trekking Archives - Nadine Walks

Is it just me or is this ‘easy’ section actually quite difficult? Day 1 on the Chemin Le Puy, Le Puy en Velay to Combriaux, 25.5km

June 24, 2017

I wrote about half of this four days ago, and am just now getting around to finishing and publishing. So these posts are going to be delayed and maybe not quite in real time, but I still hope to write as much as I can!

It’s nearly 10:00pm and I’m just now attempting a blog post; I don’t think much is going to get written tonight. Hilary (that’s my cousin, who’s walking the first 3 days of the Chemin Le Puy with me) and I didn’t do a super long day- just 25km- but it was the first day and it was oh so hot and maybe there was still some jet lag and last night I couldn’t sleep so all of this adds up to a lot of fatigue.

I meant to get a blog post written this afternoon but, as you can probably guess, that didn’t even come close to happening. Because what happened instead was the Camino.

Can we even call it a Camino? We’re in France, so the ‘way’ is ‘Le Chemin’ and not ‘Le Camino’ but to me, I can’t call this anything other than a Camino. (So I wrote that a few days ago and already I’m getting used to saying ‘Le Chemin’- how quickly we adapt!).

So this is the recap, for anyone who may not have caught up with my previous post: I’m in France (got here on Sunday morning), and I started walking the Chemin Le Puy today (Tuesday). Hilary is with me until Friday morning and then I’ll continue on for another week and a half.

There’s a lot I could talk about from the past few days, just the whole process of getting down to Le Puy en Velay and being back in France, in Europe. It feels really great to be here, almost like I never left (which is maybe what starts to happen when you travel to the same places a lot?). We spent a night in Paris, staying in my favorite hostel, the MIJE. I was showing Hilary around all my favorites spots and I had to really smile at how I knew my way around the streets: this is where I buy groceries, this is a good cafe, that’s the best boulangerie. I can only do this in one small corner of Paris but to be able to do it at all? It felt pretty special.

There were some initial bumps, the small bits of culture shock that still happen. How do I set up a SIM card? Why is my phone ringing? How do I answer in French? Why does my pack feel so heavy? (this is a question that gets asked every single year).

But after settling in a bit, strolling though Paris and eating ice cream in the shade along the Seine, and getting good and solid sleep, I felt more ready to tackle this French adventure.

We took a train, then another train, then a bus and finally arrived in Le Puy en Velay. I figured out what to do with my extra luggage, I confirmed a shuttle reservation for Hilary. We walked through the town, up the winding, cobblestones streets, and into the cathedral where we bought our credentials. The cathedral is amazing, it sits at nearly the top of the town and you have to walk up dozens and dozens of stairs in order to enter through the arched portal. But it’s really when you turn back and look out onto the town you’ve walked up from that you can feel how majestic the position really is. You almost feel on top of the world.

We ate a communal dinner with other pilgrims (nearly all conversation was in French, something I’m going to have to get used to), then headed back to the cathedral to watch a light show. This meant we were up well past a pilgrim bedtime, not getting into bed until nearly midnight.

But despite the lack of sleep, today was a solid first day. Full. Tough. Hot. Beautiful. At times hilarious. We attended a 7am mass in the cathedral which was followed by a benediction for all the pilgrims starting that day and wow, it was quite a group. It was a special way to start a pilgrimage: we were all given a small medallion and a prayer, rosary beads if we wanted them, and many well wishes and ‘Bon Chemins’.

At first I struggled to remember what it was like to be on a pilgrimage. Hilary and I made our way down the steep street and at the bottom, paused. What, exactly, were we looking for? Oh yeah, didn’t we see a scallop shell on the pavement the day before? So we were off, following the shells, heading west, heading straight up a hill. We were breathing heavily in no time and my pack felt heavy but this is how a Camino begins. This is how it always begins.

9am and suddenly it was very, very hot. And only going to get hotter: we started our Camino in a heat wave. But despite the heat it was a really beautiful first day, and quickly signs of the Camino returned: winding dirt roads. Small chapels. Pilgrim rest stops on the side of the trail.

Most people end the first day in Saint-Privat but I’d chosen a gîte in Combriaux, a hamlet just another kilometer or two further along the trail. We made the wise decision to stop in Saint-Privat for an ice cream, and then continued on for a short section that our guidebook promised would be easy, and yet was deceptively difficult (but maybe that’s just ‘end of the first day on the Camino’ type stuff? Who knows, but a hill at the end of any day is never very welcome).

The gîte experience is a new one for me: gîtes are like albergues but are generally privately run, with smaller, shared rooms that hold 4-6 people (or so). Some gîtes are private homes, with a section of the house open to pilgrims. Nearly all gîtes offer a demi-pension, which provides a bed for the night, a communal dinner, and the typical breakfast of coffee, bread and jam before you leave for the day (I’m finding costs for demi-pensions to be between 30-35 euros; more expensive than Spain but overall a great bargain).

Our first gîte was quite an experience. We stayed in the home of a Welsh man and his wife (and daughter too, possibly?). Elfed offered us a drink then showed us upstairs to our room, which was basically up in an attic (all the rooms were up here, partitioned off with plywood and curtains). There were three beds in our room but Hilary and I had it to ourselves, in the space next to us was Mario (who, despite his name, was French), and at the end of the space were Marc and Veronique.

Just as we finished taking showers and washing our clothing a storm rolled through (this would be a theme of the first few days of the trip), so we were all ushered inside. Elfed kept the wine flowing and later served us a feast: vegetable soup, tomatoes and cheese and capers and olives (it sounds simple but oh, those French ingredients!), lentils de Le Puy (a regional classic) with pork, bread pudding and ice cream for dessert. There was bread, too (mais oui!).

Mario spoke perfect English, and jumped back and forth between conversations with Hilary and I, and then with Marc and Veronique, and would translate and somehow kept the conversation going steadily. Just as dessert began there was an incident with a cat and a dead bird, but otherwise the meal was pretty perfect. It was a good first day on the Chemin.

Coming up next: the heat wave continues, we climb and climb and climb, we eat the best sandwiches ever.

A Race to the End; Day 5 on Hadrian’s Wall, Carlisle to Bowness-on-Solway (15-miles, 23km)

May 18, 2017

I wouldn’t recommend anyone do what Heather and I did for Day 5 of our Hadrian’s Wall walk.

The actual mileage of the day’s walk wasn’t that bad- a solid 15 miles- and the terrain was fairly (mostly? completely?) flat, with a mix of pavement and soft grass walking.

But if you read my last post, you’ll remember that I ended it with a bit of a conundrum. Due to time restraints, we only had five days to complete the 84-mile route, but the worst part about this plan was that we’d need to do the final 15-miles AND return to London all in the same day.

I knew it was going to be exhausting. We’d have to walk really fast, and then we’d have to take a bus, then a train, then the Underground, then a shuttle in order to get to our hotel by the airport.

Would it have made more sense to sleep in and enjoy a leisurely breakfast and explore the city of Carlisle before catching our train back to London?

Probably.

But I bet you can guess what Heather and I did… we walked. We walked really fast.

I can’t say that I enjoyed our last day of walking in the same way that I enjoyed the other days of our Hadrian’s Wall journey; there just wasn’t time to think, or slow down, or hesitate or pause. I took some photos, but I never lingered. And there was a lot to linger over.

The walk weaved through the same park that led us into Carlisle the day before, but due to a diversion we were rerouted out of the park and through the city. I actually enjoyed this diversion quite a bit (aside from the stress of wondering whether it was adding more mileage and time to our day’s walk); we got to pass by Carlisle’s castle, and in general got a much better sense of the city. There was a lot of countryside walking on this route, and that is wonderful, but something I’ve grown to love about these treks is that they’re not wilderness trails. We get to see it all: open countryside and wild moorland and busy towns and cities too.

We had good weather for the entire day: a mostly sunny morning, followed by a cloudy early afternoon. After Carlisle the path returns to the countryside, and passes through several small villages.

We took only one real break, 15 or 20 minutes sitting on a concrete slab in the Solway Estuary (tide was low, thankfully. You’ve got to check tide-times before walking this section, otherwise you may get stuck waiting until the tide recedes- the road is virtually impassable when the tide is high). We scarfed down food and just when I could begin to feel myself relaxing and enjoying the strange beauty of our resting spot, we needed to pack up and continue on.

The path here is all on tarmac, totally straight and it’s like that scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail (have I referenced this before? When I walk I feel like I think about it all the time…): Sir Lancelot is running through a field, ready to attack, but he keeps running and running and never gets any closer. Well, in any case, this is what the walk along the marsh felt like: walking and walking and nothing in the distance seems to be getting any closer and you think you might be walking down this road forever (maybe a bit like the Meseta on the Camino?).

This part was a little tough on the feet, as well, and even after we moved away from the marsh, the path seemed to continue on the road for a long time. So long that eventually Heather and I wondered if we’d done something wrong.

And this was the first time that both of us missed a turn and went off route. It ended up okay- we just followed the road rather than a dirt path, so we didn’t really veer off course- but I think we may have added a little distance. Plus, I’m sure our detour wasn’t nearly as beautiful and was certainly tougher on the feet.

But we powered on and I think we were both anxious to arrive in Bowness-on-Solway. As we got down to our last couple of miles, we knew we’d make it with plenty of time to spare (we had a 1:39 bus to catch out of the village), but we still kept up our fast pace because at that point we just wanted to arrive at the end with enough time to sit down, take off our shoes, and have a bite to eat.

About a mile before Bowness-on-Solway the route passes through Port of Carlisle and it was here that we ran into Roger. At first we only noticed an old man in a floppy hat, propped up on a bicycle. Then we saw a large signpost behind him, with an arrow pointing towards Bowness-on-Solway, but also one pointing back to Wallsend.

The man introduced himself to us, and we soon learned that Roger stations himself in this spot nearly every day of the Hadrian’s Wall walking season. He learns where walkers hail from, and adjusts the signpost accordingly. He changes the cities and mileage with every walker who passes by, and offers to take a photo (he also points out a small donation box, and we were happy to put in a few coins).

I thought Roger and his sign was an excellent way to mark the end of a long walk: what a souvenir, to have a photo of us at the end, with a sign of how far we’d walk and how far we’d traveled to get there!

Another mile to Bowness-on-Solway and then we were done! We found the official ‘end’ of the route, took a few photos, and then settled into a table at King’s Arm, the main pub in town.

We may not have had time to stop and smell the roses for this day’s walk, but I do have to say that there’s something satisfying and even exciting at attempting a physical challenge. At this point I know that I can walk long distances, but walking that fast for that long was something a bit new. When we set off we weren’t totally convinced that we could do it (which was a little nerve-wracking but worst case scenario was that we could have taken a taxi back to Carlisle if we missed the bus). But when we finished, it felt like a real victory.

We didn’t stroll up to the end- we marched there, we sailed there (some might even say that we were carried by the wind).

So that’s another walk in the books; time to set my sights on the next one!

(Did you miss the other daily recaps? Here they are: Day One, Day Two, Day Three, Day Four)

Adventures in the rain; Day 4 on Hadrian’s Wall, Gilsland to Carlisle (20 miles, 31km)

May 10, 2017

It’s a cool and rainy day here in Philadelphia, the sort of day for organizing and baking a cake and writing a blog post. I want to get these last recaps of the Hadrian’s Wall trek out, because before I know it I’ll be headed off on my summer adventure! (Still a month to go, but I have a feeling that this time is going to go by in the blink of an eye).

So speaking of a rainy day, let’s talk about Day 4 on Hadrian’s Wall. When I woke up in the morning from my cozy bed at Slackhouse Organic Farm, I heard a pitter-patter on the window. Uh-oh.

I got dressed and shoved my things in my pack and then peered out the window for a closer look. The sky seemed to be spitting rain but it didn’t look too bad. Sort of like a mist. And a mist isn’t too bad to walk in, right?

Heather and I headed to the lounge and kitchen area, where we settled into the breakfasts that we had ordered the night before: I had a large french press full of good strong coffee, and fried eggs over toast. In addition to this, I’d also ordered toast and jam. The toast was all I was going to eat initially- bread and butter and coffee being my preferred breakfast on any given day- but Diane, our hostess, talked me into something heartier and so I added some eggs. And the eggs were good but the warm loaf of bread that was wrapped in a tea towel and served with homemade marmalade? I must have eaten half the loaf.

Diane gave us some advice about the weather, as she squinted into the gray morning. “Rain before 7, fine by 11.”

I liked how promising these words were, and so Heather and I suited up and headed out. Neither of us wore any of our rain gear because it seemed like the rain had mostly stopped, but what were we thinking? About five minutes into our walk I had to stop to put on my rain jacket, and a bit further on Heather did the same.

We separated once we got back to the route (Slackhouse Organic Farm was about a 10 minute walk off the path). I wanted to hunt for an inscription on a stone that was supposedly somewhere on the Wall close to Birdoswald (the remains of another fort), so Heather continued west while I backtracked a bit. I found myself wandering around an open field, staring at stones in the Wall hoping I would see something, while the rain started to come down harder.

I soon realized that it was like looking for a needle in a haystack, so I gave up and started walking. As I passed by Birdoswald- too early to be open- I considered finding a dry, tucked away spot under an awning to change into my rain pants. I hesitated, but then kept walking, convinced that the rain wasn’t actually that bad (once again- what was I thinking??).

But I didn’t really consider the effect of the wind. I suppose the rain was never really that bad, but the fact that the wind was blowing it straight into me as I walked meant that my clothes were becoming very wet. Most concerning were my pants. I’ve walked in a bit of rain on the Camino before, and my pants got wet, but because I walked in the summer it was never really a big deal. My legs would feel wet but once the rain stopped it was always warm enough that the pants would dry and it would all work out fine.

But I never thought about what wet legs might feel like in 40-something degree weather (which is what we started walking in that morning). Very quickly my legs got very cold. By this point I’d moved away from Birdoswald and was walking through fields and countryside, with a street running parallel to the track. There was no cover, no dry areas, nothing but grass and sheep for as far as the eye could see.

I continued to walk but as soon as I saw a cluster of trees tucked against a stone wall (not the wall, I don’t think), I ducked beneath it, took off my pack, and dug around. I couldn’t just put my rain pants on over my hiking pants because the hiking pants would still be wet and I’d still have cold legs. So I did the only thing I could think to do, after looking far down the road and assuring myself that there were no cars coming.

One foot and one leg at a time, I took off my shoes and then my pants and put on my long underwear layer and then my rain pants. This took some balance and there was a lot of hopping around a field in my underwear involved, but eventually I got myself redressed (oh what a show for all the sheep and lambs!).

My changing room on Hadrian’s Wall

This was my first time using rain pants and I have to sing their praises. My layering system was perfect for walking in the rain in cool springtime temperatures. My legs were dry and warm and the rain pants continued to keep everything dry and warm. Between those and my rain jacket (with a buff over my forehead to keep wet hair out of my eyes), I actually felt really comfortable walking in the rain, which is the first time that’s ever happened.

I think I could have kept walking in the rain for a few hours without too much complaint, but after only about 30 minutes the rain stopped (of course).

The skies stayed gray for another hour or two, but then they suddenly cleared and we were treated to sharp blue skies and fluffy white clouds for the rest of the day. And despite it being another long day, the walking felt good, with mostly flat terrain.

Aside from the rain, we had just a bit of more bad luck on this day. Both of the places where we planned to take breaks were closed! The first was a small tea shop in the village of Walton (this is also the last spot where the remains of the Wall are visible). Despite our guidebook advertising opening hours Tues-Sat, we arrived on a Wednesday to find it not open until Thursday. Grr. We hit the post office just before they shut their doors for the day (around noon), and a kind woman inside let us use their bathroom. We ate a snack at a picnic table in a park nearby, but then kept moving; in another 7-miles there would be an Inn where we could stop for a late lunch.

But when we arrived at the Stag Inn we discovered that this, too, was all closed up. Peering through the windows only led us to believe that- despite how pleasant the place looked from the outside- that maybe they had shuttered for good. (But later we found out that the place wouldn’t be open until sometime in the summer. We were mislead by our guidebooks once again, which promised opening hours all-year long).

I didn’t have much food left on me, and I suppose I could have made it all the way to Carlisle but we made a short detour about 3-miles before the end of our day for what felt like the first true break. There was a pub in a hotel just off route, and after refueling we continued on for the last leg of the day.

The walk into Carlisle was so pleasant: a sunny stroll through a big park, full of dog walkers and joggers and bikers.

And when we arrived at our B&B it felt like a little paradise: a spacious room with three beds, a tea tray with biscuits, a shower with hot water, a window with a view over the neighboring rooftops. We could have stayed in our room for hours, but after showering and washing our socks, we headed into the city for some dinner and some wandering.

Carlisle is a place I definitely could have spent more time in, and I was strongly considering axing our plan to walk the next day. Our final day of walking was going to be a difficult feat (hehe): we needed to walk 15 miles to Bowness-on-Solway in enough time to catch a 1:39pm bus back to Carlisle (where we would catch a 3pm train back to London). This basically meant that we would have to walk at a fast pace with very minimal break time for the entire 15-miles, and then turn around and go right back to where we started that morning. No time to stop and smell the roses, no coffee breaks, no lingering over photos.

This isn’t my preferred way to walk, but it was either end our trek short and enjoy the sights in Carlisle (which was so tempting), or attempt to do the entire Hadrian’s Wall route, from the very beginning to the very end.

Can you guess which one we picked? Stay tuned.

(If you missed them, here are recaps from Day 1, Day 2, Day 3)

Hold Onto Your Hat!; Day 3 on Hadrian’s Wall, Grindon to Gilsland (15 miles/24km)

May 9, 2017

My favorite part of Day 3 on Hadrian’s Wall was the wind.

That might seem a little strange, considering the wind was wild and since we were walking east to west, it was blowing strongly against us and made the walking 10 times more difficult than it should have been. All of this and yet- the wind was powerful, and dramatic. And considering that the bulk of our walk was on vast and open moorland, isolated and remote, our only company an ancient and crumbling wall… well, the wind felt like it was supposed to be part of the scene.

There were a couple times that I just laughed. I was standing up on a hilltop, my arms outstretched, leaning forward but propped up by that powerful wind, and laughing was about the only thing that I could do. I laughed out loud- thrilled and a little crazed- my voice grabbed up by that wind and carried swiftly away. Could Heather- just 10 paces ahead- hear me? Could the newborn lamb hear me? I could barely hear myself.

The wind knocked us around, sometimes throwing me several steps off the course of the path. It pushed my stick around, my hair flew in all directions.

It was great.

Excuse the expression on my face; I must have been reacting to the wind!

When we set off in the morning, I assumed that we’d have a somewhat easy day- only 15 miles, from Grindon into Gilsland. It was 8 miles less than the day before and yet, we didn’t arrive at our destination until nearly 7pm. Our start was slow and we lingered over ruins and forts and milecastles and turrets, but still, I blame the wind. I didn’t account for that wind.

There was no sun, either, but there was also no rain, and that was key. And like the wind, I thought the gray and cloudy skies added to the drama of the day. Because for nearly the entire stretch of our walk, we were just alongside the Wall. It stretched and curved, up and down a series of endless dips and crests.

We were in some wild country, indeed. Shortly after setting off we passed through Sewingshields Crags, the land of King Arthur and his knights. Next came Housesteads, the most preserved and intact fort on the Wall (there is a visitor’s center and a fee to enter the “grounds” of Housesteads; Heather and I lingered in the shop and read a few plaques but decided not to spend the money or take more time from our day. If you’re walking a short day I think the fort is well worth the visit, and there’s a nice selection of postcards and ice cream, as well as a small museum, inside the shop).

Further along, after we passed a couple of very newborn baby lambs (what a fun part of walking in the springtime!), we came upon Sycamore Gap. This is a rather famous spot, as there’s a large and imposing tree that appeared in the film Robin Hood. I’d read this in my guidebook before setting off that morning (and I just have to quote what the book has to say about the tree and Kevin Costner: “where, despite the distinct disadvantage of being a tree, it still managed to appear less wooden than its co-star”).

We made it to the hill just above Sycamore Gap, and as we’re descending, Heather said- “Here’s your tree!”

Confession time. Here’s something that happens to me when I walk: I get really into the actual walking part- the journey, the movement- and I just sort of glide through wherever I am and sometimes miss out on the details. And I wasn’t even gliding at this part of the day (there were too many hills for that), but I think that as I walk a long trek, I sort of begin to simplify things around me. I see things, but I don’t always fully process what I’m seeing. I just sort of take everything in, and the ground is the ground, a tree is a tree, a flower is a flower.

This happened a lot on the Camino; at the end of the day, people would say to me, “Did you see the plaque that marked the crossing between Spain and France? Did you see that castle over there? Did you see the ‘Santiago’ sign, just before entering the city? Did you see the first glimpses of the Atlantic Ocean?” These were big things that I just sort of missed, and I’m sure that I did, in fact, see them all, but they didn’t really register.

This happened at Sycamore Gap. We were clearly at the Robin Hood tree; it was this huge and solitary tree, and there were dozens of people all around this part of the route (because it’s the most scenic part of Hadrian’s Wall, many tourists and locals come here for a day-trip). When we got to the bottom of the hill we stood around awhile at the base of the tree, so Heather could take a photo. I started ahead of her, having had enough of the tree and the crowds, and it wasn’t until later in the day that I sort of said, “Oh, I must have missed the Robin Hood tree.” (not realizing that the tree at Sycamore Gap WAS the Robin Hood tree).

Heather, quite understandably, looked at me as though I was a little mad. (Maybe I am. Does this sort of thing happen to anyone else??). She’d even said- “That’s your tree!” and it all just went over my head.

Oh well. I actually sort of like that when I walk or hike, I can get into a zone where I can block things out and just focus on the essential. In any case, we had a good laugh about it over a late lunch, where we’d stopped at a pub called Twice Brewed Inn in the little hamlet of Once Brewed.

The rest of the day’s walk was full of more up and down, more wall, more sheep and lambs.

Our destination- Slack House Organic Farm- took a bit longer to get to than we expected, and we were a little unsure what the dinner situation would be like when we arrived (I realized, too late, that I was supposed to have called ahead to reserve dinner). But when we arrived, everything worked out: we were the only people staying there that night, so Diane- one of the owners- set us up in the large 3-bed ‘family room’. She whipped us up a hearty vegetable stew with pasta (there must have been a dozen different vegetables in the stew, and it was warm and so delicious). I’d definitely advise reserving dinner ahead (Heather and I were prepared to eat whatever scraps we had in our packs), but Diane was gracious and kind, and took care to make sure that we were well fed.

That night I got my best sleep of the entire journey. Between the hills, the wind, the miles and the satisfying stew, I slept deeply. Good thing, too, because we had another 20 mile day ahead!

Beware of Shortcuts; Day Two on Hadrian’s Wall (Heddon-on-the-Wall to Grindon, 23-miles/35km)

April 30, 2017

I had two main worries about the Hadrian’s Wall Trip.

Worry #1: Rain.

And Worry #2 was that I was fitting too many miles into too short of a time frame. Was 5 days going to feel too rushed? Would some of the days be too long to be enjoyable?

The border agent at Heathrow certainly thought so.

“Why are you here?” was her first question.

I explained my walking trip, and how I had loved my experience on the West Highland Way so much that I immediately started looking into Hadrian’s Wall.

“When are you starting your walk?” was her next question.

“Uh,” I hesitated for just a moment. “Tomorrow morning.”

Her eyebrows shot up. “So you’re catching a train today? From Kings Cross?”

I nodded, and she continued. “What about jet lag?”

I no longer felt as though she was assessing my intentions for being in the country, but rather critiquing my travel plans.

“I might be a little tired?” I offered, unsure of what else to say.

She then went on to ask when I was leaving, and how long I had to walk. Finally, she stamped my passport and as she handed it back to me, offered a quick smile (though her eyes betrayed her doubt). “Good luck,” she said.

Honestly, I didn’t think it was luck that I needed (other than some luck with the weather forecast). It was more determination, and persistence, and stamina. No, I didn’t need luck to do this walk in 5 days. I just needed to believe that I could do it.

I say all of this because Day 2 was a big one. On these long walks, I don’t normally plan a 23-mile/35km day at the very start of my journey, but for this particular trip, I didn’t have much of a choice. Our really long day was going to have be either our second or third day of walking, and I knew that the elevation and hills were going to be tougher on Day 3.

So Day 2 was our big day. My guess is that we set out around 8:30, following a cooked breakfast in the kitchen of our bunkhouse. Because most of the places where we stayed offered breakfast, we were a bit tied into whatever time all the guests agreed upon. This is one area where I’m still very much in the Camino mode- when the sun comes up, that’s when I want to be walking. On my very biggest Camino days, it was pretty easy to be up and walking by 6:00am (this is in the summertime, and just as the sun was rising). But along Hadrian’s Wall, the earliest I ever saw breakfast offered was 7:30, and I think 8:00 is an even more typical hour.

And I don’t want to skip out on the breakfasts! Houghton North Farm offered a great spread. It was mostly simple stuff: toast and cereal and juice and fruit. But our hostess stood at the griddle and cooked us up fried egg sandwiches with thick slices of bacon and oh man, was that a good sandwich. It was the perfect thing to fill my belly and give me energy to start my day, and almost enough to make up for the fact that there was no coffee. (This was alarming. There was a dusty coffee pot in the corner and when no one was making a move to brew some beans, I asked if I could make a pot. The answer I got was: “You don’t want to drink the coffee I have here. Seriously.”). I made myself a cup of black tea instead, and it was enough to keep away the caffeine headaches but I would probably say that the lack of coffee was the biggest drawback to our stay at Houghton North Farm.

The resident dogs gave us a warm and friendly send off and then we were back on the road, our long day of walking had begun.

For the first couple of hours I walked separately from Heather. I kept stopping to take photos and then finally waved her on ahead, and I was content to spend a little time walking alone. It was a different experience- a long trek with a friend- and already I was missing my solo time. And I got it back that morning, as I moved through the soft and quiet countryside. Despite the sunshine, the air was cool and chilly, and I pulled out my buff to wear around my neck for added warmth. As I walked through farmland, I passed groups of sheep who seemed utterly unconcerned about my presence.

Heather and I rejoined at a pub called The Robin Hood, where I finally got my cup of coffee. When we set off again we walked separately for awhile, and this seemed to be the rhythm for the day: walk apart, rejoin, walk together, take a break, walk apart, etc.

In fact, the entire day- despite its length- had a nice rhythm. Our breaks were spaced nicely: we found a beautiful spot in a little cut out on a hillside, where we stopped for some snacks. Later we hit a tea shop for some scones and pastries. And in between was a gorgeous day of walking. I had energy, for nearly the entire walk. In fact, I felt like I was coming alive after our snack break on the hillside, despite having just walked 12 miles. I never felt stronger! Maybe it was the return to that particular way of life: of spending all day in the fresh air, moving your body and eating well. The wind and the sun against my skin made me feel alive, and I felt mostly strong as I moved through all the miles of the day.

I was also energized because the Wall made its first real appearance! This would have been a beautiful walk in its own right, but knowing that the Wall was going to be sprouting up periodically throughout our days (not so much the first or last day, but the three days in the middle) made the trek extra thrilling. I kept pulling out my guidebook and looking for traces of the wall: “Those with eagle eyes may be able to make out the platform outline of Milecastle 13,” I read to myself, on the morning of Day 2. I searched and I searched but couldn’t find anything- only realizing later that there really hadn’t been much need, because there were much better and more distinct milecastle remains to come. (A milecastle is basically a mini-castle to house troops, and these were spaced 1000 paces apart (a Roman mile) for the length of the wall. By the end of the walk I could come upon a pile of ruins, and before reading the marker would exclaim: “Milecastle!” or “Turrett!”).

I was enthusiastic, yes, but it was also a long day of walking, and I was slowing down a bit by the end. For the last few hours of the walk Heather was up ahead of me, and usually I could spot her in the distance, her bright pink jacket an easy target to pick out on the route. But then, suddenly, she disappeared, and I assumed that she had powered on ahead.

I was trying to walk at a fast clip myself, because the place we were staying in that night- Old Repeater Station- was pretty much in the middle of nowhere and the owner would be serving us dinner. We’d called that morning before setting off, and when he asked what time we thought we might arrive, I hesitated. “Hmm, maybe 6:00?”

It was 6:30 by the time I made it to our lodging, and it wasn’t without a small mishap. My guidebook shows a shortcut to the B&B, one that cuts off some potentially dangerous road walking. I overshot my mark- where I was supposed to cut down through a field- and had to backtrack a bit. I couldn’t actually find a path or anything that looked like a marked shortcut, but I made my way down the hill well enough, cutting a diagonal line towards the only building in sight. I did have to slosh through a swampy area- causing both of my feet to sink completely into wet, cold mud- but luckily I was at the end of the day and wouldn’t have to spend much time walking in wet socks.

The door of the B&B was ajar and after knocking and waiting around for a minute, I pushed through.

“Hello?” I called out.

I couldn’t hear a thing. I wandered around the first floor, through a sitting room and into a kitchen area and then a dining room. The place was cozy- there was a small room with a woodstove and big leather couches and shelves filled with books. I kept looking around but there was no one in sight- no proprietor, and no Heather, either.

Finally I heard a door open somewhere above me and a man walked down the stairs. It was Les, the owner of the place, and after introductions I asked if anyone else had arrived.

“No,” he replied. “You’re the first one here.”

Heather, somehow, had gotten off track. I wasn’t too worried- she’s an experienced hiker with a good sense about distance, and I knew that even if she had gotten turned around, she’d be able to find her way here eventually. Les was a little more concerned, but I tried to wave it off. He showed me up to our room and it was perfect: two small beds with cozy comforters, a tray filled with coffee and tea and hot chocolate and biscuits, and the most beautiful bathroom with tiled floor and bottles of water and fluffy white towels.

“You can see the route from the window in here,” Les told me, and I peered out, looking into the now gray light of the evening. I squinted, and then smiled. Up on the ridge, walking at a fast pace, was someone wearing a pink jacket. It was Heather.

I went ahead and took a shower, figuring it would be perfect timing and that Heather would be here and could clean up as soon as I was finished. But when I came out of the bathroom the room was empty, and it was quiet downstairs.

I peered out the window again and saw two figures approaching on the road, and recognized the girls that Heather and I had met the night before. We’d been at Houghton North Farm together, and had learned that the girls would also be walking the really long day and staying at Old Repeater Station. I went downstairs to greet them, but also to ask if they’d seen Heather.

“No, we haven’t,” one of them said, looking a bit worried. “But there’s about an hour of light left to walk in, hopefully she’ll find her way here?”

I went outside then, unsure of what else to do, and after a few minutes saw a figure in a pink jacket coming down the hill. I was relieved, and Heather was laughing as she came up to me. She’d climbed over a stile not meant to be on the route, and had veered off track. Eventually she righted herself and it had been her I’d seen on the ridge, before I took my shower. Like me, she’d overshot the “shortcut”, but had a considerably harder time coming down the hill than I did (“There were locked gates,” she said, “and barbed wire!”).

We feasted that night, on fish pie with mashed potato, and salad with avocado and prawns, and a loaf of fresh bread, then tea and cookies up in our room. With a full belly and tired feet, curled up under my blanket, I was content. I was in a large stone house in the middle of an empty field, on a vast and open landscape. The sky was dark and the wind howled and the remains of a 2,000 year old wall sat just above me on a long ridge, stretching on for miles and miles ahead. I couldn’t wait to follow it.

A Walking Stick and a Loaf of Bread; Day One of walking Hadrian’s Wall (Newcastle-upon-Tyne to Heddon-on-the-Wall, 15 miles)

April 22, 2017

We’d arrived in Newcastle-upon-Tyne the day before, on a train from London. Newcastle wouldn’t be the start of our walk- not exactly- as the official beginning (or ending) of Hadrian’s Wall path is in Wallsend, a 15-minute metro ride east of the city. But it’s a great place to begin a long walk, with plenty of amenities, entertainment and transportation options.

I was exhausted when our train pulled into the station. I’d managed only 30-minutes of sleep on my overnight flight, along with just a bit of shut-eye on the train journey. But despite this fatigue, I managed to rebound after we dropped our packs in our hostel and set off to explore the city. I’d originally thought that maybe Heather and I could knock off the first 5-miles of our trek that Saturday afternoon; from Wallsend, the route passes directly back through Newcastle, and I thought this could be a nice introduction to the walk.

But I quickly realized that there was no way I could do a walk on so little sleep, so we meandered through the city instead, moving slowly and soaking up unexpected warm air and sunshine (Northern England was experiencing a bit of a heat wave at the beginning of our trip!). We wandered up to The Great North Museum: Hancock, a free museum with a large room dedicated to Hadrian’s Wall. There was an interactive model of the wall that snaked through the room, as well as lots of wall artifacts on display.

This would have been a great introduction to the walk IF the museum hadn’t decided to close an hour early that day. We only had about 10-minutes to look at the displays but maybe it was just as well: there’s something I like about a journey where I’m heading into the unknown. I didn’t want to see too much of the wall before I actually saw the wall itself.

We walked along the Quayside and ate an excellent dinner at a place called Red House. The only thing on the menu were their homemade butcher pies, mash and peas, and thank goodness for that. It was one of the best meals of the trip!

Sunday morning rolled around and we both agreed that staying in a hostel might not have been the best way to start a trek. The hostel itself was fine, but we were there on a Saturday night and most of the others staying in our room and down the hall weren’t trying to get a full night’s sleep before a long walk. So it was a long night of people coming and going, drunk bunk mates arriving back to the room at 4am, and generally just a lot of noise.

But, that’s nothing that a good cup of coffee can’t fix! We left the hostel early and grabbed drinks and pastries from the only open shop in sight, then jumped on the metro for the quick ride out to Wallsend.

Now, a note about the direction of this walk. Heather and I were walking east to west, starting in Wallsend and ending in Bowness-on-Solway. People do walk in this direction, but the more I learned about the path (and the more we heard as we encountered people on our journey), the preferred direction seems to be west to east. Supposedly, views of the wall are better in this direction, plus the wind will be at your back, pushing you forward as you walk. (Oh, just wait until I write about Day 3 of our journey… the wind was mighty. Really mighty).

And I’d read all of this while I was planning the trip, but something made me choose to go east to west. Honestly, I think some of this has to do with the Camino. Or my long-held dreams about my east-to-west road trip across the United States. “Go west, young man.” Somehow, walking east just doesn’t have the same ring to it.

So beginning in the east it was. Despite studying two different guide books, we had some trouble finding the start of the walk, but eventually we found ourselves on a path, snapped a photo of the first Hadrian’s Wall sign we saw, and began walking.

The day was glorious. Soon, our layers were peeled off and we were walking in t-shirts. Within an hour I found a suitable walking stick, and before long the path wound down to Walker Riverside Park, where we were able to walk along the Tyne for several miles as it lead us back into Newcastle.

And once we were in Newcastle- still walking along the Tyne- we passed through a large, bustling outdoor market. It was like a slice of heaven for a walker! The sun was shining, families were out and about, and there were what seemed like hundreds of stalls filled with crafts and mementos and food and treats. There was ice cream and crepes and baked goods and tacos and pulled-pork sandwiches and coffee. We saw several little carts or trucks that were converted into moveable cafes, an espresso machine fitted into the trunk space.

Heather and I lamented the fact that we were passing through around 10am, too early for lunch. But we lingered there anyway, and I bought a little package of coffee beans to bring home, as well as a large loaf of artisan bread. (It was a really, really large loaf of bread. I struggled a bit to fit it into my pack, and once I started walking I began to wonder why I would buy such a large thing… but it turns out that the bread came in handy over the course of my walk. Lesson #1: Never pass up the opportunity to buy a loaf of fresh bread).

The walk carried us out of Newcastle, continuing along the River Tyne but eventually meandering off. It continues for a stretch through the Tyne Riverside Country Park, which was crowded on such a warm and sunny day. I could only find two drawbacks to this first day of walking. For starters, there’s very little evidence of Hadrian’s Wall along this stretch (aside from a bit of wall at the very beginning of the route in Wallsend, but Heather and I didn’t exactly know what we were looking for so it’s anyone’s guess as to whether we actually saw the Wall here or not). And the second is that the entire day- all 15 miles- was on pavement. This is a tough way to begin a walk, and my feet were aching by the end of the day.

But overall, what a beautiful start! Riverside paths and parks, sunshine and outdoor markets, coffee and bread, a classic Sunday roast for lunch, and a wonderful spot to rest our heads at the end of the day. We stayed at Houghton North Farm in Heddon-on-the-Wall; some of the farm’s buildings were made with stone from Hadrian’s Wall! (This is typical in the villages and towns close to the route of the wall; once the Romans left, much of the wall was dismantled and the stone was used for other purposes by local landowners). I suppose that our lodging at Houghton North Farm could be considered a hostel or a bunkhouse, but with a twin room and only a few other people staying there, it felt both spacious and cozy.

Overall, it was a very satisfying and great start to the journey. By the end of the day, I could feel that I was back in the walking groove, and it was a good thing, too. Because the next day, we’d be tackling a 23-mile/35km stage!

5-days, 84-miles, Millions of Stones: A Walk along Hadrian’s Wall

April 18, 2017

A few days ago I returned from a week in Northern England, where I walked coast to coast: from Wallsend in the east to Bowness-on-Solway in the west. My route followed the length of Hadrian’s Wall, an 84-mile path that stretches across the most northern regions of England; at some parts of the trail and on clear days, you can see over to Scotland.

There was wind, there was rain, there was abundant sunshine and there were sheep. So many sheep.

All in all, the walk was a resounding success.

I thought, and hoped, to blog while I was there, but managing a blog post after a full day of walking on a solo-trip is hard enough, but it proved to be next-to impossible while traveling with a friend. I suppose I could have crept off to a quiet corner and dashed off some words, but given that the biggest draw of doing a walking adventure with a friend was to have some companionship in the evenings, I decided that the blogging would have to wait until I returned.

I’ll write in more detail about each day of the walk, but for now, I want to start with more general thoughts.

I can’t remember the first time I heard about this route, but I’m fairly certain it was from someone in my Philadelphia Camino group. That group is full of avid walkers (did I even need to say that?), and their jaunts aren’t confined to just Camino routes. Lately, members have been talking about the Via Francigena (pilgrimage trail from Canterbury to Rome), and Hadrian’s Wall Path, raving about each route. Then, when I was in Scotland last year for the West Highland Way, I heard more about Hadrian’s Wall. “It was stunning,” said a girl in my Glasgow hostel. “The wall was incredible.”

What is the Wall, exactly? Built by Emperor Hadrian in the 2nd century, it’s northern Europe’s largest surviving Roman monument, a fortification that stretches for 84-miles in the border country between England and Scotland. It is punctuated by the remains of milecastles and turrets and forts, and while only about 10 miles of the actual wall remain (and what is left doesn’t rise to even half of its original height), the remains are stunning and the path of this trail was so well designed that walkers rarely stray from the course of the wall.

The trail opened in 2003 and the waymarking is good (look for acorns), with plenty of lodging options along the route. The scenery is diverse; the walk passes through the cities of Newcastle and Carlisle, through moorland and dale, and over undulating countryside. While one of the stages has a lot of ups and downs, overall the path isn’t considered too difficult (and, in fact, is the easiest of the UK National Trails).

My spring break is just a week long, but I knew I wanted to squeeze in some sort of trip. I have ample time to travel in the summer and I haven’t stopped appreciating that for a second, but the 10-months in-between my travels can be long ones, especially those cold winter days. I needed something to look forward to, I needed a new adventure.

With just a week, would I be able to complete a walk across England? Would early April be too cold, too wet, too muddy? A friend contacted me after she heard that I was planning this trip, and asked if she could come along. I agreed, excited to spend time with a friend that I don’t get to see enough, but also just a bit worried. What would it be like to walk and plan with someone else? Would I miss my solo adventuring?

I found a few itineraries for 5-days along Hadrian’s Wall, and I began to research hostels and bunkhouses and B&B’s. Despite being early in the season (the “real” Hadrian’s Wall season runs from the 1st of May until October), I decided to book lodging in advance. I worried that because we were early, some places might not be open, and with little flexibility in our tight time-frame, I didn’t want to have to scramble or skip sections of the route because we couldn’t find a place to stay.

I began tracking the weather a month before we left, and was heartened to see that the weeks preceding our walk weren’t getting much rain. Maybe this means there won’t be much mud! I wrote to my travel companion, Heather.

Walking in the cooler spring temperatures meant a couple of new additions to my “Camino” pack: a pair of rain pants, Crocs, a long-sleeved Merino wool shirt, a base-layer for my legs. I swapped my sleeping bag for a sleeping bag liner, since we’d be staying in bunkhouses and B&B’s that provided bedding.

With two weeks to go, I began to hike in earnest, managing all the miles that I could. My longest training hike was 12-miles but without a full pack, and I worried that I was a bit out of shape.

Do you think I’ll ever head into a trip without a head full of worries? Probably not. I’ve done this walking thing several times now, and while I am more confident, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to shake the nerves that come before one of these journeys. And maybe that’s best, because if these trips ever become too normal, too second-nature, then I’m afraid they’ll have lost some of their appeal. No, I hope that I always hold onto a bit of those pre-trip nerves: the questions about my gear and my pack, the panic about whether I’ve trained enough, the uneasy dreams (nightmares?) about blisters and rain. It adds to the adventure of it all.

And this was, indeed, another adventure, even if it might have felt a little different because it wasn’t a solo trek. I could feel my excitement mounting as I boarded my flight, as I touched down in London, as I dug an old Oyster card from my bag, as I traveled the length of the Piccadilly line, as I met my friend at Kings Cross (by Platform 9 3/4, because where else would you meet a friend before a journey?).

I chugged a coffee and we boarded our train, and as we left London to head north, I stared out the window and thought, “It’s good to be on the road again.”

Things that surprised me about the Camino de Santiago

March 28, 2017

Before my first Camino I spent a lot of time reading blogs and books and articles about my upcoming journey. This is my approach to anything that makes me nervous: I prepare, and then I prepare some more. I liked knowing what was in store for me, I liked having the information. After weeks of training and frustrating hours spent in REI searching for the right pair of shoes, after reserving my first two nights on the trail and debating whether I needed special, quick-drying underwear or not (verdict: not needed, but it’s an awfully nice splurge), I set off for Spain.

In some ways I was really prepared for this trip. All of my diligent training walks meant that I felt mostly strong on the very first days of the Camino, and my meticulous packing meant that I wasn’t carrying more than what I needed.

I had a decent idea of the terrain, I’d made note of a few special albergues along the way.

But then, there were the other things. A whole bunch of things that I hadn’t considered, hadn’t expected, or just completely surprised me. Here are a few of them:

The Camino Shuffle

I’ve heard people refer to the ‘Camino Shuffle’ as the kind of walking you do when you have blisters on your feet but you need to carry on walking, so you just have to go off and hobble down the trail as best as you can.

To me, the Camino Shuffle means something totally different. This is the shuffle I do when I really, really have to go to the bathroom.

It hits you out of nowhere. This is what happens after a week or two of walking the Camino, at least in my experience, and no one warned me about it. I’d be walking along, fine as day, and suddenly I’m hit with an overwhelming need to pee. It’s not some slow thing that comes on gradually, oh no. All of a sudden it’s there, and it’s urgent. And man, it’s annoying. I drink a lot of water on the Camino but I drink a lot of water in my real life, too, and it’s just different on the Camino. There were too many times that I was shuffling along as fast as I could, hoping and praying that a cluster of trees or bushes would appear so that I could duck behind them and relieve myself. Or that a car wouldn’t zip by at an inopportune moment. Sometimes I couldn’t go more than 30 minutes without needing to use the bathroom yet again.

There’s all this talk about ample bars and restaurants along the Camino so when the need arises, you can always duck in and buy a coffee or a bottle of water and use their restroom. But in my experience, if you’re really drinking as much water as you should be (which is a lot), then you’re going to get the call of nature a whole lot more than you ever expected.

Or, you know, maybe this is just me.

(There is nearly always a cluster of trees or a bush you can duck behind. You can always find some tucked away place, if you’re able to keep walking. But I have to tell you, I had a couple pretty close calls…)

Needing to Tell Someone I Want to Walk Alone; Needing to Tell Someone I Want to Walk With Them

Camino talk often includes this notion of how you’re never really alone, but at the same time how you can go off and do your own thing. And this is totally true! I’ve always said that I’m never really alone on my Camino’s (unless I’m on the San Salvador but that’s a different Camino altogether), and I have ample time to be on my own as well.

Usually, this all works out nicely. It’s sort of amazing how friends pop up just when you need them, and how I get a quiet and uninterrupted morning just when I’m feeling like I need to be alone.

But sometimes, you have to ask for what you need, or tell someone what you need. This might not be difficult for others but man, this is one of the biggest lessons that the Camino has taught me.

I love making people happy, and it’s easy for me to be accommodating. But I was on the Camino for me, and (even though I’ve been three times now), it’s this rare opportunity: time and space to do exactly what you want to do. My walks on the Camino have always been about spending time with myself- that deep and introspective and beautiful time that I adore. It’s certainly about my connections with others as well, and I’m excited about some upcoming trips and opportunities to practice walking with others, and not totally alone. But my past Camino’s have been about me, and my freedom.

I kind of learned my lesson the hard way on my first Camino, when a handsome Irish man didn’t want to let me out of his sight. I stood my ground and asked for my own time, but then I relented. It went back and forth like this for awhile and after the Camino ended I wished I had spent my last 10 days in a different way: totally free.

At other times people have wanted to walk with me when I was craving a day alone, and eventually, I learned how to tell them what I needed. Sometimes that was hard. And the opposite of needing to be alone is true, too: sometimes you have to know when you don’t want to be alone, and sometimes you have to practice asking for companionship. And this isn’t always easy, either.

Sometimes You’re Sick and Tired and There’s Absolutely No Camino Magic

I spent 65 days on a Camino route over my first two trips to Spain. Of these 65 days, I can honestly say I only had one day (and not even the entire day) that I felt unhappy and frustrated and wishing that I could just take a break from all of the walking. I had other difficult moments (blisters, walking in rain, negotiating the social stuff), but overall my Camino Frances, Camino Norte (Part One), and Camino Primitivo were full of so much happiness and joy and, well, magic. Those feelings energized me and permeated so much of my experience.

But this past summer was a different story. I was on the Camino de San Salvador and the Norte (Part Two) and I got pretty sick on the last day of the San Salvador. I took a rest day in Oviedo, and then I started walking on the Norte and it just wasn’t pretty. I was in bad shape: coughing and sneezing and so fatigued. I’d lost my appetite and I didn’t want to talk to anyone or even share an albergue with anyone because I was afraid my coughing would keep others up (not to mention that I could pass on whatever bug I’d caught).

I was pretty miserable. Being sick is never fun, but being sick while traveling? While you’re in a country where you don’t speak the language and you’re all alone and you’re stuck in the middle of nowhere? I was on a Camino, doing something I absolutely love and it was the last thing I wanted to be doing. And that made me feel even worse, because my precious and beautiful days were becoming a blur of orange juice and tissue packs and being alone in hotel rooms.

Where was the Camino magic in that? How was the “Camino providing”? Was this the Camino I was “supposed to” have?

Believe me, I think the Camino is a powerful experience and I’ve had moments that were so incredible that I truly think there must have been something greater at hand, something pretty special going on. I’ve learned so many lessons, and I’ve learned lessons in the hard parts too… but being that sick? That was just bad luck. Sometimes you get sick. Sometimes you’re miserable, even on a trip of a lifetime. Sometimes you just have to power through to get to the day when you begin to feel better, because that’s how the magic comes back in.

Hotel room in the middle of nowhere

They Really Do Give You An Entire Bottle of Wine

It’s true what you’ve heard: the wine in Spain is good. Really good. And it’s cheap- really cheap. And you get a lot. I’d heard all of this before leaving for the Camino but to be honest, I thought it was a bit of a myth. Wine cheaper than water? How is that possible?

But it is.

Usually if you’ve sat down to dinner with a friend and both of you order a pilgrim’s menu, you’ll be given one bottle of wine to share. This is pretty amazing: pilgrim’s menus are usually between 8-12 euros and include two courses, plus dessert, plus bread, and your choice of a bottle of wine or a bottle of water.

On the Frances I was always eating dinner with other people, but on the Norte, there were several times- lunch and dinner- when I was all alone. And when I ordered the pilgrim’s menu, or a menu del dia, an entire bottle of wine was delivered to my table. Sometimes it was an excellent Rioja (a Tempranillo-based red wine from one of the best wine regions in Spain) and these were the times when I wanted to drink the entire bottle (I never could, which is probably not a bad thing).

Be careful, though, if you sit down to a leisurely lunch in some sun-soaked seaside town, drink a good portion of that bottle of wine, and then decide to keep on walking. It could make for quite a different sort of adventure than the kind you’d been used to.

I Got to Santiago and Felt Underwhelmed

The morning I walked into Santiago I was excited and full of this amazing, jittery energy. I was so distracted as I was walking through the city towards the cathedral, I even stopped paying attention to the arrows and had to slow down and get my bearings, take a deep breath. There was so much anticipation because I was moments away from arriving to the place that I had walked over 500 miles to get to.

And then I walked into the square in front of the cathedral and it’s not like I was let down or underwhelmed, exactly… but nothing really happened. I walked right to the center of the square and then I stopped walking and I looked up and I wasn’t sure what to do because that was where the walking ends. It was really early in the morning and hardly anyone was around- I liked the peace and quiet but I also just wasn’t sure what was supposed to happen, what I was supposed to do.

Later (and in subsequent years), I’ve seen pilgrims burst into tears. I’ve seen pilgrims lay out flat on the ground with their eyes closed, I’ve seen them in groups- jumping in the air and screaming in happiness and laughing and singing and cheering and hugging and crying.

This was not my experience at all. This is also not the experience for many pilgrims. Sometimes, it’s disconcerting to arrive at the end of something really big, because we haven’t really considered what is supposed to happen next. Or maybe we were expecting something big to happen even if we didn’t know what it would be, and we were disappointed to not feel it or experience it. And in my case, I felt deep in my heart that I wasn’t done walking. Santiago was my destination, but it wasn’t my final destination (which I didn’t realize until I arrived in Santiago). I’m still not sure what my final destination is, or if I even have one.

I love the city of Santiago, I love it more each time that I’m there. And each time, there is something so special about arriving in front of the cathedral… but for me, it’s not a momentous and joyous occasion. It’s something more quiet, something softer, something deeper, sometimes it’s something almost a little bittersweet and sad. And that’s okay.

I Thought the Route Was Beautiful

Before I walked the Camino Frances, I stumbled across an article listing 10 reasons why the author believes the Camino de Santiago ‘sucks’. It was jarring. He talked about how often you need to walk on paved road, that you can hear traffic 95% of the time, that the scenery is monotonous (and several other negative points).

After reading this article, I worried that I wouldn’t find the Camino to be beautiful. That I was going to wish I were on a more isolated, rugged path through some wild areas. I knew that the first day through the Pyrenees would be stunning, but would I wish that I could continue walking through the mountains? Would my feet hurt from all of the pavement walking, would I find the parts of Spain that I walked through to be boring and uninspiring?

Turns out, I needn’t have worried. I was in awe for so much of my walk through Spain, and I found the route to be absolutely beautiful. Part of what I loved was how varied the scenery was: mountains and hills and countryside and all of that flat Meseta. I wandered through fields of sunflowers and rows of grapevines. I saw stone ruins and lines of cows and bright wildflowers and bustling city streets and sleepy village squares. I also saw cars and traffic and industrial areas and trash and graffiti and growling dogs on chains. But all of that stuff? It wasn’t what stayed with me, and it didn’t detract from the overall beauty of the impressions of my Camino.

I’m sure those of you who have walked the Camino had some surprises too. Please share, I’d love to hear them!

Called Back to the Camino: Why I Keep Returning to Spain, and Why I Keep Returning to the Camino de Santiago

March 13, 2017

“I was called to the Camino.”

This is something you hear a lot, when talking to people about the Camino.

Something else I’ve heard is this: “Once you’re called to the Camino, you can never un-hear it. That call will sit with you- maybe for years- and not go away until you answer it.”

Was I called to do the Camino? Maybe. I’m not sure. I suppose I was, because the Camino wasn’t some random trip that I happened to show up on; it was purposeful and planned and I was really, really excited for it. But my purpose for walking the first Camino wasn’t necessarily about the Camino, not exactly. It was more about doing something big to move myself forward and out of the sad place I’d been in.

But when it comes to feeling called, I can say with certainty that I felt called back to the Camino. And not just once, but twice. Well, three times now, if you count my upcoming plans to spend a few weeks on a Camino route in France this summer.

What’s this all about, the call to return again, and again? Why do I love the Camino so much?

Longtime readers of the blog will have already caught onto the answer- maybe never explicitly stated- but the one that has come through all of my writings and ramblings and notes from the road. And that answer is… I love to walk.

And more than that: I love the people on the Camino. I love the community. I love the coffee and the wine. I love spending all day outside, moving.

This stuff all seems fairly simple and straightforward but there’s something important in here. The combination of all of this- the walking and the community and the coffee and the wine and the wind and the sunshine and the movement- it all comes together and when I’m on the Camino I feel like I’m the best version of myself.

I didn’t realize this would happen when I took my first steps out of St Jean Pied de Port, and it wasn’t the goal of my walk. My goal was simply (or, maybe, not so simply) to get to Santiago, and- more loosely- to begin to rewrite the future I had envisioned for myself at that time. To do this, I thought it would be good to have a direction to move in, and the Camino provided over 800 kilometers of just that: a clear direction.

But as I walked, I discovered something, and it happened quickly. Within only a few days I became so comfortable on the Camino that I felt almost at home there. I was sleeping in a different village or town every night so it surprised me how strong this feeling of belonging was, but it was undeniable. I felt like I belonged there, walking straight through Spain under a hot and heavy sun. I felt like I belonged.

Who knew I would love to walk so much? There have been hints throughout my life: hours spent riding my bike as a kid, all alone, pedaling in loops through my neighborhood, daydreaming and staring up at the trees. Later, long walks through my neighborhood, long walks on the beach, a curiosity about hiking.

But still, I’m not exactly an outdoorsy sort of person, and I’m absolutely not a risk-taker. Now, there’s a small amount of risk associated with the idea of walking 500-miles across a country, but the Camino isn’t exactly for thrill-seekers. We’re on a pilgrimage and it’s amazing and soul-searching and spiritual and inspiring and energizing and sometimes very difficult but, at the end of the day, we’re walking.

We’re walking. All day, every day. Sometimes a section of the path or a day’s route could be described as hiking, and when I’m of mind to try to impress someone I might call it ‘trekking’ but honestly, what we’re doing is walking.

And I’m good at it. I laugh because I’ve discovered that one of my strongest skills is something I mastered shortly after turning 1. Sometimes I wish what I were doing was a little more exciting, like: I run marathons! I go rock-climbing! White water rafting! I surf! I sing in front of rooms full of people! I do stand-up comedy!

But no, I walk. And it’s exactly, perfectly, the thing that I want to be doing. I learned on my first Camino that I didn’t tire easily, that I could just keep going and going. I’ve had bad days, days that were a struggle, but on the majority of my days on the Camino, I was in love with the simple act of walking.

So I return to the Camino because I feel alive being outside all day, moving my body. But it’s not just the movement and the walking, because I can do that easily enough at home, can’t I?

It’s the community of the Camino.

This is important for me, because in order to be the best version of myself, I need to be around people. And not just any people, but people who light me up and inspire me, people I connect with. I have a lot of these people in my life but they’re not in my day-to-day life, and I crave that. So maybe that’s another reason I keep returning to the Camino- to meet these people, day in and day out. To find that connection of the soul. To find my people, my community. It’s an ever shifting and changing community but it’s there: I’m walking alone one minute and then the next I find myself sharing ideas and hopes and dreams over a glass of wine with a fellow pilgrim. It’s kind of neat how that works.

And the thing is, in my real life, I’m kind of shy and very much an introvert. I’m this way on the Camino, too, but I get my introvert time by walking mostly alone, and the shyness? It gets snuffed out after several days of meeting new people and having conversations and being out of my comfort zone. At my core, I’m a really friendly person who loves knowing people- it’s just that the trick is, I have to go through the process of getting to know someone. The befriending. And right now, in my life, that feels like such a long and daunting process for a shy introvert. But on the Camino, it all happens so fast and maybe it’s because of the nature of the walk, or maybe because I’m feeling like I’m one of the best versions of ‘Nadine’ I can be but whatever it is, it all comes together. I make friends, I meet people whose souls connect with my own. (To this point, I sometimes wonder if the best shot I have at meeting a man I might think to marry would be to find him on a Camino. But that’s another post for another time).

So this combination- the walking and the connection (not to mention being able to sleep on a bed at the end of the day, all of the great coffee and wine and fresh fruit, the experience of another culture and a different place, plus the spiritual aspect of the walk)- this combination keeps me coming back for more. It calls to me, again and again. It tells me that I belong out there, I belong there in ways that I haven’t fully belonged in many of the other places of my life. Something keeps pulling me back- it’s happiness and discovery and love and life and feeling so fully alive.

I know that a lot of pilgrims have felt this after their Camino, and I know a lot struggle with this upon coming back home. How to keep these feelings alive? How to continue to live your Camino even after the Camino ends? But that, too, is another post for another time. Right now, I just want to think about the reasons I love that dusty path through Spain, all of those paths that lead to Santiago, all of those people walking those paths, everyone moving in the same direction and me, right in the fold of it all. Maybe I still have a lifetime to keep returning to the Camino. Maybe I’ll just never stop walking.

Walking through the Pyrenees, Camino de Santiago

First day on the Camino, walking through the Pyrenees.

In the Footsteps of Pilgrims; an Overview of the Camino de San Salvador

January 9, 2017

Quien va a Santiago y no a San Salvador, sirve al criado y deja al Senor.

He who goes to Santiago and not to San Salvador, honors the servant and forsakes the Lord.

I saw these words painted onto the wall of the albergue in La Robla. It was the end of my first day walking the Camino de San Salvador, and I knew remarkably little about what to expect of the 120km route, and I was walking it alone. What did the words mean? I snapped a photo but quickly I pushed them to the back of my mind; all I could focus on was my hunger, the strain in my legs, the eerie quiet of the albergue.

I walked the San Salvador in late July 2016, with little knowledge of the route. I knew where it would begin and where it would end, I had a 13-page guide written in 2010 saved onto my phone. The route began in Leon, and like I’d done on past Camino’s, I found my first yellow arrow and just started walking.

It all worked out in the end; I made it through the mountains, I found things to eat, I found beds to lay my head on at night, and I made it to Oviedo. But it was not an easy Camino, it was not without struggles. The thought of pulling together a short guide for this route came to me as I was walking my final day. I would have loved some tips on how to get into the albergues when I arrived to find them locked, I would have loved some general advice about the trail, I would have loved to know what the waymarking was really like.

So this is that post, a collection of general thoughts and specific advice and information about the Camino de San Salvador. I’m including several links which will be immeasurably helpful for anyone undertaking this particular journey, and I will be more than happy to try to answer any of your questions, if you think of something that is not included here.

If you’d like to read about my journey before looking through this post, here are those entries:

Solitude and Cheap Red Wine; Day One of the Camino de San Salvador (Leon to La Robla; 27km)

The Things We Carry; Day Two on the San Salvador (La Robla to Poladura; 25km)

The Only Peregrina on the Trail; Day Three on the San Salvador (Poladura to Pajares, 15km)

Walking Each Other Home; Day Four on the San Salvador (Pajares to Pola de Lena, 28ish km)

Sick in Spain; Day Five on the San Salvador (Pola de Lena to Oviedo, 34km)

Why Does This Route Matter?

Here’s a quick history lesson (and it makes me wish that I had been more fully aware of the history of this route while I was walking it!): The 120km Camino de San Salvador connects two major cities in the north of Spain- Leon and Oviedo. Back in the 7th century, King Alfonso II made a pilgrimage to Santiago, beginning in Oviedo. At the time, Oviedo was the capital of Spain, and King Alfonso had a holy chamber built in Oviedo’s cathedral to guard all the relics that had been moved there, to be kept safe from the invading Moors. When political power shifted and the new capital moved to Leon, the main pilgrimage trail also shifted: away from the Norte and Primitivo routes, and to the Frances (which remains the most popular to this day). But the relics stayed in the cathedral in Oviedo, and because pilgrims were encouraged to pay devotion here, it became necessary to develop a route between the cities of Leon and Oviedo. Enter, the Camino de San Salvador.

I may have been hazy on the details while I walked the San Salvador, but I knew enough to visit the cathedral in Oviedo when my trek was finally complete. Pilgrims receive a discount on the audio tour and, I believe, don’t have to pay anything if they only want to visit the statue of San Salvador. (My memory about that could be incorrect; in any case, it’s worth it to pay a few euros and see the cathedral). Make sure to stop at the statue! You can pick up a Salvadorana (like a compostela), a document that certifies your completion of the route, in the gift shop of the cathedral as well as in the Oviedo albergue.

Why Should I Walk This Route?

I wouldn’t recommend the San Salvador as your first Camino, unless you are an experienced trekker/hiker and prefer solitude while you hike. Otherwise, I’d encourage you to begin with the Frances, or even the Norte or the Primitivo. I’ve heard that the Camino Portugues is another good option. There were many times on the San Salvador when I forgot that I was on a Camino; instead, it felt like a good, hard trek through beautiful mountain country in the north of Spain. This isn’t a bad thing, but if you’re interested in the social aspect of a Camino, then this route may be a little too ‘off the beaten path’ for you.

But, there are so many reasons to tackle this Camino. I think it’s the perfect second or even third Camino, especially if you’ve already done the Frances and/or the Norte. The San Salvador is about a 4 or 5 or 6 day trek, and then it easily links up with the Primitivo, which begins in Oviedo. The Primitivo averages about 11 days, giving you a solid 2+ week Camino into Santiago.

The route is beautiful. It is well-waymarked. There are just enough albergues and towns with accommodation to allow you to plan a route to your fitness level/liking. You get to hit both Leon AND Oviedo. The locals, when you encounter them, are friendly and curious. And you earn a little Camino cred when you can tick this route off of your list. “The San Salvador?” people who’ve heard mention of it will say. “Isn’t that the most difficult, most beautiful route of them all?”

So How Hard Is It, Really?

It’s no walk in the park. My experience may not be the best measuring stick; I’m a strong and fit walker who once did a 50+ km day, but for almost my entire San Salvador trek I was feeling under the weather (and was very sick on my last day of walking). So overall, I found the route to be rather difficult, but I wasn’t at my best. And, surprisingly, I didn’t think the most difficult section was as difficult as I’d feared. It wasn’t easy, but just take it slow and you’ll be fine. You’re going to climb, but is it any more difficult than the trek through the Pyrenees on the first day of the Frances? Or more difficult than the Hospitales route on the Primitivo? Or the first several days of the Norte? A lot depends on how you split up your days, and I (wisely) chose to keep one of the most difficult stretches to a short, 14km day. I think that helped a lot.

The route can sort of be described by three sections: the first is in the province of Leon, and for about 40km follows the east bank of the Rio Benesga. This walking is fairly flat, there is some minor road walking but it’s mostly on dirt paths. The second section crosses the Cordillera mountain range (part of the Picos de Europa) to Pajares, a village in Asturias, and there are some hefty ascents and descents here. Guides claim that the last section of the trail is relatively flat (though all I can remember from my last day of walking was a very long, never-ending uphill stretch and I thought I would never make it to the top. So in this case, ‘mostly flat’ must have meant ‘no mountains to cross’. Basically, expect some hills in this last section).

How Long Does it Take to Walk the San Salvador?

There are many ways to break up this route, and I’ll list a few of them for you based on my own experience and what I’ve found in other guides. I intended to walk the route in 4 days: I consider myself an experienced pilgrim and before coming to Spain I had been doing some light hiking in the mountains in France, so I thought I might be able to tackle some long days. But after my first day of walking I decided that I needed to slow down and tack on a extra day to the walk, splitting the 120km into 5 stages. This worked for me; some will use 7 or 8 days to complete the trek, and I met a woman who did the San Salvador in 3 days (HOW????). So think about your comfort level and experience and how much time you have, and plan accordingly. (Note: the distances are approximate; sometimes my phone showed me very different totals, but these are what the guides I found report).

My route (5 days):
Day 1: Leon – La Robla, 27 km
Day 2: La Robla – Poladura, 26km
Day 3: Poladura – Pajares, 14km
Day 4: Pajares – Pola de Lena, 26km
Day 5: Pola de Lena – Oviedo, 34km

4 days:
Day 1: Leon – Buiza, 40km
Day 2: Buiza – Pajares, 28km
Day 3: Pajares – Pola de Lena, 26km
Day 4: Pola de Lena – Oviedo, 34km

5 days (another option):
Day 1: Leon – La Robla, 27km
Day 2: La Robla – Poladura, 26km
Day 3: Poladura – Campomanes, 28km
Day 4: Campomanes – Mieres, 27km
Day 5: Mieres – Oviedo, 19km

6 days:
Day 1: Leon – La Robla, 27km
Day 2: La Robla – Poladura, 26km
Day 3: Poladura – Pajares, 14km
Day 4: Pajares – Pola de Lena, 26km
Day 5: Pola de Lena – Mieres, 15km
Day 6: Mieres – Oviedo, 19km

7 days:
Day 1: Leon- Cabanillas, 16km
Day 2: Cabanillas – La Robla, 11km
Day 3: La Robla – Poladura, 26km
Day 4: Poladura – Pajares, 14km
Day 5: Pajares – Pola de Lena, 26km
Day 6: Pola de Lena – Mieres, 15km
Day 7: Mieres – Oviedo, 19km

8 days:

Day 1: Leon- Cabanillas, 16km
Day 2: Cabanillas – La Robla, 11km
Day 3: La Robla – Buiza, 15km
Day 4: Buiza – Poladura, 10km
Day 5: Poladura – Pajares, 14km
Day 6: Pajares – Pola de Lena, 26km
Day 7: Pola de Lena – Mieres, 15km
Day 8: Mieres – Oviedo, 19km

I’ve Heard the Route is Very Isolated; Am I Going to Get Lost?

I was a little worried about this after walking my first day on the San Salvador. That first day was well-marked, but I knew that soon I’d be heading into the mountains, and the guide I had warned of several confusing sections ahead. In the albergue on that first night I found another guide on the bookshelf, this one was a thick booklet, compiled by a man named Ender, filled with pages of photos and descriptions in Spanish (here’s the link, this one has been translated to English, and I’ll reference it again later on). I snapped a photo of every single page and kept these stored on my phone in case I’d need to use them. This guide, as well, showed several areas in great detail, as if to warn pilgrims of the possibility of losing the path. So I was worried when I headed off into the mountains, but I hadn’t needed to be: the waymarking on the entire route was exceptional. Sometime in the years between when I walked (2016) and when my guide was published (2010), someone came through and carefully put markings all along the path, especially in the confusing sections.

Now, I want to add that I was very careful to read through my guide and study the photos from Ender’s guide before I set off each morning, and typically checked them again on my breaks. I wanted to have a visual of the areas I’d be walking through, and to read up on anything about the trail in case it would be helpful. Maybe I didn’t need to be this careful because I remember lots and lots of arrows along the route, but I still think my preparation helped. I was alone, so this extra vigilance gave me some confidence as I walked through the isolated mountain paths.

The Camino markings changed with each section of the route; the first 50km are marked with brown posts, the middle section with yellow metal scallop shells (welded and painted by Ender, author of that wonderful guide!), and the last 50km have the concrete posts with the blue and yellow shell (like those you’d find in Galicia). All along the way are yellow arrows, as well.

You’ve Mentioned Wandering Alone Through the Mountains. Am I Going to Meet Any Other Pilgrims?

Maybe. On the route, possibly not, but almost certainly a few in the albergues (unless, perhaps, you walk in the winter but I wouldn’t recommend it because of bad weather on the mountain passes. Be careful in the spring, as well). You will most likely meet at least a few other pilgrims, but they won’t be many. All of the Camino routes are becoming more popular (and I’m writing this guide with hopes to encourage others to try this route, so I suppose I’m adding to this trend), but I suspect that the San Salvador is never going to become overwhelmingly crowded. It’s a little too unknown, and to those who’ve heard of it, it has a reputation of being difficult.

That being said, more are walking than a few years ago, and I suppose that some days can feel ‘crowded’. Rumor had it that a week prior to when I walked, there were 18 people (!) staying in the albergue in La Robla (where I spent my first night). On my trip, I was the only one in that albergue until 7:30pm, and then was joined by a few bikers and one other walker. On my second night I was all alone in the albergue, the third night I’d needed to take a room in a pension because the albergue was closed (bed bugs, I suspect), though 4 pilgrims were also staying in that pension. Then, on the last night before Oviedo, there were 5 other pilgrims in the albergue with me. But this was in July! And in all of my walking, I only passed that group of 4 pilgrims once on the 4th day of walking. Otherwise, I never saw another pilgrim actually on the path of the Camino. For someone like me, who loves solo-walking, this was incredible, and I felt like I had the mountains all to myself. But an isolated route like this one might not be to everyone’s taste (or, if you’re worried about being alone, bring a friend!).

San Salvador winding path

What Other Tips Do You Have For Me?

#1: This is the biggest one: have a working cell phone with you. There are a few reasons this could come in handy: for one, you’re on a rugged, sometimes difficult trail through the mountains and there are not many people on it with you. If anything goes wrong, it would be good to have a way to get help. I need to follow my own advice because my US cell does not have an international calling plan, and I neglected to set up a SIM card in my phone that would allow me to make local calls. Luckily, I never needed the phone because of injury or danger (and to be honest, this didn’t occur to me as I walked but I promise I’ll be smarter about this in the future), however, I did need a phone for a different reason: the albergues.

Twice on this route, I arrived to an albergue to find it empty, and locked. There was always a sign on the door with a phone number- problem was, I had no way to make the phone call. But in both instances the albergues were in small towns and in the first I was able to have a woman in the tourism office help me, and in the second I was able to find a pay phone. At another point on the route, I’d needed to call ahead to a town to reserve dinner for the night, so I needed to track down another pay phone to make this happen. You could always ask another pilgrim to use their phone- but it’s hard when you’re in an albergue alone and have no one to ask.

Click here to be taken to a link on the Camino forum about how to set up a SIM card on your phone, once in Spain.

Welcome to the Albergue, Camino de San Salvador

#2: My second tip is this: learn a bit of Spanish before you go. I’ve been on a few Camino’s in Spain and have picked up just a tiny bit of Spanish (which means I can sometimes understand a few words of what is being spoken around me, and have learned the basic pilgrim lingo). But on this Camino, I really wished I could have spoken at least conversational Spanish. I got by without it, but I think I met three people in those 5 days who could speak a little English, and it was frustrating to have questions about the route and the albergues and how to find food in the next town and not be able to easily ask them (or understand the answers when I could). Plus, how nice would it be to chat with the locals, rather than only wave and smile?

#3: Take your time walking the middle-ish section through the mountains, which could possibly mean stretching your planned walk from 4 days to 5, or 5 days to 6 (and more specifically, I recommend doing a 14km day from Poladura to Pajares). This section is difficult, so it may take you longer than anticipated anyway, but you will appreciate having extra time to go slow and enjoy the stunning scenery.

Rising sunlight on San Salvador

Tell Me About a Favorite Moment from Your Camino:

I wrote about this on my blog, but I’ll tell it again, here. On my second day of walking I was about to head into a long, isolated stretch that wouldn’t pass by any towns or villages for a long time. I had a decent amount of food in my pack but I wanted to stock up a bit more, so I set off to find a grocery store. It was early in the morning and neither store I found was opened. Rather than wait around, I decided to head into a bar and buy a pastry; it would be my treat once I got to the top of the mountain. But when I asked for a croissant ‘to-go’, the man behind the counter just looked at me in confusion, then disappeared to the kitchen for about 10 minutes. When he finally emerged, he handed me a beautiful package: a croissant on a plate, wrapped in tissue paper and tied up with brown string. He placed it in my hands and I thanked him over and over but all I could think was- how in the world am I going to fit this into my pack? I couldn’t. So I walked up that mountain with my walking stick in one hand, my croissant in the other. And when I finally made it to the top and found a place to rest on a large, flat rock in the sunshine, I finally opened my package. That croissant was maybe the best thing I’d ever tasted.

Croissant package on San Salvador
My beautiful croissant, San Salvador

Here are some resources to help with your planning:

Link to Ender’s guide, translated into English
San Salvador page on the Camino forum (with tons of helpful threads)
CSJ Guide (this is the more updated version of the one I had)
Piers Nicholson’s Picture Website (300 photos of San Salvador)

There is so much more I could describe and share in this Camino de San Salvador guide, but this is a good start. If you’re interested in this route, please write a comment or send me a message- I would love to answer any questions you might have.

Buen Camino!

Nadine at start of Camino de San Salvador

My Travel Plans for 2017

January 2, 2017

2017 is already shaping up to be a good year, and it’s only just begun. Somehow, incredibly, I’ve already got my summer plans figured out.

This is unprecedented.

Last year, in particular, I had such a hard time figuring out what I wanted to do, and I became frustrated by my indecision. I have this somewhat unique opportunity to spend two months of my year doing whatever I like, and I was letting myself become stressed over the decision. I felt ridiculous. And yet, I went back and forth a dozen times, wanting to do it all: wanting to return to my favorite places and experiences, and wanting to try something brand new. I wondered if I should travel to some place other than Europe, I wondered if I should stick closer to home.

You already know what I decided (England, France, Spain, Scotland), and it ended up being the perfect balance of all the things I was craving out of my summertime adventure.

This time around? A few weeks ago I decided to see what flight prices to Paris might be like for June/July. And what I discovered nearly took my breath away: the cheapest prices I’ve ever seen on round-trip, direct flights from Philly to Paris in the summertime. (Well, that’s not entirely true, I got an even cheaper flight back in 2003 but that was a long time ago).

So I did something a bit out of character- I ran into my bedroom, grabbed my wallet from my purse, and before I knew it I had purchased the flight.

Then, I shot off an email to the owners of La Muse (the writer’s and artist’s retreat I visited last summer), and asked about availability. There’s been talk of a few of us from last year reuniting again in July, plus there was an attractive holiday discount being dangled around. The next day I got an email back- “We’d love to have you return!!” and before I knew it, I had myself booked in a room for three weeks.

And then, after a week of browsing through Airbnb apartments in Paris (which was way more fun than I ever expected!), I found a tiny little space on the 7th floor of an old building in St Germain, that has a balcony with views to the Eiffel Tower.

This year, there was very little of the indecision that I’ve had in the past. There are still so many things I want to do and so many places I want to travel to, but for whatever reason, this year’s choice felt easy. I’m going back to France, and I’m going to spend the entire summer there.

I love France, you already know that. Each of my trips to Europe these past four summers have included some time in France (and a mandatory jaunt through Paris, even if only for a day, like this past year). I can speak French- not well, but I improve the more I have the chance to speak. I studied abroad in Toulouse back in 2000-2001, and at the end of that year I said to myself: “This could be a problem. Whenever I have the opportunity to travel, I have a feeling that instead of going to new places, I’m always going to want to come back to France.”

And it could almost drive me mad, the thought that I was existing in the world and Paris was existing too but that I was not there.

Some people, when they travel, will always want to go somewhere new, and I can understand that. “Why return to the same place when you’ve already been there? There are so many places in the world to explore!” they say. I think I will continue to travel to new places throughout my life, but I’m finally coming to terms with the fact that I’m a creature of habit. When I find something I love, I don’t often get tired of it. I can go back- again and again- to the same things and places and learn to love them more fully. And I experience so much happiness when I return to a place that I love.

And so, I’m going back to France.

The trip is going to have three parts- La Muse and Paris, but what would a summer trip be without some walking? You knew this was coming. But instead of squeezing in a trip to Spain, I’m going to stay settled in France, and try a couple weeks on one of the Camino trails through this country. My plan, for now, is to walk the Le Puy route, which cuts a sloping line, east to west, sort of through the southern half of France. I’ll begin at the start- in Le Puy-en-Velay- and walk as far as I can in two weeks. I’ve heard that this is the most beautiful and popular Camino route in France, and that some parts may be challenging but I suspect that it’s nothing I can’t handle.

A walk in France isn’t a walk in Spain; there will be some big differences. France is more expensive, I’ll need to make reservations each night, there won’t be nearly as many people on the trails (though I sure had a large dose of isolation on the San Salvador!), and most of the people walking will be French.

The walking will kick off my trip, then I’ll take a train to La Muse and continue work on my writing and my memoir. The summer journey ends with a week in Paris, and this feels just right. It’s my favorite city in the world, and I certainly have more exploring that I need to do there. But settling into an apartment in the heart of a city that I’m already familiar with gives me the chance to just… be. To drink coffee on the little balcony and stare at the magical views. To make my way to a different café every day and scribble away in a notebook. To keep writing in a city where so many greats have gone to write. To wander, to roam.

It’s going to be a very French summer, and I have to tell you, I’m so excited for it. 2017 already feels like it’s going to be a big, incredible year, and having this trip half-planned sure helps. So as they say in France: Bonne Année! Let’s all make it a good one.

Wild and Remote; Day 4 on the West Highland Way, Bridge of Orchy to Kinlochleven, 35km

November 7, 2016

Day 4 on the West Highland Way had me walking out of the tiny hamlet of Bridge of Orchy with nearly all my clothing hanging in rather wet clumps from the back of my pack. Two pairs of underwear, a sports bra, two pairs of socks, two tshirts, and a towel. In fact, I’m sure I hadn’t managed to strap all of this to the outside of my pack so some of it was rolled up into a plastic bag inside my pack, something I’ve never had to do before.

I was wearing dirty hiking shorts but this was fine, because my shorts were often dirty. But both of my hiking shirts were wet so I had to wear the only other shirt I had- a black tank top that I’d been using to sleep in.

I knew I was going to run into this trouble two days before, when I’d walked all day and didn’t feel like washing my clothes at 8:30pm. And the day before, despite getting to my train station hostel around 5, I still didn’t have enough time to sufficiently dry my clothing. The evening was cool, my room at the station was chilly, and my clothing was still almost dripping wet in the morning when I set off.

This has not been an uncommon experience for me on these long walks, but usually I only need to pin a pair of socks from the back of my pack, maybe a pair of underwear. At first I felt strange doing it, but I quickly got used to it. After a few hours of walking in the sunshine, the clothes dry nicely.

And this fourth day was no exception- after a few hours of hiking the sun was brightly shining and my clothes were drying and I was feeling good.

I was feeling really good. It was another beautiful day on the West Highland Way- a long, challenging day, where I would walk over 20 miles, some of them very difficult miles (the miles at the end, of course). At first I was daunted by the elevation profiles in my guidebook, but after an initial sharp ascent and descent out of Bridge of Orchy, the next 8 miles were a very gradual ascent. It was the kind of climbing that I barely noticed, and by this point in the summer, my legs were strong.

I may not have noticed the climbing, but I did notice what was surrounding me. I couldn’t take my eyes off of the landscape, and every five minutes I realized that I was turning in a full circle, and sometimes even walking backwards for a few steps because the landscape- every bit of it- was stunning.

I’m going to post a bunch of photos but it was really difficult for my camera to capture what I was seeing with my eyes. I couldn’t capture it, and maybe that’s a good thing, because my memory of that morning’s walk is one of my favorites from the entire summer.

I was walking through open moorland, in the wildest and most remote section of the West Highland Way. Every once in awhile I would pass another hiker or two, but mostly I was totally alone. These miles are desolate and isolated- there are no roads, no buildings, no shelter, no way out. If the weather is bad this could be a very difficult section of the walk, but since I had clear skies and sunshine, the walk was just… incredible. Land and sky, land and sky, stretching out as far as I could see.

From what I can remember, there are no fun stories from this day, no unique interactions, no good anecdotes. Just beautiful walking. I stopped for lunch at a climber’s bar in the back of an Inn- the only place to stop for miles and miles- and then I kept walking.

I have found my future home.

The last part of the day’s hike included the dreaded Devil’s Staircase. My guidebook promised that it wasn’t as bad as the name would suggest, and locals I’d encountered in the past few days said the same thing.

And certainly, from where I stood at the bottom, the “staircase” (or long and winding path) didn’t look impossible. But then I started climbing. And my legs burned. And I was tired. I had been walking great distances day after day and a difficult climb to cap off what would be 35 kilometers was simply not appreciated. But I remembered what the woman in the bar the night before had told me- “It’s only walking”, and so I just put one foot in front of the other and kept going.

Climbing the Devil's Staircase, West Highland Way, Scotland

Looking back on the Devil’s Staircase (it was harder than it looks!)

At the top was a large pile of rocks and lots of day-hikers posing for photos and selfies. I paused for a moment but after spending the entire day pretty much alone, this little summit felt crowded.

So I kept walking, and walking, and walking. I thought Kinlochleven would never arrive, the descent was longer and harder than I thought and I got a bit confused when I finally arrived in town and was unable to find my campsite. But eventually I did find it after asking for directions, and I was once again directed to a cabin which I had all to myself. And it was beautiful- a line of small wooden cabins and a lawn filled with tents, all set against a backdrop of rugged green mountains.

Campsite at MacDonald's Hotel and Cabins, Kinlochleven, Scotland

Can you spot my walking stick in this photo?

Dinner was in the pub next to the Inn, and I feasted on a large bowl of cullen skink (which is basically a delicious Scottish fish chowder), a hunk of bread, and a big glass of red wine. Hearty and warm and satisfying.

My cabin had a toasty little heater and a door that wouldn’t stay latched, and it banged open and shut throughout the night but I barely noticed. I slept soundly and comfortably. Day 4 on the West Highland Way was in the books, and now only one more day of walking remained.

“You’re looking awfully casual for a walk like this” (it’s only walking); Day 3 on the West Highland Way, Inverarnan to Bridge of Orchy, 31km

October 27, 2016

There is pumpkin bread in the oven, outside it’s pouring rain. Red, wet leaves are everywhere now, they’re blanketing the ground and coating my kitchen window. It’s autumn, maybe the most autumn-est day of the entire season so far. Horror movies run in marathons on TV, tomorrow night is Game 3 of the World Series. The end of October is a great time of year.

And speaking of time, I think it’s about time that I wrote more about Scotland. I can’t believe I’m still writing about this trek- or, more precisely, that it is taking me so long to write about these days. I’m not sure why, but it seems as though the further we move away from the summer, the more difficult it is to remember my long days of walking on the West Highland Way.

I’ve been afraid that I would just stop writing about it altogether, and never finish telling you about my adventure, but that doesn’t feel right. So I’m back at it, and maybe if I’m lucky I can finish telling you about Scotland before we ring in a new year.

We’re on Day 3. And it was a magnificent day. 31 kilometers and I think the walking wasn’t too difficult (See? I can’t remember! Was I tired? Exhausted from the days before? Did the small hills feel like mountains? Or was I gliding along?). All I really remember is that this is the day when I finally felt like I was in the Highlands, or at least the Highlands of my imagination. I’d finally moved away from that lake of epic proportions and was now among rolling hills and green earth. There were cows and sheep, a sky that looked like a painting, crumbling stone walls and an old cemetery.

Aside from the stunning scenery, the highlight of this day might have been my lunch stop. I walked off the trail and went just a bit out of my way to find a little family-run coffee shop that was housed in an old church. One end of the room had a small gift shop full of handmade crafts and the other side had wooden dining tables with tiny vases of fresh flowers. I sat at a corner table and ordered a cafe mocha, a grilled cheese sandwich and a small salad. The service was slow but I didn’t mind; I had nowhere to be and all day to walk and this little café/church was the perfect place for a good, long break.

When I finished I went up to the cash register to pay, and noticed a counter filled with trays of pastries. A hand-written sign said that the pastries were all fresh and homemade, so I picked out a thick slice of lemon drizzle cake, that I asked to have wrapped up.

“That’ll be the perfect snack when you need to get out of your car and stretch your legs,” the woman behind the counter said, handing me my cake.

“Oh I’m not driving,” I replied. “I’m walking the West Highland Way.”

The woman gave me a long look and tilted her head to the side. “Really? You’re looking awfully casual to be on that walk.”

I looked down at myself. What could she have meant? I was wearing my hiking shoes and long green hiking pants and a long-sleeved black t-shirt. I was dressed like a hiker, at least I thought I was. Maybe West Highland Way hikers didn’t often find their way to this café? Maybe when they did, they looked different?

The woman chatted with me for a few minutes and then I was on my way again, back out into the sunshine and the warm air, up into the hills and past fields of cows. I was energized by my espresso drink, full from my meal, satisfied to have all day to walk in a beautiful place.

I rolled into Bridge of Orchy, my destination, sometime in the late afternoon. Bridge of Orchy is described in my guidebook as a tranquil hamlet nestled in the foothills of two mountains. The village is nothing more than a train station, a hotel, a few houses and I walked all the way through and was headed straight out of town when I realized that I must have passed my lodgings for the night.

I’d reserved a bed in a bunkhouse at the train station. I knew I’d be sleeping at the train station, and yet, when I crossed under the tracks, I walked right by because I couldn’t figure out where, exactly, the hostel was located. But I made my way back, walking up onto the platform and peering through the windows of the long, narrow building that sat between the tracks. I tried a few doorknobs; they were locked. Then I saw an opened door and went inside, to find a crowded and messy room. There were old couches and newspapers and books scattered about, shelves of packaged food and a basket to collect money.

I called out ‘hello’, thinking someone might be in the back room, but the place was deserted. I went back outside, circled the building once more, and then- because I had already walked through the village and hadn’t seen a soul- I sat down on a bench to wait.

As I sat on the bench at the empty train station, eating my lemon drizzle cake, I had the thought that I was waiting for a train that would never come. But after only 5 minutes I heard voices, and then I had one of the stranger encounters of my trip.

Three old men walked up, they each had a bag dangling from a hand- one had a small canvas bag but the other two had large and tattered plastic bags. There were all wearing t-shirts, old jeans, beat up sneakers.

I looked up at them eagerly as they walked by. “Excuse me,” I said. “Do you know how to check in here?”

They slowly turned to me as if they hadn’t realized I’d been there all along. One of the men spoke. “We’re walkers,” he said.

“Yeah, me too.”

The men all stared at me for a moment, and then they kept walking down the platform. One of them called back, “But we’re walking the West Highland Way.”

Huh. I couldn’t understand what was going on, but maybe it was best not to. A few minutes later another old man walked up, but this one had a set of keys in his fist and came right up to me and asked if my name was Nadine.

“Strange day,” he said to me as he led me into a room with two sets of (three-tiered!!) bunk beds. “Last night we were packed, but tonight there’s hardly anyone. You’ll be the only one in this room.” The three old men were staying in a room further down the platform (and to be honest I was a little relieved), so I found myself, yet again, with a room of my own.

I ate dinner in the bar of the Inn down the road; it was a beautiful white building and my table had a big leather chair that I sank into and the room was warm and cozy. I ordered a hamburger and fries and a couple glasses of wine (and paid three times as much as I would have in Spain but who’s counting?), and while I was eating a man from California came over to talk. When he found out I was hiking he fired dozens of questions at me, not seeming to understand that I wake up in the morning and just start walking. “You don’t have a bike?” he asked. “You don’t take a train?”

He invited me to join him and his friend for some whiskey but the sun had set, the sky was a dark shade of blue and I had a 10-minute walk back up to an empty room in a deserted train station. I politely declined his offer and he walked away, and then a local woman at a table across the room began talking to me. Under the table and at her feet was a big white dog, and she told me that she overheard some of my conversation and wanted to know how my trek was going. She asked how many days it would take me and when I told her 5, her eyebrows shot up in surprise.

But she quickly recovered. “I walked it with my girlfriends,” she said, “And it took us 7 days. But 5 days is fine, my husband did that.”

I told her that I was worried about tomorrow’s walk- it would be another long day and there were two difficult stretches but her reply was instant. “Don’t worry, you can do it. They call it the ‘Devil’s Staircase’ but it’s really not that bad. And just think, all you’re really doing is walking, right? It’s only walking.”

Yes, it’s only walking. Sometimes it’s uphill, sometimes it goes on for hours and hours and hours, sometimes it’s muddy or rocky or smooth or rough, but at the end of the day, it’s only walking.

So I walked myself back up to the train station under the light of a near-full moon, opened the door to my private room and crawled under the covers of my bottom bunk.

It’s only walking, and I love it.

The Loch that Never Ends; Day Two on the West Highland Way; Balmaha to Inverarnan, 32km

October 9, 2016

“This is the loch that never ends, it just goes on and on my friends…”

17 miles into the day’s hike, I found myself repeatedly singing this line as I stepped up and down over large rocks, sloshed through mud, ducked under low-hanging tree branches. Every time the trail bent around a curve or the trees opened up I would look ahead anxiously, hoping to see something other than the gray, dim water of Loch Lomond. Instead, I saw the same views I had been seeing for the past 10 hours.

Before I set off that morning, I was aware that the day’s walk would have me following the shoreline of Loch Lomond for nearly it’s entire length- all 23 miles. I paged through my guidebook as I ate breakfast in the restaurant of The Oak Tree Inn. A giant spread was laid out before me: cereals and muesli, yogurts and toast and juice. Coffee or tea, eggs and grilled sausage and tomatoes and mushrooms and baked beans and haggis. I took a little of nearly everything and ate to my heart’s content, pleased and surprised to discover that I quite liked haggis (it’s a savoury pudding made of the heart, liver and lungs of a sheep, all of it minced and mixed with onions and suet and other spices, packed into a sheep’s stomach and boiled. This sounds absolutely disgusting and to be honest I didn’t really know exactly what it was when I ate it- I only had a very vague idea so I didn’t think too hard about what I was eating. And I found it to be delicious).

I set out for my walk with a full stomach and an easy feeling about the trail ahead. My guidebook showed the elevation of the day to be mostly flat, and there would be one split in the trail with an option for an easier route that I planned to take. All in all, it looked to be a straightforward and uncomplicated day.

And for the first part of the day, I found this to be true: the path hugged the shoreline of the loch and treated me to gentle, misty views of fog hovering just about the water. Every once in awhile I passed a few people on the trail, many of them walking in the opposite direction. But mostly my walk was quiet and peaceful, the trail a bed of dirt and small rocks that wasn’t too difficult to walk over.

After a few hours I stopped at a bar for a cappuccino, served to me in a large mug with a gingerbread cookie on the side. I took my drink outside to sit at a picnic table at the back of the property, just as the clouds parted long enough to throw some sunlight onto the yard. I sat in a pool of the warm light, sipping my creamy drink, and thinking about how nice of a day this was shaping up to be. A woman and her grandson stopped by my table to chat- they were on holiday and were curious about the walk I was doing.

I smiled to myself as I walked away, prepared to continue walking along the loch. My plan was to stop for lunch at the Inversnaid Hotel, the only restaurant I would pass for the rest of the day’s hike. I figured it would take me another 3 or 4 hours to reach it, but oh how wrong I was.

I’m not sure when I figured out that the path I was on was much more difficult than I had anticipated. Sometime after the coffee stop, the path began to get a bit tricky- I had to pay close attention to my footing given all the rocks and pits of mud that I had to navigate. I passed the point where the trail split, and this was probably my mistake. Instead of taking the higher, easier route that I’d planned to, I stayed on the lower path that continued to hug the shoreline. Here’s what my guidebook had to say about the lower route: “a small path which forges a tortuous route clinging as close to the shore as it dares. Many short, steep climbs, fallen trees and rocky sections make the going slow and arduous”.

So why in the world did I take this path when it wasn’t in my original plans? First of all, the split wasn’t exactly clear. There was a spot where I could continue on the path that I had been on, or follow a different path slightly higher. But at this point the signposts only indicated that the West Highland Way continued on the lower path. I’m still pretty sure that this was the split my guidebook described, and I knew it at the time, too, and yet I stayed on the lower path. I think it’s because after three years of walking the Camino, I’ve been trained to follow the arrows. Always follow the arrows. If there had been a sign indicating that the West Highland Way also followed the higher and easier track, I’m sure I would have taken it. But instead I chose to just keep following those arrows (or, in this case, the thistles), even though I knew that the low path could be quite difficult.

And it was. It wasn’t quite as bad as what the guidebook promises, and I think the most difficult sections were probably helped out by the addition of wooden bridges and stairs. But even with these structures, the walk was tough. My favorite kind of walking is the mindless sort- where I can just cruise along and let my mind wander. But the walking on this second day of the West Highland Way? I had to pay attention to nearly every step I took. Sometimes I had to stop and look hard at the trail and figure out where I should place my feet. My steps were measured and careful and muddy. And despite the “flat” elevation shown to me on maps in my guidebook, I had to step up and down over rocks so many times that my knees were soon begging me to stop. In fact, at the end of the day when I checked the health app on my phone, I discovered that I “climbed” more sets of “stairs” on that day than on any other day that summer. More climbing than in the mountains in southern France, more climbing than on the San Salvador, more climbing than on the days ahead on the West Highland Way. 20 miles of constant up and down over rocks made what I thought would be a rather easy day into maybe the most difficult of the summer.

So not only was the walk exhausting, but it took a long, long time. Because I had to be so careful, I was moving so much more slowly than I usually do when I hike. I figured I would be having lunch around 2:00 at the latest, but the hour came and went and I kept trying to peer through the thick cover of trees to search for the Inn somewhere in the distance, but I only continued to see nothing. Nothing but more gray water, more green trees, more sharp rocks. I stopped for a break and checked my guidebook and read that the kitchen of the Inn would close at 4:00 and I checked the time again and worried that I wouldn’t make it in time. I tried to pick up my pace and sometimes I could walk quickly for a few steps but inevitably I would have to slow down as I was greeted with a muddy pit or a pile of rocks.

Finally, I made it to the Inversnaid Hotel. It was after 4:00 and I tried to keep my expectations low, figuring that at least I could order something to drink and take off my shoes and rest my feet. I dropped my bag off in a side room where hikers could keep their things, and changed out of my muddy shoes, then went off to find the bar. To my great luck, the kitchen was opened until 4:30 so I ordered a giant sandwich and a mound of fries and an icy coke.

I wanted to stay there forever. Or at least check into a room and not have to do any more walking for the rest of the day. I had another 6 1/2 miles to go and I guessed that much of it would be along the same sort of path that I had been tediously and carefully picking my way through for hours. It was just after 5 when I left the Inn; on just about any Camino day in my last three years of walking, I would have been long settled into my albergue, showered and cleaned, and set up at a bar with a glass of wine and my journal.

“The West Highland Way isn’t the Camino,” I told myself as I set off again. The next few hours continued to be somewhat challenging, but I felt more relaxed. I’d eaten plenty of food and had renewed energy, plus I knew that I could take as long as I needed to. I had a bed reserved in a cabin at Beinglas Farm Campsite, and the sun didn’t set until after 9pm. No one was waiting for me, and there wouldn’t be much to do once I arrived in Inverarnan, other than shower and have dinner.

So I took my time and amused myself by singing silly songs, and eventually, the path moved away from the shore of the loch and opened up to some new views.

I finally hobbled into Beinglas Farm Campsite around 8:00pm. There was a pub on the grounds of the campsite and I checked in there. The guy behind the bar handed me a key to a small cabin that I had reserved, saying, “It’s all yours.”

“All mine?” I responded. I’d only reserved a bed and figured that I would be sharing with others, but this was another reminder that the West Highland Way wasn’t the Camino. Turns out that reserving a cabin means you have it all to yourself. Maybe. I’m actually still not sure how it works- when I emailed my reservation I asked for a bed in a shared cabin, and then I paid 15 pounds- certainly not the 40 pounds I should have paid to have it all to myself. Maybe no one wanted to share with me?

The cabin was basic- really basic- but it was all I needed. A mattress to sleep on, a roof over my head, and even a little heater that kept the room nice and toasty. I showered and then headed back to the pub, where I ordered a light dinner and drank a glass of wine. The pub was filled, and I noticed one or two other people on their own but mostly people were in pairs, or small groups.

But I found that I didn’t mind that I was alone, in fact, it was adding to the adventure of the whole thing- just me and my pack and my stick (oh yeah, I found a new one earlier that morning!), out in the great wild Highlands of Scotland. Bring on Day 3!

There’s always a mountain at the end; Day 1 on the West Highland Way, Milngavie to Balmaha 30km (19 miles)

September 30, 2016

I think I knew within a few minutes of setting off on the West Highland Way that I’d made the right decision. When I’d been trying to figure out my summer plans, I had wanted to do it all: another writer’s retreat in France, another return to the Camino and to Spain, AND I wanted to do something new. A trek in a different place. But in the middle of my travels, and especially when I got sick, I wondered why I had decided to tack on a trip to Scotland. It felt like a bit too much.

That changed the instant I got off the train in Milngavie and made my way to the start of the West Highland Way. My shoes were laced tight, my pack was loaded up, my hand felt a little empty without a walking stick but otherwise I felt ready to walk. And I was so excited to be walking in a new place.

The beginning of the WHW is about 10 miles past the center of Glasgow, in the suburban village of Milngavie (there were a lot of town names I had trouble pronouncing, but this is perhaps the most perplexing: “mullguy”. Sounds nothing like it looks). It’s possible to start walking in Glasgow, and my guidebook had a good map detailing the way; maybe if I ever walk the trail again I’ll do this, but because I was short on time I did what most people do, and took the 30-minute train ride to the official starting point.

It was past 8:30am but only a few people were milling about the main street of the village. Some shops were just opening and I looked around curiously. The skies were gray, there were dark patches on the pavement from the recent rain. I approached the obelisk that marks the beginning of the trail, and noticed a girl in hiking gear lingering nearby as well. We smiled shyly at each other, then offered to take each others’ photos. We continued to chat for a moment or two, then I waved to her as she set off down the trail.

I wanted to put a little distance between us, so I waited around at the start of the trail for awhile, reading the informational posts, retying my shoes. August is the busiest time for the West Highland Way, but I still wasn’t sure what that meant. Would the trail be crowded? Did I have to worry about not being able to feel like I was walking on my own? I already had my beds reserved for each night of the walk, but would the places where I was staying feel cramped, overrun?

I’d stalled long enough, and finally, I started walking. I walked 19 miles that first day- about 30km- and by the end of the day, I felt really, really happy. It’s hard to put my finger on exactly why I felt such happiness, but I’ll try to explain it as best as I can. Aside from a few bursts of sunlight, the day was overcast and windy and cool. Ideal walking conditions for many, but I always prefer blue sky and at least some sun. I had brief, friendly interactions with about a dozen people, but no real conversations or connections. There was a large hill/small mountain (still don’t really know the difference) to climb at the very end of the day and it wore me out. By the time I got to where I was staying- a private room at the Oak Tree Inn- I was shivering and wanted nothing more than to wrap myself up in bed and watch the Olympics (which, for awhile, I did).

All of this, and I felt nothing but happy. Happy, and excited for the next four days. I think it might go back to that very initial feeling of wonder and awe that I had at the beginning of my trip, when I was settled in my bunk in Bath, England. Just 24-hours before I had been in my apartment, and suddenly I had gotten myself to a very different place. Just like that; it’s easy, and yet, it also requires something of us.

I’d made it through my first day on the West Highland Way, and I guess it gave me the feeling that I could walk anywhere that I want in this world. Scotland is definitely a much easier country to navigate than many others, but the thing is, I think I’d forgotten what it was like to be somewhere completely new. Scotland reminded me of all the exploring I still want to do, and it made me feel like it was all still possible. If I want to walk around the world, I probably can. I just have to decide to do it. If I needed more proof of how much I love this thing- walking alone for great distances- then I got it on the West Highland Way. All I really need is my pack and a good pair of shoes and a walking stick. To be feeling healthy. Some good coffee in the morning, a warm meal at night. It’s a pretty simple recipe for happiness.

The scenery for most of the first day was okay; technically, the beginning of the walk was considered to still be in the suburbs of a large city (though the path was tucked away in parks and woodland), but very quickly it moves into the countryside. For the first half of the day I was crisscrossing with a large family who were out for a day hike- kids and parents and grandparents- and at some point the girl from the obelisk in Milngavie had joined up with them. After a few miles I walked under a drizzle, soon the drizzle turned into a steady rain. I pulled on my rain jacket and when I passed one of the members of the large family, the grandfather, maybe, he turned towards me and opened his arms out wide. Then he turned his face up to the sky, raindrops splashing on his cheeks. “It’s wonderful to be alive, isn’t it?”

The rain only lasted for about 10 minutes, and that was the only rain I walked under on the 5-day hike. Supposedly the weather in the Highlands is fickle and unpredictable; locals told me that it could be pouring rain in one area, while 5 minutes down the road it might be dry. On Day 3 of the walk I was ordering a sandwich at a cafe and the woman behind the counter shook her head in sympathy when I told her I was hiking. “I’m sorry about the weather,” she said. I only looked at her in surprise. “But the weather’s been great!” I replied. “No rain at all!”

The trail wasn’t too crowded on the first day, but that was probably the most crowded I saw it for my entire walk. There seemed to be a lot of people out for a day-hike, but there were several small groups of thru-hikers as well, loaded down with large packs and muddy boots. I said hello to everyone I passed, but it seemed as though other hikers were taken aback by my friendliness. Not all of them, but enough of them. That seemed to be the trend during my hike- I’d try to make eye contact and smile and a good number of people didn’t even really look in my direction, and if they did, they smiled lightly and just kept walking. Many hikers were in pairs or groups, and a lot were camping. It felt like everyone was doing their own thing, which is a very different experience from the Camino. Different, but it wasn’t bad. It almost felt easier to walk my own walk and stay alone and independent when I knew that the chance at community wouldn’t be as easy to find.

But while the other thru-hikers seemed to be in their own worlds, the locals were beyond friendly. I suppose that’s the case in some parts of Spain too, as I walked the Camino, but the difference there is that I couldn’t speak Spanish and communicate with them. But in Scotland? On some parts of the walk, it seemed as though I was getting stopped every 30 minutes or so, by someone who wanted to say hi. That was it! They just wanted to know how things were going- no one exclaimed over my being alone, no one warned me about the hard days ahead. They asked where I was headed to that day, and where I was from- often there was a quick comment about Trump and the upcoming election when they heard that I was American- but mostly it seemed that the locals just wanted to share their love of the Highlands. And I think they wanted to make sure that I was enjoying it too. They seemed pleased when my face would light up, when I talked about how great the weather was, how beautiful the scenery, how much I was enjoying myself.

About 10 miles into the walk I met a man coming in the opposite direction; he was from somewhere in northern Scotland and had walked the West Highland Way dozens of times. We talked for at least 20 minutes, as he told me about the best times of the year to walk, his favorite sections of the trail. He asked about the towns I was staying in, and told me that doing the walk in 5 days would be fine. “Let me see your pack,” he said. When he saw that it wasn’t too big, he nodded. “5 days won’t be too hard, don’t worry.”

The highlight of the day might have been coming across my first “Honesty Box”. There were several of these set up along the West Highland Way: tables full of bottled water, baskets filled with candy bars, and in this first instance, a large cooler filled with ice cream and popsicles. A sign showed the price of each item and there was always a lock-box to drop some coins into. But ice cream in the middle of a vast and empty countryside! (Well, there was a tiny village with a few buildings, but I felt like I was in the middle of nowhere). What a special treat.

20-miles was a big first day, and I had equally- and longer- days ahead. Most of the walk had been fairly flat and not difficult, but the day ended with a winding trail up the side of a small mountain called Conic Hill. The trail was steep, and my legs hurt. Up and up and up, and as I climbed the wind grew stronger, the air cooler. When I walked I worked up a sweat, but as soon as I stopped for a break I began to shiver. Dark clouds swirled around the sky and as I approached the top of the climb I squinted out towards the horizon. I was at the southern edge of Loch Lomond, the largest area of fresh water in Britain. From where I was standing, I was at the start of a 23-mile path that would wind its way along the edge of the lake; but that would be tomorrow’s walk.

For now, I just had to follow the steep descent down the hill and into the town of Balmaha, my destination for the night.

I felt like I stumbled into town with aching feet, heavy legs, my hair in tangles. But I was looking forward to my bed for the night; because I booked rather late, the cheaper beds in the bunkhouse were all taken, so I had to reserve a room at the Inn. It was an expensive night- the most expensive of the summer- but I welcomed the luxury with open arms.

I checked into my tiny room with the cleanest, shiniest bathroom I’d ever seen, and the first thing I noticed was a tray filled with mugs and tea bags and several packet of shortbread cookies. So I took a shower and then heated some water and crawled under the heavy comforter to eat some cookies, drink some tea, and watch some of the semi-final men’s Olympic tennis match. I didn’t want to move from the bed, and I only left for a quick trip over to the Inn’s restaurant for dinner (fish and chips and a tall pint of beer), and then I returned to bed for more tea, more cookies, more Olympics.

A good first day on the West Highland Way. I knew that the days ahead would be more difficult, but finally, my excitement outweighed my nervousness. I couldn’t wait to see what would be next.

The Next Adventure: 5-days on the West Highland Way

September 22, 2016

Scotland- the land of kilts, whiskey, ruddy-faced men and a dish called haggis. Clichés? Sure. But to tell you the truth, I didn’t know much about Scotland before my 5-day walk on the West Highland Way, and I only learned about haggis when I was planning my trip. Vague images from the movie Braveheart swirled through my mind, and I always meant to do research about this place that I was headed to, to at least read up on a little history, a little about the cuisine and the culture and the landmarks, but I didn’t have time. Or maybe I didn’t want to make the time.

One thing I love about traveling is that I’m exploring something that is, to me, completely unknown. And the less I know about a place I’m going to, the more open I am to whatever awaits me. So I think there was part of me that just wanted to arrive in Scotland and… see. Just see what was there, let my experience be my teacher.

What do I know about Scotland, now that I’ve walked about 100 miles through its hills and mountains and moors? Whatever I know, it’s hard to put into words.

Maybe that’s why it’s been taking me so long to write these posts. I left Scotland (and Europe) to fly home on August 20th, a full month ago. I keep thinking about writing, and sometimes I craft my blog posts as I’m out on a hike, thinking that I’ll come straight home and write, but I never do.

It felt easier to write about the Camino, maybe because I’ve done it before. I was never writing about Spain, not really, though parts of the culture and the countryside did seep into my words. But on the Camino I was always writing about the journey- there was always a bigger story that I was telling.

On the West Highland Way? I was walking. I was on a vacation. I was on an adventure. I was alone. I liked being alone. I liked haggis- no, actually, I loved haggis. I had no expectations. I wasn’t really walking towards anything, even if I had an end point. I was happy. I didn’t overthink things. Things were easy. Things were hard. I felt like I belonged there.

I’m sure there’s a story in there, somewhere, and I’m sure I’ll find it as I write about my trek. But while the Camino felt like a pilgrimage, while it’s always felt like a pilgrimage, the West Highland Way felt like a long walk in a beautiful place. I thought that maybe my days in Scotland would be like a continuation of my Spanish Camino, but that wasn’t the case. I was just out for a walk. An incredible, challenging, beautiful walk.

But when I started, I didn’t know what I heading into. All I knew is what I had just finished. My final day in Spain was spent in Santiago: the morning was full of errands: printing out boarding passes and picking up my extra luggage and finding souvenirs and remembering where my favorite corners of the city were. I always meant to write an entire post about this day but that’s going to wait for another time, maybe (most likely) a time that will never come; in any case, the day in Santiago was relaxed and easy and perfect. I retired early to my private room and, with a package of cookies and my West Highland Way guidebook, I crawled into bed.

I spent about an hour reading through the guide, really studying the first two days of the trek. I pulled out a pen and made some notes in the margins- places where I could stop to eat, a good lookout that I didn’t want to miss. But as I continued reading, studying the same words over and over, I began to get a little nervous. It seemed as though on every other page, there was a warning: Do Not Underestimate How Long It Will Take You To Walk. I flipped back, studied the maps, looked at the elevation profiles, and chose to mostly ignore those words. I was an experienced walker, after all. I’d always been fast on the Camino, why would it be any different on a path in Scotland?

But in the back of my mind I knew that I had no idea what I would be walking into. The West Highland Way is not the Camino, and I could feel a tremor of nervousness as I wondered how difficult the terrain would be, what the weather would be like, if I would get lost on the trail.

I flew first to London, then to Scotland the next morning. During the first flight I had an easy and fun two-hour conversation with the pilgrim seated next to me, and as we were about to part ways in the airport in London (where I had a long layover), he gave me a big hug and wished me luck. It felt like a good omen, and one final, last-minute Camino friend.

But when I arrived in Glasgow, I was greeted with gray skies and a steady rain. The tremor of nervousness was back, a little stronger this time. I wasn’t happy walking in the rain for the ten minutes between the train station and my hostel; what was I going to do if I had days of weather like this?

I found my room and my bed (top bunk) and began to arrange my things for the next day. The room was mostly empty, except for two girls sitting together on one of the bunks, their heads bent low over an open book. I moved through the room quietly, trying not to make too much noise, but then I happened to glance out the window and I couldn’t help but gasp.

We were up on the 9th floor, and the large windows of our room overlooked parts of the city and the River Clyde. When I’d arrived at the hostel the view was nothing but gray with wet splashes of rain on the glass, but all at once there were gaps in the clouds and the sun burst through and a strong and solid rainbow was pouring from the sky and landing somewhere that felt just out of reach.

“It’s a rainbow!” I exclaimed, looking over to the two girls. Other than a smile when I had first arrived, we hadn’t said anything to each other. The girls exchanged glances and slowly came over to the window. I was grinning like an idiot because things like this make me happy, it felt like a really good omen for the days ahead.

And when the girls saw the rainbow, all shyness and coolness dropped and the three of us were exclaiming over the views, and crowding around the window to snap photos. Then we started talking, and I found out that they were also planning to walk the West Highland Way. We didn’t move for at least 20 minutes- standing there in front of the window as the rainbow slowly faded, but talking non-stop about the walk and our plans and what to expect.

Their names were Claire and Josephine, they were from the Netherlands and had walked Hadrian’s Wall the year before. “We loved it,” Claire said, “It was hard but we wanted to do something like it again. We’re taking 8 days to walk, how about you?”

I hesitated. When I told them I was going to walk in 5 days, their eyes opened wide and they poured over their guidebook. “But, like, that means that the end of your day 2 is the end of our day 4! Whoooooa.”

The tremor of nervousness roared its ugly head and I can’t really call it a tremor anymore. Was I crazy to be walking the route this fast? The distances were big: 30km, 32km, 31km, 35km, 24km, but when I planned the walk I reasoned that it wasn’t something I hadn’t done before. And after hiking in France and spending two weeks on a Camino, wouldn’t I be in fairly good shape?

But part of my nerves were due to the fact that I was locked in. The 96-mile route is, overall, much more isolated than 100-mile sections on the Camino Frances or the Camino del Norte. There are places to stay in every town that you pass through, but you don’t pass through a dozen in a day. And sometimes the only option in a given town or village is a pricey room in a bed and breakfast or an inn. Plus, because August was peak season for walkers on the West Highland Way, I’d needed to make all my reservations well in advance. My beds were booked; if I wanted to slow down because of fatigue or bad weather, it wasn’t really an option. If I was going to walk the entire route, it was going to have to be in 5 days.

“Good for you,” the girls said. “I think it’s amazing you’re going to walk it that fast.”

I laughed, but the laugh was shaky and thin. “Well, it’s only going to be amazing if I actually do it.”

I went to bed just after the sun went down, tucked under a sheet and a blanket, high up on a top floor of a tall building in the center of Glasgow. My phone was tucked under my pillow, the alarm was set for an early hour. I closed my eyes and shut out all the questions and the worries about what I was about to do, and instead only focused on the good things: I was in a brand new place. I was about to set out on another adventure. Even if was only fleeting, I’d made a few new friends that day. There had been a rainbow. A beautiful rainbow. One way or another, I would be okay.