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Brenda’s Camino

May - June 2023
A pilgrimage begins the moment you walk out your door. Read more
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  • TravelerBrenda’s Camino
    1

    St Jean Pied de Port

    April 30, 2023 in France ⋅ ☁️ 18 °C

    Last day in St. Jean. I am sitting at an outdoor patio with a beer in the early afternoon but tomorrow afternoon at this time, I hope I am finally onto the downhill stretch into Roncesvalles!

    I will finally have to commit to what goes in the backpack and what stays in the suitcase. As those of you who know and love me...commitment isn't my strength these days, but I am now fully committed to the next 900km.

    Today I met a pilgrim from Germany who is also going to Finisterre; another pilgrim whom I helped get his e SIM card up and working, and he helped me with finally finding a user friendly travel app so I can share this journey across Spain with you all. The three ladies from Australia I saw at breakfast today, I will likely see again in the next days on the camino.

    There are surprisingly a-lot of cyclists as well, but you couldn't pay me to climb the hill out of town on a bike!

    Just like in the medieval era, many pilgrims wear the scallop shell around their necks or attached to their back to make it easier to be identified as a pilgrim and provide reassurance that they are still on the right track. It is more symbolic now...to be on the right path.    Read more

  • TravelerBrenda’s Camino
    1
    Day 2

    Roncesvalles

    May 2, 2023 in Spain ⋅ ⛅ 16 °C

    What a lovely day today. Blue skies, warm, a bit of a cool wind at higher elevations, but nothing that a long sleeve shirt couldn't fix. The climb to Roncesvalles is about 1300 meters, and today was about 26 km or so. The climb was quite difficult at times. But the footing excellent because it was for 2/3 of the climb also a road. A few sightseeing cars on the road, but the road not much bigger than a pathway in Calgary! Very steep and steady for 20 km or so. The devil's staircase in Scotland was feeling pretty easy at some points on this trail! A lovely decent through a treed forest area with beds of leaves underfoot. Lovely views of the Pyrenees.

    Many pilgrims on the trail. You are always passing someone, or they are passing you...You can see people ahead and behind. It is very nice though because you start to see the same people as you stop and start throughout the day. So am meeting people from Germany, UK, USA, Canada, Spain. The number of languages on the trail is new for me. Many people speak some English, but lots of conversations I overheard in other languages.

    Roncesvalles is home to a beautiful monastery and now a hostel. Also crossed over into Spain somewhere in the Pyrenees, and my French was just beginning to improve and now I am switching over to my even worse Spanish!    Read more

  • TravelerBrenda’s Camino
    Day 3

    Roncesvalles to Akerreta

    May 3, 2023 in Spain ⋅ 🌙 25 °C

    Actually, I am in Pamplona right now because when I booked on short notice, Akerreta was fully booked. Akerreta is a small village famous because it is where scenes from the movie, The Way, were filmed and also because Ernest Hemingway wrote in earnest in this part of Spain and apparently also stayed in the community of Akerreta. Akerreta is less famous because in the forests about 15km back toward Roncesvalles, the area was popular with witches of the 17th century and several were burned at the stake in this region. Thankfully, I was born in the 20th century!

    Today was about 27km in total, and about 600 meters in elevation, and with the temperature climbing to the high 20's in the sun for most of the day, it was a very challenging walk. Made just a little bit more challenging because I left Roncesvalles a bit late, 9 am, and had to be in Akeretta for my transfer to hotel in Pamplona for 5 pm. I misjudged how long this might take...needless to say, I made it with 20 minutes to spare! Tomorrow morning I will be transferred back to Akerreta to continue on to Pampolona...I seriously considered a few times...of just staying here already! But my conviction to walk all 900 km is very motivating.

    So today, I had two revelations: first I crave a simpler life, a more ordinary life. Second, I have too much baggage literally.

    All the advice says, don't pack too much...I did...so tonight in Pamplona, I walked (if you can believe it...because I can't) to the shopping district and bought a smaller suitcase. I stopped at the post office and will ship stuff that is unnecessary back to Canada. I am slowly but surely, shedding my life literally over the last few days, and also perhaps figuratively as well...I don't know...in the days to come that will become clearer. One thing I know for sure, I cannot haul that monstrous suitcase up another flight of stairs for the next 48 days!    Read more

  • TravelerBrenda’s Camino
    Day 4

    Akerreta to Pamplona

    May 4, 2023 in Spain ⋅ 🌙 20 °C

    Honestly, sitting here to draft this tonight, it is a bit overwhelming because the day had a few great moments. I will start at the most uneventful, but still, in my mind, worth noting today.
    1. I did "unload" much of my luggage today. After a couple of attempts at the post office ( who knew you need a passport to mail a package to Canada?), a very helpful and friendly lady...has sent my stuff to Canada. What is most remarkable about this is the number of people at the post office sending stuff home! Every other person was packing stuff into a box to send forward!
    2. The Camino seems to find a way to help each other. I tied an elderly man's shoes this morning and tonight at a cafe, I met a pilgrim and, now, friend from Australia who helped me figure out my phone problem. I now have a Spanish phone number! I think I can even use I messages! Funny enough...she also sent "stuff" home to Australia today too!
    3. Food management is a thing in Spain...they do NOT eat until 8 pm! Diana (new friend) and I met at one of the few cafes serving tapas before 8 pm. She asked me if I spoke English, and what I was eating. I said, yes to the English, and I have NO idea what I am about to eat...turned out to be mushroom and egg...it was very good with a glass of wine or two in the company of a new friend!

    4. So what I thought was going to be a pretty unremarkable day (a reasonably flat, 16 km) turned out to be incredibly remarkable. My soul is healthier today, even if my feet aren't!

    There is a fork in the Camino near Zabaldika. A pebble was bothering me, so I stopped before I even realized this was a fork in the road, and as I was sitting there, I noticed a pilgrim travelling in the other direction. I called out to him that the path was to the left, and he said he was going to the church. So I followed him. As it turns out, following this camino ( which is the old route) leads up a steep but short climb to a modest church.

    The church of St. Esteban is a tiny church built in the early 13th century that has not had any major renovations since! At the door, I was greeted by a man who handed me a copy of the church history and explanations. More importantly, he handed me the "Beatitudes of the Pilgrims".

    I came on this Camino with a deep urge to settle into my life. Meeting other pilgrims on a shared journey, unloading my baggage, and a quietness settling on my soul, the Camino has called me. The Beatitudes resonate with me deeply, and sharing them with you is the calling of the Camino.

    The Beatitudes of a Pilgrim
    1. Blessed are you, pilgrim, if you discover that the road opens your eyes to the unseen.
    2. Blessed are you, pilgrim, if what concerns you most is not getting there, but getting there with others.
    3. Blessed are you, pilgrim, when you contemplate the road and discover it full of names, and dawns.
    4. Blessed are you, pilgrim, if you discover that one step back to help another is worth more than a hundred steps forward.
    5. Blessed are you, pilgrim, if your backpack is emptying of things and your heart does not know where to hang so many emotions.
    6. Blessed are you, pilgrim, if you lack words to express your gratitude for all that surprises you at every turn in the road.
    7. Blessed are you, pilgrim, if you make your way a life and your life a journey in search of the One who is "the Way, the Truth, and the Life".
    8. Blessed are you, pilgrim, if on the way you meet yourself and give yourself time without haste so as not to neglect your heart.
    9. Blessed are you, pilgrim, if you discover the road has much to do with silence, and silence with prayer, and prayer with an encounter with the God of Love who awaits you.
    10. Blessed are you, pilgrim, for you will discover that the true journey begins when it ends.    Read more

  • TravelerBrenda’s Camino
    Day 5

    Pamplona to Puente La Reina

    May 5, 2023 in Spain ⋅ ☁️ 21 °C

    I was thinking on my walk today that I would enjoy returning to this part of Spain and travelling by car. I spent the last two evenings in Pamplona, but because most of that time is spent trying to figure out luggage, communication, laundry, there is not much time or energy to sightsee or enjoy the all the pleasures and wealth of the Camino.

    For example, today, I passed a lovely little cafe in a village only about 4 km from where I am spending the night, and normally, I would love nothing more than to sit on a patio with a bit of tapa and wine, but the reality of the Camino is that this is a journey, not a holiday. It is 26+ degrees, in the sun all day, more hills, and my feet have blisters, and so I didn't stop at the cafe, but another time, I definitely will, but I will be in a car! (lol).

    Today's trail, which includes, Alto de Perdon, at 2526 metres, has spiritual significance as the "height of forgiveness". This area has the highest winds and the windmills are littered across the mountains and hills, and traditionally this area plays a role in forgiveness, carrying away one's sorrows and clearing the pilgrim of the burdens he has carried up here. This is considered the Way of the Wind. Apparently this is " where the way of the wind meets the way of the stars."

    I don't really know what to think of all this today as I grieved the anniversary of my lost marriage...but I think it was appropriate and God willing that today of all days, I walked the Way of the Wind.    Read more

  • TravelerBrenda’s Camino
    Day 6

    Puente la Reina to Estella

    May 6, 2023 in Spain ⋅ ⛅ 17 °C

    A most exciting that happened first thing this morning while I was wandering about, I saw a Spanish snake! I nearly stepped on in and I don't know who was more startled...me or the snake. He was a gold and black, skinny about 18 inches long. He had a pointy head and his tongue was certainly showing off his muscles!

    Todays' walk was really quite lovely. We are now entering wine country! I actually walked past a vineyard and tasting room. I didn't go in for a tasting. I didn't buy any wine...but I was tempted... It was not too far about 24 km today, and still no shortage of hills as we went through about 5 towns and to and from each town is a climb and a descent.

    For a few people, I know they struggled today getting a taxi. People are starting to feel the miles in their feet and legs, and so a new conversations have started...how to get a bus or a taxi. By now most people have figured out their hotel rooms, and have either decided to live with the "bed rush", or they are booking the rest of the days, or at least booking a few days in advance. Feet and legs are becoming a more frequent conversation as well...I am hoping that after 5 full days of walking that I am getting the most obvious of ailments out and out of the way...I hope that is true.

    At Lorca, which would be about 1/2 way to Estella, I planned on stopping for lunch and was pleasantly surprised by a concert in the town square, so enjoyed a few minutes of the concert with my lunch.

    I am starting to meet the same people again and again through the day. We stop and start at our own schedules but somehow seem to meet up again. I walked a few miles with Kelly today, and another friend Diane. In fact I bumped into Diane and her friend Julie at a cafe in our desperate search for food in Estella which in the end turned out to be another piece of egg and potato pie, and a couple glasses of wine. Between the holidays, soccer games, siestas and possibly the fact that it is Saturday made for definite food challenges which are not going to improve tomorrow since the hike tomorrow has the first 10 km without any food or water service, and it is quite exposed. It will be cooler tomorrow only about 23 degrees so that does make a difference.

    On the whole my body is holding up. I mentioned to some people that I burnt my hand on one of the first days I was in France with boiling water...it is healing, but I am having to bandage it up with my modest first aid kit because my burn is getting burned!

    My feet are ok. I switched out shoes today...but they left small blisters where I remember they do (ugh), so tomorrow it is back to the mountain shoes I think, and continue to manage the blisters as best I can. With all the shops closed today, I was lucky to happen upon a grocery store and got a few things there and also some food for the trip tomorrow as well. What I really need is a fork!    Read more

  • TravelerBrenda’s Camino
    3
    Day 7

    Estella to Los Arcos

    May 7, 2023 in Spain

    So in Los Arcos, the Camino begins to enter the wine region! Today's walk also marks the beginning of some of the challenges of the Camino.. feet.

    I found it difficult to focus today because my feet are beginning to take up quite a bit of brain space when every step is becoming painful. Thankfully this walk to Los Arcos was only 21 km, and when I arrived in Los Arcos, I enjoyed a beer with two American men with whom I had also met before in Puente la Reina, and they gave me their extra package of blister bandages! It is quite remarkable how when meeting people on the trail or in a bar at the end of the day how they already feel like they are your long lost friends. It is a Camino thing.

    However on this day at 5 pm, I also had a transfer to Viana, a nearby town, because when I booked there was no accommodation in Los Arcos, so at 5 pm my prearranged taxi arrived exactly on time in exactly the right place. The driver dropped me at a lovely hotel in Viana in the middle of medieval looking street ( and I am sorry I didn't take a picture), but unlike the taxi driver who was prompt and where he should have been, my luggage was not! In fact my luggage was lost! For the second time!

    While the hotel receptionist tracked my missing luggage, I consoled myself with a beer in the hotel patio/bar where I met a wonderful group of pilgrims from Germany and Australia. I borrowed a phone charger...so I could also try to track my luggage down, and be assured it was found in the next town...at the next hotel!

    The evening was very camino like...we had some beer, some wine and then we all went for a pilgrim supper down the way, where I enjoyed more wine, a salad, a piece of fish in a tomato sauce of sorts, and a bowl of strawberries and cream! We shared blister advice, the pros and cons of poles, and in Germany they also play pickleball with a net around the court! The Australian couple are travelling to Edmonton after the Camino because their son lives in Edmonton! A small world.    Read more

  • TravelerBrenda’s Camino
    Day 8

    Los Arcos to Logroño

    May 8, 2023 in Spain ⋅ ☁️ 24 °C

    Today's 28 km walk walk was very challenging, and not because the walk itself was very difficult...the usual number of hills, the usual number of descents, and a lovely 28 degree day, blue ski. Not a lot of villages along the way, so one needed to be prepared and plan for food and water.

    The challenge today began yesterday with sore and blistered feet. This morning, I was undecided whether I would walk this section today, or take the bus to the next town. I decided to walk. So the taxi picked me up and dropped me back in Los Arcos where I finished yesterday, and I began to walk. By the way, my transfer also included meeting two Canadians from Summerland!

    By the first 100 meters, I knew that it would be impossible to walk 28 km with the shoes on my feet, so switched to my Tevas which offered some relief and I managed to get to the next town about 5 or 6 km ahead. The pharmacy was open...which is nothing short of a miracle in Spain because in Spain, it seems that it often a holiday, a soccer game, siesta or Sunday (lol). I bought some gel inserts, and put them in my shoes, I rebandaged my feet, tied the laces tight and set off, somewhat more comfortable.

    I decided that if in the next town (Viana...where I also slept the night before) that I would get a taxi if my feet were too painful...in Viana, it was manageable still, and I met up with a friend, Darlene in Viana and the two us embarked on the final 10 km to Logrono together...me with my blistered feet and Darlene with her plantar fasciitis. We grabbed an orange juice before leaving town, but we both wanted beer admittedly...

    The walk to Logrono was not hard, but very exposed and, therefore, hot, upwards of 30 degrees...through the wine groves, and toward the city of Logrono. Just as we entered the city, a woman was selling cold drinks, we enjoyed a coke before finishing the last 4 km into the city and our hotels.

    Today, I am learning humility, and how to adjust expectations. Tomorrow's walk is a moderately difficult walk of another 27km. In the morning, I will decide how I will approach the day tomorrow, and I know that however the day goes, it is still a Camino day.    Read more

  • TravelerBrenda’s Camino
    Day 9

    Logronos to Najera

    May 9, 2023 in Spain ⋅ ☁️ 13 °C

    A Camino day from Logrono to Najera ( day 9 ) is a day to do laundry, soak my sore feet in ice water, find toe socks, meet friends with extra blister treatment, read my book, and eat appetizers from bar to bar with new friends, sushi for lunch. I am trying to eat lots of protein today...hoping I heal faster (lol).

    It is surprising but only by day 9, I am experiencing a kind of calm, a kind of settled on the Camino. Before I came on the Camino, I was determined to walk all 900 km, and was aghast even contemplating the idea of not walking every step.

    But today, I am surprisingly good not having walked today and, in fact, have already decided not to walk tomorrow either. I will taxi to Santa Domingo tomorrow, and with a renewed plan to walk more of the Camino...notice of I said, "more", not "all" or the "rest of". At this point, walking "all" of the Camino is a moving target. It is that hard. Not physically hard from a fitness point of view, as much as our bodies ( mine and many others you meet along the way), are not accustomed to this amount of walking on hard stone surfaces, day in and day out in the heat and sun. So it is hard.

    So tonight, I enjoyed the extra night in Lograno. It is a lovely city with a vibrant town centre where a person walks from cafe/bar to cafe/bar with their own speciality of appetizer, called "pincha/pincho", I have that totally wrong but something like that...so Diana and I enjoyed mushrooms with garlic butter, lamb, potatoes, and an unique speciality of roasted red peppers on top of bread, and the peppers are topped with a medium cooked egg yolk. The Spanish have the wholesome, food thing figured out.

    Tomorrow I will taxi to Santa Domingo...and begin the Camino again. I am glad to have taken this time to not only heal my feet, but also reset a bit...enjoy some of what Spain has to offer.    Read more

  • TravelerBrenda’s Camino
    2
    Day 10

    Logronos to Santo Domingo de la Calzada

    May 10, 2023 in Spain ⋅ ☁️ 17 °C

    Another good nights sleep in Logronos and a few errands for the days ahead...some emergency food (tuna/juice/sausage), duck tape ( I can't believe I found some!), the bank, and a repack my suitcase and backpack and I was in a taxi heading to Santo Domingo de la Calzada.

    I am already thankful I decided to take two days off the Camino because first, my feet are feeling much better, and my body and soul are also feeling a bit recovered from the reprieve of constant pain and suffering, and second because I was able to do some sightseeing in Santo Domingo that if I had continued to walk would have been unlikely up to the task.

    I arrived at my "hostel" called Hospederia Cistercienses a bit early so I rang the doorbell, and a nun answered the door. At first I thought I must be in the wrong place expecting to arrive at something that more closely resembled a hotel than a convent. But I am in the right place! I am so excited to be a convent that I opted for dinner tonight at the convent, despite the fact that dinner is not served until 8:45 pm.

    After settling into my room for a moment, I headed out to see the sights. There is a festival in this town today...lots of families with young children and teenagers, music in the square, but I am not sure what exactly is the celebration, but very nice to be part of such a vibrant community.

    The Cathedral de Santo Domingo de la Calzada is the Camino's most famous surviving structure on the Camino. The 13th century cathedral also keeps the tomb on Santo Domingo and the living descendants of his miracle: a pair of fowl.

    Santo Domingo (1019 - 1109) choose to be a hermit over being a monk until a dream guided him to be a builder on the Camino and to be of service to the pilgrims on the Camino. Calzada means "roads" and Santo Domingo built many roads often from defunct old Roman roads and picked the spot where the city currently stands because it was such a hard place for pilgrims to pass and they needed support and protection.

    In the 11th century, a German family were travelling, and their son was falsely accused of stealing silver, and the boy was immediately hung, but Santo Domingo intervened and raised the boy up so as to not hang. The boy's parents pleaded with the judge who was about to begin a lovely dinner of roast fowl, and said he would set the boy free when the fowl at his table sat up and sang. The cock and the hen then just did that, and the boy was released! The descendants of this miracle cock and hen still reside in the The Cathedral de Santo Domingo de la Calzada.

    I thoroughly enjoyed the tour of the church, seeing the miracle fowl, and then enjoyed a late lunch at a cafe before heading back to my modest room for a nap. I am truly adapting to the Spanish lifestyle I think!

    I just finished the pilgrim supper at the convent/hostal, and it was lovely and simple. A simple supper of eggs and fried potatoes, salad, chicken soup, and a kind of gelatine orange slice with cheese, and, of course, wine. I sat with people I had either met or seen on the trail. A father and daughter ( Bob and Kate), Martha ( also from British Columbia...and in fact on the same island...Gabri???...up the Sunshine Coast???) and Helen. Martha, Helen and I are all widowed/divorced, 60 to 70 years old...so many of us solo female travellers on the trail.

    Kate just bought new shoes today, and I am going to duck tape my blisters, so tomorrow will be a good day! I am feeling rested and eager to walk again the Camino.    Read more

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