About four or five years ago Dee and I watched the movie The Way and it really intrigued me. Sometimes we are hit with a thought about doing something and we don’t expect to do it but the thought won’t go away. This was the genesis of what has become a reality for me. I knew that I would never attempt to hike the Appalachian Trail or the Pacific Coast for many reasons; the most of all is that I am not an outdoor camper.
As the idea simmered in my head we talked about the possibility of me hiking the Camino de Santiago. Dee was concerned about me doing it alone and we hit on the idea of asking a friend to hike it with me. We have friends in Salt Lake City and Doug is an avid hiker. It made sense to find out his interest. He was interested and we did a couple weeks of wonderful day hikes in Wyoming and Idaho. All was going well until Covid hit and we had to postpone a couple of years. Once Covid subsided I decided to hike it this summer starting when Dee is in France with cousins. It turns out that Doug had decided against going this year so I am hiking it alone with several thousand other pilgrims.
I’ll give you a little background of the Camino. The Camino starts in St. Jean Pied de Port on the France side of the border with Spain in the Pyrenees. The Camino traverses Northern Spain for about 790 km (that’s about 490 miles). It ends in Santiago Compostela where the Apostle St. James is buried. It’s been a pilgrimage for more than 1000 years.
I am 68 years old and when my brother was 68 he rode his motorcycle solo from Key West to the Arctic Circle in Alaska over a 61 day period and over 14,000 miles. His experiences were extraordinary and I always thought I would like to do something extraordinary. This is it in my mind. I’m hiking about 15 miles everyday for about 35 days to get to Santiago then my plan is to go about 50 miles further to the Atlantic Ocean to Finisterre (in Roman times it was believed to be the end of the known world) and then to Muxia which is also on the coast. We’ll see after almost 500 miles what my appetite is for more hiking.