Paying and Planning : Preparing for the Camino de Santiago

 

Paying for a trek on the Camino de Santiago

Once the decision had been made to go on the Camino, the first order of business was to figure out a way to pay for it.  Given that all of Sean's savings went to either paying legal fees or towards the care of a younger relative, and my pay went covering daily bills we had to become innovative.   Ultimately we decided that perhaps it was time to downsize, and I created an Ebay account to sell most of our childhood souvenirs and eliminate the clutter around my home.  I was also fortunate (as I have been my entire life) to get a lot of assistance from my parents who paid for our flights and several hotel reservations.  As a result, in the six months since we started saving and selling we have gotten rid of almost everything of Sean's, eliminated a lot of clutter in my life, and saved enough to modestly travel along the Way of St. James.

 

Planning for the Way of St. James

After looking at the weather forecasts our goal is to walk through September and into October and our flights have been booked to give us a few extra days to work into the schedule in case we need a break or need to recover.   

 

 

To plan and prepare we read books about the Camino such as Jack Hitt's Off the Road , Hape Kerkeling's I'm Off Then: Losing and Finding myself on the Camino de Santiago, and Jane Christmas' What the Psychic Told The Pilgrim.  We have also watched countless YouTube Videos and online blogs about people's experiences, their reasons for hiking, where they stopped along the way, and how much everything costs.   Also invaluable to our planning process were various Facebook groups dedicated to the Camino and the positive advice given out by those who had already hiked the route.   In addition to these materials, the Canadian Company of Pilgrims provided us our pilgrim passports and invaluable information on the pathway.  We also purchased and plan to follow John Brierley's indispensable text "A Pilgrim's Guide to the Camino de Santiago".  My guess is that we will follow Brierley's suggested daily stages which are largely dictated by distances (approx 20-25 km per day), food availability, and water sources. 

 

Uncertain of what type of food we will find along the way, we have packed several dozen packets of Cliff bars, and a container of trail mix , both of which are our staple hiking snacks in Canada.  In addition we are bringing a smart phone to let us periodically check Google maps along the way and to send out regular Postal postcards to our friends and family.

** Post Camino commentary - be sure to check each day to figure out where your water sources are and whether you have the amount of snacks or food you require.  The majority of sections have regular bars (cafe, restaurant, etc) as well as public fountains or fuente, however there are a few stretches were this is not the case and you need to know in advance.  Albergue owners are often good sources of information as well and frequently warn pilgrims of the coming day's challenges and sights.

Learning Spanish

In the past few months, I have to learn as much Spanish as possible with the online tool Duolingo.  I hope to learn enough to greet people, introduce ourselves, order a meal or know what each food item was, and to get into albergues.  My goal is to have passable language stills to help us out.  My hope however is that English is spoken enough on the Camino to get by.  According to a ton of online accounts English is prevalent throughout Spain and along the Camino, though not so much along the Northern Route or on the French routes. At the moment I believe I can order a morning cafe con leche, get a sandwich for lunch, or a pint for dinner and get into an albergue.

 

Preparations

In terms of getting physically ready for hiking across an entire nation, I honestly have no idea how to properly prepare. In our case we began regularly walking with our backpacks on around town and hiking along established ways such as the Bruce Trail and regional sections of the Trans Canada Trail in southwestern Ontario. Ultimately however, we did not extensively prepare to the extent that is likely ideal for the Camino.  During this period I also convinced Sean to begin an old hobby of his from decades before, photography.   As a result by the end of several months he was again having his images published in regional hiking magazines and had received several awards for his pictures in competitions. 

 

Blessings

Perhaps the highlight of almost half a year of planning, selling, and preparing was to receive our Apostolic Blessings from the Vatican in the mail several days ago.

In three days we leave!  I don't know if I am terrified or excited, but the die is cast and we are on our way.

"We were runnin' against the wind
We were young and strong, we were runnin' against the wind

The years rolled slowly past
And I found myself alone
Surrounded by strangers I thought were my friends
I found myself further and further from my home, and I
Guess I lost my way
There were oh-so-many roads
I was living to run and running to live
Never worried about paying or even how much I owed
Moving eight miles a minute for months at a time
Breaking all of the rules that would bend
I began to find myself searching
Searching for shelter again and again

Against the wind
A little something against the wind
I found myself seeking shelter against the wind"

Bob Seger, "Against the Wind"