Off We Go!

First we tell you that we’re leaving California for Colorado and now we’re on the move again! You may be thinking “What are they doing?” Really, it’s just another hike - but a very long one that will take us along one of the ancient routes used by religious pilgrims for centuries to pray at the remains of St. James, housed in the cathedral in Compostela, Spain. We’ll be walking the Camino Frances, from the foot of the Pyrenees Mountains in France and continuing across Northern Spain to Compostela – 496 miles and almost five weeks to be exact. And we definitely won’t be lonely in this venture – over 80,000 people have walked to Compostela so far this year. We’re not in search of St. James but out to experience a slice of Iberia on foot reasonably far away from the modern daily grind. But as 21st Century pilgrims, we’ll partake in the modern pleasures and vino of Spain!
“Why are you doing this?” We’d actually been talking about doing something like this for quite a while. When we hung up our corporate shoes and put on our hiking boots last spring, an extended trek was the first thing that we put on the To Do list. We’ll be walking through beautiful countryside, staying in small, picturesque villages, sampling Spain’s great food and wine and enjoying Spain’s temperate (hopefully) climate on foot.
“How exactly does this work?” The trek will take us through small hamlets across Spain. We carry our clothes, a sleeping bag and our lunch in a backpack. Most nights, we’ll stay in an albergue; a dormitory open to registered pilgrims along the Camino. We’ll register with the Camino Office in France as cultural pilgrims and will be given a passport, which will give us access to the albergues, as well as a scallop shell, the symbol of the Camino de Santiago, which we carry on the back of our packs. Most albergues will give us a bunk with a mattress, and a hot shower, and occasional internet connection. From our reading, ear plugs are a must as there will be up to 50 people sleeping and snoring in the same room. We’ll be bunking with people from all over the world, diverse in age, background and motivation for making this journey. So we expect to meet a lot of interesting people! We’ll average about 15 miles a day, passing through three to four villages, mostly founded in the 15th and 16th centuries. The path takes us across a lot of farmland, and we’re looking forward to watching and dining on the harvest. This is the Spain’s version of a hut to hut. As you can imagine, there is a real incentive to bring as little on the route as possible and packing has been a semi-traumatic experience as we come to grips with the idea of a very limited wardrobe selection. No doubt, we’ll look like true pilgrims when we pull into Compostela!
We’ve been working hard this summer to prepare for the trip, taking advantage of building up our legs and lungs in our new backyard of the Rocky Mountains. We made an attempt to pick up some of the language (hours of Spanish tapes on a Wyoming road trip) and we have our Berlitz phrase book handy! We’re going to celebrate our completion of the trek by meeting up with our friend Katie Zoglin who’s spending the year in Morocco with the American Bar Association. We’ll be going on a safari in the Sahara and are looking forward to riding instead of hiking, even though our "wheels" will be in the form of a camel
Tomorrow we start by walking out our door in Boulder to the bus for the plane, to the train and then giving up public transport and climbing the Pyrenees on Saturday. We'll keep you posted throughout the trip!