Camino Retrospective

[Paul Newfield]

Some additional comments:

Round trip Airline tickets from USA:
This was my first agony.  Walking from SJPP to Santiago, How many total
days should I schedule for myself in Spain?  My earliest Pilgrim contact
had told me that he took 30 days from SJPP to Santiago, walking only 6 days
per week and resting on the 7th.  (However he did NOT tell me that he took
a bus between Burgos and Leon...).  Obviously the Math did not make any
sense.
After doing my own calculations, etc.,  For my own purposes, I decided to
give myself a total time of 42 days in Spain.  This would allow time to
travel northward to San Sebastian and then for a two day visit with a
friend who lives near SJPP, and it would permit me a bit of time for jet
lag recovery before beginning.
I completed the SJPP to Santiago walk in 34 days (April 23, 1999 to May 26,
1999), then had three days in Santiago.  For the remaining time, back to
Madrid, and a visit to Toledo before my return home to USA.

My backpack and my stuff were way too heavy.  When I reached Estella, I
mailed almost 3.0 kilos back to USA, including my pesonal journal
(measuring 12" x 7.5" x 1") and my "Guia Practica" by Bravo Lozano.  My
personal journal became a little spiral bound notebook (3.5" x 5") which I
purchased along the camino, and which fit handily in my around-the-neck
passport-pouch. Still, I had more weight than I needed.

I never did acclimate to doing my own laundry by hand.  I resisted to the
point of almost becoming a bio-hazard on the camino <a joke!>.

My pilgrimage was a solo enterprise, but most days I spent in the pleasant
company of others.  At each albergue I tried to find the albergue's Daily
Journal (Libro de los Perigrinos?) and read the wonderful entries written
by those who had gone before me; and oftentimes I would scribble my own
comments for others following me to read.  Some of the intensely personal
artwork and drawings in these libros could move you to tears.

Buen camino,

Paul Newfield  (pcn01awebdsi.com)
<http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~brasscannon>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.oakapple.net/pipermail/gocamino/attachments/20020421/71be94d5/attachment.htm