Charlie: We planned very carefully at home, with our high speed Internet, and things worked well. With iffy or no Internet, not so much. New plan : post text only first and add photos and videos as we can. I think the photos make it more interesting so we will try hard to get them up.
Day 1 Charlie
We hiked 7.5 miles and felt pretty good. The day was beautiful sunny and warm. The hike was through beautiful mountain country. Here is Wynette at the start of the Camino.
Problems with photos
We are having problems adding photos to the blog. Please excuse strange looking posts.
Camino: Day 1
April 3, 2013.
Wynette: Check out the blue sky. We were lucky to have perfect weather on our first day. This is where we started walking on the Camino. First of many signs pointing the way. And only 490 kilometros to Santiago.
Arriving
Charlie: We got to Roncesvalles at 7:15 in a light rain. We walked over to the big building and nearly everyone turned right into the alburgue (dorm for pilgrims) and we turned left into the Hotel Roncesvalles. It was only 70 euros but it was one of the nicest hotels we have ever stayed at. The sheets were amazing. Some high thread count thing I guess. It is in a converted monastery and very pretty. The room was great. The breakfast was very good. A great introduction to the Camino.
Roncesvalles is a pretty little village. There were give piles of snow in the courtyards. We finally figured out that is was snow that had fallen off the slanted roofs. Photos tomorrow when we have wifi.
Pilgrims!
Charlie: We were waiting for the bus at the airport when we saw a couple with backpacks and reading Brierly, the most popular Camino guide. They were from Canada and we’re going to Pamplona and staying there, the first other pilgrims we had met. They were big planners and had reserved every night of 35 planned nights.
In the Pamplona bus station we saw lots of pilgrims waiting for the bus to Roncesvalles, basically everyone on the bus. The cargo area was filled with backpacks. It felt like we were really starting the Camino.
Wynette sat by a man from Pamplona and he was starting his fourth Camino!
Traveling
Hi Charlie: From Madrid we had a six hour bus ride to Pamplona. On the three hour layover we got our Spanish SIM cards and some very nice pinxos, the Basque word for tapas. Then another hour bus ride to Roncesvalles.
This all added up to almost 30 hours without much sleep so we were exhausted. Not the only ones. On the bus there was an older man maybe 60, who read lying down in the aisle of the bus for the whole trip. A Spanish woman asked him something to the effect of “What the hell?° (it did seem very odd) and he said that he had been up all night on a plane and very tired.
Crying baby on a plane
Charlie: We had good flights this time. Two hours to Chicago, 5 hour layover and 8 hours to Madrid. Of course you don’t sleep much on a plane to Europe, maybe 2 to three hours. I listen to Nature’s pace recordings of mountain meadows at dawn and thunderstorms and that helps a bit.
It didn’t help to have a crying baby for an hour or two. But I have no trouble having empathy for people with crying babies. Ever since I sometimes traveled with my own crying baby 25 years ago. Now when I hear a crying baby I am glad that it is not my responsibility and feel sorry for the poor parents. I can feel a kind of empathy for them that I can’t feel for a homeless person or a war refugee. Maybe we need visual simulations of these experiences so that people can feel more caring for others.
And we’re off
Charlie:
Here bygynneth the Book of the tales of Caunterbury
WHAN that Aprille with his shoures soote
The droghte of Marche hath perced to the roote,
And bathed every veyne in swich licour,
Of which vertu engendred is the flour;
Whan Zephirus eek with his swete breeth
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the Ram his halfe cours y-ronne,
And smale fowles maken melodye,
That slepen al the night with open ye,
(So priketh hem nature in hir corages:
Than longen folk to goon on pilgrimages,
And palmers for to seken straunge strondes,
To ferne halwes, couthe in sondry londes;
Here begins the Book of the Tales of Canterbury
When April with his showers sweet with fruit
The drought of March has pierced unto the root
And bathed each vein with liquor that has power
To generate therein and sire the flower;
When Zephyr also has, with his sweet breath,
Quickened again, in every holt and heath,
The tender shoots and buds, and the young sun
Into the Ram one half his course has run,
And many little birds make melody
That sleep through all the night with open eye
(So Nature pricks them on to ramp and rage)-
Then do folk long to go on pilgrimage,
And palmers to go seeking out strange strands,
To distant shrines well known in sundry lands.
So with the coming of April we too are off on pilgrimage, not to Canterbury but to more distant shrines.
Spring in New Mexico, Easter Sunday
Wynette: We head for Spain tomorrow. Happy some of our tulips bloomed before we left. Many yet to come that will bloom while we are gone.