[Gocamino] plazas

[Robert Spenger]

It took a couple of months of fumbling around with the details, but the travel insurance finally came through with the cost of my expensive early return. This gave me the excuse to make another attempt at the Arles route to try to make up for the fiasco last spring.

Some folks might well ask, “Why on earth do you take these trips?” It’s an expensive, irresponsible, non-productive self-indulgence. It is certainly very physically taxing for this old bag of bones. On the trip from Condom in the fall of 2008, I had to cut it short at Sarria, when my knee called it quits with just a little over 100km left to go. It took me about 3 months, and a series of hyaluronic acid injections in my knee, to recover from that one. At the time I was convinced that it was the last one, but I was compelled to return the next spring to complete it and go on to Fisterra as well. I have jokingly called it an addiction – obsessive/compulsive behavior, in a sort of phony self-deprecation, but there is some truth to it. However, on reflection I think that it is a matter of meeting challenges, which are many and varied.  Obviously, I have sometimes failed to meet them, but I am then left with the feeling that I need to go back and make another try at it. Some would say that this old coot is just wacko, which is the way that some of my friends felt when I took off on that first trip 10 years ago. But I am sure that there are many members of the four camino forums that can understand the way I feel.

As always, I learned a number of things. To start off, it turns out that using Horizon Air (Alaska Air) out of Mammoth Lakes Airport to get from the Eastern Sierra to LAX is not a bad way to go during the warm months. It is a much different story in the winter. Not only is it far more expensive and dangerous, but a traveler cannot be sure of getting out in time to make connections. However, the off-season, one flight a day schedule makes it difficult to connect with conveniently timed flights out of LAX. In that same vein, i.e. timing of flights, I learned that if you are arriving at a hotel after 22:00, you have to make sure that it is either open 24/7 or that you have the pass code to get in and a key waiting there for you. This is no doubt old stuff to seasoned travelers, but I had not fully caught on yet.

Always take it for granted that guide books and maps are out of date and try to find someone at each stop that can let you know of any changes. This is not a new concept for me, but it was strongly reinforced on that spring trip.

I should have practiced a lot more with my camera. It is a fairly simple model, with point and shoot capability, but one little item resulted in all of my photos being at the lowest quality. It is a simple enough check to make sure that the camera has not defaulted to this setting, but I didn’t realize that it could happen and didn’t make that check.

I have never used a cell phone outside of the U.S. and I am still quite inept at using the one that I have here, but that spring trip convinced me that it might be a good idea to get one. I had some thought of trying to get one with a short-term contract in Toulouse last spring, but didn’t get around to it. There was also an option of using an overseas cell phone rental service from a U.S. company. I have since looked into both. In regard to cell phones there is both a huge information overload and a dearth of the specific information that I would want.  I have a full day scheduled in Toulouse (with a hotel nearer to the city center), so I will make a better effort to find out what is available when I get there. In Spain, I would not feel the need for but walking on the GRs of France is a different ball game.

The next section of the route, starting from Lodève, has a couple of very long stages if you stick to the regular Grande Randonnée 653 (GR653). I remember the route on the first trip in 2000 as being relatively short from Lodève to Lunas, but the current guidebooks show it with a large detour to the north, passing through Joncels, where a stop is recommended. It is 21km to Joncels and another 4km to Lunas. Google gives me a pedestrian route that is much more direct and only 14km. The next stage, to Saint Gervais sur Mare, is more than I want to do in one day, 27km. Although Lunas is a fair sized town and a good place to stop, I am not happy with the idea of the short 14km day and following it with 27km. I found that I can even it up a bit, by making my stop at Saint Martin d’Orb, where there are a couple of accommodations available.  It is 3km past Lunas, so it allows a 17km day, followed by 24km. That is still more than I like, but the gîte owner in SMd’O has indicated that it is possible to get motor transport for part of the way. Yeah, yeah, a  “true pilgrim” would walk the entire route. But I make no claim on being such and, in any case, I paid my dues on that first trip in 2000. There are still a couple of long stages after that, but I will have to see how those go when I get there.

No cortisone or hyaluronic acid injections in the knee this time. I hope to go at it with whatever it can handle without treatment. I might have gone along with one or both of those this time around, but the orthopedic surgeon that I had gone to before has moved out of the area – I don’t know where. There are others here, but I had confidence in him and would not feel that confident taking up with another one.

Bob S.