Day One Start

It's 5:12 on the first day of the Camino. There are quite a few pilgrims here, some arrived last night after I had gone to bed. The room we are sleeping in has 12 bunk beds and I think they are all full. Lots of snoring & farting plus an overly heated & sealed room. Thank goodness for the YHA silk sleeping bag liners, I would be a molten blob if I'd been in my sleeping bag all night. I used it as a doona for maybe a third of the night and kicked it off me when too hot. This has all made for a poor night's sleep. I suspect this will be less of a problem tonight when I'm exhausted!

I'm simultaneously excited about today and shitting myself! We've been advised to travel by the Valcarlos route (about 25 km) as there is too much snow on the Route de Napoleon. Last week they had to helicopter out three pilgrims from that route who knew better than to take the advice of the people in the Pilgrim Office! Naturally, Andrew & I will ignore that advice as well ;)

As this section has very little food available on it we went shopping yesterday. We've got a small wheel of cheese, sausage & some bread. We're still not convinced about the two mini thermoi we brought but we've got some cup of soups and we may be grateful for them later.  Andrew also bought some dried apricots & sugar free gum — so at least he won't be constipated!

We've only spoken to three pilgrims so far, the others arrived too late. Hiro is from Kobe, early twenties and an Anglican! Julio & Anna (something) are from Spain and in their sixties but they don't speak English and I habla espanol muy poco so that's all I can say!

 

Andrew leaving the train station yesterday at St Jean.   Just after this photo we dropped the camera while passing it between each other and damaged it slightly :(

The staff at the pilgrim office and the municipal alberge are wonderful people. Probably in their 70-80s, very friendly but no English. Of course, we speak no French so communication is attempted with a great deal of gesturing and a lot of laughter!

Hopefully when we get to Spain, we will be able to use our Spanish SIM cards and have better internet access!

I'll write some more after today's walk and hopefully post some piccies!