Walked 0 kilometres. Stayed in SJPDP, still making a total of 646 kilometres.
When I bought my new gear, basically to keep me warm in the Pyrenees, the guy at La Boutique du Pelerin told me the next part of my trip was going to be completely different. He asked me how many other walkers I had met on my way here. I told him five, including the two women I saw on the way to Figeac that I never met actually. ‘Ah now you will be in constant company. Saturday 200 people started, sunday another 50, yesterday and today at least twenty.
This morning I checked in again at the friendly Norwegian lady of the Amis du Saint Jacques – I got Julie a T-shirt which is her official roadie outfit now – and we agreed it would be okay to delay the walk over the Pyrenees for one day. The weather forecast suggested thursday would be even nicer weather than today, and the afternoon here is turning out to be one of these blue skied, sun filled days that would make a walk over snow filled mountains just magic.
I had been reading that more than 200.000 people walk the Camino each year, but most of them only seem the walk the last stages. From SJPDP last year 45.000 people started, I was informed. I think that’s about the same amount as the people that walk the Le Puy- SJPDP part.
Some people think the specialness of walking the Camino is mitigated by the fact it is so popular. I don’t get that. It seems to me a rather individual experience, even though it is shared by many different people. People can still get excited about food, and rightly so, even though the experience of eating is shared by billions of people on a daily basis.
I’m a little concerned if I will have to go and have conversations with all the people I meet. It was fun to talk to Jean Pierre and Claire & Kitty, but I have gotten rather fond of my solitude while walking. I’ve been practicing an unwelcoming sounding Buen Camino. I mean, it has to sound friendly enough, but should smother any wish to start a conversation in return.
Have been reading in a Camino guide that Julie’s sister Shelly gave her one time. It reads: ‘Dear Julie, looking forward to our most special journey.’ They’d been talking about the trip after we visited the Rioja area, I think that was 2009, or 2010. Anyway, they will still have something to look forward to after this trip, although Shelly and Wayne are meeting us in the beginning of May, three weeks after (one of) Julie’s other sisters Mary has joined us, and we will walk into Santiago all together on May 6th, Julie’s birthday and the end of our Centenary trip.
This Camino guide is great. One of the lovely things it shows is little pictures of all the birds that I am expected to see. And even better, it has descriptions of the sounds they make. The Red Kite says ‘Hi-hi-heeea’; the Peregrine Falcon says Hek-hek-hek or Airk-airk-airk; the Hoopoe (a fascinating creature) says Poo-poo-poo; and the Crested Lark says Klee-treee-weeooo.
Wow.
The more disturbing information is that there might be wolves and Brown bears on my way. They sometimes eat mammals, the guide says. Which would include me. I have my sharp Opinel handy.
Am excited for the mountains tomorrow. Am prepared for suffering but not for the Brown bear.
777 kilometres to go.
19 mar
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