Route: Camino Frances: Leon – Santiago de Compostela
Year/dates walked: July 23 – Aug 2, 2014
Distance traveled from home to start of Camino: 5217 miles to get from Vancouver, WA to Leon Spain
Me and Tyler in Santiago de Compostela
The Questionnaire
You’ll never look at a yellow arrow the same way again
What drew you to the Camino?
The history of the Camino is what originally drew me in, but after attending the Portland premier of The Camino Documentary, the pilgrim community quickly became a primary factor in wanting to do my own Camino.
My now-husband bought plane tickets last winter, and we started planning our adventure! A few months later we got engaged and our Camino turned into our pre-honeymoon.
Walking by headlamp until the sun rises is one Camino memory I will never forgetAbout 5 hours outside of Santiago, we came across a purple forest.
Was there anything unexpected that happened along the Camino?
Their where a lot of aspects to the Camino that we hadn’t expected. For example, we had no idea our feet would hurt THAT bad! But the biggest event we hadn’t prepared for was bedbugs – Yes, bedbugs! Luckily we had packed all of our things in ziplock bags inside our packs, for organization (which we highly recommend to future pilgrims.) We lucked out, and thanks to the outstanding generosity of an albergue owner who offered to wash our sleeping bags, it was easily remedied. Ohhh, the altruism that comes along with Bedbugs. . . The Camino is full of hospitality and generosity!Carefully passing some grass-munching sheep along the Camino, just outside of Foncebadón
What’s your next adventure?
We hope to do the Camino Norte, starting in St. Jean, in the next five years or so but in the meantime our next adventure will most likely be backpacking portions of the Pacific Crest Trail, right here at home.
Making our way to Foncebadón, we take a break and are joined by a sheepherding dog
If anyone would like to purchase a print of some of the pictures used above in this blog, I have them for sale on my Etsy site!
