Some gear and weight odds and ends

Here are some things I may not have mentioned in previous posts:

I wore New Balance 481 All Terrain running shoes for the actual point to point hiking (see photo below). Even with a moderately heavy pack I had no blisters or other foot problems. These are the most comfortable ligh hiking shoes I've ever worn for smooth trail hiking, like most of the El Camino.

I did not take my eTrex GPS receiver, and largely did not miss it. With the two alternatives available, the iPhone using citymaps2go and the WalMart Hisense android tablet with OSMAND Spain maps, I really had plenty of gps mapping with off-line maps not requiring an internet connection (like google maps requires). If I had decided to really map the el Camino in detail (in 3D for instance) I might have needed the eTrex, but that was not my goal.

I never used my sleeping bag since I had a silk sheet and there were plenty of blankets in Albergues. I could have saved about 1.5 pounds.

For walking around town after long hikes I could have gotten along fine (in fact better) with lighter Crocs instead of Tevas, which I took in case I had shoe problems. Savings of maybe .5 pounds and much more practical since no straps needed for taking off and putting on.

I used both the iPhone and tablet a lot, so they were not wasted weight.

I could have saved a couple of pounds on clothes by taking rain pants and leaving out my extra pair of zip-offs, by leaving behind a couple of T shirts, socks, and underwear since I could wash these most stops.

I threw out my battery-powered clippers and a larger writing pad after a few days to save weight (maybe .5 pound).

All-in-all I could have saved  maybe 3-4 pounds by cutting back on unused stuff.

Some other photos

Where is everyone? Is it my breath? Couldn't be my doctrine. (Pope in 1534)

Tired peregrino at cathedral in Santiago (not me though)

Trip back to USA on USAir: how many checkpoints do they need?

So far we have been through four checkpoints, each with a waiting line, just in the Madrid airport requiring passports or searches:

initial airline check in to check luggage,
security to check our carryons,
passport control to leave Spain,
and most inexplicably, a checkpoint to get into the gate waiting area.

Of course we still have the one we will have to go through to get from the waiting area onto the plane. That will be 5 just in the airport, four requiring a passport.

Add another two in Philadelphia  for US passport control and customs and we will have been through seven lines altogether.

Does this make things more secure or just add jobs?

Day at the Prado: Christian Symbolism Gone Wild

Went to the Prado today and saw lots of art, mostly by artists commissioned to paint religious themes. Bosch, Rubens, El Greco, Titian (Tiziano), Raphael, etc. in the 1500-1700 period. Lots of wild graphic interpretations of christian myths obsessing on the evils of sex (see Bosch's Triptych "garden of earthly delights"), where it started (the garden of eden), and where transgressors would wind up (hell.) Also many paintings of the temptations of various saints, adorations of Jesus by magi and shepherds and crucification depictions.

Train from Santiago de Compestella to Madrid

We are now on high speed Alvia train number 4284, coach 3 from Santiago to Madrid-Chamartin station. Same scheduled route where a train that was driven too fast some months ago crashed. Prudence is in coach 2, which is different from ours due to the vaguerities of Renfe ticketing when tickets are bought separately. We purchased the first-class tickets at the Renfe ticket office located conveniently right by the peregrine compestella-issuing office near the cathedral in Santiago, right after getting our compostellas.

We took a taxi  from the Pombal Hotel at 8:15 AM, for a 10  minute ride to the station and after a cup of coffee boarded at precisely 9:03. Two minutes later, exactly at the published time of 9:05 the train departed the station. The trains still run on time here, in spite of the Spanish budget woes. We are due to arrive in Madrid Chamartin station at 2:50 PM, after a few interim stops, and I have little doubt we will be on time.

7:30 PM Mass in the Cathedral de Santiago

We attended the mass last evening in the great cathedral along with 100's of other peregrinos. Being nonreligious my expectations were low, especially since it was to be conducted in Spanish. But when the sister began to sing with a hauntingly beautiful voice, accompanied at first only by the overhead organ, filling the cavernous space with music I was moved. In spite of C. S. Lewis' admonition that I may have felt "only" mere sentimentality I was quite happy I could understand little of the spoken service, since my objections to religion are at a conscious level, with what the religious texts and dogma say, and not understanding them takes away these concerns. Maybe it's better to have services in Latin after all.

What a Compstella looks like

Here's the net result of 3+ weeks hiking:

Credential with all stamps

Here's what a full credential looks like, low resolution:

Some other Santiago pics

Here are some other pics: inside cathedral , 3 shots of outside cathedral, crowd at office to get compestella certificate.

Lavacolla to Santiago: the end

Today's final hike seemed longer than it measured, was crowded with peregrinos, and finished winding thru the streets of Santiago, inspiring comments inferring we were not on the right route from my doubting companions. My navigation consisted as always of using my tablet with built-in maps (OSMAND.org) and GPS to thread our way thru the narrow streets right to the hotel front door, no lost steps. We did briefly lose the el Camino symbols, but it was of no consequence.

We are now at the hotel Pombal, a Pousadas de Compostela hotel, not far (but downhill) from the old city center.

Photos: large albergue, inspired by prison cell block, sculpture at albergue, Pierre, an acquaintance from French speaking Canada, we hiked with at times.

Brea (near Santa Irene) to Lavacolla: harder than expected

15 km hike to our wonderful pension, Casa Amancio in the little village of Vilamaior, at the top of a hill of course to give the already long hike a final say. Maybe the nicest pension we have stayed in. Private double suite for Judy and I plus single suite for Prudence.

The hike started great, and we had a couple of stops for refreshments before getting to the airport. We had a mixup where Judy and I ducked into an info booth too reserve hotels for Vilamaior and Santiago, and in spite of us keeping an eye out for Prudence, she went by and got ahead of us. Thinking we were ahead she double timed it, so we triple timed it to catch up, which we did in maybe 1 km, and the whole thing took something out of us all. Anyway, with the hilly last 4 km and the final climb to Vilamaior we had to dig deep today, a day we thought would be short.

Penny (still on crutches) and Andrew are staying in Arca to rest up, and will not arrive in Santiago until our rest day. We will not have much time to catch up before we leave. Penny has had to dig deep every day.

Tomorrow we complete the hike into Santiago, an approximately 8 km walk (we estimate), and have two nights in a good hotel there before heading via train to Madrid for a day and the flight home Monday the 14th.

Photos: shots of our suite, arrival at outskirts of Santiago, fine new stonework enroute.

Food along El Camino

A previous post referred to the bad (by US standards) timing and varieties of food available to us peregrinos. Well, things have changed. Food is now available at peregrino dinner times (sometimes as early as 6:30 PM), and in more variety than before, with several options for primero, segundo and postre courses for Menu Del Dia. And, of course, there's always an acceptable wine included. Tonight I had a nice lentil soup, a sauteed trout, and ice cream cake with vino Tinto for 9,50€.

A note on photographs

I snap most photos using my iPhone camera, which I keep handy in a pants pocket, and then transfer to my tablet, which I use to write this blog, via email. A few photos I take with the tablet, and use a photo editor to shrink in size to less than .5 MB so they are compatible with the blogger app. I have better resolution copies of the photos I took on the tablet available.

Arzua to near Santa Irene: nice walk

Pension Meson San Miguel in Brea is our home tonight. 45€ for triple room, on road side, but quiet due to quadruple window panes. Bar conveniently below, beer cold and 1,50€ per glass, Pretty 15 km walk in perfect clear fall weather over less steep terrain than yesterday, through eucalyptus forests, continuing the arboreal pattern of the last few days.

Caught up with Penny and Andrew a few km out of Arzua. Penny is toughing it out on crutches and almost got run over by a car yesterday as they took a shortcut across a highway versus the longer route through a tunnel under the road. A speeding vehicle rounded a blind corner forcing her to abandon her crutches and lunge the rest of the way across.

Photos: Marker near end today, brown beef cow, section of Camino, spectacular flowers, nicely situated house, road cut crossed by El Camino, marker near start of today's walk.

Melide to Arzua

Beautiful day, cool, clear, light beeze, perfect  for hiking. And a good thing as the trail led us over rolling hills, sharp ups and downs, and thru very pleasant farmlands. For once I was happy not to have a bike, as we saw El Camino cyclists grunting up hills under loads of equipment.

Completed "God is Not Great" audio version. Hitchens ties together a great many of the uglier observations about organized religions we know already but tend to not think about, making a good case for a new enlightenment ridding public policy arguments of religious biases, and giving aethists the same breaks given the "religious" adherents. 

Tonight we stay again in private pension, Don Quijote, triple 50 €.

Photos in order: marker near start today, marker 1.5 km from end ( less than 40 km to Santiago!), free snacks and stamp for credential (for a donation), exceptionally bright flowers, inside small church enroute.

Palas de Rei to Melide: milestones and gum trees

Moderate but somewhat tiring 14-16 km hike today, but beautiful weather for a walk over rolling hills and through secluded paths and semi-industrial complexes outside Melide. Photo of bridge over river and from same is included below.

Today I got photos of each milestone on the way, without evidence of any distance increases as we perviously observed, but did not record, two days ago. Photos of milestones near the start and end of today's walk are included here. Shoes and boots are popular adornments, as is lots of ugly graffiti, for milestones.

Horses are more frequent here, and might be a more interesting mode of transportation. All look well-kept.

This area of Galacia and Coruna has forests of both young and mature shaggy bark gum trees, or more properly eucalyptus. The spicey fragrance reminds me of our times with my sister Lisa in Australia, and more and more of California. These groves seem to be planted not wild, so the question arises as to their use. Lumber, oil, what?

Tonight we have a clean private room over a bar, which is convenient, and inexpensive at 15€ per person for the three of us. However, some sort of town celebration band is tuning up, so we will know later about the noise level.

Ventas de Naron to Palas de Rei

Fine day to hike, but fairly short 12 km to be able to stay in a pension (Plaza San Ignacio, 50€ triple) vs another albergue further along the Camino.

We stopped for a sandwich at las Cabanas, where we stayed while hiking with the Dutch couple 9 years ago. Wow! The place had grown to a big restaurant and more space, but none for us today due to many, many people shipping bags ahead and getting reservations. See photo below.

"Completo" is a word we are hearing more and more. The El Camino is now over for the pure free hiker, with reservations or even guided trips saturating the facilities. Although to be fair there are more and finer facilities than 9 years ago, which compensates to some extent.

Other photos:nice house along the way, ant sculptures, church in Palas de Rei

Portomarin to Verdas de Naron : we are Sisyphus in the flesh

Dinner last night with a retired Spanish fellow at the local pub. He was drinking the Spanish equivalent of grappa and carrying on a text and voice conversation with someone of opposite political views. He thought his drink it was better than grappa, and I would have loved to see my brother in law John discuss the virtues of each drink with him.

Off at 10:30 AM, first stop Mercado to buy bread, cheese, apple and nuts, then another stop for second co, then on the trail.

I'd call this trip Sysiphean, since the milestones seem to strangely jump up in mileage (or more accurately kilometerage) at intervals, then descend again. I will post examples if this is a repeating phenomena, as I belatedly started recording photographic evidence of this. It's discouraging to see distances increase after long periods of walking.

We are now at albergue Casa Molar in Verdas de Naron for the night.  At milestone 78,1 (78.1 km in american terms), after photographing 13 stones, I cannot produce evidence of this phenomenon.

For the past few days we have been tracing the same route as Penny and Andrew. Penny had developed painful bursitis in one or both knees and after visiting hospital and resting for several days, has been walking with crutches since Logronio, a long distance in an determined effort to reach Santiago de Compestela.

The albergue has everything we want (except privacy, of course, but enoiugh wine and who even cares anymore?): bar with beer, wine, food, a fine attractive stone edifice, and is very clean. We three are in a room with 3 bunk and 2 single beds for a total of 8 people.

Photos: Judy and Prudence at mile marker 86 km, marker 78.1 km, Penny and Judy with refreshments at albergue, my feet as I write this in lower bunk.

Ferrerios to Portomarin

Beautiful hike again thru wonderful countryside with old stone houses and narrow path between old stone walls with a patina of moss and lichen. The day was cool with few showers and in and out of the clouds. Finally over a new bridge across the upper end of a miles long reservoir. Looking down revealed an old roman(I think) bridge and the ruins of old stone settlements. The cathedral in the photo was said to have been rescued from the dam's backwaters stone by stone and reassembled in town.

The third from last photo is Judy getting a cat fix at our morning coffee stop.

This centered text is an artifact of blogger, which I seem not to have mastered yet, or more likely has bugs,