Final Preparations

We've never been away from home this long. Do we turn off our water at the main? Do we stop our LA Times? Do we stop our mail? Do we have a friend send us a package with an extra pair of shoes and clothes to a place along the Camino? And, on and on. Of course, some of these are easy questions. Others: not so much. Although we don't leave for Europe until 6/2, we are out of state from 5/25 until 6/1, so some preparation time is lost. Hence, taking care of details now.

I made almost all of our hotel reservations both along the Camino, the day before we start on it, and the nights after we finish, on 2/28 and 3/1. I had idle time en route to a marathon in Phoenix and although it seemed early, I got all rooms booked except for about 5. Booking.com is great! Several couldn't be done on booking.com, so I searched the Camino Message boards about those particular towns (there were three) and found places to stay. I was able to email them about reservations or find phone numbers to call. None spoke English, and my Spanish is "pocito," but I "think" we have reservations on those nights. I created a spreadsheet with all pertinent information about each day's walk, along with confirmation info about the hotels. I've taken screen shots with some of the information and the pictures are at the end of this post. The spreadsheet has other information that I've cut off. Most who walk the Camino stay in what are called albergues. If you opened the link, you can see that these are even less private than college dormitories. Since both Dave and I have been to college, had roommates, etc., we've decided to pass on the albergue scene, and stay in private hotels. It will be a lot more expensive, but privacy is nice! And, since we might even have sex on the trip, we felt it unfair to expose any yungins to such a sight.

Warnings: Other taking practice hikes and reviewing the Brierley book, I haven't followed any threads on the Camino forums/message boards or even looked at the Internet much to see what we are "in for" on this trip. Yes, I've checked to see what the weather will be like and I've talked to a few people who have done the trek for suggestions, do's, and don't, etc., but I also want the trip to be "fresh" so I've avoided learning too much...sort of like not wanting to read the entire movie review, but just looking to see if the reviewer gave it a thumbs up. So, I was bit shocked to get an email yesterday from a list/forum I subscribed to (it was only the second email I had received in 5 months) about possible danger on The Camino. A woman had gone missing (first email) and people were warned not to walk alone in a certain section due to possible kidnapping threats (second email). This saddened me, but made me aware that even in what is considered a very safe place, one must be aware of their surroundings. Rather than let it frighten me/us, I'm looking at it as empowering and worthwhile information. Here is the letter.

Warning letter

And, here is our itinerary for the entire trip - at least where we are staying, the size of the cities, and how far we are traveling each day.

Well, in the last post I said we were in taper mode, so true to word, there was no long hike this morning. As they say, the hay is in the barn, and our endurance is either set or it's not. Our bags are pretty much packed, and we are ready to go. I'm sure in the next two weeks I'll have last minute panic attacks on things we've forgotten. The good news is that we can buy almost anything we need, so no need to stress. Yeh, right.
I've had this song in my head for days, and now you can too. Being Scottish and nerdier than even the twin singers, I like it a lot - even if I didn't have a 500 mile walk planned. So with that my friends and family, I present The Proclaimers on Letterman.

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