Only Misplaced

My firm expectation on setting off to do the Camino was that I would lose weight. Walking every day and carrying a 20 pound pack was surely a recipe for a slim and fit profile. Maybe the odd beer might interfere but that would not be enough to reverse the effect - I would be out buying a new wardrobe on my return. It hasn't worked out like that. The culprit is the Menu Pelegrino. Throughout our trip, various forms of menu pelegrino have surfaced. Most are three courses for 10 euros, including bread and wine. There have been occasional variations - we had four courses in the wonderful Albergue Suseia at Zubiri and we have occasionally settled for a pizza (and we were once royally conned into an expensive steak) - but, whether as part of a communal meal in an albergue or in a restaurant, most meals have been menu pelegrino. Almost all of them have been good - and amazing for the money. A few have been amazing if we had paid twice the price or more. In most places I have d...

One of the strange things about doing the Camino is revealed in the title to the blog post. Walking a 100 miles is a long and arduous task for anyone but, after you have already done the best part of 400 miles, it doesn’t seem very daunting; it feels like the finishing straight. The pleasures of the Camino have yet to pall. I found myself just grinning today at nothing more than landscape. Despite some rain, today was another joyous day – just walking and enjoying amazing views, those persistent wild flowers (which today added orchids to the mix) and the little incidents of Camino progress (today, huskies hauling an owner along, horse riders, good company and the church bell chain that I really should have pulled harder). Food and drink have been great today too – local cider, chestnut cake and Galician wine especially. I am slightly dreading what is to come. This is partly because lots of newbies will join at Sarria, the last place to join and still qualify for a compostela,...

In my last post, I gloried mainly in the landscape – and that hasn’t got old. I am still loving the birds (greenfinches, probably, as well as yellowhammers and/or goldfinches now) and sort of wish I had packed my bird book. I am revelling in the changes of scene. Snow and mountains today – and not just snow in the distance but snowing on me as I stepped outside. But I paid less attention to the people we meet in my last post. Before we left, I was asked if I really thought we would have much contact with others and, while I have not kept a record, the reality has far exceeded my expectations. We are lucky that English is the language of the camino, albeit there are pockets where only Spanish is spoken. Most of those on the Way are well educated people from Northern Europe or North America. Exchanges tend to focus on ‘where are you from’ and ‘where are you going’ but many range across a much wider range of topics. I have had the opportunity to run my spiel highlighting Calne as th...