my favorite photos (which I loved putting together), but what about the stories?

The Camino has been on my mind lately. This happens every year, right about now. It’s early November and we’re turning the clocks back, the leaves have turned and many have fallen, the temperatures have dropped too, and winter is approaching. My hours of walking are limited and it’s been nearly three months since I came back from Europe. I’m settled back here at home, but that also means that my mind starts dreaming about the next adventure, picturing a time when I can be back on the road.

I’ve been thinking about how to write about the Norte, and I decided to just share some highlights. Maybe it will be one post, maybe there will be several. When I think back to my walk this summer, I always seem to remember the really happy memories: the days when I felt strong, the friends I made, the beautiful landscapes. My walk on the Camino del Norte wasn’t perfect, but right now I’m struggling to remember the frustrating bits (well, aside from all the closed albergues and the race for beds. But that might be a separate post altogether).

Mostly, I had a great Camino, a great return to the Norte. I’ve already written about my experience of repeating a Camino, but for this post I just want to talk about some of my favorite moments of those 19 days in northern Spain. These are the moments I think about when I’m longing to return, the moments that keep me planning my next trip, the moments when I’m stuck inside and missing those long days of walking .

In no particular order:

My Italian Family

“Ecco che arriva l’americano!” I heard a voice from down the pathway, and moments later there was singing, five voices joining together, loud and boisterous and off-key. I walked closer and the voices swelled, and I could see the group of Italian pilgrims that I’d been running into on and off for the past four days. They raised their arms, smiling and singing and cheering.

They were singing a famous old Italian song, about an American or maybe just America. I can’t remember the details, only that their song was one of the best welcomes I’ve ever had on the Camino.

I first met Alba and Ruggero in the albergue in Getaria, after my second day on the Norte. Alba could speak just a bit of English and Ruggero only knew a few words, and so we communicated mostly with smiles and gestures.

And then, we kept showing up in the same albergues- sometimes this is all it takes to make friends on the Camino. After only a few more days, Alba and Ruggero called me their Camino daughter. I only walked with them a little here and there, but they looked out for me and I looked out for them. They’d also befriended another group of 5 Italians, and I just sort of folded myself into the mix.

Italian pilgrim friend on the Camino del Norte

We were all together, the seven Italians and me, in Islares, where we stayed in bungalows at a large campground (this was when I had my serenade). I ate a long dinner with them, at a restaurant overlooking the sea. From time to time Gloria or Alba would try to translate the conversation but it was mostly all Italian, and I didn’t really care that I couldn’t understand. I was sitting in the middle of this warm and friendly and kind group of people, feeling like I belonged.

Camping bungalows in Islares, Camino del Norte

I lost Alba and Ruggero when I stayed in Güemes and they continued on to Santander, and afterwards, even though I started to walk longer days trying to catch up, I never could. We’d send each other text messages and notes through Facebook, updating our location and where we were staying, but I just didn’t have enough time to try to catch up with them again.

It’s funny- I walk alone, and I always think that Camino families are for other pilgrims. It’s so important for me to have my freedom on these longs walks that I never fall in with a group and stick with them until the end, which always makes me think that I don’t form “families”. But this year, I had to laugh when the truth hit me over the head. Alba and Ruggero called me their Camino daughter, and in return, I joked that they were my Camino parents. What’s more of a Camino family than that? I might not have stayed with them- or the rest of the Italians- until the end, but they had become my friends.

A Poem by the Sea

One of the best parts about the Norte is that, often, the route follows the coast. But a frustrating thing about the Norte is that sometimes the route veers away from the coast, continuing parallel to the water but a kilometer or two out of view. There are various alternate routes that leave the official Camino and continue along the coast, and I tried to take these as much as possible. But something else I did was to plan some of my stages so that I would end in a town or village by the sea.

One of these stops was at Caborredondo, a very small village between Santillana Del Mar and Cóbreces. The albergue here (Albergue Izarra) was small and charming and offered a communal dinner, but the best part of the experience was my late afternoon walk to the coast. The hospitalero pointed me in the right direction, and after a kilometer or two I found myself on a narrow pathway that ran along dramatic cliffs that dropped sharply down to the water. I looked to my right and to my left and there wasn’t another person in sight.

I found a flat rock and settled down on my perch. At first I was hot, and restless, and preoccupied with whether I was walking this Camino in the way that I wanted. I’d walked about 25 kilometers that day, but when I arrived in Caborredondo, I hadn’t been ready to stop walking. I’d felt stronger than any previous day, the kilometers were flying by, and I just wanted to walk and walk. But days before I planned to try to stay at this particular albergue because I’d heard good things, and sitting there on the rock along the beautiful coast, I was still conflicted over my decision. I didn’t know anyone else in the albergue, I’d lost Alba and Ruggero a few days before, and I was feeling lonely. All of that, and my body had wanted to keep walking, but I hadn’t listened.

You’d think I’ve walked enough long-distance trails at this point to know how to go about the whole thing, but the same challenges are always there: walk alone, or stay with others. Plan ahead or be spontaneous. The lessons of this Camino were no different than nearly every previous one.

So I sat and I sat, and eventually the thoughts in my head quieted. And once they did, other sounds appeared. The waves crashing against the rocky coastline. Insects in the grass. A whistle of wind, a spray of water.

Something made me think of the Wendell Berry poem called ‘The Peace of Wild Things‘.

“Ah,” I thought. “I’ll memorize a poem. I’ll memorize this poem.”

I looked it up on my phone and hunched over so that my body blocked the glare of the sun and I could see the screen. I read the words, over and over and slowly, I worked through each line, repeating the words aloud. Over and over and I put the phone down, closed my eyes, said the words. I checked the lines again, then I put the phone away. I sat on that rock, alone but no longer lonely, just me and the sea and cliffs and the birds and the insects and the rough grass and a new poem, a poem that I recited out to all the wild things.

The Peace of Wild Things, Wendell Berry

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

The Knees of a 19-Year Old

When I saw that a massage therapist was offering massages at the albergue in Güemes, I was tempted. I’ve never actually had a massage before, not by a professional, but of all times when I thought I could use one, it would probably be in the middle of a really long walk.

I was talking about it with a pilgrim I’d met a few days before, Astrid, and together we decided that since there wasn’t much else to do, we might as well wait in line and see what it was all about.

We sat on the pavement behind 6 other pilgrims and waited nearly two hours. In that time I started to grow a little nervous. Everyone coming out of the small room was smiling, their legs shining with oil, their posture relaxed. “It’s great,” they said. “Worth the wait.” I knew that there was nothing to be nervous about, and yet, I wasn’t sure I wanted someone touching my legs and my feet.

When it was my turn I went inside and met the massage therapist, a Spanish man named Miguel. “Please,” he said, gesturing to the table. “Please lie down.”

I stretched out my legs and waited. Miguel moved around the table, looking at my feet, staring at my feet. He was silent, still looking at my feet, and I grew worried. I knew there was something wrong. I’ve never really liked my feet: they’re wide and my toes are stubby and finding proper fitting shoes has been an ordeal for my entire life.

I could feel my heart start to beat harder and I was about to hop off the table and tell Miguel to forget about the whole thing but then he looked at me, and smiled, and said, “You have the perfect feet for walking.”

I laughed. “It’s true,” he continued. “They are perfect.” He looked at them again, touching one lightly and moving it a little to the right, then the left. “Do you practice yoga?”

I shook my head ‘no’. “A shame,” he sighed. Then, all at once, he clapped his hands and started the massage.

He continued to say that my feet were perfect, which was when I decided that this massage thing might not have been a bad idea after all. He massaged my calves, telling me that it was amazing that I walk these long distances day after day, but I have completely relaxed muscles. I wasn’t really sure what to say, because I wasn’t doing anything special, at least I didn’t think I was. I was just walking.

Then he got to my knees, and when he started in on the right knee he suddenly stopped, and looked up at me in disbelief.

“What, are you 19??” he asked.

I laughed again and he did too. “I know you’re not 19,” he said, “But you have the knees of a 19-year old.” He shook his head. “Incredible.”

Maybe he was just being kind and flattered everyone with observations like these, but I like to think that I really do have the perfect feet for walking, and knees of a 19-year old (even though I’m twice as old), and that maybe this combination will keep me walking for years and years to come.

I’m counting on it.

A Swim in the Sea

There was a lot working against me when I decided to go for a swim at the beach in Pendueles. For starters, I hadn’t brought a bathing suit on this Camino. Then there was the fact that the little beach was tricky to access: there was a very steep and narrow dirt path that required using the provided rope to get up and down. The beach itself was rocky, with no comfortable place to sit, and the water was chilly (I’m a bit of a wimp when it comes to cold water).

But the day had been one of those really good Camino days. I walked an easy 19km from Serdio to Pendueles, taking a gorgeous alternate path along the coast for the last few kilometers. I arrived at the albergue over two hours before it would open, so I went to a nearby bar and ordered a large salad and a cold beer and took my time eating. When I got back to the albergue (Albergue Ave de Paso), I talked with two Italian girls and a group of Spanish college students- they’d all made reservations for the 14-bed albergue, and were alarmed when I told them that I hadn’t. “What if it’s full?” they asked. I shrugged; I was feeling relaxed that day, and had a good feeling that I would get a bed. But even if I didn’t, I knew there was another albergue in the village that I could try.

When the albergue opened and Javier checked us in, he announced that there were 13 beds already reserved and just one free one left… for me!

So it had already been a good day and I knew that there was a beach nearby. The Italian girls changed into their bathing suits and headed out, so did the group of Spanish students. I stood at my bunk, thinking. I knew I wanted to go to the beach, and the day was sunny and warm and the idea of taking a dip in the water was appealing. I looked through my very limited clothing options and decided that I could fashion a bathing suit from the thin pair of shorts I wore for sleeping, plus one of my buffs.

One of the buffs I was carrying is the one I’ve had since my first Camino, but the second was gifted to me by an Italian pilgrim, just before I took a bus up to the start of the Norte. He’d been going through his pack and removing things to ship home, and he was insistent that I should take his buff. At the time I wanted to be polite but I also wasn’t sure if I would ever need it; now I had the perfect solution. A bathing suit top! (It wasn’t perfect, but it worked).

When I arrived above the beach I clutched the rope and slowly made my way down the steep hill. The Italian girls weren’t anywhere to be found (turns out they missed the beach and walked two kilometers back to another one), but I could see the group of Spanish students, gingerly putting their toes in the water.

I left my shoes and bag in a small pile on the rocks then carefully made my way down to the water. It was cool, but not cold. I waded further in, up past my knees, then took a deep breath and dove under. And after that first shock of cold it felt perfect. I swam a little, back and forth, and then just floated for awhile.

I’ve walked the Norte twice now (or at least parts of it twice), and this was the first time that I’ve gone swimming. If I ever return to the Norte for a third time, I’m definitely going to pack a bathing suit and get in the water a lot more.

A Sunset on a Hill

The day I stayed in Piñeres, I walked 40km when I thought I’d only be walking 33. I’m not sure where the mistakes were (could have been one of the alternate routes I took, and getting stuck in a field with no clue how to get out and walking in circles for awhile). In any case, I was tired when I arrived in Piñeres. The first albergue I tried was completo, so I had to continue another kilometer up a long hill to the Casa Rectoral that purportedly had more beds.

I wasn’t sure what I was going to find at this albergue. Most of the group in Pendueles, where I’d stayed the night before, had made reservations at a new albergue in Villahormes, about 6km back. I’d passed by and the place looked attractive: an outdoor terrace with strings of white lights, colorful signs advertising ice cream and coffee and beer. There were a few pilgrims sitting at a table when I walked by, and I lingered, wondering if I should see about a bed. The race for beds on the Norte had been a distraction, and for the most part I’d resisted calling ahead and making reservations. Sometimes I get a feeling when I’m in a village or town, urging me to stay or else to continue walking. Nothing in my gut was telling me to stay at this albergue, and yet I worried that if I passed it by, I might have trouble finding a bed later. But I continued to walk, trusting in my gut, trusting that there would be a bed ahead.

The first albergue in Piñeres was full, so all I could do was trudge up the hill to try the next one. But in the middle of walking up that hill, I suddenly stopped, overcome with a strong memory from my previous pilgrimage on the Norte. It was on this hill that I took a selfie with some cows, green mountains in the background, and I remember feeling really happy. I’d been alone for a few days, not running into many pilgrims or anyone I knew (and I would continue to be mostly alone for another day or two), but I’d settled into the solitude and was loving the walking. So this time, when I realized where I was, I smiled. I looked up the path and saw two buildings at the top of the hill, and realized that one of them must be the albergue. Already the memory from my 2015 pilgrimage felt like a good omen.

Camino del Norte 2015

The Casa Recotral had plenty of beds. The building was old and quirky, but the location was amazing. The building next door was a church with a small cemetery, and otherwise there was nothing around as far as I could see. The hospitalero was kind, and when I was making my dinner from items I’d bought earlier that day, he offered me a huge piece of watermelon. I took my food outside and sat at a table and watched as the sunlight changed the color of the mountains. I chatted with some pilgrims- a few that I knew, a few I’d never seen before- but mostly it was quiet and peaceful.

As the sun dropped and the mountains glowed pink, I started to gather my things to head into bed, but then wondered if I might be able to see a sunset. So I walked over to the church and then along a path next to the cemetery, and was greeted with the most stunning sky. My view stretched across the hills and I realized that I could see straight out to the sea, and sure enough, the sun was sinking down below the water’s horizon. And just as the sun dipped down, the church bells started ringing 10pm, and I listened to the bells and watched the pink sky, and a small cat wandered out of the grass and brushed against my leg.

It was an unexpectedly magical night.

Puppies!

My walk on the Norte this summer provided lots of puppy encounters. There were other animals, too, but the puppies were my favorite. I said hi to a couple on my first day, about 30 minutes after I left the albergue in Irun. Then there were two more outside of a farm on the way to Deba (these two came sprinting over to me as I walked up, so excited and happy). And then there were four more at the albergue in Pozueta. After I showered and washed my clothes, I sat down and pulled one of the puppies into my lap, and wondered if I could somehow tuck him into my bag and walk the rest of my pilgrimage with him.

The Walking Stick

When I walked my first Camino- the Camino Frances, in 2014- I bought a walking stick in a tiny shop in St Jean Pied de Port, right at the very start of my pilgrimage. But for each long walk since then, I’ve always waited until I was on my way to try to find a piece of wood that would work as a walking stick. Sometimes I’ve had to walk several days before I find something. Some sticks are perfect, some are a little short, or a little tall, or have a quirky bend.

But this year, I got my stick from a pile in the back of the gîte in Oloron-Ste-Marie, where I started my pilgrimage on the Camino Aragonés. I’d noticed the pile of sticks the night before, and as I was eyeing them up I thought one or two might make a perfect walking stick. Before I left the next morning, I asked the hospitalera if I would be able to take one, and she was thrilled to be able to pass one over to me.

So my walking stick was with me every step of the way on this pilgrimage, and like all the walking sticks that have come before, I grew very attached to this one.

On my last day, as I walked into Oviedo, I met a Spanish pilgrim. We walked together for about 30 minutes, he had just started his pilgrimage the day before, and would be continuing from Oviedo on the Camino Primitivo. He was eager to talk to me: asking questions and telling me why he was on the Camino. Already, he had blisters, and his pace was slow and labored. I had to really slow down to stay next to him (remember, I was on my 29th day of walking!), but even so, I think he had to quicken his pace to stay next to me.

I was feeling distracted, knowing I only had another hour or two left of my summer Camino. What I really wanted was to be walking alone, and thinking about the last kilometers of the walk, and thinking about the last month, and trying to process it all… not walking really slowly and trying to make conversation with a new pilgrim.

At one point he looked at my stick. “That’s nice,” he said.

I also looked at my stick, the part at the top rubbed smooth by the palm of my hand, the bottom that was covered in dirt. I looked at the stick and then looked at the pilgrim. “When we arrive in Oviedo, if we are at the same albergue, I’ll give it to you.”

A little later I continued ahead, and had the last hour of the pilgrimage to myself. And later still, in the municipal albergue in Oviedo, I found the Spanish pilgrim, and presented him with my stick.

“This is for you,” I said. “It’s helped me on my walk, and I hope it helps you on yours.”

He was thrilled, smiling and thanking me and telling me that I might have saved his Camino.

Sometimes I just need to leave my stick when I finish a Camino: in Santiago I left it resting against the cathedral, on the Chemin Le Puy I left it tucked into the corner in an albergue. After my first Camino del Norte I was so attached to my stick that I shipped it home (and now it’s on the mantel above my fireplace). But this ending felt the best: putting it in the hand of the next pilgrim. Maybe it continues to be passed from hand to hand, maybe it’s still out there now, walking someone to Santiago.

Hopefully I’ll be back with more soon… more posts from my summer, more thoughts and musings about life and writing and walking.

How to Walk the Camino in a Heatwave

September 28, 2019

One of the stories from this year’s Camino was the heat. Oh, the heat! I like to escape the humidity of a northeastern US summer for Europe where it’s almost guaranteed to be a little cooler and all-around much more pleasant. And usually, it is.

But this summer, Europe experienced some record-breaking heatwaves, and I happened to be walking through one of them.

It was intense.

I like to think that I can handle heat pretty well- after all, until earlier this year, I’ve never owned a car with working air conditioning. I rarely use air conditioning in my apartment, either (I have one small window unit and I generally only use it a few times a year, on the very hottest and most humid days. But I suppose I should say that my apartment stays pretty cool and a fan is often all I need to manage the heat). In any case, walking a summer-time Camino has never been too stressful to me. I expect that it will be hot, but I never worry too much. There have been some pretty uncomfortable days, but I’ve always been able to handle them pretty well.

But this summer was a different story. All told, I only walked for about 3-days in really bad heat, but that was enough. It was the end of June, and the end of my Camino Aragonés. The heat had been building and building and then suddenly it burst: unrelenting and all-consuming. At times, it was hard to think, that’s how hot it was. The highest temperature I saw recorded was 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit), displayed on one of the pharmacy signs as I walked through an empty town one afternoon (empty, because every other person was inside, taking a siesta. More on that later). 40 degrees is hot, and it’s very possible that I may have experience heat a degree or two higher; I know that other parts of Europe certainly did.

I learned a few things about walking in this kind of heat, and I thought I would share more of that experience here, in case anyone else ends up in the middle of a long walk and trapped in a heatwave.

When I think back to those days, what stands out the most is the sense of community and support that developed among the pilgrims on the Camino. We were all walking through the heat, and it was a struggle for everyone. I think that the heat helped us form stronger bonds; pilgrims looked out for one another, always checking in and making sure others were okay. And, in addition to the sometimes intense experience of walking really long distances, we added an incredible heat to the pilgrimage, and it was like we were all in it together, even if we were walking separately. Like I’ve said in a previous post, the Camino Aragonés had this really nice community feel to it anyway; there were about 12-15 other pilgrims walking the same stages as me, so I got to know the others from staying in the same albergues. But I think the heatwave just made the connections easier. By the end of the Aragonés, I felt like the entire group was my Camino family, even the Spanish guy in the red shirt who didn’t really say much to anyone. It didn’t matter. When I saw him at the albergue in Puente La Reina, I ran up and smiled and gave him a big thumbs up (we couldn’t really communicate so gestures and body language went a long way). His smile was just as big as my own: we’d each made it, and in a way we’d been looking out for one another. That’s what mattered.

I walked through the heatwave but I never felt like I was in it alone. That meant a lot.

This idea of group support leads me to my next point. When walking in a heatwave, start early. Start really early. I was trying to do that anyway, but ‘early’ took on a new meaning the morning we left Sangüesa. The night before, a Dutch woman organized a 4:30am wake-up call. We were all in one big bunk room in the albergue, and this pilgrim figured that if a few of us were going to wake up really early, we might as well all wake up really early. Initially, I thought the wake-up call was way too early; anything in the 4 o’clock hour is a time that is meant for sleep, and I’ve always felt pretty strongly about that. And sure, I could have stayed in bed while everyone else woke up, but when you walk a Camino, if several people are moving around in an albergue room and packing up their things, it’s guaranteed to wake you up.

So I rose with the others and drank a cup of instant coffee in the common room, ate a bite of leftover tortilla from the night before and then headed out alone, pilgrims a few minutes ahead of me, pilgrims a few minutes behind me.

It’s probably no secret that I like to walk alone. I don’t mind occasionally walking with other people but mornings are my favorite time to walk alone, so even though I left the albergue just after 5am and it was pitch black outside, I was happy that I was walking by myself.

This was good and fine for the first 20 minutes: I was walking on a sidewalk out of town, the arrows (when I could find them with my flashlight) were pointing straight ahead. The air was somewhat cool and it was kind of exciting, a little thrilling, to be walking under what still felt like a night sky.

But then, naturally, I missed an arrow. I walked, then turned around, confused. I heard voices behind me and realized it was a group of pilgrims from the albergue. I waited until they caught up with me and then, together, we figured out where to go. I walked with them for awhile, up and down the hills until the sun began to rise behind a mountain, throwing a soft pink light through the sky. Eventually I stopped for a break and let them walk ahead of me so that I continue walking on alone. But I learned something that I should have already known (because I’ve gotten confused walking in the dark before): if I need a flashlight to walk the Camino, I shouldn’t be too far from other pilgrims.

In any case, waking up really early and starting your day’s walk well before the crack of dawn is important in extreme heat. The first few hours of the day were really pleasant and so, so beautiful as the sun was rising. Once that sun had crested the mountain, however, the heat began. It was a bit like a race against the clock, walking as fast as I could before the sun had fully risen in the sky. But the more kilometers you can walk before the sun rises, the less you’ll have to walk in really bad heat. For those three days of walking through the heatwave, I think I had finished walking and was checking into my albergue by noon, or 12:30 at the latest. The last few hours of the walk each day were tough: by 10am the heat was strong, and the time between 11:00am and noon was just a difficult hour, the kind where you need to focus on each footstep and tell yourself- “One step at a time. One step at a time.”

I can’t imagine what I would have done if I’d needed to continue walking through the afternoon on those days. It would have been really difficult, and maybe dangerous. In the past, I’ve heard pilgrims say that they walk in the morning hours, take a really long siesta during the afternoon, and then continue walking in the evening when the heat has cooled. I think this could be possible if you’re walking a Camino route where you know there will be availability in albergues, or else if you’ve made a reservation in an albergue or hotel, so that you could arrive late and still be guaranteed a bed.

On some Camino routes, it can be easy to alter your schedule and just walk short days in extreme heat. A 10 or 15 kilometer day, if started early, could have you finishing by mid-morning before the worst heat of the day. A lot of albergues don’t open until early to mid afternoon, but it would still be better to hang out inside, at a bar or restaurant, and wait for the albergue to open, rather than continuing to walk through the heat. On the Aragonés, I met two French pilgrims who decided to skip ahead a stage and take a bus to the next town, so that they could walk shorter stages and still arrive in Puente La Reina on schedule. They were worried about walking 25 or 30 kilometer stages in the heat, and so they adjusted their plans.

I think this is always a good idea. Some pilgrims will stop walking if it gets too hot, and either hang out in a village or town, or take a bus to a city for a few days and then just return when the weather has cooled. I think mentioning this is important, because walking through a heatwave can be dangerous. I never felt like I was in any danger this summer, but it helped to start early and walk fast before the sun had fully risen. If I hadn’t been able to end my walking day by noon, it could have been a very different story.

But ending the day around noon has another advantage: if the albergue is open, it gives you time to claim a bed, take a shower, wash your clothing, and then head out for a big menu del dia lunch before returning to the albergue for a nice, long siesta.

I loved doing this. I had some incredible meals and with a full belly and a hot sun bearing down, there was nothing more I wanted to do than go back to my bunk and rest for awhile. This is a pro-tip for the Camino: a menu del dia (menu of the day) is very similar to a pilgrim’s menu, but the quality of the food is often better. The price is comparable- around 10 euros- and you’ll get a starter, main dish and dessert, bread and wine, too, just like the pilgrim’s menu. But it was a treat to have varied and delicious options (and the little pitchers of wine help slow you down for the siesta, too).

Walking in the dark and eating big lunches are good and fine, but what about actually walking in the heat?

I focused on three things: keeping myself as cool as possible, drinking water consistently throughout the day, and resting in shade every chance I got.

In terms of keeping myself cool, options are a bit limited, but there are still some strategies that I think any pilgrim could use. The first is to wear a wide-brimmed hat that will keep the sun off of both your face and the back of your neck. Initially, I only had a ball cap, but when the heat got bad I went out in search of a better hat. The town of Sangüesa had a pretty awesome general store with really cheap stuff, and I found a 2 euro hat with a somewhat wide brim. It was navy blue which wasn’t the best (lighter colors are recommended), and the fit was rather poor, but at least it shielded my head from the sun more than my ball cap did. (Some pilgrims carry an umbrella to fully protect themselves from the sun, which can also work really well).

My other tip for trying to stay cool while walking in a heatwave is to use a buff. I’ve written about my buff before, and it’s come in handy more times than I can count. But my very favorite way to use it is this: when passing a fountain, run it under the water until it is soaked and dripping. Without squeezing out too much of the water, I’ll put it either around my neck or up over the top of my head. Water gets everywhere, but- at least initially- it’s cool and refreshing. The buff will dry out and warm up pretty quickly under a hot sun, but even ten minutes of a cool sensation against my neck or head is such a relief. I’ll refresh the buff at every fountain I pass.

And speaking of fountains, it might go without saying that staying hydrated is really important during a heatwave, but I’m going to say it anyway. Water is key. I read somewhere that it’s better to take small sips continuously throughout the day during extreme heat (rather than gulping down a ton of water all at once), and I’m not sure if that’s true or not, but it’s what I tried to do. In any case, I made myself drink even if I wasn’t feeling thirsty, just to make sure that I was giving my body enough water. And this is something I do on the Camino anyway, but every time I passed a fountain I would fill my water bottle. Even if the bottle was nearly full, it didn’t matter. I’d make sure it was filled to the very top (and often, the water from a fountain is cooler than what’s been sitting in your bottle, so it helps to refresh). You’re going to sweat a lot while walking in hot temperatures, so that makes it extra important to stay hydrated. Many people carry electrolyte tablets or some equivalent, and I think this is a good idea, especially if you’re walking in the summer. (There are lots of different kinds you can buy: I’ve tried these, and these).

Finally, the shade. If you’re on a forested path or walking in an area with lots of trees, the air will be a little cooler and the shade will be a relief. But on the Camino, it’s often difficult to find shade. So much of the path is out in the open, and my walk on the Aragonés during the heatwave was no different. There was a long stretch when I could see the path winding far ahead of me, the heat shimmering up from the ground, the path was a blaring white and there wasn’t a spot to hide in the shade for what felt like miles. In a case like this, there’s not much that you can do. But if you do pass a tree, even just a tiny section of the trail that has just a bit of shade, my best advice is to make a beeline to that spot and stand there for a few minutes. Small breaks are good for your body during a heatwave, and a chance to escape a relentless sun is important. I actually learned this from a dog that I hiked with a few years ago in France: on hot afternoons, he would criss-cross the road to walk in shade as much as possible. At first I thought it was funny, but then I realized that this dog was really smart. He knew what he had to do to stay cool.

I now look back at those days of walking in the heat and I wonder- “Was it really that hot?” Then I remember the last day in Puente La Reina, sitting around a table in the albergue with a group of pilgrims: from Italy and France and Japan. Most of us had just met and we were eating and laughing and toasting to the Camino and even while sitting still at the table, sweat dripped from all of us. There was no escape.

Walking in the heat isn’t always fun and it’s important to be really careful, and the smartest thing might be to change plans and avoid walking during the hottest days. I’m curious if others have had experience walking the Camino in a heatwave: what did you do? Do you have any other tips or tricks?

Repeating a Camino

September 8, 2019

I don’t think I wrote quite as much about my pre-Camino planning this year as I normally do, or what my process was like deciding how I wanted to spend my summer, but I was, in a word, conflicted.

I’ve been feeling both a pull to do something new and to go some place totally new, as well as a small tug to spend a little more time at home. So there was all this pulling and tugging when I’d been thinking about Summer 2019 plans, and I kept thinking: “Is this the year for another Camino? And if it is, which Camino do I want to walk?”

There wasn’t a clear answer, and that’s the first time this has happened. I’d felt really certain about each of my previous walks. That’s not to say that I don’t spend time researching and flipping back and forth between various options, but I usually have a feeling in my gut about where I want to walk. But I just didn’t this year.

And yet, it had been several years since I’d been in Spain. Without any obvious answers coming to me, I wondered if maybe it was time to go back to the Camino. I planned a 10-day walk on a new-to-me route (the Aragonés, read more about that here and here), but I’d still have more time to walk. I wanted to walk for a month. I didn’t want a route that was too crowded, I didn’t want a route that was too isolated. I wanted the Goldilocks of Camino routes, and there was one I couldn’t get out of my mind: the Camino del Norte.

I’d walked the first nearly 500km of the Norte in 2015 and most of the remaining 300km in 2016 and I loved it, especially the first half. It’s not a perfect Camino, and there are a few things I wish could be different or “better”, like maybe a stronger ‘Camino’ feel, a few more albergues especially in some key places. Walking in the summer can be tricky as tourists as well as pilgrims flock to the beach towns, and lodging tends to fill up. Prices are a touch higher than in other parts of Spain. There’s a lot of asphalt walking.

But there was also so, so much that I loved. When I first walked I thought that it had nearly the perfect amount of people for me: just enough so that I could form my own little Camino community, but not too many that I would constantly see other pilgrims throughout the day. I loved how solo it felt, and I also loved the friends that I made. The food was really great. While at times I may have wished for more of a Camino feel, it was also nice to walk through parts of Spain that didn’t feel dominated or defined by the Camino. More locals tried to have conversations with me, curious about why I was walking alone, making sure that I was okay and having a good time.

And, most importantly, the scenery. Another caveat: just as the Camino del Norte isn’t perfect, it’s not 100% beautiful views either. Every time the path dips away from the coast, my heart sinks. Sometimes the Camino runs nearly parallel to the coast but also frustratingly just out of view. Sometimes it rains. But the rest of the time, it is just so, so beautiful. I’m not sure I’ve found anything on any walk that I enjoy more than rounding a corner and arriving at a small, pristine beach with perfectly worn sea glass and gentle waves and not a person in sight. And it happens over and over.

When I walked the Camino del Norte in 2015, I learned how to truly be independent on a long-distance walk. I learned how to ask myself what I both needed and wanted, and I learned how to give that to myself. I learned when I needed to show up for others, and when I needed to go my own way. I sort of figured out that I loved the freedom of being alone on the Camino Francés, but I gave myself that freedom on the Camino del Norte, and I’ll never, ever forget what that felt like.

So the Norte has had this special role in all of my Camino-ing, and for the past several years I’d been adding to a document on my desktop, making notes for my next walk on the Norte, knowing that someday I’d return.

All of this and yet, even though I’d sort of decided that I would probably walk the Norte after I finished the Aragonés this summer, I wasn’t totally convinced. In fact, I didn’t make a final decision until the day before. I hesitated and hesitated because I didn’t quite feel ready to repeat a walk that I’ve already done.

There are so many other walks out there! There are so many other experiences to have! Despite sometimes feeling like I could live forever, I know that I won’t. Despite feeling young and strong, I know that I’m aging out of my youth (maybe already have). And what if my situation, having 8-weeks of freedom every summer, what if it changes? Because surely, one day, it will. Maybe soon. And all of these thoughts made it really difficult to say with any certainty: “Yes, I’m going to walk the Norte again.”

So I hemmed and hawed and honestly one thing that made the decision kind of easy was that, as I was finishing the Aragonés, I was walking through a heatwave. It was intense. Sitting at a table surrounded by pilgrims in the albergue in Puente La Reina, I could feel the sweat rolling down my back, my legs. I wasn’t even moving or exerting any energy, it was just that hot. I looked at the weather app on my phone and checked the temperature in Irun and it was significantly cooler and my decision was made. Go north. Go to Irun, start walking.

This has been a long introduction to a post where I wanted to talk about what it was like to repeat a Camino, so here we go:

It wasn’t what I expected.

It felt nearly like a totally new experience.

And I guess that makes sense, though I certainly didn’t anticipate that I would feel that way. But maybe I should know better: I don’t have the greatest memory, and I marvel at people who can remember specific details about their long-distance walks, especially details of the landscape. I think back on my walks and I can certainly remember the bigger picture, and the memorable moments are etched into my brain, and I take photos and write in my journal (and blog!) to try to remember the details, but so much of the daily walking just gets lost.

I just didn’t realize how much of it escapes my memory, I didn’t realize it until I went back to the Norte. Because once I started walking, there was so much I didn’t remember. In fact, there was a point where I was convinced that the path had been altered considerably since I’d last been there, like they’d rerouted big portions, because I just had no memory of it! I arrived at an overlook over the beach of a sizable town and… nope, nothing. Had this part of the Camino even existed in 2015? Had this beach even been there at all??

But, also there were other parts I remembered, some things were so clear. One day, I was walking on the path and rounded a bend and looked up at a slight hill and thought- ‘This is where I saw that white horse.’ And then I looked to my left down the field and there was a white horse, hanging out by the trees! And it dawned on me that it was probably the same exact horse, and something about that made me really happy.

And that kind of thing happened a few times, when I’d be walking and not really remembering the specific part of the trail but then be suddenly hit with an intense feeling of familiarity, and remember all at once exactly where I was.

So it was this interesting mix, of things I’d completely forgotten but also things I’d remembered. But there was another layer too, and that was that most of the things that were familiar were also different. It’s because I was often walking different stages than the first time, staying in different albergues, passing things at different times of the day, in different weather, with different people, and it all adds up to a new experience.

Sometimes, I recreated an experience. I love a good tradition, and walking a Camino twice is enough for me to start up traditions. And so, I took the detour down to the little beach in Onton to look for sea glass, like I did in 2015. I had the really good tortilla in Liendo. I got ice cream before the long walk along the boardwalk in Laredo. I ordered tostada con tomate at the beachside café in Noja. And I took a lot of the same photos. Sometimes this was intentional- I remembered a photo from my first walk on the Norte and came to the same place and couldn’t resist snapping another. But now that I’m home and reviewing all my pictures, from both 2015 and 2019, it’s shocking to see how many times I took the same photo in the same place, unintentionally (ahh, that photographer’s eye!).

Then there were other times when I purposefully set out to do something different. And this, I think, is the beauty of returning to walk a Camino for a second time. There were a couple towns and albergues that I wanted to revisit, but mostly I tried to stay in different places. I discovered new and wonderful albergues (I have a post that lists my favorite albergues on the Norte, which I’m going to update soon), and I discovered new villages and towns too.

I also hit the beach more. Last time, in 2015, I walked on the beach when it intersected with the path of the Camino, and sometimes during the walk I made little detours to small beaches along the way. But I never really took the time to go down to a beach in the afternoons or evenings, and I didn’t plan my stages to end in towns by a beach. This time was different. I love the feeling of my feet in the sand and the sound of the waves and I wanted more of it. I stayed in villages that were on the coast, and after finding a bed in the albergue, I went down to the beach and lounged on the sand. After much hesitation, I went swimming at a little secluded beach in Pendueles (there are two things of note: 1. To access the beach you practically have to rappel down the trail with a provided rope; I was in flip flops but I made it. 2. I’d decided not to pack a bathing suit and it turns out that there’s another handy use for the buff I always bring!). That little swim in the sea was one of the highlights of my Camino. I also went for several evening walks on the beach, after everyone had packed up and left for the day and I had the stretch of sand all to myself.

Another goal for my return to the Norte was to take more coastal alternatives. As mentioned above, the route of the Norte sometimes veers away from the coast, and while often it’s not very far, it’s far enough that you can’t actually see the coast. After some searching on the Camino forum, I discovered a great document that lists out a bunch of coastal alternatives; some I’d already explored when I walked in 2015, but there were more I wanted to find for my second time around. One very fun day was when I walked the 36km coastal route from Santander to Boo. It wasn’t an official “Camino variant”, but with some detailed instructions I’d found online, I was mostly able to find my way, and so much of the route was stunning.

I had a thought as I was walking the Norte this summer, I wondered if I could try to come back every 5 years to walk. Wouldn’t that be fun? To see how the route has changed, to see what has remained the same. To return to my favorite albergues and to find new favorites. To take the same photos, again and again, to sink into my traditions. To find that white horse. To walk more of the coast, to brave the chilly waters, to meet new friends, to remember who I was when I last walked.

It would take a lot, to return to a place and commit time to repeat a long walk and to do this continuously throughout my life. I may never walk the Norte again; to walk most of it twice was a gift. To walk like this at all is a gift, and I wonder how long I can make this last. I dream of having enough time and enough health to walk all the long walks on my list, to walk the walks I haven’t yet discovered, to return to walk the paths I’ve already been down.

Maybe all of it will happen and maybe none of it will, but I know this: I’m happy I returned to the Norte.

Camino Aragonés Guide: Essential Info to help plan your walk

September 1, 2019

I can’t remember when I first heard of the Camino Aragonés, or when it became a walk that I added to my “list”, or even when it moved to priority status. I just know that at some point, somewhere, I must have read more about it and thought, “Huh. Sounds like a pretty good Camino.”

I’ve already written about why I found the Aragonés to be a nearly perfect Camino, and if you haven’t already read that post, I think it makes a good companion piece to this one, especially if you’re considering planning a walk. But for now I’ll say that yes, indeed, it was a pretty good Camino.

This Camino Aragonés guide post will attempt to delve into some of the more practical considerations, and I hope it will give you a sense of what the walk is like, useful tips, and some inspiration to add it to your list. (Otherwise, sit back and enjoy more photos!)

First of all, the basics

I love taking a good alternate route, and it turns out that the Camino Aragonés (or, the Aragonese Way) can be considered one long alternate to the beginning of the Camino Francés. Rather than starting in St Jean Pied de Port and crossing the Pyrenees into Spain by ending in Roncesvalles (as you would on the Camino Francés), the Aragonés begins at the pass in Somport- which sits on the border of France and Spain- and continues for 170km until it rejoins the Frances at Puente La Reina.

But this is a route that has a long history, a route that was popular in the Middle Ages and served pilgrims who were walking the Via Tolosana (the Arles Route), which begins in Arles and continues to Somport (and the Via Tolosana was one of the four major pilgrimage routes cited in the Codez Calixtinus, a sort of first “guidebook” to the Camino written in the 12th century).

The Aragonés, beginning in Somport (border between France and Spain) and ending in Puente La Reina (Spain) is typically divided into 6 stages (more on that below). It is possible to extend this Camino by beginning in France somewhere on the Arles route, or continuing on the Camino Francés once you reach Puenta La Reina.

A great Camino map; look towards the top right for the path of the Aragonés (dark gray)

Why would someone choose to walk this route, rather than begin where everyone else does, in St Jean Pied de Port?

This is a great question. The Camino Francés is typically the first Camino for most pilgrims, and for those who choose to cross the Pyrenees, they do so by starting in St Jean. I did this too, when I first walked in 2014. At the time, while I vaguely knew that there were other Camino routes, I had no idea that there was an alternate Pyrenees crossing that would eventually lead me back to the Francés.

So I think for most pilgrims who find their way to the Aragonés, it is not their first Camino. It is often a pilgrim who has already walked the Francés and is coming back for more- and has maybe returned to the Camino a second, or third, or fourth time- who discovers the Aragonés and decides to see what it is all about.

On the other hand, during my walk on the Aragonés this summer, I met pilgrims who were embarking on their first Camino. One had chosen the Aragonés because he’d studied Spanish history and wanted to walk through Jaca (a city along the route). Another because she’d heard that the Camino Francés could be very crowded, so preferred to have a quiet experience to start.

I think the Aragonés could be a great option in either case: whether you’re returning for a second, or third, of fourth (or more!) Camino, or if you’re walking your very first. For a first Camino it may take some additional planning, and beginning in Somport won’t give you the same sort of Camino fanfare as beginning St Jean would, but it would make for a special and very unique experience.

In a nutshell, what is so great about this route?

You can refer to my last post, where I go into more detail of why I loved the Camino Aragonés. But to sum it up: the scenery is varied and beautiful. The route is quiet but you probably won’t be totally alone, and you’ll build a nice pilgrim community with others on the path. There are well-spaced albergues that provide just enough infrastructure to make you feel like you’re truly on a Camino (unless you want to make shorter stages, there is no need to stay in hotels or pensions. Although you certainly could opt to stay in other lodging!). Locals aren’t used to seeing crowds of pilgrims, so you’ll experience kindness and openness and maybe even some curiosity.

What is the way marking like, am I going to get lost?

I thought the waymarking was very, very good on this route. If you begin in France you’ll want to follow the white and red stripes of the GR-653, and in Spain there are the traditional yellow arrows and scallop shells (though you may also continue to see the white and red stripe markings).

Overall the signs and arrows are plentiful, and I honestly can’t remember a time when I got confused. Well, aside from when I walked for an hour in the dark (due to a heatwave), but that’s no fault of whoever painted the arrows along that section of the path. They were there, I just couldn’t find them with my flashlight.

And speaking of finding your way, is there a guide to this Camino?

That’s another good question. I didn’t use a guide for my walk, and instead just referred to the Gronze stages (a Spanish website that gives information for various Camino routes, including basic maps of each stage, an elevation profile, and albergue information, as well as where to find food and other services). I thought that the Gronze stages- even without knowing Spanish- were sufficient, and along with some prior browsing and note-taking on the Camino forum, I never needed a guidebook.

However, there are a few guidebook options out there. I can’t speak to either of them, but I’d imagine they’d only give you more information than what you’ll find online. The first, The Confraternity of St James’ guide, Arles to Puente La Reina, is in English. You’ll want Part 2, which is ‘Toulouse to Puente La Reina‘ (this will include the Aragonés). There is also the Miam Miam Dodo guide (in French), which includes the Aragonés. I used a Miam Miam Dodo when I walked the Chemin du Puy and while I can somewhat understand French, I found that you don’t really need a grasp of the language to get what you need from the guide. The maps are easy to read, and icons will show you where there are albergues and restaurants/bars.

I keep hearing mention of the Pyrenees; how difficult is this route?

If you begin in Somport- also referred to as the Col du Somport or the Canfranc Pass, and sits at an elevation of 1632m- the most difficult part of the entire route will probably be the walk down to Canfranc Estación. The path drops over 400 meters in about 7km, and some parts can feel steep and may be tough on the knees. I didn’t think it was particularly challenging, and just went real slow at times (then again, climbing hills has always been more difficult for me than descending them), but if this descent is a concern you would always have the option to begin the pilgrimage in Canfranc Estación, or Jaca. Otherwise, the path of the Aragonés is often flat, or else has you climbing relatively small hills- not unlike anything you would find on the Camino Francés.

If you begin back in France, and decide to walk up to Somport, then be advised that you will be ascending quite a bit on the final stage from Borce to Somport (the final 6km of the 17km stage have you ascending approximately 600 meters, and the total elevation gain for the stage is nearly 1000 meters). This basically means that you’ll be climbing, and climbing through the Pyrenees. I was pretty intimidated heading into the day’s walk: I’d been alone in the albergue (gîte) in Borce, didn’t pass another pilgrim for the entire day, and walked mostly in the rain with sometimes poor visibility. Aside from snow, those were probably the least ideal conditions, and yet, despite all of that, it wasn’t as bad as I feared. It helped that 17km isn’t a huge distance, so I had plenty of time. There was one point when I was only a few kilometers from Somport (and high in the mountains) when I worried a bit because I hadn’t seen a way marker in awhile, but as soon as I started to worry I found one. The rain wasn’t fun, but then again it never is, and I can only imagine how wonderful that stage would be in clear conditions.

And the bonus of the day was finding some Camino magic: someone had set up a little pilgrim rest area under some pine trees by their home. There were tree stumps to sit on, a tin with biscuits and tea bags, a stack of mugs, and a thermos with hot water. I had what might have been the best cup of tea in my life, huddled there under the dripping trees, chilled from the rain, all alone in the middle of a long climb. The tea warmed me up, the notebook where I signed my name reminded me that I wasn’t totally alone.

What time of year should I walk?

I’d say spring, summer or fall; winter will likely have snow up at the pass and what I can imagine would be dangerous conditions down to Jaca. I’d also be careful in late fall and early spring, where there would also be a chance of walking through snow.

Are there any special sights along this Camino?

Yes!! Here are what I consider the ‘Big 5’:

1. Canfranc Estación. 7km into the Aragonés you will enter Canfranc village, where it is hard to miss the ruins of an enormous old railway station. It’s been abandoned since 1970 but recently there has been renovation work and a plan to restore the building to its former glory (and, I believe, restore the railway line). It was officially opened in 1928 and serviced the Pau-Canfranc line, which crossed under the Pyrenees, and had quite an interesting history during World War II. I believe it’s possible to take tours of the station, though I’ve read that they need to be booked online and in advance, and that the tours will only be in Spanish (and possibly French). I didn’t take a tour, and it seemed like the station was only accessible if you had that magic tour ticket, but it was still such an impressive sight.

2. Detour to Monasterio de San Juan de la Peña (Saint John of the Cliff). There are two monasteries here: old (10th century) and new (17th century), and while the new monastery is worth a visit, it’s the old one that’s the real reason to detour from the Camino. The incredible building is camouflaged against the cliffside, some rooms carved directly into the stone. There’s an impressive Romanesque cloister and even a legend that the Holy Grail was sent here for protection!

A note on getting here: Don’t do what I did. This was the thought continuously running through my head as I climbed a series of mountains on narrow, steep, extremely rocky trails. It took me a long time to reach the monasteries after some pretty challenging hiking, and once I did, I was told that the old monastery would be closed between 2:00 and 3:00 (I arrived at 1:40, and I still had a 1/2 mile walk to reach the old monastery). I had still had a fair amount of walking to to do after I finally toured both monasteries (in order to reach Santa Cilia), and overall it was a long day. Worth it, but long. There’s a detour that’s listed in Gronze’s stage that I followed, and there’s a sign along the path of the Camino that points out the detour 5.2km from Jaca. DO NOT FOLLOW THIS UNLESS YOU WANT SOME LONG AND STRENUOUS HIKING, UP AND DOWN AND UP AND DOWN THE MOUNTAINS. I walked 36km and some of that was very slow going. Instead, there are a few other options.

-After leaving Jaca, you can continue along the Camino (past the sign for the turnoff to the monasteries) to a turnoff on the left about 10km in, just before the Hotel Aragon. From here it’s about 6km to Santa Cruz de la Seros, which is a beautiful little village. I’m not sure what this path is like and I suspect it may be a bit challenging, but it’s got to be better than the 12.5km of mountains that I went through. There’s no albergue here (oh, if only!) and the only accommodation was a hotel- Hosteleria Santa Cruz de la Seros- that was a little too expensive for me (45 euros in high season for an individual in a double room. It’s still quite reasonable but when compared with the 10 euros or less I was paying for the albergues, it becomes a significant difference. However, I heard it’s great). But if you want to splurge this would be a great place to stay: you can drop off your bags at the hostal and then continue up to the monasteries, the old monastery is 3.5km up a rather steep path (or you could follow the road for 7km; because of the difficulty of the path the time distance is roughly the same). Tour the monasteries and then return back down the path or by road to Santa Cruz. It would be a long day, but I think a bit easier than what I attempted.

-The other option is what the hospitalero in my albergue in Jaca told me to do, but I didn’t listen to him. And that would be to stay in Jaca for an extra night and take a bus (or taxi) to the monasteries and then back down to Jaca. I suppose you could take the bus up to the monasteries and then just walk the rest of the way down to either Santa Cruz or further to Santa Cilia too. The albergue in Jaca had information and time tables for the bus, as well as the tourism office.

This all sounds really complicated and I tried to think of an easy way to explain it, but it’s tough. There’s simply not an easy way to walk to the monasteries AND to stay at an albergue, unless you want a very long day (I didn’t arrive to the albergue in Santa Cilia until 7pm, which is very late for the Camino). But it’s an incredible place and despite the effort it took for me to walk there, it was kind of magical to arrive on foot.

3. Detour to the Foz de Lumbier gorge. This is a detour that’s just a few kilometers after leaving Sangüesa (2.4 km into the walk, you’ll want to bear right off the path of the Camino. If you’ve reached Rocaforte, you’ve gone too far). I intended to take this detour but because of a heatwave had left early and was walking in the dark, and completely missed the detour. But I’ve heard that this is a beautiful part of the Camino, taking you to a narrow gorge that’s cut by the river Irati, and the footpath leads you between steep rock outcrops and through a tunnel where a headlamp or flashlight could come in handy.

4. Church of Santa Maria de Eunate. I wrote about this in my last post, but the 12th century Romanesque church with a unique octagonal plan is not to be missed! (It’s right on the path of the Aragones, and a 4km detour from the Frances).

5. Puente La Reina bridge. In the 11th century, Queen Doña Mayor (wife of King Sancho the Great) had this bridge built in order to help pilgrims cross the River Arga on their way to Santiago. (Puente la Reina means ‘Bridge of the Queen’). 1000 years later the bridge is still being used, and is one of the iconic images of the Camino.

Any advice on how to get to the start of the Aragonés?

Travel to the Somport pass isn’t simple, but it’s certainly not impossible. If traveling through Paris, your best option is to take a train down to Pau, and then transfer to another train to Oloron Ste-Marie, then a bus to Somport. (Or, if you have the time, I’d recommend starting the walk in Oloron; it’s three days up through the Pyrenees to Somport, a really beautiful walk! You can even begin walking in Pau if you have more time).

Coming from Barcelona, you’ll take a bus or train to Zaragoza, then a bus (from the same station) to Jaca, and from here another bus or taxi to Somport.

These are some links to bus and trains that may help you plan your journey:

ALSA (Spanish bus company)
http://www.alsa.es/en/

Renfe (Spanish train)
http://www.renfe.com/

TER (French regional rail)
www.ter.sncf.com/aquitaine

Typical Stages for the Aragonés:

This walk is usually completed in 6-days, though pilgrims who detour to the monasteries of San Juan de la Peña will likely add an extra day. If you want to walk shorter distances (for instance, the first stage from Somport to Jaca is 32km!) it is often possible to find additional albergues, hotels or pensions. *Note, some of the albergues between the typical stages aren’t exclusively for pilgrims, but you will often find other pilgrims staying there.

Day 1: Somport to Jaca, 32km.
Day 2: Jaca to Arrés, 25.4km
Day 3: Arrés to Ruesta, 28.4km
Day 4: Ruesta to Sangüesa, 22km
Day 5: Sangüesa to Monreal, 27.2km
Day 6: Monreal to Puente La Reina, 30.6km

Below are my stages, including where I stayed. The first three stages were on the Voie d’Arles, and beginning in Somport I crossed to the Camino Aragonés. My detour to the monasteries of San Juan de la Peña added a day to my itinerary, so with 3-days on the Arles route and 7 on the Aragonés, I walked for 10-days total.

Day 1: Oloron Ste-Marie to Sarrance, 20.6km
Accueil Pèlerins Le Relais du Bastet (*where I stayed in Oloron… very good)

Accueil Pèlerin Communauté des Prémontrés (*where I stayed in Sarrance… must-stay!)

Day 2: Sarrance to Borce, 22km
Gîte communal de Borce

Day 3: Borce to Somport, 17km
Albergue Aysa

Day 4: Somport to Jaca, 32km
Albergue de peregrinos de Jaca

Day 5: Jaca to Santa Cilia, 36km (with detour to monasteries)
Albergue de peregrinos de Santa Cilia (*very good albergue)

Day 6: Santa Cilia to Arrés, 10.2km
Albergue de peregrinos de Arrés (*this is a must-stay albergue!)

Day 7: Arrés to Ruesta, 28.4km
Albergue de Ruesta. (*very good albergue)

Day 8: Ruesta to Sangüesa, 22km
Albergue de peregrinos de Sangüesa

Day 9: Sangüesa to Monreal, 27.2km
Albergue de peregrinos de Monreal

Day 10: Monreal to Puente La Reina, 30.6km
Albergue de los Padres Reparadores

What is your packing list like?

I brought the same things on this Camino that I have on my others, and you can find my pretty comprehensive packing list here. For this Camino I’d definitely recommend walking poles or a walking stick, particularly for the stretch between Somport and Jaca. A wide brimmed hat to protect your face and neck from the sun would also be helpful; much of the route was open and without tree-cover.

Tips for the Camino Aragonés:

-Be prepared for solo walking. If you’re looking for a Camino where you’ll meet a lot of people and always have someone to walk with, then this may not be the Camino for you. I nearly always walked alone during the day, and rarely saw other pilgrims. In the afternoons and evenings, however, I always met up with the same 10-15 pilgrims, staying in the same albergues. This lent a beautiful and small community feel to the Aragonés, but it will certainly not be the boisterous and sometimes party-like atmosphere that you can find on the Francés. It is possible that you may not encounter many pilgrims in the evenings, either, so be prepared for a quiet Camino.

-I’d recommend loading your phone with a local SIM card, if you’re traveling from the States or a country outside of the EU. There isn’t always wi-fi in all of the albergues, and because there were days when I didn’t encounter another pilgrim on my walk, I felt secure in having a working phone on me. I never needed to use the phone to call the albergues when I arrived (which I’d been worried about), though I think the first pilgrim who arrived in Sangüesa needed to call a number on the door to notify the hospitalera that we were there. I don’t think a SIM card is necessary, but I was glad to have one. Especially because I was able to help a fellow pilgrim when she dropped and broke her phone; she was able to use mine to communicate with her parents and figure out some transportation options (this was at the monastery in Sarrance, where the monk in charge didn’t have a smartphone).

This link takes you to a thread on the Camino forum that has good advice about setting up a SIM in Spain. The Orange Holiday SIM (which I’ve bought at Charles de Gaulle in Paris) has always worked well for me.

-On the stage from Arrés to Ruesta (28.4km), the only services available are in Artieda. If you’re not sleeping in Artieda and walking all the way to Ruesta, there’s a shortcut that avoids the climb up the hill to Artieda. You might be tempted to take this- and certainly could (because that hill looks big!)- but this will be your only stop for food and it might be the only fountain on the day’s stage as well. I’d recommend walking up there, filling up your water, and finding the Casa Rural that has also has a restaurant/bar. I had one of the best sandwiches of my Camino there.

-If you stay at the albergue in Arrés, you’ll probably get a village tour from the hospitalero/as. Take them up on this offer, and if they don’t mention the best spot in the village to view the sunset, ask them. And then go see the sunset. I had a mostly cloudy evening but still got such a peaceful and beautiful view.

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I hope this little Camino Aragonés guide helped show you more of what the route is like, and that it could be useful to you in planning your own walk. Let me know in the comment section below if you have any questions, or email me at nadinewalksblog @ gmail.com. I’d be happy to tell you more about my experience! In the meantime, I’m going to be dreaming about when I might be able to return to walk the Aragonés again.

Why I think the Camino Aragonés is the Perfect Camino

August 19, 2019

What is a perfect Camino? Can such a thing even exist? In late June I walked the Camino Aragonés, a 10-day pilgrimage from Oloron-Ste-Marie, France, to Puente la Reina, Spain. Technically, the first three days of my walk were on the Voie d’Arles, a route in France that runs from Arles to Somport, but for the sake of simplicity I’m including those three days when I say I walked the Camino Aragonés.

First, some basic info. The Camino Aragonés is a 160km route that begins on the border between France and Spain in the Pyrenees, and continues down through the Aragón region of Spain, crossing into Navarra where it joins with the Camino Francés just east of Puente la Reina. This distance is typically walked in 6 stages. If you begin in Somport- the beginning of the route- you are at an elevation of 1600m and the initial descent on the first day can give your knees a pounding. Some prefer to begin in Canfranc Estación or Jaca (end of the first stage and 32km from Somport), to avoid the initial descent (or because transport to Somport can add some extra steps). Others, like me, choose to begin walking a little further back, in France, where you have the chance to walk up and into the Pyrenees.

The Pyrenees at Somport pass, Camino Aragones

And this brings me to my first point on why the Camino Aragonés is the perfect Camino. The scenery! Even if you don’t choose to tack on a few extra days in France, you will still get to experience the Pyrenees mountains if you begin in Somport or even Canfranc Estación. I had one day of bad weather walking up to Somport, and one day of beautiful and clear weather walking down to Jaca, and each of the days were stunning. And I found both to be a very different experience to walking through the Pyrenees on the Camino Francés. The terrain isn’t so different- it’s the same mountain range, after all- and that makes it difficult to articulate why I found it different. I didn’t encounter a single other pilgrim or hiker on the day when I walked up to Somport, so maybe that was part of it; the mountains felt a little more wild and raw, the peaks higher, more jagged. It was just me, taking on the mountains, and that was exciting and adventurous in a different kind of way than I’d experienced on the Francés.

But then, very quickly, the landscape changes. All that saturated mountain green is replaced with colors more subdued, bleached and faded by the sun: dusty whites and deep golden yellows and soft browns with tinges of orange. The terrain evens out, flattens, and you can see a white road stretching and curving until it fades into the horizon. Fields of wheat, dotted with red poppies, wave in the wind.

Red poppy in a wheat field, Camino Aragones

This is similar landscape to what you see on the Camino Francés, and so for me, this is classic Camino. In fact, you might be thinking that what I’ve described so far is very similar to the Camino Francés, and you would be right! I think this is one reason why I’m calling the Aragonés a perfect Camino. Ever since I first walked the Camino Francés in 2014, I’ve been chasing after that elusive “Camino feeling” that I experienced on that route. Other Camino paths- the Norte, the Primitivo, the San Salvador, the Chemin du Puy- certainly were wonderful and unique in their own ways, but each felt very different than the Francés. I think I was searching for some particular combination of landscape and community and Camino magic, something that I felt on the Francés. It’s hard to articulate or define, I just know I felt it again on the Aragonés.

It was the landscape, but it was the community too. Sometimes other routes can feel too crowded or too isolated, but the Camino Aragonés felt just right. There was a sort of core group of about 10-15 of us, the numbers shifting a bit each day but mostly everyone walked the same stages. 15 pilgrims on any given stage is certainly not a lot, and unsurprisingly, I often didn’t see other pilgrims during the day’s walk. But in the afternoons, we’d all arrive at the same albergue, and so after only a few days you got to know everyone else. This is certainly the experience on other Caminos as well, but it was so easy and natural on the Aragonés. Because there weren’t so many albergues, it was difficult to walk different stages from the other pilgrims. And because there were only ever about 15 others walking the same stages as you, you got to know the group fairly quickly.

And for me this was perfect. I think the numbers can certainly fluctuate- in Arrés, the hospitalera told us that there had only been two pilgrims the night before!- and I suppose the time of year can influence the number of pilgrims walking, as well. So maybe I lucked out, though from reading through posts on the Camino forum, it seems that others tended to meet up with at least several pilgrims each night. But it’s this: the combination of quiet and solo walking during the day, with a known and comfortable little community in the evenings, that make a Camino so special to me. I worry that if I walked the Francés again, it would feel too crowded. Even the Norte, a route much less populated than the Francés, felt a little crowded when I walked it again this summer. So a combination of solo days and social nights on the Aragonés was just right.

There was an ease that developed among my Camino Aragonés cohort; for a few days we were walking through an intense heatwave, and everyone checked up on each other. We ran into each other during café con leche breaks. I gave some shampoo to the two young Spanish girls. I went grocery shopping with Micky, from Japan. One night, Javier cooked his famous tortilla for the whole group. In Sangüesa, we propped our cameras against an old stone wall and set the self-timer and gathered together for a photo. But there was a looseness, too, it wasn’t like we had purposefully picked each other to be part of a “Camino family”. We were just all walking the Aragonés at the same time. That was enough. That made us family.

The fact that the Aragonés isn’t a popular route may lend a little extra “Camino spirit” to the experience. Sometimes I wonder if, on more populated routes, there can be this sort of monotonous feeling, like it’s one more day and one more big group of pilgrims, and towns and villages are used to it, they absorb the pilgrims, it’s all sort of normal and automatic.

Maybe it’s like this on the Aragonés too, but it didn’t feel like it. It all felt special. Like the route was a secret, one that had been around for a long time, and those of us who walked were lucky to find ourselves on it. There was a sense in many of the villages that I was popping in to very local spaces. In one town, I’d arrived just at 9am, and was walking through the quiet streets looking for an open bar. I ran into a man who started asking me about my pilgrimage, and then he walked me to the bar and said that we were arriving just at opening time. He waited with me until it opened, then went in and had his usual: a café solo and a croissant. He drank his coffee at the bar while I sat at a table, but when he left he nodded and smiled and wished me a Buen Camino and it all made me feel- even though I was just passing through- that I was welcome there. Even, maybe, that I belonged there.

And then there are the albergues. There are just enough on this route that you never have to stay in a hotel or pension, and while there aren’t so many that you can stop whenever you feel like it, I think there are enough that you can walk reasonable distances. There are other Camino routes in Spain that I’m interested in walking- in particular the Invierno– but the lack of albergues on that route have made me hesitate. I’ve heard that it’s a wonderful Camino and I’m sure I’ll check it off my list at some point, but being able to stay in albergues has always been a huge draw of walking a Camino.

Some of the albergues on the Aragonés are really special. At the albergue in Santa Cilia, there were two clean and small bunk rooms: one for peregrinos, one for peregrinas. I was the only female pilgrim that night, and so I had the room to myself! In Arrés, the two hospitalerars were volunteering on a two-week stint, and they took us on a tour of the village before preparing a big dinner. We ate outside, crammed around two long tables: there was wine and water and juice for the kids, and a big green salad and pasta salad and soup and bread and melon for dessert. We toasted, one of the French pilgrims sang “Ultreïa!”. In Ruesta, the albergue is part of a crumbling, abandoned village; if there weren’t signs pointing the way, you might walk right by. There was a communal meal here, too. In Sangüesa, the albergue was simple and the kitchen was small, and while there was no organized communal meal, we made our own.

What else makes this a perfect Camino? After the descent to Jaca, the majority of which is during the first 7km on the first stage, the path mostly evens out and the walking isn’t very difficult. The way-marking is thorough and the only time I got a little confused was when I was walking in the dark at 5am (this was during the heatwave), and I had to wait for others to catch up with me to figure out where to go, because it was hard to find the arrows in the dark.

There are a couple of alternate route options that lead to incredible sights: the detour to the Monasterio de San Juan de la Pena, and the detour to Foz de Lumbier gorge. I’d intended to take the Foz de Lumbier variant but that was the morning I began walking at 5am, and I completely missed the turnoff. Other pilgrims who walked showed me their photos, and it looked stunning. But I did take the variant to the monasteries and it was probably my toughest day on the route- I went the long and difficult way, not paying close enough attention to notes I’d made from pilgrims who’d done this before. I plan to write more about this in a future post, outlining what I recommend and do not recommend in terms of getting to the monasteries. But in the end the effort was worth it: the old monastery is tucked away deep and high in the mountains, carved into a cliffside. You almost can’t believe it’s real.

And then, just before the Aragonés ends by joining up with the Francés before Puente La Reina, the path runs right by the fabulous Church of Santa Maria of Eunate. I’d been here before, back in 2014 when I walked the Francés, and that little detour was one of my favorite parts of the entire walk. I turned away from the other pilgrims, heading left into the fields of Navarra, and in a remote location with seemingly nothing else around, out of the fields rose the 12th century Romanesque church. Its octagonal design and free-standing cloister, along with its remote location, make this a truly unique sight. It had been closed the day I detoured there in 2014 (a Monday), but this year I passed by when it was open. This felt really special to me- not just seeing the church again, but walking the path that leads straight to it. When I first walked the Camino and detoured to Eunate, I’d been vaguely aware that I’d crossed onto another Camino route, but it was something I’d just pushed from my mind. Back then, the Camino Francés was the Camino, nothing else seemed to matter much.

But now, having walked all over northern Spain and through parts of France, I have a different perspective. Pilgrims walked to Santiago from all over Spain but from all over Europe, as well. The Francés is just the most popular route today; in the Middle Ages and over history, it was a different story. And by walking the Aragonés and stopping again at Eunate- where scallop shells have been discovered among the remains of what are believed to be pilgrims, lying beneath the church- I felt even more connected to the history of the Camino.

Finally, the Camino Aragonés ends in Puente La Reina, which is a wonderful town on the Camino Francés, with storks in their nests high in the church towers, and an iconic 11th century bridge. With daily buses to Pamplona and beyond, this is a convenient stopping point. Or, if you have more time, you could continue walking on the Francés, as some pilgrims do.

There’s so much more about the Camino Aragonés that I want to share, and I anticipate writing a round-up post of planning and walking tips, to help future pilgrims. But for now I’ll end by saying what I’ve said at least a dozen times: this felt like a nearly perfect Camino. I’m not sure why more people aren’t walking this Camino. Maybe, at just 6 stages, it feels too short (although by starting a few stages back in France, or continuing on the Francés past Puente La Reina, you could make this into a longer Camino). Maybe it’s because it doesn’t end in Santiago. Maybe it’s just that not enough people know about it, or are uncertain of what they’re about to walk into.

I hope that I can help spread the word about the Aragonés. Yet, even with an increased awareness, I don’t anticipate flocks of pilgrims suddenly descending and flooding the path. But I do hope more come to walk this way. The infrastructure is there, the beds are waiting to be filled, the locals are ready to greet you with a ‘Buen Camino’ and a great big smile.

Add this perfect Camino to your list. I’m so glad that I did.

15 Photos that will make you fall in love with the Camino del Norte

August 13, 2019

I’ve returned home from my European summer adventures, and have so much to share. I’d had good intentions of blogging while I was away, but it seems that in the last few years, “live” blogging from my Camino has become quite difficult. I love capturing the photos and notes and details while I’m in the moment, but I’ve moved away from doing that on the blog (if you aren’t following on Instagram, you can go over there and scroll back a bit to see some photos from my walk!).

But I do have a slew of post ideas now that I’m back. I also have thousands of photos that I’m not entirely sure what to do with (well, I suppose in this digital age we ALL have thousands of photos that we’re not quite sure what to do with). My new camera was a great success; before my trip I bought myself a Fujifilm X-T20 Mirrorless digital camera with a 35mm lens, and while I still have a lot to learn, the Camino was an excellent training ground. I wore the camera around my shoulder every day as I walked, and alternated between using that and my iPhone to capture and record my Camino.

So with all of these photos in mind, I thought I would start with a post that captures some of my favorite images from the Camino del Norte. This was the second time I walked a section of the Norte (this year I walked from Irun to Oviedo, a total of 19 days), and the coastal scenery reminded me again why I love this Camino. It’s the coastal walking, yes, but as I’ve begun to go through my photos, I realize that there’s so much other beauty, too. I had a lot of gray and rainy weather, but I also had beautiful, soft mornings when the mist created magical blankets and the sun filtered through the clouds and created golden rays of light. I look through my photos and I’m reminded again that the Norte provides lots of animal encounters: cows and horses and goats and sheep and cats and dogs (and this year, lots of puppies!). There are rolling hills and the outline of mountains and vibrant cities and sleepy towns.

And there’s the coast, the blue and wild and often empty coast, rocky and jagged and windswept.

I doubt I’ll write detailed daily recap posts from this year’s walk on the Norte (you can start here to read about my past walk, in 2015); but I do want to share parts of this trek. So for now, I’ll begin with 15 photos that will make you fall in love with the Camino del Norte. These are 15 photos that I look at and I find myself in love all over again, already wanting to return, to walk a third time, to just walk it again and again and again. I’m not sure if and when I’d ever return- there are just too many other walks out there and my feet are itching for new terrain- but in the meantime I have these memories.

Here they are, 15 photos that will make you fall in love with the Camino del Norte!

1. Horse on a hill outside of Zumaia (Day 3); in the far right corner of this photo you might be able to see the sea; the views were incredible here even under gray skies, but it was this horse, grazing on the slanted hillside, that caught my eye.

15 photos that will make you fall in love with the Camino del Norte; horse on hillside

2. Archway in the Monastery de Zenarruza, Ziortza (Day 4). There is an Albergue at this monastery, where I stayed in 2015. Because it was one of my favorite places to stay on the Norte I made sure to stop here again, and it did not disappoint. The location is stunning: set up high in the hills, isolated and quiet, with a long terrace and a peaceful cloister, a communal meal and artisanal beer brewed by the monks.

Monastery de Zennaruza, Camino del Norte

3. Strutting rooster and pilgrim laundry (Day 5). Just a typical late afternoon albergue scene on the Camino! This was Caserio Pozueta, an albergue 5.3km past Gernika. Not only were there chickens and roosters roaming around, but there were four 5-week old puppies! This was a private albergue where the family lived in one part of the building and ran an albergue in the other. Their young boys helped show pilgrims to their bunkrooms, and the communal evening meal was one of the best on my Camino.

Strutting rooster at Caserió Pozueta, Camino del Norte

4. Walking out of Bilbao (Day 7). I often find large cities on the Camino to be overwhelming, and sometimes I find myself passing through rather than staying the night. But my favorite thing about staying in cities might be leaving the next morning: the streets are quiet, people are still sleeping, the air is soft and the city is yours. There are several Camino route options when leaving Bilbao, and having taken two of them, I’d highly recommend walking with the river to your left. This photo was taken looking back on Bilbao as I walked away; further ahead I would pass the stunning building of the Guggenheim, and later would get to take a transporter bridge across the river to Portugalete.

Walk out of Bilbao on the Camino del Norte

5. Goat on coast (Day 8). Another animal photo, but I couldn’t help it, I’d just be walking along, another heavy cloud day on the coast, and then I’d see a goat, and then another, and they’d just be set so perfectly against that great blue water that I had to take photo after photo.

15 photos that will make you fall in love with the Camino del Norte; goat on coast

6. My favorite stretch of coast, before the descent into Laredo (Day 9).

Coastal views on Camino del Norte, before descent to Laredo

7. Pilgrim still-life on beach (Day 10). This rock with the big yellow arrow is on the beach that leads to Noja, just after you descend the steep Colina de El Brusco. Beach walking on the Camino del Norte is the best! And that includes getting sand in your shoes (although what’s also best is taking off your shoes and socks, feeling the sand between your toes, and walking in the water for a bit).

Yellow arrow on beach in Noja, Camino del Norte

8. Soft morning light, countryside after Guemes (Day 11).

Sunlight through trees, Camino del Norte

9. Sunrise leaving Santander (Day 12). Another beautiful and quiet morning as I left a big city; I took a coastal alternative out of Santander and while this wasn’t an official Camino route and the added kilometers set me a stage back from many of the pilgrims I’d gotten to know, most of the day was full of the stunning views and so much beauty.

10. Sunrise cobwebs (Day 15). I think the mornings were my very favorite time on the Camino; on this day, leaving Serdio, I had the most beautiful, soft light and a hovering fog that burned away once the sun fully rose.

Morning cobwebs on fence, Camino del Norte

11. Coastal alternative to Pendueles (Day 15). This was also the Camino of alternate routes; I took as many as I could if it meant that I could walk along the coast.

Alternate coastal path to Pendueles, Camino del Norte

12. The bougainvillea on the church wall in Llanes (Day 16). I love this landscaping, I love the contrast of the purple against the white, I love the twisting roots and the old stone wall.

Bougainvillea on church in Llanes, Camino del Norte

13. Another photo of a horse, because there hasn’t been an animal photo in awhile (Day 17).

A friendly horse; 15 photos that will make you fall in love with the Camino del Norte

14. And another shot of the coast, because it’s the Camino del Norte and many believe that the coastal walks make this the most beautiful Camino of them all! (Day 17)

Coastal path before La Isla; 15 photos that will make you fall in love with the Camino del Norte

15. Early morning in Oviedo, with cathedral enveloped in fog (Day 19). I ended this year’s Camino in Oviedo, which is quickly becoming my favorite city in Spain.

Oviedo cathedral in morning fog, Camino del Norte, Camino Primitivo

So those are 15 of my favorite photos from this year’s Camino del Norte; there are many more to share and hopefully I’ll weave them into more blog posts soon. In the meantime, if these photos did encourage you to start planning a Camino, you can check out these past posts:

Which is better? The Camino Frances or the Camino del Norte?

Favorite Albergues on the Camino del Norte Part One

Favorite Albergues on the Camino del Norte Part Two

Like a Rolling Stone: Day One on the Camino del Norte, Irun to San Sebastian

(Note: Nadine Walks contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase through these links, I will earn a commission at no extra cost to you)

Surefooted

June 20, 2019

Today as I walked I thought about the word ‘surefooted’. I thought about it as I was descending a small, steep path in the woods that was covered with stones, some of them wet. I had to watch the ground, I had to be careful about where I placed each step, how my foot landed, making sure not to slip or stumble.

All the hiking experience in the world can’t always prevent you from taking a fall, but I do think experience counts for a lot. I’m not so nervous stepping on/over/around rocks anymore. When I first started hiking, before my first Camino, I was slower and shakier. I wasn’t sure where to place my feet, my steps were hesitant.

But sometime in these last years I’ve realized that I’ve become surefooted. I know where to step (most of the time!). But it’s my ease, too, my confidence and competence when I’m hiking. Inside, I can often be full of small worries and concerns, but when I start walking, the worries and concerns seem to quiet down.

Today’s hike required lots and lots of surefooted-ness; the path ran up and down through the woods, on often uneven and muddy ground. The trail was narrow, sometimes hugging the side of a steep slope. Parts were overgrown with thorny branches (wore my long pants- best decision of the day!), sections were covered with thick black slugs, and I nearly stepped on the absolute largest toad I’d ever seen (so maybe that’s not the best example of being surefooted…)

I began to feel tired today, the muscles in my legs started aching, my feet demanded a break. But this is being surefooted, too: knowing when to take a break, knowing that despite the fatigue I’ll be able to carry on.

Now it’s night, I’m alone in the gîte in Borce, I cooked a dinner of spaghetti and tomato sauce, I’m wrapped in blankets in my bunk bed. Inside, again, worries are starting to nag: tomorrow will be a day of steady rain. I have a difficult and long climb up to Somport. What if I’m tired, what if there is no place to stop for a break, what if my feet get soaked and I get blisters?

But then I remember that, when I walk- in the sun or wind or rain, through moorland or meseta or mountains, on pavement or grass or mud- I am surefooted.

So bring on the mountains and the rain, I’m ready.

A ribbon and a monastery

June 19, 2019

I promised myself I wasn’t going to commit to any long posting while on the Camino (for fear that without enough time I wouldn’t post at all), so I’m here with a photo and just a little story. I want to share all the details: how I went the wrong way when leaving town this morning, how my pack feels heavy but not too heavy, how I found the perfect lunch spot, how I met two friendly dogs who wanted to walk and play with me, how I’ve moved closer and closer to the mountains and am now in the mountains.

There was all of that. And, also, I made my first Camino friend, a young woman named Alodia, from Spain. She began walking the Arles route four years ago and has continued in bits and pieces since then. She started one day before me, and planned to walk just 4 days into Jaca, where her pilgrimage would end. We met last night in the gîte in Oloron, then ran into each other in the Carrefour (grocery store), then had dinner together back at the gîte.

She left early this morning- by 6:30- so I didn’t see her until I arrived at the monastery on Sarrance, where we’re both staying for the night. As soon as I saw her I noticed something was wrong. She’d dropped her phone and it broke, and she decided to catch a bus in the morning and end her pilgrimage early.

I think she wrestled with this decision, but ultimately didn’t feel comfortable walking into the mountains alone without a way of contacting help if she needed it (I decided to get a Spanish phone number for this very reason!). And once she decided she needed to end, her mind was made up.

“Something is telling me that I need to end,” she said. “I don’t know why, but I have to listen.”

We spent some of the afternoon and evening together, and just now, she knocked on the door to my room to say goodnight.

“I have something for you,” she said, and held out her hand.

In it was a blue ribbon that she’d received in Zaragoza, at the Church of Our Lady of Pilar. Inside the church is a pillar that is topped with a statue of the Virgin Mary; brightly colored ribbons, 15-inches long (the length of the statue) are offered to visitors and represent protection and blessing.

“The tradition says that whoever gets the ribbon from the church is supposed to pass it on. It has walked all across France with me, and now you have it to carry onward.” Alodia passed the ribbon over to me.

I’ll hang it from my pack tomorrow, and I’ll think of the protection it offers. I still have a very long way to go, and these mountains are tall, and the forecast calls for rain. And, it’s been several years since I’ve walked this great of a distance. I know I can do it, I’m excited to do it, but standing at the beginning, the way looks very long.

So goodnight from my bunk room in a monastery in the mountains; more soon.

Capturing Time

June 11, 2019

What will this year’s Camino be about?

A quick recap, for those who may not have read my last post: I’ll be setting off from France and crossing into Spain on the Camino Aragones, followed by a stretch on the Camino del Norte. The trip begins in just under a week. I should have about 28 or 29 days of walking, and though I won’t make it all the way to Santiago, I am going to be able to sink into a nice long walk across Spain.

So it’s another long walk, and another long walk in Spain. This will be my sixth summer of walking, and I can’t imagine that I’ll grow tired of this any time soon.

But there’s something about this year’s trip that feels a little different. I’ll be walking a new Camino- the Aragonés– and that will be about 10 days of the trip. But the other nearly three weeks will be a repeat; I’m going to return to the Camino del Norte, and walk a portion of what I did in 2015.

I’ve been wanting to return to the Norte, and yet I worry that repeating an experience while there are still so many other walks out there will make me feel restless. I can’t know what I’m going to be feeling until I’m out there, walking, and mostly I think I’m going to love my summer. I knew I wanted at least another return to Europe, and I wanted another taste of Spain. The Camino del Norte was where I felt like I really settled into walking, where I really owned my Camino, and that was a powerful experience.

But still, I think: what will this year’s Camino be about?

Every other year had something. Something new or something different, a challenge, an experiment. The 2014 Camino Frances started it all, and as I set off from St Jean I didn’t know if I would be able to make it to Santiago. Everything was new: my pack and my shoes and my clothing and all my gear and I’d never done anything remotely like this before.

At the end

The 2015 Camino was on the Norte, along with the Primitivo and a super fast walk from Santiago to Muxia. In many ways, this Camino felt like a continuation of the year before, it’s where I asked myself if I really loved this walking thing, where I asked myself how I wanted to walk, where I challenged myself to walk how I needed to walk.

2016 was on the Camino de San Salvador, followed by the last 9 days on the Norte, followed by 5 days on the West Highland Way in Scotland. This was a year of solo walking, where I learned that I could walk alone and stay alone and that it was okay. It was more than okay: it was thrilling, it gave me such a powerful sense of freedom and agency over my life. I finished the West Highland Way and felt like I might just be able to walk around the whole world if I wanted to.

Then there was the Chemin du Puy in France, in 2017. Speaking French was the challenge here. It was a Camino in another country, but it was also the language and the culture and figuring out how to belong. I was conversational in French, but speaking had always intimidated me a bit. But I’d also spent years working hard to understand the language, and spending a few weeks walking through France forced me to remember words I’d thought I’d long forgotten. I remembered what it was like to sometimes sit on the outside, not understanding what was going on. In some ways, I felt more out of my comfort zone on the Chemin du Puy than I have on any other walk, but it was good for me. In the end, I wasn’t on the outside at all.

Last summer, in 2018, I walked for 15-days on the Pennine Way. It was a mostly solo, very challenging walk. I carried a much heavier pack than previous trips, and camped for a couple of nights. There was beauty and that glorious feeling of freedom, but this walk was very physical. I proved to myself just how strong I could be, but a lot of the walk was tough. That’s not a bad thing, not necessarily, but it was different than the experience of a long Camino when I can often let my mind wander and fly, where my feet find a rhythm, where the walking feels automatic.

So this year, what is this year about? What will it be like to return? What will it be like to remember? To slip back into memories from 4 years ago, to a time when it all still felt so new and unknown? Will it rain on the walk from Irun to San Sebastian? Will another huge blister spread across the bottom of my foot? Will I curse the hills out of Deba, will I grumble my exhaustion to the cows? Will I stretch my arms as wide as the sea as I spin down the trail? Will I meet new friends, friends as kind and generous and bright as the friends from years before?

There are all of those questions. But there’s also this: a new camera! I seem to have this need to introduce at least one new element into each year’s walk, so this year, I’m finally bringing along a camera other than my iPhone. It will add weight to my pack, but I figure after last year’s trek on the Pennine Way, I’m up to the challenge. I’m still not sure how I’m going to walk with the camera, if it will be tedious to carry in my hands, if it will bounce annoyingly against my chest as I walk, but I’m sure I’ll figure something out.

I like the feel of a camera in my hands again. When I was a teenager and into my early 20s, I had a Pentax SLR that I carried around with me nearly everywhere. I shot rolls and rolls of film, and probably a lot of it wasn’t very good, but I loved it. I loved looking through the viewfinder and shutting out the rest of the world, it was nothing but me and that image and it was like time stopped. And it did, for a split second, I could stop time and capture something and I really loved it.

Ideally, I would have had more time to experiment with this camera first, to figure out all the settings and to practice and practice. But it seems as though my practice will be on the Camino, and I’m looking forward to that. I’ll share some photos here, though I can’t imagine I’ll be able to get any substantial posts out until after the walking is done. My plan is still to post a photo with a little caption on the blog most days, but it’s going to be nothing like these 1,000+ word posts I’ve been putting up lately.

But if you think you might want more photos in “real time”, I’m planning to post a bunch over on Patreon, in somewhat ‘exclusive’ posts that only my patrons have access to. But to be clear, I’ll eventually be sharing those photos here, too, just not quite in real time. So if you’ve been thinking about supporting me (pledges start at just $1.00 a month!), or want to read a little more about why I set up a Patreon, you can follow this link and check it out. And thanks again to all of my current subscribers, your support fills my heart.

But thank you to all who continue to come here, who keep on reading, who are following along on my journey. Your support fills my heart, too, it always has. And I’m so excited to share this next leg of the journey with you. Stay tuned.

Ready for the Next Round: Summer 2019

May 26, 2019

My new hiking shoes arrived in the mail yesterday, another pair of my beloved Keens. This can only mean one thing, and you must know what it is: I’ll be on another long walk this summer!

In some ways, I feel like my adventures of last summer are still so fresh, and maybe it’s because I’ve only just finished writing about my Pennine Way walk. Immersing myself in those recaps kept my heart in England through the fall and winter and even into the spring. And it’s only been very recently that I’ve let myself think about my plans for this summer.

“What are those plans for this summer?” you might be asking.

It may come as no surprise that I’m embarking on another long walk, and more specifically, another Camino!

While technically I did squeeze in a very quick, three-day Camino last summer (I still haven’t written about the three stages of the Chemin Du Puy that I walked in August, but I am posting those photos over on Instagram, so go over and have a look!), it only gave me a small taste of a pilgrimage. And yes, I walked for two weeks on a fabulous trail in England, but a long-distance walk is different than a pilgrimage. And I’ve been craving that pilgrimage experience lately, so I’m going back.

And I’m going back to Spain. The last time I was there was 2016, when I walked the Camino de San Salvador, and then continued from Oviedo onto the Norte to (almost) walk into Santiago. That trip both does and doesn’t feel all that long ago and it’s funny what time can do. It’s only been three years since I’ve been to Spain, but suddenly I am nervous again. I’m nervous about the language, mostly, but also all those other little cultural differences that I may have forgotten. I know it’s going to be okay, and I know that after a few weeks or even just a few days I’ll remember some basic words and gain the confidence I need to communicate (because all that is really required is an honest effort and a smile).

But I don’t really think it’s about the language and communication, not really. I guess these are the same ol’ nerves that tend to hit several weeks before I leave for a big trip. If you’ve been reading for awhile, you’ll probably remember me saying something along these very lines each year!

So yes, I have another big walk coming up. The first ‘leg’ of the walk is going to be the Camino Aragones, a 160km route that begins in the Pyrenees and ends in Puenta La Reina (one of the early stages on the Camino Frances). The Aragones technically begins in Somport, which is on the French/Spanish border, but I’m planning to start a few days back in Oloron Sainte-Marie, so that I can spend several days walking up into the Pyrenees which, in good weather, should be breathtaking.

After the Aragones, I have some options. Since the route ends in Puenta La Reina, it would be so easy to just continue for awhile on the Frances (the first Camino I walked, back in 2014). But for some reason, I’m not ready to repeat the Frances. I’m sure there are lots of reasons for this (that I won’t get into in this post), but unless I change my mind when I finish the Aragones, my plan is to take a bus up to Irun, which is the start of the Camino del Norte.

Ahh, the Camino del Norte. I’ve walked this one before: I did most of it in 2015 (from Irun to Oviedo), and the rest in 2016. I’ve loved all the Camino routes I’ve walked, but it’s hard to compare them, or say which one I liked the best. They’re each special in their own way.

And the particular aspects that make the Norte so special have been tugging at me for the past year or so. Last spring I starting putting together some notes on the route, marking new albergues or alternates that I didn’t walk the first time around. I was tempted to walk it again last summer but settled on the Pennine Way instead.

But this year? I think I’m ready to go back.

But this wasn’t the easiest decision. My summer planning felt very delayed this year, and it took me a long time to decide exactly what I wanted to do. A retreat at La Muse (which I’m doing again, after my Camino) and a long walk somewhere have sort of become what I do in the summer. I haven’t even had to think about it in the past; I knew that this combination of walking and writing were how I wanted to spend my summers.

I still want this particular combination, but I want other things, too. I finally bought a new (to me) car in February, and it’s made that dream of a cross-country road trip a strong possibility (now that I have reliable transportation that won’t break down before I even get to Pittsburgh). I want to go to Africa, I want to try to climb Kilimanjaro. I didn’t quite feel ready for either of these options this summer, but I think the fact that I’m being pulled towards other kinds of travel made me hesitate about another European summer. I have my health, I have my freedom, I have my time, I have the means to travel and I’m so grateful for all of this but, as always, I don’t know how long this will be the case. Is it maybe time to try something new, while I still have the chance to try something new?

Maybe, but maybe I do want one last European summer, for this stage in my life. One more long walk, one more retreat in the mountains of a small French village.

So this is what I’m doing, and I leave in about three weeks. I’m curious about how I’ll feel once I’m there, if I will strap on my pack and head off into the Pyrenees and breathe deep and say, “I’m back”, and if I will feel really good about that. I’m curious if I will feel restless on the Norte, knowing that the route isn’t new and unknown, or if I will feel thrilled about being back on a trail that showed me so much beauty that I still think that some of it must have been a mirage. I wonder if I can dive back into my writing when I’m at La Muse, if I can sink into the editing of this book I’ve been working on for the last four years, if I can move myself forward and feel ready to take the next steps. I wonder if Homer will be around, if he will remember me and want to take walks with me. I’ll be passing through Paris, and I wonder if I will cry when I see Notre Dame. I wonder who I will meet, if I will see any old friends, I wonder at all the new connections I might make. I wonder if I will get a blister, if I will find a suitable walking stick, if I will drink red wine or cold beer (or both?), if I will take beautiful photos, if I will walk steady, if I will walk strong.

I hope to write a few more posts before I leave for my trip, but in case I don’t, here is what I hope you can expect. The Pennine Way took me so long to write about that I don’t anticipate doing long, daily reports from the Norte (and besides, I already wrote ‘live’ posts from that walk, you can read them here). Instead, I’m going to try to do a daily or almost daily post, with just a photo and a long caption. I want to just capture a moment and write about that moment, and in doing that, tell the story of my Camino. I’ll plan to write more in-depth posts about the Aragones after I finish the walk, especially since this is a relatively little-walked Camino route and I think the information could be helpful to future pilgrims. But it is my hope to blog at least a bit while I’m on the Norte, because I’ve loved doing that in the past, and it adds so much to my experience.

I’m also hoping to create a little extra content for my wonderful supporters over on Patreon (if you’ve been meaning to check out my Patreon or curious about what it is, just follow this link!). I’m thinking some additional real time photos from the walk (and if I buy a fancy new camera like I’ve been wanting to do for years, then those photos might be extra special!).

Okay, that’s the update from these parts. My porch door is open and a pleasant breeze is blowing in and through the room. I’ve got my feet propped up and some soft music playing and it feels like summer is just around the corner, waiting for its entrance. Soon it will be here, soon. I hope you’re all well, maybe also enjoying porch breezes and soft music and anticipating upcoming adventures, big or small. More soon.

Day 15 on the Pennine Way: Byrness to Kirk Yetholm, 26-miles

May 21, 2019

My alarm went off at 4:30am the morning of my 15th and final day on the Pennine Way. Already the sun was starting its slow rise over the horizon and soft light was pouring through my window.

I was in the bunkhouse in Byrness and despite the early hour, despite the intimidation I felt over the challenge ahead, I couldn’t wait to get out of that place.

I woke up remembering the very poor reception I’d received the night before, but already the sting wasn’t as sharp. At this early hour I knew that I could pack my bag, drink a fast cup of coffee in the kitchen downstairs, and slip through the door and out of the village without anyone noticing. I could leave, and I would never have to return.

I remember learning this on the Camino Frances, and it’s one thing I really like about long-distance walking. Every day is a new day, and every day you move on to some place different. In regular life, a bad interaction or experience can linger: often, you need to drive down the same roads, go to the same building for work, encounter the same people, the same neighbors, sleep in the same bed. It can feel hard to get away from a bad day.

But on the Camino, or the Pennine Way, or any long-distance trail, you get to walk away and never look back! For better or worse, every day is different. From the terrain to the villages and towns, to the people and the locals. If you have a bad experience one day, at the very least you can be assured that it probably won’t be repeated the next day (unless you’re walking with blisters. Blisters follow you for far longer than you’d like).

So after washing my face and gulping down some coffee, I hoisted up my pack and started walking out of the village. It was just past 5am. I had never had an earlier start, nor had I ever carried a pack so heavy.

Both of these facts were due to the day I had ahead of me: 26-miles through a mostly wild and remote landscape in the border country of England and Scotland. There would be no water sources that day, no services or pubs or food trucks or towns or villages for just about the entire stretch. I’d be walking up and down, up and down for a total of 4800ft of elevation gain over the 26-miles. It was also due to be another hot and sunny day, and while I vastly preferred this kind of weather to rain, I knew that the heat would take its toll. And so because of this, I’d packed more water than I’d ever carried before, and I can’t even remember how much. 4 liters? Maybe? (Which is a little under 9 pounds).

It was July 4th- America’s Independence Day- but the date barely registered. Instead, I was grateful for the long hours of daylight that the summer days had been giving me, beginning with a sunrise around 4:30am. With a very long day of walking in store, I decided that I might as well start as soon as the sun came up.

I’d felt defeated the night before, but as soon as I started walking, I felt so much better. This was what it was all about: walking into the hills in the soft morning air, alone and free.

The climb out of Byrness was a doozy, and as soon as I started going up I could feel the weight of my pack pulling me back. But I just leaned forward and propelled myself up, stopping every once in awhile to look behind me. I was climbing above the tree-line, and soon I was above even a thin layer of clouds.

The morning light was golden, it lit against the blades of grass and shone through the white puffy flowers and etched out the trail so that I could see its snaking line, winding over the hills.

I was walking down one of these hills when I fell. It was the first time I’ve ever fallen on a walk, and luckily the fall was more funny than anything else. There was a subtle mound in the grass and as I was descending a small hill my foot hit the mound and threw off my center of gravity. Now, if I hadn’t been wearing a pack (or if I had a much lighter pack), I’m pretty sure I could have caught myself and straightened out. But my pack was just too heavy, and as soon as I was thrown off balance my pack did the rest of the work, and pulled me toward the ground. I felt like it was all happening in slow motion: I realized that I stood no chance against the pack and so I just sort of tipped over. I landed with my pack mostly underneath me and for a minute I just laid there, sprawled out in the grass, unable to get up easily because my pack was keeping me down. When I finally pulled myself up, I noticed two things. One: the end of my walking pole was now bent (I had tried to catch myself with it to no avail), and two: a group of sheep was staring at me in alarm.

“It’s okay, sheep!” I said, as I brushed the grass from my pants. “Nothing to see here! All good. Just a little tumble, no one’s hurt!”

My strategy for the walk was to break it up into chunks. I told myself I wasn’t allowed to think about the day as a whole, otherwise I worried that I might get too overwhelmed. Instead, I’d marked up the maps in my guidebook with notes and circles and arrows and I’d determined the spots where I could stop for a break.

My first destination of the day was the Lamb Hill Refuge Hut, about 8-miles into the walk. I didn’t note how long I had been walking but my guidebook estimates that those 8-miles take about 4 hours, and this is due to the constant up and down of the terrain. On and on I pushed, and those first 8-miles were difficult and glorious. I’m convinced that the quality of the light was different that morning: it was golden and glowing and it illuminated every blade of grass, every sheep, every rock, every wooden slab.

On and on and there, in the distance, the only thing for miles and miles was a little wooden hut. I waved my broken walking stick in the air and shouted, “The hut!!!!!”

No one could hear me, except maybe a sheep, because after those 8-miles I still hadn’t seen a soul. The hut was much further away than it appeared and there was a moment when I wondered if maybe it was some sort of mirage, because I kept walking and walking and it didn’t appear to get any closer but finally it did, and then I was there.

I threw off my pack and sniffed around. There wasn’t much inside: a flag and a some notes on the trail encased in plastic, a granola bar and a broom in the corner. The simple wooden shelter would be a relief in bad weather, and is used by some hikers as a camping spot. As for me, I kicked off my shoes, settled in on the wooden porch, and dug into some snacks.

When I left the shelter behind, I felt a bit like I was heading back out into the great unknown. I didn’t feel frightened or uncertain; the weather was fine and the path was marked clearly and I had good maps and despite the distance I felt like I would be able to make it to the end. But there was a wildness to that last day on the Pennine Way. To have that great, rolling, open landscape all to myself make me feel like I was alone in some far corner of the world. I loved it.

I walked and I walked: up Lamb Hill, down a sharp descent. Over stone slabs and wooden planks, down the narrow path worn into the soft grass. All around were the soft, rounded hills of the Cheviots, the highland range that marks the boundary between England and Scotland. Up Beefstand Hill, up Mozie Law, up to the trig point at Windy Gyle which was the halfway point of the day. I paused here for a photo, dropped my pack and stretched my back and stood sipping water for a few minutes, but then continued on.

Up to King’s Seat and then up, and up, and up, a long, drawn out ascent. It was somewhere around this point where I caught up to the four Australian women who had stayed in Byrness the night before. They had split this last stage into two days and were on their second and final day, having been dropped off somewhere a bit further back. When they saw me they stared in surprise. “What time did you start walking?” they asked. “How do you feel?”

I was tired, I could feel it all over my body, but I also felt like I had found a good rhythm. I chatted for a minute but continued on: on and on and when I got to the Auchope Cairn- a huge pile of rocks that sits just before the descent to the second refuge hut- I took a break. I’d been intending to stop at the hut but suddenly it felt so far away, down at the bottom of a very steep descent and I decided that some lunch and some time to prop up my feet was the best idea.

After the break, and after the second refuge hut, I still had 7-miles to go. I don’t remember as much about these last 7-miles, and I only have a few photos. Clouds had rolled in and I hunkered down and set my mind firmly to the task ahead. I just had to keep putting one foot in front of the other, over and over, and in this way, somehow, I would make it to Kirk Yetholm.

The Schil was the last ascent of the day, a slow and steady mile and a half climb from the second refuge hut, and I remember my determination as I walked. “The Schil!” I said as I walked, “The Schil!”. The name felt dramatic, direct. I paused for just a moment at the base of the steepest part of the climb, and looked at what stood before me. “This is it,” I whispered, “this is the final push.”

I made it to the top, slow but steady, and then on legs that were beginning to feel wobbly I continued walking: cheering when I saw a sign for Kirk Yetholm, 4 1/2 miles. It was here that the route divides, giving walkers the option of either a higher or lower route. The higher route is more scenic but also more challenging, the lower route offers a much more straightforward and easy path to the finish.

For me it was an easy decision: I was taking the lower route all the way. The day had been full of beauty and adventure, and I was done. I plowed ahead, willing myself to continue putting one foot in front of the other, savoring the last of the hills and simultaneously hoping that civilization would soon come into view.

And before too long, it did: I passed through farms and saw trees and the dirt path spit me out onto a paved road and after one final, sharp climb, I arrived in Kirk Yetholm (also, at some point, I’d officially crossed into Scotland!).

I was exhausted. Exhausted, but also quietly triumphant. I walked around the tiny village twice before asking someone to help me find my lodgings: the Kirk Yetholm Friends of Nature House (a hostel with a lovely name).

I think the poor reception I’d received the evening before in Byrness still had me a bit shaken because I felt somewhat on guard when I entered Kirk Yetholm, but very quickly the village righted the score and helped me end the Pennine Way on such a high note. The man working at the hostel was so kind and thoughtful: he congratulated me on my walk, showed me to my room, and promised that he would help me navigate my travel options for the following day. While I didn’t meet anyone else who finished the Pennine Way that day (aside from the Australian women, I was the only other one), I did encounter groups of other walkers who were curious about my adventure (Kirk Yetholm, in addition to being the start/end point of the Pennine Way, also sits along St Cuthbert’s Way).

And then, after my shower, I walked over to the Border Hotel, which has become something of an unofficial end point of the walk. Inside, if you ask, you can sign a Pennine Way guestbook, receive a free half-pint of beer, and a certificate, too. All it took was for me to mention that I’d just finished the walk and the guy behind the bar smiled, brought out the guestbook, wrote the date on my certificate, and quickly poured me a beer (the free beer tradition was started by Alfred Wainwright, who wrote a famed guidebook for the walk after his 1966-67 experience. He promised to buy a pint for anyone who completed the entire trail, and this tradition has lived on today, though it was downgraded to a half-pint sometime in the last few years).

After my half-pint I ordered a full pint along with a good, hearty meal, then walked back to my hostel. The sun was setting, the sky blazing pink and orange and yellow and I stood outside for a minute, watching the colors, watching the clouds shift and expand. I breathed deeply, and thought about how I felt. I felt tired, but I also felt strong. I felt sad that my journey had ended but I felt so proud, too. And more than anything I felt a deep contentment: content that I’d spent the last 15 days walking for 268-miles through the moorland and dales and countryside of Northern England. I’d done it, and even though this wasn’t my first long-distance walk, there is always a profound sense of satisfaction and contentment that follows each one, and the Pennine Way was no different. The walk was done, and for now, I needed a rest. But long-distance walking has me hooked, and I knew it would only be a matter of time until I started planning the next journey.