El Camino de Santiago

---

Ever since hearing about el camino de santiago when Andy was studying abroad in Spain, it has been our goal to eventually do this. Well no better time or way to end a summer in Spain than with the camino! So we did just that! El camino de Santiago is 'The Walk of St. James.' Now people from all over the world do the camino for many different reasons. We weren't quite sure what we had gotten ourselves into as we boarded the train to take us up to Leon in Northern Spain. Joining us for the fun were Christine, Sarah and Odin. This whole week long adventure was something we were unsure about as we really couldn't plan it out too much. We just had to get up there, start walking and hope for the best! Luckily places to sleep unfolded for us and water and food was found frequently enough. The walk we chose is a 112 Km (about 73 miles) hike from the town Sarria to Santiago. Due to time constraints (such as return flights!) we had to accomplish this hike in 4 days. Previous to doing this I think we all under-estimated the difficulty involved. Safe to say none of us will ever refer to an 11 hour day of hiking as "no problem." We are so lucky that the weather cooperated with us. Perfectly sunny and cooler days helped us stay comfortable throughout our walking. The camino was the most authentic way to experience Spain. The route is easily marked by yellow arrows. Just when we started questioning whether we were still on the path, we'd see an arrow to confirm our directions. Luckily we never strayed TOO far from our path. Along the camino we passed through pueblos and the countryside. It was quite shocking to look up and see a shephard with a herd of cattle and sheep walking towards us. Especially after the running of the bulls in Pamplona our initial response was to get OUT OF THEIR WAY, but obviously they were tame. For part of one day we had a little black dog, which we named Muffy, follow along with us.

Pilgrims have been doing the camino de santiago now for over 1,000 years so we were glad to partake in this Spanish tradition. There are points all over Spain and Europe where you can start the camino but we picked Sarria because it was a perfect location being 112 km from the end. We met a lot of people on the camino who were doing the walk for many different reasons. Sport, vacation, religion and personal challenge were the main things that brought people to the camino. One of the best parts of the camino was being right in the country side. When you are in Galicia (NW Spain) it looks a lot like Ireland and not what you would think of when you think Spain. We made rest stops every hour to 2 hours and there were always places to eat and get something to drink. Arriving at Santiago was quite amazing and really the culmination of a 2 month European adventure. A huge check mark on both of our lifetime check lists.

---