trekking Archives - Nadine Walks

Ode to the Keen Voyageur; a Camino shoe review

February 27, 2018

They say that the two most important items on a Camino (or, any long-distance walk) are your backpack and your shoes.

I’d have to agree with this, though I’d probably go a step further and say that the most important items are your shoes. A well-fitted pack can really help you in your journey, but I think you can get by with just lightening your load and adjusting your straps in the right way.

But the shoes? In the wrong pair of shoes, you are probably going to run into trouble. Shoes that are too tight can cause blisters, shoes that are too loose can cause blisters, not to mention other annoying problems (and Camino-ending injuries like tendonitis).

As I prepared for my first Camino, I knew how important finding the right pair of shoes was going to be, but I was nervous. Even in my every day life, I have trouble finding shoes that fit my wide feet (though this isn’t helped by the fact that I get discouraged very easily when I go shopping). My solution is to slap on a pair of flip flops and call it a day.

But this strategy would not work on the Camino.

I went to REI and walked around the store in a dozen different shoes, most of them trail runners that were recommended to me when I mentioned that I would be walking the Camino. A trail runner is light weight and would keep my feet cool when walking during the hot summer months, and one pair in particular felt great on my feet. It was a pair of Salomons, and I forked over some cash, took them home, and over the next few weeks wore them on my training hikes.

Before long I had the same problem that I’ve had with so many other shoes in my life: what once felt great in the store, soon began to pinch against the sides of my toes and the widest part of my foot. I knew that my feet would swell even more on a month-long walk than on a 5-mile training hike, so back they went to REI.

On my next visit, I decided to look at the hiking shoes, rather than the trail runners. I knew I didn’t want to buy a boot (there may be others who have had success in boots, but if you’re going to do a long-distance walk in hot summer months, I would stay away from boots), but there was this category of shoes that seemed to be something between a sneaker and a boot.

A hiking shoe. That seemed right.

I bought a lime green/gray pair of Keen Voyageurs and I never looked back. That was 4 years ago, and I’ve gone through 4 pairs of the exact same shoe. In a week or two, I’ll be buying my 5th pair.

I’ve mentioned these shoes a lot on this blog, and I’m going to go a little more in-depth here. I know that this shoe isn’t going to work for everyone, but if I had read somewhere that this was a great shoe for a wide-footed-long-distance-walker, then I probably would have started here, and saved some of the hassle and discouragement of searching through other shoes first.

First up, some specs: The Keen Voyageur is a low-profile hiking shoe, with water resistant leather material, mesh insets, removable metatomical dual density EVA footbeds (I have no idea what all of this means, but I do know that these footbeds provide really good arch support). They have a wide toe box and a high traction rubber outsole, which means the shoe has good grip on rough terrain, and they weigh in at 13.3 ounces.

Here’s what I make of all of this: the shoe is sturdy and supportive, but also breathable and lighter than a hiking boot. The weight took a bit of getting used to, but not in any big way. You’ll notice that they are heavier than a sneaker, but it’s a quick adjustment.

Thoughts on breathability (I might be making up this term): this was an important factor for me, especially since I was walking in the summer. If the shoe didn’t allow for much air circulation, then I knew my feet would get really hot and this could potentially (and most likely) cause blisters. And my verdict was that I think the mesh on the shoe allows for just enough air to keep my feet cool (enough). A sneaker or a trail running shoe is going to be even more breathable and much cooler on the foot, but as long as I took off my shoes while I was on breaks, my feet were fine, and never too hot. Over 4 summers of long-distance trekking, I’ve only gotten one problematic blister (on the bottom of my foot) which I think was due more to high mileage at the beginning of my pilgrimage, some rocky and uneven terrain, and not stopping enough for breaks than it was due to the shoes.

Thoughts on waterproofing: First of all, this shoe is not waterproof. I remember there being a lot of talk about this in REI, and it was making my head spin. The Voyageur is a water resistant shoe, which is why this shoe is much more breathable than a boot or a waterproof shoe. Basically, ‘water resistant’ is on the bottom rung of the water protection ladder. It won’t keep out water in the same way that a waterproof or water repellent shoe will, but they are designed to protect your feet from minimal water exposure.

My experience: when I walked in a light rain or a mist, the Keens kept my socks and feet dry. It was only walking in heavier rain for hours that left my socks damp and/or downright wet. I had day after day of rain this past summer on the Chemin du Puy, and my socks were never more than a bit damp and that never caused blisters. It was only on my first day on the Camino del Norte, when I walked in heavy rain all morning, that I could feel water squishing out of my socks with every step I took. Now, I haven’t walked in a ton of rain on my trips, but I have walked in England and in Scotland, and my feet have stayed pretty dry (my friend Heather even marveled at my dry socks after a wet morning on Hadrian’s Way. She was wearing sneakers, and her socks were pretty wet). So with a little over 100 days of walking on long-distance trails over the past 4 years and only one day of wet feet? I think those are pretty good odds.

Thoughts on performance: Having never actually hiked in any other shoe or boot, I have nothing to compare these to. All I can say is that I love the Keens for walking and hiking. The grip does well on rocky surfaces, the shoe isn’t too heavy but it is supportive. I suspect that I have rather sturdy ankles (no one will ever call my feet elegant), but I’ve never fallen or twisted an ankle, and I do think a supportive shoe helps prevent this. Now, if you’re going to go hiking in the wilderness for hundreds of miles I can’t exactly attest to how well these shoes will do- that might be a situation that calls for a hiking boot. But for long-distance walking over different types of terrain, including pavement, this shoe holds up extremely well.

I get a new pair every year because I put a lot of miles on them, and the tread begins to wear. I’m finally counting my miles this year so I don’t have exact numbers yet, but I’d say that I average at least 1,500 miles in them every year. If you’re looking for a pair of hiking shoes to use for shorter distances (or just for walking around!), then I’m sure these will hold up for several years.

Thoughts on sizing and fit: The wide toe box was the big selling point of this shoe for me, and I almost couldn’t trust it. Would a shoe really give me enough room across the widest part of my foot, and not squeeze my toes together like so many of the other shoes in my life? Even with some foot swelling on the very hottest summer days, the shoes never cramped my feet or gave me any nasty blisters. Now, it’s probably important to mention that I order a half size larger than my regular size (I’m an 8 1/2, and order a 9 in these shoes); this extra space is to account for any swelling that I might encounter on a long distance walk. I may have to come back and update this post, because I’ve read rumors that this year (2018), the shoe is running smaller than normal, so it might be necessary to go up yet another half size.

One other note is lacing (though this can apply to any shoe, not just the Keens); before my first Camino, the good people of REI taught me a special way to tie my laces that helped lock down my heel. Then, before my third Camino (I think?), I encountered some pain on the top of my foot whenever I hiked, so I learned that I could skip a couple of the loopholes so that the top of the shoe didn’t press down on my foot. All this is to say that the difference between an almost perfect shoe and a perfect shoe may all be in the way you tie your laces. (This sort of sounds like a metaphor for something…)

Finally, while I typically give myself at least 1-2 months to break in these shoes before I take them on a Camino, I’ve read reviews that state they can be worn straight out of the box. I’d still recommend breaking in any pair of shoes before a long trek, or to at least make sure you wear them enough to know if they’re a good fit for your feet.

I encountered a bit of Camino magic with these shoes; towards the end of my first day on the Camino Frances, while I was on the descent to Roncesvalles, I noticed a girl walking ahead of me. I caught up to her and we smiled at each other shyly, and then I looked down at her feet. She was wearing an identical pair of Keen Voyageurs! I commented on them, and then we continued to walk together for the next two weeks (until she ended her Camino in Burgos). She was my first, and one of my best Camino friends.

But it’s not just pilgrims on the Camino who wear these shoes; I’ve recommended them to friends and family, and my mother is about to buy her second pair. They are a supportive and comfortable shoe that can be used for every day wear, they can be taken on a walk around the block, and they can be taken on a walk across Spain.

The Keen Voyageurs aren’t for everyone, but if you’re planning a Camino or are in the market for a new pair of shoes, I think they’re worth a try. I can’t sing their praises enough.

Happy walking!

(Note: Some of the links in this post are affiliate links; if you purchase something through one of these links, a small advertising fee will come to me, at no additional cost to you)

“Going Back Again”; Thoughts on Repeating Travel Experiences

February 19, 2018

The older I get, the more I keep learning about myself.

I thought I would have had at least the most obvious things about myself figured out by now- I am, after all, well into my 30’s and while I hopefully have a lot of life left to live, I’ve also been around the sun a few times now, enough to know some basic truths.

Like… I still really like the color yellow. And giant pandas and wearing flip flops and listening to the Beatles. At my core, I’m optimistic and friendly and always try to see the best in people. I really like people, but I’m also an introvert, so I can’t be around them all the time.

Stuff like that.

But then there are the things that should be obvious, and when I finally pick up on my own patterns it’s like something had to smack me over the head to make me see what should have been apparent years and years ago.

There was this day when I was out for a walk, it was probably 3 or 4 years ago, and it came to me in a flash, this realization, this truth: I love trees. And I had always loved them, I have very distinct memories of riding my bike around my neighborhood as a child, and always making a point to notice my favorite trees. And the magnolia that grew in our backyard, how I would marvel every spring at the petals that would seem to burst into bloom overnight, and if I looked out my brother’s bedroom window the view would be nothing but those pink petals, it was like magic. And more and more examples of things like this but it wasn’t until recently that I actually realized: ‘Oh, I like trees.’

Bear with me through this meandering introduction to what this post is really about; it’s been a long day. (Or, maybe, it’s just been a long winter and I feel very out of practice with crafting a blog post).

My thoughts have been on traveling lately, as I look ahead to this summer and try to figure out what I want to do and where I want to go. Here’s what I do know: almost inevitably, I’ll be headed back to Europe again.

I say ‘inevitably’ because, while there are other places in the world that I’d really like to travel to, I’m still very drawn to Europe.

And of course I am! Because when it comes to things I love, I’m a repeater.

Maybe there’s a real and technical term for this, but for now I’ll just stick with ‘repeater’. I repeat experiences, I go back, I return… and I love doing this.

I think the psychology of this is really interesting, but I’ll save that for another post. For now, I’m just struck by how often I’ve repeated experiences in my life when I could have been off trying new things or going to new places, and it’s like it just now occurred to me that this has been a pattern for a long, long time. And so maybe it does make some sense that I keep returning to Europe, that I keep returning to the Camino, that I keep returning to my writer’s retreat at La Muse, that I keep returning to Paris and to France.

Another trip to Paris

Maybe this predilection was set for me as a child; when I look at my very earliest experiences of the joy of returning to a place, I think of the beach vacations my family would take every summer. We’d load into our station wagon (three kids across the back seat and we all dreaded being in the middle), and drive 10 hours down to North Carolina- just above or below the Outer Banks, I’m not quite sure exactly where we were- and we’d rent the same beach house and spend a week with my extended family.

I adored these trips, and one of my strongest memories is the mounting excitement I’d feel as our car crossed the bridge over to Emerald Isle, as we’d approach our rental, as I’d walk in the door and run around the rooms and look for all of the familiar things. The couches! The sailboat mirror! The spiral staircase! The room with the bunk beds! It felt like another home, and returning there felt a little like being home. And there were the reunions with the people I loved, too: my cousins, the girl next door (whose family rented the same house at the same time every year just like us, and we’d write to each other throughout the year- “Remember the 10th!” we would always sign off, and I still remember that beautiful day when the waves were calm and the sun was warm and at 11 years old we couldn’t imagine anything more perfect).

So, you know, I’ve been doing this for a long time- settling into a place and learning to love it. The physicality of it, the features, the feelings, the people. And because of those beach vacations, this tendency is linked strongly to travel. When I experience something beautiful in some ‘other’ place, I form a connection with it, and I am drawn- strongly- to return.

My summer trips have been following a pattern lately: a long walk, and then several weeks at La Muse. Or La Muse, and then a long walk. And that’s going to be the case again this summer. La Muse is already set, this will be my fourth time there, and the third year in a row that I’ve spent my July in the hills of the Montagne Noir in southern France.

Why do I go back? The feelings I have as I sit in the Jeep driving up the winding roads towards Labastide are the very same ones I had as a child when we’d arrive at our beach house. I look for all the familiar landmarks in those hills, I look for the sign saying that we’ve arrived, I look for Homer and I look for my friends and I suck in my breath when I walk onto the terrace, I breath the air that smells faintly of chestnut trees and lavender. I’m going to be staying in the same room this summer as I did last summer, and this feels like a sort of home to me, a room that- for a moment- is all mine. A place I can return to where I feel so happy, like the best version of myself.

And it’s not just La Muse. I thought to write about all of this tonight because, as I plan out my summer, I’m also trying to decide on which Camino I might want to walk. I was starting to feel rather committed to trying out a new path- the Camino Aragones (a 165km path that crosses the Pyrenees to the south of St Jean Pied de Port, and links up to the Camino Frances in Puente La Reina). This would be a great option, given my time frame- travel days not included, I have 7 days to walk after my stay at La Muse. And this would be a new experience, the path is supposed to be beautiful, the pilgrim infrastructure good, the Camino spirit strong.

All of this, and yet, I think I might want to walk the beginning of the Norte again.

It’s a thought that’s been nagging at me, and I keep pushing it back, telling myself that it’s too soon to repeat a path, that there are too many new ones out there for me to try, that there’s no point to repeating something again so soon. I walked the Camino del Norte from Irun to Oviedo in 2015 (and then finished the rest of the route in 2016), so it’s only been a few years. And if I’m being honest, I could easily repeat any of the walks I’ve done since I started this Camino thing (including the long-distance treks I’ve done in Scotland and England), so why am I feeling so drawn to the Norte?

I’m not sure, but I don’t know that I need an answer. I think with a lot of things in life- and especially with a Camino- it’s important to listen to whatever is calling you. And I think the only reason that I’m hesitating is because it is, yet again, another experience that I’m going to be repeating.

I’m curious what all of your thoughts are about repeating experiences, especially as it relates to traveling. Would you return, again and again, to a place or a city or a country that you know you love? Or would you feel like it’s more valuable to always travel somewhere new and different? Does it depend on what you want out of the experience?

If I do the Norte again, I’m sure I’ll put my own unique twist on it, something different than the last time I walked. And I’m sure that the entire experience will be different- with any luck, my first day out of Irun will have good weather and outstanding views, something I missed that first time around (oh, the rain and the fog, and the wringing of socks in the middle of a field). My plans aren’t set- I still have months until I have to make any decisions- but I’m really leaning towards walking part of this path again. And right now, it’s putting a smile on my face. It feels right.

Sometimes that’s all we really have to go on, isn’t it? Just a feeling, some push in our gut that tells us we’re on the right track.

And I can see how this is important to me, to the person that I’ve always been- the one who likes giant pandas and magnolia trees and beach houses with spiral staircases- that the return to a place I love allows me to fall into an even richer experience of that place, a deeper connection, a return to my best self, a reminder of where I’ve been and maybe even where I’m going.

Yes, a reminder of where I might be going. A yellow arrow, a marker, to guide me along my way.

24 little nuggets of wisdom for walking the Camino de Santiago

February 7, 2018

I’ve been talking to several people lately who are going to embark on their first Camino sometime later this year. I love hearing their enthusiasm, their questions, their worries, and it makes me remember those months before my own pilgrimage. There was so much I didn’t know, so much research I tried to do, so much I learned in such a short amount of time.

But I couldn’t learn it all, and there was so much I needed to figure out along the way. And so because I’m in a very nostalgic mood, I thought I would put together a list of tips that I gathered as I walked the Camino Frances. This is not a very informative or even necessarily helpful sort of post, so if you’re in serious preparation mode right now, then you might find more help elsewhere. But it was stuff like this that I remember reading before my first Camino, the kinds of words and images that made me think- “Am I actually about to be doing all of these things? Am I going to be having these experiences?” And I could feel the little ball of excitement in my chest expand.

So here they are, 24 little nuggets of wisdom for walking the Camino de Santiago:

Begin with a single step.

Your walking stick might just become your new best friend.

I may or may not have shipped the piece of wood I plucked off a hillside in Northern Spain home to the States…

Hang out with people in a different age bracket than you.

Fill up/top off your water bottle every time you pass a fountain. There should be plenty of fountains along the way, but this ensures that you always have more than you need.

Bring an empty container along with you on the day that you pass by the wine fountain. (I’m not necessarily saying that you should fill it up and drink it during the day’s walk, but rather that it will be convenient to have a vessel for sampling the wine. Or, you could be like me, and just stick your face under the wine stream and hope that you don’t make a mess. There’s a picture of me doing this, but it will never, ever see the light of day).

Whenever possible, stop for second breakfast. I didn’t even realize this was a thing until I walked the Camino, and once I did, it quickly became my favorite thing.

Soak your bare feet in every cool stream that you pass.

Sleep in the bunk by the window: you might be able to watch the moon and the stars, plus you might be able to have some control over whether the window is opened or closed (hint: crowded albergues on hot nights = open windows. But not all pilgrims may agree…)

In larger towns/cities, look for the menu del dia. Similar to the pilgrim menu, it tends to offer higher quality, regional food at a fabulous deal.

If you come across an albergue offering a communal meal, stop here and dine with your fellow pilgrims, and always offer to help prep and clean up.

Don’t be tempted to think that a donativo albergue means a free albergue. Pay what you think the service and accommodations are worth; some of my best experiences were in donativo albergues, with kind hospitaleros, communal dinners, coffee and toast in the morning, a generous spirit and a sense of community and care. You can certainly choose to drop only a few coins into the can, but I’d encourage everyone to take a moment and think about what the experience was worth to you. Without ample donations, these albergues will struggle to remain operational.

Even if you’re not typically an early riser, do it anyway, and walk at sunrise. The sun will be at your back, so don’t forget to turn around and take in the splendor.

You’ll get a deeper tan on the left side of your body than on your right. I have no tips for this. And unless you wear sandals, you’ll get an intense sock tan. Even in the depths of winter, I can still see my Camino sock tan.

Take the detour.

Eunate is closed on Mondays. Go there anyway.

Magnum White ice cream bars are the best thing you’ll ever taste on a summer day on the Meseta.

Don’t dread the Meseta. The path through this stretch of land known as the breadbasket of Spain may be long and straight and monotonous, but there is great opportunity for insight here. Use the time to walk alone, walk in step with the rising sun, and consider the world around you. Consider the world inside yourself, too.

Visit the chickens in the church in Santo Domingo, and consider the miracles in your own life.

Whenever you stop for a break, take off your shoes and socks and let your feet air out. This can help prevent blisters! Plus, it just feels really good to feel fresh air between your toes. (Also, consider coating your feet with a thin layer of Vaseline before putting your socks back on. I’m convinced it helped me avoid (most) blisters).

Push your limits. This could mean a lot of things: a 40km day, making a friend who doesn’t speak your language, trusting that you’ll find a place to sleep even if all the albergues are full, accepting help from a stranger.

Try the pulpo.

Consider yourself lucky if you happen upon a festival in a small village while walking to Santiago. And always stop for awhile and join in the festivities.

Embrace the rain (I’m still working on this one).

Always, always, walk your own Camino. This is the most important one, which means that you can feel free to ignore all of the tips above. Everyone will have opinions, and everyone will have the things that work for them (boots vs sneakers, sock liners, bed bug prevention, how many km per day to walk, how fast/slow you should go, carrying your pack/shipping it ahead, etc). One of the most beautiful things about the Camino is that you can do this pilgrimage any way you want, any way you need. No one walks your Camino, but you.

If you’ve already walked the Camino, what are some of your favorite little nuggets of wisdom?

Planning a Walk on Hadrian’s Wall Path

January 19, 2018

One of my intentions with this blog is to begin to provide more useful content for others who are planning their own long-distance walking adventures, and so in this spirit, I’m going to be writing up a few short guides to some of the walks that I’ve done. And first up: how to plan for a walk on Hadrian’s Wall!

Along with a friend, I walked Hadrian’s Wall Path in the north of England over the course of 5-days in early April, 2017. I loved it. Originally it was a trip that I’d been planning to do solo, but when my friend heard of my scheme she asked to come along, and it was great to have some company. But because I do the majority of my traveling and walking alone, I want to point out that Hadrian’s Wall would be an absolutely fine walk to do solo; it is safe, not too difficult, and the people of northern England were so welcoming and friendly and helpful.

Here are my posts from the walk, with general thoughts and impressions of the route and my experiences:

Day 1: A Walking Stick and a Loaf of Bread; Newcastle-upon-Tyne to Heddon-on-the-Wall, 15 miles

Day 2: Beware of Shortcuts; Heddon-on-the-Wall to Grindon, 23 miles

Day 3: Hold Onto Your Hat!; Grindon to Gilsland, 15 miles

Day 4: Adventures in the Rain; Gilsland to Carlisle, 20 miles

Day 5: A Race to the End; Carlisle to Bowness-on-Solway, 15 miles

Let’s start here: what exactly is Hadrian’s Wall?

In 122AD, Emperor Hadrian gave orders to build a wall to mark the northern limits of his empire, in order to protect Roman England from the tribes of the north (what is now Scotland). The Wall stretched from one end of the country to the other: 84-miles/135km from Wallsend to Bowness-on-Solway (or, the other way around if walking west to east). This path was designated a National Trail in 2003, and was carefully designed to follow the path of the wall. Only 10-continuous miles of the actual remains of the wall are visible, but these are glorious miles and spotting remnants in other areas of the walk makes it like a fun, centuries old treasure hunt.

In its heyday, the Wall was an impressive work of defense: it stood at 20 feet high and 10 feet thick, with a 20 foot ditch on the ‘Scottish’ side, and milecastles, turrets and forts sprinkled along its length to provide extra fortification. There is a long history of how the wall survived and did not survive the centuries that followed, and now what is left is just a trace of what it once was. But the Wall was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and great care has been taken to preserve what remains.

How difficult is this walk, and what is the terrain like?

My answer: not that difficult. In fact, Hadrian’s Wall is largely considered the least difficult of all the National Trails in the UK. Now, a walk can be made considerably easier or difficult due to several factors: if camping or staying in B&Bs, if carrying your pack or having it shipped ahead (info on that here), if you complete the walk in 4 days vs 8 days (more on this later). But aside from a few sections of constant up and down, much of the walk is relatively flat, or over easy rolling countryside. My guidebook has these words of encouragement: “… a week-long romp on a grassy path through rolling countryside with the highest point, Green Slack, just 345m above sea level.”

There is good variety to the terrain, as well. The aforementioned countryside, wild moorland, and the vibrant and bustling cities of Newcastle and Carlisle. The way marking is thorough and frequent (plus, the Wall itself is an excellent way marker), making it very difficult to get lost.

You mentioned walking this route anywhere between 4 or 8 days. What’s the recommended number of days?

I think this answer depends on what you’re looking for in your experience, as well as any time constraints you may have. My friend and I did the walk in 5 days, and while this was very do-able, it made some sections challenging. Ideally, I would have liked 6 days for the walk, with this extra day I would have felt more comfortable taking time to linger at the forts, or to examine the wall for inscriptions.

Another factor to consider is the type of accommodation you want for your journey. My friend and I did a combination of hostels, bunkhouses and B&B’s, and this gave us plenty of options in terms of how we wanted to break up our stages. From most of the information I’ve seen, the first and last stages are nearly universal (due to lodging restrictions): Wallsend to Heddon-on-the-Wall at 15 miles, and Carlisle to Bowness at 15 miles. The middle stages are where it’s easier to play around and devise them to your liking, and these are the stages where you’ll be walking alongside sections of the Wall, so they are the most interesting and you might want to do smaller mileage to take in their splendor.

What’s the food situation like?

For most of the walk, finding food to eat (and sometimes very good food!) will not be a problem. All B&B’s and most bunkhouses will provide breakfast (free or for a fee, depending on the type of lodging), and this tends to be very good: from full English breakfasts to fried egg sandwiches. We were able to eat at a pub or restaurant on all but one night, and on that night, our host at Slack House Farm cooked us a hearty and filling dinner. Some days we passed through a village with a pub where we could stop for lunch, on other days we packed items with us and had picnics (one day our guidebook promised not one, but two open spots for lunch, but we arrived to find each location closed). I think it would always be wise to have a backup of food in your pack, but this is not a route where you have to carry 3 days worth of food with you.

What is the weather going to be like? Isn’t the north of England supposed to be very… wet?

When I told people that I was going on a long walk in the very north of England in early spring, they laughed and said, “I hope you have good rain gear.”

Rain is going to be a factor regardless of the time of year that you walk, though in the summer (particularly July) there is a better shot at more sunshine and less water falling from the sky. The typical Hadrian’s Wall season is from Easter until the end of September/beginning of October; any later or earlier than this and you’ll find that many B&B’s and bunkhouses will be closed. Winter is not an advisable time to walk the path, in fact it’s encouraged that you don’t walk during this time, in order to give the path a rest and to prevent damage.

I had great luck on my springtime walk; we had one morning of steady rain, and another full day of heavy gray clouds and a lot of wind, but otherwise cool-to-almost-warm temperatures with plenty of sunshine. Flowers were coming into bloom and baby lambs were being born before our eyes (quite literally, so be prepared for that), and I can imagine that later in April and into May would be an even more stunning time to walk.

Speaking of all this rain, what am I going to need to stay (somewhat) dry?

I’m going to link here to my Camino packing list, which is very similar to what I took on my Hadrian’s Wall trip. It’s easy to go light and carry only what you need: a couple hiking outfits, an evening outfit, a sleeping bag liner (hostels and bunkhouses all had sheets and blankets on the beds), basic toiletries, etc. (See the packing list for more detail). But being that this was the first time I was walking in the spring, I did need to make a few additions to this list.

In addition to my rain jacket (a Marmot PreCip , which I love), I added a pair of rain pants (also Marmot, because I had such good luck with the jacket. They’re not the most flattering, but then again, a long walk isn’t a fashion show). These pants worked perfectly over a base layer for my legs (fancy way of saying long underwear?), keeping me warm and dry. I also brought along a pair of Crocs rather than my usual flip flops, so that I could sport the very classy look of Crocs and socks in the evenings (and then just the Crocs as shower shoes). I also brought a Smartwool top that kept me cozy on the windy days, along with a light and packable insulated jacket and a headband to cover my ears (a hat would work fine too). I didn’t bring gloves, but I think they would have been useful.

The rain jacket and rain pants really worked well on my morning of heavy rain, and I also used my buff to cover my head/hair so water wouldn’t drip down my forehead. Some people bring gaitors, and maybe if we’d encountered more rain they would have come in handy, but I didn’t find a need for them. My hiking shoes (Keen’s Voyageurs, I can’t sing their praises enough!) are water resistant, not waterproof, but I’ve found that they do an amazing job in the rain and tend to keep my socks fairly dry (unless walking for hours in a downpour. Then, nothing will keep the water out).

What tips do you have for me?

*Most guidebooks will orient the walk from east to west, beginning in Wallsend and ending in Bowness. This is the direction my friend and I walked, and generally I just really like the idea of moving east to west. However, you might want to consider the benefits of walking in the other direction, from west to east. First of all, and maybe most importantly, the wind will be at your back, rather than blowing straight into your face. Not only is this less of a nuisance, but it will actually make it much easier to walk, without having to fight against the wind (I’m convinced this is why our 15-mile Day 3 took so long and felt so difficult). Secondly, I think it’s possible that you get a better view of the wall from this direction. Our views were fine, but often I found myself turning around, saying “Wow!!” and snapping a photo. And, finally, you would end the walk just outside of Newcastle, which could make for a very comfortable and celebratory city to spend your last night in.

*Don’t forget to consider the tides when you get to the Solway marshes on the last section (or, possibly, first section) of your walk. This stretch of the walk is at sea level and when the tide is in, the trail can be completely underwater (and, possibly, knee to waist level making it dangerous or impossible to walk). Tide charts can be found here (and guidebooks will direct you to tide charts as well).

*Don’t miss the Robin Hood Tree (unlike me, who was so focused on the walking that I passed by this large tree filmed for the movie ‘Robin Hood’ and just thought, “Oh, that’s a nice tree”). It’s actually rather hard to miss, given that there are lots of tourists around this section of the trail and tons of people taking photos of the tree. Also, take some time to read the plaques and maybe pay a visit to one or two of the forts along the way. Walking in an area with such a rich history makes this long-distance trail different than any other I’ve walked.

*Keep an eye out for Roger, an elderly man on a bicycle when you arrive in Port Carlisle, just a mile outside of Bowness-on-Solway (the end of the walk for most). He mans a large sign and changes out the cities and mileages for everyone he meets. Turns out, Philadelphia is approximately 3500 miles away from Port Carlisle. This is a great place for a celebratory photo, just be sure to leave Roger a coin or two for his services (and if you’re not interested, it’s totally fine to just keep walking right past).

*Respect the Wall. This is an important one: it may be tempting to walk on sections of the wall, or to take a selfie perched on top with arm raised in victory. Don’t do it. The Wall is nearly 2000 years old, and it amazes me that it was so well built that some parts have survived this long. But it is not immune to destruction and the more that humans interfere with it, the most risk it has of crumbling to pieces. (Alas, I was so tired at the end of one walking day that I accidentally walked across part of the wall. There was even a platform so people wouldn’t have to step on it but in my fatigue I passed through the gate and just bypassed the wooden platform altogether. Picture as evidence of my crime).

Helpful Resources

-I used Henry Stedman’s Hadrian’s Wall Path: British Walking Guide for my trek. It orients the walk from east to west (so be prepared for that if you are planning to walk in the other direction), and the hand-drawn style of maps have a lot of detail and are easy to follow. Overall I was pleased with this guide, but be warned, some of the villages you pass through on this walk are really small, and a pub that might have been opened when the guide was written could now be closed (grr, Stag Inn).

-UK National Trail Website: https://www.nationaltrail.co.uk/hadrians-wall-path

-Hill Walk Tours: https://www.hillwalktours.com/hiking-england/hadrians-wall-path-overview

-Where to Stay: This website has a good listing of accommodations, and you can also find a good selection in most guidebooks. For a thorough listing of hostels and bunkhouses in the UK (and, specifically for Hadrian’s Wall), check out the Independent Hostel Guide (one of my photos is used on their site, so this automatically makes me a fan!). As I previously mentioned, I stayed in a variety of accommodations: from a hostel to a bunkhouse to a B&B. I was happy with all of these options, and I’ll include the names of those places in case it could help any of you in your planning:

Newcastle: The Albatross Hostel

Heddon-on-the-Wall: Houghton North Farm

Grindon: Old Repeater Station

Gilsland: Slack House Farm

Carlisle: Howard Lodge Guesthouse

I hope some of this information may be useful to you, and please let me know in the comments or by using the Contact Form (at the top of this blog) if you have additional questions.

Happy Walking!

(Some of these links are 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.)

Memorable Walks of 2017

December 24, 2017

I’m at my parents’ house, home for the holidays, and I just got back from a short walk. As I looped around the little park at the top of our neighborhood, I starting thinking about all of the walking I did this year. I don’t track my miles (though I may start that next year!) so I’m not sure how far I’ve gone, but I know that I’ve walked a lot.

And when I think about all of this walking, my first thoughts always jump to the big trips: the plane flights, the journeys abroad, the treks through Europe. These were great, but the smaller walks were pretty fun, too. In the mountains of southern France or on the sidewalks of a leafy suburban town; I’m happy in either place, as long as I’m outside and I’m moving.

So here’s a small roundup of some of my favorite and most memorable walks of 2017: in places near and far, hot and cold, simple and stunning.

1. Women’s March on Washington (January 2017)

At the start of the year a friend and I boarded a bus in the wee morning hours and journeyed down to Washington DC, where we marched alongside thousands of others in the nation’s capitol, the day after the Presidential Inauguration. This was a different sort of walking than the kind I’m used to, but it certainly counts as one of my most memorable walks of the year. We didn’t move fast, and we may not have covered much ground, but we stood up for women’s rights, for our values, for unity and peace, and it was an incredible thing to be part of.

Favorite Moment(s): So many small things to love- chanting along with hundreds of other voices, getting complimented on our sashes, ducking into the National Gallery to see some art, picking out our favorite signs.

2. Hadrian’s Wall, England (April 2017)

In early April, my friend Heather and I walked 84-miles across northern England, following the route of an ancient wall. It was a trip I’d hesitated to take: would we have enough time, was it going to cost too much money? But in the end, as I nearly always am, I was so happy that I’d made the decision to walk. The weather was about as good as we could have hoped for, and while we had a couple of very long days, we were healthy and strong and finished in good spirits. As my walk in Scotland had done the previous year, walking along Hadrian’s Wall made me crave a return to the UK, and to discover more of their wonderful long-distance walking routes.

Favorite Moment(s): I loved the day when the wind blew so fiercely it was hard to move forward; nothing makes you feel more alive than standing on top of a hill with the ruins of an ancient Roman wall at your side, the wind howling and raging so loud that it is the only sound you can hear. I also loved (for its hilarity) the moment when I realized that the rain was, in fact, coming down harder than I imagined, and it forced me to make a wardrobe change (i.e. take my pants off) in the middle of an open field.

3. My tried-and-true Ridley Creek State Park, PA (all year long)

I’ve mentioned this park before, because it’s where I do the bulk of my hiking every year. It’s my nearby state park, with 2,600 acres of woodland and meadows and a great network of hiking and walking trails. When the weather’s decent I try to go at least a couple times a week, more if I’m preparing for an upcoming Camino or long-distance walk. Winter, spring, summer and fall: each season brings a different flavor, a different experience to the park.

Favorite Moment(s): After years of hiking in this park, discovering a small side trail that led to an arboretum, with miles and miles of additional hiking trails. It was a bit like Narnia!

4. Le Chemin du Puy, France (June 2017)

In June I walked for 2 weeks on the Chemin du Puy, a pilgrimage route through France that eventually leads to Santiago de Compostela. I spent the first four days with my cousin Hilary, and then continued the rest of the way on my own.

Favorite Moment(s): One of my favorite moments with my cousin was when we stopped for an epic picnic lunch on Day 2 of our journey. We’d picked up sandwiches earlier in the day, and these things were nothing like the bocadillas you’d find in Spain. Soft and crusty bread, smooth mounds of goats cheese, caramelized onions and a fig spread, all fresh and local ingredients. We’d also procured a bag of potato chips and several peaches and we spread out on a blanket in the grass in the shade after walking 15 kilometers on an early summer’s day. Is there anything better than this?

And my favorite solo moment was walking across the Aubrac plateau, with such a feeling of openness and peace and joy.

5. Hiking to Lastours, France (July 2017)

I’ve been to La Muse three times now (the writer’s and artist’s retreat in the mountains of southern France), and this means that I’ve hiked just about all the nearby trails. But on this past visit I decided to hike down to Lastours, the site of the ruins of three Cathar castles. Each year the retreat takes a “field trip” there, shuttling us down the mountain in a van. Since the castles were only about 8km away, I decided to walk. I left La Muse a couple hours earlier than the others who were going in the van, and we arranged to meet up at a café near the castles. All in all it worked out perfectly, though I had to do a bit of trailblazing to figure out how to actually get up to the castles.

Favorite Moment(s): Tourists and visitors need to first pass through a visitor’s center where they buy an admission ticket to the site. But I hiked to the castles from the opposite side of the mountain, and I arrived just before the site opened, coming in on an overgrown side trail. Up among the ruins I was totally and completely alone, and when I began my descent in order to meet my friends, the tourists who were just arriving seemed startled to see me coming down (so, too, did the workers in the visitor’s center, which I needed to pass through in order to get out of the site and into the village).

6. My last few days of walking in Paris (July 2017)

I could easily say that all of the walking I did in Paris was memorable, because I just love Paris so much. I was there for a week this summer, and by the end of my visit, I felt like I knew where I was going. I’d done tons of walking and exploring in the quartiers (neighborhoods) around where I was staying, and so in those last few days every time I headed out, I knew my way. There is so much beauty to Paris: the grand architecture and boulevards and all of that sparkling light on the Seine, but there’s also the beauty in the quiet corners, the winding cobblestoned streets, the corner cafés. I started to recognize those quiet streets, and as I walked around and around, I felt as though I fit into it all.

Favorite Moment(s): When several people stopped me and asked for directions. It makes me smile every time I think about it!

7. Clingman’s Dome Hike, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, TN (August 2017)

Friends and I stayed near Great Smoky Mountains National Park when we traveled down to North Carolina in August to see the total eclipse. Because we only had a few days, because we were a small group, and because we had some other activities we wanted to do, we didn’t actually get to do much hiking (a bit of a disappointment for me, but the main purpose of this trip was for the eclipse, so I’ll just have to get down to the Great Smoky Mountains again for some real hiking). But we did manage to fit in a quick (and steep!) hike up to Clingman’s Dome, the highest point in the park and the state of Tennessee. The weather was perfectly clear and the view was stunning in every direction.

Favorite Moment(s): Good conversation with a friend as we hiked to the top, and being able to see so far into the distance on a really beautiful summer’s day.

8. Overlook Tower Hike, Catskills Mountain, New York (October 2017)

Another steep hike to another lookout point in another mountain range (though this one much smaller), in the Catskills of New York. But this hike was very different: I was on a solo trip, and the weather did not cooperate. I knew, when I started hiking, that I wouldn’t get much of a view at the top, and the weather only turned worse the longer I climbed. I moved into the clouds and the mist and the fog, the air grew colder, and there were a few points when I wondered if I should just turn around. The 2 1/2 miles to the top was a long and steady climb, and it was late in the day and not many people were out. Just when I wondered how much further I’d have to walk, the outline of a large and looming building began to emerge from the fog. It was the ruins of an old hotel, eerie and spooky in the fog and the mist. I explored there for awhile, then continued just a bit further to the fire tower at the end of the hike. I started to climb up the tower but about halfway up I totally chickened out: once I started climbing I couldn’t even see all the way up to the top because the fog was so thick. The wind was blowing and shaking the structure and the steps were slippery. I’m not really scared of heights, but I was terrified that this old fire tower might get blown straight off the mountain, with me clinging to its side. So I missed the sweeping views and the achievement of climbing to the top of the tower, but all the more reason to return one day.

Favorite Moment(s): Those hotel ruins!

9. Walks around my neighborhood (all year long)

I’m going to end with the walks that I do most days of the year: the paths that lead straight out my backdoor. I live in a beautiful suburban neighborhood with tall trees and friendly people and lots of deer. If I take a left at the end of my driveway I can veer off onto a wooded trail that winds along a small creek and is tucked away behind all of the houses. I can’t go very far without needing to cross some busy roads, so I’ve just made a big loop out of the streets and the trails and cover the same ground pretty much every day. The walking may be repetitive, but there is so much beauty to see as long as I pay close attention.

Favorite Moment(s): Snow, fox, deer, flowers.

Here’s hoping that 2018 brings lots of new and exciting walks!

Holiday gift-guide for the pilgrim/traveler/walker in your life

December 14, 2017

Does anyone else save their holiday shopping until the last minute? I always think that I have all the time in the world, or certainly enough time to have gifts bought and delivered in time for Christmas. But inevitably, every year, I cut it awfully close.

And this year is no exception- it’s December 14th, and I’m just now starting to think that I should probably go out and buy a few gifts for the people in my life. That, and also give my family a few suggestions from my own wish list.

It was when I began to put together a little list of my own that I started to see a trend: guidebooks and good socks and travel notebooks. In other words, some of my favorite things to take on my trips and my walks.

So this is a little collection of gift suggestions, for the traveler/pilgrim/walker/hiker in your life. And, of course, don’t forget yourself; sometimes the holidays are a nice time to treat ourselves to the things we’ve been wishing for all year long.

(As I briefly referred to in my last post, 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.

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 4 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).

Gifts $15-$50

Camino Frances Guidebook: Now’s the time when pilgrims are planning their 2018 treks on the Camino de Santiago, and many will start with the Camino Frances. Love it or hate it, John Brierley’s guide is the most popular of them all (personally, I really liked it).

Or if you’ve already walked the Frances, get the Norte guidebook!

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.
Eagle Creek Packing Cubes: These were a game-changer on my second Camino. They helped me organize my clothing, protected it from the rest of my (dirty) pack, maximized space, and were ultra-lightweight. I’ll probably never travel without them again.
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.

Camino break!

Gifts $50-$100

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.
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 in 2018 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’ve only really been on one solo-camping trip, but this thing worked like a charm.

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

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 holidays to everyone, and I’ll be back with more soon.

Ending in a Blaze of Glory; Day 14 on the Chemin du Puy, Cajarc to Cahors (undetermined number of kilometers)

October 29, 2017

My last day on the Chemin du Puy had a bit of everything: Beautiful trails. Transportation snafus. Kind and helpful people. A couple of tears shed on the side of the road. Ice cream, to make up for those tears. A big dose of adventure.

It was my 14th day of walking. I was ending my Chemin in Cahors, which is roughly 250km from where I started in Le Puy en Velay.

I needed to end in Cahors because I had a reserved train ticket, one that would take me to my writer’s retreat a little further down in the south of France. So I’d needed to make it to Cahors by a specific date, but because of a decision to arrive in Conques when the rest of my friends did (still one of the best decisions of my Chemin), I knew I wouldn’t be able to walk all the way to Cahors.

This meant that I needed to come up with a Plan B. The day before, when I’d arrived in Cajarc, my very first stop was the tourism office. I propped my walking stick against the wall, leaned over the counter, and explained to the women working there that I needed to arrive in Cahors the next day, and wondered if there were any alternate routes that I might be able to take.

Maps were pulled out, discussions had, and finally we came up with a plan: I would take a bus to Saint-Cirq-Lapopie (voted the most beautiful village in France, although I’m pretty sure that this was at least the 3rd village that seemed to have this distinction), from Saint-Cirq I would walk on an alternate route, the GR36, to Cahors. The woman pointed her finger along a wavy line on the map. “See,” she said, “It is only 22km. Easy.”

This seemed like a fabulous solution, and I was full of confidence and a renewed sense of adventure when I woke up in the morning. It was early and while everyone else slept, I quietly gathered my things, loaded them into my pack, and headed out into a still dark morning. I was catching an early bus, the 6:30 which would get me to Saint-Cirq before 7am. Once there, I reasoned that I could have a coffee and a little breakfast, and then enjoy my last day of walking.

Oh, the best laid plans.

First of all, the bus schedule had been changed the day before. The tourism office didn’t know this or have the most updated version of the bus schedule, so I missed the bus I’d intended to catch by only a couple minutes, and had to wait nearly 30 minutes for the next one.

Then, when I got on the bus, the driver spoke quickly and sternly, first making me stow my pack in the luggage compartments under the bus (which I thought was a bit unnecessary, given that my pack is on the small side, but who knows, maybe he wanted to keep his bus clean). Then, he rattled off something in French and I couldn’t understand what he was trying to tell me. Something about Saint-Cirq and when I should exit the bus.

Eventually I realized (only when he waved at me to get off the bus) that this bus for some reason didn’t actually go all the way to Saint-Cirq, and so I’d had to get off at a stop about a 4km walk away from the village.

No problem, I thought to myself. I’m a pilgrim after all, and I can certainly walk.

When I did arrive in Saint-Cirq, it was after 8am and while the village was beautiful, it was also a gray day and the place was deserted. Maybe it was too early, but I still can’t figure out why there were no people. I circled through the village, walking up and down, exploring the church and some ruins and snapping photos and I only saw one woman, who was outside watering the flowers in front of her house. This was a very touristy place but nothing was open, and finally I went inside a nice looking auberge (guest house) and asked if I would be able to get a cup of coffee.

If you’re new to this blog, let me briefly tell you how important coffee is to my walks. Coffee is… necessary. Usually getting my first cup isn’t too much of a problem on the Camino, though there have been a few mornings in the past that I’d had to wait several hours for that initial coffee. But the Chemin du Puy excels at the coffee conundrum; because nearly ever gîte offers breakfast, I always had a hot cup of coffee (or two, or three) before I started walking.

So coffee was never a problem on the Chemin until that very last morning. I’d stayed in the municipal gîte in Cajarc and no breakfast was offered. So after waiting 30 minutes for a bus, then walking an unexpected 4km to Saint-Cirq, I was not amused to see that there were no cafés open.

But luckily, the woman at the auberge must have seen the desperation in my eyes, because she told me that if I could wait a few minutes, she’d bring out some coffee.

A white ceramic pitcher of hot milk and a mug full of espresso, along with a half of sleeve of cookies pulled from my pack (no other breakfast available), and I was finally ready to get going.

The first couple of kilometers of the walk were great. I was walking on a canal towpath next to the River Lot that was carved directly into a cliff-face. It made a sort of half tunnel that snaked along the river and the walk was pleasant and quiet and the scenery dramatic.

I arrived in the next village, Bouziès, found a public bathroom in a park and then saw a sign for the GR36 route that I’d be following.

Cahors, it read. 34.2km.

Wait one minute. 34.2km? How could that be right? I pulled out the map that I’d gotten in the tourism office and studied it a little more closely. Somehow we’d made a mistake, or we’d added the wrong numbers or we’d followed a line for a road rather than a hiking trail. In any case, Saint-Cirq to Cahors was not a mere 22km.

I added the numbers in my head. I’d already walked 4km to get to Saint-Cirq, and then another 4km to Bouziès. If I could actually walk all the way to Cahors, it would make for a 42km day.

Now, readers of this blog know that I’ve done 40+km days before. I’ve done several, so I know it’s not out of my comfort zone. But the day that was unfurling before me was a bit out of my comfort zone. It was already 9:30 and I still had 34km to go. This wasn’t ideal, but it was a distance that still seemed do-able. No, the biggest problem was that I had no idea what the route was going to be like. I didn’t know if it would be flat, or hilly, or steep or rocky or if it would ascend or if it would descend. I had no idea.

I passed slowly through the town, mulling over what I wanted to do. I saw an open boulangerie and bought half of a baguette and a croissant and then I kept walking. And I started walking fast.

I decided that I would going to try to do it. I walked as fast as I could and then I started climbing a hill, and after awhile it felt like a small mountain. I huffed and puffed and finally made it to the top and then I began the descent and sometimes I was walking on small rocks and I had to be careful. I wasn’t moving as fast as I wanted. I felt more tired that I wanted to feel.

I walked and walked and I ascended a second very large hill and my legs and calves screamed at me and I walked slower, daring to only rest for 10 minutes at the top to eat some cheese and bread and dried apricots.

Eventually, I stopped walking and consulted the bus schedule I’d gotten the day before. Something in me knew that I didn’t want to walk all the way to Cahors. I wasn’t making good time, I felt stressed about not knowing what was ahead of me on the route. I hadn’t passed another pilgrim, I didn’t even know if I could make it to Cahors before dark. I suspected I could, but I just didn’t know, and that made me feel very unsettled.

So, finally, I decided to just take a bus. I looked at the bus schedule, I looked at my map, and I walked onto another GR route to get to the town of Vers, where I had about 90 minutes to wait for the 2:37 bus that would take me to Cahors.

I arrived in Vers, I confirmed the bus stop with some people in a hotel restaurant, and then I made my way to a bench outside of the church where I would wait for my bus. I took off my socks and shoes and filled my water bottle at a nearby fountain and I thought to myself, “This is the end of this year’s Camino. Not what I expected, but overall, not a bad walk.”

This would have been a decent ending, if only I had gotten on that bus.

The hour for my bus came and went, and every time I heard a vehicle I’d anxiously look and wait and hope it would be my bus but it never was. Five minutes passed. 10 minutes passed. Finally a bus turned onto my road and it was moving fast as it approached but I waved it down and the brakes screeched to a stop. I went over and the door opened and a woman looked down at me curiously. “Is this the bus to Cahors?” I asked.

“No, no,” she said. “That bus stops at the other side of the bridge. Down there.” She pointed.

My heart dropped and I thanked her and then without thinking I took off down the street, running to the bridge, fearful that I’d already missed my bus.

I stood at the side of a busy road and waited and I could feel in my gut that something was wrong. I didn’t know exactly where to stand. It was already 15 minutes past when the bus was supposed to arrive.

And then, coming down the road, having just passed the church where I’d been waiting for the past 90 minutes, came a bus. It was moving fast and turning onto the road where I was standing and I realized that the spot by the church had been right all along, the bus had just been late.

I waved my arms, I’d started waving as soon as I realized that this was my bus and the driver was looking straight at me. I waved wildly, I started jumping up and down but the bus turned and roared down the road and headed off to Cahors, leaving me in its dust.

The next bus wasn’t for another 4 hours, not until after 7pm.

I tried to hold it all in but I couldn’t help myself. Tears gathered in my eyes and a couple rolled down my cheeks and I was hot and tired and I felt like I was somewhere far off of the Chemin, in a small and empty village and the only way out- other than my own two feet- had just rolled out and left me behind.

I didn’t know what to do and in that moment, I just wanted to be done with the Chemin. I wished I were at La Muse, in my cozy room at the writer’s retreat, not having to worry about speaking French or going off route or having to eat broken cookies for breakfast or waving wildly at buses or any of it. I was done.

I brushed the tears off of my cheeks and tried to hold back the lump in my throat. Sometimes a Camino ends in a blaze of glory, arms lifted in victory… and sometimes it ends on the side of a road in a sleepy village that’s not even on the actual route, the tail lights of your ride out of town fading from sight as they leave you behind.

But, you know, sometimes that’s the just the way. I went back to the hotel’s restaurant and asked the staff if they could help me call a taxi. At first everyone was confused about what I was doing. They told me that they didn’t know if a taxi would drive out here. That the taxi would have to come from Cahors, that it would be expensive. They doubled checked the bus schedule, and it was confirmed that there wouldn’t be another one until that evening.

The manager asked all of her staff if anyone was going back to Cahors that afternoon. “It’s too bad,” she told me. “Someone just left for Cahors, but you missed him.” The staff ran around the hotel, seeing if they could find me a ride, but they came up empty. (Still, this was such a bright spot in the day, how willing they were to find a solution for me).

In the end, the manager called a taxi for me, and within 20 minutes I was picked up and whisked away to Cahors. The ride was at least 30 euros more than the bus would have been, but I suspect that the driver didn’t charge me as much as she could have. We chatted in French, I think I was so relieved to be in a moving vehicle that I didn’t worry about what I was saying or whether what I said made any sense.

And then, when I arrived in Cahors, I had a pretty special Chemin evening. My gîte, Le Papillon Vert (green butterfly), was a quirky place in a slim apartment building that spanned at least four floors. The first floor was a large entryway cluttered with bags and shoes and socks and a table covered in papers and books and half empty glasses of flavored water that Eden (our hospitalero) provided for pilgrims. Eden was a former pilgrim himself: in either his 30’s or early 40’s, with long dark hair and small glasses and a quiet and gentle manner. There was another group of women who’d just arrived to the gîte and we all spoke together and Eden told us where we’d sleep and when dinner would be served. As he stamped my credential and took my money for the night, he asked where I was from.

“Des Etats-Unis,” I said.

“Non,” he replied, shaking his head.

I wasn’t sure what to say to this, but he went on to tell me that he couldn’t believe I was an American. He complimented my French and my accent and thought that I must be European. It was a great compliment to me, that after two weeks of muscling my way through French conversation that I might have improved. In fact, I knew that my French was better than when I’d started. I could understand conversations more easily, and I wasn’t quite as timid when speaking. Eden even asked me to translate a bit throughout the night for a German pilgrim, a woman in her 20’s who I was sharing a room with.

It was a good evening. It was the kind of evening that redeems a pretty challenging day. Before dinner I wandered through the city; the sky had cleared to a perfect shade of blue, there were bustling markets and narrow roads and quiet corners.

And then dinner was one of the best meals of the trip: a salad with chunks of blood-red tomato and cucumber and thick slices of brie, a vegetable puréed soup, two different homemade tartes, boiled potatoes, a local wine, bread, and surely something wonderful for dessert that I’ve since forgotten.

And the conversation was good. There were 8 women at the table: a group of 4, a group of 2, the German girl, and me. The other women were French but they were friendly and jolly and make an effort to try to translate or speak slowly and there was so much laughter and happiness. As we were finishing our last bites of food and lingering over wine, Eden told us a few of his favorite pilgrim “lessons”, stories like parables, examples of Chemin magic, of long-lost friends and finding what you need.

Finding what you need, yes. I’d found what I needed in that gîte: community and laughter and the spirit of the Chemin. My pilgrimage hadn’t ended on the side of a dusty road with tears in my eyes. After all of these years, how could I have thought that my Chemin ended when the walking did? No, a Camino or a Chemin is about more than the walking, it’s always been about more than the walking.

It’s the journey, the villages I pass through and the cities I explore, the people by my side, the voices joining together in laughter, in song. This was the blaze of glory. This was what it was all about, all of it together, all of these pieces. It’s the walking, but more than that, it’s the spirit of everyone who is walking and everyone who has walked for hundreds and hundreds of years.

Will I walk again? Surely. There are so many paths to discover, there are more routes to Santiago, there may even be some footsteps to retrace. I will certainly walk again, and the only question that remains is- ‘where to next?’.

*****

Previous Post: Days 11, 12, 13 on the Chemin du Puy

Have you walked a Camino/Chemin, returned home and wondered ‘what comes next?’ If so, check out my e-book, ‘After the Camino’!

Revealing my latest Project: ‘After the Camino’ e-book!

October 18, 2017

Hi everyone, I’ve written an E-book! It’s called ‘After the Camino’!

Here it is, for your viewing/reading pleasure (click this link, or any of the links in this post). I’ve been calling it a ‘small’ and ‘simple’ thing, though when all was said and done it clocked in at a little over 50 pages. Some of those pages are photos and there’s much less text per page than what I’m used to, so 50 pages feels much bigger than it actually is.

Despite this, ‘After the Camino’ is a book, and I’d love for you to take a look. The chapters read like blog posts, so in a way it feels a bit like a collection of blog posts, with a focus on tips for dealing with the ‘post Camino blues’. Its ideal audience is anyone who has walked a Camino and has returned home and felt a bit lost, or felt like they weren’t sure what to do next.

But in some ways, I think it can be for anyone who has had a big experience and is transitioning back to regular life, and feeling like something is now missing. Most of the content is framed around a Camino experience, but the concepts can be applied to nearly anything. In any case, the book is free, so I think you should all take a look, pilgrim or not! (And if you’re in the planning stages of a pilgrimage, then bookmark this page and come back when you’ve returned from your Camino. This book might help).

Writing this and putting it together was a good experience for me. It never felt overwhelming, and maybe that’s because I worked in stages, and with small steps (like I usually do). I wrote most of it back in the spring, added a few chapters this summer, and have spent the last couple of months tinkering away at putting it together in an e-book format. There was a lot to learn there, and still more to go, I’m sure.

I could have toyed with this for another two months but have you ever heard the expression ‘begin before you’re ready?’. Hmm, well, I’m not sure that this was the expression I was looking for… but in any case the idea was that I may have never felt ready to hit publish and send it out into the great unknown. I needed to finally say to myself ‘good enough’ and then just take the next step.

Here are a couple technical details: if you want to download the book, you’re going to have to submit your email to essentially ‘subscribe’ to the book. There are a couple emails involved here; you’ll have to enter your email and name, then confirm, wait a few minutes (this is key… just wait for it, the email will eventually arrive), and THEN you’ll get the email with the link to the book.

I wish this process could be smoother and less complicated, but it’s what I’ve got for now. Doing it in this way is important to me because it gives me a sense of how many of you are interested in taking a look at the book. As I’ve mentioned before, I have other ideas for projects around this ‘After the Camino’ idea, and am thinking about developing an e-course. But in order to invest a lot of time into that, I want to have a sense of the level of interest.

So, happy reading, and the next time you’ll hear from me here will hopefully be soon, with my final blog post from the Chemin du Puy.

Nearing the End: Churches, Drying Machines, and ‘It Smells Like Feet in Here’; Days 11, 12, 13 on the Chemin du Puy

October 11, 2017

My last post on the Chemin du Puy left us in the magical village of Conques. I had four days of walking left, but in some ways, it felt like Conques was a sort of ending to my pilgrimage. I think it was because so many other people I’d met had ended their pilgrimages there. I was still walking, but I didn’t have many days left, either. The end felt very, very near.

I’m going to write about the next three days in this (one) post, and we’ll see how it goes. This is partly to get finished writing these recaps, but it’s also because these days seemed to blend together for me. There was a lot of rain, and when it was raining I wasn’t really enjoying the walk. I just wanted to get to my destination.

And I ended up sticking with the same small group of pilgrims, too. This was nice in some ways- I didn’t have to meet new people every day and struggle to communicate in French (well, I was still speaking French with the people I did stick with, but at least they knew that I wasn’t fluent so I didn’t feel much pressure). And, as it always is on the Camino or the Chemin, it’s so nice to arrive in a town and see familiar faces. I was included in the little group, and I never felt lonely.

But, also, I never really felt entirely comfortable in my group. I was with Paul Andre and Chantal, the French Canadian couple with the super strong accents that were really difficult for even the French to understand. Walking with them was Therese, a woman in her 60’s who could almost be considered as someone who lives on the Camino. I never got her full story, but others told me that she didn’t have a permanent home, and was walking big chunks of every year on some Camino route. She was very rough around the edges and I never quite warmed up to her, and I do think a lot of that was due to the fact that we couldn’t communicate easily. And rounding out the group was Marie-Lou, another woman in her 60’s who was walking solo and who sort of ended up in the group around the same time as I did.

I sort of haphazardly ended up with them, and part of this was because I was just tired. Not tired from the walking, but tired from the mental strain that communicating in French is for me. I can still be a little shy when meeting new people, but meeting new people and speaking in a foreign language can make me feel even more timid and drained. So staying in the same places with people I already knew felt like a relief.

But, you know, there were a lot of lessons in this for me. I’ll get to this in the next post, but my last day on the Chemin had me in an entirely new group of people and it was… really special. It made me wonder what would have happened if I had made my own plans after Conques instead of sticking with people I already knew because it was easy. And to that end, there were a few times I was a little disappointed in myself. There was a day where I’d had a particular gîte in mind that I wanted to stay in, but I ended up in a different one because I let Therese include me in a reservation she was making. Our gîte was just okay; the other ended up being pretty fantastic (from what other pilgrims told me). I was a little hard on myself for that decision- just because I didn’t like making phone calls in French, I let someone else do the work for me but it meant that I didn’t stay where I really wanted to.

Anyway, despite these days being just ‘okay’- not bad but not outstanding, either- there were some remarkable moments. Here they are:

Day 11: Conques to Livinhac, 23km

We all had breakfast in Conques: everyone from the day before gathered in the hall for another typical breakfast of coffee and bread and butter and jam and yogurt. It seemed like everyone was lingering, and maybe we were. Half of us were continuing on the Camino, half were ending their pilgrimage. The kind pair of French women, the kind pair of French men (I wish I had learned/remembered their names!), Jerome, Mario, they were all finished with their Chemin.

I got up and gave them all hugs and Jerome was sitting in the corner with tears falling down his cheeks. I turned to Mario, and he gave me a long look. “Remember to follow what’s in your heart.” I nodded, and then I headed out; out of the Abbaye, down the winding roads of the village, past stone houses covered in vines, into the valley and then back up the other side of the mountain.

It was raining. I had to watch my footing very carefully as I climbed up and over slick stones and that climb went on for what felt like a long time. Near the top of the hill was a small chapel and I ducked inside, a quick reprieve from the rain. Conques was across the valley, in the distance, blurred by the rain. Already I felt far away.

Rain, rain, and more rain. Taking cover in churches was a theme of the day; I’m not sure how many churches I ducked into, but it was at least three or four. Each time, I would take my pack off, then my rain jacket, shake them out, put on a long sleeved shirt or fleece, and spend 10 minutes trying to dry off and get warm. And then back on with my wet things that had never really dried out, back into the rain.

I took a small detour that day, following me were Pierre, Therese, and Babette (a French woman who had just started in Conques). The detour was just a quick alternate route and I can’t exactly remember why we all chose to take it- maybe it was a bit shorter? Or more scenic? Or easier? In any case, I’d let the others know that I wanted to walk alone but they were never that far behind me. Later, Pierre told me that he was impressed with my sense of direction and being able to figure out where to go. “I don’t know if I could have done it myself,” he said.

I liked hearing this because in my regular life, I wouldn’t exactly say that I have a really good sense of direction. It’s about average, and gets much worse when I’m in cities and am dealing with streets on a grid. Everything looks the same and I get turned around easily. But when I’m walking, it’s a different story. I’ve gotten off track a couple of times on all of these walks, but I almost always have the sense that I’m going the wrong way when this happens. And otherwise, I don’t know what it is, I guess I’m just always looking for arrows and markers. And after awhile, I just get a sense of which way I need to be heading (I say this now, and I’m probably going to get horribly lost on my next long walk. Famous last words…)

The four of us all ended up stopping in the same church, about an hour from our destination. It was raining hard at this point: really hard. We were probably in that church for at least an hour, waiting for the rain to stop or at least slow down. I got too restless and left before the others did, and I promptly got soaked.

The town of Livinhac was really small; I didn’t stay in the gîte where I really wanted to be, and I went to bed early. Overall… not the best day on the Chemin. But I was still feeling strong and healthy and had friends around me, so not the worst day, either. Plus, you couldn’t beat the view from my bed:

Day 12, Livinhac to Figeac, 24km

Another morning of rain, and this was the point where I just got so fed up with being wet. I must have left at a very different time from everyone else because I was totally alone for so much of the day. I didn’t see many people as I walked, I didn’t see others as I stopped for a rest, and I got to Figeac much, much sooner than everyone else.

The highlight of this day was, well, some sort of Chemin magic. Seriously, I’m half wondering if it was all a dream or an illusion.

Here’s what happened: I’d been walking all morning in the rain. The previous day it had been raining, the day before that it was raining, the day before that it was raining. My clothes were all wet. All of them. I didn’t have a dry pair of socks, and the rest of my clothes weren’t dry, either: I always wash stuff at the end of every day’s walk but because the weather was so damp and cold, nothing was drying out. I’d been thinking about this as I walked, wishing so much that I could just put on a dry pair of socks but knowing that all my socks were wet and wondering what would happen the next day, if things didn’t dry out.

So I arrived in a small village and my guidebook said that there was a little area designated for pilgrims. This typically means that there might be an outdoor shelter of some sort, or a grouping of picnic tables or something like that. But what I found was totally different: it was a room in a building. The door was unlocked, the entire area was deserted. But I went into the room to check it out and it was pretty empty other than a table and a few chairs. But then I saw it- against one of the walls was a washer and dryer.

I looked around a couple of times, not really believing my eyes. A washing machine and a dryer? For pilgrims? In some random room in a tiny and quiet village? Was this real?

So I did the only thing I could think to do: I took off my pack and dug through and found all of my wet clothing and threw it into the dryer. I took off my socks and my long-sleeved shirt that had gotten wet and I put in a few coins and for the next hour I sat there, eating my sandwich and waiting as my clothing dried.

Seriously, how does this kind of stuff happen on the Camino/Chemin? I don’t have answers, but I do know that things like this happen all the time. The thing I’d wanted most that morning was dry clothing, and it was like the Chemin said, “Okay, I get it, I’ll help you out.”

So I left my little rest stop with a big smile on my face. The rain had stopped and the clouds had parted and there I was, strolling along with warm, dry socks on my feet.

Figeac was okay: I stayed in a great gîte with a wonderful communal dinner, but I for some reason I didn’t like being in a larger city and the noise and the movement and all the people felt like it was too much for me. Nassim ended his Chemin here- we all met before dinner for goodbye drinks.

Day 13: Figeac to Cajarc, 32km

No rain (finally!), mostly gray skies. A really good and solid day of walking. I had my “Camino legs” that day, and I was moving fast and the 30+ kilometers felt easy. I bumped into people as I moved through the day: Marie Lou at a rest stop, later Pierre and Stephanie and a Swiss man at another rest stop, but mostly it was a solo day of good walking.

Cajarc was a small town and I stayed in the municipal gîte with Therese and Paul Andre and Chantal and Marie Lou. Pierre and Stephanie were there, too. The place was vey basic and didn’t offer a communal dinner, so a few of us went out to a pizza place. I was in a room with Therese and Marie Lou and despite there being only three of us, it smelled distinctly of dirty, wet clothing. And feet. The room smelled like feet. I fell asleep feeling like I was okay that my Chemin was going to be ending soon.

That’s the recap, but there’s still one day left, and it was definitely a day of adventure. Stay tuned.

Previous Post: Day 10 on the Chemin du Puy

In The Center Of It All; Day 10 on the Chemin du Puy, Sénergues to Conques, 9km

October 3, 2017

The day I walked to Conques was probably my favorite day on the Chemin du Puy (the favorite part of my post-Hilary time, anyway).

What made it so special? It certainly wasn’t the actual walking; I woke up to another day of gray, heavy clouds, and needed to don my raincoat from the moment I stepped out the gîte door in Sénergues. The rain pelted down, and sometimes the wind blew so fiercely that the rain drops came in sideways, splashing against my cheeks and my forehead and my nose and my lips. At one point, I started to walk backwards, just so that I could have a break from the wind and the rain against my face.

It was a short day, too, at only 9km. Typically I don’t love short days on the Camino or the Chemin, especially if I’m feeling strong and good. But with the rain and the promise of potentially meeting up with friends in Conques, I was relieved that I’d only have to walk for a couple of hours in the morning.

The descent into the village of Conques was tricky. It’s already a stretch of path that’s infamous for it’s steep, rocky downward slope, but it’s made infinitely harder when the rocks are slick and wet. I walked carefully, slowly, measuring each step, always looking for a spot to plant my foot before I made any movement.

In the middle of my descent, my concentration was broken by the sudden appearance of a large, black, angry barking dog. He seemed to appear out of nowhere but now, all at once, he was below me on the path, taking steady steps towards me, growling as he bared his teeth.

The rain continued to fall, water was now dripping from the hood of my coat onto the tip of my nose. My hand, gripping my walking stick, was slick with the rain. I was mid stride, one foot planted lower than the other and I wasn’t sure how to take my next step. The dog continued to bark, slowly advancing. My heart pounded and I did the only thing that I could think to do- I pushed my stick out towards him, keeping my voice stern. “Arrêt!” Stop, stop. I repeated the word and brandished my stick but the dog only barked louder.

Finally his owner appeared, yelling his name and eventually grabbing him by the collar. “He is afraid of your stick,” she told me. Hmm. I carry the stick to protect myself from angry dogs- not that there are ever all that many, but if makes me feel better to have some sort of protection, just in case. But meanwhile, maybe I’m making the dogs angry because I’m carrying a stick?

In any case, they walked past me, the dog giving me a side-eye the entire time, and I continued slowly down the path until I arrived at the entrance to the village of Conques.

Oh my. Even in the rain, this small village was stunning. I’d been here once before, when I studied in Toulouse during college, but I have almost no memories of the trip. It was likely that we had just passed through the village, stopping only briefly to see the cathedral.

But now, at 10am, my walking done, I had the entire day at my disposal. The rain had slowed and then stopped as I gingerly made my way down the wet cobblestones and into the village. I took my time, walking up and down the streets, snapping photos and getting my bearings (which wasn’t difficult; this truly is a small village, with only a few winding streets).

I knew that Conques was an important stop on the Chemin du Puy, and had been since the Middle Ages. The relics of Sainte Foy (Saint Faith) are located in the Church, and these have drawn pilgrims for centuries. In the second century, when Sainte Foy was only 12, she was decapitated for refusing to worship pagan gods. She became an extremely popular saint in Southern France, and her relics drew a great number of pilgrims to the small and very isolated village of Conques.

And Conques continues to be a popular site on the Chemin du Puy. I knew this from the bits of reading I’d done before setting off on my pilgrimage, but as I walked I kept hearing people mention Conques. “You need to stop there,” they told me. “And be sure to stay in the Abbaye.”

The Abbaye was just behind the Church, and even though I wouldn’t be able to check in until 2:00, I was greeted and instructed on where I could store my bag in the meantime. I pulled out my day bag and stuffed it full of things I might need for the next few hours: my bottle of water, a snack, a fleece, my journal.

And then I headed back into the village, wandering through the streets, into the cemetery, up and down and around and around until I decided that it was time to sit with a hot coffee.

And as I was walking down a road to find a café, I heard someone shout my name. Inside one of the cafés were the two French women I’d shared a room with back on the day when Hilary left. I’d been criss-crossing with them for awhile but it had been a few days since I’d seen them. I knew they were both ending their pilgrimage in Conques (and in fact, Conques is a stopping point for many pilgrims who are only able to do the Chemin du Puy in stages); so it made me happy to see that we’d arrived in the village on the same day.

They ushered me into the café and over to their table, paying for my coffee and asking me how my days had been. We spoke in French, but already I could tell that I was getting a little better, and even if the conversation was basic, I could mostly understand what they were saying. They hadn’t yet dropped their things off at the Abbaye, so I instructed them on where to go, and then set back out into the village. I walked through the Church and then went back outside into the square, and in the distance, walking down the street, was Mario.

I leaned against a stone wall and waited until he was closer to call out his name. When I did he looked at me, did a double take, and gave me a huge smile. “You’re here!!” he laughed. “I thought you might have walked past, or walked here yesterday.”

“No,” I shook my head. I couldn’t really say anything else then, I could only smile. I’d felt it so strongly the day before, the fact that I hadn’t said goodbye to Mario. He was the only real friend I made on this year’s Camino- there were others I considered my Camino friends, but Mario was a true friend. It hadn’t felt right to just walk away the day before, and I regretted the decision as soon as I’d realized what I’d done. There were many reasons for walking that short day to Conques, but the most important was to see Mario again, and to spend the last day of his pilgrimage with him.

We walked to the Abbaye together and on the way we saw Jerome and Nassim, hanging out at a nearby bar. We saw others, too- the kind French men, the French Canadian couple, and more. Mario stored his pack, and we headed back out- into the rain- to find a place to eat lunch. There was a restaurant just outside of the Church square, and inside we saw Pierre and his wife (who wasn’t on the pilgrimage but had arranged to meet him here for a rest day).

Mario and I ate a huge meal- I can’t remember what I had anymore, but I know that we lingered over several courses and I had ice cream and there was bread and wine (does the rest of the meal really matter, if I had those other things?).

And then the rest of the afternoon, the rest of the day, was Camino/Chemin perfection. It seems like at least once on every pilgrimage, I have a day like this. When everything just comes together. My friends are all in one place and we spend time together and we eat great food and see beautiful things and I’m just overwhelmed by a strong feeling of happiness.

Somehow I ended up in the quiet, mostly empty dorm room in the Abbaye. Everyone else was squeezed together in one of the large bunk rooms and I was in the other, with only three other people. I rested and wrote postcards and then headed back out with Mario to find something to drink. We saw Jerome and Nassim and we all walked together and somehow ended up on the upper, covered terrace of a bar, shielded from the rain. No one else was up there and we pushed two tables together and ordered a bottle of wine. From our perch we could look down onto the streets and it seemed like every 10 minutes, Nassim would see someone he knew, shout down to them, and our group grew larger, and larger. Paul Andre and Chantal, the French Canadian couple, joined us. So did Therese, and later Georges, and we talked and laughed and I sat in the center of it all, not completely understanding all the French that was swirling around me, but for maybe the first time, not really caring.

I was included in this group, the group that had somehow become my own. It didn’t matter to any of them that I couldn’t speak French very well, in fact, it seemed that they hardly thought twice about it. I had been folded into the mix or, maybe, I’d even folded myself into this mix and once again, for just this short time, I’d found myself a Camino family. My Chemin family.

There was a communal dinner back at the Abbaye and afterwards a service in the Church, followed by an explanation of the stunning Tympanum of the Last Judgement. And following all of that, an organ concert in the church with the chance to walk around the upper levels.

It was one of those evenings that I wished could last much longer. I thought about this as I walked around the upper corridor of the Romanesque church, Pierre Soulages’ stained glass glowing gray and blue and even orange, the organ pounding and filling the body of the church with a swelling, glorious sound. The music built and built and I walked out to the very center of the church and looked down and everything was glowing: the windows and the candles and the aisles and the faces of all the pilgrims: some in their seats, some in front of me and some behind me and all of us on the very same path.

It’s the sort of moment that rises above, quite literally, everything else. I felt full of something that night, full of so many things: of wine and bread and hearty French food, full of friendship and love and community, full of light and full of music and full of spirit and full of faith.

After the concert Mario and I stood outside for a few minutes, other pilgrims lingering as well, soaking up every bit of that soft night. The sky had grown dim, a dark blue, and a half moon hung, heavy, in the sky above us.

I breathed it all in, as deeply as I could. I knew that tomorrow everything would change but that night, I stayed rooted in the moment: in the center of it all, in the middle of France, in a small mountain village under the moonlight, music still in my ears, the love of my friends enveloping me. I wrapped myself in the warmth of it all, and breathed deep.

Previous Post: Day 9 on the Chemin du Puy

Next Post: Days 11, 12, 13 on the Chemin du Puy

Should I Stay or Should I Go? Day 9 on the Chemin du Puy, St-Génies des Ers to Sénergues, 22km

September 12, 2017

When I woke up on the morning of Day 9, it was raining.

It had started raining the evening before and continued through the night. There were puddles of mud in the yard. We’d forgotten to close the windows of the outer porch area where our clothes were drying, and I was dismayed to discover that my clothes were just as wet as they’d been the night before. I squinted at the sky, all I could see were dark clouds.

But the little kitchen of our gîte was warm, there was coffee, and bread, and leftover plums from the day before.

Mario and I looked through our guidebooks as we ate breakfast, and he told me his plan for the day. We were about 30km from Conques (it was hard to tell because we were on a variant, the GR-6, and the guidebook wasn’t specific), and it was a distance that Mario was going to split into two days. He was ending his pilgrimage in Conques (as were many other pilgrims), and there was no reason for him to cover the distance all in one day, especially in the rain.

I was undecided. A big part of me wanted to walk the 30km into Conques. I felt that I needed to reclaim my Chemin, break out on my own, walk a bigger stage, have my own adventure. I also knew that I needed to make up some kilometers if I wanted to arrive in Cahors in 5 day’s time (for my train reservation).

Mario was trying to talk me out of it. I knew that he wanted to have my company for the last few days of his pilgrimage, but he had other good points as well. “It’s raining,” he pointed out the window. “You’re going to walk all day in wet conditions, and arrive to Conques late in the afternoon. It’s an amazing village and you’ll wish you had more time to spend there.”

I nodded. Conques is a significant site along the Chemin du Puy; not only does it have the reputation as being the most beautiful village in France, but it has a rich history. I didn’t want my time there to be rushed, but I also knew that there was more rain in the forecast for the next day.

There was one other factor that I was weighing in my decision: if I walked the longer day, I’d not only be saying goodbye to Mario, but I would most likely be moving ahead of everyone else I’d met so far on the walk. I hadn’t seen any of them for the past few days, and it made me sad to think that I might never see them again.

I told Mario that I would make up my mind as I walked, and that I would surely see him somewhere on the path. And then I left, and he gave me a head start because he knew I wanted to walk alone.

The morning was… just okay. I don’t like walking in the rain. That’s no surprise, and I’m sure that most of you probably agree with me on this: rain just sort of dampens the whole day (haha). I just plodded along, the skies were gray, the path was muddy, rain spit at me on and off. My hood was up, I could only see the path in front of me, and I focused only on thoughts of a dry café and a hot cup of coffee. Because I was on a variant, my guidebook had no information on towns or services, so I knew that it could be a long time before I passed an open bar or café (if at all).

But to my surprise, I came upon a lovely village with signage for a café, a little grocery store, and a bakery. The place looked deserted, but I crossed my fingers as I walked through the empty square and headed towards the café. To my great delight, I saw a woman sitting inside at one of the tables, so I took off my pack, left it outside in the driest spot I could find, and went in for a café crème. The owner was kind and she asked me questions about my walk and where I was from. In turn, I asked her what she knew about the weather for the next few days, and if she had any opinions on whether I should walk all the way to Conques or not.

I still didn’t have an answer for myself, but I continued to linger over my coffee. It was nice to let my clothes dry out a little, but I was also sort of waiting for Mario. He eventually arrived (after the first 20 minutes of the morning’s walk he realized that he forgot to put money into the donation jar at our gîte, so he turned around and went back). We chatted for a few minutes, and he told me that he was definitely walking a shorter day and not going all the way to Conques.

“What are you going to do?” he asked.

I was leaning towards walking all the way to Conques, but I told him that I was sure I’d see him again at some point during the day. We’d only been walking for a couple hours, and I knew that I would probably stop again a few times. I was certain that Mario would catch up to me, even though he had a doubtful look on his face.

The rain had stopped and I felt anxious to keep moving, so I said goodbye to the café owner, waved to Mario, and headed out. Before leaving the village I found the boulangerie, and bought a fresh croissant. I ate it as I walked, flakes of pastry falling onto my white rain jacket, and I brushed them off and smiled. I was feeling energized by the coffee, comfortable now that my pants were no longer wet, satisfied with the fresh croissant, happy that I had seen my friend.

The rain continued on and off but it was never heavy, and I felt energized. I walked fast, barely taking note of the places I was passing through. After a few hours, I arrived in another small village just as the skies were beginning to clear and sunlight poured over the square. It was the perfect spot for a little lunch break, and I set up at a picnic table: my jacket and shoes and socks came off, and I positioned them in the sun so they could get a chance to dry. I filled up my water bottle at a nearby fountain, and took out my food: apricots and cheese, day old bread.

As I ate I looked at my guidebook, and when I saw where I was, I could feel my heart sink. I’d passed the place where Mario was planning to stop for the day, and I hadn’t realized it. I must have misjudged the distances or underestimated how fast I’d walked, but I knew that unless I walked backwards to find him, and if I did indeed continue on to Conques that day, I’d never see him again. We hadn’t exchanged contact info and I hadn’t even said goodbye- I’d just breezily waved at him when I left the café.

I sat at that picnic table for awhile, tilting my face up towards the sun and letting the warmth pour over me. I knew I wasn’t going to turn around, but I was hoping that Mario might decide to walk further than he planned. I kept looking over my shoulder, thinking I might see him on the path, but there was no one. In fact, I didn’t see a soul in the entire village.

I kept walking. It was just past 1:00 and the next village was less than 3km away, and it felt like I arrived in no time. It was the village of Sénergues: another small place, with a church and a bar that closed on Wednesday afternoons (guess which day it was??), a tiny cemetery and a park. There was a large gîte/inn at the entrance of town, with pale blue shutters and a beautiful terrace in the back. I circled through the town twice, and then sat down on a stoop in front of the gîte. I still hadn’t seen anyone, the village was empty, and it was barely 2:00pm.

Should I stay, or should I go? I sat there for what felt like a long time, not knowing what to do. I wanted to keep walking, I could feel it in my bones. The sky was a brilliant blue, the clouds were a shocking white, the sun was warm. There was more rain in the forecast for the afternoon- a chance of thunderstorms- but I wondered if I could beat the rain. And I didn’t know what I was going to do with an entire afternoon and evening in a deserted village with a closed bar.

But there was a lump in my throat. I hadn’t said goodbye.

And then a group of pilgrims arrived- two men and two women- and we all wondered if the gîte was open and suddenly I was walking inside with them, and inquiring about a room.

And I was given a bed in a room with no one else, in a small little private corner right next to a small little private bathroom. I took a shower and washed my clothes and hung them on the shutters in a small patch of sunlight. I walked through the town again, three more times, around and around in circles. I went to the small grocery store and bought a bag of chips and a banana and two postcards and a cold drink and took it back to the gîte, where I set up at a table on the beautiful terrace.

It began to rain after only 10 minutes, a heavy and lashing rain and I ran upstairs to my room and pulled my clothes from shutters, as the wind howled and tree branches whipped and lightening flashed through the sky.

Thank goodness I had decided to stop walking. I think I might have known, all along, that I wasn’t going to walk to Conques. I think I just needed to feel like I was making my own decisions. I’d enjoyed Mario’s company, but I needed a little time on my own, and I’d given it to myself that day. And even though I was feeling a little lonely, and a little restless, even though I wished I were still walking, I felt good about my decision.

The evening was quiet: I wrote in my journal and tried to plan out the next few days of walking. At 7:00 I went downstairs to dinner, and met other pilgrims. They were all walking in groups or pairs, all of them from France, and it was hard to understand the conversation but the food was good. There was quiche and salad, sausage and mashed potatoes, and some delicious pudding-like thing for dessert. (And bread, of course, always bread).

I went to bed early, by 9:30, tucked under the covers and with a cool breeze blowing through the room. The next day would be a short one- only 9km to Conques- and I wondered what I would find there. A beautiful village? Familiar faces? Mario? The rest of my friends? I hoped so.

Previous Post: Day 8 on the Chemin du Puy

Sprigs of lavender and a bowl of fresh plums; Day 8 on the Chemin du Puy, St-Côme d’Olt to St-Genies des-Ers, 26km

September 5, 2017

I woke up in the gîte in St-Côme d’Olt feeling like I had gotten a really good, refreshing sleep. In fact, it was probably the best sleep that I’d gotten so far on the trip, and I could feel the effects of that throughout the day: I was energized, happy, and able to walk and walk and walk.

And that’s what I did- or, at least, that’s what it felt like I did.

I suppose the 26km distance wasn’t incredibly long, not compared to what I’ve done before, but Day 8’s walk wasn’t flat; in fact, it was anything but flat.

Mario and I decided to opt out of taking the morning detour that would lead pilgrims along a rather flat path bordering the Lot river. This detour was supposed to be pretty, but it was no comparison to the main route of the Chemin, which would climb steeply for several kilometers (and then descend almost as steeply). Why climb unnecessarily? For the views, of course!

The morning was perfect: blue skies, warm but not-yet-hot sunshine, low humidity. I felt strong on the ascent to the Vierge de Vernus (the statue pictured above), and then just as good on the walk back down. It also helped that things moved a little more slowly with a walking companion. Mario’s pace was similar to mine, but whenever you’re walking with someone, the journey always seems to take a little longer. He would stop for a photo, then I would stop for a photo. He would point out a large cobweb, I would stop to admire the view. With a lot more stopping and starting, it was like I had little breaks built in (when I walk alone I always take photos, but I usually just slow my walk down to a ‘pause’, and begin again just as quickly).

But by the time we got to Espalion, I was feeling a little restless. Maybe that’s not the right word, I’m not sure what the right word is. I’d had fun walking with Mario, but I was also craving a walk to myself. I know, I know, I’d been walking alone ever since Hilary left, but these walks are completely different when you’re with someone vs when you’re alone. At least, the feeling changes completely for me; it’s a different experience. I knew that Mario would respect whatever I wanted to do- continue walking with him or continue on alone- but I also sensed that he liked my company, and maybe that he expected that we’d continue on together.

So it was back to the drawing board for me- isn’t this always the case? I continue to come back to the Camino, in part, for the camaraderie and to make strong connections with like-minded people, and some of my very best moments have been in the company of the friends I’ve made. And yet, and yet, I lose my sense of freedom and that pure feeling of adventure when I’m with someone else. I don’t have time to crawl into my head, to think my big thoughts, to write essays and books in my imagination, to go wherever I please.

The truth is, I want both of these experiences, and that can sometimes leave me conflicted.

So, on this day, I tried to have a little of both. When we were in the small town of Espalion, I turned to Mario and said, “I think I’m going to find a coffee somewhere and then continue on a bit by myself.”

We were going to stay in the same place again that night so I knew I’d be seeing him later anyway- but that, too, was leaving me feeling conflicted. He’d found a gîte that was similar to the one we’d stayed in the night before, and I was beginning to wonder whose Chemin I’d decided to walk that day. Where did I want to go, where did I want to stay? I wasn’t really sure.

In any case, I had a coffee, I bought a ham and cheese sandwich and then I left town, alone.

And it felt really good. After a few kilometers there was an unexpected (to me) REALLY steep climb, it felt like the most difficult part of the Chemin so far. I don’t think the climb was actually all that long but it felt like it stretched on forever, and I couldn’t figure out why I hadn’t yet arrived to the top.

But finally I did, and there was a cooling wind and a wide landscape and I could feel the energy returning to my legs. I walked fast, eating my sandwich as I went, smiling as I passed other pilgrims.

Before long I ran into Mario and a few others, resting at a church. I stopped there too, to douse my buff in cold water and to use the bathroom and to eat a juicy peach. From here, Mario and I continued walking together and once again the day shifted and, finally, I let go of trying to control the experience I was having.

And as soon as I did, I could feel myself relax. We told jokes and laughed, we plucked sprigs of lavender from a bush along the path and tucked them behind our ears. We passed through gorgeous little villages and chatted with other pilgrims.

In Estaing, we stopped for a break and I saw two pilgrims who I’d met on the 2nd and 3rd day of my walk, and who I hadn’t seen since. They were two men from Nantes, both were kind but one always seemed to want to make sure that I was having a good time, that I was understanding things, that I was finding the walk through France to be beautiful. (I sometimes think that, as Americans, we’ve generalized the French as being cold or haughty or unfriendly… or maybe just disinterested. But walking the Chemin proves just the opposite: I met some of the warmest, most generous people on the Chemin du Puy, the Man from Nantes being one of them).

Estaing was another beautiful, charming and completely idyllic town, but Mario and I weren’t staying there. Once again, just as I had the day before, I felt a pang of regret when I saw how nice the town was. I’d agreed to continue walking, and to take a detour away from the main path of the Camino, so while most of the people I’d gotten to know were stopping in Estaing, Mario and I were continuing on.

We were hit with yet another steep climb. The day had grown hot, it was 4:00pm and I should have been tired… but I wasn’t. Looking back, this might have been the strongest I felt on any day on the Chemin, and when Mario and I finally made it to our destination, overall I felt good. Did it matter that I was still conflicted on whether I wanted to walk alone or with a friend, did it matter that I’d chosen not to stay in every idyllic village that I passed along the way?

Maybe it only mattered that I was healthy, and strong, and walking in good company.

Back in Estaing, Mario had picked up grocery supplies because the place we were staying in didn’t provide dinner, and when we arrived we found a large house with a small addition where we’d be sleeping. There was a well equipped kitchen and the owner of the house, Caro, made sure we had everything we needed, and brought over a bottle of red wine and a loaf of bread for the morning. There was a friendly dog, a plum tree, and a large tent in the backyard (which would have been a pretty cool place to spend the night but a storm blew in and I was happy to have chosen to sleep indoors).

Mario had picked up four bottles of beer while we were in Estaing (he chose a kind that he thought I would like, noticing that I’d mentioned I wasn’t much of a beer drinker. Once again, more proof of the kindness and generosity of the French!), and we shared it with Caro while he and Mario talked about their philosophies of life. I didn’t feel quite as frustrated that I couldn’t completely follow the conversation- and it might have been because Caro’s accent was easier for me to understand (or maybe my French was improving??)- and if anything I really enjoyed listening to the guys talk. After Caro left we made a late dinner- I chopped veggies while Mario threw together a stir fry, and we talked about the reasons that we were walking, the questions in our lives, the things we believed in.

At the end of the night I felt like I had made a friend. A real, true friend and even though it didn’t solve my ‘walk alone/walk with others’ dilemma (oh just wait for the next post), it only reaffirmed my feeling that I didn’t need to figure everything out. How would I spend the rest of my walk? In that moment, it didn’t matter.

Because I had spent my day well.

Previous Post: Day 7 on the Chemin du Puy

Next Post: Day 9 on the Chemin du Puy

On the Outskirts; Day 7 on the Chemin du Puy, Aubrac to St-Côme-d’Olt, 24km

August 26, 2017

And we’re back on the Chemin du Puy! These blog posts sure are rolling out slowly (is anyone still reading? Wait, forget I asked, because the answer doesn’t really matter; I think I’d probably write out these recaps even if no one read them. I love revisiting my walks!).

But already the Chemin feels awfully long ago, and the details are becoming a little hazy. That became really clear when I started to think about how to write this post, and what to say about Day 7. Sometimes I use my journal entries to trigger memories from the day, but there’s no journal entry for Day 7. I looked at my photos, and while this helped, nothing really jumped out at me. It was a mostly gray day, there were some nice looking trees, and at one point I had a decent view of a town I’d passed through from across the valley.

Not really exciting stuff for a blog post.

Was the walk easy or hard, did I encounter anyone interesting, did I have any conversations, what did I eat? How was my mood- was I feeling energized and happy, or was I feeling a little off and a little slow?

Selfie with pilgrim statue; Chemin du Puy

I met this interesting guy…

I look through the photos again: ah, parts are coming back now. I remember that as I walked into a town, I saw a small rainbow in the sky, and it made me so happy. I had a coffee in that town, too, a café crème and I must have been in a café on the outer edge of town because there were no other pilgrims there, and no one passed by.

Later in the day, I stopped at a small shelter, this little covered space that had a round wooden table filled with the types of things that pilgrims might want in the middle of a long day. A carafe of coffee, a jug of orange juice. There was a register to sign our names, and benches and chairs to rest our feet. Jerome was here, the French man who’d been at our table last night, and again he was smiling and laughing and talking to everyone. There was a group of French women, and then another solo French woman and I said hi but kept pretty quiet. I remember that I’d wanted a break, but also that I felt like being alone.

There’s a small story that goes along with this photo (I told it over on the Instagram account for Nadine Walks, and if you follow that link you can get there and see other photos from my walks). So, I was snapping a few photos of the shelter area when one of the French women motioned for my camera and told me that she was going to take my photo. I didn’t protest, and stood sort of awkwardly by the table. But as soon as the others saw me getting my photo taken, they began to get out of the way. “No!” the French woman called out. “It will look sad if she’s in the photo all alone!” I said something in French, I think I was trying to say that I didn’t want anyone to be bothered or feel like they had to move, but I think what I’d actually said must have been something along the lines of: “Yes, please, I want to be all alone and sad in this photo” because everyone continued to move out and wait until the photo shoot was done so they could move back in.

I’m laughing a little at this now, but I remember at the time feeling frustrated that I couldn’t communicate as well as I wanted to, and just not feeling at ease around the other pilgrims I was meeting that day.

But this has been a pattern over all of these walks, hasn’t it? Some days I know that I want to be alone, and after hours of walking solo, it’s hard for me to readjust and be back around other people.

Speaking of being back with other people, towards the very end of the day I ran into Mario. I saw him from a bit of a distance, sitting with an older man at a table of another little pilgrim rest stop. He was wearing his bright orange shirt- that, along with his dark beard, made me recognize him. I hadn’t seen him since the morning of Day 2, and I assumed that I’d never see him again. He was walking big days, and I imagined that he would have been far ahead at that point.

I hesitated just a moment before going over- I was still feeling a little off and not exactly in the mood to do much talking- but I shook the feeling away and went over with a big smile. To this day, running into friends unexpectedly is one of my very favorite things about the Camino. I think sometimes we are meant to meet people again.

When Mario saw me he sat up with a start, and soon a big smile of his own was covering his face. “I didn’t think I’d see you again!” he said, his voice both happy and a bit incredulous.

It turns out that we’d both booked beds in the same place that night- Gîte L’Antidote. I took a closer look at my guidebook and realized that our Gîte was actually on the outskirts of Saint-Côme-d’Olt, and that I wouldn’t get to stay in the town at all. And once we arrived in the town, I could feel my heart sink a bit. It was such a beautiful place, with winding cobble-stoned roads, charming squares, fountains, the works. I saw Nassim and a few others from the day before and they were all staying in the municipal Gîte, and suddenly I was sad that I wasn’t there, too. I was missing out on a great town, and I worried that- even with Mario- I was going to feel a little isolated at our Gîte on the outskirts.

In the end, it was yet another very different kind of Chemin experience. We had a little trouble finding the Gîte- it was in a residential area and we must have come from the wrong side because we completely missed the signage. And soon I realized it was in a residential area for a reason: we were in someone’s residence. I suppose it was a little like the place where I’d last seen Mario, the Gîte on the outskirts of Saint-Privat-d’Allier, where we stayed in a lofted attic area of someone’s home.

It was a similar thing here; Laurent welcomed us and after nearly an hour sitting outside and drinking syrup water (all I wanted to do was go inside and take a shower but the other two seemed content to sit and talk), we got the tour. He pointed out his son’s room and asked that we not go inside, showed us the bathroom that I can only assume was also used by his family, and then we went upstairs to the attic, where there were 8 beds spread across the room.

It turns out that Mario and I were the only ones staying there that night, and dinner was the two of us plus Laurent and his wife. We were all in our 30’s, sitting around a table outside, eating salad, and stew, and drinking wine and talking and I didn’t feel like I was on the Chemin at all. Or, maybe, it was a different kind of Chemin, maybe it was even more in the spirit of what the Camino used to be like, hundreds of years ago, when pilgrims would knock on a door and hope to find a bed for the night, maybe a little food, too.

But, as usual, I couldn’t appreciate the situation fully because of my French skills. Mario was really good at sometimes translating things for me and making sure I wasn’t totally in the dark about what was going on, but it was still a little frustrating. I wanted to understand everything, I wanted to talk more, I wanted to understand more about these people and why they have opened their home to strangers. I wanted to know more about their son, a three-year old boy with fine hair that curled against his neck, who was running around the yard, shouting and waving his water gun and getting dangerously close to our clothes that were drying on the line.

That night, as Mario and I sprawled on beds on opposite sides of the room, we started air-dropping photos to each other. “Here’s a good one!” Mario said, and ping! A photo of the lake he’d swam in yesterday appeared on my phone. “And here’s a photo of sunrise on the morning when I’d last seen you,” I said, and for the next 20 minutes, photos zinged back and forth across the room. We started laughing- Mario accidentally sent me a photo that I’d sent to him a few minutes earlier, and then we started laughing harder as we realized that our heads were sinking into the plastic covering of our pillows and that it was actually the most uncomfortable thing ever.

We giggled in the dark and all I could think was how strange it is to walk a Chemin, or a Camino. I could walk alone all day and feel a little out of place- the sad girl alone in a photo- but then find myself in the attic of someone’s home in the middle of France, laughing with a new friend, joking like we were children.

So, Day 7 was complete, I was halfway through my adventure on the Chemin du Puy. (What does the next half bring? Hopefully I’ll get these posts out a little more quickly, but here’s a sneak peek: RAIN).

Previous Post: Day 6 on the Chemin du Puy

Next Post: Day 8 on the Chemin du Puy

A Girl in a Tower; Day 6 on the Chemin du Puy, Aumont-Aubrac to Aubrac, 36km

August 8, 2017

If I’d gotten what I’d needed on my 5th day of walking (a German walking companion, a delicious baguette eaten in a park, a private room in a clean gîte, etc), then I also got what I needed on my 6th day of walking. It just looked a little different.

The day before had been a short one- only 8km! To balance things out a bit I countered that with a 36km day and even though this is a distance I’ve done before (many times, by now), I was just a touch nervous. Now I’m not even sure why, but I suppose it could have been because I had been doing much shorter days up until that point. And I was “in between” things, at least it felt that way: everyone I’d met in the previous 5 days was ahead of me, and I knew that my long day would probably catch me up, but I wasn’t sure. Two years before, when I walked the Camino del Norte, I’d somehow gotten myself very off stage and was in a strange “in between” zone for about 3 days. I’d met tons of great people over two weeks of walking, but suddenly I was alone in albergues and seeing no one on the path, and I guess I didn’t want a repeat of that here, on the Chemin.

After another breakfast of toast and yogurt and fruit and coffee, I set off. The morning was clear and blue and cool. It was the most beautiful morning so far, and I think I must have walked with a smile on my face. I passed churches and little stone chapels, fields of sheep and lines of cows.

I was walking through the Aubrac Plateau, an incredibly unique and- for me- completely unexpected landscape of the Chemin du Puy. It also had a special kind of energy, and I wasn’t the only one who thought so. Later, I would hear pilgrims say that it was their favorite part of the walk (mine, too), that some could feel great weights being lifted from their shoulders, others could do nothing but cry under the great and open sky.

There is a bit of a mystical legend associated with the area; in 1120, a pilgrim named Adalard was on his way to Santiago and was attacked but, surprisingly, was left unharmed. Because of this he vowed to build a monastery on the site, so that future pilgrims could find a place of safety and comfort. He did build the monastery- the Dômerie of Aubrac- and the friars decided to clear the forested land around it in order to breed sheep, for cheese (these sheep eventually gave way to cattle, which are now famous for this region). And this land, cleared by the friars of a monastery built by a pilgrim in the 12th century, remains a plateau: wide and open and expansive and a little wild.

I could feel that there was something special going on in this land. I didn’t feel a great weight lifted from my shoulders or break down in tears; for me it was something different. I smiled. I couldn’t stop smiling, in fact, I was laughing and dancing and spinning in circles as I walked down the trail. I felt so happy out there in the sunshine and under that big, blue sky. My legs pumped with incredible energy and I didn’t want to stop walking.

It’s this kind of feeling that I love when I’m on these treks: an unexpected day or moment, when the sun is shining and a wind is blowing and the air feels perfect on my skin. The landscape opens up and I’m all alone, and I’m walking strong and fast and sure. I’m free but I’m grounded, I can see all the way to the horizon and I know that all I have to do, my only task, is to continue walking as far as I can see.

I took a few breaks during the day but mostly I just walked, and walked, and walked. I felt good for nearly the entire day, up until the last few kilometers, and then a little fatigue set in. But soon the path was twisting and began to dip down and further ahead I could see a small village, with a church spire and a few buildings and a tower.

I didn’t connect the dots immediately- not until I walked into the village and stood at the base of the tower and saw other pilgrims. “Oh,” I thought to myself, “I’m staying in something called La Tour des Anglais… but I didn’t realize it was actually going to be a tower.”

It was. But before I could even step inside I saw so many people that I knew: Nassim (the kind man who gave Hilary and I some cherries a few days before) ran over to me and excitedly told me that he’d seen my name on the list of people staying in the tower, and that I was assigned to a bunk in his room. Then I saw the Quebecois couple, Paul Andre and Chantal, who I’d briefly met at a rest stop. With them was Therese, and coming down the stairs was Marie-Lou. (Aside from Nassim, I hadn’t actually learned everyone’s names at this point- they were all familiar to me but only just beginning to become the people I’d get to know on my walk).

I figured out how to check-in and pay for my bed and dinner and breakfast, and then finally made it up to my room. I couldn’t get over it- I was staying in a tower! A tower built in the 15th century and now serves the pilgrims who pass through on their way to Santiago. I wound up the spiral stairs, into a cavernous room with thick stone walls and picked a top bunk (the only beds left) by the window. I stuck my head out the window: below me were pilgrims milling about, to the left was the church, ahead were fields and countryside.

After the usual chores I walked over to the restaurant where we’d be eating that night, and sitting outside on a small terrace were the two French women I’d shared a room with a few nights before (whose names, unfortunately, I never learned or else have forgotten). They waved me over and soon we were joined by Katherine, the German woman, and the four of us sat and drank wine and talked about the day. We spoke in French, but the two French women made an effort to speak slowly and clearly (and I’m just now realizing how much of a difference this made for me- nearly everyone I met on my walk was so kind, but not everyone spoke slowly or clearly and often that made it difficult for me to understand).

There was a group of 9 of us for dinner: the four of us were joined by Nassim (a Moroccan man living in Belgium), Marie-Lou (a French woman in her 60’s), Jerome (a French man probably in his 30’s/40’s), Georges (a French man in his 60’s, who I’d sat next to at dinner on our first night in Le Puy), and Irmhild (a German woman in her 50’s). We spoke French, but because Irmhild, Katherine and I weren’t fluent, the conversation was slower and easier to follow, and sometimes Nassim would jump in and speak English.

And it was such a good, good night. Aside from the two French women, the rest of us were doing the Chemin solo, and I think it’s special to find a group of other solo walkers to spend time with, especially walkers who haven’t really hooked up with a group of their own. It made me feel less isolated, less uncomfortable speaking French or not understanding the conversation. I felt like I was folded into the mix: I asked Georges questions about the other Camino’s he’s walked and he was so happy to tell me his stories. Nassim poured us all more wine, Irmhild laughed and taught me a few German words.

I marveled at how different this evening felt that the previous two: the night before, when I didn’t know anyone in my gîte and ate a restaurant alone, and the night before that, when I was surrounded by people but felt quite alone.

After dinner I found a quiet corner in the bar area of the restaurant and wrote in my journal, and by the time I headed back to my tower the sun had just disappeared behind the horizon. The sky was full of soft hues: the lightest pinks and blues and purples. I went up to the top floor of the tower- as high as I could get- and leaned out the window.

A girl in the top room of a tower in the French countryside- it was like a fairy tale.

I smiled. Just like I’d been doing all day, I smiled.

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You Get What You Need: Day 5 on the Chemin du Puy, Les Estrets to Aumont-Aubrac, 8km

July 17, 2017

Today, I only walked 8km.

This was all according to plan, but I have to say that initially, I was not pleased. 8km? That’s less than what I typically do after work when I walk around my neighborhood. And this was a day on the Chemin!

But I was doing it out of necessity. One of my previous posts mentioned the trouble around Nasbinals, the town that was hosting a road race for hundreds or thousands of people who had taken all the hotel/gîte rooms.

So my solution around this was to do a really short day, and stop in Aumont-Aubrac, where I had been able to find a bed in a gite. And the following day, I would walk 35km to make up for the shorter day. Now that was the part of the plan I liked: a long day, a physical challenge.

8km, on the other hand, would pass by in the blink of an eye. I tried to linger- I really did- I savored a second cup of coffee, I took a long time lacing my shoes, I was the last to leave my gîte in the morning.

And as I walked, I stopped to take photos and to try to enjoy the view. But my feet felt restless, and I was distracted. When I arrived in Aumont-Aubrac, what in the world was I going to do? I was going to have the entire day at my disposal, I was all alone, and all I really wanted to do was walk.

I was deep in these thoughts when suddenly the boy in the red shirt with the big pack appeared at the side of the trail. There was no avoiding him this time- he started walking just a pace behind me- but I wasn’t in the same mood as the day before. I decided that I might as well say hi and try to be friendly.

It turns out that he wasn’t French afterall- he was German and his name was Sten, a name that means ‘stone’. Even though he could speak English we spoke in French, and I found that I didn’t mind. In fact, I kind of enjoyed it: our levels were pretty evenly matched, and it was so much easier to speak with him than with a native French speaker. We both made mistakes and often had to search for the right word. He spoke slowly and I could understand him easily.

Sten had to catch a bus in Aumont-Aubrac at 9:40am; he had already walked a couple of the upcoming stages so he was going to skip over the sections he had already done. This meant that he had to walk fast in order to catch the bus, but I was able to easily match his pace. It felt good to stretch my legs like this, to move quickly down the trail, to talk easily with the person at my side.

The only downside of walking with someone like this was that I arrived at my destination by 9:20am. We went to a cafe and Sten bought me a coffee, but before I knew it he was standing and shaking my hand and saying how nice it had been to meet me, then was running off to catch his bus.

I watched him go, and then smiled. The interaction had been just what I’d needed, just enough to shake me out of my loneliness over saying goodbye to Hilary, enough to bring me back into the world of the Chemin. And as I sat in the cafe, I watched as people I knew filtered in and out. They came over and said hi, Pierre sat with me while he waited for Stephanie, the young Quebecoise girl. Katherine, a blond German women who had been in the samegîte as I had the night before, talked to me about how out of place she’d felt at dinner. “Really?” I said. “You looked so comfortable.”

“I wasn’t,” she replied. “I try to speak in French but it’s really hard.”

Eventually they all left, on to other towns and other gîtes (most of them had found beds in a gîte that was a bit off the main path of the Chemin. I’d tried to get a bed there as well, but had been too late).

I walked around the small town to get my bearings. It wasn’t a large place, just one main street with several restaurants and shops, a main square full of cafes, a church, a park. I found a boulangerie and bought a sandwich to eat for lunch, I stopped by an epicierie to load up on snacks for the next day.

In the park I settled into a picnic table in the shade, opened up my guidebook, and mapped out a plan for the next several days. I made phone calls too (this was one of my least favorite parts of walking the Chemin; calling ahead to book gîtes meant that I not only had to talk on phone, something I don’t even enjoy doing in English, but I had to speak in French which was still kind of nerve-wracking).

I looped through the town a few more times and then around 1:00 decided to see if I could get into my gîte. I was suprised to see that the door wasn’t locked, and that in the hallway on the bottom floor was a note that said to leave my shoes and pack downstairs, and then go upstairs to see which bed I had been assigned to. The hospitalera would be by in the evening to take our money and stamp our credentials, and in the meantime there were notes and signs all around, instructing us on what to do.

The gîte was perfect. Sometimes on the Camino and on the Chemin you get just what you need, and this had been happening to me all day. The place was clean and bright and modern and spacious. We were in a narrow apartment building and the gîte was spread out over three floors. Above the entryway and downstairs hallway was a floor with a sitting room and the kitchen, along with a couple of bedrooms. And the floor above was where I was staying. There were several rooms up here, too, and I was staying in a room with four beds. Since I was the first to arrive in my room, I could have my pick of beds, and I discovered that my room was actually split into two spaces. One had three beds, and another- behind a curtain- had one bed and a little desk by a large window. It’s like it was meant for me! Maybe it was.

The bathroom was large and clean, there was a rack to dry my clothes outside on the small balcony (set up in the sunshine), there was a fridge where I could keep my fruit and yogurt, there was an outlet right next to my bed where I could plug in my phone. This was gîte paradise.

The rest of the day was slow, relaxing, restorative. The other three beds in my room remained empty, the other pilgrims never showed up. The hospitalera, when she arrived, was so kind and helpful; she gave me the names of other gîtes along the way that she thought I might like, and gave me some advice about the trail for the next day. I met another pilgrim who was also staying in the gite- a guy from the Netherlands who had been carrying a big guitar down the trail. In the afternoon he played for us, slow Spanish flamenco music, the sound filled the rooms and floated down the hallways and out the windows and I was so relaxed I almost fell asleep in my chair.

There was no demi-pension at the gîte so in the evening I went out to one of the restaurants nearby. I wanted something simple so I ordered a goat cheese salad and a glass of wine and I should have known that my salad would be anything but simple: there was the goat cheese over toasted bread slices, yes, but also tomatoes and corn and carrots and peppers and lardons and grilled onions and slivers of garlic.

After dinner I walked through the town again, just to stroll through the streets and stretch my legs before bed. I found my way to the church, stained-glass glowing, empty pews, a line of lit candles and I added my own, giving up a small prayer of thanks for the day, for getting what I needed, for feeling renewed and refreshed and ready for what would come next.

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And there goes our shuttle; Day 4 on the Chemin du Puy, Le Sauvage to Estrets, 21km

July 14, 2017

Here is the image that stands out the most from Day 4 of the Chemin du Puy: standing next to a small chapel in the middle of nowhere, waving our arms wildly at the shuttle hurtling down the road, watching as it passed us by without even slowing down. This was Hilary’s ride back to Le Puy.

But let me back up for a minute. We started our morning in Le Sauvage, eating breakfast after nearly everyone had already finished and headed off for the day. We were in no hurry because Hilary’s shuttle wouldn’t arrive until 11:10am. We would have to walk just a bit- 4km- to the place where the shuttle made its pick-ups; usually shuttles come to the gites, or some central place in town, but since we were in the middle of a field and the only roads were gravely and sandy, the man at La Malle Postale (luggage delivery and shuttle service) told me that the pick-up was 4km away, at the Chapelle de St Roch.

I’d made the shuttle reservation before leaving for France, and then confirmed it in La Malle Postale’s office in Le Puy at the start of our journey. So I wasn’t really worried unil we we met a couple who were also lingering over breakfast. The woman told us that they were also getting picked up by the shuttle- at 11:20- but their pick-up was at the gîte.

This seemed a bit strange, and Hilary and I laughed about that fact that she was going to walk for an hour, only to be picked up by a shuttle that would most likely be taking her right back to where she’d started walking an hour before. But we shrugged it off and walked on, and finally the morning was cool and almost crisp, the path running through a forest track that was quiet and peaceful and beautiful.

We got to the chapelle an hour early, and had plenty of time to eat snacks and for Hilary’s to rearrange her bag, and to sit and talk about the last few days of our journey together. As 11:10 approached we gathered our things and stood as close to the road as possible. We waited, and waited, and I didn’t start to get really anxious until about 11:15. The minutes ticked past and finally, at 11:20, we saw a white van approaching.

“That must be it!” I said, but the vehicle didn’t seem to be slowing down- in fact, I swear it was gaining speed as it drove past. We waved frantically and I’m pretty sure some of the passengers must have seen us but the driver just stared straight ahead, and we watched as the shuttle faded from view.

I immediately got on the phone with La Malle Postale’s office and didn’t even attempt to speak in French as I explained what had just happened. The guy in the office put me on hold as he made a call to another driver who was out in our area, and luckily, in about 5 minutes another shuttle came by and pulled over to pick up Hilary.

I’m still not sure exactly what happened- later, Hilary told me that the driver of her shuttle said that she was lucky that the office had called him and that he was nearby. That first shuttle was the one she was supposed to be on, and it was clear that the driver had no idea he was supposed to pick someone up (although, two girls on the side of the road waving their arms wildly would have been a good tip off…). Something must have gotten mixed up with my reservation, but with an email confirmation AND an in-person confirmation of the date and the time of pick-up, I have no idea what the mix-up was.

In any case, after a long hug and holding back some tears, Hilary got on the shuttle and I watched as it drove away. And man, did I feel strange and alone. It’s worse than the feeling you get when you leave your walking stick behind: it’s like a vital part of my pilgrimage was no longer with me, and I would have to figure out how to carry on without it.

I wasn’t even totally alone just then- a few minutes before Hilary got on the shuttle, a young guy in a red shirt and large backpack had walked up to the chapel and was taking a break there. After Hilary left I saw him lingering but I waited until he packed up and moved on. I was in no mood to meet someone new or try to speak in French or anything else. I just needed a little time to be on my own and to miss Hilary and to adjust to Phase 2 of my pilgrimage.

To be honest, the rest of the day was… off. I didn’t feel particulary strong as I walked, the day grew hot, I was indecisive. I passed through a town that felt abandoned and strange, and even though I was hungry and needed to pick up something for lunch, I walked past several open cafes, not wanting to go inside. I sat in the shade by the church, knowing I should take off my shoes and rest for awhile, but I felt restless. I saw the guy in the red shirt again and still didn’t want to even attempt to say hi.

Eventually I got myself a sandwich and ate it on bench in the shade just outside of town, and then I kept walking, and the day continued to be off. Right on cue, it seemed, dark clouds suddenly rolled in and I was walking at a bit of elevation and without much cover. I was so focused on the clouds and listening to the rumbles of thunder in the distance that I took a wrong turn and got myself off of the Chemin. I think I was happy to be on a path that was heading away from the clouds and towards a patch of blue sky that I didn’t realize I was no longer going the right way. But the Chemin is well marked and after awhile I realized I hadn’t seen the red and white striped waymarkers for quite a long time. Feeling defeated, I turned around and had to trudge back uphill, towards those dark clouds.

I saw one bolt of lightening and that’s when I got scared. Several days before, Mario had warned me about getting stuck in a thunderstorm and now here I was, alone and off-track with a storm brewing. I found the most tucked away spot that I could and crouched down and waited for awhile, unsure of what else to do. Was it safe to keep walking? Was it safe to stay here?

Finally, when I hadn’t heard a rumble of thunder for several minutes and it seemed as though the clouds were beginning to move away, I started walking. I found the Chemin, I continued on, and as luck would have it, not 10 minutes further down the trail was a shelter made of branches and sticks! There were wooden stumps inside and a sign that welcomed pilgrims and I hunkered down in here until I was sure that the threat of the storm had fully passed.

I was actually fairly close to my gîte and arrived after only another 30 minutes of walking. I was staying in another beautiful spot: a large stone building with a big lawn and plenty of space to hang laundry. There was a cozy space inside to sit and read, and you could “order” a drink and the hospitalera would bring it to you from the kitchen. I was sharing a 4 bed room with two other women, and even though I was probably the last to arrive in the gîte, I still had time to shower, wash my clothes and have a glass of wine before dinner.

But dinner was difficult without Hilary. I think I was feeling sad that she was gone, and suddenly self-conscious about speaking French. I was sitting at a table with such nice people-Pierre, who I’d met the day before- was there, so was a young girl from Quebec, and two brothers, and the kind women I was sharing a room with. But the French was spoken so quickly, the voices jumbling together and it was so difficult for me to keep up, to understand what was going on. I felt isolated, sitting at the end of the table and hoping the meal would be over quickly so that I wouldn’t have to keep feeling so awkward, and out of place.

Mostly, I think I needed a little time to transition into this now solo journey, a little time to adjust to being alone and speaking French and needing to meet people and make friends. I tried to remind myself that it doesn’t happen all at once.

Sleep that night was restful, and in the morning the two women I was with agreed: the way to go was to try to stay in a room without men, to be assured of no snoring! (I know it’s no guarantee, but throughout the night we were all quiet as mice, and it was such a relief to get some sound sleep).

Stay tuned for the next post: no room at the Inn, so I need to come up with a plan of how to walk the next few days AND find a bed for the night.

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