Author Topic: Camino Frances April 2017  (Read 817 times)

jimbob

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Camino Frances April 2017
« on: 17:45:34, 17/05/17 »
I completed the 480 mile Camino Frances this last April. Boy was I lucky, a bit of drizzle one day and a showery morning on last day into Santiago. About 4 scorching ( to me) days, the rest all great walking weather.

Did I enjoy it, well, yes and no. I did not enjoy the bunk hostels at all. Too much noise and selfishness. People rising too early to walk in the dark? Waking everyone else up in the process. Snoring is to be expected and just put up with but this was a serious bother to me that was completely avoidable by a bit more common decency.

The route itself involved a lot of track walking and a fair amount of tarmac walking though not as much tarmac as I had been led to believe.

My heavy boots, which is what I finally decided to walk in, were great , no blisters at all. Not sure if my hedgehogs would have been better I made my choice and it turned out to be fine.  ( I layer my feet and between my toes with a mix of olive oil and T Tree oil and wear two pairs of socks. It works for me.). Tragically some walkers did not have the correct footwear and were buying trainers , boots etc en route, which I would not have thought to be a good idea. also they had no idea how to deal with foot problems at all. Some had to give up due to their problems.

I enjoyed the days when I was mainly on my own, enjoying the wooded areas the best, listening to the birds. I also enjoyed the historical buildings , humble as well as magnificent. I totally enjoyed the tortilla breakfasts ( at times at least twice a day),

What surprised me was that although I never walked more than ten miles a day in the first 6 days then by the end I could do 32 miles per day, and managing to walk at an average of over three miles an hour. This shocked me as I have always thought of myself as a very slow walker. But I think the terrain was in the main not as changeable or challenging as say, the pennine way or the Cleveland way, and the tracks were well defined and except for a few downhills were well paved one way or the other. Also I did not participate in the grand Camino bed race, I walked from early morning to at least 7 each evening breaking for twenty minutes every 2 to three hours, enough time for a drink and a snack. By walking in April there was never a shortage of beds.


I also must admit that I found jogging zig zag down hills was easier than walking down them? I also jogged a bit when I was on my own. Nothing worse than an aged person jogging with a backpack is there? I think probably this helped share the load across other muscles unused in normal walking.

I really jarred my back in Leon stepping off a pavement and had to seek advice from a pharmacist for pain killers, she advised me to use a back pack carrying service if I was not going to stop walking. I did this (costs between 3 & 5 Euros per day), and found that I had to firmly book a hostal daily for delivery purposes. Made the walking even easier from that point on, my back got sorted, sort of, and I walked on air from Leon basically. However I started to get bored with the whole walk from this point on.

My advice for this walk is take the absolute minimum by way of weight.(for clothes use merino and anything quick dry, wear one set ,wash the other set at end of day and when dry pack it for following day, if you need a third set then just buy some cheap stuff en route.). I disposed of my ageing sleeping bag fairly quickly as an unnecessary item. I only needed it once in Roncesvalles which is the end of day one for most people.  I took too many things that I brought home unused.(of my 9 kilos 5 kilos were unused stuff, I include the disposed sleeping bag as part of the 5 kilo. I always had 1 kilo of water though I only drank water on the scorching days plenty of fountains and cafes to hydrate on all other days. So mostly I could have needed up carrying 5 kilos in total rather than the 10 that I did up until Leon.

Being bald my head took badly to the scorching days so I bought a UV protected hat in Pamplona, great hat, love it.

I loved the food in general and so much so that I actually put on weigh. The grass fed steaks were truly unforgettable as was the galician broths and octopus.. Oh well back to the drawing board on that one.

Too little, too late, too bad......

 

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