Lulu Marie

On Friday Debbie and I woke up at a reasonable time in Portomarin and met Gib downstairs for some breakfast before heading off. We were the only people in the hotel and it was very quiet! I had firmly decided that I was now going to stay in hotels all the way to Santiago in the hope of avoiding the bugs. Debbie's foot was giving her trouble so I walked in the misty, cold, foggy morning wit Gib, across the scariest bridge I have seen on the Camino. The night before we had crossed a very high bridge into Portomarin, but it was concrete and made for cars, while this one was a foot bridge made of not-so-secure metal plates! I felt very dizzy and had to focus on the horizon to get myself across. We ... read more

On Saturday I woke up at 6.30am, keen to make an early start so I didn´t miss out on a bed! My mantra has now turned into ¨step your foot ahead, and you will get a bed!¨. The road is getting a bit busier now, as more people start walking in the hope of obtaining their ¨compostella¨, obtainable by walking the last 100km into Santiago. At least it is now the off season, going into winter, which reduces the number of people. I started walking at 7.30am after an in-house breakfast, with a canadian couple who set a slightly faster pace and always aimed to get to their destination by 2pm to avoid the hottest part of the day. That sounded perfect to me! It´s funny what I learn from different people along the way. We ... read more

On Saturday (3.10.09) we woke up late (7.30am) in our green oasis hostel in Boadilla. No one in our entire 20-odd bed room had set an alarm! We missed the 7am breakfast but the owner was nice enough to sell us a giant coffee (in a bowl again!) and cake. We got walking around 9am in the thick mist, now well and truly in the flat Mesata plains, the biggest hill being about 10m high. The mist made for some great photos and we followed a famous Canal, Canal de Castilla, for a fair way into Fromista. There were hundreds of perfect, dew covered spiderwebs on all the small bushes along the side of our road. We got into Fromista just as the sun came out, around lunch time, where I stopped for food and Angi ... read more

On Sunday we were quite sad to leave the lovely hostel in Santo Domingo, so we left a bit later than usual. It was only 24km (this, incredibly, is now a relatively small distance) to Belorado so we weren´t concerned about hurrying. It was also foggy all morning so it was great walking weather. The road was good; a flat dirt road for most of the day. Unfortunatly the land was very flat with few trees so we had to make a couple of detours for toilet stops! I think we concerned a few people the first time, when we had to walk around 200m off the beaten track; or maybe we made them think that there was something up that side road that they were missing out on. So much information on the Camino is ... read more

And finally we have internet! The last few albergues (hostels) have either had extremely slow internet or one computer that everyone wanted to use. So... much has happened since the last post! On Monday we slept in Pamplona, in a decent hostel. Angi, Sarah and I got up at 7am and weren't concerned about rushing as the post office didn't open till 8.30am. Once we were ready we headed straight there, and 20 minutes later were 3.9kg lighter! Fantastic! In high spirits we found some great coffee and set off to hike 21km. We walked all the way through Pamplona into the nearby fields and started heading for the hills. We could see modern windmill-farms in the distance and the road was decent, muddy and rocky sometimes but ok. We climbed up and up, heading towards ... read more