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To the End of the World
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To the End of the World

Pamplona to the end of the world. Czytaj więcej
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  • MikkaTo the End of the WorldMikka

    Day 5: Najera

    21 lipca 2022, Hiszpania ⋅ ☀️ 35 °C

    Najera wraps up our hot day walks over 30km. Tomorrow’s leg to Santo Domingo de la Calzada is only a 22km day, ending in one of the more interesting towns along the Camino Frances.

    We have the first few injuries, Bisquit, the Dutch guy, injured his Achilles’ tendon, others limp or feel their shoulders. That’s ok, until Burgos the Camino is in the “Body” stage, the part that gets your body used to the Way so your mind has a chance to soar in the Meseta that follows. Czytaj więcej

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  • MikkaTo the End of the WorldMikka

    Sto. Domingo de la Calzada

    22 lipca 2022, Hiszpania ⋅ ⛅ 21 °C

    The church is dedicated to Domingo, a monk who developed most of the area. It is super lavish, which feels odd, considering the relative frugality of the hamlets around it.

    It houses a pen with a hen and cock which traced back to a story about a chicken coming alive on a plate to prove a boy’s innocence.

    I usually don’t go into churches. Their lavishness annoys me, paying 5€ (the cost of a nights sleep) to a diocese that proudly displays millions of dollars in gold and silver feels wrong. But since this one is the sister church of my home in Schondorf, Bavaria, I had to.     Czytaj więcej

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  • MikkaTo the End of the WorldMikka

    Contemplations

    23 lipca 2022, Hiszpania ⋅ ☀️ 28 °C

    It’s a week now, and this year’s Camino is nothing like any of those I walked prior. While there is a small group of pilgrims forming that try to walk or dine together, most walking and dining is done either in preformed groups along language or age lines, or alone.

    Everyone walks their own Camino, but if the German group remains all but functionally mute when passing or being passed by pilgrims (customary is a quick Hola or Buen Camino) and suddenly, behind sour looking faces, almost unwilling to accept the indignity of having to do so, asks to have their picture taken… that’s a different Camino as the one I am used to.

    The “hot shit” pilgrim is J, a physician from Australia. Quick to explain to me, that my work in social and community medicine just shows that I am not long enough in the game to value money, he’s nevertheless the kind of riot that makes him a Camino Legend.

    We’re two days from Burgos and three from the beginning of the Meseta, my favorite part. The landscape is barren and the bars serve as nodal points. It’s here that Camino Families are forged, break apart, reorganize, and gain dynamics beyond the walking together.

    We’ll see what the desert brings. Tomorrow brings 39°C, little shade, and 32 kilometers. Time to attend the pilgrim dinner and hit the hay.     Czytaj więcej

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  • MikkaTo the End of the WorldMikka

    Forest

    24 lipca 2022, Hiszpania ⋅ ☀️ 29 °C

    What threatened to be a hot and dusty day was made much more bearable by long stretches of forest that broke up the red clay paths leading into the Atapuerca Valley. Here archeologists discovered the remains of some of the earliest Europeans, and Santiago Ramón y Cajal discovered the microstructures of the brain.

    Arriving in Agés it becomes clear that no one here takes credit card and that the next ATM is a 100€ cab ride away in Burgos. So it’ll be a quiet and early night for me.     Czytaj więcej

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  • MikkaTo the End of the WorldMikka

    Day Nine

    25 lipca 2022, Hiszpania ⋅ ☀️ 24 °C

    I am in Tardajos, the gateway to the Meseta. Today was a strange day. It was an easy walk, mostly downhill except for a brief climb across Atapuerca (see last Footprint). It is July 25, the day of St. James and with that a holiday for pilgrims.

    Reading about the draughts and famines that used to ravish the area, the deaths, and the pain those caused, followed by a stroll through a church packed to the brim with golden excess luxury, makes me contemplative. Am I in fact walking with the insignia of a movement that emphasized creating golden temples to St. James at times that cost many of the people whose tithes and taxes built them their lives. Even today, am I comfortable paying this church to enter their houses for contemplation and reflection, when the same 5€ charged for entry could feed a person a good dinner?

    I had to say good bye to Maria and Esther who are ending their Camino in Burgos, meeting Esther‘s husband and kids in Leon tomorrow. The Dutch have fallen back, I might see some of them in the coming days, but Sander is too injured to keep up.

    Injuries are abound. I am proud of not letting anyone and anything rush me, arriving exactly where I want to be, at more or less the perfect time, without killing myself uphill or downhill. I am, in fact, a few miles ahead, both due to the fact that I left Burgos today after lunch and due to being pretty unharmed, physically and emotionally.

    My ON shoes, however, had to go. My one stop in Burgos was a sports store to pick up some Merrell trail walkers, which hopefully won’t completely wear through in a matter of days. Right now they feel … weird, but I’ll wear them in, I am sure.

    The albergue I am at is the best I have been in in all of my Caminos. Great beds, great people, and a backyard with cafeteria. I am sitting outside, listening to locals chat, enjoying a Clara (half beer and half lemonade) and Patatas Bravas, typing into my iPad Mini. Tomorrow my Meseta Adventure begins, the best part of the Camino.     Czytaj więcej

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  • MikkaTo the End of the WorldMikka

    Meseta

    26 lipca 2022, Hiszpania ⋅ ☀️ 15 °C

    My walk of the Meseta has begun. A cool wind pushes me forward, and the endless wheat fields seem to wave me towards my goal for the day, Hontanas. It is getting flatter and the only mental excitement of the day so far was a tractor trailer trying to run over pilgrims. A swift jump into the ditch saved us, though 😀. Czytaj więcej

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  • MikkaTo the End of the WorldMikka

    Day 11, the endless expanse

    27 lipca 2022, Hiszpania ⋅ ☀️ 25 °C

    The Meseta is the great divider of the Camino. Not just in terms of it being its midpoint, but also as the thing dividing emotions: some hate it for its wide fields of nothingness, others (like me) love it for the calm of mind and almost total lack of stimuli it brings.

    Today was my second day in the Spanish high desert, taking me no further than to Castrojeriz, a town with a storied past and little else. But it is, as they all are, a camp along the dusty highways of the Meseta, a place to rest, drink, and reconnect with other pilgrims.

    I admit, I have not found my „crowd“ yet, and maybe won’t at all, this time. This is the loneliest Meseta I have had so far, no evening guitars around a campfire, no laughter in six languages, no anecdotes from the road. Just the calm desert wind carrying the smells of the Meseta, the sound of birds going on one last sunset hunt, and the red light of a sinking sun turning everything into glowing desert ember.

    Tomorrow I’ll walk to Boadilla de Camino, but for tonight I am going to enjoy the silence, hug my fleece tighter as the night brings the desert cold, and sit until the stars above me show me, as they do every night, the way to Santiago de Compostella.     Czytaj więcej

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  • MikkaTo the End of the WorldMikka

    RIP Camino Ninja

    28 lipca 2022, Hiszpania ⋅ ☀️ 25 °C

    A sad update, one I never wanted to write. On this Camino and others, I’ve used and use Camino Ninja, an amazing app that shows me just the things I need and nothing else. It is the brain child of founder and sole programmer Andy Max Jensen, who walked over 20k Camino miles to map the roads and feed them into his app.

    Camino Ninja is free. And the best of the bunch.

    Today word reaches me, that Andy, aka Camino Ninja, has died after collapsing on the Camino, a mere handful of miles ahead of me. He was 49. Andy was the Pilgrim’s Pilgrim. He was, in person, in email, on Instagram, and as a coder, always there for everyone. He walked with pilgrims to hear their stories, stories that strongly influenced how he worked on his websites and app.

    Tonight I’ll raise my glass in his honor. May he forever feel the soft ground of an eternal Camino under his feet.     Czytaj więcej

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  • MikkaTo the End of the WorldMikka

    Boadilla de Camino

    28 lipca 2022, Hiszpania ⋅ ☀️ 30 °C

    Four years ago this albergue was the best on the Camino. It had a pool, a beer garden, pilgrims were sitting and laughing.

    Today the albergue and garden are closed. The three pilgrims are housed above the hotel next door, which sells 0.2 cola for three bucks and did not have food.

    It’s not just COVID, the Camino got too big for its own good and enthusiasm was replaced by greed that quickly destroyed many businesses.     Czytaj więcej

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