CAMINO WORKSHOP

We have booked for the Camino workshop on 1 March.  A workshop is kindly offered annually by the Confraternity of St James South Africa. Hopefully we will get our credencial at the workshop. A credencial is your pilgrim passport, without which you cannot stay in the pilgrim accommodation. Pilgrim accommodation is in an albergue or refugio.  These are hostels, sleeping anything from 2 to 100 pilgrims per room!  I think that some nights we may opt for casas rurales (country inns) accommodation to spoil ourselves a little. Each night we need to get a sello in our credencial.  A sello is a stamp in the pilgrim passport.  These stamps, collected all along the route, are your proof that you have completed the camino route.  This proof of travel is required in order to receive your Compostela, a certificate of completion. (You need to walk the last 100km to receive a Compostela).

David and I had a hot, but very pleasant training walk this morning. 

 

860km STARTS WITH THE FIRST STEP

Camino Cuarenta or Camino forty. *** David and I have been together for 40 years this year! *** We are planning on walking for about 40 days. *** The number 40 is signficant biblically. 




 Its Official!
I have taken my first step! I have booked our tickets.  David and I start walking on 10 September 2014.  No turning back now - it is happening, scary, but I can't wait.
We fly out of Cape Town on Monday evening 8 September and arrive in Bilbao, Spain at 17.15 the following day.  Hopefully a good nights sleep and then the adventure begins. 

  

We start from Hendaye / Irun walking the Northern Route.  We will then branch off to the Primitivo Route {the King of Asturias, Alfonso ll the Chaste, was the first to make the pilgrimage to Galicia from Oviedo, now known as the Primitivo route, to pay his respects to St James, inauguarating the most primitive of all the Ways}.

The Northern route runs along the north coast of Spain, the Primitivo turns inland to Galicia, through mountainous terrain. 

We end in Santiago de Compostela (Santiago means St James, the remains of the Apostle James are thought to be buried her.  de Compostela means Way of the Stars as the route follows the Milky Way).  This is the official ending of the Camino. 

If time permits, we are hoping to then continue a further  +/- 90km to Finisterra, which in ancient times was thought to be the end of the earth. 

 I am so lucky to be able to train on mountains close to home.